» Editor’s note: This is the fifth article in Juhi Sanduja’s new FII column entitled “Scripts of the Mothers: Reclaiming Matriarchal Knowledge.” This column is not just about nostalgia, but also about confrontation. It traces the buried, burned and rewritten languages through which women once remembered, goddess myths that became monsters, stabs that turned into screams, scripts that were once whispered in secret. The question is: What did matriarchal knowledge look like before patriarchy called it myth, madness or magic?
From prehistory to pre-colonial archives, the column examines rituals, symbols and stories that refused to die. Based on feminist research and lived memory, this is not just about recovery, but about reclamation. What was lost? What survives? And what do we owe to the women who dared to leave us signs, symbols and writings?
In a house in Meghalaya’s East Khasi Hills, a grandmother sits on the floor and talks about her family’s past. Her story is not written down, but it is visible in her gestures and the way she pats the ground on her family’s property. In Khasi traditions, memory is passed down from mother to daughter and preserved in the land that belongs to them. But this story contains another truth about a century of colonial rule that sought to destroy the existing matrilineal system by replacing it with foreign patriarchal and Christian traditions. This raises an important question: What forms of knowledge did we actually lose when colonizers and empires chose to ignore stories passed down by women?
The colonial need for patriarchal control
The colonial rule has a fixed idea of what a proper society should look like. This meant that the house revolved around a male figure. The property was passed from father to son. Indigenous cultures were matrilineal and flexible in their understanding of gender. The colonizers did not view this as a way of life, but rather as a problem that needed to be fixed.
The decolonial feminist María Lugones describes this as Coloniality of gender. Here, indigenous systems have been forcibly replaced by a rigid Western patriarchy. For empires like the British Empire, this was moral and religious. Their way of governing typically required clear rules of inheritance, taxation, and authority. Matrilineal Societies make this difficult.
Source: FII
Anthropologist and historian Ann Laura Stoler tells us that the colonial power worked through ‘knowledge regime‘ that determined whose authority actually counted and whose did not. The role of indigenous women was sacred. They were guardians of memory, land and community. This was not only overlooked by the British, but also slowly weakened. This can be seen as a form of epistemic violence that does not consist of a single act of erasure, but mostly consists of the silent removal of entire systems of understanding the world.
The Khasi matriline
Before is not just a tradition among the Khasi people from Mangalya. It is the way of life and shapes everything. Children inherit their mother’s clan name. The youngest daughter, named Ka Khadduh, becomes the guardian of the ancestral land. For them, land was not just property to be hoarded, but something to be protected and passed on very carefully. Maternal uncles (Kni) play a key role when authority is shared.
It is important to note this Khasi Women were stewards of the land, they never owned sole property as the land is collectively owned by the maternal family, clan or community. Scholar Raphael Warjri said: “The British manipulated the Khasi matrilineal system to suit their economic and political interests…By giving women more privileges in property matters, they weakened the traditional role of the maternal uncle, who played a key role in the affairs of the clan.”
Before was confused with female dominance or superiority. These misinterpretations had serious consequences, as disputes over land sometimes still arise today.
When British officials arrived, they were instrumental in weakening their tradition. There are scholars like Raphael Warjri who talk about how colonial practices changed the Khasi lineage. There were land and administrative changes that weakened the role of the maternal uncle. Before was confused with female dominance or superiority. These misinterpretations had serious consequences, as disputes over land sometimes still arise today. “Centuries have passed, but even today, litigation over inheritance rights often reflects these colonial distortions rather than genuine Khasi traditions,” he added.
Source: Shutterstock
Colonizations reshaped many indigenous and sacred practices around the world to fit European ideas of patriarchy and what they believed was right. Unfortunately, the Khasi experience was not an isolated incident as what happened in Meghalaya would be repeated in other regions of the world.
The Igbo Women’s Institutions in Nigeria
In the pre-colonial south NigeriaThere was the Igbo society, which was organized according to a two-gender government system. There was no single ruler or authority. Instead, power was shared between communities, with men and women participating in separate groups. There was an important women’s institution called that The Children. They were the “daughters of the line” and played an important role in Igbo society. They helped resolve conflicts and intervened when tensions escalated. In addition, there were traditional forms of protest among women, such as “sitting on a man.” This was a collective practice that used song, dance, and public shaming to discipline misbehavior.
Colonial rule influenced this system. The British had appointed men as warrant chiefs to govern communities in the southeastern regions. This arrangement was very different from previous Igbo society, as Igbo men and women had parallel forms of authority. This excluded them completely from formal politics. In addition, colonial policies also directly affected them, including attempts to impose taxes on women’s income. As a result, the Aba women’s riots of 1929, also known as the “Aba Women’s Riots”, occurred Women’s war.
In addition, colonial policies also directly affected them, including attempts to impose taxes on women’s income. As a result, the Aba women’s riots of 1929, also known as the “Aba Women’s Riots”, occurred Women’s war.
Here, too, women used a traditional form of protest, “sitting on a man,” which involved singing and dancing all night long to ridicule and shame officials, force resignations and assert authority. In just two months, around 25,000 women marched on courts, raided stores and freed prisoners.
Source: History Today
This successfully stopped taxes while limiting the powers of the chiefs. It also became a historic feminist and anti-colonial protest. Their protest was not only economic, but also in defense of the Igbo culture that colonial rule was trying to eradicate.
Women’s knowledge and its meaning
The idea that the knowledge here is about women is key to understanding what has been lost. Much of what was lost has been preserved outside of written records, which could be through land practices, rituals, oral traditions, naming systems, and inheritance. This helps us explain how memory and authority associated with women function in different societies without reference to a single tradition. This concerns, for example, practices such as maternal descent in the Khasi tradition or the collective organization and protest of women in Igbo society.
Importantly, colonial rule did not completely erase the archive we are talking about, but rather marginalized it while limiting its role. The way we engage with common law, historical memory, and feminist scholarship today shows that these systems of knowledge continue to be reinterpreted and are not entirely lost.
Decolonizing a culture is not just about critiquing the past, but also about revitalizing practices that incorporate different ways of being. Oral traditions are not a lesser form of recording, but a political act of remembering outside the control of the state, and that is why this lost archive surrounding women is of great importance as it preserves women’s memory, knowledge and authority.
Oral traditions are not a lesser form of recording, but a political act of remembering outside the control of the state, and that is why this lost archive surrounding women is of great importance as it preserves women’s memory, knowledge and authority.
Back in the East Khasi Hills, the grandmother ends her story with a calm smile. Outside, young people scroll through their phones, speaking a mix of Khasi, Hindi and English as the world changes in real time. When she calls her granddaughter to sit next to her, the girl moves closer without hesitation and begins to listen attentively.
Source: FII
Empires have attempted to replace matrilineal memory with a patriarchal order. But maternal memory lives on in precisely such moments: in our stories, in our soil and in our acts of survival.
Juhi Sanduja is an editorial intern at Feminism In India (FII). She is passionate about intersectional feminism and has a keen interest in documenting resistance, feminist stories and questions of identity. Previously, she completed an internship as a research intern at the Center of Policy Research and Governance (CPRG) in Delhi. She is currently studying English literature and French and is particularly interested in how feminist thought can influence public policy and drive social change.
