How reverence for the female Divine survived theological coups, icon-smashers, and patriarchal / colonial regimes. Khochmah, Sophia, a female Holy Spirit. Isis Lactans becomes the Madonna, who takes her title Theotokos, or Bogoroditsa in Ukraine and Russia. Temples become churches, pagan shrines become christian chapels, as sacred trees are felled. Churchmen turn Mother Earth suckling the snake into Luxuria (“lust”); but artists discover Eve’s communion with the Serpent Goddess in the Tree of Wisdom. Sirenas, mermaids, the vesica pisces. Black Madonnas, Vierges Ouvrantes, and the Mantle of Mercy. Allegorical and alchemical goddesses of Nature. Syncretizations with Orisa, Vodou, and Aztec divinities; Tonantzín becomes La Guadalupana; Yemaya becomes la Virgen de Regla; Oshun becomes Caridad del Cobre. Black Madonnas in the Caribbean—including Erzulie Dantor in Haiti—and the Philippines. How the 12 Tenmas changed to Dharma Protectors, and Tara vowed to attain enlightenment in a woman's form.
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Max Dashu founded the Suppressed Histories Archives in 1970 to research and document global women's history, reflecting the full spectrum of the world's peoples. She uses images to teach, scanning the cultural record: archaeology, history, art, orature, linguistics and spiritual philosophies. From her collection of some 50,000 images, she has created 130 visual talks on female cultural heritages, foregrouding Indigenous traditions, with attention to patterns of conquest and domination. She is internationally known for her expertise on ancient female iconography, matricultures and patriarchal systems, medicine women and shamans, witch hunts, and female spheres of power.
Dashu's legendary visual talks bring to light female realities usually hidden from view, from ancient female figurines to women leaders, priestesses, clan mothers, philosophers, warriors and rebels. Her courses scan the cultural record—archaeology, history, art, orature, linguistics, and spiritual philosophies—making this knowledge more accessible to all education backgrounds.
Dashu has been presenting her visual talks for more than four decades, at universities, conferences, museums, community centers, bookstores, galleries, libraries and schools, in North America, Italy, Belgium, Germany, Ireland, Britain, Switzerland, the Netherlands, Bulgaria, Austria, Australia, Mexico and Guatemala.
Max Dashu's book Witches and Pagans: Women in European Folk Religion, 700-1000 (Veleda Press, 2016) has been acclaimed as a sourcebook on European ancestral traditions. Her forthcoming book on women in Hellenic myth and history is Vol II in her 16-volume series Secret History of the Witches.
Dashu has published in various journals and anthologies, including Goddesses in World Mythology (Praeger 2010) and the Encyclopedia of Women in World Religion (ABC-Clio 2018). She created two videos: Women's Power in Global Perspective (2008) and Woman Shaman: The Ancients (2013). Her daily posts on the Suppressed Histories Facebook page are followed by 181,000 people, and 72,000 more have viewed her articles on Academia.edu.