American Academy of Religion

Menstruation and Childbirth as Ritual and Religious Experience in the Religion of theAustralian AboriginesAuthor(s): Rita M. GrossSource: Journal of the American Academy of Religion, Vol. 45, No. 4 (Dec., 1977), p. 499Published by: Oxford University PressStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1463756 .

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JAAR, XLV/4, Supplement (December, 1977), J: 1147-1181*

Menstruation and Childbirth as Ritual and Religious Experience

in the Religion of the Australian Aborigines

Rita M. Gross

ABSTRACT The central core of this paper discusses some classic materials in the history of

religions utilizing what I call an androgynous methodology, as opposed to the androcentric methodology that has characterized all past attempts to interpret these materials, or indeed, any materials in the history of religions. When women are studied in their own right, as subjects not objects (androgynous method), instead of being studied as objects about which men have certain viewpoints (androcentric method), many phenomena appear in a completely new light and many accepted conclusions become shaky. This paper deals primarily with a refutation of the classic interpretation that the male/female dichotomy corresponds to a sacred/profane dichotomy in aboriginal religion. In contrast, I argue that the correct interpretation is to see women as embodiments and manifestations of a different kind of sacrality than that associated with males. This interpretation is put forth both for the men's religion and the women's religion in aboriginal Australia. In both cases, the ample data involving menstruation and childbirth as ritual and religious experience are used to demonstrate that women and women's experience are symbols of and approaches to the sacred. In the women's religion, the experiences themselves are ritualized and thus become religious experiences. In the men's religion, they are used as root symbols to express many of the central teachings revealed in the men's secret-sacred rituals. Only because previous scholars have focused solely on women's physical exclusion from men's rituals and have ignored women's religious lives as well as the use of women's experience as a symbol in men's religion, could they repeat that women have profane status and no religious significance in aboriginal religion.

The core of this paper is set within the context of larger concerns, for a careful demonstration of the power of an androgynous method within a limited context prepares for a discussion of the broader implication of this methodological transformation. In this paper, I also discuss some refinements of the concept of the sacred growing out of the realization that in aboriginal religion, both femaleness and maleness are sacred despite their mutual antagonism and antipathy. Finally, the use of women's experience as a potent ritual and symbol in the aboriginal context leads me to some theological reflections about symbol systems in which women's experience is overlooked as a religious resource.

Rita M. Gross (Ph.D., University of Chicago, 1975) teaches history of religions at the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire during the academic year and at Naropa Institute during the summers. She is the editor of Beyond Androcentism: New Essays on Women and Religion (Scholars Press, 1977) and has published in Parabola, Davka, and Anima, among others. Currently, she is doing research on Hindu concepts of deity as female.

499

*Please see pages 573-576 for full-text ordering instructions.

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