African matriarchy

"Guinea-Bissau: The Powerful Queens of Orango" is a German documentary with English voice overs. It´s marketed as a sensational exposé of an ancient African matriarchy, but is actually quite boring, unless really hard line anthropology is your thing. 

Orango is one of the Bissagos (or Bijagós) Islands off the coast of Guinea-Bissau, a small West African nation. During the colonial period, Guinea-Bissau was controlled by Portugal, and the islanders still speak Portuguese (or perhaps Creole) alongside their native language. Orango is supposedly a "matriarchy", or perhaps a society of the "typical" West African kind, where males and females have complementary or "dualist" hierarchies. The king (tribal chief) of the island is seconded by a council of elders that consists of both males and females. There is also an all-female council that organizes most of the work. Indeed, it seems most of the work *is* done by the women! (Make of that what you will.) The houses are mostly built by the women, who also owns them and can keep them in case of divorce, which can be initiated by the woman. Marriages are only entered after the female explicitly approves the male´s proposal. 

The origins of this system is never explained. The king´s authority is based on his descent from Okinka Kampa, a powerful queen-priestess and de facto ruler of the island who lived about a century ago. Okinka Kampa is said to have abolished slavery and introduced the matriarchy (or perhaps re-established it). The narrator isn´t entirely sure whether the queen is a real person, or some kind of mixture of historical character and legendary ditto. 

The religion of the Orango people is also women-centered, with a primordial woman giving birth to the progentitors of the island clans. These ancestors are also pictured as female. Males are seen as spiritually imperfect and have to replenish their life force through initiation rituals. If a male dies before the main initiation, his spirit turns into a ghost, which the women of the village must "capture" during a dance ritual, purifying it of its evil. The main religious functionaries are priestesses guarding idols in a special hut. There is also a male healer, a kind of herbalist. 

The documentary tries to picture the island as "harmonious" and "peaceful", with everyone living "in balance with nature". Actually, the island surplus population seems to be moving to Bissau, the national capital of Guinea-Bissau. Without this arrangement, I doubt Orango would be "harmonious", especially since having four kids is considered normal! Another glitch in the matrix comes when the film team visits an elementary school on the island. The teacher flat out says that the villagers are poor and have no basic income, hence the school operates free of charge. Some of the kids have backpacks marked "PAIGC", the erstwhile ruling socialist party of Guinea-Bissau... 

The production ends on a sad note, since many youth are no longer undergoing the traditional initiations, and the elders fear that the distinct culture of the island might disappear in the not-to-far future.