Has there ever been a well documented matriachal society?

there was one in South America, but I can't remember the name just now.

Anyway, the one I like most is this one in China (I've mentioned it on MN before): the Mosuo also look here

you can find out more about them by typing 'Mosuo' into Google

I was trying to remember the South American one, and I came across this overview of contemporary matriarchy which looks quite interesting

North American Indian (or First People) Tribes which are matriarchal:

Haida (Pacific Northwest US and Canada)
Hopi and Tanoans (Pueblo, Southwest US)

Elephants?

Lions

Lenin - I like Heide Gottner Abendroth from the previous link. She has done a lot of research into matriarchy, if you put her name in Google something should come up. It's fascinating!

I agree, Lenin, and in fact, I am surprised by how few responses there have been on this thread.

[[http://matriarchy.info/index.php?option=com_frontpage&Itemid=1 here] is another page to look at

Ooops, I mean

here

of course

The Nair community in Kerala is Matrilineal (not Matriarchial) i.e. the inheritane is via the woman not the man. However, since control of wealth confers power, the power balance between the genders is more or less balanced in many ways.

Interesting that there are so few examples in the entire world and history of the world as we know it.

Isn't Tibet matriarchal? Not the politics, the family structure.

Lenin - to go back to your point about self-sufficiency - I don't think that this is necessarily a product of a matriarchal society. I know of communities that were largely self-sufficient, growing their own food, using local resources, etc, before the modern world (and electricity!) caught up with them. But they were not matriarchal communities, and in fact the one I have the most personal knowledge of was heavily patriarchal, and continues to be.

Chickens - I think that men didn't suddenly think "Hey, why don't we oppress women!", it all happened gradually, bit by bit, until one thing lead to another and patriarchy was established. And societies are all inter-linked, neighbouring communities were affected by each other, so that a heavy patriarchy in one community would have affected the non-patriarchal neighbouring group, with a drip-drip effect until patriarchy was established there too. (Obviously, this is just my theory, I can't provide any links or proof!)