During #Ngoku it is MEN who lower their gaze. Women in ritual revisit original #time of #creation and original GENDER. It's kind of 'trans' or 'wrong sex'. They are SEXY + FEMALE + MALE. They're ritually powerful. NOT available to mere men.

In 'The Politics of Eros', RAG'S #MornaFinnegan writes of 'bodies in motion'. The simmering of singing, of dancing, a visceral #churning that never allows any fixity of #hierarchy to flood back in. She speaks of a 'pendulum of power' oscillating between women and men.

Watch this extraordinary film by #BruceParry and RAG's #JeromeLewis on #BaYaka #huntergatherer gender relations. From 5:30 to 8 mins in this video, there's a precious sequence of women's #Ngoku ritual. Women don't just seize public space, they seize the collective means of #reproduction

Young Ngoku initiates come swaggering in, singing, dancing, incredibly rude about men's bits: ' Cunts win, pricks are useless!. They appropriate male ORGANS -- sugar-cane tubes used to accurately mine premature ejaculation. The grannies have taught them how to do it!

https://youtu.be/-SnI0PKXqhc