In the Yunnan and Sichuan
provinces of China, on the
border with Tibet, the women
of the 56,000-strong Mosuo
tribe spend their days raising
children, and their nights swap-
ping beds. But this dynamic is
anything but oppressive. Mosuo
women call the shots on where,
when and with whom their
moonlight trysts take place,
and that’s just the beginning.
In Mosuo tradition a wom-
an sees a man she desires and
extends an invitation for him to
visit her at night. If he consents,
he spends the night, leaving in
the morning to return to his
own mother’s house, with no
romance or fraternisation be-
tween them in the daylight.While both parties are free to
pursue whoever they like, many
of these “walking marriages”, as
they’re known, last for years.
Once children come along,
they are the sole responsibility
of the mother. They take her
name, inherit property through
the matriarch of the family and
are raised in intergenerational
homes where their maternal
uncles happily play the role of
dad. The Mosuo culture does
not use written language –
rather, it’s recorded in Dongba,
the only pictorial language used
in the world today. There are
a few significant words missing
from the lexicon; there is no
word for “rape”, nor is there
one for “husband” or “father”.THE KINGDOM OF WOMEN WHERE
THERE’S NO WORD FOR “HUSBAND”By day, the women of
the Mosuo tribe take
care of their children,
but at night they
decide which men
are allowed to
share their beds.
The women of the
Wodaabe tribe
passively look on as
the males compete
for their attention in
an OTT beauty-
style pageant.For the women of the nomadic Wodaabe
tribe of Central Africa, the onus to
beautify to attract a mate is a burden
they leave to their men. They’re one of
the few African cultures where it’s per-
fectly acceptable for a woman to take a
lover, and, in order to be chosen, the
men need to measure up.
The Wodaabe – spread across
Chad, Nigeria and Cameroon, and esti-
mated to number over 100,000 people- do much of their sexual negotiations
during Gerewol, a week-long festival
that marks the end of the rainy season.
The culmination of the celebrations
see Wodaabe from isolated communi-
ties converge in the one place for
a Yaake dance. Dressed in headdresses
and extravagant make-up, the men
leap and chant and sway in order to
attract a woman. Buoyed by a tea made
from bark with hallucinogenic proper-
ties, they push their stamina to the
limits, teeth bared and eyes widened to
show the whites as they dance for hours
in scorching desert sun.
And the women? They watch, faces
impassive, until the ritual is over, at
which point they make their selection.
Whether their choice becomes a lover
for a night, a week or for life is
entirely up to them.
THE AFRICAN TRIBAL
BEAUTY PAGEANT
WHERE MEN
COMPETE TO BE
CHOSEN BY WOMENPHOTOGRAPHY BY ALAMY; TIMOTHY ALLEN/GETTY IMAGES; GETTY IMAGES; AAP. *AUSTRALIAN SERVICES UNION