Yesterday I was forcibly reminded of the long history of the oppresion and abuse of women.

I was talking with a Tlinget woman - a bright, literate women who grew up in the traditional way of Alaskan Natives in Hoonah, Alaska, a village on an offshore island in Southeast. A very large part of their culture is story telling, which acts as an oral history passed down through generations.

One of the taboos in Alaska Native culture is to marry within your own moiety. I'm sure it was instituted hundreds of yeas ago to prevent inbreeding.

Anyway a Raven must not marry a Raven but an Eagle. If your mother was Eagle, you must find someone to marry whose mother was Raven. Rebellion has/had severe consequences.

She launched into a traditional story where this woman and man married/had an affair within their own moiety. When the Elders discovered it, they took the man and put him with a different woman.

They took the offending woman and bound her to a stake at the shore facing the incoming tide, where she drowned.

When I remonstrated, my friend told me, The woman knew before she ever went out with him that it was taboo.

I said, The man knew it too!

She said, Ah, but the man couldn't help it.