AYLA  in CLAN OF THE CAVE BEAR,
Jean Auel

Ayla the heroine of the story is of the new Cro-Magnon race, but, as a little girl, she becomes parted from her family and tribe by an immense earthquake and is left to fend for herself and endure all the perils of the wild. Eventually, after many ordeals, half-starved and wounded, she is found and adopted by a hunter-gatherer clan of Neanderthals. Here she is to grow up and learn their ways and traditions. She is befriended and cared for by an aging and crippled shaman or Mog-ur and Iza a similarly aged medicine woman. Between the 2 of them they teach Ayla all about magick and also about herbalism and healing. As surrogate parents, they also show her love, a love she will never forget.

There is one big problem, however, for Ayla is an outsider and is very different to the Neanderthals. She is tall, blue-eyed and blonde but this is not to her advantage, rather she is regarded as ugly by the dark-eyed smaller stocky people of the Clan. Her difference causes difficulties from the start and as she matures she breaks several times the most deeply held traditions and customs held by these very superstitious folk. The Neanderthals are a people set in their ways and Ayla surely rocks their boat in more ways than one. She upsets the future leader of the clan so much that he takes out his hatred on her in a most horrible way. Eventually she is forced to leave the Clan, and on her own, attempt to find her own people, 'The Others,' as they are called by the Clan.

Auel examines many themes in the course of her intensely moving narrative. She looks at racism and sexism and shows how these 'evils' came about in an ancient world and its culture. She shows how an individual can strive against overwhelming odds to survive and succeed. Ayla is an innovator and a pioneer. She represents the new world and new race emerging and the book cleverly shows how opposition to change comes from those stuck in the old ways. But The Clan of the Cave Bear is much more than a history book, for it is also very spiritual and touches on matters of early shamanistic practice, of rituals and beliefs in deity and totems.

The story concerns a young girl named Ayla who is orphaned by a natural disaster and then adopted by a group known as the Clan. Ayla is very different from the Clan: physically, she is blond and blue-eyed and the people in the Clan are stocky and dark; she is expressive, sensitive, and smart and they are dour, plodding, and cold. Historians and anthropologists immediately reacted to Auel's book, maintaining that her assumptions about Neanderthal life were not realistic.

This was the first of a series, though I didn't know it when I first read it. I was hooked from the start. From the first chapter to the last I found action and adventure, tragedy and triumph and a spiritual as well as a physical strength in Ayla,the heroine of the book. I became a part of Ayla and walked with her through every obstacle, and every heart warming event as she grew up with the clan. She was different, a Cro-Magnon living with Neanderthals, but she overcame those differences, as did all those who knew her and loved her, and she was accepted by most. Jealousy, hatred and pride were in the way of Ayla's spiritual journey in this first book, but she was strong, and in her character's strength I found my own inner strength! I found it hard to put this book down and I look forward to any and all books that Jean will write in the future. A lot of research and heart went into this book, and it was well worth the reading! Read it for yourself, and find your own strength and courage, just as Ayla did!

Alpha female?

Alpha female?

 The alpha female  in Comics

Alpha-Females and Golden Girls: The Origins of the Western Superheroine
by Karen Bruce

Storm. Phoenix. Rogue. Oracle. The Huntress. The Black Canary. Wonder Woman. Witchblade. Fathom. For many years now, female superheroes have been showing their male counterparts that they are just as smart, capable and strong as them. They’ve battled monsters and demons, outsmarted supe-rvillains, led teams and saved the world countless times. Along the way, they’ve smashed countless stereotypes about what women can do and should be. But where and when did it all begin? Who were the first, female superheroes, the original alpha-females?

Surprisingly, the first, heroic character who fits the bill seems to have appeared as early as 1939, a decade or two before feminism was either truly accepted or widespread as a movement. Before her, women in superhero comics had only ever been allowed to be the love-interest for the male superhero, or the damsel-in-distress if the occasion demanded it. They were certainly never allowed to hold their own or to save themselves, let alone the rest of the world.

Nonetheless, it is worth noting in parting that there were strong women in other genres of comics. In response to first-wave feminism, there were a number of comics about independent women. Kate Carew seems to have pioneered that field in 1911 with her humorous, autobiographical sketches. Other female cartoonists like Nell Brinkley, Ethel Hays and Gladys Parker followed her, until comics about independent women were relatively widespread by the 1920’s. Unfortunately, due to the backlash against feminism during the Great Depression, these comics were replaced by the more traditional, humorous stories that took place in a family context where women’s roles were rigorously defined in terms of domesticity. The start of World War II marked the return of the career woman to the workplace and the independent woman to comics.

However, returning to the genre of superhero comics, Sheena ironically had her origins in this sort of helpless character. Created by W. Morgan Thomas for the now-defunct Fiction House’s Jumbo Comics, she was initially meant to be a helpless girl lost in the jungle. However, everything changed with her tenth appearance when she metamorphosed into the Queen of the Jungle. As always, the reasons for this change were predominantly economic. 1939 was the year when superhero comics became Big Business. It was the year when Superman and Batman made their first appearances, as did Captain Marvel and the Human Torch. Jumbo Comics simply couldn’t compete with them, and Fiction House knew that it had to make some serious changes if it wished to enjoy the same success with its comics as it did with its pulp fiction. Among other alterations to the format and contents, they decided that they needed to do something to make the title stand out among the others. Perhaps influenced by women’s stronger position in the wartime economy, they decided to introduce a strong, heroic female character, and they chose Sheena as the woman in the question.

Jumbo Comics No. 10 marked the turning point in her career. After another adventure with a mad king, Sheena, her companion and ‘the natives’ return home to their village. They arrive and find that a killer lion has been menacing the villagers, but that not even the best hunter can catch or kill it. Sheena swears to kill it, and is as good as her word when she comes across it stalking a zebra. After the two wrestle for some time, it charges at her and she plunges a knife into it. The lion rolls down dead, and she claims with some justifiable pride that ‘he has killed the last of my jungle people.’

However, there were some limits to this display of thirties’ feminism. For one, a leopard has watched the whole battle and it seizes the opportunity to attack them. It is Bob, her companion, who handles it by shooting it with his gun. Sheena might be strong and capable, but she is no challenge to male power. With his superior technology, Bob is able to handle enemies with greater ease than her. For another, Sheena uses the skin of this leopard to make herself a new dress, which she models for Bob at the end of the story! He replies quite amusingly that it ‘just proves that though you’re a fierce fighter and have the courage of ten men, you’re still a woman . . . Ha! Ha!’

Moreover, as feminists, the myth of Sheena presents us with the same problems as the myth of the Amazons. Like the Amazons, Sheena is a powerful, female warrior, but she is also barbaric and primitive. Where Bob uses a gun, she fights with her bare hands or a crude knife. Where he is clad in his best Indiana Jones style, she wears skins. Where his English is impeccable, hers is broken in some places. He has all the advantages of technology, dress and language. In the familiar diagram, women are allied with nature; men are allied with culture. Female power is allied with a regression into primitivism, while male power is allied with a progression into civilisation.

Despite these problems with her, we should not underestimate her positive impact on the role of women in comics. From this issue onwards, Sheena became Fiction House’s figurehead, their big money-spinner, in the same way that Superman and Batman were to become DC’s. She soon was the selling point for Jumbo Comics, replacing male characters like The Hawk and Stuart Taylor on the cover, before ultimately getting a title of her own in 1942. Sheena ran for eleven years, and was the company’s top seller for many of those. (Interestingly, its cancellation did not spell the end of Sheena. She has recently been resurrected in a live-action, television series with Geena-Lee Nolin in the leading role.)