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THE SECRET LIFE OF LADY LIBERTY
Hieronimus
Cortner
The Secret Life of Lady Liberty
Goddess in the New World
Robert Hieronimus, Ph.D., and Laura E. Cortner
The goddess origins of the Statue of Liberty and her connections
with the founding and the future of America
• Examines Lady Liberty’s ties to Native American spiritual traditions, the Earth Mother,
Roman goddesses, Black Madonnas, and Mary Magdalene
• Reveals the sharp contrast between depicting “liberty” as a female and the reality of
women and other suppressed classes even today
• Explains how this Goddess of the New World inspires all people toward equality,
compassion, peace-keeping, and environmental stewardship
Uncovering the forgotten lineage of the Statue of Liberty, Bob Hieronimus and Laura Cortner explain
how she is based on a female symbol representing America on the earliest maps of the continent in the
form of a Native American “Queen.” The image of a woman symbolizing independence was embraced by
the American revolutionaries to rally the populace against the King, filling the role of “Founding Mother”
and protector of the fledgling republic. Incorporating Libertas, the Roman goddess of freed slaves, with
Minerva, Demeter, Justice, and the Indian Princess, Lady Liberty is seen all over the nation’s capital, and
on the seals and flags of many states.
Showing how a new appreciation for the Statue of Liberty as the American goddess can serve as a unifying inspiration for activism, the authors explore how this Lady Liberty is a personification of America
and its destiny. They examine multiple traditions that influenced her symbolism, from the Neolithic
Earth Mother, to Mary Magdalene, Columbia, and Joan of Arc, while revealing the sharp contrast
between depicting “liberty” as a female and the reality of women and other suppressed classes throughout
history. Their study of “Liberty Enlightening the World” led them to conclude that the empowerment of
contemporary women is essential for achieving sustainable liberty for all.
Sounding the call for this “Goddess of the New World” to inspire us all toward peacekeeping, nurturing, compassion, and environmental stewardship, the authors explain how the Statue of Liberty serves
as the conscience of our nation and is a symbol of both the myths that unite us and the diversity that
strengthens us.
Robert Hieronimus, Ph.D., is an internationally known historian, visual artist, and radio host
and has appeared on History, Discovery, BBC, and National Geographic. The host of 21st Century
Radio, he lives in Maryland. Laura E. Cortner has co-authored previous titles with Robert Hieronimus
including Founding Fathers, Secret Societies and United Symbolism of America. Her work appears regularly in periodicals like UFO Magazine, FATE Magazine, and several Beatles publications. She is the
director of the Ruscombe Mansion Community Health Center and lives in Maryland.
Destiny Books • ISBN 978-1-59477-493-5 • $19.95 (CAN $23.95) Paper
Also available as an ebook • 448 pages, 6 x 9 • 103 black-and-white illustrations
Rights: World • Spirituality/History
September 2016
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Goddess in
the New World
Robert Hieronimus, Ph.D. and Laura E. Cortner
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2
Where Are Your Women?
“W
here are your women?” That’s what our Native American
leaders asked the European settlers as they gathered around
the council fires trying to negotiate peace terms. “How can we possibly talk to you about peace if your women aren’t here?” This profound
question sums up the enormity of the culture clash between the hierarchical patriarchy of the Europeans and the cooperative and matrifocal practices predominating on the northeastern coast of the Americas
before the Europeans arrived.
The Europeans were just as shocked at the question. “How can we
possibly trust the counsel of a woman if women are cursed by the temptation of Eve?” they wondered. Europeans did not trust the intellectual
capacity of women, especially in deciding anything as important as war
and peace. The Natives’ trust in their women was even used as further
justification by the Europeans for their periodic policies of genocide
against the Natives. Europeans were brought up to believe that anyone
who allowed themselves to be ruled by a woman, especially in spiritual
matters, must be allied with the devil.
In this chapter, we look at some of the mothering aspects of the Statue
of Liberty. The title of “Mother” is the highest honorific Indigenous
People can assign to anyone. First Nations People all over this continent
honored the strength and wisdom of their women and valued their lifegiving powers with respect. Among the Iroquois—or Haudenosaunee,
the Native culture we are most familiar with—women were assumed
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26 Where Are Your Women?
as absolutely necessary for balance in all tribal relations. Contrast these
beliefs of inclusiveness and respect for their elder women or Clan Mothers
as the wisest of counselors to the status of mothers in the United States
today, wherein mothers are one of the groups discriminated against the
most, especially single mothers and elderly widows.
Although the colonists borrowed extensively from the Native culture
and governing practices, they ignored this key element of gender balance
when constructing their new government, leaving Euro-American women
struggling for centuries to gain a seat at the liberty table. The United
States government today lags way behind when compared to the rest of
the world in terms of the percentage of women in power. Only 19–20
percent of the U.S. Congress is led by women, ranking the United States
at number 71 on a list of 190 countries comparing the percentage of
women in government around the world today. That puts us far below all
of Europe and even much of Africa and Asia and Central America where
they have elected considerably more women into power than we have in
the United States.1 We argue that creative solutions are required to more
rapidly achieve gender parity in the United States government, because
we believe that it is our best hope in achieving lasting peace with other
Earth People and with the environment.
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The Love Hormone
When we heard that chemical differences between male and female brains
were being used in the argument to include more women in positions of
power, we were determined to learn more. The more we learned, unfortunately, the more disappointed we became about finding a simple neurochemical argument for gender parity. The popular press is dangerously
oversimplifying the data on the actions of the hormone system oxytocin,*
*When referring to oxytocin, one is talking about a system of many hormones working
together with other chemicals, including oxytocin, vasopressin, cortisol, estrogen, and opiates
all working in combination. Interestingly, research has indicated the effects do not pertain to
just the sending of the hormone—it turns out the receptor sites are just as important, if not
more so, than the production of the chemicals themselves. Estrogen and testosterone have an
effect on the receptor sites, and when lab animals have their receptors blocked, it is shown
that they exhibit antisocial behavior no matter how much oxytocin they are producing.
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Where Are Your Women? 27
which is naturally produced in both men and women, and reporting
on the new field of scientific inquiry around this hormone has the tendency to stray into hyperbole. This is especially true when translating
the data into conclusions about oxytocin’s role in learning to trust and
bond and feel safe.
It was formerly believed that only women used the hormone oxytocin because it had been identified as being responsible for the physical
and chemical changes related to pregnancy, childbirth, and breastfeeding. When we sought out the leading researcher on oxytocin and social
bonding, we learned how far the research has come in the last few
decades. It is now clear that oxytocin is produced equally in both genders during times of stress to assist humans in reaching states of calmness and connection. The curious point is that the hormone estrogen
increases a woman’s ability to receive more oxytocin in times of stress
than can men, and this is being extrapolated into social science studies
including those showing how men and women excel at different types
of problem-solving.
Nevertheless, twentieth-century neurochemistry is beginning to validate what Native Americans practiced instinctively: men and women
approach solutions differently, and the best results for all are gained
when both genders are included in the decision-making process. When
the sexes are balanced in the boardroom and in government, solutions
that are more creative and productive and long lasting are reached. 2 As
we learned from cultural historian Riane Eisler, we need to expand the
discussion beyond simply increasing the numbers of women on boards
of directors and in political office. It’s not so much about adding nurturing policies into the workplace to enable women to work and tend
their families at the same time. It’s more about adding nurturing policies into the workplace so that all humans can work more productively
together and care for their families at the same time.
Companies in the United States are losing out by not having the
input of women. No matter that more college graduates are women,
the numbers reaching the top leadership positions remain in the single digits. Capable women drop out of the workforce all the time,
even when they are on track for prestigious and influential executive
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28 Where Are Your Women?
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Figure 2.1. Clan Mother’s Warning via War Chief by John Kahionhes Fadden.
Seated Seneca chief, with standing Clan Mother and war chief before him.
The wampum is the Women’s Nomination Belt that gives authority to the
women to nominate a person to the position of chief as well as the power
to remove him from office for negative behavior. Two colonials in the
background are learning about the operations of the League of the Iroquois
government. Photo: John Kahionhes Fadden.
posts, because they are making the decision to take care of their families instead. Companies that realize this and have implemented policy
changes to allow flexibility in schedules, and expectations, have discovered the results are that both men and women feel encouraged to value
their nurturing side, and everyone benefits. Health improves, creativity
increases, and the corporation’s profit margin goes up.
The Female Governesses Beg Leave to Speak
The cultural norm of honoring the female was not exclusive to the
Iroquois. From the Cherokee people, or Aniyunwiya, we have the
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Where Are Your Women? 29
accounts of an individual known as Attakullakulla, and his niece
Beloved Woman or Nanyehi, both leaders from the mid-1700s. Cherokee
women were fierce warriors as well as key participants in negotiations,
and any nation that presented itself without women was immediately
suspected as being violent and out of balance. Attakullakulla is the
one recorded as saying to the Europeans, “Where are your women?” at
a peace negotiation in 1759 in the South Carolina region.3 When his
niece took over the leadership of the Clan Mothers of the nation there
are several accounts of her following the same tack.
“Beloved Woman” is actually a title of leadership, not a name, and
Nanyehi is more often identified by her European name Nancy Ward.
In 1781 and 1785, as white settlers began streaming into her people’s
territory, she is on record as reprimanding the representatives of the
new United States for not including their women in negotiations. She
implored them to let their women hear her voice. She advised those
listening to remember they were all sons of mothers, and stressed the
traditional roles of kinship among her people as her basis for authority. The proper approach to diplomacy was kinship, as opposed to the
“white father” and “elder brother” patronizing terminology used by the
Europeans.4
The Haudenosaunee are also on record expressing their concern to
the Europeans about lack of female representation during peace talks,
believing as they did that the presence of women would ensure the
peaceful intentions of the other. Oneida Chief Good Peter is quoted
in a 1788 speech as saying, “Brothers, our ancestors considered it great
offense to reject the counsels of their women, particularly of the female
governesses. They were esteemed the mistresses of the soil. Who, said
our forefathers, bring us into being? . . . The female governesses beg
leave to speak with the freedom allowed to women, and agreeably to the
spirit of our ancestors. . . . they are the life of the nation.”5
Before 1800, many treaties were signed by both male and female
sachems, but still Europeans probably didn’t realize the power that
women wielded behind the scenes. The Native Americans tended to
assign the role of public speaker to men, and wise counselor to women,
so more often Europeans were speaking only with the men.6 Iroquois
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30 Where Are Your Women?
men acted as the elected public leaders, but women controlled the election process. One way of looking at it would be to say that the men
spoke in public what the women told them to say in private. The
founders of the United States of America incorporated much of what
they learned from the Iroquois Confederacy into their own republican
experiment, as we review in chapter 3, but they had blinders on when it
came to understanding that the key to the Iroquois success was balance
between the genders.
Respect for the Mother Starts
with the Creation Stories
The wide expanse between the different notions of women in political power starts at the very beginning with two very different notions
of the creation of humankind. We talked to two Iroquois, Mohawk
Douglas George-Kanentiio and Oneida Joanne Shenandoah, about their
ancestral being known as Skywoman from whose daughter the Mother
Earth and the Grandmother Moon are formed. We hesitate venturing any further into retelling Native American mythology at the risk
of disrespecting them by misinterpretation. Their sacred teachings are
meant to be handed down orally in the appropriately ritualized settings,
and rather than presume, we instead recommend you to Kanentiio and
Shenandoah’s books Skywoman, and Iroquois Culture and Commentary.
What seems logical to assume, however, is that growing up with a tradition that the world was created by a female guiding spirit and that
male and female humanity were created in balance would result in a
self-governing system based on balance between the genders.
The Europeans’ opinions of women were likewise the result of generations of conditioning. English colonists grew up with a tradition that
the world was created by a male guiding spirit and that male humanity
was created first, with female humanity created to serve him. Centuries
of this training explain why they were so surprised by the Natives
suggesting that they honor their women. It also explains why Native
American spiritual practices were so poorly translated, filtered as they
were through the Europeans’ own very different beliefs.
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