It Comes From A Special Vocabulary
It comes from a special vocabulary ... way before the word book was invented, even then when women were brought down and felt bad about the negative information others gave them about themselves.
Its name can be found in braided horsehair, one of the oldest arts of civilization. This braided horsehair keeps us floating on clouds because it has the power of positive feedback.
Some women buy it by the pound in black, white, and brown and braid it. Some women like Dominga Rio of Cuero, a Spanish woman, braids it right on the horse, the Judas's mane, the horse who rounds up the wild mustangs, and the Polish woman at the Christmas tree plantation, who climbs a peeled spruce-log-ladder and sits in a 10-foot-high rocking chair, braiding horsehair, watching over the growth, and the Sherpa woman who climbs Mt. Everest.
In modern-day society, there seems to be no grouping for women which has a ready supply of horsehair, dice games, or feminist folktales to be used as a catharsis for anxieties and a source of positive feedback for viewing life from a female perspective.
Its name can be found in old-fashioned dice games and the counting sticks used to tally the score, the game played with two pieces shaped like turtles and eight round pieces in a bowl used for tossing, the best throw of all, making a turtle land upright.
Generally, you can purchase horsehair by the ounce or by the pound at leather outlets, or take it right from the horse from tails and manes.
For this old-fashioned dice game, you can use different-colored poster board for turtle and circle cut-outs for the game pieces. After you have cut out the shapes, put them in a terra-cotta or wooden bowl for tossing. I traced around a Sacajawea dollar coin to use for the circle, making it even more of a feminist game. You will want to decorate the turtle so you know the upright side. Gather a dozen sticks outdoors and peel them to use for the counting sticks to tally the score.
Copyright 2005 Sage Sweetwater, firebrand lesbian novelist
