How 2,500 years of women’s history were erased to fuel the Western culture wars
Below is an opinion piece on new documentary “The Eagle Huntress”.
This is a trailer for new documentary the “Eagle Huntress” by filmmaker Otto Bell. Narrated by Star Wars’ Daisy Ridley, who executive produced the film along with Morgan Spurlock of Supersize-Me fame, it is the inspiring story of a plucky Kazakh-Mongolian teenager Aisholpan “fighting an ingrained culture of misogyny to become the first female Eagle Hunter in 2,000 years of male-dominated history” according to IMDb *see update. It features impressive aerial cinematography and was described after its debut at Sundance as “enchanting” and “striking”. It even has a soundtrack by Australian pop star Sia.
However this feel-good story of female empowerment is not all it appears to be. While Aisholpan is indeed an inspirational and talented eagle huntress, she is not exactly the first one. The woman who preceded her was not in the distant annals of time, her name is Makpal Abdrazakova, and she is about 27. She, too, began eagle training when she was 13, the same age as Aisholpan when she began. (If Makpal doesn’t look awesome enough in this photo, consider that she is also now a lawyer.)
The fact is, Kazakh eagle hunting culture has had women participate for literally thousands of years, and for much of that time in far greater numbers than today. Not only is steppe nomad culture not misogynist and “male dominated”, it is one of the most continuously egalitarian cultures in the world. When the sexual politics of Classical Greece resembled that of today’s Saudi Arabia, theirs had something approaching gender equality. It is from this larger culture of horse-riding warrior-women from the Eurasian steppes that the Greeks got their legends of “The Amazons”. That is how ancient this culture is.
Fortunately, the marketing of the documentary has not escaped the attention of a 49 year old Canadian woman, Meghan Fitz-James, who also was a guest in the family home of Aisholpan after meeting her at the Golden Eagle Festival in 2014, during the time of filming. The events of her three day stay compelled her to track media updates rigorously, especially since the film premiered. In a long opinion essay which references the work of historian Adrienne Mayor, she found interviews promoting the film that:
“Speaks to proof of a concerted lack of research on the part of the filmmaker and his team in order to ensure the female empowerment story is leveraged against a male ‘enemy’ foil. This male enemy foil scarcely exists, given the fact that there are other girls, contemporary to Aisholpan, who go out hunting with their fathers in the wintertime . This I heard from a very informed anonymous local living in Ulgii. It was also confirmed by Otto Bell’s own guide-translator, Dauit Ryskhan, who said that some young girls enjoy going hunting with their fathers.”
Here you can also hear executive producer Morgan Spurlock — no stranger to fact-bending — tell how this is “the first time a girl in the 2000 year history of this male dominated country, sport and pastime was going to take the reins as an eagle huntress.” While producer Stacey Reiss adds that “Until now a father had not taught her daughter” how to eagle hunt but that Aisholpan’s father “is evolved”. If you have a “young empowered girl” smiles Spurlock “it is a great girl power movie”.
The much overlooked history of Eurasian steppe nomads was recently the subject of an excellent book by the historian Adrienne Mayor, who has penned a 30 page essay on the subject in response to the marketing of the film. Her diligent research paints the picture of an ancient egalitarian culture totally at odds with the oppressive sexist society described in the above video. She writes:
“Evidence pointing to eagle hunting’s antiquity comes from Scythian and other burial mounds of nomads who roamed the steppes 3,000 years ago and whose artifacts abound in eagle imagery. An ancient Scythian nomad skeleton buried with an eagle was reportedly excavated near Aktobe Gorge, Kazakhstan. Ancient petroglyphs in the Altai region depict eagle hunters and inscribed Chinese stone reliefs show eagles perched on the arms of hunters in tunics, trousers, and boots, identified as northern nomads (1st to 2nd century AD)…”
She continues:
“Male bürkitshi are certainly more common than females today, although eagle hunting has always been open to interested girls. Archaeology suggests that eagle huntresses were probably more common in ancient times. Recent and spectacular archaeological discoveries of graves (ca 700 BC to AD 300) across ancient Scythia, from Ukraine to China, reveals that steppe nomad females engaged in the same riding and hunting activities as the men, and about one third of the women were active warriors in battle.”
“Unlike settled, patriarchal societies such as classical Greece and Rome, where women stayed home to weave and mind children, the lives of nomadic steppe tribes centered on horses and archery. Boys and girls, men and women, young and old, all shared the vigorous outdoor life and everyone could ride fast horses, shoot arrows with deadly accuracy, hunt for fur and game, and defend the tribe. The combination of horse riding and archery was an equalizer, leveling out physical differences: a woman on horseback is as fast and agile as a man.”
“This ancient way of life — embracing gender equality — was essential for tribes continuously migrating across oceans of grass, and egalitarian traditions persist in their descendants today, even though men and women in semi-nomadic herding communities now have more differentiated tasks.”
One would think the existence of such an egalitarian culture so deep into the past, and across such a vast portion of the Earth’s surface, should be a source of inspiration to western liberals, especially as its story is largely unknown outside of academia. Instead, there appears to have been an attempt to ignore this rich history in order to pander to the prejudices, tropes and stock narratives of the Western culture wars. Instead of depicting the society as it is, one of comparative gender equality full of strong women and with opportunities to eagle hunt open to all that are interested, we are instead presented with a “misogynistic” culture that is entirely synthetic. Mayor writes that;
“To add a sense of dramatic conflict to his storyline, Otto Bell sought out eagle hunting elders in Mongolia, Kazakhstan, and Kyrgyzstan who would express opposition to girls becoming apprentice eagle hunters. As with Makpal, most eagle hunters approved, so Bell’s docu-drama shows a humorous montage of old men frowning and shaking their heads”.
“Otto Bell knew about Makpal in 2014 but he declined an offer to meet her, preferring to focus on his heartwarming story pitting one girl and her father against their male-dominated society. In spring 2016, Bell indicated that it is not his responsibility to tell an ethnologically comprehensive story. As co-producer Asher Svidensky commented to me in early 2016, “Entertainment isn’t anthropology.”
But recently, on August the 4th, in an interview in National Geographic, there were signs that the director Otto Bell was beginning to change strategy, or at least acknowledging the existence of Makpal, albeit as an “older lady” who merely “preceded her in training an eagle”. When asked about her breaking “centuries of tradition” he responded:
“It’s important to note that Aisholpan is not the first modern Kazakh eagle huntress — that’s a fairly common mistake.”
If it is a common mistake, then why was the film promoted in a way that entrenches and perpetuates it? Fitz-James observes that;
“Bell states, “that’s a fairly common mistake” (to think no other eagle huntresses existed). He does not, however, take ownership for having made that ‘common mistake’ himself. I boil this down to image control.”
It is not as if Makpal is completely unknown, she has been the subject of photographers herself in the past, as have other hunters such as Clara Isabekov from Kazakhstan. Numerous others been photographed who’s names are not known (read more in Mayor’s essay) and many others are currently in training, some by Makpal’s father. Their existence, however, is problematic due to the story the filmmakers want to tell and market to Western audiences. Indeed, there are seemingly big ambitions for the Eagle Huntress franchise, as glimpsed in this piece by Hypable;
“As the first female eagle hunter in 2,000 years, and with such an incredible success story, we’re not surprised that Hollywood is jumping on this doc with so much enthusiasm…
Not only is the documentary on its way to a wide release with Sony set to distribute, but according to Deadline, several companies are currently warring over who gets to turn Aisholpan’s story into an animated feature. Daisy Ridley is also rumored to be voicing the main character in the animated adaptation.
No wonder this story is taking off in such a major way — it’s rare that a documentary tells a story which may as well have been the plot of a YA novel, except it all just happens to be true.”[emphasis mine]
Essentially what seems to have happened is that Aisholpan’s life is being treated as intellectual property to be remoulded to suit western cultural trends, while the rich traditions of Kazakh eagle hunting are being distorted and Disneyfied in the process. (This is made worse by reports of the circumstances surrounding the contract signed by her family which Fitz-James continues to follow). One gets a sense that this is seen as the raw materials of a franchise on the order of the Hunger Games, to be marketed in the manner of the recent Ghostbusters, with all the merchandising bucks that implies. The most bittersweet aspect of all this is that instead of getting a CGI epic about a mysterious and ancient culture descended from one that literally inspired our legends of warrior-women, it looks like they’ll instead be portrayed as society of buffoonish sexists trying to keep women down. Which is the more inspiring story?
Despite all this, we should also remember that Aisholpan very much deserves the positive attention she is getting. As Fitz-James articulates:
“My overall heartfelt conviction is that Aisholpan deserves to be the star she is for more, far more, reasons than the documentary and the girl power film industry are ready to recognize.”
I would recommend both her opinion essay, as well as Mayor’s authoritative book on the subject and essay on the Kazakh eagle hunter tradition. It is only thanks to pressure from them both that the filmmakers have now grudgingly begun to acknowledge the egalitarian nature of this ancient culture and the existence of other Eagle huntresses in modern times and in antiquity. And that is the bigger story that should be told.
Update: As of the around the 10th of August the official description of the Eagle Huntress was changed to remove reference to an “ingrained culture of misogyny”. The removal of these words is step in the right direction that has been celebrated by both Mayor and Fitz-James who view it as the fruits of their persistent pressures and hard work. In a message to me Fitz-James expressed that she hopes that there is a recall of prior false claims across all media, as the one admission in the National Geographic interview could easily be subsumed once the film is officially released and coverage explodes.
Update II: Meghan Fitz-James article about the film published in the UB Post has mysteriously vanished from the web, she says at the pressure of Bell’s people. Her article can still be read on Facebook.
