I just finished an anthropology book called Matriarchal Societies by Dr. Heide Goettner-Abendroth, and I'm so glad I did because the last chapter contains an absolute Easter egg. There is a Berber people called the Atlas Tuareg, who live relatively isolated and undisturbed in the Atlas Mountains. They are surrounded by other agrarian Tuareg peoples such as the Ahaggar Tuareg, who live nomadically in the desert and have also preserved much of their native matriarchal culture and tradition. All have a history of resisting the patriarchal, Islamic influence of the region.

The Atlas Tuareg were the most fascinating because their Islamization has been extremely minimal, and the Atlas Tuareg women in particular have remained almost completely "pagan."

They venerate female nature spirits, goddesses and ancestresses in natural places such as caves and grottoes. They observe seasonal festivals marking the turning of the seasons, including a Sacred Marriage festival. And most interesting of all, the Atlas and other Tuareg peoples are known for carrying a Goddess talisman known as the "Tuareg cross." Spoilers: they're not used for pornography. They're considered symbols of protection.

So yeah, some of you may have grown up with books such as When God Was a Woman, the Clan of the Cavebear series, the Goddess Remembered documentary trilogy, and the anthropological idea of the Neolithic Great Goddess and matriarchal origin of humanity... only to be met with the eventual backlash from "Very Scientific Men" claiming there never was a Great Goddess religion, never has been a "real" matriarchy, and that the ubiquitous Goddess figures of prehistory were "of unknown use, possibly mere pornography."

Well, sometimes the simplest answer is the correct one. Shit was real. The evidence is pretty clear.