Negroid African cultures..........many of them...........tended to be matriarchal..........ancient Egypt was.............

Symbol of fertility[edit]

Sinú, Standing Figure of a Mother and Child from Walters Art Museum.

In the Zenú culture, women were the symbol of fertility, wisdom and respect. Female characters were frequently portrayed in clay and placed in the graves of the dead as a symbol of human and agricultural fertility. The presence of these statuettes in the grave symbolized conception and rebirth in the underworld, in the same way that seeds germinate and grow. During the funeral ceremony, which was attended by the whole community with music and dance, a mound was built over the grave. On top of the mound a tree was planted, and golden bells were hung in the branches. The golden breastplates that important women and chiefs wore during ceremonies symbolized the pregnancy of women and the virility of men. The roundness of the mound, like the roundness of a breastplate, was an allusion to the place where pregnancy and birth took place. Thus, women possessed great social and political significance. When the Zenú culture was discovered by the Spaniards in the 16th century, the religious center of Finzenú at the river Sinú was led by Toto, a female chief who governed several nearby villages.