THE CIRCULAR REINVENTION

“It’s better to have a girl,” Ines concedes sheepishly, “if I have a daughter, she will continue my line, my clan will continue.” Her seven-year-old granddaughter, Elena, grins approvingly at me over her ice cream.

I am having dinner with three generations of Bribri women, members of one of Costa Rica’s indigenous communities. We are sitting in a peaceful restaurant overlooking the Caribbean Sea, but with soft music, neighbouring conversations and an electric blender humming in the background; all three confess they find such settings overwhelming. “In our village you only hear the birds and the insects,” Ines’s daughter, Priscilla, chimes in wistfully.

But it is more than a lack of modern amenities that set these women apart from our fellow urban diners. The Bribri is one of the world’s last surviving matriarchal and matrilineal societies. “I am the one making the decisions,” explains tribal leader Ines, proudly, “in the