I have sat for three days trying to write this piece, trying to put into words how I feel about Pomba Gira and my experience of who she is, and it has proven difficult.
Difficult because she is so multifaceted and surprising that nothing I wrote was right, but at the same time, all of it was.
To me she is the complexity of the female power; given birth from our sexuality, our emotions and our strength. All of those things a patriarchal society finds challenging, that it shames and controls.
She is our freedom.
Our freedom to say “fuck you”, our freedom to sleep with whomever we want with our head held high and our freedom to lead from the front in all our female glory.
Fuck your niceties.
Fuck your aprons. Fuck your “aren’t you being a little too sensitive”. Fuck your controlling our reproductive organs. Fuck you.
We birthed you, you little shits.
Pomba Gira is the woman without shame, the woman who dresses how she pleases and goes for exactly what she wants. She knows the power each of us holds and she entices us to use it; demonstrate our ability to seduce and dominate if we so choose.
She is choice.
She is the one who holds your hand during heartbreak, the one who asks you to stand taller, the one who shows you what you are capable of becoming, the solace from your struggles.
(Photo Credit: Black Queen by Khomenko Mayna)
For me, Pomba Gira is the blood coloured rose. She holds the beauty and poise of that flower that has beguiled so many into illicitly plucking her from the rose bush, only for them to forget about the strength and bite of those powerful thorns.
Do you deserve to look upon such beauty if you do not have the character to weather a little blood my friend…
When reading about Pomba Gira, in some places, the focus is purely on her sexual prowess with multiple mentions of her being a prostitute. Her work as a murderess, strategic leader, aristocracy, witch, lover, saint, confidant, gypsy, poisoner, teacher, assassin and healer are quickly forgotten by those whose attitudes to Pomba Gira reflect their attitudes to women in general.
Lessons will be swift in their coming.
Even as a wife Pomba Gira has seven husbands; not because she is a ‘floozy’, because she does not bow to male dominance or control. Why shouldn’t she have seven husbands?
One of my favourite things about Pomba Gira is that she will, forever, be a complicated mystery. As soon as you think you have her pegged she will show you something else about her.
A woman needs her secrets, right!?
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