Matriarchy in the context of "Elephant"

Tanit or Tinnit (Punic: 𐤕𐤍𐤕 Tīnnīt) was a chief deity of Ancient Carthage. She is the consort of Baal Hammon. As Ammon is a local Libyan deity, so is Tanit, who represents the matriarchal aspect of Numidian society, and whom the Egyptians identify as Neith and the Greeks identify as Athena. She was the goddess of wisdom, civilization and the crafts; she is the defender of towns and homes where she is worshipped. Ancient North Africans used to put her sign on tombstones and homes to ask for protection. Her main temples were in Thinissut (Bir Bouregba, Tunisia), Cirta (Constantine, Algeria), Lambaesis (Batna, Algeria) and Theveste (Tebessa, Algeria). She had a yearly festival in Antiquity which persists to this day in many parts of North Africa but was banned by Muammar Gaddafi in Libya, who called it a pagan festival.

Tannit was also a goddess of rain, in modern-day Tunisia, it is customary to invoke Omek Tannou or Oumouk Tangou ('Mother Tannou' or 'Mother Tangou', depending on the region), in years of drought to bring rain. Similarly, Algerians and Tunisians refer to "Baali farming" to mean non-irrigated agriculture.

The Carolinian people (endonym: Refaluwasch) are a Micronesian ethnic group who originated in the Caroline Islands, with a total population of over 8,500 people in the Northern Mariana Islands. They are also known as Remathau in Yap's outer islands. Refaluwasch means "People of the Deep Sea." It is thought that their ancestors may have originally migrated from Asia and Melanesia to Micronesia around 2,000 years ago. Their primary language is Carolinian, called Refaluwasch by native speakers, which has a total of about 5,700 speakers. The Refaluwasch traditionally have a matriarchal society. Most Refaluwasch are of the Roman Catholic faith.

The emigration of Refaluwasch to Saipan began in the early 19th century, after the Spanish reduced the local population of Chamorro natives to just 3,700. They began to emigrate, sailing in small canoes from the Carolines, which had been devastated by typhoons. Being indigenous to a more southern archipelago than the Marianas, they generally have a darker complexion than the native Chamorros.

The Chams (Cham: ꨌꩌ, چام, cam), or Champa people (Cham: ꨂꨣꩃ ꨌꩌꨛꨩ, اوراڠ چمڤا, Urang Campa; Vietnamese: Người Chăm or Người Chàm; Khmer: ជនជាតិចាម, Chônchéatĕ Cham), are an Austronesian ethnic group in Southeast Asia and are the original inhabitants of central Vietnam and coastal Cambodia before the arrival of the Cambodians and Vietnamese, during the expansion of the Khmer Empire (802–1431) and the Vietnamese conquest of Champa (11th–19th century).

From the 2nd century, the Chams founded Champa, a collection of independent Hindu-Buddhist principalities in what is now central and southern Vietnam. By the 17th century, Champa became an Islamic sultanate. Today, the Cham people are largely Muslim, with a minority following Hinduism, both formed the indigenous Muslim and Hindu population in both Cambodia and Vietnam. Despite their adherence to Islam, the Cham people still retain their ancestral practice of matriarchy in family and inheritance.

Hājar (Arabic: هَاجَر), known as Hagar in the Hebrew Bible, was the wife of the patriarch and Islamic prophet Ibrahim (Abraham) and the mother of Ismā'īl (Ishmael). She is a revered woman in the Islamic faith. According to Muslim belief, she was a maid of the king of Egypt who gifted her to Ibrahim's wife Sarah. Although not mentioned by name in the Qur'an, she is referenced and alluded to via the story of her husband. She eventually settled in the Desert of Paran, seen as the Hejaz in the Islamic view, with her son Ishmael. Hajar is honoured as an especially important matriarch of monotheism, as Ishmael was the ancestor of Muhammad.

The macaques (/məˈkɑːk, -ˈkæk/) constitute a genus (Macaca) of gregarious Old World monkeys of the subfamily Cercopithecinae. The 23 species of macaques inhabit ranges throughout Asia, North Africa, and Europe (in Gibraltar). Macaques are principally frugivorous (preferring fruit), although their diet also includes seeds, leaves, flowers, and tree bark. Some species such as the long-tailed macaque (M. fascicularis; also called the crab-eating macaque) will supplement their diets with small amounts of meat from shellfish, insects, and small mammals. On average, a southern pig-tailed macaque (M. nemestrina) in Malaysia eats about 70 large rats each year. All macaque social groups are arranged around dominant matriarchs.

Macaques are found in a variety of habitats throughout the Asian continent and are highly adaptable. Certain species are synanthropic, having learned to live alongside humans, but they have become problematic in urban areas in Southeast Asia and are not suitable to live with, as they can carry transmittable diseases.

Maldives was turned into a Sultanate in 1153 when the Buddhist King Dhovemi converted to Islam. Prior to that the Maldives was a Buddhist Kingdom, a Hindu Kingdom and before that a matriarchal society with each atoll ruled by a chief queen according to some accounts or by others, several theocratic societies ruled by priests known as Sawamias of heliolatric, selenolatric and astrolatric religions. All the rulers before King Koimala only ruled over parts of the Maldives or Deeva Maari (and Dheeva Mahal) as it was known then. Koimala was the first king to rule over all the islands of the Maldives as we know today and the island of Maliku.

The formal title of the Sultan up to 1965 was, Sultan of Land and Sea, Lord of the twelve-thousand islands and Sultan of the Maldives which came with the style Highness. After independence in 1965 the Sultan assumed the title King with the style Majesty. This style was used until 1968, when the Maldives became a republic for the second time. The main official Royal residence of the Sultan was the Etherekoilu, a palace in Malé.