RAN HISTORY Apparently, the order whiqh became known as the Bene Gessent originated in the rituals of a Terraa group which migrated from the central plains of a major land mass, east and south around a sea through areas remembered by the Voices as Harappa and Mesopotamia, carrying with it the genetic capacity for group consciousness within the family type The Voices report that after millennia of migration the males eventually lost group consciousness abilities, but continued to carry latent genes for tile trait Anthropolmguist Maro Ghappato of the University of Paquita theorizes that the male latency was caused by psychological repression, since evidence indicates the trait was dominant Ghappato, in Miraculous Voices at Rakis, states that males, primary defenders of tire culture, were unable to function efficiently in battle when they could feel the immediate pain of their wounded or captured companions Ghappato also supports me validity of Voice reports that the men's conscious participation in birth pangs tended to produce impotence, thus preventing the reproduction ot male bearers with dominant active genes As the number of women in whom the trait remained active also decreased, the family group developed rituals, traditions and eventually religious structures to perpetuate the memory of group consciousness Gradually, a senous problem arose the active females only retained the memories of past active females, thus losing half the personal history of the family Thus was born the desire to breed an active male strain to regain complete memory and consciousness Ghappato conjectures that the culture was matriarchal for millennia, dominated by the active-trait females who controlled their socie ty through vanous Mother Goddess religious structures supporting both breeding program with detailed mnemonic records, and an extensive training and indoctrination program for active females Both programs were embedded within primary religio political structures, and both were disseminated through tnbal migration and interracial mamage, eventually dominating two continents Voice Inanna describes ntuals perpetuating the de sire for the whole and ntuals giving a tanta hzmg past through the memories of active females Voice Inanna shows the active fe males' attitude toward death in an axiom still found in Bene Gessent texts "Do not count a human dead until you've seen the body And even then you can make a mistake This belief in universal con sciousness through transferred memory was incorporated into Terran mythos through the idioms of demonic possession and remcarna tion Voice Inanna also reports the establish ment of archives, one m a place named Nippur for records ot the breeding lines and of the mythos dissemination These locations also became training centers for gene earners sent into new temtones as ambassadors, historians scnbes, educators, and concubines, and later became schools for aristocracy of both sexes This Voice also speaks of a relatively new doctnne just becoming established m her unit the doctnne that an activated male consciousness would be able to understand the future as well as the past The doctnne was difficult to disseminate because it openly challenged the older ' permanence' doctrine of a Goddess- or God- BENE GESSERTT HISTORY 120 BENE GESSERIT HISTORY directed fate She recounts that some tnbes used a son/husband resurrection figure, "saved" by (he mother/wife mythic figures she calls Au Set and Au Sar Ghappato notes that the matriarchal group's interaction with various patriarchal religions produced political and religious traditions as widely diverse as the hareem system, licensed and religious promiscuity of women, tightly censored sexual activities, and religious inhibitions against association with menstruating women A later Voice, Euanthes, discusses the structure through which the breeding program and the training program were continued over these millennia of tribal dispersion According to her, the gene-earners were trained through tribal unite, but the units were con trolled by an intertribal group called The Mothers Within each tube, the leading gene-earner was designated the Great Mother, who represented the tribe in the mtertnbal group while retaining power over her own local unit The Mother title was hereditary, but used openly only in the few remaining matriarchal power structures Within patriarchies, the Mothers became a secret order, married to aristocratic leaders and usually having as then" Great Mother the wife or mother of the tribal leader Only some of the Mothers, of all the gene-earners, retained group consciousness, tribal memories.