Amazons
The race of Amazons or fighting women, is not yet extinct, as the
chronicles of every police court can tell, and as an organised body of
warlike soldiers--the King of Dahomey still keeps them up, or did until
very recently. According to Herodotus, the Greeks, after having routed
the Amazons, sailed away in three ships, taking with them as many
Amazons, as they had been able to capture alive--but, when fairly out at
sea
Greeks in pieces. But they had not reckoned on one little thing, and
that was, that none among them had the slightest idea of navigation;
they couldn't even steer or row--so they had to drift about, until they
came to Cremni (supposed to be near Taganrog), which was Scythian
territory. They signalised their landing by horse-stealing, and the
Scythians, not appreciating the joke, gave them battle, thinking they
were men; but an examination of the dead proved them to be of the other
sex. On learning this, the Scythians were far too gentlemanly to
continue the strife, and, little by little, they established the most
friendly relations with the Amazons. These ladies, however, objected to
go to the Scythians' homes, for, as they pertinently put it, "We never
could live with the women of your county, because we have not the same
customs with them. We shoot with the bow, throw the javelin, and ride on
horseback, and have never learnt the employments of women. But your
women do none of the things we have mentioned, but are engaged in
women's work, remaining in their wagons, and do not go out to hunt, or
anywhere else; we could not therefore consort with them. If, then, you
desire to have us for your wives, and to prove yourselves honest men, go
to your parents, claim your share of their property, then return, and
let us live by ourselves."
This the young Scythians did, but, when they returned, the Amazons said
they were afraid to stop where they were, for they had deprived parents
of their sons, and besides, had committed depredations in the country,
so that they thought it but prudent to leave, and suggested that they
should cross the Tanais, or Don, and found a colony on the other side.
This their husbands acceded to, and when they were settled, their wives
returned to their old way of living--hunting, going to war with their
husbands, and wearing the same clothes--in fact they enjoyed an actual
existence, of which many women nowadays, fondly, but vainly dream. There
was a little drawback however--the qualification for a young lady's
presentation at court, consisted of killing a man, and, until that was
effected, she could not marry.
Sir John Mandeville of course knew all about them, although he does not
pretend to have seen them, and this is what he tells us. "After the land
of Caldee, is the land of Amazony, that is a land where there is no man
but all women, as men say, for they wil suffer no man to lyve among
them, nor to have lordeshippe over them. For sometyme was a kinge in
that lande, and men were dwelling there as did in other countreys, and
had wives, & it befell that the kynge had great warre with them of
Sychy, he was called Colopius, and he was slaine in bataill and all the
good bloude of his lande. And this Queene, when she herd that, & other
ladies of that land, that the king and the lordes were slaine, they
gathered them togither and killed all the men that were lefte in their
lande among them, and sithen that time dwelled no man among them.
"And when they will have any man, they sende for them in a countrey that
is nere theyr lande, and the men come, and are ther viii dayes, or as
the woman lyketh, & then they go againe, and if they have men children
they send them to theyr fathers, when they can eate & go, and if they
have maide chyldren they kepe them, and if they bee of gentill bloud
they brene[16] the left pappe[17] away, for bearing of a shielde, and,
if they be of little bloud, they brene the ryght pappe away for shoting.
For those women of that countrey are good warriours, and are often in
soudy[18] with other lordes, and the queene of that lande governeth well
that lande; this lande is all environed with water."
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Amazons
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