Apr 7th, 2016: Amazon Women

[xoxoxoBruce]

No, not women who belong to Amazon Prime for the two day shipping.
For years I’ve heard about Amazon women who were badass fighters, cut off one breast to shoot a bow, and lived in South America, Africa, or Polynesia. I figured it was bullshit tales made up around some campfire. Guess what… twernt. Well much of what I heard was, but Amazons, the Terminators of Dahomey, were very real.

From daughters to soldiers, from wives to weapons, they remain the only documented frontline female troops in modern warfare history. A sub-saharan band of female terminators who left their European colonisers shaking in their boots, foreign observers named them the Dahomey Amazons while they called themselves N’Nonmiton, which means “our mothers”. Protecting their king on the bloodiest of battlefields, they emerged as an elite fighting force in the Kingdom of Dahomey in, the present-day Republic of Benin. Described as untouchable, sworn in as virgins, swift decapitation was their trademark.

We've all seen some guy lose his head over a girl, but the Amazons bring a literal meaning.

These are not mythical characters. The last surviving Amazon of Dahomey died at the age of 100 in 1979, a woman named Nawi who was discovered living in a remote village. At their height, they made up around a third of the entire Dahomey army; 6,000 strong, but according to European records, they were consistently judged to be superior to the male soldiers in effectiveness and bravery.

From the start, they were trained to be strong, fast, ruthless and able to withstand great pain. Exercises that resembled a form of gymnastics included jumping over walls covered with thorny acacia branches. Sent on long 10-day “Hunger Games” style expeditions in the jungle without supplies, only their machete, they became fanatical about battle. To prove themselves, they had to be twice as tough as the men. Often seen as the last (wo)men standing in battle, unless expressly ordered to retreat by their King, the Dahomey women fought to the death– defeat was never an option.

These were the people who captured Kunta Kinte plus a large portion of the other slaves, and sold them to the Arab traders who took them to the ports.

More information and pictures, even one of boobies.