A unique phenomenon in world history - representatives of the people of the von kingdom of Dahomey
The Amazons were often written about - by ancient, medieval and modern authors, legends were made about them, poems were composed, myths spread. Many scientists find confirmation in the most different periods of the existence of our civilization that military formations consisting of only women actually took place and could serve as a prototype for the heroines of ancient legends.
However, there is only one officially documented female military unit in modern military history. This is a unique phenomenon in world history - representatives of the people of the background of the kingdom of Dahomey, who existed in their guise of warriors until the end of the 19th century. (Today the territory of the kingdom belongs to the Republic of Benin.)
Western travelers and historians called these women, who lived south of the Sahara and horrified the European colonialists, "Dahomean Amazons", comparing them with semi-mythical Amazons who allegedly lived in ancient times in Asia Minor and along the Black Sea coast. And the Dagomeyki called themselves "n'nonmiton" or "mino", which means "our mothers."
But they were by no means mythical characters. The last Dahomey Amazon passed away at the age of one hundred in 1979. Her name was Navi and this woman whiled away her life in a distant village, where researchers found her.
The task of the Dahomean Amazons was to protect their king in the bloodiest battles, and they did so at such a high level that they were considered an elite unit of the Dahomey kingdom. At the best of times, the Amazons made up almost a third of the Dahomean army, in the 19th century. more than 6 thousand female soldiers served in the Amazon corps (all in all, there were 25 thousand people in the army).
By European standards, they were superior to men in bravery and efficiency in battle. Their "calling card" was the decapitation of the enemy with the speed of lightning.
The history of the Amazons dates back to the 17th century. There are speculations that King Hoegbaja, the third king of Dahomey, who ruled in 1645-1685, created the first formation, which later turned into the Amazons, as a detachment of elephant hunters called "gbeto".
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The women managed to impress the king with their dexterity in this matter, while their husbands fought with the enemy tribes, that the king wanted them to be his bodyguards.
Another version of the origin of the female military unit says that since women were the only ones allowed to stay in the king's palace after dark, it is not surprising that it was women who became the king's bodyguards.
Be that as it may, but only the strongest, healthiest and bravest women were elected to become the king's bodyguards. They went through a thorough preparation process, during which they turned into real killing machines that have terrified all of Africa for more than two centuries.
The elite women's unit was armed with not some homemade arrows or spears, but Dutch muskets and machetes. By the beginning of the 19th century, during the reign of King Gezo (1818-1858), their corps turned into a full-fledged military unit, the Amazons become more and more militant and fiercely loyal to the king every year.
Dahomey became an increasingly militarized state, Gezo attached great importance to the army and increased spending on military needs, streamlining their structure.
Girls in "mino" were recruited at the age of eight and were immediately given weapons in their hands and taught to handle them. They also came to the “mino” at a later age. According to some reports, some girls from the tribe became soldiers voluntarily, while others were given as bodyguards by their husbands, who complained about undisciplined wives whom they could not control.
(The latter option is somehow not very hard to believe, if you know what kind of training they went through from childhood. And here it turns out that from household chores - and immediately to arms? And even being undisciplined … Most likely, this is an invention of idle journalists.)
From the beginning, the Amazons were taught to be strong, fast, ruthless and able to withstand the most unbearable pain. The exercises, which resembled some form of gymnastics, included jumping over walls entwined with thorny acacia shoots.
Also, the preparation included the so-called "Hunger Games" - expeditions into the jungle without equipment, with only one machete. These "expeditions" lasted ten days. They were somewhat reminiscent of the reality show "The Last Hero", only the Dahomey were serious: if you do not get food and water, you will remain hungry, if you do not get it within a few days, you will die. If you do not repel the attack of a wild beast, you will also die.
The women were taught the skills of survival, discipline and ruthlessness. Brutality training was key to hitting the king's soldiers. The recruitment ceremony involved testing whether would-be warriors were ruthless enough to throw a prisoner from a deadly height.
After such training, the Dagomeiks became fanatical fighters. To prove what they are worth, they had to become twice as hardy as men.
It is not surprising that in battle - if the king did not receive an order to retreat - Dahomey Amazons fought to the death … Alien or their own. History knows no case when the Dahomey Amazon surrendered or retreated. By the way, the unit commanders were also women.
After graduation, the Amazons took the oath of office as virgins and were considered untouchable. They were forbidden to marry or have children while they served. They were believed to be officially married to the king.
But at the same time, they all kept a vow of chastity, acquiring an almost semi-sacred status as elite warriors. Even the king hesitated to break their vow of chastity. And if any other man touched the Amazon, this meant certain death for him.
Some researchers associate their semi-sacred status with the West African voodoo cult.
In the spring of 1863, British explorer Richard Burton arrived in West Africa with an assignment from his government to establish a British mission in coastal Dahomey and to try to make peace with the people of the kingdom.
This was difficult because the Dahomeans were a militant people who actively used slaves and took an active part in the slave trade. Captured enemies became slaves. This made a strong impression on Barton.
But most of all he was struck by the elite Dahomey warriors: "These women had such well-developed skeletons and muscles that only by the presence of breasts it was possible to determine gender."
Barton was also surprised by the Amazons' weaponry: a machete along with a musket. And if they used a musket in the same way as this type of weapon is used all over the world, then the machete was used in a very peculiar way: the Amazons used it to decapitate and dismember their victims. It was then customary among the Dahomeans to return home with the heads and genitals of their opponents.
And, of course, the fact that it was women who were bodyguards did not escape his attention. And the elite. By the way, some in Barton's time even believed that every man in the Dahomey army had his own female "double". Burton nicknamed this army "Black Sparta".
Barton also noted that despite the brutal preparation, for many Dahomey women it was a chance to escape the boring life to which women in the local society were doomed.
Upon admission to the mino, women were given the opportunity to climb the social ladder of Dahomey society, take command posts and gain influence - playing not the last roles in the Grand Assembly, which discussed the politics of the kingdom.
They might even get rich and remain lonely and independent, but this rarely happened. They lived, of course, under the king, but they had everything they wanted, even tobacco and alcohol. They also had servants.
Stanley Alpern, the author of the only full-length treatise in English devoted to the study of the Amazons, wrote: “When the Amazons left the palace, there was always a slave girl walking in front of them with a bell. The ringing of the bell told every man to turn out of his way, go some distance and look in the other direction."
A French delegation visiting Dahomey in 1880 observed a 16-year-old Amazon during a training session. Their records state that she threw the machete three times before the captive's head was severed. She wiped the blood from her weapon and swallowed it to the cheers of the other warriors watching her.
During the Franco-Dahomean wars, many French soldiers hesitated before killing a woman. This underestimation of the enemy in the face of women very often led to an increase in the number of casualties among the French invaders, and the Amazons continued to purposefully attack French officers.
Towards the end of the Second Franco-Dahomean War, the French began to win only after the support of the Foreign Legion, armed with superior weapons, including machine guns, as well as cavalry and marines.
The last forces of the king surrendered, most of the Amazons were killed in twenty-three battles during the Second War. Legionnaires later wrote of the Amazons' "incredible bravery and audacity." They also stated that the worst women on Earth live in this place.
During the Second Franco-Dahomean War, the negative image of female warriors was used in the French press as propaganda to justify the conquest of the "barbaric" and "uncivilized" Dahomey.
In particular, a drawing was published (now in the Quai Branly Museum in Paris) in which a French officer was killed by such an Amazon using her sharp teeth, with which she pulled a piece of meat from his neck.
But even after the strengthening of the colonial expansion of France in Africa, after the conquest of Dahomey by the French in the 90s. XIX century., All Dahomean women continued to inspire wild fear. French soldiers who stayed with them overnight were often found dead in the morning, with their throats cut.
The elite division of female warriors ceased to exist. But since the Amazons were considered the most formidable women on Earth, they had a huge impact on the attitude towards women in African countries and beyond, and also left a noticeable mark on history, they even appear in Werner Herzog's film "Green Cobra".
However, it must be said that some Western scholars in every possible way downplay the importance of the Dahomey Amazons, downplaying their belligerence, as well as their fighting skills, saying that in the 17th century. “In fact, their functions were rather limited to those of the Russian“amusing regiments”recruited from women …
Over the next hundred years or so, they spread rumors about themselves as fearless warriors, although they rarely fought and therefore could not establish themselves as fighters … And even though they really hardly had to fight - "mino" successfully implemented their aggression on prisoners, who are often beheaded."
This is probably why the French street artist launched a campaign in 2015 to pay tribute to the implacable female fighters of the 19th century. Working in Senegal, in the south of Dakar, she transferred images of the faces of these warlike women from old photographs found in local archives to the walls of houses.