Dahomey Amazons
The Dahomey Amazons or N'Nonmiton, which means "our mothers" in Fon, were a Fon all-female military regiment of the Kingdom of Dahomey in the present-day Republic of Benin which lasted until the end of the 19th century. They were so named by Western observers and historians due to their similarity to the semi-mythical Amazons of ancient Anatolia and the Black Sea.
Origin
King Houegbadja (who ruled from 1645 to 1685), the third King of Dahomey, is said to have originally started the group which would become the Amazons as a corps of elephant hunters called the gbeto.
Houegbadja's son King Agaja (ruling from 1708 to 1732) established a female bodyguard armed with muskets. European merchants recorded their presence. According to tradition, Agaja developed the bodyguard into a militia and successfully used them in Dahomey's defeat of the neighbouring kingdom of Savi in 1727. The group of female warriors was referred to as N'Nonmiton, meaning "Our Mothers" in the Fon language, by the male army of Dahomey.
Amazons!
Amazons! is an anthology of fantasy stories, edited by Jessica Amanda Salmonson, with a cover and frontispiece by Michael Whelan. It was first published in paperback by DAW Books in December 1979, and was the first significant fantasy anthology of works featuring female protagonists by (mostly) female authors. It received the 1980 World Fantasy Award for Best Anthology.
The book collects fourteen short stories, novelettes and poems by various fantasy authors, with an introduction by Salmonson and an essay on additional reading by Salmonson and Susan Wood.
Contents
Amazons
In Greek mythology, the Amazons (Greek: Ἀμαζόνες, Amazónes, singular Ἀμαζών, Amazōn) were a race of woman warriors. Herodotus reported that they were related to the Scythians (an Iranian people) and placed them in a region bordering Scythia in Sarmatia (modern territory of Ukraine). Other historiographers place them in Anatolia, or sometimes Libya.
Notable queens of the Amazons are Penthesilea, who participated in the Trojan War, and her sister Hippolyta, whose magical girdle, given to her by her father Ares, was the object of one of the labours of Hercules. Amazon warriors were often depicted in battle with Greek warriors in amazonomachies in classical art.
The Amazons have become associated with many historical people throughout the Roman Empire period and Late Antiquity. In Roman historiography, there are various accounts of Amazon raids in Anatolia. From the early modern period, their name has become a term for female warriors in general. Amazons were said to have founded the cities and temples of Smyrna, Sinope, Cyme, Gryne, Ephesus, Pitania, Magnesia, Clete, Pygela, Latoreria and Amastris; according to legend, the Amazons also invented the cavalry.
Amazons (1984 film)
Amazons is an American made-for-television thriller film, first aired on ABC on January 29, 1984. Film directed by Paul Michael Glaser and starring Madeleine Stowe as Dr. Sharon Fields, a doctor framed for malpractice following the death of a patient, an influential congressman.
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Dahomey
Dahomey (/dəˈhoʊmi/) was an African kingdom (located in the area of the present-day country of Benin) which lasted from about 1600 until 1894, when the last chief Behanzin was defeated by the French and the country was annexed into the French colonial empire. Dahomey developed on the Abomey Plateau amongst the Fon people in the early 17th century and became a regional power in the 18th century by conquering key cities on the Atlantic coast. For much of the 18th and 19th centuries, the Kingdom of Dahomey was a key regional state, eventually ending tributary status to the Oyo Empire. The Kingdom of Dahomey was an important regional power that had an organized domestic economy built on conquest and slave labor, significant international trade with European powers, a centralized administration, taxation systems, and an organized military. Notable in the kingdom were significant artwork, an all-female military unit known as the Dahomey Amazons, and the elaborate religious practices of Vodun with the large festival of the Annual Customs of Dahomey.
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