Loaded with symbolism, these elaborately decorated parasols once showed status in the Dahomey court. A dressmaker, Pierrette designs a new umbrella for her queen every year. Fabric spelling out ‘ Reine Hangbe’ (Queen Hangbe) had been sewn into the fabric using the appliqué technique of Dahomey tradition. When I asked to take photographs of Queen Hangbe, Pierrette, another Amazon, jumped up to unfurl a ceremonial parasol over her mistress in the dark room. Today, the role of Queen Hangbe and her Amazons is primarily ceremonial, presiding over religious rituals that take place at the temple near her home.
However, Leonard Wantchekon, who was born in Benin and is now professor of politics at Princeton University and founder of the African School of Economics in Cotonou, Benin, claims the contemporary term does not accurately reflect the role the warriors played in Dahomey society. Today, historians refer to them as mino, which can be translated as ‘our mothers’ in the local Fon language. " walked jauntily up, swung her sword three times with both hands, then calmly cut the last flesh that attached the head to the trunk… She then squeezed the blood off her weapon and swallowed it."Įuropeans who visited the kingdom in the 19th Century called Dahomey’s female fighters Amazons after the ruthless warriors of Greek mythology. In 1889, French colonial administrator Jean Bayol described witnessing one young Amazon approach a captive as part of her training. In 1861, Italian priest Francesco Borghero described an army exercise where thousands of women scaled 120m-high thorny acacia bushes barefoot without a whimper. Historical accounts of the Amazons are notoriously unreliable, though several European slave traders, missionaries and colonialists recorded their encounters with the fearless women. The more widely accepted theory is that they served as royal bodyguards to Hangbe and the kings who came after. Some sources describe the Amazons as elephant hunters who graduated to human prey. Oral and written accounts differ over the origins of the women-only corps. Yet her legacy lived on through her mighty female soldiers. There is no sign of one belonging to Hangbe, and some historians question whether she existed at all. In a dusty museum that lies within the walls of the Royal Palaces in Abomey, the monarchs’ elaborate bronze sceptres are displayed in order of their reign. The current Queen Hangbe told me that all traces of her ancestor’s reign were erased by Agaja, who believed that only men should hold the throne. After a short rule, she was forcibly deposed by her power-hungry younger brother, Agaja. In one of the final battles against the French in 1892 before the kingdom became a French colony, it is said only 17 out of 434 Amazons came back alive.Īccording to legend, Hangbe assumed the throne in the early 18th Century after the sudden death of her twin brother, Akaba. Whether conquering neighbouring tribes or resisting European forces, the Amazons were known for their fearlessness.
Its remnants lie in modern-day Benin, which occupies a sliver of the coast between Nigeria and Togo. The Dahomey Amazons were frontline soldiers in the army of the Kingdom of Dahomey, a West African empire that existed from 1625 to 1894. The room was relatively grand: there was a table and chairs for visitors and, in the corner, sat an old-fashioned television next to a makeshift drinks cabinet.Īfter indicating that I should prostrate myself before the queen and take a ceremonial sip of water, Rubinelle and her grandmother told me the story of their ancestors. Four Amazons were attending to her, sitting on a woven mat on the floor. As her living embodiment, the elderly woman has inherited her name and her authority. I had been granted an audience with Dahomian royalty: a descendant of Queen Hangbe, who according to local legend is the founder of the Amazons, an elite group of female warriors. The elderly woman’s head was adorned with a crown. The 24-year-old secretary was talking about her grandmother, who was sitting on a bed in one of the front rooms of a house in Abomey, the former capital of the Kingdom of Dahomey and now a thriving city in southern Benin. We would die for her," said Rubinelle, choosing her words carefully.
0 kommentar(er)
