Amazons: inside the King of Dahomey’s all-woman army









Dahomey’s female hunters, the gbeto, attack a herd of elephants.










“Insensitivity training”: female recruits look on as Dahomean troops hurl bound prisoners of war to a mob below.








A group of women warriors in traditional dress.






She intones a song of victory and dances:


The blood flows,

You are dead.

The blood flows,

We have won.

The blood flows, it flows, it flows.

The blood flows,

The enemy is no more.





18 thoughts on “Amazons: inside the King of Dahomey’s all-woman army

  1. Dahomey metalwork from this period is some of the best art I’ve ever seen. Beautiful castings in bronze and gold with incredible detail . Too bad they got the money to support all those artists by being middlemen in the slave trade.

    Even so, interesting culture with great art. Never knew about this women’s regiment. Doesn’t surprise me though.

  2. It always surprises me that there haven’t been more female soldiers. I doubt that women’s exclusion from the ranks had much to do with effectiveness. In many societies throughout history, women did at least as much – and often much more – physical work than men. Even allowing for physical differences between the genders, many women certainly wouldn’t have lacked the required strength or stamina. In more modern times, women have shown themselves to be able to shoot or handle machinery as well or better than men. And the idea that women are delicate little flowers who must be protected from violence falls down on just about every level: historically, war has never spared women.

    The only thing that I can think of is that war, like hunting, had a ritual or even ‘recreational’ aspect, and so women were shut out of this uniquely masculine preserve for that reason.

    • I suspect a second reason(possibly articulated, possibly something that tended to curtain the efficiency of societies that tried it):

      A population’s reproductive capacity, unless males are virtually extinct, pretty much hinges on how many females of reproductive age it contains. Depending on one’s cultural mores regarding polygamy, pregnancy out of wedlock, remarriage, etc. you can lose quite a few males of prime breeding age without denting the size of your next generation appreciably. Females, by contrast, more or less reduce the potential size of the next generation proportionally with combat losses and potential childbearing time spent not being pregnant so as to be ready for combat.

      Societies start to get pretty shell-shocked if the losses get too high; but losses of fractious younger sons who would otherwise be making trouble at home can be downright socially stabilizing, in addition to whatever ‘conquer thy neighbor’ benefits they may provide…

    • Yes, and also, patriarchy! Can’t let the women get too uppity and learn to read, vote, and shoot guns and stuff. Or, worse yet, not have any baybeeeeez… lol

      • For most of history the majority of men where excluded from those things as well. Let’s try not to project our modern attitudes where they’re not a correct framework for understanding events.

  3. It makes sense on a tactical, but not (as other commentators have pointed out) a strategic, level. No group has better reflexes than teenage girls: check out the tennis circuit. Until the recent counter-revolution, the Libyans had an All-Girl Attack Battalion for just this reason. That, and the fact that it freaked out visiting Muslim rulers from the region.

  4. […] If you’re like me, you dreaded history class, and you’re about to stop reading this post right now with the very mention of it. But hold on… this is more awesome than a list of dead people and dates. This is a story of three-foot long razors, 3,000 amazons, and severed bodies. It is the story of how women became the most revered and vicious warriors in a country where they were otherwise forced to lead lives of quiet submission […]

  5. That teenage girl trope is nice, but Serena and Venus Williams once took on the 127th ranked man together after their first few major titles, and were soundly whomped. That ended any pretense they had of being able to keep up physically with elite men.

    • There are two problems. One is, that one match doesn’t say anything and there are more “battles of the sexes” in Tennis (remember King Vs. Riggs?) with different results. All in all, none of them matters, because you only get serious results in years of organized play. The second problem is, war isn’t organized, war has no rules, you can be as strong or agile as you will, if you get a bullet between your eyes, you are dead, if a blade hits your neck, you are pretty much done for. What yo ucan read here is as far fro being unrealistic as it gets.

      You should also look up Audie Murphy, the most decorated US soldier form the 2nd World War. Real fights and battles aren’t like boxing, they are open and everything is allowed and that means everyone can win, who hits the right spots first.

  6. […] The 3′-razor-wielding warrior-women of Dahomey. They skinned people alive with those things. Yowsers […]

  7. Pingback: Colonial Amazons: Women Soldiers of Dahomey and Siam – Pound Store Plastic Warriors

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