The Columbian. [volume] (Bloomsburg, Pa.) 1866-1910, 1871-01-20
Women as Warriors.

The Partisan women are actually arm
ing and organizing for the defense OF
the ramparts of the city-one hundred
thousand strong, or weak, as the case
may be-under the military title of
''The Amazons of the Seine" They are
to dress in sort of a rough Bloomor
costume, and to be armed with light
muskets carrying two hundred yards,
with cartridge boxes, ammunition and
equipments. The first battalion of
twelve hundred are now being drilled
by retired officer.
If thestartling project should actually
be carried out to practical effective
ness, it will certainly present new
picture to the civilized world of this
century. Yet it will not be entirely
new. The King Of Siam at this present
moment has body-guard of four hun
dred women, armed with rifles and
lances. When the invincible Dahomian
army marched upon Abeokuta in 17jl,
they numbered ten thousand men and
six thousand women. The womel were
placed in front at the critical hour of
assault, and thousand of their brave
were left dead before the walls. And
do we not read that the wives of tho
ancient Britons mingled in the wars
fearlessly, and rushed to battle at the
side of their husbands and brothers?
The Spartan women who strung their
braided hair upon their husbands battle
bows were not the first women of war;
nor was Joan and Moll Pitcher the last.
If Diodorus is to be believed, the Asiatic
Amazons, who were wont to hover
among the mountains of Caucasus not
only learned to fight, but they monopo-
lized the business. They strangled nine
boys out of ten at the moment of birth
and sent all the girls to the Military
Academy. They drove their husbands
and other masculine parasites to the
caves of the earth and when these gen.
tlemen timidly emerged to break their
prolonged fast, they were hunted like
so many rabbits. The women MARCHED
to battle under their chosen queen, and
overrun and subdued the whole of Asia.
They whipped Thesseus, and put the
Greeks to flight And didn't the Afri-
can Amazons Of Antiquity subdue the
Gorgons and Atlantes-whoever they
were? In fact, if the profane history
of five thousand years ago is worth
anything, the women of that day were
accustomed to "strike from the shoul-
der" in fashion that was really ter
rife.
And in the latter days, ferocious
women of war have appeared from
time to time. In South America,
around the confluence of the Japura
with the Amazon, the traveller Oralano,
in 1910, found well equipped and pow
erful republic of women, whose fierce
feminine army successfully opposed
European soldiers in battle. No men
were permitted to live in the nation,
but the men of the adjacent countries
were received and entertained with
much hospitality in April of each year.
t AT the beginning of the festivities, the
= Queens chose their fayorite gallants
= from the royal guests. The male chill
dren were drowned, but the girls were
g carefully reared for the army. The
women built their own houses, killed
their own game, made their own slight
, clothing, and found a "helpmeet" quite
. unnecessary. They had five temples o.
the Sun, built Of stone and georgeously
= plated with gold They flourished ant
maintained their independence for sew
eral hundred years, as is attested by thu
l., narratives of all vigilant travellers from
| Orleans to Humboldt.