Koffy Brown
05-29-2003, 02:29 PM
AFRIKAN WOMEN WARRIORS & THE SUBJECT OF LAND:
According to Greek accounts, the earliest AMAZONS came from LIBYA (then a name for most of North Afrika.) They wore red leather & carried crescent-shaped shields. It was these Libyan AMAZONS, they said, who later founded cities & temples in the Aegean & Anatolia.
At a much later period, the AMAZONS of DAHOMEY were crack all-female
troops, all female, who also served as royal body guards. They were also priestesses & wore crescent moon crowns.
The Hausa had a number of warrior queens, notably AMINA of Zau Zau.
A woman named BAZAO-TURUNKU led warriors & founded a town south of ZARIA.
Nupe women warriors called ISADSHI-KOSESHI fought as fiercely as the
men, opposing invasions of the Fulbe conquerors who raided the Nupe for cattle & slaves, especially women.
JAMAICA
NYABINGHI, the "hidden queen" fought to free AFRIKANS from English
slavery & rule. Also called QUEEN MUHMUSA or TAHTAHME, she inspired the NAYABINGHI underpinnings of RASTAFARIANISM.
NANNY of the MAROONS was gorn in GHANA, & folk history says that she
came to Jamaica w/ the express purpose of becoming a high priestess & leader of her people, never having been a slave. She led the eastern MAROONS based in Moreton, & forged an alliance w/ another group led by CUDJOE. (The name MAROONS comes from the Spanish cimarron, meaning "gone back to the wild.")
The Jamaican MAROONS were the first people to force the english to sign
a treaty w/ their subjects, on 1938, 1, MARCH. The lands conceded in this treaty formed a base for the MAROON'S independent survival. One of these communities was named NANNYTOWN after the female GHANAIAN leader. MAROON country was so feared by the english that it became
known as the "LAND OF LOOK-BEHIND."
AFRIKAN "AMERICAN" WOMEN BEAT BACK SLAVECATCHERS
In the summer of 1848, eight or ten people made it across the Ohio river
in their northward flight from slavery. The slave catchers tracked them into town, but the boutny they were after turned out to be elusive:
"The women began to gather from adjoining houses until the AMAZONS were about eqal to the [slave-hunters]--the former w/ shovels, tongs, washboards & rolling pins; the latter w/ revolvers, sword-canes & bowie-knives. Finally the beseigers decamped, leaving the AMAZONS in possession of the field, amid the jeers & loud huzzahs of the crowd."
--Report from THE NORTH STAR, an Afrikan-"American paper out of
Cincinnati, 1848, 11, AUGUST. (For more, see Dorothy Sterling's book SPEAK OUT IN THUNDER TONES.)
GHANA
"If you the men of ASHANTI will not go forward, then we will. We the
women will. I shall call upon you my fellow women. We will fight the white men. We will fight until the last of us falls in the battlefield."
--Ya Asantewa, Ashanti Queen who led the resistence to British colonial
rule in Ghana. She succeeded in the short run, but the Ashanti were heavily outgunned.
~~~~~
Source: My E-Mail
According to Greek accounts, the earliest AMAZONS came from LIBYA (then a name for most of North Afrika.) They wore red leather & carried crescent-shaped shields. It was these Libyan AMAZONS, they said, who later founded cities & temples in the Aegean & Anatolia.
At a much later period, the AMAZONS of DAHOMEY were crack all-female
troops, all female, who also served as royal body guards. They were also priestesses & wore crescent moon crowns.
The Hausa had a number of warrior queens, notably AMINA of Zau Zau.
A woman named BAZAO-TURUNKU led warriors & founded a town south of ZARIA.
Nupe women warriors called ISADSHI-KOSESHI fought as fiercely as the
men, opposing invasions of the Fulbe conquerors who raided the Nupe for cattle & slaves, especially women.
JAMAICA
NYABINGHI, the "hidden queen" fought to free AFRIKANS from English
slavery & rule. Also called QUEEN MUHMUSA or TAHTAHME, she inspired the NAYABINGHI underpinnings of RASTAFARIANISM.
NANNY of the MAROONS was gorn in GHANA, & folk history says that she
came to Jamaica w/ the express purpose of becoming a high priestess & leader of her people, never having been a slave. She led the eastern MAROONS based in Moreton, & forged an alliance w/ another group led by CUDJOE. (The name MAROONS comes from the Spanish cimarron, meaning "gone back to the wild.")
The Jamaican MAROONS were the first people to force the english to sign
a treaty w/ their subjects, on 1938, 1, MARCH. The lands conceded in this treaty formed a base for the MAROON'S independent survival. One of these communities was named NANNYTOWN after the female GHANAIAN leader. MAROON country was so feared by the english that it became
known as the "LAND OF LOOK-BEHIND."
AFRIKAN "AMERICAN" WOMEN BEAT BACK SLAVECATCHERS
In the summer of 1848, eight or ten people made it across the Ohio river
in their northward flight from slavery. The slave catchers tracked them into town, but the boutny they were after turned out to be elusive:
"The women began to gather from adjoining houses until the AMAZONS were about eqal to the [slave-hunters]--the former w/ shovels, tongs, washboards & rolling pins; the latter w/ revolvers, sword-canes & bowie-knives. Finally the beseigers decamped, leaving the AMAZONS in possession of the field, amid the jeers & loud huzzahs of the crowd."
--Report from THE NORTH STAR, an Afrikan-"American paper out of
Cincinnati, 1848, 11, AUGUST. (For more, see Dorothy Sterling's book SPEAK OUT IN THUNDER TONES.)
GHANA
"If you the men of ASHANTI will not go forward, then we will. We the
women will. I shall call upon you my fellow women. We will fight the white men. We will fight until the last of us falls in the battlefield."
--Ya Asantewa, Ashanti Queen who led the resistence to British colonial
rule in Ghana. She succeeded in the short run, but the Ashanti were heavily outgunned.
~~~~~
Source: My E-Mail