Originally posted on Instagram 19th March 2022

Who were they?

The Dahomey Amazons—traditionally called the N’Nonmiton—were an army of women in the Kingdom of Dahomey, present-day Benin.

Their origins are somewhat murky, but there were records of women warriors in the region from the eighteenth century. Originally, they were less of an army than the king’s bodyguard—there was a rule forbidding other men to reside in the palace, so permanent guards had to be women.

They started as just 40, but at their peak they numbered around 6000. All Amazons were ahosi—king’s wives—and as such they were afforded the utmost respect.

‘warrioresses … fight with extreme valor, always ahead of the other troops. They are outstandingly brave … well trained for combat and very disciplined.‘ – a French soldier about the Dahomey Amazons

Organisation

Divided into several corps with commanders, uniforms, weapons, and traditions.

Specialist units:

• Blunderbuss-women
• Elephant hunters – the bravest
• Razor women – infantry
• Archers – used mainly as scouts
• Reapers – the most feared; preferred the close-up kill and used machetes that cut a victim clean in half

The women were put through vigorous training which included scaling a wall of thorns without showing pain and ‘insensitivity training’—killing captives.

In 1889, a French officer watched a teenage recruit named Nanisca as she approached a prisoner and “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.”

‘Transformation into Men’

Dahomey Amazons were not proponents of women’s rights; they viewed their status as soldiers as transforming them into men.

One Amazon said that, after she had killed and disemboweled her first victim, she was told ‘You are a man’.

Foreign enemies, however, often regarded the Amazons as superior to the male soldiers:

“their appearance is more martial than the generality of the men; and if undertaking a campaign, I should prefer the females to the male soldiers of this country” (John Duncan, 1845)

The End

The Amazons were undoubtedly fierce fighters, and they were said to terrify the French. They used any method of killing they could—one soldier witnessed an Amazon tearing a man’s throat out with her teeth.

But the Second Franco-Dahomean War was their death knell. Their numbers were greatly reduced after several defeats, and they would never recover.

It is said that after one of the final battles, of 434 Amazons fighting, just 17 survived.

The war ended in November 1892 when the King of Dahomey set fire to his palaces and fled. Both the kingdom and the Amazons were over.

“If soldiers go to war they should conquer or die.”

Motto of the Women Warriors of Dahomey

Sources:

• Man, John, Amazons: The Real Warrior Woman of the Ancient World (London: Corgi Books, 2017)
• LAW, R, ‘The ‘Amazons’ of Dahomey’, Paideuma, 39 (1993), 245–60
• https://face2faceafrica.com/article/the-legendary-dahomey-amazons-are-the-real-life-all-womens-army-in-black-panther
• https://allthatsinteresting.com/dahomey-amazons
• https://www.panafricanalliance.com/women-warriors-of-dahomey/

See also:

• Blog post: Nusaybah bint Ka’ab
• Blog post: Black Agnes Randolph
• Bitesize History: Summary