"The
Amazons then, as they appear in the Homeric poems, are a horde
of
warrior women who strive against men, and with whom conflict is dangerous
even to the bravest of heroes."
"Ares, however, is quite steadily named by Greek writers as the father of the Amazons in general, and Harmonia, as their mother."
Women ruled their society, and two queens, one for defense and one for domestic affairs, shared the country, but they made numerous conquest expeditions into neighboring territories. They fought both on foot and on horseback, carrying crescent shields and wielding spears, bows, battle axes and swords.
"...we find the characteristic weapons of the Amazons, the pelta or shield shaped like an ivy leaf or a crescent moon, a bow and arrows, a short sword and the battle-axe." The labrys, or double-bladed axe comes from the Goddess Artemis.
"Their costume is usually a short tunic girt up for action, frequently open at one side in order to display the woman's figure. The effort is always, not to show them to be foreigner's who wear a fantastic garb, but to indicate plainly that they are women warring with men."
Long narrow trousers, long coat/tunic, and soft, long boots, panther skin capes and armor.
florence mary bennett-Religious
/cults Associated with the Amazons
The Amazon does not mime the male principle but
denies it in order to
unite the two fundamental forms of
life in paradisical
harmony which had been divided by
the Great Mother.
Today, Amazon kingdoms like that of the Thermondontines
may be understood as the necessary creation of fiery asceticism, a heroic
method for the formation of passionate individuality of a new order.
H. Diner
Some scholars have theorized that the Centaurs, legendary
half human/half horse warriors of Greek mythology were actually descriptions
of Amazons on horseback.
...reported by Herodotus: Amazons tattooed themselves.
Amazon women covered themselves with geometric and animal motifs.
The Greeks reported that the Amazons were great tamers
of such wild animals as lion, panthers, deer, bulls, goats, rams, eagles
and falcons.
Pausanias, Description of Greece, 8.22.5
Pausanias also saw and described the religious sanctuary built by the Greeks of Stymphalos and dedicated to the goddess Artemis. He reported that the temple had carvings of the Stymphalian birds up near its roof. Standing behind the temple, he saw marble statues of maidens with the legs of birds.
Amazons were strong believers in the mystical and of supernatural energies.
Amazons are the first to mount horses and to use iron.
(Lysias, Funeral Oration 4)
"The Greek writers seemed to have no doubt that women could destroy whole populations of adult males, and there was no effective defense against them."
Barbara Walker,The Woman's Encyclopedia of Myths and Secrets
Of all the African Amazons, only the Gorgons seem to have maintained a pure Amazon state.
The Amazons were proud, capable women who firmly worshipped the Goddess. They bowed to no man for any reason. If history has recorded them as war-like and man-haters, consider that men of strictly patriarchal cultures persecuted and killed them for their beliefs, then wrote the histories. The Amazons refused to submit to the loss of their freedom and rights, therefore they were considered to be dangerous and unnatural. Their extinction was brought about by the Greeks and other patriarchal societies because of the Amazon's fierce defense of the matriarchy and the rights of women.
D.J.Conway
Every woman needs to learn how to be a Warrior/Amazon
when necessary.
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