Real Warrior Women By Leigh Michaels | October 6th, 2006
The Amazons – man killing, but sexy warrior women – fact or fiction? Where did the ancient Greek historian Herodotus come up with the idea of warrior women? Was it really some deep-seated psychological outpouring born in Greek misogyny? Or could it possibly be – his gods forbid! – a simple reporting of a well known and attested to phenomenon? For most of modern history, in fact for most of history in general, the idea of women warriors has been treated scathingly. A society of warrior women, whether literary as history, drama, or epic poetry, or portrayed in numerous art mediums was dismissed as either a psychoses or a fantasy. Recently, however, many interesting things have come to light; namely the tombs of females buried with weapons of war, and the first serious studies of tales of female battle leaders from nearly every culture.
The tombs would appear to prove that there were heavily armed women on the Eurasian steppe. In the Ukraine, German archaeologist Renate Rolle (whose book The World of the Scythians is available in English in most libraries and can be purchased used online) has found that nearly a quarter of all Scythian warrior graves contain the skeletons of females in association with the weapons. The recent work of the American, Jeannine Davis-Kimball on excavations 1,000 miles from the Ukraine in Russia and Kazakhstan (whose book Warrior Women, is likewise available at public libraries and can be purchased used online) has discovered that the Sycthians’ neighbors, and eventual supplanters, the Sauromatians/Sarmatians, show numerous women warriors entombed with great honor. Both archaeologists point out that the semi-nomadic herding lifestyle of the steppe peoples make the concept of women being capable of defending themselves and their possessions not only reasonable, but quite likely necessary. Both Rolle and Davis-Kimball define these women by their grave goods as member of their respective cultures. There would appear to no evidence that the female warriors are of a separate tribal identity.
So Herodotus was not indulging in pure fantasy. There were most definitely women warriors on the steppe, and the Scythians he spoke with were not just having a little joke on the Greek foreigner. Herodotus’ belief that these women were a completely separate tribe of people apparently stems from a misunderstanding of not only the culture of the Scyths and Sauromatians, but a failure to grasp the concept of a warrior society within a tribe. A problem shared with early commentators on the customs of the Amerindians of the North American prairies, who initially did not really understand the function of inner-tribal societies like the Dog Soldiers of the Cheyenne, or the warrior societies of the Sioux (Lakota) like the Fox Lodge to which Crazy Horse belonged.
As for the tradition of women warriors, perhaps the best known are the ancient Briton Boudicea, and the medieval Frenchwoman Joan of Arc. The stories of this pair we know to be true, so why is it that the idea of military females is so spurned? A large number of very serious writers, historians and anthropologists alike, have examined the tradition of martial females. Writers like Antonia Fraser (Warrior Queens), Joseph and Frances Gies (Women in the Middle Ages), and most recently, David E. Jones (Women Warriors: A History – all three of these titles, and numerous others not mentioned here, are still widely available) have examined multiple traditions of martial women, finding that every culture in the world – though all time periods of history – report tales of highly efficient military women. The persistent idea that women warriors are a fantasy is not supported by the facts at anytime in history. In reality, the exact opposite is the basic fact of the matter.
And the deep seated psychological issues that predisposed a typical Greek male, Herodotus, to buy into the idea of capable female warriors? Simple pride. Herodotus claimed Halicarnassos as his place of birth, a major city that was part of the Persian dominated kingdom of Caria. The ruler of Caria when Herodotus was born served as one of the Persian King Xerxes’ naval commanders in his great invasion of Greece. In fact, the Carian was the only naval commander to oppose the attack of the Greek fleet as Salamis, believing it to be a trap. A trap it was, and the great Carian commander was not only proven correct, but was, incidentally, the only one of Xerxes’ naval commanders to survive the battle. A feat for which the Carian ruler received great renown and reward from Xerxes himself. The war-like Carian was also well known for defending the kingdom from predatory neighboring petty kings with great daring, bravery, and skill. The name of the great Carian war leader, commander extraordinaire, on land and on sea? Queen Artemisia I.
by Leigh Michaels