Women wielding swords/daggers/bows in the past

[migueldiaz]

Originally Posted by Luc LEFEBVRE

Somes pics of african (Congo) women or young girls with knives, in ceremonial use.

Thanks for the interesting pics, Luc

Some of the women have large breasts as is obvious. Though the geographic setting is different, just the same the fact appears to disprove the urban legend that the right breast of Amazons are cut off for practical purposes.

Like for instance we read about the myth[?] in the Wikipedia article on Amazons:

"This word [Amazon] is probably derived from an Iranian ethnonym *ha-mazan-, 'warriors'.[citation needed] A connected word is probably Hesychius of Alexandria's gloss ἁμαζακάραν· πολεμεῖν. Πέρσαι (hamazakaran: "to make war" (Persian), containing the Indo-Iranian root kar- 'make' also in kar-ma).[citation needed] Among Classical Greeks, amazon was given a naive etymology as from a- (privative) + mazos, 'without breast', connected with an etiological tradition that Amazons had their right breast cut off or burnt out, so they would be able to use a bow more freely and throw spears without the physical limitation and obstruction;[1] there is no indication of such a practice in works of art, in which the Amazons are always represented with both breasts, although the right is frequently covered."

xxx

"Hippocrates describes them as: 'They have no right breasts...for while they are yet babies their mothers make red-hot a bronze instrument constructed for this very purpose and apply it to the right breast and cauterize it, so that its growth is arrested, and all its strength and bulk are diverted to the right shoulder and right arm.' (See breast ironing, a current practice in which breast growth is deliberately stunted.)"

Perhaps those who know archery can also give us their insights.

[fearn]

I'm not much of an archer, but I would note that in kyudo, male archers sometimes take off their left sleeves and bare their left breast. I assume this is so that the cloth doesn't tangle in the long sleeve, since they are bracing their bows with the left hand and drawing with the right.

Note that I have yet to see a picture of a woman doing this, but I'd guess that, if a woman wasn't too well endowed, she could do the same thing to clear her arm to draw the bow. This would result in having one bare breast and one covered, leading to Hippocrates' description. Personally, I'd bet that most women are too intelligent to do this, but who knows. Maybe the amazons did this during archery competitions or something, to mess with the aim of their male competitors.

F

[migueldiaz]

Thanks for the comments, Fearn.

I was watching the other day the kyudo episode of the 'Samurai Spirit' [documentary] on NHK. And yes, having just learned what kyudo is, they do bare one part of the chest to facilitate the arrow shooting.

Which indeed makes one wonder whether perhaps the [Amazons] story is true.

In the 180 BC relief below, one of the Amazons is definitely showing one bare breast. And it seems to have been mastectomized (or was the relief just abraded over time?).