Who Were the Amazons?

Author(s): K. A. Bisset
Source: Greece & Rome, Vol. 18, No. 2 (Oct., 1971), pp. 150-151
Published by: Cambridge University Press on behalf of The Classical Association
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/642649
Accessed: 17-05-2015 21:29 UTC

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 WHO WERE THE AMAZONS?
By K. A. BISSET
L EGEND informs us that the Amazons were women, that they were
not only warlike but successful above average as warriors, and that
they had no breasts. The masculinity of the second and third character-
istics ought to make us highly suspicious of the accuracy of the first,
and the explanations provided by the ancient Greeks do not bear any
very close examination.
If there existed a race possessing such a bizarre genetic constitution,
however it may have evolved, it would rapidly lose it by continual out-
breeding with normal males, which is what is supposed to have happened
in the case of the Amazons. Whereas the amputation of the breasts for
archery purposes; ugh! Even if a pre-aseptic culture could have achieved
this feat, without a forty per cent mortality rate from gangrene, it is
psychologically most improbable, and, in any case, quite pointless, since
there is no anatomical objection to women drawing the bow, even the
longbow, let alone the shorter form depicted in Greek art. It is obviously
nothing but a bright idea, to explain the fact that these 'women' warriors
were unaccountably deficient in mammary equipment. It is also in line
with the distinct sex-sadistic element that pervades the whole legend.
Who then were the Amazons? My suggestion is that the legend
derives from the first encounter of Europeans with a beardless small-
statured race of bow-toting mongoloids. There is nothing especially
original in the general idea. The explorers of South America saw armed,
beardless, long-haired, small-statured Amerindians on the banks of the
Amazon, and named the river accordingly; the Vikings in Eastern
Canada and Baffin Land described their first Eskimos as women, accord-
ing to the sagas; and P. C. Wren writes an amusing account of a large,
drunken Scotsman, in what was then French Indo-China, attempting
to make violent love to a long-haired Tonkinese sergeant, and almost
losing his own life at the hands of the outraged sous-officier.
It is necessary to remember that, in classical times, the nomadic riders
of the plains, in the areas bordering on the territories of the Greeks
and their immediate forebears, were not orientals, but europeanoids.
Russian excavations of the frozen tombs of southern Siberia make it
quite plain that, even so far East, the inhabitants during the first centuries
of our era were Scythians, not Huns or Mongols. When the Huns
irrupted into Europe and the Near East, some at least of the horror that
they caused was due to their strangeness. Nobody had seen such a man

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 WHO WERE THE AMAZONS? 151
before. It is of incidental interest that the Huns, instead of being credited
with amputating their breasts, are supposed to have gashed their faces
to prevent their beards growing; presumably, they had deeply lined
faces, like modern Tibetans, and no beards.
Lastly there is no reason to suppose that the first mongoloids to clash
with the europeanoid steppe-dwellers were necessarily horsemen, al-
though they were almost certainly bowmen. The bow is a universal
component of the culture of this branch of homo sapiens, from the Oxus
to the Orinoco, but the horse is limited in distribution, and seems to
have been acquired, in China at least, from the Indo-European chariot
culture, exactly as it arrived in Europe and the Near East. Probably
it was only ;afterthey acquired the life-skills of the plainsman that the
mongoloids were able to drive the europeanoids from the steppes.
It may be presumed that the Europeans eventually learned that the
Amazons were not exclusively feminine, and the legend certainly tells
us that they fought in company with male allies, which may be another
post hoc explanation. Possibly the 'Amazon' women fought alongside
their men, or accompanied them into battle.

NOTES ON CONTRIBUTORS

W. GEOFFREY ARNOTT:Professorof Greek, University of Leeds.

GERARD B. LAVERY:Associate Professor of Classics, The College of the Holy
Cross, Worcester, Massachusetts, U.S.A.
J. V. LUCE: Fellow of Trinity College Dublin and Reader in Classics in
Dublin University.
K. A. BISSET: Head of the Department of Bacteriology, University of
Birmingham.
J. C. DAVIES::Lecturer in Classics, University of Sheffield.
R. G. USSHER: Senior Lecturer in Greek and Latin, Magee University
College, New University of Ulster.
DAVID SINGLETON: was a graduate student at Carleton University, Canada.
J. F. G. GORNALL: is in partnership as a solicitor in Chester.
D. M. GAUNT: Senior Lecturer in Classics, University of Bristol.
JOHN PERCIVAL: Lecturer in Ancient History, University College Cardiff.
R. SHAW-SMITH: Assistant Master, Bradford Grammar School.
CHRISTINE M. KING: Research Assistant, National Library of Scotland.

3871.2 M

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