¹ Le Hérissé, A., L'ancien royaume du Dahomey: moeurs, religion, histoire (Paris, 1911), 67.Google Scholar Le Hérissé was the first author to identify the gbeto as the oldest amazon unit, but he wrongly credited their founding to Gezo. See also Prévaudeau, Marie-Madeleine, Abomey-la-mystique (Paris, 1936), 93–94Google Scholar; Polanyi, Karl, Dahomey and the Slave Trade (Seattle, 1966), 28Google Scholar; Maroukis, Thomas Constantine, “Warfare and Society in the Kingdom of Dahomey: 1818-1894” (Ph.D., Boston University, 1974), 108.Google Scholar

² Marti, Montserrat Palau, Le roi-dieu au Bénin (Paris, 1964), 141.Google Scholar

³ Lombard, Jacques, “The Kingdom of Dahomey” in West African Kingdoms in the Nineteenth Century, ed. Forde, Daryll and Kaberry, P.M. (London, 1967), 84.Google Scholar

⁴ Dunglas, Edouard, “Contribution à l'histoire du Moyen-Dahomey (royaumes d'Abomey, de Kétou et de Ouidah),” Etudes Dahoméennes (hereafter ED), 19 (1957), 159.Google Scholar

⁵ Glélè, Pogla K., “Le royaume du Dan-Hô-Min: Tradition orale et histoire écrite” (Master's thesis, Centre des archives d'outre-mer [hereafter CAOM], Aix-en-Provence), 78.Google Scholar

⁶ Cornevin, Robert, La République populaire du Bénin des origines dahoméennes à nos jours (Paris, 1981), 105–06.Google Scholar This book updates Cornevin's, Histoire du Dahomey of 1962.Google Scholar

⁷ A school of one, Paul Mimande, holds that Glele founded the amazons, thus betraying abysmal ignorance of a large body of testimony: Mimande, Paul, L'héritage de Béhanzin (Paris, 1898), 23.Google Scholar Paul Mimande was the pseudonym of Viscount Armand de la Loyère, acting governor of Dahomey in 1895-96. See d'Almeida-Topor, Hélène, Les amazones: une armée de femmes dans l'Afrique précoloniale (Paris, 1984), 167Google Scholar; Garcia, Luc, Le royaume du Daliomé face à la pénétration coloniale (1874-1894), (Paris, 1988), 245n31.Google Scholar

⁸ Also known as Ahanbé, Hãgbé, Hangbé, or Xãgbé, sometimes preceded by Tasi, Tassi, or Tassin.

⁹ Law, Robin, “The ‘Amazons’ of Dahomey,” Paideuma, 39 (1993), 250.Google Scholar See also Law, , The Slave Coast of West Africa, 1550-1750 (Oxford, 1991), 275n59.Google Scholar If by “late” he means the twentieth century, I doubt that anyone would bother to invent “a sort of mythical charter” for the amazons after they and the kingdom itself had gone out of existence. If late means nineteenth-century, one wonders why no European visitor reported the rationale.

¹⁰ Maire, Victor-Louis, Dahomey-Abomey: la dynastie dahoméenne. Les palais: leurs bas-reliefs (Besançon, 1905), 43.Google Scholar

¹¹ I bought one at the Abomey palace in 1994.

¹² Nzinga of Matamba, an outstanding warrior queen in seventeenth-century Angola, suffered a similar fate. Joseph C. Miller found in 1969 that local traditional histories, “which accurately preserve the titles of other seventeenth-century … rulers,” were “damningly silent” about her. “Nzinga of Matamba in a New Perspective,” JAH, 16(1975), 213, 213n20.Google Scholar

¹³ See Law, Robin, “History and Legitimacy: Aspects of the Use of the Past in Precolonial Dahomey,” HA, 15 (1988), 434–35Google Scholar, for a discussion of secret clan and royal traditions and their divulgence after the fall of the Dahomean state. See also Hérissé, Le, Ancien royaume, 8–9. 105, 272–73Google Scholar; Dunglas, , “Contribution,” 80–81.Google Scholar

¹⁴ Le Hérissé, , Ancien royaume, 6–7, 15.Google Scholar Most Anglophone authors leave the first accent mark off Le Hérissé's name because that's the way it appears on the cover and title page of his book. It was a typographical blooper. The name appears 47 other times in the book with both accent marks. Most Francophone authors instinctively correct the mistake. Auguste-Louis-René-Joseph Le Hérissé (1876-1953) served as a colonial official in Dahomey from 1901 to 1914, mainly as chief administrator of the Abomey cercle. He became so fluent in the Fon language, it was said, that blind men could not tell he was a white. He was able to interview Agbidinoukoun and other informants without the always risky mediation of an interpreter. His uncle, René-Félix Le Hérissé, a National Assembly deputy, visited Dahomey briefly in 1902 and wrote a book, Voyage au Dahomey et à la Côte d'Ivoire (Paris, 1903).Google Scholar After Auguste retired in 1924, he succeeded René as mayor of Antrain, their home town in Brittany. See Dictionnaire bio-biographique du Dahomey (Porto-Novo, 1969), 108–09Google Scholar; Hommes et destins (dictionnaire biographique d'Outre-Mer), (10 vols.: Paris, 1975–1995), 1:378.Google Scholar

¹⁵ Le Hérissé, , Ancien royaume, 291.Google Scholar

¹⁶ Ibid., 294-95.

¹⁷ Blanchély, , “Au Dahomey: premier voyage de M. Blanchély aîné, gérant de la factorerie de M. Régis, de Marseille, à Whydah (1848),” 2d part, Les Missions Catholiques, 23/1171 (13 novembre 1891), 547Google Scholar; Forbes, Frederick E., Dahomey and the Dahomans (2 vols.: London, 1851), 2:128, 131, 135CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Bouët, Auguste. “Le royaume de Dahomey,” 3d part, L'Illustration, 10/492 (31 juillet 1852), 74Google Scholar; Nardin, Jean-Claude, “La reprise des relations franco-dahoméennes au XIXe siècle: la mission d'Auguste Bouët à la cour d'Abomey (1851),” Cahiers d'Etudes Africaines, 7 (1967), 113, 113n3CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Burton, Richard F., A Mission to Gelele, King of Dahome, ed., Newbury, C.W. (New York, 1966), 99, 102n35Google Scholar (in which he gives the meaning of Dosu), 312; Burton, , “Notes on the Dahoman,” in Selected Papers on Anthropology, Travel and Exploration, ed., Penzer, N.M. (London, 1924), 112Google Scholar; Skertchly, J.A., Dahomey as It Is (London, 1874), 449–50, 518Google Scholar; Brunet, L. and Giethlen, Louis, Dahomey et dépendances (Paris, 1900), 59.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

¹⁸ Musée de l'Homme inventory no. M.H.31.36.3.

¹⁹ Waterlot, Em. G., Les bas-reliefs des bâtiments royaux d'Abomey (Dahomey), (Paris, 1926), plate XXIIIGoogle Scholar; Le Hérissé, , Ancien royaume, 363, 364, figure 1Google Scholar; Adandé, Alexandre, Les récades des rois du Dahomey (Dakar, 1962), 68 and plateGoogle Scholar; Glélé, Maurice Ahanhanzo, Le Danxome: du pouvoir aja à la nation fon (Paris, 1974), 52.Google Scholar

²⁰ Hazoumé, Paul, Doguicimi (Paris, 1938), 20Google Scholar; Anilo, G … (probably Glele), “Histoire des rois du Dahomey,” Grands Lacs, n.s. 88/90 (1 juillet 1946), 47, 48Google Scholar; Coissy, Anatole, “Un règne de femme dans l'ancien royaume d'Abomey,” ED, 2 (1949), 5–8Google Scholar; Mercier, Paul, Les ase du musée d'Abomey (Dakar, 1952), 22, 44Google Scholar; Mercier, , “The Fon of Dahomey” in Forde, Daryll, ed., African Worlds (London, 1954), 232Google Scholar; Akindélé, Adolphe and Aguessy, Cyrille, Le Dahomey (Paris, 1955), 20Google Scholar; Sossouhounto, F., “Les anciens rois de la dynastie d'Abomey,” ED, 13 (1955), 30Google Scholar; Dunglas, , “Contribution,” 87, 96–97, 99Google Scholar; Newbury, C.W., The Western Slave Coast and Its Rulers (Oxford, 1961), 14Google Scholar; Adandé, , Récades, 68Google Scholar; Cornevin, , République populaire, 95, 100–02, 134Google Scholar; Marti, Palau, Roidieu, 119, 119n1, 157Google Scholar; Argyle, W.J., The Fon of Dahomey (Oxford, 1966), 12Google Scholar; Akinjogbin, I.A., Dahomey and Us Neighbours, 1708-1818 (Cambridge, 1967), 60–62Google Scholar; Constant-Ernest d'Oliveira, Th., La visite du Musée d'Histoire d'Abomey (Abomey, 1970), 23Google Scholar; Pliya, Jean, Histoire: Dahomey, Afrique Occidentale (Issy-les-Moulineaux, France, 1970), 58, 59Google Scholar; CAOM, SOM-D 3538, Glélè, Pogla K., “Le royaume du Dan-Hô-Min: tradition orale et histoire écrite,” (Master's thesis, 1971), 46–47Google Scholar; Glélé, , Danxome, 52, 89, 91Google Scholar; Obichere, Boniface I., “Change and Innovation in the Administration of the Kingdom of Dahomey,” Journal of African Studies, I (1974), 245Google Scholar; Obichere, , “Women and Slavery in the Kingdom of Dahomey,” Revue Française d'Histoire d'Outre-Mer, 45 (1978), 5–6CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Bay, Edna G., “The Royal Women of Abomey” (Ph.D., Boston University, 1977), 125–26Google Scholar; Bay, , “On the Trail of the Bush King: a Dahomean Lesson in the Use of Evidence, HA, 6 (1979), 7Google Scholar; Degbelo, Amélie, “Les amazones du Danxomè, 1645-1900” (Master's thesis, Université Nationale du Bénin, 1979), 33, 36–37, 39Google Scholar; van Dantzig, Albert, Les Hollandais sur la côte de Guinée à l'époque de l'essor de l'Ashanti et du Dahomey 1680-1740 (Paris, 1980), 222Google Scholar; Almeida-Topor, , Amazones, 34, 36Google Scholar; Garcia, , Royaume, 131Google Scholar; Blier, Suzanne Preston, “The Path of the Leopard: Motherhood and Majesty in Early Danhomè,” JAH, 36 (1995), 391, 414.CrossRefGoogle Scholar Of all the above sources, only Akinjogbin challenges the dual kingship tradition, but he does not question Ahangbé's historical existence.

²¹ Bay, , “Royal Women,” 125n4, 126nn2, 3.Google Scholar

²² Le Hérissé, , Ancien royaume, 295.Google Scholar

²³ Coissy, , “Règne de femme,” 5–8.Google Scholar

²⁴ Dunglas, , “Contribution,” 97.Google Scholar See also Cornevin, , République populaire, 100.Google Scholar

²⁵ Glélé, , Danxome, 89.Google Scholar

²⁶ Bay, , “Royal Women,” 126, 126n3.Google Scholar

²⁷ Degbelo, , “Amazones,” 35.Google Scholar The Ouéménou are said to have been so impressed by Akaba's female militia that they started one of their own but it fizzled out.

²⁸ Ibid., 174.

²⁹ Anonymous, “Les panthères noires du roi Ghézo,” Calao, no. 15 (juin 1977), 25Google Scholar, cited in Degbelo, , “Amazones,” 35–36Google Scholar, and Almeida-Topor, , Amazones, 33–34.Google Scholar

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³¹ PRO, FO 84/827, Fanshawe to Admiralty, 19 July 1850, enclosing Forbes's 139-page journal. The statement is on p. 71 (my pagination).

³² Degbelo, , “Amazones,” 36, 37, 39, 40.Google Scholar See also Garcia, , Royaume, 131.Google Scholar

³³ Bosman, William, A New and Accurate Description of the Coast of Guinea (London, 1705), 366a–67.Google Scholar

³⁴ Law, Robin, “Royal Monopoly and Private Enterprise in the Atlantic Trade: the Case of Dahomey,” JAH, 18 (1977), 556–61CrossRefGoogle Scholar; idem., “Dahomey and the Slave Trade: Reflections on the Historiography of the Rise of Dahomey,” JAH, 27 (1986), 264-65; idem., “Ideologies of Royal Power: the Dissolution and Reconstruction of Political Authority on the ‘Slave Coast’, 1680-1750,” Africa, 57 (1987), 325-26, 331-32, 335-37; idem., Slave Coast, 70-115.

³⁵ CAOM, DFC, Côtes d'Afrique, no. 104, carton 75, “Relation du Royaume de Judas en Guinée, De son Gouvernement, des moeurs de ses habitans, de leur Religion, Et du Negoce qui sy fait,” 25 (my pagination).

³⁶ Ibid., 84.

³⁷ Des Marchais' account can be found in two places: Labat, Jean-Baptiste, Voyage du chevalier Des Marchais en Guinée, isles voisines, et à Cayenne, fait en 1725, 1726 & 1727 (4 vols.: Paris, 1730)Google Scholar, and in the mariner's original manuscript, “Journal du Voiage du Guinée et Cayenne Par Le Chevalier Des Marchais Capitaine Comandant La fregatte de la Compagnie des Indes, L'Expédition Pendant les Années 1724, 1725 et 1726,” which survives as Fonds Français 24223 in the Bibliothèque Nationale. Curiously, our information about first- and second-class royal wives comes from Labat (2:79), not Des Marchais directly. Des Marchais had visited Whydah in 1704 and a journal from that period (Add. MSS 19560) is in the British Library. Paul Hair has advised me that it promises but fails to include material on Whydah, and he suggests that Labat may have had access to that missing portion. Alternatively, Labat may have had opportunities to consult Des Marchais after the latter's return to France. See Nardin, Jean-Claude, “Que savons-nous du chevalier Des Marchais?” in Daget, Serge, ed., De la traile à l'esclavage (2 vols.: Nantes, 1988), 1:344.Google Scholar Labat and the Paris MS. are in general accord on the police role of third-class wives. See Labat, , Voyage, 2:96–98, 251Google Scholar, and Marchais, Des, “Journal,” f. 48^v, f. 60^r.Google Scholar

³⁸ Argyle, , Fon, 82, 82n3.Google Scholar The sources are Skertchly, , Dahomey, 48–49Google Scholar, and Quénum, Maximilien, Au pays des Fons, (Paris, 1938), 23.Google Scholar

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⁴¹ Antoine-Edmé Pruneau de Pommegorge (a/k/a Joseph Pruneau), Description de la Nigritie (Amsterdam, 1789), 162.Google Scholar

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⁵⁴ See note 52. Dunglas, , “Contribution,” 160Google Scholar, says that Agaja's use of women against Whydah “as regular troops” forming “the reserve and rear guard” was “a real success: this lesson was not lost on the Dahomeans.”

⁵⁵ Law, Robin, “A Neglected Account of the Dahomian Conquest of Whydah (1727): the ‘Relation de la Guerre de Juda’ of the Sieur Ringard of Nantes,” HA, 15 (1988), 321–38.Google Scholar

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⁵⁷ Ibid., 335n17. As for the children, Law, ibid., 335-36n18, cites references in Snelgrave, (New Account, 78)Google Scholar and Smith, William (A New Voyage to Guinea ([London, 1744], 192)Google Scholar to boy apprentice warriors.

⁵⁸ Law, , “Further Light,” 219Google Scholar, with emphasis added.

⁵⁹ Ibid., 217.

⁶⁰ Ibid., 222n18; Law, , “‘Amazons‘,” 249.Google Scholar

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⁶⁶ Law, , “‘Amazons’,” 250.Google Scholar

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⁷⁵ Ibid., 175-77.

⁷⁶ Akinjogbin, , Dahomey, 162, 162n3, 163, 163n1.Google Scholar The documents are PRO, T 70/1162, William's Fort, Whydah, Day Book, 2, 24, 27 January 1779. See also Law, , Oyo, 167, 167n118.Google Scholar

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⁷⁸ Pires' exact phrase (Viagem, 68) is “mais de 800 mulheres: esquadrâo de sua familia, que sempre o acompanha para qualquer parte.” “Esquadrão” once designated a Portuguese infantry unit.

⁷⁹ Brue, , “Voyage fait en 1843, dans le royaume de Dahomey, par M. Brue, agent du comptoir français établi à Whydah,” Revue Coloniale, 7 (septembre 1845), 63.Google Scholar Some three years before Brue, British trader Thomas Hutton visited Abomey and gauged the strength of the king's female “body-guard” at an even 1,000. That, at least, was the recollection of his uncle, William Mackintosh Hutton, who regretably lost Thomas' detailed written account of the trip, PP 1842 (551), xi.1, Report from the House of Commons Select Committee on the West Coast of Africa, Minutes of Evidence, Button, W.M., 22 July 1842, 673.Google Scholar

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⁸³ Maire, , Dahomey, plate XI, 30–31.Google Scholar The object of such boiling was surely to obtain bone trophies.

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⁸⁷ Wilmot, A.P.E., “Despatches from Commodore Wilmot Respecting His Visit to the King of Dahomey in December 1862 and January 1863,” Irish University Press Series of British Parliamentary Papers, Colonies: Africa 50 (Shannon, 1971), 438.Google Scholar Regarding the figure of 5,000 amazons, he appears to be quoting himself. The sexual imbalance must have been accentuated by the preference for males in the Atlantic slave trade.

⁸⁸ Le Hérissé, , Ancien royaume, 325.Google Scholar