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Amazons

• Message 1. 

  Posted by Aloof Nudist (U1727083) on Thursday, 13th October 2005

  I always thought the Amazons were a (probably mythical) race of female warriors who once lived in the jungles of what is now Brazil. This would explain why the largest river system on the South American continent bears that name.
  
  Then I saw, on a program on the History channel, that they were an actual race in Europe who were routed by the ancient Greeks and wound up in Mongolia! The fact that there are blonde haired, hazel eyed children in the remotest mountains of Mongolia made one ethnologist think they were perhpas the descendants of the Amazons! Is any of this true or just good TV entertainment?
  

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• Message 2

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  Posted by Thjodolf (U1900675) on Thursday, 13th October 2005

  Well according to Herodotus in Book Four, 110-117(Penguin, pp. 249-251) the Amazons ended up in Scythia (the Eurasian steppe) after escaping from the Greeks who help them captive after the battle fought on the river Thermodon. As they were on ships when they killed their captors and had no idea how to sail ships they were somewhat at the mercy of the elements. They ended up in Scythia, and apparently started having 'fun' with the locals, and settled down in their new home. The Scythians referred to the Amazons as 'Oeorpata' (man-killers). I seem to recall that Alexander had a romantic encounter of some note with an Amazon queen, have a look at Arrian or Curtius

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• Message 3

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  Posted by Aloof Nudist (U1727083) on Thursday, 13th October 2005

  Where did the Amazons originate from?
  
  If they were European, why was a river in South America call the Amazon?

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  Posted by Thjodolf (U1900675) on Thursday, 13th October 2005

  Who named the Amazon river? Was it named in honour of the warrior women of Wongo? Was it named after an obscure mythical tribe of warrior women? Was it named after Jean Silvestre de Amazon? Or Trevor Amazon?

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• Message 5

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  Posted by Aloof Nudist (U1727083) on Thursday, 13th October 2005

  >>>Was it named after Jean Silvestre de Amazon? Or Trevor Amazon?<<<
  
  
  Or Amazon dot com?

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  Posted by TonyG (U1830405) on Thursday, 13th October 2005

  According to Curtius Rufus, the queen of the Amazons visited Alexander at one stage on his march and detained him in his tent for several days as she wished to be impregnated by the great hero. Like a lot of Curtius's stories, it seems to me it is likely to be an invention, but the fact that he could write it gives credence to the knowledge, or at least belief, that the Amazons were real.

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• Message 7

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  Posted by henvell (U1781664) on Thursday, 13th October 2005

  There was a tribe of female warriors in the Amazon,but knowldge of them post dated the lady warriors from the Black Sea area by a couple of millennia.The word Amazon may have had a different connotation circa 400bce??-a bit of an enigma.

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  Posted by Stoggler (U1647829) on Friday, 14th October 2005

  Here's what I found out on the origin of the name of the River Amazon in South America:
  
  In the year 1500, Vicente Yañez Pinzon, in command of a Spanish expedition, became the first European to explore the river, exploring its mouth when he discovered that the ocean off the shore was fresh water. Pinzon called the river the Rio Santa Maria de la Mar Dulce, which soon became abbreviated to Mar Dulce, and for some years, after 1502, it was known as the Rio Grande.
  
  Pinzon's companions called the river El Río Marañón. The word Marañón is thought by some to be of indigenous origin. This idea was first stated in a letter from Peter Martyr to Lope Hurtado de Mendoza in 1513. However, the word may also be derived from the Spanish word "maraña" — meaning a tangle, a snarl, which well represents the bewildering difficulties which the earlier explorers met in navigating not only the entrance to the Amazon, but the whole island-bordered, river-cut and indented coast of what is now the Brazilian state of Maranhão.
  
  The name Amazon arises from a battle which Francisco de Orellana had with a tribe of Tapuyas where the women of the tribe fought alongside the men, as was the custom among the entire tribe. Orellana derived the name Amazonas from the ancient Amazons of Asia and Africa described by Herodotus and Diodorus.
  
  

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• Message 9

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  Posted by ravenmyst (U1705088) on Friday, 14th October 2005

  There was a tribe of female warriors in the Amazon,but knowldge of them post dated the lady warriors from the Black Sea area by a couple of millennia.The word Amazon may have had a different connotation circa 400bce??-a bit of an enigma. 
  
  
  There may have been lady warriors in what we now call the Amazon, but the ones we tend to think of and indeed find are European, some say a Grek myth but their decendant appear to be found in the horsenomads of the Russian Steps and indeed Mongolia.
  
  The name Amazon was what the Greeks called them, i doubt it is what they or their neighbours called them. Same scenario as our tribes remamed for the latin audience.
  
  As for the river, what do the original tribes of the area call it? As with so much ot was probably renamed by the invaders.

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• Message 10

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  Posted by Nik (U1777139) on Saturday, 15th October 2005

  Greeks like most people would get things from their mythologies and make a lot of generalisations. If the Amazons were a tribe of women-fighters that really existed (and most probably they did sometime somewhere, why not) they would use the name Amazon pretty much for any unknown tribe where women took arms and fought (irrespectively if they lived alone or with men)... in exactly the same way that Spanish utilised the myth to name that tribe of Indians of the forest whose women also fought alongside with men.
  
  It is well known if not fully established that even in late Mycenean times there survived certain tribes in the interrior of Minor Asia plus the better known Lyceans (whose names were formed by motherside not fatherside) where forming matriarchical societies where women had considerable rights if not more than men.
  
  In general matriarchy is considered as a more primitive societal stage - associated with earlier societies - and usually survived (or reformed) till early historical in more remote places and in the absense of strong surrounding enemies as matriarchical societies were more 'fragile' in war terms in comparison to patriarchical ones (despite the hypothesis that they could double their numbers)... I do not want to raise here a 'feministic' issue but I think most people here are in position to understand how societies evolved and that the law of the strongest won always and it was the patriarchical ones all over the world (from the Americas to China) in exactly the same way that the farming societies overruled the hunter gatherer societies (despite being obviously a more miserable way of living), and thus hunting societies survived only in remote places.
  
  If Alexander met and courted with an Amazon that is not verified, it could be nice stories, though the area in Skythia is referenced as the area that the last Amazons were living... if the story is true (and why not...) it could just be a local queen that wanted to have a son from the conqueror of Asia, seems logical.

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• Message 11

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  Posted by m22brazil (U2314666) on Tuesday, 25th October 2005

  Good evening!!! sorry for my english, I'm just learning it. But I'm from Brazil and I'm crazy about history and another things.
  The name "Amazonas", that group of women that use to fight as knights are diferent of "Amazonas", the river. The first one mean ( without breast ), the second one, from the native lenguage CAIRÉ, mean ( full moon) Where did the Amazons originate from?
  
  If they were European, why was a river in South America call the Amazon? 

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  Posted by Nik (U1777139) on Tuesday, 25th October 2005

  So what!!!
  
  ... in another thread they tell us Alexander the Great was drinking votka and was dancing the Katiusha... and nobody cares... are we going to stop in the meaning of Amazine now?
  

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• Message 13

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  Posted by Idamante (U1894562) on Tuesday, 25th October 2005

  Anyone here remember this news report from last year about Roman "amazons" found in a grave in Britain?
  
  

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