Black History Month: The real life Dora Milaje

If you are a fan of pop culture or artistic works featuring black people, then you're most certainly acquainted with Marvel’s Black Panther and the Dora Milaje.

The movie was not just the first black super hero movie but also the highest grossing superhero movie (to date) in a number of countries.

It would be a mistake for me to assume that a majority of you dear readers don't know the inspiration for the Dora Milaje came from a group of real African warrior women known as The Mino of Dahomey.

The western civilizations called them The Amazons of Dahomey after the fearless, strong and ruthless warriors of Greek mythology.

This elite group of warriors played a vital role in the powerful Dahomey Kingdom circa 1600-1900, modern- day Republic of Benin.

It is unclear why or when Dahomey first recruited its female warriors, but the most trusted theory claims the Mino first appeared as palace guards in the 1720s.

It's speculated that these guards were most likely third-class wives of the king (wives that were yet to bear children or considered insufficiently beautiful).

The role was a perfect fit as men were not allowed in the palace precinct after dark.

Mino means mothers in the Fon language. Were they called that because of being the king’s wives, which ideally made them the kingdom’s mothers? Till date, it's unclear.

Historians believe that slave trade and volatile clashes with the Yoruba had decreased the Dahomey male population which eventually pushed King Gezo, King of Dahomey, into conscripting women.

King Gezo expanded the female corps from 600 guards to 6,000 warriors. Was it easy to get into this elite troop? You be the judge of that.

Recruits had to undergo extensive training that was as bloody as it was painful. They had to scale thorn hedges, wrestled one another, and survive forest camping for nine days with minimal rations.

However, the most gruesome of this training was the ‘insensitivity training’ where teenage girls decapitated prisoners in a show of strength and valor.

Additionally, they would pick up baskets containing bound prisoners of war and hurl them over a parapet to angry mobs.

This created fearsome warriors immune to pain, fear, and empathy. So respected were these women that whenever they left the palace compound, a slave girl was sent ahead carrying a bell to warn men to get out of their path.

As a fact of life, all good things must eventually come to an end and this applied to the Mino, courtesy of the Franco-Dahomean wars which were fuelled by the scramble for Africa and slave trade.

The Dahomean army, although they were the last regiment to surrender, were no match for the French army with their modern rifles.

However, it's widely believed that the French won only because of their firepower.

Even the French agreed that the Mino excelled at hand to hand combat and handled war admirably.

On top of their military skills, they used their feminine guile to take down French troops.

The troops exponentially dwindled when they went undercover pretending to be captive Dahomey women, then allowed French soldiers to seduce them, they eventually killed the French in their sleep using bayonets.

It should be noted that The Mino were not the only martial women of days past. There were successful warrior queens such as Nzinga of Matamba (17th century Angola) and Mekatilili wa Menza of Giriama (20th century Kenya).

Female guards weren’t unheard of in the 19th century as well. What set the latter apart was that they actively participated in wars and died for their king and country.

The history of the Dahomey warriors is unique and special as appertains black people around the world – black women, even more so.

They represent an empowering symbol that neither begged for respect nor asked for protection. They took it.

Happy black history month.