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Originally Posted by Jeff D
Well the question was wielding weapons. It may not always have been for war or violence. Other reasons were ceremony, art, dancing or the erotic. Here is a post card from Algeria.
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That's an interesting photo, Jeff.
I wonder what the message of the symbolisms are -- we have a young lady who seems to be lactating mother, and who is either pregnant again or had just delivered one, and then she's holding that ceremonial sword.
Moving to another location, here's an account describing an Igorot "amazon priestess":
"On the 25th [June 1747], Don Cuarto began the attack, but was soon put out of action himself by two rocks which struck him in the head. Apparently directing the defense forces was a sort of amazon priestess in their midst, naked to the waist, who kept inciting the Ipituys to fever pitch with her shouts and taunting the enemy with her invective and challenging them to shoot her, and although she was a frequent target, no ball found its mark -- a circumstance analyzed in the friar report of the battle as a sure sign of direct covenant with the Devil. The Igorots fought with such fury and war cries they literally foamed at the mouth, causing their enemies to suspect they had chewed some narcotic root to provide a suicidal intoxication."
The account was taken from WH Scott's
The Discovery of the Igorots: Spanish Contacts with the Pagans of Northern Luzon (1974).