In Which I Consider the Smithsonian Channel’s Epic Warrior Women
Last night My Own True Love, Ms. Whiskey-Cat and I settled in to watch the first episode of the Smithsonian Channel's new series, Epic Warrior Women.
The episode, titled "Amazons," dealt with the women warriors of Scythia--an ancient culture of nomadic horsemen (and women) from the Central Asian steppes and the earliest known women warriors.
The program was an engaging mix of historical fact and historical fiction. The scripted story of a young Scythian girl who grew up to be the war leader of her tribe was interwoven with scholars discussing what we know about the Scythians and how we know it* and footage of the nomadic people of modern Kazakhstan.** The story, complete with sex, drugs and the prehistoric equivalent of rock and roll, gave the program a vehicle for historical speculation and emotional connection with a person that would have been hard to establish otherwise. The scholars provided a surprising depth of context for the story in the course of an hour, drawing on information from ancient texts, grave goods, human remains, anthropological comparisons with modern nomads, and the evidence provided by the relatively new discipline of bioarchaeology.
The scripted story had a few heart-in-the-throat moments, but Adrienne Mayor provided the show's most thrilling moment when she summed up the thread of the program near the end. The women warriors described in ancient texts were real, not fantasy: "We have the proof in their bones."
Bottom line? I'll be in front of the television next week, eager to learn about female gladiators in classical Rome.
*Including Adrienne Mayor, author of The Amazons: Lives and Legends of Warrior Women Across the Ancient World--a book I can't recommend highly enough.
**Most of what we know about ancient steppe cultures comes from their burial mounds, known as kurgans, which can be found from the Balkans to Siberia. These rich physical finds are supplemented by the often sensational accounts written by outsiders, beginning with Herodotus, and occasionally with reference to the oral traditions and customs of the existing peoples of the Eurasian steppes. I must admit, development theories about ancient Scythian culture by drawing from modern Kazakh life makes this historian a bit queasy.
History on Display: An Unexpected Civil War Museum
Several months ago I received an email inviting me to speak about Civil War nurses at the Civil War Museum in Kenosha Wisconsin. Betraying the biases of someone who grew up in Missouri, with Civil War history in her back yard,* I thought it sounded a little odd. Why, I wondered, would Kenosha have a Civil War museum? But I love to stand up in front of people and talk about history,** so I shrugged my shoulders and said yes.
Unidentified soldier of the 8th Wisconsin Infantry REgiment
In fact, Kenosha has a wonderful Civil War museum with a unique focus: the Civil War as experienced in the upper Midwest. Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Michigan, Minnesota, Ohio and Wisconsin not have been contested ground, but they sent more than one million men to serve in the Union army and provided much the food and raw material on which that army depended. The museum looks at personal stories of loss and large scale issues of logistics--and at the places where the two meet. I was fascinated by the story of Cordelia Harvey, known as the Wisconsin Angel, who was instrumental in influencing Lincoln to build military hospitals in the north. (The stories about women in the Civil War just keep rolling in.)
The heart of the exhibits, both physically and emotionally, is a ten-minute panoramic movie titled Seeing the Elephant--the term Civil War soldiers used to describe their first experience with combat. Shown on a 360 degree screen surrounding a raised platform, Seeing the Elephant is the modern equivalent of the cycloramas that thrilled audiences in the nineteenth century. It is a powerful combination of new technology and an old idea. It packs quite a punch in ten minutes.
The museum also has a non-circulating Civil War reference library for Civil War enthusiasts interested in the Midwestern experience.
My Own True Love and I are plotting a trip back to Kenosha in the summer--the wind off the lake is a bit nippy in February. I'll keep you posted
*You think I'm joking? The Missouri-Kansas border was the incubator in which the Civil War was born. By the time Confederate forces opened their bombardment of Fort Sumter in 1861, western Missouri and eastern Kansas had already been at war for seven bloody years. Virginia was the only state to suffer through more battles in the war.
**If you're interested in knowing where I'm speaking and what I'm speaking about, just keep an eye on the events page here and on my website, www.pameladtoler.com.
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A Travelers Tip:
If you're looking for Americana with your breakfast or lunch, try Frank's Diner, home of an inside-out omelet known as the "garbage plate". My Own True Love was delighted to discover Spam on the menu. I stuck with the veggie option.
Sailing on the Etoile, or Outed in Tahiti
Over the last year, as I've wandered through the dusty attics and flooded basements of history in my search for women warriors I've stumbled across plenty of other fascinating women that I--and presumably you--had never heard of. Case in point: French botanist Jeanne Baret (1740-1807), part of the astonishingly large number of women who disguised themselves as men. In some cases to escape abusive situations at home. In other cases to gain access to better financial prospects, , more freedom, more rights, more education--more everything.
Jeanne Baret was raised in a family tradition of plant lore. She learned to identify plants and use them to treat wounds and illnesses--the kind of thing that got you labelled a wise woman if you were lucky and a witch if you weren't. She was apparently very good at it. And unlike most village "herb women," she was able to use her knowledge in the broader world. A young nobleman in her region, Philibert Commerçon, was a serious amateur botanist--back in the days when amateur did not disqualify you from being taken seriously as a scientist.* When he met Jeanne he was impressed with her knowledge and hired her as his teacher/assistant. They soon became lovers.
In 1766, French explorer Louis Antoine de Bougainville put together an official expedition of exploration. He hired Commerçon as the expedition's botanist. Baret accompanied Commerçon on the expedition, disguised as his valet and assistant. She was his mistress, but according to Bourgaineville, she was also a skilled botanist in her own right who did her fair share of the botanical work on the expedition.** As Commerçon's assistant, she carried the tools when they went plant hunting on land, including the heavy wooden plant-press. She may have been responsible for their most dramatic discovery: the colorful, flowering bougainvillea. (Guess who they named it after.)
Baret went undetected for more than two years in the tight quarters of the ship, surrounded by a crew of 300 men. When they landed on Tahiti, the Tahitians immediately recognized her as a woman; her trousers did not signal "male" to them.
Her travels ended when they reached the French colony of Mauritius, where Baret (now pregnant) and Commerçon were left on-shore, with the support of the French governor Pierre Poivre*** who provided a cover story to explain why Commerçon left the ship. Baret returned to France in 1774, sometime after Commerçon's death.
In his memoir, Bougainville described Baret as a skilled botanist who did her fair share of the botanical work on the expedition. Someone in the French Navy must have agreed, because she received an unexpected pension of 200 livres a year for her botanical work on the expedition--roughly $42,000 in today's dollars by one calculation of relative value.
Incidentally, Jeanne Baret was also the first woman to circumnavigate the globe. Move over Nellie Bly.
*Unless you were female. Because.
**Also a botanist. In English, Peter Poivre would be Peter Pepper. He gained low-grade immortality in the tongue-twister "Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers."