“LINDS OF WOMEN" IN THE “GREIT WILDERNESS'

Two different “lands of women” of the west were identified in ancient Chinese writings. One corresponded to the “realm of women” in the region of northern India/Tibet known as Stri-Rajya in Indian lore (chapter 24). The other “women-only land” was vaguely located on the eastern border of Fu-lin, a Chinese name for the Eastern Roman/Byzan-tine Empire. In exchange for this country’s precious and rare goods, Chinese authors reported that the Byzantine emperor sent men to couple with the women each year. “If they give birth to boys, the women’s custom does not permit the boys to be raised.” This late report by Chan Wen-Ming and others of the seventh century AD could have been influenced by the persistent thread of classical Greek lore about Amazons living in women-only societies, having sex with male outsiders, and rejecting male babies.9

In the Chinese (and later Muslim) tales, there was much speculation about the sexuality and reproduction of self-c ontained societies of women without men. The great treasury of ancient Chinese mythology,

The Classic of Mountains and Seas (third century BC to second century AD), refers to a “country of women” in the “Great Wilderness” (Central Asian steppes). In that region dwelled mysterious entities from unknown Chinese myths, with suggestive names such as “Killer Girl,” “Girl Battle-Axe,” and “Long Life Hemp.” Could these names be faint allusions to the Scythian women Herodotus called “man-killers” and to the favorite drug of the Scythians, hemp? Some modern scholars interpret an ambiguous passage about “pairs of women living together in one household in the country of women” as a hint of lesbianism. Unfortunately the text is obscure, garbled, and heavily edited by later Chinese scholars, who inserted contradictory commentaries over the centuries. One added that “any male babies die prematurely.” Others said that the women give birth only to females. Another claimed that there are actually men in this land, but they lack beards and so appear female. Some asserted that the women became pregnant by wind or magical water. The motif of conception by water—or more often by wind—recurs in Chinese writings about lands of women. Wind as fertilizer, related to the breath of life, is thought to be an extremely ancient notion.10

The Chinese “lands of women” appear to have a fanciful, fairy-tale quality in the texts that survive. Although they lay in the “Great Wilderness” of the west, the women were not described as belligerent “Amazons”—except for the martial names “Killer Girl” and “Girl Battle-Axe” (above). Might a genuine women-ruled society in the remote Himalayas account for rumors of a “paradise of women” in Chinese lore (and Indian and Naga tales of Stri-Ryja and “Women’s Land”).? Around Lugo Lake high in the densely wooded mountains between Yunnan and Sichuan Provinces dwell the Mosuo people. Described as the “last purely matriarchal tribe in China,” the Mosuo women are the decision makers; they own the property and control the economy. They practice zuo hun, “walking marriage,” a form of polyamory (many lovers) that parallels the customs of Amazons and Saka-Scythian women described more than two thousand years ago by Greek historians. Mosuo women select lovers (called axias) from among the men of the tribe, inviting them to spend the night in their homes. There are no Mosuo words for “father” or “husband”; the children live with the mother and take her name.11

The Mosuo society is peaceful but the reality of warlike nomadic cultures of Central and Inner Asia was well documented in Chinese histories about wars, alliances, trade, and intermarriage with the steppe peoples. The earliest Chinese writings about the migrating tribes of Inner Asia appeared in the seventh century BC. Around this same time, on the other side of the steppes, the Greeks were becoming aware of Scythians and Amazons through the travels of Aristeas to Issedonian territory. The nomads left no written records, so the information in this chapter comes from ancient Chinese chronicles and modern archaeology. Both sources provide solid evidence for fighting horsewomen who match the Greek and other cultures’ written descriptions of Amazons and Scythians. But as the lives of the Maiden of Yue and Fu Hao already indicate, Chinese women appear to have had opportunities to “go Amazon” during some periods of Chinese history. And foreign female warriors were admired, desired, and co-opted as allies by the Chinese, an option unthinkable to the ancient Greeks.12