As with my premodern list, this list represents warrior women in the nonwestern cultures related to India and Hinduism, the Middle-East and the Islam, and Nigeria and Hausa folklore. I have traced the concept of the Amazon myth in a circle from Greece and Italy to Scandinavia, down through the Middle-East, Syria in particular, into India, and around to Nigeria, pointing towards Greece once more. Every area has stories about warrior women in their mythos, and they have a lot in common. The majority are archers, for example. Unlike the Greek and Norse mythos, the women in the Mahabharata and the Qu'ran are religious figures themselves, not their “army,” either aiding the male protagonist or defending him. This list compiles variations of these religious texts. I needed to make sure the various translations and meanings in the texts were similar. Neither of these books translates well into English. The Dahomey Amazons are something that has only recently come of interest to scholars, and myself only after they were revealed to be the inspiration for the Dora Milaje warriors in Black Panther. Most of what I have gathered on the Dahomey Amazons is through ethnographic pieces and collections of oral stories and accounts. Many of these texts appear theoretical because of their titles, but they are the only sources for some of these stories and myths. I have added as much Hausa folklore as I could find that influences the Nigerian archetype. The authors of modern African/Nigerian American speculative fiction, formerly Afrofuturism, are essentially putting a lot of these archetypes in print for the first time. In all, there are 27 texts total with 3 duplicates that are stories and tales.

Achebe, Chinua “Chike’s School Days.” (story)

Akinjogbin, I.A. Dahomey and its Neighbors, 1708-1818.

Alpern, Stanley B. “On the Origins of the Amazons of Dahomey”

Bay, Edna G. “Wives of the leopard: gender, politics, and culture in the Kingdom of Dahomey,” (stories and accounts within)

Blier, Suzanne Preston. Not useful! “’The Path of the Leopard’ Motherhood and Majesty in Early Danhome, Cartwright, Keith. Reading Africa into American Literature Epics, Fables, and Gothic Tales. (stories)

Johnson, Elizabeth Ofosuah “The untold story of She-Dong-Hong-Beh, warrior princess of the Dahomey Amazons in the 1800s.” (true story)

Mkandaŵire, Mjura, and Andrea Matthews Old Nyaviyuyi in Performance: Seven Tales from Northern Malawi as Told by a Master Performer of the Oral Narrative. (stories)

Morton-Williams, Peter “A Yoruba Woman Remembers Servitude in a Palace of Dahomey, in the Reigns of Kings Glele and Behhanzin.” (true story)

An Account of the Female Warriors of an African KingdomNew York Sun

Shaihu, Maalam Hausa Folklore (stories)

Smith, Alexander, McCall The No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency (story)

–Tears of the Giraffe (story)

Stewart, Dianne Folktales from Africa (stories)

Sunjatta A West African Epic of the Mande Peoples (story)

Tremearne, A.J.N. Hausa Superstitions and Customs: An Introduction to the Folk-Lore and the Folk (stories)

Akbar, Shaik Khawla bint Al Azwar The Woman who fought like Khalid bin Walid. (story)

Heath, Jennifer The Scimitar and the Veil: Extraordinary Women of Islam (stories)

Previato, Tommaso “A Neglected Genealogy of the Martyred Heroines of Islam: (Re)- writing Women’s Participation in Jihad Into the History of Late Imperial Gansu” (stories within)

Qur’an, The (religious text)

Satrapi, Marjane The Complete Persepolis (story)

— Embroideries (stories)

Thousand and One Nights, The (stories)

Wilson, G. Willow Alif the Unseen (story)

Bahagavad-Gita (religious text)

Datta, Somdip Seeds of War: The Lilbox Mahabharata Book 1 (religious text)

Global Nepali Museum “The Androgynous Form of Shiva and Parvati (Ardhanarishvara)” (sculpture)

Harvard Divinity School “The Third Gender and Hijras”

Knappert, Jan An Encyclopedia of Myth and Legend: Indian Mythology

Mahabharata India’s Greatest Epic, by Chandrakant, Kamala (religious text)

Mahabharata Trans. C. Rajagopalachari (religious text)

Nanda, Serena Neither Man nor Woman - The Hijras of India

Seid, Betty “The Lord Who Is Half Woman (Ardhanarishvara).” (story within)

Women of Note

Du, Nguyen The Tale of Kieu (story)