Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 2, 1891.djvu/184

Abkhas. According to Herodotus, the women of the Sauromatai did not form a distinct nation like the Amazons of the Thermodon, from whom they were imagined to descend. Though they wore the same dress as men, and fought and hunted on horseback, this was not always or necessarily by themselves, for they also did so in company with their husbands. Girls, however, could not marry till they had killed a man in battle, from which custom they received from their Scythian neighbours the epithet of "manslayers". Hippocrates, discoursing on the Sauromatai, mentions that the women, armed with bow and javelin, fought their enemies on horseback, but only so long as they were in an unmarried state. They might not enter matrimony till they had slain three enemies, and did not live with their husbands till they had offered the sacrifice prescribed by law. After marriage women ceased to ride, save on a special emergency. During infancy mothers cauterised the right breast of their female children, by applying a heated metal instrument made for the purpose. Strabo enters into rather fuller particulars, but refers to tribes dwelling south of the Sauromatai on the counterforts of the main Chain. From infancy the Amazons had the right breast cauterised to allow of the arm being used with greater ease, especially when throwing the javelin. When at home they ploughed, planted, pastured cattle, and trained horses. The strongest spent much time in hunting on horseback, and in practising warlike exercises. In spring, they passed two months on a neighbouring mountain, the boundary between them and the Gargarenses. The latter also ascended the mountain, in conformity with ancient custom, to perform common sacrifices, and to have intercourse with the women in secret and darkness, for the purpose of obtaining offspring, each man taking the first woman he met. When the women became pregnant they were sent away. The female children were retained by the Amazons, the males were taken by the Gargarenses to be brought up. The children were distributed among families