The Danxome's Great Protectors
PREAMBLE
The writing of this article was inspired by the exceptional case of the Mino or Agodji, what they represent as kemit (black) women and the mirror they reflect in the subconscious of the Melaninized Beings that we are. I have a reason to believe, and this is only my personal reflection, that some of them were Guardians of The Gates. To support my point, I will take real facts to make a deduction as clear as far-sighted.
FOREWORD
The use of the vocabulary "Guardians of The Gates" term used by Sobonfu Somé and Malidoma Somé is used to describe some people with specificities making them different from the rest of society according to a kemitic (black) paradigm. However, being aware that English is a foreign language, it should be mentioned that the term Guardians of The Gates is the most appropriate terms to name the particularity of these people who have been, and who are still wrongly considered as “LGBTQIA+”. The acronym “LGBTQIA+” is followed by definitions and concepts that are part of a Western context that does not correspond to the original Kemetic paradigm. This notion of “Guardians of the Gates” corresponds more to the “Two-Spirits” terminology used by the First Nations as well as to similar terminologies used by other indigenous people in their respective native tongue.
MINO
The Mino [Our Mothers] in the Fon language were an exclusively female army, an elite corps whose creation in parallel with the regular army was attributed to King Ghézo while it was an original idea of Queen Tassi Hangbè. They were the personal guards of the differents kings who sat on the throne of Danhomey (Benin), including one of the most illustrious and fierce opponents of French colonization: Gbêhanzin. They were women of war with a perfect mastery of the military arts. Mino's ranks were made up of war captives, 16-year-old virgin girls, and native volunteers. The qualities required to be part of this army are essential virtues during a fight which are: courage, bravery, endurance, fearlessness, ferocity and devotion of the heart towards the king and the nation. These character traits, if they are already embedded in them, are increased tenfold during relentless and rigorous training as well as mental and psychological conditioning. Being the symbolic wives of the king and protective mothers of the nation, they form a sorority with prestige and social ascension in the kingdom. They had to swear allegiance and make a solemn oath not to have sexual contact with men. Indeed, sexuality with men was strictly forbidden to them with the exception of the king who could formalize some of his choice as his wives or consent to their marrying high dignitaries. If one of them wanted to break the oath, which would be considered an act of treason, she had to inflict death on herself. The dress code they wore served to camouflage their femininity and bring out their frame, their imposing stature and their masculine corpulence. When they went to war, they sang songs to give themselves strength: “We are men, not women. Those who return from war without having conquered must die, If we retreat, our lives are at the king's mercy. Whatever city to attack, we must conquer it or enter its ruins ourselves.“
WAKANDA'S FEMALE WARRIORS
The hectic life of the Mino, also known as Ahossi, including the most famous Seh-Dong-Hong-Behaw who inspired the creation in the Marvel Universe of the Dora Milaje (The Beloved) of Wakanda. Their story has been brought to the screen through the global hits Black Panther. It also turns out that within the Dora Milaje, a love story between two Guardians of the Gates [Aneka and Ayo] existed. If we agree that Mino's warrior spirit has been perfectly transcribed, what can we say about the samesex love between them? Is this story inspired by real facts? Is it possible that would have existed a love story between two Mino? Or is it a story that comes from the imagination of Stan Lee and his Western view wanting to perceive the apparent masculinity of these women and their exacerbated virility, as a guarantee of their singularity as Guardians of the Gates?
GUARDIANS OF THE GATES
Sorority – The Mino form a sorority which paradoxically exalts with intensity the Masculine Principle which governs them. When in their war song, they declare that they are Men and not Women, this affirmation takes on a double meaning: 1- In the first case, they are Men because they incorporate in themselves the Masculine Principle and what it symbolically represents in its Phallic Dimension without claiming masculine identity as an integral part of them. 2 - In the second case, they are Men because they really feel, live concretely and incarnate in the totality of this masculine energy and even in their feminine bodies which ends up being masculinized because of repetitive and prolonged contacts with the Masculine Principle that they integrate as part of their identity.
Sexuality – The Mino form a sorority where sexuality with male bodies is forbidden to them. What does it imply for these women to have a sexuality restrained and regulated in this way by a figure of male authority? 1 - Some of these women could have had sexual relations with each other, because of the circumstantial factor in which they found themselves, so that they could have released to their sister this sexual energy trapped under the lock of male prohibition. 2 - Others, on the other hand, who already have this singularity within them, have within this group fertile ground allowing them to assume their sexuality away from prying eyes, especially since the ban only concerned men. It has never been explicitly or implicitly mentioned that a rapprochement between female bodies was formally prohibited. There was no punitive or restrictive law against the Guardians of the Gates as much their sexual orientation as in their gender identity 3 - It can turn out that almost all of the Mino are in Neutrality (asexual) and that they are only concentrated and focused on the defense of the Nation.
REFERENCES
Books
Sylvia, SERBIN., Queens of Africa and heroines of the black diaspora, Paris, Éditions MeduNeter, 2018, 413p.
Videos
4DOCS., Lupita Nyong'o Meets Real Warrior Women, [Online], https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M0TGKiMiZ68, 03 November 2019.
Articles
nofi
https://www.nofi.media/2014/10/les-amazones-dahomey/1490
https://www.nofi.media/2018/02/tata-adjatche-amazone-du-dahomey-2/1616
Lisapoyakama
https://www.lisapoyakama.org/les-mino-la-redoutable-armee-de-femmes-du-danhome/
Marvel
Dora Milaje
https://www.marvel.com/characters/aneka
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