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In 2018, the Marvel film “Black Panther” entered the cinema screens. One major thread of the film is the women’s army Dora Milaje. It is inspired by the Dahomean Mino, often referred to as Black Amazons; ‘female soldiers’ or ‘women warriors’. The kingdom of Dahomey existed from the 17th to 19th century at the Atlantic Coast in today’s Benin. Having potentially developed from the personal guard of the Dahomean king in the 17th century, the mino soldiers became part of the fighting army in the 19th century.1 A recurrentrepresentation is one of so-called “Seh-Dong-Hong-Beh” by theEnglish military Frederick E. Forbes of 1851. He published thepicture in his Journals from a travel to the kingdom of Dahomey.2It is interesting to have a closer look on this picture in referenceto the depiction of gender, race, and violence as well as the powerof significance of pictures in general.The picture is striking in several ways. Not only contemporaries of Forbes may have been shocked looking at it, but still today, it functions as an iconic representation of a ‘bloodthirsty’, extremely violent ‘Amazon’– a memory willingly created through several reports on the kingdom by European men. These reports set the female gender of mino in European (colonial) discourse. Contrarily, the self-proclaimed gender cannot easily be called ‘female’. This analysis will use mino as a term to designate those who were understood as different from male soldiers.For a Europeanreader- and spectatorship, the picture was embedded in imaginationsof the Greek ‘Amazons’ by its title, “An Amazon in the DahomanArmy”. This referred to ancient mythological female soldiers. The19thcentury saw the evolution of increasingly dominant gender norms of‘women’ as peaceful and certainly unarmed, contrarily to the 18thcentury. Even though the person in the picture is not depicted in anactive battle position, the weapons and the human skull in her handstill dropping out of blood imply her Verletzungsmacht3which rarely was normatively attributed to female gender but rather(Black) male gender. Notably the Dahomean kingdom was imagined ascruel and violent. This depiction is a diametrical opposition to thegendered European image of a ‘woman’. The Friedfertigkeitinscribed in women’s bodies in Westernised culture was challenged.The person in the picture of Forbes transgressed and stilltransgresses this norm.4Moreover, the minois masculinised: S/he wears the same uniform as other soldiers in theDahomean army described by Forbes and is depicted in strongly muscledarms and legs, stressing proximity to Black male read gender. Theperson also wears arms, a difference to the Dahomean ‘women’described by Forbes.Let’s see what henoted about the self-perception of the minoin some of their songs: "We were women, we are now men: Gezo has borne [sic] us again, we are his wives, his daughters, his soldiers, his sandals.   We marched against Attahpahms [sic] as against men, We came and found them women…"5Female gender forthe minothemselves seems connoted as not brave, nor strong, neither militarybut weak. They perceived themselves as stronger than the malesoldiers. At the same time, their Dahomean designation means ‘mother’(of the male army). The transmitted self-perception then is neithermale nor female, but different. The binary categories of male/femaleare thus not necessarily applicable on the Dahomean perception ofpeople. By examining someDahomean pictures of the minowhich are unfortunately neither openly accessible nor detectable viacurrent research machines, a further conclusion can be drawn: They donot necessarily show gender differentiations but primarily point tothe ability to kill. Various pictures show them in uniforms, in theact of killing, with arms. With the songs they sung in parades andattacks, this self-staging as violent is noticeable. One assumptionis that the soldiers did this to distance from ideals of Dahomeanfemale norms and that stressing their brutality was a mean to provokefear and humiliation in potential enemies.Furthermore, the normative European representations of Black ‘women’ were transgressed by Forbes’ picture. These became more sexualised and racialised in the 19th century. Even though the person in the picture is definitely created as a Black person via the colour attributed to her skin, she contrasts to the racialised female bodies: The breasts are perceivable, but not naked – one of the principal means of difference between white and Black ‘women’ done by male travellers, as in Forbes’ description of Dahomean ‘women’. Another case that illustrates the intersection of racist and gender violence, is Sarah Baartman, pejoratively called the ‘Hottentot Venus’, who was transported to Europe and exposed in various countries for "scientific" reasons.  The mino’s portrayal is less sexualised and fetishized, important factors in European constructions of Black female gender.6 Forbes broke with the iconic depiction of Black women, stressing a masculinised image in which brutality and savagery could dominate: In the 19th century, Black men were more likely imagined as extremely violent. Gender is beaten up by race.Interestingly, itseems like the sovereignty of interpretation of minoremains until today on these European male reports like Forbes’,for example in “The women soldiers of Dahomey”, an officialUNESCO publication.7The picture itself is not existent without the power hierarchiessurrounding, shaping and expressing it. Figuring in actual media likethis publication, the picture is coining the imagery of itsspectators as a stereotyped representation of mino.Unfortunately, it isused without reflecting on its origin: a male, European depiction ofthe ‘Amazon of Dahomey’ now illustrates and shapes the imagery ofthese soldiers. As far as the imagination is concerned, very littleinfluence of Dahomeans themselves is perceivable. Further analysis ofdepictions could contribute to a more differentiated understanding ofpeople in arms – not only in Africa, but also elsewhere in theworld. There is no gender which is more peaceful or violent thananother. Films such as “Black Panther” where women are shown aspowerful, active people, may contribute to a different imagery –even if this still stresses the gender binarity instead ofnon-gendered violence.1A general overview on the mino soldiers is provided by RobinLaw, “The ‘Amazons’ of Dahomey,” Paideuma: Mitteilungenzur Kulturkunde 39 (1993): 245–60.2Frederick Edwyn Forbes, Dahomey and the Dahomans; Being theJournals of Two Missions to the King of Dahomey, and Residence atHis Capital, in the Year 1849 and 1850, Two Vols. (London,1851), Vol. I, p. 22bis.3Cf. Klaus Latzel, Franka Maubach, and Silke Satjukow, “Soldatinnenin der Geschichte. Weibliche Verletzungsmacht als Herausforderung,”in Soldatinnen. Gewalt und Geschlecht im Krieg vom Mittelalter bisHeute, ed. Klaus Latzel, Franka Maubach, and Silke Satjukow(Paderborn, München: Schöningh, 2011), p. 11.4Cf. Dagmar Ellerbrock and Ulrike Weckel, “Editorial,”WerkstattGeschichte 64 (2013), p. 3.5Forbes, Dahomey and the Dahomans, Vol. II, pp. 27;108. Gezo was the king of Dahomey from 1818-1858.Unfortunately, Forbes did not give the original Fon songs.6Cf. Charmaine Nelson, “Vénus Africaine: Race, Beauty andAfrican-Ness,” in Black Victorians: Black People in BritishArt, 1800-1900, ed. Jan Marsh (Manchester / Birmingham: LundHumphries, 2005), 46–56.7Cf. Sylvia Serbin, Edouard Joubeaud, and Pat Masioni, The WomenSoldiers of Dahomey (Unesco, 2014).BibliographyEllerbrock, Dagmar, and Ulrike Weckel. “Editorial.”WerkstattGeschichte 64 (2013): 3–11.Forbes, Frederick Edwyn. Dahomey and the Dahomans; Being theJournals of Two Missions to the King of Dahomey, and Residence at HisCapital, in the Year 1849 and 1850, Two Vols. London, 1851.https://archive.org/details/dahomeydahomansb00forb/page/n37 (lastaccess: 04/05/2020).Latzel, Klaus, Franka Maubach, and Silke Satjukow. “Soldatinnen inder Geschichte. Weibliche Verletzungsmacht als Herausforderung.” InSoldatinnen. Gewalt und Geschlecht im Krieg vom MittelalterbBisHeute, edited by Klaus Latzel, Franka Maubach, and SilkeSatjukow, 11–49. Paderborn, München: Schöningh, 2011.Law, Robin. “The ‘Amazons’ of Dahomey.” Paideuma:Mitteilungen zur Kulturkunde 39 (1993): 245–60.https://www.jstor.org/stable/40341664 (last access: 04/05/2020).Nelson, Charmaine. “Vénus Africaine: Race, Beauty andAfrican-Ness.” In Black Victorians: Black People in British Art,1800-1900, edited by Jan Marsh, 46–56. Manchester / Birmingham:Lund Humphries, 2005.Serbin, Sylvia, Edouard Joubeaud, and Pat Masioni. The WomenSoldiers of Dahomey. Unesco, 2014.Pictorial SourcesForbes, Frederick Edwyn, Seh-Dong-Hong-Beh. An Amazon in the DahomanArmy. In Dahomey and the Dahomans; Being the Journals of TwoMissions to the King of Dahomey, and Residence at His Capital, in theYear 1849 and 1850, Two Vols, London, 1851.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dahomey_Amazons#/media/File:Dahomey_amazon1.jpg(last access: 14/05/2020). The picture is under public domain.De Wailly, Femme de race Bôchismanne [pl. 40]. In Illustrationsde Histoire naturelle des mammifères, t. II edited by Huet,Jean-Baptiste; Wermer et al., Paris: 1819.https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/btv1b2300295r/f41.item (lastaccess: 14/05/2020). The picture is under public domain.(„L'utilisation non commerciale des documents est libre etgratuite dans le respect de la législation en vigueur et notammentdu maintien de la mentionde source : BnF ou Bibliothèque nationale de France.“)About the AuthorAfter her Bachelorgraduation in History and French at the Universities of Bielefeld(Germany) and Paris (France), Darja Wolfmeier enrolled in themaster’s programme “Global History” at the University ofBayreuth in 2019. Her main area of expertise is African History, thistext was originally submitted for a class in “Introduction toAfrican History”. A preceeding study on the famous songs of the‘Amazons of Dahomey’ inspired her to take a closer look on therepresentation of African warriors and the interferences of genderand race in pictorial representations. She is currently working as astudent’s assistant in the Cluster of Excellence “AfricaMultiple: Reconfiguring African Studies”.