Myth has it that Baja California was once ruled by a giant queen, Calafia. Her subjects were black Amazon women, and they lived in a land of ferocious griffins, tall mountains, precipitous cliffs, and deep valleys. Baja was also said to be an island of gold and precious stones. Spanish explorers, lured by tales of riches and beautiful women, were drawn to this mythical place. Jesuit priests, adventurers, fishermen, hunters, and the curious soon followed. In Isle of the Amazons in the Vermilion Sea, Gregory MacDonald has assembled a superb collection of excerpts from diaries, letters, field notes, books, and journals. These short impressions give us the sights, smells, sounds, and tastes of mountain hamlets, lush valleys, hot deserts, and blue seas, and together, they create a stunning narrative of the mythology, history, and topology of the Baja land, sea, and people. Montalvo, Cortéz, and Padre Eusebio Kino—in 1400, 1535, and 1701, respectively—describe the flora and fauna of a peninsula untouched by civilization, and in the twentieth century, Bancroft, Cannon, Crosby, Gardner, North, Steinbeck, and Octavio Paz, among others, speak of the fishing, the hunting, and, despite hardships, the pure joy of being. The writers observe fish pileups and feeding-frenzies; suffer insect bites, cactus pricks, and jellyfish stings; and are awed by magical sunsets, the silence of the desert, and the stars. Original illustrations by award-winning printmaker Judith Palmer transform the work into a masterpiece.

Myth has it that Baja California was once ruled by a giant queen, Calafia. Her subjects were black Amazon women, and they lived in a land of ferocious griffins, tall mountains, precipitous cliffs, and deep valleys. Baja was also said to be an island of gold and precious stones. Spanish explorers, lured by tales of riches and beautiful women, were drawn to this mythical place. Jesuit priests, adventurers, fishermen, hunters, and the curious soon followed. In Isle of the Amazons in the Vermilion Sea, Gregory MacDonald has assembled a superb collection of excerpts from diaries, letters, field notes, books, and journals. These short impressions give us the sights, smells, sounds, and tastes of mountain hamlets, lush valleys, hot deserts, and blue seas, and together, they create a stunning narrative of the mythology, history, and topology of the Baja land, sea, and people. Montalvo, Cortéz, and Padre Eusebio Kino—in 1400, 1535, and 1701, respectively—describe the flora and fauna of a peninsula untouched by civilization, and in the twentieth century, Bancroft, Cannon, Crosby, Gardner, North, Steinbeck, and Octavio Paz, among others, speak of the fishing, the hunting, and, despite hardships, the pure joy of being. The writers observe fish pileups and feeding-frenzies; suffer insect bites, cactus pricks, and jellyfish stings; and are awed by magical sunsets, the silence of the desert, and the stars. Original illustrations by award-winning printmaker Judith Palmer transform the work into a masterpiece.

'Golden-shielded, silver-sworded, man-loving, male-child slaughtering Amazons,' is how the fifth-century Greek historian Hellanicus described the Amazons, and they have fascinated humanity ever since. Did they really exist? For centuries, scholars consigned them to the world of myth, but Lyn Webster Wilde journeyed into the homeland of the Amazons and uncovered astonishing evidence of their historic reality. North of the Black Sea she found archaeological excavations of graves of Iron Age women buried with arrows, swords and armour. In the hidden world of the Hittites, near the Amazons' ancient capital of Thermiscyra in Anatolia, she unearthed traces of powerful priestesses, women-only religious cults, and an armed, bisexual goddess - all possible sources for the ferocious women. Combining scholarly penetration with a sense of adventure, Webster Wilde has produced a coherent and absorbing book that challenges preconceived notions, still disturbingly widespread, of what men and women can do.

The real history of the Amazons in war and love Amazons—fierce warrior women dwelling on the fringes of the known world—were the mythic archenemies of the ancient Greeks. Heracles and Achilles displayed their valor in duels with Amazon queens, and the Athenians reveled in their victory over a powerful Amazon army. In historical times, Cyrus of Persia, Alexander the Great, and the Roman general Pompey tangled with Amazons. But just who were these bold barbarian archers on horseback who gloried in fighting, hunting, and sexual freedom? Were Amazons real? In this deeply researched, wide-ranging, and lavishly illustrated book, National Book Award finalist Adrienne Mayor presents the Amazons as they have never been seen before. This is the first comprehensive account of warrior women in myth and history across the ancient world, from the Mediterranean Sea to the Great Wall of China. Mayor tells how amazing new archaeological discoveries of battle-scarred female skeletons buried with their weapons prove that women warriors were not merely figments of the Greek imagination. Combining classical myth and art, nomad traditions, and scientific archaeology, she reveals intimate, surprising details and original insights about the lives and legends of the women known as Amazons. Provocatively arguing that a timeless search for a balance between the sexes explains the allure of the Amazons, Mayor reminds us that there were as many Amazon love stories as there were war stories. The Greeks were not the only people enchanted by Amazons—Mayor shows that warlike women of nomadic cultures inspired exciting tales in ancient Egypt, Persia, India, Central Asia, and China. Driven by a detective's curiosity, Mayor unearths long-buried evidence and sifts fact from fiction to show how flesh-and-blood women of the Eurasian steppes were mythologized as Amazons, the equals of men. The result is likely to become a classic.

Fighting is a way of life for the four remaining Amazon tribes. Women fight each other to test their skills and to prepare for combat. Lessja is the youngest daughter of the queen of one of these tribes. She enjoys fighting, especially against her best friend. Life is good until her friend dies during punishment ordered by Lessja's mother. This results not only in a death match in which the queen and her two oldest daughters have to defend their right to rule, but also in a deadly rivalry between Lessja and another young tribeswoman. War with another tribe forces the two young women to set their differences aside in order to save their tribe.

Excerpt from The Land of the Amazons: Translated From the French of Baron De Santa-Anna Nery Much has been written upon the subject of the King of the Rivers of the World and the Queen of the Provinces of Brazil. A new work on these regions might at first sight appear superfluous; this, however, is not the case, and we will endeavour to prove its utility. M. Renan states that in order to speak with any authority on religion, one must have believed and then lost one's faith and we may say that to describe well the enchanted land of the Amazons, it is necessary to have seen much of it and to have left it for some time. In order to be able to describe with any fidelity the marvels of this country, a writer must have an intimate knowledge and a vivid remembrance thereof, and these can hardly be attained unless he has been born and bred in the midst of these vast solitudes, so as to have their natural magnificence engraved, as it were, upon his very soul. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.