 |
 |
 |
|
|
|
|
ADDITIONAL INFORMATION SECTION 16
HERCULES AND THE BLACK AMAZON QUEENS The name Hercules can be traced back to the Black African people of ancient Ethiopia and Egypt who had conceived of a mighty saviour named Heru. Consequently, this title was also conferred upon Egyptian Pharaohs who were famous for their courage and pursuit of justice. The ancient Greeks who were taught and civilized by African teachers adopted the words Horus, Hero, and Heracles as derivatives.
During ancient times the African concept of Heru spread from Waset (Thebes) in Egypt to the British Isles, Scythis, the Indies, Ireland, Germany and beyond, encompassing other parts of the world. Heru (Heracles) as a title was bestowed on those African men and women who displayed qualities of behaviour that promoted truth and nobility. The criteria and process for electing an individual as a living Heru or Hercules was later copied by Europeans. The Greek Heracleses were Black men, as were the ancestors of Greek culture.
The training of the Hercules and the Amazon Queens consisted of extensive education to prepare them for arduous tasks. Hercules and the Amazon Queens were not only mighty because of their physical power and beauty; they also held skilled occupations as lawyers, engineers, lawgivers, professors and so on. It was the desire of these pioneers of African civilization to push culture to the European territory.
What is known today is that body building, power lifting, weight training, physical fitness, mental training and spiritual development originated in Africa before 3400 B. C., in other words, African people had set the standards for moral, physical and spiritual perfection.
The twelve labours of Hercules were difficult and arduous tests for kingship or to become a champion of the African people. Thousands of years later in Africa, those same tests were used to determine the African youth's rights to receive the privileges of manhood and marriage. The mystery schools of the Greeks received these standards of tests from Ethiopia and African Culture.
The Greek historians Herodotus, Diodoros, and others, clearly stated that Hercules was an Egyptian god from "time immemorial", according to Herodotus' submission in the 5th century B.C., whereas Diodoros, in the 1st century B.C. wrote that originally "Herakles" was a man.
Despite contradictory beliefs, those Greek historians had to have known about Hercules, since they had the advantage of talking directly to the Egyptian priests. His laborious and tireless activities used in clearing the earth of wild beasts caused Hercules to be seen by the grateful Egyptians as a representative of the sun-god Ra. It is very unlikely therefore that Hercules was Germanic, because 20,000 years ago Northern Europe was covered with sheets of ice, so the conditions of the Ice Age would not have been in keeping with Hercules wearing only a lion skin and clearing the earth of any wild beasts. Thus, we can dismiss the comic books, movies, and animated Disney television series depicting Hercules as anything other than a Black African.
Hercules then, from conception to realization in historical figures, was started in Africa by Black African people, therefore those of the African Diaspora need to reclaim this heroic and uplifting archetype and symbol of Divine Strength which was stolen from them by the Eurocentric supremacists, and which we have unfortunately forgotten.
The Egyptians had conceived of the original Heracles as representing a variety of Natures' forces and not as an actual human incarnation. The Greeks, upon seeing the more ancient Hercules Archetypes in ancient Egyptian temples, acknowledged them as Heracles (Hercules).
The Egyptian Heracles was said to have various manifestations which are spiritual as well as natural forces like Khonsu (Lunar Deity), the multiple forms of Heru and or Harpokrates (Solar and Martian Deities), Khnum (also called Herishef), Shu (Air, Mars, and Sun Deity), and Gom (Lion-Headed Deity of the Sun and Strength) to identify a few.
Herodotus confirms that Heracles (Hercules) was originally known as Shu, the Egyptian god who helped Re to defeat the adversaries who had threatened the cosmic order. Shu (Onuris) was a member of the Ennead that consisted of the 12 Egyptian deities, from which the Greeks fashioned their idea of the 12 Olympian gods.
Shu is the air god who separated the sky (Nut) from the earth (Geb), and who lifts and holds the heavens over his head like a cosmic weight lifter. Shu was represented by the Egyptians in their own likeness as a black man, a powerful warrior, and member of the Heliopolitan Ennead.
The chronological history of the well known versions of Heracles (Hercules) during ancient history is highlighted on page 201 by the writer of Herodotus Book II Alan B. Lloyd as follows.
1. The Egyptian Herakles is the most ancient.
2. The Tyrian Herakles is next, having a temple that existed in 2700 B.C.
3. The Thasian Herakles' temple which existed 5 generations before the Greek Herakles, son of Alcmene and Amphitryon. Note that the Greek Herakles was a black man.Thebes in Egypt is the original Thebes where the Egyptian Heracles was born and raised. The ancient Greeks named this city Thebes, Thebai , Thisbe and Thespai but the black people called their city Waset, which was the home of Heracles for many hundreds of years the centre of religious and political power in the Egyptian Empire, and was also the capital of this nation throughout most of its ancient history. Now the Greeks, seeking to establish a place for their Greek Heracles took the name they assigned for Waset, the original 'Thebes, and named one of their own Greek cities 'Thebes'.
Thoth (Tehuti) was known in ancient Egypt as the Canopic Hercules of which the historical and legendary figure Imhotep was said to be a living incarnation, and whom the Greeks worshipped as Ascepulapius. The Greek Heracles is strongly patterned after this ancient Egyptian and his black predecessors.
Homer wrote this verse, "Black he stood as night, His bow uncased, his arrow strung for flight," to describe the legendary first world hero known as Hercules, the African world teacher who left a legacy of goodwill that was emulated by his successors.
Herodotus wrote about Hercules in name and in concept as being Ethiopian and Egyptian in origin. Hercules was called Hr k3 during the 2nd century B.C. which means that he is: the human incarnation of human creative energies, dynamic human potential at work, as heavenly productive powers, and as the power of positive miracles.
Hercules' origins in Africa came forth as inspiration in the development of schools, where in Ethiopia for example, such schools were established for the training of the mind, body and will. This concept eventually spread to Egypt, the Middle East, India, Ireland, and other places in Europe.
In every era and in various countries, men and women trained and educated themselves to help humanity, and stories of their great deeds have come to our present age as legends. However, myths behind the stories contain elements of historical events.
The Greek Hercules was developed by stories about the Egyptian Hercules who was a composite of the Old & Middle Kingdom Pharaohs (c.-2100 - 1800 B.C.).
Hollywood as usual has been erroneously portraying Hercules exclusively as a hero of European ancestry, and without any emphasis on his function as a teacher.
THE BLACK AMAZON QUEENS
Cave paintings of Black African Amazons using bows and arrows in combat while displaying one of their breasts can be seen at Sefar Tassili. The descendants of these women were the Dahomey Amazons of Fon from the Kingdom of Dahomey (now Benin). These all-female elite combat soldiers began to gain a reputation as fearless warriors during the 18th and 19th centuries.
They fought against Yoruba tribes at Abeokuta where 6000 of them were instrumental in helping the male Fon soldiers achieve victory. The Sed Festival and the crowning of the king and queen were similar rituals in Kemet (Egypt) as well as in Cush where the king and, or queen would shoot arrows to the four directions of the compass to symbolize their universal authority to rules on earth.
A stone mural at Karnak shows Pharoah Taharka's wife shooting arrows in the four directions while her husband is shown armed with a mace in the act of smiting his enemies. They are shown back to back as if protecting each other from being attacked in the rear.
The Dahomey Amazons were were trained physically and mentally for war. As long as they were in service to the king they would give up having children. Like their male counterparts, they were trained to be fearless, aggressive, while making their bodies very strong by training with the men, often attempting to outdo the men in tests of physical strength and endurance.
They were also musicians, experts in dancing and fighting, using weapons like the machete, clubs, spears, axes, bow and arrows, muskets, and later, machine guns. They lived with the king in the royal dwelling and were completely devoted to him until death.
There are photographs of them show them training while wearing only a loincloth, then later adopting a blue and white striped uniform of shirt and breeches. They fought against the French army with varying degrees of success, finally losing the battle to prevent slavery in Africa. This occurred eight years prior to the 19th century. They were considered as a special guard, wives of the king, making up one third of the fighting force, and were organized into regiments. Initially the Fon participated in the slave trade but changed their philosophy when France's intentions became all too clear. The history of the Dahomey Amazons spans over two centuries.
A symbol of inspiration for people all over the world and an outstanding military leader of Angolan origin who engaged in a forty year war against the savage, slave-hunting Europeans, was Queen Ann Nzingha (1582-1663) (right).
Queen Nzingha was in charge of sections in Angola and Zaire, and her mission was to utterly and completely destroy the African slave trade. She was a proud member of a tribal combat unit (Jagas) that formed a human shield against the Portuguese slave traders, and she became known as the "greatest military strategist that ever confronted the armed forces of Portugal." Her military campaigns kept the Portuguese in Africa from gaining a strong foothold.
Queen Nzingha was very loyal to the resistance movement and made good use of her feminine charm or masculine drive depending on the circumstances, also utilizing religion as a political ploy to gain the upper hand.
Queen Nzingha sent envoys throughout West and Central Africa in an effort to recruit a massive combined force of African armies to help drive out the Portuguese, and also developed affiliations with other foreign authorities before setting them against each other as rivals, in a further attempt to rid Angola of this European scourge.
Nzingha's efforts helped to motivate others to join the fight against the invaders, which included people like Madame Tinubu of Nigeria; Nandi, the mother of Chaka - the great Zulu warrior; Kaipkire of the Herero people of South West Africa; as well as the female army which supported Behanzin Bowelle, the Dahomian King.
In 1663 at the fine age of eighty-one, Queen Nzingha died fighting for her people. It is said that Africa has not known a greater patriot.
© John Moore - Barbados, W.I. (Updated September 2005) ©. All rights reserved.
|
|
 
|
 View My Guestbook Sign My Guestbook |
