Audience with a King

Issue 34

While plotting a path through the green dappled shadows of West Africa's inner folds to research a guidebook to Benin, Stuart Butler was rarely more than a step away from something strange. His spiralling course through a world inhabited by witches, demons, walking haystacks, dancing chickens, sacred pythons and people who can fly like birds left him uniquely equipped to deal with the unexpected. He picked up a few tips on how to mix with royalty, too. If I was going to ask then it was now or never. The audience was coming to an end and I could see the luxurious future I had mapped out disappearing in an instant if I didn’t pluck up the courage to make my request. “Your Majesty,” I finally blurted out, “I have one last question for you. May I be permitted to have my photograph taken with your beautiful daughter?” The stunned silence was so complete that even the birds seemed to have stopped chirping. In the space of a sentence the jolly king had become as formidable as his ancestors, the kings of ancient Dahomey. “That is not my beautiful daughter!” he shouted. “That is my beautiful wife!” Dahomey. The very name used to send a shiver of fear thundering down the spine of anyone unlucky enough to stray across its borders. It was a place that became synonymous with the dead. It was a place that you visited only in the worst of nightmares. Its kings, descended from the son of a princess who slept with a leopard, lived a life of extreme brutality. The walls of the capital, Abomey, were festooned with the severed heads of enemies. To relax, the kings would avail themselves of a harem of hundreds of virgin girls and for sport they made good their coronation vows to expand by war the kingdom they had inherited. To fund it all the many prisoners generated by this near-constant state of conflict were wrapped in chains and sold to the European slavers along the coast. But the real ace of terror up their sleeves was not the fear of a life of slavery, but something far worse, something that still makes us shudder today. For ancient Dahomey was the home of voodoo. It’s at this point in my story that I should make my confession. I like dominant women and the more demanding, difficult, temperamental and volatile they are the better. I think it’s something about the challenge they present that makes the rewards all the sweeter, but on the flip side, as any man will attest, it’s a lust that certainly leads to more than its fair share of headaches, tears and embarrassment. To subscribe or buy this edition, click here Dahomey was eventually to become Benin, a small nation nestled onto West Africa’s Gulf of Guinea, and the shivers of fear have largely been replaced with ignorance of its very existence. Appearances in news bulletins are rare, and in tourist brochures rarer still. I can only think that we must all have been scared away by the voodoo. And I’ll admit that for many years I, too, was a little put off by thoughts of the living dead stalking the back lanes of this obscure African nation. But then came the day when I discovered something else about Benin, something that made me look at Benin in a new light altogether. For it turned out that, amidst all the bloodshed and gore, the kings of ancient Dahomey had come up with an idea worth any amount of voodoo – an army of temperamental, virginal fighting women willing to die at their rulers’ very whim. Now a king with an army of Amazons was the kind of king I wanted to meet. It’s hardly a surprise to learn that the son who resulted from that brief liaison between a princess and a leopard in the thirteenth century town of Tado, in what is now Togo, was a feisty character. When he eventually grew up, he murdered the established king and took over the throne. In time he had three sons of his own, but when it came to their turn to inherit the crown a dispute broke out between them and, unable to reach a compromise, the three brothers packed their bags and set out to establish kingdoms of their own. The eldest made it to Allada, another to Porto Novo, now Benin’s official capital, and the third went to the small town of Abomey, which, under the name of Dahomey, was later to become not just the largest of the three kingdoms, but one of the most powerful kingdoms in all of Africa – even giving French colonialism a run for its money. In case you have ever considered trying to meet the women of a royal household then allow me to offer a word of advice. It’s no easy task. It takes time, money, luck and, ideally, a dad who is a duke, a lord or, best of all, a king. If this has not been your fortune then your choices are a little more limited and, just like me on the day I set off to find myself a platoon of beautiful fighting women (or, at the very least, an eligible princess) you’re going to have to be a little more forthright in your approach. As with most things in Benin, sorting fact from fantasy is a fairly hopeless affair, but it appears that the Amazon fighting forces were originally assembled thanks to a shortage of male soldiers to fight in Dahomey’s numerous bloody campaigns. We don’t know exactly how big this women-only army was, but six thousand would be a reasonable estimate. Just as in legend, these women were the king’s personal bodyguard and his most trusted and ferocious fighters. However, disappointingly, perhaps, they did not chop off a breast for ease of bow and arrow use. Nor were they necessarily virgins, though once in the king’s service they were sworn to celibacy. And, while you may have heard rumours of lesbian orgies, no, there is no reliable evidence of these taking place either. Prior to this day the closest I had come to meeting royalty was when, as a child, I stood in the rain staring at the back of peoples heads in an unsuccessful attempt to catch a glimpse of our own Queen Elizabeth. Therefore, when my request for an audience with His Majesty King Gbèhanzin II, fourteenth King of Dahomey, was unexpectedly granted, I was nervous. I arrived at the palace gates, fretting over correct king-greeting etiquette, just in time to see His Majesty finish his morning stroll around the Palace gardens, surrounded by a retinue of assistants, one of whom was carrying an umbrella to shelter His Highness from the sun. It was a sight that did nothing to calm my nerves and things only became worse when I was called forward to greet the king. I entered the grounds and, as regally as is possible in a t-shirt and sandals, strode over the courtyard towards the waiting monarch and his assembled entourage. As I neared my heart missed a beat. They were here! The women of the royal household were clustered around the throne and some of them were even smiling at me. I tried my best to ignore them and stepped forward to the foot of the podium on which His Majesty was seated in a heavy wooden throne. Averting my eyes from the king as instructed, I prostrated myself and kissed the ground at his feet. A giggle emanated from the corner of the group and I glanced up to see a girl who, with such beauty, could surely be none other than a princess. I ventured a little smile, she responded back with one and, just for a second, I saw a new future mapped out for me. A luxurious future of servants holding umbrellas above my head and women prepared to die at my mere whim. All I need do now was impress the King and it would be in the bag. The audience began well enough. His Majesty was relaxed and easy to talk with and his friendly responses to my questions quickly put me at ease. “No,” he told me, “the last of the Amazons died in the ‘40s and the only women found in the palace nowadays, apart from the workers, are my wife and daughters.” As the audience began to draw to a close I once again caught the eye of the beautiful princess and knew that it was now or never and with that I opened my mouth and blurted out, “Your Majesty, I have one last question for you. May I be permitted to have my photograph taken with your beautiful daughter…?”

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