“But weren’t they afraid of leaving themselves defenseless?” the pythia objected. “If they were surrounded by enemies, why would they send off their best fighters?”
“They didn’t necessarily send their best fighters away,” Erik weighed in. “The older, more experienced ones would have stayed at home. They sent away their most expendable fighters. Adolescent males mainly.”
“Teenagers?” Cassie was shocked.
Fred joined the discussion. “Not teenagers in the way we think of them today. Life expectancy back then was a lot shorter, so kids had to grow up fast. These boys would have started training with weapons around the age of seven. By the time they were fourteen, they would have been on active raids. They were hardly defenseless.”
“Almost like street gangs.” Cassie was chilled by the parallel.
“And think about where they were headed,” Erik added. “They had a huge advantage over the matristic tribes who didn’t have horses or lots of experience with weaponry. It was all easy pickings.”
“But the Kurgans must have been seriously outnumbered,” Cassie objected.
Erik shook his head. “That wouldn’t have mattered. They had a technological advantage. When Cortez conquered the Aztecs, who numbered in the millions, he did it with six hundred men, twenty horses, and ten cannons.”
“Yikes!” Cassie exclaimed. “So basically, a pack of testosterone-crazed punks with fast horses and pointy weapons were turned loose on a tribe of lettuce farmers.”
“Grim but accurate,” Griffin concurred.
Boisterous laughter coming from the lobby caused them all to turn and look up. A party of German tourists had just arrived to check in. Their luggage carts were filled with hiking equipment. One of their number wandered into the parlor carrying a heavy backpack. He looked briefly around the room. Smiling and nodding toward the Arkana team, he strolled back into the lobby.
They paused in their conversation to see if any more sightseers would straggle in.
When the noise in the adjoining room quieted down, Stefan broke the silence. “There is one more interesting fact. It is very possible that not all the warrior bands who left the homeland were males.”
Cassie stared at him uncomprehendingly.
“He’s talking about the Amazons, toots,” Erik prompted.
“But that’s just a myth, isn’t it?” Cassie turned to the security coordinator for confirmation.
“Nope.”
“Actually, the theory that female warrior bands also migrated would go a long way toward explaining the Amazon stories,” Griffin said. “Ancient chronicles described tribes of warrior women in the Ukraine, northern Greece, Bulgaria and even as far away as Libya in northern Africa. Conventional historians dismiss the Amazons as fanciful legends, but it’s far more likely that they really existed and that they weren’t a single tribe but many bands of female warriors migrating out of the steppes at various times.”
“It is important to remember that all these things happened long before they were written down,” Stefan added. “The first men who recorded stories of such women were living three thousand years later.”
Cassie frowned at a troubling thought. “But why wouldn’t the boy Kurgans and the girl Kurgans all migrate together? Didn’t they believe in co-ed conquest?”
Griffin hesitated, seemingly to consider the question. “This is all speculation on my part you understand, but I believe that the female migrants represented a second wave. The males would have been the first group to leave a tribe whose supplies were already strained to the limit. Males are more biologically expendable. The survival of the tribe as a whole depends on the existence of females capable of giving birth to the next generation. A far smaller number of males are needed for procreation. However, let us suppose that a particular tribe is in such dire straits that even adolescent females represent a drain on its resources. If the males have already departed, then that leaves young women as the most likely group to migrate away from the homeland.”
Cassie nodded, satisfied with the explanation. “I suppose that would be the reason why there were fewer female bands roving around looking for new territory and why they weren’t traveling with males. They left as a last-ditch effort. But if that’s true, then what happened to all of them? We know all about the male Kurgans, but it’s like all the female warrior tribes went extinct.”
Griffin smiled broadly. “That is an excellent question and one that brings us to the very brink of explaining the origins of patriarchy.”
Stefan grinned. “This is where we are getting excited, yes?”
Cassie darted him an odd look.
Fred leaned over and whispered, “He means that this is the exciting part. The missing link.”
Cassie nodded and smiled encouragingly at Stefan. “Yes, very exciting,” she concurred.
Griffin was about to speak, but he cut himself short when the waitress re-entered the parlor to ask if they needed anything. Everyone politely declined and waited in silence until the echo of her footsteps faded across the lobby floor.
Cassie emptied the last of her cola into a glass. Then she turned to Griffin and raised a quizzical eyebrow. “You can start any time now.”
“Very well. There is one distinct difference in the behavior of male overlords versus female overlords.” He paused. “Females don’t need to acquire females.”
Cassie tipped her head and eyed him dubiously.
He continued. “Female overlords are already the means of their own reproduction. If they wish to have children to inherit their property, they can mate with any passing male and go on their way. They retain the children and have indisputable proof of lineage since they gave birth to them. Their matrilineal kinship system and inheritance remain intact. Unfortunately, their male overlord brethren aren’t so fortunate. With no women in their band, they could no longer trace their descent through their
