Joining as early as eight and banned from sex or marriage (except with the king), the women were trained to endure pain by barefoot tramping over thorns. They wore striped armless tunics and a crocodile-emblazoned cap, and carried daggers, short swords, maces and rifles. They would chant: As blacksmiths forge iron and change its nature, So we change ours! We’re no longer women, we are men.
