Drum Magazine social history photographs, Ghana edition 15

Ghana, 1962. Last Of The Amazons – Warrior Madam Abrah Agbekotse demonstrates how to use a gun in her fighting days. Madam Abrah Agbekotse said she was 103 years old, and she did look every bit a centenarian. Yet when she put on the full garb of an ancient warrior, took her gun and cocked it, dancing here and there in mock battle and waving her horse-tail about, she was completely transformed, and gave one a feeling that she was a mere 40-year-old Amazon, seeking the blood of men! She was born at Avatime, in the Volta Region of Ghana. Her father, the late Togbe Agbekotse, was chief of Fume, and that alone could have made an unusual woman out of Abrah.