THE AMAZONS OF THE EAST -
A Kingdom Peopled by Women in China

Of deep interest is the ancient myth revolving around kingdoms peopled by women. One of these kingdoms was situated in the middle of the sea; another, in Western lands. The women have been referred to as Oriental Amazons, and scholars believe there is some connection between the kingdom of women and the system of polyandry practiced in certain parts of Tibet.

These women were attractive, with their pale skin and their long hair reaching to the ground. Their bodies, however, were covered with hair. They conceived miraculously after bathing in sacred polls for two or three months, and gave birth in their sixth or seventh month. Female babies survived in the kingdom of women, whereas male infants were abandoned and died. Although these Amazon women had no breasts, a white juice that flowed from the white root of the hair that grew on the nape of their necks was used to nurse their newborns. At the end of a hundred days, a child was capable of walking. At the age of three or four, the progeny behaved like adults.

So fearful were these women of men that they fled at the sight of them. Their food was that of the animals of the region: a kind of very salty algae, a plant whose leaves resembled a kind of meadow saxifrage or hartwort.
 

Bettina L. Knapp, Women in Myth, China’s Fragmented Godess Images.