Born with a cord around her neck<\/p>\n
foreshadowing power and pride,<\/p>\n
she was taught by Portuguese missionaries.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Her father, king, trained her for battle,<\/p>\n
showered her with affection; the daughter<\/p>\n
of his favourite concubine.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
She wore traditional attire to a treaty meeting,<\/p>\n
they expected her to sit on a mat<\/p>\n
but underestimated her belief in equal status,<\/p>\n
she had her servants bend over backwards to become her seat.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Held up as a goddess but with mortal complexity,<\/p>\n
for thirty years she lead her army into battle<\/p>\n
she fought against Portuguese invasion<\/p>\n
she fought against slavery<\/p>\n
she fought for peace and liberation<\/p>\n
she had her lovers fight one another<\/p>\n
for a night in her bed<\/p>\n
then executed the winner the following day.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
She died at 82, was laid out in leopard skins<\/p>\n
with her bow across her shoulders<\/p>\n
and arrows in her hands.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Born with a cord around her neck foreshadowing power and pride, she was taught by Portuguese missionaries. Her father, king, trained her for battle, showered her with affection; the daughter of his favourite concubine. She wore traditional attire to a treaty meeting, they…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1368,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[441],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-62852","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-poetry-prompt-responses"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62852","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1368"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=62852"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62852\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":62892,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62852\/revisions\/62892"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=62852"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=62852"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=62852"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}