Science: Women's Lib, Amazon Style

When the Spanish conquistador Francisco de Orellana returned from his exploration of the Amazon River four centuries ago, he told of a startling jungle encounter with a race of heroic women warriors. Like the Amazons of Greek mythology, whose name was subsequently given to the great waterway, the jungle women were fierce hunters and fighters. They mated with males captured from neighboring tribes, disposed of their male babies and reared their female offspring in their own martial image. Lacking any other evidence, most experts have long thought that Orellana's tales were fanciful. Now,...

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