Real Life Warrior Princesses

Soon, very soon, this blog will be commandeered by yours truly to document my upcoming journey to China. But I couldn’t do that without doing one more traditional Compass Rose Queen post about two heroic women. (And I may occasionally interrupt my travel log to write about more amazing women when I get to China). This post will be about two historical figures: Princess Kasune and Princess Cornblossom. This will not be a reference site, so be sure to research them yourself for more information, but I wanted to introduce them to my readers.

I already packed up all my books, including the one written by Princess Kasune Zulu, called “Warrior Princess.” It was published fairly recently. I haven’t been able to read much, but I will write about what stood out to me (which is what I remember, so it may not be completely accurate). Princess Kasune isn’t a title, Princess is her first name. Her parents named her that because she did have royalty in her lineage from her tribe in Zambia. After being diagnosed with HIV, she set out on a lifelong epic journey to educate people about the disease. She has even gone so far as to hitchhike and then share her message to the truckers that were often promiscuous. Princess has traveled all over Africa and the world with this mission to fight the epidemic of AIDS, for the sake of the millions of orphaned children. So I say, she’s a real-life modern-day Warrior Princess. Check out her website for more information:  http://www.princesszulu.com

For the other Warrior Princess, we need to go back in time to early 1800’s Kentucky. In the class I student-taught this spring, my middle school kids were studying Westward Expansion, including the Indian Removal Act. But I didn’t discover this story by researching for my teaching. I was looking up waterfalls in Kentucky for the fun of it (I have family there and I love waterfalls). I stumbled on one named Princess Falls, and learned that it was named after a Cherokee woman because of her bravery at nearby Yahoo Falls, the tallest in Kentucky. Princess Cornblossom (which likely wasn’t her real name or title from what I can find online) was the daughter of Cherokee Chief Doublehead. After his assassination by Major Ridge and others (who was later assassinated for roughly the same reason), his daughter, whom we now call Princess Cornblossom, took over leadership for the tribe. She had planned to lead her people on the Tellico Trail to a school in Tennessee where they could be safe from the settlers who were trying to drive them out of their lands. While her people waited for her in the cave behind Yahoo Falls, “Indian Fighters” found them exposed and massacred them. Over 100 women and children died. But then Cornblossom and her son (and some accounts I found include others) came upon them, and this time the Indian Fighters were the ones exposed. Cornblossom gave a short speech defying the murderers, and she and her party killed most of the Indian fighters. Cornblossom was mortally wounded in the battle and died days later. Some accounts say she died of grief from the death of her people. For more information, search for Cornblossom or Doublehead, and try to decipher the history between the accounts.

So there you have it, two real-life warrior princesses. Neither are technically princesses, but both are noble of heart. Both are warriors: Princess Kasune in a more figurative way, and Princess Cornblossom quite literally. Both are braver than I ever will be. But I am proud to share their stories, and hope that their causes will be carried on. I hope that Princess Kasune Zulu’s fight against HIV is won eventually, and that Princess Cornblossom’s story inspires us to keep injustices like that from happening again.

This will probably be my last post for a while about the epic journeys of women. I’ll probably be posting just about my own journey to and in China for a while. I’ll eventually categorize the two types of posts (personal and not).

I leave this Sunday. Next time I post, I’ll be on the other side of the world!