29/03/2021
More on Jaguarina (Ella Hattan), swordswoman extraordinaire, and all-round martial artist. She "was expert in fighting with the singlestick, rapier, dagger, bayonet, lance, Spanish knife, and bowie knife, defeating fencing heavyweights such as Sergeant Owen Davis of the U.S. Cavalry, the famed knife duelist Charles Engelbrecht of the Danish Royal Guard, and the fencing master E. N. Jennings of the Royal Irish Hussars.
"By 1897, Hattan had defeated sixty men in contests on foot as well as on horseback, and was declared âthe only woman in the world who has . . . been able to wrest championship honors from men of the greatest skill in the use of all chivalric weapons.â For the past twelve years, asserted the Boston Daily Globe, she had âmet all comers in mounted contests, and has never been defeated in a battle for general pointsâ (Boston Daily Globe, May 31, 1897).
"Of these opponents, twenty-seven were said to have been masters-at-armsâa statistic verified by at least one major newspaper (Cleveland Plain Dealer, Apr. 10, 1989). As a result of these combats, Hattan carried scars on her face, arms, and body (New York Sunday Telegraph, Dec. 20, 1903). Still, more than one male reporter, expecting to meet a âfierce faced Amazon,â was shocked to find that Hattan exuded grace, refinement, and, as one put it, âperfect self-control and sweetnessâ (Cleveland Plain Dealer, Apr. 10, 1989).
"As Hattan herself explained, 'Iâm a firm believer in the philosophy that women were meant to be just as robust and hardy as menâand they can be without losing any of their womanliness. In fact, physical culture gives grace, beauty, self-relianceâ while taking nothing but aches and dyspepsia.' (Victoria Daily Colonist, Mar. 11, 1893)
"In addition to her prowess at arms, Hattan also evinced a profound intellect and eloquence, especially in her statements regarding health and physical culture: 'If the people of the world were, all at once, transformed into original beings, as intended by nature, there would be little left to do for doctors and instructors in physical development. The so-called advancements in civilization have obliterated our natural selves to such a degree that the first requisites of nature to a healthful condition of the body are so obscured that by the time a man or woman of the present has fairly entered upon life they are so artificial, so unreal in their existence that they require teaching how to live. The whole secret of good health, and a fair physical development, is in returning to the first principles of nature . . . The very simplicity of the thing constitutes its chief mystery. It is only because we have outlived all plainness and all that is simple and natural that we are forced to resort to complicated expedients to undo the evils resulting from unnatural and artificial living." (Los Angeles Herald, Nov. 28, 1890)."
https://www.northatlanticbooks.com/blog/womens-history-spotlight-jaguarina-and-colonel-monstery/
