boxing match, their faces entirely covered with blood, bosoms bare, and
the clothes nearly torn from them.” These “she-devils” were singers and
prostitutes, and their prefight preparation consisted mostly of drinking
more gin than usual. Other rough venues included the Dog and Duck in St.
George’s Fields, Bagnigge Wells on King’s Cross Road, and White Conduit
House near Islington (Quennell 1962, 63–66).
1774 During Wang Lun’s rebellion in Shandong province, a tall,
white-haired female rebel is seen astride a horse, wielding one sword with
ease and two with care. The woman, whose name is unknown, was a sor-
ceress who claimed to be in touch with the White Lotus deity known as the
Eternal Mother. An actress named Wu San Niang (“Third Daughter Wu”)
was also involved in Wang Lun’s rebellion. Described as a better boxer,
tightrope walker, and acrobat than her late husband, Wu has skill re-
marked mainly because female boxers were unusual in a society whose
standards of beauty required women to bind their feet.
1776 According to tradition, a Buddhist nun named Wu Mei (Ng
Mui) creates a Southern Shaolin Boxing style known as yongchun(wing
chun;beautiful springtime). The tradition has never been proven, and
twentieth-century stylistic leaders such as Yip Chun believe that a Can-
tonese actor named Ng Cheung created the style during the 1730s. If Yip
is correct, then the female attribution could mean that Ng Cheung special-
ized in playing female roles, or that the ultimate master is a loving old
woman rather than some muscled Adonis. Still, it is possible that some
southern Chinese women practiced boxing in a group setting. During the
late eighteenth century, Cantonese merchants began hiring Hakka women
to work in their silkworm factories. (While ethnically Chinese, the Hakka
had separate dialects and customs. Unlike most Chinese, these customs did
not include binding the feet of girls. Therefore their women were physically
capable of working outside the home.) To protect themselves from kidnap-
pers (marriage by rape remained a feature of Chinese life into the 1980s),
these factory women gradually organized themselves into lay sisterhoods.
So it seems likely that Wu Mei was simply a labor organizer or head of an
orphanage whose name became associated with a boxing style.
1782 A 22-year-old Massachusetts woman named Deborah Sampson
cuts her hair and enlists in the Continental Army, calling herself Robert
Shurtliff. She fought against the Tories and British in New York, and she
also wrote letters for illiterate soldiers and did her best to avoid rough sol-
diers’ games such as wrestling. (The one time she did wrestle, she was flung
to the ground.) After the war, Sampson married, and in 1838 her husband
became the first man to receive a pension from the United States govern-
ment for his wife’s military service. Sampson’s maritime equivalents during
the Revolutionary War included Fanny Campbell and Mary Anne Talbot.674 Women in the Martial Arts