Rain Queen Mother
When Rain Queen Mother first arrived in the village of her Great, Great, Great Grandmother to begin her Initiation in 1998, her Elders told her that her way - meaning her path, was truly Ancestral. She would never have been able to find her way home if it were not for the fact that her...
The Rain Queen and the Lobedu: A North Sotho Tribe
The Balobedu (Ba Lobedu - Ba gaModjadji) are a Bantu tribe of the Northern Sotho group, with strong affinities to the Venda, or Vhavhenda, to the north. They have their own kingdom, in the district of Balobedu - Limpopo Province - South Africa. The Lobedu Kingdom comprises over 150 villages. Each has a headman who...
Modjadji, The Rain Queen
The Lovedu tribe (also called the Balobedu), a Sotho-Venda group that in 1500 settled in the north of what is now the Limpopo Province of South Africa, has the distinction that it is the only tribe in Africa still ruled by a female monarch.
Rain queen’s heir is pawn in a battle royal
Spring is here and it is time for rain-making in the royal kingdom of Modjadji, South Africa. Except that the legendary 'rain queen' is dead and her daughter and heir, Masalanabo, has been spirited away by the little girl's father, who believes her life is also in danger.
She who must be surveyed
Africa's legendary Balobedu tribe enters an era of modernity and scandal this week following the crowning of its youngest rain queen, a descendant of the female monarchs who inspired the phrase "she who must be obeyed".