The eLangeni (Mhlongo) royal lineage, maternal house of Queen Nandi kaBhebhe, played a decisive role in the rise of the Zulu kingdom. This article examines the evidence, origins, governance, succession, gender dynamics, oral traditions, colonial encounters, and enduring legacy of Nandi’s people within Zulu dynastic politics.
Shanakdakhete is the earliest attested female sovereign of the Kingdom of Kush, ruling from Meroë in the late second century BCE with the full titulary of a reigning monarch. This article examines the archaeological and epigraphic evidence for her reign, the succession and ritual systems that enabled female rule, and her enduring legacy as a foundational Kandake in the Nile Valley.
Amina of Zazzau, remembered as the warrior queen who built walls, ruled the Hausa city-state of Zazzau in present-day northern Nigeria during the sixteenth century. Her reign is reconstructed from oral traditions, the Kano Chronicle, and the earthen ramparts known as ganuwar Amina. This article examines the evidence, political structures, military strategies, economic networks, and contested legacy of one of Africa’s most celebrated female sovereigns.
Hatshepsut’s erasure was a systematic campaign to remove her name, image, and monuments from Egypt’s public record during the late reign of Thutmose III. This article examines the archaeological evidence, dynastic politics, gender dynamics, and ritual logic behind the attack, arguing that it was a calculated succession strategy rather than simple personal vengeance. It also explores how the erasure paradoxically preserved her legacy for modern scholarship.
The Magajiya was one of the most senior female titleholders in the Hausa kingdoms of present-day northern Nigeria and southern Niger. Rooted in pre-Islamic systems of complementary governance, she held substantial authority over women’s affairs, market regulation, and ritual life, serving as a counterbalance to the male emir. This article examines the origins, political functions, economic powers, and enduring legacy of the Magajiya, drawing on oral traditions, palace chronicles, and critical Africanist scholarship.
This article examines the intersection of rainmaking ritual power and matrilineal succession in Central and Southern Africa. Focusing on the Lovedu Rain Queens and the Chewa rain priestess Makewana, it assesses whether rain authority passed through women, the mechanisms of female inheritance, and the limits of colonial and patriarchal interpretations.
How African constitutions and statutes handle hereditary rulers — South Africa, Ghana, Nigeria, Botswana, Uganda, Eswatini — and the recurring problems of gender, politics and land.
Kandake was a title, not a name. The revised chronology, what Strabo actually wrote about Amanirenas, and why almost every online account of Kush’s queens is out of date.
Who the Balobedu are — origins, Khelobedu language and its fight for recognition, social structure, land history, and how the Rain Queenship fits into the society it belongs to.
Which African states produced women rulers, and why — Kush, Matamba, Barotseland, the Balobedu queenship, Merina Madagascar and more, with the succession rules that made it possible.