This article examines the intertwined roles of rainmakers and spirit mediums among the Mbundu people of Ndongo, focusing on the seventeenth-century reign of Queen Nzinga. It explores how ritual authority underpinned political legitimacy, shaped succession, and enabled resistance to Portuguese colonialism, drawing on oral traditions, missionary accounts, and modern scholarship.
The Ndlovukazi, or She-Elephant, is the Queen Mother of Eswatini and joint head of state alongside the Ngwenyama. This article examines her origins, political and ritual authority, succession mechanisms, and enduring legacy from Labotsibeni Mdluli to Ntfombi Tfwala. It centres Swazi oral traditions and indigenous concepts of complementary sovereignty.
This article examines how the slow, resilient life cycle of the Modjadji cycad (Encephalartos transvenosus) provides a living metaphor for the matrilineal succession of the Lovedu Rain Queens. Drawing on oral tradition, ethnographic record, and contemporary legal recognition, it explores the botanical and ritual logics of rebirth, continuity, and sacred custodianship in the Balobedu polity.
Ranavalona I ruled the Merina Kingdom of Madagascar from 1828 to 1861, directing a sustained war policy of territorial expansion, economic autarky, and anti-European resistance without personally taking the field. Her reign transformed the highland kingdom into an island-wide imperial power through strategic use of ritual authority, military delegation, and diplomatic isolation. This article examines the political structures, succession mechanisms, military strategies, and colonial encounters that defined her sovereignty.
The training of a Modjadji (Rain Queen) of the Balobedu people is a prolonged, secluded process of bodily discipline, oral instruction, and graded access to sacred objects and formulae. This article examines how a girl child is transformed into the bearer of rainmaking power, drawing on oral traditions, ethnographic accounts, and the limited written record. It centres indigenous concepts of ritual potency, matrilineal succession, and complementary rule.
An authoritative encyclopedia entry on the Sika Dwa Kofi, the Golden Stool of Asante, exploring its mythological origins, political and ritual significance, the complementary custodianship of the Asantehene and Asantehemaa, and its enduring legacy in Ghana and the African diaspora.
The rain priestesses of the Shona were female ritual authorities within the Mwari cult, the indigenous religious system centred on the High God Mwari and the oracle shrines of the Matobo Hills in present-day Zimbabwe. These women, known as vakadzi vaMwari (wives of Mwari) and svikiro (spirit mediums), exercised real spiritual and ecological sovereignty by interceding for rain, legitimising rulers, and upholding moral order. Their authority was structural, rooted in indigenous epistemologies that recognised female power over fertility, land, and the life-giving forces of the cosmos.
The Yao mwenye is the senior female head of a matrilineage (mbumba) among the Yao people of Malawi and Mozambique. She holds custodial authority over land, marriage, and the legitimacy of chiefs, whose selection and deposition she directly influences. This article examines the historical and contemporary role of the mwenye, drawing on oral traditions, early written sources, and recent scholarship to centre Yao political thought.
Mekgadi (also Mokgadi) is a royal title and ritual office among the Balobedu people of South Africa, intimately linked to custodianship of the python-skin cloak—the foremost sacred regalia of the Modjadji Rain Queens. This article examines the cloak’s mythological origins, its role in rainmaking and succession, and the enduring authority of the women who guard it.
Matrilineal succession among the Akan peoples of Ghana is a sophisticated system of political and spiritual inheritance in which royal legitimacy, property, and office pass through the female line. Rooted in the concept of mogya (blood) and embodied in the authority of the ohemaa (queen mother), this system shapes chieftaincy, land tenure, and social identity across Asante, Fante, Akuapem, and other Akan states. This article examines its origins, mechanisms, gender dynamics, legal frameworks, and enduring legacy in contemporary Ghana.