The institutional power of queen mothers, female officials, and titled royal women.
Mkabayi kaJama was a Zulu royal woman, regent, and kingmaker whose political acumen shaped the early Zulu kingdom. As daughter of Chief Jama kaNdaba and sister of Senzangakhona, she acted as regent during her brother’s minority and later helped secure the accession of her nephew Shaka. Her life illuminates the often-overlooked power of senior royal women in precolonial southern Africa.
An authoritative examination of the Iyoba of Benin, the queen mother whose coral-beaded regalia embodied a distinct form of female sovereignty. The article traces the office from its sixteenth-century creation for Idia, mother of Oba Esigie, through its political, ritual, economic, and colonial histories, and assesses its enduring legacy in contemporary Edo society.
The Queen’s Mother—known as Mokwena in Balobedu tradition—is the senior female advisor and ritual guardian behind the Rain Queen (Modjadji) of the Balobedu people. Far more than a biological relation, she shapes succession, mediates political disputes, and safeguards the rainmaking knowledge that underpins Balobedu sovereignty. This article examines her office through oral tradition, ethnography, and contemporary practice.
The Indlovukazi, or Great She-Elephant, is the queen mother of the Zulu Kingdom—a sovereign office distinct from the king’s. This article examines her ritual, political, and regency powers, the succession systems that activated her authority, and her enduring legacy from the nineteenth century to the present.
The Kingdom of Dahomey (Danxomɛ) developed one of the most systematically gendered bureaucracies in precolonial Africa, in which every major male state official had a designated female counterpart. These women—known by titles such as kpojito, Miganon, and Meunon—held real administrative, judicial, economic, and ritual authority over parallel female spheres. This article examines the evidence, structure, and legacy of this dual-sex governance system, centring Fon oral traditions and palace iconography alongside written sources.
Nana Yaa Akyaa (c. 1830s–1917) was the Asantehemaa, or Queen Mother of Asante, from 1884 until her exile in 1896. As the senior woman of the Oyoko royal lineage of Kumase, she exercised constitutional authority over succession, diplomacy, and ritual, and was widely recognised as the real power behind the Golden Stool during the reign of her son, Asantehene Agyeman Prempeh I. Her career illuminates the matrilineal foundations of Asante sovereignty and the decisive role of queen mothers in West African statecraft.
The Iyoba, or Queen Mother of Benin, held a unique constitutional office with real judicial and economic authority over women’s affairs, market regulation, and ritual life. This article examines the origins, structure, and legacy of the Iyoba’s courts and market governance, drawing on oral traditions, palace records, and scholarly analysis to illuminate a sophisticated system of complementary female sovereignty in precolonial West Africa.
The isiGodlo was the royal women’s household of the Zulu kingdom—a physical enclosure, a political council, and a centre of ritual and economic authority. Far from a mere harem, it enabled royal women to advise the king, manage state resources, influence succession, and embody the spiritual well-being of the nation. This article examines its structure, powers, key figures, and enduring legacy.
The Akan Ohemaa, or queen mother, is a central figure in the dual-gender governance systems of Ghana’s Akan peoples. As the senior woman of the royal lineage, she holds inherent political, spiritual, and judicial authority, most critically serving as the kingmaker who nominates and enstools chiefs. This article examines the origins, structures, succession mechanisms, regalia, ceremonies, colonial encounters, and modern resurgence of the Ohemaa institution, centring Akan epistemologies and oral traditions.
This article examines how British, French, German, and Portuguese colonial administrators systematically diminished African women’s political authority by rendering diverse sovereign offices—rainmakers, co-rulers, ritual heads, and lawgivers—under the reductive English term ‘Queen Mother.’ Drawing on oral traditions, archival records, and African feminist scholarship, it traces the indigenous logic of complementary rule, the colonial translation as a technology of domination, and the enduring legacies of erasure and revival.