Matrilineal and other succession systems that enabled female political power.
This article examines how matrilineal succession shaped royal authority in the Central African kingdoms of Ndongo and Matamba. It explores the avuncular principle, the role of the royal kanda, and the extraordinary reign of Queen Njinga Mbandi, whose rise to power was both enabled and constrained by these indigenous succession norms.
An authoritative examination of how the Luba and Lunda empires of Central Africa built royal legitimacy through women, with queen mothers and royal sisters controlling succession, rainmaking, and land, and with female rulers such as Lueji exercising sovereign power.
The initiation of a Rain Queen (Modjadji) among the Balobedu of Limpopo, South Africa, is a prolonged, secretive process of seclusion, training, and ritual transformation. It converts a selected royal woman into the living embodiment of rainmaking power, political authority, and ancestral mediation. This article examines the evidence, cosmological foundations, succession rules, ritual stages, regalia, gender dynamics, colonial distortions, and contemporary significance of this unique institution.
The abusua, or matrilineal clan, is the foundation of Akan political legitimacy, making the queen mother (ohemaa) a co-sovereign who controls royal succession, ritual power, and the continuity of the state. This article examines how Akan matriliny shapes queen mother authority from mythological origins to modern Ghanaian governance, centring oral traditions and African scholarship.
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.
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.
The Kingdom of Kush developed a distinctive matrilineal succession system in which the kandake—queen mother and high priestess—served as the legitimizing anchor of kingship. This article examines the evidence, mechanisms, and ideological foundations of that system, drawing on archaeological, textual, and oral sources while centring African epistemologies. It explores how the kandake’s spiritual, political, and military authority shaped one of ancient Africa’s most enduring monarchies.
An authoritative examination of the eLangeni chieftaincy, the maternal polity of Queen Nandi, and how its genealogical, political, and ritual resources shaped the contested legitimacy of Shaka kaSenzangakhona in precolonial southeastern Africa.
In Akan states of Ghana and Côte d’Ivoire, the Queen Mother (Ohemaa) is a co-sovereign whose constitutional authority is indispensable to the selection and destoolment of chiefs. Rooted in matrilineal descent, her power derives from her position as senior woman of the royal lineage, keeper of the ancestral stool, and guardian of dynastic legitimacy. This article examines the political, legal, ritual, and historical dimensions of her role from precolonial times to the present.
The matrilineal belt of Central Africa is a vast region where descent, inheritance, and political succession pass through the mother’s line. This article examines the ecological, economic, and historical forces that shaped this distinctive kinship system, focusing on the absence of cattle, the centrality of female hoe agriculture, and male mobility in trade and warfare. Drawing on oral traditions, archaeology, and comparative ethnography, it offers a nuanced account of why matriliny became so deeply rooted in this part of the continent.