Female Monarchs and Merchant Queens in Africa

Nwando Achebe

• Publisher: Ohio University Press
• Year: 2020
• ISBN:
  9780821440803
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: Women in History
• Index: History

An unapologetically African-centered monograph that reveals physical and spiritual forms and systems of female power and leadership in African cultures.

Nwando Achebe's unparalleled study documents elite females, female principles, and female spiritual entities across the African continent, from the ancient past to the present. Achebe breaks from Western perspectives, research methods, and their consequently incomplete, skewed accounts, to demonstrate the critical importance of distinctly African source materials and world views to any comprehensible African history. This means accounting for the two realities of African cosmology: the physical world of humans and the invisible realm of spiritual gods and forces. That interconnected universe allows biological men and women to become female-gendered males and male-gendered females. This phenomenon empowers the existence of particular African beings, such as female husbands, male priestesses, female kings, and female pharaohs. Achebe portrays their combined power, influence, and authority in a sweeping, African-centric narrative that leads to an analogous consideration of contemporary African women as heads of state, government officials, religious leaders, and prominent entrepreneurs.

1

Spiritual Monarchs

God, Goddesses, Spirit Mediums, and Rain Queens

The modjadji or rain queen of Lovedu, South Africa, is¹ believed to be the living embodiment of the rain goddess. She has special powers. Also referred to as the Khifidola-maru-a-Daja (transformer of clouds), the modjadji guarantees the seasonal cycle and controls the clouds, rainfall, and fertility of the crops. Like rain queens, spirit mediums are believed to be embodiments of the spirits or the ancestors. It is a form of possession in which a person serves as an intermediary between the gods and society. In hierarchical societies, such as the Nyamwezi, spirit medium societies provide women with the most-direct avenues for active participation in politics and religious life. Spirit mediums can achieve measures of power that place them above men and all mortals.

In African societies, deities, the most powerful of whom is the Great Creator God, serve as the true political heads or spiritual monarchs of their communities. Next in rank to God are the lesser gods and goddesses. Personifications of natural phenomena, the most influential are gendered females, deities in charge of the waters and the land. These deities are the moral judges of conduct and wield power indiscriminately.

Starting with the African Great Creator God, this chapter locates the sources of female/women’s ritual and political power, which I refer to as the female spiritual political constituency, within various African communities. In the pages that follow, I center the leadership of (fe)male gendered spiritual forces such as goddesses, oracles, female medicines, and their human helpers (e.g., priestesses, diviners, spirit mediums, and prophetesses)—the real rulers of African kingdoms, paramounts, towns, and communities. I anchor my discussion in regional case studies that speak to the power, gender, and metaphor of God, the ultimate leader of the spiritual political constituency, and the power, authority, and influence of (fe)male lesser deities, rain queens, spirit mediums, priestesses of the gods, priests of the goddesses, and traditional medicine workers and healers. First, we must understand how African society is organized politically.

The Female Principle in African Politics: The Female Spiritual Political Constituency

In Africa, there are basically two political constituencies: the spiritual and the human. The spiritual political constituency is made up of divinities: male and female functionaries who derive their political power from an association with the spiritual world. These spiritual functionaries or leaders are organized in a hierarchical manner (see worldview diagram, figure I.1, in the introduction).

The human political constituency (see chapter 2) is made up of executives who achieve their political potential as human actors in the physical realm. The text that follows delves into the spiritual political constituency, starting with the most powerful of these spiritual entities, the African Great God.

The Power of God

African cosmological accounts submit that God is the origin of all things. All-knowing and all-powerful, Great or High God is the supreme being who created the world, nature, animals, and humans. The 512 nations that make up present-day Nigeria have descriptive names for God. The Igbo, for instance, call God Chukwu, which means “the Great One from whom beings originate.” They also call God Chineke, “The Creator of all things.” The Edo refer to God as Osanobua (or Osanobwa), meaning “the Source of all beings who carries and sustains the world or universe”; and the Nupe call God Soko, meaning “the Creator or Supreme Deity that resides in heaven.” Other West African groups like the Mende of Sierra Leone also have descriptors for God. For them, God or Ngewo is “the Eternal One who rules from above.”²

Ngai is the Supreme Being of the Gĩkũyũ, Maasai, and Kamba people of East Africa. Although Ngai’s abode is in the sky, Ngai’s special dwelling place on earth is the Kirinyaga mountain ranges; hence the Gĩkũyũ also refer to God as Ngai wa Kirinyaga. In Tanzania, there is no equal to the Ruanda people’s Supreme Being Imana. The southern Sudanese Dinka call God Nhailic (“That which is above”) or Jok, meaning “Spirit” or “Power.” To the Nuer of Sudan, God is Kwoth, and Kwoth is not the sky, the moon, or the rain; Kwoth reveals Her-/Himself through these natural phenomena.³

Among the Batswana of southern Africa, God is Modimo (Molimo), meaning “One who dwells on high or the High One.” Among the Zulu, Great God is called uNkulunkulu, meaning “Great, Great One” or “Old, Old, One.” The Zulu regard God, also called Mvelinqangi (the First Out Comer), as the ancestor of all. Some southern African Nguni groups call God Qamata (The First One), and Umdali (Creator).⁴ Among the Baila and Botanga of northern Zambia, God is known as Leza (the One who does what no other can do).

African peoples believe that God is eternal and immortal. One of the names that the Kono of Sierra Leone call God is Meketa (the Everlasting One).⁵ God is also invisible, incomprehensible, mysterious, beyond understanding, and unpredictable. God may never be questioned or cursed. Radically transcendent and immanent, God is above and greater than all else. God is not limited to a particular place or time, God cannot be confined to heaven or earth. God is everywhere. God dwells among us and within us. The Kono of Sierra Leone express this reality in another one of the names that they give God, Yataa, meaning “God is the One you meet everywhere.”⁶

In spite of these attributes, God is not usually worshipped directly, but is paid high respect. In some African nations, God does not have any priests or dedicated shrines, hence the intimation by some scholars that the African God is a distant God. This assessment is, however, simplistic and does not read entirely true. The African understanding of God is more complex and nuanced than mere binary classifications. In reality, God is distant, or separated from the affairs of human beings, only in the sense that God is perceived as being too big to behold by these humans, and therefore they cannot understand God. This paradoxical complementarity of the closeness yet distance of God is expressed by the Nupe in their conceptualization of God (Soko). They say, “God is far away. God is in front. God is in the back.”⁷

The Gender of God in Africa: How God Became He

In the Judeo-Christian framework God is presented as male. In this Western patriarchal religious tradition, the female persona of God in Africa is suppressed. In addition, African theologians and scholars have attempted to prove that the European missionaries did not introduce the concept of God to the continent; thus, many of them equated the belief in an African Supreme God in all three thousand–plus nations in Africa to belief in a Christian God who is imagined as male. This assessment spilled over to their non-African counterparts, who in their writing and interpretations of God also necessarily adopted male pronouns and gender. P. J. Paris, a theologian specializing in African religion, for instance, argues that the African God is the same as the Christian God, who is regarded as the father of our Lord Jesus Christ, not His mother.⁸

The true conceptualization of God in Africa is actually much more nuanced, much more complex. In several African societies, the supreme divinity is neither male nor female. However, referring to God in English has been complicated by the fact that African languages do not have gender-specific pronouns—African pronouns are gender-neutral. This gender neutrality has however been lost when African names for God have been translated into European languages. The result is that the genderless African Creator God has been written about with the pronoun “He,” a handicap that owes its origins to the gender-specific nature of these languages. In consequence, translations of African theology into the missionary/colonial languages of English, French, and Portuguese produced a discourse about God in Africa in which God became male.

The Metaphor of God

Nevertheless, African metaphors for God do not necessarily reflect the ways in which theologians or religious historians of Africa write about God. For the Zulu, Swati, Xhosa, Basotho, Batswana, Bapedi and Barotse, Shona, Kalnga, Ndau, Sena, Venda, Tsonga, Ihambane, Herero, and Ndebele, and the three thousand–plus peoples that inhabit the African continent, the names for God are gender-neutral. Indeed, most African societies believe that the world was created by a genderless Creator God. Among the Diola of present-day Senegambia, the genderless Great God is called Emitai. The Igbo Great God of eastern Nigeria, Chukwu (or Chineke), is likewise neither male or female. The Ewe and Fon Creator Deity, Mawu (female) Lisa (male), exhibits both male and female qualities or principles. For the Ga of Ghana, Ataa Naa Nyonmo is a combination of Ataa (old man) and Naa (old woman). Thus, Ataa Naa Nyonmo translates into “Father Mother God.”⁹ The Akan also believe in a genderless God, Kwasi Asi a daa Awisi (“The Male-Female One”).¹⁰

Some African societies regard their Creator God as female. For instance, the Creator God of the Tarakiri Ezon of the Niger Delta region of Nigeria, Tamarau, is considered female and her name means “our Mother.” She is sometimes also called Ayebau, which means “the Mother of the world.” For the Krobos of Ghana, God—Kpetekplenye—is also female. She is considered to be the “Mother of all big and wonderful things.”¹¹ The southern Nuba, who have a matrilineal system of descent, also personify the Supreme God as female. According to comparative religious scholar Geoffrey Parrinder, “The southern Nuba . . . refer to God as ‘the Great Mother’ and when praying beside a dying person they say, ‘Our God, who has brought us into this world, may She take you.’”¹²

Mwari is the most common name for God among the Shona of Southern Africa. The metaphors surrounding Mwari exist in closest association with the female principle. For instance, the metaphor for God most commonly used among the Shona is Mbuya (grandmother). The VaHera substitute Mbuya for Mwari when they refer to Mwari’s powers of creation and fertility. Runji is another God as mother metaphor used to depict the Creator God. This Shona word means “needle,” which, like lightning, metaphorically sews the heavens and earth together. The craft of sewing (kusona) among the Shona, moreover, is not only traditionally associated with women: all women are expected to know how to sew.¹³

The female image of God is also reflected in the Shona metaphor for God as muvumbapasi (molder or fashioner of things). Another popular metaphor used for God among the Shona is musikavanhu. This metaphor speaks to the fact that God is both male and female. Among the Shona, the word kusika is associated with the kindling of fire with two sticks. One of the sticks has a hole in it, in which grass is placed, and the other stick, musika, is twisted in the hole until fire is created. This fire-making tool symbolizes male and female organs.¹⁴ The female image of God is also expressed in metaphors that depict God as dziva/dzivaguru and chidziva chopo. These metaphors associate God with water. Water is regarded by the Shona as a symbol for the universal mother, who is the source of all life. The Shona also have metaphors that clearly depict God as male. One is sororezhou/wokumusoro. Sororezhou means “elephant head” or father, and wokumusoro means “he who dwells on high.” Thus, in Shonaland, God is both male and female.¹⁵

The Genderless or Dual-Gender African God

Among the Malagasy of Southern Africa, the Supreme God is Zanahary or Andriamanitra. The source of life, creator of all things, and the founding and primary ancestor of the Malagasy, Zanahary is believed to be both male and female. She/He is both celestial and terrestrial. The earthly Zanahary created humans from clay or wood, and the heavenly Zanahary breathed life into them. Zanahary is a supreme judge of moral justice. She/He judges tangena¹⁶ ordeals and distinguishes between the innoc...