Marginalized Knowledge: An Agenda for Indigenous Knowledge Development and Integration with Other Forms of Knowledge

Gina Buijs⁴⁸-( [e-mail])
University of Zululand,
South Africa
Abstract

This paper discusses some of the roles of women in the pre-colonial empires of southern Africa, in particular looking at the role of women as rulers or associates of rulers among the Lovedu, at Mapungubwe, Great Zimbabwe and among the Venda people of present day Limpopo province, South Africa. Women rulers in this part of Africa have been little remarked on, with the exception of the rain queen, Mujaji and the Swazi Queen mother, often not the mother of the Swazi king but a powerful complementary female ruler. In keeping with the theme of rulers who appear as strangers the paper looks at the mysterious provenance of the Lovedu queens and others as well as the connection of these women to large scale trade with the Indian Ocean coast from the 10^th to the 15^th centuries at Mapungubwe, Great Zimbabwe and other centres of political, social and economic activity in this part of Southern Africa, centred on or around the Limpopo river. I have written elsewhere (Buijs, 2002 a, 2002 b,) of the ritual role of the father’s sister in Venda society. This paper extends that discussion to encompass the role of royal or high status women as holders of ritual positions and often ‘outsiders’, or ‘stranger-queens’ as among the Lovedu. I suggest that these high status women may have used their ritual positions to further improve trade with the coast and inland.

Introduction

The role of women designated as ‘ritual sisters’ or ‘queen mothers’ has been reported widely in West and East Africa, among, for instance, the Bunyoro of Uganda of whom Beattie (1958) writes of the Kalyota whom he calls ‘the king’s official sister’ that

She was really a kind of chief…she held and administered estates, from which she derived revenue and services like other chiefs. She settled disputes, determined inheritance cases and decided matters of precedence among the Bito women. She was not the queen, if by queen we mean the king’s consort. We may best regard her then, as a kind of female counterpart of the king, the head of the Bito women and so the chief lady in the land’.
The Kalyota had a counterpart in the form of the king’s official brother, head of the Bito, the ruling clan among Nyoro men. Beattie notes that ‘although there is little place for her [the Kalyota] in the modern system’ she still holds an official rank and is paid a small salary. The position of the Kalyota in colonial Uganda seems to have been viewed with disapproval by colonial authorities, if one reads between the lines of Beattie’s comments
Nowadays she (the Kalyota) is socially overshadowed by the king’s true consort, the Omugo, whom he married in Christian marriage and who has borne him several children. It was she, and not the Kalyota, who accompanied the Mukama (the king) on his visit to England for Queen Elizabeth’s coronation in 1953, and she sits at his side at ceremonies and entertainments at which Europeans are present [author’s italics] (Beattie 1960:31)