It was a great pleasure coming across Mona Etienne’s “Gender Relations and Conjugality among the Baule”, in Christine Oppong’s Female and Male in West Africa. In a chapter, Etienne begins by mentioning that modern Baule women are known for being independent, noting that many middle aged and elderly Baule women who live in towns are unmarried yet acquire enough wealth to support those that are dependent on them and to maintain social networks. Some of these women have educated adult children or foster children who earn high salaries and are thus able to support their incomes, ensure that the women are taken care of in old age, and that they will have a “presitgious” funeral when they die. Young women holding these older women as role models, view marriage as “incompatible” with their personal goals of becoming wealth, or view marriage as a means through which they can get wealth as “a generous husband may help them attain wealth and success”.

Etienne boldly states that “this type of situation is not unusual in Africa, especially in West Africa”, and I believe that she means among modern West African women in urban environments. However among Baule women, even those in rural areas resist marriage despite pressure and the limited economic opportunities available to single women in the village, putting marriage aside because they want to go to the city or wanting to escape to the city because they do not want to marry. Both in the urban cities and rural villages, there are Baule women who are more concerned with achieving economic autonomy. Etienne traces this reluctance to marry, and this view of marriage as an unwanted convenience or “as an outright exploitation” to pre-colonial Baule society. Baule society has always placed premium in personal autonomy and individual freedom of choice for women and men.

Early European observers remarked on the high positions Baule women held. They had a voice in the decision making process in affairs that concerned the village. Furthermore all adult women were part of a secret society whose rituals were forbidden for men to see/watch. As part of this society, women defended the interests of the community against foreign threats, they also defended the interests of women against women although Etienne states that the more import role was safeguarding the community interests in times of illness and warfare. The support of women was absolutely crucial in affairs concerning the community, for example it was believed that men who went to war without the support of women would surely meet defeat and death. It should be noted that men also had their own secret society that women could not be part of.

It seems it was only in ritual that Baule women and men were divided as there was hardly any other case of separation between the sexes, and gender attributes were not rigidly defined. The division of labour in which men and women were assigned different tasks were apparently upheld due to efficiency in production and were not enforced by supernatural or civil sanctions. Deviations were acceptable when necessary or convenient meaning that men could perform women’s labour tasks when the situation called for it and vice versa. Finding a partner of the opposite sex to aid with labour did not necessarily mean finding a husband or wife, but could mean finding a “sister” or a “brother”. Deviations were only rare in the cases of apprenticeship though healers and diviners could be men or women.

Women chiefs were important, although they grew less in number at the time of colonisation. Women could attract vast amounts of wealth and dependants (both men and women), they played their role in trading and gold prospecting expeditions, and acquired domestic slaves in their own rights. Etienne mentions the traditions and histories contemporary women have of business minded grandmothers and great-grandmothers, and guesses that these women may have been encouraged by their own mothers hinting at a chain of enterprising Baule women who inspired their daughters over time. So Baule women’s search for independence and wealth is not new but rooted in history and traditional models.

Baule Gyaman girls in exquisite gold jewelry with horsetail switches

Among the Baule, early stages of marriage were marked by long periods of duolocality, that is the wife continued to live with her kin and the husband did the same. Marriage was not thought to be complete until the wife took up residence with her husband. It is due to this that noble women, women who belong to families that held high political office, are said to not marry. Such women could not be expected to move and take residence with their husbands if they did marry because they had a chance at a political office. And apparently the same thing happens today, even though the traditional political office does not hold as much important in this post-colonial age. Yet there are women who refuse marriage because they are heirs to a political seat, or whose families oppose their marriages for the same reason. Etienne states that these cases must be less frequent that in the past, because colonial and post-colonial administrations does not encourage women holding traditional political positions. In pre-colonial times when this discrimination was non-existent, there would have been more noble women refusing to marry or whose families refused their marriages. There would have also been noble women who married but did not live with their husbands as they did not want to risk losing their chance at a political seat. Thus for politically ambitious women, marriage was a constraint and noble women were not anxious to married, or if they did get married often divorced to claim their political office with their kin.

Baule women retain economic rights in their own kin group. They have rights to the labour of a brother or any other kinsman with whom they could launch an economic partnership similar to that between spouses. Basically, unmarried women could form ‘marriage-like” partnerships with their kinsmen on solely economic grounds. Kinship relations among the Baule are traced from both parents, rather from either a father and a mother, with succession and inheritance being generally matrilineal. In this cognatic system, people continually sought to attract dependants from all sides of the family tree that they could rely on, and who could rely on them in turn. Elders looked to attract dependants in order to increase their own wealth while juniors wanted to establish ties with elders who were rich enough to finance entrepreneurial undertakings and who were generous enough to offer dependants a share in the profits. Kin group membership was not rigidly ascribed and there was less gerontocracy or autocracy. Elders did demand respect and had some authority, however rigidly enforcing authority could led to the departure of dependants and even the eventual dying out of a kin group due to all the members leaving.

Riches came from having a large number of dependants to contribute to one’s revenue. No elders or chiefs could completely take the labour or revenue of their dependants, meaning that dependants always could keep a little something to themselves. The elders held on to a bonus which increased their own wealth. People acquired wealth and personal property either from their labour and also from estates inherited matrilineally. Relationships of dependency were flexible, all adults had the possibility of building their own group of personal dependants. A son who remained with his father’s kin was a “child of male” and could not inherit there, and neither could his children unless he married a woman in the same kin group as his father. In order to inherit, one had to be a “child of a female”. A man could return to his maternal kin in order to inherit there. Or he could build his own group, with his sisters, or his sister’s children, or by attracting maternal kin unrelated to his father. These people would show allegiance only to their “brother” and contribute their labour to his estate while receiving some revenue for themselves.

A women who chose to live with their husband had access to similar opportunities. She could create her own group by holding on to her unmarried or divorced daughters. These would be joined by her dependants unrelated to her husband, her domestic slaves, and younger members of her own kin group. By fostering and adopting children, a married woman could grow the number of people who depended on her. Usually when a woman took up residence with her husband, she was given a child in adoption and would adopt other children as time went on. Junior dependants would join her group if she had a reputation of wealth and generosity. All a married woman’s dependants owed allegiance to her alone, and respect to her husband. Through this, a married woman essentially she aided the people in her own kin group and maintained ties with them even though she now lived with her husband.

Etienne argues that marriage in Baule society was more of an “association of a woman and man for purposes of reproduction and production with shared rights in both children and products”. Children owed labour and allegiance to both parents, but this could be circumstantial depending on the child’s desires and ambitions. A married woman controlled the products of her labour and gained new wealth from surplus production. Gender equality was so that the two most important products in pre-colonial Baule society were controlled by men and women; yam for men and cloth for women. Division of labour meant that both men and women contributed to the production of both. Women and men controlled surplus production by controlling the labour of their dependants, domestic slaves, children and junior kin. And by controlling male dependants who worked in yam farming for example, a woman could use her surplus production to fund other opportunities such as long-distance trade and gold prospecting.

Of course colonialism changed things considerably. The introduction of cash crop lead to Baule women losing control over production. And losing control over production lead to losing control over dependants, as reduced productivity reduced a woman’s ability to attract dependants, and less dependants reduced a woman’s productive capacity. There is more to be said on how Baule gender relations and marriages were affected by colonialism and urban migration, however that is not the purpose of this post so I will end things here hoping that those who read this post have a clearer idea of how single unmarried women thrived in pre-colonial Baule society.

What I read
Etienne Mona, “Gender Relations and Conjugality among the Baule”, pp. 309-319 in Female and Male in West Africa (1983) edited by Christine Oppong

The “public women”
Like Igboland, sex work in the pre-colonial Gold Coast did not involve male pimps. Pre-colonially, there were public women, as Akyeampong refers to them, slaves bought by the political elite of Akan villages and towns that were compelled to provide sexual services for local bachelors. The presence of these public women was well noted by Europeans who lived and travelled among the south-west Akan groups of Esuma, Nzima, Evalue and Ahanta between the 17th and 19th centuries.

The institution of public women was created to cater to the sexual needs of unmarried men. Society clearly recognised their sexuality while simultaneously controlling the sexuality of women, especially married women, public women existed so that bachelors would have no excuses to engage in sexual relations with “free” women thus leading to adultery fines. Akyeampong mentioned the Twi proverb “mmarima ni ho a, mmaa basia yi won ho kyere” (when men are absent, women expose their nudity) to illustrate that the Akan believed female sexuality must always be controlled by male and female elders. Women were expected to fulfil sexual desires in marriage, which was monogamous for them. Fidelity was stressed for women, who were expected to marry though not all did. In my understanding, these Akan societies practised polygamy, and some individuals betrothed their daughters when they were still children, leading to a shortage of unmarried women that the bachelors could “alleviate” their sexual pressures with. Furthermore sex with married women if discovered lead to adultery fines at the least. The public women were essentially the “wives” of all bachelors in a given community, and if a married man was caught soliciting a public woman he would be fined for adultery.

The imbalance in sex ratios caused by polygamy threatened to disrupt relations between young men and the elders who controlled all the land and agricultural production. It was the male elders that also granted land to young men who they deemed fit to be independent, as well as wives. By installing the institution of public women, elders ensured that tensions were reduced with young bachelors while reinforcing existing structures of gerontocracy and patriarchy. Akyeampong argues that public women were actually public servants, as older public women in Assini received pensions from the King.

Public women became pawns in trading relations between Europeans and the Akan, as Europeans would kidnap and hold public women when they had disputes with locals according to Bosman. This would lead to the bachelors petitioning the elders to listen to the Europeans in order to get their public women back. The institution of public women apparently disappeared in the 19th century.

European observers
Olfret Dapper the Dutch physician and author of the book, Description of Africa (1668), visited Axim in the 1660s, when the town had a population of about 500. Dapper wrote about villages maintaing “two or three whores whom they called Abrakees“. Abrakees* were slaves initiated in public by Kabaseros (older, experienced public women) with the use of blood offerings and incantations that instil fear into the woman, convincing her that if she denies any bachelor that approaches her for sexual services, she will die. The Abrakee hands everything she gains from her sex work to the Kabasero and is granted the freedom to take foodstuff from anywhere, whether someone else’s house or in the market, for herself without having to pay. Interestingly Dapper notes that as part of the public initiation someone has to take the Abrakee away to make sure that she is “not a man but a woman”. Public women were indeed public, apart from being initiated in public, they were put on stools and carried on the shoulders of men around the village so that I guess everyone would know who they were. They were also expected to dance and drink in public during initiation, and then sit on a mat positioned near the marketplace wearing beads, clean clothes and lime or chalk decorations on their skin, collecting money from anyone who passed by.

Another Dutchman in Axim, this time in the 1700s wrote that young men would go and ask the elders to purchase a “common whore” for them. According to Willem Bosman merchant with the Dutch West India company, the purchased woman is brought to the marketplace by another woman who acts as her instructor. Part of Bosman’s account of the initiation involves a young boy pretending to have sex with the public woman so as to symbolise her reception of all men who demand her services. Bosman notes that public women lived on the outskirts of the village. Jean Godot who visted Assini a town to the west of Axim and in present-day Ivory Coast in 1701 noted that the king of Assini maintained six public women in every village and town who wore white headwraps to distinguish themselves from other women and lived on the outskirts of towns and villages where they provided sexual services to all bachelors.

Another European who noted and wrote on public women include A. Van der Eb, the General Director of the Dutch West India Company in the Gold Coast in his 1851 memorandum on the customs of the region. He notes that public women were paid in gold-dust, and that the only men who didn’t pay were those who slept with them first after their initiation.

The distinguished women who refused marriage
There is little mention of another kind of sex worker, different from the public women observed by Europeans in pre-colonial Akan societies. One Pieter de Marees in 1602 regarded coastal Akan women as being “prone to whoredom and promiscuity” especially with the Dutchmen, and a Jean Barbot noted that etiguafou were “distinguished from others by their fine appearance and clothing”. Bosman mentioned Elmina, Fetu, Asebu and Fantyn (presumably Fante) women who exchanged sex for a negotiated price. And then there is a Bowdich who in the early 19th century commented on the numerous prostitutes among the Asante stating that no Asante man forces his daughter to marry the man he wants her to, but disowns her if she refuses leading her to resort to sex work in order to support herself.

Yet information on such women is lacking when compared to that available on public women. These women were not slaves and became sex workers after asserting their autonomy.

Legacy of pre-colonial sex work
Akyeampong pays a lot of attention to how sex work changed during colonialism, and the differences between the new “urban prostitution” and the older forms. Colonialism brought about social changes that lead to women seeking independence and material accumulation through sex work as they now had more opportunities to accumulate wealth. They exerted their own will by stepping outside traditional constraints imposed on women, the emphasis on marriage and fidelity for women, the gerontocracy and patriarchy, and the control over sexuality maintained by the elders. Yet the pre-colonial influences remained in the use of ritual by sex workers for spiritual protection, and by the desires of urban sex workers to gain official recognition. (In 1943, an organised group of sex workers living in and around a street in Kumasi, the Baasifuo Community put forward a petition to the Chief Commissioner seeking recognition from the colonial government. They wanted the colonial government to grant their community a license and access to medical attention for a fee). Like public women, sex workers in colonial Gold Coast lived on the boundaries of towns, they also enjoyed freedom from male pimps even though they did sometimes employ men who got them clients on a commission.

In colonial Gold Coast, sex workers controlled their own sexuality and wealth which threatened some men. Sex work came to be seen as connected with women who were wealthy and exercised sexual autonomy, as well as venereal diseases and witchcraft.

*Akyeampong suggests that abrakee is a combination of aba’a, abea (woman) and akyere (a person to be sacrificed) which may explain the religious ritual purification and public display that surrounded the initiation of public women. In fact the initiation of public women bears similarities to those of priestesses, and they both enjoyed sexual agency sanctioned by society unlike other women in Akan society. Priestesses regarded market as a sacred space, and used beads, white clay and cloth in their initiations. They could never marry as they were already married to the deities they worshipped, custom allowed them to have as many lovers as they pleased. Basically a priestess could call upon any man they fancied, and the men would have to respond for fear of the consequences from the deity she worshipped. She would have sex with the man until she grew bored and found a new lover, her lovers lived with her and apparently some priestess had harems containing up to six men. Sometimes these men would follow them when they went out walking.

What I read
Akyeampong Emmanuel, “Sexuality and Prostitution among the Akan of the Gold Coast c. 1650-1950″, Past & Present, No. 156 (Aug., 1997), pp. 144-173

By gathering several oral histories about her character, Nwando Achebe paints a very detailed and amazing picture of a defiant woman who challenged established ideas of how much a woman could become a man. As a young girl, Ahebi Ugbabe fled to Igalaland for two apparent reasons. One was to escape being forced to marry the goddess Ohe as a punishment for crimes her father had committed in Enugu-Ezike. The other may have been due to being raped, and then possibly being forced to marry the man who raped her and fathered her child. It may have been a combination of these reasons that lead to a Ahebi Ugbabe fleeing to Igalaland as a teenager.

In Igalaland, Ahebi Ugbabe turned to sex work, this gave her enough finances to set up a trade, and also access to important and powerful people such as Attah Igala, the King of the Igala, and some European colonists, both of who aided her in realising her ambitious goals as a ruler. Her activities, as a trader and sex worker, gave Ahebi Ugbabe economic power and political influence.
After establishing herself as a person of influence and affluence, Ahebi Ugbabe acted as an informant to the British by leading the British invaders to Umuida and Ogrute. It is still uncertain what Ahebi Ugbabe’s motives in aiding the British were, Achebe suggests that she used the British to enact revenge on the people whose customs had caused her to flee from her home at a young age, or possibly to remove the institution of deity marriage and domestic slavery which the British used as justification for colonialism.*

In return for her aiding them, and in recognition of Ahebi Ugbabe’s linguistic skills (she was fluent in Igbo and Igala, and pidgin English with which she communicated with the British colonialist), Ahebi Ugbabe was given political offices by the British. First as a headman, then as a warrant chief in 1918. The headman was an agent of the British who controlled the wards that comprised villages, while the warrant chief was the indigenous leader who ruled the people in place of the British in the indirect rule system. In Igboland which was decentralised and gerontocratic, warrants (basically pieces of paper) were given to men who rose to claim positions as heads of their communities. Although Ahebi Ugbabe’s high political office was not so strange in Igbo political life in which women could attain high levels of powers, she was apparently the only woman in colonial Nigeria, and perhaps British Africa to fill these offices. In occupying these roles (of headman and warrant chief), Ahebi Ugbabe’s authority was okayed by the British and grudgingly accepted by the people of Enugu-Ezike. Similarly Ahebi Ugbabe’s becoming a king was sanctioned by the Igala.

Ahebi Ugbabe was made king by Attah Aliyu Obaje, she was initiated into the sacred throne of the attah and had her ears pierced as all attah (rulers of the Igala kingdom) do in remembrance of the earliest female King Ebulejonu, Ahebi Ugbabe was then given a beaded crown, a horsetail that marked her station, beads to wear on her neck and wrists, a black fowl to sacrifice to her chi, and a staff that signified male kingship. This initiation is not so strange when you consider that in pre-colonial times, the official title of eze was one given by the attah, and that all ezes were required to make a pilgrimage to Igalaland. Achebe mentions Igala pioneers that may have inspired Ahebi to pursue a female kingship, such as Attah Ebulejonu, a female king of the Igala who is said to be a woman born of a half-human, half-leopard father, and who ruled as a Female King; Princesses Inikpi who buried herself alive, along with nine of her slaves as a willing sacrifice to help safeguard the Igala kingdom in a time of war, and who afterwards was elevated to become a goddess; and Oma Idoko who was similarly sacrificed, although unwillingly.

The Igbo pre-colonially practised a gerontocracy and believed in leadership by merit, power was shared between male and female elders in a complimentary fashion, yet Ahebi Ugbabe ruled autocratically. Her subjects, the people of Enugu-Ezike were compelled to recognise Ahebi Ugbabe as king because she had the Attah and the British behind her and supporting her. Ahebi Ugbabe soon became known as a greatly feared ruler, she was bestowed titles that were usually the reserve of male kings and chieftains, along with titles solely for exceptional women and women who had transformed themselves into men. Ahebi Ugbabe was praised both as an exceptional woman and an exceptional man.

And as a man, Ahebi Ugbabe’s treatment of women followed society’s taboos. She had a masquerade house in her palace that women were forbidden to enter. She slept surrounded by young virginal girls, teenagers and women were not allowed to sleep near her following the belief that menstrual blood was contaminating. Ahebi Ugbabe married several women, and several slaves one of whom she adopted as her own son. Her palace was a sanctuary for women who ran from abusive husbands, and Ahebi Ugbabe married some of the women who decided not return to their husbands. At the same time, her palace was a kind of corrective facility for “difficult” wives. Men sent their wives to King Ahebi’s palace and paid her to deal with their stubborn wives, until they became softened and were ready “to live in peace and harmony with their husbands”. King Ahebi’s palace was a sexually liberated place, her wives not only had as many lovers as they wanted to, but they were apparently also encouraged to sleep with her important male visitors. Thus the women in her palace lived as free women and sex workers. There was also a coed school in King Ahebi’s palace at a time when it was rare for girls to be educated.

There were several people who were not happy with King Ahebi. Particularly the male elders who were upset with her disregard of traditional leadership and elders, her autocratic rule, her reception of bribes and the manner she forcibly took away men’s wives. However they tolerated King Ahebi until she did the unthinkable, she tried to own a masquerade. Masquerades are believed to be the ancestors come back to the land of the living, they enforce the laws of the community and are agents of social control. They were also the domain of a solely male secret society and in a society where gender and sex were fluid, ownership of, and the ability to control a masquerade differentiated the male from the female. Only cis-gendered men who were initiated into the masquerade secret society were allowed to control masquerades. Ahebi Ugbabe was a female king and a female husband, and indeed she was treated as a man in her community. Yet when King Ahebi came out with a masquerade, this was considered the ultimate insult and disregard of society’s rules.

Ultimately, King Ahebi fell from grace when the British betrayed her by not supporting her when she took the male elders to court after they object at her masquerade. The British resident who presided over this dispute, concluded that Ahebi Ugbabe did not have the right to control a masquerade as she was a woman. With the British no longer backing her, Ahebi Ugbabe’s influence significantly lessened, people stopped attending her court and her market. Now the British sought to reconnect with the male elders they had previously ignored, and with this the male elders were free to force Ahebi Ugbabe’s re-transformation into womanhood.

She still retained considerable influence and wealth until she died in May 1948. Today most people do not know about King Ahebi and her legacy, however she lives on as she was transformed into a medicine by one medicine man, and then to a goddess who sees and reveals the unknown.

* Interestingly, although Ahebi Ugbabe may have been unique in Britain’s African colonies as a woman who became a headman and then warrant chief, she was not the only African woman who acted as an informant to aspiring colonial authorities. More on this in future posts.

What I Read
Achebe, Nwando (2011), The Female King of Colonial Nigeria: Ahebi Ugbabe, Indiana University Press
Listen to Nwando Achebe talk about her research and King Ahebi here.

Reading Achebe’s The Female King of Colonial Nigeria, one could be forgiven in believing that woman-to-woman marriage was unique among the Igbo of southeastern Nigeria. It wasn’t. This institution can be found across the African continent among various ethnic groups, with slight differences in norms and practices. Even I was surprised to discover, among the Yoruba where a widow who wanted to remain with her in-laws could marry a female relative when there were no men in the family as considerable options. In other societies, women who could not have children, and widows took wives and claimed the children their wives had as their own. In others women who did not have sons could marry a woman who would act as a daughter-in-law, in fact married to the female husband’s non-existent son. In all societies where this was practised, female husbands occupied high statuses in the community.

In Igboland women who were considered exceptional in the eyes of society due to their wealth and/or social standing, and those who were past menopause could marry wives for themselves, for their husbands, for their sons, and/or for their siblings. These influential women were usually viewed as men, due to the fluidity of gender in the pre-colonial Igbo context, by marrying women their status was elevated mostly due to female husbands paying bride-price. Woman-to-woman marriage allowed for greater freedom of sexuality for the wives, they could have boyfriends, anonymous men whose only duty was to supply sperm, henceforth “male sperm donors”, and this was socially accepted. Any child they had were taken care of by their female husband, and carried her name and this was legitimate in the eyes of society.

Children were very important to this society, apparently women who had given birth to ten or more children were honoured by receiving the title, Lolo. It was also common for a man who had no sons to appoint a daughter who would become a female son. This female son would be required to remain in her father’s home (as opposed to leaving for marriage) and would receive his inheritance. A daughter could become a son after secret rituals were carried out to aid this transformation. The female husband did not have to go through this, they simply had to go out and marry whoever they wanted and by doing so became men and husbands. The female husband was treated like a man and enjoyed equal privilege with her male counterparts, she sometimes even associated with the male elders, however there were some restrictions.

Kenneth Chukwuemeka suggests that while the wife married to the female husband had her own companions, the female husband too always had a male companion (emphasis mine). This male companion, “satisfied her erotic desires and supported her when the biological realities became inevitable”. Which suggests that all women have an emotional and biological need to be with a man. Which I find laughable, as well as problematic. Even though apparently all female husbands had male lovers, they could not be seen openly with them, and if she had a child with it was considered illegitimate and treated as an outcast.

Every single African researcher I’ve read says with the utmost conviction that the practice of woman-to-woman marriage did not involve sexual relationship between the couple, it was not lesbianism because none of the women who married other women was romantically or sexually attracted to other women. They were only interested in children, every single woman who became a female husband just wanted a child that was considered legitimate in society’s eyes.

If woman-to-woman marriage was an ingenious way through which women manipulated the existing system to achiever higher and economic status, as this page suggests, what is to say that only heterosexual women took advantage of this? Is it impossible that lesbian-like women in the pre-colonial past could not have similarly manipulated the society sanctioned woman-to-woman marriage to achieve personal goals? Could the one lesbian in the village employed woman-to-woman marriage to be with a woman she loved? Then again I am still unsure of what pre-colonial Igbo reactions were to homosexuality, whether it was a taboo that lead to exile or something that was accepted, or something in between. Practices such as woman-to-woman marriage suggest fluidity between gender roles in pre-colonial Igbo culture yet they don’t really say much else. As sexual practices in Africa past remain under-researched, largely because most if not all of our scholars and researchers today are heterosexist and believe that everyone was heterosexual because children are everything, I doubt we’ll ever really find out what other kinds of sexual practices took place among female husbands and their wives. Especially those female husbands who were apparently single and wealthy women.

Woman-to-woman marriage is still practised in Nigeria today. Since writing this post, two of my friends have revealed that they have relatives who are female husbands and have wives.

*I personally question this obsession, really, all African societies apparently had for children from the dawn of time. On one hand it does make sense for people in any part of the world to want to continue their lineage and pass on their heritage, but I wonder why Africans seem to solely occupy this domain of fascinating over children. Some say it is due to high mortality rates, but was this really unique to Africa past, or present even. It is almost as if wanting the preservation of a culture is unique to us?

What I Read
Achebe, Nwando (2011), The Female King of Colonial Nigeria: Ahebi Ugbabe, Indiana University Press
Chukwuemeka, Kenneth (2012), “Female Husbands in Igbo Land: Southeast Nigeria”, The Journal of Pan African Studies, Vol. 5, No.1 (link goes to pdf files)
Cadigan, R. Jean (1998), “Woman-to-Woman Marriage: Practices and Benefits in Sub-Saharan Africa”, Journal of Comparative Family Studies, Vol. 29, No. 1

With the abolition of the international slave trade in 1805, some Igbo people created new deities and mystical forces that were to help them fight the internal slavery that continued on after the abolition of the transatlantic slave trade, as well as to protect those who were left behind. These primarily female deities functioned to defend societies, they served as both mothers and protectors. The deities shielded communities from slave raiders and they repopulated the communities by using the bodies of women and the sperm of “anonymous human male sperm donors”. This institution was called igo mma ogo and allowed female deities to marry women so as to repopulate society. The children born from such unions were said to be children of the Goddess and her human wife, they bore names of their deity parents.

The women who were chosen to marry Goddesses were usually demanded as retribution for crimes that someone in their family had committed. Such crimes included murder, manslaughter and theft. Although the women married to Goddesses were not allowed to marry any freeborn men, they were allowed to have sexual relationships with freeborn men, those are the male sperm donors mentioned above. These men played their part in helping the female deities become female fathers.

One example of a powerful female medicine that went on to become a deity is Adoro of Alor-Uno, a northern Igbo town. As with most other towns in northern Igboland where the most popular and powerful deities were female, Adoro was a Goddess. She started out as a “medicine”, a spiritual force, to protect Alor-Uno during wars with other towns, and to save them from the slaving activities of the Aro and Nike who were renowned as aggressive slave-traders. Adoro grew to become a Goddess who meted our justice in events in the community, she also maintained social harmony and was apparently one of the most powerful expressions of female religious and political power in Nsukka.

Adoro was a mother, a nurturer and a fertility Goddess tasked with the responsibility of repopulating a society that had been ravished by the slave trade. She was a powerful war deity and as a legal instrument, she was called upon to judge cases that were thought to be too difficult for human justice. Adoro also maintained moral conducted, she detected criminal behaviour (for example those who were thought to have committed a crime would be called to swear upon Adoro, if they were innocent they were free but if they were not, they would be punished by her). Adoro punished though were stole, told lies, bore false witness, committed murder or adultery.

Criminal offenders would present their children in marriage to appease the wrathful Goddess with the support of her priests. Sometimes the family of the criminal would cast lots so as to figure out who would offered to Adoro while at other times, Adoro would instruct the wrongdoer to marry one of her daughters (that is the daughters of one of her wives). The women who found themselves dedicated to Adoro were both freeborn and enslaved, while they served to help Adoro repopulate society, they also helped build a relationship between Adoro and their families as she offered her protection to them as they had a Goddess for an in-law.

The wives of Adoro led strictly regulated lives. Initially it was forbidden for women betrothed to Adoro to marry freeborn men, they had sexual relations with Adoro’s priests (attamas) who would impregnate them. Daughters born of these relations were forbidden from having relationships with either Adoro priests or freemen, but only with men of similar status. As the number of Adoro wives increased, freeborn men were encouraged to have sexual relationships with them. None of Adoro’s wives could return to their natal village, even if they wanted to.

With the full coming of colonialism, the British missionaries became obsessed with Nsukka religion. They had heard of the system of igo mma ogo and convinced that it was a native form of slavery and human sacrifice, the missionaries sought to destroy the institution. They were somewhat successful, and it may be worth mentioning that several of the women married to Adoro ended up becoming Christians or using Christianity to combat a system which they found oppressive.

*

Igo mma ogo seems to be a unique institution, Achebe only uses examples like Adoro and another Goddess Ohe. However, I find it interesting that she seem to overlook that in many societies, including pre-colonial Igbo ones, priest, priestesses or devotees of both Gods and Goddesses were often referred to as their “wives”. Institutions similar to igo mma ogo can be seen among the Akan of Ghana were priestesses would be married to a God or Goddess and thus be exempt from marrying human men although they were not barred from sexual activity. I would like to, in the upcoming paragraphs, examine another aspect of women marrying goddesses using Mami Wata, the beautiful and seductive Goddess who is thought to make people rich and powerful through sexual encounters with her or her agents.

Igbo Mami Wata devotees and worshippers were considered to be married to her, they gave up living as human wives for the mysticism, water worship and marriage to the Goddess. And when they were married to humans, Igbo Mami Wata worshippers would set aside one day of the four-day Igbo market week to meet marital obligations to their “Goddess husband”. The wives of Mami Wata were not tasked with having children to bring up population numbers as with Adoro or Ohe. Nonetheless, my fascination stems from Mami Wata being a seductive goddess, all my life I have heard of Mami Wata encountering people men sexually. I am yet to hear of a woman who encountered Mami Wata sexually and therefore couldn’t have sex with any human being ever again.

Mami Wata is a Goddess that is considered to be active in the social, economic and sexual lives of ordinary people. Mami Wata demands exclusivity, people who have sex with her or her agents may never have sex with other humans or risk insanity. Though she is popularly imagined as female, Mami Wata does not have a familiar sexual orientation and claims human spouses indiscriminately regardless of gender. So why would she only be having sexual encounters with her human male spouses or are Mami Wata’s human female spouses really good at keeping secrets?

Perhaps this is a topic for another post, either way I found it an interesting addition to this one since it fits in the theme of women marrying Goddesses. I also believe this is a perfect way to round this post up and open the next post which will be on the “controversial” topic of woman-to-woman marriage (it is only “controversial” because people are still arguing about whether the female husbands had sexual relations with their wives).

What I read.
Achebe Nwando (2003), “IGO MMA OGO: The Adoro Goddess, Her Wives, and Challengers— Influences on the Reconstruction of Alor-Uno, Northern Igboland, 1890–1994″, Indiana University Press, Vol. 14, No. 4 (Winter)

Achebe Nwando (2011), Ahebi Ugbabe: The Female Colonial King of Nigeria

Izugbara O. Chimaraoke, “Sexuality and the supernatural in Africa”, pp. 533-558, in African Sexualities: A Reader, ed. Sylvia Tamale

Sex work as we know it today, in modern Africa, is a vestige of colonialism. As Luise White, who wrote about sex work in colonial Nairobi put it “sex work as a full-time form of labour was invented during the colonial period”. This is not to say that there was no sex work in the pre-colonial period, only that it was entirely different from how we know it today.

Sex work existed in Africa in the pre-colonial era. Back in the day, the female sex worker worked out of the house she was born in. She was a single woman, a woman who was never going to marry, and her clients were usually men who wanted to have affairs (as in most communities, and all but a few situations, it was taboo for a man to have sex with a married woman).

With the advent of European colonialism, sex workers in Igbo- and Igala- lands had to transform their labours as well and became more organised so as to earn more money. Colonialism brought about increased competition among sex workers who grew to become more aggressive. There was a time when sex work in Nigeria was a serious thriving industry, some may argue that it still is. A colonial British officer described sex work in Nigerian cities as extremely profitable with Nigerian sex workers being literal “gold mines”.

We know the words in our different languages that are ascribed to sex workers or “free women”. Achebe uses Igbo words to draw images of the various kinds of sex work that existed in pre-colonial and colonial Igboland*.
One such word is mgboto which apparently means “a person who goes naked”. In precolonial Igboland, girls and adolescents usually walked around naked. Older and married women however did not. The Nsukka people referred to sex workers as “mgboto” because sex workers apparently took off their clothes very easily. The mgboto worked from her home, and is believed to have been the earliest known form of sex work in Igboland.

During the colonial period, the mgboto became the adana. Adana also worked from her home, providing services to a few loyal clients. The adana would serve their clients palm wine, other forms of alcohol and cigarettes. Some adana opened businesses in front of their homes, maintaining palm-wine parlours or restaurants. The adana managed long-term relationships with her client(s), she also had children from these unions. She was paid in money sometimes, at other times the adana’s client would work on her farm, buy her foodstuff, or help in maintaining her home.

As competition grew among sex work due to the urbanisation brought in by colonialism, sex workers became know as ikweli or okuenu, words that described the newly gained feisty attitudes they adopted. The ikweli and okuenu were different from the adana and mgboto because they were so aggressive, this was something they needed to be in order to draw more attention to themselves.

Among the Nsukka Igbo of the time, the “free woman” was viewed as independent, assertive, bold, and was admired by the community. She was not marginalised by society and had access to forms of power. According to Achebe, the members of society realised that sex work was integral to the life of society, this lead to them respecting sex workers. In some places, the adana’s home was popular throughout the village as a place where men went to in order to relax. This was in no way strange because in early Igbo society, sex was not viewed negatively and a woman had a right to her own body and was generally expected to use her body as she pleased before marriage. A woman was expected to have engaged in sexual activities and have as many boyfriends as she wanted. In a society that was so sex positive, it is not surprising that sex workers in pre-colonial Igboland had full control of their bodies and the money they gained from their work.

However in Igalaland which shares a border with Igboland in the north, things were very different for women. Women in Igalaland had their sexuality kept under a tight leash by society as there were many restrictions on chastity before marriage. While in Igboland, a young bride-to-be would could tell her mother and aunts how many boyfriends she had slept with, in Igalaland a bride-to-be had to swear before an oracle that she was a virgin or face death if she was lying. Parents controlled the sexuality of their daughters by employing powerful deities to ensure that they remained chaste. This is not to suggest that there were no sex workers or “unchaste” women in Igalaland, there were but this was all kept private and was viewed with disdain (unless they were concubines).

To conclude this section, in Igalaland, prostitutes were known by Igala, Yoruba, Hausa and Igbo words and the Igbo word used for prostitute in Igala country was agalacha, “someone will lick” or “someone will be licked” I’m just going to leave this here and let your imagination take you wherever.

*The exact time span would be from 1895 to 1916 when Ahebi left her hometown for Igalaland where she worked as a sex worker, her clients included the Igala kings and aspiring European colonists.

*

When I really started delving into Nigerian history, I started close to home, that is I read and researched on Yoruba history. I thought (and still think!) Yoruba history is awesome, in particular the Yoruba philosophy, cosmology and worldview. However, I could not help but notice how there was little information out of the stereotypical on women in Yoruba history. For example, it remains hard to come across information on sex and Yoruba women, any Yoruba history book paints a picture that all women were virgins before marriage because pre-marital sex was a big disgrace. There is next to no mention of sex work. Even looking at the rituals surrounding female initiation ceremonies, which was usually an open place where sex could be discussed among other African ethnic groups, the Yoruba remain silent. Now I understand there are some information that is not meant to be shared but I will not lie, part of me genuinely wonders about historical accuracy and if “factual” statements to the historical attitudes of Yoruba towards sex are/were in any way influenced by colonialist puritanical Victorian values.

I have recently being introduced to Igbo history partly due to reading Nwando Achebe’s academic works and also due to Sugabelly‘s influence and help. I am genuinely pleased to say that from my introduction to Igbo pre-colonial history, women have been mentioned again and again. I wonder if this difference is part due to Nwando Achebe being my starting point. She writes candidly about sex work, woman-to-woman marriage, and Goddess marriage in Igboland. Other “standard” versions of Igbo history, the ones that are easy to come across online or in any Nigerian history book, those ones hardly ever mention women or female institutions outside of the Aba women’s riot of 1929.

My initial plan was to write three posts centred on women, sex and power in pre-colonial and colonial Igboland based on what I’d read from Nwando Achebe. The first post was going to deal with sex work, woman-to-woman marriage, and woman-to-Goddess marriage, the second would look specifically at Ahebi Ugbabe the “female king” of colonial Nigeria, while the last would form the conclusion and round up my impressions of women and power as discussed earlier here, matriarchy and patriarchy. However, in writing I found that three posts would not be enough. Woman-to-woman marriage is a hot topic that deserves an entire post on its own, so there will be four posts all together. Five really, including this introduction.

I believe this post is long enough for an introduction. I shall put up these posts weekly, the first one on sex work and marriage to Goddesses in pre-colonial and colonial Igboland should be up by Wednesday.

Salami’s post gave me a lot to think about, and as I ruminated over the post and comments, several questions came to mind.

“Queen Nzingha”

Is matriarchy truly good for all women?
What did woman power in precolonial African societies truly mean for all women? We know patriarchy benefits some men more than others, and does affect men albeit in different ways. As bell hooks eloquently puts it in her essay “Understanding Patriarchy”, “patriarchy is the single most life-threatening social disease assaulting the male body and spirit in our nation”. Following this train of thought, perhaps matriarchy does not mean good things for all women in a given society.

That some African cultures today still have traces of matrilineal practices suggests that these societies may have been matriarchal at some point in history. However, while some may cheer upon seeing “matri…” anything, these practices are not always beneficial to women. Initially, I would not have considered that matrilineal practices may be more disadvantageous for women yet now I know it happens. This recent article examines matrilineal inheritance among the Balues of Cameroon. In Balue society, inheritance is passed through the female line, but women do not inherit instead when a man dies the first son of his sister inherits his property. Here we have a matrilineal society that completely ignores women in favour of the sons they birth. It is interesting that a Balue woman labels matrilineality “the worst tradition that the Balue people have” and that women have formed groups to challenge this tradition.

As it may be, the presence of matrilineal inheritance, not matter that this tradition does not exactly profit women, suggests that the Balue were a matriarchal society once upon a time. It is entirely possible that there were African societies that progressed from matriarchal to patriarchal systems. Examples can be seen in the male appropriation of ritual power a topic I have discussed on this blog as it has been dissected in African cinema (see here and here). There are countless African societies that have myths of early Queens. Queen Ebulejonu is said to have founded the Kingdom of Igala and all the kings of Igalaland pierce their ears in memory of Queen Ebulejonu. Ancient Queens were mentioned in Dr Gus Casely-Hayford’s show “The Lost Kingdoms of Africa: Bunyoro and Buganda“. Another example is with the BaChokwe who “say that the female ruler Ruwej was overthrown by her brothers. (Another version says that Ruwej married a BaLuba chief who took over her political functions and imposed patrilineal descent.) To preserve their matrilineal ways, BaChokwe oral history says that they split off from the BaLunda and migrated south to Angola. Among the BaLunda themselves, the name Ruwej remained as one of the titles of female officers in court councils”. In addition, recall the Hausa oral tradition of Bayajida who is said to have married the Queen of Daura, their seven sons founded the seven Hausa city-states. It is conceivable that Daura was a matriarchal society before their Queen married Bayajida and the system changed from woman power to man power.

I am not one who believes that “matriarchies” never existed in Africa, and elsewhere. At the same time I am aware that systems of power can abuse and may not always benefit the groups of people whose lives the system claims to improve. There can be no denying that there have been countless African women, most of their names forgotten, who wielded enormous amounts of power. However at the risk of imagining utopia, we should not take these facts to mean that all African women had access to the same levels of power.

“Queen Amina”

The requirements
Now regarding the title of this post, “Only if you are old, rich and from a specific region”. The most powerful women in several African communities were usually the oldest women in the lineage. Respect and admiration for women was usually linked to birth, motherhood and age as can be seen in the Yoruba gelede tradition. Even in societies that were generally free for all there were still avenues that were the sole maintenance of “full men”. For example, women in precolonial Igbo society were very free, Igbo women could own property and pass this property to their daughters, sex work was not a crime, gender and sex were fluid, women had the right to divorce…yet women were forbidden to see masquerades. That is all women except for the oldest born woman in the community who could become the girlfriend of a masquerade. At the same time it is necessary to mention that “full women” had their own avenues that “full men” could not dream of getting close to. (Here I use “full men” and “full women” because in societies where men could become women and women could become men, there were sections of society that were not open to transgendered people).

The most powerful women from African history whose names are popularised in most spaces on African history today were old, rich and came from specific regions that allowed women to attain established levels of power. I find it mildly annoying when the popular few remembered historical women, Yaa Asantewa of Ghana, Queen Amina of Nigeria and Queen Nzingha of Angola are portrayed as young women in art or fiction. This is not only factually wrong but gives a very false impression that any woman, young or not, in any part of Africa could have risen to power and controlled armies. Yaa Asantewa, Queen Amina and Queen Nzingha all came from royal families, they were also not young when they utilised their woman power. Yaa Asantewa is said to have been a grandmother when she rallied her people to fight against the colonising British while Queen Nzingha was not the only powerful woman in that area at the time. Similarly Queen Amina is said to have come to the throne (not immediately) after another similarly powerful Queen who may have been her mother.

(This is not to say that there were no young women who came from poor backgrounds and/or societies that were hostile to “woman power”, it is just telling that the names of these women are largely forgotten today. Similarly when we talk of how African men in the past married several wives, we forget that not all men had the wealth or ability to marry multiple wives. Unless one believes in that utopia, that every man in any precolonial African society was either rich, or poor, that is on the same level, it is wrong to assume that every man from the King, chief or clan head, to the blacksmith, the labourer or the slave could afford to marry more than one wife.)

It is fascinating that those who try to convince me that African women do not need feminism because of the supposed abundance of “matriarchies” in the African past, can only provide those three names (Yaa Asantewa, Queen Amina and Queen Nzingha) when there are more women to remember. Dahia al-Kahina, the Amazigh priestess who fought against Arab invasion of North Africa in the 7th century and Kimpa Vita of Congo are relatively well-known. Others such as Wanankhucha of Somalia, Nehanda Nyakasikana of Zimbabwe, Muhumusa of Uganda, Nomtetha Nkwenkwe of South Africa, Alinesitoué Diatta of Senegal, and Gudit Isat of Ethiopia who challenged the Christian Azumite empire and founded the Zagwe dynasty, are not so celebrated outside specific spaces. Now, even though I happen to known of several powerful women in pre-colonial Africa, I would never agree that feminism is something African women should not bother with.

“Yaa Asantewaa”

So, what exactly is matriarchy?
In the end it will depend on what you classify as matriarchy and how you would measure woman power. Which brings me to my third pondering, how has living under a patriarchal system affected understandings of what woman power was like in the past? Max Dashu puts forward matrix (from the Latin for “womb”) cultures which are “built on the act of women bearing and sustaining life”, their social, economic and cultural organization follows kinship through mothers…without having to be concerned about determining paternity, or enforcing patrilineage through a sexual double standard”. Based on this one could argue precolonial Igbo society qualifies as a matrix, woman right culture, although as I’ve suggested not all women had access to the same amounts of power.

Dashu challenges the assumption that male domination has governed human society forever and instead posits that patriarchy is simply a historical development. I have personally encountered people who blame the emergence of patriarchy on women, because of earlier “matriarchy”. However Dashu claims that matrix societies are usually egalitarian, they do not, for example place female deities over male ones. Matrix societies did not “enforce a patriarchal double standard around sexuality, property, public office and space; that did not make females legal minors under the control of fathers, brothers, and husbands, without protection from physical and sexual abuse by same…[or] confine, seclude, veil, or bind female bodies, nor amputate or deform parts of those bodies…[There] have been cultures that accorded women public leadership roles and a range of arts and professions, as well as freedom of movement, speech, and rights to make personal decisions”.

I must say that I prefer “matrix cultures” to “matriarchy” even though I do not subscribe to the believe that matriarchy is the exact opposite of patriarchy and is just as dominating. The topic of a mythical matriarchal past has come up before, though not in African contexts. The former quoted sentence is part of Dashu’s response to the feminist book by Cynthia Eller, The Myth of Matriarchal Prehistory: Why an Invented Past Won’t Give Women a Future.

To round up, it is just as discounting to argue that women have always been subordinate to men’s dominance as it is to argue that the existence of matriarchies destroyed all manifestations of the subjugation of women. Models that were not completely patriarchal or matriarchal have existed in the past. And in those societies that were patriarchal, the degree of domination was not always equal. Reality is always complex especially when looking at the enormous and diverse African continent.

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I have recently completed reading The Female Colonial King of Nigeria by Nwando Achebe. The Female Colonial King of Nigeria is entirely fascinating and I highly recommend it. I have failed at updating my blog as scheduled for the past three Wednesdays, but inshallah, two weeks from now I will launch a series of posts centred around Nwando Achebe’s historical biography. I hope to raise more insight on female power in pre-colonial and colonial Nigeria with the upcoming posts, as well as to further illustrate why and how female leadership does not necessarily mean better things for all women. Not to mention how woman power could be curtailed in even those societies that were reasonably free for women.

Circa 1964 – “Resolutely support the anti-imperialist struggle of peoples in Asia, Africa and Latin-America!”

There is an excellent essay up on Pambazuka by the amazing Kenyan, Kikuyu writer, Ngugi wa Thiong’o entitled “Asia in my life”. In the essay, wa Thiong’o reflects on the significant role India played in not only his life, but in anti-colonial struggles across the African continent. The essay is call for more than POC solidarity, but also South-South cooperation as he specifically mentions countries in Africa, Asia and South America and encourages us to “escape the long shadow of the ‘Age of the European Empire’.

I truly encourage everyone to head over to Pambazuka and read wa Thiong’o's essay. I hardly ever read long essays word for word online, but trust me, I read this one.

Find below my favourite “quotes” from “Asia in my life”, take them as an encouragement to read the entire essay.

Ahmed Kathrada was one of the ten defendants in the famous Rivonia trial that would lead him to Robben Island where he spent 18 years alongside Mandela and others.

[...]

The birth of Trade Union Movement in Kenya was largely the work of Gamal Pinto and Makhan Singh. Imprisoned by the Kenya colonial authorities repeatedly, Makhan Singh would never give up the task of bringing Indian and African workers together. He was the first prominent political leader to stand in a court of law and tell the British colonial state that Africans were ready to govern themselves, a heresy that earned him imprisonment and internal exile. Kapenguria is usually associated with the trial and imprisonment of Jomo Kenyatta but Makhan Singh preceded him. There have been some Indian political martyrs, the first being the Indian workers executed for treason, by the authorities in the very early days of colonial occupation. Gamal Pinto, a hero of the anti-colonial resistance, would be a prominent victim of the post-colonial negative turn in Kenyan politics. Though under a fictional name, Gamal Pinto, has been immortalized in Peter Nazareth’s novel, In a Brown Mantle one of the best literary articulations of the political drama of the transformation of African politics from the colonial to the neo-colonial.

[...]

The recent explosion of Chinese interest in African might obscure the fact that there has always been a small but significant migrant Chinese presence, in South Africa mostly, but also in Zimbabwe. Fay Chung whose grandparents migrated to Rhodesia in the 1920s became an active participant in the anti-colonial struggle, at one time running for her life into exile in Tanzania, was a big player in the founding of Zimbabwe. She founded Zimfep which invited Kamĩrĩthũ theater to Zimbabwe, a visit was scuttled by the Moi regime by simply banning the theater group and forcing one of its leaders, the late Ngũgĩ wa Mĩriĩ, to flee to Zimbabwe, and under Zimfep, launched the Zimbabwe community theatre movement1 ensuring that the continuity and expansion of the Kamĩrĩthũ spirit. Read more…

I was really excited about the release of His Treasure, the first book in Kiru Taye’s historical romance series “Men of Valour, so much that I squeed. Sadly, I did not get to read and enjoy His Treasure because my life was in chaos around the time the book was released in December 2011. As calm returned, I stumbled across an excerpt from the second book in the series His Strength and immediately bought the book on Amazon. I started reading His Strength that night and found that I just had to continue reading, all notions of sleep forgotten.

I really enjoyed His Strength, it made me laugh, roll my eyes and shake in anticipation. I was just so caught up in Nneka and Ikem’s story.

His Strength is very fast paced, I loved the way the story started with Ikem calling out to Nneka on her way home from the stream. The space between the stream and the home, in my opinion, must have been a quintessential meeting place for would be lovers in African history. That and festive days, which was also portrayed in His Strength.

The characters were mostly well developed. Nneka is such a fascinating person, I had no difficulties picturing her in my mind. I liked that she was serious about gaining her freedom as a young widow, it was interesting the way her developing attraction and feelings for Ikem clashed with her desire for freedom. I also liked that Nneka initially viewed her (sexual) relationship with Ikem as a temporary thing, which according to so many people women never do. Though I am very much over the alpha male types in romance fiction, Ikem was definitely worthy of Nneka’s love. I like that she became his “strength” due to her strong will and courage, and I like that Ikem was open to her as well.

I am extremely pleased that the number of African historical romance authors is slowly growing. His Strength is vaguely set in pre-colonial Igboland and it was refreshing to read a book set in a culture that I’m familiar with. I did not have to run to Google when I came upon the reference to uli. His Strength is closer to home for me than Naa Shalman’s books set in pre-colonial Ghana. A tiny part of me wonders when/if there’ll be any historical romances set in Yorubaland pre-colonisation. However, this doesn’t really distress me because I can savour anything that deals with African history before European colonisation. I do not mind which corner of the continent they are set in as long as they positively portray Africans as whole human beings rather than employing the usual widespread stereotypes.

As for things I did not like in His Strength, well I am not too sure about the villain, Edozie, Nneka’s brother-in-law. I think it is somewhat a given for villains to be disliked, (sometimes I like villains though, e.g. Loki), but with Edozie I kept on wishing he wasn’t in the book at all. The presence of Edozie as a villain brought some action into the story, however I am still undecided about his character.

Next would be the length! I wished His Strength was longer but made up for that by reading the book twice before writing this post. Rather than gripe about the short length of His Strength I will be looking forward to more from Kiru Taye. I am especially eagerly awaiting her paranormal work in progress.