Queen Mother Idia of the Benin Empire

The Benin ivory mask is a portrait of the Queen Mother Idia of the Benin Empire in the 16th century, made like an African traditional mask.

This miniature sculpture was worn as a pendant by the queen’s son Oba (which means King) Esigie. There are two almost identical pendant masks today, one of them is in the British Museum in London, and the other one is at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. The bought masks are portraits of the queen and symbolize the legacy of the Benin dynasty that continues to the present day.

read more here 

@ The Vintage News 

@ The Met Museum

@ Wikipedia

@ Edo Nation Alive

@ Google Arts & Culture

How the British treated 'hardcore' Mau Mau women

From the University of Cambridge:

New research on the treatment of 'hardcore' female Mau Mau prisoners by the British in the late 1950s sheds new light on how ideas about gender, deviancy and mental health shaped colonial practices of punishment.

The research, published in the Journal of Eastern African Studies, was conducted by Gates Cambridge Scholar Katherine Bruce-Lockhart and is the first study to make use of new material on a camp in Gitamayu used to hold "hardcore" female detainees.

Bruce-Lockhart is interested in the treatment of "hardcore" Mau Mau women in the final years of the Emergency Period, one that was marked by uncertainty, violence and an increasing reliance on ethno-psychiatry.

From 1954 to 1960, the British detained approximately 8,000 women under the Emergency Powers imposed to combat the Mau Mau Rebellion in Kenya. The majority of female detainees were held in Kamiti Detention Camp and its importance has been widely acknowledged by historians.

Read more here:

• @ University of Cambridge
• @ Daily Nation
• @ Quartz Africa
• @ The Guardian

Queen Tin Hinan - Ancient Ancestress of the Tuaregs

Queen Tin Hinan is renowned in Tuareg history as a fourth century matriarch of great prestige – named “Mother of Us All”. Her monumental tomb was located in 1925 in the Sahara desert, but dramatic archaeological discoveries of the day, such as King Tut’s tomb, somewhat overshadowed her unveiling.

Tin Hinan, whose name literally means “she of the tents”, is regarded as the ancient ancestress of the Tuaregs. According to local legends, centuries ago Tin Hinan arrived in the Hoggar region on a milk-white camel along with her faithful servant, Takamet. They are said to have settled in the mountainous region of Algeria, and she became the first Queen of the Tuaregs.

Read entire article here @ Ancient Origins
See also: Tin Hinan @ Wikipedia and The Tuaregs @ The Bradshaw Foundation

Liberian Women Divided Over Nobel Prize

From the Liberian Daily Observer:

Leaders of three of Liberia’s foremost women’s peace advocacy groups – the Liberia Women’s Initiative (LWI), the Mano River Women Peace Network (MARWOPNET) and the Women In Peace-building Network (WIPNET) – are at loggerheads apparently over who might have been more deserving of the prestigious Nobel Peace Prize, won in part by two daughters of Liberia.

The 2011 Nobel Peace Prize, according to the Chairman of the Norwegian Nobel Committee, Thorbjørn Jagland, was awarded to two Liberian women, President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf and Leymah Gbowee, and a Yemeni co-winner, for “their non-violent struggle for the safety of women and for women’s rights to full participation in peace-building work.”

The two Liberian peace and human rights campaigners shared the Prize with Yemeni activist Tawwakol Karman.

But eminent personalities of the women’s movement in Liberia, including Mother Mary Brownell and Madam Theresa Leigh-Sherman, have described the awarding of the Prize to Leymah Gbowee as a misplaced decision by the Nobel Committee because, according to them, Gbowee “should have been there when the bullets were flying.”

President Joyce Banda

From Malawi Today:

History-making Joyce Banda , who rose to prominence in Malawi as a champion for women's rights and empowerment, yesterday became the second female African head of state of modern times after Liberia's Ellen Johnson Sirleaf.

Banda, her maiden name being Mtila, was born on April 12, 1950, in Malawi's colonial capital of Zomba where her father, was an accomplished and popular Police brass band musician and instructor.

Prior to an active career in politics she was the founder of the Joyce Banda Foundation, founder of the National Association of Business Women (NABW), Young Women Leaders Network and the Hunger Project. She was listed in Forbes Magazine 2011 as the third most powerful woman in Africa.

Notable Ethiopian Women

From Tadias - an article on women filmmakers from Ethiopia:

Documentary filmmaking holds a special place in the history of African women’s cinema. In 1972, Senegalese filmmaker Safi Faye became the first sub-Saharan African woman to make a commercially distributed feature film when she directed “Kaddu Beykat”. The film, a mixture of fiction and documentary, depicts the economic problems suffered by Senegalese village farmers because of agriculture policies that Faye says rely on an outdated, colonial system of groundnut monoculture. Faye would go on to direct several documentaries often focused on rural life in her native Senegal.

From Abugida - an article on Empress Taitu:

For the first time African forces had defeated a European power bent on forging an empire in Africa. And once again in the history of Ethiopia, the victory was influenced by a powerful Ethiopian woman, Empress Taitu. Also, the question of racial superiority was beginning to affect western societies, especially post-slavery America. Many were surprised that an African nation could defeat a white colonial power such as Italy.

Remembering the Women of the ANC

From the Mail & Guardian:

As we reflect on 100 years of the ANC, we must also reflect on the years that preceded its formation and honour, acknowledge, celebrate and critique the heritage bequeathed to us.

In 1956 despite a strong ANC "recommendation" to the contrary, women led by the federation undertook their most risky operation -- the march to Pretoria to protest against the extension of pass laws to African women. The exchanges between women such as Lillian Ngoyi and the ANC's male leadership reveal a complex but mutually respectful relationship and sharp ideological contestations among equals.

In the decades between then and now much has changed in the ANC and in the country. Much too has changed in the manner in which women locate and use their political agency within the ANC.

The longest surviving liberation movement in Africa celebrates it's centenary confronted by major and fundamental contestations within its ranks and sometimes publicly displayed acrimonious differences within its leadership.

Beauty Beyond Ego

From African Colours:

Gallery Watatu presents master photographer Giulio d’Ercole in his lyrical ode to the women of Africa in 'Beauty Beyond Ego', showing from Sunday October 16th – October 30th 2011. You are invited to attend the opening day, Sunday October 16th, 2011 at 2pm. The guest of honour shall be Hanna Grapinski , Polish Ambassador.

Giulio D’Ercole is a photographer and filmmaker born in Rome, Italy in 1961. Since 1989 Giulio works internationally in TV, Film and Media production. In 2003 he came to Kenya and, captivated by the unique and unprecedented interplay of the social and geographical features of this region of the world, decided to found his own media company, Canvas Africa Productions.

Nobel Prize Winning Women

From The Nation:

History was made yesterday when Liberian and Africa’s first democratically elected female president, Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, led two other women to win the 2011 Nobel Peace Prize.

The others are: a Liberian peace activist, Leyma Gbowee and a woman who stood up to Yemen’s authoritarian regime, Tawakkul Karman. Tawakkul is the first Arab woman to win the prize.

The trio won the Nobel Peace Prize for their work to secure women’s rights, which the prize committee described as fundamental to advancing world peace.

The 10 million kronor ($1.5 million) award was therefore split among them.

The Norwegian Nobel Committee honoured the three women “for their non-violent struggle for the safety of women and for women’s rights to full participation in peace-building work. We cannot achieve democracy and lasting peace in the world unless women obtain the same opportunities as men to influence developments at all levels of society,” the prize committee said.

Johnson Sirleaf, the 72-year-old Harvard-trained economist, became Africa’s first democratically elected female president in 2005.

Gbowee, who organised a group of Christian and Muslim women to challenge Liberia’s warlords, was honoured for mobilising women “across ethnic and religious dividing lines to bring an end to the long war in Liberia, and to ensure women’s participation in elections.”

Karman is a 32-year-old mother of three who heads the human rights group, Women Journalists without Chains. She has been a leading figure in organising protests against President Ali Abdullah Saleh that kicked off in late January as part of a wave of anti-authoritarian revolts that have convulsed the Arab world.

  

Read more at the Guardian:

Kenyan Nobel Laureate Dies

From Inside Africa:

Kenyan Wangari Maathai, the first woman from Africa to win the Nobel Peace Prize, died Monday after a battle with cancer. She was 71.

Maathai, an environmentalist, had long campaigned for human rights and the empowerment of Africa's most impoverished people.

More than 30 years ago she founded the Green Belt Movement, a tree-planting campaign to simultaneously mitigate deforestation and to give locals, especially women and girls, access to resources like firewood for cooking and clean water. They have since planted more than 40 million trees.

"Professor Maathai's departure is untimely and a very great loss to all who knew her -- as a mother, relative, co-worker, colleague, role model and heroine -- or who admired her determination to make the world a more peaceful, healthier and better place," her organization said.

Dahomey's Women Warriors

From Past Imperfect:

It is noon on a humid Saturday in the fall of 1861, and a missionary by the name of Francesco Borghero has been summoned to a parade ground in Abomey, the capital of the small West African state of Dahomey. He is seated on one side of a huge, open square right in the center of the town–Dahomey is renowned as a “Black Sparta,” a fiercely militaristic society bent on conquest, whose soldiers strike fear into their enemies all along what is still known as the Slave Coast. The maneuvers begin in the face of a looming downpour, but King Glele is eager to show off the finest unit in his army to his European guest.

As Father Borghero fans himself, 3,000 heavily armed soldiers march into the square and begin a mock assault on a series of defenses designed to represent an enemy capital. The Dahomean troops are a fearsome sight, barefoot and bristling with clubs and knives. A few, known as Reapers, are armed with gleaming three-foot-long straight razors, each wielded two-handed and capable, the priest is told, of slicing a man clean in two.

Nana Konadu Agyeman- Rawlings - Mother of the Revolution

From Ghana Web:

Many are those Ghanaians who are completely oblivious of the seminal role women played in the success of the great revolutions of 1979-1981 in Ghana. The heroes have been counted severally and openly. The heroines have been largely ignored in the proper context of our history as a nation. Yes, there were women in Ghana who had ‘balls’ to stand up and support the efforts of those courageous and determined young men of Ghana who sought to bring back this nation unto a highway of progress and, indeed succeeded in doing so starting from in 1979 and later regaining momentum in 1981- and this was at a time many men in Ghana meekly put their tales between their legs an either hid away in foreign lands or just simply and endured the social and political disorder of the time without the courage to stand up to it.

Zambia: Female President??

From Lusaka Times:

It is clear that many women in Zambian politics, ancient and modern played and have continued to play a crucial role in shaping Zambia’spolitical destiny.

This fact, though rarely appreciated, can be seen not only on the fading pages of Zambian political history, but also in the current skirmishing manouevres to increase the number of women in politically-sensitive decision-making roles.

Many women, and rightly so are asking for more political space to show-off their wares.

In terms of political party hierarchies, however, not many women have seen the upper echelons of power.

In modern times, one Edith Nawakwi has arisen with the clouds.  She was thrust into the lime-light during the glory-days of the Movement for Multiparty Democracy (MMD).

Hitherto an unknown marketeer at Northmead Market, Nawakwi soon became a force to reckon with by Kenneth Kaunda’s United National Independence Party (UNIP).

Curse of a Female Politician

From the Association of Zimbabwe Journalists:

FUNERALS by their very nature leave you depressed and demotivated. They invariably also leave you with so many questions.

Thenjiwe Lesabe’s funeral at Fort Rixon on Saturday, February 19, 2011, left me with more questions than answers. Here I was at a funeral of arguably one of the greatest women in the history of this country, a woman whose life had traversed different generations and a multiplicity of struggles and yet no one seemed to be able to draw an accurate picture of her life.

Lesabe, whose life’s history I have had to piece together from various conversations with different people, was an activist and a fighter during the liberation struggle. She was also at the center of the post-colonial Gukurahundi era, which ended with the ZAPU/ZANU Unity Agreement in 1987.And Lesabe is probably the only prominent woman who left Zanu PF to re-join the reformed ZAPU, now led by Dumiso Dabengwa.

Fanti Women Support Nana Konadu Agyeman-Rawlings

From Ghana Web:

The Fanti Women Caucus of the National Democratic Congress (NDC) has declared support for the Former First Lady, Nana Konadu Agyeman-Rawlings for the Flagbearership of the party.

They have thus called on President Atta Mills to step aside in order to save the party.

They made it clear that Nana Konadu is the only hope for the party and they support her due to her remarkable achievement.

The Press Conference was held on Saturday, April 11 2011 at Biriwa in the Mfantseman West Constituency of the Central Regional.

The Paramount chief of Biriwa, Nana Akyin Attanya V who was present at the conference advised the members to stay focused and rally around Nana Konadu to help build a prosperous nation.

Ethiopia: Campaign Against Female Circumcision

From Ezega:

In recent months local and national initiatives have shown a clear intensification of the struggle against the practice of Female Genital Mutilation (FGM), also known as female circumcision.

The ancient practice of removing the outer female genitalia and “sewing” the vaginal opening shut has long existed in the region under the pretext of cleanliness and religious piety.

After years of United Nations and international NGO advocacy, recent “homegrown” campaigns have signaled a local increase in the struggle to eliminate the practice in Ethiopia. For example, recent Ethiopian Television programs have targeted the practice by assembling both religious scholars and traditional leaders to advocate against FGM.

Witchcraft in Modern Africa

From Afrik-News:

A human rights group in Malawi is causing a stir as it embarks on a mission to gather 10,000 signatures from locals to force President Bingu wa Mutharika free several jailed witches.

Association of Secular Humanism (ASH) says most of the convicts are women jailed for teaching witchcraft to children. Reports say some are doing jail time of up to six years.

“I’m asking you to sign this petition to help us reach our goal of 10,000 signatures. I care deeply about this cause, and I hope you will support our efforts,” a senior official of the association, Harold Williams is quoted saying.

The petition reads: “Belief in witchcraft is widely held in Malawi by people of all levels of education and stature in society. Whereas the law does not accept the reality of witchcraft, the Police and judicial authorities, many of whom share the belief, distort the law to punish those who are accused of witchcraft”

“It is mainly the elderly, men and women, who are accused of witchcraft and there are many very elderly and infirm imprisoned throughout Malawi - sentenced for up to 6 years without anything that would pass as substantive evidence in courts which do not accept superstition and suspicion as adequate."

And from the New York Times:

Accusations of witchcraft in Africa have gained increasing attention because of the severe impact they can have on the lives of those accused, including imprisonment, deprivation of property, banishment from villages and in some cases physical violence.

The human-rights law program I direct recently partnered with an N.G.O. in Malawi to run a mobile legal-aid clinic focusing on witchcraft cases in two rural communities.

Men, women and children flocked to our clinic seeking legal assistance. The cases were challenging and engaged the question of how to confront accusations of witchcraft, particularly when children and elderly women disproportionately bear the brunt of such accusations.

The persecution of accused witches has not historically been confined to Africa. Witch-hunts have occurred in Europe, America, ancient Rome, Aztec Mexico, Russia, China and India. But the practice persists in poor settings in part because witchcraft can be used in communities without routine access to modern medicine and science to explain seemingly inexplicable instances of death and misfortune.

Lagos: Itsekiri Women Rally

From the Vanguard:

THE Warri Women Consultative Assembly, WWCA, has urged all aspiring political office holders in the Itsekiri nation to make themselves available to the electorate for assessment, saying that it would help in eliminating the problem of imposition of candidates.

The group also called on the aspirants to come with their respective programmes to a town hall meeting, which is scheduled to hold on Saturday, September 18, 2010 in Warri.

Disclosing this, yesterday, in Lagos, WWCA Facilitator, Chief Rita Lori-Igbebor, during a visit to Vanguard Corporate Headquarters, regretted that the Itsekiri nation had not been fortunate to be governed by its best brains in the past.

According to her, “Since the deaths of Chief Festus Okotie-Eboh and the Rewane Brothers, aspirants have been imposed on us. They don’t campaign nether do they know where they are representing. They are imposed upon us and they owe their allegiance to their God fathers. The consequences are what have brought Itsekiri to the state in which we have found ourselves. They go there to serve their pockets, their children and their wives.

This situation can no more be tolerated. We own our lands on which they seek to represent. A nation without a vision perishes.

It is therefore necessary that all aspirants meet Itsekiris on one-to-one, face-to-face, to introduce themselves and their agenda to the Itsekiri people.”

The Politicisation of the Female Breasts

From the Sunday Tribune:

The employment of the female breasts and sexuality in Nigerian politics has shown that nothing is too sacred to be involved. The erstwhile cultural implication of the female anatomy is beginning to lose its relevance as it has been railroaded into the mainstream of Nigerian politics.

Congo: 150 Women Raped in Raid

From the New York Times:

A mob of Rwandan rebels gang-raped at least 150 women last month during a weekend raid on a community of villages in eastern Congo, United Nations and other humanitarian officials said Sunday.

The United Nations blamed the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda, or F.D.L.R., for the attack. The F.D.L.R. is an ethnic Hutu rebel group that has been terrorizing the hills of eastern Congo for years, preying on villages in a quest for the natural resources beneath them.

The raided villages are near the mining center of Walikale, known to be a rebel stronghold, and are “very insecure,” said Stefania Trassari, a spokeswoman for the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. “Rape is something we get quite often.”

But she and other United Nations and humanitarian officials said that this attack was unusual because of the large number of victims and the fact that they were raped by more than one attacker simultaneously.