1.10 Kinship and Political Leadership

In many early West and Central African societies, extended families, linked by blood and marriage, formed the building blocks of community life. Kinship ties often decided who held land and power, and marriages between families could seal political alliances.

Women played many roles. They served as spiritual leaders, political advisers, market traders, educators and farmers. In some societies, family descent was traced through the mother's line.

Idia lived in the Kingdom of Benin, in present-day southern Nigeria (not the modern country called Benin). Around 1500 she became the first iyoba, or queen mother, a title her son, the oba (king) Esigie, created for her. She advised him and helped him secure the throne.

Idia led armies into battle in the early 1500s. Benin's people credited her victories to her spiritual power and her knowledge of medicine.

The required source is an ivory pendant mask of Idia from the 1500s, which Benin's warriors could wear for inspiration. Small faces along the top represent the Portuguese, a reminder of Benin's trade and diplomacy with them. Iron inlays on the forehead stand for scarification marks, and the carved hair honors her natural beauty.

Njinga ruled the kingdoms of Ndongo and Matamba, in present-day Angola, in the 1600s. Her reign began in the 1620s, around the same time that people captured in Ndongo became the first large group of enslaved Africans to reach the English colonies; the Africans who landed in Virginia in 1619 were taken during Portuguese wars there.

Njinga was a skilled diplomat and fighter. She waged about 30 years of guerrilla warfare against the Portuguese to keep her kingdoms independent. She strengthened her army by welcoming people who escaped Portuguese slavery. She also took part in the slave trade herself to gain wealth and power, a fact that shows how complicated leadership was in this period.

In 1977 Idia's ivory mask was chosen as the symbol of FESTAC '77, the Second World Black and African Festival of Arts and Culture, held in Lagos, Nigeria. That made her face an icon of Black women's leadership across the diaspora.

Njinga's reign made her famous as a political and military leader, and her example helped women continue to rule Matamba for nearly a century after her.