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Rain Queens of SA

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The Rain Queen – Modjadji

Modjadji or the “Rain Queen”, is the only traditional ruling queen in Southern Africa. The hereditary queen of Balobedu, she is not a ruler as such, but legendarily known as a powerful rainmaker and a traditional healer (ngaka), able to bring rain to her friends and drought to her enemies. Her position as paramount ruler is based on this power. Modjadji have been feared and respected for centuries. Not a single African king would seek her wrath, fearing punishment meant drought. Shaka Zulu sent top emissaries to request her blessings.

The Rain Queen Dynasty

The next rain queen, Her Majesty, Queen Masalanabo II Modjadji VII is expected to be crowned in April 2024.

The Lobedu Rain Queens and their neighbors.

Visitors to the area always brought Modjadji gifts and tribute, including cattle and their daughters as wives, to appease her so that she would bring rain to their regions. The custom is allied to an emphasis on fertility of the land and the population. The name Lobedu is thought to derive from the practice, referring to the daughters or sisters who were lost to their families. The Rain Queen extends her influence through her wives, because they link her politically to other families or villages. Her status as marrying women does not appear to indicate lesbianism, but rather the queen’s unique ability to control others.

During the Mfecane, which took place in the early 19th century, Modjadji moved her tribe further south into the fertile Molototsi Valley, where they founded the present day Kingdom.

According to custom, the Queen must abstain from public functions, creating a mysticism fuelled by isolation. Modjadji cannot leave her kraal and very few people outside her royal village have seen her. She communicates to her people via her male councillors and village headmen and chiefs. Annual rainmaking ceremonies are meant to take place every year at her royal compound. The Royal Kraal is is located near Modjadjiskloof (Mujaji Kloof), formerly Duiwelskloof.

What the queen does to evoke rain is a matter enshrouded in the greatest secrecy. It is doubtful that anyone other then the queen is in possession of the secrets as they are bound up with the title and power to succeed to the throne. The secrets are always imparted to the successor just prior to the death of the chief, via a tradition of suicide. When a chief dies, her body is left for some days in the hut so that when rubbed in a certain way, the skin falls away. The skin is kept and later added with many other ingredients to mehago rain pots. From time to time a black sheep is killed, to be washed with water into these magical pots, but it is said that this is just a modern day substitute for a human being, usually a child, whose brains were used for the washing. The mehago pots are never seen by the public.

The Rain Queen is not meant to marry, but bears children by her close relatives. She is cared for by her “wives”. When she is near to death, she appoints her eldest daughter as her successor and ingests poison.

When a member of the royal family dies, the entire Lobedu nation mourns, and it is the women of this matriarchal society who dance away the grief.

For months after a death, hundreds of women head for the queen’s kraal. Villages representing five or six of the queen’s headmen come to mourn with their queen. The dancing starts in the early evening and continues until morning light. It is every woman’s obligation to dance at the sacred kraal. After a death in the Modjadji’s family, each Lobedu village turns its drums upside down. Until they come to dance, the villages cannot play their drums and they cannot dance at home. If the women of a village do not make the pilgrimage to the queens kraal, they may not dance at any other traditional function and the village’s drum must stay silent. http://rainqueensofafrica.com/2011/03/the-rain-queen-and-the-lobedu...

Legendary Histories:

There are several different stories relating to the creation and history of the Rain Queens of Balobedu. One story states that an old chief in 16th century Monomotapa (South eastern Zimbabwe), was told by his ancestors that by impregnating his daughter, Dzugundini, she would gain rain-making skills. Another story involves a scandal in the same chief's house, in which the chief's son impregnated Dzugundini. Dzugundini was held responsible and was forced to flee the village. Dzugundini ended up in Molototsi Valley, which is in the present day Balobedu Kingdom. The village she established with her loyal followers was ruled by a Mokoto, a male leader, but the peace and harmony of the village were disrupted by rivalries between different families; therefore, to pacify the land, Mokoto impregnated his own daughter in order to restore the tribe's matrilineal tradition. In another version, Mokoto had a vision that he had to marry his daughter in order to create a matrilineal dynasty. She gave birth to the first Rain Queen, known as Modjadji, which means: "ruler of the day". Oral histories recount that the Rain Queens are originally from ancient Ethiopia and built the fortress of Great Zimbabwe. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rain_Queen

During the 1930s, social anthropologists Eileen Krige and Jack Krig carried out fieldwork on the society of the Rain Queens. Their work was published in 1943 as The Realm of a Rain-Queen. A Study of the Pattern of Lovedu Society, and remains one of the standard anthropological works. See Doc attached to this projectTheir version has a Kranga chief named Mugodo c1800 have a vision after his sons rise up against him:
His faith in his fellow men, in his councillors, even in his sons, has been shattered. He muses that women also are faithless. But their faith, however unfaithful, keeps them falsely true; they intrigue against him as their husband, but they are loyal to him as their king. Above all, their mystery is allied to a power, not to blast the tribe to fragments, but to subdue men and turn their passions to the service of the state. That is the vision given to Mugodo, and the guarantee of its divine origin is the far-off past in which Dzugudini originated the tribe. That past also suggests how the vision can be realized. And in the scene before us these mighty issues are handled with a simplicity and a directness which it is impossible to reproduce.
Then Mugodo goes to Lekhwareni...there lives Mujaji, daughter of his wife, Mamujaji. To her also he confides his vision; he tells her she will be queen if, though celibate, she will bear the heir to the throne. He is not speaking of a virgin birth, for she understands that he, her father, will be the father of her issue. ‘You are allwise, O father,' she replies, ‘I am the servant of your will.' A secret hut is built; an inquisitive intruder, the favourite wife of Mugodo, suffers the extreme penalty; and in due course a son, not a daughter, is born. But Fate tricks Mugodo in vain. The son is strangled and a little later there is a daughter. [She is to become the first rain queen.] https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.212716/page/n27/mode/2up

Maselewane Modjaji, Rain Queen I (1800-54)

The child who became the first Modjadji was known as Maselekwane Modjadji I. She lived in complete seclusion, deep in the forest where she practiced secretive rituals to make rain. In 1855 she committed ritual suicide.

Masalandbo Modjaji, Rain Queen II (1854-94)

Masalanabo Modjadji II succeeded her mother Modjadji I to become the second Rain Queen. Like her mother she never married the father of her children, but was cared for by a number of “wife’s”. The Queen was practically inaccessible to her people, appeared seldom in public and is said to have had the mystical power to transform clouds into rain. She committed ritual suicide in 1894 after having designated the daughter of her sister and great wife Leakkali as heir.

She is said to have been the inspiration for Rider Haggard's novel: She

Khetoane Modjadji, Rain Queen III (1895-1959)

Khetoane Modjadji III became the third Rain Queen and reigned from 1895 to 1959. Khetoane was the daughter of Masalanabo’s “sister” and became heir, as Masalanabo’s council had designated this before Masalanabo’s death.

Makoma Modjadji, Rain Queen IV (1959 – 1980)

Makoma Modjadji IV was the fourth Rain Queen. She succeed her mother Khetoane Modjadji and reigned until death. Breaking from tradition, she married Andreas Maake, with whom she had several children. She was succeeded by her eldest daughter Mokope Modjadji.

Mokope Modjadji, Rain Queen V (1981-2001)

Mokope Modjadji V was the fifth Rain Queen. She played a very traditional role, followed all the customs she was expected to follow and lived in seclusion at the royal compound in Khetlhakone Village. Mokope Modjadji met and became good friends with President Nelson Mandela. The first contact was in 1994, but Mandela could only speak to Mokope through the traditional intermediary. Later they became better friends after Mandela bought a Japanese Sedan to help her travel up the steep roads to her royal compound. Afterwards, he was able to meet her in person. Mandela noted that like Queen Elizabeth II, the Rain Queen Modjadji did not answer questions. Queen Mokope did not support the idea of an ANC Government as she believed that its anti-traditional ideas would dilute her authority. At the same time, she did accept an annual salary from the ANC government.

Mokope Modjadji had three children, and her designated successor was Princess Makheala. However Makheala died two days before her mother in 2001. Mokope Modjadji was 65 years old at the time. As a result, her granddaughter, Makoba, daughter of Makheala's sister, Maria, became the next Rain Queen.

Makobo Modjadji, Rain Queen VI (2003-2005)

Makobo Constance Modjadji VI was crowned the 6th Rain Queen on 16 April 2003 at the age of 25, after the death of her grandmother, Queen Mokope Modjadji. This made her the youngest Queen in the history of the Lobedu tribe.

Makobo was the only Rain Queen to be formally educated. As mentioned, her mother was the designated successor, but died two days before her grandmother Mokope Modjadji. On the day of the coronation, a slight drizzle fell which was interpreted as a good omen. The coronation was an elaborate ceremony but it is believed that Makobo only reluctantly accepted the crown.

Though respected for her abilities and lineage, Makobo was seen as too modern to be the next Rain Queen, which may have been why there was such a long delay before she was crowned. Custom dictated that rain queens live reclusive lives, hidden in the royal kraal with their “wives”. However Makobo Modjadji liked to wear jeans and T-shirts, visit nearby discos, watch soap operas and chat on her cell phone.

Modjadji also had a boyfriend, David Mogale, who was believed to have fathered her second child. He is the former municipal manager of Greater Letaba Municipality. He was rumoured to have moved into the Royal Compound. This caused great controversy with the Royal Council as the Rain Queen is only ever supposed to mate with nobles who the Royal Council themselves chose. Mogale was banned from the village, and the Rain Queen’s two children were never been recognized by the Council.

Makobo was admitted into the Polokwane Medi-Clinic with an undisclosed illness on the 10th of June 2005 and died two days later at the age of 27. There is a lot of controversy surrounding her death. Some villagers believe she died from a broken heart because her lover David Mogale was banned from the royal village. Mogale himself claims that the royal council poisoned Makobo as they saw her unfit to hold the much revered position of Rain Queen, and this was the easiest way to have her removed. Hospital staff believed she died of AIDS whilst others are concerned with the disappearance of Makobo’s brother Mpapatia, last seen on the day of Makobo’s death.

A fire broke out in the local chief’s house where Makobo’s coffin was being kept before her funeral. The fire was extinguished before Makobo’s coffin suffered any damage, but the event seemed to arouse more suspicions of foul play surrounding Makobo’s death.

Officially Makobo died of chronic meningitis.

Modjadi VII

As of October 2022 Modjadji Royal Council has a new King. The traditional installation of Prince Lekukela Modjadji as the king of the Balobedu took place at Khetlhakoni Royal Palace in Modjadjiskloof outside Tzaneen in Limpopo. Princess Masalanabo, his sister, is expected to be the next Rain Queen - Her Majesty, Queen Masalanabo II Modjadji VII
A ceremony to celebrate her 18th birthday was held in April 2023 at the Kara Heritage Institute in Pretoria, it was organized by the Balobedu Heritage Society founded by her great grandmother Mokope Modjadji V. The event was used to launch her history booklet "Masalanabo Modjadji VII : Daughter Of The Sun". She will be crowned in April 2024 by the Modjadji Royal Council.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rain_Queen

_______________________

The Rain Queen Cycles told by E. JENSEN KRIGE

https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.212716/page/n93/mode/2up

THE CYCLE OF THE KINGS

The First Pageant (c, 1500).
The sons of Monomotapa, mighty monarch of the Uakaranga, quarrel and each sets himself up as an independent mambo, or chief, dividing Uukhalaga, the empire of their father, among themselves. One of these chiefs has his capital at the mountain of Maulwi, somewhere in Rhodesia. His people, prostrating themselves in his presence, call him Mulozwi or Murozwiy but he has merely taken that name as a praise title to mark the link between him and the king of the Rozwi. Perhaps it is only a political link, not implying kinship of any kind. We do not know. Mambo rules his people, not by force, but through his supernatural prerogatives, for he is a sacred king. Tradition dictates that he should end his reign by ritual suicide. He is appointed, not in accordance with man-made rules, but by the spirit of his predecessor, who holds the door of the hut in which he died against all but the true heir ; and it is only through that doorway that his successor can ascend the throne.

This mambo has a daughter, Dzugudini, and, though she is unmarried, she has an infant son, Makaphimo. Mambo wishes to punish the seducer of his daughter, but Dzugudini and her mother refuse to disclose the identity of the culprit, saying, ‘The father of the child of a king’s daughter is not to be known.’ Mambo becomes more and more suspicious. Dzugudini’s mother steals the rain charms and the sacred beads, and feverishly teaches her daughter their virtues and their use; and before Mambo can take action, Dzugudini and her infant son flee to the south.

After a long and eventful journey, the fugitives, accompanied by a handful of followers, arrive in Uulovedu, where they settle and found the tribe of the Lovedu. We do not know whether Mambo ever discovered who had seduced his daughter; but Lovedu tradition records that Makaphimo was the issue of the incestuous union of uterine brother and sister. The brother remains as mambo, successor to his father; the sister, Dzugudini, by virtue of her incest, justifies the creation of a new people.

The Second Pageant (c. 1650).
Both Dzugudini and Makaphimo have died, the first in Nareni, the second at Khumeloni. One of the nobles, remaining on the highveld, is moving southwards from near Munnik, later to establish the chiefdom of Mamavolo; two brothers of Makaphimo tarry on the way down the escarpment, and we see the one, Mahasha, sowing his seeds (hu hasha) to test the agricultural possibilities, the other, Mudiga, struggling to drive off the lions which surround (hu diga) his settlement. Muhale, son of Makaphimo, is ruling at Khumani. He is the acknowledged founder of the greatness of the Lovedu during the cycle. He successfully appeals to Mahasha and Mudiga to rejoin him ; they give him their daughters as wives and he makes them his great headmen.

But Muhale ’s reign stands out boldly because of his subjugation of the Khioga, primitive denizens of the forest of Daja. They have no fire, and live like wild animals, eating raw meat; their huts are badly constructed and dirty; they till the soil with sharpened sticks instead of hoes; and they have neither chief nor any visible form of government. The fair skinned, cultured Lovedu set about educating these Calibans of savage humanity, teaching them the uses of fire. The Khioga find a new contentment in the sweetness of cooked food and in warming themselves by the hearth fires. Savage pupil and cultured tutor become close friends, so close that the savage unsuspectingly shows his benefactor the qualities of ‘the place of the gods’ (vadimoni) in the forest at Daja. They envisage a brave new world, but they do not know that they are being deceived For in reality the Lovedu, coveting ‘the place of the gods’, are planning their destruction, They do not disclose the knowledge that fire can burn the veld; for they intend that ‘their spears shall be fire’. And presently they set the grass alight and the fire scatters some Khiaga, but burns most of them to death.

A moment later we see the Lovedu praying at the shrines at Daja. When Muhale dies they bury him there; the Lovedu no longer fear the ancestral spirits of the Khioga. (For the fire, we may suppose, is here, as in the great transition ceremonies, a sacred rite. It effects the transition from danger to safety, from defilement to sanctity ; the power for evil of foreign spirits it converts to a power for good in the service of the usurper; it cleanses the alien past and welds it firmly into the present.) As the pageant passes we see the ruins of another strange people, the Dgona. The Lovedu dread these ruins; they build far from them; avenging spirits, who have never been assimilated, contaminate the soil; the fire which purified and aggregated the sacred places of the Khioga was not used against them.

The Third Pageant (c. 1700).
At Daja, beside the grave of Muhale, we see another, that of Malaji. ‘He who makes the country sleep’, for that is what his name means, has left behind him peace and plenty. The little colony, sheltered in the fastnesses of its seclusion, is busy working out its salvation. The Lovedu have ample living space, for the lowveld is still almost devoid of inhabitants. Beyond it there are great nations, kept at a distance by geographical obstacles. The Lovedu are not only secure in their mountain fastnesses, but also protected by those far-off barriers — the massive mountains towering over the Olifants River in the south, stretching forth a gigantic limb to the north, and the deep, tsetse fly infested Limpopo Valley circling the west as a moat defensive of their home.

Men are discussing to whom Malaji has entrusted the rain charms, to Pheduli, ‘the Drainer of the Rivers,’ or to his eldest son, Madaji, whose nickname, ‘the Filler of the Rivers,’ is much more auspicious. Madaji settles their doubts by driving off Pheduli and seizing the throne. But in the sequel we see drought and famine in Uulovedu, while at Khivela, where Pheduli rules, copious rains bring plenteous crops. Year after year Madaji’s magic sweeps up gales that scatter the clouds hanging over Paja, whereas Pheduli constrains them to drop their gentle rain at Khivela.

The contrast is especially evident to the headmen living near Tzaneen. They secretly ally themselves with Pheduli ; they spread rumours of a mighty army marching upon the capital. At length their strategy succeeds. Madaji flees to the forest, unsuspectingly entrusting his defence to the traitors; and when they report defeat and persuade him to rally his forces in the north, he is trapped into crossing the Madazwi River. It is a river which, even to-day, kings cross at the price of their crown; it drains the source of their power to rule. Madaji thus forfeits his right to the throne, and Pheduli, safely installed, becomes the mighty Transformer of the Clouds.

Faith in the sanctity of a system which may exclude the elder in favour of the younger son is restored ; man-made rules, which usurp the function of the spirit presiding over the choice of a successor, are discredited. There is no room in this pageant (nor is there in tradition) for the defection, probably at this time, of a considerable section of the tribe, who later become the people of Mamaila.

The Fourth Pageant (c. 1750-1800).
Pheduli’s grave stands beside those of his forefathers. The scene discloses Khiali, the fair-faced king, reclining in a seat hewn out of the rock on the summit of a mountain amid immense walls of stone. In the spirit in which the scene is portrayed, with its mounds of masonry and its structures of stone, the impression conveyed is one of Zimbabwic splendour. (The ruins are still there, phallic stones projecting from rough stone walls some 8 ft. high, and the sculptured seat is merely two rocks in their natural position. But it is with the spirit, not the reality of the scene that we are concerned.)

Khiali does not notice those faint figures of foreigners crowding into the background. They are the Sotho invaders of the lowveld, pressing over the mountains in the south, clambering down the escarpment in the west, and in far-off Phalavorwa settling in an unfavourable environment, whence some would soon leave to encroach upon UuLovedu. On his magnificent material foundations Khiali is concerned to build a strong spiritual edifice. His predecessors were content to entrust the welfare of the divine prince, he who should ascend the throne, to the care of the gods. But he, Khiali, by strengthening the hands of the gods, would secure for ever the succession of the sacred heir.

As Khiali sits there, a youth, obviously concerned to avoid detection, appears in the shadows of an opening in the fence. He slinks away when he sees others beside Khiali in the courtyard. A moment later he reappears, only to be driven back by Khiali, showering curses upon his head. But later we see Khiali and the youth whispering together in the king’s private hut; the king is secretly teaching him the use of the rain charms. The youth is Mugodo the Outcast, youngest son of Khiali His father stints him of everything, makes him dwell far from the capital, treats him like a thief, and refuses him entry into his village except when he comes alone and unobserved by a secret pathway through the undergrowth. These things he does to deceive the people and safeguard Mugodo’s title to the throne. But they also develop a super sensitiveness in the Outcast.

Thwarted in his youth, Mugodo suffers irreparable damage to his self-respect ; he is obsessed by suspicions ; he imagines that every man's hand is against him. His councillors are adulterers and sorcerers, corrupting his wives, plotting to usurp his position. Scandal and dissension sap the strength of the kingdom. His elder brother, Khashani, rises against him; he is driven off, but the tribe splits into two; and more than a century later, in the second cycle, a descendant of Khashani challenges Mujaji with a foreign creed. Mugodo answers his detractors with wholesale executions, but he is concerned to vindicate himself rather than to regain order in the land. In a civil strife between two of his headmen, he makes no move until he feels himself insulted by ‘the rusty arrows fit for the rubbish heap’ that cause the blood of a kinsman to flow. The crowning catastrophe that embitters his soul is the conduct of his wayward sons. They enter the huts of his younger wives; they slaughter his cattle to gain popularity at their father’s expense; they send him the dregs after draining the tributary beer.

And Mugodo’s reign ends in chaos and confusion. Royal kinsmen massacre one another; internecine strife is followed by unparalleled famine; ravenous wild beasts terrorize the villages; Malegudu, one of Mugodo’s sons, gains control for a time, but he has eventually to flee before Mujaji, his sister, and is assassinated in Vendaland; Khiebe, another son, seeks refuge in Thovololand, where he dies an unnatural death; Sephumulo, a powerful noble, unable to stomach subjection to Mujaji, who is gaining the ascendancy, severs his allegiance and establishes the twin tribes of Rakwadu and Sekhopo. And as these disasters befall the tribe, the first cycle completes its course.

THE CYCLE OF THE QUEENS

The Fifth Pageant (c. 1800).
As the second cycle opens, the disasters which appear to be the Nemesis upon the vice of an uncertain succession (for it was Khiali’s attempt to readjust the machinery of succession which maladjusted Mugodo for the task of a king) are reconstructed to form a chain of triumph for Mujaji. The most dramatic moments are not the disasters, but two interconnected events: Mugodo’s prophecy and Mugodo's sin.

At the end of the civil strife, into which the insult of the rusty arrows goads Mugodo to throw his decisive weight, he orders the war horns to be sounded ; and as he begins a solitary, spectacular dance (hu pebela) his people, prostrating themselves, solemnly intone his praises: ‘Mugodo of the neck-with-great-folds-of-fat, wherein do rest both goods and men, who hurls his challenge with the rain-horn; Mugodo of Pheduli, Transformer of the Clouds, he kills as he lists and spares whom he likes.’ Pointing in the four directions, he raises his voice in prophecy: ‘I am going away to creep into the horn of a cow (i.e. to die). I do not like to sleep in the open, vainly counting the stars. I go to unloose the black ants in the east. They will bite you and kill you, but in the end you will overcome them. Thereafter I shall unleash the red ants in the west; you will fight them, but you will fight them in vain. Further, I say this country will be ruled by a frontal skirt.’

It is Mugodo’s farewell message just before he dies. But the prophecy epitomizes the three great moments in the cycle of queens : the accession of a woman, the raids of Dguni hordes (black ants), and the conquest by the European (red ants).

The Sixth Pageant (c. 1800).
Mugodo is the instrument of an inexorable fate. His faith in his fellow men, in his councillors, even in his sons, has been shattered. He muses that women also are faithless. But their faith, however unfaithful, keeps them falsely true; they intrigue against him as their husband, but they are loyal to him as their king. Above all, their mystery is allied to a power, not to blast the tribe to fragments, but to subdue men and turn their passions to the service of the state. That is the vision given to Mugodo, and the guarantee of its divine origin is the far-off past in which Dzugudini originated the tribe. That past also suggests how the vision can be realized. And in the scene before us these mighty issues are handled with a simplicity and a directness which it is impossible to reproduce.

Mugodo betakes himself to his favourite daughter at Maulwi, sacred reminder of the mountain in Rhodesia. Simply he tells her of his purpose, but she doubts its divine source: 'It cannot be, my father,’ she says; ‘these things are too difficult.’ Mugodo goes again to her, but she remains mystified that a sin that defiles can be a rite that sanctifies.

Then Mugodo goes to Lekhwareni, the despised place of stones and of slothful people (for, according to their praise song, they burn their nails roasting the maize that they should have stamped). There lives Mujaji, daughter of his wife, Mamujaji. To her also he confides his vision; he tells her she will be queen if, though celibate, she will bear the heir to the throne. He is not speaking of a virgin birth, for she understands that he, her father, will be the father of her issue. ‘You are allwise, O father,* she replies, ‘I am the servant of your will.' A secret hut is built; an inquisitive intruder, the favourite wife of Mugodo, suffers the extreme penalty; and in due course a son, not a daughter, is born.

But Fate tricks Mugodo in vain. The son is strangled and a little later there is a daughter. She is to become Mujaji II.

The Seventh Pageant (c. 1850).
Mujaji has already been on her resplendent throne for half a century; she has turned the chaos of her predecessor’s reign to peace and prosperity; and, surrounded by restrictions which forced her into seclusion and fostered the idea of her sagacity and immortality, she has won the fame and attraction which drew so many foreigners to her capital. She is ‘the white-faced Mankhadeni, radiant as the setting sun’. ‘Huckster in her hut’, perched like an eagle’s eyrie on the fringe of a forest, she dispenses as she wishes the lifegiving rain. ‘She casts away some; others she shares with the vultures.'

Hosts of foreign ambassadors and potentates gather at her court. Some bring cattle, others their daughters or sisters; these are the gifts with which they show their homage or supplicate for rain. In the company we see messengers from Manukuza, dread monarch of Gasaland, supplicating with mighty gifts from their master; ambassadors of Zwide, challenger of Chaka himself, seeking to ward off the chastisement of locusts and drought, but smitten to death for his presumption in coming so near Uulovedu; and also an envoy from Moshesh in far-off Basutoland. Less pretentious are the men from Malevoxo, whose Lovedu wife had taught him the elements of the magic of rain-making; from Vendaland, where they call Mujaji ‘the wife who brings them water to wash their face’; from Phalavorwa, upon whose internal struggles Mujaji arbitrates. From Chopiland and Lunyai, from the Uirwa and Tswana, from the very ends of the world, there are suppliants. Sekwati, the great Pedi king, is seeking a matrimonial alliance, hence that herd of cattle in the courtyard; Mali of the Khaha and Magaepia of the Letswalo, queens crowned in their own countries in imitation of the immortal Mujaji, come to be strengthened and fitted for their task. But the mightiest tribute of all is the gift from the Zulu king, who, disappointed by the failure of his mission to the great Swazi rain-maker, supplicates the rain-maker of rain-makers.

The pageant is incomplete without its background, the armed hordes of Chaka and Moselekatse, of Soshangane and Mantatisi, of Thulare and Mafefe, laying waste and massacring, and in the wake of the trail of desolation, the smaller tribes and those miserable remnants, the guerrilla bands of cannibals, completing the destruction. They all are mightier than Mujaji, who is unarmed yet invincible. And, as the pageant passes by, we see innumerable refugees flocking from all points of the compass to seek sanctuary in the inviolable land.

The Eighth Pageant (1894).
The sceptre, secretly entrusted to Mujaji II on her accession forty years and more before this pageant passes, is the symbol of forces that swayed a bygone world. People are uncertain of their bearings in the new world, their sense of security has been shaken. The black ants from Swaziland have left a scar, though they were chastened when the legions of Ludongo were defeated. Now the red ants are brought upon the scene as the aftermath of the exploits of Albasini, self appointed chief of the Magwamba (Shangana-Tonga) and Native Commissioner of the Boer Republic. The sceptre only weakly shows the force of spiritual power. The tribute Mujaji sends to Albasini, it is true, smites him with drought; upon General Joubert, curious to behold the royal majesty, a far-off sister of the queen, who was also her ‘wife', is palmed off as the mysterious ‘She-who-must-be-obeyed* ; the Transformer of the Clouds still is the ‘huckster in her hut'.

But to the workers and warriors of the ‘red ants’, the sceptre is like a broken reed rather than a magic wand. Some of them with impunity appropriate the country, enlisting in their service the denizens of the soil; others are collecting taxes, exacting tribute and redrawing age-old boundary lines; still others invade the sacred places, even desecrating the drums at Maulwi. The princes still come, but they supplicate surreptitiously.

The temporary triumphs cannot offset the disastrous defeats, and Mujaji, bewildered by the turn of events, does not know how to adjust her weapons and her diplomacy to the needs of the new situation. She circumvents the curiosity of Joubert, but she fails to save her subjects from serfdom. When the grave of Khashani, the Christian kinsman whom she martyred, becomes the rallying point of a disloyal creed, when the conspiracy to expel the European intruder ends in the disaster of the deportation of her neighbours, she loses her faith in the gods of her ancestors and adjures her followers to trust the apostle of a creed that was uprooting these gods. Pathetically she presses the poison cup to her lips, conforming to the letter, not to the spirit, of the ritual end ordained by her ancestors. In a world indifferent to the eternal verities, that cup is like an empty sham and that end like a vain sacrifice.

The pageant passes on. A cheerless panorama unfolds before us as Mujaji III ascends the throne. To submission is added humiliation. When the white man, coming to arrange for the recognition of the new queen, sees old Mathogani, who had impersonated Mujaji II, the proceedings are stopped. The Lovedu are made to pay for their presumption by being denied a ruler until the old woman dies. They retaliate by dubbing her the ‘Chief of the white men’ and by accelerating her end.

But it is a fruitless revenge. They are faced with the problem of reconciling the claims of two incongruous worlds : is the authority of the queen to be derived from the alien conqueror and his ceremonies or from the spirit of the deceased and the rite of the door? The reality of the old rite is the sham of the new order ; it is a mere coincidence upon which no title can be based. But also in all spheres of culture and of life these dualistic forces clash with one another; they are in a death grapple which lasts throughout the reign of Mujaji III.

The conflict is epitomized in the conflict between Shalala and the royal house. The commoner, using the weapons of the European lawyer. ranges himself against royalty, who invoke the powers of their ancestors When Magoma, daughter of the queen, illicitly allies herself to the commoner and anarchy threatens disruption of the tribe, the royal house reluctantly invites intervention of the white man, submitting, however, only the superficial issues. Ostensibly Shalala suffers defeat, but in reality the struggle continues ; and in this conflict, as in the wider conflict of the warring worlds, we are left in doubt where the victory lies.

________________________

Rider Haggard's 'SHE - A History of Adventure'

She, subtitled A History of Adventure, is a novel by Henry Rider Haggard, first serialized in The Graphic magazine from October 1886 to January 1887. She is one of the classics of imaginative literature, and with over 83 million copies sold in 44 different languages, one of the best-selling books of all time. Extraordinarily popular upon its release, She has never been out of print. According to the literary historian Andrew M. Stauffer, "She has always been Rider Haggard's most popular and influential novel, challenged only by King Solomon's Mines in this regard".
The story is a first-person narrative that follows the journey of Horace Holly and his ward Leo Vincey to a lost kingdom in the African interior. There, they encounter a primitive race of natives and a mysterious white queen, Ayesha, who reigns as the all-powerful "She", or "She-who-must-be-obeyed". In this work, Rider Haggard developed the conventions of the Lost World sub-genre, which many later authors emulated.
She is placed firmly in the imperialist literature of nineteenth-century England, and inspired by Rider Haggard's experiences of South Africa and British colonialism. The story expresses numerous racial and evolutionary conceptions of the late-Victorians, especially notions of degeneration and racial decline prominent during the fin de siècle. In the figure of She, the novel notably explored themes of female authority and feminine behaviour. It has received praise and criticism alike for its gendered representation of womanhood.

Synopsis
A Cambridge University professor, Horace Holly, and his ward, Leo Vincey, together with their servant, Job, travel to Africa. They follow instructions on the "Sherd of Amenartas" left to Vincey by his father. They travel to Africa and suffer shipwreck on the eastern shore of Central Africa. They survive together with an Arab, Mahomed, and journey into an unexplored part of the African interior, where they discover the lost kingdom of Kôr, inhabited by the primitive Amahagger people. The adventurers learn that the natives are ruled by a fearsome white queen, who is worshiped as Hiya or "She-who-must-be-obeyed". The Amahagger are curious about the white-skinned interlopers; She had warned them of their coming.

Billali, the chief elder of one of the Amahagger tribes, takes charge of the three men, introducing them to the ways of his people. One of the Amahagger maidens, Ustane, takes a liking to Vincey and during a tribal feast sings lovingly to him. Billali tells Holly that he needs to go and report the white men's arrival to She. In his absence, some of the Amahagger become restless and determine to eat Mahomed as part of a ritual "hotpot". In a scuffle Mahomed is killed and Vincey gravely wounded, but the three Englishmen are saved when Billali returns and declares that they are under the protection of She. As Vincey's condition worsens, he approaches death although tended by Ustane.

They are taken to the home of She, which lies under a dormant volcano amongst a series of cavernous tombs. There, Holly is presented to the queen, a white sorceress named Ayesha. Her beauty is so great that it enchants any man who beholds it. She, who is veiled and lies behind a partition, warns Holly that the power of her splendour arouses both desire and fear, but he is dubious. When she shows herself, however, Holly is enraptured and prostrates himself before her. He learns that She has lived in the realm of Kôr for over two millennia, awaiting the reincarnated return of her lover, Kallikrates (whom she had accidentally slain in a fit of jealous rage). After she veils herself again, Holly remembers Vincey and begs Ayesha to visit his ward. Having agreed, she is startled upon seeing him, as she believes him to be the reincarnation of Kallikrates.

She heals Vincey but becomes jealous of the girl, Ustane. The latter is ordered to leave the home of She-who-must-be-obeyed but refuses, and is eventually struck down by She. Despite the murder of their friend, Holly and Vincey cannot free themselves from the power of She's beauty. They remain amongst the tombs as Vincey recovers his strength, and She lectures Holly on the ancient history of Kôr.

In the climax of the novel, Ayesha takes the two men to see the pillar of fire, passing through the ruined city of Kôr. She is determined that Vincey should bathe in the fire to become immortal and remain with her forever. They come to a great cavern, but at the last Vincey doubts the safety of entering the flame. To allay his fears, She steps into the Spirit of Life. With this second immersion, she reverts to her true age, withering away in the fire. The sight is so shocking that Job dies in fright. Before dying, She tells Vincey, "I die not. I shall come again."

  • Ayesha - thought to have been inspired by Masalandbo Modjaji, Rain Queen II - the title character of the novel, called Hiya by the native Amahagger, or "She". Ayesha was born over 2,000 years ago amongst the Arabs, mastering the lore of the ancients and becoming a great sorceress. Learning of the Pillar of Life in the African interior, she journeyed to the ruined kingdom of Kôr, feigning friendship with a hermit who was the keeper of the Flame that granted immortality. She bathed in the Pillar of Life's fire.

There have been 3 Film Versions made.

For Fun: Terry Pratchett's commentary on Rain Queens

The idea that there is a Rain Goddess who decides when it will rain, or a Lion God who can either keep you safe from lion attacks or unleash them upon you, therefore has irresistible advantages. You can't control rain, and of course you can't control a Rain Goddess either, but, with the proper rituals, you can hope to influence her decisions.This is where the priesthood comes in, because they can act as an intermediary between everybody else and the gods. They can prescribe the appropriate rituals - and, like all good politicians, they can claim the credit when things work out and blame someone else when they go wrong.
'What, Henry was eaten by a lion? Well then, he must not have shown proper respect when making his daily sacrifice to the Lion God.'
'How do you know that?'
'Well, if he had shown proper respect, he wouldn't have been eaten.

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