Matriarchal Authority among African Women: examples in Cameroon and a Note from Zimbabwe

Examples of Duala and Bamileke Matriarchal Authority... and a note from Zimbabwe

Nowadays, seen from afar, African women appear to be living in very patriarchal societies for the most part. That impression would often not be incorrect, sadly. An exception could be made for the powerful “Mami Benz,” the traders of West Africa. On the other hand, who knows how the men in their family might be behaving with them, no matter their wealth and power!

African women had a recognized authority in the socio-political and economic spaces established by traditional cultures.

Cameroon has examples of traditional roles played by women. Some of these roles are still relevant today.  

Amongst the Duala, the eldest daughter in a family was known as the Mangon, literally “Mother woman.” Even when she marries into another village community, she continues to play a vital role in the important stages of family life, such as births, marriages, and widowhood. She is the last resort in family disputes. As she grows older, she becomes the supreme advisor and no decision can be finalized without her approval. She is often sent as an ambassador in disputes between communities: women always come in peace rather than with a warlike attitude.

Douala is now a contemporary African city of over 4 million inhabitants, but it started out with three small villages: Bell, Akwa, and the most recent, Deïdo, the village of the ancestor/founder, Ebele. Deido districts are named after Teki, Jinjé and Téné, Ebele's wives, and are known as Bonateki, Bonajinjé and Bonaténé, “Bona” meaning "children of". Northwest of the city of Douala, the village of Bona Endale was named after Endale, a woman from the Abo region and wife of the Mbangue Bele chief.

War, as in most other parts of the world, was fought by men. The Duala people are originally fishermen and seafarers, waging battle on the water. During battles on the Wouri River and its tributaries, when the number of wounded and dead reached alarming proportions, the women would put on their cover-up (Ekwa Mwato in Duala, made of raffia cloth or finely beaten tree bark). They sprinkled ash all over their bodies, from head to toe, and entered the battlefield in a dugout called Bolo Bwa Mengu - the “mermaid boat.” Combatants usually stopped hostilities when they saw this dugout coming. If they didn't, they ran the risk of being cursed by the most effective female weapon: the women might expose their nakedness to the offenders, invoking the ancestors of both protagonists' fighters. It would be even worse when the old women of the lineage joined the group. Being older, so to say on the doorstep of the afterlife, society would prefer that they didn't tell the ancestors the story of the battle by mentioning the names of those who disrespected them and also put their lives at risk.

What heritage is more important in traditional societies than the afterlife? In Duala custom, in living memory, there have never been any male mediums. All mediums were women. A medium is defined as “a person who can serve as an intermediary between men and spirits” (Petit Larousse, 1972). It was women who brought news of the afterlife to the Duala, and gave advice to the living. They were called Ko La Bejongo.

Celebrating a new Mafo'o in Bamendjou

In Western Cameroun, among the Bamileke, some women hold the title of “Mafo’o.” A Mafo’o is a female elder, also named a “queen,” albeit not through being a wife of the traditional Chief. She is called upon for her advice in community affairs, to help disseminate the chief’s message, and assist the community in general. When a Mafo is “intronized,” there is a 2 day long ceremonial and celebratory event held in the village. It is a lifetime title.

This title led recently to a Mafo’o becoming a traditional chief in the city diaspora, such as in the Bamendjou community of Douala, where Jeanne Nkegne, who became a Mafo’o in 2015, now acts as a community chief for the Bamendjou living in the Douala area, who number around 8,000 people. It is a break with the patriarchal habits of only naming men to these functions.

Nowadays, African women follow a dual cultural path, leading a double life, one European and one African. One obvious example is alternating between European-style clothing for office work and certain outings, and African-style clothing for traditional ceremonies. This dual cultural path affects all aspects of contemporary African society: language, food, recreation, religion, politics, and medicine… 

The struggle for the rights of African women in our modern societies should not only concern the reclaiming of the rights and powers that traditional society granted them. It is only logical that men who claim to love their grandmothers, mothers, wives, nieces, cousins, aunts, sisters, daughters… should participate in the struggle for these women’s rights. Feminism, in its daily struggles, should not simply gather women in parades with their placards. It should bring their demands into the assemblies, mostly held by men who claim to love the women of their families.

Note from Picket Chabwedzeka, on the women of Zimbabwe:

Women are the guardians of culture through storytelling, and teaching children societal norms and values. They are pillars of strength and household heads as men often move to larger towns in search of work, and women are left alone in charge of the children's upbringing. in an age of rampant drug abuse, they keep their families stable.

Women in Zimbabwe, carrying the loads

And a PS about today's female winemakers of South Africa...

Black women winemakers breaking barriers in South Africa in Académie du Vin Library

and

Shining the spotlight on female winemakers of South Africa in Crush Magazine