Farmers, Traders, Warriors, and Kings
Female Power and Authority in Northern Igboland, 1900-1960
Nwando Achebe
ISBN:
0-325-07078-4
ISBN-13:
978-0-325-07078-0
288 pages
Praeger Publishers
Publication:
7/30/2005
Availability:
Media Type:
Paperback
Trim Size:
6 1/8 x 9 1/4
Subjects:
Reviews:
-
[A]chebe's rich field data personalizes the literature on Igbo women, and will be invaluable as a source for others.
—American Historical Review
12/1/2006
Description:
There is an adage that the Igbo of Nigeria have no kings. This book focuses on an area in Igboland where, contrary to this popular belief, Igbos not only have kings, but female kings. It is an area where women served as warriors and even married many wives. Because women in Nsukka Division served as prominent actors in a complex set of interactions, relationships, and manifestations unmatched elsewhere in Igboland, researchers cannot adequately analyze the landscape of Nsukka Division (or any other African society, for that matter) without investigating the central place of women and the female principle in the spiritual world of the society. The author examines the political, economic, and religious structures that allowed women and the female principle to achieve measures of power and determines some of the ways they reacted and adjusted to the challenges of European rule. Such an investigation into the history of this gender dynamic yields important results for both African History and Women's Studies.
Achebe focuses on the evolution of gender politics and female power in Nigeria's northern Igboland over the first six decades of the 20th century. This time period, approximately 1900-1960, is important because it allows for the exploration of continuity and change in Nsukka women's activities, as well as the female principle, over three periods: late pre-colonial, colonial, and post-colonial Nigeria. Along the way, she raises and answers questions relating to scholarship on women, sex, and gender in Africa by uncovering the complexities of the Igbo gender construct, arguing, for example, that sex and gender did not coincide in northern Igboland. Consequently, women were able to occupy positions that were exclusively monopolized by men in other societies, and men, likewise, occupied positions that would have otherwise been monopolized by women. Expanding on this premise, the author calls for a revision of traditional classifications of African women's activities that are defined strictly along sex lines. It reshapes conventional global frameworks by offering new theories that have the capacity to recognize African concepts such as female kings, female fathers, female sons, female husbands, female warriors, female warrant chiefs, and male priestesses.
Table of Contents:
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Illustrations
Ekene (Acknowledgements)
Nkwado (The Preparation): The Main Dance is Yet to Come and the Little Antelope is Dancing Herself Lame-Self Locating and Research Methods
When Questions Begin to be Asked, then Tales Begin to be Told: Introduction and Review of Literature
Medicines and Goddesses, Priestesses and Prophetesses: Female Expressions within the Spiritual Realm
Farmers, Traders, Potters and Weavers: Nsukka Women as Economic Actors
Women in Community Politics: Colonialism and the Strategies of Female Resistance
"Ochichi Gi Agafego Oke" (You are Governing Too Much!)--King Ahebi Ugbabe versus the Community: A Case Study of Female Clout, Excess and Conflict in Enugu-Ezike
MMECHI (The Conclusion)
Glossary
Appendix
Select Bibliography
Index
About the Author:
Nwando Achebe is Associate Professor of African History at Michigan State University. She served as a Ford Foundation and Fulbright-Hays Scholar-in-Residence at the Hansberry African Studies Institute and history department of the University of Nigeria, Nsukka, in 1996 and 1998. Dr. Achebe's research interests involve the use of oral history in the study of women, gender, and power in eastern Nigeria. She has published a number of articles on research methods, Igbo women and gender, as well as indigenous slave systems.
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