The Adventures of Cosmic Yoruba
& Her Flying Machines too
Another fascinating aspect of Fatima Massaquoi’s autobiography is that it gives a glimpse at the lives of West African royalty during that era. I say privileged Africans, I mean people who were wealthy, who maintained relationships with (colonial) Europeans living in their territories at the time. Even if they had the best interest for their…
It seems every couple of years a book about an African woman who lived in such-and-such historical era is released (usually leading to me screaming and freaking out then buying the book). The Autobiography of an African Princess is one such book published in 2013. The African Princess here, Fatima Massaquoi was born around 1904…
The images below are apparently of Ashanti architecture, from Kumasi, the capital and neighbouring towns. I am a huge fan of photos like these. Look how clean the environs are, look at the meticulous work of these buildings. I can’t forget randomers arguing that Africans never had multi-storey buildings before colonial destruction when I stumble…
Continuing on the badass women of Dahomey, this post will focus on the ahosi. I’ll add that the well-known Dahomey “Amazons” were considered under this category even though I will not be talking about them here. Any dependent of the Dahomean King regardless of biological sex was ahosi of the King. Ahosi is translated to…
I find the high ranking women of Dahomey fascinating (but I find most things concerning West African women fascinating so…) Dahomey was a lot more brutally complex compared to Oyo (in many ways it was a rival kingdom to it). And unlike Oyo which remembered few women by name, Dahomey recorded and emphasised not only…
This an edited version of a blogpost I wrote in January 2013 after reading Nwando Achebe’s The Female Colonial King of Nigeria. I read this at the Queer Vibration panel at the Labs during Chale Wote 2015. The Female Colonial King of Nigeria provides a fascinating look into gender in South-Eastern Nigeria through the life…
Now I may be the last person writing about Chale Wote 2015 but better late than never right? This is a break from the usual on this blog but I need everyone who visits this page to know how awesome Chale Wote is. Was there for it once and I’ve already decided that it will…
Guess who hasn’t completed the post on high-ranking women of Dahomey? (**me**) I didn’t even realise it went live today, oops. If you’ve seen that post know it’s nothing but research notes and jumbled opinions, the real one will be up later. In the meantime, just so something goes up today, I’m sharing the books…
An interlude before the post on royal women in Dahomey in which I shed some light on the fascinating subject of women becoming men in Yoruba tradition. In the previous post, we learned that among the ladies of the palace in Oyo, two presented themselves as men and were addressed as “Baba”, meaning father. But…
I’m reading Mother is Gold, Father is Glass for the second time. I bought it first on my kindle and found it so useful I bought a physical copy too. I’ve found that though I’m reading both copies in the space of say two years, it’s the same things I’m highlighting and bookmarking. The most…