The Adventures of Cosmic Yoruba
& Her Flying Machines too
I know I have written on Efunsetan Aniwura before (where I horribly misspelled her name for which I have been told off *haha*) but once is not enough! The more I learn about this amazing Egba woman, the more I am amazed. I went from not knowing anything about her, to learning that she was…
I have spent a considerable amount of time wondering how single women could have made do in West African history. The non-existent yet much spoken of “African culture” of today paints a picture that such things never happened even though there are several renowned women who we remember today that never married, whether it is…
Since I wrote this post on sex work in pre-colonial Igboland, my interest in sex work as it exists (or not) in the history of West African peoples grew immensely. I was especially pleased to come across, Emmanuel Akyeampong’s research on sexuality and prostitution among the Akan of the Gold Coast, looking through the years…
Ahebi Ugbabe’s life story is to me, equal parts fascinating and frustrating. Fascinating because Ahebi Ugbabe was a woman ahead of her time, and her story provides incredible insights into pre-colonial Igbo attitudes towards gender and sex. And frustrating because of the exact same reason; that is pre-colonial Igbo attitudes towards gender and sex. Ahebi…
Nwando Achebe writes that “woman-to-woman marriage in Africa has absolutely nothing to do with homosexuality” (emphasis hers)…and I actually agree with this…kind of. While I strongly believe in pre-colonial lesbian secret societies littered across the African continent, at the risk of falling into the trap of Eurocentric and Western (mis)understanding of African social institutions, it…
In Nwando Achebe’s recount of Ahebi Ugbabe’s life, she looks into the practice of marrying women to Goddesses as a sort of human sacrifice and slavery system. With the abolition of the international slave trade in 1805, some Igbo people created new deities and mystical forces that were to help them fight the internal slavery…
As can be expected with most things related to African history there is extremely little information on sex work in pre-colonial African societies out there. It is for this reason that I was doubly excited that Nwando Achebe dedicated part of her research to revealing the intricacies of sex work in Igboland (particularly among the…
After an extended delay I am back to write on select topics regarding women and society in pre-colonial and colonial Igbo land. This series of posts are based on reading Nwando Achebe’s The Female King of Colonial Nigeria: Ahebi Ugbabe. * When I really started delving into Nigerian history, I started close to home, that…
When I read the title of Minna Salami’s most recent post, “There were no matriarchies in precolonial Africa”, my first thought was “oh no but this is a generalisation!” I approached the post carefully and by the time I had finished reading it, I found that I agreed with most of Salami’s points. Especially when…
An excellent post over at Odinani: The Sacred Arts and Sciences of the Igbo People gives advice on “connecting to your ancestry”. I consider connecting with ancestry to be very important, and not just the ancestors that have passed away but the elders who are living and still on this earth. Marcus Garvey said, “a…