#queen nandi

[portraits-of-afrikan-beauty]

South African actress & producer Nomzamo Mbatha at the Shaka ilembe Season 2 Premiere 🌟

[arinzeture]

[queen-shiba]

Nandi Bhebhe, mother of Shaka kaSenzangakhona, king of the Zulus.

[maddiealyse56]

Historical Queens of Africa in Movies

Queen Nandi (Mother of Shaka), (Shaka Ilembe, 2023))

Queen Nzinga of Ndongo and Matamba, (Njinga: Queen Of Angola, 2013)

Queen Amina of Zazzau, (Amina (Netflix), 2021)

[kemetic-dreams]

WE GOT TO TREAT THESE WOMEN LIKE QWEENS!!!!

We heard this line before, we got to treat every woman like a queen. And the same for a bunch of mediocre men who want to be treated like Kings. First off how many of us actually know real life queens to model yourself after. What makes you a King. Because your a Instagram model, or because you sell dope.

What is a Queen? is a female monarch, equivalent in rank and title to a king, who reigns in her own right over a realm known as a "kingdom"; as opposed to a queen consort, who is the wife of a reigning king; or a queen regent, who is the guardian of a child monarch and rules temporarily in the child's stead, be it de jure in sharing power, or de facto in ruling alone. A princess regnant is a female monarch who reigns in her own right over a "principality"; an empress regnant is a female monarch who reigns in her own right over an "empire".

The idea that every one is a King or Queen is a disservice to the name. Every one is not a legend. Some of us are just good normal people. Comedians, mathematicians, bankers, models etc. We didn’t all descend from Kings and Queens

Queen Moremi was a courageous queen who is fabled to have contributed to the deliverance of the Yoruba tribe from oppression.

Queen Nandi was resilient as a mother and the hope against social pressures. She was the mother of Shaka Zulu, one of the Zulu kingdom’s greatest kings. According to historians, during the reign of her son, she had significant influence over the affairs of the kingdom.

Asantewa was the queen mother of Ejisu in the Ashanti Empire – now part of modern-day Ghana. In 1900, she led the Ashanti war known as the War of the Golden Stool, also known as the Yaa Asantewaa war, against British colonials.

Fighting side by side her soldiers, Queen Amanirenas led the front of her army with her son close by her side. Her attack was highly successful and Queen Amanirenas captured three major Roman cities, took captives and destroyed and defaced many statues of Emporer Augustus. Because of their large army, the Roman Empire easily reclaimed its cities, invaded Kush and sold many into slavery, but this did not deter Queen Amanirenas, if anything, it only made her stronger. The Kushite and Roman armies fought tirelessly with the queen who was strong in battle for three long years. During one of the fights, the queen was injured by a Roman soldier and blinded in one eye. After healing, the queen led her army to several more fights against the Romans.

Stop interchanging being a trick, for treating a woman or man like a King or Queen. What makes you a Queen or King. Most people can’t even govern a family or their own home let alone a large group of people

[diioonysus]

history | powerful women

[marrowstudio]

Queen Nandi, the mother of the king of my culture, King Shaka. There is no Zulu nation without the Queen Mother. There is no Shaka without Queen Nandi and yet, we, as their descendants, know little to nothing about her. We will do right by you Mama and search to find the truth of your existence.

[frontporchwomanism]

Petition to Mama Zulu

I recently came into a conscious breakthrough about my own weariness of the day to day struggles of life as a Black non-man head of household. This particular day I sat and cried to my altars, begging the ancestors to make it all make sense. Why am I getting the shit end of every bargain, every deal, every matter where my gender and my body is up for labor or consumption? Spirit responded with:

“Why not you?”

Why not me…my former Christian mind would recall a quote like “The meek shall inherit the earth,” and I would try to reconcile with idea that there’s an endgame to all of my struggles. The “melanated queen” in me would go into superhuman mode and say “I’m the mother of humanity, and them crackas shook”.

The beauty of intersectionality is knowing that these both have lingering truths that are felt even if not articulated. Which brings me to my muse in this prose -- Queen Nandi, or Nandi kaBhebhe, mother of the great Shaka Zulu.

Shaka Zulu was born illegitimate. His mother was not married to his father, King of the Zulu people. The king initially did not claim Shaka, but Nandi had time, and told the whole nation of the king’s ain’t shit ways. She demanded 50 herd of cattle be sent to her in support of her son and her village. The king was not only compliant, he tried to get that old thing back by bringing her and Shaka to his home. He and Nandi did not get along so that arrangement was short-lived, and Nandi went back to her home to raise Shaka on her ancestral land.

The support from the king was cut off, her village went back into famine, and Shaka’s life was constantly threatened by assassination attempts to make certain Shaka would never make it to the throne. In the midst of all this struggle, Nandi herself trained Shaka to be a deadly warrior and huntsman which contributed heavily to his ascension to the throne. Her sacrifices made her the Alpha and Omega in her son’s eyes. The year she died, Shaka ordered every pregnant woman be killed so that his nation was a nation of collective sorrow.

Dear Mama: The Tragedy. Not a happy ending, but an ending that just “is”.

                                                    _____________

Nandi did not deserve her struggles. I’m sure a lifetime of dodging figurative bullets with her son is not the lifestyle she had in mind. I’m also sure that having a child with a birthright to an empire is a hell of a motivation, and it makes me reflect on my own motivations when the social and economic push-backs of the life I lead hit the darker parts of my spirit.

My children, the ones I birthed, and the ones in my community are not descendants of kings. Most of their fathers don’t know their own fathers. They may never get me into that nice big house back on my ancestral soil of Coldwater, Mississippi after I have sacrificed and worked so hard to protect them from the violence of White and Black patriarchy alike. The one thing I am certain of is that I am told to make do in a world that defined matriarchy without my mothers in mind. To make what this means clearer to me and mine, I must claim my borders in the soil, and protect and nurture those within.

I will call on the spirit of Queen Nandi as I sharpen my own spear.

- D