Thabiso Sekhula
African Queens: Scrolla.Africa is showcasing the lives of seven African Queens from history whose remarkable lives went on to shape the world today.
Imagine you are born with the powers to make it rain – LITERALLY! To bring abundance and good harvest to your kingdom. This is the story of the Modjadji queens.
The Modjadji queenship is currently vacant, with some controversy surrounding the issue of succession at the moment. There are ongoing court cases over the age of incoming rain queen, Masalanabo Modjadji. Her brother Prince Lekukela is about to be made the first Balobedu rain king in over 200 years, because she is not yet 18 so cannot rule over the entire Balobedu nation.
Princess Masalanabo was only a few months old when her mother, Queen Makobo Modjadji, died leaving her to continue the legacy.
The rain queens are South Africa’s only queenship and are the official protectors of the sacred forests of the Balobedu where Modjadji cycads grow. Its people are said to control the clouds and the rivers.
The gardens of the Queen Modjadji lineage are some of the most unique in the world with the Modjadji cycad, one of the world’s tallest cycad species which only grows on the Balobedu mountains in the home villages of the Modjadji Queens.
These are cycads which have existed since the time of dinosaurs and used to be eaten by the giants before they went extinct.
The story goes, the Balobedu settled in the area about 400 years ago, after migrating south from present-day Zimbabwe. Men ruled the tribe then, and competition for succession was fierce. Claiming prophetic guidance, the last Balobedu king impregnated his daughter to start a line of female leaders.
The first Rain Queen was known as Modjadji, which means “ruler of the day”. And in the years after her inauguration, around 1800, the Balobedu were a small and largely peaceful tribe.
Although they did not have military power, they were not attacked by more powerful rivals. Instead, the rivals would appear before the Queen and ask for rain.
And even though the apartheid government reduced them to a monarch, it was the former president Jacob Zuma who reinstated the Balobedu as a recognised monarchy.
Temperatures will be rising with the impending coronation of the Balobedu king, but whether the next monarch is a king or queen, by the end of 2022, we will be looking up at the sky and listening to tales in the wind about the rainmaker returning to Bolobedu.
Image source:theafricanroyalfamilies
