Several years ago, anthropologist Ronald Cohen (1977, pp. 14-30) wrote a thought-provoking article the focus of which was the phenomenon of the African queenmother. Female title-holders placed in the highest levels of the political order were a common feature of ancient and later precolonial African political systems. Wherever these political systems have managed to survive colonialism and into the postcolonial era, through being accorded status, female title-holders have often survived with them. This broad collection of female titles has been brought together by anthropologists and others, and is considered to be varied expressions of the same institution: the institution of queenmother. Focusing on the institution as it exists today within the traditional political system of the Pabir people of northern Nigeria, but also drawing on examples from elsewhere on the African continent, Cohen attempts to explain why the office of queenmother was so prevalent in precolonial African state systems. He concludes his explanation with a hypothesis on the origins of African queenmothership. The thrust of Cohen's argument is that the office of queenmother was, in general, essentially of a ceremonial character and that it served as a center around which the or potential opposition to the king could be safely and nondivisively collected.
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