Chiefs and Other Great Female Ancestors: Voice, Authority, and the Politics of Gendered Temporality in Northern Mozambique

The matrilineal Yaawo of northern Mozambique are recognized as having had a tradition of female figures of spiritual and political authority, though little is known of their history. This article takes “voice” as its analytical focus to explore how these women feature in the historical memories of the region. Methodologically, it brings together the study of oral traditions and oral history. Focusing on the narratives as “collections of diverse voices” (Barber 1989), I analyze how past voices echo in the narratives and intertwine with the voices of their contemporary narrators; and how contemporary narrators engage with the remembered voices of the past. As this article argues, examining the ways that the relationship between the deeper past and the present is performed in the oral history encounters can bring us a better understanding of women’s gendered leadership in a more distant past as well as its changing shape in more recent times.