Abstract
GENERAL SMUTS, in his foreword, commends this book as one of the most honest and penetrating researches into native life that he has come across. The tribute is well deserved. Dr. and Mrs. Krige selected a fascinating subject for study: the Lovedu, living among the mist-covered mountains of northern Transvaal. Insignificant as regards numbers and the extent of their territory, 33,000 tribesmen occupying a reserve of 150 square miles, their reputation was, and still is, great among the Bantu of South Africa; their queen was held to be the most powerful of all rain-makers, and even chiefs so distant and renowned as Chaka and Moshesh sought her aid in extremity. Many foreign ambassadors and potentates gathered at her court, bringing cattle or daughters or sisters to win the favour of "Transformer of the Clouds". To Europeans she was a mystery; was reputed to be very light-coloured (Was she really a white woman?) and to be immortal. Rider Haggard familiarized her as "She-who-must-be-obeyed". There is substance in the fantasies that gathered about her. She figures as one of the Divine Rulers of whom Sir James Frazer has written.
The Realm of a Rain Queen
A Study of the Pattern of Lovedu Society. By Dr. E. Jensen Krige and J. D. Krige. (Published for the International Institute of African Languages and Cultures.) Pp. xvi + 336 + 16 plates. (London, New York and Toronto: Oxford University Press, 1943.) 21s. net.
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SMITH, E. The Realm of a Rain Queen. Nature 155, 190 (1945). https://doi.org/10.1038/155190a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/155190a0