The Queen of Niassa, Abibi Achivangila, a respected traditional leader, passed away on Easter Sunday, and Mozambicans are in grief.
In a Facebook post, President Filipe Nyusi, who oversaw the 96-year-old monarch’s tributes, expressed his affection for her.
In conventional settings, it is uncommon for women to assume such influential positions.
The queen, however, belonged to a line of five female kings who ruled during the struggle against colonial domination, which spanned several hundred years.
The first queen allegedly rose to power after rejecting her husband, the Niassa monarch, to reclaim individuals he had sold into slavery to the Dutch, who held a colony in what is now Cape Town, South Africa, according to Mozambican author Paulina Chiziane.
Then, in the Majune district of Niassa province in northwest Mozambique, she hid them in a mountainous region.
“There’s a neighbourhood inhabited today by descendants of the survivors rescued by Queen Achivangila,” Chiziane says.
She continued by calling Queen Abibi a hero for carrying on this legacy’s spirit. On Wednesday, the village of Malila in the Majune district will host the queen’s wake and burial.