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Lovedu

The Lovedu, a Bantu people, live in the Transvaal, an area in northern South Africa. According to their oral traditions, they settled in that particular location as a result of the migration south of a small number of Karanga people, from Zimbabwe, in the 17th century. The Karanga people, who were great traders, had created a great empire from about 1000 to 1600 AD. They smelted gold and traded it on the shores of the Indian Ocean for glass beads and porcelain from China. When they settled in the Transvaal, however, the Karanga, now Lovedu people, developed a subsistence economy primarily based on agriculture and cattle-rearing.

There are several stories about the reason that the Lovedu came into existence. According to one, the King's son took with him some people as he was fleeing his father's kingdom after receiving rain charms. In another version, it is the king's daughter who, having engaged in incestuous intercourse with her brother, fled out of shame with rain charms and some of her people. In a variant of this story, it is her father, and not her brother, who would have made her pregnant to pass onto her the knowledge of how to control rain. In any case, rain making obviously plays a central role in the Lovedu mythical narrative. This entry looks at the Rain Queen, the role of ancestors, and the ethical or moral imperatives in Lovedu religion.

The Rain Queen

Indeed, the Lovedu people have become famous for their Rain Queen. She is the only queen to combine the functions of a monarch and a rain maker. The Rain Queen, indeed, is believed to have the mystical power to control rain. In a community where agriculture and catde-rearing play a critical role in the sustenance of its members, as it is the case with the Lovedu people, the importance attached to the falling of rain cannot surprise. Furthermore, rain, generally speaking, is linked in African life and religion to the fundamental notions of fertility and life transmission. Through her spiritual control of rain, the queen is therefore assumed to have control over the welfare of her society.

The Rain Queen of the Lovedu people is therefore much respected and feared. She is seen as the embodiment of the divine and cosmic order on which harmony and balance rest. In fact, due to her ability to control rain, she is thought of as the Rain Goddess. She must have children by someone of royal blood. Her passing away always provokes a major disruption of the natural order because drought, famines, and complete devastation seem inevitable.

The Ancestors

As sacred and powerful as the Rain Queen may be, however, her ability to control the rain is ultimately under the authority of the ancestors. Indeed, the latter remain the most powerful and conspicuous actors in Lovedu religion. The Lovedu believe that the world was created by a Supreme Being named Khuzwane. However, Khuzwane remains a remote supreme deity, as it is so often the case in other religious traditions in Africa, and therefore plays little if no role at all in daily human affairs.

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