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Ndlovukati
Ndlovukati (pl. ''Tindlovukati'') is a Swati language|Swati title (''Indlovukazi'' in Zulu language|Zulu)
that roughly means Queen Mother or Senior Queen, and is given preferentially to the mother of the List of Kings of Swaziland|King or another female royal of high-status if the King's mother has died.
Origins
Ndlovukati literally means ''She-Elephant''. She is formally the joint head of state with her son, the ''Ngwenyama'' or Lion of Swaziland. Her son however is seen as the administrative head of state, while the ''Ndlovukati'' herself is seen as the spiritual and national head of state. She controls important ritual substances (sometimes called medicines) and knowledge necessary to the inauguration of the rule of an ''Ngwenyama'', to rainmaking, and to the renewal of national and kingly strength each year in the ''Ncwala'' national-royal rituals, which link royal and national well-being through invocation of the powers of royal ancestors.
History
Historically there have been a number of ''tindlovukati'' with great substantial power as well as influence, especially though not exclusively in periods of regency. The power of the ''ndlovukati'' was explicitly understood as a counterweight to that of ''tigwenyama'' (kings) and also to potentially rival princes of royal blood. Like royal governors who were not from the royal Dlamini lineage, the ''ndlovukati'' could not succeed to the kingship, thus offering an alternative source of power to rein in overweaning ''tingwenyama'' who could not challenge directly to be the ''ngwenyama''.
During the long reign of the ''Ngwenyama'' Sobhuza II of Swaziland|Sobhuza II, (1899-1982), his grandmother the ''Ndlovukati'' Labotisibeni Mdluli (also known as Gwamile) was the last great ''ndlovukati'', being the primary Swazi political power from Sobhuza's succession as an infant in 1899 until his accession to full power in 1922. However, over the following 60 years the practical power and influence of the office of ''ndlovukati'' became greatly overshadowed, in part because the British chose to recognize the powers of the king (whom they called the "Paramount Chief") over those of the senior, in part because of the force of Sobhuza's personality in contrast to the ''tindlovukati'' who succeeded his own mother after she died in 1938, and in part because of conservative aristocratic Swazi male reactions to colonialism, which created a new and more rigid form of patriarchy now called and argued by some to be mischaracterised as "traditional." The office of ''Ndlovukati'' suffered a further blow after the death of Sobhuza II, when a holder of the office was implicated in the political machinations of Prince Mfanasibili Dlamini|Mfanasibili aimed at usurping the kingship. Thus the political-cultural ideals and historical meanings of the office expressed above do not really characterise the ''Ndlovukati'' today (2006), whose position has become much weaker than that of the ''Ngwenyama''.
At any time where there is both an ''ngwenyama'' and an ''ndlovukati'', which is most of the time, there are two royal headquarters villages. Even during a regency when the king is a minor, a proto-form of his headquarters is prepared. The King's headquarters is where he carries out his administrative duties; the ''Ndlovukati'''s, which is called ''umphakatsi,'' (meaning "the inside," and a term also applied to the royal insiders and close allies as a group) is the national capital and spiritual and ceremonial home of the nation.
References
Category:Queen mothers
Category:Swazi monarchy
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