African Studies Association Women's Caucus's Aidoo-Snyder Book
Prize winner A Choice Outstanding Academic Title The monumental
palace of Kano, Nigeria, was built circa 1500 and is today
inhabited by more than one thousand persons. Historically, its
secluded interior housed hundreds of concubines whose role in the
politics, economics, and culture of Kano city-state has been
largely overlooked. In this pioneering work, Heidi J. Nast
demonstrates how human-geographical methods can tell us much about
a site like the palace, a place bereft of archaeological work or
relevant primary sources. Drawing on extensive ethnographic work
and mapping data, Concubines and Power presents new evidence that
palace concubines controlled the production of indigo-dyed cloth
centuries before men did. The women were also key players in the
assessment and collection of the state's earliest grain taxes,
forming a complex and powerful administrative hierarchy that used
the taxes for palace community needs. In addition, royal concubines
served as representatives of their places of origin, their freeborn
children providing the king with additional human capital to cement
territorial alliances through marriage. Social forces undoubtedly
shaped and changed concubinage for hundreds of years, but Nast
shows how the women's reach extended far beyond the palace walls to
the formation of the state itself.
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