Ladies of the Throne

An astonishing new narrative of Mandu Yenu, a throne from the ancient Kingdom of Bamum.“Most of the time, it is the power of men that we remember.” With these words, which open Léonora Miano’s text for Objects Talk Back, an astonishing new narrative unfurls around Mandu Yenu, a throne from the ancient Kingdom of Bamum (present day Cameroon). The Germans long claimed the object was a gift from King Njoya to Kaiser Wilhelm II. Miano reads “between the lines of beads and cowrie shells” to show the complex intricacies of colonial and gender relations. Dismissing all pretense of egalitarianism between colonizer and colonized, she hones in on the very nature of power—how and by whom it is defined-wielded-subverted. King Njoya said he “felt like a woman in his relationship with the Germans.” Miano takes this as a prompt to examine contrasting cultural notions of femininity and thus reveals how central women are to the story of the throne. As the very name of the object suggests, it is the power of women we should remember.