We doubt you need any reminding that the Queen’s Jubilee Weekend will soon be here – you’ve had your eye on that 4-day bank holiday weekend for weeks now! To mark the historical occasion, we take a look at 5 of the queen’s most notable trips throughout the Commonwealth.
Ghana, 1961
Ghana had just become the first colony in sub-Saharan Africa after South Africa to gain independence from British rule, which it achieved in 1957. At the height of the Cold War, Britain and America feared Ghana would leave the Commonwealth and fall under the influence of the Soviet Union.
In 1961, Queen Elizabeth II visited Ghana on a mission to persuade President Kwame Nkrumah not to leave the Commonwealth. During a visit to the capital city Accra, the queen was photographed dancing happily with the Ghanaian leader at a time when racial tensions were already very high.
Nat Nunoo Amarteifio, Ghanaian historian and former mayor of Accra, said that Elizabeth’s dance showed the respect she had for Nkrumah. He said: “A man could not have done it. Here is our president, being respected enough by the Queen of England for her to put her arms around him. She was fairly graceful.”
Professor Philip Murphy, director of the Institute of Commonwealth Studies, notes that the dance demonstrated that the queen was not resistant to de-colonisation and wanted a new relationship with countries that had been part of Britain’s empire. He said: “There was a very warm personal dynamic between the Queen and Nkrumah and I think that has tremendous symbolic importance. “It is showing that the Queen at least accepts the process of the ending of Empire and embraces something which is a multiracial, voluntary, friendly association of independent nations.”
Sierra Leone, 1961:
During her royal tour of several African countries, Queen Elizabeth II stopped in Sierra Leone (a West African country that remained a British colony until April 1961) to watch the Susu dancers in the country’s Northern Province. The Susu are a major Mandé ethnic group living in Guinea, Sierra Leone, and, to a smaller extent, in Senegal.
This photo shows some of the dancers who performed a traditional devil dance in front of Queen Elizabeth II at the Royal Durbar in Bo, Sierra Leone. The dance is part of a rowdy, multi-sensorial, communal art tradition that dates back to the earliest days of the Sierra Leonean colony.” While British missionaries condemned African masks as “devils,” many Africans in Freetown, the capital of Sierra Leone, “turned insult into a mark of cultural advocacy and pride.”
Ethiopia, 1965:
In 1965, Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip travelled to Ethiopia, an East African country that was only ever briefly colonized by Europeans.
It is certainly fair to say that all the stops were pulled out for the Royal visit, as swaths of people came to try and catch a glimpse of the Queen.
Queen Elizabeth was greeted by Emperor Haile Selassie, who wore a field marshal’s uniform and a lion’s mane helmet and showcased the crowds dancing in the street upon her arrival. As the queen was driven the two miles to the Jubilee Palace, she passed two huge gilded aluminium lions erected in her honour.
Halfway on the journey, they changed from a car to a state coach drawn by six white horses. Surrounded by 100 horsemen of the imperial bodyguard, jogging under heavy lion’s mane helmets, it took more than an hour to drive the two miles through the crowd clapping a rhythmic welcome and drums thumping.
Vanuatu, 1974:
In 1974, the Queen was witness to the land-diving tradition that occurs on Pentecost Island in Vanuatu, off the northeast coast of Australia.
The tradition sees men climb flimsy 100-foot wooden towers and dive headfirst into empty space, with nothing to break their fall but vines tied to their ankles. The ritual is associated with the annual yam harvest. It is performed annually in the months of April, May, or June; a good dive helps ensure a bountiful yam harvest.
The villagers believe land diving can enhance the health and strength of the divers. A successful dive can remove the illnesses and physical problems associated with the wet season. Furthermore, land diving is considered an expression of masculinity, as it demonstrates boldness that was associated with the bwahri or warrior.
The ritual begins with the least experienced jumpers on the lower platforms and ends with the most experienced jumpers on the upper platforms. The ideal jump is high with the jumper landing close to the ground. The goal is to brush the shoulders against the ground. The higher the jump, the more bountiful the harvest.
The diver crosses his arms over his chest to help prevent injury to the arms. The head is tucked in so his shoulders can contact the ground. Therefore, the divers risk a number of injuries, such as a broken neck or a concussion. During the dive, the jumper can reach speeds of around 45 mph/h!
For boys, land diving is a rite of passage, which they can begin to participate in at 7 or 8 years old. When a boy is ready to become a man, he land-dives in the presence of his elders. His mother holds a favourite childhood item, for example, a piece of cloth. After completing the dive, the item is thrown away, demonstrating that the boy has become a man.
In 1974, Queen Elizabeth II of Great Britain visited Vanuatu and observed the spectacle. The British colonial administration wanted The Queen to have an interesting tour, and convinced the villagers to perform a jump. However, the vines were not elastic enough because it was the wrong season – the middle of the wet season. One diver had both lianas broken, broke his back from falling, and later died in hospital.
In 2006, commercial filming of the ritual was banned by the Vanuatu Cultural Centre to protect the culture, though some videos are available on YouTube (skip to 1:21).
South Africa, 1995:
1995 marked the Queen’s first trip back to South Africa since she came in 1947 as a 21-year-old princess with her father, King George VI, her mother and her sister, Margaret — a year before the Nationalist Party took over and installed apartheid.
Ostracised by the world, South Africa pulled out of the Commonwealth in 1961. It rejoined in 1994 after Nelson Mandela was elected in the first national election open to all races, including the black majority.
The white right of South Africa voiced its disdain. Robert van Tonder, leader of the far-right Boerstaat Party, declared that his followers would ignore the arrival of “Mrs. Elizabeth Windsor.”
Queen Elizabeth II has often been said to have had an “extraordinary relationship” with Nelson Mandela. Mr Mandela had a friendly relationship with the Queen and even flouted royal protocol to call her by her first name, Elizabeth, according to a memoir written by his former personal assistant Zelda la Grange:
On a visit to Britain, I was struck by the warm friendship between Madiba and the Queen. “‘Oh Elizabeth,’ he would say when he greeted her, and she would respond: ‘Hello, Nelson.’ “I think he was one of the very few people who called her by her first name and she seemed to be amused by it.”
The queen even signed letters to him with “Your sincere friend, Elizabeth R.”
