Yaya Migansi
princess of Dahomey
Yaya Migansi or Houekode (c. 1850–1932) was a princess of Dahomey, a kingdom in present-day Benin. Her father was Glele (died 1889), who was the 10th king of Dahomey from 1858 to 1889. Her mother was Miagbe, also known as Hoonon Magnitin who gave birth to three sets of twins with Glele; Migansi was the first-born of the eldest pair of twins. Her name was Houekode, and the epithet "Yaya", an affectionate term meaning "old woman" is thought to refer to her mother. As her father was the future king, she and her sister were married to the two leading ministers of the kingdom: the name "Migansi" means wife or dependant of the "Migan" or prime minister.
Migansi held the position of Na Daho, "eldest princess", one of the two chief offices within the royal family along with the Alodokponugan, the oldest brother of the king. She had a responsibility for the marital arrangements of her siblings and the choice of a successor to the king. When her father died in 1889, Migansi's brother Béhanzin succeeded to the throne but fled in 1892 after the French invaded and burnt the capital, Abomey. Migansi and the Alodokponugan were involved in negotiations with the French, during which one of them said that she: "a woman of mature age, of a remarkable intelligence, appeared to exercise a real influence on her brothers".
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Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated Feb 7, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q56825504. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 1 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1850, 1932, 1889 and 1858.
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This entry incorporates text from “Yaya Migansi” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.