[3] According to legend, the birthing process was very difficult for Kengela, her mother;[3] Njinga received her name because the umbilical cord was wrapped around her neck (the Kimbundu verb kujinga means to twist or turn).

According to the current Kimbundu orthography, her name is spelled Njinga Mbandi (the "j" is a voiced postalveolar fricative or "soft j" as in Portuguese and French, while the adjacent "n" is silent).

[19] Nzingha departed the Ndongan capital with a large retinue and was received with considerable interest in Luanda, compelling the Portuguese governor to pay for all of her party's expenses.

An increasingly powerful figure in the royal court, Nzingha (in a possible political ploy)[25] warned her brother that a baptism would offend his traditionalist supporters, convincing him to reject any idea of being baptized.

Kasanje offered Nzinga an alliance and military support, but in return demanded that she marry him and discard her lunga (a large bell used by Ndongan war captains as a symbol of their power).

Sources (African, Western, modern, contemporary)[37][14][4][7] disagree on the intricacies and extent of Imbangala rites and laws (ijila), but the general consensus is that Nzinga was compelled to participate in the customary cannibalistic (the drinking of human blood in the cuia, or blood oath ceremony)[38] and infanticidal (through the use of an oil made from a slain infant, the maji a samba)[39] initiation rites required for a woman to become a leader in the highly militarized Imbangala society.

As noted by historian Linda Heywood, Nzinga's genius was to combine her Mbundu heritage with the Imbangalan's Central African military tradition and leadership structure, thus forming a new, highly capable army.

[9][4] According to some sources, Nzinga – having been disenfranchised by the Mbundu-dominated nobility of Ndongo – was politically attracted to the Imbangalans, who placed more value on merit and religious fervor as opposed to lineage, kinship (and by extension, sex).

By 1631 she had rebuilt her army and was waging a successful guerilla war against the Portuguese, with one Jesuit priest (living in the Kongo at the time) describing her as being akin to an Amazon queen and praising her leadership.

[41] Having defeated the Matambans, Nzinga assumed the throne of Matamba and began settling the region with exiled Ndongans, hoping to use the kingdom as a base to wage her war to reclaim her homeland.

[14][4][41] Unlike her native Ndongo, Matamba had a cultural tradition of female leadership, giving Nzinga a more stable power base after she overthrew the previous queen.

Using her forces, she cut other rulers off from the Portuguese-controlled coast, capturing parts of the Kwango River and bringing the region's key slave supplying lands under her control.

[45] In 1641, forces from the Dutch West India Company, working in alliance with the Kingdom of Kongo, seized Luanda, driving out the Portuguese and setting up the directorate of Loango-Angola.

Hoping to form an Afro-Dutch coalition against the Portuguese, Nzinga requested an immediate alliance and offered to open the slave trade to them, though she was concerned that the Kingdom of Kongo (her people's traditional northern rivals) was growing too powerful.

Though these lands had never been part of Ndongo, Nzinga refused to withdraw and added the conquest to her kingdom, an act which greatly offended the Kongolese king, Garcia II.

[48] In addition, her former husband and ally, Kasanje, feared her growing power in the region and formed a coalition of Imbangala leaders against Nzinga, invading her lands in Matamba (though they made little progress).

With the nobility flocking to her side, Nzingha was able to collect more tribute (in the form of slaves) which she in turn sold to the Dutch in exchange for firearms, thereby increasing her military and economic power; by 1644, she considered Garcia II of the Kongo to be her only political equal in the region, while the Portuguese viewed her as their most potent adversary in Africa.

Lacking artillery, Nzinga was unable to effectively break the Portuguese defenses at Massangano, while political infighting and developments in Europe weakened the Dutch forces in Angola.

[4] Unlike previous decades however, after 1648 Nzinga concentrated her efforts on preventing a Portuguese push inland (as opposed to trying to re-conquer Ndongan territory), disrupting their soldiers and fomenting wars between smaller tribes and kingdoms.

Several prominent Mdundu and Imbangala priests were sold as slaves to the Portuguese, with Nzinga personally asking that they be shipped overseas; profits of the sale were then used to furnish a new church.

Under the term of the peace treaty, Nzingha agreed to cede lands on her kingdom's western coast to Portugal, with the Lucala River becoming the new border between Portuguese Angola and Matamba.

Portuguese writers would continue to write about Nzinga into the 20th century, normally depicting her as a skilled, "savage" opponent who had ultimately been forced to submit to Portugal and accept Christianity.

[69] Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel was also critical of Nzinga's (though he did not directly name her) "female state", describing her kingdom as a barren, unfertile land that had eventually collapsed due to her usurping of the natural order.

[69] American historian Joseph C. Miller published a widely cited essay on Nzinga in the 1975 The Journal of African History, highlighting her struggles and innovations but also criticizing her autocratic methods.

[69] American feminist author Aurora Levins Morales wrote about Nzinga, praising her anti-colonial and anti-patriarchal struggles but also criticizing her status as a ruling elite and her propagation of the slave trade.

[69] Heywood cautioned against portraying Nzinga as either a populist hero or tyrant,[72] noting instead that she should be viewed as a complicated individual who used culture, diplomacy, religion and war to secure her kingdom.

Upon witnessing her during a military review in 1662 (the year prior to her death), Cavazzi praised her agility, to which the elder queen replied that, in her youth, she was able to wound any Imbangala warrior, and that she would have stood against 25 armed men – unless they had muskets.

[70] Nzingha ultimately managed to shape her state into a form that tolerated her authority, though surely the fact that she survived all attacks on her and built up a strong base of loyal supporters helped as much as the relevance of the precedents she cited.

Women in Angola today display remarkable social independence and are found in the country's army, police force, government, and public and private economic sectors.

[citation needed] On 23 December 2014, the National Reserve Bank of Angola (BNA) issued a 20 Kwanza coin in tribute to Nzingha "in recognition of her role to defend self-determination and cultural identity of her people.