Mozambicans are in mourning for revered traditional leader the Queen of Niassa, Abibi Achivangila, who died on Easter Sunday.

President Filipe Nyusi led tributes to the 96-year-old monarch, expressing his admiration for her in a post on Facebook.

It is unusual for women to hold such powerful positions in traditional settings.

But the queen was the fifth in a dynasty of female monarchs dating back several hundred years to the fight against colonial rule.

According to Mozambican writer Paulina Chiziane, the first queen came to power after defying her husband, the Niassa king, to recover people he had sold into slavery to the Dutch, who had a colony in what is now Cape Town in South Africa.

She went on to hide them in a mountainous area of Niassa province's Majune district in north-western Mozambique.

“There’s a neighbourhood inhabited today by descendants of the survivors rescued by Queen Achivangila,” Chiziane says.

She went on to describe Queen Abibi as a heroine for continuing on the spirit of this legacy.

The wake and burial for the queen will take place on Wednesday in the village of Malila in Majune district.