Tswana of the Kalahari Plateau and the Kgotla

Across the dry western plateau of southern Africa, from the sands of the Kalahari to the plains of the North West, live the Batswana, a Sotho-Tswana people of cattle-herders and grain-farmers who built some of the largest towns of pre-colonial Africa. They gave their name to the nation of Botswana, and their tradition of open debate in the kgotla, the public assembly, has become one of their most admired gifts to the world.

This account follows the Batswana from their Sotho-Tswana beginnings and their gathering into great towns on a thirsty land, through their chiefs, their assemblies, their faith, and the crafts and customs that mark them, to the difaqane and the making of modern Botswana. It ends with the Batswana of today, a people divided by a colonial border yet held together by the language and the ways they share.

The Cattle Herders of the Western Plateau
Batswana, Motswana, and the Name of the People
Setswana, the Tongue of the West
The Dry Plateau of Botswana and the North West
The Chiefs, the Merafe, and the Great Towns
The Kgotla, the Ward, and the Bonds of Kin
Modimo, the Ancestors, and the Rainmakers
Cattle, the Bogwera, and the Rites of the People
The Weavers, the Potters, and the Makers of Baskets
Sorghum, Maize, and the Table of the Batswana
Initiation, the Harvest, and the Gatherings
From the Difaqane to the Birth of Botswana
The Batswana in Modern Botswana and South Africa

The Cattle Herders of the Western Plateau

Across the dry western reaches of southern Africa, from the plains of Botswana to the North West of South Africa, live the Tswana, one of the great Sotho-Tswana peoples of the interior. They are herders and farmers of the high, thirsty plateau, a people who built some of the largest towns in pre-colonial southern Africa and who gave their name to the modern nation of Botswana, the land of the Tswana.

The Tswana belong to the wider Sotho-Tswana family, close kin in speech and custom to the Sotho of the mountains and the Pedi of the north. Their forebears were among the Bantu-speaking farmers who spread south across the continent over many centuries, reaching the western highveld and settling it with their cattle and their fields of grain well before the coming of Europeans.

On this open, semi-arid land they developed a distinctive way of life. Where water and grazing were scarce and scattered, the Tswana gathered not into small villages but into large concentrated towns, sometimes numbering many thousands, from which people went out to their fields and cattle posts. These great settlements, ruled by chiefs, set the Tswana apart from many of their neighbours.

From this stock grew a number of distinct groups, each with its own chief and its own name, the Bakwena, the Bangwato, the Bangwaketse, the Barolong, the Batlokwa, and others. Though they parted and quarrelled and settled in different lands, they shared a common tongue and a common way of life, and it is by the single name Tswana that the wider world has come to know them all.

Batswana, Motswana, and the Name of the People

In their own language the people call themselves Batswana, the prefix ba- marking a people, while a single person is a Motswana. Their language is Setswana, se- being the prefix that marks a tongue, and their land and its ways are spoken of with the same root. From these forms the shorter English word Tswana is drawn, and it now stands for the people, their language, and their heritage.

The older spelling Bechuana, used by missionaries and colonial writers, rendered the same name in the fashion of an earlier age, and it lingered long in books and maps. When the British protectorate over the land took shape it was called Bechuanaland, and only at independence was the older form set aside for the name Botswana, the country of the Batswana.

The meaning of the root is much discussed. Some connect it to a word suggesting those who are alike or who separated from one another, a fitting name for a people made up of many groups sprung from common stock who parted and spread across the plateau. Whatever its first sense, the name came to bind together the many Tswana chiefdoms under one shared identity.

It is worth noting that most Batswana do not live in Botswana at all. The larger number by far dwell across the border in South Africa, chiefly in the North West province and around the old homeland of Bophuthatswana. The name thus reaches across a modern frontier, covering a people divided by colonial borders but united by a single language and a shared past.

Setswana, the Tongue of the West

The Batswana speak Setswana, a language of the Sotho-Tswana branch of the great Bantu family. It is closely bound to the Sotho of Lesotho and the Pedi of the northern Transvaal, so nearly that the three are sometimes counted as a single cluster of tongues, and their speakers can follow one another with only modest effort. Setswana carries the noun-class system and the melodic tones common to its family.

Setswana holds a proud and unusual place among African languages, for it was among the first in the region to be written down and printed. Missionaries in the early nineteenth century reduced it to writing, translated the scriptures into it, and set up presses, so that a written literature and a body of printed learning grew up early. This gave Setswana a head start that few African languages enjoyed.

In Botswana, Setswana is the national language, spoken and understood by nearly the whole population and used everywhere in daily life, though English serves as the official language of government and higher learning. Across the border in South Africa, Setswana is one of the eleven official languages of the republic, taught in schools and used in broadcasting.

The language is rich in proverbs, praise poetry, and oral lore, and the art of eloquent speech is highly prized, above all in the public assembly where matters are debated. A good speaker who can marshal proverb and image commands respect, and the traditions of Tswana poetry, once the preserve of the chief’s praise-singers, live on in modern verse and song.

The Dry Plateau of Botswana and the North West

The land of the Batswana is a high, dry plateau lying across the heart of southern Africa, taking in most of modern Botswana and a broad swathe of the North West province of South Africa. It is thirsty country, much of it given over to the sands of the Kalahari, with sparse rainfall, long dry seasons, and grazing that is thin and scattered. Water, more than anything, has shaped how the people live.

Because water and pasture were so scarce, the Batswana learned to gather into large towns near reliable wells and springs, sending their cattle out to distant posts and their households out to seasonal fields. This threefold pattern, of town, field, and cattle post, let a dense population live on a dry land, and it gave rise to settlements larger than almost any others in the region before colonial times.

To the north and west lies the true desert and, beyond it, the great wetland of the Okavango, where a river spills into the sands and spreads into a maze of channels and islands teeming with wildlife. Salt pans, dry riverbeds, and open grassland make up much of the rest, a land of wide horizons and hard beauty that supports cattle, game, and hardy grain.

This is a land where the herd is life. Cattle can range where the plough cannot follow, turning thin grass into wealth, and among the Batswana cattle came to stand for riches, standing, and the ties between families. The dry plateau bred a people who measured their fortune in the lowing of the herd and who built a whole social order around the beasts that let them live upon it.

The Chiefs, the Merafe, and the Great Towns

In the days before colonial rule the Batswana were organised into chiefdoms, each known as a morafe, a people or nation gathered under a hereditary chief called the kgosi. The chief was the head of the state, the judge of disputes, the leader in war, and the link between the people and their ancestors. His authority passed within the royal lineage, though it was tempered by custom and by counsel.

Each morafe centred on a great town, and these towns were among the largest settlements in pre-colonial southern Africa. Divided into wards, each under its own headman and gathered around the chief’s own quarter, the town was the political heart of the nation, where the people lived close together and from which they went out to farm and herd. Travellers from Europe marvelled at their size and order.

The chief did not rule alone. Every matter of weight was brought before the kgotla, the public assembly of the men of the town, where it was debated openly and where the chief was expected to heed the voice of his people. A saying held that the chief was chief by the grace of the people, and a ruler who ignored the assembly risked losing their loyalty.

Rank ran through the whole of this world, from the royal house down through the wards to the youngest household, and it was reckoned by descent and by seniority. Regiments of age-mates, formed at initiation, bound the men of a generation together for war and for labour. It was a settled, orderly society of towns and cattle, ruled by chiefs and by the open debate of the kgotla.

The Kgotla, the Ward, and the Bonds of Kin

At the heart of Tswana society stands the kgotla, at once a place and an institution. It is the open meeting ground at the centre of the ward or the town, ringed by a fence of stout poles, where the men gather to hear disputes settled, to debate the affairs of the community, and to receive the word of the chief. To this day the kgotla remains a living forum in Botswana, honoured in law and custom alike.

Below the whole nation the town is divided into wards, each a cluster of related households under a headman, and each with its own kgotla where local matters are aired before they rise, if need be, to the chief. This layering of assemblies, from ward to town, gave the Batswana a tradition of open debate and consultation that observers have long counted among their most striking gifts.

Descent among the Batswana runs through the father’s line, and the patrilineage binds households across the wards. Cattle stand at the centre of the bonds between families, given as bridewealth to seal a marriage and to tie two lineages together. A man’s wealth and standing were counted in his herd, and the lending and sharing of cattle wove a web of obligation through the whole community.

Age sets and the bonds of initiation cut across these ties of kin, joining together the young men and women who passed through the rites of adulthood at the same time. These age-mates formed regiments that served the chief in war and labour and that held together through life. Between lineage, ward, and age set, the Tswana individual was bound into a dense and ordered web of belonging.

Modimo, the Ancestors, and the Rainmakers

The older faith of the Batswana knew a supreme being called Modimo, the creator and the source of all, remote and rarely approached in person. Between Modimo and the living stood the ancestors, the badimo, the spirits of the departed who watched over their descendants. It was to the ancestors that the everyday prayers and offerings were made, for they were near at hand and mindful of their kin.

The ancestors were believed to reward those who honoured them and to send sickness or misfortune on those who forgot their duties. Offerings of beer and the sacrifice of an ox at the family enclosure kept the bond in good order, and the chief performed such rites on behalf of the whole nation, for its welfare depended on the goodwill of the royal ancestors.

In a land of scant and uncertain rain, no ritual mattered more than the making of rain. The chief was held to have a special power over the clouds, and rainmaking rites, performed with the help of skilled specialists, were among the gravest duties of his office. A reign blessed with good rains was a sign of a chief in favour with the ancestors and the source of all fertility.

Christianity came early and struck deep among the Batswana, for the missionaries reached them in the early nineteenth century and won many converts, including chiefs. Today the great majority are Christian, belonging to churches of every kind. Yet the honouring of ancestors has not wholly passed away, and for many the old respect for the badimo lives on quietly beside the faith of the church.

Cattle, the Bogwera, and the Rites of the People

No thread runs deeper through Tswana life than cattle. The herd was wealth, standing, and the very stuff of the bonds between people. Cattle were given as bridewealth to seal a marriage, lent between families to bind them in obligation, slaughtered at feasts and funerals, and offered to the ancestors. A man without cattle was a man without weight, and the care of the herd was the great business of life.

The passage from youth to adulthood was marked by initiation, the bogwera for the boys and the bojale for the girls. In these rites the young were secluded, taught the lore and duties of grown men and women, tried and hardened, and then brought back into the community as adults and as members of a regiment of age-mates. These initiations bound a generation together and gave the chief his armies and his labour.

The regiments formed at initiation were a distinctive Tswana institution. Named and led by a member of the royal house, they served the chief in war, in hunting, in building, and in the great works of the nation. A man belonged to his regiment for life, and the regiments gave the morafe both its fighting strength and a means of gathering labour for common tasks.

Marriage, the settling of disputes, and the honouring of the dead each had their proper forms, watched over by elders and marked by the giving of cattle and the brewing of beer. Through these customs, from the herding of cattle to the rites of the kgotla, the Batswana bound the turning points of life to the order of their society and to the ancestors who guarded it.

The Weavers, the Potters, and the Makers of Baskets

The best known craft of the Batswana is the weaving of baskets, an art carried above all by the women of the north. Working with the fibre of the mokola palm and dyeing it with the bark and roots of the bush, they coil baskets of great beauty and strength, patterned in soft browns and blacks. The finest are watertight, used once for storing grain and beer and now prized by collectors the world over.

The patterns woven into these baskets carry names and meanings drawn from the world around, the tears of the giraffe, the flight of the swallow, the running of the knee, so that each design tells a small story. What began as household ware, made for winnowing and storing, has become a celebrated art, and basketry is now a source of both pride and income for many Tswana women.

Pottery was another woman’s craft, the shaping and firing of clay pots for cooking, carrying water, and brewing beer, decorated with simple incised patterns. The working of skins into blankets, mats, and garments, and the tanning of hides, gave clothing and bedding, while men worked wood into bowls, stools, tool handles, and the stout poles of the kgotla fence.

Metalworking had its place too, for smiths forged the iron hoes that broke the fields, the axes and knives of daily use, and once the spears of war, while copper and beads served for ornament. Each of these crafts, from the coiled basket to the forged hoe, met a need of daily life, and in the baskets above all the Batswana turned utility into an art admired far beyond their land.

Sorghum, Maize, and the Table of the Batswana

The old staple of the Batswana was sorghum, a grain well suited to the dry plateau, ground into meal and cooked into a stiff porridge that formed the heart of the meal. Millet too was grown, and in later times maize spread across the land and took much of the place of the older grains. From these the daily porridge is made, eaten with the hands and dipped into whatever relish the household can provide.

To the porridge is added a relish of meat, beans, or greens. Wild leaves gathered as a spinach, pumpkin and its leaves, groundnuts, and pulses of many kinds fill out the plate, while meat, chiefly beef from the all-important herd, is the food of feasts and of welcome rather than of every day. A well-fed guest is a matter of honour, and hospitality is freely given.

Among the distinctive foods of the land is seswaa, a dish of meat, often beef or goat, boiled long and then pounded until it is soft and shredded, seasoned simply with salt. It is the food of weddings, funerals, and great gatherings, prepared in large pots by the men and served to the whole company, and it stands as something of a national dish of Botswana.

Sour milk, the curdled milk of the herd, is a valued food, and sorghum beer is the drink of hospitality and of ritual, brewed by the women and shared at every gathering. Wild fruits and the flesh of game once added variety to the table, and the mopane worm, gathered from the trees, remains a prized and protein-rich food across much of the region.

Initiation, the Harvest, and the Gatherings

The great ceremonies of Tswana life were the initiations that carried the young into adulthood, the bogwera of the boys and the bojale of the girls. Held at the chief’s command, they gathered the youth of a generation for weeks of seclusion, instruction, and trial, and ended in a joyful return to the community as grown men and women. These were among the most important events the nation knew.

Weddings are great occasions, joining two lineages as much as two people, and marked by the giving of cattle as bridewealth, the bringing of the bride to her husband’s home, and days of feasting on seswaa and beer. Funerals too draw the whole community, for the passing of an elder is a matter for the entire lineage, and the rites that speed the dead to the ancestors are carefully kept.

The turning of the farming year brought its own observances, above all the rites of rain and of first fruits. Before the fields could be planted or the new grain eaten, the chief performed the proper ceremonies, for the fertility of the land was bound to his office and to the ancestors. A good harvest was met with thanksgiving and with the brewing of much beer.

In modern Botswana new festivals have grown up beside the old, above all the celebrations of independence and the cultural gatherings that display the music, dance, and dress of the people. The stamping dances, the songs led by a strong voice and answered by the crowd, and the fine traditional attire bring the community together in a public rejoicing that carries the old spirit into the life of the nation.

From the Difaqane to the Birth of Botswana

The early nineteenth century brought the upheaval known as the difaqane, the great scattering, when war and famine drove peoples across the highveld in waves of raiding and flight. The Tswana chiefdoms were struck hard, their towns broken and their people scattered, and only slowly did the survivors gather again under their chiefs and rebuild the shattered nations of the plateau.

As the century wore on, new pressures came from the south, from Boer settlers pushing into the interior and from the reach of British power. Caught between them, several Tswana chiefs sought the protection of the British crown, fearing conquest and the loss of their land to the Boers. In 1885 the British proclaimed the protectorate of Bechuanaland over the Tswana country north of the Molopo.

The protectorate spared the northern Tswana from settler rule but bound them under a distant colonial power, while their kinsmen to the south fell under the government of South Africa and, in time, under apartheid, gathered into the homeland of Bophuthatswana. In a famous episode three Tswana chiefs travelled to England to appeal, in person, against being handed to a chartered company, and won their case.

In 1966 the protectorate became the independent republic of Botswana, taking its name from the people, and under wise leadership and the later discovery of diamonds it grew into one of Africa’s steadiest and most prosperous states. The Tswana of South Africa, meanwhile, saw their homeland dissolved with the end of apartheid in 1994 and took their place as citizens of the democratic republic.

The Batswana in Modern Botswana and South Africa

Today the Batswana are a people divided by a border but bound by a common tongue. In Botswana they are the great majority of the nation, some two million strong, giving the country its language, its customs, and its name. Across the frontier in South Africa a still larger number, several millions, live chiefly in the North West province, so that most Batswana are in fact South African citizens.

Botswana stands as a notable success among African states, a stable democracy that has drawn wealth from its diamonds and used it to build schools, roads, and hospitals. The kgotla still meets, honoured in the life of the nation, and Setswana is spoken from the villages to the halls of government, even as English serves for business and higher learning. Cattle remain a source of pride and wealth.

Modern life has drawn many Batswana into the towns, into the mines and offices and the wider economy of the region, and away from the old round of town, field, and cattle post. Yet the ties of family and the pull of the home village remain strong, and the great ceremonies of marriage and death still gather the scattered kin from the cities back to the ancestral ground.

The Batswana carry their heritage with quiet confidence. The tradition of open debate in the kgotla, the celebrated baskets of the north, the dishes and dances of the people, and above all the honoured place of cattle all endure. Rooted in a hard and open land and spread now across two nations, the Batswana keep their language and their customs alive in a changing world.