Bechuana people

“ The Bechuana are mainly an agricultural people, the Bangwaketse and Bakuena excelling as cultivators. Cattle they possess, but these are used chiefly for the purpose of purchasing wives, especially among the Basuto. At the same time they are excellent craftsmen, and show no little skill in smelting and working iron and copper and the preparation of hides and pottery vessels. ”

“ This isolated action of the Bakhatla Chief and people in a remote corner of the Empire, on the boundaries of the late Boer Republic, had its moral and material value. The Boers, who virtually owned the whole of Bechuanaland to the south, except Mafeking town, found that it would pay them better to adopt a friendlier attitude towards the other Bechuana tribes. Thereby a Dutch Field Cornet pronounced all the Bechuana Chiefs as the original Afrikanders — with the exception of Lentsue of the Bakhatla, and Montsioa of the Barolong in Mafeking. ”

“ The Portuguese can quote instances in which blacks become so degraded by the love of strong drink as actually to sell themselves; but never in any one case, within the memory of man, has a Bechuana chief sold any of his people, or a Bechuana man his child. Hence the necessity for a foray to seize children. And those individual Boers who would not engage in it for the sake of slaves can seldom resist the two-fold plea of a well-told story of an intended uprising of the devoted tribe, and the prospect of handsome pay in the division of the captured cattle besides. ”

“ Among the different Bechuana tribes it is the custom to select the name of some animal to distinguish one tribe from another. This would seem to indicate that in former times they were addicted to the worship of animals, like the old Egyptians. We find one tribe bearing a name signifying "they of the monkey;" another, "they of the alligator;" or, "they of the fish."
Each tribe holds the animal from which it derived its name in superstitious fear; nor will a man eat the animal for which his tribe was named, and frequently uses a term signifying hate or dread in referring to it. ”

“ Southernmost of all the Bechuana tribes are the Ba-Tlaro, settled on the north-west frontier of Griqualand West, where, however, they have to a large extent become merged with the better-known Ba-Tlapi,* or " Fish People." These Ba-Tlapi, whose national token is a fish, and who carefully abstain from touching this sacred animal, occupy a hilly district north of Griqualand West, bordering on the Vaal, and were also amongst the rival claimants for the coveted diamantiferous region now annexed to Cape Colony. ”

“ The saying of the Bechuana chief, recorded by the missionary, Casalis, was probably, judging by its epigrammatic character, a proverb of his people. "One event is always the son of another," he said—a saying strikingly like that of Leibnitz. ”

“ Bad People," are considered as no better than slaves. The products of the chase and their very harvests belong by right to the Bechuana tribes adjoining their camping-grounds. They are required to present themselves two or three times a year at the villages of their masters, but are never allowed to enter the kraals during the day. They must remain at some distance from the settlement, pjitiently awaiting the order of the chief permitting them to approach. ”

“ In some of the tribes, notably the Bechuana-Basuto, we find rudiments of popular government, where the chief has to take the advice of the assembled people, as in the Basuto pitso, or, in a few cases, of a council of the chief indunas. ”

“ The most efficient smiths are the Barolong and Bamangwato (the latter were spared by the Matabele chief Umsilikazi on this account) ; the Bangwaketse excel as potters; the Barolong as wood carvers, and the Bakuena as hut builders. The huts, with the exception of those of the Basuto who have adopted the Kaffir model, are cylindrical, with clay-plastered walls and a conical roof of thatch. In spite of the constant tribal feuds dating from the beginning of the 19th century, the Bechuana cannot be classed as a warlike people, especially when they are compared with the Zulu. ”

“ The Bakalahari, or western branch of the Bechuana family, consists of Barolong, Bahurutse, Bakuena, Bangwaketse, Bakaa, Bamangwato, Bakurutse, Batauana, Bamatlaro, and Batlapi. Among the last the success of missionaries has been greatest. They were an insignificant and filthy people when first discovered; but, being nearest to the colony, they have had opportunities of trading; and the long-continued peace they have enjoyed, through the influence of religious teaching, has enabled them to amass great numbers of cattle. ”

“ Among the Bechuana tribes the government is patriarchal, and each man is chief over his own children. Livingstone writes of them: "They build their huts around his, and the greater the number of children, [Pg 428] the more his importance increases. Hence, children are esteemed one of the greatest blessings, and are always treated kindly.
"Near the center of each circle of huts there is a spot called a 'kotla' with a fireplace; here they work, eat, or sit and gossip over the news of the day. A poor man attaches himself to the kotla of a rich one, and is considered a child of the latter. ”

“ One Bechuana lost his life while too eagerly seeking for plunder. The slain of the enemy was between four and five hundred.
"The Mantatees are a tall, robust people, in features resembling the Bechuanas; the dress, consisting of prepared ox-hides, hanging doubly over their shoulders. The men, during the engagement, were nearly naked, having on their heads a round cockade of black ostrich feathers. Their ornaments were large copper rings, sometimes eight in number, worn round their necks, with numerous arm, leg, and ear rings of the same material. ”

“ The Bechuana inhabit, for the most part, towns of considerable size, containing from 5000 to 40,000. Politically they live under a tribal despotism limited by a council of elders, the chief seldom exercising his individual authority independently, though the extent of his power naturally depends on his personality. ”

“ Further, the Bechuana custom may throw light on a widespread legend which relates how a wily settler in a new country bought from the natives as much land as could be covered with a hide, and how he then proceeded to cut the hide into thongs and to claim as much land as could be enclosed by the thongs. ”

“ The fear or awe of the unknown is also betrayed amongst the Bechuanas in connection with certain objects which they are forbidden to touch, and certain food which is tabooed by custom. Like mo.st of the North American redskins, each Bechuana tribal group venerates a national token, such as a crocodile, a monkey, some wild beast or fi^h, and celebrates dances in its honour. ”

“ In war, the Bechuanas are but cruel enemies, killing the wounded without mercy, and even butchering the inoffensive women and children. The desire to possess the coveted trophy of success is probably the cause of their ruthlessness. In some divisions of the Bechuana tribes, such as the Bachapins, the successful warriors do not eat the trophy, but dry it and hang it round their necks, eating instead a portion of the liver of the slain man. ”

“ Partially civilized Hottentots still live grouped together in their kraals and are members of Christian churches. The Bechuana hold their own in several centers; one is in Basutoland, west of Natal, where a number of tribes were welded together under the far-sighted Moshesh into a modern and fairly well civilized nation. In the north part of Bechuanaland are the self-governing Bamangwato and the Batwana, the former ruled by Khama, one of the canniest of modern rulers in Africa.
Meantime, in Portuguese territory south of the Zambesi, there arose Gaza, a contemporary and rival of Chaka. ”

“ The rough treatment that they have received from the Bechuanas, as punishment for their misdemeanours, makes them very shy of the white man; and in travelling across the Kalahari desert, or through such woods as we had just traversed, or through those between Shoshong and the Zooga, or, again, between the Salt Lakes and the Zambesi, a European may be followed unawares by people of this tribe, who keep their distance from mere fear of being maltreated or put to hard work ”

“ At any rate slavery, if it exists, is not much developed, the chief function of slaves probably being reinforcement of the tribe in warfare.
The Bechuana group consists of several tribes, the principal being, according to Schurtz540, the Basuto, the Makololo, the [142] Bamangwato, the Bakwains and the Bakalahari. Fritsch, describing the Bechuanas in general, makes no mention of slaves. According to Holub, however, they have Makalahiri slaves541. But from some particulars it appears that these Makalahiri are rather a tribe subjected as a whole than individual slaves. ”

“ Astounded at their defeat, they turned to the southward, and invaded the Bechuana country.
“At that time our missionaries had established themselves at Koranna, and when the report of the Mantatees advancing was brought to them, the Bechuanas were in a great consternation; for although finer-looking men than the eastern Caffres, they are not by any means so brave and warlike. ”

“ They are employed as hunters or herdsmen. “If a Makalahiri servant behaves well and kills a good many ostriches for his master, he is allowed to marry a Bechuana woman”542. Conder describes the Makalahiri as “nomadic hunters, living chiefly in the west, and considered in the light of serfs of the chief”543. It is clear that these hunters, living away from the Bechuanas, and considered as “serfs of the chiefs,” are a subjected tribe and not individual slaves. There are two other tribes subjected to the Bechuanas: the Barwa or Masarwa, and the Madenassana. ”

“ I gained the knowledge that we can put all our confidence in most of the Bechuana tribes and most of the Bechuana chiefs between the Waal river and the Zambesi. They are one race, but different tribes, with regard to their mental capabilities, their customs, &c. Mankwenune, the chief of the Batlapins, proved a man to whom we can not well trust; but through recent events he has become a better man. Another chief, Montzua, is a man whom we can trust in every way ”

“ Nor would the so-called Bechuana Rebellion of 1895, some of the incidents which distinguished it, the wholesale confiscation of native lands which followed it, and the fate which overtook the 3,000 odd "rebels" who surrendered, make other than excellent reading for a world audience sitting in judgment upon our sins. ”

“ In Bechuanaland one great personality dominates the social horizon. Khama, king of the Ba-Mangwato nation, next to the Ba-Rotse the most powerful section of the Be-Chuana, may be described as a true father of his people, a Christian legislator in the better sense of the term, and an enlightened reformer even from the secular point of view. ”

“ Before describing my return journey, I will append some further details of Bechuana customs to those which I have given in the previous chapter.
As a rule a heathen Bechuana has but one wife, though the more well-to-do not unfrequently have two; the number allowed to the sub-chieftains varies from three to six; the kings being permitted to have more, although not so many as those in the Marutse empire. A man of competent means presents his newly-married wife with several head of sheep or oxen. ”

“ These are the slaves of the Bechuanas. Those natives (the Bechuanas) who come down to the diamond fields to work, every one of them has a master, and twenty or thirty of them have to stay in those dry countries and hunt ostriches for their masters. Going farther from south to north one meets, north of the Bakwenas, two tribes of the Bamangwato—the Eastern and the Western Bamangwato, or as I call the Eastern according to their capital, Shoshong, the Shoshong Banmangwato, and the Western ones, which I call, on account of the residence of their king lying near to the Lake N’Gami, Bamangwatos. ”

“ Therefore,’ exulting with an air of triumph at the discovery, ‘the white people are so much wiser than we are in making walking houses (wagons) , teaching the oxen to draw them over hill and dale, and instructing them also to plow the gardens, instead of making their wives do it, like the Bechuanas.’”
Dealers in the black art are numerous among the Bechuanas, who place the most implicit confidence in the sayings and prescriptions of the wizards. This applies more especially to those persons who devote themselves to the study of “rain-making.” ”

“ They are one of the most numerous branches of the Bechuana race, numbeiing with the Ba-Tlaro about thirty thousand souls. Thanks to their frequent relations with the English and Dutch settlers, they are also the most civilised of all the tribes, and the light complexion of the children in many of their villages betrays an increasing inti- macy with the'r European neighbour-;. ”

“ Our fathers lost their lives in capturing you, and we also shall perish in guarding you." So sang till lately the young Ba-Mangwato warriors to their herds ; but of late years most of the Bechuana tribes have discontinued their warlike expeditions. Formerly nomad pastors and hunters, they are now rapidly becoming peaceful tillers of the laud. Every man, every youth, even every girl, has his or her separate plot of ground, and the child thus learns from its tenderest years to cultivate the soil. ”