19 Jun 2014

Having previously visited Hukuntsi, his week we continue our historical journey through the Kgalagadi District’s Matsheng region with some background on the neighbouring settlements of Lehututu and Tshane.  

Lehututu, also rendered Lehududu in Shekgalagari, has long been the home of two merafe: the Bapebana, who are commonly categorised as being a branch of the Bangologa, and the Bariti, who are said to be of Bakwatlheng origin.  The Bariti have also been commonly, but more controversially, labelled as Bashaga.

The Bariti trace their origins to Bakwatlheng who were pushed out of eastern Kweneng during the seventeenth century reign of the conquering Bakwena Kgosi Kgabo I. By the mid-nineteenth century Bariti communities were scattered throughout much of the Kgalagadi, by which time many had become vassals of Kgabo’s descendent Kgosi Sechele I.

The Bariti settled at Lehututu under Kgosi Mokwatheng II, also known as Moriti, who begot Mogolega I, who begot Mokutsuwe, who begot Mogolega II, who begot Serhame (Serame), who begot Lekgome.  Serhame was ruling at Lehututu when the Bapebana arrived in the 1860s.

The Bapebana presence in the region can, however, be traced back further to a figure named Mopebe who is said to have been the fourth son by a junior house of the legendary Mongologa, who lived under his senior brother Mbolawa.

According to a perhaps incomplete genealogy, Mopebe begot Mososwe, who begot Marhogwe (Marogwe), who begot Moabalosu, who begot Moeperi (Moepedi), who begot Morhagaole (Maragaole), who begot Mabotye (Mabote), who begot Leswape, who begot Montshiwe. 

The latter was still ruling the Bapebana during the 1940s. While under Mososwe, the Bapebana were settled at Hukhuntsi. There Mososwe allied himself with the Barolong, who provided him with weapons to defeat and incorporate the followers of his local rival Maleme.

Mososwe subsequently defeated a Barolong force sent to extract tribute. The Bapebana thereafter moved northward to the Mabeleapodi pans located in the plains south of Lake Ngami, where they lived alongside local Khoe (Basarwa) and Wayeyi before the early nineteenth century arrival of the Batawana.

The Bapebana had relocated to Nokeng, in the modern Ghanzi District, when they were first attacked by the mephato of the Batawana Kgosi Letsholathebe I. An individual named Manthe is said to have convinced Letsholathebe that the Bapebana were becoming a threat. 

Nokeng was, in this respect, strategically located along the trade routes linking Ngamiland with Namibia, including the already busy port at Walvis Bay. Letsholathebe’s own ambitions precluded allowing the Bapebana, along with the neighbouring /Auen Khoe under their leader Dukiri, from obtaining guns from European and Orlams-Nama traders. 

Many Bapebana were slain in the attack, thus driving the survivors to Lehututu. The 1880s saw the further arrival of Barolong and Batlharo refugees, who had been uprooted by British expansion in the Northern Cape. 

Tshane has long been the home of the Bathaga (Batyhaga), whose founding patriarch according to traditions was Nyane who begot Kgosi Tyhaga I. The nyane (finch) bird remains the group’s totem. Originally, the Bathaga lived in the Central District.

Oral traditions claim that there they were attacked by the Bangwato for refusing to pay tribute. But the generational chronology of these traditions suggests that another Setswana group, such as the Bakaa, may have been their actual tormentors; given that the Bangwato under their first independent Kgosi, Mathiba, only settled in the District during the second half of the eighteenth century.

Following Tyhaga’s death in battle, bogosi jwa Bathaga was passed to his son, Serimeri, who sought refuge in Kweneng. This was probably also during the reign of the Bakwena Kgosi Kgabo.

Like his father, Serimeri died while resisting the imposition of tribute. Subsequent rebellions against the Bakwena, and probably Bangwaketse, authority are said to have lasted for five generations. 

Serimori was succeeded by Mokgetyhi I, who begot Kwene, who begot Tyhaga II, who begot Moswewi, who begot Moloi, the founder of Tshane.

Moloi’s migration westwards from Kweneng coincided with the arrival in 1825-26 Sebetwane’s Bafokeng baga Patsa, who would subsequently become known as the Makololo, into south-eastern Botswana. Sebetwane’s mephato initially defeated both the Bakwena and Bangwaketse, providing Moloi with an opportunity to break free of the former’s suzerainty.

However the Batyhaga did not find peace in their new home. Moloi was succeeded by Mosarhwe (Mosarwa) who was soon confronted by the “Bamakakana” or BooRatshosa faction of the Bakwena under Moruakgomo I. The later killed Mosarhwe at Kgainyane. Mosarhwe’s son Mokgetyhi II then asked for protection from the Barolong.

The Bamakakana, however, were reinforced by Kgosi Sebego’s Bangwaketse, who killed Mokgetyhi. Thereafter Bathaga were led by Tyhaga III, who begot Motshoge’s father Mosalayeengwe. 

The latter figure was around at the time of the imposition of colonial rule, when the British found him living under the Barolong warlord Seitsang. ENDS