Who the Batawana are
Wikipedia describes the Batawana as an ethnic group of Botswana whose name means “people of Tawana”. It says they split from their parent people when the chief Mathiba, who had two sons, Kgama and Tawana, favoured Tawana, so that Kgama feared losing the chieftainship and Tawana left with followers and cattle, following the Botletle River to the Kgwebe Hills. The article names Mathiba’s people as the Bakwena. Our Bangwato page, from Wikipedia’s list of Ngwato chiefs, gives Mathiba a Moleta (1780 to 1795) and Kgama I (1795 to 1817) as Bangwato chiefs, so the Batawana article may have the wrong parent people, and we have not resolved this.
Settlement and the Makololo
The article says that around 1790 (elsewhere it says around 1800) they reached the Kgwebe Hills, displaced the Bakgalagadi (see Bakgalagadi) and took their wells, and that Tawana was later killed at about 40 by his son Moremi I, who became chief. It says that about 1825 the Makololo under Sebitwane drove them out and took most of their cattle, that they fled towards the Chobe and were later taken captive, that the chief and some men were killed, but that a group under Mogalakwe escaped and returned to Lake Ngami, where they became wealthy cattle owners. It describes them as militaristic and armed with firearms, and says traders who obtained goods from Europeans were called Dimausu and that women wore a headcloth called tukwi.
The Okavango and the game reserve
The article says the Batawana created the Moremi Game Reserve, named after Moremi III, to protect game, from what was the “cream of their game country” in the Okavango Delta, and that the tribe had 8,124 people in 1946. It lists the Batawana under the Tlokwa in Botswana’s list of groups, a classification we have not been able to check and which we do not repeat as fact.
What we have not read
The article cites Nettleton (Bantu Studies, 1934), Miers on slavery in Africa, Larson (1989), Kay (2009) and a 2008 dissertation; we have read none of them. It gives no list of chiefs with dates and does not cover the regency years, Maun or the Batawana’s relations with the Matabele. We found no Batawana royal-house account on a page we could open.
Izithakazelo (direto) and totem
We found no published Batawana praises or totem, so we are printing neither. If you belong to the Batawana and recite your direto, we would like to record them, with your permission and credited to you.
Sources and further reading
- Wikipedia: Batawana (cites Nettleton 1934, Larson 1989 and others)
Do you belong to the Batawana? Tell us your praises and what elders say about the history, and we will add it, credited to you. Share what you know or WhatsApp 065 138 8213.