Malebana in the sources
Malebana is a ward at Mapela whose people are Kgatla. Their totem is kgabo, the monkey.
What the sources say
Jackson says they are subjects of long standing who were conquered by the Langa, and that their ward is the Mapela farm Overysel. The headman was farm foreman under the Development Trust and was promoted to headman when the farm was transferred to Mapela (about p. 147).
The ward had 280 households, but only 15 of the Malebana clan, and rank in the chiefdom is not decided by numbers. Their praise poem, which they recited with pride, celebrates the monkey that breaks up the settlement of the Bakwena. Jackson notes the headman Tshaba also has a stake in the farm.
Cautions
This is the ward as Jackson found it in 1968; headmen and household counts will have changed. The praise poems are printed in his book and we are not reproducing them here. Jackson was a government ethnologist, and his fieldwork at Mapela took about 100 days between 1962 and 1967; he says the opinions are his own. His present tense describes 1968. We read the book through machine OCR of a typed transcription, so names and numbers may contain errors, and page numbers are approximate.
Izithakazelo and totem
The book records the totem and praise poem of this ward where given above, but we are not printing them in full. If you belong to the Malebana and recite your own izithakazelo or direto, we would like to record them, with your permission and credited to you.
Sources and further reading
See also Langa, Kekana and Ndzundza.
Do you belong to the Malebana? 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.