Sotho-Tswana is the name of the second great branch of southern Africa’s Bantu-speaking peoples (the other being the Nguni). It covers three main language communities: the Basotho (Southern Sotho, of Lesotho and the Free State), the Batswana (of Botswana and South Africa’s North West), and the Bapedi (Northern Sotho / Sepedi, of Limpopo and Mpumalanga). Their languages – Sesotho, Setswana and Sepedi – are closely related and largely mutually intelligible.
Shared origins
Sotho-Tswana communities have farmed the southern African interior – the Highveld and its northern escarpment – for well over a thousand years, leaving behind extensive stone-walled settlement ruins across the Free State, North West and Mpumalanga. Oral tradition traces the whole branch to a place of origin called Ntsuanatsatsi (Ntswanatsatsi) and to early ancestors including Mokgatla and Masilo. Over centuries the branch subdivided into hundreds of merafe (chiefdoms), most of which can still name the older group they split from.
Diboko – the totem system
The clearest marker of a Sotho-Tswana clan is its seboko (plural diboko) – a totem animal that the clan honours and does not kill or eat. The totem, not the surname, defines the clan: it is named in praises (direto / maboko), invoked in greeting, and used to explain how clans are related. Because clans kept their totem when they split, the totems map the branch’s family tree – many groups share the crocodile (kwena) because they descend from the Bakwena.
| Clan | Seboko (totem) | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Bakwena | Kwena (crocodile) | Parent group of many Tswana and Basotho merafe. |
| Barolong | Tholo (kudu) | Descendants of Morolong; four houses (booRatlou, booRatshidi, booSeleka, booRapulana). |
| Bafokeng | Mmutla / kwena (hare / crocodile – sources differ) | “People of the dew”; Royal Bafokeng Nation at Phokeng. |
| Bahurutshe | Tshwene (baboon) | Traditionally regarded as the senior Tswana group. |
| Bakgatla | Kgabo (monkey) | Chieftaincies at Mochudi (Botswana) and Moruleng (SA). |
| Batlhaping | Tlhapi (fish) | Split from the Barolong; Northern Cape and Botswana. |
| Bangwato | Phuti (duiker) | Largest group in Botswana; seat at Serowe. |
| Bangwaketse | Kwena (crocodile) | Southern Botswana; seat at Kanye. |
| Batlokwa | Thakadu (aardvark) | Branches in Botswana, the Free State and Lesotho (Batlokwa ba Motaung). |
| Bapedi (Marota) | Noko (porcupine) | Northern Sotho kingdom of Sekhukhuneland. |
The Basotho and Lesotho
The modern Basotho nation was forged during the difaqane of the 1820s-30s by Moshoeshoe I, who gathered refugees from many shattered Sotho and other chiefdoms onto the mountain stronghold of Thaba Bosiu and built a kingdom through diplomacy as much as war. After conflict with the Boers of the Orange Free State, Moshoeshoe secured British protection in 1868; Basutoland became independent as Lesotho in 1966. A large Basotho population also lives in the South African Free State, and the Batlokwa, Bafokeng, Bataung, Basia and others are counted among them.
The Bapedi
The Bapedi or Marota kingdom rose in the eighteenth century in Sekhukhuneland under the Maroteng ruling house (seboko: porcupine). Under Sekwati and Sekhukhune I it resisted the Swazi, the South African Republic and the British, before its defeat in 1879. Sepedi is now one of South Africa’s twelve official languages.
Sources and further reading
- Isaac Schapera, The Tswana (1953) and A Handbook of Tswana Law and Custom (1938).
- D. F. Ellenberger, History of the Basuto, Ancient and Modern (1912).
- Peter Delius, The Land Belongs to Us: The Pedi Polity, the Boers and the British (1983).
- Leonard Thompson, Survival in Two Worlds: Moshoeshoe of Lesotho 1786-1870 (1975).
Help us improve this page. We are building a dedicated page for each seboko. If you can supply a verified direto / maboko text or your morafe’s history, send us a WhatsApp on 065 138 8213 or use our contact page. We credit contributors who wish to be named.