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Batau

An Awesome African Tribe Triumphant!

By Chris Kanyane

e-mail: turloop.chris@gmail.com

Published

by

Chris Kanyane

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Copyright @ 2011 by Chris Kanyane

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or utilized in any form

or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or

by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from

the author Chris Kanyane, email: turfloop.chris@gmail.com

ISBN: 978-0-620-49521-9

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Foreword

The Monument to Hidden African Wisdoms and Traditions

“Self knowledge is important for progress and self knowledge begins with history” –

Uhuru Kenyatta, President of the Republic of Kenya

As you read and study this book I want you to look at it this way:

When the peoples of Europe overflowed into America the indigenous populations of

Indians that were the original inheritors of the land we now calls America went

under and faded away. Their lands America is now fully in the hands of the peoples

of Europe. They have been overpowered and brushed aside by the Europeans. The

same with the aborigines in Australia, the peoples of Europe overflowed there and

they took their land and claimed it as their own. Within a period spanning two or

three centuries the original populations of these original populations have been

reduced to insignificant minorities.

Not so with Africans in Africa! Faced with the same challenge the Africans survived

the European onslaught and invasion of their continent. Africans were too much the

masters of their environment and destiny to be overtaken by the Europeans.

Africans maintain their ways of living and culture that have outlasted the most

brutal attacks. What is in it within the African traditions and life that is so durable

and triumphant in the midst of the most vicious deadly onslaught and effectively

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endured and lasted through trials and tribulations up to this day – the Africans still

maintain a unique identity within the context of modernity.

This book is a monument and legacy to African traditions and deep seated

wisdom. It is a practical lively attempt to tell the story of the people of Africa in the

past 600 hundred years and to reconcile the reality and scenes from the vanishing

shadowy past with what they mean in the modern times and for the modern

African. In other words how can the modern Africa reconcile himself or herself to

the rich wisdom of the age old Africa?

The book is a compromise between historical narrative, synthesis, and analysis.

Most of the knowledge has emerged from a vast reservoir of unwritten but

remembered knowledge and history accumulated by many African peoples. The

other information has been mined from the early books that were written by early

African writers that wrote within the environment they deeply understood and in

contact with the great African sages that revealed the truthful accounts of the

correct history and ways of life of the African which is totally and completely

different to the accounts of the mainstream books written with foreign

perspectives.

For many centuries Africa and its people have seemed mysterious, awkward and

even perverse people compared to the rest of the other human races. The world

knew and valued Africa’s abundance of gold, copper, ivory etc but the Africans as

a people and part of this continent – part of these natural minerals and resources

have remained a puzzle to the world.

Contrary to books, pamphlets, television documentaries Africans throughout the

ages and history have not been hapless people, savages and living a life of chaos.

In Europe Africans were believed to be monsters, with souls as black as their skin.

It was religiously believed that cooked and ate each other, gave birth in litters like

dogs, and sometimes do not look like the rest of the human race. In others

accounts there are “Africans without heads … having their eyes and mouth in their

breasts”.

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On the contrary, Africans have made an impressive contribution to humankind’s

general understanding of the world – immense knowledge can be tapped and

extracted from the deep seated African ways of life that had stood the test of time

and endured long years of ridicule and subjugations.

The long continuation and persistence of Africans as a unique and highly self

conscious people is a proof to the fundamental fact of their deeply rooted

philosophical, spiritual and religious consciousness. Africans’ deeper

consciousness and practical way of life had endured the long series of headaches,

oppositions and difficulties. Africans have always been the masters of their destiny.

This is contrary to the popular beliefs of the day found in books, newspaper reports

and television documentaries. In this book we unravel the riddle and the mystery

and lay truth to bear.

Africans and their continent today represent a fertile ground for new developments

and new progress of humanity. The crash of the American economy beginning in

2007 has made manifest the fact the stagnating American progress – the American

progress perhaps has reached its cul –de sac. The European debacle had

followed. And of recent the world has seen an increasing focus on Africa by the

world’s superpowers; China, US and Europe.

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The people of Africa have been called “small figures in immense scenery”. If

Africans have indeed been small figures in immense scenery then indeed by this

time they would have been wiped off the face of the continent or rendered

insignificant very similar fate to the Indians in America and the aborigines in

Australia.

The grassy savanna is the best part of Africa, here, through the ages; Africans

have built clusters of human settlements huts communities. These have been

through the ages been the nucleus of African civilization. Through these simple but

profound deep ways of living Africans have created cultures and civilizations,

evolved systems of government and systems of thought, and pursued the life of

inner peace and the tranquility of daily living.

Beneath its often discussed primitive surface lay a deeply profound and deeply

complicated cultural development that is hidden to the superficial eyes. Far from

Africans being savages and illiterate living in ignorance, Africans had actually gone

far deep toward taming their continent long before the Europeans appeared on the

scene. That is the reason when the Europeans overflowed into the continent they

simply could not completely obliterate the simple Africans with their guns. This

success and achievement so imperative and necessary for survival rested upon

deep social and deep seated cultural advances that have endured long many years

of severe painful difficulties and in the face of tough formidable obstacles.

In this book we shall highlight the endurance of Africa cultures by focusing on one

tiny population that has now settled in the southern part of the Limpopo – a north

province in South Africa. These people are called Batau, comprising all the tribes

there, namely, Masemola, Mogashoa, Phaahla, Mphanama, Mashabela,

Nchabeleng, Marishane, Seloane and so on as we shall see. These are tribes that

have now settled and taken over the vast land called Sekhukhune area.

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Introduction

Roots

The history of Africans in general is a record of accomplishments achieved in

isolation from the rest and against tremendous odds; it is a record that can be

understood only against the background of the physical environment – the

geography of the continent of Africa.

Sub-Saharan Africa is immense, 3.500 miles from north to south and 2, 000 miles

from east to west at its narrow, southern end. Vast though it the continent of Africa

it is, very little of it is hospitable to man. The landscape has variety - wide

grasslands, tall mountains, broad rivers, deep forests – but none of these land

types is especially helpful to humans. The grasslands are not lush prairies, but

tropical savannas. Scorched and baked by six months of relentless sun, then

leached by six months of heavy rains, their topsoil is soon stripped of its nutrients,

and will grow only yield crops.

The mountains that rise from this horrible terrain are deceptively beautifully green –

but with scrub and thorn, seldom with grass; their harsh skylines are almost

constantly veiled in curtains of intense heat.

The broad rivers of Africa move zig zag from hundreds of miles, then suddenly

crash in tremendous falls that seem to split the earth wide open. Few of them offer

a direct and easy route from point to point.

The forests are dense and dark where it rains up to eight feet a year, and a man

can wander and be lost for days with only fleeting glimpses of the sun.

There are also other deadly discouragements-

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Much of the wide middle region of the continent has been infested since earliest

times by the tsetse fly, a carrier of sleeping sickness among people and a

comparable fever among their cattle. Riverbanks and plains alike are plagued by

the malaria-carrying mosquito. And let us not forget that there is the deadly yellow

fever.

Yet Africans overcame these obstacles. They conquered and peopled their

inhospitable land, and carried their life and culture from phase social settlements

to another. They developed methods for growing crops and raising cattle; they

learned how to extract metals from the earth and refine and use them. Armed with

iron spears, they pressed through the trackless forests out into the hills and game-

filled plains.

They forged new ways of making a living and of living together. They settled in

chosen places for ever-lengthening periods and in ever-increasing numbers.

Shifting back and forth across horrible terrain, colliding and mingling with each

other, then moving off to form new groups, these migrants soon dominated the

whole central and southern part of Africa and gave Africa a huge family of related

languages, the Bantu, which today are spoken over most of the continent south of

the equator. In the process they created a complicated and diversified culture.

Africans, who eventually spoke more than a thousand different tongues, had

almost as many systems of behavior and belief. Some of these systems produced

societies whose standard of living surpasses contemporary societies of Europe.

African societies practiced a simple but effective social welfare in their concern for

widows and orphaned children.

In this book however we are going to deal with only one tiny African society. That

society or call it tribe is Batau who are presently settled in majority in the area that

covers the whole Greater Sekhukhune District Municipality. We are going to talk

about their history – their origin and genesis, the triumphed in power and prosperity

and their absolute decline and fall from honor and glory. Batau people are today

not even recognized, they are recognized as part of Bapedi. And they live almost

similar ways of life culturally with together with Bapedi. They are officially

recognized as Bapedi. But history point in a different way, that they are not Bapedi.

A few distances of years back, not so long ago, they were settled for a long time

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in Mpumalanga in the area that is now called Dullstroom – around the Crocodile

River.

Let us study their interesting history, let us learn about their ways of life. Let us, in

learning about Batau, let us learn about Africa, this battered continent that is

ironically and paradoxically called by scientists the Mother Continent.

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Section 1

The character of an African tribe was that as it increased in numbers and food

became scarce in the immediate vicinity few groups within will go as far to in

search of food and sometimes better living conditions. And because the conditions

and situations may be different from the main nationhood body the people will

adapt to their environment by developing new behaviors and in the process of time

will soon splinter away completely and become a tribe in their own rights.

This character and development is similar to that of the Bible where Abraham and

Lot were settled together as a community with cattle and servants but as the cattle

grew and servants increased the conflict increased and that necessitate Lot to

separate from Abraham on mutual terms to go a live in area called Sodom and

Gomorrah.

When the Batau broke away from the Swazis in Swaziland during the first century

AD, they were a small group of people. The Batau grew by assimilating people

from surrounding nations. The factors that unified and disciplined the Batau

through their wanderings from the eastern side of South Africa a place that is now

called Mpumalanga were their King and a system of rules and behavior.

The Batau settled at Wakkerstroom and then Seokodibeng, now Lake Chrissie in

Mpumalanga. From there they moved to the Mokwena River (now Crocodile River).

This is where the Batau established themselves as a nation. They cleared and

cultivated the Mpumalanga Mountains, great rivers and valleys, marshes and

forests. They built and fought over it. This ancestral land of all Batau was to be

settled by people of European origin long after Batau have moved on.

In the 1880s, emigration from the Netherlands to South Africa was strongly

encouraged by President Paul Kruger and support committees were set up

throughout The Netherlands.

In 1883 a company, under the leadership of Wolterus Dull, was established to

strengthen ties between Netherlands and South Africa. The first settlers from

Holland arrived between 1884 and 1887. The area was incorporated as a town in

1892 by Paul Kruger and was originally named Dull's-stroom, later simplified to

Dullstroom, after Wolterus Dull.

So if you are belonging to Batau people and want to visit your roots you could visit

Dullstroom. It is your own father’s land despite the European camouflage. Like all

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Africans, the Batau did not built elaborate durable structures such as cities. The

history of Africans bears testimony to their pre-occupation with the invisible world

of the spirit.

For Batau, Dullstroom furnished food and shelter, timber, and kindling for fire. The

harvests were not large enough to prevent occasional famine, but several families

amassed immense wealth.

During droughts, many cattle had to be slaughtered, their meat salted. A new herd

of cattle would be bred and raised. Salted meat is not the best-tasting, so spices

were added. Vegetables, seldom eaten raw, were used in stews.

The forests were valued not only for hunting and gathering but also for protection

from other tribes. The Batau went into the forests every day to gather honey, fruit,

herbs, and to hunt.

The nights were darker and the cold was colder than we can imagine.

While gathering fruits and hunting, many people sustained injuries that did not heal.

The Batau also suffered skin diseases. It was a life of living from the moment to

moment. These people were very tough indeed.

Many Batau acquired slaves (balata) from the tribes they conquered. These slaves

were violent, nervous, emotive, swift to anger and swift to tears. Eventually they

would be assimilated and officially recognized as Batau.

During the twelfth century, the Batau were much closer to nature than we are. While

the Batau were living in Dullstroom, bears, boar, lions, leopards and wolves were

everywhere, including the village kraals where Batau lived. Wolves would attack

children and drag them into the forests to east. Hunting had a dual role: it was a

way to procure meat, and a means of protection.

The Batau conquered and populated their inhospitable land, and carried their

culture from one phase of social organization to another. They developed methods

of growing crops and raising cattle; they learned how to extract metals from the

earth and then refined and use them. Armed with iron spears, they pressed through

the forests out into the hills and plains that are filled with wild animals. They forged

new ways of living.

They made their mark by crossing harsh terrains for the white man from Europe to

follow and establish apartheid. Europeans started telling lies that they founded

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Dullstroom. They found it hard to believe that the area could have had any sort of

history despite the stone ruins. One old Afrikaaner stated: “Africans lived there,

they were simple folks, living in smoke-filled mud huts, possessing nothing but

their spears, their herds of lean cattle, and a few pots of crude earthenware.”

The story of Batau has two themes: the restless movement of people and ideas

over enormous distances; and how the Batau remained self-contained and unique.

The Tradition of the Tribe

The Batau believed that their community consisted of the dead ancestors, the

generations still unborn, and the living. They were a “simple society” with no

apparent head, or central authority, keeps law and order. Like all other tribes in

Africa, the Batau did this through a series of checks and balances on the use of

power, few of which were visible to outsiders. The anthropologist Meyer Fortehere

reported that there was no one “who had authority over the blacks; no one who

could exact tax, tribute or service from all.”

What Batau did have was a network of social obligations that balanced one kind of

power against another. Authority was vested in a number of men responsible for

various aspects of economic and political life. These men had vast powers but

used them with restraint. Although this system did not always work perfectly, it

made it possible for the Batau, a simple farming people, to avoid conflicts that

could have brought economic ruin.

The Peaceful Life of Batau

Cattle grazed on the rugged mountains tended by men carrying bows and arrows

and accompanied by dogs. Hunting still went on, but cattle were all-important in

the life of Batau. Artists took great care in rendering the beasts; mottled hides,

delicate hooves and swishing tails were handsomely depicted, and special

attention was paid to horns – short and long, thick and thin, crescent and lyre-

shaped. These valued animals made possible a more settled and civilized culture

than of the Stone Age hunter.

The men herding the cattle clustered huts of wickerwork and dried grasses into

villages. Paintings of the period show scenes of domesticity and plenty – women

standing before cooking pots, men with axes preparing to chop firewood, children

lying on homemade mats, men sitting and talking around the fire. On the other

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side are women harvesting in the fields, arms and legs extended as in a beautiful

ballet.

There was a strict division of labor between men and women. Women tended

cattle, in addition to raising children and gathering and preparing food. The men

hunted with bows and arrows and made stone tools. Women also made baskets,

pottery, bracelets, necklaces, awls and other objects for household and personal

use.

How Did Batau Arrive at the Mokwena River.

The Batau arrived at Mokwena around AD 1250, after wanderings and some

clashes with the Bakgaditsi (Batswana). They passed the areas around

Mapulaneng under the rule of Matlebjane until they arrived at Mokwena River, now

called Dullstroom, and around Belfast. Belfast is now renowned for its

excellent trout fishing. Sheep and dairy farming take place here;

maize, potatoes and timber are also produced. Coal and black granite are mined.

Around 6 million tulip bulbs are produced here annually for export. In October

2009, Belfast was renamed eMakhazeni.

While at Mokwena River, Matlebjane was born to him a son and called him

Mokwena in honor of the Mokwena River. After the death of Matlebjane, Mokwena

ruled and was succeeded by Matlebjane II. Matlebjane II lived until he was more

than ninety years old. Because of his long life his sons were eager for him to die so

that they could rule.

The Mokwena River was near a fertile plain that could support a dense population

with its much maize, vegetable and fruit. The Batau hunted, feasted and

entertained their neighbors.

Matlebjane II was truly one of the most outstanding African kings. He sought

greatness in everything he did. He was more than a hero to his people - he was a

god. Under his rule Batau enjoyed peace and stability. He instilled a culture of

discipline and purpose and was on the verge of conquering the surrounding areas.

Matlebjane II was well known for calling all men in the village into his royal kraal to

share his tough outlook. Matlebjane II believed in respect for authority and tradition.

He believed in every person being true to his responsibilities. Above all Matlebjane II

believed in the sober seriousness of real men. He had little use for women.

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Matlebjane II disliked disorder and excess. He had the power of life and death over

his people. But in most cases he never even once did that as he was constrained

by custom and his belief in the sacredness of human life.

Matlebjane's stature in the consciousness and hearts of Batau has lasted more 500

years. Matlebjane II believed that serious things should not be taken lightly. A man

is sober and serious when he makes tough decisions.

The Death of Matlebjane II

The death of Matlebjane II happened as follows.

Matlebjane II had five sons: Seloane, Mogashoa, Phaahla, Masemola and Photo.

Seloane, Mogashoa, Phaahla and Masemola, got worried that the king’s gifts

(dibego) were always being taken to the king's youngest wife (Photo’s mother).

They agreed to murder the king, but were worried about what people would say.

Since Photo was still a teenager, they convinced him that all of them would kill the

king at night with their spears. But there was a secret plan that Seloane,

Mogashoa, Phaahla and Masemola kept from Photo.

The five brothers entered the king's bedroom and stabbed him to death with their

spears. The next morning, Photo discovered that his brothers had tricked him.

Their spears were blunt. His spear was the only one with blood on it. Photo's

brothers then declared that Photo had killed their father. From then on Photo was

despised and rejected. The killing of Matlebjane II by his sons is why we have these

sayings today:

Matlebjane o bolaile ke tswala. Ka hlagolela leokane la re go gola la ntlhaba?

The Batau lived at the Mokwena River for 200 years. This was a time of relative

peace and stability. Some people believe that their ruins are still visible by the

Mokwena River.

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Section 2

The Legend of the Heavenly Task

After the death of Matlebjane II around AD1450, there was a contest for the throne

by the king's sons. This contest divided the people until it was clear to everybody

that the days of Batau as a united people under one king were numbered.

From then on, men stood divided. Notable among the king's sons was Masemola,

a bloodthirsty and ruthless man. He was undisciplined, ambitious, and violent. His

behavior dealt a terrible blow to the unity of Batau.

Mogashoa, the second son, enjoyed eating. He had built himself a vomitorium,

where he would go after eating so that he could eat and drink even more. It is hard

to imagine how a person can enjoy eating and drinking like Mogashoa.

Phaahla sacrificed many wild animals to the gods. He kept a harem. And his

behavior alternate from brutish efficiency to absolute madness.

The virtues of Matlejane II were not passed on to his sons. Honor, moderation, and

respect for all laws, human and divine, were abandoned in favor of recklessness,

intemperance and arrogance. This was a dark period in the history of Batau.

The Batau along the Mokwena River were divided amongst Seloane, Mogashoa,

Phaahla and Masemola. Photo did not have followers; he was despised by

everyone because he had killed his father.

Moving from Mokwena River to Greater Sekhukhune, they had to march 1000 miles

to the Tshwane area (Pretoria). From there, they marched 300 miles across rough

terrain . This epic march of the Batau took place between 1450 and 1460.

Matlebjane II’s sons did not have the discipline for complicated administrative

maneuvers. The Batau comprised several ethnic groups – Swazis, Mapulana, and

Manoge. In the east, the Batau inherited what remained of the Basotho. In the

west, the Batau conquered and assimilated the Bakgaditsi. Although there was a

common culture, the unity of these people was merely superficial.

Seloane wanted to unify the people, but Mogashoa, Phaahla, Masemola and their

followers rejected this citing that his mother comes from Batswako tribe. This

friction erupted into a bloody civil war. Seloane, Mogashoa, Phaahla and

Masemola and their armies fought for control of the Batau.

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This civil war destroyed the Batau Kingdom and its way of life. From then on, the

world could no longer be trusted or taken for granted.

The Batau would never have a single king again. They were ruled and controlled by

the Bapedi, and that is how they are known today. Only the ruins and memories of

the Batau remain.

The Destiny of Seloane

Because of the civil war, Seloane and his followers fled northwest across the

Ngwaritsi River. They settled with the Lekala tribe in what is presently called

Malatane around 1510. Seloane took a wife from the Lekala tribe and became its

chief.

Further Displacements: The Great War With the Zulus

The Zulus in middle 1800’s were powerful people. Their tactics of war (developed

by their king, Shaka, as we shall see later in this study) were highly advanced to

that of African nations combined. Wherever they went, the Zulus were heartless

merciless killers; on the center of southern Africa, there was Mzilikazi (the great

general of Shaka’s armies) who brutally killed and destroyed the Batswana.

Another Zulu warrior, Soshangane was roaring and advancing the Bapedi and

Batau territories. Other Zulu warriors were reigning havoc slaughtering; killing

people in now what is called Mozambique.

People all over southern Africa were terrified because of the Zulus. Mzilikazi, after

destroying Batswana advanced north of Limpopo and entered the area now called

Zimbabwe and mercilessly slaughtered the Shona people in a landslide killings and

massacre. In Lesotho the Zulus came and before destroying the Basothos,

Moshoeshoe – the king of Basotho’s - escaped the Zulus up the mountains with

his people. And when the Zulus tried to climb the mountains to get to the

Basothos, the Basothos pushed and rolled huge mountain rocks down, crushing

the Zulus to death. The battle between the Zulus and Batau/Bapedi took place at

Tubatse. There, the Zulus mercilessly slaughtered many many Batau and Bapedi

people.

There in Tubatse the Zulus killed Batau and Bapedi like flies! Ijoo Nnaa!!! Such

murder, such slaughter! It was the first time in their history that Batau people met

such merciless cruel killers, the Zulus. With the Zulus, you cannot raise your hands

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and surrender or give in. It was in the Zulus’ plan of war that no enemy should

escape the Iklwa, their sword. After this war with the Zulus, many Batau were

displaced disorganized for the first and now you find them all over southern Africa.

Nevertheless the a large chunk of them is still living in ga Masemola, ga Marishane,

ga Phaahla, Mphanama, Tibane, Nchabeleng, Manganeng, Malatane and

Moopong.

What are the Lessons We Can Get From the Fall of Batau

Matlebjane II ruled until he was almost a hundred years old. This was a period of

stability and prosperity for the Batau. But for his sons it was a period of plotting.

As the first born son, Seloane had a claim to the throne. The situation was more

complex because his mother was not from the Batau but from Batswako. She was

therefore not considered a proper wife. The king married a Batau woman who was

more acceptable. She gave birth to Mogashoa and everybody in the community

rejoiced that the next king had been born.

Seloana resented his younger brothers, and thought that he had the right to rule.

He was also jealous of the king’s younger wives, who received more presents than

he did.

That is why Batau declined and fell. "What you do comes back to you" is an

excellent paraphrase of the Biblical truth: "You reap what you sow.” If you sow

corn, you will not reap olives.

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Section 3

The Genes and Spirits

African religion in general, in the words of anthropologist William Howells, is “a

godly religion of a most general kind”. This was the case with the religion Batau

practiced at Dullstroom. The religion of Africa, its gods have attributes that are

more or less human, and offer their worshippers the kind of sympathy and

protection common to many other religions. Africans thought about God in ways

deserving of respect from the very earliest time of their dispersal across their

continent.

With the Batau, religion in fact was the way of regulating all what people said and

did.

The priests and priestess and other religious figures within Batau were not mumbo

jumbo, but elements in a rounded and efficacious system of moral and spiritual

teaching, without which the Batau and Africans in general could never have built

and maintained their stable societies, their patterns of law and order, their

standards of good and bad, their measures of bringing comfort to the sick and

relief to the troubled and despairingly hurt.

Nearly all Africans believed in a single High God from whom all things flowed. He

was seldom regarded as human in form, but rather as the Energy that

differentiated life from matter, a sort of Life Force. From this conviction about one

God and Life Force, Africans drew certain conclusions about nature of humankind.

One of these was that the dead do not really die. They leave the earth to rejoin the

Life-Force, but at the same time they retain a spiritual identity. And since no one

dies, in the sense of being utterly abolished, every African community of the living

also includes spirits of its dead. More than that, it also includes the spirits of those

not yet born. An African chief once explained to a British commission of inquiry

into Western African customs that he thought of the land as belonging to “a vast

family, of which many are dead, few are living, and countless members are

unborn”.

The Africans believed in one High God, but beneath him was a host of lesser gods

who acted as intermediaries and also presided over the physical workings of the

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universe – gods of storm, gods of mountains, gods of thunders, rivers, snakes,

seas, trees, iron.

Most of these lesser gods were considered to be local gods within a specific

community, sacred to the community and each community evolved what you may

say its “spiritual center” which gives the community an identity.

Africans built no monumental churches like other people notable Europeans. They

believed in spending their energy on higher heavenly life than on building big

buildings down here below driven by the foolish and vain idea of trying to impress

the nest fellow. Africans also seldom bothered with elaborate dresses for their

spiritual leaders. African temples and shrines were humble affairs, often containing

an altar that was no more than a lump of wood or piece of stone, and were

frequently littered with a collection of pots and other everyday objects. And yet

these shrines and altars were just makeshift, temporal and casual – they were no

elaboration in building them because the people put much value in spiritual life

than physical splendor that is motivated by a corrupt human spirit.

These shrines within African communities were revered and even dignified places of

worship – made so by the sincerity of the worshippers’ belief than physical

buildings with some glamour. They were sacred places where men and women

could come to consult their oracles and pray to their gods – behind their simplicity

lay complex systems of spiritual homage and social conduct.

Because religious beliefs and practices played so large a part in African life, the

custodians of the temples and shrines were people of great importance. No doubt

they were as varied in their talents and characters. Yet if some were frauds, rascals

and charlatans most of them were skillful in physical and mental healing. Their

authority came partly from a broad knowledge of herbal medicine, plus

psychological insight and an intimate knowledge of local circumstances. But it also

came with them having the ability to mediate with the spirit world.

The gods of Africa controlled the mysteries of nature; they were the spirits to whom

one appealed for help and protection against the unknown. But when it came to

ordinary day to day living and daily affairs another set of religious beliefs were

observed. These were about the spirit of ancestors, and the people in each

community who were selected to serve as mediators. It was believed that the

ancestors are the ones who hold the keys for the community and the individuals

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within the community’s prosperity. These were the founding fathers who had laid

down the good and safe path for each community to tread. It was they who had

decided the community’s settlement and their rulers.

If suitably served, the ancestors were powerful aids to a secure and prosperous

life, if ignored or insulted, they were dangerous enemies.

But the relationship of the living to the dead was not simply one of awe and

respect. There was also another element, in the nature of a contract or bargain.

The living owed a duty to the ancestors, but the ancestors owed one in return: each

was expected to look after the interests of the other, and lavish ceremonies and

rituals were done to honor and renew this contract. You did not have to worship all

his ancestors indiscriminately, or even those for whom you might have a special,

personal admiration or respect. You worshipped only those who were recognized

as standing in direct line of succession from some distant founding patriarch. This

means only those were recognized ancestors could act as intermediaries with the

original ancestral spirit.

The worship of ancestors was one of the central organizing factors amongst the

Batau society. This practice regulated the lives of individuals, of villages, of groups

of villages and of nations.

At puberty, along with the customary tests for bravery and maturity, a child was

ritually introduced to his ancestors. He learned how they had founded the Batau

with the help of the gods and how they had organized a way of life for themselves

and their descendants. He learned that his own life would prosper only if he obeyed

the ancestral will -observed the rules and regulations lay down by the ancestors, try

to live as they have lived the best as he could.

At the end of this period of indoctrination, which lasted some weeks, the child was

officially considered an adult and a member of his community’s “inner circle” – a

kind of being initiated into some secret society.

This inner circle was based on the foundation that none but members could attend

their ceremonies. Otherwise, everyone was aware of them, and indeed had to be,

for it was these societies of men (and sometimes women) who interpreted and

applied ancestral laws – modifying them where necessary to suit the changing

realities, and making sure that they are carried out.

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For the individual, however, religion did not end with prayer to the gods and respect

for the ancestors. The supernatural made itself felt at another level: in sorcery and

witchcraft. Africans believed in magic.

There was good magic and bad magic. Good magic could be helpful but made

magic is disastrous to one’s life. Bad magic was considered to come from the evil

works of sorcerers. Evil could also come from the unpremeditated work of witches.

Witches and sorcerers who brought evil were considered malicious spirits who left

the bodies of their human hosts and flew about at night on secret missions. To

deal with witches and sorcerers who bring bad magic, Batau and Africans in

general turned to specialists in magic, commonly called witch doctor by the white

man. The real function of the witch doctor was to advise and protect people

threatened by evil spirit, but occasionally a witch doctor can get corrupt like a good

politician getting corrupt. A corrupt witch doctor would now become a specialist

and trade in dangerous spells.

Witch doctoring is written off by the white man as arrant nonsense, but in

traditional African communities the witch doctor served a real and useful purpose,

quite aside from his magic. He was often able to settle disputes between rivals that

might have led to violence, and his knowledge of the medicinal value of herbs

frequently led him to prescribe remedies that actually cured. Also, through his

intimate knowledge of the lives of the people in his community, and of human

nature in general, it was not unusual for him to function as a sort of psychologist.

African religion in general offered Africans an indigenous concept of immortality.

The worship of the ancestors, with its profound sense of tribal continuity, extended

life of an individual beyond death. More than that, it gave the individual African a

spiritual identity with a group whose pattern of life had never changed, as far back

as they can remember.

For Africans the goal of life was to live as one’s fathers had lived. It might not been

progress in the eyes of the white man, but to the African it meant everything. It

meant stability. Thus the force and dignity of African religion was not in its parts,

but its whole. Africans were embraced from cradle to the grave by a system of

beliefs and moral guides that had been evolved, however unconsciously, through

centuries of trial and error. The system lubricated the wheels of personal and

community life and made them run smoothly; it was the very heart of all African

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societies. So well did it work that it lasted through all the turmoil of colonial times –

and thus still serves many today.

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APPENDIX

Kgoshi Kgolo Ngwato

Kgoshi Kgolo Matlebjane

Ruled 1350 - 1410

Kgoshi Mokwena

Ruled 1410-1450

Kgoshi Matlebjane II

His rule ended about 1450. After him, his sons plunged Batau into a bloody civil war.

Seloane

Father of Malatane/Byldrift

Mogashoa

Ga-Mogashoa

Phaahla

Ga-Phaahla

Masemola

Father of Masemola

villages

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