The Tswana by Isaac Schapera John L Comaroff

Author:Isaac Schapera, John L Comaroff [Isaac Schapera, John L Comaroff]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Social Science, Anthropology, General
ISBN: 9781317408147
Google: 7RLICQAAQBAJ
Publisher: Routledge
Published: 2015-06-03T02:47:22+00:00

Traditional Cults

In pre-Christian times, so far as can be gathered, the Tswana believed in a high god named Modimo, who was regarded as the creator of all things and the moulder of destiny. He was vaguely associated with the phenomena of the weather, and punished innovations or departure from established usage by sending wind, hail, or heat, and withholding the rain; and death, if not attributable to sorcery, was spoken of as an “act of God”. He was, however, considered too remote from the world of man to be directly approached in prayer, although at times the ancestral spirits might be implored to intercede with him.3 There were also many myths about Dingwe, a cannibalistic ogre against whom children were specially protected by charms, and about Lôôwê, Tintibane, Matsieng, and Thobêga, “demi-gods” associated with caves and engraved footprints on rocky outcrops (as in the Kwena and Kgatla Reserves, B.P.). Offerings of meat, corn, and beer were occasionally made to them, together with prayers for rain, fertility of crops, and success in war, but on the whole they seem to have been of minor importance.4

The dominant cult was the worship of the dead.5 Men dying at home were buried in the cattle-kraal of their family-group or ward, and women in the backyard of their compound. The corpse was laid out by some elderly people under the direction of the deceased’s maternal uncle, whose duty it was “to handle the putrefaction of his sister’s children”. A man was buried with his weapons in his hands, a woman with her hoe and some seeds of every cultivated grain; both were also dressed in the clothes they wore when alive. “They were then equipped for their journey to the world of the dead, where a man would continue to herd his grandfather’s cattle and a woman to cultivate the soil”. Finally, the corpse was wrapped in old skins; for a man of some importance, the wet skin of an ox specially killed for the purpose was used instead. The grave was a round hole, with a niche to one side, in which the body was placed in a crouching position, with the head facing west, “so that he was ready to get up and walk to the place where the souls of the other dead had gone.”

As these usages indicate, the Tswana believed in the survival of the dead. They held that the souls of dead people became spirits (badimo), which ultimately found their way to a world vaguely located somewhere underground. Here they led a life very similar to that on earth. But they continued to take an active interest in the fortunes of their living descendants, over whose behaviour they exercised a powerful control. They rewarded with good health and prosperity those who treated them with becoming respect and obedience, but punished with sickness, economic loss, or some other misfortune those who neglected them or who offended against the prevailing social code, of which they were the guardians. Hence, in order to retain their favour, they had to be specially propitiated.

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