Bahurutshe celebrate Molomo Harvest Festival
Nnasaretha Kgamanyane | Tuesday February 1, 2022 06:00
On Saturday morning, both Bahurutshe ba Manyana and Bahurutshe ba Mmankgodi came together to celebrate Molomo Harvest Ceremony at Manyana kgotla. The event was themed; ngwao ya moHurutshe go tswa Ga-Lowe go ya kokomaneng.
The beautiful ceremony with a stunning decoration kick started off with Bahurutshe native songs led by deputy chief of Manyana Robert Mangope who was also the master of ceremony for the day. He told the gathering that it had been decades since they celebrated the auspicious event. He also said the last time his tribe celebrated Molomo was around 1932.
Upon their arrival at leobo in the kgotla, Namane Moruakgomo, who is a headman at Mogonye and Tebogo Seribe from Mmankgodi, served dikgosi from both villages with praising poems.
During the ceremony, kgosi Kebinatshwene Mosielele was the first person to taste the harvest where he ate lekatane followed by his uncles who amongst them included kgosi Solofelang Letlole of Mmankgodi. After the dignitaries from the royal family finished tasting the harvest, the community was then given a go ahead to eat and go feed their families with the harvest. Culturally, this is believed to have paved way for good harvest in future.
For his part, the chairperson of the cultural and heritage committee Kelo Nkau said their committee was selected last year with the aim of awakening Bahurutshe culture through different cultural events. He explained that they chose to start their cultural calendar with Molomo Harvest Ceremony even though it started a bit late as it normally could have started on the first day of the year.
“Molomo was normally celebrated the first day of the year. The objective of our event is to remind our people and teach our youth of our culture. We intend on hosting a series of cultural events today henceforth. We promise to make this event bigger and better in future and next time we will take time to prepare for our events. Going forward, all our events would be hosted at Dimawe Cultural Site because the place is enriched with our history,” he said.
He also added that they intend to host dikgafela cultural event around August this year as part of 170 years anniversary for Dimawe. He said later they would host a cultural event that would attract tourism and bring in people from different walks of life. He also said through different cultural events, they intend to leave behind a legacy for future generations so that their culture does not perish. Nkau also called in the community together with the Bahurutshe leadership to help the committee in achieving its goals.
One of the village elders Motiribi Mothei said he was thankful to the committee for that auspicious event. He pointed out that he had been for long concerned that his people were forgetting their roots. He said for years, Molomo had always being Lekatane that was given to kgosi to have his first bite followed by his partenal uncles and other dignitaries then later the society who would also be given permission to go feed their families with the year’s harvest.
“Ngwao boswa. Change has spoiled our culture and our children no longer listen to us. We can never discipline our children because they have too many rights. In the past disciplining a child was not a crime. I wish things to go back to the way they used to be. We would have a responsible society,” he said.
Kgosi Mosielele briefed the public about the origins of Bahurutshe. He also told his people that there were many business opportunities that they could do as a village to raise funds and bring developments together with creating jobs for his people. He added that Bahurutshe villages were blessed with many natural resource that when used well could generate income and bring development for them like fish farming, crops and animal farming together with generating power using available natural resources like sun and cow dung.