Reigners and Rain Makers
Sandy Grant | Wednesday February 22, 2017 18:32
There are the long term reigners, the life Presidents, and there are the rain makers of one kind or another. In theory, they are, I suppose, one and the same thing. The Chief in drier parts of the continent is traditionally the bringer or maker of rain. If he found himself in difficulty he was always able to seek the help of those locals whose full time profession was rain making. Alternatively, as with the Regent Isang Pilane in Mochudi, he could bring in expert rainmakers from abroad who were believed to possess additional rain making skills. Was this I wonder the origin of the reliance on the outside expert which has been such a feature of the last 50 years?
Despite Isaac Schapera’s marvelous book on rainmaking I still fail to get a proper grasp on this thing. If the Chief fulfilled his duty and responsibility and brought rain, he would not only receive the usual plaudits but more importantly he would be a great deal more secure in his Chair. But if this scenario worked for the Kgosi with rain, why did it not work him, in reverse, for drought? If he was the bringer of rain, I don’t really grasp why he was not also regarded as the bringer of drought? In which case he would have been a candidate for the big drop. There must have been for all those Dikgosi a desperately thin line between the two with the lesser officer holders perhaps being less vulnerable than those at the top. But who were those at the top? In the pre-Independence days there were the Dikgosi and there were the Dikgosana, the Headmen.
Now it seems that every village in the country has its Kgosi and the differences between one and another appear to have been reduced, even if the reality may not have changed. In this country, I was long ago made to understand that there were no Paramount Chiefs on the lines of those in West Africa. There, as I found for myself, even a lesser Chief would have an assistant to carry cash because he himself was not to be sullied by the filthy stuff.
However, the terms Paramount Chief and Kgosi Kgolo appear here to have been merged so that the one is taken to be the equivalent of the other.
Some time ago I came on a fascinating item in the minutes of probably the African National Council – I did not make a note – which recorded Kgosi Bathoen as saying that he, and other Dikgosi had become increasingly concerned about the misuse of standard terms and titles. In particular they had concluded that in the Protectorate there was only one Kgosi Kgolo – King George VI. If we accept Kgosi Bathoen’s take on this we would seem to be doubled blessed in having a rain maker in a President, King George’s successor, who is also a Kgosi. Might this explain why his rating dropped during the drought, rose when the drought was broken but is dropping again now that there is flooding and drowned crops? But really, what do I know?!