Legend of Baloi: the exoteric level

L M Leteane | Friday February 24, 2017 16:54

However, the only difference, the only advantage that Tswana lore wields over others lies in its nomenclature. Indeed, as we will soon find out, baloi is the most accurately descriptive term yet…one that links them conclusively with the ‘gods’ of old. As such, it successfully puts in context exactly where, and when, these ‘magicians’ emerged.

The term baloi consists of the plural suffix ba (indicating plurality) and loi, the noun, the key word. Loi, however, as used in ba-loi, is a truncated word, as I will now show. The original, complete base-term, I have discerned, is illu – a Sumerian term meaning ‘fiery’ or light-giving’, just as in the Latin-based term ‘illuminate’.

And since, as I have proven before, Sumerian and Setswana are very close to each other, the corresponding Setswana term for ‘fire’ is mo-illu…now simply mo-llo because the i was evidently swallowed up with rapid speech, and thus eventually disappeared. (The alternative pronunciation mo-lelo is therefore, arguably, a later development; a now-entrenched ‘laxity’ that seeks to pair every consonant with a vowel such that ‘six’ is often rendered as si-ki-si.) Mo-llo (fire) thus literally means ‘that which illuminates’. But how does it relate to the ‘gods’?

As the Egyptian Book of the Dead and other ancient texts show, the gods were often called the ‘Shining Ones’. Why was this? It was due to two things: their light (bright) complexion and their ‘enlightenment’ (scientific knowledge). Indeed, these ‘Shining Ones’ were the precursors of all Caucasians (White people).

It is therefore no wonder at all that, in Zulu, Whites were promptly called both a-be-lungu (literally: ‘wise, righteous ones’) – an attribute the ‘gods’ definitely arrogated to themselves as the ‘gud (good/superior) ones’ – and, when the Zulus disapproved of them, a-ba-thakhathi (wizards). Lungu (‘good, fine’, as in lungile) we will notice, appears to entail the term illu…the i also appearing to have been ‘swallowed’. Indeed, wisdom and goodness are typically associated with ‘enlightenment’. Now, the Chinese also called their gods lung, a name emperors, like pharaohs, adopted as ‘sons of the gods’.

The Semitic biblical term ‘Eloi’ is another based on Illu, So, it also primarily meant ‘Shining One’. Its plural term ‘Elohim’ thus meant ‘gods’– but because of later ‘monotheistic’ concerns was changed to mean ‘God’. And since ‘gods’ and ‘angels’ referred to the same entity, we will, unsurprisingly, find loi in the Setswana term for angels: manyoloi.

In proto-terms, the name could be read in two ways. Ma-anu-loi means ‘illuminated sky-beings’. And since one of their most impressive features was indeed their ability to fly (using mechanical, powered flight, though, I obviated in other articles), the term ma-nyolohi (‘Those that Rise into the Air’) was a natural play on words that further described them as such.

In fact, just as I had suggested that the English term ‘angel’ derives from Sumerian: AN (Skyward/Heavenly) and EL (Illu/ ‘Shining One’), this ability to fly heavenward (go-dimo) was ever-entailed in their names. But can I show that Tswana names for angels/Whites are also ancient: that they did not stem from colonial times but from deeply embedded knowledge we came to dimly recall?

We have seen that the Zulu term for Whites most likely reminded them of ancient gods and their ‘wizardry’. What about the Setswana term for Whites? Can it also be related to an ancient term that shows that Batswana dimly remembered Whites as being ‘of the gods’: that the term did not derive from recent colonial encounters?

The Tswana name is ma-kgoa, while the Sotho spelling – ma-khoa – is even more revealing. In ancient Egypt where, I will duly explain in other articles, Bantu tribes plausibly began their migration southward, the gods were known as Akhus – an Anglicization of ma-akhu.

Now, because their pale skins turned red in the hot sun, these ‘gods’ were also called Ma-ru (‘Maruts’ in Indian lore) – the term ru (as in ‘rustic’, ‘ruddy’, etc.) being the root of ‘red (ru-ed)’ – and when ‘Aryans’ from India left the subcontinent in droves at the early stages of the pivotal Age of the Ram (Aries: 2160 – 0 AD), in answer to an urgent call by Abraham (explained in full in my books), these ‘Hyksos’ (Shepherd Princes) were called Ma-hibi-ru (Bright-Red Ones) in Egypt.

(The proto-term hibi meant ‘fully-expressed, undisguised’, while inhibi – as in ‘inhibit’ – meant ‘subdued, toned-down’.) Now, please note the following very carefully. Whenever the Sotho-Tswana tribes felt that another tribe was not really ‘one of them’, they tended to use the plural prefix ma instead of ba.

To further distance themselves, they appended a (literally: ‘these’). So, when they first encountered the San people, they marvelled at ma-se-ru-a – ‘These Ru-like people’ (later condensed to ‘Masarwa’ and now considered impolite in Botswana as we are now one nation). As for Whites, the same was pinned on them: ma-akhu-a (‘these Akhus’)!

In short, there is no escaping that the ‘gods’ were the ancestors of modern Whites and that our nomenclature reveals that we long knew them as ancient flesh-and-blood entities of pale skin and dazzling ‘wizardry’ (technology). At this exoteric level, we can see that as angels (ma-nyolohi) or gods (ba-dimo), they were indeed ‘sky-creatures’ and not ‘spirit-creatures’. But what about the association of ba-loi with magic – real magic? Next week we explore baloi at the esoteric level, and encounter some of the deepest secrets ever.

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