Exploring heritage sites in the greater Francistown region (Part 1)

ABEL A MABUSE | Friday October 7, 2011 00:00

 

It covers an area of approximately 16,500km, which is inhabited by Bakalanga and other ethnic groups. The predominant people found in this area, the Bakalanga, are a complex ethnic group, comprising many different cultural groups whose heritage spans the last 12,000 years of unprecedented continuity.  The trail is made up of about 30 sites selected from over 500 heritage sites found in this region.  These sites are explored in this paper and offer a fresh look at means through which the rich heritage found in Bukalanga can be developed to promote cultural tourism.  Such a move is likely to contribute towards poverty eradication among communities living near these sites and even reinstate a sense of the otherwise vague pride among these people.  The paper provides a journey into the prehistory of the area beginning on the Motloutse River in the south up to Maitengwe village in the north.  Archaeological sites, hilltop ruins, shrines, historic buildings, outstanding natural sites and contemporary cultural sites found in this region are viewed as a cog wheel through which we can promote cultural tourism and empower local communities.  The most prominent heritage sites found in the area are stone walled ruins such as Domboshaba, Vukwi and Schermer's Ruins; remnants of social, economic and political life of Bakalanga people during the reign of powerful Mambos of the Chibundule and Changamire dynasties, which form the forgotten powerful Bakalanga state known as Butua.

During the early days of the Domboshaba Cultural Festival, I found myself surrounded by many Bakalanga university students who knew very little about their cultural identity. Despite congregating near Domboshaba Ruins yearly to celebrate and promote their culture, many people I conversed with on this topic remained utterly ignorant about where the Bakalanga people come from.  This unfortunate scenario remains a challenge to many youthful Bakalanga.  The sad discovery that a substantial body of knowledge on the history and cultural identity of the Bakalanga I had acquired from available literature as a student of archaeology, my grandparents and other elderly Bakalanga people somehow remained limited to many people.  During a recent survey of sites forming this heritage trail many elderly people in the region echoed the similar sentiment that my university colleagues were faced with. The causal effect of this cultural backlog is a subject worth discussing in another discussion. The lack of comprehension of critical facts by the majority of Bakalanga youth motivated me to write this paper.

In this paper I start by providing essential background information of five broad heritage categories covering the diverse heritage of the Bukalanga area. The paper also takes the reader through four mini trails, which can be followed to explore the rich cultural heritage of the area. The Greater Francistown Heritage Trail acknowledges the pioneering work undertaken by Dr Catrien Van Waarden in the 1990s in her book entitled Exploring Tati; Places Of Historic And Other Interest In And Around Francistown.

 The development and management of these sites has been made possible through the steering role played by Botswana National Museum and the involvement of the public and private sector as well as local communities in the development of Botswana's cultural and natural heritage resources. In recent times there have been calls to include heritage sites in the diversification of the country's tourism sector.  This heritage trail is pioneering work which aims to address this important issue as there are only a few popular tourist destinations in the Bukalanga region.  The development of these 31 sites is therefore a starting point towards opening up heritage sites for public appreciation.  It also serves to instil a source of pride and identity while enhancing economic opportunities for the Bakalanga people.  The journey into these pristine heritage sites begins in Francistown City; the modern capital of the Bukalanga region and indeed the gateway to Botswana's famous Chobe and Okavango Delta.

Stone Age heritage sites

These heritage sites include Stone Age tools found along the Dati, Ntshe and Shashe rivers and numerous rock art sites skilfully crafted in several granitic kopjes. The rock paintings are artistic impressions left behind by hunting and gathering people who lived in the area in the last 20,000 years (Walker 1998). 

The paintings help us understand the lifestyles of these hunting and gathering people.  Paintings of men with bows and arrows and women with digging sticks on their shoulders (Van Waarden 1999) depict how these people lived in the past.  Wild animals like giraffe, elephants, eiland, kudu and other antelopes help show that the area had a wide variety of wild animals in the past.  The Stone Age Heritage can be attributed to the forefathers of the present day Basarwa people found in small numbers in villages like Tutume, Sebina and in the Makgadikgadi Pans region.  The most prominent sites with Stone Age Heritage can be found at Gandanyemba Hills near Nlapkhwane, near Makuta village, Kalakamati and around Moroka village.

Early farmers heritage

The Bukalanga region has over 20 heritage sites associated with early farming communities who arrived in this region sometimes around AD 600 (Segobye 1998).  They brought a completely new lifestyle in the area, building permanent homes out of poles, clay and thatch. They kept domestic stock such as cattle, goats and sheep, made clay pots and produced a wide variety of metal tools through smelting of iron (Tlou and Campbell 1991). 

These people are part of the ancestors of the many Bantu-speaking peoples found in Southern Africa today.  By around 1,000 AD, the Bukalanga area experienced wetter climates, which resulted in the increase of cattle and economic power among some people. Increased power and control over the less privileged gave rise to a new chiefdom that is archaeologically known as the Leopards Kopje Chiefdom.  Archaeological research suggests that these people are the ancestors of the modern Bakalanga people (Van Waarden 1991). The distribution of settlements of the Leopards Kopje people suggests that the chiefdom established itself over many parts of northeastern Botswana and western Zimbabwe.  The Leopard's Kopje people lived on some hilltops which were often terraced with stone walls.  They mined for gold found around 8888 - present day Francistown and traded in gold, ivory and salt obtained from the Makgadikgadi.

From this trade, they acquired imported glass beads from the Arabs.  Nyangabwe Hill, Sekukwe Kop and Selolwe Hill have evidence of Leopards Kopje settlements associated with these early farmers.