Marriage ritual of avoidance

Like other Batswana tribes, the community practices a ritual of avoidance in marriage, performed during traditional weddings.  This ritual has injunctions, which if the graduates violate, it is believed they suffer from a disease called 'thotse'.

Although it is tricky to define this ritual, it can be said that it provides, among others, instructions on how to conduct one-self when dealing with sacred matters.  The ritual also offers proper rules for action in the realm of sacred as well as supplying a bridge for passing into the realm of the profane.  It is symbolic in relation to its reference and it involves its dependence upon a belief system that is usually expressed in the language of myth.