Hosana Wosana at Mantlwaneng Theatre

Hosanna Wosana is a musical, which celebrates Botswana through Kalanga spiritual music systems of Hosana, Sangoma and Mancomane. The story follows Christian missionaries’ first contact with the people of Southern Africa. It explores social communities’ values and needs. While fictitious, it covers a fictitious tribe of Baka-Habangana, whose chief was the first to convert to Christianity.

This happens at a time when the chief’s daughter is due for “ukuthwasa” (initiation) as a Hosana (the communal rain prayers intercessor). At the advice of the newly commissioned local pastor and her nuns, the chief forbids his daughter from going for initiation, thus putting to test a long standing Kalanga tradition that refusal warrants pain, suffering and subsequent death of the due “inthwasa” or “Bonga”.