In 1935, District Commissioner Vivien Ellenberger published a detailed list of maboko, dikgotla and mephato, a lengthy history and other information all bundled in more than 70 single-spaced pages under the title of History of the Ba-Ga-Malete of Ramoutsa.
He compiled it “with the assistance of” Kgosi Seboko Mokgosi, Lokote Motladiile, and others including Levi Moumakoa, principal of the Bamalete National School. According to Ellenberger’s informants, their people were descendants of Malete, who lived long ago before the ancestors migrated from the Pretoria area (known to them as Tswaane) into present Botswana. Since the early 1900s, during British rule, they occupied what became the Bamalete Reserve (established 1909). At some point, the term Bamalete fell into disuse and Balete became common.
In 1952 Resident Commissioner, Anthony Sillery, claimed, citing linguist Desmond Cole, that “Lete” was the “stem” of Malete, which Cole regarded as a “possessive” rather than a “noun”. Malete was regarded as a “clumsy” form and Lete thus had begun to circulate. The example of this development was given of Bammangwato giving way to Bangwato, Ngwato being the root.
What seems ignored in this case, however, is that Malete is an ancestral name, just as Ngwato and Ngwaketse refer to persons the group claims descent from. Lete, on the other hand, is not mentioned in Ellenberger’s lengthy history of the ‘Ba-ga-Malete’. So, if asked, what does “Lete” mean? What answer can Balete give?
*FRED MORTON is a retired Professor of History
