Word: kgotla
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Strapping Gordon Batho, Her Majesty's district commissioner for the Bamangwato tribe of Bechuanaland Protectorate, had some bad news for his black-skinned charges. To a crowded Kgotla (native parliament) squatting in the tribe's mud-hut capital of Serowe, he announced that the Great White Queen would never allow Seretse Khama, their Oxford-educated chief, to return to his people (TIME, April 7). According to the Queen's ministers, Seretse, by marrying blonde London Typist Ruth Williams, had been derelict in his public duty as chief: his marriage, like Edward VIII's, had compromised...
...More Kgotla. It was the first time that the docile Bamangwato had thumbed their noses at a creature so Godlike as the Great White Queen's commissioner. Batho marched off, his upper lip aquiver. He issued an order: "No more Kgotlas." The Bamangwato sat back guzzling Kaffir beer (a native brew made of yeast, marmalade, syrup and raisins) and took no notice. But when Batho sent a platoon...
Basuto policemen to occupy the Kgotla ground, the tribesmen reacted. Screeching and bellowing, 2,000 of them bombarded the cops with stones. When Batho himself arrived with police reinforcements, a drunken virgin bopped him on the head with a sharp-pointed stone. Sixty cops were injured, three battered to death...
...Daniel Malan ready to seize on any excuse to step into Bechuanaland, which borders his country on the north, Britain's ministers seemed far more willing to heed his wishes than those of the Bamangwato. This week in Serowe, 35 Bamangwato elders refused to go to a special Kgotla meeting called by Britain's High Commissioner Sir Evelyn Baring to inform the Bamangwato of the government's decision. "We cannot," they said, "attend any tribal meeting in the absence of our true chief Seretse...
Bechuanaland's open-air Kgotla (Parliament) was not in session, but a quorum of tribal representatives was lounging in the sun when the tribe's Chief-designate arrived, arm in arm with his new wife. Up jumped the tribesmen and squarely faced the young bride, the former Ruth Williams, a London typist. "Balulubela!" shouted the tribesmen...