Rock Paintings and Dances

Part of a fun thing Peace Corps did for us one Saturday was take the trainees to the Manyana Rock Paintings and Bahurutse Cultural Lodge. Looking at the pictures, you should be able to recognize some giraffes, and a kudu. Kudu looks kinda like a deer with long horns. He’s next to the picture of me. Not far from Molepolole, the Manyana Rock Paintings were a site of one of the battles of the Bour Wars. Bours came up from South Africa and basically bullied their way into Botswana tribes in the mid 19th century. You can see how steep the rocks are. The Manyana tribe hid on top of the rocks and crushed the Bours by pushing boulders on top of them. The guide showed us a cave called Manyana-Bahurthe. Bahurthe was the wife of the kgosi (or chief). At the time of the battle, she was hidden in the cave because she was pregnant. We asked if we could go inside the cave and the guide said no. There were rock-rabbit droppings at the mouth of the cave. Traditionally, rock-rabbits were a sign that a large snake lived in the cave.
Then we were taken to Bahurutse Cultural Lodge. The Bahurutse are part of the Baboon Totem. There was a group of traditional dancers that taught us about their culture and traditions. A female member of our group was included in the presentation to act as a bride to a Mostwana man. The Bahurutse showed us how a newly wed couple would spend their honeymoon. A medicine man would be brought in to bless the marriage. He would do this by throwing some bones and ensuring that they all fell as God had intended. If the groom was not traditional enough, possibly he could be struck by a snake or lightning. Jealous women would try and break up the marriage by stealing the bride’s footprint. The bones would protect her. If the bones fell as planned, they were officially wed. The couple would be taken to the traditional honeymoon hut. The “grannies” of the village would hide outside of the hut and spy on the couple to ensure that the bride was a virgin.
Afterwards we were shown how to make traditional home brew or beer using sorgum. The grain was stomped in a huge mortar with a pestle. Then it was ground very fine with a rock. We were invited to taste the home brew. Kabo has already sampled the brew or Chake-Chake in Maitengwe on his shadowing visit. It was my first try, It defiantly has that sour sorgum taste (with kind of a stomach bile after taste). It’s white and chunky and I agree kinda looks like vomit. It sounds worse than it is but I don’t imagine I’ll be throwing any back while I’m here. They told us a few medical treatments. While a community member is sick, he or she will be confined in the home (to protect the rest of the village). But there is a saying Get up to watch the sun rise otherwise it will set on you. Basically they encouraged the sick not to lie in bed all day but to get up and keep moving. Apparently stepping in cow dung was good for the circulation. Probably because they would not let the person wash off the dung until they were well again.
They showed us a few dances. The tribe really stresses dancing while growing up so that the people have it in their hearts. The children were the best to watch; they were so good. We saw a Wife’s Dance in which the women would show their husbands “I need to have my back stretched out.” We saw a Granny Dance in which the grannies would show the village “it all comes from us.” And we saw a Meal Dance that we got to take part in. Basically a march to wash hands and be fed. They would wear these cocoons around their wrists and ankles that were stuffed with dried bugs to make a kind of rattling noise. It was so cool. I really want some…

P.S. Sorry, I thought we had posted this a while back...