There may be a future in which members of Ntlo ya Dikgosi show up wearing royal leopard-skin coats and all manner of traditional attire from Sub-Saharan Africa. “May” because the matter hasn’t been conclusively resolved. In the just-ended session of the house, Kgosi Oscar Mosielele of the Moshupa Region proposed (through a motion) that the Government should “consider amending the Ntlo ya Dikgosi Rules of Procedure to allow Members of Ntlo ya Dikgosi to dress according to their culture and not be restricted to formal wear.” Section 83 of the constitution empowers the house to make its own rules but therein lay a hurdle for the motion.
Tabling his motion, Mosielele said that while he has no problem with formal wear, members of the house are custodians of culture and should dress in a manner that befits such role. In supporting the motion, Kgosi Mbao Kahiko III for Ghanzi West Region said that as a house with representatives from various cultural communities, the house should reflect such diversity in manner of dress. “Like language, dress is an important element of cultural identity,” Kahiko, adding that this element of cultural identity is being robustly showcased in some African countries like South Africa, where a delegation from Ntlo ya Dikgosi visited some years ago. “Wearing cultural attire would raise the status of this house.”
Also expressing his support, Kgosi Edison Gobuamang of Thamaga Region said that there should be no problem with male members wearing cultural attire because their female counterparts already do and that is acceptable. Indeed, some of the few female members in the house periodically wear leteisi, the ethnic cotton-print fabric. The far-end outliers were Dikgosi Disho Ndhowe of Okavango Region and Rebagamang Rancholo of Tutume Region who expressed divergent but dissenting views on the motion. Ndhowe said that he has no problem with the current western attire, which he finds more “presentable”, is easy to acquire and wash, can be worn both here at home and abroad and makes it easier for the chairperson to monitor. Summing up all those points, he added that if he were to show up wearing animal skins, other members would “take flight.”
While not giving precise examples, Rancholo said that the wearing of certain cultural attire would cause friction in some parts of the country. He would have been referring to a 2017 incident when against a Setswana custom and the wishes of Bangwaketse, Kgosi Kebinatshwene Mosielele of Manyana was ceremonially invested with a royal leopard-skin coat. Going back centuries, there can never be more than leopard-skin-wearing kgosi in the same tribal territory. As a Setswana saying goes, “there can’t be two bulls in the same kraal.” The skin represents supreme power and authority and it would be impractical for two leaders to have the same power and authority. In one too many instances, a Tswana kgosi was a warrior who commanded his troops during battles. There can’t be two supreme commanders because they will give different orders and confuse the troops.
Manyana is in a tribal territory that is formally recognized as belonging to Bangwaketse and the Bangwaketse supreme traditional leader, Malope Gaseitsiwe, was so invested in 2010, assuming Kgosi Malope II as his regnal name. This is the basis upon which Malope and his subjects objected to Mosielele’s investment. Mosielele sought to justify his action by stating that his late father, Kgosi Mareko Mosielele, was also ceremonially invested in a leopard skin in 1952. He told Mmegi that there is photographic evidence to that effect and that Malope’s grandfather, Kgosi Bathoen II, had no problem with that. The one point of contention is that around this time, Manyana was in Kweneng and not Ngwaketse territory which means that Kgosi Mareko Mosielele would have been under Kgosi Kgari Sechele. It would seem that Bakwena royals have a relaxed attitude toward this custom.
Last year, another Mohurutshe traditional leader (Kgosi Solofelang Thobega of Bahurutshe-boo-Moshibidu in Mankgodi) was ceremonially invested with a leopard-skin coat. The current Bakwena kgosikgolo, Kgosi Kgari III himself invested Thobega with the coat. Bangwaketse obviously apply a stricter standard as evidenced by Malope’s falling out with Kebinatshwene. Rancholo added that some members of Ntlo ya Dikgosi represent more than one tribe. He saw that becoming problematic in instances when a representative chooses to wear the cultural dress of one tribe at the exclusion of the dresses of other cultures whose people s/he also represents. The government is currently is in the throes of reviewing the constitution and one outcome from such process will be informal reapportionment of tribal territories.
Rancholo proposed waiting out this process out before the cultural-dress proposal could be adopted. While most members appeared to agree with the sentiment expressed in the motion, they felt though that there is no need to ask the government to amend rules of the house when Section 83 grants the house power and authority to do so on its own. Indeed, the Minister of State President, Meshack Mthimkhulu, asserted that the government has no jurisdiction to do what Mosielele wants to see happen.
“Members are at liberty to choose what they want to wear as long as it suits the decorum of the house,” said Mthimkhulu, reminding members that what may be unacceptable to some cultures would be acceptable to Batswana. As regards the latter, he was probably reacting to a comment made earlier by Kgosi Sibangani Mosojane of the North East Region. Mosojane had stated that some cultural attire wouldn’t be acceptable in this day and age. He said that one can’t wear a loincloth and claim that it is part of culture. While mostly murky and confused, the cultural-attire advocacy occurs even outside Ntlo ya Dikgosi.
The murkiness is a result of there being no systematic effort to define what constitutes cultural attire both at tribal and national level. Organisers of cultural festivals typically urge members of the public to wear “traditional attire” when they attend such festivals – never once specifying what such attire is. All too often, the result is that those who attend cultural festivals show up in cultural attire from other Sub-Saharan nations, which nations are clear about what constitutes cultural attire within their specific context.
