notion of ‘commoner’ is composite. It includes nonroyals of the ‘original’ stock as well as groups of people conquered or harboured at different historical stages. They are generally ranked according to the length of time they have stayed. Groups incorporated at an early stage were terminologically distinguished from those who could trace their agnatic descent to the founders of the morafe. The latter, named dikgosana, naturally enjoyed superior status. The former were called batlhanka (‘commoners’, lit. servants); which was an honorary matter of holding royal cattle (mafisa, kgamelo) or otherwise assisting the kgosi – indicated by also being titled basimane ba kgosi (the kgosi's boys). Immigrants of more recent origin, called bafaladi (refugees), were in turn ranked lower than the batlhanka.
The dominance of the ruling dynasty is underscored by the fact that those identified as bafaladi might, in the larger Tswana world, be of higher rank than even the hosting kgosi. For example, today there are groups categorized as bafaladi who can trace their origin to the ruling dynasty of the Hurutshe, who are recognized as senior to all three of the merafe under consideration here. Such ‘downgrading’ in the hierarchical order is, as indicated in the Introduction, justified by the Tswana maxim of ra tlou e tlola noka ke tloutstwane (‘when an elephant crosses a river, it becomes a small elephant’).
Finally, there was a distinct ‘underclass’ of people (mainly San and Bakgalagadi). As the dominant Tswana groups expanded their herds – and therefore needed larger territories and more herd labour – they stripped such people of any livestock they might have and put them to work for wealthy families, either as herders or as domestic servants. People belonging to this often-despised category, called malata, thus became part of the morafe on terms that amounted to serfdom (Wilmsen 1989: 99). For example, they were ‘deprived of their children or transferred from one man to another’ (Schapera 1984: 32; cf. Tlou 1977; Wilmsen 1989: 285ff.), a practice prevailing at least until midcolonial times. In such circumstances, it is comprehensible that there evolved a Tswana notion of a huge contrast between the ruling group found at the kgotla kgosing (‘kgosi's court’ or ‘the royal kgotla’) in the royal town – the epitome of ‘civilization' – and the mobile, ‘lawless’ people of the bush – hence ‘bushmen’. This hierarchical order is underpinned by an elaborate code of rank and respect, reproduced in a multitude of contexts – precolonial as well as postcolonial – spanning from the elementary family group to the royal court.
Socio-politically, this means that foreigners were systematically – and tightly – incorporated into the hierarchical sociopolitical order of wards which was spatially concentrated in large royal towns or compact outlying villages (this did of course not pertain to the mentioned ‘underclass’ of serfs unless they were brought in as domestic servants). This was, however, not only a matter of placement in the sociopolitical hierarchical structure. The forceful apparatus of capture at work in these merafe involved a persistent mill of cultural assimilation through the everyday practices of litigation in the context of the hierarchy of courts spanning from the kgotla of single descent group to the royal kgotla (see Chapter 4). It was by virtue of these processes that vast numbers of conquered or hosted groups, in due course, assumed primary identification with the Tswana morafe in which they were incorporated.
The significance of this apparatus of capture – in the sense of Deleuze and Guattari (1991: 360) – is particularly apparent at times when larger communities were to be integrated, in which case they might be divided and distributed among various wards. In this way they were strictly subject to the hierarchy of the morafe, located spatially close to the political centre and always under close surveillance by the ruler's retainers. This practice gave rise to systematized power relations radically different from those of other Southern Bantu polities, where large descent groups were allowed to develop in ways that more frequently led to factionalism and succession (see Schapera 1956: 175).
In this context it is particularly important that among the Northern Tswana the division of descent groups into small sections distributed between different wards gave rise to networks of crosscutting loyalties, facilitating the ruler's exercise of checks and balances of power. The consequent strengthening of the central power was evident from the fact that the authority of ward kgosana and their deputies was largely a matter of delegation and thus subject to the ruler's control. In addition, the kgosi had the authority to reshuffle the distribution of agnatic segments among the various wards or – as occasionally also happened – pick such segments from different wards in the pursuit of constructing a new ward.
Nevertheless, the fact that immigrants were brought under the immediate authority of a ward kgosana does not mean that their incorporation automatically contributed to the strength of the ruler. That of course depended on the ruler's control of the respective dikgosana. Significantly, a substantial number of these dikgosana were members of the royal family, some of them close enough to the ruling line to represent a challenge to the ruler. This means that if the rulers lacked the measures to ensure the dikgosana's support, immigration might well have aggravated rivalry for the bogosi.
It is in this context that the significance of cattle manifests itself as a measure to amalgamate the power structures surrounding the kgosi and counteract such challenges: being in control of vast herds, the kgosi was not only in a position to bring potentially challenging agnates into a position of dependency. By the formation of a network of cattle clientship amongst commoner dikgosana, the kgosi both gathered political support against rebellious agnates and loyalty amongst those who were delegated the authority to integrate the vast numbers of ‘foreigners’ into the hierarchical sociopolitical order of the morafe. From this position of strength, the three merafe in focus here expanded their respective territories and brought under their domination a number of outlying communities (Gulbrandsen 1993b). These subject communities were instrumental both in exploiting the hunting territories to the benefit of the kgosi, to whom they also were compelled to pay levies and tax, and to herd the large royal herds and those of wealthy, high-ranking people.
This trend of trade and accumulation of cattle centred in the bogosi should, however, not be taken as an indication that the rulers of these merafe operated in a region that was characterized by peace and harmony. During the first part of the nineteenth century the various Tswana groups of this region frequently raided each other and occasionally engaged in conflicts that amounted to small warfare (Schapera 1942a: 13–14, 1952: 21; Parsons 1982: 118). Such violence found, of course, its major culmination during the devastating intrusion of the Matabele, known as difaqane, by which the Tswana were conquered and dispersed for more than a decade (c.1825–1837). Yet in the long run, these aggressive actions served, on the whole, to consolidate and strengthen the three merafe under discussion. As so often happens in times of serious conflict, the central power, being in control of the age regiments, provided the necessary internal cohesion and thus became vitally important (see Cohen 1985: 276). In particular the kgosi, as commander-in-chief and recipient of booty (both cattle and people), gained considerable authority.
All these merafe were at times stricken by serious dynastic conflicts, occasionally to the extent that a morafe was temporarily separated into mutually independent sections, yet in due course reunited by one conquering the other (see Schapera 1952: 12). In the manner known from indigenous polities all over the subcontinent (Gluckman 1963: 9ff), conflicts within ruling families might lead to secession of a splinter group. In the present context, after the Bangwaketse and Bangwato departed from the Bakwena in the late seventeenth or early eighteenth century,7 Batawana's secession from the Bangwato is the only case which resulted in a permanently independent morafe. There are several reasons for this (see Schapera 1952: 15ff), including reconciliation and return, hosting by another morafe and, most importantly, the British policy that all inhabitants of the territory – the ‘native reserve’ in British terms – were compelled to submit to the authority of the Tswana kgosi
