THE BECHUANAS THE BATOANA GOVERNMENT. 437 



known as Bechuanas, who, as a whole, are probably the most 

 widely distributed and the most powerful of all the dark- 

 colored nations in Southern Africa. The Batoana have not 

 been long dwellers in the Lake regions; they came as con- 

 querors under Lecholete'be's father. Having dispossessed the 

 aborigines, they reduced them to a state of slavery, giving 

 them a name corresponding to their condition, viz., Bakoba 

 or Malcoha, that is, "serfs." These people, however, style 

 themselves Bayeye, or "Men;" and by that appellation I 

 shall hereafter call them. 



In giving a general description of the manners and cus- 

 toms, religious rites, superstitions, &c., of the Bechuanas — 

 the parent stock, as shown, of the Batoanas^ — I shall also have 

 described those of the latter tribe ; for, tliough they may differ 

 in some respects, they agree in the main. 



" The government of the people is at once both monarch- 

 ical and patriarchal, and comparatively mild in its character. 

 Each tribe has its chief or king, who commonly resides in the 

 largest town, and is held sacred from his hereditary right to 

 that office. A tribe generally includes a number of towns or 

 villages, each having its distinct head, under whom there are 

 a number of subordinate chiefs. These constitute the aris- 

 tocracy of the nation, and all acknowledge the supremacy of 

 the principal one. His power, tliough very great, and in 

 some instances despotic, is, nevertheless, controlled by the 

 senior chiefs, who, in their ^j/c/^os ov jyitshos (their Parliament 

 or public meetings), use the greatest plainness of speech in 

 exposing what they consider culpable or lax in his govern- 

 ment. An able speaker will sometimes turn the scale even 

 against the king. * * * These assemblies keep up a 

 tolerable equilibrium of power between the chiefs and their 

 king ; but they are only convened when it is necessary to 

 adjust differences between tribes — when a predatory exjDcdi- 

 tion is to be undertaken — or when the removal of a tribe is 



