1 86 Tim BECHUANAS. 



anas for whom the Makololo entertained the most sovereign 

 contempt. The young men would remark, " Lechulatebe 

 is herding our cows for us ; let us only go, we shall ' lift ' 

 the price of them in sheep," &c. 



As the Makololo are the most northerly of the Bechu- 

 anas, we may glance back at this family of Africans before 

 entering on the branch of the negro family which the 

 Makololo distinguish by the term Makalaka. The name 

 Bechuana seems derived from the word Chuana — alike or 

 -equal — with the personal pronoun Ba (they) prefixed ; 

 and therefore means fellows or equals. Some nave sup- 

 posed the name to have arisen from a mistake of some 

 traveller, who, on asking individuals of this nation con- 

 cerning the tribes living beyond them, received the answer, 

 Bachuana, " they (are) alike ; " meaning, " They are the 

 -same as we are ; " and that this nameless traveller, who 

 never wrote a word about them, managed to engraft his 

 mistake as a generic term on a nation extending from the 

 Orange river to i8° south latitude.* 



As the name was found in use among those who had no 

 intercourse with Europeans, before we can receive the 

 above explanation we must believe that the unknown 

 traveller knew the language sufficiently well to ask a ques- 

 tion, but not to understand the answer. We may add, 

 that the way in which they still continue to use the 

 -word, seems to require no fanciful interpretation. When 

 addressed with any degree of scorn, they reply, " We are 

 Bachuana, or equals — we are not inferior to any of our 

 nation," in exactly the same sense as Irishmen or Scotch- 

 men, in the same circumstances, would reply, " We are 

 Britons," or " We are Englishmen." Most other tribes 

 are known by the terms applied to them by strangers 

 only, as the Caffres, Hottentots, and Bushmen. The 

 Eechuanas alone use the term to themselves as a generic 

 one for the whole nation. They have managed also to give 

 a comprehensive name to the whites, viz. Makoa, though 

 they cannot explain the derivation of it any more than of 

 their own. It seems to mean " handsome," from the 

 manner in which they use it to indicate beauty, but there 

 is a word so very like it, meaning " infirm," or " weak," 

 that Burchell's conjecture is probably the right one. 



* The Makololo have conquered the country as far as 14 south, 

 but it is still peopled chiefly by the black tribes named Makalala. 



