07 Jun 2016

Kgosi Oscar Mosielele of Moshupa says kgotla is part of the Setswana culture and should be respected and given the honour it deserves.

Kgosi Mosielele was speaking during the Bollapela Cultural Festival organised by Nyane Events at Mahutagane fields in Shoshong over the weekend.

He said kgotla was a very sacred place where people and communities came up with ideas of how they could develop their villages, where decisions were made and where people were encouraged to behave in a good manner.

He said kgotla was the foundation of villages and communities; therefore it deserved to be treated with respect, adding that its significance to the community could not be over emphasised especially in the Setswana culture.

Kgosi Mosielele said it was high time Batswana knew the importance of the kgotla, how it influenced behavioral change, how it helped mould people and encouraged botho. He said kgotla also brought in democracy and built communities.

He said dikgosi developed their communities because everything started from the kgotla, therefore people should not be ashamed of their culture but instead embrace it.

He explained that every development that occured in a village started from dikgotla that were headed by dikgosi who are neutral  as they solved disputes and encouraged good behavior.

He noted the culture of Batswana was fading and it was the duty of all to stand up and embrace his or her own Tswana culture so that it cannot disappear. The theme of the event was: Celebrating culture and art in promoting tourism in the Shoshong rich historic area.

For his part, when outlining the importance of a kgotla, Dr Lesley Nthoi from the University of Botswana said there was a very important message displayed in the structure of a kgotla starting from how it was built and how people sit and dressed when in a kgotla.

Dr Nthoi said a kgotla was built by each man in a community by bringing in his own pole to make its structure, adding that men had roles to play in building the kgotla while women also had theirs.

He said a kgotla was a sign of power and it was usually built at the centre of a village. The day included cultural activities such as music and dance, drama and stories about the Shoshong area and traditional food. ENDS