26/08/2026
The Origins of Bakaa of Kalamare and Shoshong
Compiled by: Abel A. Mabuse
04/04/2019
The Bakaa of Shoshong and Kalamare are an off-shoot of Barolong. They settled in the Shoshong Hills sometimes before or during the 1700s. When they broke away from the Barolong, they had towu or tshipi, (iron) as their totem. Traditions of this break away Bakaa group explain that this towu refers to the sound made by iron when it was hammered by their ancestors who were well-known for their blacksmith practices.
The Barolong, the parent group from which all present day Bakaa people of Botswana originate, are historically famed for their skills in forging of iron to produce household and agricultural implements such as axes, hoes, iron rods, spears, knives, battle axes, chisels, bangles etc. As time went on, the towu totem of the Bakaa appears to have changed as a result of confusion of the towu sound made by iron when it is hit during iron-smithing processes. This towu sound was confused with tlou, or tou (as Bangwato call it), an elephant, by groups of people that these Bakaa interacted with after their break-off from the Barolong.
The confusion appears to have begun after the Bakaa arrived in the Shoshong Hills where they encountered the Bakhurutshe of Moatshe and Baphaleng who were also living there. The people living in this region may also have been accustomed to totems of animals or animal body parts hence the change to having an elephant as the new symbol of the totem of the Bakaa.
The change could also be due to the interaction of the Bakaa with the Bangwato as highlighted above. The Bangwato themselves had at earlier times interacted with Ikalanga speaking Batalaote who had lived in the areas around Serowe before. The Bangwato arrived in the Shoshong Hills during the 1780s under the leadership of Kgosi Mathiba, the first independent Bangwato leader (Schapera 1938; Parsons 1973; Mabuse 2018).
Before the arrival of the Bangwato in the Shoshong Hills, Bakaa had already established themselves as a formidable chiefdom. They first conquered Baphaleng who had been living in the area since the 1600s, and gradually mastered the art of strategically using the Shoshong Hills as a formidable fort against invasions by foreign groups. By the late 1700s the region around the Shoshong area and what later on became known as Gammangwato, was populated by scattered small groups.
These groups were susceptible to invasions by expanding groups from the south that were in search of new territories to settle. The Bakaa initially encouraged Bangwato to settle in the Shoshong Hills and moved their villages between Shoshong, Kalamare and Mmutlane areas. Parsons (1976) asserts the supremacy of the Bakaa in the Shoshong Hills at that time, and also notes that at the dawn of the 19th century, the geopolitical picture of the Central District was of small highly mobile clans in a large and poorly watered territory under no effective paramountcy. Only in the Shoshong Hills did the communities, including the Bangwato, probably plough for and pay tribute to Bakaa.
Parsons (1976) furthermore points that after their residence at Kutlwe during the rule of Kgama I, the Bangwato moved north to Selolwane, Meojaneng, and then to Mabeleapodi north of Serowe on the Boteti road. This northward move might have been a retreat from the wrath of the Kaa, who had discovered that the Ngwato had planned to usurp them (as the Baaa had done to the Bakhurutshe of Moatshe) in the Shoshong Hills.
By the end of the 1840s, the Bangwato had established themselves as a formidable chiefdom in the Shoshong Hills. This process began during the leadership of Kgosi Kgari Kgama. Parsons (1973) argues that it was Kgari who continued his father's (Kgosi Kgama I) philosophy of "hammering" of small alien communities into joining the kingdom, who collected tribute from distant subject peoples, and who died in the “Flodden of the Bangwato,” a battle in a valley of the Matopos Hills during the great Shaaga drought of about 1826/8.
After this the Bangwato were then dispersed by the Bakololo and Ndebele invasions during the time of Difaqane, and the kingdom had to be regrouped by Kgari’s son Sekgoma I, who finally expelled the Bakaa from the Shoshong heartland in 1849 – the start of the Bangwato kingdom as a sovereign state.
The battle of the Bangwato and Bakaa is fondly remembered among the Bangwato as one associated with the graduation of Kgama Boikanyo Sekgoma’s (thereafter known as Khama III) regiment of Mafholosa. The Mafholosa regiment was named in reference to the defeat of Bakaa who were forced to descend (ba fologa) the Shoshong Hills. After the defeat by the Bangwato of Kgosi Sekgoma I in 1849, the Bakaa who were then ruled by the ailing Kgosi Suwe Lebelwana were led by his son Mosinyi to the Bakwena of Sechele.
Morton et al (2008) state that Mosinyi kept his tribe together in Bakwena region until his death in 1892. After Mosinyi’s death, the Bakaa began to fragment due to a bogosi dispute by Mosinyi’s sons. Segotso, the senior son had backing of Kgosi Sebele I of Bakwena while Selalabyannye, a junior son, was put forward by his half-brother named Tshwene and Tshwene’s father-in-law Kgosi Khama III of the Bangwato. By the end of November 1892, the Bakaa had split into two groups.
Tshwene took his supporters and Selalabyannye to settle at Thagakgama (Bokaa) in the Kgatleng District. In 1894, Segotso led his followers out of Kweneng to re-establish Bokaa at Kalamare, near Shoshong. In 1896, Tshwene broke away from Selalabyannye and with his supporters moved back to the Shoshong Hills and resettled in the ruins of Shoshong, which Bangwato under Kgosi Khama III had abandoned in 1889.........................................................
Kgosi Goareng Segotso Mosinyi (1915 – 2012) – “Father of Bakaa of Kalamare”
Kgosi Goareng Segotso Mosinyi is perhaps the most famous of all Bakaa people living in Gammangwato region, if not all of Botswana. He was born in 1915 in Shoshong as a son of Kgosi of Bakaa of Kalamare. According to Morton et al (2008), Kgosi Goareng Mosinyi was the son of Kgosi Segotso Mosinyi who married Botuseng, grand daughter of Kgamane a Sekgoma. Goareng Segotso Mosinyi was married to Gaofhuse Seretse from Pilikwe.
He went to Tiger Kloof and Lovedale College before serving as Bamangwato Tribal Treasurer. He is known as a staunch supporter of Seretse Khama during the 1945 – 1949 marriage crisis and afterward accompanied him into exile at Lobatse. In 1956, Goareng Mosinyi became a member of Bamangwato Tribal Council, and later of the African Council and the Legislative Council.
Goareng Mosinyi was a founding member of the Bechuanaland (later Botswana) Democratic Party in 1961 together with Seretse Khama, Moutlakgola Nwako, Quett Ketumile Masire, Tsheko Tsheko and A.M. Tsoebebe. Mosinyi served as Shoshong’s Member of Parliament from 1965 until 1989 when he retired from politics. He became Kgosi of Bakaa of Kalamare and in 2007, sat in the expanded Ntlo ya Dikgosi, as elected Kgosi of Bakaa. He died at an advanced age of 97 years, leaving behind a legacy which Bakaa people of Kalamare and Botswana at large pride themselves with.
Further Reading
1. Mabuse, A. A. 2017. The Origins of Langoane Mmolai -a- Kgama –a- Mathiba. Unpublished Report at Khama III Memorial Museum Library.
2. Mabuse, A. A. 2018. A Cultural History of Bokotelo Wards. Unpublished Manuscript.
3. Morton, F; Ramsay, J; & Mgadla, P.T. 2008. Historical Dictionary of Botswana. Plymouth. The Scarecrow Press.
4. Parsons, Q.N. 1973. On the Origins of Bamangwato. Botswana Notes and Records Vol 5: 82- 103. Gaborone. Botswana Society.
5. Parsons, N. 1982. Settlement in East- Central Botswana ca 1800- 1920 in Rene Hitchcock and Mary Smith. The Historical Development of a Human Landscape. Heinemann Educational Books Ltd in Collaboration with Botswana Society.
6. Schapera, I. 1935. The Social Structure of the Tswana Ward. Bantu Studies 9: 203 – 24.
7. Schapera, I. 1938. A Handbook of Tswana Law and Custom. London: Oxford University Press for the International Institute of African Languages and Cultures.
8. Schapera, I. 1940. The Political Organisation of the Ngwato of Bechuanaland. In M. Forters and E.E. Evans – Pritchard (eds.) African Political Systems. London: Oxford University Press.
9. Schapera, I. 1940. Ditirafalo tsa Merafe ya BaTswana ba Lefatshe la Itshireletso: Cape Province. Lovedale Press.
10. Schapera, I. 1965. Praise Poems of Tswana Chiefs. Oxford: Claredon Press.
đź“· Goareng Mosinyi by Phillip Makgalemele page.
