Botswana - Botswana and Namibia - page 273

used in San dancing include decorated dancing sticks, fly whisks created from wildebeest
tails, and dancing rattles, which are leather strings through cocoons full of tiny stones or
broken ostrich eggshells.
One of the more interesting dances is the ndazula dance, a rain dance used to thank the
gods for a plentiful harvest. Another is borankana , which originated in southern Bot-
swana but is now enjoyed all over the country. It features in dance and music competitions
and exhibitions, and is practised by school groups across Botswana. Borankana , which is
Setswana for 'traditional entertainment', includes the unique setlhako and sephumuso
rhythms, which feature in music by artists such as Nick Nkosanah Ndaba.
Most visitors will encounter traditional dancing in the rather staged displays at top-end
safari camps. While they may lack the passion and spontaneity of traditional perform-
ances, such performances are important in preserving traditions that might otherwise be
lost. A more genuine and less affected arena is the Maitisong Festival ( Click here ), Bot-
swana's biggest arts festival, held at the end of March in Gaborone.
Literature
The first work to be published in Setswana was the Holy Bible (completed by 1857),
shortly followed by The Pilgrim's Progress . As you may gather from this, Botswana had
little literary tradition to speak of until well into the 20th century.
Botswana's most famous modern literary figure was South African-born Bessie Head
(1937-86), who fled apartheid in South Africa and settled in Sir Seretse Khama's village
of Serowe. Her writings, many of which are set in Serowe, reflect the harshness and
beauty of African village life and the physical attributes of Botswana itself. Her most
widely read works include Serowe - Village of the Rain Wind, When Rain Clouds Gather,
Maru, A Question of Power, The Cardinals, A Bewitched Crossroad and The Collector of
Treasures , which is an anthology of short stories.
Since the 1980s Setswana novel writing has had something of a revival with the public-
ation in English of novels like Andrew Sesinyi's Love on the Rocks (1983) and Gaele
Sobott-Mogwe's haunting collection of short stories, Colour Me Blue (1995), which
blends fantasy and reality with the everyday grit of African life.
Other novels that lend insight into contemporary Batswana life are Jamestown Blues
(1997) and Place of Reeds (2005) by Caitlin Davies, who was married to a Motswana and
lived in Botswana for 12 years.
Unity Dow, Botswana's first female High Court judge, has also authored four books to
date, all of them dealing with contemporary social issues in the country; we recommend
Far and Beyon' (2002).