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To understand the politics of initiation ceremonies, this article discusses bojale, a traditional rite of passage among the Bakgatla-baga-Kgafela people of Botswana, through which a girl enters bosadi (womanhood). I focus on my experiences as an initiate and participant observer in the 2009 ceremony. Bojale has changed from a puberty rite limited to unmarried girls nearing first menarche into an initiation rite for females of any age and status, whether married or unmarried, with children or without. Despite bojale's overt purpose of preparing initiates for womanhood, as echoed in bojale songs, I argue that its recent revival among the Bakgatla-baga-Kgafela follows a pattern indicative of ‘transient culture’ determined by the needs of the paramount chief. The women who have experienced initiation together join a regiment, a social organisation that becomes the chief's practical and symbolic socio-political base. Both revival and abandonment are triggered by royal-related factors and events, in a pattern o...

Cultural heritage is today contested between historical scholarship based in educational institutions and popular and commercial presentations of the past emphasising myths and legends. A revival of interest in heritage in Botswana over the past few generations has been counterbalanced by a decline of interest in the study of history in schools and the university. If one looks back more than a century, however, the study of history and the presentation of heritage in myths and legends were almost indistinguishable. History textbooks published in Setswana in 1913 and 1940, and in English in 1952, presented parallel tribal traditions in a manner suitable for multi-tribal federalism. Professional research into and publication of national history, in English, supporting unitary state ideology, only came after independence with the opening of a university in which History was at first regarded as a key subject. Since then, History has been deposed within the curriculum by the march towards job-specific vocatio...