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polity. For example, on the southern part of the Makgabeng area, most
families were of the following clans: Ngwepe, Setumu, Mojela, Ramoroka,
Masekwa, Phukubje, Moremi, and so on 202 . These clans formed different
communal units under different headmen who were all under the Matlala
polity. The northern end of the Makgabeng area was where the subjects of
the Malebogo polity resided. The clans of Manaka, Taueatswala, Moremi
(related to the above-mentioned), Morwane, Bodirwa, and so on, were also
divided into various communal units under different headmen 203 .
Therefore, the arrival of the Bantu-speaking communities in the Makgabeng
area brought new political structures according to which communities
defined themselves. New identities were thus formed, while others
disappeared by either being lost, or assimilated into dominant ones. In the
final analysis, identities of the San, the Khoikhoi and the Bantu-speaking
communities merged in what some scholars referred to as “assimilation”/
“intermixture”, to form the type of society we have today in Makgabeng. The
political, cultural, religious, economic, biological, physical and other
identities marking the Makgabeng today, are all results of the processes of
identity formation which took place over a long period since the arrival of the
first people in the Makgabeng area. Of course the environmental factors
were also instrumental in shaping the identities of those occupants of the
Makgabeng area.
202 Interview, Robert Manaka, Inveraan village, 29 December 2004.
203 Ibid.
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