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etween clearly distinguishable polities of Matlala and Malebogo 356 .
There was absolutely no mark – natural or artificial – which indicated the
end or the beginning of lands of various groups. Land was still so open
and in abundance that there was little pressure on it, but instead, people
and their allegiance to a particular polity was more important 357 .
With these unfixed frontiers between communities and polities, land was
regarded as a shared resource in which people and livestock moved and
used it freely. This freedom of movement could also be attributed to
plenty of land space and availability of resources such as grazing and
water, while people were still very few. This situation prevented
competition for resources and as a result, conflicts among groups over
land were very minimal if that ever happened at all 358 .
These conditions led to peaceful co-existence among local groups, and
most importantly, led to the attraction and accommodation of groups from
further afield. For instance, when the Bahananwa moved into the
Blouberg-Makgabeng area from Botswana in the 19 th century, they found
other Bantu-speaking groups with whom they came to live side by side.
356 Interview, John Tlameng Matlala, Ga Matlala, 23 December 2002.
357 Interview, John Tlameng Matlala, Ga Matlala, 23 December 2002.
358 Ibid.
203