Microsoft Word - PhD Thesis Final.pdf - University of Limpopo ...

These groups of the Batau of Madibana, the Taueatswala people, the
Monyebodi people, as well as other smaller groups in the Makgabeng
area, were so accommodative of the numerous and more powerful
Bahananwa that they even voluntarily acknowledged them as their
leaders 359 . They effectively became part of the Bahananwa empire, with
their leaders as Kgoši Malebogo’s headmen or indunas. Monyebodi,
Taueatswala, Mapene, Manaka, Kobe and Madibana, were some of well-
known headmen under the Bahananwa dynasty 360 . The free
accommodation of the Bahananwa on land and the acknowledgement of
their authority by the communities they found at around the Blouberg-
Makgabeng area, meant that those communities accepted a new political
identity, i.e., that of the Bahananwa authority. The new kind of political
identity emerged as the smaller communities united under one roof of the
Bahananwa polity. Those communities came to define themselves as the
subjects of the Malebogo royal house. The old political identities of loose,
small clans were now replaced by a more centralised authority led by the
Bahananwa dynasty.
These traditional societies in Makgabeng put much focus on people and
their relation and reaction to authority rather than fixing physical
boundaries on land occupied by each group. Whereas every group could
359 Interview, Robert Manaka, Inveraan village, 29 December 2004.
360 Ibid.
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