Intro to Words of the Batswana", "Kgabo Tebele Motswasele Letter", "Letter from March 1890", and "Bogadi"
After reading these documents, I learned more about the Batswana people. In the Intro to Words of the Batswana it talks about how the Europeans translated and controlled what these people had to say in their newspaper. I feel like some of the work that was translated could be misleading from what the writer originally was trying to say, because of the Europeans that was translating the writing into English. The writing could be affected by the overall tone that the European person spins on their writing. This may also make false depictions about their culture in the long run. Also by allowing them to have this newspaper it is a way of communication and letting them express their ideas to others.
In Kgabo Tebele Motswasele I agree with what he is saying about different languages. People's culture is also associated with their language. No one would want to give a piece of that up because then you would lose a part of yourself. But he does think it is okay to learn another language that would be useful to him, such as English. In letter from March 1890, it talks a lot about Christianity throughout the letter. I think this shows how strong of an influence the English had on the people. He talks about how the different books of the Christian religion such as the New Testament. In the reading the Bogadi, I really didn't understand what was going on. After reading it appeared to me that bogadi is like marriage. The women are treated better because the family is counting on them for money or cattle. I wasn't to sure. It seems like they all had different ideas of what the Bogadi is but everyone had a couple things in common about their ideas about the Bogadi. Some people were trying to follow the Christian religion while following their idea about Bogadi and justify it so it is right with Christianity. I did not understand why the maternal uncle would be involved in any of this. Also they to imply that the wedding and the Bogadi are not the same thing. Throughout these readings I can see how the Europeans have influenced the Batswana people by little customs, religions, and much more. They use the Europeans religion beliefs, Christianity. They also think it is okay to learn English as long as they don't have to give up there language.
Pass Laws
After reading about the pass laws, I found it ridiculous that they got away with something like this. They are basically having the Africans work as slaves without them knowing it. They control where these people go, what region they are allowed to go in, etc. By controlling that they are controlling the work they can do. The English could have these Africans work for them for up to a year and then get rid of them providing them with little means. It appears to me that they used the pass laws so that big companies could get ahead in the mining towns and so that civilians couldn't come and just dig around for some diamonds. It seems like this is really were people were divided and discriminated against race. By setting up the compounds, it was like they were in prision for what they did. Mining made it easier to make the mobile worker more permanent by using these compounds.
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I couldn't agree with you more on the confusion with Bogadi... I was hoping that you would be able to give me some clarification. Then as far as language being related to the culture of the people, I wrote much of the same. It would be much different to read a paper that was not in your language, or at least it would be harder to relate to it.
ReplyDeleteI don't agree with you when you say "I found it ridiculous that they got away with something like this (pass laws)", they got away with slavery, of course they can get away with pass laws. They at least had more freedom than with slavery, and actually had a department set up to make things "better".
The readings were confusing but I decided that just like w/ different traditions in the US Bogadi means different things to different people. And their writings just showing this because like marriage can mean a love match to certain people and a business transaction to others. I think it's also confusing because it's translated from another language, so i'm sure there are some words that don't have an exact definition.
ReplyDeleteAbout the pass laws I agree that it really seems to be for the benefit of big businesses. It made me wonder if these businesses had more of an in w/ the government than we learned about in class.
I had no idea what the heck "Bogadi" was saying either at first. I had to look up what the word even meant, but once i did it made the whole reading a lot easy. From my understanding bongadi is when a man gives the father money (though in this case it's usually cattle because there was really no monetary transactions) in exchange for his daughter. From this definition it sounds bad, but from my understand it is simple a step in marriage. Without bongadi they would not be considered married.
ReplyDeleteThe pass laws were unfair, so was slavery and taking these people's land in the first place. Nothing the natives had to endure was fair, and all seems to be for the sack of money.
Your point about Intro to Words of the Batswana was something I did not even think of. English translators surely made some liberties of their own in modifying the translations to favor the British more at times. This arguably turns these primary sources into secondary sources, because the biased opinions of the British must have snuck into the translations to a degree. Because the British could alter translations, this may have been a reason why they wanted to not let the Africans have their own newspaper at first, and as a result the Africans did not get their own newspaper run by themselves until some years later.
ReplyDeleteI completely have to agree with what you have to say about the pass laws. Even though I thought slavery was abolished by the British, it seems like they were back to their evil ways. It is not even possible for me to imagine something like that or anything close to that matter happening this time in age.
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