Tswana people

The Batswana, 85 percent of Botswana and great communities of South Africa's North West, Northern Cape, Gauteng and Free State, are the Sotho-Tswana nation of the Kalahari rim. Cattle towns of rondavels and lekgotla councils ordered by chiefs and headmen, sorghum fields and the great cattle posts made a wealthy, literate society that asked Britain for protection and got a protectorate instead of a colony. Seretse Khama's marriage, his exile and his return built Africa's steadiest democracy on diamonds and beef. Setswana, the national language, is heard from the ministries to the city taxis. Bogwera and bojale initiation, rain prayers and the kgotla's open debate keep Tswana custom deliberating in public. Eighty-five in every hundred citizens share one language. North West and Gauteng townships speak Setswana daily. Free State and Northern Cape farms employ Tswana hands. Sotho-Tswana cousins meet at weddings across the border. Botswana's name itself honours the Tswana nation.