Notes on the Place Names of Ngamiland

by MARK A. PETERS'"
A small area ofNgamiland north and west of the Lake was once the hunting ground ofa group of
maSarwa (Bushmen) known to the baTawana as the maKakwe. There are still Bushmen in the
area living as scattered dependents of the ovaHerero. The record of their former control of these
lands is preserved in the name Makakung, now used of the country surrounding Kgakge and
Simboyo. It is not often that a place name so clearly relates history, but it occurs often enough to
make the study of place names a valuable aid in reconstructing the past. In one sense, no doubt,
every place name is a small vessel of historical fact, for the act of naming a place is itself an
historical act. But this barren revelation would be oflittle value to the historian were it not for
the additional fact that in Ngamiland, where half a dozen different languages are spoken, the
linguistic character of a name indicates who the name-givers were. Even this is the least infor-
mation to be had from a place name. To see what else may be found it is worth pursuing "Maka-
kung" a bit further. The name itself is clearly Tswana, given and used by speakers of Tswana,
not by the maSarwa themselves. The prefix "Ma-" and the locative suffix "-ng" reveal tbe
names's linguistic source. The name literally means "at (the place of) the maKakwe."
Who the maKakwe were is somewhat obscure. Though the maSarwa are notoriously vague
with respect to names used in self-reference, the name Makakwe almost certainly contains a
Bushman core. Indeed "Kakwe" may be the correct derivative name of a maSarwa group.
Bushmen, lacking a tribal system, talk about "us" with reference to their immediate selves, and
"others" with reference to neighbours and more distant Bushmen. "Kakwe" refers to the 4==aullei,
a sub-section of the !kung who belong to the northern group of Bushmen. But the maSarwa at
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Qangwa, the !kung, refer to those now in the area of Makakung as the Xhanikwe, and (Ma-)-
kakwe is perhaps a corruption of this by elision of the middle syllable. Xhanikwe probably refers
to Ilana the general name given to Bushmen who live in the Okavango delta and practise an
economy based on a wetland environment. Kwe is a suffix regularly added to Bushman group
names and means "man", thus Xhanikwe = Ilana man. In speculating about the identity of a
people one begins, of course, to pass beyond the content of the place name itself to more con-
ventional problems of history and anthropology, but the name opens the door to such specu-
lations, and to a certain extent they do remain linguistic.
The formation of place. names from the tribal names of "foreigners" is not uncommon in
Tawana (the dialect of Tswana spoken in Ngamiland). During the past three years a large
population of Angolans have migrated to the northern part of Ngamiland. A group of the
Mbukushu tribe, they call themselves Mbundu. The area in which they have established
themselves is now commonly referred to by Tswana-speakers as Mabundung: "at (the place of)
the Mabundu." The correct tribal name has been slightly altered by dopping the initial "m",
and to this root the Tawana prefix and suffix have been added.
A similar bit of history is recorded by the name Masubia, used of a small village south of
Gomare on the western side of the Delta. Sillery records the event in his Bechuanaland Protectorate
(London, 1952) were he writes that the Masubia under Leswane II moved from Rakops to the
Mababe Depression where "they lived until 1902 when the Mababe began to dry up. They then
returned to the Chobe with the exception of small sections of the tribe which went to Tlhale near

·Mark Peters, who is from Wellesley, Massachussetts, USA, graduated rrom Harvard Law School in 1968, and came
10 Botswana later that year as a Peace Corps volunteer. He worked as Legal Advisor to the North West District Council
in Maun, until he left the country in 1971.

219
 Gomare in Ngamiland." After the arrival of these people, the area in which they settled came
to be called "Masubia", though primarily, it seems, by Europeans rather than by the local
baTawana and baYei. Thus in a description of the old route from Tsau, once the baTawana
tribal capital, to Andara, Masubia Village is noted as one of the stopping places, and the
name still appears on modern maps.l The original name, Tlhale, is now used by the baTawana
and baYei, who say they know of no place called Masubia. That this is almost certainly an
example of European place-naming is further attested by the fact that the word has never taken
the Tswana form, Masubieng.
If we return again to Makakung there is more to be found. The ovaHerero, who have
inhabited the area since their migrations from South West Africa early in this century, used to
call it Tjoruuma, meaning "a dusty place". Though the name describes the most characteristic
feature of Makakung, it has fallen into disuse and been replaced by the Tswana name. From an
even earlier time comes the Yei name Kungxuni, meaning "at the mokolane tree". It too has
been replaced by the Tswana name.
Tha t the Tswana names of the politically dominant tribe should have generally replaced the
names used by earlier inhabitants, particularly the maSarwa and ba Yei, is perhaps to be ex-
pected. In fact it has not often happened; Makakung is something of an exception in this
respect. Ngami itself offers an example of the more typical result. It is widely agreed that the
maSarwa called the lake Nxabe, or "giraffe", a word which has survived in the bastardized
Nghabe, the name now used by Tswana-speakers for the lake and for the river at its eastern end.
Most of my informants suggested that Ngami in turn was an English corruption of Nghabe. 2
This in fact seems unlikely. In his Lake Ngami Andersson writes that: The Lake goes with the
natives by different names ... all of which are more or less appropriate ... such as Inghabe
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(the giraffe) ; Noka ea Botletle (lake of the Botletle); Noka ea Mokoron (lake of boats) ; and
Ngami, or The Waters.
The distinction between Nghabe and Ngami is drawn from the difference between the original
Bushman and a later Yei name. The baYei call the lake Nxame, a word which means "a floating
mat or bridge (of grass or reeds)" , moratho in Tswana. It is this word which is almost certainly
the source of the anglicized "Ngami". Large numbers ofba Yei were living at the Lake when the
baTawana arrived from the south and, according to Schapera in Correspondence, were still there
when the first Europeans came. It is not unlikely, then, that the Yei name had the widest
currency in the area and was the one heard most often by the Europeans. Neitherofthe Tswana
names, Noka ea Botletle and Noka ea Mokoron, has survived in current usage. Andersson
suggests why the Yei name predominated: As the last designation (Ngami) is that by which the
lake is best known to Europeans, I will retain it throughout the remainder of this narrative.
It may have been a result of European interference (a few Europeans were already established
in the area, among them Bauer and Van Zyl) that the Yei Nxame now appears in anglicized
form on all maps of the Lake, but the baTawana themselves have given up the Tswana names
and use the Bushman-derived Nghabe. Hence the name of the entire baTawana Tribal Terri-
tory-Ngamiland-is a European concoction based on a Yei word, and there is no Tswana name
for the area or the Lake. It must be remarked, however, that only after the coming of the
European did geographical areas of this size acquire individual names.
The way in which the baTawana have selected place names for the important villages and
physical features of their district comes more fully to light if one tours the Tawana tribal capitals.
When they broke away from the bamaNgwato and moved north into the area of present-day
Ngamiland, the baTawana first established themselves at the Kgwebe Hills, several miles south
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 of Lake Ngami. Kgwebe became the chiefs village and the first tribal capital. The name, it is
generally agreed, is that of the chief who was living at the hills when Tawana arrived. One
informant, a moKgalagari, told me that Kgwebe was himself a moKgalagari headman or
chief. 3 But all my other informants, both baTawana and ba Yei, agree that he was a moSarwa.
The confusion about his identity is increased by suggestions that his true name was not Kgwebe
but Kgoba, a Bushman word meaning "corn" (mabele). The baYei claim a special relationship
with him. His son, a boy named Mokaze, is said to have been raised by the Yei chiefSankose, and
from that time is dated a particular friendship between baYei and maSarwa. Whether this story
is true or not, its existence supports the assertion that Kgwebe was a moSarwa.
I have been unable to discover what the hills were called before they were given the name
Kgwebe. My informants all agree that use of the name dates from the advent of the baTawana:
the hills, they say, are called Kgwebe because Kgwebe was living there when the baTawana
arrived. It was the latter, then, who first used Kgwebe, and in this sense it is a baTawana name,
though linguistically it is either Bushman or Kgalagari.
The baTawana's use of Kgwe be to designate the site oftheir first capital suggests two thoughts.
In the first place it illustrates what occurred frequently a hundred and fifty years later when
Europeans were successfully establishing their presence in Ngamiland. The newcomers in both
instances found it most convenient to designate an inhabited area with the name of the chief
they found living there. Thus in the Europeans' description of the old route from Tsau to Andara,
Gomare is referred to as Seromsi's (the chiefs correct name was Selomesi), Sepopa as Morotse-
nyane's Village, Xhaoga as Magogo's Village and Kajaja as Parake's Village. Early European
maps of Ngamiland consistently designate places in this fashion rather than with the correct
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local name. The ba Tawana obviously did the same when they came to Kgwebe's vil1age. Though
there is also an important distinction. The baTawana, by settling at the hills, caused the name
"Kgwebe" to survive the earlier name. None of the comparable European names are now used.
Despite this difference the initial process of place-naming seems to have been the same.
Comparison of the baTawana penetration to that of the Europeans suggests the second point.
They were probably equally peaceful. At the very least, the arrival of the baTawana at Kgwebe
was sufficiently peaceful for them to have learnt who Kgwebe was. But more than that, the use of
his name to designate the area suggests that the baTawana and Kgwebe's people lived together
during a period in which the former continued to regard themselves as outsiders, for they called
the area "Kgwebe's".
From this digression we can follow the baTawana to Toteng, the only important tribal capital
with a Tswana name. The tribe had moved there by the time Livingstone reached the Lake in
1849. The name itself preserves the memory of the village's former im portance. Letlotla means
"the abandoned home", Toteng being a form of the locative. The "old home" is that of Lets hoi a-
thebe I, the chief who reigned there and who is buried at the former kgotla. The name dates, of
course, from after the tribe's departure. In Letsholathebe's time the village was known as Kwaga
Sethebe, "at the home of the shield", Letsholathebe being the "shield bearer". Livingstone and
later Andersson, who met Letsholathebe there in 1854, make no reference to the proper name
but chose to use the inelegant Bataoanatown, which appeared on Andersson's and some sub-
sequent maps. The Rev. Hepburn, who was there in 1877, appears to have known this same
village as Yanana, a name which has not survived.
After Letsholathebe's death in 1874 the vicissitudes of being close neighbours ofthe Matabele
caused the tribe to abandon the site. Since then it has been resettled by Herero, who eall the
village Engarambuyu or Ngarambuyu. The name means "assegai" and is said to refer to a

221
 battle between tbe Herero and either the Matabele or Kololo. My informants said this fight was
with the Matabele, but the standard histories mention no encounter between them and the
Herero; the Kololo under Sebetwane, however, are said to have done battle with the Herero
and been badly beaten. These questions, of course, take us beyond the province of place names..
In a long running fight the Herero claim to have driven their adversaries back to the sit-e of
Letsholathebe's abandoned capital, a feat commemorated in the martial name.
During the years of the Matebele incursions the tribe became wanderers, seeking refuge for
themselves and their cattle in the fastness of the Delta. Between 1884 and 1891 Moremi II was
successively established at Digogwaneng, Kamakaku, and Nakaletswee, all in the area on the
western edge ofthe Delta between Tsau and Nokaneng. These names are oflittle importance for
our study. The first and last are Tswana, meaning, respectively, "at (the place of) the small
frogs" and "lechwe horns". Kamakaku is a Bushman name which is said to mean "walking bent
through woods."
When the danger from the Matabele waned and the baTawana were once again able to
establish themselves permanently, they did so at Tsau, north and west of the Lake on the Thaoge
River. Tsau is a Bushman word properly written "xau" and pronounced with an initial click
( I/) consonant. I t is the generic name still used of a group ofBushmen living in the Tsau area and
means "buffalo". The word's earlier pronunciation as "xau" suggests that Andersson may have
been there in 1854. On page 494 of 1.tJce Ngami, he records that, after a twelve-day voyage up the
Thaoge River from the Lake, "we reached a large village where the great chief of the baYei
resided". In his text he gives no name, but an accompanying map indicates the village was
called Kaug. Whether or not this is Xau is uncertain, but noone at Tsau or Nokaneng can now
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recall any place name remotely resembling Andersson's Kaug. ba Yei tradition records that an
important headman named Qoongunyane lived east of Nokaneng at that time, but his village
was either Kaxara or Kaditixwa. It seems unlikely that Andersson was attempting to transcribe
either of these. It may be that he meant to record the old form of the name Tsau, a form since
obscured by Tswanaisation.
Ii was only as recently as 1915 that the baTawana moved to the site of their present capital,
Maun. The history ofits name is short. The earliest known version is the Yei "kau", which means
a small group of short reeds. The baYei applied the name to the stretch of river in the area of the
present village. The baTawana coming from Toteng in the nineteenth century corrupted
"kau" to "mau" and added the locative suffix, "_ng". The correct Tswana name, then, is
Maung, the spelling adopted on the most recent map ofthe country.
Of their four important tribal capitals, the baTawana gave a purely Tswana name to only
one, Kwaga Sethebe (Toteng). The others are linguistically Bushman, Yei and, possibly,
Kgalagari. That Kwaga Sethebe is unique in this respect may reflect the singular position of the
tribe during the years of Letsholathebe I's reign. They were then most forcefully asserting their
supremacy in Ngamiland, experiencing, perhaps, their golden age. The martial name of their
capital and the very fact that it was a Tswana name suggest something of the tribe's self-conscious
self-assertion. The other names- Kgwebe, Tsau and Maun - the baTawana found and used, in
the case of the latter two, Tswanaising them in the process.
Coming into country already inhabited, the baTawana could treat place names in one of
three ways: they might introduce a pure Tswana word, i.e., a "foreign" name; or Tswanaise the
local name; or use the local name unchanged. Kgwebe is probably intermediate between the
first and second of these alternatives. Though Kgwebe was first used by the baTawana, it does
not represent an attempt to impose a foreign name, but quite the contrary announces their own

222
 status as outsiders. The first alternative would be the most aggressive and disruptive, a means of
proclaiming, as it were, the new order. The second two alternatives they are much the same
are quite the opposite. In this respect they evince the same peaceful penetration of the country
that was suggested by the baTawana's use of the name Kgwebe.
The acceptance of existing place names also suggests that the baTawana penetration was not
rapid. There can be no doubt that while the baTawana remained in the south near the Lake
they became acquainted with a large number of thelocal names of places to the north beyond the
areas which they themselves inhabited. By the time the tribe came to move to Tsau, for example,
they had certainly long been familiar with the Bushman name, Xau. When the village became
important to the baTawana it was sufficient that the old name be Tswanaised.' This importance
may have been established before the tribe actually moved their capital to Tsau. It is still common
knowledge that the original name was Xau, a fact that suggests the Tswanaisation did not
occur very long ago. By this time a new Tswana name would have been "foreign" to the
baTawana themselves. A brieflook at some ofthe important place names not yet mentioned will
indicate the extent to which the baTawana accepted local place names and the variety of
languages from which they derive.
Shakawe, in the north-western corner of Ngamiland, takes its name from Mbukushu, the
name being that of a medicinal tree. South ofShakawe is the village ofSepopa and to the westof
that the Tsodilo Hills. Both names are Yei. Livingstone, describing the country of the Mbukushu
chief, Libebe, wrote that "there is a hill called Sorila, very high, and a waterfall near it".
Schapera, in a footnote, identifies these as the Tsodilo Hills and "presumably the Popa Falls".11
Livingstone's Sorila is from the Tswana Sodile, a corruption of the Yei Shediro, the meaning of
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which I have not been able to discover. (Tsodilo almost certainly comes from the Mbukushu
work Serilo- sheer. Ed.) Sepopa, the name of the village, is a Yei word which means "waterfall"
or "rapids". The name of the Popa Falls in the Caprivi Strip may derive from the same word.
East of Sepopa on the far side of the Okavango River is another Yei village, Seronga. The
name is Yei, translated with the Tswana tlUloge, "the deep water of mid-stream in a large river".
Further south is Gomare (the "g" is hard); its name is Bushman, a word the meaning of which
seems lost. On the old route from Tsau to Andara, Gomare is referred to as Seromsi's, an attempt
to render the name of a Morotse chief, Selomesi, who migrated to Gomare from Barotseland
during the reign of Moremi II (1876-91) and who is said to have died in 1907. During the early
1950's the village moved to its present site from another about a mile to the north. This move
occasioned no change of name, a fact which indicates that the meaningless word, Gomare, has
become for the people of the village nothing more than a name and so easily transported.
Gomare is at the southern edge of the large area known officially today as the Okavango
consti tuency. The name has been applied to part of the area for a long time. I ts origin is said to be
Mbukushu and the correct form Kovango. The 0- prefix almost certainly comes from the Herero
language through whose area early travellers had to pass to reach the Okavango. In Angola the
river is called the Cubango, of course, and Kovango or Okavango is certainly a form of this.
Indeed, noone in the area doubts that the name was brought from the north. From the river it
was applied to the country in the river's immediate vicinity and to the northern parts of the
Delta. The haMbukushu of South West Africa and Angola are said to have referred to all the
people ofthe area, whether maSarwa, haMbukushu, or maGcercku, as ba- or maKavango. Use
of the word to designate the Delta in its entirety is a European contribution, and indicates that
it was the European who first regarded it as a single geographical unit. None of the languages
indigenous to the Okavango Delta uses only one name for the area; the practice has rather been
to name individual islands, marshes, and waterways.

223
 The river has other names. In Yei it is called Morwanga, a fact of some interest because ofthe
following statement from Andersson:
On the ninth day after we had entered the Teoge, we left the principal channel and passed
into the Omoroanga (little river) Vavarra. This rivulet is merely one of those small branches
of the main stream ...
Morwanga is translated boteng, "depth", so Andersson's rendering, "little river", seems wrong.
In the area ofSeronga the river is called Rware by the haMbukushu. Nowhere in the north is a
Tswana name used. But in the south the river, or at least its western branch, has acquired, by the
time it reaches the area of Tsau, the Tswana name Thaoge, "the deep waters of mid-stream".
South of Go mare is Nokana, "the small river" (more often seen in the locative, Nokaneng).
It is the only village on the western side of the Delta with a Tswana name. To the west is Qangwa,
its name a Bushman word more properly spelled Qana. Tswana speakers say the word means
"god" (modimo) , but the translation is doubtful. At any rate the name is used ofa long, dry river
bed running from near the South West Africa border toward the Delta and of the spring and
village at the valley's head. On most modern maps the spring and village appear as Levisfontein,
but who Levis was noone in the area now recalls. (He was a member of the Boer trekkers who
went to Angola at the end of the last century. His name was Lewis but was pronounced in the
Afrikaans fashion. Ed.)
Continuing south from Nokana one passes through Tsau to Sehitwa on the Lake. Sehitwa is a
new village built by the Herero in the years since their migration from South West Africa. The
present name is a Tswana corruption ofTjihitwa, a Herero word signifying a "place where
people bend down to pass beneath large trees". This appears to be less a translation than an
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explanation ofwhy the name is used. The precise meaning ofTjihitwa I do not know. The name
culminates a curious process. The Herero, coming from outside Ngamiland, chose, not un-
expectedly, to give a Herero name to their most important new village. But the baTawana,
almost immediately it appears, Tswanaised the name, so that its source and meaning are now
lost to all but the older men of the tribe. Indeed, Herero has had little linguistic impact on the
place names ofNgamiland. Like the baTawana, their immediate predecessors, the ovaHerero
have generally accepted the place names they found, even in those parts of the country specifi-
cally allotted them by the Tawana chief.
A short excursion to the east can complete this survey. On the Botietle River lies Makala-
mabedi, partially in Ngamiland, partially in the territory of the bamaNgwato. The name is
Tswana and means "two camel thorn trees".
The name of the river is more puzzling. Traditionally, rivers ofsubstanliallength have been
give a number of local names. The Okavango River offers an extreme but not atypical example
of this; from Mohembo to the area near Sepopa it has the following Bushman names: Bonga,
Xhi, Bakarakwe, Xangtsaudi, K wadau, Wonga, X wega, Qaoga and Xunxu (my own spellings).
At Makalamabedi; the Bodelle is sometimes called Noka ea Makalamabedi, at Chanoga, Noka
ea Chanoga and so forth. The European, who has found it more convenient to give a river a
single name, has injected some confusion into the situation. Botlctlc, which is now commonly
applied to the river along its entire length, from its beginning at the Thamalakane ncar Maun
to its outlet at Lake Xau, is in this respect almost certainly a European creation. Boteti, (this
rather than Botletle is the correct form) derives from Bateti, the name of a Bushman6 group
living east ofNgamiiand along the lower reaches of the river. 7 Boteti, meaning the territory oflhe
Bateti, must have been used traditionally to designate only the strcteh of river passing through
their tribal lands. Sehapera records their claim to have arrived at the river towards the end of the
224
 eighteenth century, which, if true, dates the earliest use of the name. It is quite probable that the
name was brought from the east by the first Europeans, who found it used there and applied it
along the river's entire length. It is certainly not widely known or used in Ngamiland, where the
river is most often called Dauga. Said to be Bushman, this name is variously rendered by early
maps as Daukha, Dzuga, Zouga, Zuga and Zoga. 6 I have not been able to discover its meaning,
though this probably derives from Xau, the name of the Lake at the southern end of the river and
also the name given to the whole Lake area (Lake Ngami) at the western end. The Lake was also
known as Xautsaa tsaa in Bushman means "water".
North ofMaun is the Yei village of Shorobe. Its name, suitably Yei, means gopane, a kind of
large lizard. Of more interest is the name of another Yei village north ofShorobe. Like Sehitwa,
the name Sankuyu demonstrates the way in which the influence of Tswana may obscure the
etymology of a place name. Hankuyu is a Yei word that means "mochaba trees" (the singular
form is kakuyu). Tswana speakers have corrupted Hankuyu to Sankuyu and rendered the word
meaningless. An old man was able to link the present name to hankuyu, but for others in the
village it had lost its meaning.
The twenty or twenty-five place names which have been described above represent a small
fraction of the total number now in use in Ngamiland. An appendix lists an additional one
hundred seventy-five, but is itself far from complete. I have remarked the relative paucity of
Tswana place names. The largest single group comes from Bushman, which comprises 48% of
the entire list. Despite this preponderance, of the larger villages and more important landmarks
in the country, only Tsau and Gomare have Bushman names. The Goha Hills and Mababe
Depression could be added to this list though they are not in Ngamiland. They were excluded
from the area of the tribal reserve when the boundaries were demarcated by the British Govern-
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ment but have always been claimed by the baTawana as part of their hunting grounds. Most of
the other important place names are Yei, with an assortment from Mbukushu, (Shakawe),
Tswana, (Toteng), and Herero (Sehitwa) completing the list. The baYei,9 indeed, seem to have
been more aggressive bestowers of place names than either the baTawana or ovaHerero, who
came to the country later. One aspect of this tendency showed itself often among my baYei
informants, who were zealous to claim that nearly every place name was YeL Many asserted that
the entire country around the Delta once had Yei names since displaced by Tswana, Mbukushu,
and Herero and now lost. This claim is probably exaggerated, for even in areas where the baYei
still predominate there are large numbers of BUlIhman names.
The Tswana, Herero, Yei and Mbukushu names are for those who speak the respective
languages- still generally intelligible. This is not unexpected, for the four tribes the baTawana,
ovaHerero, baYei and haMbukushu have come to Ngamiland fairly recently, probably since
1750. Most of the names they have used .'~ 4).~ place named, such as Modumotau,
(Tswana), "lion's roar"; Dishetha (Mbukushu), "the whirlpool"; Sekhake (Yei), "hippo
path"; Katuo, (Herero), "a creek"; b) commemorate an event of local importance, such as
Nakaletswe (Tswana), "lechwe horns", which were found there; Samukunga (Mbukushu),
"to hide children"; Modia (Yei), "animal fur", which was found there; Ngaranga (Herero),
"guinea fowl" , a dead one having been found there; or c) preserve the name of some man, such
as Mohembo (Mbukushu), the nameofa man who died there; Kaibara (Herero), the nameofa
man born there; Rakaku (Yei) , a man whose village it was; Samedupe (Tswana), the name ofa
man, Medupe, who lived there. The practice of honouring someone in this fashion is uncommon
among the peoples of Ngamiland. The greatest number of names falls into the first of these
categories: descriptive names in the current idiom. Only where two languages have reacted
upon one another do any of them become obscure - Sehitwa and Sankuya are examples.
225
 Bushman names are more difficult. They are obviously the oldest group of names and are still
used in many areas that the Bushmen have long since abandoned. Indeed, Bushman names are
found in every part ofNgamiland, and still form the largest single group of place names. Because
they are generally old, pre-dating the coming of the present inhabitants, and because few non-
Bushmen in the district have more than a rudimentary knowledge of the Sarwa dialects, it is very
difficult to assign meanings to many of them. The difficulties are increased by the fact that the
Bushmen ofNgamiland speak a great number of dialects, so a word in one may have a different
meaning or none at all in a second. Finally, the Bushman place names have been so battered and
mispronounced by non-Bushman, that even Bushman informants when available can often only
grope for and suggest tentative translations. 1o It is quite clear that for the great majority of the
district's present inhabitants, Bushman place names are meaningless; they are, in fact, purely
place names, without an descriptive or historical significance.
The Bushmen are said to be inveterate namers of places, giving individual names to very small
areas. The more local a name, and the less widespread its use, the shorter is its expected life-span.
I t is perhaps not surprising that Bushman names, once attached to such important geographical
features as the Goha Hills or Lake Ngami, should have had sufficiently wide currency to survive
the departure of the Bushmen themselves. There is no consistency in this, of course; the eq ually
important Tsodilo Hills and Okavango River, for example, have lost the Bushman names they
had once. And it is hardly possible to say that the Tsodilo Hills, with a Yei name, were more
important to the. baYei than their large village at Gomare, for which the Bushman name has
never been lost. But the survival of a large number of very local Bushman place names is rather
curious. It suggests that the Bushmen and those who displaced them- primarily the ba Yei
must have lived in quite intimate contact with one another for some time, for however long it
took the latter to assimilate such a host of "meaningless" place names. Contact of this kind can be
Reproduced by Sabinet Gateway under licence granted by the Publisher (dated 2009).

seen today in the area around Qangwa where large numbers of Bushmen live as dependents of
the Herero. Nearly all- all except two in fact - of the place names there are still Bushman; none
is Herero.
It is proper to remark in passing that two languages have made almost no contribution to the
place names of Ngamiland. I have found only one of Gcereku origin: Sekondomboro, near
Shakawe, meaning "a chicken of moderate size". Kgalagari has figured with only slightly more
importance. The names of two areas near Shakawe - Dichaube and Xhaoga - are Kgalagari in
origin. Dichaube was translated "sand" (motllzaba); I have no translation of Xhaoga. When a
moKgalagari from south ofLakc Ngami was asked to translate these two names, he was unable
even to confirm that they were Kgalagari; the dialect, he said, would have been quite different
from his own. Several names from the country south of Lake Ngami, including the Ngwanakau
Hills and Shulabompl' River, are from the same source. Ngwanakau, which appears on most
maps, incorrectly, as Ngwanalekau, means a "small ant heap". I have no translation of Shu la-
bompe.
English is the only other language which has contributed to the formation of Ngamiland's
place names. One English name, Chiefs Island, is in common use. Levisfontein, from Afrikaans,
is the only other direct contribution from a European language. Indeed, Levisfontein seems to be
known only to mapmakers and can properly be ignored. Less direct contributions from the
Europeans have bcen more important. I t was they who defined larger geographical a~eas than
the country's previous inhabitants had. Only since their coming have such areas as Ngamiland
and thc Okavango Delta been defined and named as single units. The European has also found
it desirable to fix the names of rivers with more clarity. In the past they had a variety of local
names, each suecn:eded by another as one moved up or down stream. A striking example is
226
 found in the river that links the Delta with the Mababe Depression. Within a distance offorty
miles it is called the Khwai, the Mochaba, the Kudumane and the Mababe. There is a tendency
now, under the influence of Europeans in the area, to use the single name "Khwai".
Early written records are a ditect source of historical information about place names. From
time to time I have had occasion to refer to the journals of Livingstone and Andersson. Theirs are
the first written accounts of the area and record much information about the place names in use
a hundred years ago. Livingstone's journals are the more helpful; Andersson too often provides
only interesting puzzles. Early maps are another source of information. One was published with
Andersson's Lak.e Ngami; another, less useful, with A.A. Anderson's Twenty-Five rears in a
Waggon in South Africa (Chapman, Hall, 1888); three others dated 1912, 1913, and 1915 were
printed by the Protectorate Government and published with the "Bechuanaland Protectorate,
Annual Reports, 1902-3 to 1923-4".
The problems one confronts dealing with the early written sources are well illustrated with a
quotation from Anderson:
Very few inhabitants are scattered over this part of the desert, few hills are to be seen, until
we are at Lake Ngami, when the Lubalo, Makapola and Makabana hills come into view,
and it is round the lake that the people under the chief Molemo live, and at his kraal and
others along the river-banks of the Zouga or Bot-let-Ie ... The principal villages are
Sebubempie, Mokhokhotlo, Mamakahuie, Mozelenza, Semaai, and numerous others
occupied by Bushmen ...
Of the hills he names, only the Makabana (properly makgabana small hills or ridges) can be
identified. Though Lubalo or Makkapola may refer to the Kgwebe Hills, which are close to
Makgabana and much more prominent, I have found noone who can identifY either name.
Reproduced by Sabinet Gateway under licence granted by the Publisher (dated 2009).

Of the "principal villages", I can identify none they could be attempts to reproduce the names
of local he'admen - though Sebubumpie is perhaps a reference to Shulabompe. This is an
example of the early record at its worst: Anderson's rendering of Moremi as Molemo gives
warning of the quality of his transcriptions, (though this may well have been an honorific name
given to Moremi and not a mistranscription). Livingstone's persistent use of headmen's names
to designate their villages causes the same kind of difficulty. Travelling between the Botletle and
Mababe Depression he records his passing through Lingalo's Village, Sumagow's Village,
Makheto's Village, and Palane's, all references to Yei Headmen. Lingalo, properly Dingalo, was
a moTswana representative of the Paramount Chief. Some of these names survived on latq'
maps, none were ever used as true place names by the ba Yei or baTawana. Less often an early
writer records a true place name no longer in use. Livingstone in his Journals records "N'gwa"
as an early name of the Goha Hills, calls the Khwai River the Mababe or Dodobe and refers to
the Savuti Channel as the Sontwa. In these instances a record has been preserved of place names
now apparently lost.
Despite the difficulties one finds when dealing with the earliest written sources, it appears
that, by introducing written records, the European will have had a profound effect on place-
naming, for he has injected into its dynamics an element that should retard erosion and change.
I do not mean to suggest that the journals of Livingstone or Andersson have accomplished this.
A great number of the names they recorded were never in use or have since disappeared, and
it is not possible to credit them with the survival of many still current. Merely putting a name
on a map or recording it in a book hardly guarantees its survival: witness the mysterious Levis-
fontein, which cartographers have tried so assiduously to preserve. But to the extent that
writing tends to congeal a language, it also helps to fix its place names. Ngami, Tsodilo, Botletle

227
 and Maun, though "incorrect" forms used by Europeans, have achieved a general legitimacy
because they have been widely di:-seminated on maps and in the writings of explorers, scientists
and travellers. l l As writing becomes a more common means of communication and a more
common source of information in Ngamiland itself, place names there will tend to acquire
standard forms and standard spellings. Whether this occurs through the development, more or
less spontaneous, of a consensus, or through the self-conscious decisions of a governmen t com-
mittee, the end result will be much the same: a more static litany of place names. But at present
there remains much fluidity, and with that fact in mind it has seemed of so me valuelo record the
more important place names now used in Ngamiland.

IAn undated copy of a description of this route is in the files of the baTawana Tribal Administration. The internal
evidence indicates that the original was prepared after 1902 and probably not later than 1915. These dates suggest that
the paper was prepared by or for Captain Stigand, though the identity of the compiler is not important for our purposes.
'Schapera, commenting on Livingstone's statement that "The meaning (of Lake Ngami) is 'great water' "says" The
ilion- ''''IT!1l1only "CHPICd VcrSiOil is lhat lhr 'HlllU' is dcriwd lI'om the CClIIral Bushman word IIll,habe, ·~i .. alf\·."
Livingstone's Missionary Correspondence I. Schapera, ed. (London I Chatto and Windus, 1961) p. 135 and fn. 4 (hereafter
cited as Correspondence.) Xantsaa means "Great Water" in Bushman.
'Schapera supports this.!. Schapera, The Ethnic Composition o/Tswana Tribes (London School of Economic and Political
Science, 1952) p. 96.
'There is no click in Tawana, consequently "Tsau" is probably the closest IhfY evcr COlllf 10 the correct promIHciati.. ".
'Livingstone's Private Journals 1851-18531. Schapera, ed. (London, Chatto and Wind us, 1960) p. 67 and fn. I. (Hereafter
cited as Journals.)
oHalf-caste, probably mixed with baTalaote.
Reproduced by Sabinet Gateway under licence granted by the Publisher (dated 2009).

'The ba Teti call themselves the baU ra; the former name is used by Tswana-speakers and is to that extent, a Tswana
name. See Correspondi:nce p. 161, fn. 2.
"The names Zouga, Zuga, and Zoga are not obvious corruptions of Dauga, but none of my informants recognized these
as names of the river, and the transitional form Dzuga links them to Dauga. Schapera has suggested that Zouga was the
name of a Yei headman. Correspondi:nce p. 131, fn. 3. If Dauga and Zouga are in fact the same name my informants
contradict this.
'Probably the first bantu immigrams'and therefore bestowers of the first sintu names, which would be recognizable by
other bantu groups.
lOKauxwi and Xauxe are both translated sekgwa sa dinari, "buffalo forest". Presumably they represent the same Bushman
word differently corrupted. But their sources may be two different Bushman dialects, and the superficial visual relation-
ship only accidental. T'he ba Yei have been less hard on Bushman names than the baTawana, for Yei itself employs click
consonants. Tswana speakers often avoid the click by rendering it with one of their own consonants; thus Xau is pro-
nounced and spelled Tsau, Xaaxao as Xaakao (the first click is preserved) and Qwoshi as Goshi.
HAn attempt has been made recently to reintroduce the earlier, more correct formsoftbe last three. This attempt itself
substantiates the argument that writing introduces standard forms.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

A.A. Anderson, Twenty-five Years in a Waggon in South Africa (Chapman, Hall, 1888).
C.J. Andersson, Lake Ngami (London, Hurst Blackett, 1856).
1. Schapera, The Ethnic Composition r.if Tswa1Ul. Tribes (London School of Economics and Political
Science, 1952).
I. Schapera (ed.), Livingstone's Missionary Correspondence (London, Chatto and Windus, 1961).
1. Schapera (ed.), Livingstone's Private Journals, 1851-1853 (London, Chatto and Windus, 1960).
G.B. Silberbauer, Bushman Surv~ Report (Bechuanaland Government, 1965).
228
 A. Sillery, Beckuanaland Protectorate (London, OUP 1952).
E.M. Thomas, The Harmless People (New York, Seeker Warburg, 1959).

App!!IldD
In addition to the small number of place names discussed in the accompanying paper, the
appended list comprises many ofthe lesser place names commonly used to indicate the location
oflands and cattle posts. The list might be expanded many times if to it were added all the most
local place names or those still preserved by the Bushman and baYei but not in general use.
In order to collect information about the place names discussed in the paper, I have ques-
tioned a variety of informants at different times and in different places. While I cannot be
assured that the information gathered is correct in all its detail, it does represent the "consensus
of my informants, for the most part older men of the tribe. Where there was no consensus I have
so indicated.
It has not been possible to be so fastidious in checking information about the minor place
names, which constitute the bulk of the following list. For each of these I am able to present only
the consensus which emerged in individual kgotlas. It was common in these situations for two or
three older men to answer my questions, and only occasionally were their replies challenged by
the others. I have not been able to check the information presented in this way and, though
generally it is no doubt true, it is offered with this reservation.

Name Language Translation

Baate Tswana
Reproduced by Sabinet Gateway under licence granted by the Publisher (dated 2009).

Beetshaa Bushman metse a tswa metlhaba a maseu:

water coming from white sand
Bodiba Tswana a deep place in a river
Botletle (see text, page 224)
Bowajankwe Tswana leopard skin
Chanega Bushman molalanyana: a thin neck
Chiefs Island English
Ciba
Chigi Bushman
Danega Bushman thobo: harvest
Dirhao Yei setlhabana: sand
Dichaube Kgalagari motlhaba: sand
Didiba Tswana wells
Disctha Mbukushu whirlpool
Ditlou Tswana elephants
Dobe Bushman ditlhatshana: bushes
Dobetshaa ditto metse a letswai: salt water
Dongo ditto go tlapa,. ba tLapa teng: to bathe
Eretshaa ditto metse a setLkabana: sandy water
Etshaa ditto water in a small pan
Gamutwa ditto
Gane (Ganexwi) ditto
Gauxa ditto lediba La dikubu: hippo pool
Goa ditto pkiri: hyena (?)

229
 Gochaa ditto metse a maseu thala: very white water
Goma ditto a high river grass
Gomare ditto
Gombo ditto megohe: pans
Goroku ditto sediha sa modimo: god's well
Goha (hills) ditto
Guiara ditto majwarryana a ema mo nokeng:
small stones in a river
Gunitsuge ditto
Gurungoma ditto
Gwexwa ditto Letsihogo fa dikgomo: ca ttle ford
Habu Yei (?)
Ikoga (Ikwoga; Ikwaga) Bushman stamp block
Jao Yei gothiheLwa: to be blocked off
Kabazorothwa Herero lafatshe la hatlhanka: country of servants
Kaberekele Herero man's name
Kabomokone Bushman
Kaibaro Herero man's name
Kajaja Mbukushu tsitla: a river grass
Kamakaku Bushman to walk bending through woods
Kangowa Herero tshilwana ya Lejwe: grinding stone
Kangtsang Tswana
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Kapanye Mbukushu mophane tree

Kashosho Mbukushu mogonone tree
Katuo Herero segoro: creek
Kauxwi Bushman sekgwa sa dinari: buffalo forest
Kgakge (Kgaka) Tswana guinea fowl
Kgwebe (Hills) (see text, page 220)
Khomana Tswana small khoma tret:
Khubuga Bushman perspiration
Komangeroro Herero dihokolodi: centipedes
Kudigwa Bushman
Kudinyana Bushman tsela ya k%e: waggon road
Kwekatshumo Bushman letahule fa dikgomo: whcn cattle eat grccll
grass (the autumn of callIe)
Ledibaladikubu Tswana hippo pool
Mabeleapodi Tswana goat teats
Mabundung (see text, page 219)
Magopa Tswana gathering up of remains
Maila Tswana totems, taboos
Makakung (see text, page 219)
Makalamabedi Tswana two camel thorn trees
Makgabana ditto low hills or ridges
Makolane ditto palm trees
Makutsomo ditto mokutsomo trees
Makwegana (Makwexaana, Bushman didihanyana di teng tse dintJc:
Selinda) many small wells are found there

230
 Maphane Tswana mophane trees
Mapute Tswana mildew
Maqwa Bushman ditsare: a small tree
Marunga Herero mokolane tree
Mathoatau Tswana lion's eyes
Matlapaneng Tswana at (the place of) the small stones
Matsaudi Tswana motsaudi trees
Maun (see text, page 222)
Mawana Tswana baobab trees
Mbiroba Bushman ba olela teng: they gather (things) there
Mmumoseu Tswana white earth
Moana Tswana baobab tree
Mochaba Tswana mochaba tree
Modia Yei animal fur
Modumotau Tswana lion's roar
Mogotho Tswana mogotho tree (acacia giraJfae)
Mogowagowe Bushman man's name
Mohembo Mbukushu man's name
Mokolane Tswana mokolane (palm) tree
Mokutsomo Tswana mokutsomo tree
Molatswana Tswana small molapo (vlei)
Morwanga (see text, page 224)
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Mosetho Tswana small ground-covering plant

Moswaapoo Tswana a kind of grass
Nakaletswe Tswana lechwe horns
Ngami (see text, page 220)
Ngara Mbukushu leprosy
Ngwanakau (hills) Kgalagari small ant heap
Nokana (see text, page 224)
Nqabaqao Bushman molala oa thutwa: giraffe's neck
Nxamasere ditto
Nxau Nxau ditto melse a botoka: better water
Nxedao ditto tsela ya mokolane: mokolane tree road
Nxeeke ditto tselaya mokoro: dugout path
Nxomokae ditto
Nzoo Herero bosuelo tlou: place where an elephant died
Okavango (see text, page 223)
Qaodomo Bushman "dum", "domo" means molapo or river bed
Qara ditto go kgora: to be satisfied
Qhabaxwa ditto lecha la maruswa: maruswa lake (maruswa is a
kind offruit)
Qhakwedao ditto tselaya basadi: women's road
Qhashemahu ditto
Qhaweshi ditto
Qhaxau ditto
Qhehu ditto
Qhoqhoroga ditto

231
 Qhunga ditto
Qhuru ditto
Qhurube ditto marololwane: a kind of bird
Qobe Bushman digogwaneng: at (the place of) the small frogs
Qoro ditto metse a ema, a sa tsamaye: still water
Qurui ditto mongagangala: a kind of tree
Qwee ditto
Qwoshe ditto
Rakuku Yei man's name
Samedupe Tswana man's name
Samocima Mbukushu mogopolo: thought
Samoqoma Yei koma: a song
Samukunga Mbukushu go fita bana: to hide children
Sankuyu (see text, page 225)
Sedibana Tswana a small well
Sedie ditto place where people delay, do nothing
Sedingoma ditto
Segoro ditto a creek
Sehitwa (see text, page 225)
Sejwara Bushman
Sekhako Yei tsela ya dikubu: hippo path
Sekondomboro Gcereku kuku e e tonarryana: moderate-sized chicken
Sepopa (see text, page 223)
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Seronga (see text, page 223)

Setutu Bushman
Shakawe (see text, page 223)
Shorobe (see text, page 225)
Simboyo Herero molapo oa metse: molapo of wa ter, wet molapo
Thaoge Tswana deep water
Teedae Bushman
Thamalakane Tswana (?) This is generally thought to be a Tswana
word, but no one is certain of its meaning.
It may derive from thmalala, "to go straight"
Thi toyamokole Tswana lower part of the trunk of a mokole tree
Tlamma ditto Herero
Tlhale ditto a thread
Toteng (see text, page 221)
Tsau (see text, page 222)
Tshaakwe Bushman mogobe: pan
Tshinipo Bushman
Tsi bogolama ta bele Tswana matabele ford
Tsodilo (see text, page 223)
Tsokung Tswana at (the place of the) letsoku (a red powder;
ochre :')
Tubu Yei lediba la matlaka: pan of reeds
Ukusi (pron. Ukuthi) Mbukushu a kind of tree
Vidimba Herero din tho : skin eruptions

232
 Wabe Bushman
Xabanxina ditto molamo: a clubbed stick
Xabanxwa ditto a ladder
Xabe ditto setar; sa mokabi: a kind of tree
Xada ditto sekgwa sa ditlou: elephant forest
Xakao ditto metshwere tree
Xamoga ditto
Xanakai ditto
Xangwa
Xao (not Tsau) Bushman ba jela ditlapi: a place where people eat fish
Xanxana ditto metse a pdo: water of the heart
Xarakaxamo Bushman net for catching fish
Xauxe ditto sekgwa sa dinar;: buffalo forest
Xaxa (Xixi) ditto malwetse, batho ba a IwaLa teng: sick people, a
place where people are sick
Xekedau ditto mathala basadi: the spoor of women
Xeredomo ditto molapo oa matswe: molapo of lechwes
Xexu ditto thote e e pithanyeng: a crowded, sandy place
Xhaoga Kgalagari
Xharaxao Bushman Letsibogo La dintswe: ostrich ford
Xhatsitso ditto
Xiri ditto
Xodi ditto morotologa: a thorn tree
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Xoro ditto
Xwexwe ditto a forest
Xwri ditto
Yeetsha ditto metse a eleng teng mo sedibeng; water which
collects in a well
Zao ditto mogonono tree (Terminalia sericea)

233