Tswana architecture and responses to colonialism

Abstract

When considering the nature of culture contact and colonialism it is as important to study the continuities in the host society, as it is to study the impositions made by incoming peoples. The diverse relationships between colonised and colonising societies are likely to be played out in aspects of material culture. This study examines Ntsweng and Phalatswe, two Tswana settlements of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, the period of transition to British colonial authority. Architectural styles and settlement layout are examined in historical perspective and they demonstrate marked continuities well into the twentieth century. These continuities have to be understood not only in terms of the associations between Africans and Europeans, but also in terms of the nature of power in Tswana communities and, in particular, the relations between chiefs and their people. Chiefly power is also an essential factor in understanding the place of religion and the adoption of Christianity. As a consequence, rather than passively receiving introduced ideas and material culture, it appears that these societies coming under British authority were interpreting and incorporating such elements in ways relevant to their own society.