Botswana 1972: A Day at the Kgotla, the Tribal Court

Queen Anne News. Seattle, WA. October 3, 1973

In Botswana, justice comes in two forms, the British system, and the tribal system. Day-to-day problems are handled by the tribal court where the chief or chief’s representative presides with the elders of the community. The accused and the accuser must present their case verbally and be cross-examined by the chief and elders. The judgment and punishment are swift. A case is heard the day after it is requested and, if guilty, the punishment is pronounced the same day, usually in lashings, fines, or a prison term.

In Botswana where crime is negligible, most cases can be negotiated verbally and only a few go above the tribal court to the British. To recover some stolen clothes, I had to take my case against my babysitter Rose Jibajiba, to the Kgotla, the tribal court.

The Kgotla convened when the reluctant “alleged” thief arrived on the handlebars of the policeman’s bicycle. The recording secretary laboriously carried out her table from the hut to the choicest shade of the giant Kgotla tree. A pitiful pile of filthy, torn clothing was dumped unceremoniously on the ground in the center of the circle of elders seated on their carved wooden stools. A policeman/translator and I sat on the only bench. The chief reclined in his special wooden lounge chair with crisscrossed rawhide for the seat and bade the officer begin.

The office read the charge. “Rose is accused of “theft by servant” by Walls and Tiller. That she took clothing and articles from their homes for her own use. The pile of garments lying before us was found in her and her mother’s roundavels.” The chief asked me to make my statement.

One sentence at a time, so it could be translated into Setswana, I told of gradually disappearing goods while Rose cared for my son. I said that upon finding that my neighbor, Joyce Tiller, a Motswana, had the same problem, we went on a search and seizure mission with the police to Rose’s rondavel. We had found some of our clothing there. My total loss was Rand 25 ($35) and I looked at the pitiful pile of filthy clothing. The things that had been precious to me I had not found.

The search and seizure raid was one of lies and tears. Joyce and I had walked the three miles of dusty road to Rose’s compound to confront her with our accusations. We had entered the compound with its two rondavels. Rose’ widowed mother sat amidst her drying dishes on the ground before a pan of brown water.

After the traditional exchange of extended greetings, we sipped a bowl of river water. Joyce quietly began to catalog our griefs. The mother's face began to sadden, drooping into discouragement and humiliation. Her speech was reduced to “Ee, Ee,” Yes, Yes. The mother said Rose had explained the new clothing by saying, “The white woman gives me those clothes.” She permitted us to search Rose’s roundel, a mud-brick hut with a poorly thatched roof. Rose was at the river gathering water.

A new door of bits of old wood nailed together was being fitted to the rondavel but the men in tattered clothing halted their work for us. We bent and walked into the darkness on the dirt floor. A mattress was folded up against one wall, and a basket of seeds for stringing hung in the only window hole. Two battered cardboard boxes stuffed with wrinkled clothing and a line over which hung a few skirts and my slip was all the hovel contained. Piece by piece we searched her meager belongings. Bit by bit, a pile of torn and filthy clothing, that we had once called ours, grew in the center of the huts. What I had come for was not there, perhaps hidden elsewhere.

Rose returned with the water and the traditional polite greetings were made. Joyce questioned her about the clothing and she replied. “The clothes became mixed up with mine when I returned from work at the school." I asked why Rose had used them, but there was no answer.

We returned to the sunlight as the police arrived on their bicycles. Joyce presented our case, the clothes, and Rose her categorical denial of theft. The mother begged her to plead guilty, that she was disgracing their name. The mother cried.

At 9 A.M. the following morning, the police arrived to take my statement and question a laundry woman who had seen Rose putting on some of the stolen clothing. Joyce had had to leave the village and I was requested to make my accusation at the Kgotla.

So it began, Rose, unwilling, arrived at the Kgotla tree in the middle of the village. I made my statement and the chief said, “Rose, you have been accused of theft. What do you have to say?”  She was asked three times, and three times she did not reply. The elders questioned her in vain. Her mother begged her to plead guilty. Finally, the chief said, “Rose, you have been found guilty of theft; you are fined five Rand or 30 days in jail.”

My case was finished, and I grabbed the pathetic pile of clothing that Rose had taken and reduced to tatters. Bowing to the chief, I walked backward out of the circle saying, Thank you,” turned and left.

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I would never see what I had come for. I could never use the things I had recovered. Walking slowly back to the school compound through the thorn-scrub, I thought of Rose’s mother with sadness.