The Botswana society : conference on sustained production from semi-arid areas with particular reference to Botswana traditional attitudes to land and management of property with special reference to cattle

A topic like the one I propose to deal with can be treated in two ways: one way would be to examine a number of traditional societies and to look into their attitudes to land use and to the management of cattle. The other approach would be to narrow the field of investigation, and to examine only one traditional society and to look into its attitude to the use of land in some detail in order to make a general conclusion about such societies in general. This really means that in approaching the subject we have first to decide whether or not to proceed from the general to the specific or from the specific to the general. We have to make a choice and this we cannot avoid. It is a choice that everyone who makes an investigation of a social phenomenon has to make. It is net necessary for me to justify my own choice of approach, I should only indicate that the limitations imposed upon me by lack of acquaintance with many traditional societies, obliges me to proceed only from the specific to the general, that is, to deal with one particular traditional society with which I am familiar, namely the Tswana Society. This is a pretty narrow field but I shall request your indulgence to make it even narrower, by dealing with the attitudes of one particular Tswana tribe, namely the Ngwato of Central Botswana. Here I must make some explanations in order to avoid some unscientific indiscretions. I must point out that the Ngwato of Central Botswana are a poly-ethnic group, that is, a group which is made up of many ethnic groups, each of which may have its own particular attitudes. I shall, therefore, take cognizance of this composite nature of the Ngwato community and confine my remarks to a section or a more constituent group, namely the descendant’s of Ngwato and the related minor groups. I shall assume, with your permission that this section is representative of the Tswana Society.