Bogwera and bojale

What they are

The two rites belong to the Tswana and mark the step from childhood into adult life. Boys went through bogwera, girls through bojale. Both were counted the most important of all Tswana rites of passage. Neither was quick: instruction ran for several months, and only when it ended was a young person treated as grown. The schools were not only practical. They carried religious teaching as well, so that those who passed through them came out knowing the beliefs and customs of their people as well as the skills of an adult.

Inside the initiation school

Pupils learned the history of the Tswana, their religion and their understanding of the universe. They were taught how adults should carry themselves, how to address elders and royalty, and how to obey. Teachers also explained the rights each person held in the community and covered matters of sex. Lessons rarely came as lectures. Games, riddles, proverbs, dancing, singing and poetry carried the teaching instead. The girls' rite, bojale, could include an open drum, understood to stand for a womb and the passage of birth.

Circumcision and praise poems

Bogwera opened with circumcision; bojale involved no cutting of girls. Deaths happened now and then during this stage. Boys faced a further physical side that girls did not: they went out from the settlement into the bush, in cold weather, and there learned to herd, to hunt and to fight. In the nineteenth century every boy in bogwera also had to compose a praise poem about himself, and he kept adding to it for the rest of his life.

The mophato for life

Every participant joined an age set known as a mophato, and membership lasted a lifetime. A mophato worked as a regiment. The kgosi, or chief, could call on it for building work and other public tasks, and could also use it for fighting or for keeping law and order. Grouping young people in this way bound them to one another and gave the chief a body of people he could rely on.

Missionaries and bans

When European missionaries reached the land that is now Botswana, they opposed both rites and pressed to have them banned, setting up mission schools in place of the initiation schools. In 1917 the Anglican Church separated from the London Missionary Society after it allowed its members in the Bechuanaland Protectorate to take up bogwera again, though this revival lasted only a few years. By the close of the colonial period the Balete were the only tribe still practising bogwera and bojale.

How Bogwera and bojale is kept

Boys and girls were separated, each group going to its own initiation school for several months. There they received instruction in Tswana history, religion and cosmology, in how to behave as adults, and in their rights and duties. Teaching came through games, puzzles, proverbs, song, dance and poetry. Bogwera began with circumcision and took boys into the bush in cold weather to learn cattle herding, hunting and fighting; bojale had no cutting and might use a drum shaped to stand for a womb. Everyone entering at the same time formed a mophato, an age set they belonged to for life.

When and where

Each rite lasted several months. A young person had to complete it before being recognised as an adult. The sources do not record a fixed month or season for bogwera and bojale, and the two were held at the point when a new group of boys or girls came of age.

The rites belong to the Tswana and to the land that is now Botswana. Missionary records and later accounts place them in the Bechuanaland Protectorate, as the territory was called under colonial rule. Toward the end of that period the Balete were the only tribe still keeping bogwera and bojale, so the practice survived longest among them.

What Bogwera and bojale means

For the Tswana, bogwera and bojale were the doorway into adult life. Nothing else carried the same weight, and a person who had not gone through them was not counted as grown. The drum used in bojale, open and shaped to suggest a womb and the channel of birth, points to what the rites are about: leaving one stage of life and being born into another. The teaching that went with them passed on the community's religion, its history and its idea of how a person should live.

Questions people ask about Bogwera and bojale

See also

Kuru Dance and Music FestivalA gathering of San communities in Botswana to share songs, stories and sacred dancesPeʻaThe traditional Samoan rite of full-body tattooing for men, tapped by master artistsTā mokoThe traditional permanent tattooing of the Māori people of New Zealand, marking identity and status.Tribal youth dormitoryA communal house where a tribe's unmarried young people sleep, learn and serve

Good reading and sources

• Bogwera and bojale on WikipediaEncyclopedia
• Wikidata recordOpen data

It may contain mistakes. Traditions differ from one family, village and community to the next, and the people who keep them know them best. If something is wrong, tell us. Last refreshed 2026-10-09.