Pula: Botswana Journal of African Studies vol.16 (2002) nO.1
EI Negro, el Nino, witchcraft and the absence of rain1
Jan-Bart Gewald
University of Cologne
One wonders what must have gone through their minds as they tore out the insides of someone's
brother, husband or father and stiffened him to put him as a public spectacle in a museum alongside
other 'artefacts'.' 2
For more than a century, Europeans have gawked at the body of an African man and laughed their
lungs out. 3
In the first half of the year 2000 the Republic of Botswana was blessed by the arrival of
extensive and long lasting rains.4 In the second half of the year, the remains of EI Negro a
man who had died 170 years before were returned from Europe and buried in Tsholofelo
park in Gaborone, the capital of Botswana. In 200 I the rains failed, and on the ninth of
January rumours surfaced that blamed the arrival ofEI Negro for the failure of the rains.
One may wish to argue that what the rumours said could not possibly be true, but what is
a fact is that people were discussing these ideas and seeing the presence of EI Negro as
central to the absence of rain. People clearly saw the world and current issues in terms of
these rumours. In the following article I will be discussing these rumours. By relating them
to the broader issues of Tswana ethnology and contemporary history, the rumours will be
placed within a context. By so doing insight will be given into the manner in which such
rumours can come into being, and, perhaps more importantly so, what these rumours have
to say about the contemporary world. The paper provides a summary overview of the
absence of rain and the development of EI Negro rumours in January 2001, where after
rainmaking, magic and witchcraft in Tswana culture are discussed. Exactly who or what EI
Negro was, is outlined in the following section, after which the arrival of EI Negro's
remains in Botswana, and the shaming of Botswana is described. Finally the paper seeks to
situate the EI Negro rumours in the context of popular consciousness, previous work
conducted on rumour, and 'Radio Trottoir'. In conclusion the paper argues that the EI
Negro rumours allowed for the articulation of deep seated grievances on the part of large
sections of the population within the context of Tswana cultural thinking and discourse.
Rumours and rain
In late 2000 as the skies remained clear in Gaborone, and the daily maximum temperatures
continued to rise it became clear to one and all in Botswana that the rains were failing to
arrive. Shortly before Christmas 2000 rumours started to surface of young women who had
been observed throwing salt into fires in such a manner as to prevent the rains from coming
and destroying their festive season hair styles.s Generally these rumours were told with a
twinkle in the eye and a fair bit of good-natured banter regarding the irresponsibility of the
youth. However, on ninth of January 2001 far more sinister rumours which linked the
absence of rain to the buried remains of EI Negro started to emerge and develop.6
Essentially these rumours argued that the return of the body was witchcraft that stopped the
rain from coming. 6
The EI Negro rumours were spread throughout Gaborone and its satellite towns through
the cut-throat efficiency of the privatised public transport system which consists of mini-
buses that roar along set routes throughout the day.7 Virtually everybody I spoke to
mentioned that it was either in the taxi or at the taxi ranks that they first heard other people
speaking about EI Negro and the absence of rain. Though people, with very few exceptions,
37
did not claim to believe in the rumours, they were generally very willing to speak to me
about what they claimed to have heard.8 Throughout the ninth, tenth and eleventh of
January the El Negro rumours continued to spread and develop. On the twelfth and
thirteenth of January, it rained and the rumours appeared to disappear. In part on the 15th of
January because, as one informant put it, 'It is Monday, people are tired from the weekend'.
On the whole it appeared that the El Negro rumour had blown itself out, that all the
permutations and scandal had been explored, and that very little new would come of it
unless new evidence arose. However, the El Negro rumour surfaced again briefly in a
slightly different setting when it was reported on the 16th that people in the Northeast of the
country were facing starvation on account of the failure of the Mopane worm to appear in
sufficiently large numbers. The Mopane worm is a moth larva which is collected and dried
in large numbers as a highly sought after source of animal protein.9 Being dependent on the
coming of the rains, the absence of rain, which in the public's mind was linked to the
presence ofEI Negro, a Iso led to an absence of Mopane worms. ill
In essence the gist of the El Negro rumours can be distilled into a number of parts, some
of which were excluded or included in the rumour depending on whatever appeared to be
most convincing. Thus the rumours nearly always carried variations of the four following
parts:
(a) The people of Botswana are poor, yet the government chose to purchase bones, a skull in
particular, from another country at great cost. At the same time there was a variation to the theme
which alleged that the government of Botswana had received extensive amounts of money in
exchange for accepting the skull.
(b) However, the people of Botswana did not even know who the person was for it was just bones.
It is different from what the people saw in Spain. It could be anybody. It is the bones of a Bushman.
(c) South Africa did not want it, why did they not want it and what are they hiding from the people
of Botswana.
(d) Even so the Botswana government flew it down for lots of money and buried it with great
ceremony and pomp, yet the poor remain the poor.
Hereafter the rumour developed along either one or a combination of the three following
strands.
(a) That the bones are those of a Bushman whose burial has greatly angered the ancestors, Chief
Tshekedi Khama in particular. I I
(b) That the bones are part and parcel of extremely powerful medicine purchased by the ruling
party to prevent the coming of the rains. This will ensure the failure of the harvest, keep the people
poor, maintain their dependence on the ruling party, and ensure its continued hold on power.
(c) That the bones are those of a person who did not come from Botswana, and who has either upset
the ancestors, or is himself extremely upset.
In essence what the people were discussing whilst driving in the taxis through the streets
of Gaborone to and from work, was that what ever had been buried in Tsholofelo park in
Gaborone was something that prevented the rain from falling. Many people claimed that it
was a powerful form of medicine that had been planted by the ruling party Botswana
12
Democratic Party, Domkrag. Underlying all of these fears was the common issue of not
knowing exactly who or what these buried bones were from, and the inability of the
populace at large to be able to gain an insight into why these bones should have come to be
buried in Gaborone.
Rain making and death
It has been noted of Tswana society that Kgosi ke kgosi ka batho-a chief is a chief by the
people, but in return a chief must ensure the faIl of adequate rainfaIl. It was thus a fortuitous
38
sign for Festus Mogae when it rained on the day in which he formally inaugurated as the
president of Botswana following the general election of early 2000. In the past and in the
present the failure of rain, in a society where the word for blessing and good fortune, Pula!,
is identical to the word for rain, reflected on the failing of a chief and indicated that the land
was impure or bewitched. 13 Writing throughout much of the 20th century the grand old man
of Tswana ethnology, Isaac Schapera has emphasised time and again the central importance
of rain and rain-making ceremonies in Tswana society.14 Indeed, ceremonies connected
with the bringing of rain were considered to be the most important ceremonies in which a
chief could be involved. In the same manner in which the writings of Schapera confirmed
the earlier observations of hunters and missionaries of the nineteenth and early twentieth
centuries, so too the writings of the Comaroffs continue to emphasise the central
importance of rain and rain-making in contemporary Tswana society. IS The central
importance of access to and control over rain was an issue that soon became apparent to
European missionaries who started working within Tswana society in the early nineteenth
century. Not surprisingly baroka ba pula, rainmaking specialists, were accorded a high
status in Tswana society; a position of status which the missionaries sought to acquire for
themselves. 16 At the risk of being accused of writing in the ethnographic present, I wish to
refer in length to text written by Schapera in 1950, not because I wish to claim that Tswana
society has remained unchanged, but to reiterate the central importance of rain-making
within Tswana society:
The chief had a special rain enclosure (segotlwana sa pula) behind the hut of his great
wife, where several pots of rainmaking medicines were kept. Every year, before the
cultivating season started, the immature girls ceremonially brought water to the pots; they
and the immature boys were then sent to sprinkle some of the contents over the fields and
cross-roads near the capital. If the rain did not come, driftwood and other objects connected
with water were burned in the enclosure, so that the smoke should summon the clouds;
sometimes, too, men were sent to capture alive a wild animal of a specified species and sex,
which was then slaughtered, portions of its flesh being added to the mixture in the pots.
Failing this, the women would gather at the graves of the chiefs ancestors and, sprinkling
them with water and beer, would sing special songs of prayer for rain. Ultimately the chief
himself would go to one of the graves, accompanied by the people; there an unblemished
black bull was slaughtered, and portions of its meat, the skin, bones, etc., were burned on
the grave; and as the smoke rose, he would pray to his ancestor 'to let the rain fall'. As a last
resort, search would be made for objects out of place (e.g., a pot hidden in a tree), which
were thought to have been deposited by sorcerers to keep off the rain; such objects were
doctored and thrown into a river bed or pool, and the people then gathered at the tribal
council-place to be sprinkled with the contents of the rain pots and freed from
contamination. Throughout the rainy season, too, all newly bereaved people were reported
to the chief, on whose instructions they were smeared with the juice of irritant bulbs used as
rainmaking medicines; this treatment was intended to 'cool' their bodies and prevent them
from scorching the land wherever they went. I?
In essence the person who controlled rain could also determine the course of society.
Death, as with all aspects of life, in Tswana society was inextricably linked up to rain.
The spirits of the dead needed to be domesticated. Failure to do so could lead to all manner
18
of misfortune, of which the worst was the absence of rain. It was the duty of the
deceased's maternal uncle to ensure that a dead person was buried properly. As one of
Schapera's informants put it in theI940's, it was the maternal uncles duty, 'to handle the
putrefaction of his sister's children'. 19 The spirits of the dead, badimo, it was held, lived in
a parallel world, alike to all intents and purposes to the one in which the living lived.
Indeed, a world, 'where a man would continue to herd his grandfather's cattle and a woman
39
to cultivate the soil'. 20 However, the spirits of the dead took a keen interest in the world of
the living and could influence and determine events in the living world:
They rewarded with good health and prosperity those who treated them with becoming
respect and obedience, but punished with sickness, economic loss, or some other misfortune
those who neglected them or who offended against the prevailing social code, of which they
were the guardians. Hence, in order to retain their favour, they had to be specially
propitiated.21
The term sepoko (pI. dipoko) undoubtedly derived from the Dutch spook, ghost, is
currently used to refer to the spirit of those dead who come back to bother the living.
Dipoko are held to rest in the ground during the day and to emerge at night to avenge
wrongdoing done unto them and to seek that which they desired or possessed in life. In the
urban setting of Gaborone, it is reported that dipoko can also manifest themselves in the
bodies of animals, particularly owls, cats and dogs, and that there are times in which they
appear to the living in the day time.22 In addition to this there are stories of phantom cars
and phantom hitch-hikers that are also classified as dipoko.
Writing of surviving relatives Schapera noted that their blood was believed to be 'hot'.
Consequently it was believed that should such a person go about, there was a distinct
danger that they would injure people, cattle, and crops-the mainstay of Tswana society in
the past-and most importantly, such a person would keep away the rain, for wherever they
tread the ground would become scorched.23 It was therefore essential that such a person be
taken to be 'cured' inunediately:
This was formerly considered so important, particularly because of the dangers
threatening the rain, that the chief or village headman, as soon as any death was reported to
him, would himself send one of the recognised 'tribal doctors' to purify the survivor.24
Such a person would be confmed to his or her homestead and subject to a series of taboos
and restrictions until they had been purified. Though the purification ceremonies conducted
differed from doctor to doctor, the general procedure followed was fundamentally the same.
The roots and bulbs of certain plants, 'especially those used in making rain', would be used
to purify the mourner, in such a manner that their would no longer be hot and threaten the
arrival of rain. 25
Failure to observe the correct rites and practises associated with the stages, through which
human beings went from life through death to an existence as ancestor, could threaten all of
society through the absence of rain. To prevent this from occurring all in society anxiously
watched to ensure the correct behaviour of all, and expected and called upon dingaka (ritual
specialists) and dikgosi (chiefs) to ensure that this occurred. Not surprisingly those who
consciously sought to stop rain were guilty of the most extreme form of witchcraft, for this
was an activity that threatened the course of life and society as a whole.
Witchcraft and magic
In the present the issues of witchcraft and ritual murder are very much a part of the
everyday for most people living in southern Africa and the Republic of Botswana.26 In
discussing the state and witchcraft, Cyprian Fisiy has put the case even stronger when he
referred to mass circulation papers in Africa and stated that:
There is an indication that witchcraft and sorcery discourses constitute the primary concern of most
African communities.27
On the same days that EI Negro was being discussed and described in the rumours that
circulated through the taxi borne commuters of Gaborone, one of the Botswana's quality
papers carried
28
an article that dealt with the crash landing of wizards onto buildings in
Zambia. In addition the paper reported on the ritual murder of a person for body parts in
40
Mochudi, Botswana. Police were reported as looking for the murderer of the appropriately
named Mr. Bongi Moloi (Moloi being the Tswana term for sorcerer or witch).29 Assistant
Commissioner K. Japinga of the Botswana police was quoted as saying, 'We normally reach
that conclusion [that he was murdered for ritual purposes] after we have found out that the
body parts were removed by hand,.30 Recently a newspaper article reported on the arrest of
two men in Gantsi who 'cut off women's breasts and male private parts from fresh corpses
in the mortuary'. The men were arrested after they had been found in possession of human
remains which they were trying to sell to a 'traditional doctor in the village,.31 On a more
innocuous note Batswana youth-in a manner not at all dissimilar to their Gothic rock
counterparts in northern Europe-flirt with the occult, as is made clear by the rapper Aka
B1oode, who recently fronted the Wizards of the Dessert.32
The use of magic may not necessarily be for the evil purposes. In the past and in the
present Tswana magic consists primarily in the use of 'medicines (dithlare) for the
attainment of certain specific ends which cannot be achieved by empirical methods alone' .33
Medicines can be used for all manner of purposes, be it protecting a newly acquired motor-
vehicle, improving one's health, acquiring the affections of a specific person, success in
business and school, or enhancing the fertility of livestock. The corollary is of course that
medicines can also be used destructively. Though any person can fashion and prepare
medicines, there are specialists, dingaka (sing. ngaka), to whom people can turn for
professional advice.34 Amongst the dingaka there are those who practice divination through
the use of specialised tokens made of bone, wood, ivory and the like. These tokens are cast
in such a manner as to be used to determine insight into all manner of issues, be it wrong
doing in the past, possible future scenarios, or current conditions.
There is extensive reference in the ethnographic literature on Tswana society that refers
to magic that is used maliciously. The Tswana term boloi is used to refer to the practice
which is glossed by anthropologists as 'sorcery' in English, whilst its practitioners are
referred to as baloi (sing. moloi). Both men and women can become baloi. There are two
main categories of baloi-those of the night and those of the day. Baloi may consciously
practice witchcraft out of motives of greed, jealousy and the like.35 As with witches
elsewhere in the world-and there is no doubt that modem Setswana conceptions have been
modified by cultural contacts as far as Europe and America-baloi have familiars, can fly, can
disappear, cast spells, prepare and use medicines for unjust purposes, and transform people
into the living dead (mathlowane). Botswana has a series of legislation against witchcraft,
yet, as the murder of Mr. Moloi and the rumours accompanying El Negro indicate,
witchcraft is very much a part of everyday life in Botswana at the present.
Belief in and the practice of witchcraft extend across all levels of contemporary Batswana
society. A few years ago students at the university of Botswana rioted on account of the
ritual murder of a young girl in Mochudi, the same settlement in which Mr. Moloi was
recently murdered. In November 1994 the mutilated body of Segametsi Mogomotsi was
found, in due course the girl's stepfather was arrested. Initially the stepfather confessed to
the ritual murder of Segametsi and implicated a number of well-known business people in
the deed. However, the stepfather soon retracted his statement:
In contrast with the graphic and gniesome description he had previously given of their
involvement in his daughter's murder, he now stated that he had no evidence to suggest that
any of them might have been involved. He explained to the police that a traditional doctor
had told him that Segametsi had been killed by three men and a woman and that all these
unnamed people were involved with new business enterprises. He himself had then
concluded that the people he had previously named must be the ones to whom the
36
traditional doctor had referred.
Though all the people mentioned were arrested, all with the exception of the stepfather
were released for lack of evidence. In late January 1995, school children, from the school
41
which Segametsi had attended, marched to the District Commissioner's office to present a
petition demanding an intensified investigation into the murder of the schoolgirl. The
marchers clashed with police and full scale rioting broke out. The businesses and houses of
principal suspects were burnt. Though the Special Support Group (paramilitary police) were
deployed, and government ministers and the Attorney General travelled to Mochudi and
spoke to the populace, tensions did not decline. As a commentator noted:
In the absence of meaningful information from the police, the populace simply provided its own.
As these stories gathered both momentum and corroborative detail, they became accepted as
unchallengeable fact. If they were not true, it was asked, why would everyone believe them to be
true? And because they were therefore true, it automatically followed that those who had been
arrested by the police were the undoubted murderers.17
Though, through the use of force, the authorities were able to quash the unrest in
Mochudi, further rioting and unrest soon spread. In Gaborone a self-styled Revolutionary
War Council distributed pamphlets calling for a mass demonstration and demanding 'that
justice should take its course without [the] state's intervention'. University of Botswana
students broke into and disrupted a working session of the National Assembly. A rioting
mob, pursued by tear gas firin~ members of the SSG, tore through the central business
district of Gaborone. On the 19 of February, as rioting continued to spread, the President
addressed the nation in a radio broadcast, and announced that the police and the army had
been instructed to restore law and order in the country.38
Considering the fact that Botswana bears the well earned reputation of a country with
respect for the rule of law, high level of social tolerance, and a distinct dislike for violence,
the events of early 1995 indicate the extent to which people felt threatened by what was
perceived to be government collusion in the practice of witchcraft. The murder of
Segametsi, or more precisely the failure of the established authorities to bring to book the
perpetrators of the crime, brought to the fore the extent to which witchcraft was seen to be
part and parcel of the established elite. Recent work by Elizabeth Eldredge on ritual murder
in colonial Basutoland, specifically outlined the conscious involvement by the elite of many
in a community in the committing of ritual murder. That is, that the actual act, the breaking
of extreme taboo and the involvement of many, ensures the further compliance of many. 39It
was the children of Segametsi's school who called for further investigations into the
40
murder. When they were met only with repression and silence others joined them who felt
that they too were excluded and unheard.41
EI Negro and popular consciousness
During the funeral service conducted for El Negro at the graveside in Tsholofelo Park, the
minister officiating at the ceremony made what was probably an unconscious Freudian slip
when he stated that El Nifto had been a son of Africa who had now fmally been allowed to
42
return to the continent of his birth. In so doing the minister did express the truth, for El
43
Negro was indeed a child of Africa , yet at the same time he gave voice to the presence in
popular consciousness of the term El Nifto and all that has come to be associated with this
term.
In the second half of the nineteenth century Peruvian fishermen began referring to the
periodic warming of the coastal waters off the South American Pacific coast at Christmas as
El Nifto, meaning 'The Child', or 'The Little One'. El Nifto drove off the fish yet caused
extensive rainfall in the coastal deserts of South America. The term El Nifto appeared in
print for the ftrst time in 1892 in a Peruvian scientific journal.44 In the course of the
twentieth century it has become increasingly more apparent that El Nifto, which is part and
parcel of a meteorological phenomena known as the El Nifto Southern Oscillation, is one of
the major determinants of global rainfall patterns.4S With intervals of between two to ten
42
years, EI Nii'l.oappears approximately thirty times every century. Throughout the world EI
Nino and its opposite La Nina have been blamed for all manner of catastrophes, be they
extensive flooding in southern Africa, the failure of the Monsoon in the Indian sub-
continent, or the absence of rain in Australia. It would be no lie to state that in much of
world in the present El Nii'l.oand 'Global Warming' are the two terms chosen to attempt to
describe and explain weather conditions. Throughout 2000, as floods ravaged the southern
half of Africa, El Nii'l.oand 'Global Warming' were consistently pulled out of the hat to
explain what had happened. EI Nii'l.o,in whatever way that people believe it to be, has
entered into the popular consciousness of much of the world Botswana included.
In 2000 the island of Madagascar lying off the eastern coast of southern Africa was
struck and ravaged by no less than four cyclones.46 As the people of Madagascar struggled
to deal with the devastation that befell them, the cyclones tended to peter out in the
Mozambican channel, but drenched southern Africa with rains so extensive as had never
been experienced before. In early February cyclone Leon developed just to the south of
Sumatra. In the coming days Leon traversed the Indian Ocean as a tropical storm. A few
days before it reached Madagascar, Leon was upgraded to the status of hurricane and
renamed Eline. Eline travelled straight across Madagascar and the Mozambique Channel
47
before it hit the Mozambican coast on 22 February with sustained winds of up to 130 mph
When Eline hit Mozambique an estimated 300 000 people were already homeless on
account of earlier flooding. In Botswana, extensive rains had already left nine dead and up
to 90,000 people homeless after destroying nearly 10 000 homes across half the country.48It
was therefore hardly surprising that the government of Botswana began preparing for the
expected arrival of Cyclone Eline. Members of the diplomatic community, development
agencies, business community and Non-governmental Agencies were called to meetings
and briefed as to the coming of Cyclone Eline and its expected consequences. Following
one of the meetings an employee of the United Nation Development Programme in
Botswana, returned to brief her colleagues. The UNDP employee informed her colleagues
of the coming of devastating winds and rains, which, she said without blinking an eyelid,
were being caused by the impending arrival of an 'Alien'. In first instance it was thought
that the employee had been joking, yet on closer questioning it turned out that she truly
believed, not only in the undisputed existence of extra-terrestrial beings, but that, an
'Alien', wreaking death and destruction in its path, was fast approaching the Republic of
Botswana.49 Obviously the name of a cyclone, 'Eline' had become confused with the term
'Alien'; a term loaded with all manner of meaning in popular consciousness. Once this
occurred, 'Alien' entered into the realm of rumour, an alternative explanation as to what
was happening in the world.
It is more than likely that in Botswana connotations of rain and weather, which are
associated with the term EI Nii'l.o,came to be transferred to the term EI Negro. How one
would actually show this to be the case is difficult to see, but as the words of the minister
officiating at the grave of EI Negro indicated, the two terms could be and were
unconsciously inter-changed. The use of the term El Negro in a variety of different social
settings, as indicated by the use of the term by students, marriage guests, and funeral
attendees, indicates the extent to which EI Negro had entered into the popular
consciousness of people in Botswana. Here it nestled close to and probably alongside the
other loaded term, EI Nii'l.o,that had also entered into popular consciousness.
'Radio Mall', rumour in Gaborone
In the run up to the first of January 2000, the BBC World Service broadcast a programme
which claimed that downtown Gaborone had to be quietest capital city on earth in which to
celebrate the coming of the new millennium. Following the general election of early 2000,
the newly president dryly noted that the general elections had been peaceful and uneventful,
43
and that he had no desire to see this change. Botswana is indeed, what the Americans would
call, a 'laid-back' country. Peace and stability are two attributes that spring to mind,
attributes which no person would like to see end. This is not to claim, however, that
Batswana are citizens cowed into submissive silence. Far from it, indeed, society and
politics in Botswana is characterised by extensive and heated debates. Its free media
delights in raking failing politicians, corrupt businessmen, or opposition figures across ~e
coals. The image of president Mogae being lambasted on national television by squatters m
the settlement of Mogoditshane, is a fair indicator as to the extent to which press freedom is
respected and encouraged in Botswana. In addition to its free press, Botswana, along with
many other African states, subscribes to the infonnal news network known as Radio
Trottoir, Radio Pavement in Francophone states, and 'Radio MaIl' in Gaborone.
'Radio Mall' first started broadcasting in the early 1960's shortly after the 'Mall', a
kilometre of low-rise buildings housing, offices, embassies, shops, and banks had been built
in the new capital city of what would become the republic of Botswana. Radio Mall, as with
Radio Trottoir, in other countries carried infonnation too far-fetched, painful, or truthful to
be carried in any other fonn of media. In the 1980's long before other media, 'Radio Mall'
carried hard news, on up coming South African Anny raids, the successes of Umkhonto we
Siswe operations, and fmally the collapse of the Mangope regime in the South African
5o
homeland of Bophuthatswana. In addition 'Radio Mall' carried scandalous reports on the
sexual peccadilloes of well-known people. However, as Gaborone has continued to grow,
'Radio Mall' has become more and more of a misnomer. No longer do people meet and
chat exclusively on the Mall, instead, as people have to commute from ever further away,
conversation and news tends to be situated ever more in and around the taxi stands and
ranks of Gaborone's public transport system.
It was in the taxis and at the taxi stands of Gaborone that in late December 2000 the first
accurate reports on extensive levels of rainfall at Madikwe, three kilometres beyond the
frontier in South Africa, were first heard on 'Radio MaIl'.51 It was here too that on 9th
January 2001 the first reports surfaced on the manner in which the remains of El Negro
prevented the rains from coming through to Gaborone and Botswana as a whole.
EI Negro and the absence of rain
Writing on reports dealing with the traffic of heads in southern Africa, Luise White has
noted:
My point here is... that the metaphoricalis itself the material,and the ideas enshrined in popular
consciousnessthriveas popularconsciousness.52
In tenns of popular consciousness El Negro came to be linked to the multitude of ideas
that relate to the natural weather phenomena known as El Niflo. In addition, EI Negro, and
the events surrounding the return of what were alleged to be his remains, came to be linked
to a multitude of issues, that ranged from Bushmen, the sale of body parts, witchcraft, upset
ancestors and corrupt politicians. In the conversations that took place in the taxis and
'Radio MaIl' of Gaborone the return of El Negro in combination with one or more of the
issues described above came to be seen as being responsible for the absence of rain in
Gaborone. That is, a discourse that implicitly accepts and acknowledges the influence of the
metaphysical and supernatural on everyday life, serves as an explanation as to why things
occur in the manner in which they do in the world. The words of Cyprian Fisiy, writing on
sorcery, are equally relevant to the discourse in Botswana which includes the metaphysical
and supernatural:
Sorcerydiscourseservesas an explanationwhy things go wrong in a community.These discourses
provide the primary paradigm for explaining both fortune and misfortune. By using witchcraft
44
discourses in this manner the community tries to understand why things happen in a particular way
rather than how they happen ...!n one of the leading studies of witchcraft, Evans-Pritchard (1937:72)
pointed out that while Azande are aware of the physical circumstances of accidents and disease,
witchcraft discourses explain why a particular sufferer and no other was the victim. 'Witchcraft
explains why events are harmful to man and not how they happen.'
As with all people who watch the daily news broadcasts and weather forecasts on
national television, the people living in Gaborone know about high pressure zones and so
forth. As with their compatriots in northern Europe, they believe that they know how
weather works. However, they do not know why, and it is this fundamental issue that they
seek to answer. In this instance, 'Why is it not raining in Gaborone?' It was in attempting to
answer this question that people linked the coming of El Negro, in conjunction with one or
more of the issues-Bushmen, body parts and witchcraft, upset ancestors, and politicians-
to the absence of rain.
El Negro and Bushmen 53
At times the El Negro rumour sought to emphasise that El Negro had been a Bushman. No
doubt this strand of rumour came to be reinforced every time correspondents and media
54
dismissed the available evidence and chose to refer to El Negro as a Bushman. Thus, with
blatant disregard for the results of earlier investigations and reports, the large circulation
South African daily newspaper, The Star, carried as one of its front-page headlines,
'Botswana welcomes return of Bushman's body used as colonial exhibit,.55As to why The
Star should have chosen to misinform its reading public, became apparent in the last
paragraphs of the article:
Bushmen still living in Botswana's Central Kalahari Game Reserve have over the years battled the
56
government over its plans to resettle them and make way for tourist development.
In effect, the choice of The Star to use the return of the remains of El Negro to highlight
opposition to the planned removal of Bushmen from the Central Kalahari, served merely to
once again emphasise the position of Bushmen as the inhabitants of the bush. That is, to
paraphrase Gordon, the qualities of Bushmen as being grounded not in humanity but in
animality. 57As the anthropologist couple Jean and John Comaroffhave stated:
It will be remembered ... that Tswana social architecture distinguished the town from the bush. The
wild was the threatening realm of spirits, plants, and animals of unruly potential. It provided the
vital ingredients for both healing and sorcery, and, most important, was the habitat ofSarwa ('bush'
people) and other (less than social) clients and serfs. 58
The bush is seen as the site par excellence of magic. In present-day Botswana, Bushmen
continue to be seen as the epitome of the Bush, and a\1 that it entails. In the public mind
they alone live and survive in the Bush, and as such they are able to control the extreme
powers that reside in the Bush. Given the above, it follows that, the state funeral, only the
second in Botswana's history, of, if the rumours are believed, a Bushman, would indicate
the dabbling of the powers that be in the most extreme forms of magic.
El Negro and body parts
Recently Luise White has written on the traffic in body parts and heads in particular in the
southern African region. Her work, which though it focussed primarily on events in
Zimbabwe, reflects discourse in Botswana. As White pointed out:
proper burials released spirits from their corporeal bodies so that grave robbing produced a spirit's
wrath and useless organs. Body parts could be removed, mixed, and given to another human being,
45
but they never lost their bodily integrity: they never ceased to belong to the person into whom they
were born, regardless of whether that person was dead or alive. 59
From the little that we know of EI Negro, we can be certain that when he was buried the
first time, he was buried properly in accordance with Tswana tradition.60 In other words,
unless the Verreaux brothers deployed powerful protective medicines of their own when
they dug him up, his spirit (badimo) would have come forth to vent its wrath. In addition,
his spirit would have watched and followed his various body parts. Discussing EI Negro an
informant noted that after having been dug up, EI Negro must have said, 'What is this place,
where am I now, who has done this to me?,61 EI Negro would have been well aware of
where he had been buried by his relatives and anxious to return there intact. 62 In 1993, prior
to the repatriation of EI Negro, a post-mortem, which included a complete body-scan, was
completed, the conclusions of which were that the young man had died of a pulmonary
63
disease. It stands to reason, that for such a conclusion to be reached, there must have been
a fair amount of tissue still in existence. Indeed, the photographs of EI Negro in Banyoles,
clearly show that whilst on display, the young man still had his hair and nails. In the light of
the above, one of the most shocking aspects regarding the return of EI Negro's remains to
Botswana was the fact that instead of a body Botswana took delivery of some bones. This
extended beyond the immediate embarrassment felt by all and expressed by a few, of
expecting a body and receiving some bones, into the realm of witchcraft and trade in body
parts. Not surprisingly people asked the obvious questions, what had happened to the body,
where were the organs, the hair and nails, the remaining bones? Where were his clothes,
and his grave goods? What had happened to these things, and who had ordered that EI
Negro be transformed into a pitifully small pile of bones? These are questions that remain
unanswered, not only to those who commute around in Gaborone's taxis, but also to those
in the highest social echelons of the country.64 In a country where ritual murder, and the
traffic and use of human body parts in sorcery are a reality, it cannot be considered
surprising that people conclude that the same has happened to EI Negro. Even if those
involved deny that they have used the remnants of EI Negro for ritual purposes, the valid
question as to what they did with his remaining body parts, remains standing.
Spirits and ancestors
Initially when speaking to people, the issue of EI Negro's spirit in exile in Spain was of no
interest to those whom I spoke to. What was important was that the highly troubled spirit
had accompanied some of its body to Botswana and to its grave at Tsholofelo Park.
Informants generally agreed that his spirit accompanied all parts of the dismembered body,
unless it had been prevented from doing so through the use of strong medicine. As such at
least one informant was anxious to know whether Spaniards were magkoa (Whites) and
whether or not EI Negro's spirit would visit upon those who had strTped the remaining
body parts of El Negro before his journey from Spain to Botswana.6 As such, for most
informants, considering that the materials buried at Tsholofelo Park were not medicines
associated with witchcraft, but were indeed the mortal remains of EI Negro, there was no
doubt that these remains had been accompanied by the spirit of EI Negro. A spirit whose
remains had been laid to rest in foreign soil and without the ministrations of his relatives. A
spirit therefore that would continue to roam to seek retribution and to be laid to rest
properly.
The aspect ofEI Negro being without family, except in the broadest sense of being a 'son
of Africa', was particularly troubling to many. How could it be that these mortal remains
had no relatives, for all humans have family members. In a sense this line of reasoning
followed that expressed by Zimbabweans when under the auspices of the Zimbabwean
government a monument to the unknown soldier was unveiled in 1998: 'former guerillas
46
who were present wondered how a soldier could be unknown-they wanted to know who
he was, where he was from, and they wondered what purpose a single soldier served,.66
Why was this person without relatives being accorded a state funeral? In addition, if he
came from what is now South Africa, why did the South Africans not wish to bury EI
Negro, what, effectively, was it that the South Africans knew about EI Negro that prevented
them from burying his remains in South Africa?
Politicians
In a sense the differing strands of thought relating to EI Negro outlined above all come
together in popular ideas expressed with regard to politicians. Since independence the city
of Gaborone has consistently voted for opposition parliamentarians in both local and
general elections, and the city is known to be the centre of organised political opposition to
the ruling party. Even so, fractious political infighting within opposition parties has
consistently ensured that the Botswana Democratic Party has been able to win convincingly
at every national election since independence. The result is that Gaborone, though it is the
site of the most concerted opposition to the ruling party, is the seat of government led by
the ruling party.67Not surprisingly this has led to consistent debate within Gaborone and a
generous dose of scepticism on the part of the public with regard to the official
pronouncements of the government. In other words an atmosphere in which rumour
flourishes.
With regard to the state funeral of EI Negro many people demanded to know why the
government should spend the amounts of money which it did on the remains of a man
without family and an unknown past. In addition, and on a far more sinister level, many
people believed that the government had either received or paid large sums of money for
what was effectively witchcraft medicine. Medicine which ensured that the rain stayed
away and increased the poverty and dependence of the people at the mercy of those in
power. The consistent refrain in both of these strands of thought, be it that EI Negro was but
a mortal, or that what was buried was medicine, was that the government had paid large
amounts of money on EI Negro at the expense of its own people.
Conclusion
It wiII be clear that in dealing with the burial of EI Negro in Tsholofelo Park, there were a
number of differing ideas as to what exactly had come to be buried there and why. When EI
Negro came to Botswana people were faced with an array of questions. Was it merely the
mortal remains of a man who died 170 years ago, was it the mortal remains of a man whose
spirit had had to watch his body being robbed, gutted, stuffed, stripped, and displayed, was
it powerful witchcraft that had been purchased by politicians from the Spaniards, was it the
pride and goodwiII of Botswana, or was it a combination of all these things that came to be
buried in Tsholofelo Park?
When rain failed to arrive in early 2001, rumours started that linked the absence ofrain to
the presence of El Negro. Apart from the slips of the tongue and the unconscious linking of
EI Negro to 'El Nino', these rumours which existed within popular consciousness and were
debated in the everyday life of Gaborone commuters, came to be linked to all manner of
already existing ideas that related to one or a combination of issues dealing with Bushmen,
spirits and ancestors, witchcraft, sorcery and the trade in body parts, and politicians. That is,
ideas relating to El Negro came to be incorporated and discussed within already existing
ideas as to how the world works and is ordered.
The funeral of EI Negro and the subsequent absence of rain confirmed to many that
which they already believed. In a circular argument, people argued that the politicians were
powerful and rich precisely because they were involved in witchcraft, and the absence of
rain was evidence of this involvement. The EI Negro rumours allowed for people to
47
articulate their deep-seated grievances vis-a-vis those in power on a number of levels.
However, these grievances, be it the waste of government money on a bushman, or. a
homeless person with no family, or witchcraft medicines for already powerful politicians,
all relate to one issue, that those in power had failed to care for those without power. The
spending of vast amounts of money on the remains of an unknown person was seen as
being unjust. EI Negro may very well have deserved to be buried with full pomp and
ceremony by the Batswana state, but when the anticipated arrival and display of a full
corpse failed to materialise, people began to question the validity of EI Negro and their
government's desire to accord the remains the status which it did. In effect, it can be said
that the rumours were the expression of public dissatisfaction at having been hoodwinked
by the Spanish. Far from the return of EI Negro being a return with honour, the arrival of a
small casket of bones signalled to one and all that all was not well. The rumours that
followed in early 2001 were a manner by which people could express and entertain their
distrust of those in power in Botswana, those who had allowed Botswana to be shamed for
their own selfish interests, and not those of the people.
Notes & References
I. I would like to thank Nancy Jacobs for suggesting that this topic was worth an article, Ms. Meiki
Maotwe for first alerting me to this topic, African Affair's anonymous reader, and Neil Parsons-
the man who knows more about EI Negro academically than anybody else-for news, views and
critical suggestions.
2. The Voice, Friday October 6--12,2000, p. 6, Editorial.
3. Mmegi. The Reporter, 6--12 October 2000, Editorial.
4. To be sure there were floods, indeed, Gaborone the capital of the Republic was at one stage
physically cut off from the outside world.
5. Extensive braiding with extensions in a variety of colours appear to have been the fashion. Braiding
is an expensive, long, and painful operation which can take anything up to eight hours of sitting.
The advent of extensive rains with its increased humidity would have changed the texture of the
hair necessitating continual alterations. In addition the splendid hairdos would have remained
hidden from sight for most of the time under plastic bags against the rain.
6. Though nobody I spoke to linked the two issues I do believe that it was more than coincidental that
on the very date that the EI Negro rumours first started emerging, southern Africa, Botswana
included, experienced a lunar eclipse. In the early evening the full moon rose blood red in colour in
a cloudless sky, and for about three hours the moon which displayed a series of colours which
ranged from green through to pink travelled through the shadow of the earth.
7. It is interesting to speculate that, in the very first week of most Batswana back in the urban setting
of Gaborone after a festive season generally spent in the rural areas, most people were still
unconsciously thoroughly infused with a mind set that continued to emphasise the importance of the
meta physical. It must not be forgotten that it is in the rural setting of the village that most
Batswana are confronted once again with their ancestors.
8. In total between 10--18 January approximately 30 people were spoken to in informal settings that
ranged from liquor stores, butcheries and supermarkets, through to chats with domestic workers,
gardeners, waiters and taxi drivers.
9. The Mopane worm, which in its dried form is also served as a bar snack similar in texture yet rather
more tangy than American bar pretzels, is featured on the newly minted 5 Pula coin.
10. The Botswana Daily News January 16,2001, No.9, p. 3 carried an article 'Batswana face phane
crisis this year' which blamed the absence of worms on the over exploitation by unscrupulous
people of this limited natural resource. An academic was quoted as saying, 'It is about how people
harvest the resource and not a problem of rain faIl'. However, as one of my informants reminded me
with infallible logic of a conspiracy, the government had brought EI Negro to Botswana, the Daily
News was the government paper, of course it would blame the absence of Mopane worms on
something else.
II. Tshekedi Khama was the strict powerful and highly respected Kgosi of the Bamangwato from the
1930's to the 1950's.
48
12. The symbol and popular name of the Botswana Democratic Party is the manual jack, which used
to be used to jack up waggons and trucks. The Setswana name Domkrag is derived from the
Afrikaans and Dutch word which translates literally as 'stupid power'. In the run up to first
democratic elections in Botswana in the early 1960's the tenn 'democracy', which was one of the
rallying calls of the BOP, sounded like the powerful tenn Domkrag, the tenn remained, and the
BOP has led the Republic of Botswana through more than thirty years of prosperous multi-party
democracy.
13. For a brief introduction to the history of Tswana and the importance of rainfall to southern African
societies as a whole see, R. Ross, A Concise History of South Africa (Cambridge University Press:
Cambridge 1999), pp. 15 - 20. Incidentally it is worth mentioning that Pula has been made the
official tenn for the Botswana's unit of currency.
14. For an overview of Isaac Schapera's work see Pula: Botswana Journal of African Studies,
Volume 12, Numbers 1 & 2 1998, a special issue in honour of Schapera's seventy-five years of
scholarship including a bibliography compiled by Suzette Heald, pp.100-115; Isaac Schapera, 'The
"Little rain" (pulanyana) ceremony of the Bechuanaland BaKxatla' in, Bantu Studies, 4, pp. 211-6.
In addition see, A Handbook of Tswana Law and Custom (International Institute of African
Languages and Culture: 1938 London); The Tswana (International African Institute: London 1953),
p. 22 & 60.
15. Jean and John Comaroff, Of Revelation and Revolution: Christianity. Colonialisn. and
Consciousness in South Africa, Volume I, (Chicago 1991) p. 336, n. 20.
16. For a discussion on this topic see, Comaroff, Revelation and Revolution, Vol. I, pp. 206-213; &
Paul Stuart Landau, The Realm of the Word: Language. Gender. and Christianity in a Southern
African Kingdom (James Currey: London 1995) pp 24-29.
17. Schapera, The Tswana, p. 60.
18. Comaroff, Revelation and Revolution. Vol. I, pp. 153-5.
19. Schapera, The Tswana, p. 59.
20. Schapera, The Tswana, p. 59.
21. Schapera, The Tswana, p. 59.
22. Interviews and pers.comm. Gladys Maotwe, Koketso and Godfrey; Schapera, The Tswana, p. 61.
23. Isaac Schapera, Married Life in an African Tribe, first published 1940, (London 1971) p. 279.
24. Schapera, Married Life, p. 279.
25. Schapera, Married Life, p. 280.
26. For some contemporary work on witchcraft and ritual murder see, Elizabeth Eldredge, Unmasking
Colonial Rule: Murder and the Use of Terror in British Basutoland. 1946-1960, presented at the
Forty-Third Annual Meeting of the African Studies Association, 16-19 November 2000, Nashville;
Cyprian F. Fisiy, Law out of context: Witchcraft Trials in Cameroon, presented at the ASA Annual
Meeting Toronto, 3-6 November 1994; Roger Gocking, A Chieftaincy Dispute and Ritual Murder
in Elmina Ghana. 1945-46, presented at the ASA Annual Meeting San Francisco, 25 November
1996; Birgit Meyer, The Power of Money. Politics. Sorcery. and Pentecostalism in Ghana,
presented at the ASA Annual Meeting Columbus Ohio, 13-16 November 1997; Bradford
Strickland, Witchcraft and AIDS: Some Negotiations of Power Among the Kunda of Eastern
Zambia, presented at the ASA Annual Meeting Toronto, November 1994, & Situating the Moral
Ambiguities of Mankwala and Witchcraft in Zambian Ethnography, presented at the ASA Annual
Meeting Orlando, 1995; Luise White, 'The Traffic in Heads: Bodies, Borders and the Articulation
of Regional Histories' in, Journal of Southern African Studies, Volume 23, Number 2, June 1997,
pp. 325-338. Of particular importance and influence in the current discussion relating to witchcraft
in Africa in the present has been the work of Cyprian Fisiy and Peter Geschiere. Peter Geschiere
with Cyprian Fisiy, 'Domesticating Personal Violence: Witchcraft, Courts and Confessions in
Cameroon' in Africa 64 (3) 1994, pp.321-341; Peter Geschiere, The Modernity of Witchcraft.
Politics and the Occult in Postcolonial Africa, (University Press of Virginia: Charlottesville 1997)
27. Fisiy, Law out of Context, p. 2, n.!.
28. There have also been reports on a flight of sorcerers from the town of Maun who flew down to
Gaborone in either 1998 or 1999. These sorcerers were reported to have flown on blankets, and one
of the sorcerers is said to have crash landed in the low income residential area Old Naledi after he
had swerved to avoid crashing into Kgale hill. The sorcerer was reported to have worn bracelets,
anklets, necklace and belt fashioned out of human fingers. My infonnants claimed that after the
49
man had been arrested he was clothed and released by the police. Batswana sorcerers are also
reported to have flown on loaves of brown and white bread.
29. The Phuthadikobo Museum in Mochudi, the town in which Mr. Moloi was murdered, has a
number of photos on exhibit of Bakgatla rainmakers in the 1930s, in addition to a collection of
rainmaking pots.
30. The Botswana Gazette, Wednesday 10 January 2001, page 3, 'Ritual murder confirmed in
Mochudi' by Ditso Anneleng; and page 8 in the 'Science' section of the paper an article entitled
'Wizards: Zambians amazed by crash-landing flying wizards' a syndicated article by P ANAl
Misanet. Later reports noted that Mr Moloi's penis, tongue and armpits had been cut out: The
Botswana Gazette, Wednesday 17 January 2001, pp. 1-3.
3 I. 'Two Gantsi men suspected of cutting out organs from corpses in mortuary', in The Botswana
Gazette, Wednesday 18 April 2001, p. 5.
32. 'Bloode is too 'nasty' for the Wizards!' in The Botswana Gazette, Wednesday 31 January 2001, p.
E2. That the Wizards. of the Dessert are well aware of their flirtation is evidenced by their recent
album Sangoma, wh1ch roughly translates as diviner, traditional doctor, spirit medium. See the
recent discussion 06 H-SAFRICA@H-NET.MSU.EDU that dealt with the origin of the word Sangoma.
33. Schapera, The Tswana, p. 61.
34. Schapera, The Tswana, p. 61-6.
35. Schapera, The Tswana, p. 65.
36. Sandy Grant, Etcetera: Events, Issues, Places and People of Botswana, (Leitlho Publications: Odi
1998) p. 167.
37. Grant, Etcetera, p. 170.
38. Grant, Etcetera, p. 175.
39. Eldredge, Unmasking Colonial Rule.
40. In a manner that mirrors the findings of Jean Comaroff and John L. Comaroff, 'Occult economies
and the violence of abstraction: notes from the South African postcolony', in American Ethnologist,
Volume 26, Number 2, February 1999.
41. Particularly disconcerting in the present is the continued ritual murder of innocents in Mochudi.
On 8 January 200 I the badly decomposed body of eight year old Brenda Bokole was found near the
village. At least one informant claimed that EI Negro, whose body had been similarly abused, had
caused the rain to stop falling so as to draw attention and express his anger to the continued
witchcraft and ritual murder in Mochudi. ,Police about to crack ritual murder case?', Mmegi/The
Reporter, 9-15 February 2001, p. 3.
42. Pers. comm. Neil Parsons.
43. Indeed, the placard erected at the grave of EI Negro in Tsholofelo park refers to him as a 'son of
Africa'.
44. http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/novaielnino/reach/I880.html
45. A glance at materials dealing with EI. Nino as a natural phenomena will indicate what a
frighteningly magnificent event this actually. An event that causes sea levels to rise no less than
150 ems, transport more water than all of the American great lakes together, consume more energy
than all fossil fuels ever burnt and so forth. http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/novalelnino
46. For a website which provides an overview of hurricanes that reached southern Africa in 2000 see,
http://weather.unisys.comlhurricane/s_indian/2000/index.html.
47. http://weather.unisys.comlhurricane/s _ indian/2000/LEON _ ELINE/track.dat. For an overview of
the impact of Eline on Mozambique and southern Africa as a whole see,
http://www.mg.co.zalmg/news/2000feb2/24feb-moz_floods.html
48. http://www.mg.co.zalmg/news/2000feb2/22feb-floods.html
49. Pers. comm. M.G. Janssen, a medical-anthropologist employed by one of the UN agencies in
Gaborone, Botswana.
50. Numerous people have noted how in the run up to South African cross-border operations, rumours
would fly around Gaborone. In some instances these rumours allowed people to ensure the safety of
their lives and those of their loved ones by moving them from their usual places of residences.
5I. Large numbers of taxis commute daily from Gaborone to Johannesburg and back again. These
provide up to date reports on developments in all manner of spheres, including in this instance that
extensive rains had fallen just beyond the frontier in South Africa
52. White, JSAS, p. 336.
50
53. I am well aware of the various pejorative names given to the descendants ofthe first inhabitants of
the southern African continent. In this instance I follow the example of Robert Gordon, who noted,
'The term Bushman is... a "Lumpen category" into which all those who failed to conform or
acquiesce were dumped. It was not an ethnic group but a sociopolitical category derived from the
wider setting', The Bushman Myth: The Making of a Namibian Underclass (Westview Press:
Boulder 1992), p. 6.
54. In one instance, whilst being interviewed live on Dutch radio, I was asked to tell them about, 'dat
kleine bosjesmannetje' ['That little Bushman'). Unfortunately the literal translation into English
fails to bring across the condescension implied in the double use of the diminutive in the Dutch.
Neil Parsons reported similar frustrations in most of the more than 35 interviews which he
conducted with the media at the time ofEl Negros' funeral.
55. The Star, 5 October 2000.
56. The Star, 5 October 2000.
57. Gordon, The Bushman Myth, p. 2.
58. Comaroff, Revelation and Revolution, Vol. I., pp. 152 - 153.
59. White,'Traffic in Heads', p. 329.
60. Research conducted by Neil Parsons of the history department at the University of Botswana, has
brought to light that EI Negro was buried along with a small leather bag containing, small glass
beads, seeds, and small bones. 'It could indicate that he was some kind of ngaka (traditional
doctor)'. http://ubh.tri pod. corn!afhistl elnegro/ eln07.htrn
61. Pers. comm. Mma Meiki Maotwe, Gaborone, 20 April 200 I.
62. This aspect ties into a later question as to how a person cannot have relatives.
63. http://ubh.tripod.com!afhistlelnegro/eln-pm.htm
64. One university history lecturer wondered what had happened to the iron frame that had supported
El Negro, throughout the 170 years in which he had been displayed. One can also ask what
happened to the materials with which he had been stuffed.
65. Meiki Maotwe and Dikaledi, 18 April 2001.
66. Jocelyn Alexander, JoAnn Mcgregor & Terence Ranger, Violence & Memory: One Hundred
Years in the Dark Forest' of Matabeleland (Oxford 2000), p. 262.
67. Wayne Edge and Mogopodi Lekorwe editors, Botswana. politics and society (Pretoria, 1998) &
Pula: Botswana Journal of African Studies Vol. 14, No. I, 2000, Special Issue: Elections and
Democracy in Botswana.
51