ABSTRACT
The Boxwera schools for boys of the Northern Sotho and Tswana and the corresponding byale for girls follow a circumcision ceremony and are described as closely associated with fertility. The girl then waits till it is convenient for her chisungu ceremony to be danced. Plans for a chisungu ceremony are initiated by the parents of a single girl or by two or three sets of parents whose daughters reach puberty at roughly the same time. These parents provide beer and food for the ceremony with the aid of the parents of the girls’ betrothed. The banacimbusa are treated with great consideration by other women in the community. In the old days they were allowed to wear a feather head-dress, which was reserved for certain chiefs and hereditary counsellors. They were given respect at a chief’s court and have to report the carrying out of each chisungu ceremony to the chief.
