ABSTRACT
The total Native population of Bechuanaland Protectorate, according to the 1936 census, is approximately 260,000. Most of these Natives belong to what ethnologists and linguists term the Tswana cluster of the Sotho group of Bantu-speaking peoples. All communities of non-Tswana origin speak different languages from that of their rulers, with whom, however, they generally communicate in Tswana. The concentration of the population in such large settlements as are represented in the tribal capitals of most tribes has moulded the annual routine of Tswana life into a pattern different from that followed by most other southern Bantu. Women are on the whole regarded as socially inferior to men, and in Tswana law are always treated as minors. The household consists of a man with his wife or wives and dependent children, together with any other relatives or unrelated dependants who may be attached to him.
