ABSTRACT
As a preliminary to our main task, it is necessary to describe briefly the various peoples inhabiting Bechuanaland, and to outline the history of their settlement in the Territory. The total number of inhabitants was returned in the 1946 census as approximately 294,000, of whom 290,000 were Natives, 2,200 Europeans, 1,700 Coloureds, and 100 Asiatics. The Native peoples of the Territory, with whom alone people are concerned, are derived from many different stocks. Politically the most important are the Tswana, a division of the Sotho group of Bantu-speaking peoples. The basic features of Tswana culture may be summarized as follows. In pre-European times the people derived their subsistence mainly from animal husbandry and the cultivation of crops, each household being directly responsible for producing its own food. Each tribe is governed by its own chief, who even under European rule still exercises important executive, judicial, and legislative, functions.
