ABSTRACT
The available evidence indicates that the Native peoples now inhabiting the Protectorate are all of immigrant origin. Some entered the country a very long time ago, others came as recently as the early years of the present century. The Kgalagadi were probably the next to arrive. The Sotho group, to which they belong, is believed to have originated somewhere in the vicinity of the Great Lakes of East Africa, and to have entered South Africa in several different waves, of which they were the first. The last and greatest wave of Sotho peoples entered South Africa in perhaps the fifteenth or sixteenth centuries. They ultimately settled east of Crocodile and Marico Rivers, in what is now the western Transvaal. According to tradition, they were originally united under a single leader, but owing to disputes among his descendants they rapidly broke up into different segments, such as Hurutshe, Kwena, and Kgatla, each of which afterwards became divided into many separate tribes.
