ABSTRACT
Chapter 3 unpacks, contextualises, and amplifies, in legal and moral terms, the notion of tlholego, a Tswana concept encapsulating both nature and culture, and having broad meanings of history, ancestrality, and God’s creations. These meanings are understood to be intermeshed and inseparable, just as the lives of many of the villagers are inextricably interlinked with each other, past and future. At the heart of tlholego are issues of reputation, dignity, and respect, seriti, which also underlie many customary court cases. These underpin not only the symbolic centrality of village chiefship but of Moremi village as the primary ‘first’ village among the villagers scattered around the Tswapong Hills. Claims to cultural primacy and destiny have become a source of symbolic/cultural capital for the village, invoking an imagined reality, a moral universe. The chapter shows that, Despite its small size and relative poverty, the village’s glorified history has endowed villagers with the capacity to resist bullying by outsiders while readily taking ‘development’ from the same outsiders, in order to build a viable community. The chapter highlights the symbolic authenticity and value of chiefship promoted through public performances and the cultural centrality of the village reflected in its ancestral sacred spring and cascading waterfalls.
