Dikgafela 1981 - Harvest Celebrations with traditional singing & beer in Kanye, Botswana

Traditional Harvest Celebrations with traditional singing to "call" rains for new ploughing season in rural Botswana. A two week festival to give thanks for good harvest, store sorghum against famine and "bring" rains for new agricultural season.

Stage 1. Each married woman brings a basket of sorghum grain, with her group, to Chief's communal grain store;
Stage 2. Each woman brews a large pot of beer for an "owner" from her local paternal kinship group;
Stage 3. Each woman carries a pot of beer to Chief's meeting place (kgotla) where it is drunk communally. This will please the Ancestors who will intercede to "send" rain (pula).

Traditional "rain-making" songs are sung. All drinking vessels, containers and implements are traditional: Grain baskets, drinking calabashes, clay pots, and beer strainers. Men sit on their special traditional folding kgotla chairs.

By tradition, women cover their shoulders with a lightweight blanket, and wear knotted headscarves. Men wear jackets and felt hats.

Note. The rains frequently fail in this arid area on the fringes of the Kalahari Desert. Dikgafela can only be held in years when there have been plentiful rains and a good harvest. So, storing grain in the good years was a traditional buffer against famine in years with drought and bad harvests.

Original 35mm colour slides and audio recordings made in October 1981, in Kanye, Botswana, Southern Africa.

Songs are in the Setswana language.

See website: https://www.sheppard.me.uk/