TSWANA ARCHITECTURE AND RESPONSES TO COLONIALISM

When considering the nature of culture contact and colonialism it is a s important to study the continuities in the host society, as it is to study the impositions made by incoming peoples. The diverse relations hips between colonised and colonising societies are likely to be playe d out in aspects of material culture. This study examines Ntsweng and Phalatswe, two Tswana settlements of the late nineteenth and early twe ntieth centuries, the period of transition to British colonial authori ty. Architectural styles and settlement layout are examined in histori cal perspective and they demonstrate marked continuities well into the twentieth century. These continuities have to be understood not only in terms of the associations between Africans and Europeans, but also in terms of the nature of power in Tswana communities and, in particul ar, the relations between chiefs and their people. Chiefly power is al so an essential factor in understanding the place of religion and the adoption of Christianity. As a consequence, rather than passively rece iving introduced ideas and material culture, it appears that these soc ieties coming under British authority were interpreting and incorporat ing such elements in ways relevant to their own society.