Until the 20th century, Tswana-speaking peoples conducted bogwera, marked by circumcision (go rupa), as the essential rite of passage for males into adulthood.2 Bogwera was an ancient institution, most likely

Nov 20, 2022 · Bogwera was an ancient institution mostly practiced before the Bahurutshe tribe began to sub-divide in the 16 th and 17 th centuries, to give rise to modern Setswana societies. Bogwera was a religious and cultural practice that played an integral part in the community’s spiritual life and expression of Batswana.

Sep 30, 2017 · It is in the transmogrification of bogwera in Luke 2:21 that an act of hybridisation and creolisation takes place through the ordering of the Batswana cosmology and culture.

Following the conversion of Chief Lentswe I to Christ-ianity in 1892, a number of major traditional practices were abolished by the Kgatla. Amongst these was circumcision, the central feature in the traditional process of initiating young men into manhood.

In this article I have argued that the transmogrification of bogwera as suggesting circumcision instead of using the correct word, which is thupiso, was an act of alteration of meaning, and that this morphing of bogwera as a concept that has a specific cosmological meaning for Batswana illustrates the beginning process of dehumanisation of non ...

A man who did not undergo bogwera was regarded as a boy, who would be excluded from conversations among men, who would not be allowed to marry, and who would be considered a boy all his life. The sacredness of bogwera is reflected in the secrecy about where it is held, and what happened during the initiation. Everyone participating in this rite ...

In representing and translating bogwera as circumcision in Luke 2:21 Moffat rewrites and reorders the political, economic and religious beliefs of Batswana. It is in the transmogrification of bogwera in Luke 2:21 that an act of hybridisation and creolisation takes place through the ordering of the Batswana cosmology and culture.

Mar 26, 2014 · Historically, ritual male circumcision, or bogwera, was a traditional practice used to mark the transition from boyhood to manhood and conferred gendered identity and a sense of personhood upon male initiates.

Jan 1, 2005 · The schools of Bogwera and Bojale were central to the cultural life of the Batswana, especially as a stage in the development of young people. Gender analysis of the practices of Bogwera and Bojale, however, shows that the process resulted in gender constructions that had a long lasting impact in the lives of both men and women.

These stages can be summarized as: baby 'lesea'; boy 'mosemane'; youth 'leSoboro'; circumcised youth 'modikana'; member of a short transitional period 'sealoga'; initiate 'leagola'; initiate undergoing the bogwera 'legwere'; and finally adult man 'monna'.