Badimo

The pot lives in the shade at the edge of the yard, under a bush or against a cool wall, and nobody touches it but the person entitled to. It is black, thick-walled, small enough to lift in two hands. Most of the year it holds nothing at all. When it is filled it is filled with sorghum beer, or water, or the blood of a slaughtered animal, and it is set down for people who died two generations ago and are expected to come and drink.

Among the Sotho-Tswana peoples of Botswana, Lesotho and the North West of South Africa, those people are the badimo. The word is usually translated as ancestors, which is accurate and much too small. The badimo have not gone anywhere. They live underground and in the cattle kraal and in the shaded corner of the yard, they take an interest in whether the harvest comes in, they can be thanked, and they can be told off.

The name itself carries an argument that has never quite settled. Badimo is the plural of modimo, and Modimo is also the name of the supreme being at the summit of the whole arrangement. The Tswana theologian Gabriel Setiloane read that grammar as the point rather than an accident: modimo is an honorific used for elders and for the source of existence alike, so the distance between the supreme being, the ancestors and a living person is one of degree and not of kind. Hence the Tswana saying he records, motho ke modimo, a person is modimo. Grammarians push back. Setswana gives the supreme being a different plural, medimo rather than badimo, and Batswana sources list the medimo as a separate rank altogether, a set of first-made demi-gods named Loowe, Tintibane, Matsieng, Thobega, Nape and Tshosa who took no interest in human affairs and survive only in folk tales. Three tiers, then, and the ancestors on the bottom one, which is exactly why they are the tier anybody actually talks to.

You become a modimo by dying, and the burial is arranged so that nothing much has to change. Women were laid in the ground with hoes and with seed, men with their weapons, so that life could carry on below as it had above. The grave is often in the cattle kraal, which is where the family gathers when it needs to be heard, praying over the ground where the relevant ancestor is lying.

Nobody meets Modimo face to face and comes away the same, so appeals travel through the badimo instead. What they want in exchange is tirelo, service, and the essence of tirelo is that benefits get shared out rather than hoarded. They are said to love company and to be gladdened by feasts. So when beer is brewed or food is prepared, a portion is set aside or poured onto the ground first, before anyone living takes a sip. It is a small thing and it happens constantly, the way a household leaves a light on.

What the badimo hold in trust is seriti, a person’s own force or standing, which each person is born with and which can be heavy or light. Healthy seriti brings dignity and prosperity; poor seriti brings ill will and discord. It spreads outward from whoever carries it, so a father with good seriti strengthens everyone in his house and a chief strengthens the whole chiefdom. The badimo are where seriti comes from and what holds it up.

Which is also how the punishment works, and it is subtler than a curse. Slight a senior member of your kin group and he is said to put the badimo on you. He does not have to intend it. He does not have to know he is doing it. The badimo simply withdraw their support from your seriti to draw attention to the fault, and you become open to disease and to every other kind of going wrong, a condition called bolwetse that covers sickness and misfortune without distinguishing between them. Because seriti reaches into everything a person touches, the children sicken, the crops fail, the cattle go. Putting it right requires an animal, and after the slaughter the offended elder washes the offender with a mixture of chyme and aloe to build the seriti back up. The dispute is not settled by apology. It is settled by being scrubbed.

The intimate version of the relationship is go phatlha, calling the ancestors. An aromatic herb, imphepho, is burnt in a wide, open ancestral pot so the scented smoke rises and wakes them, snuff is poured in, and the names or clan names of the specific dead are said out loud. It is done for births, for deaths, for the arrival of a bride in a new house, and for asking. The researchers who documented it are candid that the herb and the method were taken up from Nguni neighbours rather than inherited, and that lit candles alongside the pot are a recent addition. Sotho-Tswana practice has never pretended to be sealed.

The vessels have rules of their own. Dinkho tsa Badimo are used for the ancestors and for nothing else, kept out of the light in a cool corner, fetched only by their owner or by the oldest member of the family. The offerings inside are not allowed to rot; someone over sixty-five has to consume them. The pot has to be black, because the ancestors come at night. When one finally breaks it is buried in the same spot where it stood, to become one with the ancestors and previous owners, and a goat is killed to introduce its replacement to the dead.

There is a colonial epilogue to that, and it is worth knowing. Under South Africa’s Witchcraft Suppression Act in the 1930s, articles connected with forbidden practices were confiscated wholesale, and museums lobbied to receive them rather than watch the police burn them. The pots duly arrived and were catalogued as cookware, because they look like cookware. A survey of one national museum’s accession registers from 1911 to 1980 turned up exactly four vessels recorded as Dinkho tsa Badimo. The Apartheid-era entries are terser still: swart Basoetoe pot, black Basotho pot, and nothing else.

Almost everything written down about the badimo before the 1970s was written by men working to abolish them, from Robert Moffat onward, which is a poor position from which to describe what a thing means to the people doing it. Setiloane’s 1976 study was the first major account from inside the tradition, and it argued that many long-standing Christians had never given up the old view of the world at all but had fitted the new religion into it. Ancestor veneration in Botswana, one later survey concluded flatly, continues unabated.

Their power is real and narrow. They bring rain and fertility, they guide, they protect, and they can take all of it back by simply letting go. Their limits are the limits of kinship. A modimo looks after its own descendants and no one else’s, which means the badimo cannot be appealed to by a stranger and cannot be bought. They are not omniscient and they are not Modimo; they carry messages, they do not answer them. And they depend absolutely on being remembered, because the mechanism that reaches them is a living person kneeling in a yard saying a particular name aloud into the smoke. A family that stops saying the names does not anger its ancestors. It mislays them.

Frequently Asked Questions

What are the Badimo?

The Badimo are the ancestral spirits of the Sotho-Tswana peoples of Botswana, Lesotho and South Africa. They are the dead of a family who continue to take part in its affairs, acting as intermediaries between the living and Modimo, the supreme being. They protect and guide their descendants, and they expect a share of the household’s food and beer in return.

What is the difference between Badimo and Modimo?

Modimo is the remote supreme being; the Badimo are the ancestors who carry appeals up to him. Badimo is grammatically the plural of modimo, which Gabriel Setiloane read as evidence that the difference between the supreme being, the ancestors and living people is one of degree rather than kind. Other sources dispute this, noting that Setswana gives Modimo the plural medimo instead, and that the medimo are a separate class of first-made demi-gods.

How do the Sotho-Tswana communicate with the Badimo?

The main rite is go phatlha, in which the herb imphepho is burnt in an open ancestral pot so the smoke rises to wake the ancestors, snuff is poured in, and the names or clan names of specific dead are called aloud. Offerings of sorghum beer, water and food are left in dedicated black vessels, and families also gather at the cattle kraal, where the ancestor is often buried. A portion of any beer or food prepared in the house is routinely set aside or poured on the ground for them.

What happens if the Badimo are neglected?

Neglect or an offence against a senior relative causes the Badimo to withdraw their support from a person’s seriti, the personal force that sustains health, dignity and prosperity. The result is bolwetse, a condition covering illness and misfortune together, which spreads to the offender’s children, crops and cattle. The remedy is to provide an animal for slaughter, after which the offended elder washes the offender with a mixture of chyme and aloe to strengthen the seriti again.

What are Dinkho tsa Badimo?

Dinkho tsa Badimo are the ceramic vessels reserved for the ancestors among the Basotho and Batswana. They are typically small to medium, thickly walled and dark or black in colour, because the Badimo are believed to come at night, and they are never used for ordinary household food. Many ended up misfiled as kitchenware in southern African museum collections after being confiscated under the Witchcraft Suppression Act.

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