My father was the director of The British Council in Botswana from 1980-83. He was usually unflappable, but one announcement was guaranteed to change his mood: “Naomi Mitchison’s here.” He’d deflate with a sigh.
She was the doyenne of Scottish letters, and had been famous for more than fifty years. In 1960, in Scotland, she met Linchwe II, the young paramount chief of the Bakgatla tribe, who was travelling on a British Council grant. He invited her to his tribal seat, the village of Mochudi north of Gaborone. So began an association that led to her adoption as the mother of the tribe. She visited Botswana often, and regarded the British Council, and whoever was director, as being both at her service and an adversary.
In the last thirty-five years of her long life (1897-1999), she wrote prolifically about Africa, and drew on local folk tales. In There Here Then Now, three brothers – symbolising a Bushman, a Mokgatla (a member of the Bakgatla tribe), and a European – represent the clashes of hunter-gathering, agriculture, and industrialisation.
Batswana folk tales were also a rich source for fellow Scot and resident of Mochudi, Alexander McCall Smith. Criticisms about cultural appropriation continue to rumble, but both writers are largely venerated within Botswana.
Appears in the collection Images of Africa, Canongate, 1980
A Personal Anthology 