Dr.

Motheo Koitsiwe & Family

TIME IN CODE QUESTIONS CONTENT TIME OUT CODE

00:01:31:00 This plant we call mmilo, it produces 00:05:27:07
indigenous fruits or wild fruits so it
Take 1 – Dr. grows normally in summer and
Koitsiwe on during rainy seasons and it likes
the mountain mountainous areas and it produces
nice fruits that you can enjoy, young
children must know about this one.
Here we have another one, we call it
moretlwa, it also produces fruits and
it is an indigenous plant and then we
have healing medicinal plants also,
this one is called aloe, there are
different types of aloes, this one is
the one that grows big, we mix it
with water because it has some
healing properties inside of it but
pharmaceuticals they do a lot of
things today with the aloe plant, it’s
a familiar one. This one also is an
indigenous fruit, we call it
mmupudu, we used to eat it when I
was a young boy, when I was hungry
I would just come here and I knew
when I go back my stomach would
be full, I just go and drink water
then I’m fine, nothing acidic, nothing
added with preservatives, pure
nutrients that are not added with
anything, there are so many
indigenous plants and medicines
here, a lot of them, this big one is
called marula, the one that you
make Amarula from, that’s the
marula tree this one. Most of the
time in the evenings because you
see this view is a nice view not only
giving you the view of the village but
if you want to learn about stars and
you want to do night sky viewing I
come here in the evenings and I will
be able to see all the stars that I
want you to see.
00:09:49:05 Can you please tell us 00:09:57:15
about your childhood and
growing up here?
00:09:58:10 I grew up down there, my home is 00:12:33:00

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Dr. Motheo Koitsiwe & Family

down there but there’s another one

where we grew up on the other side
there, so this mountain is the
foundation of my upbringing
because everything that I started to
know as a young boy I learned it in
this mountain, the indigenous fruits
that are here, the animals and the
medicine, we used to climb this
mountain, it’s a spiritual mountain,
behind there there’s a flat space
that we call sebatla, if I can find
money I’m going to set up a
telescope there, a big one, because
once you are there you’ve got all the
view here, so we’ll be recording ever
astronomical events that happen
every night once we set up a
telescope there and then we can
involve young children from schools
to come and learn about these
things because other people have
never also touched a telescope but
this mountain also what is
significant for me as you can see if
I’m sitting here it’s like I’m in an
observatory, I have a clear view of
the night sky so if it is in the evening
I come here and there is no noise by
then and there are no lights, you see
the lights are very far and I will be
able to have a night sky viewing
which is cool and collected, so this
mountain for me represents a lot of
things, my upbringing and even for
spiritual awakening it’s a very
spiritual place, there are herbs as
I’ve given you some of the herbs
that I know and medicinal plants in
this mountain, so some of them you
can also do research about them,
like now I’m doing research on
African ginger which they call
serokolo because that herb is facing
extinction and we used to use when
we were young for healing purposes
and for a number of things so we
want to industrialize and

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commercialize some of these things

for the benefits of our communities
like I told you about marula, marula
now is a big industry, people are
using it for commercial purposes but
we need to make sure that the
communities benefit from these
things.
00:12:35:20 Can you take me back to 00:12:44:08
what sparked your
interest in astronomy?
00:12:45:10 My icon in astronomy is my old 00:20:20:13
grandmother who passed away,
Mmamodiakgane Tladinyane, we
used to sit behind there at the fire
place in the evening hours and she
would be narrating stories and
singing songs and poems and riddles
about the night sky, about what
they call astronomy for me which is
bolepa-dinaledi is a concept that I’ve
introduced now within the academic
discipline, we have bolepa-dinaledi
which our grandmothers and
grandfathers they used to know
about the stars and the first star
that she taught me about it comes
from this direction, that’s the first
star, it comes very early in the
morning around 3 o’clock, they call
it Mphatlalatsane, naledi ya matsha,
in modern astronomy they call it
Venus that star, towards the early
hours around 5 o’clock it disappears
in the night sky and then it comes
again as an evening star, you will see
it here in the evening that star, in
the morning we call it naledi ya
matsha, Mphatlalatsane, and in the
evening when it comes here we call
it kekopa dilalelo, but it is the same
star that you’ve seen there but it
moves because its purpose amongst
the Batswana is to help us to
calculate time because we never
had watches that we used to say it’s
7 o’clock or 3 o’clock, so we used
stars to calculate time, morning

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hours and evening hours and even

during the day there will be things
that we use which are in the cosmos
to calculate time like the sun, when
the sun is here in the middle of the
sky during the day we say it’s 12
o’clock, in Setswana we say it’s a
spiritual time which when that time
comes even when you are in this
mountain if there was something
you were doing you sit down and
you wait for that time to pass
because it’s a spiritual time, so time
calculation, how we organise our
monthly events and how we name
also our events or how we name our
months and seasons was also based
on the knowledge of astronomy
because you will see there are four
seasons and there are also 13
months amongst the Batswana and
the first month of Batswana is not
January, it’s September, and this is
significant also to other African
cultures like Basotho who also know
that January is not the beginning of
the year, we have our own calendar
so we need to move away from this
Gregorian calendar because it’s not
just a calendar it’s also about the
culture of those people because if
you can ask a small child what
month is this they will tell you it’s
Valentine month and they don’t
know who is Valentine and what is
the significance, they only know that
he is a goddess of love but where
are our own goddesses that we can
refer to in terms of our own cosmic
events and also our constellations
and zodiac signs because we also
have our own zodiac signs and we
need to teach our people about
them. So calendar making was
based on astronomical knowledge of
Batswana, time calculation was also
based on Batswana astronomical
knowledge because these cosmic

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objects or these phenomena in the

night sky they are not just there for
the sake of it, they are there for a
purpose and they do have a
symbiotic relationship with us as
human beings but we have never
understood such relationships,
those who come from the past they
are the ones who know the
relationship but the challenge is
those people who have this
knowledge they are very few
because this knowledge was not
documented, a lot of people are
passing away with this knowledge,
you see how big this village is, you
will find that there are about 4 or 5
people who know about the stars
and their significance in human
survival livelihood, so astronomy for
me, bolepa-dinaledi, is science that
Tswana people used to understand
the sky because even natural
disasters, you will see if I’m sitting
here I will be able also to see if there
could be something that could
happen this evening which could be
a natural disaster because we know
that clouds don’t always mean rain,
there are clouds that when they
form you know the rain is coming
but other clouds are just clouds,
they will never bring rain, even in
geography they’ve got different
names of clouds, like cumulonimbus
clouds and all those kinds of clouds,
in Setswana we also have different
clouds, we have modikela and we
also have matlakadibe, so those
things exist and we can also
interface them with modern
astronomy, they are not just
operating on their own but yes
they’ve got their own ontological,
epistemological and also the
philosophy behind these things is
there, there is theory also, so even
now we are working towards

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developing our own theories in

African astronomy so we can use
those theories to understand our
own phenomenon so that we don’t
use western theories to analyse our
own situations, so we have to turn
these things around even the
education like I was saying, we must
integrate this knowledge into the
system of education. So this
mountain is significant for me, I will
find ways of how I can use it as one
of the mountains that we do
astronomical activities on to show
young children that when you talk of
astronomy it’s not something that
existed very far away from us, it is
within us and we need to find a way
of how we can develop this
knowledge for the benefit of the
future generation.
00:21:16:00 Is that a church down 00:21:17:10
there?
00:21:17:18 Yes, it’s a church, it’s one of the 00:24:30:07
oldest churches in this village, so
you will see the colonialists they left
their landmarks everywhere and you
see these kind of structures are the
ones that contributed towards the
death of astronomy and I know
what I’m saying because in the past
people used to have rainmakers, we
used to have rainmakers in our
communities and these people they
were not people who you could just
see anywhere in the corners of the
village, they were very specialized
and they were working with
traditional leaders for purposes of
rainmaking but when missionaries
came and they established
churches, I’ve got this evidence for
instance in Botswana they started to
nullify and to demonize African
practices like rainmaking and then
they started to say the only person
who can make rain is God, no one
can pray for rain or can make rain

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and things like that and if you were

found doing these practices you
could be taken to the lekgotla and
be whipped so that you must
abandon these practices, so
missionaries and churches and
Christianity was very dangerous in
our community so that’s why when
you go there they will tell you about
the star of David in the bible but
they will never tell you that even our
local communities they do know
about stars, the star that you see in
the bible is Christian cosmology, we
also need our own Batswana
cosmology, Zulu cosmology, Basotho
cosmology and then we can also
even draw our own theories from
there of our origins where we come
from, so my intellectual endeavors
started in this mountain because if
you are here you will develop the
insight of being a visionary, so I’m a
visionary because I always look at
things not only from here but from a
long, long, long distance because we
still have a long way to go but also
as Africans we know that we’ve got
also a long way where we come
from in terms of our history or our
stories which have never been told,
so its high time that even history like
as I was saying, a lot of children
know this months as Valentine
month but they don’t know that it’s
also black history month, yesterday
we were trying to commemorate
baba Credo Mutwa as one of the
cultural historians, like mama Grace
Masuku, those are the people who
inspire me a lot within this journey.
00:24:31:10 In our African culture we 00:25:29:15
have wise people and we
have intellectuals and
most intellectuals learn
via the academic route
but you’ve done
something that is

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different, why did you

deviate from the normal
way of studying?
00:25:29:18 No, there’s no deviation, when I use 00:31:11:15
the term intellectual I will tell you
why because I bring these concepts
back home because like I said I work
with organic intellectuals, that’s the
term that was used by one of the
scholars they used to call him
Gramsci, so when western systems
comes with their own terms, yes you
are right because the concept
intellectual if you look at it in terms
of its etymology it’s not an African
concept but it doesn’t mean that we
never had those kinds of people
who were representing those values
and principles, they were more
organic, some other term which
they use is they are grassroots
intelligentsia like mama Grace, she
never got her knowledge from a
school or whatever but for me
because time moves, this
knowledge that I have from my
grandmother is going to die if I only
portray it as a panacea, when I say
as a panacea I’m saying as a solution
on its own, Western science cannot
work on its own, African knowledge
can’t also work on its own, we have
to find a way of how we can
interface knowledge systems
whereby there’s no other who is
going to say I’m superior over the
other one, simple example like I am
saying in astronomy, people teach
astronomy in modern schools as a
modern subject but they never tell
the young ones that there is also
astronomy which is local, which is
cultural which we must also put in
the curriculum, so when you tell
them about Galileo Galilei and the
telescopes you also tell them about
mme Grace Masuku and Credo
Mutwa about their knowledge of

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the stars and you also take it outside

of their locals and you go as far
back as Timbuktu in West Africa, in
Mali where there is heavy evidence
of Africans who were practicing
astronomy and also in Egypt about
the pyramids which they have
established there because the
architecture behind the pyramids
also shows that people who were
erecting the pyramids had
astronomical knowledge because
they were also developing these
things and making them to also
realign with the solstices and the
equinoxes, so you see that these
people were not just blind architects
they were designers and they were
also engineers who also used their
knowledge of astronomy to erect
the structures, they didn’t just come
and say here is a space let’s put a
structure, no, they knew that when
you do a structure you must align it,
you see even when Africans built
their homesteads, you see how that
homestead is so sophisticated, when
it’s hot it becomes cool inside and
when it’s cold it warms inside and
you don’t have to put an artificial
heater there, that’s the engineering
behind the construction of that
particular structure, so everything
there, the thatch roof and the
rondavel which they built is
connected that’s why I say when it’s
hot it cools inside and when it’s cold
it gives you that warmth that you
feel you are inside a home but it’s
not like a hotel or a nice modern
house it’s just a homestead which is
built on things that come from the
community. So why I use the term
intellectual also is because for me in
university I established a
programme from as far as 2001, that
programme is the only programme
you find in Africa here where we

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teach young children about their

own stuff, so if I sit here and say I’m
an intellectual I know that I’m
talking from which perspective, not
from the perspective of other ones
who have learned from Minnesota
and Stellenbosch and whatever, no,
they have their own right to call
themselves like that, I work with
other intellectuals but what
differentiates me from them is that I
have a different world view and I
think differently from them so I will
say yes, in the next 3 years I will be
qualifying to be called a professor,
the first professor of indigenous
knowledge systems, there’s no
professor who can say he’s a
professor of indigenous knowledge,
the only professors as I tell you who
are organic are the likes of Grace
Masuku but there’s no professor
who comes from university who can
say I’m a professor of indigenous
knowledge, that person is not there,
in South Africa or anywhere in the
world, so when I say I’m an
intellectual I know I’m building
myself towards that, in the next 2 or
3 years I will be the first professor of
indigenous knowledge systems.
00:31:54:00 You explained earlier that 00:32:16:11
your grandmother used to
Take 2 - Dr. teach you about the stars
Koitsiwe & and tell you stories, at
Family what point did you decide
that astronomy is what I
want to do for the rest of
my life?
00:32:20:00 Dr. Koitsiwe - As I said the 00:34:38:24
inspiration on the study of
astronomy it came from my
grandmother, Mmamodiakgane
Tladinyane, we used to sit around
the fire in the evening session and
she would sing for us and tell us
about the stars and the importance
of the stars in our lives but when I

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got to the university I came across a

lot of professors who specialize in
physics and mathematics and they
call themselves astronomers and
they are the ones who specialized in
that subject but the way they teach
astronomy they teach it as a modern
subject using telescopes and you
must also know those physics and
mathematics theories and principles
but in our communities we have
grandmothers and grandfathers
who have this knowledge and not
just from my neighborhood but also
the likes of mme Grace Masuku in
Moruleng, I used to work with her
and grannies from Mokgalaneng
who are our living archives, they are
our sources of knowledge, so the
inspiration comes from my humble
beginnings but its influenced also by
my desire to learn more about
astronomy because also I met one
of the professors in Mafikeng but by
then he was at the University of
Cape Town, professor Thebe
Medupe, he’s the first renowned
modern astronomer that I know, he
was also influenced by his home
background.
00:34:45:00 Can you tell me about 00:35:06:11
your PhD project, how did
you formulate the project
and what is it really
about?
00:35:07:10 Dr. Koitsiwe - My studies were 00:37:32:11
focusing on Batswana astronomy
which is African indigenous
astronomy of Batswana in Botswana
and in South Africa. I was looking at
Bakgatal-Ba-Kgafela in Moruleng
and the ones in Mochudi in
Botswana, so my focus was on how
can we document this knowledge
using our own methodologies of
research also trying to use our own
languages, so I was also using my
community language to collect that

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information and one of the things

around that is we want to put this
knowledge in the curriculum of the
education system so that young
children such as these ones can be
taught about these things in school,
in primary, high school and in
university so that they can also have
careers in astronomy but the issue
here is we have to interface modern
astronomy with African astronomy
so that all these knowledge system
can be promoted as the same level
without the one being superior than
the other one, for example there’s a
lot of African astronomy cases,
there’s Batswana African astronomy
and cosmology, we can talk of Zulu,
Xhosa, you can go as far as Mali in
Timbuktu and Egypt and you can
even go outside the continent like in
Australia where you find the
aborigines and now I’m planning an
international trip in September to go
to Canada, we are going to meet
with other African indigenous
astronomers from all other parts of
the continent and others who are in
Australia, so we are also going to be
sitting around the fire there because
that’s where this knowledge starts
from so we want to add value into
this knowledge so that people know
that this knowledge still exists today
and that it is still relevant and has
significance in our lives.
00:37:34:10 Can you please create the 00:37:52:02
connection between
Batswana from South
Africa and Batswana in
Botswana, are they two
different people from two
different countries?
00:38:02:00 Dr. Koitsiwe - Bakgatla-ba-Kgafela 00:39:51:08
who are in Moruleng and the ones
who are in Mochudi in Botswana are
the same people, they used to be
one during the olden days but

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because of the history of apartheid

and the wars that happened
between the Boers and Batswana
and the conflicts that existed among
the people, Batswana people that
are in Botswana went to go live in
Botswana so Batswana who are in
Mochudi, Bakgatla and those who
are in Moruleng now they still have
a connection, their senior chief is
the same chief called chief Kgafela,
so they still have one paramount
chief and they still share the same
history including the totems and
their lineages are still one, so in
September Batswana in Botswana
and Batswana in South Africa they
meet when they have heritage
projects, they have their heritage
project they call Sedibelo but they
were only separated by the colonial
borders like if you have to go to
Botswana you have to jump the
border but they still work together
in many cases in terms of leadership
and culture, so they are one people
but because of the apartheid they
were separated but they still work
together.
00:39:52:10 What were some of the 00:40:16:15
key learnings of you
studies?
00:40:17:00 Dr. Koitsiwe - I learned that we’ve 00:41:44:22
got knowledge in our communities
and when I talk of astronomy I’m
talking about science and that in our
community there is science that
exists and we need to encourage
our young ones to know that science
is not only found in schools it’s also
found in our communities, that was
our first discovery, so I’m looking at
this knowledge as a scientific
knowledge not only as indigenous
knowledge and the second thing I
learned is that people who have this
knowledge they are very few in the
community because they are

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passing away with time and thirdly,

this knowledge is not documented
anywhere especially in our Tswana
language and fourthly, people who
brought this knowledge were
settlers such as missionaries,
archeologists and anthropologists
and they didn’t know our languages
and our ways of living so the
information that they documented
has gaps which are very serious, so
this knowledge sometimes can be
misleading so there are things that
have been introduced as our
knowledge but it’s actually not our
knowledge.
00:41:48:10 You mentioned that 00:42:12:11
astronomy can be linked
to aspects of our daily
lives, did you come across
anything with regards to
architecture in particular
that influenced how
people used to build their
homes and how we build
our homes now?
00:42:13:10 Dr. Koitsiwe - The link between 00:43:10:10
astronomy and architecture is one
of the things that I realised is also
dying, if you go into this community
now you won’t find people who use
astronomical knowledge when they
are building to link the architecture
with the cosmos but when I was
going through the literature I found
out that there were buildings built in
the past that had that significance
but now people don’t use that
knowledge anymore, they just build,
so that knowledge is dying of linking
astronomy with architecture.
00:43:12:00 In ancient time, people 00:43:32:14
used rock art as a form of
communication but today
it is seen as art, did you
find any links to the
concept of art in your

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studies?
00:43:33:10 Dr. Koitsiwe - Like I said when I 00:44:42:02
spoke of oral art or oral traditions,
our songs, our poems, those are
aspects of art but I also discovered
that there are some artifacts that
when the communities were
developing them they developed
them applying the knowledge of
astronomy and also there are
heritage sites that you can link to
astronomy, places that we call
astronomical heritage sites, so these
things are not only in Moruleng or in
Botswana, they are all over the
world where you find that people
can link art to astronomy, so the
knowledge still exists.
00:44:45:10 When you look at the 00:45:12:14
journey that you travelled
during the research phase
and the fact that people
who have this indigenous
knowledge are passing
away, how do we move on
from here without losing
all this indigenous
knowledge?
00:45:14:00 Dr. Koitsiwe - It’s going to be a 00:47:55:14
serious challenge if we want to pave
a future that is not informed by our
own history, so my advice to the
young generation is they need to tap
into their own roots in terms of
where they come from because
where you come from you will find a
lot of inspiration, you will find that
there are a lot of things you left
behind which can add a lot of value
in your life, so as you know in South
Africa we used to talk about African
Renaissance to revive ourselves as
Africans but now we talk about
reviving our knowledge systems and
the only way to achieve this is if we
use our languages because our
knowledge is kept in language, so

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language is a carrier of people’s

knowledge and heritage and arts
and there are a lot of authors who
explain the importance of languages
like Ngugi wa Thiong’o and
professor Mbithi and other local
professors like professor Sebate and
others who are trying to promote
languages, so I am working with
those people to try and produce
multilingual pedagogies so that we
can try to teach our children in our
Tswana languages or Zulu, Shangaan
or Venda like the Boers who teach
their children in Afrikaans and
recently I went to South Korea and I
saw the same scenario, people in
South Korea they produce their own
knowledge using their own language
systems, so my goal is that in future
I want to translate my PhD into the
language of the community so that
the community can own it and it’s
not just knowledge of the university
because the knowledge does not
come from the university, it comes
from Moruleng and from Mochudi,
so the art of astronomy has also not
been exposed to the younger
generation for them to understand
that even though astronomy is
scientific, they can also integrate art
into it and integrate many other
things in astronomy as well.
00:48:07:05 Can you tell me about the 00:48:19:15
schools we visited earlier
and what’s your
connection to them?
00:48:19:20 Dr. Koitsiwe - I started school at 00:50:36:19
Mabeskraal Primary and then I went
to Toelag Primary and from there I
went to Matutu Middle School and
then I went to Rakoko Middle School
and then to Edela and then came
back to Rakoko High School and
then I went to Wits and then I
furthered my studies at North West
University, so the dichotomy there is

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if you look at our primary schools

they do teach about astronomy but
they teach modern astronomy
especially in subjects such as
geography, they teach the children
about Venus, Jupiter and planets but
they don’t tell them about
Mphatlalatsane, Kopadilalelo,
Naledi ya masha, Sedimela, Ngwedi
and the importance of the mood in
our lives and that of the sun, so the
child starts at the lower level being
taught modern astronomy and
when they get to the university they
are taught the same astronomy and
even at the schools I attended I
didn’t hear even once a teacher
mention Mphatlalatsane, so even us
who have studied we tend to think
that our knowledge is inferior and
we are ashamed to talk about it
because we fear that other people
will question if it is science or not, so
I don’t need any modern scientist to
validate my knowledge but what I
think is important is for us to engage
the Basic Department of Education
and other stakeholders and see how
we can incorporate our indigenous
knowledge into the curriculum so
that these kids can know that they
can also take careers in African
astronomy and they can link these
things to the civilization of
Mapungubwe and other civilizations
that happened in the continent to
show that as Africans we influenced
world civilization also.
00:50:55:00 When your mother, 00:51:15:10
Motheo’s grandmother,
was teaching Motheo
about the stars, did you
think that her teachings
and stories will lead to
Motheo pursuing a career
in astronomy?
00:51:16:10 Mother – I never thought it would 00:51:24:19
lead to Motheo wanting to study

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Dr. Motheo Koitsiwe & Family

astronomy, it didn’t cross my mind

at all.
00:51:26:18 When Motheo told you 00:51:44:24
what he wants to study in
university, did you
understand what he
wanted to do?
00:51:47:06 Mother - When we took Motheo to 00:52:14:10
Wits we had three careers in mind,
we thought he would become a
teacher when we took him to
university but when he got there he
wanted to study towards become a
lawyer but that changed along the
way and he became an indigenous
astronomer instead.
00:52:19:10 How do you feel about the 00:52:32:09
work that Motheo does
and the fact that his work
has to do with African
culture?
00:52:34:00 Mother – I am very happy because 00:56:19:16
when we were growing up as
Motheo said my mother used to
teach us about the stars and about
their names, that’s how we grew up
and I see that Motheo takes after his
grandmother, we lived as five
families in one house with two
rooms and one bathroom, it was
five boys and three girls but you
would think that we are all siblings,
my mother was a true Tswana
woman, she would teach us about
wellbeing, how to take care of
ourselves, how to dress and how to
communicate and how to behave,
so I learned a lot from my mother
and I can help other people from
what I’ve learned from her
teachings, so I’m glad to see that she
was giving us knowledge for our
future all of us children that grew up
under her care, she taught us to
respect our elders and she instilled
the love of education in us. My
mother also made us feel important

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Dr. Motheo Koitsiwe & Family

and that we can also help her, she

would speak freely around us and
we also felt free around her, she
treated us like grownups and she
also taught us how to keep time, we
knew when it was time to go back
home. I would go with the three
boys when they would go play
soccer and I would carry their
drinking water for them, so when I
speak of Mothoe I’m not shocked of
his career path, I realised that he
takes after my mother, he has a gift.
00:57:17:15 Can you tell me about the 00:57:33:15
importance of oral history
Take 3 - Dr. because I see a thread,
Koitsiwe & you grew up on it and you
Family used a lot of it in your
projects, how
fundamental was oral
history in your project and
how important is it
looking forward into the
future?
00:57:35:00 Dr Koitsiwe - Oral traditions, let’s 01:06:39:08
take an example of storytelling,
nowadays those things people make
them to seem fashionable but it
always used to be our culture for
elders to narrate stories to the
young generation about their family
history, the community history and
in general the history of human
beings, so you will realise that you
can teach someone not only through
formal engagement, you can teach
through songs, you can teach
through proverbs, you can teach
through music or songs and riddles
and other oral traditions. Oral
traditions are important in African
communities because in the olden
days and even recently we can still
use those aspects of oral art to
teach children in school and when
you use those aspects you realise
that whatever syllabus or lessons
that you were trying to teach to the

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learners they will never forget them

unlike using a chalkboard or a
computer to teach because they’ve
got no connection with whatever
that you are trying to do there, so if
you teach through songs and you
also make these learners to perform
those songs, you teach them how to
perform them because it’s not only
about the songs, there can also be
games that are also attached to this
African astronomy like as I was
saying I remember one song that we
used to sing around the fire Naledi
ya Mariberibe *sings*, so you see if
you teach children these songs and
you explain to them about a
particular star like naledi ya
Mariberibe, you are opening their
horizons of learning because
learning is not only in the class and if
you want to teach also about
indigenous astronomy, it’s a pity
now the sky is cloudy, if there were
stars we were going to show you
some of these stars as you heard my
mother talking about cooking
dinner, in the olden days the
grannies would teach young girls
how to keep time for cooking using
the star, Kopa dilalelo, because
that’s the star that shows evening
time, so when you have that
knowledge you know what time to
cook dinner and also older people
are not supposed to eat after 8
o’clock because their digestive
system is slower, so these stars you
will find them in these oral
traditions because like I said if you
go around looking for people who
have this knowledge you won’t find
them but you will find this
knowledge laying around in those
stories and in those riddles and in
those songs, so we have to analyse
these songs so that we can explain
them in terms of their commentary

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Dr. Motheo Koitsiwe & Family

and what they are saying, there’s a

lot of information that I covered
around the issues of oral traditions
so perhaps we will find time also to
engage on those songs and the
poems that talk about astronomy,
so these things are there we just
have to find a way to document
them and find a way how to publish
those things to the community.
There is also a song that I know that
talks about the sun, it’s a song that
was sang by the women in Mochudi
and they would sing and say *sings*,
so they are singing about the sun
because the sun is a representation
of a male amongst Batswana, the
moon represents the woman, so all
those things they interact, the one
comes in the day and the other one
comes in the night but there are
times when you see both the moon
and the sun during the day, so those
songs are there, there are other
songs that were sung during
traditional games like hide and seek
at night, we would play these games
under the light of the moon and it
would seem like its daylight, during
the full moon, so these things exists
we just have to revive them and use
technology and modern software so
that when these children are on
their phones they can learn about
astronomy, we do have the software
but the problem is it’s in English, so
we have to translate these things
into Setswana, it’s a free software
that you can use to learn about the
stars without a telescope, all you
need is a smartphone, but we need
to put our indigenous knowledge
into these devices so that we can
link our indigenous knowledge with
the modern knowledge so that they
can have sustainability and
development and also survive the
eras of globalization and even the

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fourth industrial revolution because

we can’t leave these things behind
and now we’ve got a big telescope
at UNW that was built there by
professor Medupe through the
department of science, that
telescope we can use it to study
stars all over the country, so those
are some of the things that show
that I’m not doing things in isolation,
I’m trying to integrate what exists
and what is available.
01:06:43:10 Can you tell us about your 01:06:44:15
scepter?
01:06:46:00 Dr. Koitsiwe - This scepter was given 01:07:44:16
to me by baba Credo Mutwa, he
gave me this scepter to use it to
teach our people about our
indigenous knowledge, he told me
to go all over the world when he
gave me this scepter, to promote
African languages and to promote
African astronomy, so it’s a symbol
of honour for me, it’s something
that shows me that I inherited
something from the elders that I
cannot throw away, it will be part
and parcel of my life, so I carry it as
a symbol of honour.
01:08:54:00 When Motheo was 01:09:16:16
growing up, what kind of a
career did you see him
pursuing?
01:09:19:00 Father - When Motheo was growing 01:10:09:10
up I couldn’t really tell which career
path he might take because in the
olden days we didn’t have a lot of
options, we knew that a child would
want to become a teacher or a
nurse, Motheo was like any other
child, there wasn’t anything showing
that he might be interested in
natural sciences and astronomy, he
was just a normal child, there was
nothing distinctive about him.
01:10:09:20 Do you understand what 01:10:31:17
astronomy is and do you

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Dr. Motheo Koitsiwe & Family

understand the difference

between modern
astronomy and indigenous
astronomy?
01:10:33:10 Father - As Motheo was talking 01:17:22:03
about indigenous astronomy, in the
olden days we knew the stars by
their names without reading about
them in books just like we know
about naledi ya meso,
mphatlalatsane, these are the things
that we’ve always known even
though we never studied them, so
indigenous astronomy and modern
astronomy is the same, the
difference is that indigenous
astronomy was taught to us orally,
we didn’t read about them, we got
to know about them through
storytelling in the evenings like we
are sitting now, that’s how we
learned about many things and even
learning how to speak we learned
through storytelling, we teach our
young ones now how to talk and
sing through storytelling, just
yesterday I was telling this little one
a story because I know he can’t
speak Tswana properly, so I teach
him through storytelling and song,
with stories like Dimo le Tselane …
*little boy tells the story of Dimo le
Tselane*

Dr. Koitsiwe - So this is what I was

saying earlier that you can teach a
child through storytelling and they
will never forget, like you see that
the episode is still fresh in his mind,
so if you bring that pedagogy in the
classroom, no child would fail a
test…
So you can see that in schools these
indigenous teachings are not there,
it’s only the modern ones, they
teach them about the planets,
Jupiter and others, so there is a gap
in the curriculum so this knowledge

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Dr. Motheo Koitsiwe & Family

can’t end here around the fire, it

should end up in the education
system so that other people can do
research about the existing gaps in
my research because my research
won’t cover all the subjects, other
people will have to fill in the gaps
hence I was saying I don’t only work
with the Tswana people I also
network with intellects from all over
the world and like I was saying
there’s a conference taking place in
Canada in September, I will be going
there with other astronomers from
Botswana in Moruleng so that we
can go teach the world that as
Tswana people from Africa this is
how we do things in our Setswana
way.

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