History
According to oral tradition, the baYei emigrated from the kingdom of the Lozi people in the 18th century, and were led into Ngamiland by the skilled fisherman and hunter Hankuzi. When the baYei met the baKhakwe people, Hankuzi married one of their women, possibly as a guarantee of peace. A number of immigration waves followed. The baYei learned many of the baKhakwes survival skills, including new fishing techniques, while the baYei are credited with bringing the canoe buildning technology to Ngamiland.
The baYei also had connections to the Lozi in the north, and traded tobacco for iron with them. Iron was important in the baYei economy for producing spearheads and tools.
In the early 19th century the baTswana tribe known as baTawana arrived in the Ngamiland. After the arrival, many of the baYei became serfs, or batlhanka, of the baTawana. Initially the servitude was volountary in many cases, as it offered protection to attach oneself to a powerful household.
Read more about this topic: Yeyi People
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“Tell me of the height of the mountains of the moon, or of the diameter of space, and I may believe you, but of the secret history of the Almighty, and I shall pronounce thee mad.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“The true theater of history is therefore the temperate zone.”
—Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770–1831)
“No event in American history is more misunderstood than the Vietnam War. It was misreported then, and it is misremembered now.”
—Richard M. Nixon (b. 1913)