KuBhetere: Bethel Farm and the Basotho's Belonging in the Dewure Purchase Areas

Abstract

This chapter examines the centrality of Bethel Farm, the Basotho's communally owned farm, and its features in the everyday life of these Basotho. The cemetery, in particular, became a key feature of the farm and a marker of the Basotho's attachment to the land. The chapter also explores the various factors that influenced most members of the Basotho community's decision to bury their dead at Bethel Cemetery and the social significance attached to this exclusive Basotho burial place. Being recent immigrants, ownership of land and attachment to it, often established through links to graves and other landscape features, became factors in how the Basotho formulated and continue to formulate their sense of belonging to the land. This is, arguably, the reason why kuBhetere, as Bethel Farm is called by the surrounding communities, became a symbol of the Basotho's belonging in the Dewure Purchase Areas. BETHEL FARM AND THE BASOTHO's BELONGING As highlighted in the previous chapter, as Alien Natives, the Basotho's belonging in the purchase areas largely hinged on ownership of freehold farms and establishing an attachment to these farms. It is, however, important to note that as well as purchasing their individual farms, the Basotho also bought a community farm, which became a feature in the Basotho's everyday life. As the leader of the community, Jacob Molebaleng sent numerous letters to the Native Land Board on behalf of the community requesting a farm that would be used as a site for building a ‘non-denominational’ church, school and clinic. They also planned to make the farm a site for a community cemetery and a dip tank. While the establishment of a school, dip tank and clinic represented the Basotho's desire to foster development through the provision of education and health services, the cemetery largely showed their keenness to establish an attachment to the land through graves. In essence their desire was to make the farm the centre of all their activities and a spiritual marker of their unity as a community. The idea of having a community farm in a purchase area was quite a novel one. Consequently, it began to be suggested by some colonial officials that, as ‘Alien Natives’ without any rights in the reserves, maybe the Basotho wished to establish a ‘reserve’ of their own.