¹ Frank, Lawrence, BNP: Traditional Authority and Neo-Colonialism in Lesotho (Denver, 1971), 9Google Scholar; Stevens, R. P., Lesotho, Botswana and Swaziland (New York, 1967), 81Google Scholar. Bardill and Cobbe, citing the inconclusiveness of the evidence for women's voting behaviour, nevertheless repeat this ‘fact’ without attribution (Bardill, James and Cobbe, James, Lesotho: Dilemmas of Dependence in Southern Africa [Boulder, 1985], 34Google Scholar), while Machobane baldly states ‘that the BNP was basically a party of women’ (Machobane, L. B. B. J., Government and Change in Lesotho, 1800–1966: A Study [London, 1990], 285).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

² It should be noted that this interpretation is not simply an academic one, but was commonly asserted by Basotho politicians themselves at the time, not least of all by the leader of the BNP, Chief Leabua Jonathan. See Pelea, Bernadette Manyeoe, ‘La femme mosotho: élément dynamique de la nation’, Vivant Univers, 284 (1973), 34.Google Scholar

³ For example: women ‘appear to be conservative’ (Spence, Jack, Lesotho: The Politics of Dependence [London, 1968], 44Google Scholar) and ‘are generally more attached to the existing moral and social fabric [than men]’ (Weisfelder, Richard, ‘Lesotho’, in Potholm, Christian P. and Dale, Richard [eds.], Southern Africa in Perspective [New York, 1972], 135Google Scholar). Women, ‘being more conservative than men and jealous of their traditions’ (Ashton, Hugh, The Basuto [Oxford, 1952], 57Google Scholar), allegedly voted for the BNP in droves because they were ‘traditionally oriented’ (Kowet, D. K., Land, Labour Migration and Politics [Uppsala, 1978], 162).Google Scholar

⁴ The latter view is made explicit in Machobane, , Government and Change, 296Google Scholar, and Leeman, Bernard, Lesotho and the Struggle for Azania (London, 1985), 88.Google Scholar

⁵ Weisfelder, Richard, ‘Defining national purpose: the roots of factionalism in Lesotho’ (Ph.D. thesis, Harvard University, 1974), 343.Google Scholar

⁶ The view that women were more educated, more politically conscious and more change-oriented than men is asserted in Peloa, , ‘La femme mosotho’Google Scholar; Lapointe, Eugene, An Experience of Pastoral Theology in Southern Africa (Rome, 1986), 216Google Scholar; and Gay, Judy, Women in Development (Maseru, 1982)Google Scholar. See also Murray, Colin, Families Divided: The Impact of Migrant Labour in Lesotho (Cambridge, 1981)Google Scholar; Malahleha, Gwen, ‘Liquor brewing: a cottage industry in Lesotho shebeens’, Journal of Eastern African Research and Development, XV (1985), 45–55Google Scholar; Gay, Judy, ‘Basotho women's options’ (Ph.D. thesis, Cambridge University, 1980)Google Scholar; Coplan, David, ‘Eloquent knowledge: Lesotho migrants' songs and the anthropology of experience’, American Ethnologist, XIV (1987), 413–33CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Eldredge, Elizabeth, ‘Women in production: the economic role of women in 19th century Lesotho’, Signs, XVI (1991), 707–31.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

⁷ As Weisfelder notes, the BCP swept the lowland constituencies where the gender imbalance was most skewed (Weisfelder, , ‘Defining’, 342Google Scholar). Women's ‘conservatism’ can be judged against the results in Lipelaneng, for example, a district where females of all ages outnumbered males by 30 per cent (and the imbalance among voters was even higher). There, the two ‘radical’ parties together polled over 86 per cent of the votes cast (4300 verses 675 for the BNP). Conversely, the BNP won in the highlands where there were, proportionately, more men. The implications of this logic are supported by oral evidence in Epprecht, , ‘Women, class and politics in colonial Lesotho, 1930–1965’ (Ph.D. thesis, Dalhousie University, 1992)Google Scholar, as well as the fact that the BCP won subsequent elections with pluralities, which can only be explained by widespread support from both women and men. For the 1970 elections, MacCartney found virtually no correlation between sex, education or church and voting behaviour (MacCartney, J. A., ‘A case study: the Lesotho general elections of 1970’, Government and Opposition, VIII [1973], 478Google Scholar), while in 1993 the BCP won every seat in the country and took over 75 per cent of the popular vote.

⁸ Mueller, Martha, ‘Women and men: power and powerlessness in Lesotho’, Signs, III (1977), 154–66CrossRefGoogle Scholar. This accords with the concept of ‘exit’ advanced by Fatton, Robert, ‘Gender, class, and state in Africa’, in Parpart, Jane and Staudt, Kathleen (eds.), Women and the State in Africa (Boulder, 1990), 47–66.Google Scholar

⁹ Urdang, Stephanie, Fighting Two Colonialisms: Women in Guinea-Bissau (New York, 1979)Google Scholar; Walker, Cherryl, Women and Resistance in South Africa (London, 1982)Google Scholar; Johnson, Cherryl, ‘Grass roots organizing: women in anticolonial activity in southwestern Nigeria’, African Studies Review, XXV (1982), 37–57Google Scholar; Hay, Margaret Jean, ‘Queens, prostitutes, and peasants: historical perspectives on African women’, Can. J. Afr. Studies, XXII (1988), 431–47Google Scholar; Weiss, Ruth, Women of Zimbabwe (London, 1986)Google Scholar; Geiger, Susan, ‘Women in nationalist struggle: TANU activists in Dar es Salaam’, Int. J. Afr. Hist. Studies, XX (1987), 1–26CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Walker, Cheryl (ed.), Women and Gender in Southern Africa to 1945 (Cape Town, 1990)Google Scholar; Bozzoli, Belinda with Nkotsoe, Mmantho, Women of Phokeng: Consciousness, Life Strategy and Migrancy in South Africa, 1900–1983 (London, 1991)Google Scholar; Presley, Cora, Kikuyu Women, the ‘Mau Mau’ Rebellion, and Social Change in Kenya (Boulder, 1991)Google Scholar; Tourrittin, Jane, ‘Aoua Keita and the nascent women's movement in the French Soudan’, African Studies Review, XXXVI (1993), 59–89CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Seidman, Gay, ‘“No freedom without the women”: mobilization and gender in South Africa’, Signs, XVIII (Winter 1993), 291–320.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

¹⁰ Hence even Mueller, despite her specific focus on women, nonetheless fails to consider the activities of Basotho women's church or other ‘apolitical’ voluntary organizations. Mueller, Martha, ‘Women and men in rural Lesotho’ (Ph.D. thesis, Brandeis University, 1977).Google Scholar

¹¹ Open-ended and informal interviews were conducted during my field research in Lesotho in 1990, as well as through subsequent correspondence. The majority took place in English, the remainder in Sesotho with translation by Thato Sibolla and Ausi Fobo of the National University of Lesotho, Roma. The methodology I employed is eloquently assessed in Geiger, Susan, ‘What's so feminist about doing women's oral history?’ in Johnson-Odim, Cheryl and Strobel, Margaret (eds.), Expanding the Boundaries of Women's History (Bloomington, 1992), 305–18Google Scholar; and in more general theoretical terms, in Hennessy, Rosemary, Materialist Feminism and the Politics of Discourse (New York, 1993).Google Scholar

¹² The seminal work in this regard remains Chanock, Martin, Law, Custom and Social Order: The Colonial Experience in Malawi and Zambia (Cambridge, 1986)Google Scholar. For a trenchant analysis of ‘tradition’ in Lesotho's early history, see Eldredge, Elizabeth, A South African Kingdom: The Pursuit of Security in Nineteenth-Century Lesotho (Cambridge, 1993).Google Scholar

¹³ See Jean, and Comaroff, John, Of Revelation and Revolution: Christianity, Colonialism and Consciousness in South Africa (Chicago, 1991)Google Scholar; Gaitskill, Deborah, ‘Housewives, maids or mothers: some contradictions of domesticity for Christian women in Johannesburg, 1903–1939’, J. Afr. Hist., XXIV (1983), 241–56CrossRefGoogle Scholar. This is a view I too have expounded through the voices of Basotho women in ‘Domesticity and piety in colonial Lesotho: the private politics of Basotho women's pious associations’, J. Southern Afr. Studies, XIX (1993), 202–24.Google Scholar

¹⁴ Murray, Colin, ‘High bridewealth, migrant labour and the position of women in Lesotho’, Journal of African Law, XXI (1977), 79–96CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Bohali's importance as an inhibition to divorce explains the Catholic church's positive support for this ‘pagan’ custom. See Mabathoana, P., ‘Lobola’, African Digest, XIII (n. d. [1961?]), 28.Google Scholar

¹⁵ Eldredge, , ‘Women in production’, 730.Google Scholar

¹⁶ See Blanchet-Cohen, Theresa, ‘The corporate structure of the Catholic Church in Lesotho, 1930–56’ (M.Phil, thesis, University of London, 1976).Google Scholar

¹⁷ Moeletsi, 18 09 1945.Google Scholar

¹⁸ See ‘Report on Basutoland’, Public Record Office, Kew [hereafter PRO], Dominions Office [DO] 35/4160/y3535/1 and PRO, DO 35/1177/y837/17; J. M. Kena (a Mosotho trade unionist and former Communist Party leader) cited in Mohlakola, Mohlakola F., ‘Early trade unions in Lesotho’ (hons. paper, National University of Lesotho, 1986), 20Google Scholar. My interpretation of Bonhomme's forced retirement differs from Blanchet-Cohen's, which, drawn from a reading of select church documents, blames internal power struggles within the RCM and ignores the external pressures which precipitated and facilitated the ‘coup’ against Bonhomme. See ‘An alternative vision’, in Epprecht, , ‘Women and class’.Google Scholar

¹⁹ Under the Bonhomme administration, the priest was also often an ally for Basotho women in wresting authority from European and Canadian nuns. See the voluminous correspondence between the nuns and the priests of the Oblales of Mary Immaculate (OMI) at the Dechatelets Archives in for example, microfilm reel 76.

²⁰ As when one novitiate pointed darning needles at the eyes of her frustrated betrothed when he came to force her to return home. Corsini, Soeur Saint-André, 30 jours en mer, 300 jours sur terre, 30 heures dans l'air: relation d'un voyage au Basutoland et au Nyasaland (Ottawa, 1947), 196–7Google Scholar. The Basotho Sisters were regarded for ‘true heroism’ in Catholic literature, for example, Gudreau, Guy, ‘Plus de cent ans de christianisme’, Vivant Univers (1973), 26Google Scholar; Joseph, Soeur de St, Un voyage au Basutoland (St Hyacinthe, Québec, 1946)Google Scholar. Much the same occurred in the Anglican church as well: ‘Like myself, I joined in 1945. Other than the first two, all of us had run away. That is a terrible thing to do but luckily our parents are very meek and mild. In the end, if we stand firm, they will never allow a break in the family’: interview, Hilda, Sister, Leribe, 25 08 1990.Google Scholar

²¹ Blanchet-Cohen, , ‘Corporate structure’, 257.Google Scholar

²² Priscilla Fobo (President of the Ladies of Sainte Anne, Roma), interviewed in Roma, , 23 09 1990Google Scholar. I explore this theme more fully in Epprecht, , ‘Domesticity and piety’.Google Scholar

²³ See Eldredge, , A South African Kingdom, 251–9.Google Scholar

²⁴ Census, , 1911Google Scholar; Basutoland, , List of Gazetted Principal and Ward Chiefs, Chiefs and Headmen as at 1st January, 1955 (Morija, 1955)Google Scholar; Gay, , ‘Basotho women's options’, 41Google Scholar. Census figures may have actually minimized the number of women acting as chiefs since they often registered their male relatives rather than themselves. See the testimony in Basutoland High Court 6/1943, Lesotho National Archives [hereafter LNA], HC 6/1943.

²⁵ For an overview of the development of colonial policy with regard to the African family and the reproduction of a suitable labour force, see Cooper, Frederick, ‘From free labour to family allowances: labour and African society in colonial discourse’, American Ethnologist, XVI (1989), 745–65CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Interesting case studies which support this interpretation can be found in Barnes, Theresa, ‘The fight for control of African women's mobility in colonial Zimbabwe, 1900–1939’, Signs, XVII (1992), 586–608CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Mbilinyi, Marjorie, ‘Runaway wives in colonial Tanganyika: forced labour and forced marriage in Rungwe District, 1919–61’, International Journal of the Sociology of Law, XVI (1988), 1–29Google Scholar; Parpart, Jane, ‘Sexuality and power on the Zambian copperbelt’, in Stichter, Sharon and Parpart, Jane (eds.), Patriarchy and Class: African Women in the Home and Workforce (Boulder, 1988), 115–38Google Scholar; Schmidt, Elizabeth, ‘Capitalism, patriarchy and the colonial state in Zimbabwe’, Signs, XVI (1991), 732–56.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

²⁶ A. G. T. Chaplin estimated an exodus of 250,000 Basotho (half the population) if the existing migrant labour system were to come to an end; ‘Labour emigration: conditions on the Witwatersrand (17/7/1942)’; PRO, DO 35/1178/y847/1/1.

²⁷ Sims to High Commissioner, 27 04 1935, PRO, DO 119/1053, 3–4.Google Scholar

²⁸ See Kimble, Judy, ‘“Runaway wives”: Basotho women, chiefs, and the colonial state, c. 1890–1920’, Women in Africa Seminar, School of Oriental and African Studies (London, 17 06 1983)Google Scholar; and Bonner, Phil, ‘“Desirable or undesirable Basotho women?” liquor, prostitution and the migration of Basotho women to the Rand, 1920–1945’, in Walker (ed.), Women and Gender, 221–50.Google Scholar

²⁹ Malahleha, , ‘Liquor brewing’, 53Google Scholar; Gay, , ‘Basotho women's options’, 255Google Scholar. One district of Maseru is still known colloquially after the woman, ‘Mamak’hanakisi, who owned and operated an ‘eating house’ there from the 1920s to 60s (Ambrose, David, Maseru: An Illustrated History [Morija, 1993], 159–60Google Scholar). It is also clear from discussions in the National Council at the time that such women were respected (for their wealth) and frequently feared (for their deftness with a knife). See Basutoland National Council, Report of Proceedings (henceforth BNC) 1948, 467Google Scholar; BNC 1952, 173Google Scholar; BNC 1953, 325.Google Scholar

³⁰ Sims, J. H., ‘The story of my life’ (unpubl. Ms., Rhodes House).Google Scholar

³¹ See, for example, the ‘regrettable’ collapse of the Home Industries Organization discussed in BNC, Report on the Committee to Investigate the Working of the Home Industries Organization (Maseru, 1949).Google Scholar

³² The chiefs' failure to ‘modernize’ was particularly frustrating to the British, since the chiefs were crucial to the cost-efficient implementation of ‘development’ projects. For example, the ‘local headman’ was ‘the real lynchpin in the soil conservation effort’. ‘If he cannot or will not perform his function, then Basutoland is doomed’; SirBaring, Evelyn, ‘Economic development in the High Commission Territories’, Afr. Affairs, LI (1952), 230.Google Scholar

³³ Showers, Kate and Malahleha, G. M, ‘Oral evidence in historical environmental impact assessment: soil conservation in Lesotho in the 1930s–40s’, J. Southern Afr. Studies, XVIII (1992), 296.Google Scholar

³⁴ Jingoes, J. S., A Chief is a Chief by the People (Cape Town, 1975)Google Scholar; Kimble, Judy, ‘Clinging to the chiefs: some contradictions in colonial rule in Basutoland’, in Bernstein, H. and Campbell, B. (eds.), The Contradictions of Accumulation in Africa (Beverly Hills, 1986), 25–69.Google Scholar

³⁵ See Discussion on Native Treasury (1943) PRO, DO 35/1176; and interviews between Resident Commissioner and Paramount Chieftainess (1943–44) PRO, DO 35/1177/y832/3 and 5.

³⁶ Majara, Matete (chief and interim leader of BNP), interviewed at Ha Majara, 24 08 1990Google Scholar; Mokhehle, Ntsu (leader of the BCP and present Prime Minister of Lesotho), interviewed at Maseru, 8 09 1990Google Scholar; Lehloenya, Patrick (retired teacher and former MFP member), interviewed at Ha Lehloenya, 17 08 1990Google Scholar. Suggestively, the enhancement of the chiefs' prestige and powers was one of the main platforms of the ‘women's party’ (Kopaneng Basotho) in the 1993 election campaign – because the chiefs ‘are closest to the nation’. Mpatlalatsane, 7 03 1992Google Scholar, and Ntakatsane, Limakatso (teacher, leader of the KBP), personal communication, 13 08 1992.Google Scholar

³⁷ Jingoes, , A Chief, 152.Google Scholar

³⁸ Draft Report of the Liretlo Committee, 10 02 1954Google Scholar, Liretlo file, Morija archives.

³⁹ It is true that some chiefs, with government incentives and de facto approval, deprived widows (who did not pay tax) of one of the two fields to which they were customarily entitled so that land could be given to young men (who could then be taxed). It is noteworthy, however, that the chiefs were among the first and loudest critics of each other in this practice. See, for example, BNC 1928, 43Google Scholar; BNC 1930, 57–68Google Scholar; BNC 1936, 184Google Scholar. Chiefs also gave women's ‘homemaking’ associations land for gardens. Interviews, Mohapeloa, Bernice (founder, Homemakers Association) Mafeteng, 21 08 1990Google Scholar; Mohloboli, 'Mathato (Lesotho National Council of Women), Morija, 7 08 1990.Google Scholar

⁴⁰ BNC 1937, 3.Google Scholar

⁴¹ To the evident disbelief of the British-see LNA, HC 6/1943; BNC 1950, 87–96.Google Scholar

⁴² Confidential Reports on Native Chiefs in Basutoland, , 1935, PRO, DO 119/1055Google Scholar. See also Ashton, , The Basuto, 191Google Scholar; SirMoor, Henry (sic), Basutoland Report of the Administration Reforms Committee (Maseru, 1954), 8Google Scholar, henceforth, The Moore Report.

⁴³ The Moore Report, 8Google Scholar; BNC 1950, 95.Google Scholar

⁴⁴ The Moore Report, 8, 12Google Scholar; BNC 1950, 95.Google Scholar

⁴⁵ LNA, High Court 685/1926; LNA, S3/5/15/3.

⁴⁶ Jingoes, , A Chief, 153.Google Scholar

⁴⁷ BNC 1949, 196.Google Scholar

⁴⁸ BNC 1950, 95–6Google Scholar. In the event, the British simply ignored the Council's vote, a prerogative they otherwise rarely invoked.

⁴⁹ Individual female chiefs singled out for particular praise included Ma-Lerotholi, , in ‘Confidential Reports on Native Chiefs in Basutoland (1935)’Google Scholar; PRO, DO 119/1055.

⁵⁰ LNA, HC 27/1942.

⁵¹ LNA, HC 27/1942, 27.

⁵² Interview, Lehloenya, Patrick, Ha Lehloenya, 17 08 1990.Google Scholar

⁵³ BNC 1953, 90.Google Scholar

⁵⁴ Matji, Robert (businessman and former BCP District Councillor of Qacha's Nek), interviewed, Maseru, 11 09 1990Google Scholar; Khaketla, 'Masechele (co-founder and headmistress of Iketsetsing Primary School), interviewed, Maseru, 8 09 1990Google Scholar. In a related discussion in the BNC, Lyon Mahau argued that ‘a widow is looked upon as the father of the minor child’ and therefore regents should be entitled to the same benefits as male chiefs. BNC 1947, 641.Google Scholar

⁵⁵ Interview, Khaketla, 'Masechele, Maseru, 8 09 1990.Google Scholar

⁵⁶ LNA, HC 6/1943.

⁵⁷ District Council conference Maseru, 21–2 12 1942Google Scholar; PRO, DO 35/1172/y708/1.

⁵⁸ Interview, Majara, Chief Matete, Ha Majara, 24 08 1990.Google Scholar

⁵⁹ Kennan, to Arden-Clarke, , 15 06 1943Google Scholar, PRO, DO 35/1176. See also Hailey, Lord, Native Administration in the British African Territories (5 vols.) (London, 1953), V, 90.Google Scholar

⁶⁰ Among the latter, the leader of the BCP recalls 'Mantsebo as the most ‘liberal’ of the Paramount Chiefs he has dealt with, while both he and the leader of the MFP praised 'Mantsebo's key role in encouraging the evolution of democratic institutions and practices in the 1950s. Interviews, Mokhehle, Ntsu, Maseru, 8 09 1990Google Scholar, and Khaketla, B. M., Maseru, 20 09 1990.Google Scholar

⁶¹ This hardline ‘anti-Communism’ led 'Mamathe Masupha to found her own United Party after independence primarily on the grounds that the BNP showed ‘communist’ leanings (meaning, perceptively, that it was abandoning the Christian principles it had espoused in 1965 as a ploy to win male migrant support in the run-up to the 1970 campaign). Basutoland Times, 31 05 1968.Google Scholar

⁶² Basutoland, , Basutoland Constitutional Commission Verbatim Record of Evidence Heard [henceforth BCC] (Maseru, 1963), 660.Google Scholar

⁶³ Ibid. 775.

⁶⁴ BNC 1941, 19Google Scholar. Hailey, , Native Administration, 100.Google Scholar

⁶⁵ BNC, Report of the Select Committee on Wills, Estates and Marriages (Maseru, 1962), 17Google Scholar. Leabua Jonathan concurred.

⁶⁶ ‘Nowadays even the girls work hard to maintain their parents…’; ibid. 616.

⁶⁷ Devitt, Paul, ‘The politics of headmanship in the Mokhokhong Valley, Lesotho’ (M. A. thesis, University of Witwatersrand, 1969).Google Scholar

⁶⁸ Hector, Gordon (former Deputy Resident Commissioner, and Government Secretary, and Leader of the House [BNC] 1956–65), personal correspondence, 9 05 and 28 06 1991.Google Scholar

⁶⁹ This category of women first appears on the census in 1936, distinct from ‘domestic servants’. While the vast majority of women worked outside the home in some capacity, 508 were described as performing ‘household duties’ only. Census, 1936, 25.Google Scholar

⁷⁰ Edgar, Robert, Prophets with Honour: A Documentary History of the Lekhotla la Bafo (Johannesburg, 1988).Google Scholar

⁷¹ A class/church alignment fully recognized by the Catholic hierarchy as it scrambled to organize a ‘Christian Democratic’ opposition in the late 1950s. See, for example, Vinculum, XIII (1957), 81.Google Scholar

⁷² The MFP attracted some of Lesotho's most accomplished batsoelopele, but its campaign ultimately fizzled, in part because of a violent incident apparently sparked by party supporters, in part because of the impossibility of reconciling its socialist and reactionary wings. The real communists meanwhile, (the Lesotho Communist Party, co-founded in 1960 by Elizabeth Mafeking, a South African refugee) never garnered more than a tiny percentage of the vote and for that reason are outside the scope of this study.

⁷³ Police report of the March 1930 LLB meeting, LNA, S3/22/2/4; Machobane, , Government and Change, 164Google Scholar; Edgar, , Prophets with Honour, 125–6.Google Scholar

⁷⁴ The nurses had protested the racist policies of the Maseru hospital administration and then, when patronized and reprimanded for their ‘trivial’ concerns, quit en masse, ‘a severe setback’ to the hospital according to the official report. Basutoland, , Medical and Public Health Report (Maseru, 1943)Google Scholar. Nearly twenty years later, the Basutoland Nursing Association remained among the most militant in its explicit condemnation of the racist and sexist policies of the colonial administration. BNC, Report of the Select Committee on Salary Scales and Conditions of Service of the Basutoland Civil Service (Maseru, 1961), 161–75.Google Scholar

⁷⁵ On this basis, Lefela later proposed himself as a representative of women in the BNC. BNC 1951, 535.Google Scholar

⁷⁶ LNA, S3/22/2/4; Edgar, , Prophets with Honour, 67–70.Google Scholar

⁷⁷ Vinculum, XIII (1957), 83.Google Scholar

⁷⁸ Mohlabani, I (1955), 19.Google Scholar

⁷⁹ Molapo later defected from the BCP to become one of the MFP's most dynamic campaigners, an activism which earned her (and her party) the sexist derision of the BCP's official organ. See for example, Makatolle, 29 03 1965 and 5 04 1965.Google Scholar

⁸⁰ Codex of Ramabanta, 11 1964Google Scholar, Dechatelets Archives Microfilm reel 16.

⁸¹ For example, the women who closed down St Agnes school in Teyateyaneng to protest tuition hikes. Basutoland News, 28 02 1961.Google Scholar

⁸² LNA, CR 1/A/1–15/1962. This riot expressed rage against the colonial regime and whites in general. It was sparked by the arrest and extradition to South Africa of Pan-Africanist Congress member Mohau Mokitimi.

⁸³ Masiloane, Gertrude 'Makali (president of the BCP Women's League, manager of Fraser's main store in Mohale's Hoek), interviewed at Mohale's Hoek, 10 08 1990.Google Scholar

⁸⁴ Sibolla, 'Me (headmistress, Morija English Medium Primary School), interviewed Morija, 21 07 1990.Google Scholar

⁸⁵ BNC 1961, Committee on Wills, 10.Google Scholar

⁸⁶ See Leselinyana, 22 04 1961, 4 (translation from Sesotho).Google Scholar

⁸⁷ LANTA Echoes, 27 06 1964, 4.Google Scholar

⁸⁸ Interview, Masiloane, Gertrude, Mohale's Hoek, 10 08 1990.Google Scholar

⁸⁹ BNC 1963, 763Google Scholar; Mamosala, 'Me (member of Bo-'Ma-bana, Lesotho Evangelical Church kopano, Homemakers Association), interviewed, Morija, 30 07 1990.Google Scholar

⁹⁰ Constitution of BCPWL cited in Leeman, , Lesotho and the Struggle for Azania, iii, 117.Google Scholar

⁹¹ Interview, Masiloane, Gertrude, Mohale's Hoek, 26 09 1990.Google Scholar

⁹² Interview, Matji, Robert, Maseru, 11 09 1990.Google Scholar

⁹³ The accusations are recounted in Leeman, , Lesotho and the Struggle for Azania, passim, but especially 67, 116–17Google Scholar. They included the leaders treating scholarship candidates as ‘a personal harem’, squandering party funds on mistresses, and endangering party unity by struggles over young women's ‘favours’.

⁹⁴ 'Mota, Sister Victoria (Catholic nun and teacher), interviewed at Roma, 20 09 1990Google Scholar. The reference to radio is indicative of political alignments and scruples at the time: the RCM operated the only transmitter in the country. In the eyes of the RCM hierarchy, the BCP was basically a reincarnation of the stridently anti-Catholic LLB. The RCM threw its prodigious weight into the ‘war’ against the BCP, possibly ressurrecting old scandals for service.

⁹⁵ Lesema, Philomena (nurse, member of Ladies of Saint Anne), interview at Roma, 24 09 1990Google Scholar. Innuendo about the girls who went to Ghana on scholarship was published in the Anti-Communist League's paper, 'Mesa-Mohloane (for example, 12 1961, 2)Google Scholar. In one man's hyperbolic words, ‘the BCP Youth League said that daughters will be the property of the party. From that time we Basotho morally went down. Illegitimate children increased’. Interview, Lehloenya, Patrick, Ha Lehloenya, 17 08 1990.Google Scholar

⁹⁶ Interview, Masiloane, Gertrude, Mohale's Hoek, 10 08 1990.Google Scholar

⁹⁷ Mosala, 'Mathabiso (founder of Lesotho National Council of Women) and 'Makhosi 'Mapeete (former member of BCP Women's League and BCP member of interim parliament), interviewed at Maseru, 3 09 1990.Google Scholar

⁹⁸ BNC 1964, 1114.Google Scholar

⁹⁹ Interview, Masiloane, Gertrude, Mohale's Hoek, 10 08 1990Google Scholar. Interestingly, none of the leading Congress women appeared before the commission (as did, by contrast, women of the MFP and BNP, both of which parties supported women's suffrage). Since the commission accepted testimony from any and all who desired to give it, this silence suggests that the Women's League was directed by the party executive not to put forward witnesses. Mokhehle himself, while never publicly on record as opposing women's suffrage, implicitly made his position quite clear in, for example, his sharp dressing down of K. J. Mosaase, a peasant who had ventured the opinion that ‘there are quite a number of women who understand politics even better than certain men’ (BCC, 121). That he was personally, adamantly opposed to women's suffrage is confirmed by Robert Matji: ‘The leadership seemed bent on ignoring the fact that women needed to play a role, indeed, for a long time already had played a role in politics. Women were very active in the BAC. I wrote against the fact that the leader in particular seemed bent on preventing women to exercise a role’. Interview, Matji, Robert, Maseru, 11 09 1990.Google Scholar

¹⁰⁰ BCC, 715, 729.Google Scholar

¹⁰¹ BCC, 729.Google Scholar

¹⁰² BCC, 776Google Scholar. Given his control over the caucus, it is inconceivable that Mokhehle did not approve of the expression of such sentiments. As late as 1964 he was reportedly still attempting to block the BNC's request to the British to allow women to vote, claiming that the mass of the people opposed it because they wanted to preserve their traditions (The Basutoland Times, 28 01 1964Google Scholar; BNC 1964, 861Google Scholar). These views were not only heard by thousands of women present at the pitsos as the BCC toured the country but were also widely publicized through the media opposed to Mokhehle, especially the Catholic weekly Moeletsi and the MFP Mohlabani.

¹⁰³ Interview, Matji, Robert, Maseru, 11 09 1990Google Scholar. Not a single woman in the party came publicly to Matji's support, who quit politics after 1965. Mokhehle's bitterness over this issue may well have been the cause of his violent turn against the ANC and Communist Party soon after, itself a cause of subsequent debilitating divisions and defections from the BCP.

¹⁰⁴ BCC, 764.Google Scholar

¹⁰⁵ BCC, 1111Google Scholar; Interview, Lehloenya, Patrick, Ha Lehloenya, 17 08 1990.Google Scholar

¹⁰⁶ Mokokoane, 'Malikeleli (President of Homemakers Association, former President of the Women's Bureau until compelled to resign in 1983), interviewed at Upper Thamae, 30 09 1990.Google Scholar

¹⁰⁷ Blanchard, Rev Gérard (teacher and former Secretary of Education for the Catholic mission), personal communication, 19 08 1990Google Scholar; Brutsch, Alina (Paris Evangelical Church missionary and former president of Bo-'Ma-bana), interviewed at Morija, 10 07 1990.Google Scholar

¹⁰⁸ Interview, MaMosala, 'Me, Morija, 30 07 1990Google Scholar. These sentiments were confirmed to me by former miner and BCP activist, Khitsane, Rakali, interviewed in Maseru, 10 03 1990Google Scholar. Mokhehle also lambasted the Catholic church for its ‘defamatory’ attacks upon Sesotho ‘tradition’. BNC 1963, 1090–1105.Google Scholar

¹⁰⁹ Interview, 'Mota, Sister Victoria, Roma, 20 09 1990.Google Scholar

¹¹⁰ Interview, Mamosala, 'Me, Morija, 30 07 1990.Google Scholar

¹¹¹ Interview, 'Mota, Sister Victoria, Roma, 20 09 1990Google Scholar. Anglican nuns also experienced BCP hostility. ‘It's completely true that they threatened us. Really, they didn't know what they were talking about. They said anything. They had these vans with loudspeakers going up and down the street saying things like you won't have to go to South Africa if you elect us, you'll find gold and diamonds right here, under the street. I heard that with my own ears. They objected to grass strips. And I was told by a BCP man that they were going to kill all the chiefs and chase out all the whites. What about me, I joked. Oh, not you-we'll marry you’. Margie, Sister (an English Anglican nun), interviewed at Leribe, 25 08 1990.Google Scholar

¹¹² This issue, taken up from the LLB in the 1940s, appeared in the pro-BCP media as early as the late 1950s: ‘Every Roman Catholic mission in the country is a retail shop’, complained Mohlabani, which will ‘strangle the small Basotho trader’ (Mohlabani, IV [1959], 11Google Scholar). See also Mohlabani, VI (1960), 14Google Scholar; and, for the perspective of poor Catholic women, Moeletsi, 12 11 1960 and 23 07 1960.Google Scholar

¹¹³ Personal communication, Blanchard, Rev G., 19 08 1990.Google Scholar

¹¹⁴ This was understood as a compliment, interview, Kkaketla, 'Masechele, Maseru, 8 09 1990.Google Scholar

¹¹⁵ MacCartney, W. J. A., Select Documents on the Government and Politics of Botswana, Lesotho and Swaziland (Roma, 1971), 263–74.Google Scholar

¹¹⁶ Interview, Matji, Robert, Maseru, 11 09 1990.Google Scholar

¹¹⁷ Interview, Majara, Matete, Ha Majara, 24 08 1990.Google Scholar

¹¹⁸ Interviews, Sechesa, Ntate (Lesotho Evangelical Church elder), Morija, 29 07 1990Google Scholar; Khaketla, 'Masechele, Maseru, 20 09 1990Google Scholar; Mokokoane, 'Malikeleki, Upper Thamae, 30 09 1990Google Scholar. Conversely, there were ‘gentlemen’ in the BCP as well, as one anonymous Catholic nun ardently insisted I note. Interview, A, Sister, Leribe, 25 08 1990.Google Scholar

¹¹⁹ L'Apostolat laic, III (07/09 1959), 59Google Scholar. DAM 61 (my translation). ‘Accidentally’ in this case means that the church hierarchy did not initiate the activity. The fact that the women took matters into their own hands rather than taking direction from their priests is corroborated by testimony of all of the Catholic priests whom I interviewed (Fahy, Rev Desmond, Roma, 22 09 1990Google Scholar; Hall, Rev Anthony, Ottawa, 19 06 1989Google Scholar; Tlaba, Rev Gabriel, Mazenod, 17 08 1990Google Scholar; Mairot, Rev François, Roma, 23 09 1990Google Scholar; Lapointe, Rev Eugene, Ottawa, 17 06 1989Google Scholar) as well as members of the Ladies of Sainte Anne themselves – Makuta, Cecilia (Treasurer of Roma LSA, businesswoman), Roma, 24 09 1990Google Scholar; Lesema, P., Roma, 18 09 1990Google Scholar; Phohlo, 'Maneoana (domestic worker, farmer) Teyateyaneng, 2 06 1990).Google Scholar

¹²⁰ L'Apostolat laic, III (07/09 1959), 59 (my translation).Google Scholar

¹²¹ Interview, Makuta, Cecelia, Roma, 24 09 1990.Google Scholar

¹²² Interview, Fobo, Priscilla, Roma, 23 09 1990.Google Scholar

¹²³ L'Apostolat laic, III (07/09 1959), 59Google Scholar; Weisfelder, , ‘Defining’Google Scholar. Both Moeletsi and the even more extreme 'Mesa Mohloane were replete with stories of atrocities committed by communist and ‘exaggerated nationalist’ regimes around the world.

¹²⁴ Interview, Makuta, Cecelia, Roma, 24 09 1990.Google Scholar

¹²⁵ Interview, Fobo, P., Roma, 23 09 1990.Google Scholar

¹²⁶ Makatolle, IV (19 06 1965).Google Scholar

¹²⁷ Interview, 'Mapeete, 'Makhosi, Maseru, 3 09 1990Google Scholar. In the leader's words, ‘The LSA were not organized by the BNP – they were drilled by the missionaries’. Interview, Mokhehle, Ntsu, Maseru, 8 09 1990.Google Scholar

¹²⁸ Interview, Khaketla, B. M., Maseru, 20 09 1990.Google Scholar

¹²⁹ Interview, Makuta, Cecelia, Roma, 25 09 1990.Google Scholar