Qwaqwa
The arms were registered by the Bureau of Heraldry on 8 September 1972. They may be blazoned:
Arms: Upon a Tswana shield vert a representation in chief of
Sentinel Peak, in dexter base a crocodile contourné and in sinister base a
leopard couchant. The shield ensigned by a Basotho hat proper, and crossed
saltirewise behind the shield are a spear and a Sotho war axe.
Supporters, compartment and motto: Upon a compartment of grass, two Basotho ponies proper as supporters, and beneath the shield the motto Kopano ke Matla.
The choice of a Tswana shield for the arms of Qwaqwa is puzzling, since the homeland state was quite definitely South Sotho, or Sesotho sa Borwa, in language and culture. The shape of the shield is identical with that of Bophuthatswana, while that of Lesotho (a proper Sotho shield) is rounded where this type has right-angled edges.
Shield usage by the Sotho-speaking peoples (Batswana, Basotho ba Borwa[1] and Basotho ba Leboa) differed from that of the abeNguni in that their shields were traditionally much smaller, measuring roughly a metre in height, whereas the Nguni tradition (altered by Shaka) preferred much longer shields, behind which a man could hide while the enemy threw spears.
However, both these groups used shields made of cowhide (or the hide of some other hoofed animal). These were carried to the agreed place of battle folded up, and then had sticks added to them to enable the warrior to hold his shield in front of him with his left arm, and so ward off blows while fighting with a weapon in the right hand.
The green of both shield and compartment stands for the verdant grazing of Qwaqwa, although the high level of human settlement there meant that there was little of it while the state existed, a position which has changed little since 1994.
The mountain Sentinel Peak is a local landmark in the Drakensberg range.
The Nile crocodile (Crocodylus niloticus) is the totem of the Koena or Kwena[2] people, a clan found among both the Batswana of North West Province and the Basotho of Qwaqwa and Lesotho – the royal house of Lesotho belongs to this clan. Since there are no crocodiles in either Lesotho or Qwaqwa, the totem clearly refers back to a time when the clan lived near rivers where these reptiles were to be found.
In all three Sotho languages (Setswana, Sesotho sa Borwa and Sesotho sa Leboa) “crocodile” is kwena.
The leopard (Leo pardus) is traditionally the animal of royalty among Bantu-speaking peoples in Southern Africa, and here represents chiefly authority.
The hat which appears above the shield is a woven straw hat of a style introduced in what is now Lesotho by missionaries in the middle of the 19th century. In origin it appears to be Oriental, but it is nowadays regarded as intrinsic to South Sotho culture.
The supporters are full-grown ponies of the kind now regarded as typical of the highlands of Lesotho and Qwaqwa.
Horses were first introduced in the area around the mid-19th century. The lack of grazing in the high country, especially in the winter, combined with the rough terrain, produced a race of ponies renowned for their hardiness and ability to negotiate the rough mountain roads.
The Basotho acquired firearms and ponies at roughly the same time, and the wars fought between them and the Boers and British during the second half of the 19th century frequently saw large numbers of Sotho warriors mounted on ponies and carrying or firing guns, many or most of them also wearing Basotho hats and colourful blankets.
The motto, Kopano[3] ke Matla, translates as “Unity is strength” – it is a rendering in Sesotho of the motto of the Union and Republic of South Africa, Ex Unitate Vires, and can be seen as an expression of solidarity with that state, as opposed to Lesotho.
About the state:
The very existence of the homeland state of Qwaqwa has its roots firstly in disputes between certain Sotho chiefs with Moshoeshoe I, the founder of Lesotho, and secondly in the apartheid doctrine that required all areas with a majority Bantu-speaking population to attain self-government in linguistic units.
It is located in a district of the Free State known since the early days of the Oranje Vrij Staat as Witsieshoek,[4] bounded on the south-east by the Bergville district of Natal, and in the south-west by Lesotho.
The name Witsieshoek is taken from the Maholoko chief Oetse,[5] whose people lived there from 1839 and 1856.
In 1867 President Brand of the OVS permitted Chief Paulus Mopeli and his followers, belonging to the Bakoena or Bakwena, who had fled Moshoeshoe’s kingdom, to settle part of the area, and in 1873 Chief Koos Mota, a nephew of Sekonyela, and his Tlokwa people were permitted to settle in the east.
At Mopeli’s request the Nederduitsche Gereformeerde Kerk established a mission station in 1874 under the Rev Gustave Maeder. Maeder built one of the first irrigation furrows in South Africa at his station. According to a letter from Maeder to historian George McCall Theal, this furrow served as the model for the one built at Upington by the Rev C Schröder, which in turn was the model for the canal at Kakamas.
J J Ross writes that Witsieshoek is mountainous and has little arable land, but was proclaimed a betterment area and planned for agricultural development. “In an average year it produces 840 000 kg of maize, 900 bags of beans, 700 bags of wheat, 5 600 bags of sorghum, R12 000[6] worth of mohair and R8 500 worth of wool.”
On 19 June 1953, tribal authorities for the Mopeli Koena and the Mota Tlokwa were formally established at Witsieshoek – the first two peoples to accept the status of tribal authorities under the Bantu Authorities Act of 1951.[7]
On 24 April 1969 these two tribal authorities were constituted as the Basotho ba Borwa territorial authority, and on 1 October 1971 a Legislative Assembly was created and the official name of the territory changed to Basotho-Qwaqwa. The assembly started to function in January the following year, and in September it obtained registration of the coat of arms shown above.
Chief Wessel S Mota, grandson of Chief Koos Mota, became head of administration.
Government proclamation 203 of 25 November 1974 proclaimed Basotho-Qwaqwa[8] a self-governing homeland within the Republic of South Africa.
The Legislative Assembly had 60 members, and had an executive comprising a Chief Minister and five other members.
Official languages were Sesotho sa Borwa, English and Afrikaans, and the seat of government was Phuthadtjhaba, a town created to accommodate the Sotho sent back to the homeland (“endorsed out”) from South Africa under apartheid legislation.
In the 1980s, Botshabelo, a dormitory suburb erected for black people outside Bloemfontein, was incorporated into Qwaqwa, even though it lay on the other side of both Lesotho and the Thaba Nchu district, which at that stage belonged to Bophuthatswana.
When all-race elections were held in South Africa on 27 April 1994, Qwaqwa formally ceased to exist, although its administration continued to function for another year.
With the reallocation of municipal areas in 2000, Witsieshoek became part of Maluti a Phofung municipality, while Bloemfontein, Botshabelo and Thaba Nchu were all incorporated into Mangaung municipality.
