Basotho
Encyclopedia
The ancestors of the Sotho people (also Basotho or Basuto) have lived in southern Africa
since around the fifth century. The Sotho nation emerged from the accomplished diplomacy of Moshoeshoe I
who gathered together disparate clans of Sotho–Tswana origin that had dispersed across southern Africa in the early 19th century. Most Sotho today live in South Africa
, as the area of the Orange Free State
was originally part of Moshoeshoe's nation (modern-day Lesotho
).
in about 200–500 CE.
Originating in the vicinity of West and Central Africa
, waves of Iron Age
immigrants spread across the broad Southern African peninsula, easily displacing the aboriginal Stone Age inhabitants of South Africa.
By the 19th century, stable patterns of settlement had emerged. Nguni speaking tribes (primarily Zulu and Xhosa) occupied the east and southern coastal regions, while a series of Sotho kingdoms covered the southern portion of the plateau (Free State Province and parts of Gauteng
).
Sotho society was highly decentralized and organized on the basis of kraals, or extended clans, each of which ruled by a chief
Chiefdoms were united into loose confederations
Concurrently, the descendants of Dutch settlers who founded Cape Town in 1652, began arriving in Sotho territory. Known as voortrekkers ("pioneers"), these farmers had opted to leave the Dutch colony located on the south western coast of South Africa after the colony ceded to Britain at the conclusion of the Napoleonic Wars. Disagreements about slavery and race relations motivated the voortrekkers to leave the confines of the Cape Colony and to attempt to create independent polities in the hinterland of South Africa.
His inspired leadership helped his small nation to survive the dangers and pitfalls (the Zulu hegemony, the inward expantion of the voortrekkers and the designs of imperial Britain) which destroyed other indigenous South African kingdoms during the 19th century
In 1822, Moshoeshoe established his capital at Buthe-Buthe, an easily defendable mountain in the northern Drakensberg mountains, laying the foundations of the eventual Kingdom of Lesotho. His capital was later moved to Thaba Bosiu
In order to deal with the encroaching voortrekker groups, Moshoeshoe
encouraged French missionary activity in his kingdom. Missionaries sent by the Paris Evangelical Missionary Society
provided the King with foreign affairs counsel and helped to facilitate the purchase of modern weapons. Aside from acting as state ministers, missionaries (primarily Casalis and Arbousset) played a vital role in delineating Sotho orthography
and printing Sotho language materials between 1837 and 1855. The first Sotho translation of the Bible
appeared in 1878.
successfully appealed to Queen Victoria to proclaim Lesotho
(then known as Basotuland) a protectorate
of Britain
and the British administration was placed in Maseru
, the site of Lesotho’s present-day capital. Local chieftains retained power over internal affairs while Britain was responsible for foreign affairs and the defense of the protectorate. In 1869, the British sponsored a process by which the borders of Basutoland were finally demarcated. While many clans had territory within Basotuland, large numbers of Sotho speakers resided in areas allocated to the Orange Free State
, the sovereign voortrekker republic which bordered the Sotho kingdom.
Britain’s protection ensured that repeated attempts by the Orange Free State, and later, the Republic of South Africa, to absorb part or all of Basutoland, were unsuccessful. In 1966, Basutoland gained its independence from Britain, becoming the Kingdom of Lesotho.
Sotho is the first language of 1.5 million people in Lesotho
, or 85% of the population. Sotho is one of the two official languages in Lesotho, the other being English
. Lesotho enjoys one of Africa’s highest literacy rates with 59% of the adult population being literate chiefly in Sotho.
In South Africa, almost 4 million people speak Sotho as a first language
. 62% of the inhabitants of the Free State speak Sotho as a first language. Approximately, 10% of the residents of Gauteng speak Sotho at a first language level. In the North West Province 5% of the population speaks first language Sotho, with a concentration of speakers in the Maboloka region. 3% of Mpumalanga
’s people speak Sotho as a first language, with many speakers living in the Standerton area. 2% of the residents of the Eastern Cape
, chiefly in the northern regions of the province, speak Sotho as a first language.
No Statistics SA data on second language
usage is available but a conservative estimate of the number of people who speak Sotho as a second (or third, or fourth…) language is 5 million. Sotho is one of the 11 official languages in South Africa.
Aside from Lesotho and South Africa, 60 000 people speak Silozi (a close relative of Sotho) in Zambia
. Small numbers of Sotho speakers reside in Botswana
, Swaziland
and the Caprivi Strip
of Namibia
.
Sotho is used in a range of educational settings both as a subject of study and as a medium of instruction. It is used in its spoken and written forms in all the spheres of education from pre schooling to doctoral studies. Difficulties still exist when using Sotho as a technical language in the fields of commerce, information technology, science, mathematics and law since the corpus of technical materials in Sotho is still relatively small.
Sotho has developed a sizable media presence since the end of apartheid. Radio Lesedi is a 24-hour Sesotho radio station run by the SABC (South Africa’s national broadcasting corporation), broadcasting solely in Sotho.There are other regional radio stations as well throughout Lesotho and the Free State. Half hour Sotho news bulletins are broadcast daily on a government TV station. Independent TV broadcaster, eTV
, also features a daily 30 minute Sotho bulletin. Both SABC and the eTV group produce a range of programs which feature at least some Sotho dialogue.
Most newspapers in Lesotho
are written either mainly in Sesotho or in both Sesotho and English; currently in South Africa there is one mainstream magazine, namely Bona; there are no fully fledged newspapers in Sotho though, except for regional news-letters in Qwaqwa
, Fouriesburg
, Ficksburg
and possibly other Free State towns.
The popular monthly magazine “Bona” includes Sotho content.
Since the codification of Sotho orthography, literary works have been produced in Sotho. Amongst the most notable are Thomas Mofolo
’s epic, "Chaka
", which has been translated into several languages including English and German
. Landowners will often participate in subsistence or small scale commercial farming ventures.
Overgrazing
and land mismanagement are growing problems.
Internal migration
explains why Sotho is widely spoken throughout the sub-continent. In order to enter the cash economy, Sotho men often migrated to large cities in South Africa to find employment in the mining industry. Migrant workers from the Free State and Lesotho thus helped to spread Sotho to the urban areas of South Africa. Migrant work is generally agreed to have had a negative impact on family life for most Sotho speakers since adults (primarily men) were required to leave their families behind in impoverished communities while they were employed in cities located hundreds of kilometers away.
Attempts by the apartheid government to force Sotho speakers to relocate to designated homelands
had little effect on human settlement patterns, and large numbers of workers continued to leave the traditional areas of Black settlement throughout the last century. While men tended to find employment within the mining sector, women gravitated towards employment as agricultural or domestic workers.
The allure of urban areas has not diminished and internal migration remains a reality for many black people born in Lesotho and other sotho heartlands today.
Generally, employment patterns amongst Sotho speakers follow patterns pertaining to broader South Africans society. Due to historical factors, unemployment amongst Sotho and other Black South Africans remains high. Professional people are employed in the education, health, medicine, legal and political sectors. Others find employment in the civil service and business.
In terms of religion, the central role that Christian missionaries played in helping Moshoeshoe secure his kingdom helped to ensure widespread conversion amongst Sotho people to Christianity. Today, the bulk of Sotho speakers practice a form of Christianity which blends elements of traditional Christian dogma with local, pre-Western believes. Modimo (“God”) is viewed as a supreme being who cannot be approached by mortals; the favour of ancestors, who act as intercessors between Modimo and the living, must be cultivated through worship and reverence. Officially, the majority of Lesotho’s population is Catholic.
Southern Africa
Southern Africa is the southernmost region of the African continent, variably defined by geography or geopolitics. Within the region are numerous territories, including the Republic of South Africa ; nowadays, the simpler term South Africa is generally reserved for the country in English.-UN...
since around the fifth century. The Sotho nation emerged from the accomplished diplomacy of Moshoeshoe I
Moshoeshoe I
Moshoeshoe was born at Menkhoaneng in the Northern part of present-day Lesotho. He was the first son of Mokhachane, a minor chief of the Bamokoteli lineage- a branch of the Koena clan. In his early childhood, he helped his father gain power over some other smaller clans. At the age of 34...
who gathered together disparate clans of Sotho–Tswana origin that had dispersed across southern Africa in the early 19th century. Most Sotho today live in South Africa
South Africa
The Republic of South Africa is a country in southern Africa. Located at the southern tip of Africa, it is divided into nine provinces, with of coastline on the Atlantic and Indian oceans...
, as the area of the Orange Free State
Orange Free State
The Orange Free State was an independent Boer republic in southern Africa during the second half of the 19th century, and later a British colony and a province of the Union of South Africa. It is the historical precursor to the present-day Free State province...
was originally part of Moshoeshoe's nation (modern-day Lesotho
Lesotho
Lesotho , officially the Kingdom of Lesotho, is a landlocked country and enclave, surrounded by the Republic of South Africa. It is just over in size with a population of approximately 2,067,000. Its capital and largest city is Maseru. Lesotho is a member of the Commonwealth of Nations. The name...
).
Before the 20th century
Pastoralist Bantu speaking people settled in South AfricaSouth Africa
The Republic of South Africa is a country in southern Africa. Located at the southern tip of Africa, it is divided into nine provinces, with of coastline on the Atlantic and Indian oceans...
in about 200–500 CE.
Originating in the vicinity of West and Central Africa
Africa
Africa is the world's second largest and second most populous continent, after Asia. At about 30.2 million km² including adjacent islands, it covers 6% of the Earth's total surface area and 20.4% of the total land area...
, waves of Iron Age
Iron Age
The Iron Age is the archaeological period generally occurring after the Bronze Age, marked by the prevalent use of iron. The early period of the age is characterized by the widespread use of iron or steel. The adoption of such material coincided with other changes in society, including differing...
immigrants spread across the broad Southern African peninsula, easily displacing the aboriginal Stone Age inhabitants of South Africa.
By the 19th century, stable patterns of settlement had emerged. Nguni speaking tribes (primarily Zulu and Xhosa) occupied the east and southern coastal regions, while a series of Sotho kingdoms covered the southern portion of the plateau (Free State Province and parts of Gauteng
Gauteng
Gauteng is one of the nine provinces of South Africa. It was formed from part of the old Transvaal Province after South Africa's first all-race elections on 27 April 1994...
).
Sotho society was highly decentralized and organized on the basis of kraals, or extended clans, each of which ruled by a chief
Chiefdoms were united into loose confederations
Zulu expansionism and White migration
The 19th century brought two events which had a profound and lasting impact on the history of the Sotho. To the east, Shaka rose to become emperor of the Zulu people. After transforming Zulu society from a fragmented collection of related clans into a united, nationalistic kingdom with a disciplined and permanent army, Shaka undertook a series of wars of conquest. Zulu expansion, later dubbed Difaqane ‘the Crushing’, set off a series of eastward migrations as refugees and defeated tribes fled the onslaught These displaced groups came into contact with the Sotho people residing on the Highveld.Concurrently, the descendants of Dutch settlers who founded Cape Town in 1652, began arriving in Sotho territory. Known as voortrekkers ("pioneers"), these farmers had opted to leave the Dutch colony located on the south western coast of South Africa after the colony ceded to Britain at the conclusion of the Napoleonic Wars. Disagreements about slavery and race relations motivated the voortrekkers to leave the confines of the Cape Colony and to attempt to create independent polities in the hinterland of South Africa.
Moshoeshoe
At the time of these developments, King Moshoeshoe (also spelled “Moshweshwe” in South African or wrongly spelled “Moshesh”) gained control of the Sotho kingdoms of the southern Highveld. Universally praised as a skilled diplomat and strategist, he was able to wield the disparate refugee groups escaping the Difaqane into a cohesive nation.His inspired leadership helped his small nation to survive the dangers and pitfalls (the Zulu hegemony, the inward expantion of the voortrekkers and the designs of imperial Britain) which destroyed other indigenous South African kingdoms during the 19th century
In 1822, Moshoeshoe established his capital at Buthe-Buthe, an easily defendable mountain in the northern Drakensberg mountains, laying the foundations of the eventual Kingdom of Lesotho. His capital was later moved to Thaba Bosiu
In order to deal with the encroaching voortrekker groups, Moshoeshoe
Moshoeshoe
Moshoeshoe may refer to:* Moshoeshoe I, c.1786-1870; paramount chief of southern Sotho; founder of Basuto kingdom * Moshoeshoe II, 1938-1996, king of Lesotho...
encouraged French missionary activity in his kingdom. Missionaries sent by the Paris Evangelical Missionary Society
Paris Evangelical Missionary Society
The Paris Evangelical Missionary Society , also known as the SMEP or Mission de Paris, was a Protestant missionary association created in 1822...
provided the King with foreign affairs counsel and helped to facilitate the purchase of modern weapons. Aside from acting as state ministers, missionaries (primarily Casalis and Arbousset) played a vital role in delineating Sotho orthography
Orthography
The orthography of a language specifies a standardized way of using a specific writing system to write the language. Where more than one writing system is used for a language, for example Kurdish, Uyghur, Serbian or Inuktitut, there can be more than one orthography...
and printing Sotho language materials between 1837 and 1855. The first Sotho translation of the Bible
Bible
The Bible refers to any one of the collections of the primary religious texts of Judaism and Christianity. There is no common version of the Bible, as the individual books , their contents and their order vary among denominations...
appeared in 1878.
British protection
In 1868, after losing the western lowlands to the Boers during the Free State–Basotho war, MoshoeshoeMoshoeshoe
Moshoeshoe may refer to:* Moshoeshoe I, c.1786-1870; paramount chief of southern Sotho; founder of Basuto kingdom * Moshoeshoe II, 1938-1996, king of Lesotho...
successfully appealed to Queen Victoria to proclaim Lesotho
Lesotho
Lesotho , officially the Kingdom of Lesotho, is a landlocked country and enclave, surrounded by the Republic of South Africa. It is just over in size with a population of approximately 2,067,000. Its capital and largest city is Maseru. Lesotho is a member of the Commonwealth of Nations. The name...
(then known as Basotuland) a protectorate
Protectorate
In history, the term protectorate has two different meanings. In its earliest inception, which has been adopted by modern international law, it is an autonomous territory that is protected diplomatically or militarily against third parties by a stronger state or entity...
of Britain
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
and the British administration was placed in Maseru
Maseru
Maseru is the capital of Lesotho. It is also the capital of the Maseru District. Located on the Caledon River, bordering South Africa, Maseru is Lesotho's only sizable city, with a population of approximately 227,880 . The city was established as a police camp and assigned as the capital after the...
, the site of Lesotho’s present-day capital. Local chieftains retained power over internal affairs while Britain was responsible for foreign affairs and the defense of the protectorate. In 1869, the British sponsored a process by which the borders of Basutoland were finally demarcated. While many clans had territory within Basotuland, large numbers of Sotho speakers resided in areas allocated to the Orange Free State
Orange Free State
The Orange Free State was an independent Boer republic in southern Africa during the second half of the 19th century, and later a British colony and a province of the Union of South Africa. It is the historical precursor to the present-day Free State province...
, the sovereign voortrekker republic which bordered the Sotho kingdom.
Britain’s protection ensured that repeated attempts by the Orange Free State, and later, the Republic of South Africa, to absorb part or all of Basutoland, were unsuccessful. In 1966, Basutoland gained its independence from Britain, becoming the Kingdom of Lesotho.
The status of Sotho today
The language of the Sotho may be referred to as SeSotho or less commonly Sesotho sa borwa). Some texts may refer to Sotho as “Southern Sotho” to differentiate it from Pedi.Sotho is the first language of 1.5 million people in Lesotho
Lesotho
Lesotho , officially the Kingdom of Lesotho, is a landlocked country and enclave, surrounded by the Republic of South Africa. It is just over in size with a population of approximately 2,067,000. Its capital and largest city is Maseru. Lesotho is a member of the Commonwealth of Nations. The name...
, or 85% of the population. Sotho is one of the two official languages in Lesotho, the other being English
English language
English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...
. Lesotho enjoys one of Africa’s highest literacy rates with 59% of the adult population being literate chiefly in Sotho.
In South Africa, almost 4 million people speak Sotho as a first language
First language
A first language is the language a person has learned from birth or within the critical period, or that a person speaks the best and so is often the basis for sociolinguistic identity...
. 62% of the inhabitants of the Free State speak Sotho as a first language. Approximately, 10% of the residents of Gauteng speak Sotho at a first language level. In the North West Province 5% of the population speaks first language Sotho, with a concentration of speakers in the Maboloka region. 3% of Mpumalanga
Mpumalanga
Mpumalanga , is a province of South Africa. The name means east or literally "the place where the sun rises" in Swazi, Xhosa, Ndebele and Zulu. Mpumalanga lies in eastern South Africa, north of KwaZulu-Natal and bordering Swaziland and Mozambique. It constitutes 6.5% of South Africa's land area...
’s people speak Sotho as a first language, with many speakers living in the Standerton area. 2% of the residents of the Eastern Cape
Eastern Cape
The Eastern Cape is a province of South Africa. Its capital is Bhisho, but its two largest cities are Port Elizabeth and East London. It was formed in 1994 out of the "independent" Xhosa homelands of Transkei and Ciskei, together with the eastern portion of the Cape Province...
, chiefly in the northern regions of the province, speak Sotho as a first language.
No Statistics SA data on second language
Second language
A second language or L2 is any language learned after the first language or mother tongue. Some languages, often called auxiliary languages, are used primarily as second languages or lingua francas ....
usage is available but a conservative estimate of the number of people who speak Sotho as a second (or third, or fourth…) language is 5 million. Sotho is one of the 11 official languages in South Africa.
Aside from Lesotho and South Africa, 60 000 people speak Silozi (a close relative of Sotho) in Zambia
Zambia
Zambia , officially the Republic of Zambia, is a landlocked country in Southern Africa. The neighbouring countries are the Democratic Republic of the Congo to the north, Tanzania to the north-east, Malawi to the east, Mozambique, Zimbabwe, Botswana and Namibia to the south, and Angola to the west....
. Small numbers of Sotho speakers reside in Botswana
Botswana
Botswana, officially the Republic of Botswana , is a landlocked country located in Southern Africa. The citizens are referred to as "Batswana" . Formerly the British protectorate of Bechuanaland, Botswana adopted its new name after becoming independent within the Commonwealth on 30 September 1966...
, Swaziland
Swaziland
Swaziland, officially the Kingdom of Swaziland , and sometimes called Ngwane or Swatini, is a landlocked country in Southern Africa, bordered to the north, south and west by South Africa, and to the east by Mozambique...
and the Caprivi Strip
Caprivi Strip
Caprivi, sometimes called the Caprivi Strip , Caprivi Panhandle or the Okavango Strip and formally known as Itenge, is a narrow protrusion of Namibia eastwards about , between Botswana to the south, Angola and Zambia to the north, and Okavango Region to the west. Caprivi is bordered by the...
of Namibia
Namibia
Namibia, officially the Republic of Namibia , is a country in southern Africa whose western border is the Atlantic Ocean. It shares land borders with Angola and Zambia to the north, Botswana to the east and South Africa to the south and east. It gained independence from South Africa on 21 March...
.
Sotho is used in a range of educational settings both as a subject of study and as a medium of instruction. It is used in its spoken and written forms in all the spheres of education from pre schooling to doctoral studies. Difficulties still exist when using Sotho as a technical language in the fields of commerce, information technology, science, mathematics and law since the corpus of technical materials in Sotho is still relatively small.
Sotho has developed a sizable media presence since the end of apartheid. Radio Lesedi is a 24-hour Sesotho radio station run by the SABC (South Africa’s national broadcasting corporation), broadcasting solely in Sotho.There are other regional radio stations as well throughout Lesotho and the Free State. Half hour Sotho news bulletins are broadcast daily on a government TV station. Independent TV broadcaster, eTV
E.tv
e.tv is the fifth terrestrial television channel in South Africa, following three channels operated by the state-owned South African Broadcasting Corporation and the privately owned subscription-funded M-Net, operated by Multichoice...
, also features a daily 30 minute Sotho bulletin. Both SABC and the eTV group produce a range of programs which feature at least some Sotho dialogue.
Most newspapers in Lesotho
Lesotho
Lesotho , officially the Kingdom of Lesotho, is a landlocked country and enclave, surrounded by the Republic of South Africa. It is just over in size with a population of approximately 2,067,000. Its capital and largest city is Maseru. Lesotho is a member of the Commonwealth of Nations. The name...
are written either mainly in Sesotho or in both Sesotho and English; currently in South Africa there is one mainstream magazine, namely Bona; there are no fully fledged newspapers in Sotho though, except for regional news-letters in Qwaqwa
QwaQwa
QwaQwa was a Bantustan, or homeland, in the eastern part of South Africa. It encompassed a very small region of in the east of the former South African province of Orange Free State, bordering Lesotho. Its capital was Phuthaditjhaba...
, Fouriesburg
Fouriesburg
Fouriesburg is a small town situated near the Maluti Mountains in the Free State province of South Africa just 9 km from Lesotho. The land was given by Rooi Stoffel Fourie to be used as a temporary seat of the Free State government during the Boer War....
, Ficksburg
Ficksburg
Ficksburg is a town situated at the foot of the 450m high Imperani Mountain in Free State province, South Africa. The town was set up by General Johan Fick who won the territory in the Basotho Wars...
and possibly other Free State towns.
The popular monthly magazine “Bona” includes Sotho content.
Since the codification of Sotho orthography, literary works have been produced in Sotho. Amongst the most notable are Thomas Mofolo
Thomas Mofolo
Thomas Mokopu Mofolo is considered to be the greatest Basotho author. He wrote mostly in the Sesotho language, but his most popular book, Chaka, has been translated into English and other languages....
’s epic, "Chaka
Chaka
Chaka may refer to:* Shaka , Zulu chieftain* Chaka , a Turkic tribe* Chaka , a yogurt-based cheese popular in Afghanistan and Tajikistan* Chaka of Smyrna 11th Century emir...
", which has been translated into several languages including English and German
The Basotho people today
The Sotho heartland is the Free State province in South Africa and neighboring Lesotho. Both of these largely rural areas are characterized by widespread poverty and underdevelopment. It can thus be reasonably argued that many Sotho speakers live in conditions of economic hardship though people with access to land and steady employment may enjoy a higher standard of living. Landowners will often participate in subsistence or small scale commercial farming ventures.
Overgrazing
Overgrazing
Overgrazing occurs when plants are exposed to intensive grazing for extended periods of time, or without sufficient recovery periods. It can be caused by either livestock in poorly managed agricultural applications, or by overpopulations of native or non-native wild animals.Overgrazing reduces the...
and land mismanagement are growing problems.
Internal migration
Human migration
Human migration is physical movement by humans from one area to another, sometimes over long distances or in large groups. Historically this movement was nomadic, often causing significant conflict with the indigenous population and their displacement or cultural assimilation. Only a few nomadic...
explains why Sotho is widely spoken throughout the sub-continent. In order to enter the cash economy, Sotho men often migrated to large cities in South Africa to find employment in the mining industry. Migrant workers from the Free State and Lesotho thus helped to spread Sotho to the urban areas of South Africa. Migrant work is generally agreed to have had a negative impact on family life for most Sotho speakers since adults (primarily men) were required to leave their families behind in impoverished communities while they were employed in cities located hundreds of kilometers away.
Attempts by the apartheid government to force Sotho speakers to relocate to designated homelands
Homelands
Homelands was a British music festival which consisted mainly of Dance music, both live acts and famous DJs. The event was held at Cheesefoot Head near Winchester, Hampshire, and was one of the most popular British festivals of this genre. It was run by Live Nation UK.A Scottish edition of the...
had little effect on human settlement patterns, and large numbers of workers continued to leave the traditional areas of Black settlement throughout the last century. While men tended to find employment within the mining sector, women gravitated towards employment as agricultural or domestic workers.
The allure of urban areas has not diminished and internal migration remains a reality for many black people born in Lesotho and other sotho heartlands today.
Generally, employment patterns amongst Sotho speakers follow patterns pertaining to broader South Africans society. Due to historical factors, unemployment amongst Sotho and other Black South Africans remains high. Professional people are employed in the education, health, medicine, legal and political sectors. Others find employment in the civil service and business.
In terms of religion, the central role that Christian missionaries played in helping Moshoeshoe secure his kingdom helped to ensure widespread conversion amongst Sotho people to Christianity. Today, the bulk of Sotho speakers practice a form of Christianity which blends elements of traditional Christian dogma with local, pre-Western believes. Modimo (“God”) is viewed as a supreme being who cannot be approached by mortals; the favour of ancestors, who act as intercessors between Modimo and the living, must be cultivated through worship and reverence. Officially, the majority of Lesotho’s population is Catholic.