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Bayei Clan — History & Meaning
Tswana clan · Setswana
Totem No animal totem in the Tswana sense is reliably documented for the Bayei; they are a riverine Bantu people whose strong cultural identity centres on fishing and hippopotamus hunting rather than the Tswana diboko/totem system.
History & origin
The Bayei (MaYeyi/Wayeyi) are a Bantu-speaking people of north-western Botswana (the Okavango Delta and Lake Ngami area) and north-eastern Namibia, linguistically and historically related to the Lozi of Zambia. They migrated south into the Okavango region in about the mid-18th century (c. 1750) and lived in close cooperation with San (Basarwa) groups such as the Xanikhwe. They speak ShiYeyi, a language that absorbed San click sounds. The Bayei are renowned fishermen who use basket-traps, and great prestige was attached to skilled hippopotamus hunting. They are one of the riverine peoples of the Delta and are not part of the Sotho-Tswana clan family, though they live within Botswana's Tswana-dominated state.
Associated surnames
Surnames that share this clan: Wayeyi, MaYeyi.
We publish the full diboko (clan praises) only once we can verify them against documented tradition — for this clan they are still being confirmed. If you can share an authoritative version, corrections are warmly welcomed.