The name Bechuana
seems derived from the word Chuana - alike, or equal -
with the personal pronoun Ba (they) prefixed, and therefore means
fellows or equals. Some have supposed the name to have arisen
from a mistake of some traveler, who, on asking individuals of this nation
concerning the tribes living beyond them, received the answer,
Bachuana, "they (are) alike"; meaning, "They are the same as we are";
and that this nameless traveler, who never wrote a word about them,
managed to ingraft his mistake as a generic term on a nation extending
from the Orange River to 18 Deg. south latitude.*
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* The Makololo have conquered the country as far as 14 Deg. south,
but it is still peopled chiefly by the black tribes named Makalaka.
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As the name was found in use among those who had no intercourse
with Europeans, before we can receive the above explanation we must believe
that the unknown traveler knew the language sufficiently well
to ask a question, but not to understand the answer. We may add,
that the way in which they still continue to use the word seems to require
no fanciful interpretation.
