Butha-Buthe

Mohapeloa completed ‘Butha-Buthe’ in 1946, publishing it first in Binang ka Thabo (Songs of Joy, 1963) in Mazenod, Lesotho, and republishing it in Cape Town, South Africa in 1976 as song No. 18 of 25 in Meluluetsa ea Ntšetso-pele le Bosechaba Lesotho (Anthems for the Development of the Lesotho Nation). Butha-Buthe is in the north of Lesotho, close to the South African Free State border, and like so many place names in Lesotho it denotes both a town (sometimes referred to in colonial terms as a ‘camptown’) and a district. In the 1970s it may have seemed more like a village (‘motse’), but it has since grown, as have most of the places Mohapeloa write about in this songbook.