E-eang ka Khotso

The two phrases ‘Kena ka Khotso’ (Enter in Peace) and ‘E-eang ka Khotso’ (Go in Peace) are Sesotho greetings found at Lesotho’s border posts and in many other places. Mohapeloa’s companion song, ‘Kena ka Khotso’ was published in 1976, while ‘E-eang ka Khotso’ first appeared in a 1951 songbook. Mohapeloa described the kind of music in this book as embodying “reproductions of the various musics which the author, or, for that matter, the African has tasted, chewed, swallowed and assimilated till they formed part of his being”. In its lilting compound meter and gently moving chromatic harmony, it shows how well Mohapeloa had absorbed elements of nineteenth-century vocal part writing, and American revivalist hymnody.