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South Africa. Chiepe was an intellectual who had been a Tribal Secretary under Tshekedi but had resigned after a misunderstanding. 29 In the memorandum he challenged Tshekedi’s claim that the decision at the June Kgotla was a mob decision, arguing that it was the product of careful consideration by the Bangwato. It was true, he acknowledged, that initially the Bangwato had wanted Seretse to marry someone from his own people. But by refusing to pander to the wishes of those who wanted to separate him from his wife, Seretse had persuaded them to change their view.
    Sir Walter Harragin brought the Inquiry to a close on 18 November. ‘We would like to thank the Bamangwato people who have assembled in their thousands round this tent, sitting silently through sun and rain, always orderly and courteous under any circumstances,’ he saidto the crowd outside the marquee. He was concerned that after all their efforts and loyalty, they would not discover the result of the Inquiry for a long time. Many people, he knew, would expect the Inquiry to operate like a kgotla meeting, where a consensus would be reached by the end, or like a law court trial, where a judgement would be given:
    I am afraid many [people] are going to be disappointed today because I feel sure that they imagine that this is a case and that the Judge will immediately give judgement, but that is far from the fact. No judgement is given by us.
    In due course, he explained, certain recommendations would be made to the British High Commissioner in Pretoria, who would in turn forward them to the Secretary of State in London. ‘It may be several months,’ he warned, ‘before you hear the result.’
    Harragin finished his speech by entreating the crowd to go to their fields and start ploughing – for this was the time of year when people left their homes in the village and went to their lands. ‘We have, I am told,’ he said, apologetically,
    been to some extent responsible for keeping you away from ploughing your fields, and as I understand that some of you are waiting for the word to be given – I believe it is called
Letsema
– insofar as I have any authority, may I say that it is my pious hope that you will now proceed to your fields and proceed with your ploughing and that in due course more rain will come.
    Despite the cynical decisions behind the Inquiry, it had been thoroughly and conscientiously conducted by Sir Walter and had produced a mass of material. When a final record of the evidence was collected together, it amounted to many thousands of pages, in fourteen thick volumes. Everyone was exhausted. The clerk who had taken shorthand returned to her home in Durban, where she started to type up her notes. ‘I am really feeling dead beat now,’ she complained. ‘It is eight weeks of solid hard graft without a single week-end or public holiday, and only stopping for meals and bed late at night, and how I stuck it I just don’t know.’ 30
    A few days after the inquiry closed, there was a prayer service in the Serowe Kgotla. It was an annual event, when the Kgosi spoke to the people and told them they might start ploughing when they wish– the formal
Letsema
. Now, in November 1949, it was expected that Seretse would give this service. It was the first time that he had taken on this formal role, and beforehand, said Ruth, he was nervous – ‘but once he started to speak everything was all right’. He was given a huge reception and as they left the meeting, ‘a way for us had to be forced through the crowd’. 31

1. Seretse Khama aged four, in Scottish Highland dress, at the installation of his uncle Tshekedi as Regent of the Bangwato, 1925. He is with Semane, Tshekedi’s mother.

    2. Law students in London, late 1940s: Seretse (right) with Charles Njonjo from Kenya, his old friend from their days at Fort Hare University, South Africa.

    3. Tshekedi Khama leaving the offices