“These young chaps think they are just men, too”: redistributing masculinity in Kgatleng bars

Social Science & Medicine 53 (2001) 241–250

‘‘These young chaps think they are just men, too’’: redistributing masculinity in Kgatleng bars David N. Suggs* Department of Anthropology, Kenyon College, Gambier, OH 43022, USA

Abstract In the 19th century the BaKgatla polity was a chiefdom with a redistributional economy based on mixed agriculture. Sorghum beer was symbolic not only of the patrilineal core of their descent system and of the ideologies of reciprocity and redistribution, but also of masculinity and patriarchal control. With the establishment of a market economy, an industrial brewery and individual access to income, both beer and the act of drinking have been symbolically reconstructed. The ideology of redistribution was well suited to the support of the BaKgatla gerontocracy via alcohol production and consumption. The limits on production and consumption of beer inherent in the agricultural cycle and the control of young men’s access by elders made alcohol an effective symbol of managerial competence from the limited context of household authority to that of the chiefdom as a whole. Today, young men’s greater control of cash income has given them access to beer beyond the control of elders. As a result, the contrasting ideology of market exchange and competitive distribution of beer has contributed to the degradation of the power of seniors. After reviewing the historical background, this paper explores those changes. It argues that while the observed infrastructural changes have had a predictable impact on drinking behaviors and the symbolic structure of ‘‘seniority/masculinity’’, constructions of the ‘‘masculine community’’ in BaKgatla bars demonstrate continuity in key areas of mens’ identities. If as anthropologists we see obvious discontinuities in behavior and ideology, the BaKgatla build selective bridges to ‘‘tradition’’ which seemingly ground the experience of change in relatively seamless continuity. # 2001 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved. Keywords: Alcohol use; Gender; Botswana; Drinking; Culture change

One event is always the son of another, and we must never forget the parentage } a MoTswana chief (Tylor, 1871)

Introduction In 1984, at the close of my first year’s research in Mochudi, Botswana, I asked the women who had tolerated hour upon hour of my interviews what topic they would like for me to pursue when I returned for further research. Repeatedly, I was told that alcohol

consumption needed investigation. I was not particularly surprised. Indeed, earlier in that year I had asked questions about a growing reticence regarding marriage and was commonly told, ‘‘Why would I want to get married? A man will just drink my earnings.’’ (Suggs, 1987)1 It is not that the women are concerned about alcoholism becoming a huge problem. The problem is not uncontrolled drinking; it is consistent } even if moderate } drinking in a cash economy. Elsewhere (Suggs, 1996) I have suggested that the construction of gender in alcohol consumption among the BaKgatla presents the act of public drinking as definitionally 1

*Tel.: +1-740-427-5851; fax: +1-740-427-5815. E-mail address: [email protected] (D.N. Suggs).

See Gulbrandsen (1986), Dow and Kidd (1994) and Molokomme (1991) for similar data from elsewhere in Botswana.

0277-9536/01/$ - see front matter # 2001 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved. PII: S 0 2 7 7 - 9 5 3 6 ( 0 0 ) 0 0 3 3 4 - 8

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masculine behavior and that men consider drinking to be a right ascribed in masculinity even if achieved by adulthood. From the women’s perspective, the maintenance of that belief is simply wasteful in a cash economy. Also in keeping with ‘‘tradition’’, they see alcohol consumption as a privilege earned (albeit by income rather than by age). If BaKgatla men and women are negotiating the relevance of tradition to gendered drinking patterns today, so too are the older men and the younger men contesting the terrain of appropriate age-graded consumption within the boundaries of masculinity. If the realities of ‘‘gendered alcohol consumption’’ center chiefly around the tradition of patriarchy and its maintenance, those of ‘‘age-graded alcohol consumption’’ center around the tradition of gerontocracy and its dissolution (Suggs, 1996). The first reflects the political and economic control of women’s labor in the patrilineal descent system; the second reflects the power and control of linear elders established in redistribution. This paper explores the way that ‘‘drinking traditions’’ are made meaningful to changes in the age structure of masculinity and the way that traditions of masculinity are re-constructed in acts of public drinking. While the cash economy is largely responsible for framing the context in which such changes occur, the economy itself is made culturally meaningful by individuals opportunistically constructing continuity to a selective past. The data for this work derive from two separate yearlong research periods: 1984–1985 and 1992. Most of the material from the earlier period is based on observations recorded in personal field notes and structured interviews with 60 women in the town of Mochudi, Botswana. Since that research period was dedicated to life-course analysis, the alcohol-related materials are incidental. The data from the more recent period were collected with alcohol use as the focus of analysis. They are based on an estimated 200 h of observation and conversation in the bars of Mochudi, augmented by interviews both structured and unstructured, as well as on opportune personal conversations outside of the formal bar context. It should be noted at the outset that Mochudi, located 40 miles from the capital city of Gaborone and the administrative/legislative center of Kgatleng district, is in very few ways representative of the nation of Botswana or its people as a whole. Mochudi is quite economically developed when compared to the more westward and more rural villages and towns. A relatively sizeable portion of its population works in Gaborone; paved roads span the quadrants of the town; it has banks, law offices, a district hospital, and numerous schools of all varieties save that of a university. It has a supermarket with frozen goods and produce from South Africa, as well as items imported from throughout the world. One can find coffee from

Brazil, rice from Pakistan, soy sauce from China, and a population with sufficient economic means to warrant their presence via purchase. In the future, the more rural areas would make an interesting and important contrastive study to this one.

Alcohol in the agricultural and cash economies2 Molamu (1989) suggests that sorghum beer has been an important part of the diet of southern African peoples for at least 500 years. At Great Zimbabwe, one notes clay structures built into the floors for the purpose of holding pots of beer. Several ethnographers of southern Africa have commented on the significance of alcohol in the social life of Bantu-speaking peoples. In particular, Colson and Scudder’s (1988) excellent discussion of alcohol use among the Gwembe Tonga serves fairly well as a generalized description of its place in the life of most of the region’s Bantu-speaking groups. Writing specifically about the BaTswana, Schapera (1960, 1966) noted the ceremonial value of alcohol in ancestral veneration, as well as its social value in the bonding of patrilineal groups. It was a food item which was much prized, a drink which, when shared, cemented marriages between patrilineages and rewarded labor cooperation within patrilineages. In this sense, alcohol was a symbol of the social wealth which derives from common descent and family membership. Distributed in quantity according to age and social rank (Haggblade, 1984), beer was also a privilege of the esteemed. It was in this sense a symbolic indication of social wealth acquired via seniority. Produced by women, it was consumed primarily by men. Thus, it represented not only the power of women’s productive and reproductive capabilities, but also the power of senior males in the control and distribution of life’s blessings. As Colson and Scudder (1988, p. 65) note, ‘‘[alcohol,] even more than food . . . represented the basic reciprocities of social life. . . . [It was] a ‘key symbol’ linking almost everything that . . . people thought important’’. In the pre-capitalist economy, the brewing of beer was an inexpensive way to diversify the diet: traditional sorghum brews are not filtered and are quite nutritious as a food item. Even so, brewing } and consequently drinking } followed a feast or famine pattern of sorts (Haggblade, 1984, p. 144). That is, when the harvest was coming in and grain was plentiful, people brewed in plenty. Later in the year, when grain was less readily available, beer brewing also became less common. This seasonality then established a pattern of fairly routine drinking at one point in the year and drinking almost not at all in others. 2 This section draws heavily off and significantly augments Suggs (1996, pp. 596, 597).

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Like most people in southern Africa, beer was brewed as an incentive for relations to engage in labor parties. At the end of the day, the men who had labored gathered around the pot and they proceeded to drink until what was brewed was gone. Sorghum beer will spoil relatively quickly. A couple of days following its completed preparation it is undrinkable. This is not as insignificant as it might seem at first glance. As Colson and Scudder (1988) note, there is a body of research which argues that those societies in which drinking was ‘‘traditional’’ } meaning ‘‘integrated into the structure of ritual, politics and work’’ } have fewer alcohol-related social and health problems upon the establishment of a brewing industry and market-oriented availability. But, as Colson and Scudder’s (1988, pp. 5,6) research suggests, this idea may have little merit in societies in which beer was in no way traditionally a commodity. They argue that the integration of beer into the cash economy makes of it something wholly other than it was before. Where formerly it was a special food to be shared in the creation of community (see also Karp (1980) in that vein), beer as a commodity is marketed as a drink to be drunk for the sake of drinking. In short, what was symbolic of community cooperation is likely to become symbolic of self-achievement, even if consumed in groups. This will, in turn, change the cultural meaning of drinking behaviors. Ambler (1987) has appropriately questioned the blanket relevance of such agricultural seasonality to the availablility of alcohol in precolonial patterns of consumption in subsaharan Africa. At the least, his argument suggests that the seasonality of consumption should be demonstrated rather than simply assumed. Like Ambler, I think well-established trade networks in southern Africa could be utilized in the off-season to acquire grains with which to brew. Also, it is evident that some chiefs and others of renown could demand the preparation of beer almost continuously. But, his general conclusion that ‘‘local leaders must have had substantial supplies of alcohol on hand most of the time’’ (Ambler, 1987, p. 11) has a primarily cautionary value in the particular context of the BaKgatla, where a number of considerations make the seasonal availability argument more broadly and culturally salient. First, given the brisk pace of spoilage in sorghum beer, ‘‘substantial supplies’’ would be substantially wasted if stocked. Thus, while I do not doubt that such supplies could be produced in the worst of times, they would almost certainly have to be redistributed fairly widely over the very few days } literally } in which it could be consumed. Of course, Ambler’s point is, in part, exactly that potentials for abuse are better understood as abuses of power since they would be limited to those members of the immediate royalty and their principal patrons. But, the BaKgatla have demonstrated

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historically their intolerance of inordinate abuses of power in their willful migration from Kruger’s territory in South Africa and in their later support for the colonial office’s banishment of Chief Molefi for a wide range of socially detrimental actions } one of which was continuous drunkenness (Schapera, 1980). In fact, one of the points of Comaroff and Comaroff’s (1997) recent reconsideration of the chieftaincy and the kgotla (‘‘traditional court/forum’’) system is the way that ideas of good government interacted with the structure of primogeniture to make the chieftaincy an institution of power while holding chiefs accountable in behavioral terms. That is, they argue that among the BaTswana ‘‘the ideology of good government paid less attention to the content of public affairs than to the means by which they were managed’’. (Comaroff and Comaroff, 1997, p. 130).3 Thus, if authority was unquestionably vested in the chieftaincy, it was not unquestionably vested in any given human serving as chief. The BaTswana chiefdoms emphasized the ‘‘participatory, consultative aspect of the public sphere’’. (Comaroff and Comaroff, 1997, p. 131) In the words of one MoTswana at a chief’s installation, ‘‘A chief can only be judged by what he does . . . If we can not see you in the court we shall draw away from you. And if we do will you still call yourself chief?’’ (Comaroff, 1975, p. 145). The point, then, is that it is unlikely that a MoTswana chief could command continuous beer production for his own aggrandizement (or for the sake of political patronage) at the expense of general social welfare without calling into question his legitimacy as a ruler. Occasional abuses of that order might be tolerated; routine ones would result in the loss of legitimacy. For example, Chief Molefi came to installation in 1929 among the BaKgatla at Mochudi. Schapera (1980) notes that he began his reign as a relatively young man at the insistence of the people. Yet, in a relatively short time, Molefi proved himself less than worthy of the trust and respect which the office of Chief demands. That is, ‘‘Molefi, although of attractive personality and good intelligence, was addicted to drink [and] tended also to absent himself frequently from his tribal [sic] duties at Mochudi. . .’’ (Schapera, 1980, p. 25). By 1934, his increasing drunkenness and misuse of chiefdom’s funds led to a sense of crisis. At a kgotla meeting called to discuss the situation, Molefi was ‘‘publicly censured for his drunkenness and irresponsible conduct’’ (Schapera, 1980, p. 25). A year later, the population of Mochudi by and large welcomed (indeed, many had encouraged) the colonial office’s decision to remove him from the chieftaincy and replace him with the more capable Mmusi. While the colonial involvement in this case is far 3 Peters (1994) and Good (1992) offer alternative and more hegemonic views of the chieftaincy and the kgotla system.

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from insignificant, Comaroff and Comaroff’s (1997) work suggests that the result would have been effectively the same in the precolonial context. Second, given that collective agricultural labor formed a focal point for alcohol consumption among the commoners, the off-season would still present less opportunities for their consumption regardless of the royalty’s potential abuses. That is, drinking to get drunk could be an action of occasional despotic household heads, but a primary context for socially approved public consumption of a recurrent character would be removed by movement of the population away from the lands houses4 for the off-season. Of course, upon return to the town one would find consistent weddings and other similarly ceremonial opportunities to consume alcohol. But, as the season progressed so too would the weddings decline in frequency as the supplies required to feed and please guests dwindled. If it was not so for those in royal standing, it would have been so for the far numerically greater commoners. In short, the agricultural season was a primary venue for public consumption for the non-royal majority (at least), a venue which clearly opportuned and linked approved alcohol consumption with responsible production and cooperative integrity. Third, to the extent that trade networks could have been utilized in the event of a poor agricultural year or in the quest for continuous chiefly beer production, the commoner’s resources would be relatively limited. That the chief might bring the group’s resources to bear on the acquisition of further foodstuffs is possible. Yet, the issues of accountability and legitimacy which the Comaroffs discuss would seem to limit the ability of BaKgatla chiefs (at least) to act in ways which would be perceived as regular abuses for personal or even own familial aggrandizement (to which I will return in a moment.) For the commoners, such exchanges in lean years would follow the economic patterns of reciprocity more closely than those of the royalty’s more redistributive patterns. As such, issues of familial need would likely outweigh those of individual desire. And, the elderly with whom I have spoken speak of their parents first relying on kin networks beyond the immediate lineage and on affinal ties for support. Fourth, if the BaTswana had given greater alcohol access to women (as Ambler importantly notes many groups did), then brewing at any time of the year would be more reasonable. But the BaKgatla did, indeed, limit women’s access to alcohol, reserving only to women of elder standing a right to drink } in areas out of public sight } smaller quantities than the men who drank in 4 The BaKgatla traditionally keep three houses } one in the village/town, one at ‘‘the lands’’ (i.e., at fields where crops are grown) and one at ‘‘the cattle posts’’ (i.e., open grazing land for cattle, land which is beyond the area used for cultivation).

public (Suggs, 1996). Continuous brewing late in the agricultural cycle or during times of extended drought such as those experienced in eastern Botswana would be an impractical denial of food resources to the women who were the primary food producers and to the children who would care for them in the future. Of course, there have been societies which effect such denials, and I do not doubt that occasional abusive husbands and patriarchs existed who could, indeed, have engaged in that level of self-aggrandizement among the BaTswana. But, I have found no historical or ethnographic evidence of its institutionalization among the BaKgatla, nor am I aware of any physical anthropological data on the nutrition of iron age populations of the immediate region which would indicate that it is a particularly plausible interpretation. Finally, I believe that there is historical evidence that the BaTswana (or, at least, some of the BaTswana) were acutely aware of the difference in the potential effect of the ‘‘continuous’’ supply of alcohol in a market economy specifically in contrast to the seasonal production of beer in the agricultural economy. That is, given the way that alcohol consumption is and was intimately tied to the construction of adult masculinity (Suggs and Lewis, 2000), laws limiting the availability of trade alcohol would be initially interpreted by most men as an attempt to regulate the expression of patriarchy, as an attempt to question their control of women and resources. After all, the symbolic value of consumption emphasized masculinity and seniority. Yet, Chief Khama III of the Bamangwato wrote often and forcefully against European traders being allowed to establish canteens in his chiefdom. Writing to Sir Sydney Shippard (Administrator and Deputy Commissioner of British Bechuanaland) in 1888, Khama (1888) expressed the concerns of a leader newly converted to Christianity: Lobengula5 never gives me a sleepless night. But to fight against drink is to fight against demons and not against men. I dread the white man’s drink more than all the assegais6 of the Matabele which kill men’s bodies, and it is quickly over, but drink puts devils into men and destroys both their souls and their bodies forever. It’s [sic] wounds never heal. As Suggs (1996) has argued, Khama’s newfound commitment to Christianity is evident in his concern for souls. Yet, that concern for ‘‘the souls’’ of his people is 5 Lobengula was then chief of the Matabele, a group which left South Africa during Shaka’s Mfecane and moved through BaTswana territories before settling in what is today southern Zimbabwe. At the time, tensions between Khama and Lobengula over territorial boundaries were of concern to the colonial authorities, as well as to the two groups’ peoples. 6 An assegai is a short, stabbing spear utilized in combat by the Matabele.

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only ‘‘real’’ in a market context which allows for continuous and perhaps unrestrained use (i.e., abuse). That is, the traditional, seasonal availability of alcohol in the agricultural economy would mitigate against abuse being a common problem, as would the attendant social structure of availability. Khama wisely recognized that the traditional social controls embedded in (1) patriarchal and gerontocratic structures and (2) seasonal agricultural availability would be relatively meaningless in a context of continuous availability under the rules of market exchange. He must have also recognized that while the tradition of drinking promoted communal productivity, the ‘‘new’’ opportunities promoted individual consumption.7 And, while the agricultural context affirmed the control of juniors by elders and ultimately commoners by royals, the new opportunities would have undermined the structure of that authority.8 Accordingly, one can understand why Khama III enacted laws against drinking ‘‘withstanding [his] people at the risk of [his] life’’ (Khama, 1888), a risk engendered among the BaTswana } literally } by the challenge it presented to masculine privilege. So, the seasonally bound consumption of alcohol is, in my opinion, the better choice in interpretation here } a context which emphasizes the connection of collective production and consumption. The symbolic value of beer would certainly have encompassed the political economy of the chiefdom. But for the numerically greater commoners alcohol primarily represented the domestic economy, the local productivity of patrilines (or, at least, wards with a patrilineal core), and the control of that family and its productivity by senior males. Household and kin structured authority was most salient in an act of consumption. That logic extended to chiefly consumption and redistribution as an amplification of the logic of kinship in the political economy, where the chief was theoretically in power because of his place as the senior male in a patrilineal clan core. So, if like most people in southern Africa, beer was brewed among the BaKgatla as an incentive for relations to engage in labor parties, it simultaneously (and, perhaps, more fully) symbolized the kin who were laboring and the productivity of the laboring group, itself. The drinking group was, as Suggs (1996) has suggested elsewhere by drawing off of Karp’s (1980) work among the Itesu, a ‘‘managed accomplishment’’ } a structural ‘‘statement of essential sociability’’ }

7

See Adler (1991) for a similar argument surrounding the change from artisanal drinking patterns in Britain to pub-based consumption in the emergent industrial economy. 8 Comparatively, Akyeampong’s (1996) amazing analysis of power, drink and cultural change in the social history of Ghana demonstrates the Akan elders’ recognition of similar threats to authority and control.

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something far more, then, than just a labor incentive even if it was one. The structure of the Bechuanaland Protectorate’s (and the region’s) labor migratory system certainly has had an historical impact on drinking behaviors (Crush and Ambler, 1992). The colonial period in Botswana is marked by the creation of what Parson calls a ‘‘peasantariat’’: that is, rural-dwelling BaTswana now produce the bulk of what is necessary consumption but (due to the demands of a cash economy) must send a number of its members out of the rural areas to work for wages. In short, there is ‘‘a combination of subsistence agricultural production and wage labor, neither in itself adequate [for existence]’’ (Parson, 1985, p. 51). Today, many laborers continue to migrate in circular fashion to the urban areas and mining centers of Botswana and the RSA, as well as to the white-owned farms in the former Transvaal region of South Africa. This presents another aspect of the seasonality of beer drinking which is historically significant. That is, in the mixed economy one reward for seasonal labor was drinking alcohol. What happens when one removes the labor force from the land and they enter into the artificial seasonality of labor migration at mines and farms? When the work is done for the day, they drink. And, they acquire a taste for the drink of their employers } European style clear beers and wines. South African farmers long ago realized the increased profits to be gained by paying their workforce partially in ‘‘tots’’ of inexpensive wine (Molamu, 1989; Pan, 1975; Scully, 1992). For the employers, it was cheap } cheaper than paying African laborers only in cash. And, in the mines, the beer flowed as a way of providing some mental relief from the monotony of continuous compound life and the endless shifts underground. Daily drinking becomes thus a new way of life, one limited only by the duration of the labor contract. And, such drinking relieves the sense of loneliness almost assuredly, where at least the pattern of drink following labor would be familiar to any and all African migrants. On top of that, when the laborers return home from their period away, they bring home that part of their earnings held in ‘‘trust’’ until the completion of the contract. Understandably, they seek out the company of their age-mates over beer. Those who have acquired a taste for the clear beers will spend their earnings faster than those who drink the less expensive sorghum beer. In either case, my observations suggest that almost all will routinely do what men are known to do traditionally: they will celebrate their labor prowess drinking. Yet, the celebration is not over cooperative agricultural endeavor, but over individual wage labor success. Today, the drinking that occurs in the context of bars continues to bring groups of men to a public format for interaction. While there are some obvious and striking differences in terms of their basis for interaction } they

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are not patrikin, ward-mates, or cooperative laborers in agricultural production } the men present their drinking in bars with a special emphasis on the continuities between the past and the present. I cannot emphasize strongly enough that the continuities they construct } that ‘‘men have always met over beer’’, that drinking is a ‘‘reward for working hard’’, and other such statements } give to the men of Mochudi their most commonly expressed justification for their routine patronage of particular establishments and their routine consumption of beer. Despite the fact that 50 years ago there were no bars in Mochudi, listening to the men speak of how they have ‘‘always’’ done this would almost make one believe that bars were part of the original accouterments of Bantu populations moving into southern Africa a thousand years ago. Yet, even as they connect themselves to past tradition, they recognize change and bring to it a cultural sense of ‘‘Tswana-ness’’ whenever possible by housing the differences within perceived continuities. This is all the more interesting when one examines the profound effects of the cash economy on the construction of ‘‘gendered age’’ (Suggs, 1996).

On age gradation and the intersection with gender9 By and large, American society treats masculinity as the province of non-elderly adult males. That is, we have a popular cultural tendency to view masculinity monolithically as something which is naturally attained by maturation to adulthood and which slips away progressively over the life course (see, e.g., Worthman, 1999). By way of contrast, Schapera’s work (1960, 1966) among the BaKgatla in the first half of this century shows a view of masculinity in which there is continual accumulative growth over the life-course. As a boy, one tended father’s cattle. As a young man, one was initiated into an age set.10 Later, one was married and thereby recognized as relatively adult. With the acquisition of one’s own herd and the birth of children came recognition of full adulthood. As he aged, a successful man became the controller of larger labor forces (his wife or wives and children), the manager of larger herds, and eventually, the spiritual guardian of his descendants, sacrificing to ancestors on their behalf. 9

For a discussion of alcohol and the construction of women’s roles, see Suggs (1996). For interesting comparative material see Eber (1998) on the Maya, as well as Hunt and Satterlee (1986) on British pubs. 10 For a discussion of men’s initiation (bogwera) earlier in this century and some concerns expressed regarding male youth and access to alcohol, see Scapera (1976) and Schapera (1980).

With increasing age, then, came not only increasingly valuable experiential knowledge, but a wider base for the exercise of power. The BaKgatla term for ‘‘old man } monna mogolo } is literally (and in this case better) translated as ‘‘big man’’ or ‘‘great man’’. The younger men } with less labor under their control, fewer resources to distribute, and no direct access to the blessings of ancestors } were lesser men, less masculine. For the most part, the BaKgatla interacted socially with those of like position in the life-course. Prior to initiation, there was little access to the actual reasoning of adults. That is, one learned more via their decisions than by observing the process of their decision-making (Suggs, 1987). As I was told by one elder even in 1984, ‘‘Why would we speak with younger people about our concerns? It is not yet their time. When it is their time they will be ready to join the discussion. But now, it is our time.’’ In fact, Schapera (1976, p. 1) emphasizes the significance of initiation by pointing out that regardless of one’s chronological age, uninitiated males could not even sit and eat with those who were initiated. As a man passed through initiation and subsequently achieved other marks of relative maturity (e.g., marriage), he was then admitted to conversations pertinent to the concerns of adults. So, boys interacted by and large with boys, youths with other youths, married adults with married adults, parents with parents, the elderly with the elderly. Importantly, when there was interaction (as there must be) between the generations, respect flowed up while knowledge and control flowed down. So it would have been in the consumption of alcohol, as well. As Ambler (1987, p. 12) correctly points out, ‘‘even in the humblest home the rituals of consumption taught the lessons of hierarchy’’. As groups of men gathered around a pot of beer at the end of an agricultural day, elders would distribute it to those gathered, a distribution which Haggblade (1984) also emphasizes would give greater quantity to those relatively senior. In that act of collective consumption as adults, then, was a reminder of the hierarchical character of the power in elder masculinity. If they drank as a united kin group, all came to their rights in land and labor through the elders assembled above them. If the younger men’s wives produced more food on behalf of those gathered, it was the cattle of the elders that first secured their labor and reproduction, just as it was the wives of elders who held the managerial knowledge that ensured the younger ones’ success. As a result, the elders could with some justification take at least an indirect credit for every junior member’s accomplishments. If the young resented their elders’ control, they could take solace in the knowledge that their ‘‘time’’ would come. Of course, a capitalist economy rewards individuals in quite a different fashion. Today, one need not be either an elder or a man to control significant economic

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resources (Suggs, 1987) and formal educational qualifications often outweigh experiential knowledge in access to positions of influence. With education and opportunities for cash income, the younger men are no longer dependent on the elders for resources. It should come as no surprise then to discover that men in the 25–45-year age range are numerically predominant in the bar populations of Mochudi. Yet, the extent to which this has altered the meaning of alcohol consumption goes well beyond their simple access to the income necessary for purchase. There is also a new understanding of masculinity emerging, one which is clearly visible in patterns of public alcohol use.

Where have all the old men gone? In 1984–85 I routinely found older men in the bars of Mochudi in the evenings. In fact, in one sense they were the predominant population. That is, while I remember that their numbers were matched by the younger men of the emerging white-collar class, the elder patrons tended to gather in the bars while those younger tended to congregate outside of the bar on the grounds of the establishment.11 Still, I can recall many evenings when a wide age range of patrons were to be found at the tables. At the time, I did not really think too much about it. But, upon reflection I do not remember the older men approaching those of us who were younger for conversation in any way other than the passing greeting or the occasional joking off-hand comment. That there was little interaction between those who were relatively older and younger would have been consistent with my experience in the larger community both then and now. In the third week of my research in 1992, a conversation with a longstanding friend brought to my attention a significant change in the bar scene since I had last been in Botswana. We were discussing some of my initial observations when my friend said simply, ‘‘Hey! Here’s a question you can answer for me. Where have all the old men gone? Remember that we used to see them in all the bars? I don’t often see them in any bars, these days.’’ My work over the remainder of that year would bear out the veracity of his observation. The old men were conspicuously absent from the evening congregations in bars throughout the village. As the population of relatively younger men in whitecollar professions increased, so too had their presence in the bars. The older men’s exodus from that scene was not complete. They went to the bars, but in the late afternoons when the majority of the relatively young 11

Note that this ‘‘inside the bar/outside on the grounds’’ scenario mirrors use patterns in bars today by men and women patrons, respectively (see Suggs, 1996.)

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men would still be at work. One elder’s comments are particularly informative: I like to come to the bar. I used to come every evening. Not now, no! All these young chaps } they drink too much, they fight too much, they yell too much, they listen to this music from South Africa. Music from South Africa! I never liked the Boers and now these young lions want to listen to their music. No, they [the young men] do not know who they are. Well, I don’t come in the evenings now. That is their time. They can have it. I come in the afternoons and sit with [two friends] and we have a beer and talk. We have one beer and we talk about our children and we remember what we have done. We care about each other. These young men don’t care about each other } they just want to drink and fuck. I think I must just say that. The trouble today is all this drinking and fucking. I think they learned that from you [from Europeans]. (Suggs, 1996, p. 606) The members of age cohorts continue to be most comfortable, by and large, interacting among themselves. Accordingly, older men do not attend bars at one level simply because the majority of the patrons are not of their cohort. They are plainly not comfortable sitting and interacting as peers with those who are not of their age. The older men seek out the company of their peers at the homestead, where they can gather in groups of their choosing (Suggs, 1996). Alternatively, some older men go to the bar in the late afternoon. At that time of day, the bar is, indeed, relatively quiet. They prefer the older bars of Mochudi } Lentswe la Baratani (‘‘Lovers’ Rock’’) and Motimalenyora (‘‘Thirst-quencher’’), in particular. When asked why they chose that bar they will tell you it is only because they are comfortable there since they have been going there for years. While I suspect there is more to it than that and will return to the issue below, for now it is sufficient to note that they choose to gather ‘‘as men’’ at times when ‘‘lesser men’’ are not there. Besides the comfort of interacting with own age peers, the absence of older men in the evenings also reflects the changing attitudes which the younger cohorts hold regarding the markers of masculinity. The age structure of economic success has made it possible for younger adult men to attend the bars; but, the ideology of gendered age feeds back onto the structural change (Harris, 1979) as older men continue to see the younger as ‘‘lesser men’’, regardless of economic success. As one man put it, ‘‘Men used to be men. Today, these young chaps think they are just men, too.’’ Indeed they do. As the older men see the attendance at bars as a statement of mature masculinity achieved by age and experience, the younger men see public drinking as a statement of mature masculinity achieved in the control of resources.

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As men, both younger and older speak of the ‘‘tradition’’ of men working and then gathering together over beer; that they all do so ‘‘as men’’ is without doubt. A year’s field notes are replete with reminders that men drink as a normative condition of masculinity. The entire year’s collection of quotations is largely summed up in one: ‘‘Men have always sought the company of other men, and the best of company becomes even better when you take a few beers together.’’ On that the old and the young alike agree. But there is an awareness of financial affluence expressed by the younger men which is rarely mentioned by the elders as important in their interactions ‘‘as men’’. In fact, elsewhere I hinted at my suspicion that the older men’s presence in the afternoons at primarily the older and centrally located bars was more than force of patronage habit (Suggs, 1996). It seems reasonable that with the majority of bars located in the newer and more affluent sections of the town, the older men avoided them because they are iconic of the changes which have stripped them of the control of resources compared to the younger white-collar professionals. As they noted that ‘‘these young chaps think they are just men too’’, they simultaneously emphasized the family, life-long accomplishment (on the order of Alverson’s (1978) notion of ‘‘life projects’’) of masculinity, feeling deprived of the respect which should be accorded to seniors in recognition of their deep life experience. I can understand their feelings of deprivation. While elders continue to receive a great deal of familial respect, young people do not show a great deal of deference to the elderly, in general. If the MoTswana chief cited in Tylor’s 1871 account could say ‘‘One event is always the son of another, and we must never forget the parentage’’, the elders I spoke with were of the belief that the young had not only forgotten the parentage of today’s events but had in their actions claimed a kinship with foreign parents. Yet, that position is, itself, a selective interpretation of ‘‘tradition’’, is it not? The younger men’s emphasis on the control of economic resources as ‘‘masculine’’ is in reasonable keeping with the past. From their perspective, the older men’s experience is not irrelevant to life today, but the young seem to commonly hold the belief that (as one man put it) ‘‘the old ones can not tell me how to invest shrewdly, how to open a new market, how to compete for the money that is out there’’. In their conversations, the younger men celebrate their success as laborers. Did not their fathers do so, as well? They are, as the quote above illustrates, acutely aware of the individual and competitive character of their labor and they are in no way mystified by the contrast to the more collective and cooperative orientation of the past. But, along with common justification of good company among men, they emphasize the continuities in men’s goal of laboring successfully and

controlling resources, just as the older men focus on selective connections to family management and life experience. Consider a piece of a conversation that I had with Buitumelo. In his mid-30s, he is a teacher at a secondary school in Mochudi. Having seen him often in one particular bar, I noticed that he had chosen to drink not his usual beer, but a reduced alcohol brand. Suggs: ‘‘Wo! Buitumelo, you always drink Hansa. What is the deal with the St. Louis in your hand?’’ Buitumelo: ‘‘No! These friends of mine, we went up to Palapye on Friday. I had 120 Pula in my pocket. I spent it all! Ijojojojo, we men drink more than we know. So I thought, ‘Hey. I come to [the bar] 2 or 3 times a week. I arrive with 30 Pula and go home with 7! So, now I will drink St. Louis. Akiri, I drink just as much, but now my pocket tells me when to stop, not my stomach. We can be men and know how much we are spending. At the heart of this narration is the idea that men should know how to manage resources well and should not be wasting money on alcohol for the sake of sheer drunkeness. Over-consumption literally ‘‘robbed’’ him of his 120 pula as his powers of judgement were impaired. His point in that vein is that one drinks that much because the company of men is enjoyable. He does not want to drink less, he just wants to be less drunk as a result. Yet, just as powerful is the point that as a peer among men who are economically successful one can afford to make a mistake that would waste a sizeable sum of money, and that as a member of that group, he can afford to spend 50–75 Pula a week for the sake of association ‘‘with men’’. In his statement that ‘‘we men drink more than we know’’, one can anticipate the addendum, ‘‘and aren’t we manly to be able to do so’’? There is a clear connection to the masculine ideals of the past in successful management and control of resources, even as the boundary shifts from familial identity to class identity, from collective labor to individual income. Further insight can be gained from a piece of an interview that I had with a local bar owner. Mokgadi is in his late 30s and opened his bar as ‘‘a place to relax after a day’s work at my other job’’. In the daytime he works as a mechanic at a garage owned by his family. Mokgadi: ‘‘Dave, Dave, look at me, Dave! Look at me. Do I look like a wealthy man? No! I work all day and then I come straight to my bar. Don’t worry . . . I clean up first, but then I just put my work clothes back on. So, no. I don’t have to look wealthy. I want a man who comes here to be comfortable and peaceful. That is what I want in my bar } relaxed

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men. But, Dave, when a man comes looking like this [pointing to his overalls] I want him to be treated like a wealthy man, a real man. (Emphasis mine) Note again the awareness of economics in masculinity and men’s alcohol consumption, this time expressed in the voice of the entrepreneur. That he does not have to look wealthy is in no way an indication that he does not want to be. Nor does it suggest he believes wealth to be irrelevant. On the contrary, ‘‘real men’’ he directly equates with ‘‘wealthy men’’. Of course, at one level it is the classic entrepreneurial attitude about the color of money. Yet the fact is that he realizes the bulk of his patrons are white-collar professionals and that bluecollar workers will appear only occasionally (and usually then at month’s end). One is comfortable and peaceful among those who are in the same age range with the same level of accomplishment, even if again the accomplishment which unites them under a class identity is forged in individual competition (as contrasted with a familial identity forged in the management of collective cooperation). The fact is that as he says he wants his patrons to feel like wealthy men, like real men, he recognizes that his clientele are relatively wealthy and as a result consider themselves to be real men.

Conclusions If there is a bitterness in an old man’s comment that ‘‘these young chaps think they are just [real] men, too’’ there is as well an irony that I think is not lost on BaKgatla men young or old. It is the simple notion that public drinking is masculine. Whether their perspective demands of ‘‘real men’’ deep experiential knowledge or control of deep economic resources, comparatively few would contest the notion that ‘‘real’’ men drink and do so for the sake of better company with other ‘‘real’’ men. Both young and old know the changes of the shift from a redistributive agrarian economy to a wage labored cash economy. While some of the changes are unrecognizable as ‘‘tradition’’ to one, they are cast as continuity by the other; but in the notion that public drinking is a right of men, they stand on common ground. In the past, full masculinity was the result of lifelong growth. As one aged, so would one gain simultaneously experiential knowledge of value to those younger and increasing control of economic resources. With their conjunction came the full power of masculinity, a power which was exercised on behalf of self and family through redistribution to those junior. As the men gathered to drink together they did so as opposed to the women who grew the grain and made the beer. All were } in structure at least } in control. But, some were more capable of control than others. Vis a vis each other, some were more masculine. So, as the elders sat around

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a pot of beer and distributed to those present by seniority, all would have seen that the results of one’s ‘‘less masculine’’ labor flow upward since the ‘‘more masculine’’ distribution of the labor and produce flows downwards. ‘‘Less masculine’’ respect flowed upward as ‘‘more masculine’’ control flowed down in the patriline. The cash economy put a premium on formal education rather than lifelong experiential wisdom, on competition of individuals rather than the cooperation of kin. Missions and syncretic churches, as well as the secular worldview of western science have offered alternatives to the power of ancestors. The seasonality of the agricultural production is being supplanted by the constancy of commodities. And against that background, the terrain of ‘‘tradition’’ is selectively landscaped in multiple dimensions by the people who inhabit it. One of those dimensions is that of gendered age. Today’s elders see the continuity in masculine beer consumption; find discontinuity in the lack of respect and authority, downplaying the issue of resource control and distribution. The young see the continuity in masculine beer consumption, emphasizing the issue of resource control in masculinity as the basis for respect and authority. Today, men gather around a bar. The cash which allows them patronage validates their success in resource control. Respect flows not upward, but outward to the boundary of class, around the space in which distribution is self-oriented as a collective vision. Some are more manly than others in this scenario, too. But the gradations are based on competitive gains reinforced in individual consumption among other ‘‘real men’’.

Acknowledgements I would once again like to express my thanks to Fulbright-Hays for the award of a faculty research abroad grant in support of this work (ref. no. PO19A10024). Also, I would like to express my gratitude to Mac Marshall and Linda Bennet for their efforts in organizing the symposium for which this paper was written (the ICAES meetings in 1998) and for inviting me to be a part of such a fine group of scholars. Their research commitment and efforts over the past decades have been an inspiration.

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