The Taung tribe or Bataung is a tribe of Bantu origin which speaks the Sotho-Tswana group of languages, namely, Setswana, Sepedi, Sesotho and Lozi.1 The tribe was established by Makraka, a headman.2
After an unsuccessful cattle raid, some members of the tribe were "massacred".3
"Tau" is a Sotho-Tswana word meaning "Lion", and this animal is their totem. "Bataung" is a plurality of a lion meaning "people of a place of Lions or Lion's den".
Further reading
Further reading
Sidney Berman, Analysing the Frames of the Bible: The Case of Setswana Translation of the Book of Ruth, Chapter 3, A History and Ethnographic Description of Batswana - Stellenbosch University. List of supporting thesis: Comaroff, Setiloane, Brown and others.
References
References
- Sheddick, V. G. J. (2017). The Southern Sotho: Southern Africa Part II (ebook). Taylor & Francis. Retrieved 9 March 2026.
- Bantoe: Bantu. Department of Information, Republic of South Africa. 1966. p. 95. Retrieved 9 March 2026.
- Peers, Chris (2011). The African Wars: Warriors and Soldiers of the Colonial Campaigns (ebook). ISBN 9781844687626. Retrieved 9 March 2026.