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Naturina, Maseru (2026)

12/09/2026

Celebrating 50,000 followers! Thank you Kings and Queens! You're loved

02/09/2026

A PhD Maths Student in South Africa Studies How You May Pack Oranges in a Box!

Well… not just packing. And not just oranges.

But imagine this.

You’ve got a big box. You start placing oranges inside...carefully, neatly, trying to fit as many as possible without turning them into juice. Naturally, the question comes:

How many can I fit in there (absolute maximum)?

Simple question.

Surprisingly deep answer.

This is the kind of question behind a study by Mita Dimpho Ramabulana, a PhD student at the University of Cape Town (UCT). But instead of oranges, he worked with something far more mind-bending: mathematical functions...specifically, positive definite functions.

Don’t run.

Stay with us

We’ll keep it simple. We promise.

Mathematicians call these “extremal problems.” Fancy name, simple idea:

How far can you push something before you hit the absolute limit...without breaking the rules?

Now here’s the catch.

In real life, and even in maths, you often get very close to the best answer… but never quite land on it.

Back to your oranges.

You arrange them. Rearrange them. Squeeze in one more. Then another. Each time you think, this must be it.

But there’s always that nagging thought:

Could I fit just one more?

You keep improving… but never quite arrive. Like chasing a finish line that keeps moving.

What Ramabulana showed is something subtle...but powerful.

Under certain well-defined conditions, you’re not just chasing forever.

There actually exists a “best possible” solution, where you pushed in just one last Orange and you're done.

In simple terms:

The perfect answer is not a dream. It’s real, provable, and reachable (at least in the maths sense).

But… (and there’s always a but)

Things aren’t that stable.

You find your “best setup.” Everything works. But now tilt the box slightly. Or round the corners. Or tweak the rules just a bit.

Suddenly?

That oranges no longer fit. The arrangement is....

Gone.

Not because you failed, but because the conditions changed.

This is where his work really digs in.

Which conditions guarantee a best solution, and which ones don’t.

Think of it like this:

• Some “boxes” → best answer exists

• Slightly different ones → no guarantee at all

Now let’s make things even trickier.

Most older maths worked on simple, flat spaces...like a tabletop.

But what if your “box” isn’t flat?

What if it’s curved...like a sphere?

Now your oranges roll around. The geometry shifts. Everything gets messy.

Here’s the clever move.

Ramabulana showed that these messy, curved problems can often be translated into cleaner ones using something called groups (a structured mathematical system).

In plain terms:

Solve the simpler version… then carry the answer back to the complicated one. Its like flattening the Earth into a map so you can actually work with it.

So why should anyone care?

Because these “limits” quietly shape real life:

• Communication systems → how many signals fit without interference

• Data storage → how tightly information can be packed

• Materials science → how atoms arrange themselves

All the same question underneath:

What’s the absolute limit, and does it actually exist?

You don’t solve these problems by blindly squeezing in more “oranges.”

You step back.
You understand the rules.
You define the system properly.

And then, if you’re precise enough, you can prove: the number you’ve been chasing… is actually real.
_________
From the horse's mouth

Ramabulana, M.D., 2025. Delsarte-type extremal problems for positive definite functions on groups and homogeneous spaces. PhD thesis. University of Cape Town.

31/08/2026

16 Traditional Basotho Clothes!

1. Lehlosi – a skin garment worn by chiefs
2. Mokhahla – a skin blanket worn by men
3. Setipe – a skin garment worn by men
4. Tšeea – a loincloth worn by boys
5. Leqapha – a loincloth/cover worn by boys and initiates.
6. Thethana – a dress worn by girls
7. Lesira – A veil or fringe made of grass, reeds, or twisted fibre designed to partially cover the girl initiate’s face.
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8. Likholokoane – Hoops made from river reeds or riverbank grass worn snugly around the girl initiate's waist.
9. Sefaha sa Letsopa – Handcrafted neckpieces and ornaments made from local clay beads.
10. Mose oa Lekoko / Letata – A skirt from softened cowhide wrapped around the lower waist.
11. Mokorotlo – a hat worn by everyone
12. Moli’a nyeoe – a hat worn by everyone
13. Tšetše – a hat worn by everyone
14. Kuoane – a skin hat worn by everyone
15. Kharetsana – a skin hat worn by everyone
16. Sekola – a skin hat worn by everyone
______
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29/08/2026

Make Your Fashion Customers "Dress To Kill" With Lishoeshoe Designs From Lesotho!

1. Lishoeshoe Designs
2. Authentic Mokorotlo Hats

Now available for resellers in South Africa!

Whether you're starting a fashion business or expanding your store, this is your chance to bring unique Basotho heritage to your customers — with a modern twist.

Wanna catch the freshest drops first? Slide into Naturina's WhatsApp group for the quickest updates. 👇
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29/08/2026

712 Plants Used By Basotho of Free-State and Lesotho!

Let's imagine a place where every plant has a purpose: where "lengana" soothes your cough, "theepe" fills your pot, "lekhatsi" builds your home, and "bohome-bo-boholo" washes your clothes.

As researchers Moteetee, Moffett, and Seleteng-Kose discovered, the Basotho people use an astonishing "712 plant species" (and more) for food, medicine, and daily life.

This is the story of that living wisdom.

Alright, let’s kick back and take a slow, easy stroll through the mountains of Lesotho and the Free State. Forget the fancy science talk, we’re just chatting about how the Basotho people have turned their backyard into a grocery store, a pharmacy, and a hardware shop all rolled into one. And honestly, it’s pretty amazing.

So, the researchers did the heavy lifting and counted up every single useful plant they could find.

The total? A whopping 712 species!

That’s 712 different ways nature says, “Here, I’ve got you covered.” To put it in perspective, the researchers note that “the documented plants include 22 fern species and 690 flowering plant species.”

That’s a whole lot of green goodness.

Let’s talk about the all-stars. The daisy family (Asteraceae) is the absolute champ here with 115 useful species. Think of it as the Swiss Army knife of plants, used for everything from firewood to medicine.

Right behind it are the grasses (Poaceae) with 61 species, which makes total sense because, well, we eat those. And don’t forget the legumes (Fabaceae) with 50 species, bringing the protein to the table.

Speaking of the table, let’s dig in.

The Basotho diet runs on starches, and maize is king. You’ve got your "papa" (thick porridge), your "setampo" (coarse corn stew) cooked up with kidney beans, and even a dish called "likhobe" where roasted corn meets beans.

They also mix maize flour with wild greens to make "potele".

Sorghum is just as important, getting turned into porridge or fermented into a tasty, non-alcoholic drink called "motoho".

And when the crops take a hit, they don’t panic, they just turn to wild grasses like finger millet and African lovegrass for emergency grub. Smart, right?

They gather leafy greens like "theepe" (pigweed), "serue" (lamb's quarters), and "liababa" (watercress) for a vitamin boost. They dig up starchy roots from plants called "mohlatsisa" and "sehoete". And for dessert? They snack on wild fruits like "mabelebele" (wild currants) and "torefeie" (prickly pear).

Now, here’s where it gets really cool.

Medicine.

Out of those 712 plants, a staggering 437 are used for healing. That’s over half! Got a nasty cough? Brew some "lengana" (African wormwood) tea. Aching joints or chest colds? Dig up "lesoko" (wild parsley roots). For serious pain or nausea, they turn to "matekoane" (cannabis).

The researchers highlight that “437 plant species are used to treat health conditions in humans and domestic animals.” Even the cows get care...if a cow has trouble after calving, they give it a fern called "lehōrōmetso" to help things along.

That’s some next-level animal husbandry.

And let’s not forget the everyday stuff. In those cold highlands, you need good firewood. They favor "sehalahala" because it burns hot without choking you out with smoke.

Need to build a hut or a sleigh frame? Grab some "lekhatsi" (wild peach) timber, it’s tough as nails. For the kids, they weave traditional skirts from the stiff leaves of "tsikitlane". And get this...for washing up, they just grab "bohome-bo-boholo", which works like a natural soap.

No trips to the store required.

24/08/2026

Who are the Basia, Another of The Basotho Clan!

So the Basia story? It all starts with Mokhatla (the Son of Malope I ('Musi) who is also the father of Koena and Mohurutse who gave birth to many of Basotho and Batswana tribes, check https://l1nk.dev/b01fro6).

From Mokhatla came a chain of descendants: Legabo, then Pogopi, then Botlolo, and then an important figure: Tabane. Now Tabane is where things really open up, because his family branches into several well-known groups.

It starts with some good old family drama. Basia’s founding father, Mosia, was the youngest son of a Bakhatla chief named Tabane and his wife 'Mathulare. 'Mathulare was kind of a big deal, her dad was a Bafokeng chief named Sebolela-a-koena, and she lived around the Magaliesberg mountains.
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She ended up being the mom of the founders of five major tribes. According to some history books, these five groups claim they were actually the first ever to be called the "Basotho":

· The Bapeli
· The Makholokoe
· The Maphuthing
· The Batlokoa
· The Basia

Eventually, Chief Tabane packed up and headed off to Zoutpansberg. The Basia and their oldest brother weren’t really into the idea of living under Molise.

That was Tabane’s son from his first wife.

So they bounced too.

Even though the Basia were the smallest of those five tribes, they still made a mark. They left Magaliesberg, followed the Vaal River, turned south, and eventually set up camp west of the Elands River in the Harrismith district. They basically hung out there for over two centuries.

So why’d they stay so small?

Well, they were pretty much always picking some fight with somebody, so their numbers never really grew. Well, not that much.

When they first split from the parent tribe, they figured they needed a fresh emblem. They went with the "tobatse", the porcupine, and they’ve kept that prickly little mascot ever since.

In the early 1700s, things got interesting when they crossed paths with Motonosi and his Batlokoa crew. The Basia got into a nasty fight with shields and battle-axes against a guy named Tšotetsi. Turns out, Tšotetsi was Motonosi’s older brother. The Basia didn’t exactly ask for backup, but Motonosi had some old beef with his brother, jumped in, and helped the Basia turn things around.

That kicked off a huge friendship and alliance between the two tribes that lasted for generations.

All that closeness naturally led to marriages, which brings us to a legendary woman named Monyalue.

She was the daughter of the Basia chief, Mothaha. She was tall, slim, graceful, had a light brown complexion, and wore a big brass collar and brass bangles on her arms and legs. She married her Batlokoa cousin, Mokotjo. When they had their first daughter, Nthatisi, Monyalue became known as "Manthatisi"... the name that made her famous.

People also affectionately called her "Mosesane," which means "the little woman," as a total compliment (she wasn't short). She’d later become a very notable chieftainess-regent.

Things weren’t always chill for the Basia and their friends.

Eventually, an invader named Pakalita brought his Mahlubi warriors over the Drakensberg mountains and completely caught the Batlokoa off guard. The Batlokoa grabbed their cattle and ran to the Basia for safety. The Basia chief at the time, Letlala (Manthatisi’s brother), was all for teaming up and fighting back. Manthatisi, surprisingly, said nope, mostly because her people were starving and she was worried they’d loot the Basia’s crops and ruin their long-standing friendship.

The drama didn’t stop there. In 1822, Letlala’s second son, Shekeshe, made a massive miscalculation: he picked a fight with Mosheshoe. Moshesh easily fought him off. Still looking for trouble, Shekeshe went and attacked Moshoeshoe's cousins, Basekake, under the chief named Mpiti.

Mosheshoe wasn’t about to let that go.

He rolled up, attacked with insane fury, completely wrecked the Basia forces, and took all of Shekeshe’s cattle. He even took a few other women as prisoners, including 'Momosebetsi, whose daughter, Mosebetsi, became the wife of Moshoeshoe's son, Molapo and the mother of Joele Molapo.

And that’s the wild, messy story of the Basia, from a family falling-out in the Magaliesberg to full-on battles down south! Which part of their crazy history grabs you the most?
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21/08/2026

This is How they Still Make Old Cowhide Dresses in Lesotho!

So 'Mabokang Mokotjo from the University of Pretoria basically went on a bit of a mission. She wanted to figure out how Basotho communities used to prepare, tan, decorate and look after cowhide back in the day.
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She used a particular Setlokoa cowhide dress, what they call "mose oa khomo" as her main example.

Her worry was that this whole chunk of cultural heritage is quietly disappearing.

Mordenism, factories, city life, and the fact that everyone now thinks of "Seshoeshoe" as the classic "traditional" outfit have all pushed cowhide dresses to the sidelines.

Back then, these dresses actually said something about you.

The shape of the hem, the beads, those little copper rings, they could tell people whether you were married or still a young girl. A half-moon edge meant "married woman," while a V-shaped edge pointed to:

"Still a girl."

Mokotjo found that decoration was meant to do more than "looking good". It was basically a wearable ID card.

She mentions different types like "sebeto", "setea" and "mokhese", but the Setlokwa dress she studied closely really stood out because of its beadwork and all those copper rings.

She did her fieldwork in two very different spots in Lesotho: Malingoaneng, up in the Mokhotlong highlands in, and Joalaboholo, down in Leribe.

And that comparison turned out to matter a lot.

Up in Malingoaneng, hide processing is still more of a community thing.

Down in Joalaboholo, it's become more of a side hustle. People there often get their hides from farms across the border in South Africa and just soak them in water to soften them.

But in Malingoaneng, the hides usually come from local cattle, and people use "moroko", which is basically the leftover grain from brewing traditional beer, to soften the leather.

And that highland process is pretty clever.

After skinning and scraping the hide, the tanning process involves brewing beer.

Like, actual traditional beer.

You malt the sorghum, brew it, cook the fermented mixture, sieve it, and then take the leftover moroko and work it into the hide until it's soft enough to cut. Then the hide gets treated with red ochre, "letsoku", mixed with "mafura a lefehlo", a fat made from sour milk.

They whisk the milk, cook it, cool it into a creamy substance, and mix it with the ochre to make a reddish ointment that colours, softens and preserves the leather.

Not bad.

Right?

Mokotjo also tracked down the old toolkit, knives, sharpened sticks, hoes, axes, awls, stones, wooden frames, aloe leaves, polished bones, scrapers.

But here's the sad part: lots of the specialised scraping tools simply don't exist anymore because nobody's really doing this work often enough. Some people in the highlands just use a hoe blade instead. So when the craft disappears, the tools vanish with it.

The dress she focused on has a lovely story too. It belonged to her own grandmother, born around 1922. Her father had a cow slaughtered to make her initiation dress. She wore it on her graduation day from initiation, and—wait for it—on that very same day, her future husband asked for her hand in marriage. So one dress ended up being her initiation dress, her bridal dress, and later her ceremonial dress. It wS about ninety years old at the time of writing, 820 mm long, 880 mm wide, with a 940 mm waist, covered in multicoloured beads, copper rings and dangling beadwork called "makontsiri".

As for the condition? Well, it's got holes, oxidation, missing beads, broken threads, loose attachments.

You know, ninety years of life. Her advice is to handle it as little as possible, store it flat and supported, keep the dust off, and be really careful about moisture, because semi-tanned leather can stiffen and stain if it gets wet.

At the end of the day, Mokotjo's point is that artisanal tanning is a whole library of Basotho indigenous knowledge. And with migration, drought and the Polihali Dam project threatening to displace communities, that knowledge needed to be written down before it was gone for good.
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REFERENCE
Mokotjo, M. 2021. Investigation of artisanal tanning in Lesotho communities using a Setlokoa cowhide dress as a case study. Mini-dissertation, MSoc Sci Tangible Heritage Conservation. Pretoria: University of Pretoria, School of the Arts, Faculty of Humanities

17/08/2026

By the 1930s, Basotho of Lesotho were 25% Nguni, 25% mix of Sotho-Nguni & 50 "pure" Sotho

17/08/2026

A Video of Lesotho (Basutoland) in the 1940s

17/08/2026

Nah! Women Before Colonial Southern Africa Weren't Just Cooking!

A lot of people think women back then were just stuck at home with no say. But nah, historical records and oral stories show they were out here making moves. Marriage, work, art, they had a hand in all of it.
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That's according to a paper dropped by Moagi, A. L. and Mtombeni, B; 'Women in Pre-colonial Africa: Southern Africa'.

First, getting married was a big deal... it brought status and respect.

In places like what we now call Lesotho, SA, Zimbabwe, and Mozambique, families paid lobola (bride price). But it wasn't about "buying" a woman. Mostly, it was a thank-you to her parents and a way to join two families together.

In AmaZulu communities, regular folks started with 1–2 cattle, then it went up to 5 (with one special beast for the wedding night), and later 10.

If you were royalty? A king's daughter could go for up to 100 cattle.

Among the Ndau in Mozambique, parents eyed rich guys for long-term family security.

In Malawi (Nyanja and Manganja), no cattle or goods were exchanged. Instead, the guy worked on his in-laws' farm for a year or more.

Before marriage, VhaVenda youth went to domba school to learn about childbirth and family life.

After marriage daughters-in-law often had serious status.

In Bafokeng culture, she was the molaodi (manager) of her ward, basically a fixer who turned it into a safe space. In some communities, widows often married their husband's brother to stay part of the family (could sometimes be oppresive).

And if a woman was barren among the Balobedu? She got special rights, could inherit cattle and wealth just like a man.

Then there was work.

Women weren't always just told what to do, they ran their own economic game.

Batswana women handled food crops and built houses. VhaVenda women brewed beer, plastered huts, made baskets, and farmed... all while having freedom to visit fam and attend "parties".

Nama women in Namibia had full control over their homes and even ash dumps (which marked their territory, and men respected that).

And the whole "women do this, men do that" thing?

Not fixed.

In the Zulu royal house, male servants did "women's work" like fetching water.

Young girls sometimes looked after cattle.

Women kept control of their own harvests and could share extras with whoever they wanted.

Batswana wives had their own land and cattle which the boys (husbands) had zero say over it.

Women were not confined behind the scenes. Some were front and center in issues of power.

In Swaziland, the Queen Mother (Indlovukazi) 's authority paralleled that of the King and ruled her own villages.

In the Zulu kingdom, Queen Mkabayi was a serious kingmaker, she handled successions, managed military kraals, and called the shots.

Nandi (Shaka's mom) had major influence too, she'd step in to save people or challenge royal decisions.

The Makhadzi: Among VhaVenda, the chief's sister had the final word in succession fights. Sat right next to male leaders, and if they were stuck, she broke the tie, then presented the new heir to the public.

Queen Lozikheyi of the Ndebele planned military strategy.

Queen Nyamazana kicked the last Rozvi king out of his own capital.

Queen Nzinga of Angola led elite troops, she was known as a straight-up military boss.

And in Khoikhoi communities? Women would openly call out chiefs in public if they were being unfair.

No filter.

Look, no one's saying women we equal to men.

They weren’t.

But women were far more active, powerful and economically independent than the old stereotype of the passive, domestic African woman suggests.
______
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Reference!

Moagi, A. L. and Mtombeni, B. (2020) 'Women in Pre-colonial Africa: Southern Africa', in Yacob-Haliso, O. and Falola, T. (eds.) The Palgrave Handbook of African Women's Studies. Switzerland: Springer Nature.

Naturina

12/09/2026

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