February 5, 2024 • 28 mins
This episode of the Anthems podcast delves into the national anthem of Lesotho, titled "Fazze la Bantatarona," which translates to "Land of Our Fathers." Host Patrick explores the intriguing history of Lesotho, a small yet significant enclave state entirely surrounded by South Africa. He highlights the contributions of two missionaries, François Collier and Adolph Mabel, who played crucial roles in the anthem's creation, intertwining their personal stories with the broader narrative of Lesotho's cultural and historical landscape. The episode also discusses the anthem's themes of love for the homeland and a longing for peace, reflecting the deep connections the people have with their land and ancestors. As Patrick navigates through music, geography, and history, listeners gain insight into how this anthem serves not only as a song but also as a symbol of national pride and identity.
Thanks for listening folks. Here are my sources:
- https://www.titlemax.com/discovery-center/lifestyle/the-100-smallest-countries-in-the-world/
- https://web.archive.org/web/20190421164229/https://www.sahistory.org.za/article/1800s
- https://www.timeslive.co.za/sunday-times/lifestyle/2018-02-17-black-panther-director-ryan-cooglers-a-fan-of-lesotho--isixhosa/
- https://web.archive.org/web/20170603184100/http://maliba-lodge.com/blanketwrap/2010/lesotho-stories/the-history-of-the-basotho-traditional-blanket/
- https://afropunk.com/2018/02/controversy-around-black-panthers-supposed-appropriation-shows-necessity-pan-africanism/
- Albert Burckhardt and Rudolf Wackernagel : Basel Yearbook 1890 . C. Detloff's bookstore, Basel 1890, p. 94.
- Hermann Mendel: Musical Conversations Lexicon. An encyclopedia of the entire musical sciences . Sixth volume. Robert Oppenheim, Berlin 1876, p. 263: https://archive.org/stream/musikalischesco09reisgoog#page/n270/mode/2up .
- without author]: Swiss Music Festival in Basel from July 6th to 9th . In: Neue Zeitschrift für Musik 13 (1840), pp. 59–60 ( entire review, pp. 59 f. and 67 f.
- Albert Brutsch: From Work Song to National Anthem . In: Lesotho. Notes and Records 9 (1970/1971), p. 8.
- https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2013/05/16/a-revealing-map-of-the-worlds-most-and-least-ethnically-diverse-countries/
- Machobane, L. B.; Karschay, Stephan (1990). Government and Change in Lesotho, 1800-1966: A Study of Political Institutions. Palgrave Macmillan. ISBN 978-0-333-51570-9.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:15):
Hello, and welcome to theAnthems podcast. I'm Patrick, and
I'm here to tell you the story of
a song that helps to tell the story
of a nation. Today we're going back
to Africa, mostly because I will
admit I got a lot of literal ground
tocover on the continent, which is
sort of funny because the line of
thought that led me to pick this
next country involves some very small
ones. In my last episode, I forgot
tointroduce a new geography or geology
term, and turns out I miss having
itthere. So I will do it immediately
thistime and tell you about enclave states.
These are countries that are entirely
inside the border of another country,
and I thought that there were only
two of them, the microstates, Vatican
City and San Marino. But I like to
check my work, and as frequently
happens,I was wrong about something because
there are three enclave states. The
third is pretty interesting, and
despite two thirds of the states
beingtiny, Lesotho is really not that
at58th smallest. So this episode is
brought to you by me learning that
there were three of something that
Ithought there were two of. What really
happened is that I noticed the country
in a place I didn't expect and also
discovered a reason to tell you about
Lesotho. Fazze la Bantatarona, or
Lesotho, land of our fathers. This
is a country that I did not know
existed before I decided to go there
for the next episode. But I told
youfolks that I'd be learning a whole
lot as I move across this continent.
Despite being not as small as I thought
it was going to be, it is a country
that you could be forgiven for missing
on a map of Africa. Well, get to
where it is in a bit. Someone that
was aware of Lesotho and where it
is and has been there is director
RyanCoogler. And because of his movie
Black Panther, a lot of people are
aware of the national dress of Lesotho,
the Basotho blanket. The patterns
featured prominently in Wakandan
dress.The Bsotto blanket is more like a
piece of the culture of Lesotho than
an item of clothing, and it's another
topic that somebody could do an entire
podcast about. Someday I will be
able to figure out how to make a
smooth transition into playing the
anthem, but today is not that day.
It's cool. Sometimes that happens,
and Iget to have a sentence like this
asthe lead into the song that I'll
betalking about. If you think about
itfor a while, maybe you can convince
yourself that it is smooth. Even
ifyou don't, though. I'll be back in
a minute. In a moment. My initial
reaction is that I enjoyed the music,
the singing. I'm kind of struggling
with,though. This was, again an anthem
thatI went through many, many versions
ofbefore settling on this one. A lot
of the singing sounded, I don't know,
like, unenthusiastic. And in an anthem
that is not universally disliked.
I don'twant to play unenthusiastic for you,
but I couldn't really find anything
thatwas, you know, jubilant. Maybe not
something that you'll hear in Woolsey
hall, but I want something that's
donewith feeling. It definitely also
sounds like something that you'd
hearin a church. So if we did hear it
in a church, where would that be?
Like I said, Lesotho is neither very
large or very small, at about 30,355
km², or 11,720 sq. Mi. But it is
the 8th smallest of the 43 nations
ofAfrica. The country has the very
cool distinction of having the highest
low point of any nation. The lowest
point in the country is 1400 meters
above sea level, or 4593ft, with
more than 80% of the place over a
mile above sea level. If we're looking
for Lesotho on a map, you need to
know where South Africa is. Thankfully,
that's the country at the very bottom
of the continent of Africa. If you
travel about 100 miles northwest
from thesoutheastern coast, you get to the
border of Lesotho. If you know where
Bloemfontein is, the judicial capital
of South Africa, then just go 80
miles east, and you're there. For
acountry that is contained entirely
within another country, Lesotho is
still a pretty isolated place due
to its unique geography. That's one
of the other things about it that
inspired Mister Coogler when he was
envisioning Wakanda. But like pretty
much every country in Africa, Lesotho's
history extends all the way back
toprehistory. This is a bit tricky
tofind a nice place to enter the timeline,
because I've got some conflicting
information on exactly what happened
when. Modern day Lesotho has been
populated by people for thousands
ofyears, but never by very many of
them. This is due mostly to geography,
placing the country up a mountain.
Thecurrent inhabitants are 99.7% ethnic,
Pasoto, making it one of the more
homogenous places in the world. Although
there are less diverse places out
there, they moved in during the medieval
warm period and subsisted on agriculture
and animal husbandry. A lot of material
about the Bosoto people exists, and
in another timeline, I've abandoned
podcasting to become a scholar of
african history and become lost in
reading for decades. But in this
timeline, we're going to jump roughly
500 years forward from the medieval
warmperiod to 1818 in the common era.
Atthis point, a young and quite successful
chieftain named Moshuishu was conducting
cattle raids, collecting followers,
andhad established a village in Bootha
booth that still exists and is the
capital of a district in Lesoro.
Thingswere going very well for Moshuishu,
and hebegan to consolidate power by integrating
other risotto tribes into his settlement.
Unfortunately, the young chieftain
wasalive at the same time as Shaka Zulu
and had settled close enough that
hehad settled on land that they wanted
for the growing Zulu nation. The
situation that formed the nations
ofsouthern Africa are, of course, far
more complicated than that bit of
hand waving, but we only get pieces
ofother stories as part of the larger
tale of a specific anthem. The mifekain
is a wildly complicated thing that
Ilearned about just the hour I wrote
this sentence, so I can't touch it.
I'm sorry. Whatever the ultimate
causesof the changes and the historical
formations of the bottom part of
the continent, Moshuishu moved his
settlement up a plateau in the modern
district of Maseru, where smaller
clansfled to him for aid, and they managed
to survive the time of troubles when
many others did nothing. By 1823,
thechieftain's consolidation efforts
weresuccessful enough that he was able
to declare himself King Mishu Ishu
Iof Basotoland. We'll be touching
backthere in a bit, though. First we
have to introduce the composer, because
he and moshu issue might have been
born the same year. I say might because
the latter lived in a place where
robust records were not kept at the
time, and his birth date can only
benarrowed down to near 1786. We can
say for sure, though, that the musically
talented Ferdinand Samuel Lohr was
born on February 22 in 1791 because
he's Swiss and the Swiss had good
records at that point, Ferdinand
lived alife steeped in music from childhood
onward, and by the time he was 19,
he had been educated as a composer,
aconductor, and a music teacher. He
spent the 1810s teaching music and
singing at the Huffwell Educational
Institute near the Bern. By the time
Moshuishu was being crowned king,
hewas working in Basel and had already
published the hymnal containing freihit,
which is the song that would become
the music for land of our fathers.
Ourcomposer went on to found the Basel
or Basel singing society, which was
the first mixed choir in Switzerland,
but itwas not until 1840 that he reached
thehighlight of his work. Ferdinand
wasresponsible for organizing and directing
the federal music festival, and he
conducted three full concerts that
day with 527 musicians, excuse me,
570 musicians. After that, he began
agradual professional withdrawal,
and heretired with his family to Egilshafen
atthe enviable age of 55. Sadly, though,
he passed too young some eight years
later of unspecified causes. If you're
into choir music or relatively obscure
bits of swiss music history, you
should read about Ferdinand. Item
20in the show notes is an example of
his published music. Now we're going
to leap back like 20 years, into
themid 1830s and catch up the guys that
were involved in the writing. This
is where the timeline does that thing
where I can't get a super clear picture
of what happened when and who is
definitely responsible for something.
Another reminder that anthem writers
are often not historically important
atthe time of the anthem being written.
Despite irregularities in the record,
there is still a coherent enough
storyto tell most of the time, and the
story of land of our fathers continues
with one Francois Collier. He is
the slightly earlier born of the
writers on the 17 July 1834 in Cher,
France, and the sources I found don't
even mention the anthem he's attached
to. In most cases, Francois was quite
a faithful and motivated Christian
andafter a life of poverty due to his
father dying young and leaving a
widow with seven children, signed
upat 20 to be a missionary with the
Paris Evangelical Mission society,
orPems. By 1857 he had been ordained
andwas off to Bazutoland via the british
colony of Cape Colony before being
delayed by regional warfare for more
than two years. When Francois finally
reached Basutoland proper, he is
said to have become influential in
the area and a leader in the missionary
struggle against polygamy and witchcraft,
as well as becoming an important
intermediary between the Bosota people
and the British. Bio mentions that
he preferred the Brits over the Afrikaners,
and the latter are a group of white
people that speak Afrikane and are
descended from the Dutch and Huguenot
settlers in the area. They forced
himout of the area in 1866, and he was
unable to return until 1870. We know
that he traveled further into the
continent. He had numerous rough
starts and failures, attempting to
convert other native inhabitants,
spent sometime recovering from an unknown illness
in Europe, and then returned to a
mission that had been picked apart
byother missions in the existing local
religions, and in 1903 he succumbed
to about of hematuria induced fever and
was buried near his wife in the zambian
town of Cephula well circle back
to1870 in a few first we need to catch
up the other guy. A return to the
12 June in 1836 brings us to the
birth of Adolf Mabel. Adolph Mabel.
Possibly he was born in Switzerland
aswell, and there is little to be had
about the man's life until he had
areligious experience while teaching
atthe Quaker school in Westmoreland,
England.This was a significant enough religious
experience for Adolph that he was
inspired to head to France and join
the Pems in 1856, where he was ordained
in 1859, married a fellow missionary
namedAdele whom he learned the Sesoto
language from, and shortly after
thatthey shipped off to South Africa.
Hewas greeted by King Moshuishu and
sent to the town of Morija and became
a prominent philologist of Lesotho
culture and an educational dynamo.
Among his many contributions to Bazutuland
were establishing the town he was
stationed in as such a vibrant learning
center that to this day it has been
referred to as Celebeng Satuto or
the wellspring of learning and contains
the oldest still operating newspaper
insouthern Africa. He also completed
themassive task of translating the Bible
into the local language. Adolf was
a seemingly tireless advocate for
the proper establishment of the Sato
language and culture. He was, of
course, chiefly concerned with making
sure the nation was moving towards
Christianity, but his efforts at
upholding Basuro lands political
autonomyand striving for the country to be
treated as dignified as a colonial
rudecountry can be treated deserved to
be noted, of course, though no man
is tireless, and he passed in 1904
due to complications of periotinitis,
mostlikely due to a burst appendix. You
might have noticed that since I talked
about the composer, all ive said
about the song this episode is nothing
actually in all of the sources its
clear that the song is not considered
animportant part of the writers lives.
Its fairly pivotal in the story that
im trying to tell though, so its
about time I get back into the narrative
with it. By doing that I'm also getting
around to the vagaries of history
thatconstantly happen when I'm doing
thisshow. It can be said for sure that
the anthem has Ferdinand's music,
butI can find exactly two mentions of
the supposed poets roles. One source
just states that Adolphe and Francois
were the authors of the text, and
the other tells me that the hymnal
containing freihit made it to Lesotho
in 1859 in Francois's belongings,
and hewas responsible for the lyrics on
his own. I include both of the men
because they were in the Pems together
and they were both dispatched to
the same country. So it would be
weird if they didn't know each other.
I'm inclined to think that they both
were actually involved in writing
theoriginal lyrics for several reasons.
First, the lyrics are written in
Sesoto. And while I'm sure Francois
knewthe language because he talked to
people in it, he must have. His proficiency
was not mentioned in the reading.
AndAdolf's proficiency was a large feature.
He is well known for translating
manyworks. Second, the men worked the
very same organization. And had a
shared set of goals. And finally,
thesong was part of a larger collection
ofhymns and work songs. Representing
acollective effort. The eventual anthem
was in there to encourage the Bosoto
people to accept the borders that
the British had negotiated. In 1869,
when King Moshuizu I reached out
for help in an effort not to be wiped
out due to wars with the Bauer Free
State. I would wager that its going
to be more common to not know when
the anthem was first performed. Than
to know that on this show. Something
thatill get statistical with someday.
But wedo get to know here. In 1870, there
was some sort of a celebration for
a bazuto chief named Malopo. From
there, it went on to be sung as a
work song by field workers. Then
itwas a song that the PymS taught all
of their students. The missionaries
organized public performances of
the song on special occasions. And
it even became a drinking tune for
people in the meantime. And maybe
yousaw this coming. The British did
that thing they do where they took
Bosotoland into protective status
as aprotectorate. And then they used
that foot in the door. To rather
quickly annexed the region into a
colony. This time they annexed it
into Cape Colony. There was a vigorous
armed resistance. That was led in
particular by a chief, Morrissey.
But thateffort was crushed in 1879. And the
country devolved into infighting
over theland that the chief left. Then an
attempt was made to include the country
in the Cape Peace Preservation act.
And disarm the population by force.
That resulted in Cape Colony losing
control of the place. Basutoland
wasforced to be returned to full crown
colony status. That, of course, made
God save the queen the official national
anthem. But Francois and Adolf's
songwas always sung second and was generally
considered the anthem by the time
the people singing it were serving
withdistinction. Fighting the Nazis in
the 1940s. Then in a more peaceful
spanof time, there was a 1955 request
tolegislate their own affairs. Followed
bya 1959 constitution that gave Lesotho
alegislature, a general election,
in 1965led to them attaining full independence
asthe Kingdom of Lesotho in 1966. On
the 1 June in 1966, a shortened version
of Lesotho, fazze el bantata Rona,
with music tweaked by a prominent
Lesothochoral composer named Joseph Mahapaloa.
Mahapaloa was declared the official
national anthem of the Kingdom of
Lesotho. With that, we have our anthem
and we can move on to discuss the
song itself. Musically, this is a
refreshingly simple tune for an anthem.
The song was written to be simple
andsung in a rural church, taught to
a class of children, or rhythmically
chantedduring work in the field. It might
also be because I am a sucker for
solo piano, but I enjoy it. This
isoriginally in b flat major and I
don't know. It's simple and I kinda
dig it a lot. The instrumental is
certainly on my list of things to
learn to play with Lesotho. Fazzi
labantata rona we have another anthem
with a difference between the original
writing and the current official
lyrics.Recall that the original writing
waspurpose driven stuff and was part
ofan effort to get people to accept
atreaty and borders that the British
negotiated for them. So the official
version just has the first and fifth
verse. This makes sense because by
the 1960s, the border disputes in
the former size of the Zuto land
were not really in living memory
foranyone in the country. Now on to
verse one. We will go through the
entire song as written originally,
Lesothois the land of our fathers. You are
the best of the world. That's where
we were born. That's where we grew
up. We love you. The song opens up
with a verse full of adoration for
the homeland. It is the best place
inthe world, in fact, and the people
love it. Referring to the land of
our fathers ancestors in some translations,
referring to the peoples birthplace
andgrowing up there reinforces deep
roots and attachments to the country.
For a song that wasnt originally
intendedto be an anthem, it certainly ticked
off a lot of the boxes that one would
in the first verse. On to verse two,
though some say she is small for
us. She is big enough. We have fields,
we have cattle. It is enough for
us. Here we see the original purpose
ofthe song fairly explicitly. Lesotho
isnot that small. In the very beginning
ofthe show I mentioned it is the 58th
smallest, so nearly middle of the
road. But before the new boundaries
werenegotiated after the third Risotto
war,it was bigger. The song reminds people
that there is still a lot of land
and they are still raising cattle
andfarming. The missionaries were interested
in the stability of the country and
the prosperity of the people. I really
think that is the case. Aggressively
converting everybody to religion
insupport of colonialism aside, they
did do a lot of good. The folks from
the Pems were the first to write
theSotho language. And teach the people
that spoke to it. To write it and
translated more than just christian
texts. The ability to learn and catalog
and develop a literature specific
to aculture in their own language is
not a small thing at all. One of
the other things they wanted for
stability was the people to be happy
with what they had and not on the
march to war for more. That involved
encouraging them to accept the decisions
that the British made for them when
the king reached out for help. On
to the third verse. And though you
need many things and praise from
nations, you have mountains, pastures,
wells, you are lovely. Here we get
a brief acknowledgement of the material
limitations. That come from living
ina fairly isolated mountain kingdom.
Butit's quick to reassure the listener
thatLesotho is praised by other nations
because of the mountains in isolation.
Thesong is actually right because it's
a lovely place. And seriously, it's
a place you should look at pictures
of.The singer is telling the country
thatit's lovely. And the song is trying
toassure a battered people that they
are going to be taken care of by
the land. Verse four. So much for
our world. You already have the word
of the Lord. People are praying and
the trends are coming to an end.
Itkind of seems that every translation
ofthis verse I've found is sort of
clumsy. We can parse the meaning
of italright. Though the writers add a
spiritual dimension by suggesting
that thenation has God on their side already.
The second couple of lines are a
particularly bad translation. Everywhere
I've been able to find it. I've also
seen them translated as people pray
and the ways end, but it's clunky.
There is definitely a good translation
in abook somewhere out there that some
pems member wrote or had, maybe even
one of our poets, but I can't get
access to it. I think this verse
ismostly supposed to indicate a sense
of fulfillment and completeness.
In thespiritual and worldly aspects of
life for the people that live in
the country. Makes sense. And the
final verse. God save Lesotho. End
wars and anxieties o this earth,
thisland of our fathers be at peace.
Thefinal verse is a fairly straightforward
prayerfor the well being of Lesotho and
the Soto people. A final beseechment
forpeace, harmony and prosperity for
their ancestors and their land. This
is expected. It is a literal hymn,
after all, and not initially intended
tobe a national anthem. It is not the
most religious thing you've heard
onthis show, and it's not even close
towhat's coming, I'm sure. That said,
it's an excellent closing verse for
a national anthem. They're not calling
for the country to conquer things,
theyjust want peace and for the people
living in the land to be like their
ancestors did. An excellent sentiment.
Ifwe take the first and the fifth verse
together, we get an anthem that proclaims
that the nation is the people's favorite
nation and they love it because it's
the place they come from. They ask
God for peace and less worry. It
implies a deep bond to the land through
their ancestors as written. I rather
like it because it does what an anthem
ought to do and it manages it with
ten lines of verse and a piano does
it much better like this than it
would be as a five verse song. I
think it would have to be too fast
for that, but you know, who knows?
Overall, the full five verse song
istrying very hard to paint a picture
ofcontentment about the situation by
highlighting the strengths of the
country that exist irrespective of
material wealth and land area. It
kind of comes off as prescriptive,
but it wasa purpose driven piece of writing
written by people that were sure
that they knew best. But it was also
written by people that really did
care about the country a great deal
and care about the people who live
there, even if they thought what
wasbest for the country was to let the
British be in charge of them and
accept the decisions that were made
of. It's a decent story, though,
and Icertainly learned a great deal. Hopefully
somebody else did too. The writing,
recording and production for the
show are done by me, and I wrote
andplayed the theme song. The music
wasused with my permission. Unless otherwise
noted. The anthems I play are public
domain or some other equivalently
free toplay license. My sources and the
specific items I mentioned on the
show are contained in the show notes,
and the most direct way to get to
those notes is@anthemspodcast.com
you can find me onFacebook and WhatsApp as the anthemspodcast.
Imagine that. For now, I try to get
the episodes shared onto whatever
platform I can with the hashtag hash
anthemspod. It would be cool if you
hashtagged a post like that too.
Youcan email me corrections comments
concerns suggestions ideas instructions
askme questions@anthemspodmail.com for
better or for worse, I have made
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Maybeyou could tell a social studies or
geography teacher about the show.
Idon't know. You could do lots of
stuff though. Whatever that is that
you were doing. Thank you for listening,
and I do hope you enjoyed it. You'll
hear me next time if you're here
again, and I hope that it won't be
super long.
Hello, and welcome to theAnthems podcast. I'm Patrick, and
I'm here to tell you the story of
a song that helps to tell the story
of a nation. Today we're going back
to Africa, mostly because I will
admit I got a lot of literal ground
tocover on the continent, which is
sort of funny because the line of
thought that led me to pick this
next country involves some very small
ones. In my last episode, I forgot
tointroduce a new geography or geology
term, and turns out I miss having
itthere. So I will do it immediately
thistime and tell you about enclave states.
These are countries that are entirely
inside the border of another country,
and I thought that there were only
two of them, the microstates, Vatican
City and San Marino. But I like to
check my work, and as frequently
happens,I was wrong about something because
there are three enclave states. The
third is pretty interesting, and
despite two thirds of the states
beingtiny, Lesotho is really not that
at58th smallest. So this episode is
brought to you by me learning that
there were three of something that
Ithought there were two of. What really
happened is that I noticed the country
in a place I didn't expect and also
discovered a reason to tell you about
Lesotho. Fazze la Bantatarona, or
Lesotho, land of our fathers. This
is a country that I did not know
existed before I decided to go there
for the next episode. But I told
youfolks that I'd be learning a whole
lot as I move across this continent.
Despite being not as small as I thought
it was going to be, it is a country
that you could be forgiven for missing
on a map of Africa. Well, get to
where it is in a bit. Someone that
was aware of Lesotho and where it
is and has been there is director
RyanCoogler. And because of his movie
Black Panther, a lot of people are
aware of the national dress of Lesotho,
the Basotho blanket. The patterns
featured prominently in Wakandan
dress.The Bsotto blanket is more like a
piece of the culture of Lesotho than
an item of clothing, and it's another
topic that somebody could do an entire
podcast about. Someday I will be
able to figure out how to make a
smooth transition into playing the
anthem, but today is not that day.
It's cool. Sometimes that happens,
and Iget to have a sentence like this
asthe lead into the song that I'll
betalking about. If you think about
itfor a while, maybe you can convince
yourself that it is smooth. Even
ifyou don't, though. I'll be back in
a minute. In a moment. My initial
reaction is that I enjoyed the music,
the singing. I'm kind of struggling
with,though. This was, again an anthem
thatI went through many, many versions
ofbefore settling on this one. A lot
of the singing sounded, I don't know,
like, unenthusiastic. And in an anthem
that is not universally disliked.
I don'twant to play unenthusiastic for you,
but I couldn't really find anything
thatwas, you know, jubilant. Maybe not
something that you'll hear in Woolsey
hall, but I want something that's
donewith feeling. It definitely also
sounds like something that you'd
hearin a church. So if we did hear it
in a church, where would that be?
Like I said, Lesotho is neither very
large or very small, at about 30,355
km², or 11,720 sq. Mi. But it is
the 8th smallest of the 43 nations
ofAfrica. The country has the very
cool distinction of having the highest
low point of any nation. The lowest
point in the country is 1400 meters
above sea level, or 4593ft, with
more than 80% of the place over a
mile above sea level. If we're looking
for Lesotho on a map, you need to
know where South Africa is. Thankfully,
that's the country at the very bottom
of the continent of Africa. If you
travel about 100 miles northwest
from thesoutheastern coast, you get to the
border of Lesotho. If you know where
Bloemfontein is, the judicial capital
of South Africa, then just go 80
miles east, and you're there. For
acountry that is contained entirely
within another country, Lesotho is
still a pretty isolated place due
to its unique geography. That's one
of the other things about it that
inspired Mister Coogler when he was
envisioning Wakanda. But like pretty
much every country in Africa, Lesotho's
history extends all the way back
toprehistory. This is a bit tricky
tofind a nice place to enter the timeline,
because I've got some conflicting
information on exactly what happened
when. Modern day Lesotho has been
populated by people for thousands
ofyears, but never by very many of
them. This is due mostly to geography,
placing the country up a mountain.
Thecurrent inhabitants are 99.7% ethnic,
Pasoto, making it one of the more
homogenous places in the world. Although
there are less diverse places out
there, they moved in during the medieval
warm period and subsisted on agriculture
and animal husbandry. A lot of material
about the Bosoto people exists, and
in another timeline, I've abandoned
podcasting to become a scholar of
african history and become lost in
reading for decades. But in this
timeline, we're going to jump roughly
500 years forward from the medieval
warmperiod to 1818 in the common era.
Atthis point, a young and quite successful
chieftain named Moshuishu was conducting
cattle raids, collecting followers,
andhad established a village in Bootha
booth that still exists and is the
capital of a district in Lesoro.
Thingswere going very well for Moshuishu,
and hebegan to consolidate power by integrating
other risotto tribes into his settlement.
Unfortunately, the young chieftain
wasalive at the same time as Shaka Zulu
and had settled close enough that
hehad settled on land that they wanted
for the growing Zulu nation. The
situation that formed the nations
ofsouthern Africa are, of course, far
more complicated than that bit of
hand waving, but we only get pieces
ofother stories as part of the larger
tale of a specific anthem. The mifekain
is a wildly complicated thing that
Ilearned about just the hour I wrote
this sentence, so I can't touch it.
I'm sorry. Whatever the ultimate
causesof the changes and the historical
formations of the bottom part of
the continent, Moshuishu moved his
settlement up a plateau in the modern
district of Maseru, where smaller
clansfled to him for aid, and they managed
to survive the time of troubles when
many others did nothing. By 1823,
thechieftain's consolidation efforts
weresuccessful enough that he was able
to declare himself King Mishu Ishu
Iof Basotoland. We'll be touching
backthere in a bit, though. First we
have to introduce the composer, because
he and moshu issue might have been
born the same year. I say might because
the latter lived in a place where
robust records were not kept at the
time, and his birth date can only
benarrowed down to near 1786. We can
say for sure, though, that the musically
talented Ferdinand Samuel Lohr was
born on February 22 in 1791 because
he's Swiss and the Swiss had good
records at that point, Ferdinand
lived alife steeped in music from childhood
onward, and by the time he was 19,
he had been educated as a composer,
aconductor, and a music teacher. He
spent the 1810s teaching music and
singing at the Huffwell Educational
Institute near the Bern. By the time
Moshuishu was being crowned king,
hewas working in Basel and had already
published the hymnal containing freihit,
which is the song that would become
the music for land of our fathers.
Ourcomposer went on to found the Basel
or Basel singing society, which was
the first mixed choir in Switzerland,
but itwas not until 1840 that he reached
thehighlight of his work. Ferdinand
wasresponsible for organizing and directing
the federal music festival, and he
conducted three full concerts that
day with 527 musicians, excuse me,
570 musicians. After that, he began
agradual professional withdrawal,
and heretired with his family to Egilshafen
atthe enviable age of 55. Sadly, though,
he passed too young some eight years
later of unspecified causes. If you're
into choir music or relatively obscure
bits of swiss music history, you
should read about Ferdinand. Item
20in the show notes is an example of
his published music. Now we're going
to leap back like 20 years, into
themid 1830s and catch up the guys that
were involved in the writing. This
is where the timeline does that thing
where I can't get a super clear picture
of what happened when and who is
definitely responsible for something.
Another reminder that anthem writers
are often not historically important
atthe time of the anthem being written.
Despite irregularities in the record,
there is still a coherent enough
storyto tell most of the time, and the
story of land of our fathers continues
with one Francois Collier. He is
the slightly earlier born of the
writers on the 17 July 1834 in Cher,
France, and the sources I found don't
even mention the anthem he's attached
to. In most cases, Francois was quite
a faithful and motivated Christian
andafter a life of poverty due to his
father dying young and leaving a
widow with seven children, signed
upat 20 to be a missionary with the
Paris Evangelical Mission society,
orPems. By 1857 he had been ordained
andwas off to Bazutoland via the british
colony of Cape Colony before being
delayed by regional warfare for more
than two years. When Francois finally
reached Basutoland proper, he is
said to have become influential in
the area and a leader in the missionary
struggle against polygamy and witchcraft,
as well as becoming an important
intermediary between the Bosota people
and the British. Bio mentions that
he preferred the Brits over the Afrikaners,
and the latter are a group of white
people that speak Afrikane and are
descended from the Dutch and Huguenot
settlers in the area. They forced
himout of the area in 1866, and he was
unable to return until 1870. We know
that he traveled further into the
continent. He had numerous rough
starts and failures, attempting to
convert other native inhabitants,
spent sometime recovering from an unknown illness
in Europe, and then returned to a
mission that had been picked apart
byother missions in the existing local
religions, and in 1903 he succumbed
to about of hematuria induced fever and
was buried near his wife in the zambian
town of Cephula well circle back
to1870 in a few first we need to catch
up the other guy. A return to the
12 June in 1836 brings us to the
birth of Adolf Mabel. Adolph Mabel.
Possibly he was born in Switzerland
aswell, and there is little to be had
about the man's life until he had
areligious experience while teaching
atthe Quaker school in Westmoreland,
England.This was a significant enough religious
experience for Adolph that he was
inspired to head to France and join
the Pems in 1856, where he was ordained
in 1859, married a fellow missionary
namedAdele whom he learned the Sesoto
language from, and shortly after
thatthey shipped off to South Africa.
Hewas greeted by King Moshuishu and
sent to the town of Morija and became
a prominent philologist of Lesotho
culture and an educational dynamo.
Among his many contributions to Bazutuland
were establishing the town he was
stationed in as such a vibrant learning
center that to this day it has been
referred to as Celebeng Satuto or
the wellspring of learning and contains
the oldest still operating newspaper
insouthern Africa. He also completed
themassive task of translating the Bible
into the local language. Adolf was
a seemingly tireless advocate for
the proper establishment of the Sato
language and culture. He was, of
course, chiefly concerned with making
sure the nation was moving towards
Christianity, but his efforts at
upholding Basuro lands political
autonomyand striving for the country to be
treated as dignified as a colonial
rudecountry can be treated deserved to
be noted, of course, though no man
is tireless, and he passed in 1904
due to complications of periotinitis,
mostlikely due to a burst appendix. You
might have noticed that since I talked
about the composer, all ive said
about the song this episode is nothing
actually in all of the sources its
clear that the song is not considered
animportant part of the writers lives.
Its fairly pivotal in the story that
im trying to tell though, so its
about time I get back into the narrative
with it. By doing that I'm also getting
around to the vagaries of history
thatconstantly happen when I'm doing
thisshow. It can be said for sure that
the anthem has Ferdinand's music,
butI can find exactly two mentions of
the supposed poets roles. One source
just states that Adolphe and Francois
were the authors of the text, and
the other tells me that the hymnal
containing freihit made it to Lesotho
in 1859 in Francois's belongings,
and hewas responsible for the lyrics on
his own. I include both of the men
because they were in the Pems together
and they were both dispatched to
the same country. So it would be
weird if they didn't know each other.
I'm inclined to think that they both
were actually involved in writing
theoriginal lyrics for several reasons.
First, the lyrics are written in
Sesoto. And while I'm sure Francois
knewthe language because he talked to
people in it, he must have. His proficiency
was not mentioned in the reading.
AndAdolf's proficiency was a large feature.
He is well known for translating
manyworks. Second, the men worked the
very same organization. And had a
shared set of goals. And finally,
thesong was part of a larger collection
ofhymns and work songs. Representing
acollective effort. The eventual anthem
was in there to encourage the Bosoto
people to accept the borders that
the British had negotiated. In 1869,
when King Moshuizu I reached out
for help in an effort not to be wiped
out due to wars with the Bauer Free
State. I would wager that its going
to be more common to not know when
the anthem was first performed. Than
to know that on this show. Something
thatill get statistical with someday.
But wedo get to know here. In 1870, there
was some sort of a celebration for
a bazuto chief named Malopo. From
there, it went on to be sung as a
work song by field workers. Then
itwas a song that the PymS taught all
of their students. The missionaries
organized public performances of
the song on special occasions. And
it even became a drinking tune for
people in the meantime. And maybe
yousaw this coming. The British did
that thing they do where they took
Bosotoland into protective status
as aprotectorate. And then they used
that foot in the door. To rather
quickly annexed the region into a
colony. This time they annexed it
into Cape Colony. There was a vigorous
armed resistance. That was led in
particular by a chief, Morrissey.
But thateffort was crushed in 1879. And the
country devolved into infighting
over theland that the chief left. Then an
attempt was made to include the country
in the Cape Peace Preservation act.
And disarm the population by force.
That resulted in Cape Colony losing
control of the place. Basutoland
wasforced to be returned to full crown
colony status. That, of course, made
God save the queen the official national
anthem. But Francois and Adolf's
songwas always sung second and was generally
considered the anthem by the time
the people singing it were serving
withdistinction. Fighting the Nazis in
the 1940s. Then in a more peaceful
spanof time, there was a 1955 request
tolegislate their own affairs. Followed
bya 1959 constitution that gave Lesotho
alegislature, a general election,
in 1965led to them attaining full independence
asthe Kingdom of Lesotho in 1966. On
the 1 June in 1966, a shortened version
of Lesotho, fazze el bantata Rona,
with music tweaked by a prominent
Lesothochoral composer named Joseph Mahapaloa.
Mahapaloa was declared the official
national anthem of the Kingdom of
Lesotho. With that, we have our anthem
and we can move on to discuss the
song itself. Musically, this is a
refreshingly simple tune for an anthem.
The song was written to be simple
andsung in a rural church, taught to
a class of children, or rhythmically
chantedduring work in the field. It might
also be because I am a sucker for
solo piano, but I enjoy it. This
isoriginally in b flat major and I
don't know. It's simple and I kinda
dig it a lot. The instrumental is
certainly on my list of things to
learn to play with Lesotho. Fazzi
labantata rona we have another anthem
with a difference between the original
writing and the current official
lyrics.Recall that the original writing
waspurpose driven stuff and was part
ofan effort to get people to accept
atreaty and borders that the British
negotiated for them. So the official
version just has the first and fifth
verse. This makes sense because by
the 1960s, the border disputes in
the former size of the Zuto land
were not really in living memory
foranyone in the country. Now on to
verse one. We will go through the
entire song as written originally,
Lesothois the land of our fathers. You are
the best of the world. That's where
we were born. That's where we grew
up. We love you. The song opens up
with a verse full of adoration for
the homeland. It is the best place
inthe world, in fact, and the people
love it. Referring to the land of
our fathers ancestors in some translations,
referring to the peoples birthplace
andgrowing up there reinforces deep
roots and attachments to the country.
For a song that wasnt originally
intendedto be an anthem, it certainly ticked
off a lot of the boxes that one would
in the first verse. On to verse two,
though some say she is small for
us. She is big enough. We have fields,
we have cattle. It is enough for
us. Here we see the original purpose
ofthe song fairly explicitly. Lesotho
isnot that small. In the very beginning
ofthe show I mentioned it is the 58th
smallest, so nearly middle of the
road. But before the new boundaries
werenegotiated after the third Risotto
war,it was bigger. The song reminds people
that there is still a lot of land
and they are still raising cattle
andfarming. The missionaries were interested
in the stability of the country and
the prosperity of the people. I really
think that is the case. Aggressively
converting everybody to religion
insupport of colonialism aside, they
did do a lot of good. The folks from
the Pems were the first to write
theSotho language. And teach the people
that spoke to it. To write it and
translated more than just christian
texts. The ability to learn and catalog
and develop a literature specific
to aculture in their own language is
not a small thing at all. One of
the other things they wanted for
stability was the people to be happy
with what they had and not on the
march to war for more. That involved
encouraging them to accept the decisions
that the British made for them when
the king reached out for help. On
to the third verse. And though you
need many things and praise from
nations, you have mountains, pastures,
wells, you are lovely. Here we get
a brief acknowledgement of the material
limitations. That come from living
ina fairly isolated mountain kingdom.
Butit's quick to reassure the listener
thatLesotho is praised by other nations
because of the mountains in isolation.
Thesong is actually right because it's
a lovely place. And seriously, it's
a place you should look at pictures
of.The singer is telling the country
thatit's lovely. And the song is trying
toassure a battered people that they
are going to be taken care of by
the land. Verse four. So much for
our world. You already have the word
of the Lord. People are praying and
the trends are coming to an end.
Itkind of seems that every translation
ofthis verse I've found is sort of
clumsy. We can parse the meaning
of italright. Though the writers add a
spiritual dimension by suggesting
that thenation has God on their side already.
The second couple of lines are a
particularly bad translation. Everywhere
I've been able to find it. I've also
seen them translated as people pray
and the ways end, but it's clunky.
There is definitely a good translation
in abook somewhere out there that some
pems member wrote or had, maybe even
one of our poets, but I can't get
access to it. I think this verse
ismostly supposed to indicate a sense
of fulfillment and completeness.
In thespiritual and worldly aspects of
life for the people that live in
the country. Makes sense. And the
final verse. God save Lesotho. End
wars and anxieties o this earth,
thisland of our fathers be at peace.
Thefinal verse is a fairly straightforward
prayerfor the well being of Lesotho and
the Soto people. A final beseechment
forpeace, harmony and prosperity for
their ancestors and their land. This
is expected. It is a literal hymn,
after all, and not initially intended
tobe a national anthem. It is not the
most religious thing you've heard
onthis show, and it's not even close
towhat's coming, I'm sure. That said,
it's an excellent closing verse for
a national anthem. They're not calling
for the country to conquer things,
theyjust want peace and for the people
living in the land to be like their
ancestors did. An excellent sentiment.
Ifwe take the first and the fifth verse
together, we get an anthem that proclaims
that the nation is the people's favorite
nation and they love it because it's
the place they come from. They ask
God for peace and less worry. It
implies a deep bond to the land through
their ancestors as written. I rather
like it because it does what an anthem
ought to do and it manages it with
ten lines of verse and a piano does
it much better like this than it
would be as a five verse song. I
think it would have to be too fast
for that, but you know, who knows?
Overall, the full five verse song
istrying very hard to paint a picture
ofcontentment about the situation by
highlighting the strengths of the
country that exist irrespective of
material wealth and land area. It
kind of comes off as prescriptive,
but it wasa purpose driven piece of writing
written by people that were sure
that they knew best. But it was also
written by people that really did
care about the country a great deal
and care about the people who live
there, even if they thought what
wasbest for the country was to let the
British be in charge of them and
accept the decisions that were made
of. It's a decent story, though,
and Icertainly learned a great deal. Hopefully
somebody else did too. The writing,
recording and production for the
show are done by me, and I wrote
andplayed the theme song. The music
wasused with my permission. Unless otherwise
noted. The anthems I play are public
domain or some other equivalently
free toplay license. My sources and the
specific items I mentioned on the
show are contained in the show notes,
and the most direct way to get to
those notes is@anthemspodcast.com
you can find me onFacebook and WhatsApp as the anthemspodcast.
Imagine that. For now, I try to get
the episodes shared onto whatever
platform I can with the hashtag hash
anthemspod. It would be cool if you
hashtagged a post like that too.
Youcan email me corrections comments
concerns suggestions ideas instructions
askme questions@anthemspodmail.com for
better or for worse, I have made
itpossible to leave me a voicemail
or sendme a text message at 1203-759-8375
or betterstill, leave me a review wherever
youcan, or rate me. Maybe. Maybe even
good. I'd like to find out what you
think. Uh, you know, use your podcast
collection app to do that stuff.
Maybeyou could tell a social studies or
geography teacher about the show.
Idon't know. You could do lots of
stuff though. Whatever that is that
you were doing. Thank you for listening,
and I do hope you enjoyed it. You'll
hear me next time if you're here
again, and I hope that it won't be
super long.
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