CHWANA, a collective name applied to a number of Bantu speaking tribes inhabiting the interior plain of South Africa north of the Orange river. The most important are the baMangwato, baKwena, baHurutshe, baNgwaketse, baTlapin and baRolong. They all live by pastoralism combined with agriculture. They are organized socially into large totemic groups which are not exogamous. Marriage is legalized by the payment of a bride-price; and in some of the tribes ortho-cousin marriage is permitted. Their religion is mainly ancestor-worship, with strong traces of monothe ism associated with a supreme being known as Modimo. Formerly there also appears to have been a certain degree of totemic ritual.
See J. T. Brown, Among the Bantu Nomads (1926).