Tsodilo Hills

There are four chief hills. The highest is 1,400 metres AMSL and located at ECoordinates: 18°46′18″S 21°45′15″E. This is the highest point in Botswana. The four hills are commonly described as the “Male”, this is the highest, the “Female”, “Child” and an unnamed knoll.

There is a managed campsite between the two largest hills, with showers and toilets. It is near the most famous of the San paintings at the site, the Laurens van der Post panel, after the South-African writer who first described the paintings in his 1958 book ‘The Lost World of the Kalahari’. The hills can be reached via a good graded dirt road and are about 40 km from Shakawe. Also by the campsite is a small museum. There is also an airstrip.

These hills are of great cultural and spiritual significance to the San peoples of the Kalahari. They believe the hills are a resting place for the spirits of the deceased and that these spirits will cause misfortune and bad luck if anyone hunts or causes death near the hills. The San people believe these hills to be the site of first Creation. Factually, the San people painted more than 4500 rock paintings against the magnificent stone faces of the Tsodilo Hills, making it one of the most historically significant art sites in the world. The San did most of the paintings, although there are a few by Bantu-speakers whose style differs from that of the San. The exact age of the paintings is not known although some are thought to be more than 20,000 years old. The hills contain 500 individual sites representing thousands of years of human habitation.

The hills are referred to by human attributes – male, female, child and the male’s first wife. The second tallest hill is referred to as the female. The San people believe that the caves and caverns of this hill, the “Female” hill, are the resting places of the deceased and various gods who rule the world from here. The people of Hambukushu believe that their god, Nyambe, originally lowered their tribe and livestock to earth on the female hill. Their supporting evidence are hoof-prints clearly etched into a rock, high on the hill.

(The word Tsodilo is derived from the Hambukushu word ‘sorile’ which means sheer.) In the northwest part of the female hill, some distance up from ground level is an old mine that has filled with water. This water is considered to be holy water and confers good luck on those that wash their faces with it. The most sacred place is near the top of the “Male” hill, the biggest rock, where it is said that the First Spirit knelt and prayed after creating the world. The San believe that you may still see the impression of the First Spirits’ knees in the rock. The smallest hill is the ‘child’. Finally, according to legend, the fourth hill was the male hill’s first wife, whom he left for a younger woman, and who now prowls in the background.