By Nontokozo Gemani
- Clan names and praises are passed down through generations, connecting South Africans to their ancestry, family history and cultural identity.
- Charmain Matjie, Luyanda Madlala, Lutendo Munyai and Nomfundo Mbatha worry busy lives are making these traditions harder to pass on.
“BaGa Matjie Babina Tau, mahlola dillo, botshela noka.”
Charmain Matjie says the words the way her grandmother taught her, without needing to think. They’re not her surname. They’re older than that. They’re her clan praises, and for her, they carry more weight than any name on an ID book.
She’s not alone. Across South Africa, young people are holding on to a second name most people never write down, one that doesn’t appear on a birth certificate, but tells you exactly where a family comes from.
Matjie, Luyanda Madlala, Lutendo Munyai and Nomfundo Mbatha all carry one. Each name comes with its own praise, its own story, and its own quiet fight to survive.
This Heritage Day, that fight feels close to home. A clan name marks the family a person belongs to, passed down for generations, long before surnames existed on paper.
Clan praises go with them, short recited lines that carry a family’s history, totem and values. Neither is usually found in official records; instead, they live in memory and survive when they are passed down and spoken from one generation to the next.
Across Zulu, Xhosa, Sepedi, Tshivenda and other communities, clan names and praises, known by different names such as izithakazelo, iziduko, direto, mutupo, diboko and lithoko, form part of a living oral tradition. Passed down through generations, they can preserve family histories, genealogies, migration stories, values and social roles, while in some communities also guiding marriage practices. For many families, keeping these traditions alive means preserving a connection to their history and identity.
Matjie’s clan name is BaGa Matjie, also known as Babina Tau. Her clan is linked to the lion. She learned it from her grandmother, and later at a traditional ceremony.
“The history of my clan name is connected to the lion totem, our ancestry and our lineage. Our clan praises include ‘Re tลกwa Shakwaneng, mahlola dillo, botshela noka’, those who come from Shakwaneng, creators of chaos and those who crossed rivers. The name also exists in different linguistic and regional forms, such as Mmatjie, Matjila and Matsie, because it has been passed down through generations,” she said.
Matjie said knowing her clan name connects her to her ancestry, family and cultural identity, while reminding her of where she comes from.
She said the names carry strength and bravery, values that shape how she lives. She believes many young people still want to learn their clan names, but she also sees the knowledge fading.
“It is both being preserved and slowly being lost,” she said.
“Families that keep teaching the young keep it alive. But busy lifestyles mean some of it disappears.”
Luyanda Madlala, a young Zulu-speaking woman, learned her clan names from her grandmother, not from a book.
She knows three: Sishi, Khabal’daka and Hlokohloko. Her family uses them to show gratitude and joy.
Her grandmother told her a family story behind the names, that their branch belongs to the Sishi clan of Madlala, not the Bhengu clan of Madlala. The story goes that her great-grandfather fell out with his siblings, and instead of making peace, the family split its clan names between them.
“It means belonging, identity, family, roots and love,” she said.
Madlala told Scrolla.Africa that she uses her clan name and calls herself Inkosazana yamaSishi instead of her birth name. She said being known by her clan name makes her feel connected to her family wherever she goes and gives her a strong sense of belonging.
“It makes me feel like I have my family with me, wherever I go.”
She worries technology and busy lives are making it harder for young people to sit and learn their history.
“I believe it is being passed down, but being hindered by how fast the world is evolving and changing, by how hard the technology has made it to take time and learn about our history, instead we’re constantly preparing for the future with no historic foundation,” Madlala explained.
“Parents and the generations before us are however doing their best to keep traditions alive,” she added.
For Lutendo Munyai, who comes from a Tshivenda-speaking family, her clan name is closely tied to her sense of lineage.
Munyai’s surname should be Netshisumbewa. Instead, she uses her clan name, Munyai.
She earned it from her father and grandmother.
“Munyai wa nyamutsangadavhi wa sa tsa nga davhi uya lombelwa,” she recited.
The praise refers to someone who uses branches to travel, and the family’s totem is a monkey.
“It means I can trace my lineage and gives me a sense of belonging.”
But within their own family, Munyai is already seeing signs that the tradition is weakening.
“My nieces and nephews don’t know their clan names. They barely speak Tshivenda properly.”
Munyai believes that the loss is not only about forgetting a few words. It can mean losing part of the connection between generations.
Munyai believes young people can use clan names to reconnect with African spirituality and understand how African communities make sense of identity.
That connection between language, history and identity is also reflected in academic research.
Jozi Joseph Thwala, a researcher at the University of Mpumalanga who has studied clan names and praises, says they serve as a constant link between the ancestral world and the living, and record the identity, genealogy and values a family passes down. This means their loss can be more than forgetting a few words. When clan praises are no longer passed down, families may also lose stories and knowledge that connect younger generations to those who came before them.
Mbatha also knows some of her clan praises.
“Mbatha shandu kaNdaba. Mthiya ngenkomo abafokazane bethiya ngamahlahla. Mthiya ongakanani nasentendeni yesandla uyanela athi cababa. Sontshikazi dladla,” she recites.
But unlike some of the others, she admits she does not know all of them. She was never formally taught her praises.
Instead, she felt she should know them because they were part of who she was.
“I was never taught by someone. It’s something I thought I should know because it’s my identity,” she said.
Mbatha said young people do not always pay attention to clan names and the stories behind them.
She believes the loss of older generations who once passed down family stories has contributed to this.
“We don’t have those old grandparents who would tell us old stories about our surnames and the internet doesn’t give us much.”
She is concerned about the way traditional customs are changing.
“We are slowly losing our originality and our identity as people. We have been, or we have chosen to, westernise our traditional customs.”
Yet her own feelings are complicated.
“I love being a Mbatha. I love my surname but I don’t think I value it the way we should as black people.”
Despite their different experiences, all four want this knowledge to survive. Matjie does not plan to have children, but she still hopes to pass her clan name and praises on to the next generation of her family. Madlala wants the same for hers, a strong sense of identity, and the knowledge that they belong. Munyai believes young people need to know their ancestry rather than let it disappear. Mbatha, though she was never formally taught her praises, says she loves being a Mbatha and believes knowing them remains part of who she is.
The young voices in this story show a generation that is neither fully disconnected from clan traditions nor fully fluent in them. They are aware of what is at stake, proud of what they know, and worried about what is being lost.
Clan names and praises won’t solve every challenge young people face. But they offer something personal, a connection to identity, family and a longer history. Perhaps keeping them alive comes down to something simple: asking. Who were our ancestors? Where did we come from? What do these names mean?
And, most importantly, who are you?
Pictured above: This Heritage Day, four young people share the clan names and praises their families passed down.
Image source: Supplied
