The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency

A central theme of the novel is the role that religion—both the Christian religion and pre-colonial belief systems and practices—has in Botswanan society, and the novel explores the amalgamation of cultures and religions that constitute modern Botswana. Growing ambivalence toward Christianity in modern Botswana is reflected by the novel’s characters, particularly with regard to Christianity’s role as a result of, and tool for, the creation of colonial structures. Neither the protagonist Precious Ramotswe nor her father Obed are fully accepting of Christianity, as an imposed religion. Like her father, Ramotswe is suspicious of the “lies” (35) propagated by missionaries who believed that the Tswana “needed clear guidelines” (36) in order to behave. The image of a Sunday School teacher hitting a student with a Bible “with a resounding thud” is perhaps symbolic of the Christianity as a tool of oppression. That the “resounding thud” is the teacher hitting a boy, Josiah, after he repeatedly exposed himself to 11-year-old Precious also gives this episode a sense of relish. This is just one of the numerous experiences recounted by the women in the book about male disrespect toward women, especially of a sexual nature. That the book shows these behaviors predominating reflects an ambivalence about the value and effect of Christianity as a moral force in Botswana, as Precious says “ministers of religion and headteachers” (139) are the only men who don’t cheat on their wives, the implication being that this is partly because they would lose their jobs, rather than from piety. When Precious says that she herself learned about good and evil at Sunday School, she recounts the episode with Josiah: The novel leaves open a dual reading of whether Christian morals taught her this or whether Josiah’s indecent exposure was her first awareness of “evil.”

Obed affirms that “God was [in Botswana] anyway, before the missionaries came. We called him by a different name, then” (19). He rejects the belief that “God is a white man” (19), arguing instead that God is “here in Africa, in the rocks, in the sky, in places where we knew he liked to be” (19). Obed Ramotswe’s rejection of Christianity is explicitly tied to the colonial identities of the missionaries. Precious Ramotswe repeats her father’s suspicions about Christianity: “[S]he could not believe that the Lord had walked on water—you just couldn’t do that—nor had she believed the story about the feeding of the five thousand, which was equally impossible” (35). Both characters’ expression of belief and spirituality is grounded in their African culture and setting, described in terms of the landscape and their lived experience of the world.

Southern African culture incorporates a wide variety of spiritual beliefs and practices largely preserved from pre-colonial history, and widely suppressed during colonization. One aspect of these traditional beliefs is strongly featured in the novel: muti, or traditional medicine based in magic and witchcraft. The novel presents muti as an unequivocal evil: J.L.B. Matekoni describes it as “the thing we Africans are most ashamed of” (90). The widespread use of muti “right there in Botswana, in the late twentieth century, under that proud flag, in the midst of all that made Botswana a modern country” is a source of significant shame for both Rra Matekoni and Mma Ramotswe (91). The novel makes some effort to locate the muti plot in its correct context by having the characters express horror and shock, emphasizing the illegality and incongruity of the practice in modern-day Botswana, and juxtaposing it with other subplots that highlight the modernity and safety of society in Botswana.

The centrality of the muti theme to the plot, however, suggests that these practices are a more prevalent feature of culture in Botswana than is the case, especially when aimed at a primary target audience of British readers who could be expected to know little of the factual context. The success of the muti plot relies on precisely on the elements of superstition, horror, and exoticism, elements that are found in primitivism (the labelling of non-white cultures as “primitive,” linked to a fascination with these cultures which can be othering, dehumanizing, or paternalistic).