Butha Buthe

Butha-Buthe lies in the northern highlands of Lesotho, below the mountain that gives the place its name. The Sotho name is commonly interpreted as “place of lying down.” Grassy hills and cold highland winters shaped a country of herders and small farming villages.

The mountain became a refuge at the start of the nineteenth century. In 1820 Moshoeshoe succeeded his father as chief of the Bamokoteli, and he and his followers settled on Butha-Buthe Mountain, forming the core of the people who would later be called the Basotho. A few years later he moved south to the stronger fortress of Thaba Bosiu, but the mountain remained the place where his chiefdom began.

The later city of Hlotse also lies here.