Letsoku

Letsoku can artificially be prepared through calcination and can be transformed into other colours like mars orange, violet and red.

Some letsoku users heat the dry raw chunks in an empty pot to disintegrate it into fine powder.

It is believed to remove pimples and blemishes, reddish pink and orange is used as a face powder just like the yellow one.

Application of letsoku is also believed to lighten the skin and remove any dark marks, or blemishes.The clay soil has been used as a pressed powder or foundation to produce a matte effect.

Skin peeling has been known to be treated with a mixture of letsoku fine powder and makhura (butter) or petroleum jelly.

[1] Letsoku in Southern Africa has been used to mark important stages of human life growth, like puberty, marriage and graduation from initiation schools in setswana known as bojale and bogwera.

In the past young girls used to wear fringed skirts (makgabe) with letsoku used to cover each stand of the fringe skirt.The Basotho have a leather apron called semola which is made for young women when they are received from the initiation school.

The women of the tribe perform a dance of the Eland Bull where they imitate the mating behaviour of eland cows, the girl is said to be suffering from the 'eland illness', in her seclusion she is ritually painted with red letsoku, wood ash and charcoal, all mixed with animal fat and plant pigments.

In chicken pox treatment, an aqueous mixture of letsoku is used in a manner similar to calamine lotion.

Farmers rub seeds scrupulously, using both hands, before planting as a form of nurturing the fields in advance.

It is also believed that application of letsoku repels dangerous elements such as snakes and lions, and thereby acts as camouflage for the hunters in the forest.

As an antibacterial agent, it has been shown that letsoku inhibits collagenase, making it ideal for tanning, softening and colouring leather.