Shweshwe is derived from the fabric’s association with Lesotho’s King Moshoeshoe I, also spelled “Moshweshwe”.  Gifted with the fabric by French missionaries in the 1840s it is also known as sejeremane or seshoeshoe in Sotho as well as terantala, and ujamani in Xhosa, after 19th century German and Swiss settlers who imported the blaudruck fabric for their clothing and helped entrench it in South African and Lesotho culture.