Baganda

Ekyo Katonda ky'agamba.

Kaabe taata wo, kaabe maama wo, kaabe muganda wo, kaabe mwannyoko, amiina, kaabe pulezidenti, kaaba ani, kasita aba ng'atambula bubi naye nga, eeh, omuntu okwegamba y'akukulembera tateekeddwa kuba wa musaayi.

Bala ideally tuleme okukoppakoppa oba okugobera amakubo g'abantu agatari malungi.

Eyo y'ensonga esooka.

Naye a-atugaana okwegatta nabo mu kukola obubi.

Ekyo kye natandise nakyo.

Amina? Sigenda ku kya watata wange, sigenda ku kya bwa maama wange, sigenda ku kya bumuganda wange, kubanga takkiriza kye nzikiriza.

Ekyo Katonda si kyatuyitidde okukola.

Our princes ran and lived in exile in Buganda.

So when Captain Lugard came, the Baganda said, "We have a prince here whose land has ... country has been occupied by Kabalega." So it's the British and the Baganda forces who came and restored the independence of Toro.

So for us, uh, the coming of the British was the restoration of our independence.

For the rest of Uganda, it was colonialism.

No. Toro

...

but Bu- Bunyoro and Toro have been hostile kingdoms, so we were allied to Buganda in order to preserve our independence, the Baganda and the British.

Ah.

Mm-hmm.

So the Baganda, who for centuries have had their monarchy, y- they only think about the king to rule them, to have their king in power.

We should explain perhaps at the start before we go further into this, Buganda the kingdom is different from Uganda the colony.

Buganda is an ancestral kingdom whose history goes back to the distant mists of time.

It was favored as a political society under British rule.

The British adopted Buganda as a kind of model, what do we call it, agent of British colonialism in the 1900s.

Baganda became very well educated.

They were, they were largely Protestant Christians, and they were sent around the rest of Uganda, the colony, to govern on behalf of the British Crown.

I am again indebted to Sir Apollo Kagwa, KCMG, MBE, for some of the stories from his Ngaro Zatbaganda.

It is impossible to acknowledge by name all my Baganda friends to whom I owe the rest, but each story recalls to my memory a vivid Uganda scene, a shady banana garden, a smoky kitchen, the bedside of a sick woman in a stuffy hut, or a campfire beneath a star-spangled sky, all gentle, soft-voiced people who allowed me to share their lives for a little while and tried in their simple way to be kind to me.

My thanks are due to Miss Muriel Robertson for allowing me to use her Uganda songs, and to the Westminster Gazette for permission to reprint them.

section

Then you also have the Kikongo language.

the Ba'ateke language, the Lari language, the Aka, the Bembe, the Kongo, the Likuba, the Baganda.

Several languages spoken by smaller ethnicities are facing extinction.

So languages like the Babule, the Bokiba, Ngom.

Somebody said to me, Aubrey, how come we are not hearing that that is xenophobic violence.

We've seen similar things happening in Uganda, running battles between Somalis and so forth, and Baganda.

And similar questions were raised as to why we are not hearing that that is xenophobic.

Why is it that the South African situation has been called xenophobic? And I'm happy to have that conversation with you if you want.

The great spirit or god of Uganda was supposed to be living within this wizard, and for this reason he was greatly feared.

many other less powerful spirits or gods were worshipped by the waganda when the people were anxious about their crops they went to the god of food when threatened by famine they went to the god of famine in time of war offerings were made to the god of war on other occasions it was the god of the earthquake or the god of the plague or the god of the small-pox which was most worshipped here and there along the roadside under some tree or in the private courtyards of the chiefs were to be seen the tiny huts already described which were sacred to one or another of these gods in some of them dwelt the wizards and witches in whom the spirits or gods were supposed to live very plainly were these strange folk dressed usually in simple robes of goatskins only and they carried clubs or crooked wood decorated with iron knobs and bells now and then a wizard assuming a high falsetto voice would rave like a lunatic the people thinking that the spirit within him was angry would bring him cows and chickens and goats as gifts and even a great many pots of beer that the spirits were supposed to need very much to drink When offering such gifts, the Waganda would be praying the best kind of prayers they knew, while the wizard would make them think more prayers were needed.

These men and women of magic also made a great many trinkets, sometimes simply from bunches of grass, or again from the teeth of animals, or from odd-shaped stones.

After mumbling mysterious words over these trifles, the sacred men sold the trinkets to the people as charms.

When worn about the neck or ankles, or when placed above the doorways of the homes, or hung about the tiny huts where they made their offerings, the Waganda thought these charms a protection against the numerous evils over which the gods had control.

Of all these spirits, the greatest was the god of the lake.

If a chief wished to learn what this god could tell him of the chances for success in some war shortly to be entered upon, he would go to the god's island home in the lake.

He himself used to be a follower of the wizards, but now he no longer believed his old superstitions.

THE FLAME TREE AND OTHER FOLKLORE STORIES FROM UGANDA BY ROSETTA BASKERVILLE PREFACE I am again indebted to Sir Apollo Kagwa, KCMG, MBE, for some of the stories from his Ngaro Zatbaganda.

It is impossible to acknowledge by name all my Baganda friends to whom I owe the rest, but each story recalls to my memory a vivid Uganda scene, a shady banana garden, a smoky kitchen, the bedside of a sick woman in a stuffy hut, or a campfire beneath a star-spangled sky, all gentle, soft-voiced people who allowed me to share their lives for a little while and tried in their simple way to be kind to me.

My thanks are due to Miss Muriel Robertson for allowing me to use her Uganda songs, and to the Westminster Gazette for permission to reprint them.

section i of the flame