DISCLAIMER: I do not own any of the photos/content here unless stated otherwise. All of the content is sourced/credited. If you see your work here and would like it removed or if you want to contact me about anythingelse,
please email me at: typicalugandan@gmail.com
WATCH: This is the complete video coverage of Uganda’s very first Pre - & independence day celebrations on 9th october 1962. Video Quality maybe a little shaky.
There are also photographs of the historical day here: look through them
Happy independence day, Uganda! Congratulations on 50 years of independence.
The African Background of Medical History.
Some case studies of cultures in east-central Africa have brought to light some remarkable evidence revealing the presence of scientific medicine there. The practice of carrying out autopsies on patients dying of unknown causes among the Banyoro of Uganda and the Likundu of Central Africa has been described. Almost always these were carried out to detect a possible witchcraft etiology but may well have contributed to a more extensive knowledge of anatomy than previously supposed:
MORE
“The procedures for autopsying bodies under the Likundu culture have been reviewed, not for the purpose of considering the beliefs that impelled such procedures but to indicate that in some areas autopsies were frequently carried out and that they involved searching in the body, a search which might be casual and superficial but which in other cases might be prolonged and exacting and involved opening up and examining a variety of organs. These are precisely the circumstances under which considerable knowledge of anatomy and pathology could be acquired by persons who, for any purpose, might wish to do so. (22)
Further, there is a report of a Banyoro king who commissioned a traditional doctor to travel around the countryside to investigate, describe, and search for a cure for sleeping sickness, which was ravaging the country at the time.(23) This clearly indicates that a spirit of clinical investigation did exist among Banyoro physicians and probably among other traditional practitioners as well. In many parts of Africa, treatments were devised for new diseases like venereal disease and scrofula that were imported into Africa and this would presuppose some form of clinical investigation and experimentation.
Muhumuza, a rebel leader and priestess, arrested by the Germans in 1908 and the British in 1911. She spent the last few decades of her life interned in Kampala, supported by four servants and selling her cows’ milk. The colonisers feared her influence and spirit medium fame, so she was never allowed to return to the southwest of Uganda. But that didn’t stop her from secretly initiating many visitors into the rituals of Nyabingi, the traditional goddess of fertility.
She was later described as:
“By dint of years of training, she has acquired a high falsetto voice and professes inability to walk normally, her method of position being on tip-toe in a crouching position with the aid of two sticks. The chiefs with scarcely an exception trembled whenever her look was directed towards them.”You can read more about her here and here
(via Studio Edirisa)
Akii-Bua: The chief’s son who became an athletic’s king
For the last 50 years since Uganda became independent, no sports achievement can beat what late John Akii-Bua accompolished. Akii-Bua is actually among the very few Africans recognised among the world’s 100 best athletes of all time along side the likes of Kipchoge Keino (Kenya), Hassiba Boulmerka (Algeria), Abebe Bikila (Ethiopia), and Saidi Aouita (Morocco).
On Saturday (30th 2012 June), the international athletics governing body, IAAF, through the Africa Athletics Confederation (AAC), inducted the Ugandan track legend John Akii-Bua into the Africa Athletics Hall of Fame, fifteen years after his death.
(With 98 days to Uganda’s Golden Jubilee, we remember her heroes and history, via Daily Monitor)
September 24, 1960: Buganda jumps the gun, declares independence
Caption: The Independence Monument is unveiled in Kampala. The Lukiiko declared Buganda an Independent State on September 24, 1960.
Read more via Daily Monitor Newspaper which has a special weekly report; a look back at Uganda’s journey for the past 50 years on their website in preparation for the country’s Golden Jubilee celebrations.
Read through the other posts so far here: Uganda @ 50
Totems and Clans in Uganda: Buganda Kingdom
(Pictured are some of the totems : Akasimba, Ensunu, Namunnggoona)
A totem in the Ugandan context is a symbol that represents a group of people with a common ancestral origin known as a clan. This might be an animal, a bird, a fish or a plant and the idea behind it is that you can’t hunt, eat or kill your totem. You become a protector of the very species that represent you and your entire bloodline.
The first known ruler to use this culture to conserve wildlife was Ssekabaka Kintu of Buganda in about 1200 AD. He decreed that each family must have two animals to protect because the population of animals was falling at an alarming rate due to the exodus of people coming into Buganda. Each group that came without a totem was assigned one along with an estate for settlement. Today, everyone who has a totem in Uganda treasures it because, besides conserving wildlife, a totem defines one’s identity and origin and prevents incest through the refined naming system.
Ugandan artist, Taga Nuwagaba had an exhibition about the totems of Uganda and he also put up website where you can read up on the different totems at My Totem and if you want a more detailed and thorough read about the names, history then you’ll find all that information at the Buganda Kingdom’s website; Buganda Kingdom.
Jack Sekajugo (Semuvubi) & Phoebe Mugwanya (Makula) in ‘Makula Ga Kulabako’ - Kampala City Players’ production at the National Theatre.
“Byron Kawadwa (later murdered by President Idi Amin in 1977) founded the Kampala City Players and created a new type of music theatre in Luganda, his most succesful opera being ‘Oluyimba Lwa Wankoko (Song of Mr. Cock)’. His first production was ‘Makula ga Kulabako (A gift for Kulabako, 1970)’.” - From ‘Continuum Companion to Twentieth Century Theatre’ by Colin Chambers, p785
Uganda’s history told through monuments:
(Via Daily Monitor)
Long long ago, Kintu was the only person on the earth. He lived alone with his cow, which he tended lovingly. Ggulu the creator of all things lived up in heaven with his many children and other property. From time to time, Ggulu’s children would come down to earth to play. On one such occasion, Ggulu’s daughter Nambi and some of her brothers encountered Kintu who was with his cow in Buganda. Nambi was very fascinated with Kintu and she felt pity for him because he was living alone. She resolved to marry him and stay with him despite the opposition from her brothers. But because of her brothers’ pleading, she decided to return to heaven with Kintu and ask for her father’s permission for the union.
Ggulu was not pleased that his daughter wanted to get married to a human being and live with him on the earth. But Nambi pleaded with her father until she persuaded him to bless the union. After Ggulu decided to allow the marriage to proceed, he advised Kintu and Nambi to leave heaven secretly. He advised them to pack lightly and that on no condition were they to return to heaven even if they forgot anything. This admonition was so that Walumbe, one of Nambi’s brothers should not find out about the marriage until they had left, otherwise he would insist on going with them and bring them misery ( walumbe means that which causes sickness and death). Kintu was very pleased to have been given a wife and together they followed Ggulu’s instructions. Among the few things that Nambi packed, was her chicken. They set out for earth early the next morning.
Portraits of a dapper looking Sir Edward Frederick William David Walugembe Mutebi Luwangula Mutesa II, Kabaka (king) of Buganda.
Major General Sir Edward Frederick William David Walugembe Mutebi Luwangula Mutesa II KBE (19 November 1924 – 21 November 1969), was Kabaka of the Kingdom of Buganda from 22 November 1939 until his death.
He was the thirty-fifth Kabaka of Buganda and the first President of Uganda. He was widely known as King Freddie.
Photography via npgprints
