|
|
This is only a preview of the paper
Click here to register and get the full text.
Existing members click here to login
|
|
|
In the beginning decade of the 20th century Sir Apolo Kaggwa published his work Basekabaka be Buganda which contains a history of 30 kings of Buganda . Kaggwa’s oral history of Buganda is centered around the kabaka . Kaggwa interweaves myth and history to recount a list of kings and their conquest in a manner that is to serve as a unifying force for the whole of Buganda. ... The first phase is one of a mythical background which lends validity to the line of kings through myth, while the second phase shows the rise of the conquering kings and the expansion of boundaries with greater historical accuracy, and finally the last phase is of the greatest accuracy and portrays the kings as being powerful, cruel, and willing to do anything to keep their position.
The beginning kings in Kaggwa’s Kings of Buganda are examples of myth shrouded in history while the latter kings are history shrouded in myth. This makes logical sense when one thinks of the way that history was passed down in Buganda. ...
The history entangled with myth that Kaggwa lays out for us starts with a single descendent of God , Kintu, who is said to be the original kabaka of Buganda, and the origin of the line of kings. Kintu’s coming to Buganda and coming to power is surrounded by myth. ... By giving Kintu divine origins, the Baganda can accept him as the first legitimate king of Buganda. ... These chiefs were very important in the political makeup of Buganda. ... The lists of chiefships are helpful in determining the territory held by Buganda since Kaggwa always names the chiefships to which the saza belonged and clans typically did not migrate far. ... This raid would appear to be a defeat for Buganda. ... Kiwanuka speculates that it was peaceful in that the chief just became a vassal to the king of Buganda . ... While Bulemeezi’s identity may be rooted as a people of Buganda, surely they did not have a true saza until Mawanda incorporated them into Buganda. ... This may have been a way of tying Bulemeezi’s roots to Buganda and dispelling the angst that a conquered people may harbor towards the conquerors.
The conquerors in Buganda typically coincided with a change in succession pattern. ... It was during this time that Buganda’s borders began to extend west southern Singo, Busujju, and Gomba. ... His son, Mutebi, not only continued to add land to Buganda and even tried to strengthen the position of the kabaka. ... One can infer that Mutebi had probably taken a large chunk of Singo for Buganda. ... Mutebi is appoints chiefs to the peripheral counties of Buganda as a way of consolidating power. ... Mawanda was a king who added much land to Buganda. ... As Kiwanuka explains in his narrative accompanying his translation of Kaggwa’s history of the kings, Mawanda had many military campaigns in Bulemeezi and Ssingo. Kaggwa describes them as movements of Mawanda’s capital, probably in hopes of diminishing Buganda’s status as conqueror and legitimizing Buganda’s status as ruler. Raids against land that did and still belong to Bunyoro were mentioned while campaigns against Bunyoro territory now incorporated into Buganda are described as movements of the capital. ... The wife eventually gave birth to none other than the first and probably most important of Buganda’s conquerors, Mawanda. ... While Mawanda was a great conqueror and legitimate he falls victim to civil war as the two previous kings fell to civil war under him. ... ” This was no small feat considering the amount of land that this must have accumulated for Buganda. ...
Another difference between the conquest of Bunyoro’s Buddu and previous military campaigns was that Buddu was a land known to be rich in ore when it was incorporated into Buganda. ... ” In a separate paper Kiwanuka notes that, in contrast to previous, times the accumulation of metal rich territories let the “Buganda armies by the 19th century had become more enormous and warfare was on a large scale. ... ”
Two hypotheses can be made from this that would explain why these middle kings, kings 9 – 27, seemed to go between brothers rather than between fathers and sons.
Approximate Word count = 3353
Approximate Pages = 13.4
(250 words per page double spaced)
|
|
|
|
|
|