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2. Genre, Historical Imagination, and Early Ganda History
- University of Virginia Press
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genre, historical imagination, and early ganda history 2Dynastic accounts of Buganda’s origins revolve around the exploits of Kintu, the purported founder of the kingdom and quintessential Ganda hero. Perhaps the best known of these foundational narratives, ‘‘Kintu and Bemba the Snake,’’ describes Kintu’s arrival in Buganda and his eventual defeat of the tyrannical ruler Bemba at Buddo Hill, in southern Busiro. According to most accounts of this narrative, upon overcoming Bemba, Kintu embarked on a journey through a series of places before eventually reaching Magonga, in Busujju, where he settled and established his capital. After residing at Magonga for many years, Kintu disappeared following an altercation with Kisolo, of the Otter clan. But his spirit and the memory of his accomplishments endured through acts of commemoration performed at his royal tomb at Nnono, Magonga, which was tended by the priest Mwanje of the Leopard clan (see map 2). This image of Kintu as a wandering conqueror-king dominates the master narrative running through most written versions of Ganda history. A careful probing of recollections about Kintu that weave in and out of this dominant trajectory, however, suggests that Kintu may not always have been regarded in this manner and that when he was, such a view was not the only one circulating with force. As George William Kalule, a prominent healer in the Colobus Monkey clan, explained, there were ‘‘two di√erent Kintus: one who vanished and one who produced Cwa Nabakka, who succeeded his father Kintu as king.’’∞ Kalule sought to direct attention to two distinct yet layered aspects of Kintu’s persona. Recollections of Kintu’s having disappeared hint at an alternative conception of the most prominent figure in Ganda history, a conception not of the ‘‘first kabaka [king] to rule people,’’ as one local historian explained, but of a powerful spiritual force.≤ Descriptions of Kintu as a spiritual entity surfaced numerous times over the course of my conversations in Buganda, most often in shrine settings Mubende Bakka Buddo Mbaale Magonga L a k e V i c t o r i a Lake Wamala Lake Kyoga N i l e R i v e r Katonga R. Buvuma Island Ssese Islands S S I N G O B U L E M E E Z I K Y A G G W E B U W E K U L A B W E R A B U D D U G O M B A MAWOKOTA B U G E R E R E BUTAMBALA BUSUJJU K Y A D D O N D O B U S I R O Bunyoro Busoga 50 miles 0 25 50 kilometers 0 25 N Boundary of kingdom Boundary of county Significant historical sites County name GOMBA map 2. Significant historical sites in Buganda [3.145.12.1] Project MUSE (2024-04-17 23:19 GMT) Genre, Historical Imagination, and Early Ganda History : ≤Ω during discussions with healers who practice their profession through spirit possession. In pointing to these alternative conceptions I do not mean to raise questions concerning authenticity and veracity. Rather, I want to suggest that these variants provide insightful clues about an alternative arena in which stories about Kintu, as well as other prominent figures in Ganda historical discourse, once lived and circulated on a considerably larger scale than they do today. By exploring the relationship between where listeners engage with a story and what they hear, I show that the healer’s shrine served as a prominent, perhaps even the oldest locale for generating the content and meaning of stories about Kintu and several other prominent Ganda historical personalities. If Ganda healers suggest that there were two sorts of Kintus, then understanding the significance of each requires us to imagine how audiences at di√erent locations might have understood the narratives about the Kintu persona. Such an exercise in historical imagination necessarily entails recognizing how historical actors exercised claims to truth quite di√erent from those made by professional guilded historians. The first Kintu, the one who founded a royal dynasty and produced a successor to his throne, circulates within a familiar generic framework and has therefore figured prominently in Ganda historiography. The second Kintu occupies less familiar, less visible terrain and has barely made an appearance. In this chapter I seek to redress this imbalance by pursuing two related strands of argument. The first strand explores the intellectual history of colonial Buganda and the manner in which Ganda narratives about...