Note: Some names and places have been changed to protect the privacy of certain persons, however the main thrust of the story told is accurate to the best of our recollections.
Recently Muhavura travelled Bubende Island, one of the 80 or so islands that make up Ssese, to visit the head of a section (mutuba) of the Ngonge clan, who lives on the island. The section head, whose official title is Kasendwa, is the twelfth holder of the office since it was established, over four hundred years ago. As mutuba head, he is the custodian of its history and culture, seat and lands (which make up a couple of square miles spread over several islands). The office is hereditary, and held for a lifetime. At the death of the mutuba head, the elders of the mutuba sit and choose a new head. The current Kasendwa has held the office since the mid-1970s.
Like most of the islands that make up Ssese, Bubende is breathtaking. In parts massive white rock cliffs drop right down to the water, while other areas are characterised by vast gently-sloping meadows leading up the water’s edge. In other areas it is the forest that ring the island. The few residents live at the landing sites, leaving most of the island free of human habitation, if not activity.
In recent times, like most of Ssese, the island has suffered a lot of environmental degradation. The degradation is two-fold: Lake fish stocks have been severely depleted, and much of the natural island forests have been cut down, to be turned into agricultural land, farmed mostly by new arrivals (chiefly Congolese immigrants). The economic outlook for the island is quite bleak.
The Kasendwa, unlike most residents, does not live at a landing site, rather he lives farther inland, perhaps two miles from the nearest landing site. His house is built on land that is the seat of the mutuba. He traces the mutuba’s origins from the times before the coming of Kabaka Kintu, when Kabaka Bemba was the ruler of the mainland that is now Buganda. Bemba is considered to have been an evil king, which is why many of his subjects turned against him, leading to war, the eventual destruction of his dynasty, and the emergence of Kabaka Kintu in the 13th Century. The kasendwa mutuba decided to ally itself with fellow islander Kintu in his war against Bemba. They were part of the meeting held on Nnono Hill that laid down the Buganda Constitution.
After the Kasendwa’s ancestors had helped install Kintu on the throne of Buganda, they returned to Ssese and setup home on the land where he lives.
The job of the Kasendwa is difficult to pin down using our more modern terminology. He is part custodian of the physical family heritage (land), part embodiment of its ancient wisdom and knowledge, part, it would seem, spirit medium, able to embody the voice of his ancestors when they so require it. The current holder is in his early seventies, a slight but fit man who was able to out-walk men and women half his age. He is as educated in the history and ethos of his ancestors as he is in the more modern realities of island life. He is extremely witty in conversation, as one would expect of a person of his intellect. He spoke at length about the Bunyoro Empire and its incredible power and ability in ancient times (he says he has visited and is in awe of the Bunyoro tunnel structures in western Uganda), he recounted the story of Kibuuka, who was loaned to Buganda Kingdom by Ssese to help defeat Bunyoro (and gently chided us for assuming, as most of us ‘educated’ types would, that that story is entirely apocryphal), he recounted the story of Wamala, last King of the Cwezi Dynasty and creator of the lake that bears his name, and gave context to many place names we now use (Bwebajja, Kitinda, etc.). He also spoke at length about some of the lost arts and knowledge that his ancestors had, most relating to environmental management, others relating to managing human health problems which to today’s ear sound like pure magic.
When we moved the discussion onto more current matters, the strange drop in fish stocks in Lake Victoria, his diagnosis of the issue was part metaphysical, part pragmatic. First, in his view, we the people have misbehaved, abused the lake and its bounty and are being punished for it. We have been greedy (resorting to bad fishing methods, cutting down the forests, etc.) and the ancestors who remain lords of the lake are punishing us for our insolence.
On a more practical level, his view is that the government has failed on two fronts. First that it has put the responsibility for stopping our bad methods on people who, let’s say, suffer from poverty of the mind. Hungry men and women. People who are quickly lured into trying to get rich off of the problem, rather than seriously looking for ways of putting an end to it. In this group you might lump not just the so-called Beach Management Units, but also elements of the UPDF’s Fisheries Protection Unit.
Secondly, there have been strange calamities that have befallen the lake and Ssese that the islanders feel are (perhaps deliberately) man-made. In these they count the tsetse fly infestation of the early 1900s, the proliferation of water hyacinth during the early 1990s, and, more recently the strange mass die-off of Nile Perch that no one seems to be able to explain (the explanation given in official circles – that this was due to oxygen depletion – kaliro in the local language – is quietly disbelieved by the islanders). In his thinking, there seems to be a concerted attempt over the last one hundred or so years to force people out of the islands, and that the attack on fish stocks is only the latest of these attempts: If you can make them poor, you can force them to leave. This is a view Muhavura has heard often expressed. No one quite knows or says clearly who is doing this or why they would want to force people forced out of the islands, but they certainly believe it, even as they are, strangely, unafraid of all such attempts. They all blame government for sitting on its hands while this happens. After all, as Kasendwa says, government was able to act fast and decisively to halt the water hyacinth problem. Why can’t it rise to this challenge as well.
The Kasendwa clearly has an increasingly hard task on his hands, protecting the cultural lands. He told countless stories of other lands, mostly on the mainland and under the control of other clan leaders, that have been sold off so that the caretakers can taste the luxuries of capitalism (gas-guzzling four-wheel-drive cars, double- and triple-storied mansions, etc.). Even the lands Kasendwa manages, though not sold, have had much of their forest destroyed by immigrants.
The Kasendwa is a man of simple tastes. He lives in a wooden house, wears an old coat, eats simply. In listening to him, you have the overwhelming impression of a man whose heart is completely untainted by materialism. As caretaker he is of course allowed to utilise part of the land for his own upkeep and needs. And he does. But Muhavura’s sense is that he only does so to the minimum extent possible. And also that modernity has crept up on him and he finds himself increasingly in unfamiliar territory. Unable for instance to tap into more modern opportunities/potential sources of revenue out of the land he controls. He can’t and will not sell the land, he has no interest in the baser materialistic trinkets, and yet clearly his life could do with some improving.
Leaving Bubende Island, Muhavura couldn’t help but wonder how we’ve allowed a disconnected society and culture to persist in this country! There is clearly so much that we can benefit from associating with men like the Kasendwa. Yet we do not.
There are seemingly two worlds: That of the well-schooled (abasoma), sweating in their suits and ties and choking on diesel fumes in the traffic, knowledgeable, to be sure, in the workings of the modern world (finance, diesel engines, large-scale agriculture, etc.), and the world of Kasendwa (abatasoma), poor but living in paradise, educated in the ways of this land, still managing to embody the rich ethos of our ancestors despite all attempts by colonialists and latter-day empires to stamp it out.
These two worlds should not be separate, and we would definitely be better off as a country if we were able to bring them together. One big stumbling block in this regard has been that the well-schooled (like myself), generally speaking have been brainwashed into thinking that the other world knows nothing. That these lands had no wisdom or knowledge before the White Man came long and taught us everything. This way of thought is so implicit that, generally speaking, we don’t know how to truly listen to the Kasendwas of this country. We the well-schooled, when we meet these kinds of people want to do all the talking. Which is surely the best way to learn nothing. This is not to say that the other world (that of abatasoma) is without its failings. Rather that I think the abasoma are best placed to do most of the heavy lifting to get us out of this problem.
From John Speke to H M Stanley, Muhavura is always amazed reading what the first white men to come to these parts had to say. There were all impressed by the level of knowledge and organisation they found. H M Stanley, who could in modern terms be referred to as a racist, writes extremely glowingly of what he found, even referring the Mutesa I not as “King” but as “Emperor”. Stanley had no reason to make things up, certainly not to the level of detail he did. How it is that we the ‘modern’ natives have been convinced to totally discard our heritage and replace it with trinkets and a lifestyle that is guaranteed to kill us off prematurely is surely the mystery of the century.
So where do we go from here? To the abasoma I would paraphrase Iain McGilchrist, anyone with half a brain needs to plan seriously to have at least one foot in the other world. To stop worshipping the false gods of modernity (the big ass TV, the well-furnished apartment, the huge car) and allow themselves to be educated. Buy that land far from Kampala, do something on this land that is entirely out of your comfort zone. It will help undo a lot of the brainwashing of modernity you have suffered since childhood. Spend the long hours listening and talking to the old men and women. It may take a while for you to learn how to shut up long enough to truly hear them and learn. Surprisingly, in Muhavura’s experience, the other world has more to teach us than we (the well-schooled) have to teach it.
Uganda is the source of the River Nile. The Nile waters from Uganda carried the silt that powered at least two great civilisations: The Egyptian and the Roman. Even today, water from the Victoria Basin helps make Egypt an agricultural powerhouse. On our watch the lake basin areas are dying. While we sip our beers in Kampala and discuss the inconveniences in the morning traffic caused by motorcades and lead cars transporting a freshly-minted imperial busybody. The greatest trick the powers that be ever pulled was to convince us that this stuff is all that matters. It is the devil’s sleight of hand.
My hope is that in ten years when I meet the Kasendwa or his kind, he will have at least two subordinates by his side, well skilled in both worlds, and working to create a country we can all be proud of.
Muhavura 
in search of knowledge.
thank you for the usual insights and the challenge
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