Prelude: Encountering Local Culture in Western Uganda

Summary

In the early morning of June 11, 2011, in the royal enclosure in Hoima, western Uganda, everything was ready to celebrate the Mpango, the anniversary of the enthronement of the Nyoro king, Solomon Gafabusa Iguru I. In the Kingdom of Bunyoro, a Ugandan traditional institution nowadays endowed with merely cultural power, this annual event is considered essential for representing and celebrating Nyoro identity, which is rooted in the local monarchy and cultural heritage and mainly expressed through royal rituals and traditional performing arts. The royal enclosure—an area including the royal palace, smaller buildings, and grazing fields for the royal herd—had been set up in the previous weeks to host the event. The space in front of the royal palace, a two-story white building constructed in the 1960s, was cleared and several gazebos were arranged to host special guests, dignitaries, and important religious, cultural, political, and business personalities from both the kingdom and the whole country. While this open space was public (though mostly reserved for dignitaries and invited guests), in more peripheral areas of the enclosure some special huts had been constructed according to traditional techniques. These huts were used for private royal ceremonies that took place during the preceding day and night. On the morning of the Mpango I was at the royal enclosure, ready to attend the hours-long celebration. This consisted of a varied program: the speech of the king, followed by speeches given by political and religious local authorities; the kingdom’s anthem performed by the local brass band; the excited crowd greeting the arrival of the president of the Republic of Uganda, Yoweri Museveni, followed by his brief speech and the collective singing of the national anthem; the ritual procession of the main royal drum and other regalia from the nearby house of their custodian to the royal mound and then inside the palace; and the Mpango music played by the royal drums and side-blown trumpets (makondeere). The presence of the president, who attended the central part of the ceremony, and the playing and dancing of the Mpango music were the highlights of the event, which had attracted a few thousand people, especially from the surrounding villages and other towns of the kingdom but also from other parts of Uganda and neighboring countries like the Democratic Republic of Congo and Tanzania.