THE KINGS OF BUGANDA Kingship and State: The Buganda Dynasty. By CHRISTOPHER WRIGLEY. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996. Pp. xv + 293. £40.00; $64.95 (ISBN 0-521-47370-5).

Abstract

Apolo Kagwa was katikiro or chief minister of Buganda from 1889 to 1926. His career well exemplifies the thesis that, in the context of colonial intrusion, collaboration could be the most effective form of resistance. His co-operation with the British probably saved the Ganda monarchy, while earning him a knighthood. Not least among the achievements of this remarkable man was the publication, in 1901, of his Bakabaka b'e Buganda, ‘The Kings of Buganda’. Over half the book is a compilation of oral history, based on what Wrigley calls ‘the five generations of primary and secondary reminiscence’ (p. 12) : that is, the span of memory from ego's grandfather/grandmother to ego's grandson/granddaughter. It reaches back to about the middle of the eighteenth century. The remainder of the book is Kagwa's recension of oral tradition having to do with the more distant Ganda past. Wrigley tells us that Kingship and State is ‘an extended commentary’ on Kagwa's work, but warns us that it is ‘at least as much about tradition as it is about Buganda’ (p. 7). It is, and unfortunately so, for Wrigley locks his inquiry into the unprofitable debates of the 1970s about the nature of African tradition.