The most ancient were those from the Ankole Kingdom, composed of two different nineteenth-century groups who shared the same language: the Bahima, who were cattle herders, and the Bairu, who farmed. The two fought many wars over territory, and the antagonisms between them were deep and real. However, eventually an uneasy truce evolved with the Bairu farmers emerging as the military protectors of both groups, an arrangement that endowed the well-protected cattle-herding Bahima with a sense of special status. As the decades passed, the Ankole Kingdom grew and expanded to establish political control through its king, its Omugabe, over other areas including the contiguous land of the Buganda people.
The Buganda had their own traditions and language and called their royal chiefs Kabaka. In both Ankole and Baganda traditions, royal blood was traced through the maternal line and kings were traditionally chosen by clan elders from among the eligible princes, always assuring that the throne was never the property of a single clan for more than one reign. It was through the Omugabe and the Kabaka that these two kingdoms interfaced.
Buganda soon became the wealthier and more powerful of the communities, a well-armed kingdom. Yet the Ankole kingdom also flourished despite its own ethnic tensions. The Omugabe’s palace stood between the two communities, on a hilltop, surrounded by kilometers of privileged space filled with grass-roofed dwellings, meeting halls, and buildings whose agricultural and military stores were legendary.
At the entrance to Omugabe’s court burned the royal fire, the gambola, which would only be extinguished when the Omugabe died. Thronging these grounds were many foreign ambassadors seeking audience, chiefs assembling for the royal advisory council, messengers running errands, and a corps of young pages who served the Omugabe while training to become future leaders themselves. For communication across the kingdom, there were runners and personal messengers. But mostly there were the drums. The drums of the Ankole spoke with their own gravity and sovereignty.
In 1891, Buganda disturbed the established order by signing a treaty with the British, allowing incursions into the land the foreigners would call Uganda in return for British recognition of the Kabaka’s ultimate authority. In 1894, the British went even further and annexed Buganda. Two years later the name Uganda was adopted for the territory.
Ankole and Bunyoro territories came under what the British began referring to as Baganda control, further inciting ethnic tensions. Indeed, the historic heartland that had been transferred politically contained numerous sacred burial grounds. Eventually these “lost counties” became the source of ever-deepening animosities between the Baganda, the Bunyoro, and the Ankole.
The British — by way of thanking the Kabaka — appointed mostly Baganda as political administrators and tax collectors. To know the Baganda Kabaka was to know power. It remained the way to power right through the first half of the twentieth century. The Baganda even insisted that everyone they dealt with — except the British — use the Baganda language and wear kanzus, their own version of traditional cotton gowns. They also actively encouraged (with the aid of British missionaries) religious conversions to Christianity among both those who practiced traditional animistic beliefs and especially among those who followed the tenets of Islam.
Buganda was also home to the country’s political capital, Kampala, and the city grew wealthy. Cotton and coffee flourished as exports and international trade with Europe increased. Baganda families spent their burgeoning incomes on imported clothing, bicycles, metal roofs, and even automobiles. Baganda chiefs spent much of their income on their children’s education, and a number from the best families were sent to England on scholarships for university training. Within the region as a whole came the rise of a young and literate elite, many of them graduating from new Baganda schools in Kampala such as Mengo High School. These schools placed emphasis on skills in English, translation, and typing, among others.
One eager member of this vibrant new generation was Charles’ father, Kanyunya, who, though Ankole, managed to ride the coattails of the rapidly spreading British colonial officialdom. As early as high school, Kanyunya spoke not only his own language but also English and even Swahili. Because of such useful skills, and because he was somewhat faster than others in math, and because he knew typing, he was one of the first in his class to obtain a much sought after job as a clerk at a Baganda County office when he graduated. Here, he busied himself with filing reports, making tea for his superiors, and ensuring that the huge overhead fan remained dusted so as not to float its finely sifted dirt down on the gleaming head of the District Commissioner. Kanyunya quickly evolved into a disciplined civil servant.
When the reigning Ankole king died and the new Omugabe turned out to be a family relative, Kanyunya found himself in an exceedingly fortunate political position. The British knew and respected the family connection. It allowed him to move easily between the Ankole and the Baganda communities and to rise in the hierarchy. The British had no problem when the Omugabe drafted Kanyunya for service in the royal household.
Kanyunya had a small bed in the men’s quarters and an office that he shared with other royal clerks. These buildings occupied a tiny plot in a much larger compound with separate dwellings for palace employees including bodyguards, entertainers, and praise singers, the custodian of the royal graves, and many others. There was even a whole building set apart for the ceremonial drums. Kanyunya always sensed the drum pulsing through him, like a heartbeat, and the air he breathed.
For holy days, royal virgins smeared their skins with white clay to show purity and goodness and celebrate the fertility of Ankole cows. Kanyunya watched these pale young women array themselves around Omugabe while an attendant knelt, proffering the ceremonial bowl brimming with fresh milk. The bowl itself was large, carved from dark wood and polished smooth. A delicate chain of coloured beads encircled it. Omugabe lifted it and time stopped for Kanyunya. Utter splendour — Omugabe’s long royal robes, animal pelts draped over the richly carved throne — held him in thrall. Overhead shone a chandelier constructed of beaded bowls from the previous year and above the throne, a crown and crossed spears. Rich carpets and zebra skins covered the floor. Walls gleamed with spears and photos of the royal family.
It was at the palace that Kanyunya also met his future bride, Kekinoni. She was one of the youthful beauties brought in to attend Omugabe’s mother and sister. Kekinoni in her turn was obliged to maintain a virgin state. As it happened, the clans of Kanyunya and Kekinoni were among those allowed to marry. The two young people first became shy friends and eventually fell in love. They sought the privilege of matrimony that only Omugabe could grant. In time, he did.
The wedding took place before the magnificent doors of the palace and was presided over by the monarch himself. Kekinoni wore a white lace dress. With her bouquet of white gardenias, a sparkling tiara on her tight black hair, precious pearls glistening from her neck and ears, she glittered resplendently as a Queen of England. Like many brides, however, Kekinoni felt fear and apprehension. But those flanking her — grinning ladies-in-waiting, draped in vivid reds and greens, with polished leather handbags hooked securely over bangled arms — held her up.
Kanyunya — in blue and gold robes and a tall decorated linen hat — gazed at Kekinoni amazed. She was his wife to be but what did he know of husbandly duty? He also felt uncomfortable, the uncertain centre of a joyful celebration by important people, all of whom he was convinced understood more about what was going on that day than he did.
Both, however, survived the wedding day and the wedding night. Shortly thereafter Kanyunya was invited to step up the government ladder. His new posting took him to the village of Buhweju, a Baganda community two hundred miles from Kampala.
Kanyunya was one of four sub-chiefs who jointly administered the village of some fifteen thousand people scattered over more than a hundred square miles. He was given a well-protected concrete house complete with wooden doors and closeable shutters. It c
onsisted of a large living room, a master bedroom, a security room where a single guard slept, a guest room, and a huge children’s room meant to accommodate as many offspring as the young couple could produce. All on a four-acre compound with garden areas suitable for receiving petitioners and hosting public events.
Kanyunya and Kekinoni felt rather important within this imposing symbol of British power. So different from the village huts of mud walls and thatched roofs.
Quickly realizing that in this place he could not be part of normal village life, Kanyunya went to work with enthusiasm in his small official world of tapping typewriters and inky reports, of clerks and messengers who scurried around with sheaves of paper at his slightest bidding. He only knew he needed to keep them busy, to create a sense of important activity.
With the efficiency his distant superiors expected, his office issued beer-brewing permits and prepared monthly memos on such matters as food production and vermin destruction. When it came time for the annual tax collection, Kanyunya could be found flanked by his clerk and a policeman, sitting behind a broad table — often under the fanning canopy of a soaring teak tree — at a cotton market or a tobacco post, accepting and registering payments from the local people.
Clearly, it was not Kanyunya’s place to make things but to manage them, to be a protector of power. Calm, dignified, and polite. Reducing real life to neat numbers in a great file that he had to keep updating, revising, and sending for approval.
Eventually a child is born. A girl they call Debra. Kanyunya waits for a boy.
Their second child does not disappoint his hopes. Holding his joy in check, Kanyunya sets about the serious business of naming. He searched for their daughter’s name in ponds and small lakes, in the sunlight playing on watery surfaces. But for this son, he wants something special. And so Kanyunya undertakes a pilgrimage, wheeling away from the villages on his bicycle along the red track that ribbons through verdant savannah. He needs something strong for his son, something daring.
And suddenly it is there. The flame tree. Stunning him with its elegance, its feathery leaves and scarlet flowers, its long waving stem and its fierce thorns. Tree of death and life. Amarykiti. The great flame tree. He would call his son Amarykiti. A true African name. His soul name.
That night, Kanyunya takes his child outside. They are alone. Kanyunya speaks the special name into his son’s ear. “Kiti.” The forest is silent. “You are Kiti.” His voice is sombre and serious. “This is who you are. This is who you will be. Always. The lightning tree, the fierce. My Kiti.”
Kekinoni has also whispered a name into her baby’s ear, a good Christian name. And when the pastor at his baptism calls out, ‘What shall we call this child?’ she answers without hesitation, “Charles. His name is Charles. Charles Mugume.”
Charles Who Stands for the Lord.
But Kanyunya knows better who his son really is.
Charles is a baby on the move. His mother must watch him constantly, for unlike his more placid sister he is never still. At six months he is weaned from breast to mashed bananas. He learns to sit up. To stand. With a body that obeys some great physical will, he spurts forward on invisible springs. At eight months he perches alone, alert on his little mat, tapping always with a small stick.
“Our son is a talking drum,” says Kanyunya. Indeed, rhythm becomes his speech.
When Kekinoni walks into the glaring sunshine and deep shade of the thick banana plants to chop off bunches of fruit, Charles rides on her back with obvious pleasure, mesmerized by the rolling movement of her body, delighted as she bends and straightens, rocks and laughs.
Inside the house where it is cool and busy, Charles is equally absorbed. Joining the family for a meal, Kanyunya lines his hand with a section of leaf and scoops out portions of the food for each of them. For Charles, he is careful to dip the glutinous goodness into a little salt or gravy so that the baby becomes used to stronger tastes. And at a year, Kanyunya announces that the baby has accepted his true name.
“Kiti,” calls Kanyunya clearly. Charles turns to him.
“Charles,” whispers Kekinoni. The child turns again.
Both parents smile.
The two children see Kanyunya late and early. His life is official and busy. Family times must be found outside the normal day. Extraordinary times, appropriate to the extraordinary presence he occupies in their young lives. It is always dark in the morning, when he wakes them and they come stumbling sleepily, often tearfully, out to greet him. These progeny are his flesh and blood, the family of his loins. He must be with them and they must know him. They are also the Sub-County Chief’s official family and each other’s most important community. On such mornings, the drowsy dynasty shuffle around scrubbing their teeth with cleaning sticks, dabbing cold water on faces still warm from dreams and waiting patiently while Father showers and dresses, emerges from these ablutions looking like a sovereign being.
Tall and shiny, Kanyunya sits at the table with them smelling clean, smelling like the man who goes away each day to do important work, smelling of a world beyond the thick green shield of their garden. He eats the meal brought to him by servants while the children sit in silence and watch. When he has kissed them goodbye and left, Mother hurries in from early morning household chores and shoos them back to their waiting beds for the rest of their sleep.
Father doesn’t observe the difference between day and night. He orders the hours according to his needs and expects his family to adapt. He often comes in late and wakes up the children, demanding deference and entertainment from them. First, they must kneel in greeting and, as in all good families, wash his feet with warm soapy water in a large, badly scratched porcelain bowl. Charles is allowed to rub his father’s rough skin, cleaning each nail, always amazed at their thickness, hardness, size, and toughness. When the children touch a ticklish area, Father roars with laughter, kicking paint-chipped suds onto the floor. ‘Now sing for me,’ he demands. And the Sub-County Chief’s house rings with the chanting of songs he has taught them in Swahili.
As they grow, Charles and his best friend Samuel — another Ankole in the official circle — notice that most of their Baganda playmates are thinner than they are, that they are not as fast to kick the soccer ball, and that they always seem hungry, always taking special interest in Mother’s kitchen. The boys wonder why; they want to ask Kekinoni but dare not.
Nevertheless, in Charles’ young life, difference slowly begins to matter.
At night, more often than not, Kanyunya turns to his beer, trying to drink away the tensions of the day. He does not turn to his wife now. He has no energy left for her.
Charles is allowed to invite Samuel to some official parties during which Kanyunya sits in his special carved wooden chair receiving gifts — beer and chickens and goats.
When Kanyunya drinks too much, Charles knows that the dancing will soon begin. On cue, out come all the instruments, drums, and strings. People begin swaying and chanting. Slowly at first. Dusk settles and cool air brushes in from the graceful fronds floating their high green light around the compound, allowing ease.
This is the moment Charles begins to bounce in front of his father’s grand chair. As drums thunder, he and the grownup dancers vibrate ever more frantically, their hips rolling. Charles soon becomes one with the sound. His body obeying without question the thunder and tap. The unpredictable, complex, changing rhythms enter him, make his heart beat and his body speak. As he moves, Samuel grins and laughs. Kanyunya is overjoyed seeing his son so animated. Compensation for all his toiling in colonial offices among applications and reports. Validation.
“One day, Kiti will be among Omugabe’s chosen,” he roars out to the throng and they answer him fervently with the music of their very being, louder and faster than ever.
Kekinoni also has parties in her own special part of the house. To these events — always during the day — relatives and wom
en of the neighbourhood often come. Here, she serves tea and treats and there are always stories.
“My son is a great dancer,” she also boasts. In fact, she and her women friends have been coaching him closely, so that his performances in the grand yard at dusk for Kanyunya are not entirely spontaneous. Indeed, Kekinoni has formed a dance club of sorts for the women of the village, especially those with young sons, interested in having their offspring learn traditional dances. On occasion — and with Kanyunya’s approval — she organizes children’s dance competitions for the district. Charles and his friend Samuel are budding stars.
While Debra and the young girls and women learn to move from a seated position, their arms swaying gently to imitate the horns of cattle, the boys practice the more masculine gestures. Stomping and reaching, grabbing and running — movements of power, strength, agility, and skill, involving swiftness and stealth — necessary to a way of life visible now only in the dances. Seen only in the local competitions.
Charles wins these competitions more often than anyone else. Privileged as well as talented, he dances longest. He never tires. He moves to the colours of the flowing robes, the sky and tall savannah grass, the sun and bananas, the deep rages of tropical storm and the swirl of road dust. They are his world.
Charles’ other best friend is the family cow, Suna. Cinnamon in colour, she seems to carry the sun in her body, heating her. When Charles touches her flank, she feels as hot as a cooking pot. One of two hundred cows in the official herd owned by his family, Suna grazes over the rich savannah land controlled by the Sub-County Chief. Cows belong to Charles and his kind, to traditional herders. Not to the Baganda farmers in whose midst his family lives and whose lives his father manages. Charles learns a balancing act, separating cultural identities but remaining deeply connected to the stately bovine creatures he comes to love.
One Man Dancing Page 2
