Encountering Islam and Christianity in sub-Saharan Africa: from Orality to Literacy …

ENCOUNTERING ISLAM AND

CHRISTIANITY IN SUB-SAHARAN AFRICA:
FROM ORALITY TO LITERACY AND TO THE RISE
OF HISTORICAL WRITING IN THE KINGDOMS
OF BUGANDA AND BUNYORO*

Viera PAWLIKOVA-VILHANOVÁ
Institute of Oriental Studies, Slovak Academy of Sciences
Klemensova 19, 813 64 Bratislava, Slovakia
[email protected]

Though the existence of script in some regions of Africa, in ancient Egypt, Kush, Nubia or the
Ethiopian highlands led to the spread of literacy and of written knowledge, orality was the norm
in many African societies in the past, and in much of Africa, historical and other knowledge
remained to be constructed, maintained and conveyed by word of mouth, in poetic, musical and
dramatic settings and graphic symbolism closely related to speech. Cultural contacts with Islam
and later on with Christianity brought writing systems, Arabic and Latin scripts, literacy replaced
orality and prompted the production of written knowledge. The arrival of Islam and somewhat
later of Christianity into the kingdoms of Buganda and Bunyoro brought literacy in its train and
led to the development of a rich tradition of historical writing.

Key words: Islam, Christianity, kingdoms of Buganda and Bunyoro, Arabic and Latin scripts,
Arabic and Kiswahili languages, orality, literacy, historical writing

Situating the Problems and Issues

Historical consciousness and a historical narrative had always existed in Africa.

Africans had always somehow or other tried to express their interest in and
concern for their own history, African societies had always been busy
producing their own histories and anthropologies and discoursing on their own

* The present study is an enlarged and revised version of a paper presented at the Third
International Conference on Islamic Civilisation and Culture and the Omani Role in the
Countries of the African Great Lakes, held in Bujumbura, Burundi, 9–12 December 2014.

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identities. Old people taught their descendants about the past, there were
community historians. Some societies even had official historians. The
existence of script in some regions of Africa, in ancient Egypt, Kush, Nubia or
the Ethiopian highlands led to the spread of literacy and of written knowledge,
creating the possibility of written history as well. Yet orality remained the norm
in many African societies in the past and historical and other knowledge
remained to be constructed, maintained and conveyed by the word of mouth, in
poetic, musical and dramatic settings and graphic symbolism closely related to
speech. When Islam crossed the Sahara into the Western Sudan and penetrated
down the East African coast, bringing literacy in Arabic in its train, Africans no
longer had to rely on maintaining their historical traditions and knowledge by
memorising them, and rich African traditions of scholarship emerged,
articulated in the Arabic language, and in African languages written in the
Arabic script, the so-called Ajami. Writing in some African languages, such as
Hausa, Fulfulde, Kanembu, Dyula, Wolof, Kiswahili, Malagasy and some other
African languages, using Arabic or the so-called Ajami script developed
alongside works of history in the Arabic language. 1
Jan Vansina epitomised the prevailing scholarly opinion maintaining that
African civilisations in sub-Saharan Africa were to a great extent civilisations of
the spoken word. “The African civilizations in the Sahara and south of the
desert were to a great extent civilizations of the spoken word, even where the
written word existed, as it did in West Africa from the sixteenth century
onwards because only few people knew how to write and the role of the written
word was often marginal to the essential preoccupations of society.” 2 The sheer
number of ancient Arabic and Ajami manuscripts located in ancient seats of
Islamic learning scattered across the African continent along the so-called
African Ink road stretching from Senegal and Mauritania in the west to the Red
Sea and along the East African coast down to northern Mozambique, questions
this assumption. Few of these manuscripts, which formed part of a significant
knowledge production process over the past few centuries and which have
enormous historical relevance for present-day Africa, have been studied,

1
The term Ajami (Arabic: ‫‛ ﻋﺠﻤﻲ‬aǧamī ), or Ajamiyya (Arabic: ‫‛ ﻋﺠﻤﻴﺔ‬aǧamiyyah),
which comes from the Arabic root for “foreign” or “stranger”, has been applied to
Arabic alphabets for writing African languages, especially those of Hausa and
Kiswahili, although many other African languages were written using the script. It is
considered an Arabic derived African writing system. Since African languages involve
phonetic sounds and systems different from Arabic, there have often been adaptations of
the Arabic script to transcribe them.
2
VANSINA, J. Oral Tradition and Its Methodology. In KI-ZERBO, J. (ed.). General
History of Africa. I. Methodology and African Prehistory, p. 142.

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translated or published, despite growing interest in their preservation and

conservation over the past decades among scholars in and outside Africa.
Africans were quick to appreciate the importance of literacy and very quickly
took to the production of written histories in the imported classical language of
Arabic and in African languages written using the Arabic alphabet. The growth
of European interest in Africa since the fifteenth century and especially the
presence and work of Christian missions gave Africans literacy in their own
languages in Latin script. From the very start Christian missions paid great
attention to the teaching of literacy. In many parts of the African continent,
Africans who had become literate in the Arabic, Ajami or Roman scripts felt the
need to record local historical traditions or to set down what they knew of the
histories of their people. The introduction of a script meant that historical and
cultural knowledge which had been in the past constructed and conveyed by
word of mouth could be produced in locally scripted historical and cultural
texts. This resulted in some parts of Africa a rich production of local histories
researched and written by communities themselves, of popular historical
literature, memoirs, diaries and biographical writings often produced in local
African languages by individuals and local communities interested in their past
and interpreting their pasts which for them had meaning and significance. The
production of local histories flourished in many parts of Africa. This rich corpus
belonging to the genre of “production of locality” and bridging the gap between
orality and literacy, reveals how local communities conceptualised the past, the
world and changes that were happening around them and to them. Africans
themselves have not simply produced, inscribed, and voiced historical
knowledge and cultural practices in reaction to some overpowering European or
Western tradition, they have been producing their own introspections and
constructions of the past and culture, and discoursing their own identities.
There developed some rich early historiographies in Africa and some, namely
the early historical writing which had started to be produced in the kingdom of
Buganda and to a lesser extent in the kingdom of Bunyoro and among some
other neighbouring peoples since the end of the 19th and the beginning of the
20th centuries, 3 have continued to thrive.

3
ROWE, J. A. Progress and a sense of identity: African Historiography in East Africa.
In Kenya Historical Review, 1975, Vol. 5, No. 1, pp. 23–34, reprinted by Northwestern
University Program of African Studies, Reprint Series Number 31.

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The Course of Islam in Eastern Africa

According to recent archaeological excavations, Islam came to the East African

coast early in the Islamic era, in the eighth century. 4 It spread through trade and
economic migration on dhows with the ocean monsoons around which the
Indian ocean trade had been organised as far back as historical knowledge goes,
and was brought by traders regularly visiting the East African coast. The arrival
of Islam coincided with the increasing urbanisation of the coast. Coastal cities,
the oceanic trade and Islam formed the core elements of Swahili identity and of
the unique Kiswahili language and civilisation which reached its peak between
the 10th and 15th centuries. The Swahili people, who had over the centuries
developed their own Islamic culture, were unique in having developed a written
literature deeply immersed in the spirit of Islam and in Islamic literary
traditions. The Kiswahili language which had evolved in the coastal towns of
East Africa and adjacent islands was a written language using the Old Swahili
Script or rather the Arabic Ajami script adapted to this language.
For not quite clear reasons Islam, Swahili Islamic culture and language only
remained dominant along a narrow coastal strip and did not spread past the
coast. The process of Islamic expansion up-country, away from the long
Islamised towns of the East African coast, only began in the nineteenth-century.
As on the coast in the past, Islam in the interior of East and Central Africa
advanced slowly and gradually along a network of caravan routes through
trading contacts with some African people and was spread by ordinary
adherents, Kiswahili-speaking merchants, who were penetrating the interior of
Eastern Africa in search of ivory and slaves. 5 Through its commercial
expansion in the nineteenth century, Islam soon had its representatives scattered
everywhere in Eastern Africa. We should not, however, overestimate the extent
of Islamic penetration. Outside certain areas, in this early period Islam made
relatively little advance. In the interior of Eastern Africa, proselytising was to a
large extent incidental, a by-product of trade. The primary interest of Muslim
traders was mercantile, not proselytising. The Arabs and Swahili entered the
East African interior in search of ivory and slaves, and, rather than new converts
to their religion or political power, they sought wealth and prosperity. There
was a basic contradiction between converting Africans and selling them as
slaves. Since Islam forbids Muslims to enslave co-religionists, to convert too

4
POUWELS, R. L. The East African Coast, Chapter 12. In LEVTZION, N.,
POUWELS, R. L. (eds.). The History of Islam in Africa, p. 252.
5
ALPERS, E. A. East Central Africa. In LEVTZION, N., POUWELS, R. L. (eds.). The
History of Islam in Africa, pp. 303–305. ALPERS, E. A. The Nineteenth Century:
Prelude to Colonialism. In OGOT, B. A. (ed.). Zamani. A Survey of East African
History. pp. 229–248.

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many Africans to Islam would have diminished the number of those they were
permitted to enslave. For this reason conversion to Islam was limited. Along
the trade routes, way stations turned into flourishing settlements where the Arab
and Swahili traders could (and often did) live comfortably. It seems that the
prosperity of Arab and Swahili traders based on the closely integrated trade in
ivory and slaves muted their religious zeal. 6
Many people in Eastern Africa became exposed to Islam and Islamic
civilisation and culture both through extensive contacts with the coast and the
presence of a small number of Muslim merchants in their midst. Some benefited
from the trade and adopted the customs of the coast and Kiswahili, but they did
not convert to Islam in any substantial numbers and often it was possible to talk
of Swahilisation without Islamisation. 7 Islam was initially gaining new
adherents by a combination of religious ideas and the attractions of Islamic
culture and civilisation, the Islamic way of life and dress, the introduction of
new languages Kiswahili and Arabic as well as Arabic script. Reading and
writing was no doubt one of the most important skills introduced by the Arab
and Swahili traders, who propagated their religion especially in the cases when
through the proselytisation and the conversion of an influencial chief or ruler
they could increase their trade. Many of the processes of Islamisation in Eastern
Africa were similar to those described for other areas of the African continent
much earlier. 8 The types of the process of Islamisation that have been
repeatedly seen and described across sub-Saharan Africa can be exemplified by
the initial appeal of Islam seen in the power of Arabic literacy, 9 the prestige and
honour associated with Islam in terms of increasing power, the position of
converts in the social hierarchy and the top-down process of conversion. The

6
CAIRNS, H., ALAN C. Prelude to Imperialism. British Reactions to Central African
Society 1840 – 1890. p. 133. ALPERS, E. A. Towards a History of the Expansion of
Islam in East Africa: the Matrilineal Peoples of the Southern Interior. In RANGER T.
O., KIMAMBO, I. N. (eds.). The Historical Study of African Religion, pp.182–191.
7
The coastal influence was most visible in the use of cloth which was rapidly replacing
barkcloth, the adoption of the gown or garments and many other goods, including
firearms, in cultivating some vegetables, fruits and crops, wheat and rice, in building
square houses and in introducing new skills and crafts, including literacy in Arabic and
Kiswahili. INSOLl, T. The Archaeology of Islam in Sub-Saharan Africa, p. 384;
BENNETT, N. R. The Arab Impact. In OGOT, B. A. (ed.). Zamani. A Survey of East
African History, pp. 210–228; ALPERS, E. A. “East Central Africa”. In LEVTZION,
N., POUWELS, R. L. (eds.). The History of Islam in Africa, pp. 303–326.
8
PAWLIKOVÁ-VILHANOVÁ, V. Similarities and Differences in the Spread of Islam:
East and South Africa Compared. In HARON, M., DANGOR, S. E. (eds). Islamic
Civilisation in Southern Africa, pp. 47–49.
9
Later on literacy in African languages using adapted Arabic script, the so-called
Ajami.

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first agents of conversion were traders and only later on missionaries and holy
men. 10

Islam in the Great Lakes Region

One of the most significant areas of Islamic penetration in Eastern Africa in this
early period was the Lacustrine area, namely the kingdom of Buganda, where
Islam secured a strong foothold. At the time of the visit of the famous traveller
and explorer Henry Morton Stanley in the country in 1875, the initial process of
Islamisation in Buganda reached a climax, Islam’s position was strong and after
the arrival of Christianity into the country became its formidable rival.
The kingdom of Buganda and Uganda no doubt belong to the best
documented African countries. Apart from official and missionary archival
sources, there is also a very rich corpus of historical writings written by
Baganda Muslim and Christian converts, many of them eyewitnesses and active
participants in the events. 11 According to all available sources, Islam came to be
known in Buganda under Kabaka Mutesa’s father Suna (1825 – 1856) several
decades before the arrival of Europeans. Although there were indirect
commercial contacts between the kingdom of Buganda and the East African
coast long before Kabaka Suna’s reign, Sir Apolo Kaggwa in his famous book
Basekabaka be Buganda claims that some trade goods from the coast such as
cotton cloth, copper wires, cowrie shells reached Buganda and were used during
the reign of kabaka Ssemakokiro who died in 1794, there are no indications of
Islamic influence at that period. 12 The kingdom of Buganda became exposed to
Islam both through extensive contacts with the coast and the presence of a small
number of Muslim merchants at the royal court who had started to arrive in the
country from the 1840s. Some direct contacts with Muslim merchants trading in
ivory and slaves were initially established and maintained in the 1840s. From
the available sources it is impossible to ascertain the exact date of the arrival of
the first Arab and Swahili traders into the kingdom or their number. According
to Sir John Gray, the first Arab to reach Buganda was Shaykh Ahmed bin
Ibrahim, a Wahabi who visited Buganda in 1844, but this claim is not supported

10
INSOLL, T. The Archaeology of Islam in Sub-Saharan Africa, p. 395.
11
ROWE, J. A. Myth, Memoir and Moral Admonition: Luganda Historical Writing,
1893 – 1969. In The Uganda Journal, 1969, Vol. 33, No. 1, pp. 17–40.
12
Sir KAGGWA, A. Ekitabo Kya Basekabaka be Buganda [The Kings of Buganda], p.
88. See also KASOZI, A. B. The Spread of Islam in Uganda, pp. 13–32; also KASOZI,
A. B. The Spread of Islam in Uganda. 45 pp., map.

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by substantial evidence. 13 Most Luganda sources authored by Ham Mukasa,

Apolo Kaggwa, Prince Ggomotoka, Ssekimwanyi or Ali Kkulumba had put the
date in or shortly after 1850 when Zanzibari traders tried to open up their sphere
of interests as far as Buganda. As on the coast in the past, Islam in Buganda
tended to spread slowly and gradually. Ahmed bin Ibrahim is said to have
taught Suna about Islam and Suna is said to have learned several chapters of the
Qu’ran by heart. 14 According to Oded, manuscript pages from the Qu’ran were
discovered in Suna’s house after his death. 15 The northern part of present day
Uganda, Bunyoro and Acholi-Lango area, had contact with Islam from the north
since perhaps as early as 1850, but the Islamic impact on Buganda from the
Sudan and Egypt was limited. Zanzibar and the East coast were the main
centres of Islamic influence. The process of the Islamisation of the kingdom of
Buganda cannot be seen as a straightforward process of ‘conversion’ from one
religion to another, from the ancient Kiganda religion to the orthodox Islamic
religion, or an abrupt rejection of the old religion and the adoption of a new one.
The process of Islamisation of Buganda was a slow one and gained momentum
during the reign of Kabaka Suna’s son and successor Mutesa (1856 ‒ 1884)
who encouraged trade with Zanzibaris, especially after 1866. At about the same
time he decided to adopt Islam, even though he refused to be circumcised.
Apolo Kaggwa in his Basekabaka states that kabaka Mutesa began to fast
during the month of Ramadan for the first time at Nnakawa in 1867 and
continued to observe Ramadan for ten consecutive years. 16 He claimed to have
converted to Islam and continued to observe Ramadan for over ten years, yet
continued to practise the traditional Kiganda religion as well, or returned to it at
the time of great affliction or crisis.
A by-product of the presence of Kiswahili-speaking coastal merchants in
Buganda was the diffusion of new languages Arabic, Kiswahili and literacy.
Literacy entered the kingdom of Buganda in the late 1860s as part of the new
religion Islam and the Holy Book Qur’an and for nearly a decade instruction in
Islam and Arabic was progressing and flourishing at the royal court. Literacy

13
GRAY, Sir J. Sheik Ahmed bin Ibrahim, the first Arab to reach Buganda. In The
Uganda Journal, 1947, Vol. XI., No.1, pp. 80–97.
14
See SPERLING, D. C. The Coastal Hinterland and Interior of East Africa, p. 21.
15
ODED, A. Islam in Uganda. Islamization through a Centralized State in Pre-Colonial
Africa, pp. 49–51.
16
See KAGGWA, A. Basekabaka be Buganda, [Kings of Buganda] p. 124, 130. On the
spread of Islam also see MUKASA, H. ‘Some Notes on the Reign of Mutesa’. In
Uganda Journal, 1934, Vol. 2, No. 1, pp. 60–70; MUKASA, H. ‘Simudda Nyuma’, [Go
Forward]. MITI, J. K. Ebyafayo bya Buganda, Bunyoro, Busoga, [A Short History of
Buganda, Bunyoro, Busoga Ankole and Toro]; GRAY, Sir J. ‘Mutesa of Buganda’. In
Uganda Journal, 1934, Vol. 1, No. 1, 1934, pp. 22–49.

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attracted local people and enhanced the popularity of Islam. Reading and
writing in Arabic and Kiswahili introduced by the Arabs and Swahili traders
was no doubt the most important skill connected with the spread of Islam. 17
Mutesa himself learnt to read and write Arabic and Kiswahili, adopted Arab
dress and manners, started to read the Qur’an and maintained diplomatic
relations with the Sultan of Zanzibar. He was especially fond of Arabic poetry
and could converse fluently in Arabic with European visitors: Charles Chaillé-
Long in 1874, Emin Pasha in 1876 or the Church Missionary Society
(hereinafter referred to as CMS) missionaries Felkin and O’Flaherty. Mutesa
encouraged young chiefs and pages of the royal palace to join him in learning
Arabic and the Arabic script. Some pages, chiefs and dignitaries at court
became interested in the teachings of Islam and learnt to read and write. Many
future leading Christian chiefs, James Miti, Henry Wright Duta Kitakule or
Stanislaus Mugwanya were among those Baganda who joined Mutesa and made
good progress “reading Islam” okusoma ekisiramu, okusoma meaning both to
read and to pray. The above mentioned Baganda chiefs were reputed to have
been excellent Arabic scholars.
Islam’s contribution to education and intellectual development through Arabic
alphabetisation and literacy was accompanied by the spread of Kiswahili and
Arabic languages among the Baganda. During the 1870s the knowledge of
Arabic script and of the Arabic and Kiswahili languages spread among the court
élite who started to use literacy in everyday life. Literacy became part of
Buganda diplomacy. As the CMS missionary R. W. Felkin commented in his
book, due to literacy in Arabic, many of the chiefs and commanders of military
troops were constantly sending reports to the Kabaka Mutesa. 18 Literacy was
inextricably connected with Islam and Christianity, both religions of the Book
because it enabled converts to read their Holy Books, the Qur’an and the Bible.
As has been mentioned, the concept of reading- okusoma became a synonym for
the adoption of the new religion, Islam, and later on Christianity. The converts
were called ‘readers’. The court became Islamised, mosques were built by
chiefs and a number of future leading Christian converts, who were young
pages at this time, adopted Islam and became literate in Arabic and Kiswahili.
Between 1867 and 1875, the impact of Islamisation began to be felt not only at

17
The effects of contacts with Muslim traders in Buganda were most visible in the
introduction of many new skills and crafts, in the cultivation of new crops, fruits and
vegetables, such as wheat, rice, tomatoes, pomegranates, guava, onions, tomatoes,
papaws and papayas, of spices, sugar, coffee, tobacco, soap, perfumes and woven grass-
mat manufacture, in the use of cloth which was under the reign of kabaka Mutesa
rapidly replacing barkcloth, the adoption of the gown or garments and many other
goods or changes in some royal rituals, namely in royal burial customs.
18
WILSON, C. T., FELKIN, R. W. Uganda and the Egyptian Sudan 1882, Vol. 2, p. 19.

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the court, but in the countryside as well and for a time Islam was proclaimed the
state religion of Buganda and Islamic observance made compulsory throughout
the kingdom. 19
At the time of the visit of the famous traveller and explorer Henry Morton
Stanley in the country in 1875, the initial process of Islamisation in Buganda
reached a climax, Islam’s position was strong and after the arrival of
Christianity into the country became its formidable rival. The famous traveller
and explorer Henry Morton Stanley, who visited Buganda in 1875, was the first
to teach Mutesa about Christianity and boasted that he had undermined the
position of Islam in the kingdom. Stanley was on a trans-continental expedition
across East and Central Africa to follow up the explorations of David
Livingstone, J. H. Speke, and Samuel Baker and resolve some geographical
questions. During his journey of exploration, sponsored by two newspapers, the
New York Herald and London’s Daily Telegraph, he visited the kabaka Mutesa
of Buganda. Impressed by what he saw in Buganda, the potential of the country
and its people, Stanley, journalist, traveller and explorer, turned into a lay
missionary who used his stay at the court to undermine the position of Islam in
the kingdom of Buganda and to “explain the Bible and the Christian religion to
the king”. 20 Kabaka Mutesa was at that time anxious to widen his country’s
diplomatic, political and commercial contacts and impressed by the
technological superiority of the white men, 21 he was ready to welcome them in
his country in the hope that they would get him the much desired military and
technical assets associated with European culture and also help him to
understand the wider world that was increasingly impinging upon his country
and threatening its independence.
Stanley came to be a forerunner of the missionaries by being the first to teach
Mutesa about Christianity and by producing a little book of biblical selections
in Kiswahili. He had some parts of the Bible translated into Kiswahili and the
Ten Commandments in Arabic were written on a board for Kabaka Mutesa’s

19
Apart from the already quoted sources, such as KASOZI, A. B. The Spread of Islam in
Uganda, The Penetration of Islam into Buganda, pp. 13–32; ODED, A. Islam in
Uganda, Part One, pp. 1–142; see White Fathers Archives (WFA), P 200/14, KING, N.,
KASOZI, A., ODED, A. Islam and the Confluence of Religions in Uganda 1840 ‒
1966, p. 144; CONSTANTIN, F. ‘L’islam en Ouganda’ In PRUNIER, G., CALAS, B.
(eds.). L’Ouganda contemporain, pp. 209–220.
20
When describing his visit to the kingdom of Buganda in April 1875 Stanley boasted
to have succeeded in his task. STANLEY, H. M. Through the Dark Continent. Vol. I.,
p. 164; STANLEY, H. M. Through the Dark Continent. Vol. II., pp. 193–195.
21
Stanley made a favourable impression on kabaka Mutesa by actively assisting him in
a military campaign against the Bavuma islanders.

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daily perusal. 22 Together with his African servant and interpreter who Stanley
had engaged for the journey to the Great Lakes, a slave from Nyasaland,
Dallington Maftaa Scopion, who was freed in Zanzibar, then educated and
baptised by the Universities’ Mission to Central Africa, and who was well
versed in Kiswahili, they prepared a booklet comprising some parts of the Bible
translated into this East African lingua franca written down in Arabic script.
Maftaa together with Masudi the Arab wrote everything down in Arabic script
what Dallington Maftaa had read and translated from the Bible so that the
Kabaka and some dignitaries at the royal court could read it. Stanley and Maftaa
produced quite a large number of copies of this booklet. “Islam may be said to
have prepared the way here,” admitted Mackay, one of the first missionaries to
Buganda and a bitter enemy of Islam, 23 who after his arrival in Buganda was
astonished to find so many copies of the booklet of Biblical texts written in
Kiswahili in the Arabic script prepared by Stanley and his scribe Dallington
Maftaa still around. 24

Christian Missions in Buganda and Bunyoro, the Spread of Literacy and

the Rise of Luganda and Runyoro Historiographies

In 1877 the first members of the Anglican Church Missionary Society arrived to
be followed two years later, in 1879, by the Roman Catholic White Fathers.
When literacy was introduced into the kingdom of Buganda, it was confined to
speakers of Arabic and Kiswahili. Here as in many other parts of Africa, the
advance of Islam, of Arabic, the language of the Qur’an and literacy in the
Arabic script had preceded the introduction of Christianity and of the Latin
script. Literacy in Arabic and Kiswahili in the Arabic script and the knowledge
of these languages paved the way for Christian missions and their work. After
their coming into the kingdom of Buganda, missionaries of both denominations
used Kiswahili as a medium of instruction and its knowledge in Buganda no
doubt helped them in the work of evangelisation. Christian missionaries had at
their disposal some biblical texts in Kiswahili. Roman Catholics had at first
used biblical texts translated into Kiswahili by the Holy Ghost Fathers
(Spiritans), while CMS missionaries had at their disposal some Kiswahili
translations prepared by early Protestant missionaries on the island of Zanzibar

22
STANLEY, H. M. Through the Dark Continent. Vol. 1, p. 164; STANLEY, H. M.
Through the Dark Continent, Vol. 2, pp. 193–195.
23
Mackay to CMS, 26.12, 1878. Church Missionary Intelligencer, October 1879,
p. 609.
24
SUNDKLER, B., STEED, Ch. A History of the Church in Africa, p. 570.

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and on the East African coast. 25 But, the position of Kiswahili in Buganda was
from the very outset in the eyes of both missions jeopardised by its association
with Islam, a rival religion they wanted to eradicate, and soon both missions
strove to introduce Luganda as a medium of instruction arguing that the
Christian message could be properly understood only if it were taught in the
mother tongue. 26 From the very start of their presence in Buganda and later on
in the rest of Uganda, both Christian missions, paid great attention to the
teaching of literacy. While Islam was associated with the introduction of written
languages Arabic and Kiswahili and the promotion of literacy in these
languages, Christianity promoted literacy in Latin script in local African
languages transformed by translations of the Holy Book and other religious and
non-religious texts into written languages.
The efforts of both missions met with an enthusiastic response. Reading
became so popular in Buganda that the booklets prepared by missionaries of
both denominations were circulated in tens of thousands. 27 Early missionaries in
Uganda left vivid accounts of Baganda “readers” drifting from one mission
station, one set of instruction to another, often frequening both mission stations
as well as the Zanzibari camp at Lungujja, and of Baganda lads sitting on the
hay-covered floor in the royal palace reading or scribbling on boards or any
scrap of paper they could pick up and, lacking paper, sometimes even practising
with a stick or just their own fingers in the dust of the royal courtyard. 28 The
Baganda were introduced to written literature first through Islam and some
years later through Christian propaganda. Christian missionaries provided an
alternative literacy and belief system. The Qu’ran was communicated to them in
sometimes incomprehensible Arabic while the very first books in their own
language Luganda were produced to advance the Christian cause.

25
VILHANOVÁ-PAWLIKOVA, V. Biblical Translations of Early Missionaries in East
and Central Africa. Translations into Swahili. In Asian and African Studies, 2006, Vol.
15, No. 1, pp. 80–89.
26
VILHANOVÁ-PAWLIKOVA, V. Biblical Translations of Early Missionaries in East
and Central Africa. Translations into Luganda. In Asian and African Studies, 2006, Vol.
15, No. 2, pp. 198–210.
27
Ibid, p. 205.
28
MULLINS, J. D. The Wonderful Story of Uganda. London, C.M.S. 1904 includes
early memoirs of a leading Protestant convert Hamu Mukasa. See also MACKAY to
Lang, 29 September, 1885, C.M.S. Archives, G3A6/02, and A. M. Mackay, op. cit., pp.
138–140; TOURIGNY, Y. So abundant a harvest: the Catholic Church in Uganda 1879
– 1979, pp. 32–49.

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As soon as the Baganda learned to read and write, they were keen to practise
it. 29 Many semi-legible notes containing news of anything said or done at the
court have been preserved in both the C.M.S. archives in Birmingham and the
White Fathers archives in Rome, as well as in the Lugard Papers at Rhodes
House, Oxford, and in other private papers. It cannot be doubted that this habit
of writing anonymous letters and of conveying political secrets by writing was
one of the contributing causes of Kabaka Mwanga’s persecution of Christians
in 1886. As substantial collection of Baganda correspondence prove, later on
during the civil wars of 1888 to 1892, the Baganda were becoming more and
more skilled in accurately conveying their thoughts on paper and supplementing
verbal reports with written communications. Imitating the Europeans and
adopting their ways and habits, the Baganda became genuine products of the
Victorian age with its passion for recording, corresponding and writing
diaries. 30
The first book originally written in Luganda ever to be published was Sir
Apolo Kaggwa’s Basekabaka be Buganda or Kings of Buganda, first printed in
1901. The famous book of history is probably the best known book in Luganda
and has been used by many scholars working on Buganda history. 31 Apolo
Kaggwa was a prolific author, though there were others of a similar cast. The
interest that Sir Apolo Kaggwa took in writing, and the importance he attached
to preserving the written word were not exceptional and were shared by most of
his contemporaries. Dr. Rowe’s picture of Hamu Mukasa and his house with
large glass-fronted bookcases, all the drawers, cupboards and boxes stuffed and
crammed with diaries, journals, letter-books, ledgers, maps and assorted records
and documents, proves that the Baganda did like to write. 32 This is also clearly

29
Already in 1891 Lugard reported that coloured cloth, beads and wire were useless as
trade goods in Buganda. “They want paper, notebooks and writing materials.” See
LUGARD to Admin. Gen. IBEA Co., 13.Aug. 1891, In Africa, 1892, No. 4, p. 124.
30
ROWE, J. A. The Purge of Christians at Mwanga s Court. In Journal of African
History, 1964, Vol. V., p. 55–72; ROWE, J. A. Myth, Memoir and Moral Admonition:
Luganda Historical Writing, 1893 ‒ 1969. In Uganda Journal, 1969, Vol. 33, No. 1, pp.
1–40.
31
The original edition of Basekabaka be Buganda, printed in England in 1901 and
numbering some 500 copies, was put on sale in Uganda in 1902 at 5 rupees per copy.
The price was soon reduced to three rupees. Already by 1912 a second edition
containing some new material appeared, including an account of the return of Kabaka
Mwanga’s body from the Seychelles, where he had died in 1903 in exile. This was
followed in 1927 with a third edition also containing new additional sections on some
neighbouring countries, such as Bunyoro, Ankole and Toro. This last edition was
reprinted in 1953 by the Uganda Bookshop and sold out within a few years. ROWE, J.
A. Myth, Memoir and Moral Admonition, p. 17–21.
32
ROWE, J. A. Myth, Memoir and Moral Admonition, p. 17–21.

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demonstrated by an ever-growing volume of Luganda written sources, both

published and unpublished which have recently been coming to light. The
wealth of family papers, for example, has only begun to be explored. 33
Most Baganda of Sir Apolo Kaggwa’s generation had acquired literacy after
enduring many hardships sometimes incurring physical risk in so doing. 34 The
civil succession wars of 1888 – 1892 saw the triumph of the Christian converts.
The Protestant-Catholic coalition had gained sole control over the political
hierarchy and those who were not in communion with them or with the
recognised Muslim minority, had no other alternative but to join one of the
religious parties. 35 Victorious Christians swept all the unsuccessful from their
posts. Christianity and literacy, for these two things were inseparably
connected, came to be viewed as the key to social and political advancement. 36
The turn of the century became the beginning of a busy period in Luganda
historical writing, when a number of Kaggwa’s contemporaries, both Christian
and Muslim, started to write to complement Kaggwa’s books, correct him,
provide some new information or reassess the historical events from their point
of view. Kaggwa seems to have started at an early date to record the turbulent
events of the 1880s and 1890s. According to R. Ashe of the C. M. S. mission,
already by 1894 Kaggwa had written a tiny booklet on The Wars of Buganda
(Entalo Za Buganda), which is, however, no longer extant. Starting with
Basekabaka be Buganda in 1901, Kaggwa’s other historical writings followed:
Ekitabo kye Empisa Za Baganda (The Book of the Traditions and Customs of
the Baganda), first published in 1905; Ekitabo Ky’Ebika bya Abaganda (The
Book of the Clans of the Baganda), published in 1908; and the book of the

33
Ibid.
34
ROWE, J. A. The Purge of Christians at Mwanga s Court, also ROWE, J. A. Baganda
Chiefs who Survived Kabaka Mwanga’s Purge of 1886. A paper obtainable from
Makerere Institute of Social Research. Kampala, date unknown.
35
LOW, D. A. Religion and Society in Buganda, 1875 – 1900. In East African Studies,
1957, No. 8, p. 16–18; LOW, D. A. Uganda and the British, 1862 ‒ 1900, an
unpublished Ph.D. Thesis. Oxford, Exeter College 1957.
36
ROSCOE, J. Rev. KAGGWA A. Katikiro and Regent of Uganda In Church
Missionary Gleaner, July 1, 1902, p. 108. Kaggwa himself described how at first he
alone adopted new customs and work habits, beginning on 31st January 1890, with his
purchase of a watch. Others laughed at him at first, but later followed him. He went on
to reform the slopshod procedure of the lukiiko, purchased a horse (September 1902);
built a two-storey brick house (July 1894); bought a kerosene lamp (January 1896); and
a bicycle (1898) and began writing his first book. In 1894, he also adopted the custom
of eating while seated at a table instead of upon mats spread on the floor, and of
drinking tea instead of banana beer. Quoted from FALLERS L. A. Social Mobility,
Traditional and Modern. In FALLERS, L. A. (ed.). The King s Men, Leadership and
Status in Buganda on the Eve of Independence, p. 183.

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Grasshopper clan, Ekitabo Kya Kika Kye Nsenene, published in 1904. The latter
was the first production on a small printing press which was presented to the
katikkiro by the Foreign Office when Kaggwa and Mukasa visited England for
Edward VII’s coronation in 1902. Besides these major historical writings, in
1902 Kaggwa produced his first edition of Baganda Fables (Engero za
Baganda), reprinted by Sheldon Press in 1920. 37
Kaggwa’s major historical works were written between 1900 ‒ 1912, some
thirty years after the Luganda language had been committed to writing. After
1912 Kaggwa stopped writing, except for a few occasional articles he
contributed to the Ebifa, a C.M.S. newspaper. The three most outstanding
historical works, Basekabaka be Buganda, Ekitabo Kye Empisa za Baganda and
Ekitabo Ky’ Ebika bya Abaganda, supplement each other and together cover
every aspect of Kiganda history society, dynastic, military, political, cultural
and social. Kaggwa’ s sources were, as in contemporary historical fieldwork,
oral traditions. Kaggwa acted as a collector of traditions for the missionary John
Roscoe. The information he had collected for Roscoe in Luganda he wrote
down and the notes provided the basis for his own writings. As Dr. Kiwanuka
suggested, it seems that Kaggwa was prompted to write in Luganda what John
Roscoe was already writing in English. 38
As has been mentioned, the interest that Sir Apolo Kaggwa took in recording
the past and the importance he attached to preserving the written word were not
exceptional, they were shared and followed by a number of his contemporaries,
Baganda amateur historians, who wrote to complement Kaggwa’s books,
correct him or provide new information. The literary atmosphere provided by
the mission stations and the publication of Apolo Kaggwa’s works acted as a
stimulus to Luganda historical as well as non-historical writing. Kaggwa was
a leading Protestant and his interpretation of history provoked a number of
counter-studies by Catholic and Muslim Baganda. 39 They had consulted a wide
variety of oral informants for the times past and, recalling the days of their

37
PAWLIKOVÁ, V. Sir Apolo Kaggwa and the Origins of Luganda Literature. In
Asian and African Studies, 1975, XI., pp. 197–203.
38
KAGGWA, Sir. A. The Kings of Buganda, p. 256; were translated and edited by M.
S. M. Kiwanuka and published by East African Publishing House, Nairobi – Dar es
Salaam – Kampala, in 1971 as the first volume in a new series of historical texts of
Eastern and Central Africa. The part of Basekabaka covering the colonial period was,
however, skipped from this publication ROSCOE, J. The Baganda. An Account of their
Native Customs and Beliefs.
39
PAWLIKOVA-VILHANOVÁ, V. The Challenge of Writing a History: Early
Luganda Historical Writing and Buganda’s Ekitiibwa and Position in Colonial Uganda.
In PAWLIKOVA-VILHANOVÁ, V., MOUMOUNI, S. (Eds.). Voices of Africa’
s Pasts, pp. 145–160.

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youth, they were able to contribute much from their own first hand experience.
Since 1911, when the White Fathers first published their newspaper Munno, the
Baganda have been contributing historical articles in that paper as well as in
Ebifa, a C. M. S. newspaper. Alifunsi Aliwali, who acted as a collector of oral
traditions for Bishop Gorju, 40 has been one outstanding contributor to the
missionary newspaper Munno. From among works by other Baganda historians,
the following deserve to be mentioned here: Prince Ggomotoka’s massive seven
volume hand written history of Buganda entitled appropriately Makula
(Treasure), 41 John Míti’s unpublished Short History of Buganda (Ebyafayo bya
Buganda); Hamu Mukasa’s three volumes of historical narrative and personal
memoirs entitled Simuda Nyuma (Don’t Turn Back) and the Rev. Bartalomayo
Zimbe’s Buganda ne Kabaka (Buganda and Kabaka) published on the
Gambuze Press in 1938. 42 As Dr.Rowe has pointed out, there seems to have
evolved a literary tradition in Buganda that ageing prominent Baganda of the
turn of the century generation should set their pens to paper to revive their
generation’s ekitiibwa (prestige or honour), to recount their lives or expound
their principles so that others may profit by their example. 43 Many early hand-
written Luganda historical texts kept in the Makerere University Library have
never been translated and published, some early editions were published only in
the original African language and are now almost impossible to get hold of.
Works authored by participants and eye witnesses of historical events, namely
John Miti or, Rev.Bartolomayo Zimbe are the best available sources on the last
two turbulent decades of the nineteenth century history of Buganda. Hamu
Mukasa’s monumental work entitled Simuda Nyuma (Don’t Turn Back), three
volumes of historical narrative and personal memoirs also dedicated to the
1880s and 1890s could also be mentioned. An example of African historical
texts awaiting translation and publication is also the famous book Basekabaka
40
GORJU, J. L. Entre le Victoria, l’ Albert et l’ Edouard.
41
Prince Ggomotoka was the former ssabalangira (the head of princes). He began his
book in 1920 as the history of the Baganda royal family. Two decades later, at the time
of his death, it was not quite finished.
42
The first volume of Mukasa s Simuda Nyuma (Go Forward), subtitled “Ebiro by
Mutesa” (The Reign of Mutesa), was published in London in 1938 by the Society for
Promoting Christian Knowledge. The second volume Ebya Mwanga (That of Mwanga)
appeared in 1942 and the third volume allegedly sent to Bishop Willis in England, who
was to have seen it through publication, was lost. Dr. Rowe discovered a carbon copy of
the lost volume at Kwata Mpola House, the home of the late Hamu Mukasa, in March
1964. For details see his article, Myth, Memoir and Moral Admonition, op.cit. An
English translation of Miti´s manuscript was also supposedly sent to Bishop Willis in
England at about the same time as Mukasa´s lost volume. See ibid.
43
For the definition of the term ekitiibwa see ILIFFE, J. Honour in African History, pp.
167–168.

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be Buganda by Sir Apolo Kaggwa, the first half of which up to the death of
kabaka Mutesa in 1884 was translated into English, edited and published as The
Kings of Buganda by M.S.M. Semakula Kiwanuka in the course of writing his
University of London PhD. dissertation. 44
The Baganda made good use of access to literacy and turned the newly
acquired skill into a useful tool for their own and their country’s advancement.
The interpretation of the past led to the rise of a rich historiographical tradition
and became a variable in making and influencing colonial politics and the
attitude of the colonial administration to different religio-political groups or
individuals. 45 For a number of reasons Baganda Catholic historiography
produced to counter Kaggwa’s version of events is less rich than the
historiography written by the Protestant Baganda and historical writings in
Luganda by Muslim Baganda authors are even more sparse. To quote John
Rowe, “by the 1920s two schools of history had emerged – a Protestant school
of interpretation, the established school – and a Catholic revisionist school. In
the 1930s they were joined (to no one´s surprise) by an emergent Muslim school
of historiography with its own interpretations and canons of selectivity”. 46 The
reason for this later start of Muslim historiography may have been the minority
status of Baganda Muslims in Buganda, many of whom after their defeat in
1893 scattered to neighbouring countries. After the defeat of the Muslim faction
in the civil wars, the crush of the anti-British rebellion in 1899 and especially
after 1900 and the signing of the Uganda Agreement, the religion of the cross
triumphed over the religion of the crescent and Muslims fell into third place
behind the two Christian groupings, Protestant and Catholic. Islam became an
expression of an alternative culture in a colonial society dominated by European
or Western Christian culture and civilisation. Islamic identity differenciated
Muslims culturally from their colonial masters. Adoption of Islam by new

44
It was published by the East African Publishing House in Nairobi in 1971, the second
half has only been published in Luganda. The first English translation of Basekabaka
was made by Simon Musoke at the East African Institute of Social Research in the early
1950s. In the late 1960s there was a handwritten English translation kept in the
Makerere University library.
45
PAWLIKOVA-VILHANOVÁ, V. The Challenge of Writing a History: Early
Luganda Historical Writing and Buganda’s Ekitiibwa and Position in Colonial Uganda
PAWLIKOVA-VILHANOVÁ, V., MOUMOUNI, S. (eds.). Voices of Africa’ s Pasts,
p. 155. Twaddle, M.: The Bible, the Qur’ an and Political Competition in Uganda. In
KASTEFELT, N. (ed.). Scriptural Politics. The Bible and the Koran as Political
Models in the Middle East and Africa, pp. 139–154.
46
ROWE, J. A. Progress and a sense of identity, pp. 23–34. Also his Myth, Memoir, and
Moral Admonition, op. cit. and TWADDLE, M. On Ganda Historiography. In History
in Africa. A Jounal of Method. 1974, Vol. I., pp. 85–100, pp. 86–88.

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converts could symbolise a search for a new identity owing no intellectual

inspiration to European presence, Islamic conversion could also become an
expression of an anti-colonial stance and resistance to European dominance and
oppressive colonial regime.
In their historical writings, Ebyafayo Ebitonotono Kudini Ye Kiyisiramu
Okuyingira mu Buganda (A Short History of the Coming of the Muslim
Religion to Buganda) by Haji Ssekinwanyi, Ebyafayo bye Ntaloze Ddini mu
Buganda (A History of the Wars of Religion in Buganda) by Abdul Nyzani and
Ekitabo k’ Ebyafayo Ebyantalo za Kabaka Mwanga, Kiwewa ne Kalema (An
Introduction to the History of the Wars of Kings Mwanga, Kiwewa and
Kalema) by Bakale Mukasa bin Mayanja, to mention just a few, Baganda
Muslim authors tried to rewrite the history of the turbulent period, correct
mistakes and false interpretations on the part of Baganda Christian historians
and argue their own views. Historical accounts, memoirs and participation
histories written by Muslims present a corrective Muslim version of the wars of
religion in Buganda, of the history of the introduction of Islam into the
Lacustrine region or of the Buganda-Bunyoro wars and the British colonial
conquest and thus serve as a useful counterbalance to dominant Protestant and
Catholic historiographies.
Historical works also started to be written in neighbouring Bunyoro. The two
kings, Kabaka Mwanga of Buganda and Omukama Kabarega of Bunyoro,
waging a long drawn out guerrilla war, were captured by British troops on 9
April 1899 and deported first to Kisimayu and later to the Seychelles. 47 The two
defeated and deposed African rulers shared their exile on Mahé, the largest of
the Seychelles Islands, with Agyeman Prempeh, the ex-king of the Asante
Kingdom. During their long banishment the rulers tried to come to terms with
the world of new ideas, modernisation, Christianity and education. As the
government of the Seychelles reported to London in November 1901: “Ex-king
Prempeh and the Queen Mother have been for some time regular attendants at
the Anglican Church, and the spectacle of Prempeh, the Queen Mother and the
two ex-kings of Uganda, Mwanga and Kabarega, sitting side by side in church
is not devoid of interest.” 48 Throughout the long period of their exile, both
rulers, Prempeh and his co-prisoner Kabarega, converted to Christianity and
learned to speak, read, and write in English, and also saw to it that any member
of their entourage who wanted baptism received it. 49 They also insisted that free
education would be provided, especially to children.
47
PAWLIKOVA-VILHANOVÁ, V. History of Anticolonial Resistance and Protest in
The Kingdoms of Buganda and Bunzoro, 1862 – 1899, pp. 226–272.
48
Quoted in Otumfuo, Nana Agyeman Prempeh I. The History of Ashanti Kings and the
whole country itself and other writings. Chapter 2, p. 28.
49
Kabaka Mwanga died in 1903.

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Omukama Kabarega, who during his long exile became literate, also became
interested in preserving for posterity some information on the kingdom of
Bunyoro before its loss of independence. The information was recorded and
published by one of his sons, Tito Winyi, who spent the years between 1910
and 1920 in the Seychelles acting as private secretary to his father Omukama
Kabarega. Kabarega was in 1923 allowed to return to Uganda, but died at Jinja
while on his way back to his kingdom. Tito Winyi succeeded to the throne of
Bunyoro as Omukama after the sudden death of his half-brother Duhaga on 30
March 1924. Between 1935 and 1937 Sir Tito Winyi published in the Uganda
Journal a series of articles both in Runyoro and English using the initials K.W.
(Kabarega – Winyi) to indicate that it was a joint venture of his father and
himself. 50
Runyoro historical writings are not so abundant. Petero Bikunya’s
Ky’Abakama ba Bunyoro Kitara, a short history of Bunyoro, published in 1927
could be mentioned. Twenty years later, a detailed history of Bunyoro Kitara
written in Runyoro, Abakama ba Bunyoro-Kitara, from the pen of a Munyoro
historian John Nyakatura, appeared. Since this early edition originally published
in Canada was very difficult to obtain, Godfrey Uzoigwe prepared and
published in 1973 a new, English edition. 51
The rich corpus of historical texts in Luganda and to a lesser extent in
Runyoro present the Baganda and Banyoro perceptions of the past of the two
kingdoms and by revealing the nature of the Baganda-British and Banyoro-
British encounters from the their own, African point of view, can serve as
a useful balance to other historical sources, especially the European ones.

REFERENCES

Archival Sources
Church Missionary Society Archives, Birmingham.
Public Record Office, London, KewWhite Fathers (Missionaries of Africa) Archives,
Rome.

Luganda and Runyoro Sources (both published and unpublished).

BIKUNYA, Petero. Ky’Abakama ba Bunyoro Kitara [A short history of Bunyoro].
London, The Sheldon Press 1927.

50
K. W. The Kings of Bunyoro-Kitara. Part I. In Uganda Journal, 1935, Vol. 3, No. 1,
pp. 155–160; K. W. The Kings of Bunyoro, Part II. In Uganda Journal, 1936, Vol. 4.
No. 1, pp. 75–83; K. W. The Kings of Bunyoro-Kitara, Part III. In Uganda Journal,
1937, Vol. 5, No. 1, pp. 53–68.
51
Published as Anatomy of an African Kingdom. A History of Bunyoro-Kitara. 1973.

208
 Encountering Islam and Christianity in sub-Saharan Africa: from Orality to Literacy …

KAGGWA, Apolo Sir. Ekitabo Kya Basekabaka be Buganda [The Kings of Buganda].
London and Kampala, 1901.
KAGGWA, Apolo Sir. The Kings of Buganda. Nairobi, Dar es Salaam, Kampala: East
African Publishing House, 1971.
K. W. The Kings of Bunyoro-Kitara. Part I. In Uganda Journal, 1935, Vol. 3, No. 2,
pp. 155–160.
K. W. The Kings of Bunyoro, Part II. In Uganda Journal, 1936, Vol. 4, No. 1, pp. 75–
83.
K. W. The Kings of Bunyoro-Kitara, Part III. In Uganda Journal, 1937, Vol. 5, No. 1,
pp. 53–68.
KINTU, Ereiza. Sulutoni Anatoloka [The King has escaped]. Kampala: Baganda C. S.
Press, 1950.
MAYANJA, Bakale Mukasa bin. Akatabo k’Ebyafayo Ebyantalo za Kabaka Mwanga,
Kiwewa ne Kalema [An Introduction to the History of the Wars of Kings Mwanga,
Kiwewa and Kalema] Mengo, 1937.
MITI, J. K. Ebyafayo bya Buganda... [A Short History of Buganda]. Bunyoro, Busoga,
Ankole and Toro, 1938. Unpublished typescript, both in Luganda and English.
Available from Makerere University Library.
MUKASA, Ham. Simuda Nyuma [Go Forward], Vol. 1. Subtitled “Ebiro by Mutesa”
[The Reign of Mutesa]. London: Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, 1938.
MUKASA, Ham. Simuda Nyuma [Go Forward], Vol. 2, Ebya Mwanga [That of
Mwanga]. London: Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, 1942.
MUKASA, Ham. Simuda Nyuma, [Go Forward], Vol. 3. The third volume which had
allegedly been sent to Bishop Willis in England, who was to have seen it through
publication, was lost. A carbon copy was found by Prof. Rowe in the house of the late
Hamu Mukasa.
MUKASA, Ham. Some Notes on the Reign of Mutesa. In Uganda Journal, Vol. 2,
No.1, l934, pp. 60–70 (both in Luganda and English).
MULLINS, J. D. The Wonderful Story of Uganda. London: C. M. S., 1904. Includes
early memoirs of a leading Protestant convert Hamu Mukasa.
NYAKATURA, John. Abakama ba Bunyoro-Kitara [The Kings of Bunyoro-Kitara].
Canada: St. Justin, P. Q., 1947.
NYAKATURA, John. Anatomy of an African Kingdom. A History of Bunyoro-Kitara.
Edited, with Introduction and Notes by Godfrey N. Uzoigwe. Translated by Teopista
Muganwa. New York, Anchor Press, 1973.
NYZANI, Abdul. Ebyafayo bye Ntaloze Ddini mu Buganda [A History of the Wars of
Religion in Buganda]. Katwe, n. d.
SEKIMWANYI, Sheikh Haji A. M. Ebyafayo Ebitonotono Kudini Ye Kiyisiramu
Okuyingira mu Buganda [A Short History of Islam]. Kampala, n. d., Baganda: C. S.
Press, 1947.
ZIMBE, B. M. Buganda ne Kabaka. [Buganda and Kabaka] Mengo: Gambuze Press,
1938.

209
Asian and African Studies, Volume 25, Number 2, 2016

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