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19 February 2008
Dr Shane Doyle, University of Leeds and Assist. Professor Neil Kodesh, University of Wisconsin, Madison
Health, death and identity in Uganda, from the pre-colonial to the post-colonial
Abstract
Traditional sources tell us relatively little about how Africans perceived death in the past. In some societies, however, changing attitudes towards mortality can be identified from the names which were given to babies. In Bunyoro almost a third of names that were given during the colonial period referred to death. The declining frequency of death-related names from the 1940s offers significant insights into the impact of Christianity, education and population growth on the Nyoro's worldview. That death-related names did not re-emerge in the era of AIDS is a significant indication of how the pandemic has been viewed in western Uganda.
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Public Healing and Political Violence in Buganda, East Africa
Assist. Professor Neil Kodesh, University of Wisconsin, Madison
Most accounts of the history of Buganda, a kingdom located on the northwest shores of Lake Victoria in present-day Uganda, acknowledge the centrality of violence in the kingdom's territorial expansion in the eighteenth century. Yet despite this acknowledgment, scholars of Buganda have paid surprisingly little attention to the manner in which Buganda's leaders managed to amass support for their expansionist endeavors and to the types of motivations, both ideological and material, that prompted participation in military expeditions. This essay offers a glimpse into these motivations by exploring the relationship between public healing and political violence in Buganda. Through an examination of the origins of Kibuuka, the most prominent spirit of warfare in the kingdom, as well as the ritual activities undertaken Kibuuka's principal shrine at Mbaale, I argue that public healers such as the priests and mediums who operated at shrines dedicated to national spirits of warfare played a critical and often overlooked role in determining the character of Ganda military pursuits. Focusing on the role of these marginalized historical actors illustrates how large-scale acts of public healing served as military rallies in the distant Ganda past, an observation that draws attention to the underexplored topic of slavery and dependence in Buganda.
There is no presentation for this part of the seminar.
view archived seminar webcast in Windows Media Player
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