678 BANTU NEGEOES 



this Spirit of the Waters on a headland about twenty miles to the west ot 

 Entebbe, which was destroyed by Mwanga, more with the idea of seizmg- 

 the vast stock of goods which had accumulated there by religious offerings, 

 than because .of his conversion to Christianity. The men— apart from 

 doctors and wizards — who were specially attributed to the cult of the various 

 deities and ancestral spirits in the Uganda religion were termed " Bamandwa." 

 Their functions, clothing, and practices were very similar to the priests of 

 the Bachwezi in Unyoro. They usually wore little white goat skins as 

 aprons, and were adorned with various charms, such as antelope horns, 

 containing mysterious rubbish believed to be medicine. The " Mandwa," 

 or priest, was also a diviner, able by supernatural means to answer questions 

 put to him as to an oracle. If a man was travelling and wished for news 

 of his parents and his wife, he went to the Mandwa, who, furnished 

 with his nine kauri shells sewn on a strip of leather, would with this strip 

 (which was called "Engato") make the sign of the cross and fling 

 it before him, and then, as if inspired, would reply to the questions. 

 Some diviners naturally enjoyed greater repute than others for the fidelity 

 of their predictions or prognostications. It is a curious fact, attested by 

 several missionaries who are authorities as to the practices of the Baganda 

 before Christianity was introduced, that the cross was often employed as a 

 mystic symbol by the priests who directed the worship of the spirits. The 

 priests of the Uganda Neptune (Mukasa) carried a paddle as the emblem 

 of their office or as a walking-stick. 



History in Uganda goes back with a certain proportion of probability 

 and truth to about the middle of the fourteenth century of our era, when 

 the w-estern coast-lands of the Victoria Nyanza were regarded as loosely held 

 appanages of the two or three Hima kingdoms which stretched over Unyoro, 

 Toro, Ankole, and Karagwe. Possibly for reasons of health the Bahima did 

 little to occupy the richly forested countries of Kiagwe, Uganda, Buddu, 

 Kisiba, etc. They appHed the term "Bairo," or "slaves," to the Negro 

 races living in these well-forested countries from which the Bahima aristo- 

 crats on the interior plateaux derived coffee berries and bark-cloth. Some 

 450 years ago (if one may venture to estimate the lapse of time by native 

 tradition as to the number of kings that have reigned since then) a Muhima 

 hunter from Unyoro, who went by the name of Muganda, or " the brother,"* 



* The root " -ganda,'' in the language of Uganda, means, ■with the prefix " Mu-," 

 " brother " or '" cousin " (son of father's brother). " Buganda " should theoretically 

 mean " brotherhood," but " Muganda " means nothing in the language of the Bahima 

 (Urunyoro). There is probably not much truth in the legend that the first sovereign 

 of these countries was called " Muganda," and gave his name to the land. _ On parts 

 of the southern shore of the Victoria Nyanza there are lands or districts called 

 " Bugando," and it is possible that this name "Buganda" may have long been 

 hanging about the western half of the Victoria Nyanza, and that it existed as a 

 place-name before the Baganda had deflected the root to mean " brother." 



