Chapter IV

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UGANDA, AN AFRICAN KINGDOM

1. Central Africa

In the last chapter we read that the Arab merchants crossed the desert to buy ivory and goat-skins from the people who lived farther south. In these next two chapters we shall read about these people south of the desert. Their land lies in the very middle of Africa, and so is called Central Africa. It is a beautiful country, with many rivers and great lakes and mountains. Central and West Africa are also the very hottest part of this continent. Now when plants have a lot of water and a lot of sun they grow very quickly, and so Central Africa, with its hot sun and its great rivers and lakes, is a land of great forests. In these forests there are lions and leopards, elephants, and deer; and ivory and skins, as well as gold, have for many years been sold by the Central Africans to the traders from the desert. On the eastern side of this country there are more mountains, lakes, and small rivers; on the western side there are great rivers, all of which join one very large one called the Congo. In this chapter we shall read about some of the people who live on the eastern side on the shores of the largest of all the lakes--the one called Victoria Nyanza. These people are called the Baganda, and their country is Uganda.

2. The Baganda

The Baganda are dark-skinned Africans. They all belong to one tribe and speak one language, but all around them are other Africans belonging to different tribes and speaking different languages. About sixty years ago, when the grandfathers of the men who are alive now were still young, the first Europeans went to Uganda. Until that time the tribes in Central Africa had spent most of their time fighting one another, killing many and making others slaves. Some of these slaves were sold to the Arabs to take away to Zanzibar and across the sea, or to take across the desert to Egypt. Some tribes were much stronger than others, and some of these drove everyone else out of the country they had chosen for themselves and made a kingdom of it. One of these strong tribes was the Baganda. Others liked to wander from place to place, but the Baganda chose to settle down on the shores of the great Lake Victoria Nyanza, and to stay there always.

When Europeans went to Uganda they found the Baganda had a king to whom they paid great honour. The king had many officers under him. Some of these were the chiefs of different parts of the kingdom. Others had special work to do--one to hear all the lawsuits and to settle disputes, another to command the army. Others had to work in the king's household, to wait on his wives and children, or to beat the big drum to call the people when the king wanted them, or to take care that no one entered the palace unless the king wished them to do so. But whatever their work was, all the chiefs and officers and people honoured and obeyed the king, and, because in this way everyone was ready to fight or to work for the king and the rest of the nation, the Baganda were one of the strongest and wisest of all the African peoples.

The old dress of these people was a cloth, not sewn, but simply twisted tight round their body under their arms, and reaching nearly to the ground. Sometimes it was fastened also by a belt round the waist. The cloth is made from the bark of certain trees soaked in water and beaten hard for many days until it is soft and thin and strong like woven cloth. Their houses were round and built of reeds, with steep roofs which nearly reached to the ground. The smaller villages had only a few people in them, everyone in each village being related to the rest. But the Baganda also had big towns, the biggest to-day being Mengo, where the king lives. Here there were people gathered together for the king's work, and many others brought food and bark-cloth to market to sell. The houses of the king and the great chiefs were large and beautifully decorated with plaited reeds.

The chief food of the Baganda is plantains or bananas, which are peeled when unripe and wrapped in smoke-dried banana leaves. These packets are slowly cooked with very little water in earthenware cooking-pots. When the food is cooked it is pressed and beaten, and then the leaves are opened out and make a plate. Other things, such as beans and vegetables and fish, are cooked in the same way, wrapped in banana leaves and then eaten with the bananas.

Some of the Baganda fish in the lake, and when they go on journeys it is often quicker to travel by boat on the lake. Many Africans can only make boats out of rough tree-trunks with the inside scooped out, but the Baganda had learnt to build long, narrow boats with high carved wooden ends. These canoes shot through the water very swiftly, as twenty or thirty men paddled together in each boat. It is well they learnt to travel quickly, because the lake is very wide and distances are great. Often there are sudden, violent storms, which would overturn a clumsy boat. The carving on the boats and the beautiful reed-work on the chiefs' houses were different from the work of other African tribes. When people begin to try to make things beautiful as well as useful it is a sign that one day they will become wise and great.

3. Europeans Come to Uganda

In the old days the Baganda, like other African people, thought there were spirits in all the rivers and lakes and trees and everywhere, which could help or hurt men. The chief spirit they feared and to whom they offered sacrifice was the spirit of their lake, Victoria Nyanza. Their witch-doctors told the people when they thought this spirit was pleased or angry. These witch-doctors were often bad and cruel, and really cared more about getting all the power they could over the king and people than for anything else. Sometimes they said that people must be killed as a sacrifice to the Spirit of the Lake.

When Europeans first went to Uganda, a few went to trade, but most went to teach the Baganda about the Christians' God. Many boys went to their school near Mengo and were taught. But the witch-doctors grew frightened and persuaded the king to drive away all the Europeans, and to kill the Baganda who would not worship the Lake Spirit because they were Christians. Mutesa the king did this, killing the Christian Baganda boys very cruelly by burning them to death, and killing the European, Bishop Hannington, when he came. But in a few years there were more Christians than before, and now in Uganda the king and nearly all the chiefs and people are Christians, as well as many of the tribes living near them to whom the Baganda have sent teachers. All through the Christian African kingdom there are schools and hospitals. The Baganda were always strong, and now so many are Christians they have stopped fighting the other tribes and killing and making slaves, and instead they spend their time learning to make useful and beautiful things, which make their homes happier and more comfortable to live in. They quickly learn all they can from Europeans and Indians, and to-day, in Mengo and in the other large towns of Uganda, there are trains and motor-cars and stores, while steamers on the lake bring European and Indian things quickly from the coast towns. There are many Europeans and Indians living in Uganda, and this is a good thing, because when many people of different races meet, they learn from one another and so grow wiser.

4. Europeans help Africans

In this chapter we have read about one of the wisest tribes of the dark-skinned African people. The Arabs in the north came to Africa long ago from their own home in Asia, and the Europeans in the south came from their home in Europe. Both these races had learnt by themselves a great deal more than the African race has done. This is partly because their homes were not so hot, and so they had to think hard to get enough food and to keep warm. It is partly due, too, to the way in which for hundreds of years the people of Europe and Asia have been able to read and write, and have met and learnt from one another. The Africans never found out how to write, and so could only learn from each other by listening, never by reading. They were shut off from the rest of the world until one hundred years ago, and all they knew they had found out for themselves. But among the Africans some learnt more than others, and the Baganda are a tribe who used their minds as well as their bodies in becoming strong. So by thinking and learning they grew wise as well as powerful, and now Europeans and Indians have come to their country they are able to learn all these other races can teach them, which is far more than any one race could find out alone.