The Banyoro People | Culture & Kingdom of Bunyoro

The banyoro culture: The Banyoro people are found in the west of Uganda around the districts of Hoima, Kibale and Masindi. Their origins can be traced from Congo region and they speak Bantu language

The banyoro culture used pet names when greeting one another but when they are related for example sisters, the young one sits on the laps of the elder one and the young one would go ahead and touch the elders chin and forehead with their right hand fingers which was a common character among one of the clans known as the Babiito. For visitors, after greeting them there were given coffee berries that were kept for them and they would also offer a tobacco pipe to visitors for smoking

Greeting the King

Greeting the King was never done in any ordinary way, they had to follow certain procedures and in that case if the king was in a residence, they would advertise his presence and he would sit in the location advertised to some time that would be specified and subjects would go to see him and the practice was known as ‘’okurata’’ in their local language. There were many ways of addressing the king at different times of the day and the King was never expected to reply the greetings verbally.

In the case of addressing the King, the words used had to be different from those used to addressing the common men and for the case of women, they had to kneel down greeting the King in a normal word and he would answer verbally.

 Naming and giving birth

Among the banyoro , the banyoro culture a child was named after three months if it was a boy and for the girl was always named after four months. During the naming a child a ceremony would be made and the newly born baby would be named and given a pet name known as ‘’empako’’ in their tradition. The child would be named by a grandparent, parent or any other relative but the father always had the last say in the naming if he was available. Family names were said to celebrate a relative, circumstances surrounding the child’s birth or a mark on the child which differed considerably.

There were special names for twins and the ones following them though the majority portrayed the state of mind of the person responsible for naming them. There were names related to sorrow and death, experience, anticipation of poverty, hatred of one’s neighbor, misfortune, etc. Names like Alinjunaki, Balewenda, Tibanagwa, Bagamba, Bikanga, Babyenda, itima, and Nsekanabo among others.

For the matter of giving birth to twins called for celebrations and they were given names like Isingoma and Kato for the boys the elder one and the young one respectively, and for the girls they were named Nyangoma the elder and Nyakato for the younger one. The next born would also receive special names like Kiiza and Kahwa and for the parents were respected and addressed with titles like Isebarongo for the father and the Nyinabarongo for the mother. In a case when a twin died they never considered him dead, they instead to have flown away known as guruka in the same language.

Political setup

The Banyoro had a centralized system of government and their leader was a king known as Omukama and his position was hereditary. He was the most important person in the kingdom and he had provincial chiefs and a council of notables who assisted in administrative matters. The King was the commander in chief of the armed forces and each provincial chief was a commander sanctioned in his province of a military detachment.

The King was assisted by a council of advisors known as people who worn crowns made from monkey skins called ‘’Bwijwara nkondo’’ in their local language. Chiefs had to pass through a political school in Mwenge and each chief had to send his favorite son to the Kings court as a sign of commitment.

Leadership was not constricted to men, the Nyakauma, the kogire rulers of Busongora were women and there were other people who were so important to the kingdom politically and the prime minister known as Bamuroga, the physician who was the Nyakoba from the Basuli clan, Nyamumara of the Batwaire clan and the king who was from the Mubiito Clan

Banyoro as a kingdom was initially bigger than the present district of Masindi, Hoima and Kibale the legendary Bunyoro – Kitara Kingdom from which the kingdom emerged and became a very big empire. This empire was founded by the Bachwezi and later collapsed. It was the biggest and the strongest kingdom but later became very weak and it fell to the expanding regions

In Bunyoro the duties of political authority started from the household where it was started with being a family head known as the Nyineka in their local language which was inherited by the first born in the family in case the family head had died.

 The village was politically organized and each village had a specially recognized elder known as mukuru w’omugongo that was selected from among the elders meant to be an intermediary between them and the chiefs. He also had an informal court composed of him and a few elders who settled village disputes.

Courtship and marriage

Traditionally, looking for a suitable partner was a very important matter which involved the family of the boy and that of the eventual bride and the whole process was contributed by the girls consent after the mutual attraction between the girl and a boy with a sexual relationship willingly entered into which was followed by establishment of a domestic arrangement.

The Banyoro were polygamous if they had the potential to look after them and bride wealth was not so much of a prerequisite as it was in most societies. Bride wealth could be paid later because most marriages were unstable therefore divorce was frequent and there were many unions in an informal unions because the survival of marriage was not formally assured.

Payment of bride wealth was usually done after making sure that there is some stability in the level of marriage achieved and that was after some years of marriage. Formalization of payment would normally follow but not prior these arrangements. There was also a behavior of finding girls from the same locality and only a few would look for wives from beyond their villages  

Empaga ceremonies

The Banyoro observed new moon ceremonies where people would gather at the Kings courts to dance to the music played by the royal bands men and this ceremony was to celebrate the Omukama’s having lived to see the new moon. The royal bands men participated in paying drums, flutes, relays and other wind instruments.

This ceremony for the new moon could go for a few days at the king’s palace and there was also an annual celebration for the period of nine days and there was also an arrangement for the seven days being celebrated at the king’s mother’s compound. This ceremony is normally held in the in period of either December or January.

The examples of pet names include Abwoli, Akiiki, Atwooki. Apuuli, among others.

Food and beverages

Their staple food is millet, potatoes, bananas, beans and meat and certain foods were for functions. For visitors they would serve them millet and meat, potatoes were not served to visitors except in times of scarcity

Economic set up

Land was important asset and Bunyoro was a center of trade. There was salt trading from the salt deposits of Lake Katwe, Kasenyi and kabiro as well as iron-ore deposits near Masindi. The Banyoro were excellent iron smiths and this attracted many societies to come to Bunyoro for trade. The Banyoro were also experts in making red-hoes which were much required by the societies east of Lake Kyoga.

Death

The Banyoro had a fear for death that it was being caused by Ghosts and other factors like actions of bad neighbors and also being harmed by gossip and ill wishers. Whenever a person died, old women of the house hold would shave his hair and beard, close the eyes, cut their finger nails and wash the whole corpse and the body was left to remain in the house for some time with its face uncovered whereas for the case of the women and the children were allowed to weep but the men were not supposed to do so.

In case the head of the family died, some grains of millet mixed with simsim were placed in the right hand which the mixture was known as ensingonsingo. Each of the dead man’s children was required to take a small quantity of the mixture from the dead man’s hand and eat it and then they would wrap the corpse in backcloth depending on his wealth. Then one of the nephews had to perform a ritual where he had to wretch out a central pole of the house and throw it in the middle if the compound. Then continue by taking a dead man’s eating basket out known as endiiro and his bow. There would also be no more fire for cooking in the house for the first three days because it was extinguished for mourning.

There was a heap of the dead man’s utensils put in the compound and they also added a banana plantation with a fruit on it and then the nephew of the dead man would go to the well and bring some water in one of the pots for the house hold and then throw it down among the heap of the dead man’s utensils. He also had to catch a dead man’s cock and kill it to prevent it from crowing where the chief bull’s testicles were also bounded at once to prevent it from any mating activity during the time of mourning.

The bull would be slaughtered after four days and eaten and the act of killing male animals was known as mugambuzi and the ceremony was concluded after four days of mourning. The dead man’s house would not be lived in again

The burial would normally take place either in the morning or in the afternoon and it was considered dangerous for the sun to shine directly to the grave.  When the body was being taken the grave, usually women were required to moderate their weeping and for the pregnant women’s case they were not allowed to burry because they had a belief that the woman might miscarry.

They followed some culture where they laid the body of the man on the right side and the woman on the left side because they had a belief that they were appropriate to adopt sleeping and no one had to leave the graveyard before the burial was completed. After all the burials, the used to dig the grave and the basket used to carry the soil were left by the grave-side. People would wash themselves thoroughly and remove all the soil for it was believed that if one walked in a garden with the soil on, all the crops would wither and rot.

People also would cut hair from their backs and front of their heads and throw it on the grave after burial and marked the grave with stones and iron rods because they believed if one built the grave the members of the household might fall sick and die.

If a person died with grudges against anyone, their mouth would be staffed with clay and this was done to prevent the spirit of the dead person from haunting them.