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.