Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 25, 1914.djvu/471

 T7'aditions of (he Baoanda and BusJioiigo. 437

But the version preferred by Mr. Roscoe as " history" is different. According; to him "the history and traditions of the country commence " with Kintu. " The history previous to his reign is lost ; the one estabh'shed fact is that the country was inhabited." This must iiave been, because several of the clans claim to have been already in the country when Kintu came. Nambi, his wife, in this version, far from having been a daughter of the King of Heaven, belonged to the Colobus Monkey clan. Though king, Kintu lived alone for some time ; and she was at last given to him " by the god Gulu out of compassion." It is un- lawful to say that a king has died : he only disappears. Accordingly the legend goes that Kintu, as well as his son and successor Cwa, disappeared. This is probably an ^etiological story, the object of which is to account for an item of court etiquette. For another account states that he died and was buried, and that his jawbone was taken away by a medicine-man and placed in a temple built to him on Magonga Hill. It was the custom, up to the death of the late king's grandfather about thirty years ago, to remove the jawbone and enshrine it in this way as a sacred relic. The temples of the deceased kings are scattered about on the hills of the country, and each is supposed to possess the jawbone of the monarch whose name it bears.^**

But for Sir Harry Johnston, even this comparatively sober version is pure myth. In the version which he narrates the first king of Uganda was a Hima from Unyoro. His name was Muganda. He came into the Katonga valley, which bounds Uganda on the south, with a pack of dogs (otherwise, a single white dog), a woman, a spear and a shield. Being an expert hunter, he acquired influence with the natives, who made him their chief. He took possession of the whole country from the Katonga to the Nile, and called it Buganda from his own name, he himself taking the new name of Kimera.^^ It is hardly "Roscoe, i86j<p<7. "Jolinston, i/./'., 678.