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A Personal Journey into Custom, Identity, Power, and Politics: Researching and Writing the Life and Times of Buganda's Queen Mother Irene Drusilla Namaganda (1896–1957)1

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  13 May 2014

Nakanyike B. Musisi
Nakanyike B. Musisi*
Affiliation:
University of Toronto
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Extract

Biography is on its way to enjoying immense popularity in the teaching of African history. A number of reasons account for this optimism. First is the current impetus from the postmodernist challenge of universalist and essentialist categories—with their emphasis on the individual and their exhaustive exposition of power and language. Second is the existence of massive research projects presently underway, together with the success of already published monographs. And lastly is the popularity and success that African novels have enjoyed in the teaching field of African studies and African history in particular. All three combined make us more sanguine.

The popularity of African novels lies in their ability to convey to the reader how a society might have functioned with or without a state. Since most often a novelist tries to recreate a historical moment, a novel becomes a pedagogical tool of what Klein has called a “reasonable representation of what society may have been like.” In the most popularly utilized novels, an individual is cast at the center of the unfolding story. Most often, the African novel concerns itself with the impact of colonialism and the transition from traditional to contemporary African realities. This is frequently done with the aim of conveying to the reader the processes of adjustment and the pros and cons of this adjustment.

As a must, there is a stern, often cold, and not very understanding colonial agent or agents. He is not alone, but is paired with a sympathetic and liberal missionary (although generally one who imparts conservative Victorian values).

Type
Research Article
Information
History in Africa , Volume 23 , January 1996 , pp. 369 - 385
Copyright
Copyright © African Studies Association 1996

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Footnotes

1.

An earlier version of this paper was presented at a Workshop on “Biography In Eastern African Historical Writing” held at Oxford University, St Anthony College, 5-7 July 1995. I am grateful to David Anderson and the participants at this conference and in particular to John Rowe, Michael Twaddle, and Susan Geiger for their insightful comments. Many of their concerns have been taken in consideration in revising this paper. More research is still underway. I am grateful to Seggane Musisi and Gale MacDonald, who have coped with the momentous task of editing this paper.

References

Notes

2. See for example, Foucault, Michel, Power/Knowledge: Selected Interviews and Other Writings 1972-1977, trans. Gordon, C. (New York, 1980)Google Scholar; Bhabha, H.K., The Location of Culture. (New York, 1993)Google Scholar; Butler, J. and Scott, J.W, eds., Feminists Theorize the Political (New York, 1992)Google Scholar; Canning, K., “Feminists History After the Linguistic Turn: Historicizing Discourse and Experience,” Signs, 19 (1994), 368–404CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Nicholson, L., ed., Feminism/Postmodernism (New York, 1990).Google Scholar

3. See, for example, Wright, Marcia, “Women in Peril: A Commentary on the Life Stories of Captives in Nineteenth-Century East Africa” in African Social Research, 20 (1975), 800–19.Google ScholarMirza, Sarah and Strobel, Margaret, Three Swahili Women.Life Histories From Mombasa, Kenya (Bloomington, 1989)Google Scholar; Cromwell, Adelaide M., An African Victorian Feminist: The Life and Times of Adelaide Smith Casely Hayford, 1868-1960 (Washington, 1992)Google Scholar; Alpers, Edward A., “The Story of Swena: Female Vulnerability in Nineteenth Century East Africa” in Robertson, Claire C. and Klein, Martin A., eds., Women and Slavery in Africa (Madison:, 1983)Google Scholar; Smith, Mary F., Baba of Karo: A Woman of the Muslim Hausa (New Haven, 1954)Google Scholar; Romero, Patricia W., ed., Life Histories of African Women (London, 1987).Google Scholar

4. Personal communication, Martin A. Klein, who often uses novels in his classes.

5. One of the most successful novels is Emecheta, Buchi, The Joys of Motherhood (New York, 1979).Google Scholar

6. Although, initially, I had not intended to write a full biography.

7. Morris, H.F and Read, J.S, Uganda: The Development of its Laws and Constitution (London, 1966), 32.Google Scholar

8. Obbo, Christine, African Women: Their Struggle for Economic Independence (London, 1980), 46.Google Scholar

9. Ibid.

10. For example, see Mulira, E.M.K., Troubled Uganda (London, 1950), 23.Google Scholar Mulira wrote that “[i]n 1941, Buganda faced a storm, perhaps the greatest in this century. A sad thing happened…”

11. There are two ways of reading “hi/story” in this sense: as his story, i.e., Simoni Petero Kigozi's history; and as high story (a hot story).

12. Musisi, Nakanyike B., “Transformations of Baganda Women From the Earliest Times to the Demise of the Kingdom in 1967” (Ph.D., University of Toronto, 1991).Google Scholar

13. I am grateful to Luise White for this information, her belief in me, and her continued support and encouragement.

14. I am particularly thankful to the following people who were my research assistants in the initial stages of my research: Fred Bukulu, Godfrey Kigozi, Rachel Nakalembe, Sam Kibuuka and Aida Nabatanzi—all of Makerere University.

15. Contrary to what I had been told during my research interviews (and so included in my dissertation), Namaganda was not buried in an insignificant grave, but in one of the very few marble graves in the cathedral gardens.

16. Interview with Simoni Petero Kigozi, Ntida, June 1991.

17. For a good treatment of the Balokole Movement in Uganda see Robin, Catherine Allen, “Tukutendereza: A Study of Social Change and Sectarian Withdrawal in the Balokole Revival of Uganda” (Ph.D., Columbia University, 1975).Google Scholar

18. Since June 1991 I have had close to twenty-five interviews with Simon Petero Kigozi at his home.

19. I am particularly grateful and indebted to Simoni Petero Kigozi, without whom an insider's view would not have been possible, nor would the Queen Mother's biography have been so interesting.

20. While I am grateful to everyone I interviewed, I am particularly indebted to Rebecca Mulira, a young woman at the time of Namaganda's marriage. At the instigation of her father, Hamu Mukasa, she typed all the documents pertaining to the Lukiiko deliberations regarding Namsaganda's troubled years.

21. Of all the living witnesses whom I approached, only one refused to help. Nelson Sebugwawo was a young chief in 1957. From a picture of Namaganda's funeral, he had been singled out to me by one of my research assistants. It turned out that Sebugwawo had been one of the pallbearers, but for whatever reason—he claimed forgetfulness—he declined to be interviewed.

22. The haphazard manner has had some disguised psychological advantages. For example, the fact that I collected enough evidence on the death and burial scene made me write the death chapter in advance of earlier scenes. When I finished this chapter, I felt somehow lost and very sad. However, this sense of loss and depression soon died off as I started filling in the gaps of her earlier life. Thus from death she became alive to me and my pen again.

23. Geiger, Susan, “Women's Life Histories: Methods and Contents,” Signs, 11 (1986), 334–51.Google Scholar

24. Only one child died in infancy, their tenth baby girl.

25. Kendall, Paul Murray, “Walking the Boundaries” in Oates, Stephen B., ed., Biography as High Adventure (Amherst, MA., 1986), 39.Google Scholar

26. Interview with Clementi Katongole (Sekanyo), August 1994. Mr. Katongole was the Sabaganzi of King Daudi Chwa. He was the fourth of the Kaizi children, coming directly after Irene Drusilla Namaganda.

27. One impressive work is Cohen, David William and Odhiambo, E.S Atieno, Burying SM: The Politics of Knowledge and the Sociology of Power in Africa (London, 1992).Google Scholar

28. Kelly, Joan, Women, History, and Theory (Chicago, 1986), 19–50.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

29. Ibid., 4-5.

30. For a detailed discussion see Musisi, Nakanyike B., “Women, ‘Elite Polygyny,’ and Buganda State Formation,” Signs, 16 (1991), 757–86.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

31. Skocpol, Theda and Trimberger, Ellen Kay, “Revolutions and World-Historical Development of Capitalism,” Berkeley Journal of Sociology, 22 (1977/1978), 107.Google Scholar

32. Summers, Carol, “Intimate Colonialism: The Imperial Production of Reproduction in Uganda, 1907-1925,” Signs, 16 (1991), 787–807.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

33. N.B. Musisi, “Transformations of Baganda Women From the 13th Century to 1967,” forthcoming.

34. Ibid.

35. See Twaddle, Michael, “The Ending of Slavery in Buganda” in The End of Slavery in Africa, ed. Miers, Suzanne and Roberts, Richard (Madison, 1988), 119–49.Google Scholar

36. Musisi, “Transformations.” For example, restrictions on women's freedom of movement, missionary debates on the permissibility of bridewealth, and the colonial state's defense of polygyny.

37. Chanock's work on colonial Rhodesia is the most helpful in the development of such an analysis.

38. Kendall, , “Walking,” 40.Google Scholar