Wamala

Wamala, venerated by many people in Central Africa, is related to the great Kintu, founder of the Baganda peoples. Narratives of origin of the Baganda peoples attribute to Kintu, the great ancestor, the unity of the Baganda for which he stands as the central symbol. Baganda peoples' mythology claims their ancestry to Kintu as the son of one of the Kabakas who ruled over the region for many generations.

Although as the narrative unfolds this progeny may be unclear, the most accepted version seems to rely on the undisputed fact that Kintu settled in the Baganda region together with Bukulu. Here, Bukulu married Wadda and their progeny, distinguished by their exceptional qualities, entered their people's ancestral and mythological world through accomplishments and involvement in community life, natural phenomena, and the general affairs and ordeals of everyday living.

When the sun and moon fell out of the sky, Wanga is said to have restored the sun and the moon to the sky from where they had fallen; Muwanga, Bukulu's grandson, was appointed the ruler of the balubaale (ancestors) and ruler of all things; Musisi was the spirit/deity of earthquakes.

Musisi's sons, Wannema and Wamala, quarreled one day, and Wamala in anger went into the mainland, where, out of his urine, he made a lake that still bears his name and whose spirit/deity was Mukasa. Mukasa became the most respected god among the Baganda as reported by the Europeans when they arrived in the region in the 18th century.

Mukasa and Wamala are also known as Mugasha and Wamara and are at the forefront of a dynasty of rulers who entered the historic and mythological narratives of origin among the Baganda peoples as balubaale.

From 1300 to 1600, a period determined by the beginnings of the Cwezi empire and the establishment of the 3rd Rwanda dynasty, the political and social actualizations among a number of founding kingdoms in the southern and western parts of the interlacustrine regions of Central Africa produced, according to some authors, a shift in orientation as far as the ancestor veneration was concerned and transformed it into a kind of cult where Wamala remained as the central spirit figure for the Baganda, Bunyoro, Toro, and Buhaya, while in Rwanda, Burundi, Buha, Busumbwa, and Bunyanwezi, the venerated ancestor and spirit figure was Ryangombe.

These two separated traditions seem to have derived from the dissolution of an empire and the defeat of Wamala as a cultural hero, followed by the consequent transition and transformation of the Wamara custom and tradition into the Ryangombe culture. The political domination of the Rwanda state over the region gave Ryangombe prominence as the venerated ancestor, while the Wamala culture and tradition, diffused with the Hinda and extended in the ritual traditions of the Bunyoro and the Karangwe state, was losing influence. Warfare and political power [Page 703]in the region were therefore determinant factors in the spiritual and political orientation of the interlacustrine peoples, where the cultures of Wamala and Ryangombe also played a role as political opposites.

Along with ancestor veneration, ceremonies addressed to Wamala, Baganda rituals, and religious performances took place among the Cwezi and the Baganda under a common Ssese ancestry, in whose traditions Wamala and Mukasa were the central figures. Mukasa, the spirit of the Wamala Lake and the ruler of all the deities of place, is remembered as one of those who accompanied Wamara/Wamala in his passage into the underworld and the realm of the ancestors. As protectors of their people, Mukasa and Wamala conducted them in a long warfare of conquest around the lake, and their influence saved the Baganda from a military defeat.

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