Those Who Came Before Us

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In this episode, we explore the role of horns in spiritual practice across kingdoms like Buganda, Bunyoro, and Busoga.
Often filled, sealed, and carried, these horns were believed to contain forces that could protect individuals from harm but also act against others.
Moving beyond simple explanations, this episode looks at how these practices reflect a broader worldview: one in which illness, misfortune, and even truth itself were tied to unseen forces that could be influenced, controlled, or resisted.
Sources
Bamunoba, Yoramu K.. The Cult of Spirits in Ankole. N.p.: Amazon Digital Services LLC - KDP Print US, 2019.

Beattie, J. H. M. (John). "Divination in Bunyoro, Uganda." Sociologus 14, no. 1 (1964): 44–61.

Bjerke, Svein. Religion and Misfortune: The Bacwezi Complex and the Other Spirit Cults of the Zinza of Northwestern Tanzania. Norway: Columbia University Press, 1981.

Culture Research Centre. Ritual Gestures in Busoga. Jinja, Uganda: Culture Research Centre, 2001.

Kodesh, Neil. Beyond the Royal Gaze: Clanship and Public Healing in Buganda. United Kingdom: University of Virginia Press, 2010.

Kyewalanga, Francis. Traditional Religion, Custom & Christianity in Uganda.
Okot P’Bitek, “Religion of the Central Luo” Kenya Literature Bureau University of Minnesota, 1978
Schoenbrun, David L.. The Names of the Python: Belonging in East Africa, 900 to 1930. United States: University of Wisconsin Press, 2021.

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This is the story I didn’t say.
In the main episode, I focused on what the envoys meant to Buganda.
 Here, I slow things down and follow their journey step by step from the Nile, through Sudan, into Egypt, and eventually to England.
This is a closer look at the places they passed through, the people they encountered, and the world they were trying to make sense of.
If you want to go deeper, I’ve put together a full written version on Substack, along with a Google Earth flyover map so you can actually trace the route for yourself.
Read the full article: (Substack link): https://open.substack.com/pub/thosewhocamebeforeus/p/the-envoys-who-saw-the-world?r=7y1sc9&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&showWelcomeOnShare=true

Explore the journey (Google Earth map): https://earth.google.com/earth/d/1LT04xJD8UvmNS2N_lqMOn4fiw6hqaVnf?usp=sharing
Click the slideshow for a better viewing experience.
Sources
Church Missionary Society. The Church Missionary Gleaner. Vol. 8. London: Church Missionary Society, 1881. 
Wilson, Charles T., and Robert W. Felkin. Uganda and the Egyptian Soudan. Vol. 1. London: Sampson Low, Marston, Searle, & Rivington, 1882. 

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By 1879, the kingdom of Buganda found itself caught in the expanding shadow of empire. To the north, Egyptian forces were pushing deeper into the Upper Nile, threatening to extend their authority toward the Great Lakes.
In this episode of Those Who Came Before Us, we explore how Kabaka Muteesa I responded to this growing danger. Facing the possibility of Egyptian domination, the Kabaka turned to an unlikely strategy: diplomacy with European powers already present at his court.
Catholic and Protestant missionaries representing France and Britain, became potential channels through which Buganda might secure powerful allies. Muteesa’s decision to send a diplomatic mission to London in 1879 was not simply curiosity about the outside world. It was a calculated attempt at survival diplomacy, balancing foreign powers against one another in order to preserve Buganda’s independence.
Key Themes
The Egyptian expansion into the Upper Nile and the fear it created in Buganda
How missionaries became unexpected instruments of diplomacy
Kabaka Muteesa I’s strategy of balancing foreign powers to protect his kingdom

Sources
Church Missionary Society. The Church Missionary Gleaner. Vol. 8. London: Church Missionary Society, 1881. 
Forbes, F. A. Father Lourdel: Planting the Furthest Seeds in Africa. Reprint, Mediatrix Press, 2017.
Harrison, Alexina. Mackay of Uganda: The Missionary Hero of Uganda. London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1891.
Kiwanuka, M. S. M. A History of Buganda: From the Foundation of the Kingdom to 1900. London: Longman, 1971. 
Mukasa, Ham. Backward Never, Forward Ever: Translation by J.N Batte, Simuda Nyuma - Luganda: Ham Mukasa Foundation 2002.
Stock, Sarah Geraldina. The Story of Uganda and the Victoria Nyanza Mission. London: Religious Tract Society, 1892. 
Wilson, Charles T., and Robert W. Felkin. Uganda and the Egyptian Soudan. Vol. 1. London: Sampson Low, Marston, Searle, & Rivington, 1882. 

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Lake Victoria has always been more than geography. For the people who lived along its shores in Buganda and across the Great Lakes region, it was a living domain capable of taking life without warning, yet sustaining entire communities.

In this episode, we explore Mukasa, the spirit of the lake whose power touched every layer of life: food, labor, kingship, fertility, and the sacred rules that held society together. Through fishing rituals, canoe symbolism, and the discipline of taboo, we uncover an older East African worldview in which nature was not separate from humanity. It was governance.

This is not just African mythology. It is the story of how spiritual belief shaped political authority and everyday survival.

If you enjoyed this episode, listen next to our exploration of the serpent spirits of Lake Victoria to understand the deeper cosmology behind these traditions.

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Sources

Kaggwa, Sir Apolo. The Customs of the Baganda. Translated by Ernest B. Kalibala. Edited by May Mandelbaum. New York: Columbia University Press, 1934.
Kenny, Michael G. “The Powers of Lake Victoria.” Anthropos 72, no. 5/6 (1977): 717–33.
Kollmann, Paul. The Victoria Nyanza: The Land, the Races and their Customs, with Specimens of some of the Dialects. Translated by H. A. Nesbitt. London: Swan Sonnenschein & Co., Ltd., 1899.
Lyewalyanga, F. X. S.. Traditional Religion, Custom, and Christianity in Uganda. Germany: Freiburg im Breisgau, 1976.
Roscoe, John. The Baganda: An Account of Their Native Customs and Beliefs. London: Macmillan and Co., Limited, 1911
Schoenbrun, David L.. The Names of the Python: Belonging in East Africa, 900 to 1930. United States: University of Wisconsin Press, 2021.
Speke, John Hanning. Journal of the Discovery of the Source of the Nile. 2nd ed. Edinburgh and London: William Blackwood and Sons, 1863.

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The world’s second-largest freshwater lake is more than a body of water. It is a boundary. For those who lived along its shores in East Africa, Lake Victoria was shaped by unseen presence—spirits, serpents, and forces that governed life, death, and survival.

In this episode, we explore Lukwata and the serpent world beneath the waters. These were not just myths, but part of a spiritual system that shaped fear, respect, ritual, and everyday life in Buganda and the wider Great Lakes region.

This is part of an ongoing series on African mythology, spirituality, and the pre-colonial kingdoms of East Africa.

Sources

Kenny, Michael G. “The Powers of Lake Victoria.” Anthropos 72, no. 5/6 (1977): 717–33.

McGrath, Andy. Beasts of the World. United States: Hangar 1 Publishing, 2022.

Schoenbrun, David L.. The Names of the Python: Belonging in East Africa, 900 to 1930. United States: University of Wisconsin Press, 2021.

Speke, John Hanning. Journal of the Discovery of the Source of the Nile. 2nd ed. Edinburgh and London: William Blackwood and Sons, 1863.
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