IDNO

N.19685.ROS

Description

Group portrait of the King of Bunyoro seated on a chair placed on a leopard skin with his half-brothers? or his sons? around him, in an open landscape. The King wears the ‘modern’ official robes of office, which appear to be, a dark-coloured fez, a kanzu (white tunic) with a dark-coloured waistcoat over the top and a long robe with an embroidered? neck line and tassels. To the King’s left, seated on the ground, is the King’s daughter? wearing a dress? and beaded necklace. To the King’s right, there is a young man seated on the ground wearing a kanzu (white tunic) covered by a dark-European style jacket. The six young men? standing behind the King wear the same; some with a light or dark-coloured fez. [ED 2/10/2007]

Place

E Africa; Uganda; western Uganda; Western District; Bunyoro

Cultural Affliation

Banyoro (Bakitara)

Named Person

Andereya Bisereko Duhaga II (b. 1882 - d. 1924)

Photographer

?Roscoe, John R.

Collector / Expedition

Roscoe, John R. [Mackie Ethnological Expedition, Uganda, 1919 - 1920]

Date

1919 - 1920

Collection Name

Roscoe Collection

Source

Format

Glass Negative Halfplate

Primary Documentation

Other Information

This negative was kept in glass negative box marked C32/2/ by the cataloguer. The glass negative box was kept in box marked C32/ by the cataloguer.
Previously stored on Shelf 4, in group of 4 wooden boxes numbered 180.

Context: "The people of Kitara were a despotically ruled nation believing firmly in the supreme right of their King, who was regarded as something more than an ordinary man, as, indeed, approaching to the divine, for his power on earth was absolute and he had almost as great an influence over the heavenly powers. He was a completely autocratic ruler and all the wealth of the country, that is, the cattle, was regarded as belonging to him...
Though the king’s power was absolute he consulted in most matters a body of chiefs who were known as the Sacred Guild. These chiefs were his special advisors and protectors and were, to all intents and purposes, united as blood-brothers by a solemn ceremony of testing and admission to the Guild. This ceremony is described in the section on Inheritance, for the son of a chief of the Guild almost invariably inherited the right of admission, though he did not succeed directly to membership on his father’s death but had to go through the ceremony of admission. Two chiefs, Bamuroga, who was a member of the Guild and had charge of the kings’ tombs, and Munyawa, the head of the Royal clan, were the most powerful of all the chiefs and during the interval between the death of one king and the accession of another, these two governed the country” (Roscoe, 1923, p.52). [ED 2/10/2007]

Context: "Beyond the queen’s reception-room stretched in a line the six other huts of the Sacred Guild each with its two openings, one in front, one behind, and its courtyard separating it from the next hut. Each hut belonged to a chief of the Sacred Guild who bore its name and had to be present in it when the king passed to perform the daily ceremony of herding the sacred cows. Fires were kept burning at night in all the huts, the floors were carpeted with lemon-grass, and in each was an earthen platform, two feet high, also covered with lemon grass. In the courtyards of the second, third, and fourth of these huts the king might perform the ceremony of herding the sacred cows, if he did not wish to go all the way to the seventh hut, the courtyard of which was the special place of the sacred cows. The Nkorogi herd which supplied the milk for the king and his household entered the royal enclosure, when they came to be milked, through a gate in the courtyard of the first hut, and passed through the queen’s reception-room to the court in front of the throne-room.
No child of the reigning king might enter any of these huts, the princes and princesses who went there being half brothers and half-sisters of the king, and no woman might enter any of them beyond the queen’s reception room, into which prince’s of the king’s generation might go. A woman venturing to enter any of the others would be killed at once.
The second hut, Kyamunuma, was the hut of the princes, that is, the king’s half-brothers, for his own brothers were excluded from the capitol and his sons might not enter any of these huts. The reason for the exclusion of the king’s full brothers from the capital and his sons might not enter any of these huts. The reason for the exclusion of the king’s full brothers from the capital is said to have been the jealousy from one king, for there was a time when the king’s brothers visited him as his half-brothers did. One day, however, the king’s mother visited him, wearing a bracelet which he coveted and asked for. She refused to give it to him, saying he could get one made for himself, and a few days later his brother visited him wearing the very bracelet. The king, seeing it, was jealous, declaring that it was evident his mother had a preference for his brother and that there would soon be a revolt among the princes. He therefore sent a soldier to kill the brother, and from that time full brothers of the king went away into the country as soon as he came to the throne, and any message they wished to send to him was conveyed by a third party.
Princes might only enter their hut Kyamunuma when they had business to transact, and no prince might be there when the king passed through, so that it was empty except for the chief in charge. (Roscoe, J., 1923. The Bakitara (or Banyoro): The First Part of the Report of The Mackie Ethnological Expedition to Central Africa. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press), p. 80 - 81). [ED 13/11/2007]

This catalogue record has been updated with the support of the Getty Grant Program Two. [Elisabeth Deane 13/11/2007]