The General Name Kittara Is Gradually Becoming Extinct, And Is
Seldom Applied To Any But The Western Portions; Whilst The North-
Eastern, In Which The Capital Is Situated, Is Called Unyoro, And
The Other, Uddu Apart From Uganda, As We Shall Presently See.
Nobody has been able to inform us how many generations old the
Wahuma government of Unyoro is.
The last three kings are
Chiawambi, N'yawongo, and the present king Kamrasi. In very
early times dissensions amongst the royal family, probably
contending for the crown, such as we presume must have occurred
in Abyssinia, separated the parent stock, and drove the weaker to
find refuge in Nkole, where a second and independent government
of Wahuma was established. Since then, twenty generations ago,
it is said the Wahuma government of Karague was established in
the same manner. The conspirator Rohinda fled from Kittara to
Karague with a large party of Wahuma; sought the protection of
Nono, who, a Myambo, was king over the Wanyambo of that country;
ingratiated himself and his followers with the Wanyambo; and,
finally, designing a crown for himself, gave a feast,
treacherously killed King Nono in his cups, and set himself on
the throne, the first mkama or king who ruled in Karague.
Rohinda was succeeded by Ntare, then Rohinda II., then Ntare II.,
which order only changed with the eleventh reign, when Rusatira
ascended the throne, and was succeeded by Mehinga, then Kalimera,
then Ntare VII., then Rohinda VI., then Dagara, and now Rumanika.
During this time the Wahuma were well south of the equator, and
still destined to spread. Brothers again contended for the crown
of their father, and the weaker took refuge in Uzinza, where the
fourth Wahuma government was created, and so remained under one
king until the last generation, when King Ruma died, and his two
sons, Rohinda, the eldest, and Suwarora, contended for the crown,
but divided the country between them, Rohinda taking the eastern
half, and Suwarora the western, at the instigation of the late
King Dagara of Karague.
This is the most southerly kingdom of the Wahuma, though not the
farthest spread of its people, for we find the Watusi, who are
emigrants from Karague of the same stock, overlooking the
Tanganyika Lake from the hills of Uhha, and tending their cattle
all over Unyamuezi under the protection of the native negro
chiefs; and we also hear that the Wapoka of Fipa, south of the
Rukwa Lake are the same. How or when their name became changed
from Wahuma to Watusi no one is able to explain; but, again
deducing the past from the present, we cannot help suspecting
that, in the same way as this change has taken place, the name
Galla may have been changed from Hubshi, and Wahuma from Gallas.
But though in these southern regions the name of the clan has
been changed, the princes still retain the title of Wahinda as in
Karague, instead of Wawitu as in Unyoro, and are considered of
such noble breed that many of the pure negro chiefs delight in
saying, I am a Mhinda, or prince, to the confusion of travellers,
which confusion is increased by the Wahuma habits of conforming
to the regulations of the different countries they adopt. For
instance, the Wahuma of Uganda and Karague, though so close to
Unyoro, do not extract their lower incisors; and though the
Wanyoro only use the spear in war, the Wahuma in Karague are the
most expert archers in Africa. We are thus left only the one
very distinguishing mark, the physical appearance of this
remarkable race, partaking even more of the phlegmatic nature of
the Shemitic father than the nervous boisterous temperament of
the Hamitic mother, as a certain clue to their Shem-Hamitic
origin.
It remains to speak of the separation of Uddu from Unyoro, the
present kingdom of Uganda - which, to say the least of it, is
extremely interesting, inasmuch as the government there is as
different from the other surrounding countries as those of Europe
are compared to Asia.
In the earliest times the Wahuma of Unyoro regarded all their
lands bordering on the Victoria Lake as their garden, owing to
its exceeding fertility, and imposed the epithet of Wiru, or
slaves, upon its people, because they had to supply the imperial
government with food and clothing. Coffee was conveyed to the
capital by the Wiru, also mbugu (bark-cloaks), from an
inexhaustible fig-tree; in short, the lands of the Wiru were
famous for their rich productions.
Now Wiru in the northern dialect changes to Waddu in the
southern; hence Uddu, the land of the slaves, which remained in
one connected line from the Nile to the Kitangule Kagera until
eight generations back, when, according to tradition, a sportsman
from Unyoro, by name Uganda, came with a pack of dogs, a woman, a
spear, and a shield, hunting on the left bank of Katonga valley,
not far from the lake. He was but a poor man, though so
successful in hunting that vast numbers of the Wiru flocked to
him for flesh, and became so fond of him as to invite him to be
their king, saying, "Of what avail to us is our present king,
living so far away that when we sent him a cow as a tributary
offering, that cow on the journey gave a calf, and the calf
became a cow and gave another calf, and so on, and yet the
present has not reached its destination?"
At first Uganda hesitated, on the plea that they had a king
already, but on being farther pressed consented; when the people
hearing his name said, "Well, let it be so; and for the future
let this country between the Nile and Katonga be called Uganda,
and let your name be Kimera, the first king of Uganda."
The same night Kimera stood upon a stone with a spear in his
hand, and a woman and dog sitting by his side; and to this day
people assert that his footprints and the mark left by his spear-
end, as well as the seats of the woman and dog, are visible.
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