Short Overview of The Culture of Uganda - seen from a german after a short jurney

in #uganda6 years ago

In march my family and I were for two weeks in Uganda and had the possability to learn a little bit about their culture.
Here is my summary. If I'm wrong, please correct me in the comments.

Ugandas Subdivisions

Uganda is divided, as other countries too, into different topics: Geography, Religion, Politics,Culture,....
In this post I concentrate on the culture.
Uganda has seven kingdoms. Their kings have not that much political powers, but they rule about their cultures.
Each culture can be divided into subculures or tribes.

Tribes

Each tribe is individual in clothes, ritual dances, songs, behavior,...
Each tribe is dedicated to one special animal or plant. For example one tribe is called "snake", another "lion", the next one "mango",... The tribes feel connected to their totems. So for example the tribe "mango" is not allowed to eat mangos, because they believe, that they are parts of their family.

Dances

Each tribe has individual dances. In our visit, we were allowed to see some of them.
IMG_20180402_153532.jpg
The most dances are education dances. This means, that the old people tell the younger how to behave. For example, there is a dance, where a boy dances to a girl, but she turns her back to him. So the boy dances back to his group, where he gets encouraged to go back to the girl. This repeats three times, until the girl finaly dances with the boy. This educates the children to be patient and sustained and the girls are told not to say "yes" at the first time.
Also they learn in their dances how to meet the king.

Marriages

It was forbidden to marry in between people of the same tribe.
In their tribes it was common, that a girl is couppled with a man by their parents or the boss of the tribe. The parents usually fixed a "prize" and "sold" the girls into another tribe. It was not really "selling" because in their point of view it was important to see, that the husband is able to feed their daughter and grand children.
I've heard one story, were a tribe brought in their best "spear-man". He throw his spear over a flock of cows and the number of cows, over that the spear flew, was the price of the girl.
A marriage is a big party. The preparation of the marriage cake takes up to 14 days. You need special educated people for doing this. In that heat one can imagine, that you have some compromises to the taste of the cake ;-)

Today there are a lot of changes. As in other countries too, the meaning of cultures decrease. This is good and bad at the same time. Good in the way, that for example women get more rights. Bad in the way, that old behavior and knowledge gets lost.

IMG_20180405_100429.jpg
This was a very short overview and I hope it was basicly correct repeated.

Regards, Achim

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Hands up.
✋✋🙋🙋
That was a correct explanation of culture.
The dance where the boy dances towards a girl and she turns her back,
I enjoy watching it.
Indeed culture should never cease.
But we need to upgrade.
Why restrict someone from eating his totem.
As such some don't eat certain delicious fish types, grass hoppers? 😁😁
And the bride price of throwing a spear to collect cows worked when we still had many cows in each family. Not so now.
Then the kingship power is only left in a few kingdoms.

Wow Nice insight Achim, there is a lot to exploit and learn about Uganda, you need to come spend more days at least some months or even a year...Hehe. Anyway thanks for compiling your experience about Uganda, hoping you enjoyed the local foods. Please come again

Thank you Evangelistjotham. I would like to come back. I just have to earn some money first ;-)

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