PEOPLE AND CULTURE OF UGANDA

Located in the Geographical part of African continent, Uganda has long been melting pot, as evidenced the existence of 60 plus different languages belonging to five linguistic groups and equally divers’ cultural mosaic of music, art and handcrafts including cultures from neighboring Rwanda Congo Kinshasha, Sudan and Kenya.

The country’s most ancient inhabitants, confine to the hill side of the Southwest, are the Batwa and Bambuti pygmies relies of hunter-gatherer cultures that once the occupied much of East Africa to leave behind a rich ligancy of rock paintings, such as at the Nyero Rock shelter near kumi.

At the cultural core of the modern-day Uganda lie the Bantu speaking Kingdoms of Buganda, Bunyoro, Ankole and Tooro, whose traditional Monarch’s – reinstated in the 1990’s still serve as an important figureheads. According to the oral tradition, these centuries- old kingdoms are offshoots of the mediaeval kingdoms of the Batembuzi and Bachwezi, which lay in the vicinity of present day Mubende and Ntusi, where archeological evidence suggests that a strongly centralized polity had emerged by the eleventh century. Three former kings are buried in an impressive traditional grass thatched building at the Kasubi tombs in Kampala.

Else where Uganda’s culture is boosted in the northeast by the presence of the Karamojong, traditional pastoralists whose lifestyle and culture depends on cattle and similar to the Maasai and in the Northwest by a patchwork of agricultural people whose Nilotic languages and cultures are rooted in what is now Sudan. The Rwenzori foothills are home to the handy Bakonjo who hunting shrines are dedicated to a one-legged, one-armed, one- eyed pipe-smoking spirit known as kalisa, while the Bagisu mount Elgon region are known for their colorful Imbalu ceremony, an individual initiation to manhood that peaks in activity in and around August of every even numbered year .

This has now been included in the National calender for every year celebration as one of the trouristic attaraction.

Recently Areas around Mount Elgon again took to the grounds to celebrate the world Tourism day which was very bright and colour with professional Guides  taking the occasion.