On Ganda Historiography

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Abstract
“And so,” commented Goody and Watt in their celebrated discussion of the consequences of literacy, not long after the widespread diffusion of writing throughout the Greek world, and the recording of the previously oral cultural tradition, there arose an attitude to the past very different from that common in non-literate societies. Instead of the unobtrusive adaptation of past traditions to present needs, a great many individuals found in the written records, where much of their traditional cultural repertoire had been given permanent form, so many inconsistencies in the beliefs and categories of understanding handed down to them that they were impelled to a much more conscious, comparative, and critical attitude to the accepted world picture, and notably to the notions of God, the universe and the past.However applicable these remarks may be to classical Greece, they are not applicable to colonial Buganda without considerable emendation. This paper attempts to suggest why this is so, paying particular attention to the development of indigenous historical writing. It is therefore more narrow in analytical focus than Rowe's recent survey of historical writings in Luganda. On the other hand, it is somewhat broader in intent than Kiwanuka's introduction to his translation into English of the early part of Apolo Kagwa's Ekitabo kya Basekabaka be Buganda, the only other substantive study in this field.

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