KIBUKA

War, protection

Kibuka is the great warrior lubaale of Baganda religion, invoked by sovereigns and armies in times of war, epidemic or great calamity. Tradition reports that he was, like his elder brother Mukasa, a mortal raised to the rank of deity. The most famous myth binds his destiny to king Nakibinge, at war with the neighbouring kingdom of Bunyoro: sent as reinforcement, Kibuka fought hidden in the clouds, from which he loosed arrows upon the enemy. Warned not to go near the captives, the Ganda army neglected the order; a Bunyoro captive escaped and revealed Kibuka's position to her people, and an archer struck him mortally in the chest. According to the versions, he collapsed onto a tree on the hill of Mbale, in Mpigi, where he was buried and deified, king Nakibinge raising a temple to him. This sanctuary at Mbale — a vast conical hut with a high thatched roof surrounded by a reed enclosure — formed a sacred court from which women were kept during their menses. At the beginning of the twentieth century, the missionary and anthropologist John Roscoe collected the relics of Kibuka's temple, today kept at the Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology of the University of Cambridge, which has begun a process of restitution to Uganda. Kibuka illustrates the martial dimension of the Ganda pantheon and the close bond between the balubaale and the royal function.