People visit different places such as Nakayima, a sacred tree (above) in Mubende to get blessings and good luck from the spirits. A man performs a ritual. . File photo
The heart is not so smart; goes where it should not go, goes lyrics by El DeBarge. In some ways, love is similar to the pull of traditional religion. In public, you mock it, but your treacherous heart tends towards it. You are damned if you do it, and you are damned if you do not.
Consider the deluge of reactions to Rebecca Kadaga’s visit to Nendha hill.
To her supporters, it would have been the height of ingratitude if she had ignored the ancestors who pushed her rivals to the sidelines. At one time, she was simultaneously fighting three political heavyweights and many had relegated her to the heap of history.
And then, there is the self-righteous lot. “How dare she drink from the cup of the Lord and then sip from the cup of demons?” they ask. Never mind that Uganda is a secular nation and you are free to worship the tree in your compound.
Many politicians play the game of two cups in a country where 84.5 per cent profess Christianity and 13.7 per cent are Muslims. A few years ago, a senior official of Buganda’s government was facing the sack. A devout Christian, he did the church rounds, and the faithful pleaded with God on his behalf.
In a desperate move, he sought his clan’s empewo (ancestors); though he was careful not to meet them in person.
“Trusted friends visited shrines on his behalf,” says a former ally who prefers anonymity, adding, “He gave them ebigali (money) to put in the baskets to open the ancestor’s mouths.”
The dead refused to talk and the hand in Mengo, wielding the axe remained steady. He lost his job.
The politics of talking to the dead
Kato Lubwama, Rubaga South Member of Parliament, says it benefits Africans to know their ancestral roots.
“There are no White people in Kadaga’s lineage. You, Nantume, have you ever seen Christ? Why do you worship him yet your ancestors exist? Respecting one’s culture is power, and that is why Kadaga will rule us for a long time.”
Lubwama, while still a dramatist and radio presenter, once confessed to having shrines at his home. Today, he hesitates to comment on the matter, only saying he always consults his ancestors.
“Before I began my campaigns, I asked them to join me on the trail. It was a powerful symbolic move. Before a girl is married off, she sits on her mother’s lap to symbolise respect for her origins.”
Rev Canon Stephen Gelenga of St John’s Church, Kamwokya, wonders who acts as the chief mediator in a shrine.
“In African culture, elders give blessings. But in the darkness of a shrine, who dispenses blessings? What do you take in, and what do you come out with? What do the ancestors look like? Do they congregate around a table?”
The same can be asked about the Holy Spirit, but Canon Gelenga insists the presence of the Holy Spirit can be felt. “If you are a Christian, you would know the first commandment tells us there is one God.”
Pastor Amos Acila, a Christian educator at Deliverance Church Uganda, says the dead cannot hear us.
“Those ‘ancestors’ are familiar spirits masquerading as the dead, talking in their voices. The Bible instructs us never to consult the dead. It is either God or the devil; there is no middle ground.”
Sheikh Muhamad Lugolobi, a Madrasa teacher, insists it is wrong to visit shrines.
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