According to John Hanning Speke (1863, 2006) Bairu (a term of abuse) which means slaves was coined by Bahima to apply to all Bantu-speaking people they found south of River Nile.
Presently the term has come to apply to the indigenous Bantu-speaking people of southwest Uganda (in former Ankole district and Rujumbura county of Rukungiri district) because in other areas extensive intermarriage between Bantu and Nilotic peoples formed mixed and entirely new communities. Bantu speaking people brought with them short-horn cattle, goats and sheep and above all iron technology and manufacturing skills (so they were not cultivators only. They were forced into cultivation by Bahima and Bahororo in order to marginalize, impoverish, dominate and exploit them). The term Bahutu is the equivalent of Bairu in Rwanda and Burundi. We shall apply the term Bairu in its broader sense as originally used to include indigenous Bantu speaking people who occupied areas south of Nile River before Nilotic Luo-speaking Bahima arrived and adopted Bantu language.
For various reasons including deadly diseases and hostile tribes (before quinine and guns were available) the interior of Africa remained unknown to the outside world for a long time. Europeans described it as a ‘Dark Continent’ and according to them darkness was not a subject of history. In other words the black people (Negroes) who occupied the Dark Continent had no civilization such as institutions (legal or administrative systems) and infrastructure (such as roads and communication systems). This was also the time when racial theories were in fashion in Europe and the whites were at the top of the civilization pyramid while the black s were at the bottom, meaning that civilization was basically the monopoly of white people.
When Europeans including John Hanning Speke eventually arrived in East and Central Africa, they found magnificent civilizations such as those in Buganda. Since they had assumed that black people had no civilization, they concluded that civilizations there must have been constructed by white people. They came up with the ‘Hamitic Myth’ or theory that Bahima (and their cousins Batutsi and Bahororo) who resembled white people physically must have constructed these civilizations and empires. Therefore pre-colonial research from Bachwezi onward credited Bahima with the civilizations found in Uganda. Since Bahima were “white” people according to the Hamitic Myth so were Bachwezi since Bachwezi had developed civilizations.
Since independence new research has been undertaken that is increasingly revealing that pre-colonial civilizations in Uganda and in other parts of the Great Lakes region and beyond including Zimbabwe were constructed by Bantu-speaking people.
Further studies have also demonstrated the evolution from agriculture to pastoral specialization to be the work of Bantu. For illustrative purposes we shall focus on a few areas: who are Bachwezi; who constructed and occupied the magnificent earth works in western Uganda; and who was responsible for developing governance systems that were subsequently expanded into large centralized systems?
But before doing that let us clear two issues. It has been definitively concluded that Bahima and their cousins mentioned above are black and not white people (D. J. Fage1995). They are Nilotic Luo-speaking people who entered the Great Lakes Region from Bahr el Ghazal area of southern Sudan and not from Ethiopia as originally presented. They brought with them long horn cattle.
Bachwezi are Bantu and not Bahima or Luo
B. A. Ogot (1999) has stressed that “Be that as it may, the important point to emphasize is that, according to the historical reconstruction we are outlining here, the Bachwezi were not Bahima or Luo: they were a Bantu aristocracy who emerged in western Uganda in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries”.
In support of this conclusion, some historians have demonstrated that the mother of the first Muchwezi (singular for Bachwezi) king (Ndahura) was called Nyinamwiru (Nyina meaning mother and mwiru (singular for Bairu) meaning slave or alternatively Nyinamwiru meaning ‘mother of the agriculturalist’ whose father had been of humble origin. Additionally, Ndahura was raised by a potter – a member of the agricultural class (Philip Curtin et al., 1996). Bahima were from the pastoral class.
When Bachwezi kingdom disintegrated the new rulers of Bahima tried to legitimize their positions by claiming genetic links with the Bachwezi. According to Ogot “Unfortunately, such propaganda failed to impress their [Bahima] subjects” (B. A. Ogot 1999).
Earthworks in western Uganda are the product of Bantu
There is increasing evidence that the magnificent earthworks of Munsa, Ntusi and Bigo previously credited to pastoral Bahima were actually the work of Bantu mixed farmers growing crops and herding cattle who gradually specialized in cattle herding as time passed. Excavations at sites mentioned above have demonstrated the presence of farmers. For example at Munsa, earliest occupants were farmers. By the 17th century numerous factors including increased cattle herding and social upheaval combined to end permanent occupancy of the site (Archaeology September/October 2006).
Studies at Ntusi have also discovered evidence of mixed cultivation and herding (R. O. Collins and J. M. Roberts 2007). According to Graham Connah (2001) excavations at Ntusi has found numerous grindstones, curved iron knives for cereal harvesting, burnt grain which appeared to be sorghum, storage pits probably for grain besides animal bones, indicating mixed farming and not a pure agricultural culture as earlier presented.
As Bantu moved from older to newer sites there was increasing specialization towards cattle. However, up to now, the purpose of earthen works has remained unresolved. Some researchers have reasoned that they were built possibly to protect animals or separate agricultural fields from animal areas or for prestige purposes (G. Graham 2001, R.O. Collins and J. M. Roberts 200).
These findings add evidence to support the conclusion that Bachwezi were local (Bantu) rulers who emerged as a result of economic and demographic changes (J. KI-Zerbo and D. T. Niane 1997) or an outgrowth of Bantu populations who began to place more emphasis on herding (T. Falola 2000) than on cultivation.
State formation
Earlier conclusions had been drawn that state formation was the work of Bahima or pastoral people. However, J. E. Sutton and others have demonstrated the difficulties surrounding this conclusion given Bahima’s nomadic existence in search of pasture and water for their cattle and living in make-shift huts build with branches and thatched with grass. Given this dynamic, Bahima were not in a position to establish centralized systems of governance. Sutton added that the type of economy that Bahima were engaged in does not facilitate the development of advanced material culture or centralized political systems (B. A. Ogot 1967). Further the quality of dress with a simple cloth and sandals made of cow-hide did not lend support to any kind of civilization.
G. S. Were added that before Bahima entered what later became Ankole, Bantu people there were mixed farmers cultivating crops and keeping short-horn cattle. The clans and sub-clans had developed governance systems. Bahima only reorganized these independent clan administrative systems into larger units (B. A. Ogot 1967). The point to be stressed here is that Bantu people already had systems of organizations and therefore were not stateless when Bahima arrived.
Paul Ngorogoza among others has demonstrated clearly that before Bahororo arrived in Rujumbura, Butumbi and Kinkizi, there were tribal administrative organizations under kings and chiefs. Some of them even had palaces (P. Ngorogoza 1998 and B. A. Ogot 1976).
Conclusion
The point that has been underscored in the paragraphs above is that before Bahima and Bahororo (Batutsi from Rwanda) arrived in south west Uganda, the indigenous Bantu people dubbed Bairu (slave) by Bahima had rich and dynamic economic, social and political systems that enabled their populations to grow and settle in relatively permanent communities unlike nomadic Bahima cattle herders.
As settled communities they developed institutions and infrastructures like those found in Buganda to maintain law and order, facilitate transport, communication, economic and social development. This is what constitutes civilization. Therefore Bairu were civilized people. That is why Bahima adopted Bairu language, religions and other institutions including Bahutu kings’ title of Mwami in Rwanda, not the other way round.
Bahima and Bahororo and later Europeans built on the foundations of civilization that had been constructed by Bairu.
Sadly the interaction between Bairu on the one hand and Bahima, Bahororo and Europeans on the other hand was of the exploitative nature. Bairu were exploited, marginalized and impoverished through loss of their short-horn cattle, extraction of heavy tribute, free labor and taxes under pre-colonial and colonial rule. The system of Bairu exploitation has continued and intensified and is spreading to other parts of Uganda under the NRM government since 1986.
Based on the above analysis Bairu are not genetically inferior or unintelligent. When given equal opportunity like during the first Obote government in the 1960s, Bairu mental power was demonstrated to be superior. That is why every effort is being made to keep them down through inferior education, unemployment, land dispossession and denial of development projects (Seventy percent (70%) of Uganda’s GDP is concentrated in Kampala city and its surrounding areas).
Bairu should do everything necessary (it is going to be difficult but there is no free lunch) to reconstruct their past glory and dignity. If they do not put their heads and hands together and think and pull together they will stay at the bottom of the development ladder. The first place to start is to resist being divided into tiny and economically unviable units called districts. Divide-and-rule tactics are still around and getting stronger. It is the duty of Bairu leaders to lead their people. This is not sectarianism, it is pragmatism.
More information is available at www.kashambuzi.com and my books titled Uganda’s Development Agenda in the 21st Century (2009); Rethinking Africa’s Development Model (2009); For Present and Future Generations: Using the Power of Democracy to Defeat the Barrel of the Gun (2010). The books are available at www.jonesharvest.com. For those who wish to keep in touch my e-mail address is [email protected]