Myth, Ritual, And Kingship In Buganda

Myth, Ritual, and Kingship in Buganda

Buganda was the most prominent of the four traditional Bantu kingdoms of Uganda, which ceased to exist when the country was declared a Republic in 1967. The Kabakaship (kingship), the central institution of Buganda, was saturated with rituals and mythic images. Based on fieldwork and using extensive Luganda-language source material, this book describes and interprets the myths, rituals, shrines, and sacred regalia of the kingship within the changing contexts of the precolonial, colonial, and post-independence eras. Interpreting the Kabakaship as the symbolic center of the precolonial kingdom, this book examines James G. Frazer's theory of divine kingship, Buganda's creation myth, traditions about the origins of the kingship, regicide, royal ancestor shrines, and theories about the connection between Buganda and Ancient Egypt.Review"Ray has enriched our appreciation of the political and religious life of this extraordinary culture and set a standard for historians of this and other regions of the continent."--International Journal of African Historical Studies"A well-researched and carefully argued book."--American Historical Review"Ray's long-awaited study of kingship in Buganda provides the first sustained analysis of this well-known institution and makes a significant contribution to the study of myth, ritual, and power in Africa. The study is particularly useful for its examination of the ritual nature of Gandakingship within a historical context....Highly recommended for upper-level undergraduates and graduate students."--Choice"Ray's approach is both original and convincing. This book should find wide interest from both Africanists and historians of religion."--Hans Penner, Dartmouth College"A very good study based on solid scholarship. The argumentation is well presented, and the discussion of the Ganda case has general implications for the theory of sacred kingship. An excellent piece of research and an excellent interpretation. The presentation is well balanced and it readseasily and quite enjoyably."--Jacques Maquet, University of California, Los Angeles"An enormously important study....wide-ranging and complex....skillfully organized and written in lucid prose....Ray has written a splendid book. It is a painstaking study that is a delight to read, a rarity among scholarly books today."--Journal of the American Academy of Religion"This work on royal ritual and symbolism fills a serious gap in the literature on the major East African kingdom of Buganda....An important addition to the extensive literature on Buganda. It attends seriously to the symbolic phenomena of kingship without either inflating them or rendering theepiphenomenal in relation to the political pragmatics of royal power."--Ethnohistory"This is a welcome book....The best account we are ever likely to have of this famous kingship, and both historians and anthropologists should be grateful to Benjamin Ray for having written it."--History of Religions"A wide-ranging and complex study, skillfully organized and written in lucid prose...A splendid book. It is a painstaking study that is a delight to read, a rarity among scholarly works today."--Journal of the AAR"This book is a marvellous blend of the author's field-experience- serving him as an intellectual yardstick- and his very comprehensive knowledge of the relevant literature acquired during the long period of `fieldwork deprivation' after 1972. For me, reading Ray's book was a journey into thedepths of the human mind. No one who is attached to Buganda, or interested in Kiganda culture should miss this book."--Social AnthropologyAbout the AuthorBenjamin C. Ray is at University of Virginia, Charlottesville.