Sexual behavioural change in Ankole, western Uganda, c.1880–1980

Abstract

Within the Great Lakes region of East Africa previous research on the emergence of HIV/AIDS has focused primarily on Uganda's Central and Tanzania's Kagera Regions, and the locally dominant ethnic groups, the Ganda and the Haya. The patterns of sexual behaviour which facilitated the rapid spread of HIV have typically been associated with changes which occurred during the 1970s, a decade characterised by declining state services, growing violence and black marketeering, and worsening sexual vulnerability. This article argues that in order to explain the emergence of HIV in the Great Lakes as a whole, it is necessary to construct a series of local narratives of sexual behavioural change over a longer time period. Only then can the specific character of the region's various sub-epidemics, as well as their commonalities, be fully understood. This article traces the evolution of sexual attitudes and behaviour between 1900 and 1980 in a society that neighbours Buganda and Buhaya, Ankole in western Uganda. It explains how Ankole's relatively austere sexual culture gradually came to replicate that of Buganda between the 1930s and 1980, arguing that it was the 1960s that saw the most important changes in sexual behaviour and attitudes.

Keywords:

• sexual behaviour
• HIV/AIDS
• Ankole
• Uganda
• colonial

Notes

1. Iliffe, African AIDS Epidemic, 19–32; Vaughan, Curing their Ills, 129–54; Lyons, “Sexually-transmitted Diseases,” 138–45.

2. Larsson, Conversion; Lugalla et al., “Social, Cultural and Sexual Behavioral Determinants,” 185–98; Kaijage, “AIDS Control,” 279–300.

3. UNAIDS, Epidemiological Fact-Sheet on HIV and AIDS, Core Data on Epidemiology and Response: Uganda, 17, http://apps.who.int/globalatlas/predefinedReports/EFS2008/full/EFS2008_UG.pdf (accessed Dec. 7, 2010); interview NT, Aug. 9, 2004, Mbarara. A sense of the dominance of Buganda within academic writing on AIDS in Uganda can be gained from a search on google scholar. Twelve times as many articles were returned for the search “HIV Baganda” as “HIV Banyankole.” Buganda's HIV sentinel sites were referenced in eight times as many articles as Ankole's. By contrast articles referring to HIV in Bukoba or Kagera are significantly less common than those referring to, for example, Arusha.

4. See Doyle, Before HIV.

5. Steinhart, Conflict and Collaboration.

6. Male focus group discussion [FGD] Nyamitanga, Aug. 19, 2004; interview NT, Aug. 9, 2004, Mbarara. Hima stereotypes of cultivators were just as negative in Buhaya as Ankole. A praise poem from Karagwe about the crushing of a commoner rebellion emphasised the rebel leader's closeness to the soil: ‘He was caked with dirt about the buttocks. You know, it emitted such a stench!’ Mulokozi, “The Nanga Bards,” 297.

7. On Buganda see Davis, “‘Town Women’,” 32–5; Hansen, Landed Obligation, 180; Kyomuhendo and McIntosh, Women, 73; Musisi, “Gender,” 179; Musisi, “Transformations,” 195, 214, 246–7. On Buhaya see Tanzania National Archives (TNA) 1733/3:46 (AB40) BD AR 1925, 3; Larsson, Conversion, 103; Sundkler, Bara Bukoba, 16; White, Comforts of Home, chap.5.

8. Jochelson, Colour of Disease; Horwitz, “Migrancy and HIV/AIDS,” 103; Callahan, “Ila Syphilis Epidemic,” 421.

9. Male FGD Ruti, Aug. 19, 2004; Female FGD Ruti, Aug. 19, 2004; Female FGD Bumbire (Bushenyi), Aug. 23, 2004.

10. Male FGD Kiyungu Shema, Aug. 21, 2004; Female FGD Kiyungi, Aug. 21, 2004; Elam, Social, 55; Female FGD Bumbire (Bushenyi), Aug. 23, 2004; “Death of Spouses,” D. Stenning Papers, Cambridge University, ADD 7916, B9; Female FGD Kyenjenyi, Aug. 22, 2004. It may be that tales of pregnant but unmarried women being executed were “rural myths” aimed at instilling moral discipline. But a number of informants in Ankole and Buhaya did refer to specific near relatives who had been killed in such circumstances.

11. Female FGD Bumbire (Bushenyi), Aug. 23, 2004; Female FGD Kyenjenyi, Aug. 22, 2004. Musa Mushanga however indicates that informants may have exaggerated pre-marital chastity a little. Mushanga, “Nkole,” 181–3.

12. Elam, Social, 166; Male FGD Kiyungu Shema, Aug. 21, 2004; Male FGD Nyamitanga, Aug. 19, 2004; interview YZ, Aug. 13, 2004; interview NT, Aug. 9, 2004, Mbarara.

13. Cf. e.g. Male FGD Nyamitanga, Aug. 19, 2004; Male FGD Kiyungu Shema, Aug. 21, 2004; Female FGD Kyenjenyi, Aug. 22, 2004.

14. Uganda, 1959 Population Census; O. Beaudoin to E. Michaud, Mar. 26, 1933, Mbarara in E. Michaud, “Enquêtes sur les conditions morales dans le vicariat de l'Uganda, 1933,” Rubaga archives, 904.1; Kagume, “Church,” 262; Female FGD Kyenjenyi, Aug. 22, 2004.

15. Interview NT, Aug. 9, 2004, Mbarara; Imelda Batwangiraki, “Murekye Kugabura Okwega Kw'abaishiki,” Ageteraine, Apr. 1, 1960; N. Ndyanga, “Baishiki mwegarukyemu mwahangara,” Ageteraine, Nov. 5, 1960; Elam, Social, 87; Kagume, “Church,” 272; Female FGD Kyenjenyi, Aug. 22, 2004.

16. Mwesiga, “Traditional Marriage,” 5; Ntozi and Kabera, ““Marriage Patterns,” 28–34; Male FGD Nyamitanga, Aug. 19, 2004; interview NT, Aug. 9, 2004, Mbarara; Ntozi, The Role, 73–5.

17. Elam, Social, 54–8, 84–8, 159–95; Roscoe, “The Bahima,” 103–5; F. Lambkin, “Summary of Evidence,” Dec. 1907, National Archives (NA), CO/536/15.

18. Ntozi, The Role, 74–5.

19. Oberg, “Kinship Organization,” 146–52; Oberg, “Analysis,” 114; Elam, Social, 124–5, 160; Female FGD Ruti, Aug. 19, 2004; Interview EM, Kampala, Sept. 27, 2001.

20. Oberg, “Kinship Organization,” 142; Female FGD Nyamitanga, Aug. 19, 2004; Male FGD Nyamitanga, Aug. 19, 2004; Female FGD Kyenjenyi, Aug. 22, 2004; Male FGD Kyangyenyi/Kiyungu, Aug. 22, 2004; Male FGD Kiyungu Shema, Aug. 21, 2004.

21. Male FGD Kiyungu Shema, Aug. 21, 2004; Male FGD Ruti, Aug. 19, 2004; Female FGD Kyenjenyi, Aug. 22, 2004; Female FGD Bumbire (Bushenyi), Aug. 23, 2004.

22. Female FGD Nyamitanga, Aug. 19, 2004; Male FGD Ruti, Aug. 19, 2004; Female FGD Ruti, Aug. 19, 2004; Interview JH, Aug. 10, 2004; Male FGD Kiyungu Shema, Aug. 21, 2004; Stenning, “Preliminary Observations on the Balokole”; Elam, Social, 166, 177, 202, 213–15; D. Stenning, “Persistence of Cult Elements in an East African Population,” British Psychological Society Annual Conference, Cambridge, April 1959, D. Stenning Papers, Cambridge University, ADD 7916, B6; Ntozi, The Role, 75; Female FGD Kiyungi, Aug. 21, 2004.

23. Female FGD Kiyungi, Aug. 21, 2004; FGD Kyenjenyi Female, Aug. 22, 2004; Kiyungu Shema Male FGD, Aug. 21, 2004; Female FGD Bumbire (Bushenyi), Aug. 23, 2004; Oberg, “Analysis,”114; Ntozi, The Role, 70; Cook, “Child Health,” 106; Male FGD Nyamitanga, Aug. 19, 2004.

24. Male FGD Nyamitanga, Aug. 19, 2004; Male FGD Kyangyenyi/Kiyungu, Aug. 22, 2004.

25. O. Beaudoin to E. Michaud, Mar. 26, 1933, Mbarara in E. Michaud, “Enquêtes sur les conditions morales dans le vicariat de l'Uganda, 1933,” Rubaga archives, 904.1; Survey of Catholic Dioceses, 1956, Rubaga archives, 287; Male FGD Kyangyenyi/Kiyungu, Aug. 22, 2004; Male FGD Kiyungu Shema, Aug. 21, 2004; Male FGD Nyamitanga, Aug. 19, 2004; Female FGD Bumbire (Bushenyi), Aug. 23, 2004.

26. Female FGD Ruti, Aug. 19, 2004; Female FGD Kiyungi, Aug. 21, 2004; Female FGD Nyamitanga, Aug. 19, 2004; Female FGD Kyenjenyi, Aug. 22, 2004.

27. Female FGD Bumbire (Bushenyi), Aug. 23, 2004; Oberg, “Kinship Organization,” 152–3.

28. Female FGD Kiyungi, Aug. 21, 2004; Male FGD Ruti, Aug. 19, 2004; Female FGD Ruti, Aug. 19, 2004; W. Bazley, “Reminiscences as a District Officer in Uganda, 1951–1953, 1958–1960,” RHO MSS Afr. s. 924, 90; Female FGD Nyamitanga, Aug. 19, 2004; Female FGD Kyenjenyi, Aug. 22, 2004; Male FGD Kiyungu Shema, Aug. 21, 2004; Male FGD Nyamitanga, Aug. 19, 2004.

29. Female FGD Nyamitanga, Aug. 19, 2004; Male FGD Ruti, Aug. 19, 2004; O. Beaudoin to E. Michaud, Mar. 26, 1933, Mbarara in E. Michaud, “Enquêtes sur les conditions morales dans le vicariat de l'Uganda, 1933,” Rubaga archives, 904.1; Female FGD Kiyungi, Aug. 21, 2004; van Thiel, Multi-tribal Music, 183, 198–200.

30. “Families and Land Parcels,” D. Stenning Papers, Cambridge University, ADD 7916, D7; Elam, Social, 150–1. Divorce here refers to the socially recognised termination of a marriage.

31. Female FGD Bumbire (Bushenyi), Aug. 23, 2004; Female FGD Kyenjenyi, Aug. 22, 2004; Ntozi and Kabera, “Marriage Patterns,” 21.

32. J. Taylor, “Analysis of Parishes,” Church Missionary Society Archive, Birmingham, Acc. 265 Z5; Hastings, Christian Marriage, 141–3; “Families and Land Parcels,” D. Stenning Papers, Cambridge University, ADD 7916, D7; Kagume, “Church,” 255–8, 271; “Women's Clubs,” Taifa Empya, Oct. 15, 1970; Female FGD Bumbire (Bushenyi), Aug. 23, 2004; Interview NT, Aug. 9, 2004, Mbarara.

33. “Families and Land Parcels,” D. Stenning Papers, Cambridge University, ADD 7916, D7; Interview NT, Aug. 2004, Mbarara; Female FGD Kiyungi, Aug. 21, 2004. Cf. Fallers, “Some Determinants,” 114–21.

34. Female FGD Kiyungi, Aug. 21, 2004; Male FGD Nyamitanga, Aug. 19, 2004; Interview YZ, Aug. 13, 2004.

35. Male FGD Nyamitanga, Aug. 19, 2004; Interview YZ, Aug. 13, 2004; Interview NT, Aug. 9, 2004, Mbarara.

36. Male FGD Kyangyenyi/Kiyungu, Aug. 22, 2004; Male FGD Kiyungu Shema, Aug. 21, 2004; Ntozi and Kabera, “Marriage Patterns,” 22–8; Ministry of Planning and Economic Development, Rural Food, 33; “Death of Spouses” and “Hima Marriage,” D. Stenning Papers, Cambridge University, ADD 7916, B9, C2, C6A; 3% of the Hima community studied by Elam were widows and divorcees but these lived, usually unhappily, with agnates. Elam, Social, 37.

37. Steinhart, “Slavery,” 191, 194–200; Johnston, Uganda Protectorate, 568–72; Hyden, Political Development, 113; Doornbos, “Ethnicity,” 556–67; Oberg, “Analysis,” 107, 116; Male FGD Kiyungu Shema, Aug. 21, 2004; Interview YZ, Aug. 13, 2004. It is possible that marriage between pastoralists and agriculturalists was more common in the pre-colonial period than later sources indicate, and that the sexual exclusivity of Ankole's Hima during the colonial period was one product of a concerted campaign to maintain their dominance under European over-rule.

38. Kagume, “Church,” 38, 71, 85–92, 120–9, 180–5; Karugire, A History, 41; Doornbos, “Ethnicity,” 566–70; Notes on meeting with Lord Hailey re. Ankole, Aug. 31, 1947, NA, CO/1018/82.

39. Kyomuhendo and McIntosh, Women, 55; Kagume, “Church,” 103, 110, 130, 156–67.

40. Male FGD Ruti, Aug. 19, 2004; Interview EB, Sept. 1, 1999, Bukoba, M; Interview SM, Katoma, Aug. 25, 1999, M, 2; Interview PKK, Mshumba-Byazi, Aug. 2000.

41. Interview CSNM, Butanga, M, Aug. 28, 2004; Male FGD Kitala, Sept. 1, 2004; Richards, Economic Development, 161–6; Audrey Richards papers, LSE (ARLSREA), 7/19, G. Mut. 7, Kyagwe, M. Musaale, 1951.

42. Male FGD Kisubi Kiwulwe, Sept. 4, 2004; Female FGD Takajunge, Aug. 26, 2004. Kayanda is a personal name common to the societies of the southern interlacustrine region often used as a synonym for labourer.

43. E.g. Male FGD Namitanga, Aug. 19, 2004; Male FGD Ruti, Aug. 19, 2004; Interview IST, Kagezi, Masaka, Aug. 21, 2004; Male FGD Kitala, Sept. 1, 2004; Male FGD Kiyungu Shema, Aug. 21, 2004; Interview PLGS, Kitala, Busiro, M, 2004.

44. Male FGD, Kitala, Sept. 1, 2004; Male FGD Nyamitanga, Aug. 19, 2004.

45. Kuhanen, “Historiography,” 301–25.

46. Female FGD Kiyungi, Aug. 21, 2004; Male FGD Ruti, Aug. 19, 2004; Female FGD Ruti, Aug. 19, 2004.

47. Female FGD Nyamitanga, Aug. 19, 2004; Elam, Social, 150–1; Ntozi and Kabera, “Marriage Patterns,” 24–6.

48. Kamugisha, “Beliefs,” 54.

49. Uganda, 1921 Census; Kagume, “Church,” 256; Ntozi and Kabera, “Marriage Patterns,” 14, 31–4; Elam, Social, 24, 55, 177, 213–15; Male FGD Ruti, Aug. 19, 2004; Uganda, 1959 Census. The proportion of women who had some education almost tripled between 1969 and 1980 to 35%. Just over half of Ankole's population were Christian in 1959. By 1984 Christianity had become almost universal.

50. Doyle, Before HIV, chap.4; Imelda Batwangiraki, “Murekye Kugabura Okwega Kw'abaishiki,” Ageteraine, Apr. 1, 1960; N. Ndyanga, “Baishiki mwegarukyemu mwahangara,” Ageteraine, Nov. 5, 1960; “Illegal Relationships,” Ageteraine, June 21, 1963; Uganda Argus, July 19, 1971, 4; Interview CT, Mbarara, Aug. 20, 2004.

51. Interview NT, Aug. 9, 2004, Mbarara; Elam, Social, 87; Kagume, “Church,” 272; Female FGD Kyenjenyi, Aug. 22, 2004; Mwesiga, “Traditional Marriage,” 48–50; Female FGD Kiyungi, Aug. 21, 2004.

52. O. Beaudoin to E. Michaud, Mar. 26, 1933, Mbarara in E. Michaud, “Enquêtes sur les conditions morales dans le vicariat de l”Uganda, 1933,” Rubaga archives, 904.1; Byaruhanga, “Divorce,” 90; Interview NT, Aug. 9, 2004, Mbarara.

53. Female FGD Kiyungi, Aug. 21, 2004; Male FGD Ruti, Aug. 19, 2004; Female FGD Ruti, Aug. 19, 2004; Female FGD Nyamitanga, Aug. 19, 2004; Female FGD Kyenjenyi, Aug. 22, 2004; Male FGD Kiyungu Shema, Aug. 21, 2004; Male FGD Nyamitanga, Aug. 19, 2004; Interview EM, Kampala, Sept. 27, 2001; Interview NT, Aug. 9, 2004, Mbarara.