Reinventing the Mourning Tradition in Militarized Kampala (Uganda)

From the late 1960s and into the 1980s Kampalans lived in a highly militarized and dangerous city. In May 1966 the central government, under Milton Obote, ordered an attack on the Buganda Kingdom located in the Mengo neighborhood. The king went into exile and monarchies were abolished nationwide. Shortly thereafter the government turned various spaces located in this neighborhood, including the enormous palace, into military installations. Drawing on oral histories collected from the Kampalans who lived in the city during this period, newspaper accounts and religious archives, this paper explores how Kampalans reworked mourning the dead in response to the militarization of their neighborhood. For example, the king (kabaka) Edward Mutesa died in exile in London as an enemy of the state and was not properly mourned according to tradition. In 1971 Idi Amin allowed for the return of the king’s body, but not of the reinstitution of the monarchy. While Kampalans and other people of Buganda extensively mourned his death when his body was returned to Uganda (three years after his death), the functions were devoid of the succession rituals that traditionally accompanied such mourning. Ordinary people too died – of natural causes and as a result of the violence that accompanied militarization. Families mourned their loved ones’ death but situated their morning within the changed circumstances. Kampalans, for example, buried loved ones in the city in order to be cautious and avoid the risks that accompanied long journeys. This was a departure from tradition which required burial in ancestral lands. Furthermore, death was not necessarily accompanied by the long process of choreographed mourning. Thus, in post-colonial Kampala, people reinvented the mourning tradition.