Uccelli [née Pazzini], Carolina Uccellini, Marco
Music of the western kingdoms of Tooro, Bunyoro and Nkore, including Kigezi
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5. Music of the western kingdoms of Tooro, Bunyoro and Nkore, including Kigezi.Though closely related linguistically to the Ganda, the musical styles of the neighbouring kingdoms of Bunyoro and Tooro show a Nilotic influence that clearly parallels the degree of penetration into western Uganda by the Bito clans from the Nilotic north. At some point in the late 16th or the 17th century these invaders established a ruling hegemony, replacing the legendary Cwezi dynasty of the old kingdom of Bunyoro-Kitara. Unlike the Bantu-speaking groups discussed in the previous section, duple metre rhythms similar to those in Nilotic music are used to accompany songs and dances. As a result, syllables of two morae are frequently compressed, and conversely short syllables are lengthened to fit the underlying metrical framework of the music. Accompanying rhythms are exemplified with rattles strapped around the lower-legs of dancers, sounding intricate rhythmic patterns against the crisp sounds of the short, single-headed, hand-beaten ntimbo drums for the popular orunyege dance style common to both Tooro and Bunyoro. Further south in the former kingdom of Nkore, where pastoralist Hima people have moved into an area populated by Iru agriculturalists, the pastoralist influence seems to have produced slower and gentler tempos. The two principal dance genres, the men's ekitaaguriro and the women's ekizino dances of the Iru majority, call for a lightly beaten, continuous pulsation of sounds produced by raft-rattles, large water pots (tapped on their mouths with flat beaters made from banana fibre) or small drums. The pulsation is grouped into repeated patterns of eight beats that are accented variously. Male choral responses at the beginning of their ekitaaguriro dance take the form of prolonged low humming that imitates the lowing of cattle. The dance gestures of the men are marked by raised arms that symbolize the slowly waving long horns of their Nkore cattle, while their feet tap out polyrhythmic patterns. The more powerful and aristocratic Hima became the rulers of the kingdom and many of their cults and song texts are associated with cattle. Poorer Hima earn their living as herders and often live in temporary grass huts within pastures. The Hima entooro men's dance also consists of gentle arm-waving gestures, but it is performed while seated. While the Hima adopted the Bantu language of the Iru, Hima singing style (often admired and sometimes imitated by non-Hima) is extremely melismatic and thus quite distinct from Iru singing. In 1993 the people of Nkore, unlike the Nyoro and Tooro, voted against the restoration of the kingship to the Hima royal family. Former musical institutions of the palace are likely to vanish, but the playing of one of the ensembles, the esheegu stopped-flutes, was not confined solely to the court and is still practised by a few teams of men in western Nkore. In the mountainous south-western corner of the country the Kiga, whose culture resembles that of the Iru in Nkore, shows less northern influence in their singing styles. Syllable timings in song are more like those of the Bantu peoples discussed above in §(4), but as in Nkore, Bunyoro and Tooro the accompanying rhythms are based on a duple division (see ex.3c). This survey covers the more important and distinctive music styles in Uganda, but is necessarily incomplete. Table 1 lists many of the principal song-dance genres of most of the ethnic groups in Uganda, as well as the distribution of certain instruments and ensembles (for obvious reasons drums and most idiophones are not included). The information on instruments is based on Wachsmann's survey (Trowell and Wachsmann, 1953), and it must be noted that since the time of that survey some instruments have been adopted by other ethnic groups partly as a result of national education and cultural policies (see §IV below).
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