Statues and the Museum

I walked around downtown Kampala a bit today. The city doesn’t exactly have a lot of “sights”, but I saw a few things. This statue stands in the middle of a traffic circle in the busiest part of Kampala. It’s of Kabaka (“King”) Mutesa II of Buganda (“King Freddie”, though only to foreigners outside his presence). Buganda is the kingdom of the Baganda people, the largest ethnic group in Uganda (though not a majority). There are fifty-two clans in the tribe, and the King can marry from any (or all) of the tribes except that of his mother. His children belong to their mother’s tribe, thus ensuring that the monarchy gets spread around a bit. By tradition, the oldest male child cannot become king. Mutesa I allegedly had more than five hundred wives.

Mutesa was deposed in 1953 by his colonial overlords for his opposition to a British effort to unite Uganda, Kenya, and Tanzania, but returned to power two years later. He was deposed again in 1966 by Milton Obote, who had led Uganda to independence. After some political maneuvering, Obote sent troops (led by Idi Amin) to attack Mutesa’s palace, and he fled to London, where he died shortly after of alcohol poisoning (some evidence points to assassination). In 1971, Idi Amin, by now President of Uganda, had the body returned to Uganda for a state funeral.

Next I walked over to this monument, which was nearby. I’m not exactly sure what it celebrates their independence from, I assume Britain, but it’s very large. There are signs that warn against loitering near the statue, and there are a few cops there, I guess to make sure that no one loiters, but to do so, they have to, well, loiter. QUID CUSTODIES NON LOITERIBUS?

Then I walked over to Parliament -- the lame one with the governing guys, not the good one with George Clinton. Sadly, it was Sunday, so it was closed. Nice entrance and everything though. Also there was a big sign that said “subway” and some stairs underground. I’m led to understand that the Ugandan subway system only has one stop, but it’s very fast.

Anyway, then I went to the Uganda Museum. Lonely Planet says this is basically a waste of time, and advises you not to pay the USH 5000 ($3) fee to bring in a camera because it’s not worth it. Lonely Planet can go hang. This museum is amazing, definitely one of the finest experiences I’ve ever had at a museum.

The museum is divided into three wings. I attempted to visit them in chronological order. This proved impossible -- they were not laid out in anything resembling chronological (or order). I started with the left wing, which had a little room on the Stone Age. It had a collection of skulls of the ancestors of humanity that have been found in the area along with little explanatory placards that were probably more or less correct except when they obviously weren’t. This skull was labeled Australopithecus africanus, from South Africa, discovered in 1947.

Besides the skulls, they had little dioramas to illustrate what life was like in prehistorical Uganda. These were awesome, as you can plainly see form the photo. I think this one was supposed to suggest the Garden of Eden, Uganda being a very religious nation. Besides this woman getting this bit of fruit, there’s a man in the foreground just chilling.

The exhibit also had a comparison of the tools used by primitive humans with those used by modern humans. Sort of. If it were me, for contrast I would have had power tools in there, like one of those electric hammers or a bandsaw or something.

Outside of the stone age room was a hallway devoted to the musical instruments of Uganda. Besides a large glass display case that illustrated the development of the drum, flute, and xylophone, there was a set of drums, a little stringed thing, and a xylophone for visitors.

It is difficult to play the Ode to Joy when the xylophone is not tuned to the western scale.

At the end of the musical instrument hall was a room on primates. Most of it was about how all the primates in Uganda except people are horribly endangered, but my favorite section was about how chimpanzees self-medicate using various leaves. This chart states that gorillas and chimpanzees have discovered a certain soil that has the same active ingredient as Kaopectate.

I then went into the second and largest of the wings, which had a bunch of exhibits on pre-modern Uganda, including a lot on the colonial period. One of the first exhibits was a letter dated 1907 from the British governor to the local administrators announcing that the government had approved a one-time grant for the creation of the museum and authorizing them to purchase artifacts for as much as seven and a half pounds if they were unique and made a substantial contribution to an understanding of Ugandan history.

I enjoyed the parts about how Ugandans lived in the pre-colonial era. For instance, they enjoyed beer. I have never had banana beer, and I assume it’s not made anymore, which is a real shame. If only the museum had some sort of exhibit that explained how it was made, then maybe I could make my own banana beer...

OK, so anyone know where I can get a beer canoe?

A lot of the wing was devoted to comparing the cultures of the various tribes. One display case had masks that were used in the rituals of the various tribes. Some were creepy, but this one looked friendly enough. I don’t know much about this sort of thing, and the museum didn’t care to explain, so well, here’s a photo of a mask.

There were stairs tucked into the side of a hall in the second wing that led downstairs into a “diorama room” that was very exciting. It looked like a series of science projects -- little clay figures and explanations on construction paper. I can’t believe Lonely Planet said not to bring a camera.

After that wing, I went to the third and final wing of the museum. I guess the general idea was that the first was stone age/primates/music, the second was pre-modern/colonial, and the third was the modern era. But I think it can best be described as “totally random and weird.” For instance, there was this 1925 Model T. Why? I have no idea. There was no plaque or explanation for why they put a Model T in the museum. I think maybe the museum people thought, well, we’ve got this thing, it’s sort of old, and it’s too big to get down the stairs.

There was a display that must have been from 1970 because, as you can see, it talked about how Neil Armstrong walked on the moon “last summer”. In the same room was a large piece of telephone switching equipment for some reason. The highlight, though, on a special dais at the end of the wing, was a special exhibit about the Olympics. It included a history of the Olympics, a photo gallery of past IOC presidents, photos of various African athletes, and participation medals from several games.

Overall, an awesome museum experience.