Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-t7czq Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-25T03:43:10.349Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Kabaka Mutesa and Venereal Disease: An Essay on Medical History and Sources in Precolonial Buganda

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 May 2014

Michael W. Tuck
Michael W. Tuck*
Affiliation:
Northeastern Illinois University
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

In an article in History in Africa about the Ganda monarch Mutesa, Richard Reid argued that Mutesa likely suffered from syphilis. In a chapter on Mutesa in a just published volume, John Rowe concluded that the disease from which Mutesa suffered was gonorrhea. While on the surface similar—both sexually transmitted, neither particularly desirable—the diseases are actually quite different. Popular biographies often offer gossip about individuals' medical histories, but there can be legitimate reasons to investigate the medical history of past leaders, two of which are pertinent here. First, the medical conditions from which they suffered may well have affected their lives and their decisions as leaders. Reid addresses this point, speculating that Mutesa's syphilis may have progressed to an extent that it affected him mentally. Reid suggests that this might help explain Mutesa's erratic behavior toward the latter years of his reign, as he shifted his favor from one court group and foreign delegation to another. Rowe raises a similar point about Mutesa's health and competing groups, although in a different way. Rowe shows how Mutesa's illness became a point of competition between foreign missionaries and indigenous religious specialists as each sought to win his favor by curing his lllness. Reid and Rowe also both mention the effect Mutesa's illness had on the perception of him as Kabaka. The Baganda equated the health and well-being of the Kabaka with the health of the kingdom, and Mutesa's extended illness and bedridden state would not have been a positive attribute.

Type
Research Article
Information
History in Africa , Volume 30 , 2003 , pp. 309 - 325
Copyright
Copyright © African Studies Association 2003

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1 Reid, Richard, “Images of an African Ruler: Kabaka Mutesa of Buganda, ca. 1857-1884,” HA 26(1999), 269–98Google Scholar.

2 Rowe, John, “Mutesa and the Missionaries: Church and Slate in Pre-Colonial Buganda” in Christian Missionaries and the State in the Third World, ed. Hansen, Holger Bernt and Twaddle, Michael (Oxford, 2002)Google Scholar.

3 Reid, , “Images,” 290–94Google Scholar.

4 Rowe, “Mutesa.” passim.

5 Kenny, Michael G., “Mutesa's Crime: Hubris and the Control of African Kings,” Comparative Studies in Society and History 30(1988), 598CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

6 Wright, Michael, Buganda in the Heroic Age (Nairobi, 1971), 3–7Google Scholar.

7 Explanations for the relationships between the treponematoses arc tied up in the argument about the origin of syphilis and its spread throughout the world. Discussions of the issue can be found in Crosby, Alfred W., The Columbian Exchange (Westport, CT, 1972), 122–64Google Scholar; and Rosebury, Theodor, Microbes and Morals: The Strange Story of Venereal Disease (New York, 1971), 67–93Google Scholar.

8 Holmes, King K.et al, eds. Sexually Transmitted Diseases (2d ed.: New York, 1990), 213–62Google Scholar.

9 Manson-Bahr, P.E.C. and Bell, D.R., Manson's Tropical Diseases (19th ed.: London, 1987), 623–44Google Scholar.

10 Hackett, C.J., “The Transmission of Yaws in Nature”, Journal of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene 60(1957), 159–68Google ScholarPubMed.

11 Rosebury, , Microbes and Morals, 183Google Scholar; http://www.ashastd.org/stdfaqs/gonorrhea.html.

12 Orley, John, “Indigenous Concepts of Disease and Their Interaction with Scientific Medicine,” in Health in Tropical Africa During the Colonial Period, ed. Sabben-Clare, E.E., Bradley, D.J., and Kirkwood, K. (Oxford, 1980), 127–34Google Scholar.

13 Luganda version from Kagwa, Apolo, Ekitabo Kye Mpisa Za Baganda (Kampala, 1918 [1905]), 264Google Scholar; English version from Kagwa, Apolo, The Customs of the Baganda, trans. Kalibala, Ernest B., ed. Mandelbaum, May (Edel) (New York, 1934), 140–41Google Scholar, although I have retained the use of the word “kabotongo” rather than the translator's choice of syphilis.

14 Roscoe, John, The Baganda (2d ed.: New York, 1966), 281–82Google Scholar.

15 Cited in Walser, FerdinandLuganda Proverbs (Merlin, 1982) proverb 3254Google Scholar.

16 Wilson, C.T. and Felkin, R. W., Uganda and the Egyptian Soudan (London, 1882), 184Google Scholar.

17 Felkin, R.W., “Notes on the Waganda Tribe of Central Africa,” Proceedings of the Royal Society of Edinburgh 13(1885/1886), 706Google Scholar.

18 Walser, , Luganda Proverbs, proverbs 685, 2231, 2300, and 2276Google Scholar

19 Ibid., proverb 1698, discusses treatment.

20 Dawson, Marc H., “Socio-Economic and Epidemiological Change in Kenya: 1880-1925” (Ph.D., University of Wisconsin-Madison, 1983), 205–19Google Scholar.

21 Parke, T. H., My Personal Experiences in Equatorial Africa (2d ed.: London, 1891), 401, 396Google Scholar.

22 On the Banyoro see Lambkin, F.J., “Prevalence of Venereal Disease in the Uganda Protectorate,” Report by Col. F.J. Lambkin, R.A.M.C., December 1907Google Scholar, Great Britain Colonial Office, Confidential Print, African no. 917; C.O. 879/99, 8. Inoculation among the Baganda is discussed in a Minute Paper from Principal Medical Officer to Chief Secretary, Entebbe, 5 May 1911, Uganda National Archives, A46/687, SMP 1862.

23 People in other parts of Africa and the world developed inoculation for treponematoses. Inoculation in Fiji is mentioned in “The Relation of Yaws to Syphilis,” Journal of Tropical Medicine (1 April 1901), 115Google Scholar; for Ghana see Patterson, K. David, Health in Colonial Ghana: Disease, Medicine, and Socio-Economic Change, 1900-1955, (Waltham, MA, 1981)Google Scholar.

24 Walser, , Lnganda Proverbs, proverbs 660 and 819Google Scholar.

25 Ibid., proverb 4057.

26 Ibid., proverb 1663.

27 Ibid., proverb 1929.

28 This argument about the time factor is made in Davies, J.N.P., “The History of Syphilis in Uganda,” Bulletin of the World Health Organization 15(1956), 1048Google ScholarPubMed.

29 Mukasa, Ham, “Ebifa ku Mulembe gwa Kabaka Mutesa,” Uganda Journal 1/2(1934), 116–23Google Scholar; 2/1(1934), 60-64; translated by Cox, A.H., “Some Notes on the Reign of Mutesa,” Uganda Journal 1/2(1934), 124–33Google Scholar; 2/1(1934), 65-70.

30 Gray, J.M., “Mutesa of Buganda,” Uganda Journal 1/1(1934), 48Google Scholar.

31 Kenny, “Mutesa's Crime,” 598n., wrote that “[t]he missionaries believed that Mutesa had contracted a venereal disease because of homosexual practices supposedly introduced to the court by Zanzibari Arab traders.” He cited no source, and one wonders if he is confusing Mutesa with Mwanga, whom missionaries criticized for practicing sodomy. For Mwanga see Rowe, John A., “The Purge of Christians at Mwanga's Court,” JAH 5(1964), 55–71CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

32 Wilson/Felkin, Uganda, and R.W. Felkin, “Notes.”

33 Wilson, /Felkin, , Uganda, 2:1Google Scholar.

34 Ibid., 2:11.

35 Reid, , “Images,” 293Google Scholar, citing Felkin to Wright, 4 March 1879, CMS CA6/010/22.

36 Kagwa, ApoloThe Kings of Buganda (Basekabaka be Buganda), trans, and ed. Kiwanuka, M.S.M. (Nairobi, 1971[1901]) 156, 174Google Scholar.

37 Luganda verses from J. Miti “Ebyafayo Bya Buganda,” the Luganda version of his “History of Buganda,” Makerere College Library, Folder 1:130, quoted in Rowe, John A., “Revolution in Buganda 1856-1900, I, The Reign of Kabaka Mukabya Mutesa 1856-1884” (Ph.D., University of Wisconsin, 1966), 49Google Scholar. The work is in English as Kabazzi, James Kibuka Miti “A Short History of Buganda, Bunyoro, Busoga, Toro and Ankole,” trans. Rock, G.K., unpublished microfilm, undated, 132Google Scholar. The English above is my translation. Rock renders the last line as “He is a coward who this disease should fear,” while Rowe, , “Mutesa,” 52Google Scholar, uses “unsophisticated” for “mudembe.”

38 Zimbe, Bartolomayo Musoke, Buganda Ne Kabaka: Ebyafayo Eby'obwakabaka bwe Buganda Mengo, 1939Google Scholar; Buganda and King: A Royal History of Buganda, trans. Simon Musoke, no date, 82-83 of translation.

39 Informant #9, interviewed on 17 June 1992, knew the first line of the song while informant #8, interviewed on 17 June 1992, knew the second line.

40 Foster, W.D., The Early History of Scientific Medicine in Uganda (Nairobi, 1970), 8Google Scholar.

41 Rowe, , “Mutesa,” 55Google Scholar.

42 Foster, , Early History, 8Google Scholar.

43 Davidson, Roger and Hall, Lesley A., “Introduction” in eadem., eds. Sex, Sin and Suffering: Venereal Disease and European Society Since 1870 (London, 2001), 5Google Scholar; Rosebury, Theodore, Microbes and Morals (New York, 1971), 181Google Scholar. Bullough goes further and says that the distinction between syphilis and gonorrhea was not settled until the causative organism of syphilis was discovered in 1905; Vern L. Bullough, Science in the Bedroom: A History of Sex Research, http://www2.rz.hu-berlin.de/sexolopv/GESUND/ARCHlV/LIBRO.HTM, note 24.

44 Wilson, /Felkin, , Uganda, 2:4Google Scholar.

45 Ibid., 2:23.

46 Bennett, F.J., “Custom and Child Health in Buganda: V. Concepts of Disease” Tropical and Geographical Medicine 15(1963), 150Google Scholar.

47 Cartwright, Frederick F., Disease and History (London, 1972), 63–64Google Scholar.

48 Caldwell, J.C. and Caldwell, P., “The Demographic Evidence for the Incidence and Cause of Abnormally Low Fertility in Tropical Africa,” World Health Statistics Quarterly 36(1983). 2–21Google ScholarPubMed.

49 Kibukamusoke, J.W., “Venereal Disease in East Africa,” Transactions of the Royal Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene 59(1965): 642–48CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Griffith, H.B., “Gonorrhoea and Fertility in Uganda,” Eugenics Review 55(1963), 103–08Google ScholarPubMed; Bennett, , “Custom and Child Health,” 150Google Scholar.

50 For a (tiller discussion of this issue see Tuck, Michael W., “Syphilis, Sexuality, and Social Control: A History of Venereal Disease in Colonial Uganda” (Ph.D., Northwestern University, 1997)Google Scholar.