Amba people
Amba(pl.Baambaand known by various other names) is aBantuethnic group located on the border area between theDRCandUgandasouth ofLake Albertin the northern foothills of theRwenzori Mountains.On the Uganda side, they are found inBundibugyo District.On the Congolese side, they are located in theWatalingaandBawisasubcounties ofBeni,South Kivu.Numbering 42,559 on the Uganda side in the 2014 census[1]and 4,500 on the Congolese side according to a 1991SIL Internationalestimate,Ethnologuelists their total population as 40,100. Agriculturalists, the Baamba traditionally cultivateplantains,millet,maize,sweet potatoes,peanuts,rice,coffee,cotton,andcassava,while raisinggoatsandsheep.The Baamba practiceChristianity.[2]
TheAmba languagespoken by the Baamba is called, variously,Kwambaby the Baamba themselves and is known asKihumuin the DR Congo. There are many others. It has a 70% lexical similarity withBera.Dialects include Kyanzi (Kihyanzi) and Suwa (Kusuwa).[2]
The Baamba were part of the armedRwenzururu movementagainst theToro Kingdomand central government that reached heights in the mid-1960s and early 1980s.[3]In 2008, the government recognized theKingdom of Rwenzururu,formed by the Amba andKonjo peoples,as Uganda's first kingdom shared by two tribes.[4]
The Baamba are one of the 65 indigenous communities in Uganda according to the Third Schedule of Uganda's Constitution (Uganda's indigenous communitiesas at 1 February 1926).
Culture
[edit]The Baamba people have amazing cultures. In their marriage, families would book their spouses earlier in life after an initiation on the boy was done. The initiation process was to transform the boy from childhood to adulthood before puberty. Bride price was paid inform of goats and no marriage was recognized without bride price. Traditionally the Baamba people were hunters and provided food to their families through hunting by the use of bows and arrows.[3][5][6]The Baamba believe misfortune is visited upon them by witches who appear as normal individuals during the day but at night transform themselves into malevolent beings. The primary purpose of these witches is to kill their unwary victims for the sake of human flesh, which they then consume in a mystical fashion so that the corpse shows no outward sign of having been touched.[7]
References
[edit]- ^"2014 Uganda Population and Housing Census – Main Report"(PDF).Uganda Bureau of Statistics. Archived fromthe original(PDF)on 12 October 2017.Retrieved17 April2018.
- ^ab"Amba: A language of Uganda",Ethnologue(accessed 20 August 2009)
- ^abPrunier, Gérard(2009).Africa's World War: Congo, the Rwandan Genocide, and the Making of a Continental Catastrophe.Oxford:Oxford University Press.ISBN978-0-19-537420-9.,82-83
- ^"Uganda: Welcome Rwenzururu",editorial by theNew Vision,31 March 2008
- ^Rubongoya, Joshua B. (January 1995)."The Bakonjo‐Baamba and Uganda: Colonial and postcolonial integration and ethnocide".Studies in Conflict & Terrorism.18(2): 75–92.doi:10.1080/10576109508435970.ISSN1057-610X.
- ^"The People, Settlements and Tribes in Uganda".Saso Gorilla Trips.2018-03-09.Retrieved2024-02-03.
- ^Arens, William (1979).The Man-Eating Myth: Anthropology and Anthropophagy(first ed.). New York: Oxford University Press. p. 154.ISBN9780195025064.
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