Description
The term Runyakitara was officially recognised by Makerere University in the early 1990s to serve as an umbrella name for an academic subject to be taught at degree level. This comprised four mutually intelligible languages/dialects of Western Uganda, namely, Runyoro, Rutooro, Runyankore and Rukiga. The name has taken root and is used more and more by the wider public to represent the four languages/dialects referred to earlier. Runyakitara in fact covers a wider group of mutually intelligible languages and dialects including, but not limited to, Ruhororo, Runyaruguru, Rutagwenda, Rusongora, Rutuku, Rugangaizi and Ruruli in Uganda, but also Kikerewe and Ruhaya in Tanzania as well as Ruhema in the DRC.
Runyakitara as an academic discipline and as taught in Ugandan universities, has three major components: Language, Literature and Culture. It is this third component that the present publication is endeavouring to cater for. The term Banyakitara is the plural form of a Munyakitara or native speaker of Runyakitara. One would like to recall that the Bunyoro-Kitara Empire at one point in history covered most of the areas where Runyakitara is spoken today, spreading up to some territories in the present day Tanzania and DRC.
The authors in this book have covered a wide range of topics relating to culture, which include: what culture entails in general terms, kingship institutions among the Banyakitara, gender issues, friendship functions and rituals, marriage, forms of address, kinship and time references, the Empaako, a special form of address among the Banyoro, Batooro and Bahema, among others, recognised by UNESCO as part of its intangible heritage, taboos, omens and signs, traditional religion as well as death and its rituals.
Suffice it to say, however, that this kind of work, where cultures of related groups of people are compared, should be a challenge for other scholars in Uganda and beyond to do the same for a better appreciation and understanding of our societies.
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