![]() Chronological studies of earthen works in western Uganda show that the oldest sites were occupied by mixed farmers who specialized into cattle herding by the time they occupied the Bigo site confirming that these were Bantu people. Researchers concluded that Bachwezi were an outgrowth of the established Bantu population who began placing more emphasis on herding. The Nyankole cows of the Hima people in Uganda First, Bachwezi were not white but black people,So far it has been very difficult for Bahima to prove any connection between them and Bachwezi. To cling to their ‘white’ origin and deny their Nilotic Luo ancestry, Bahima are arguing that they are descendants of white Bachwezi and not black Nilotic Luos adding that it is the Basoga who are Luos. About women, beauty is in the eye of the beholder and this matter should stop at that. To confirm that they are actually darker and have thicker lips than Bantu you just take a random sample and you will not fail to see who is lighter with thinner lips. They also still insist that they are lighter-skinned with thinner lips and are more intelligent and therefore superior than other Ugandans and have more beautiful women. Many still insist openly but largely in subtle ways that they are white people using physical features as noted above as evidence. The second demystification is about Bahima’s race. In other words, the only thing Bahima could remember when they met with Speke is that they are originally white people. In Bunyoro “… they lost their religion, forgot their language…changed their national name to Wahuma and retain a singular traditional account of their having once been half white and half black. On the other hand, they encourage their women (except those from the ruling class) to marry the elites from other ethnic groups so that they win the men over to Bahima side or they get access to their political and other secrets.īahima’s claim according to Speke that when they left Ethiopia or Abyssinia they wandered in the interior and eventually crossed the Nile into Bunyoro. They do the latter to avoid being penetrated by others so that their secrets about dominating them remain hidden. (1) Whenever they move to a new place, they adopt local names and local languages, (2) they dominate the indigenous people and (3) their men do not marry women from other ethnic groups except from their own. Before attempting to demystify the myth let us understand this:īahima, Batutsi, Bahororo and Banyamulenge are cousins with three principal characteristics. They gave credit to Bahima simply because they resemble whites physically such as sharp, narrow, pointed and long noses.īahima have hidden their true history of precarious nomadic life and absence of material wealth to take advantage of these attributes so that they continue to dominate other Ugandans. Colonial explorers, missionaries and administrators like Samuel Baker, John Roscoe and Harry Johnston in Uganda shared these views. Other Europeans added that Bahima were more intelligent with superior qualities and born to rule. The mystery stems from John Hanning Speke who wrote in 1863 that Wahuma (Bahima) were white people, more civilized than black people or Negroes and entered Uganda from Ethiopia occupied by a ruling white race. It appears the Hima are limited fairly much to their original settlement area.īahima’s history has been shrouded in mystery for a long time. There is no listing for the Hima in Tanzania. The ethnologies note, however, that this speech form “may be a separate language.”The relationship of those speaking Hima and other varieties of Nyankore would likely be the same as with the dialects of the Cushite Tutsis and Bantu Hutus speaking Rundi/Rwanda. The Hima speech is classified in the ethnologies as a dialect of Nyankore (Nkore/Nkole). One tribe of people in Ankole, Uganda, are called Hima (Bahima). Their name in the language is the primary identification of their origin. They were absorbed by the Bantu people and took up the local Bantu language. They conquered the Bantu people in what is now southwest Uganda and the neighbouring portion of Zaire. Some historians think the name Hima is also associated with a Nilotic people who came down from the Sudan along the Nile through Uganda. In recent history the name Hima indicates a sub-group of the Tutsi, originally a Cushite group from the Ethiopian highlands, who entered the area perhaps in the 1300s. Bahima and culture : Who are the Hima People in east Africa? The Hima name is associated with various peoples and political entities in the Great Lakes are of Eastern Africa.
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