 Museum entrance | |
  Map of Kampala showing the location of Uganda Museum. | |
| Established | 1908 (1908) |
|---|---|
| Location | Plot 5 Old Kira Road Kitante Hill after Mulago Referral Hospital in the Northern part ofKampala, Uganda. |
| Coordinates | 0°20′9.49″N32°34′57.04″E / 0.3359694°N 32.5825111°E /0.3359694; 32.5825111 |
| Type | Historical |
| Director | Rose Nkaale Mwanja |
| Architect | Ernst May |
| Public transit access | The Uganda Museum can be accessed by public taxi, going to Kamwokya Ntinda, motorcycle motorist (Boda boda) or by private means. |
| Website | www |
TheUganda Museum is located inKampala, Uganda. It displays and exhibitsethnological, natural-historical and traditional life collections ofUganda's cultural heritage. It was founded in 1908, after Governor George Wilson called for "all articles of interest" on Uganda to be procured.[1][2] Among the collections in the Uganda Museum are playable musical instruments, hunting equipment, weaponry,archaeology andentomology.[1][3]
The Uganda Museum is the oldest museum inEast Africa;[4][citation needed] it was officially established by theBritish protectorate government in 1908 with ethnographic material. Its history goes back to 1902 when deputy GovernorGeorge Wilson called for collection of objects of interest throughout the country to set up a museum.[5] The museum started in a smallSikh temple atFort Lugard onOld Kampala Hill.[5] Between the 1920s and 1940s,archaeology and paleontological surveys and excavations were conducted by Church Hill, E. J. Wayland, Bishop J. Wilson, P. L. Shinnie, E. Lanning, and several others, who collected a significant number of artifacts to boost the museum. The museum atFort Lugard become too small to hold the specimens, and the museum was moved to the Margret Trowel School ofFine Art atMakerere University College in 1941.[5] Later, funds were raised for a permanent home and themuseum was moved to its current location onKitante Hill in 1954. In 2008, the museum turned 100 years old.[6]
The museum has a number of galleries:Ethnography, Natural History, Traditional Music, Science and Industry, and Early History.[7][8]
The ethnography section holds more than 100,000 object of historical and cultural value. A traditional reed door leads to exhibits on health, knowledge systems, objects of warfare, traditional dressing and other various ceremonial practices inUganda.[8]
Theethnography gallery, formerly called the "Tribal Hall", is organized around a series of wooden "shop window" cases, each of which holds objects that derive from the traditional cultures of Uganda's people.[8]
The music gallery displays a comprehensive collection of musical instruments fromEast Africa, which grew from the collection originally established byDr Klaus Wachsmann in 1948.[9] The instruments are arranged according to the major groups of music instruments: drums, percussion, wind and string instruments.
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The Uganda Museum carries out research across the country, with intensive research in theKaramoja region (Napak, Moroto and Kadam),Eastern Uganda at the foothills ofMount Elgon (Bukwo) and the whole of the western rift to Dellu, near Uganda's border withSouth Sudan. The Paleontological Research Unit has yielded fossils that relate to human evolution. For instance,Uganda Pithecus (fossil skull of a remote cousin ofHominidae) is a fossil ape, aged between 19 and 20 million years, that was discovered in Napak. Paleoenvironmental research around heritage sites has also taken place ineastern and western Uganda.
The Uganda Museum collaborates withMbarara University,Makerere University,College de Franca,Natural History Museum in Paris and theUniversity of Michigan.
A wide range of collections exist from the 1960s to the present. Specimens are displayed in the Natural History/Palaeontology Gallery which is open to the public. Collections in storage are available to researchers and students on request.[10]
Publications of findings can be found in various journals including the Geo-Pal, an onlineUganda Scientific Journal.[11]
Apart from the permanent exhibits in the galleries, theUganda Museum offerseducational service in form of demonstration lessons,outreach programs,workshops and complimentary services. Using the availablespecimens, themuseum arranges a variety of topical lessons related to theschool curriculum. Student tours are conducted around themuseum, as well as giving introductory lectures with slides, films, and other aids. Themuseum staff from the education section go into the more remote areas of the country to teach invillages whose schools are not able to visit the museums. Some objects are loaned out to schools to be used asvisual aids. Themuseum hosts lectures,public talks andworkshops on relevant topics to the public in theauditorium. The museum is well equipped with facilities, such as canteen and internet cafe, which offer a variety of traditional foods of Uganda, and gift shops that showcase Uganda's crafts.[12]
At the back of theUgandaMuseum building is the culturalvillage with huts depicting traditional lifestyles of people inUganda. For visitors who want to experience theindigenous ways of theUgandan people, an array ofcultural material, such as milk pots made from wood (ebyanzi), gourd vessels, basketry, bead work, horn work, ceramics, cutlery, leather works, armoury, and musical instruments, are displayed. These houses include Bamba House,Batooro House,Bunyoro House, Hima House,Ankole House andKigezi House, all representing thewestern region. Some of the more interesting items in the Tooro House, are the beddings, especially the makeshift wooden bed, thebackcloth blanket, and theroyal drums. In theAnkole House that belongs toBanyankole, there are cooking utensils like pots, bowls made ofclay and a mingling stone showing how theBanyankole used to preparemillet bread(Kalo) before the invention of milling machines. In the Hima House that belongs to theBahima, there are milk gourds used for keeping milk and long horns representing the type of cattle that used to dominate the Himakraals. There is also a lotion made from milk that was used to smear a would-be bride.[13]
From eastern Uganda there isBusoga House,Jopadhola House,Bugisu House,Teso House andKaramojong House. TheBugisu House is dotted withcircumcision tools, including knives and headgear, among otherregalia. In theTeso House there are severalcalabashes used for brewing and drinkingMalwa, a popular local brew in eastern Uganda. There are also mingling stones and pots for preparing kalo, which is one of their main foods. Other houses includeAcholi House,Lango House,Alur House andMadi House all from northern Uganda. Some of these houses contain arrows and bows which were mainly used for protection tools and for hunting. TheBaganda House represents people from thecentral region. Inside the house there isbackcloth,drums, baskets forLuwombo, hunting nets, wooden sandals(emikalabanda), and theOmweso game popular among theBaganda.[13]
Themuseum building is ahistorical landmark designed byGerman architectErnst May.[14][15] The building was designed with ample natural lighting and air to ensure proper preservation of objects.[14][15]
During 2011, theUganda Museum complex (that includes theheadquarters ofUganda Wildlife Authority) was under threat of demolition. TheUganda Government was planning to build an "East African Trade Centre" (sometimes referred to as theKampala Tower) on the site. In 2011, fourcivil societyorganisations, the Historic Resources Conservation Initiatives (HRCI), Cross Cultural Foundation of Uganda (CCFU), Historical Buildings Conservation Trust (HBCT) and Jenga Afrika, took theGovernment of theRepublic of Uganda to court to halt the government's plans.[16]
This article incorporates text available under theCC BY 4.0 license.
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