Fifteen cultural artefacts recently repatriated from England have gone on display in Kampala, offering Ugandans a rare opportunity to reconnect with pieces of their ancestral heritage — including the etok, a distinctive Acholi headdress made of human hair, beads, and an ostrich feather.
According to theeastafrican.co.ke, the etok is a moulded cap of hair decorated with spirals of white, red, blue, green and pink glass beads sewn into discs of leather; bird bone with the cut end affixed through one of the leather discs, ostensibly for the attachment of the feather.
Also on display is the royal Queen Mother’s drum from Bunyoro Kingdom in western Uganda. The drum made of a round wooden body covered in hide was played by the Queen Mother.
The two pieces of the hide are held in place with straight lacing, made from thin twisted strips of leather. The body is decorated with strings of plaited fibre, strings of cowrie shells, small pink beads, back seeds and a horn of a ram.
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The royal oval wooden meat dish of musogo wood, possibly used by the King of Bunyoro, Andereya Bisereko Duhaga II. The body is tapered and strained red with grooved scorched festoons along the rim, with 12 broadly triangular legs upon a concave oval base.
The royal drum from Buganda Kingdom in central Uganda consists of a wooden semi-cylinder covered with hide. The drum is covered with cowries and ancient bead work, very beautifully executed. The top is covered with hide on which are sewn beads, and decorated with four hair tassels.
Emomi, a shield made from thick hippopotamus hide with a wooden handle is from Bunyoro. The hide shield is roughly circular in shape with a curved cross-section; there are two lobes and a folded edge.
The reverse has a centred wooden handle across the diameter that has been bound and secured in place with strips of brown and black leather. It is decorated with scored, tightly intersecting lines.
There is the glazed black earthware (pot) from Ankole in western Uganda. The top half of the body is decorated with three incised semi-ovals; each semi-oval is filled with incised lines, small chips in the rim, and minor scratches in the exterior.
The engyemeko (water pot) made from black earthenware from Ankole. Conical in shape with a long tapering neck, everted rim and small pedestal base; decorated with incised designs filled with white pigment; three horizontal bands with raised dots alternating with triangles filled with hatching, vertical bars and grid motif.
Ngato is a divination card from Buganda, made out of thick leather, used for throwing to obtain the favour of god Mwanga.
There is a shield from Bunyoro resembling Buganda’s type of shield. The shield was made from a plant fibre, with leather attached, used for protection during wars.
