1. J. Clyde Mitchell, Namwea, Nyasaland, to Max Marwick, 15 September 1948 (J. Clyde Mitchell Papers, Rhodes House, Oxford, RH MSS Afr. s. 1998/7/1).

2. Yonasani Kaggwa, Katwe, Uganda, 27 August 1990. All the interviews cited in this chapter took place in Uganda unless otherwise noted.

3. Zaina Kachui, Pumwani, Nairobi, 14 June 1976.

4. For information about attacks on Europeans, Michael Macoun, personal communication, 13 March 1990; John Huddletson, interview with author, Kampala, 18 August 1990; Darrell Bates, The Mango and the Palm (London: Rupert Hart-Davis, 1962), 47–55; “‘Witchcraft’ Murder of Geologist,” Tanganyika Standard, 2 April 1960, 1; “Mumiani Riot: Six Jailed,” ibid., 2 June 1960, 5. J. A. K. Leslie, personal communication, 13 March 1990, provided information about attacks on Africans; Alec Smith, Insect Man: The Fight against Malaria (London: Radcliffe Press, 1993), 72–73; “‘Human Vampire’ Story Incites Mombasa Mob’s Fire Station Attack,” East African Standard, 27 June 1947, 3; Elspeth Huxley, The Sorcerer’s Apprentice: A Journey through East Africa (London: Chatto & Windus, 1948), 23n; “Sacking of House Began Night Chase” and “Police Askari Stoned,” Tanganyika Standard, 16 February 1959, 1; “29 on Murder Charge after Riot,” ibid., 20 February 1959, 1; “‘Kill Them All’ Rioters Roared,” ibid., 9 April 1959, 1–3.

5. In the heat of the moment, Africans seem to have been very sophisticated in their reckoning of enemies. During the riots in Kampala in 1945, rioters mainly attacked European police officers, not African ones (Uganda Protectorate, Annual Report on Uganda, 1946 [London: HMSO, 1948], 78).

6. Harold J. Ingrams, Uganda: A Crisis of Nationhood (London: HMSO, 1960), 67–68; Mutesa II, Kabaka of Buganda, Desecration of My Kingdom (London: Constable, 1967), 117.

7. Mahmood Mamdani, Citizen and Subject: Contemporary Africa and the Legacy of Late Colonialism (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1996).

8. Frederick Cooper, Decolonization and African Society: The Labor Question in French and British Africa (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996).

9. Magarita Kalule, Masanafu, 20 August 1990.

10. Joseph Nsubuga, Kisasi, 22 August 1990.

11. Alozius Kironde, Kasubi, 17 August 1990.

12. Several people insisted that the queen mother was pregnant by Nsibirwa when he engineered her marriage to the commoner Kigozi (Ssimba Jjuko, Bwase, 20 August 1990; Julia Nakibuuka Nalongo, Lubya, 21 August 1990).

13. John Iliffe, East African Doctors: A History of the Modern Profession (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998), 90–91.

14. Lloyd A. Fallers, Law without Precedent: Legal Ideas in Action in the Courts of Busoga (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1969), 84. For a recent analysis of the “crisis” of 1945 and the strikes that preceded it, see Gardner Thompson, “Colonialism in Crisis: The Uganda Disturbances of 1945,” African Affairs 91 (1992): 605–29.

15. Fallers, Law, 83.

16. Paolo Kavuma, Crisis in Buganda, 1953–55: The Story of the Exile and the Return of the Kabaka, Mutesa II (London: Rex Collings: 1979), 9.

17. David E. Apter, The Political Kingdom in Uganda: A Study in Bureaucratic Nationalism (1961; 2d ed., Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1967), 226.

18. Musoke Kopliamu, Katwe, 22 August 1990.

19. Uganda Herald, 27 April and 7 May 1949; Apter, Political Kingdom, 256–62; Mutesa II, Desecration, 110–11; Uganda Protectorate, Report of the Commission of Enquiry into the Disturbances in Uganda during April 1949 (Entebbe: Government Printer, 1950), 21–25; Uganda Protectorate, Annual Report on Uganda, 1949 (London: HMSO, 1950), 4

20. Apter, Political Kingdom, 261–62.

21. Mutesa II, Desecration, 120–22; Apter, Political Kingdom, 276–86; Kavuma, Crisis, 22–26; “Buganda Lukiiko Asks for Date to Be Fixed for Independence,” Uganda Herald, 17 October 1953, 1; “Kabaka Deposed,” ibid., 1 December 1953, 1. In colonial Northern Rhodesia, Federation generated intense vampire rumors; see Mwelwa C. Musambachime, “The Impact of Rumor: The Case of the Banyama (Vampire-Men) in Northern Rhodesia, 1930–1964,” Int. J. Afr. Hist. Studies 21, 2 (1988): 201–15; Peter Fraenkel, Wayaleshi (London: Weidenfeld & Nicholson, 1959).

22. Ingrams, Uganda, 71; Mutesa II, Desecration, 122–23.

23. Apter, Political Kingdom, 14–18.

24. Young Muganda, “Rumour,” Matalisi, 4 May 1945, 2, 3, 4.

25. L. L. M. Kasumbo, letter to the editor, Matalisi, 24 January 1947, 7.

26. Young Muganda, “Rumour.”

27. Apter, Political Kingdom, 273–74, 337–40; A. B. K. Kasozi, The Social Origins of Violence in Uganda, 1964–1985 (Montréal: McGill–Queens University Press, 1994), 49; Louise M. Bourgault, Mass Media in Sub-Saharan Africa (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1995), 165.

28. Fallers, Law, 80.

29. Jeffrey Brooks, “Literacy and Print Media in Russia, 1861–1928,” Communication 11 (1988): 50–51; Misty L. Bastain, “‘Bloodhounds Who Have No Friends’: Witchcraft and Locality in the Nigerian Popular Press,” in Jean Comaroff and John L. Comaroff, eds., Modernity and Its Malcontents: Ritual and Power in Postcolonial Africa (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1993), 129–66.

30. Isabel Hofmeyr, “‘Wailing for Purity’: Oral Studies in Southern African Studies,” African Studies 54, 2 (1995): 22.

31. Hortense Powdermaker, Copper Town: The Human Situation on the Rhodesian Copperbelt (New York: Harper & Row, 1962), 280; for a somewhat different view, see Bourgault, Mass Media, 190–95.

32. E. M. K. Mulira, Troubled Uganda (London: Fabian Colonial Bureau, 1950), 7–10 passim. When radio became widespread in Uganda, it was parodied just as the spoken word was. “Radio Katwe,” the popular term for street talk in Kampala (named for the loquacious suburb of Katwe), became a synonym for wild speculation, a way of talking that was beyond accountability, so that no one could object to hearing oneself slandered in a rumor from Radio Katwe (E. M. K. Mulira, Mengo, 13 August 1990).

33. Benedict R. O’G. Anderson, Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism (1983; rev. ed. London and New York: Verso, 1991), 61–63. For two views that differ both with Anderson and myself, see Jeffrey Brooks, “Socialist Realism in Pravda: Read All About It!” Slavic Review 53, 4 (1994): 973–91, and Louise M. Bourgault, “Occult Discourses in the Liberian Press under Sam Doe: 1988–1989,” Alternation 4, 2 (1997): 186–209.

34. E. M. K. Mulira, Mengo, 13 August 1990.

35. Ingrams, Uganda, 32–35. For years before the establishment of community development courses, officials in Kenya had argued that familial and national stability could emerge from men and women educated well enough to read vernacular newspapers and talk about current events; see Luise White, “Separating the Men from the Boys: Constructions of Sexuality, Gender, and Terrorism in Central Kenya, 1939–59,” Int. J. Afr. Hist. Studies 23, 1 (1990): 1–25.

36. Julia Nakibuuka Nalongo, Lubya, 21 August 1990.

37. One man, Kabangala, was the source of a number of urban legends, all involving his ability to outwit and steal from Indian merchants.

38. Nechumbuza Nsumba, Katwe, 20 August 1990; Joseph Nsubuga, Kisasi, 22 August 1990.

39. Magarita Kalule, Masanafu, 20 August 1990.

40. Julia Nakibuuka Nalongo, Lubya, 21 August 1990.

41. Samuel Mubiru, Lubya, 28 August 1990.

42. E. M. K. Mulira, Mengo, 13 August 1990; Isaak Bulega, Makarere, 23 August 1990; Ssekajje Kasirye, Kisenyi, 24 August 1990.

43. Testimony of Stanley Kisitu, Sabuwali parish chief of Katwe, “Kasolo’s Case Is Very Complicated,” Uganda Eyogera, 4 December 1953, 1.

44. Aiden W. Southall and Peter C. W. Gutkind, Townsmen in the Making: Kampala and Its Suburbs (Kampala: East African Institute of Social Research, 1957), 57–65.

45. “Kasolo Is Now in Prison at Njabule,” Uganda Eyogera 6 November 1953, 1.

46. Barbara Yngvesson, “The Reasonable Man and Unreasonable Gossip: On the Flexibility of (Legal) Concepts and the Elasticity of (Legal) Time,” in P. H. Gulliver, ed., Cross-Examinations: Essays in Honor of Max Gluckman (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1978), 133–54; Max Marwick, “The Social Context of Cewa Witch Beliefs,” Africa 22, 2 (1952): 120–35.

47. “Kasolo Fought in Court: His Case Will Get a Ruling Today,” Uganda Eyogera, 27 November 1953, 1; Apter, Political Kingdom, 16–17; T. W. Gee, “A Century of Mohammedan Influence in Buganda, 1852–1951,” Uganda Journal 22, 2 (1958): 129–50; Felice Carter, “The Education of African Muslims in Uganda,” Uganda Journal 29, 2 (1965): 193–99.

48. “In Kasolo’s House, Pale Coloured Women Were Recovered,” Uganda Eyogera, 11 September 1953, 1. All translations from Uganda Eyogera were done by Fred Bukulu and Godfrey Kigozi.

49. Clay Ramsay, The Ideology of the Great Fear: The Soissonnais in 1789 (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1992), 131–40.

50. Kavuma, Crisis, 24, 39.

51. Gregory Sseluwagi, Lubya, 28 August 1990.

52. “Kasolo Is Now in Prison at Njabule” (cited n. 45 above).

53. See Hofmeyr, “‘Wailing for Purity,’” 16–31.

54. Ahmed Kiziri, Katwe, 20 August 1990.

55. Sapiriya Kasule, Kisenyi, 28 August 1990.

56. Uganda Herald, 7 May 1949.

57. “Kasolo Fought in Court” (cited n. 47 above).

58. “Kasolo’s Case Is Very Complicated” (cited n. 43 above).

59. See Lucie E. White, “Subordination, Rhetorical Survival Skills, and Sunday Shoes: Notes on the Hearing of Mrs. G.,” in Katharine T. Bartlett and Roseanne Kennedy, eds., Feminist Legal Theory (Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press, 1991), 404–28.

60. David Henige, “‘The Disease of Writing’: Ganda and Nyoro Kinglists in a Newly Literate World,” in Joseph C. Miller, ed., The African Past Speaks: Essays on Oral Tradition and History (Hamden, Conn.: Archon Books, 1980), 240–61; Jan Vansina, Oral Tradition as History (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1985), 42–45.

61. David P. Henige, “‘Disease of Writing’”; id., “The Problem of Feedback in Oral Tradition: Four Examples from the Fante Coastlands,” J. African History 14, 2 (1973): 223–35. In the past fifteen years, however, the concept has been resuscitated only to be attacked; see Justin Willis, “Feedback as a ‘Problem’ in Oral History: An Example from Bonde,” History in Africa 20 (1993): 353–60.

62. This is, of course, true of oral materials as well; see Ben G. Blount, “Agreeing to Disagree on Genealogy: A Luo Sociology of Knowledge,” in Sanchez and Blount, eds., Sociocultural Dimensions of Language Use, 117–35 (New York: Academic Press, 1975).

63. George W. Ggingo, Kasubi, 15 August 1990.

64. Joseph Nsubuga, Kisasi, 22 August 1990.

65. Bibiana Nalwanga, Bwase, 24 August 1990.

66. Yonasani Kaggwa, Katwe, 27 August 1990.

67. Isaak Bulega, Makere, 20 August 1990.

68. Peter Kirigwa, Katwe, 24 August 1990.

69. Adolf Namutura, Katwe, 24 August 1990.

70. Musoke Kapliamu, Katwe, 22 August 1990; also Christopher Kawoya, Kasubi, 17 August 1990.

71. Ssekajje Kasirye, Kisenyi, 24 August 1990.

72. Ahmed Kiziri, Katwe, 20 August 1990.

73. The big new teaching hospital at Mulago was finally finished in 1962, after being under construction for years; see Margaret MacPherson, They Built for the Future: A Chronicle of Makerere University College, 1922–1962 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1964), 34; Julia Nakibuuka Nalongo, interview cited in n. 37 above. On transporting corpses home for burial, see David W. Cohen and Atieno Odhiambo, Burying SM: The Politics of Knowledge and the Sociology of Power in Black Africa (Portsmouth, N.H.: Heinemann, 1992).

74. Daniel Sekiraata, Katwe, 22 August 1990; also Ahmed Kiziri, Katwe, 20 August 1990.

75. Beatrice Mukasa, Katwe, 16 August 1990.

76. Gregory Sseluwagi, Lubya, 28 August 1990.

77. “Kasolo’s Case Is Very Complicated” (cited n. 43 above).

78. Ibid.