GANDA, a Bantu tribe of East Equatorial Africa. The Hamitic invaders, while remaining the light-skinned aristocracy, have been much more absorbed by the local Bantu who form the peasantry. Apart from this distinction of skin colour there is not much to distinguish the aristocracy from the peasantry (bakopi) in physical appearance, though there is in speech, and class distinc tion is no longer an ethnic one. Hair is thick and woolly and is kept short, and the Ganda alone among the surrounding Bantu tribes do not mutilate their persons in any way. Bracelets of iron, copper and ivory are worn but otherwise the people are not ad dicted to personal adornment. They cover the whole body from chest to ankles with robes of bark-cloth, the manufacture of which is an important industry. They live in large circular huts, divided by many partitions and thatched with unusual care and skill. The walls and partitions are covered with a characteristic reed-work, and every home of importance has attached to it a series of neatly kept courtyards surrounded by high fences of reed-work. A num ber of these residences surrounded by luxuriant gardens go to form a loose settlement, of which the market place is the conspicu ous feature. The houses of the peasantry are simpler, of smaller dimensions and of ruder structure. Broad roads, carried over swamps by solid causeways, radiate from the capital to the vil lages of chiefs.
The Ganda are skilled watermen and maintain a large flotilla of war canoes. Their canoes are in remarkable contrast to the dug outs of most of their neighbours, their keel, false prow and sewn boards suggesting an Indonesian origin. Their weapons consist of thrusting spears, a club which is used for war and executions, an oval shield of wickerwork with a central boss of wood or iron. Children use bows and arrows. They manufacture good pottery and artistic mats, and have a variety of musical instruments in cluding the xylophone, flutes, harps, horns and drums. The drums of the kabaka are a tribal property and each is individually named, special drummers being detailed by chiefs for monthly duty.
Though they keep the usual domestic animals (their cattle being mostly of the short-horned, humped variety), they are essentially agriculturalists, the banana and sweet potato being the staple crop though a few cereals are also raised. All land except the clan burial grounds is the property of the kabaka, and individual hold ings which are cultivated by a man's wife are granted him by his chief or directly by the king, or kabaka.
The clans are totemic and exogamous, have each certain social and political functions and are graduated in social status and prestige by various factors which are not constant. Certain clans are debarred from presenting a prince as candidate to the throne. Clans and their subdivisions have their separate estates (butaka) which are the clan burial grounds in charge of clan functionaries called bataka, who among other duties have to select the male and female life servants of the kabaka. Inheritance is patrilineal and the heir is one of the sons of the deceased, who is selected after the funeral by his brothers and sisters. Wives are not in herited but live as widows (with considerable licence) in separate huts built for them by the heir. Polygyny is usual, and blood brotherhood is a widely practised institution.
Society is elaborately organized on a feudal system, at the cen tre of which is the kabaka who exercises direct and absolute rule. He is assisted by three ministers, the katikiro or chief executive, the mulamuzi or chief justice and muwanika or treasurer, and a variety of lesser officials including his naval and military com manders-in-chief. These ministers are also members of the lukiko or council, which consists of the chiefs of the 20 saza or counties into which the country is divided, together with three notables f or each county and six additional men of importance for the king dom—all nominated by the kabaka. The functions of the lukiko are judicial, administrative and advisory. Each county is in charge of a chief appointed by the kabaka who assigns him estates on appointment, but neither these nor the chieftainship are heredi table and are held solely at the kabaka's pleasure. The counties are subdivided into approximately ten districts each called gom bolola under district chiefs subordinate to the county chiefs, and these district chiefs have a varying number of petty headmen or miruka under them. The peasants are tenants-at-will of the land holders, to whom they owe allegiance and service, including the maintenance of roads, personal labour, taxes and military obliga tions. Through all the hierarchy of chieftainship the same state and similar functionaries are maintained as at the royal court, and judicial procedure prescribes that with certain exceptions trials shall start at the lowest court and reach the lukiko by a series of appeals or commitments. The kabaka's mother has a very im portant position in the constitution.
Their religion combines ancestor worship with the worship of a number of natural phenomena, such as Kiwanuka the lightning, Musisi the earthquake. Kazoba the firmament was the nearest approach to a high god, but such a conception is probably subse quent to Mohammedan and Christian influence and is not earlier than the comparatively modern deity Katonda. There is a caste of priests and diviners called Bamandwa, and virgins were dedi cated as brides to the nature deities.
See E. Hornell, "Indonesian Culture in East Africa" (in Man, i., 1928) ; Sir H. H. Johnston, The Uganda Protectorate (1902) ; J. Roscoe, The Baganda (191I) . (J. H. D.)