Bigo

Bigo (Bigo bya Mugenyi) is an archaeological site located in the western part of Uganda, Africa, along the Katonga River.^[1] Mugenyi means "stranger".It is known as an earthwork site thought to be created by the Bachwezi dynasty who were known for having cattle, from the 14th to 16th century based on carbon dating.^[2] The Bahima people of that land are thought to be possible descendants. It was the supposed Capital of the Kitara empire. Bushbacks, snakes, and leopards are some of the animals known to the modern day area.^[3] Along with Ntusi and Mubende, Bigo was thought to be the heart of Bunyoro Kitara.

According to oral traditions, Bigo became the possible capital of Kitara when Wamara, son of Ndahura, took over after his father was captured or disappeared.^[4] Mugenyi takes the name of a less powerful deity of Bachwezi legend, Mugenyi, who is the nephew of Wamara. Wamara was the last known Bachwezi and the strongest.^[5]

Bigo, perhaps the best known archaeological site in Uganda, is one of fifteen different sites that are scattered throughout Uganda each with their own ditch system except for Ntusi and Masaka Hill. It is thought that these sites could have been possible areas of trade, being next to the Katonga River, although no actual evidence supports the theory.^[6]

It is considered the biggest of three closely related earthworks.

Excavation

Bigo was first excavated in 1909. In 1921, a more detailed excavation took place. Known as a post-Paleolithic site, it has been investigated by the Ugandan Government to help show more evidence of the prehistoric iron age.[5] Although the site of Bigo is fairly large, only a small amount of the area has actually been excavated s. The Humps of the Waylands plan was the first concern of digging up Bigo. The effort took over a few weeks. Merrick Posnansky led an excavation in 1960 in a six week period. Carbon dating from charcoal took place which was to help set a more accurate date of the earthworks.^[7] Excavations were broken into four parts, sites A-D based on size and setting of each location.

Layout

Bigo is settled next to a riverbank, well defended and capital like in means of massive construction and labor. It is south of the Katonga River, close to the former Kingdom of Buganda. It is situated between the smaller sites Kagogo and Kasonko. Thought to be founded by cattle keepers, a grazing area was thought to be discovered in the center. The other idea of the center was a possible royal enclosure. At the south side was a gap and the mounds uncovered were surrounded by a ditch over ten feet deep and six miles long and flat in structure. The ditches on the outermost side of the location have over ten gaps that can be up to twenty meters wide. The eastern side has even more gaps. The irregularities in the ditches are thought to be on purpose. Some believe they were used as moats but that idea was quickly denied for the depth and location of the ditches.^[7] More towards the middle of the layout, the patterns to the ditches are much more regular in pattern. The mud is made from the gneiss type. Bigo was thought to be made of houses, although not enough evidence has been found of a large settlement living there at any time in history. The mounds had silts, and were filled with animal bones and pottery.

Function

Bigo was first thought to be used as a defensive fort because of the layout on the south side of the river facing the north. It is also believed that the enclosure in the middle had to do with defense, although that hypothesis is also met with doubt. Hills around the site are more prominent than the one in the middle of Bigo. The forest environment also causes doubt to the reasons for Bigo as a defensive fort.^[8]

If not for military purposes, Bigo's vast ditch system was also thought to keep out invading elephants. To keep out elephants would imply that Bigo had some type of agriculture system closer to the middle of the enclosure that needed protection. There is no real evidence of human settlements like houses around Bigo, which hints that it wasn't used as a large town but for something else. If people did live there, perhaps no more than a few important ones lived in the middle while the rest showed to have lived off the site itself. Evidence of agriculture include grindstones, grain storage pits, and isotopic evidence found at Munsa. The inner ditches were thought to keep human intruders out of their crops. The story of Kateboha, about man who lived in the middle of an earthworks site with his family and crops coincides with the layout of Bigo. Wealth seemed to be based on the number of cows or crops kept.^[9]

A third hypothesis for Bigo was a place for trade. The location of earthworks like Bigo, are located in an area where trade was locally known by oral tradition. Being next to the Katonga River could have also supplied traded goods to Bigo, although there is no real evidence to support this theory.

Capital

Bigo, through later investigation and evidence, was considered to be a place of capital and symbolic power because of its size. The amount of effort it took to create Bigo, also suggests that it could have been used as a capital, and also the fact that the inner enclosure could have been a royal enclosure. If such a massive amount of time and labor was put into creating Bigo as a capital, then it is thought that it must have been conducted by some type of state at the time. The evidence comes from the Bachwezi and their oral traditions.^[6]

If Bigo was a capital, then it brings into question the other earthworks in Uganda. Since Bigo is the biggest of the earthworks, it is thought to be the main capital, with the other sites as smaller subordinate polities.^[10] They believed the Bachwezi dynasty were the ones who took on the construction. The Bachwezi were believed to be from Western Uganda in an area called Kitara. Although not much is known about these people because of their short lived span and lack of archaeological evidence besides what is known from oral tradition, but even the oral tradition itself is often debated. A shrine to Ndahura, however, was still put up in 1990.

Oral tradition is important to Bigo because it is one of the most popular and well used cases for linking oral tradition to actual archaeological evidence. Not much of actual evidence is left of Bigo. There's the ditches, the enclosures, the small amounts of pottery left behind, but not much actual written evidence is left behind.^[10] That is one of the reasons Bigo is a popular site to researchers. It is one of the main cases where archaeologists try to match the history of known oral tradition and legends to actual evidence, but it doesn't come without concern. If Bigo goes with tradition, then it was a dynasty of the Bachwezi, but the Bachwezi dynasty itself also comes with a lot of questions. The only main evidence of the Bachwezi dynasty comes through oral tradition, so researchers today don't exactly know if the Bachwezi were actual people or more a symbolic notion of political change that went on in Uganda during that time. Sir Henry Johnston argues whether the Bachwezi were actual people coming from the north or were more like deities and spirits that symbolized a want of change and resistance to outside invaders. Some criticize that it's more a matter of putting the Bachwezi to a name and site than to actually find out the actual truth of the earthworks. In 1909, D.L. Baines makes a few poorly written articles about the origins and reasons for Bigo, claiming they were used as defense systems and to protect royal cattle. He uses the Banyoro, but never brings up Bachwezi.

Pere J.L. Goro claims Mugenyi was from the Mucwezi oral tradition but evidence has never been proven.

In a 1921 report, E.J. Wayland claimed of mining taking place at Bigo through accounts of oral tradition but further evidence was also never found. He also claimed of a connection between Bigo and the nearby site of Ntusi.

J.M. Gray wrote that the supposed ruler of Bigo, Mugenyi, was buried there, but no archaeological evidence has ever supported that statement. He claimed of many stories claiming this statement, but none have been found.

In 1950, a researcher by the name of Oliver started to try and shed more light on the archaeological evidence for explaining Bigo. He claimed that through stories, Kishozi was associated with Bigo because it sat across the river. The fact that its geography matched, Oliver argued, only proved the evidence of a Bachwezi dynasty, except no actual oral tradition proved his claim, but the idea only grew more popular.

Merrick Posnansky led an excavation in 1960 in a six week period. He concluded that oral tradition was an important factor in understanding the construction of Bigo, and that it did look like a royal enclosure of the Bachwezi dynasty. Through radiocarbon dating, he also concluded the Bigo was occupied around 1350-1500 AD, which coincides with the Bachwezi stories.^[11] Posnansky finds that a previous settlement existed before the ditch system was created and names it Bigo I. Bigo II refers to the ditch system. A few years later, the date of occupied Bigo changed to 1290-1575, however no evidence is given why. After his final research, Posnansky's final statement explains that even though Oliver stated a connection between Bigo and Bachwezi, there is just no actual evidence to actually support the claim, even after years of research. He claims the Bachwezi idea was added on years later to try and explain the earthworks.

Pottery

Over four thousand examples of pottery were found at Bigo. Most of them came from site A. some were rim decorated and some were plain in style. Pottery from Bigo has similar characteristics as those found at Ntusi. The pottery was decorated by finger painting mostly in the color red.[9] A more finer type was also found, burnished and unburnished, although were more rare. Knotted glass were the most common. There were nine types of coarse pottery found.

References