Should a Girl or Woman be a Musika to their Father?

In the last week I was so preoccupied with the sudden passing of one of my closest friends that I could not care less what else went on in this world.  While I grieved my friend, I caught bits of a debate about a girl/woman being a musika– I use the word musikaand not heir deliberately, but for purposes of non-luganda speakers let’s assume the two words are interchangeable.  Now that my friend has been put to rest, I am ready to wade in, both feet.  

During last week, it came to be publicly known that one of the prominent sons of this country and great Kingdom of Buganda clearly stated in his last will that his musikawill be one of his daughters.  This was breaking with the culture of Baganda to which cultural grouping the late Apollo Nsibambi belongs.   I am told that as soon as it was announced, those charged with the responsibility to safeguard the customs and traditions in the Fumbeclan – one of the subgroups that make up Buganda - immediately pronounced themselves on the matter and said ‘it is an abomination and cannot happen’. Like every cultural matter that is not consistent with ‘liberal’ views lately, both Baganda and non-Baganda took to social media to give their position that is how I caught wind of this.  The most common reasons given by those who support the idea of a woman/girl being a musikato their father were; 

1) this is a private matter and it is up to the departed gentleman to decide who his musikashould be and 

2) customs and traditions that aren’t consistent with modern day values like equality between men and women should be dropped.  

This debate elicited the question  ‘Why shouldn’t a girl or woman be a musika to their father?’  I would have simply said NO and that’s it.  But, for the sake of some of my friends who I have always told that I am a liberal Muganda, I will indulge you an explanation.

First things first, I have no objection to a woman or girl taking whatever belongs to their father.   Indeed any father can bequeath their entire estate (apart from ancestral land – for reasons I would give later) to the one girl they have without giving anything to the boys, if that’s what they wish.  I understand (though not sure), that the law gives a musika1% if one dies interstate.  I would advise that, even that can be given away or given up as long as we keep our culture.  Our culture and traditionally, a woman cannot be heir to a man and there reasons for that.  Someone who wishes to have their daughter as their musikacan do so, but I don’t think that the clan should be compelled to do so.  Indeed, I can’t fathom how one will go through the entire process of lumbe from luggya to kasolya, without that anomaly being pointed out.

In order to argue this case, I had to look up the word ‘culture’. A quick search on Internet gave me this; culture is ‘the ideas, customs, and social behaviour of a particular people or society’.  One of the ideas and customs of our kingdom/society as Baganda is that descent will be traced through the men – which makes us a patrilineal society as opposed to a matrilineal one.  In his book, The Impact of Matriarchal Traditions on the Advancement of Ashanti Women in Ghana, Karen McGee explains that a matriarchy is a social system in which the mother is head of the family, or it can be defined as a family, community, or society based on a system governed by women.  He goes on to add that ‘data used to document the existence of a matriarchy are of three types; societies in which women make a major contribution to subsistence; those in which descent is traced through women; and those with ancient myths of women rulers.  Throughout it’s existence, Buganda as a society has never met or been associated with data or the three explanations given above.  We are in a patriarchy - a system of society in which the father or eldest male is head of the family and descent is reckoned through the male line.  Every muganda has their surname and clan because some man was awarded paternal rights by their mother.  That’s why we have a saying ‘nyoko abeeranga omunyoro nakuzaala mu kika’- munyoro here being any man who is not a Muganda.  Literally what this means is, it doesn’t matter who your mother is, as long as your father belongs to one of the clans of Buganda - you are a Muganda.   In Buganda, a musikaperforms a number of roles.  One of the roles I perform as a musikato my father is that I am now a father, grandfather, uncle and granduncle to a number of people in the family.  I am not sure what it will be like, if during one of the weddings of my brothers, the father to the groom is asked to stand up and one of my sisters stands up.  Do we want to change our culture, as some have demanded?  I have no quick answer to that but let’s say I am comfortable with the status quo until convinced otherwise.

The second reason why a girl or woman cannot be heir to their father is more to do with the existence of the Kingdom of Buganda itself.  Apart from the Kabaka and our clan system, the second major pillar of Buganda is the land on which the Kingdom is situated. Without land, Buganda would be a very weak Kingdom, if at all it exists.   As Baganda, from birth to the internment of our bodies, we are attached to a certain piece of land in Buganda.   In tracing our lineage or descent (also called okulanya), at the end of every line for those living and dead (but especially the dead), we state where they can be found in Buganda.   Most of this land is mailo land – land that was given to our forefathers when the colonialists came to some form of agreement with our ancestors – and most of our families own this land in perpetuity. Almost very family in Buganda buries their dead on land that was owned by their forefathers.  The graveyard or kiggya (which comes from luggya), is an important and sacred part of every Ganda family.  The reason, it has always been passed on to boys or men is because in their wisdom, our ancestors knew that it doesn’t matter where the wives or women to these boys/men came from, the men or boys will be duty bound to protect the kiggya for the sake of their ancestors.   When a woman is the heir and such land is bequeathed to them, they will be free to take that land with them to wherever they get married.   Not all men and cultures that our sisters get married into will be obliged to give respect to our ancestors or keep these places sacred as we would like.  With all due respect, I doubt that many will know the importance and relevance of these places to our culture.  If my sister gets married to a Kariuki in Kenya, dies and decides to bequeath this land (which was bequeathed to her by our father) to one of Kariuki’s children, we as a family will have lost this land and the kiggya indefinitely.  I have heard many people argue that even the men/boys who have been bequeathed this land in the current setup sell it off.  Two wrongs do not make a right or like my grandmother would say, agaana okufa tebatta mutte.  Just because we have unfortunate cases where our ancestral land has been sold off by some of our boys or men, it does not mean that even the little that we still have should be willingly given away. I submit.