Patterns and trends of indigenous salt-making technology at Kibiro Salt Gardens in Southwestern Uganda, 1894-1997

Abstract

The study asks why the Kibiro salt-making technology that consists of indigenous knowledge, tools, skills, techniques, processes, and spiritual aspects like taboos, customs, rituals, myths and language continues to endure amidst new and modern technologies. Kibiro is located in Bunyoro, western Uganda. Despite the British colonialists’ attack and occupation of Kibiro salt gardens in 1894 and their efforts to disrupt the indigenous salt-making and subsequent technological development over the 20th century, the people of Kibiro continued to practice their salt-making. The study ended in 1997 not because indigenous technology ceased to be used in the place but because in 1997, Kibiro salt gardens were recognised as one of the unique villages which have sustained its people on Indigenous technologies for centuries. It was listed on the UNESCO World Heritage Tentative List. The following questions guided the study: What role did Kibiro salt play in the growth and expansion of the Bunyoro Kitara kingdom? What did the salt-making process involve? and, what explains the survival of the indigenous technology in this area? Ethnographies and diaries of early Europeans who visited Bunyoro and Kibiro, particularly during the nineteenth and early twentieth century, and archival and oral sources, were used. The study argues that the indigenous technology survived and continues to survive because of the common belief in Nyasimba and the region's geography. The study revealed that the people of Kibiro regard the practice as god-given because they traced it to their ancestral god, Nyasimba Nyamuhanga. Both perennialism and liberal feminism theories informed this study. The study contributes to the historiography of the Bunyoro Kitara Empire and how the Kibiro salt contributed to state building in western Uganda. Furthermore, it contributes to scholarship on divine power, environment and centrality of women in state building in Uganda.