1This illustration was taken from Gerald Portal’s book, The British Mission to Uganda, published in 1894 shortly after his return from Uganda. Portal, the British General Consul in Zanzibar, was sent to Uganda with a large party to settle matters and enquire into the 1892 religious war. The war pitted King Mwanga and the Roman Catholic Party on the one hand, against the Imperial British East Africa Company (IBEAC), which was allied to the Protestant Party. The IBEAC was victorious in the conflict. After the news reached Europe, France strongly protested and eventually obtained reparations for the arrest and detention, by the IBEAC, of several French Catholic missionaries and the looting and burning of their missions. King Mwanga with his intrigues was a convenient scapegoat for the British to explain the drama. This scandal and the financial difficulties of the IBEAC led Portal to recommend the direct British takeover of Uganda (effective in 1894).

2The illustration is made from a photo taken by one of Portal’s staff. It pictures one of the main audience halls in the royal enclosure in the royal capital, Mengo. Thanks to the clothing and seating arrangements we can identify the people in the picture:

3Mwanga is seated in the forefront on his throne. His features are clearly recognisable, such as his beard. Other photos of him exist. He usually smiles on those, here he has a stern look. This unusual choice for the illustration may not be innocent. It may be to remind the reader of Mwanga’s “sinister character” (in particular, as murderer of Bishop Hannington and of many Christians in 1885–1886).

4Two pages, recognisable because of their toga-like gowns, are immediately on his left.

5On the king’s right: two chiefs. Their status is made obvious by their Zanzibar-style clothing and head wear, similar to the king’s.

6Behind them, recognisable because of the manner their cloths are tied on their left shoulders, are two women, some of Mwanga’s wives.

7The person, hardly visible, right behind the king, could be either a page or royal wife, but it is hard to ascertain.

8At the court of Buganda, the seating arrangement during a royal audience was predetermined and very strict. Most of the chiefs and visitors would have been seated facing the king, behind the camera. According to the seating, the chief in the picture furthest to the right should be the royal treasurer. Behind the king, slightly on his right, should be the Kimbugwe (keeper of the royal umbilical cord). Semei Kakungulu was the Kimbugwe at the time (Twaddle 1993). We have pictures of him but the features here are too stereotyped in the illustration for us to be sure. British rule considerably modified the nature of these two chieftainships. Other dignitaries may have taken over those coveted seats by 1893. Stanislas Mugwanya for exemple would have had a strong claim for the Kimbugwe’s seat, but the man in the picture clearly does not have his features nor silhouette. To make identification more uncertain, the pose for the photos may have ignored etiquette.

9Pages, though seldom mentioned, would have been swarming all over the royal audience hall. The two pages seated by the king would have kept close to him for his comfort, for companionship and for the king to be able to whisper instructions and send them on errands without being overheard. Their physical proximity or even intimacies with the king is striking. One page actually has his hand under the king’s robe, holding the royal thigh. The meaning of touch can vary from culture to culture. It might not be sexual or romantic (though it was likely to be). Undoubtably, to be allowed to sit so near the king and to touch him was an immense honour few could claim. Whatever the meaning of that hand’s position, the page was one of Mwanga’s lovers or potential lovers. This specific page function was reserved for the most intimate, loved and trusted pages. The holders of this position belonged to the page section where the king kept his lovers (but pages were too many for all of them to become actual lovers). There is a fair chance that these two pages might be Wada, Musoke, Daliza, Boy or Batwaya, some of Mwanga’s lovers that appear in an 1894 scandal. This event is studied in detail in Chapter 3.

10We can exclude that the familiarity between the king and his page was a result of the British arrangement for the picture. It is a pose they took naturally. The gesture is too unfamiliar to Europeans for them to have instructed it (had it been in their power to do so, which is doubtful). However, Portal did not choose to publish this picture at random. He deliberately chose a picture that showed Mwanga as a “public and open sodomite” (in the words of Lugard, the representative of the IBEAC in Uganda between 1890 and 1892).1 The aim here was to subtly shift for the British public the responsibility of the IBEAC problems in Uganda and the responsibility of the 1892 war to Mwanga. He was seen widely in the British public as an African despot, cruel and weak, enslaved to his lust and passions; a king that the British would be morally justified to sideline or keep as a mere figure head.