Amba people
| Total population | |
|---|---|
| ~40,000 (2020 est.) | |
| Regions with significant populations | |
| Uganda | Bundibugyo District |
| Democratic Republic of Congo | Ituri Province |
| Languages | |
| Amba, Swahili, English | |
| Religion | |
| Christianity, Traditional beliefs | |
| Related ethnic groups | |
| Bakonzo, Banyoro, Bantu peoples | |
The Amba people, also known as Bwamba, are a Bantu ethnic group primarily residing in Uganda’s Bundibugyo District, near the Rwenzori Mountains, and across the border in the Ituri Province of the Democratic Republic of Congo.[1] On the Congolese side, they are located in the Watalinga and Bawisa subcounties of Beni, South Kivu. They number 42,559 on the Uganda side in the 2014 census[2] and 4,500 on the Congolese side according to a 1991 SIL International estimate, Ethnologue estimates their total population as 40,100.[1] Agriculturalists, the Baamba traditionally cultivate plantains, millet, maize, sweet potatoes, peanuts, rice, coffee, cotton, and cassava, while raising goats and sheep. The Baamba practice Christianity.[1]
Language
[edit]The Amba language spoken by the Baamba is called, variously, Kwamba by the Baamba themselves and is known as Kihumu in the DR Congo. It has a 70% lexical similarity with Bera. Dialects include Kyanzi (Kihyanzi) and Suwa (Kusuwa).[1]
Culture
[edit]In the marriage ceremonies, families would book their spouses earlier in life after an initiation on the boy was done. The initiation process was to transform the boy from childhood to adulthood before puberty. Bride price was paid inform of goats and no marriage was recognized without bride price. Traditionally the Baamba people were hunters and provided food to their families through hunting by the use of bows and arrows.[3][4][5]
The Baamba believe misfortune is visited upon them by witches who appear as normal individuals during the day but at night transform themselves into malevolent beings. The primary purpose of these witches is to kill their unwary victims for the sake of human flesh, which they then consume in a mystical fashion so that the corpse shows no outward sign of having been touched.[6]
Politics
[edit]The Baamba were part of the armed Rwenzururu movement against the Toro Kingdom and central government that reached heights in the mid-1960s and early 1980s.[3] In 2008, the government recognized the Kingdom of Rwenzururu, formed by the Amba and Konjo peoples, as Uganda's first kingdom shared by two tribes.[7]
The Baamba are one of the 65 indigenous communities in Uganda according to the Third Schedule of Uganda's Constitution (Uganda's indigenous communities as at 1 February 1926).
References
[edit]- ^ a b c d "Amba Language". Ethnologue. Retrieved 14 July 2025.
- ^ "2014 Uganda Population and Housing Census – Main Report" (PDF). Uganda Bureau of Statistics. Archived from the original (PDF) on 12 October 2017. Retrieved 17 April 2018.
- ^ a b Prunier, Gérard (2009). Africa's World War: Congo, the Rwandan Genocide, and the Making of a Continental Catastrophe. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-537420-9., 82-83
- ^ Rubongoya, Joshua B. (January 1995). "The Bakonjo‐Baamba and Uganda: Colonial and postcolonial integration and ethnocide". Studies in Conflict & Terrorism. 18 (2): 75–92. doi:10.1080/10576109508435970. ISSN 1057-610X.
- ^ "The People, Settlements and Tribes in Uganda". Saso Gorilla Trips. 9 March 2018. Retrieved 3 February 2024.
- ^ Arens, William (1979). The Man-Eating Myth: Anthropology and Anthropophagy (first ed.). New York: Oxford University Press. p. 154. ISBN 9780195025064.
- ^ "Uganda: Welcome Rwenzururu", editorial by the New Vision, 31 March 2008
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