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Dead Kings, Alive Wives: The Royal Women of Kasubi Tombs
· 13 min
Episode Dead Kings, Alive Wives: The Royal Women of Kasubi Tombs
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The king may be gone but his wives remain.
At the royal tombs of Kasubi, a small community of women continues to serve long after death. They are the royal widows of Buganda: chosen from different clans, bound to the king in life… and still present in his death.
From sweeping the tombs to preparing rituals, they carry out their roles with quiet dignity.
Not as relics of the past, but as part of a living royal tradition.
Who are these women? What do they remember? And what does their presence mean for a kingdom that never forgets its kings?
This episode is a journey through royal duty, legacy, and the sacred roles that still echo within the thatched walls of Kasubi.
Sources!!!!
• Kiwanuka, M. S. M. A History of Buganda: From the Foundation of the Kingdom to 1900. London: Longman, 1971. • Kodesh, Neil. Beyond the Royal Gaze: Clanship and Public Healing in Buganda. Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 2010. • Ray, Benjamin C. Myth, Ritual, and Kingship in Buganda. New York: Oxford University Press, 1991. • Roscoe, John. The Baganda: An Account of Their Native Customs and Beliefs. London: Macmillan and Co., 1911. • Reid, Richard J. Political Power in Pre-Colonial Buganda: Economy, Society, and Warfare in the Nineteenth Century. Oxford: James Currey, 2002. • Schiller, Laurence. "Royal Women of Buganda." The International Journal of African Historical Studies 10, no. 2 (1977): 171–188. https://doi.org/10.2307/217347. • Wrigley, Christopher. Kingship and State: The Buganda Dynasty. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996. • CyArk. “Royal Tombs at Kasubi – 3D Explorer.” Accessed June 2025. https://cyark.org/projects/royal-tombs-at-kasubi/3D-Explorer • Personal Interview with Catherine, guide at Kasubi & Field Footage (Kasubi Tombs 2025) • https://whc.unesco.org/en/list/1022/
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