Lubaale: The Spirits and Gods of Buganda

What is Lubaale?

In the traditional religion of the Baganda, the balubaale (singular lubaale) are powerful spirits often described in English as gods. Many were remembered as great humans or heroes who became gods. Each had its own temples, priests and mediums, and kings consulted them in times of war, disease or drought. Today the word is also used for spiritual healers who work with ancestral spirits, the balubaale healers.

Above them, many accounts place Katonda, the creator. One account says the Baganda counted Katonda among 73 balubaale, rather than entirely separate from them.

Some well-known balubaale

Sources do not always agree on details. Different clans, regions and writers tell the stories differently. Here is what the sources we checked say:

• Mukasa: god of Lake Victoria, linked with prosperity, harvest, fertility and health, and sometimes treated as the chief of the balubaale. His main temple was on Bubembe Island. Roscoe recorded that Mukasa’s medium was a woman.
• Kibuuka (also spelled Kibuka): god of war and Mukasa’s younger brother. In legend he helped King Nakibinge fight Bunyoro and was killed by an arrow. In one version he died at Mbale Hill in Mpigi, where a temple was built for him.
• Nende (also written Nnende): described by the missionary John Roscoe in 1911 as “the second god of war”, with a temple at Bukerekere in Kyagwe. Some popular accounts call him a son of Mukasa.
• Musoke: some sources call him god of the rainbow; Roscoe called him “the rain god”. The king sent offerings to his temple for advice.
• Kiwanuka: god of lightning (thunder), son of Ggulu, the sky.
• Walumbe: death. In the story of Kintu, the first man, and Nambi, daughter of Ggulu, Walumbe followed the couple to earth and began taking their children. In legend he hid underground at Ttanda, near Mityana, where pits are still shown as a shrine and historical site.
• Others include Kitaka (earth), Musisi (earthquakes), Wamala (Lake Wamala), Kawumpuli (plague), Ndaula (smallpox) and Nagawonyi (believed able to end drought and famine).

These are traditional beliefs and legends, told here for understanding, not as historical fact.

Mizimu and misambwa

• Mizimu (singular muzimu): the spirits of dead people. The Baganda believed only the body dies and the soul continues. Ancestors had to be remembered and respected, and an unhappy ghost could be blamed for illness.
• Misambwa (singular musambwa): one older account describes them as mizimu that have entered natural objects such as rocks, rivers, trees or hills. Baganda healers interviewed in 2024 described misambwa as superior ancestral spirits. Both views show misambwa as spirits tied to places.

Healers today also speak of other spirit types, such as mayembe (helper spirits), balunyanja (water spirits) and balangira (royal spirits).

The role of mediums

In the old religion, as Roscoe recorded it, a medium (mandwa) had one main duty: to be the mouthpiece of the god. Roscoe wrote in 1911 that “it was always the god who chose his representative”, and that some gods chose women and others men.

Today, Baganda spiritual healers describe a long path to becoming a medium (mulubaale): signs of being chosen, a ritual to identify one’s ancestral spirits (kwaaza lubaale), five to ten years of training under a senior healer (ssenkulu), and a public pass-out ceremony. They use divination (kulagula), cleansing rituals and herbs. See types of traditional healers.

Lubaale today

Sites such as Bubembe and Ttanda, and the balubaale healers studied by researchers in 2024, show that the tradition is still alive. Respecting Lubaale tradition never requires harming anyone. Read about the western Uganda traditions in the Bachwezi and emandwa, and the word “juju” in what is juju.

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