WERE SIYANJA

Were Siyanja was the descendant of Sumba who later married among the Abakhoone clan and eventually brought the Sumba spirit to the abakhoone. Were Siyanja was a girl of legendary beauty. According to the legend, she was a very private lady who used to spend most of her time her inside the house. She was never rained on neither did she ever get scotched by the hot sun that usually shines around Lake Victoria.

It is said that many suitors including the then Kabaka of Buganda tried to marry her but she refused. She used to just to sit by the window of her mother’s house and whenever a boat arrived with a suitor she would simple ask where he came from and asked the messengers to ask him to go away.

One time a Mukhoone youngman by the name Ogumbe the son of Muyinda from the village of Khabagaya also decided to visit Were Siyanja and ask her hand in marriage. When Ogumbe arrived on Sumba Island, Siyanja was very happy. She accepted to marry him, but her people of Abakhabootsa clan gave the Abakhoone a condition: that a special boat had to be constructed because Siyanja was neither supposed to be rained or scotched by the sun.

Ogumbe returned to Khabagaya and did exactly that. He built Siyanja’s boat and accompanied it with over twenty boats of goats and cattle for dowry. Siyanja accepted to marry Ogumbe and accompanied him in her special boat.

As the boat started rowing away from the island, a small drum emerged on the lake and started playing mysteriously following the boat as if it had a motor. The drum followed the boat until it docked in Bukoma on the beach. Then Siyanja asked the abakhoone to pick the mysterious drum and keep it safely it in the house.

After a few weeks, Siyanja’s brother, who was named after Sumba, visited her sisterat Khabagaya village in Ebunambo just to see where she had been married. On arrival in Bunambo, he heard of a very beautiful girl who lived in Magombe Village in Budalang’i by the name Nakhabuka. The story of Sumba and Nakhabuka will be told later on.