Buganda in the ‘60s, A Case Study

Distilled from Mary Ainsworth’s: Infancy in Uganda

Kitala was a cheerful active friendly boy. He trotted about and intruded into any situation. He jumped into conversations or into the foreground of photographs the strange white woman took with her camera. Although he had the charm of a happy active child she noticed he was capable of bitter protest. His mother was pregnant and newly married to a man that was not his father. She had recently weaned him and was impatient to be free of him. When she tried to leave he scrambled after her. He howled if she left him. Sometimes she heeded his protest and returned to pick him up. Sometimes she didn’t. As long as she was present he was delightful and vigorous and he danced about and banged his playthings and interacted with people. When his sister Namitala was born his mother sent Kitala to live with his grandmother. Kitala was miserable and lonely and jealous of the new baby. His father tried to cheer him with rides on the handlebars of his bicycle. As a father he did not approve of Kitala’s mother’s actions but his intervention was useless. She would visit Kitala twice a week and he would cry for the rest of the day and all night and he became very difficult for his grandmother to manage. He cried at the slightest provocation and stopped exploring. He became rough and rejecting of his half-sister with whom he had once been gentle and affectionate. After three months he no longer cared if his mother came or went and when the white woman with the camera came to visit he sat with his back to her. He avoided conversations and wasn’t interested in photographs. He impassively accepted being held by the woman and he impassively accepted being put back down. He sucked his thumb. Gone was his adventurousness. Gone was his vigor and joy. He was a changed child.