Catholics around the world on June 3rd every year mark the Uganda Martyrs Day at Namugongo in remembrance of the 22 Catholic and 23 Anglican pages that were burnt to death because of their faith in Christianity.
The Uganda Martyrs were killed in Uganda on the orders of Buganda kingdom’s Kabaka (King) Mwanga II between November 1885 and January 1887.
Most of these martyrs were burnt to ashes. But for Kalooli Lwanga and Matia Mulumba, their story is so different. The martyrs were burnt at a time when Uganda was passing through inter-religious wars.
Father J.L Ddiba in his book Eddiini mu Uganda (Luganda for religion in Uganda) explains how the bones of the martyrs were preserved from 1886 to date.
Charles Lwanga (in Luganda Kalooli means Charles) was the chief page at the king’s palace, who protected others from the Kabaka’s advances.
On June 3rd, 1886… the day of the Feast of the Ascension, Lwanga was separated from other martyrs at Namugongo and burnt a few metres away by one of the king’s guards called Ssenkoole.
Senkoole tied Lwanga and set his feet on fire. As fire started Ssenkoole promised him that he would put it off if he had renounced his faith in Jesus Christ. But Lwanga refused.
Lwanga eventually died under an erhrina abyssinica (ggirikiti in Luganda language) tree at Namugongo where the main Martyrs Shrine stands today in Uganda.
Father Ddiba in his book says that the following day June 4th, 1886, another catholic believer Matayo Kirevu went to the place and saw the bones that remained after Lwanga had been burnt to ashes.
On October 29th, 1886, Father Pere Simeon Lourdel (the Catholic missionary commonly referred to as Mapeera in Uganda) returned from exile in Tanzania. The reminants of the catholic faith in Uganda told him the story of the brave men who had died for their faith in Jesus Christ of Nazareth and the Catholic faith in general.
When Ugandans told father Pere Simeon Lourdel about Lwanga’s bones which had become a tourist attraction, Mapeera asked him to find a way of getting the bones to him.
In November 1886 another catholic convert called Leo Lwanga went to Namugongo at night and stole Lwanga’s remains. Leo delivered his bones to Pere Simeon Lourdel’s home in Rubaga.
Father Pere Simeon Lourdel cleaned Lwanga’s remains and wrapped them in a red cloth which the catholic missionaries had used as a flag during their journey to Uganda. Pere Simeon Lourdel put the bones in a small metal case, dug a hole in the sacristy of their church in Rubaga and kept them there. When the Christians realised Pere Simeon Lourdel’s interest in the martyrs’ remains, they got him the bones of another martyr called Matthias (in Luganda Matia) Mulumba Kalemba, who had been killed earlier during the martyrs’ journey to death from Kampala to Namugongo.
Mulumba was one of the oldest of the Kabaka’s pages. His executioners cut off his arms and legs and left him to die at present day Old Kampala, where the St. Matia Mulumba Parish Church stands today.
Mulumba’s body was eaten by dogs and birds which scattered his bones. His body was eaten by dogs because people were afraid to give him a decent burial.
The Christians later gathered Mulumba’s bones and took them to Pere Simeon Lourdel who labelled them, wrapped them and kept them with Lwanga’s remains.
On October 12th, 1888, father Pere Simeon Lourdel and other missionaries fled back to Tanzania. By 1890, after Christians had chased away Muslims and the missionaries had returned, they could not locate the place where the church had been located and where the remains had been kept.
During the subsequent war between Catholics and Protestants, between 1890-1892, Rubaga Catholic church was destroyed but the martyrs’ bones remained underground.
On November 13, 1892, a catechist who was digging found the box containing the martyrs remains intact. Father Ddiba in his book narrates that afterwards the missionaries hid the remains in Bukumbi-Tanzania, which was more peaceful than Buganda.
They put them in a case on which they wrote: ‘The remains of Kalooli Lwanga’ and sent them to the priest’s house in Tanzania.
In 1899, Msgr Streicher, who was the bishop of Buganda, brought back the case containing the martyrs remains.
From 1915, the remains were stored at the Archbishop’s chapel at Rubaga. In 1964, the relics were taken to Rome during the canonisation of the martyrs and they were placed in the Basilica of St. Peter in Rome.
By Walakira Nyanzi in Kampala
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