Being small, about fifteen, of slight build and endowed with handsome features, Gyaviira soon attracted the unwelcome attentions of Kabaka Mwanga. But then, encouraged by the words and example of so many of his companions, Gyavira remained firm and persistently rejected the shameful proposals of his lord and master. His father Ssemalago Mubiru of the […]
James Buuzabalyawo was one of Andrew Kaggwa’s converts. As a bandsman he came under the command of Andrew Kaggwa who taught him to play the big drum and also instructed him in the Catholic faith. He became Kaggwa’s chief assistant, not only as a bandsman but also as a teacher of the catechism. Kaggwa, who […]
When the persecution broke out on May 25, 1886, Luke was on his way to Mengo from Mityana, and stayed the night with his friend Cyprian Kamya, who had been baptized with him four years earlier. The next morning he continued with his journey to the capital aware of the eminent danger of being persecuted […]
Gonzaga Gonza, was a Musoga, who, like his fellow tribesman Matthias Kalemba, had been seized and carried off as a slave by a raiding party of Baganda. Gonza was first in the service of one Tegusaaga who started as a palace firewood-cutter and rose to the rank of corporal of the guard. By Tegusaaga, Gonza […]
Pontian Ngondwe was born at Bulamu in Kyaggwe County and belonged to the White Egret (Nnyonyi) Clan. His father, Birenge, was in fact head of the clan when he presented his son to the Kabaka. Ngondwe’s mother was Mukomulwanyi of the Buffalo (Mbogo) Clan. After serving Kabaka Muteesa for some years as a page, Ngondwe […]
When smallpox harshly invaded Bazzakuketta’s life and left its scars upon his face, he was approached by Raphael Sembuya, one of his companions, with the suggestion that baptism was the only remedy for his illness. As a result, he agreed to be baptized and after his recovery, Bazzekuketta continued with the study of the Catholic […]
Kaggwa joined the Catholic catechumenate in June 1880 when he was aged about twenty-five but he was baptized Andrew on April 30, 1882. Two years later, a bubonic plague broke out at the capital, and Kaggwa cared for dying and abandoned catechumens in his own enclosure. Since the Catholic missionaries had left Uganda at this […]
Noé (Noah) Mawaggali is just another of the three Catholic martyrs of Mityana, Uganda- the other two being Matthias Kalemba and Luke Banabakintu. When the persecution of 1886 broke out, Mawaggali was at Mityana, some forty-five miles from the capital, but the Christian community there was too well known to escape the persecuting eye of […]
When the Missionaries of Africa (White Fathers) came to Uganda in 1879, Joseph Mukasa Balikuddembe was enrolled as a catechumen in the following year. Two or so years later, in 1882 the Catholic missionaries were forced, for security reasons, to abandon the Ugandan mission and live temporarily at the southern end of Lake Victoria up […]
Baptized in haste by St Charles Lwanga on the fateful night of May 25, 1886, Kizito in the audience hall of Munyonyo went on to face his death the following day even before he got a baptismal name. At Namugongo, the thirty-one young men and boys, Kizito among them, were tied with fiber thongs and […]