A portal to an ancient, invisible realm reopens in Uganda

By Griffin Shea, CNN

Kampala (CNN) — Walking through the compound that houses the Kasubi Tombs, the main path leads to what should be an entrance. But it ends at one of the layers of thatch covering the 25-foot structure known as Muzibu Azala Mpanga. It looks like a giant basket turned upside down. If it weren’t for the rows of shoes laid neatly outside, you’d never know there was a way in.

Brush aside the long-dried spear grass, and you’re in another world. Uganda’s equatorial heat is left outside; inside, a double-layered ceiling of woven reeds and grass regulates the temperature, keeping the air cool and still. Women sit on grass mats on either side of the entrance — “widows” of the dead kings, descendants of the royal family who serve one-month shifts to welcome pilgrims and tend to the spirits of the kings behind the curtain.

Pilgrims kneel in front of four photographs, one for each king buried here. Behind them hangs a floor-to-ceiling curtain of rust-brown bark cloth, the distinctive Ugandan textile made from pounding the bark of a local fig tree.

The curtain looks like a wall. But for people from the Buganda kingdom, it marks a portal to a sacred, invisible forest. They believe kings never die; they enter the forest and continue to communicate with the living through spirit mediums.

The Kasubi Tombs, a UNESCO World Heritage site in Uganda’s capital Kampala, are the spiritual heart of the Buganda kingdom.

But for 16 years, that portal was closed.

A fire tore through the site in 2010, destroying the main structure. First built in 1882 and spanning more than 100 feet, the building stood little chance: it was constructed almost entirely from plant materials. Wooden columns supported a vast thatched roof, each wrapped in bark cloth. Some surrounding buildings survived, but the central tomb was reduced to ash.

Painstaking process

The cause of the fire has never been made public, but the blaze sparked an outpouring of grief and outrage that escalated into deadly riots.

Now, the tombs are finally back open to the public, through a painstaking process that involved more than construction work. When architect Jonathan Nsubuga took on the project, he discovered that many of the traditional building skills used to create the original structure were at risk of dying out. New craftspeople had to be trained, and the spiritual elements that define the space carefully restored.

“In my research, and based on the cultural norms, we formulated a new saying of heritage recovery, not reconstruction. It’s recovery,” he says. “Because that’s what I’ve been doing for 15 years — recovering the heritage that was destroyed.”

Few cities in Africa preserve this kind of traditional architecture and sacred ground at the heart of a modern capital. When British missionaries — and later colonizers — arrived in the late 19th century, the hills of what is now Kampala were already the center of the Buganda kingdom.

Sacred space

Under Buganda tradition, when a king died, his palace became his burial site. The physical resting place is concealed behind the bark cloth curtain, accessible only to close family members. Each new monarch would build a new palace nearby, shifting the seat of power over time. As the British settlement expanded, it grew around this existing royal landscape.

At Kasubi, the original structure was built in 1882 by Kabaka Mutesa I. He died two years later, and the kingdom entered decades of upheaval through colonization and the struggle for independence. In total, four kings are buried here.

When the building burned, the loss was not only architectural. For many in Buganda, the tombs represent both a sacred space and a symbol of unity and resistance.

Inside, the vast roof is supported by massive wooden poles and 52 concentric rings woven from grass. Each ring represents a clan of the Buganda kingdom, and each clan has a defined role. Outside, in one of the thatched outbuildings, royal guards sit at the entrance to the compound, maintaining a watch said to stretch back more than 800 years. The current chief guard is believed to be 101 years old. When he dies, his Buffalo clan must immediately appoint a successor to continue the watch.

Restoring the site’s spiritual presence required Nsubuga to dig deep into traditions he had never fully learned. Educated in Britain, he grew up somewhat removed from older Buganda practices. And for all his studies, there were limits to what he was allowed to do — he was not permitted to even hammer a nail if it fell outside his clan’s responsibility. Similarly, thatchers must come from the Colobus Monkey clan; decorators from the Leopard clan. If an elder dies without passing their knowledge to the next generation, that part of the building simply cannot be finished.

“There’s a lot of intangibility around it, you don’t see it,” says Nsubuga. “My job was to present a space for the spirits to come up and to give them space to resonate with our thought process. So, I always call Muzibu Azala Mpanga more than a house. It’s a vessel. It’s like a spaceship. And it’s just being used to capture the spiritual content of the past kings and mediums.”

Spiritual guidance

To learn how to respect the spirituality of the tombs, Nsubuga reached out to the current spirit medium who channels the first Bugandan king, Kubaka Kintu. Establishing trust and building that relationship also took time. Eventually, she gave him detailed instructions on the correct practices for the building.

Nsubuga also found that he had to become a bridge between Ugandan traditions and the modern world of funders and the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization. UNESCO has listed the tombs and the bark cloth as part of world heritage. Maintaining that status for the reconstruction required extensive coordination.

Although the tombs are back open to the public, including both pilgrims and tourists, an official re-opening is still to come. Then the layer of thatch that covers the entrance will be cut away in a traditional ceremony that marks the formal re-opening.

In the meantime, pilgrims arrive in a steady flow, asking for the intercession of the kings, praying, or simply paying respect. Guides give tourists an overview of the history and significance of the space. Outside in the courtyard, people come to dance, to make videos, and to celebrate the restoration.

“A British colleague said to me: ‘Jonathan, how many architects can say they work on a project that defines a nation?’ I said, ‘not many,’” says Nsubuga. “So, I’m very fortunate.”

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