The Uganda museum - Cultural Safaris

Really if seeing is believing then please don’t miss to make a cultural Travel to Uganda museum. Founded in 1908 is Uganda’s oldest and fascinating museum that exhibits traditional culture, science, archeology, natural history. Located in Kampala the country’s capital along kiira road to kamwokya off bombo road which is 4 kilometre drive from the city Centre, the place contains all about Uganda’s past and is a must visit when you happen to reach in the pearl of Africa.

At the very entrance, enticing and nice looking pictures await you of photos and posters with images of various Uganda geographical features, animals, birds and insects that are displayed behind the reception desk to reflect the true cultural history. The entry fee are pocket friendly where by each Ugandan adult pays1000 Uganda shillings, while Ugandan children pay 500 shillings each. Non-Ugandan adults part with 3000 shillings to access the museum while non-Uganda children pay 1,500 shillings. For those tourists carrying  still cameras, they pay an additional 5,000 shillings carrying a video camera will see you pay an extra 20,000 Uganda shillings, unless if you are lucky and you happen to be a journalist then you may be allowed to enter free of charge.

After the reception, you will find different directions directing you towards the different sections of the beautiful museum, walking straight through the lobby, you will enter the pavilion of independence of science and technology, when you turn left then you will see the different musical instruments that you are allowed to play if you wish as well as the stone age gallery. While you are still in the lobby, what will catch your eyes are the photographs of human interest of Uganda and other countries, they include fossilized old foot prints that are said to have been found in Lactoli that are about 3.7 million year, the history and evolution of the Rift valley, the Lake Baringo basin in Kenya and many more others with their historical significance.

Another amazing section is the stone age section where you will be able to see the physical tools that were used by the stone age people, they include wood that was used for scrapping, stones and how they even evolved into the modern tools that Ugandans use today, you will also be able to see and appreciate how we evolved from our ancestors the apes and how they also evolved into humans. The whole story is told and classified by the pictures, real bones, skulls that are displayed.

Uganda's multicultural and colorful past just becomes alive as you tour the History and Iron Age displays that depict the traditional ways of life in different kingdoms, tribes and communities of Uganda. Here you find striking displays of traditional clothing especially the bark cloth and animal skin, headdress, hair dressing, as well as hunting, Uganda’s transport history, fishing, agriculture, war, religion, and how our ancestors spent their free time (traditional recreation). The displays explain that all Ugandan communities enjoyed music and dancing, as well as drinking beer and playing various games like the “omweso”. Gathered all over Uganda from the Madi in northern Uganda, to the Bahima in the southern part of Uganda. These have made the museum a fantastic and a must visit place.

Another interesting feature here is the display that shows how justice was held in Uganda in many years ago where there was no penal code, police force and criminal investigations, how did people in the past see that someone had committed a crime and deserved a punishment for example you will be able to see how the madi and lugbara tribes used divine posts to assess the innocence of the accused while other tribes used leathers to identify who had committed a crime. Since most tribes and communities couldn’t avoid war in the past, you will be able to see a lot of different war tools, hunting tools that were also used for self-defense, Uganda’s history of livestock and the migration routes of many communities like the Nilo-Hamites, Luo, highland Nilotics, Sudanic bantu and the bushmanoid.

So whenever you are in Uganda, and you want to embrace the historical taste of Uganda, the only place is the Uganda museum, the custodian of Uganda’s heritage.