Mixed fortunes for Pakwach, Mbarara iconic solar eclipse sites

Although Uganda is blessed with two solar eclipse monuments, one celebrating a recent and the other an event hundreds of years ago, these unique tourism sites are under threat from vandals. 

The more recent monument celebrates Uganda’s hosting of a rare hybrid solar eclipse in 2013, which was erected at Owiny Primary School in Pakwach District, north-western Uganda. It was unveiled by President Museveni, but is now being vandalised by unknown people. 

The Owiny Primary School Hybrid Solar Eclipse Monument, which stands about 12 miles from Pakwach Town, is shaped like a squat stone pyramid, with a metal eclipse medallion on top.
The vandals broke the padlock to the enclosure, plucked off the metallic commemorative plaque, and destroyed the wire mesh around the monument that cost the taxpayer Shs77 million to put up. 

“The plaque must have been taken during the recent December-January school holidays. We only discovered it had been taken when we returned in February. We don’t know why they took it. Maybe they took the plaque to metal scrap dealers, thinking the metal used is expensive. We suspect the youth around here must have vandalised the monument,” John Okot, the Owiny Primary School head teacher, says. 

“I reported the matter to the office of Chief Administrative Officer (CAO) of Pakwach District, the district engineer and district commercial office. We agreed with the commercial officer that the CAO should replace the plaque with that made of cement. A monument without a plaque is more or less useless. With a plaque of cement, they [vandals] won’t even bother to take it away because it is cheap,” Okot adds.  

“The challenge is that members of the community say they are not benefiting from the monument. The school offered land to the Tourism ministry to build the monument and government compensated us with another piece of land nearby. Our school was renovated and a borehole drilled to serve the community and the Uganda Wildlife Authority (UWA) also gave us textbooks worth Shs2 million,” Okot says. 

“All tourist sites are going to be included in our district budgets. Now that we have a tourist officer, all will run smoothly,” Charles Muswa, the Pakwach District deputy CAO, says. 
“The village committee and the community should own this site,” Okot suggests, adding: “The district authorities should hire somebody to look after this site, and create other activities to attract members of the community.”

“Even with the best engineer repairing the site without changing the mindset of the community, we shall be wasting time. We need to create a local management committee to oversee the site and earn a percentage of the income,” Muswa says. 

Background
Over seven years ago, the small town of Pakwach was thrust into international limelight when thousands of eclipse chasers and viewers descended on the quiet River Nile-side town to witness the hybrid solar eclipse. 

Back on November 3, 2013, local and foreign tourists, including the ‘chief viewer,’ President Museveni, converged at Owiny Primary School to watch the astronomical hybrid eclipse –a lifetime event. The eclipse occurred at about 5.23pm East Africa Time (EAT) when the moon shielded the sun and created a spectacular moment of darkness for 19 seconds.

The government spent Shs510 million to organise the eclipse viewing event.  
A shallow partial solar eclipse was first viewed in the southern United States, before it swept east across the Atlantic Ocean and the African continent. 

The significance of the November 3, 2013 eclipse was that the US space agency NASA’s calculation indicates that only seven of its kind have occurred since the time of Jesus Christ. The last hybrid eclipse is believed to have occurred on March 16, 1466, and the next one forecast for June 3, 2114. 
Scientists estimate that a hybrid eclipse comes around only once in 159 years.
Uganda was identified as the best location in the world to view the solar eclipse, with Pakwach, Arua, Masindi, Gulu and Soroti, giving vantage points. 
Pakwach District was identified as the best location to view the eclipse. 
Specifically, Owiny Primary School in Pokwero Sub-county was singled out as a prime viewing location. 

Besides a brand-new hotel that was constructed, the 2013 eclipse provided a momentary economic boom for Pakwach Town, which is the main commercial, political and administrative centre of Pakwach District, lying 366kms north of Kampala by road. 
“We were very happy to hold the solar eclipse viewing on November 3, 2013, in Pakwach because we got very many investors. Lodges and hotels were fully occupied by the numerous tourists who came to witness the solar eclipse,” Anterio Ochieng, a farmer in Pakwach, recalls.

“There are a number of promises that government and the private sector made that have not been fulfilled. For example, government promised to tarmac the road to this area but it is yet to do so. The signpost directing visitors to the site has not been erected,” Ochieng says.

Biharwe eclipse  
The Igongo Cultural Centre is about 12kms from Mbarara Town on the Mbarara-Kampala highway. 
Across the road is Biharwe Hill, on which sits a monument to the 1520 AD Biharwe Eclipse, one that heralded the region’s modern history. 

The Biharwe Eclipse Monument that was unveiled by President Museveni on August 30, 2014, overlooks the cultural centre, announcing the general historical importance of the area. It is named Igongo after one of the hills in Rwenjeru area on which ancient kings used to sacrifice white cows, sheep and chicken to offer to the gods for rains, a rich harvest, good health and victory in war.  

After the breakup of the Bacwezi Empire of Bunyoro-Kitara in the 15th Century, smaller kingdoms emerged all over the region, including Bunyoro, Nkore, Karagwe, Rwanda and others. Of these, Bunyoro was the most powerful both militarily and by territorial control. 

Oral tradition in Nkore has it that at the beginning of the 16th Century, the king (Omukama) of Bunyoro, Olimi I Rwitamahanga (The Scourge of Nations) Kalimbi Rukidi, started raiding the neighbouring kingdoms and rustling cattle, causing famine like Eijuga Nyonza in Nkore, where cattle populations had been depleted by the raids. This was during the reign of King (Omugabe) Ntare I Nyabugarobwera in Nkore. 

Olimi invaded Buganda, Nkore, Mpororo and Rwanda and collected several animals as loot. However, on one occasion in 1520, as he returned from Rwanda, during the reign of Umwami Ruganzu II Ndori, a solar eclipse appeared late in the afternoon when he had reached Biharwe, in present-day Mbarara District with his loot. Dumbfounded, the great king, together with his warriors, scattered in disarray, leaving all the cows, women and slaves behind. 

King Nyabugarobwera and his people who found these abandoned animals treated them as god-send, that is, having come from the sky, hence their name, Eduga Mwiguru (or sometimes, Mpenda ya Munoni). Nkore was able to rebuild its cattle herds after that incident. 

Olimi went on to invade Buganda and killed their King (Kabaka), Nakibinge and his distinguished commander, Kibuuka, having been betrayed by his Munyoro concubine.  Nakibinge was succeeded by his son Mulondo. In Bunyoro, this period was marked by a prolonged absence of the king from the kingdom on a costly but unprofitable expedition. 

It was later established by historians and by NASA and other space scientists that the Biharwe Eclipse took place on April 17, 1520, and the date was then used to work out the genealogies of the different kingdoms in the Great Lakes Region because four kings were mentioned by legends of the time, namely Olimi, Ntare, Nakibinge and Mulondo. 

“The 1520 eclipse happened 500 years ago during pre-colonial history, and was the first archeostronomical event to be recorded in Africa. This means for such a long time, the world has questions such as ‘who was there?’ ‘What was there and how did such an event affect the communities around or Ugandans at the time?’ The Biharwe eclipse monument thus etches these tales and gives the visitor detailed answers to the above questions,” Daphine Naahwera, the sales and marketing manager at Igongo Cultural Centre, says. 

In December 2019, UNDP gave a grant worth Shs150 million, under the Business Enterprise Innovation Challenge to the Igongo Cultural Centre to improve the beauty of the Biharwe Eclipse Monument.  
This financed the erection of unique sculptures and artistic relics. The Biharwe Eclipse Monument has three legs (pillars) indicating the kings (Olimi, Ntare and Nakibinge) of the region who were directly affected by the eclipse. It is constructed in a way that stimulates the eclipse with its shadow on the ground – as long as the sun is up, one doesn’t have to look so keenly. The surface is also covered by different pictorials, symbols such as drums and spears.

The monument was designed by Joseph Sematimba, a creative director and lecturer of art and design at Makerere University in Kampala. 
In his description of the Biharwe Eclipse Monument, Sematimba says: “The monument is a futuristic form, composed of inversely towering triplicate support stands (each representing a kingdom at the time-Bunyoro, Nkore and Buganda) with the forth stand eliminated to symbolise the instability (cattle raids and tribal wars) during this era.” 

“At the top is a globe that represents the moon (eclipse) suspended or uniformly offset along a circular void on top to create a ring void that surrounds the base of the globe. Scientifically, this gap is designed to simulate the eclipse process through a transforming shadow that’s cast at the base of the monument and keeps evolving from a crest shape shadow in the morning sunrise to a ring-shape shadow at mid-day and finally to a fading crest shadow at sunset. ‘You need to be there to experience it,’” Sematimba adds.

Asked what the symbols on the surface of the monument represent, Sematimba explains: “The symbols and reed simulations on the surface of the sculptural monument are a representation of material culture of western Uganda. They are Hima wall motifs/patterns/ or symbols used at the time. The symbols are derived from wall patterns that were used on traditional Hima huts and are part of the diverse material culture of western Uganda and communicate a lot of aspects about lifestyles, artefacts, values, norms and belief systems of the region.” 

As to the importance of having two solar eclipse sites in Uganda, the commissioner for museums and monuments in the Ministry of  Tourism, Wildlife and Antiquities, Ms Rose Nkaale Mwanja, says: “Our heritage is our inheritance - what the past has conceded to us, what we value in the present and what we choose to preserve for future generations, it gives clues to our past and how our society has evolved. It helps us examine our history and traditions and enables us develop awareness about ourselves. It helps us understand and explain why we are the way we are,” Mwanja adds. 

In his article “Why Uganda Has Two Eclipse Monuments” Eric Grundhauser observes: “Two monuments might not seem like that many, but given how few monuments to the world’s eclipses exist, Uganda might have accidentally become the eclipse monument capital of the world.”

Mwanja says government has received an inquest from Unesco about the possibility of nominating the Biharwe Eclipse for the World Heritage Site List. The Biharwe Eclipse is the only archeostronomical tourism site in east and central Africa. 

“The nomination of a site for the World Heritage Site List is quite a process. Currently, we are still compiling data and evidence to establish if the site qualifies for nomination. Once that stage is positive, we will submit the site name on the tentative list for nomination, thereafter, the preparation of the official dossiers for nomination will progress,” Mwanja explains. 

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