Baganda Cultural Practices; Visual Narratives from Divination and Exorcism

Abstract

Cultural practices play an important role in society. It is through cultural practices that societies define their cultural background and boundaries. Through cultural practices, societies define their common values and create differences between themselves and others. Cultural practices are the foundations of any society and through them a society reveals its invisible soul, constructs new meanings and deconstructs old meanings in context of time and space. Through cultural practices, a society demonstrated its level of creativity, history and progress. In her visual publication, titled: Baganda cultural practices: Visual Narratives from divination and exorcism, Kekimuri Joan, a PhD student at Makerere University, MTSIFA, visually articulates the embedded meaning of the Baganda traditional practices with emphasis to divination and exorcism. Through a subjective interpretive approach, she has created painterly ideas resulting from her interaction with the art forms used in divination and exorcism at shrines owned by the Baganda traditional healers involved in divination and exorcism. Her work is an example of what critical study and analysis of art forms can offer in terms of knowledge creation and interpretation. In societies like those of Africa, where the art of western writing is a recent development through colonialism, most of our knowledge systems are embedded in art forms, music, dance, drama and other cultural practice