Part 1: Suba Origins: The Flight of the Abakunta...

Sometime around 1760, Kabaka Junju, the 26th King of the Buganda was assassinated in a great war. According to oral history, the King was killed by his brother, Semakookiro, with the help of two Suba warriors, Witewe and Kiboye. Semaakookiro assumed his brother’s throne, and seeking to tie-up loose ends, called a secret war council to eliminate Witewe and Kiboye. Fortunately for the Suba, a young court drummer named Mwembe overheard the Machiavellian scheme and warned the warriors. That same night, the three of them loaded up their canoes and fled across Lake Victoria with their families and possessions.

They sailed and paddle east along the Northern shore of Lake Victoria, warning relatives along the way and sparking an exodus of numerous Abakunta clans who feared the wrath of Semakookiro. These clans dispersed across the Lake Victoria, finally settling on the remote islands and shoreline of present-day Kenya. Fifteen generations later, the direct descendants of the court drummer Mwembe live today in a remote beach village on the southern tip of Mfangano Island in a region known as "Wakinga". Our friends in these indigenous communities build boats, tend farms, and catch fish, as their ancestors have done two and half centuries. Yet, the Suba language and way of life is dying. The Suba people are in danger of disappearing.