1000 to 1399

Kitara and the earthworks

Bantu speaking farmers grow bananas and millet around the great lakes, and herders move in from the north. Huge earthworks at Bigo bya Mugenyi, dug around the fourteenth or fifteenth century, show that a powerful state once existed here. Oral traditions remember it as Kitara, ruled by the Bachwezi, and later kingdoms claim descent from it.