Some days later, she was appointed to succeed her namesake who had died, as guardian of the tomb of the late King Jjunju at Luwunga, a place in the parish Naddangira.  When Clara and her husband arrived at Luwunga, to take up their appointment, they found their predecessor’s house littered with amulets and charms.    Clara, unwilling to live in a house containing “the things of Satan”, made a bonfire with all of them and also drove away the witch doctor in attendance at the shrine.  In spite of these shocks to public opinion, she asked her mother Nagadya, who was the guardian of the tomb of late King Muteesa, for her umbilical cord.  The umbilical cord is something very sacred in kiganda culture and is preserved with superstitious reverence.  But Nalumansi cut it into pieces and threw it in a hole.  In the eyes of the pagans these acts were crimes of the most serious nature, bound to provoke the vengeance of the gods in the form of some public calamity.  Nagadya was at her wits end, wanting to commit suicide and went to Luwunga where Nalumansi showed her the hole into which she had thrown the pieces of her umbilical cord.  Her mother reverently collected the pieces and took them back to Kasubi tombs.  The pagans thought that the princess and her husband should be burnt to death, to expiate their offence and to appease the outraged gods.  However, although both the king and his chiefs were highly annoyed, laying the blame of the “sacrilege“ on the influence of the missionaries, their anger was soon diverted into another direction and the princess, for moment at least, went unpunished.  In the eyes of Mwanga, the worst feature of this case was the courageous independence shown by a mere woman,  an independence which not only put him, her brother, to shame but let him to believe the often  repeated accusation that the Christians would, when powerful enough, follow the English example and place a woman on the throne of Buganda

 

Nalumansi was quite a woman.  She had carefully followed the instructions of Mapeera and was convinced that all charms, amulets, etc were things of Satan, things that had no power and she was going to prove that.  She had a fiery and sometimes indomitable character and she launched herself into the apostolate without much prudence, to put it mildly, often to the embarrassment not only of King Mwanga but also of her husband and the missionaries.  Her argument was that she was merely living up to the teachings of Jesus handed to her by Mapeera himself.  All those “things of the devil” were mere nothings.  Clara often went to see her mother Nagadya and slowly but surely convinced her that the charms that she venerated were mere nothings, without any power.  She also instructed her own mother and progressively she taught her the Catholic faith.  She persuaded her mother who started sending her servants to the catechism classes of Mapeera and his companions.  Much later, after the violent death of her daughter, she embraced the Catholic faith and was baptized at Rubaga.

 

In the wake of this witch-hunt, King Mwanga took his revenge and sent soldiers to Luwunga to ransack her house on 30-7-1886.  That day Nalumansi was absent but her husband was there.  They wanted to kill him but he narrowly escaped.  The attackers thought that they had fatally wounded him but fortunately that was not true.  They apprehended five (5) servants of Nalumansi.  Kaddu roamed around for some days.   Then he went to Mapeera and asked the father to hide him for some days.  Nalumansi and Kaddu could no longer stay at Luwunga and they moved to a place close to Nabbingo called Kitemu, where they had lived after their wedding.  When the missionaries withdrew to Tanzania from 20-11-82 up till 12-7-85 Joseph Kaddu accepted the responsibility to instruct the catechumens at his home together with his wife.  During the absence of the missionaries, Joseph Mukasa Balikuddembe had the overall responsibility of the young Christian communities, left behind by the missionaries.  He established four (4) catechumenates.  One at the palace of the king, where he himself was in charge; a second one at Kiwatule at the home of the future martyr Andrea Kaggwa; a third at Mityana taken care of by the future Martyr Matia Mulumba and the fourth one in the compound of Joseph Kaddu and his wife Clara.  During the absence of the missionaries, they instructed many people in order to prepare them for baptism and they gave them an excellent example of Christian life. 

 

The late King Ssuuna who reigned over Buganda from 1832 – 1856, was the grandfather of Clara.  During his reign as king he had donated the ivory tusk of an elephant to the shrine of Mukasa, the god of the lake.  That shrine is still there up till this day, not far from Lake Nabugabo.  It is a deep underground cave and people still go there to this day to venerate Mukasa, the god of the lake and they practice a lot of witchcraft.  When Clara learned about that charm, she made up her mind to put an end to that stupid respect given to a mere “nothing”.  She called some of her Christian servants on whom she could count and told them “I am the grand-daughter of King Ssuuna and so that tusk belongs to me.  The poor people of Buddu venerate it as something sacred.  Let us go and take it away” Her husband and some others tried to change her mind but she was adamant and did not want to listen to them.  Her servants obeyed her and they went to the cave at night and stole the tusk.  The watchman was asleep and when he woke up the tusk had gone.  He beat the drums and people started looking everywhere but the thieves had gone and nobody knew the road they had taken, neither did they know that princess Nalumansi was the guilty one.  On 13-12-1887, Joseph Kaddu went at night to tell Mapeera the whole story.  Since the watchmen of the shrine were afraid, King Mwanga was not informed but after sometime he got to know about the theft.  Did he suspect his own sister?  We don’t know.

 

The Prime-minister of Buganda during the reign of Muteesa and Mwanga, was a certain Mukasa, a die-hard and vicious pagan who was against all “foreign religions” that had come into Uganda.  He had been trying hard to convince Mwanga to get rid of all Europeans and kill all the Christians, even the Muslims.  To a certain extent he had succeeded and many Catholics and Protestants were killed during the persecution from November 1885 up till February 1887, the best known of course are the twenty two catholic martyrs and the twenty three protestant martyrs.  The total number that died in the persecution cannot be ascertained.  Anglican pastor Ashe suggests about two hundred.  Livigerie wrote “the number of victims is supposed to excel a hundred.”  The death-toll was evidently heavy enough to give pause even to the cold blooded prime minister and make him endeavour to dissuade the Kabaka from further slaughter.  But there was still some unfinished business: Clara Nalumansi and her husband Joseph.  They were a thorn in the flesh of the Prime Minister Mukasa but King Mwanga could not convince himself to kill his own sister.  At the beginning of 1888 King Mwanga appointed Nalumansi as guardian of the tomb of the Namasole i.e the mother of a king.  In this case the mother of King Muteesa at Kazo very near to Bwayiise where there is now a new parish.  Together with her husband, Nalumansi moved to Kazo and took up her task as guardian of the tomb of the Namasole.  Immediately she set out to clean up the whole place, collecting all the charms and related objects and she made a bonfire with them.   She then sent the witchdoctor packing and cleared the whole compound of anything that smelled of pagan practices.  When this news came to the ears of King Mwanga, he flew into a rage.  His Prime Minister Mukasa advised him to get rid of Nalumansi and her husband once and for all.  He argued that once the Christian had increased to a considerable number, they would certainly put Nalumansi on the throne as queen of Buganda.  Surely, Nalumansi was a princess and his own sister but that should not prevent him from taking a definite decision.  Mwanga let himself be convinced by his Prime minister and they dispatched soldiers to the compound of Kazo.  The Prime Minister gave an order to the soldiers to attack the compound in the middle of the night because he was afraid that the king might change his mind.  After all, Nalumansi was his own blood sister. The soldiers broke into the compound and started shooting.  Nalumansi courageously defended herself with her own gun but was soon overpowered and they killed her.  Her husband Kaddu saved himself by the skin of his teeth and fled with others.  All this happened on the 2nd of August 1888.  Very early in the morning King Mwanga sent some messengers to Kazo to tell the soldiers to spare his sister.  But it was too late.  They found Nalumansi lying in a pool of blood.  After this event the area received a new name: Bwayiise.  The name comes from a proverb:  Obwayiise tebuyoolwa = spilled flour cannot be collected any more.  In English we might say:  don’t cry over spilled milk.  Nalumansi was dead.  Her husband fled and went to Mapeera to tell him the whole story.

 

According to the history of Buganda, this was the first time that the life of royal princess ended in such a violent and tragic way.  Her mother Nagadya was not afraid to blame King Mwanga for the assassination of her daughter and she clearly stated the reason why Mwanga had her killed: out of hatred for her faith in Jesus Christ.

 

We don’t know exactly what happened to Joseph Kaddu after the death of Nalumansi because of the turbulent years that followed the death of his wife.  First there was a rebellion of the Muslims and the Christians against King Mwanga in September 1888.  Mwanga fled the country and his brother Kiweewa became king of Buganda from 10-9-88 up till 21-10-1888.  Then the Muslims seized power and killed King Kiweewa.  They expelled all missionaries, Protestants and Catholics alike.  Mgr. Livinhac, Mapeera, Amans and Denoit went to Kamoga in Tanzania.  Mr. Gordon and Mr. Walker also went to the south of Lake Victoria.  Kalema was proclaimed king of Buganda and remained in power up till 5-10-1889.  On 14-9-89, Mapeera and Fr. Denoit joined Mwanga and his army on the island of Bulingugwe.  From there Mwanga tried to re-conquer his capital Kampala and succeeded.  In February 1890, Mapeera and Denoit started the building of a new church at Nabunnya (at the foot of Rubaga hill) but that is where Mapeera died on the 12th of May 1890.

 

With the arrival of Captain Lugard in December 1890, the relations between Catholics and Protestants deteriorated.  Lugard immediately took the side of the Protestants and religion became politicized.   The Catholics were called “Bafransa” = French and the protestants “Bangereza” = English.  In January Lugard and the Protestants attacked the Catholics.  The White Fathers were exiled for the third time.  It was in that battle between Protestant and Catholics that Joseph Kaddu and many others died.  Two thirds of all the Catholics fled to Buddu under the leadership of Alexi Ssebbowa, Gabriel Kintu, Joseph Nsingisira, Jacob Ssemugoma and others.  From that time on Villa Maria became the centre of Catholicism.