Welcome back to yet another segment of our Tales of Africans & Marriage the two inseparable twins.

Just like the many African tribes that we have already explored in this story, the Batooro to highly valued the sanctity of marriage and the parents did everything they possibly could to prepare their children for marriage and all this was done to ensure that the younger couples had a better chance of having a beautiful and long-lasting marriage life after everything was said and done.

The Batooro highly respected the sanctity of marriage and they didn’t allow sex before marriage. Courtship was not allowed among the Batooro as it wasn’t in many African societies, it was solely the duty of the father to look for a possible suitor for their child.

After finding a potential bride for his son, the father would use the help of a go through person called “kibonabuko” who was usually is a middle-aged man and his task was to run a background check on the bride’s family and find out the virtues and qualities of people who belong to the bride’s family.

On establishing the virtues of the bride’s family and ascertaining that they match with those that the father of the groom is looking for in a bride for his son, the “kibonabuko” together with his kinsmen dressed in a Tooro traditional wear which comprised of a kanzu accessorized with beaded walking sticks would visit the bride to be parents and state their wish of having one of the girls in that family married to their son and all this was done in a ceremony called “Okwerenga” which can loosely be translated as “announcement”.

Unlike many other tribes in Uganda which didn’t require for the girl’s consent for the parents to go ahead with the wedding.

The Batooro would ask for the girl’s consent before the parents gave the “kibonabuko” a go-ahead to have their girl’s hand in marriage.

When the bride’s father accepted the kibonabuko’s proposal, the kibonabuko knelt down as a sign of appreciation.

Bridal price was agreed on and this usually consisted of about 10 heads of cattle and a few goats. A wedding feast is organized and this involved a lot of merry making, the bride performs a ritual called “okubukara” in which she sits on her parents’ laps.

Early in the morning, she would also be taken to the groom’s family and sit on her parent in laws’ laps and also sprinkled with herbal medicinal water called “endemezi”.

On the eve of the wedding, the bride and groom would meet and consummate their love in a ritual called “okucwa amagita” and when the girl was found to have still have been a virgin, a gift of a cow or a goat would be sent to her mother thanking her for raising her well.