Exploration of the Indigenous Knowledge and Skills Transmitted Through the Amayebe Musical Tradition among Busoga Communities

Indigenous Knowledge (IK) is essential in every society; unfortunately, it has been globally marginalised, partly due to colonialism. Many aspects of African IK have either been lost or are on the verge of extinction due to limited documentation, yet the school system continues to sideline it, exhibiting Eurocentrism. Using a qualitative approach, this ethnographic study explored the IK embedded in the Amayebe musical tradition of the Basoga in Southeastern Uganda with the aim of critiquing and integrating its aspects into the Primary Musical Arts Teacher Education (PMTE) as an approach to decolonisation. Guided by Decolonial theory, data were collected using participant observation, interviews, and focus group discussions from five Amayebe master musicians and twenty-nine apprentices, followed by inductive thematic analysis. Results indicated that the IK transmitted through the Amayebe musical tradition transcends its performance to general knowledge for one’s meaningful living in society. It involves learning to perform the different dance roles (okusansaga, okutabula, and okukina), singing and composing, choreographing, making Amayebe instruments, as well as generic aspects like okwefumintiriza (self-reflection), which enable them to develop other skills like okwezuula (self-discovery), obumalirivu (self-determination), and okweikiririzaamu (agency). These skills are very relevant in the socio-cultural and socio-economic development. The study recommended collaboration between educators and culture bearers to research, document, and archive IK embedded in the various Indigenous traditions and later keep it alive by practising and critiquing it before integrating some of its aspects into school-based education systems like PMTE. This might eventually contribute to decentring European epistemes and centring Indigenous knowledge systems as advocated by the decolonial theory