Two small Ankole cultural sites sit within an hour of Mbarara and neither has a gate or a guide book. Itaaba Kyabanyoro is the hilltop where the Bagyendanwa, the royal drum of Ankole, is said to have been made, out on the Kabale road. Karibeita Shrine is a working healing shrine on about an acre at Katerananga, just off the Masaka road near Biharwe. Both are on Mbarara District’s own cultural sites list, and a tour of either depends on finding the person who looks after it. The Mbarara guide covers the wider route.
Two Small Sites and What a Tour of Them Involves
Expectations first. Neither of these is presented. There is no interpretation board, no ticket, no fixed opening time and nothing to buy. What there is at each is a piece of ground that matters locally, and somebody who can tell you why.
Both are worth an hour if Ankole history is the reason you came west, and both will read as nothing at all if it is not. The Igongo Cultural Centre museum is the place to get the background first, because these two sites assume it.
Itaaba Kyabanyoro Tours: Where the Bagyendanwa Drum Was Made
The Bagyendanwa was the royal drum of Ankole, and in this kingdom the drum mattered more than the crown. Authority sat with it. A claimant who did not hold it was not recognised, and accounts describe it as beating of its own accord when something was wrong in the country.
Itaaba is where it is said to have been made. The tradition holds that Wamala, last of the Bachwezi rulers, cut the wood for it here in his final years, as the Bachwezi period gave way to the Ankole dynasty that followed. What survives on the hill is a shrine, a fig tree, and what is described locally as the stump of the tree the drum came from.
Hold that lightly. This is oral tradition rather than documented record, and the Bachwezi themselves sit on the boundary between history and legend across this whole region. The people who keep the site know that distinction perfectly well. A visitor repeating it as established fact is the one getting it wrong.
The Three Huts on an Itaaba Tour: Kakama, Kahima and Kairu
Three grass thatched huts stand on the site, and their names are the interesting part: Kakama, Kahima and Kairu. Anyone who has heard the Ankole origin story will recognise them at once, because those are the three sons of the founding figure, and what each was given became the order of Ankole society. Kakama took the rule. Kahima took the cattle. Kairu took the hoe.
That story is not a curiosity. It is the origin myth of the division between Bahima and Bairu that ordered the kingdom for centuries, and it is exactly the hierarchy that later split opinion over whether Ankole should have been restored with the other kingdoms. Standing in front of three huts named for it is the clearest way to see how old that argument is.
Ankole, alone among Uganda’s four historic western and central kingdoms, was never brought back after the abolition, and the reason is local disagreement rather than government refusal. The palace at Kamukuzi page sets that out in full.
Where the Bagyendanwa Is Now, and Why Nobody Agrees
A reasonable question with an unreasonable answer. The drum had appointed custodians and a permanent place at the royal court, and when the kingdoms were abolished in the late nineteen sixties that arrangement ended along with everything else.
What happened to it after that is told differently by different people. One account has it taken into the national museum’s keeping. Others describe it remaining with custodian families. Nothing authoritative and public settles it, which is itself a consequence of a kingdom with no institution left to answer the question. Ask at Itaaba and at Igongo, expect different answers, and treat anyone who states it flatly with some caution.
Visiting Itaaba: Rwampara, the Kabale Road and the Hill Trip
Here is a practical wrinkle. Mbarara District’s cultural sites listing carries Itaaba as one of its own, about fifty kilometres out from Kamukuzi. Other accounts place it at Kinoni in Rwampara. Both are right in their way: Rwampara was carved out of Mbarara as a separate district, and Kinoni is its headquarters. If you are asking directions, ask for Kyabanyoro or Kinoni rather than arguing about which district you are in.
It sits on a hill off the Mbarara to Kabale highway, so it is a detour from a road most southwestern trips already use. Allow an hour on site and rather more for the finding. Go with a Runyankole speaker, because the site is the story and the story is spoken.
Karibeita Shrine Tours and the Foreseer It Is Named For
Karibeita is a different proposition entirely. It occupies about an acre at Katerananga, close to Biharwe and a short distance off the Masaka road, and it is associated with Eryesafu Karibita Kagari, a foreseer of considerable local reputation who died in the nineteen seventies. The shrine remains in use for healing connected with Cwezi practice.
The word that matters in that sentence is remains. This is not a heritage site with a history attached. It is a place people still go to when they are ill or in trouble, which changes what a visit is.
Visiting a Working Shrine: What a Karibeita Trip Asks of You
Go only if somebody local takes you, and only if whoever keeps the shrine agrees. Turning up at a healing place with a camera, on your own initiative, is the wrong thing to do and will be received as such.
If you do visit, the courtesies are simple enough: ask before entering, ask before photographing anything, do not photograph people at all without being clear they understand and agree, take your cues from your host, and give something for the time you take. Consultations are private. You are a visitor to a practice, not an audience at one.
There is a wider point here worth stating. Traditional healing in Uganda is a live practice with millions of users, not folklore, and writing about it as spectacle is how tourism gets this wrong. If that framing makes you uncomfortable, the right response is to skip the site rather than to visit carefully and write it up anyway.
Fitting Both Into an Ankole Heritage Tour
Karibeita is close to Biharwe, which puts it on the same short stretch of road as Igongo and the eclipse monument, so it slots into a Masaka road morning if a visit has been arranged in advance. Itaaba is in the other direction, out towards Kinoni on the Kabale road, which makes it a stop on the way south rather than a trip from Mbarara.
The sensible order for anyone wanting Ankole history properly is the museum at Igongo, then the restored palace at Kamukuzi, then the Nkokonjeru tombs, with Itaaba picked up on the drive towards Kabale. The cultural tours guide covers how these visits are usually put together and who the money reaches.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is there a fee at either site?
No ticket office at either. What happens is that somebody shows you round and a contribution is given for their time, which is customary and not fixed. Take small notes and settle it before rather than after. At Karibeita in particular, do not treat a payment as buying access to a consultation.
Can I just turn up?
At Itaaba, more or less, though you may spend a while finding the keeper of the site. At Karibeita, no. Arrange it through somebody local first. A working shrine is not a drop in attraction and being turned away is the likely outcome otherwise.
Can I see the Bagyendanwa drum?
Not at Itaaba. What the site holds is the place the drum is said to have been made, not the drum. Where the object itself now sits is not settled in any public account, with different people naming different custodians, so treat the question as open.
Which district is Itaaba in?
Mbarara District lists it among its own cultural sites, while it is also described as being at Kinoni in Rwampara, which was carved out of Mbarara as a separate district. For practical purposes it is out on the Kabale road at Kyabanyoro, and asking for the village name will get you further than asking for the district.
Is either worth the detour?
Itaaba, yes, if the Ankole story interests you and you already know it. It is thin ground with a large history on it. Karibeita is not really a sightseeing proposition at all, and the honest recommendation is to visit only with a genuine local introduction, or not at all.
Do I need a translator?
At both. Neither site has a trained guide, and what is on offer is somebody’s spoken account. A Runyankole speaker turns an afternoon of looking at a fig tree into an afternoon of hearing why the fig tree is there.
Uganda Safaris lists safaris sold by independent Ugandan operators. We take no booking, handle no payment and charge you nothing. Nothing on the site is sold as a trip to either place, so the route in is to contact an operator working the southwestern circuit through the enquiry route and ask for a Mbarara driver who knows Kyabanyoro and can make an introduction at Katerananga.