By Isaac Kalembe Akiiki
Since time immemorial, the Banyoro grew two types of banana/plantain - edible and beer production. Indeed, local brew, called omwenge (later the trendy tonto became a popular name) was the favourite drink.
It would either be drunk as crude alcohol ( tonto) or distilled ( haragi).
This beer would be drank at home, in happening places called birabu(singular: kirabu) - a corruption of the English word Club. Literally, these were locar bars and clubs.
Preparing the beer
The process of preparing the local brew would begin with the harvesting of mature banana/plantain of the brew type.
Types of banana
The type of banana used for brewing beer was distinctly different from the edible one.
Basically, there were three types of banana used for brewing beer:
1) Kisubi: Also called Barwokole, Kisubi (did it originate from Kisubi in Buganda?), was the traditional and commonest type of banana
2) Serere: Also called Musa, Serere (it could have started in that part of Teso in eastern Uganda), was a later breed that came to dominate the Bunyoro region).
and Nyamaizi: These two types of banana looked like the edible type. However, they eere too hard to eat as well they had a flat taste. This could be the reason why the Banyoro removed them from the table, and relegated them to the gourd and calabash (the traditional crates and glasses respectively).
Once enough banana had been harvested they would be covered either in an Embiso - a cave like pit with a tiny mouth) or Itunguru (a four-poled structure constructed either in the kitchen or in open space). Here heath (fire place) would be erected) and a minimal fire kept burning for four days to induce the ripening of bananas.
Squeezing juice
An Oruganjo - a long but shallow excavation with four perpendicular trough would be prepared. The juice would be squeezed in this trough.
To prevent the leakage or sipping of the juice into the dry ground below, roast tender fresh banana leaves, reinforced with thin banana stems, would be laid carefully in the trough.
The ripe bananas would then be removed from the bunches by hand. After, fresh grass cut in short size had been added to the heap of bananas in the Orugonjo, an able-bodied man would embark on squeezing the juice from the bananas using his bare legs.
This tedious, manual exercise would exact a lot of energy before the juice was realised. People, especially the young ones, would get excited at the sight of the first flow.
Type of juice
The squeezed ripe banana yields three types of juice:
1) Empunga - the sweetest and unadulterated juice. It contains no water. So it's concentrated.
2) Kihotole: After extracting empunga, you add a little water (measured) to the squeezed bananas. This juice, though sweet, is no match for empunga.
3) Kaizi: As the name implies, this is watery or diluted juice. It has almost a flat taste but form the bulk of the juice.
It's mixed with Kihotole (a little Mpunga may be added onto the mixture).
The fermentation process
After squeezing, the content is then (as was the case in yesteryears) in obwato (wooden "boat" made by creating a holding hole in a felled giant tree), usually fixed in a fitting pit dug in the ground.
Some would be put in Entingiro (also called ensoha) and Embindo (both types of earhenware, the latter being smaller than the former).
These vessels would be used to complement the boat(s). However, this arrangement proved convenient for someone to monitor the progress of the brewing process by tasting the content in the pots without having to tamper with the larger container (boat).
Covering the juice
After completion of the squeezinging process, the juice would be put in the appropriate vessels.
For this purpose, roast banana leaves and straightened banana stems would be used.
As a ferment, roast and ground omugusa (sorghum) would be applied to it.
Again, this is a yesteryear process when sorghum and beer-producing banana such as barwokole and serere were in abundance.
When sorghum became scare and banana plantations dwindled (because of the banana wilt that ravaged Bunyoro, if not the entire country, in the post-Idi Amin years), people devised new methods.
It was widely believed that smoke from such artillery pieces as the Saba Saba - the nickname of the Russian-made Katyusha 21 that the Tanzanian army used to defeat Amin - produced toxics that affected plantain and other crops.
Though this was not scientifically proven, the post-war years saw a decline in banana harvest and subsequent famine.
Indeed, by the early 1990s, banana plantations that had been the pride of Bunyoro for centuries, were no more!
Nowadays, tea leaves are applied to the juice, which is called diseero, in contrast to the *tonto* of yesteryears.
The amaato (plural of eryato) have been replaced by jerrycans and plastic tanks.
And, the taste of the diseero (I no longer take it!) is a far cry from the tonto I grew up brewing and - as the scripture (2Timothy?) says - "drinking a bit"!
Lest I forget, after the boat was covered, the process of fermentation - a four-day process - would commence.
The liquor of the first day, would still be sweet, hence still juice. It was called Nyarumu (literally, "first-day juice).
On the second day, it would be Nyakabiri ("of day two") - still sweet but hot because of the brewing process.
Nyakasatu (literally "beer of the third day") would no longer be juice. It would be hot and fermented. Children would be discouraged from taking it for fear of them getting drunk.
The elders (including my late father) would, upon tasting it, express satisfaction at how "sweet" (you know what is meant by "good beer"?) the product was!
Come the following day, it would be time to scoop out the Nyakana(meaning should be obvious to you by now?) for distilling (a story for another day) or for sale as tonto.
Just in case the beer had been prepared for a function, the party would begin!
Tonto-related expressions
1) "Omaziremu nk'enyakasatu"(literally "stonely serious"). The tonto of the third day would be of good alcoholic level.
2) "Kangunywe habw'okuba nugwo maama bamusweize("Let me drink it because beer brew was a key item for my mother's bride price"). In Kinyoro culture, a brideprice would be regarded as wanting should the local brew be missing).
The writer Rt Hon. Isaac Kalembe Akiiki, is the speaker (Omutalindwa) of Bunyoro kitara Kingdom.
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