1/8 Gomesi
started being with us in 1940s when it was adapted as the dress for
boarding schools in Uganda, starting with Gayaza. Gayaza, as we know
was founded by Christian missionaries '…to train girls especially the
daughters of chiefs in those skills that would make them better wives'.
2/8 Initially,
the ladies of the school donned the basic Kiganda ladies’ attire of the
day: a sheet of cotton cloth wrapped around the breasts and tied to the
waist with a smaller strip of cloth. This left much of the torso
exposed and there were often some accidents with that attire especially
when the ladies went to work in the school shambas. The missionary
tutors found the exposure of the ladies’ torsos and breasts indecent and
sought to craft a dress code that was a compromise of their own
fashions and the bed sheet-like sash with which the ‘natives’ draped
themselves (see attached picture, from Speke’s journal of the
‘discovery’ of the Nile).
3/8 They
enlisted the services of a tailor from Gayaza trading centre, an Indian
called Fernando Gomes. Mr Gomes was from Goa , an Indian province
formally under the Portuguese. The people there like Mr Gomes and the
Pintos, Almeidas etc adopted Portuguese names.
4/8 In
designing the new Gayaza uniform, Mr Gomes maintained the extravagant
sash, very much like the oriental Kimono or West African Obi that was to
form a massive skirt. On to this, he stitched a quasi blouse with a
square neck with two buttons opening on the left. The new dress was
named after him, hence, gomesi. This became the first uniform for all
girls in boarding schools (hence ‘boodingi’) and
when they went back home for holidays, the traditional authorities were
impressed by the new fashion, turning it into the ‘traditional’ dress.
5/8 Mr Gomes was later to be evicted from Gayaza by the Anti-Asian rioters in the late 1940s. A
fifth generation Indian Raj Vajrakaya Gomez has recently come up to
claim that he is a
grandchild of Gomes and wants the 'bodingi' to be patented to benefit
the family of its designer. His claim can however be doubted because
his name, Gomez is Spanish where as the Portuguese version given to the
Goans has a letter‘s’.
6/8 The
gomesi dress symbolises the ostentation and conspicuous display and
extravagancy of feudal society where value for money is an
alien concept. From one gomesi, a contemporary designer can make at
least 3 size 12 ladies’ dresses….let alone the ‘Kikoyi’, 'kitambi and
‘Kitambala’ that accompany that courtly attire.
7/8 The
gomesi can only be a ‘national dress’ (hopefully for ladies only) if
the nation’s life is going to be confined to the slothfulness, lethargy,
flamboyance, splendour and vanity of the feudal court. An active,
productive, non-parasitic, bi-cycle riding, boda-boda mobile female
population cannot manage in that cumbersome garb. A mukiga lady will
not wear it, and never wears it, and in much of the West, the less
cumbersome two-piece dress and sheet remains popular: it makes it easy
to shed off the sheet, which for the gomesi and get on with work, is the
entire garb.
8/8 To
think that ‘Gomesi’ is a traditional dress is a bit problematic when we
do not even have a vernacular name for it and at the very moment when
some of us are agitating for a ‘national’ language. Looking at the name
Gomes itself, its Portuguese origin makes the naming of the attire for
our women even more problematic. Gomes or Gomez in Spanish derives from
‘Guma’ meaning a man or male, or masculine….i.e.,
Mwami/Ejakait/Ladit. A name that refers to masculinity, for a dress
that embodies femininity is a comical
contradiction in terms!
Buganda traditional dress:
Lance Corporal (Rtd) Patrick Otto
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