History of Lake Victoria Before Queen Victoria: Nnalubaale, Nam Lolwe, Ukerewe:
Before Lake Victoria: Indigenous Names and Early Knowledge (A Chronological History Guide)
Long before the 1858 renaming by John Hanning Speke, the vast inland lake at the heart of East Africa carried many names and deep meanings. This guide traces those indigenous names and the earliest external descriptions in chronological order—so readers see how knowledge of the lake evolved.
📌 Learn about Africa’s powerful civilizations before Europeans.
1) Indigenous Naming Traditions (Pre–10th Century to Present)
Nnalubaale (Luganda): In Kingdom of Buganda history, the lake was the “Home of the Spirit Lubaale,” a sacred waterscape with lakeside shrines and ritual sites.
Nam Lolwe (Dholuo): For the Luo, who migrated into the region centuries before colonial rule, the lake—“the endless waters”—anchors Luo migration stories and group identity.
Ukerewe (Sukuma and neighbors, present-day Tanzania): A regional name tied to the large island of Ukerewe and, by extension, to the wider lake basin.
How we know: These names are preserved in oral histories and were recorded in 19th–20th century ethnographies, missionary notes, and linguistic studies that documented local usage.
2) Early Arabic Descriptions (10th–12th Centuries)
Al-Masʿūdī (c. 947 CE) described a great inland lake feeding the Nile, drawing on information carried along African trade networks. He wrote that “from the southern lands comes a great lake whose waters give life to the Nile.”
Al-Idrīsī (1154 CE) compiled a world geography and map referencing inland lakes and rivers as sources of the Nile system. He noted that “the Nile arises from a great lake in the heart of the land of the blacks, its waters spreading into many rivers before becoming one.”
Did You Know?
In 1154 CE, Arab geographer al-Idrīsī created one of the earliest world maps linking inland lakes of East Africa to the Nile River. His work, based on caravan and trader reports, offered the first cartographic “visual reference” of what we now call Lake Victoria — centuries before European explorers arrived.
How we know: Surviving Arabic manuscripts and geographies indicate coastal knowledge of a vast interior lake long before European mapping. While they did not record local names, they attest to the lake’s existence in external literature.
3) Swahili and Arab Trader Knowledge (17th–Early 19th Centuries)
Swahili caravan routes extended deep inland, linking coastal ports to Buganda, Bunyoro, and Karagwe. Traders exchanged cloth, beads, and firearms for ivory and enslaved people and reported a “great lake” in the interior. These were the same Swahili Coast trade routes that tied inland kingdoms to the Indian Ocean world.
How we know: Oral testimony from caravan leaders preserved in later chronicles and explorer interviews, alongside coastal records, show sustained awareness of the lake prior to European expeditions.
4) First Visual References (12th–19th Centuries)
Before cameras, the lake was known through maps, engravings, and descriptive prose. Al-Idrīsī’s 1154 map portrayed inland lakes as Nile sources, based on caravan reports. By the mid-19th century, engravings and sketch maps of “Victoria Nyanza” appeared in European journals.
Arab traders described the lake as vast and rich. One caravan report recalled, “Beyond the kingdoms of Karagwe and Buganda lies a sea of sweet water, without end, where canoes travel for days.” Such accounts, passed to Swahili intermediaries, gave substance to maps and engravings long before European photographs.
5) European Renaming (1858)
When John Hanning Speke reached the northern shores in 1858, he named the lake “Victoria,” overwriting indigenous names in European records even though local communities had long named, used, and venerated the waters.
Key Takeaway
In chronological perspective, the lake was first a sacred, named landscape for the peoples who lived with it; then known indirectly through Arabic geographies; then described by Swahili and Arab traders; sketched and engraved as early visual references; and finally renamed in the mid-19th century—a symbolic act that obscured, but never erased, local identities and histories. Explore related Great Lakes cultural histories.
Did You Know?
One of the first drones to fly over Lake Victoria did so in October 2018 during the Lake Victoria Challenge in Mwanza, Tanzania. A Swiss-made Wingtra drone flew autonomously 22 km across the lake to Juma Island — a historic mission that marked one of the earliest beyond-visual-line-of-sight (BVLOS) drone flights over Africa’s largest lake.
📚 This story is part of the Explore Africa Collection .
