The Batembuzi constitute the earliest dynastic or historical phase conventionally used to describe the Kitara complex. Older interpretations called their period “the reign of the gods” and placed the Batembuzi closer to mythology than history. The extract instead presents them as potentially connected to early Bantu-speaking communities and local agricultural state formation.

Buchanan associated the Batembuzi period with a group of small agricultural states and tentatively dated it from about 900 to 1300. One early political unit was the chiefdom of Bugangaizi, established by the Bagabu clan, whose founder was remembered as Hangi. This approach relies less on court traditions and more on clan histories.

Kinyoro tradition remembered nineteen Abakama Abatembuzi, or “pioneer kings,” while Nkore tradition preserved only four rulers without a collective name. Figures such as Hangi, Kazoba, and Nyamuhanga were also worshipped as ancestor spirits by the Bachwezi. These divergent traditions make the chronology and historical status of individual Batembuzi difficult to determine.