Rev John Roscoe in his book “The Baganda” page 137 second paragraph goes on to write thus, “When animals were becoming scarce, Kintu, with the general consent of his people, made the rule that certain kinds of animals should be taboo to certain families. Thus those particular species of animals were left to other families, and the animals were given a better chance of multiplying than if every man had been free to hunt every species for food. Each family abstained from that particular kind of animal of which they had partaken with ill results, and that animal was tabooed by them, and became their totem.”

This decree by Kintu might be true but what stands in its way is the fact that totems predate Kingship in Buganda. Before Kintu, Buganda had the system running and many writers indicate that Kintu himself came with clans that had totems already. What might be true is that Kintu could have given new groups of people entering Buganda during his reign totems to harness conservation of wildlife which was already in place.

Kintu realized that totems were not mere symbols that represented clans. They were powerful instruments of conservation. Before the foreigners sojourned this land, conservation was long established.