Most versions of the story begin with Kintu, who came into the land from the north or from the east or from the sky and founded the kingdom of Buganda. Kintu was the First Man as well as the First King, and he brought with him the First Woman, Nambi, the sucker that gave rise to all banana trees and the first cow. After a while, as a result of the first sin, Kintu disappeared, leaving the realm to his son Cwa. Another son, Wunyi or Winyi, is said to have become king of Bunyoro, Buganda's north-western neighbour, which claimed greater antiquity and had certainly at one time been more extensive and powerful.

Little is told of Cwa, except that he sent his delinquent son Kalemeera to stay with his uncle in Bunyoro, where he promptly seduced his host's wife Wannyana and left her carrying the child who would become Kimera the third king, or K.3. (In this notation, introduced by Martin Southwold, K. conveniently stands for ‘king’, for the Ganda title kabaka and for Kaggwa, to whose list it refers.) Cwa disappeared in his turn and Kalemeera died on the way home; and so, after a period of regency, the chiefs, who had somehow become aware of Kimera's existence, sent to fetch him to his kingdom.

The (Ba-)Nyoro, it need hardly be said, knew nothing of this story, and when some of them read it in Kaggwa's book they professed outrage at the idea that a king's wife could be seduced by anyone, let alone a foreigner.