D  I    O B  N 

Yuhi Musinga
 Defeat
Is the Only Bad News
R    M       ,
   ‒  

Alison Liebhafsky Des Forges

Edited by

David Newbury

Foreword by

Roger V. Des Forges

T  U         W     P   
 The University of Wisconsin Press
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1 3 5 4 2

Printed in the United States of America

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Des Forges, Alison Liebhafsky.
Defeat is the only bad news: Rwanda under Musinga, 1896–1931 /
Alison Liebhafsky Des Forges; edited by David Newbury.
p. cm. – (Africa and the diaspora: history, politics, culture)
“This text is in large part the dissertation of Alison Liebhafsky Des Forges
as originally presented to the Yale University Department of History in 1972”—Editor’s note.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-0-299-28144-1 (pbk.: alk. paper)
ISBN 978-0-299-28143-4 (e-book)
1. Rwanda—History—To 1962.
2. Rwanda—Politics and government—To 1962.
3. Yuhi V Musinga, Mwami of Rwanda, 1883–1944.
4. Rwanda—Relations—Europe.
5. Europe—Relations—Rwanda.
I. Newbury, David S. II. Title. III. Series: Africa and the diaspora.
DT450.37.D47 2011
967.571´02—dc22
2010038905
 For
R  
Inkigi imwe ntigira inzu
One pillar does not make a house

For
A     and J    
Who shared in the post-doctoral research

For
the R     P    
Who have endured more than their share
of twentieth century catastrophes

And for
A  , M   , and K 
In hope for a more peaceful and just
twenty-first-century world
 C   

L  I ix
F  R V. D F xi
E’ P xv
A’ P xvii
A’ A xix
E’ N xxi
E’ I: S  R
C   T  M’ A
 P xxiii
G  R T xxxvii

1 A Tumultuous Transition: The Accession of Musinga 3

2 The Catholic Church, the German Administration,
and the Nyiginya Court 24
3 The Missionaries, the Court, and the Local Community,
1904–1910 45
4 Musinga’s Coming of Age, 1905–1913 71
5 Extending Court Power, 1905–1913: The Conquest of
the Northern Regions 99
6 New Europeans, New Court Tactics, 1913–1919:
The Arrival of the Belgians 130
7 Alliances That Bind—and Divide, 1919–1922:
Belgian Rule and the Court 157
8 Divide and Rule, 1922–1925: Emerging Factions
at the Court 184

vii
viii Contents

9 The Rationalization of Power, 1925–1931:

The Deposition of Musinga 211

E’ E 241

A: R I 247
N 255
B 289
I 297
 I     

Maps
Rwanda rainfall 2
Rwanda: Selected Administrative Districts, circa 1931 2
Cultural Subregions of Rwanda 5
Historical Expansion of the Kingdom 7
Gisaka and Rwanda, circa 1900 34
Early Catholic Mission Stations in Rwanda, 1900–1905 46
Rwanda Revolts 105

Figures
Yuhi Musinga frontispiece
Kabare and Musinga, circa 1910 70
Muhumusa at the time of her capture by the British 98
Nyirakabuga, Kanjogera, Kagesha, Musinga,
Murebwayire, and Kankazi, circa 1917 156
Musinga in his colonial uniform 212

ix
 F 

Alison became interested in the history of the central African polity of

Rwanda in the summer of 1963 when she volunteered to teach Rwan-
dan refugees living in what was then still called Tanganyika. Perhaps in-
fluenced by her paternal grandparents’ origins in the German-speaking
part of the Austro-Hungarian empire that became Czechoslovakia
and by her maternal grandparents’ heritage in Scotland, she devoted
the rest of her scholarly life to understanding the culture, politics, so-
ciety, and economy of Rwanda, which features rich oral traditions, fierce
court struggles, complex social formations, and a largely agro-pastoral
economy.
The first fruit of that academic quest was her doctoral dissertation,
titled “Defeat Is the Only Bad News,” perhaps in recognition of the
strongly pragmatic and achievement-oriented strain of Rwandan politi-
cal culture that had helped protect the kingdom from the worst ravages
of the slave trade but also resulted in tensions that manifested them-
selves in periodic outbreaks of political and social violence. Instead of
quickly revising and publishing that text, Alison devoted the next stage
of her career to raising and educating our two children in an integrated
public school system, supporting and assisting me in my own efforts to
understand the history of Henan province in central China, and con-
ducting further research in 1981–82 on the history of Rwanda prior to
the reign of Musinga. She also taught courses on African history at the
University at Buffalo and other institutions and published a book chap-
ter on a Rwandan rebellion.
At the end of the 1980s, as our kids completed high school and
entered college imbued with their mother’s quiet passion for justice, and
as my own interpretation of Chinese history matured in part under the
influence of Alison’s work on Rwanda, she volunteered her services first
as a member of the Board of Africa Watch and then as a consultant to

xi
xii Foreword

the African Division of Human Rights Watch. She drew on her deep
comprehension of Rwandan history to lead an international investi-
gation into the severe human rights abuses in northern Rwanda that
presaged the genocide that broke out in 1994. In that catastrophe, ele-
ments near the top of state power responded to an invasion by an army
of earlier refugees by mobilizing a significant portion of the population
to target the Tutsi minority within the country along with their friends
and protectors. Alison used her intimate familiarity with the history, lan-
guage, and politics of Rwanda and her consummate skill in advocating
policies at the national and international levels, as well as in the scholarly
and public domain, to save as many victims of the cataclysm as possible
and to bring to justice those who violated international human rights
law, on both sides of the conflict.
Although Alison and her colleagues at Human Rights Watch
were unable, before her sudden and untimely death, to persuade the
International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda to live up to its United Na-
tions mandate to prosecute crimes of war and crimes against humanity
as well as crimes of genocide, the struggle goes on to achieve even-
handed justice in one venue or another for all of the victims of the
Rwandan genocide. Even while frequently testifying at national and
international tribunals as an expert witness, Alison also found time to
write Leave None to Tell the Story, a major report based on her research
and that of her colleagues. The book has already been translated and
published in French and German and is now scheduled to be published
in Kinyawanda. This will bring one of the most comprehensive and re-
spected accounts of the genocide to wider attention among the Rwan-
dan people who have the largest stake, after all, in the proper inter-
pretation of those historical events. That book, along with this one, will
stand as two of the most important memorials to Alison’s twin legacies
of loving life and seeking justice. It is with great humility as well as pride
that I have responded to David Newbury’s kind invitation to write this
brief foreword.
On behalf of our whole family, I want to thank David for his gen-
erous commitment of time and energy to lightly editing the manuscript
so as to take account of more recent scholarship while remaining true to
Alison’s original purpose and achievement. I am also grateful to Scott
Straus and Lars Waldorf for organizing the conference at which David
Newbury and Filip Reyntjens, among others, appraised Alison’s scholar-
ship. I hope that these scholars and others will eventually be able to take
 Foreword xiii

advantage of Alison’s archive, including the results of her research in

1981–82, to make further contributions to the historiography of Rwanda.

R V. D F

Buffalo, New York
4 May 2010
 E’  P 

On 12 February 2009, a plane crash took the lives of fifty people, includ-
ing that of Alison Liebhafsky Des Forges. She had been best known for
her eloquent and informed witness on the 1994 genocide and its after-
math in Rwanda. However, in addition to her exemplary work on human
rights issues in Central Africa, Alison was also a scholar. Defeat Is the Only
Bad News is her PhD dissertation, presented to Yale University in 1972.
Seldom is a work of this nature published so long after it is written.
However, in this case there are important reasons for doing so, for this
study provides an invaluable entry to the historical context within which
her later work on human rights and social justice was carried out. It
is also an important contribution in its own right. Africans, of course,
had long known of their own history, but Des Forges’s dissertation was
one of the first scholarly works to move beyond the colonial writings on
Rwanda and to examine carefully the internal dynamics of the royal
Court of the kingdom at the time of European arrival. It was also one of
the first to draw extensively on oral testimony in addition to working
with a wide range of missionary documents, colonial archives, and sec-
ondary sources.
But Defeat Is the Only Bad News is important for its content as well as
for its method. Through her detailed study of the intricacies of the royal
Court at a crucial time in its history, Des Forges provides one of the
most comprehensive and lucid accounts available of an African political
elite facing the dual challenges of the early twentieth century: the estab-
lishment of colonial rule and the presence of large numbers of Chris-
tian missionaries. These were turbulent years, as first Germany then
Belgium pursued an aggressive plan of colonization in the country, and
missionaries challenged the ritual foundations that had sustained king-
ship in Rwanda. Against this backdrop, the Rwandan Court served as
the stage for a drama of Shakespearean proportions—or so it becomes
in Des Forges’s skillful prose. By drawing on valuable oral accounts,

xv
xvi Editor’s Preface

missionary diaries, and a variety of other sources Des Forges illuminates

the intense atmosphere of intrigue, shrewd calculation, ruthless betrayal—
and sometimes murder—that characterized the Court at this pivotal
moment in its history.
Thanks to the University of Wisconsin Press, this is being pub-
lished largely as it was originally presented as a dissertation. As editor, I
have done only minor copyediting to the text. To place Musinga’s reign
in broader context, I have provided an introduction summarizing ele-
ments of Rwanda’s precolonial history. The original thesis included a
prefatory section outlining the contours of Rwandan social structure as
understood in the 1960s. However, our understanding has much evolved
since then. Therefore, at the beginning of chapter 1 I have presented a
revised summary (set in a different font, to distinguish this from the
author’s original). I have also provided an epilogue, outlining Musinga’s
career in exile and discussing some of the changes that characterized
the reign of his son and successor, Mutara Rudahigwa.

T his project originated at a conference organized in Madison, Wiscon-

sin, to commemorate the many contributions of Alison Liebhafsky Des
Forges. I wish to thank Scott Straus and Lars Waldorf for organizing the
conference, and the attendees of that conference, including many of
Alison’s former colleagues and close friends, for their contributions. Gwen
Walker of the University of Wisconsin Press has been exemplary in
her support and her ideas. Thanks, Gwen, for your insights and your
patience! I also want to thank Tom Spear, one of the editors of the
series in which this appears, for his encouragement and his perceptive
comments. Tanya Buckingham of the Cartographic Laboratory at
the University of Wisconsin provided expert help with the maps.
I’m honored to express special appreciation to Jan Vansina and René
Lemarchand for their extremely helpful comments on editorial matters.
Finally, I wish to extend my heartfelt gratitude to Roger Des Forges for
his invaluable support throughout the project, even amid his many
other duties.
 A  ’  P 

Historians of African societies have often been caught up in depicting

the most clearly dramatic confrontations in recent times, those between
the Africans and the Europeans who came to rule them. They have
given less attention to penetrating the complexities of relations among
the Africans, and to understanding how the divisions among them influ-
enced their attitudes toward the foreign challenge. Struck by the changes
introduced by Europeans, they have also failed to remark on the conti-
nuities that link events of the relatively recent past with earlier develop-
ments. Even within the range of European African relations, they have
usually focused on such crises as the initial conquest or later armed
revolts, from which the Europeans emerged victorious because of their
superior military technology. Relatively few historians have cared to
examine how Africans dealt with Europeans throughout the quieter
periods of colonial rule. The assumption seems often to have been that
a society that produced no armed revolts, or at the least no organized
movements of opposition, was a society whose people had lost the will
or ability to resist foreign rule.
The reign of Yuhi V Musinga offers rich material on the intricate
rivalries that had long pitted the Rwandan Court against the powerful
notables who ruled in its name. It also provides excellent examples of
the centuries-old struggle between the Court and its agents, who were
trying to extend their control outward and downward, and the ordinary
people, who opposed such expansion of central power. Musinga’s reign
was the period when Rwanda first came under colonial rule. The arrival
of the Europeans affected the interplay of intrigues at Court and the ex-
pansion of its power over the people. At the same time, the way in which
Rwandans dealt with these foreigners was conditioned by the develop-
ment of their internal conflicts.
A Rwandan proverb says “defeat is the only bad news.” For Rwan-
dans, Europeans were not the only adversaries, and armed confrontation

xvii
xviii Author’s Preface

was not the only way to fight. They were concerned too with the con-
flicts among themselves and with the struggle of wits in which they
engaged the foreigners. As the Rwandans faced the foreigners, as the
notables faced the Court, and as the people faced their rulers, all were
determined to avoid any bad news.
 A   ’  A       

Since this work is a study of Rwandan history, my first and largest debt
is clearly to the one hundred and two Rwandans who so enthusiastically
shared their knowledge of their past with me. Their names are given
in the appendix. I could not have understood what they had to say to
me without the ever-patient assistance of Joseph Rwabukumba, a most
gracious guide through the intricacies of Kinyarwanda and the com-
plexities of Rwandan social relations. Simon Bizimaana, Michel Baga-
ragaza, and André Ngombyire also helped me greatly in learning their
language and in locating the best historians among the old men of the
country. Many officials of the government of the Republic of Rwanda
and many members of the clergy of the Catholic Church and of the So-
ciété des Missionnaires d’Afrique assisted me in a multitude of friendly
ways. I especially appreciated the permission given by Archbishop André
Perraudin to consult the records in his keeping. J. M. Crossey, Curator of
the African collection at the Sterling Memorial Library, Yale University,
kindly supplied my many research needs while I was abroad. Professor
Marcel d’Hertefelt arranged for my association with the Institut National
de Recherche Scientifique in Rwanda and shared with me the experience
of his own long period of research there. Professor René Lemarchand
aided me immeasurably by making available for consultation the valuable
J. M. Derscheid Collection of Belgian documents.
I have appreciated the kind encouragement of Professors Leonard
Thompson and Wm. Roger Louis, who supervised this study. My mother,
Sybil S. Liebhafsky, contributed long hours of careful typing to this work.
I owe most of all to my husband, Roger V. Des Forges, without whose
help this work would never have been done.

xix
 E’  N

This text is in large part the dissertation of Alison Liebhafsky Des

Forges as originally presented to the Yale University Department of
History in 1972. Because the author was not able to revise the disser-
tation for publication, I have addressed some very minor issues of copy-
editing. I have also added more explicit titles to the chapters originally
headed only by proverbs, and I have inserted section headings in the
text to aid the reader.
The citations have been retained in their entirety. However, to allow
a smoother flow of the text, they have been grouped at the end of para-
graphs (except where a specific quotation requires a specific reference)
and placed as endnotes. Occasionally, I have added to the notes relevant
publications that have appeared since the dissertation was written.
Where more precise references are required in the notes, the reader is
referred to the original dissertation.
I have added occasional explanatory footnotes to the original text
to identify individuals, places, or issues that might not be familiar to a
broader readership than that for which this dissertation was originally
intended.
Kinyarwanda is a lovely and poetic language, and an elegant and re-
fined art form. In part, this derives from its flexibility, and I draw on that
tradition. Here, Kinyarwanda terms have been italicized in the first
usage only. For the first and second noun-classes (referring to singular
and plural personal references) the terms of reference begin with “umu-”
(singular) or “aba-” (plural). To make the work more accessible to a wider
readership, I have followed the conventions of the International African
Institute (IAI) and replaced these Kinyarwanda prefixes with “mu-”
(singular) and “ba-” (plural): for example, “mugaragu” and “bagaragu.”
Similarly for clan names: for example, “Banyiginya” rather than “Abany-
ginya” (elided where necessary, so “Bega” is the plural for “Ba-ega”).

xxi
xxii Editor’s Note

References to ethnic groups also follow IAI conventions, omitting all

prefixes; hence “Hutu” instead of “Umuhutu” or “Abahutu.”
However, there are exceptions; I have retained the IAI convention of
prefixes for references associated with regional groupings, even when
applied to an acknowledged social group; hence “Bakiga” (the people of
the mountains), “Bashiru” (the people of Bushiru), and so forth. I have
also generally omitted the Rwandan prefix in terms such as “umwami”
or “abagaragu”; they appear as “mwami” and “bagaragu.” However,
there are some deviations from this practice for common cultural terms
where an altered form would make no sense; I have therefore retained
the full form for “ikoro” (prestations/taxes), “ubuhake” (a form of
cattle clientship), “uburetwa” (required work for a patron), and “akazi”
(colonial forced labor). Where the term refers not to a person but to a
quality, I have retained the full Kinyarwanda prefix; thus, “ubwami”
refers to the concept, the essence, of “kingship.”
Following IAI convention, the “c” is pronounced as in “ch” in English:
Rucunshu is pronounced “Ru-CHUN-shu.” Conventions on the trans-
literation of Kinyarwanda terms have evolved over time; here I omit
double vowels and diacritical signs: e.g., “mwami,” not “umwaami.”
Finally, in Kinyarwanda transcriptions every syllable is vocalized,
with the emphasis normally on the penultimate syllable; hence, for
example, “Save” is pronounced “SAH-vay.”
 E’  I  
Situating the Rwandan Court
at the Time of Musinga’s Accession to Power

A soft rain was falling at Rucunshu late in the afternoon on a day near
the end of November 1896. But the desultory weather belied the politi-
cal intensity of the moment as several armies gathered at this hill near
central Rwanda; this engagement was the culmination of an intense
confrontation between two well-armed factions following the death of
Kigeri Rwabugiri, one of Rwanda’s most renowned warrior kings. In
the heat of the battle to follow, an eminent member of the royal Court
of Rwanda hoisted a young teenage boy to his shoulder and declared
him king. Yuhi Musinga had acceded to power in Rwanda.
Musinga, however, had not been the designated heir to Rwabugiri.
Six years earlier Rwabugiri had named another son, Rutarindwa, as
his co-ruler. But each ruler needed a queen mother to exercise power,
and with the earlier death of Rutarindwa’s mother, Rwabugiri had
appointed his favorite wife to serve as Rutarindwa’s adoptive mother.
Her name was Kanjogera, and as a member of the Bakagara lineage of
the Bega clan she was destined to be a powerful figure at the Court for
many years. Kanjogera, however, already had a son of her own. It was
he, Musinga, who would accede to power at Rucunshu following fifteen
months of strategic maneuvering on the part of Kanjogera supported
by her two brothers, Kabare and Ruhinankiko, and their allies, in a
rapidly shifting political field of constant negotiation and competing
loyalties that characterized the Court of the day.
Rwandan royal traditions portray an ancient, stable kingdom in this
area near the center of Africa. But in the violent aftermath of this coup
d’état the ruling lineage of the Nyiginya dynasty was nearly annihilated.
Far from the official image of a long series of carefully ordered royal
successions, Musinga’s accession was the seventh of the last eight reigns

xxiii
xxiv Editor’s Introduction

in which royal succession had diverged from the ideological norms of

the kingdom. Such intense competition revealed the violence at the
heart of the Court and shattered the image of a peaceful society unified
by custom and law and united in a powerful social coherence that
transcended distinctions of ethnicity, race, and class.
The coup of Rucunshu did more than define a royal successor, how-
ever. It also reasserted the power of an important aristocratic lineage,
one of several whose positions had been eroded under Rwabugiri’s
reign. And it did so at the time of another momentous change for the
kingdom: the first official German representative was to arrive at the
Court four months after the coup of Rucunshu. Closely coinciding with
the establishment of European power in the region, the cataclysm—or
the triumph—at Rucunshu was to initiate a period of great uncertainty
at the Court that was to last for a decade.
The political struggles to flow from those events form the focus of
this book.

Over a reign of almost thirty years Musinga’s father, Kigeri Rwabu-

giri, had initiated intense military activity abroad. His campaigns were
directed to the south, the southwest, the west, the northwest, the north,
and the southeast. Many locales within Rwanda itself also felt the effects
of Rwabugiri’s almost continual mobilization for war. Associated with
these campaigns, the expanding demands for food, livestock, construc-
tion materials, and personnel (notably as porters for armies incessantly
on the move) had extended Court power into many regions hitherto
spared such intrusive presence. Along with Court personnel and military
occupation came the introduction of a political hierarchy and cultural
stratification that affected local relations in these areas. However, such
conquests often did not last beyond Rwabugiri’s lifetime; many areas oc-
cupied by Rwabugiri’s armies rejected the rule of the Rwandan Court
immediately after Rwabugiri’s death. At the time of the coup of Rucun-
shu, therefore, the Court was preoccupied with its attempt to retain (or
regain) control over such regions. This is the immediate background to
the events at the Court so vividly portrayed in Des Forges’s work.
In addition to his external campaigns, Rwabugiri had also instituted
significant internal transformations, most notably in his attempts to
diminish the entrenched power of the aristocratic lineages of the royal
Court. The coup that replaced Rwabugiri’s designated successor with
 Editor’s Introduction xxv

the young Musinga was part of the process by which one of those power-
ful lineages sought to reassert their status. Those who engineered the
coup were members of the Bega clan, the most powerful competitor to
the royal lineage itself. Such a succession struggle abrogated the ideo-
logical norms of proper succession. It also refuted the image of Rwanda
advanced by the Court historians and anthropologists writing near the
end of colonial rule, who portrayed the polity as a peaceful, ordered,
and ancient kingdom with an administrative apparatus equally (and im-
partially) effective throughout the domain of state power.
As background to Des Forges’s study, and by way of introducing the
social contours of Rwanda to the reader, the first pages of her disserta-
tion summarized the accepted social contours of precolonial Rwandan
society as a set of clear, static, and standardized administrative institu-
tions. The content of her dissertation, however, belied any simple model
of such a cohesive society. Her careful research revealed far more than
the seizure of power by a kinship group competing with the royal lineage.
By examining the intense politics at the Court over a range of important
issues, her study unveiled the contested relations with many regions as
the Court sought to extend its rule over peoples in the southeast, in the
north, in the northwest, and in the southwest—areas where the majority
of people were opposed to rule by the Rwandan royal Court at the turn
of the twentieth century, and in some cases adopted outright resistance.
At the time of European arrival the Rwandan state was not firmly estab-
lished throughout its claimed domains, nor did it incorporate all those
societies sharing Rwandan cultural foundations.
Despite the use of Kinyarwanda as a language shared by most in
the region, this was not a homogeneous culture zone. Within the state
domain, the Court adjudicated disputes and determined access to land,
pasture, and (sometimes) material goods. In the northern areas, how-
ever, it was the interaction among kin groups that was essential to poli-
tics; lineage identity ensured access to land; lineage leaders adjudicated
conflict and organized political action. In other areas, along the forested
crests of the Nile–Congo watershed, kin groups were less politically
salient. Instead, political life in these regions focused on a series of small,
ritually based polities whose organizing principles were markedly distinct
from those that defined the Rwandan Court. Significant differences in
political culture, therefore, marked the different societies that comprised
the region.
In other ways, too, the general vision of Rwandan social structures
at the time Des Forges wrote differed from our current understandings
xxvi Editor’s Introduction

of these issues. Rwandan Court historians and European anthropolo-

gists promoted an image of a static social structure that accounted si-
multaneously for the kingdom’s coherence and for the class distinctions,
political hierarchy, and occupational diversity found within it. Cattle-
keeping and farming were considered mutually exclusive domains, asso-
ciated with different social (or “racial”) groups, with each defined by its
own relationship to political power in this hierarchical kingdom. In this
idealized imagery Tutsi pastoralists were seen as recent immigrants
from the north, arriving around 1500 CE, while Hutu agriculturalists
were assumed to have preceded Tutsi immigrants into the area by some
five hundred years. To complete the image, the “aboriginal” popula-
tion, referred to as Twa, were portrayed as marginalized to the remain-
ing forest areas.
In this schematic social architecture it was postulated that distinct
waves of migration—with each successive wave conquering the previ-
ous inhabitants—led naturally to the rigid hierarchy that marked late
colonial society, in which a Tutsi royal Court ruled over a Hutu subject
population and a small Twa population of forest dwellers. In this rep-
resentation, Tutsi were said to have introduced the essential elements
of Rwandan culture: cattle, religion, forms of poetry, dance and music,
and even kingship itself. According to this ideological construct, what
tied the society together was not the political power of the Court alone—
although that was significant—but the social institution of ubuhake,
represented by the transfer of a cow from a (Tutsi) patron to a (Hutu)
dependant. According to this view, the desire for cattle was assumed to
be so great that Hutu were willing to subordinate themselves to a political
superior to acquire access to the usufruct of a cow. In turn, they owed
labor, produce, and specialty goods to their overlord, at his behest. (And
their cattle could be reclaimed by the patron, at his demand.) Since
all cows presumably belonged ultimately to the king, all subjects—as
clients—now became dependents of the king. And since all Hutu had to
seek cattle from Tutsi, the class hierarchy was clear: ubuhake became
seen as the cultural glue that provided cohesion to a disparate society
formed of groups that were perceived as distinct in racial, historical,
and cultural terms. These attributes were presumed to be homogeneous
throughout Rwandan culture, meshed in perfect complementarity, and
enduring through time. Incorporating ethnic hierarchy, occupational
diversity, and political centralization into a clear and comprehensive
model, this vision formed a perfect static image—one that met the goals
of the colonial administration as well as those of the Court and justified
 Editor’s Introduction xxvii

the parameters of colonial rule. That was the image of Rwanda as

understood at the time of Alison Des Forges’s research.

Des Forges did not directly reassess the social characteristics of the re-
ceived ideal model. Indeed, in a succinct introduction her original thesis
reaffirmed this image as a backdrop to her discussion of the strategies of
the royal Court at a time of monumental change. Nonetheless, her pre-
sentation did provide the tools with which to arrive at a different under-
standing of Rwandan social dynamics. As the key to understanding
Rwandan norms, it portrayed individuals thinking on their own terms
and acting through their own agency. It drew directly on oral, as well as
written, sources, not on anthropological models or Court ideology; her
work was among the first in this region to give such rigorous attention to
oral sources. It tapped into missionary diaries and correspondence as
well as German sources and conventional archival collections. It por-
trayed competing political factions, not monolithic ethnic categories, as
crucial to understanding political process. Her analysis saw ambition
and agency, not custom and social rules, as significant. In short, by offer-
ing a clear account of a complex reality, this work dispelled the myths of
“the omnipotent king,” on the one hand, and of the king “captured by
custom,” on the other.
Instead, this work showed Musinga struggling with factions and per-
sonal antagonists at the Court. In her account, the king was never pas-
sive even when he did not always prevail. By presenting history based
firmly on empirical sources, by showing individual growth (and failure),
and by highlighting the competition of ambitious factions, she privi-
leged careful analysis as the key to understanding Rwandan history.
Nonetheless, despite the evident scholarship of the work, this was not a
methodological essay. It was and is primarily a historical narrative—an
engaging story of a young king struggling to claim his place in a conniv-
ing Court and trying to navigate the narrows between Court demands
and European power. In the end, it is that dramatic story, of near epic
dimensions, that makes this study so compelling.
But it is also a story with limitations. It has a clear focus on an
African royal Court; it is not a social history that incorporates the vi-
sions of multiple classes. This is not a colonial history; European actors
and imperial policy enter only where they directly affect the workings of
the Court. Nor is it a religious history, although at times missionaries
xxviii Editor’s Introduction

and even local religious movements play salient roles in the processes at
Court. Yet even with its clear focus on the important factions at the
Court, the analysis contributes in crucial ways to each of the thematic
domains mentioned above. It explores Court relations with non-elites. It
illustrates the implementation of European colonial policies. And it is
informative on missionary history and the role of religious movements
in mobilizing people to political action. In these ways it is relevant for
more than Rwandan history alone; it deepens our appreciation of the
challenges facing other African societies at the time of European estab-
lishment by its focus on the personal politics of what Des Forges called
“the most important process of our time”: the manner in which Euro-
pean power came to dominate much of the world outside Europe and
North America.
Part of that process is shown in the way Court goals and the colonial
vision converged; even as the Court and the colonials contested particu-
lar aspects of power, they each needed each other. Their convergence is
best shown in the way the Rwandan state extended control over regions
that resisted central Court rule: in such areas the Court sought to assert
its authority by drawing on colonial power, while colonial authorities
sought to extend their influence through the expansion of Court institu-
tions. In illustrating such collusion, three regions emerge as important:
the southeast, the north, and the southwest.
Until the mid-nineteenth century Gisaka, in the southeast, had
formed a kingdom of its own, independent of, and sometimes antago-
nistic to, the Nyiginya kingdom. Firmly incorporated within Rwandan
state structures only in the late nineteenth century under Rwabugiri,
Gisaka enters into Des Forges’s study as an arena of Court contestation
in two episodes. One relates to the very early years of the twentieth cen-
tury (1900–1902), with the Nyiginya Court’s attempt to assert authority
over those local leaders who challenged the right of the Court-delegated
chiefs to make extractive demands on the population. To the local
people these demands were simply part of the Rwandan Court’s on-
going effort to conquer Gisaka, and they resisted such overtures. But
there was another factor involved, related to the presence of outsiders.
This particular episode occurred within the complex unfolding of rela-
tions between the priests of two distinct mission stations within the same
Catholic missionary order. One mission, at Zaza, was located in Gisaka;
the other, at Save, was not far from the Rwandan royal Court. As the
people of Gisaka turned to the local priests for protection against the
demands of the new Nyiginya chiefs—in some ways treating the priests
 Editor’s Introduction xxix

as their new chiefs—the priests at Zaza in Gisaka had to choose

between what they saw as social justice, on the one hand, and the gen-
eral policy of missionary support of the royal Court, on the other. They
chose the former. However, the priests at Save, who frequently dealt di-
rectly with the central Court and who relied on the Court to help ex-
pand missionary influence, saw the issues differently. Their support of
the actions of Court-appointed chiefs put them in opposition to their
fellow priests in Gisaka. By tracing out this conflict Des Forges in chap-
ter 3 unveils two more general features of Court expansion: the conflict
it evoked within the missionary order, and the long, slow, and sometimes
contested process by which local inhabitants—with their own histories,
their own resources, and their own loyalties—were incorporated into
the Nyiginya administrative grid. In the event, this particular conflict
was resolved only by the involvement of German administrative offi-
cers. But the internal political ramifications on the Court were impor-
tant as well: because different Court actors had taken opposing stances
on the issue, the resolution of the episode significantly affected the for-
tunes of powerful personnel within Musinga’s entourage—including
some at the apogee of Court power.
The same theme of contested domination in Gisaka recurs in chap-
ter 7. The late 1920s saw a convergence of multiple crises in southeast
Rwanda, where a devastating famine placed severe demands on the
people. Because of the famine, almost half the population either died or
fled. Their plight was aggravated by the actions of the Court chiefs who
expropriated the marshlands to ensure pasturage for their cattle. But
these swamps were also important to the local people who had always
turned to the marshes in times of drought to cultivate their own crops.
The drought of 1927–29 aggravated the conflict between the power of
the Court officials and the needs of the local population. Though acting
tardily (and eventually only under the spotlight of international news re-
ports), the colonial administration understood that in such a crisis it was
important that Court officials not seal off resources essential to the pop-
ulation. Like the missionaries, the colonial administration was caught
between its social responsibility to the local people in distress, on the one
hand, and its political preference for “indirect rule,” supporting the
Court-delegated chiefs, on the other.
But there was another—international—dimension to this as well.
During World War I Belgium and Britain had jointly driven the Ger-
mans out of Rwanda. After the war Britain had claimed Gisaka as its
own territory (in part as a potential route for the proposed Cape-to-Cairo
xxx Editor’s Introduction

railway). On their arrival, the British officers found the local people
flocking to them, as potential protectors against the exactions of the
Nyiginya chiefs. Newly established in the region, the British found it
convenient to deal with the local Gisaka authorities, who themselves
held legitimacy in the eyes of the local inhabitants through their ties to
the former ruling line of preconquest, independent Gisaka. This pre-
sented the Belgian administrators (and the Nyiginya Court) with a layered
crisis: a serious drought and the consequent competition between Court
chiefs and local cultivators over access to marshland resources; British
occupation, threatening Belgian integrity over this recently acquired
“Rwandan” domain; and a local revolt against Nyiginya chiefs, as the
British officials recognized the authority of the members of the former
ruling aristocracy independent of the Nyiginya Court. Once again, as
in 1902, this episode was to have significant ramifications at the Nyiginya
Court; the aftermath of the famine of the late 1920s was to be related
directly to Musinga’s deposition a few years later.
The ongoing struggle for the Court’s control of Gisaka is testimony
to the lack of uniformity of the Rwandan cultural unit, an image cen-
tral to the ideology of a homogeneous state. A separate episode that
belied the image of social harmony in precolonial Rwanda appears in
chapter 5, dealing with the Court’s relations to the people of the north.
Unlike Gisaka, this was a heterogeneous region with no claims to any
previous political unity. While Gisaka social structures were based on
political premises similar to those of the Nyiginya Court, the people
of northern Rwanda were organized along very different principles.
Lineage autonomy, not central control, was the dominant political fea-
ture of the region. Once again the image of a single “Rwandan” culture
was an intellectual image severely at odds with the empirical realities.
While Rwandan armies had sometimes raided into those areas, the
Nyiginya Court had never successfully incorporated these Bakiga—the
people of the mountains—into its administrative domain; what resources
came to the Court from this region were the result not of voluntary
tribute but of forced extraction.
The Court’s ultimate conquest of this region was a long and compli-
cated process, imposed in the end only through the vigorous efforts of
German military forces guided by Nyiginya Court officials. As in Gisaka,
missionary activities here were heavily entwined with the process. But
where the local missionaries in Gisaka generally supported the claims of
the local people, the missionaries in the north were strongly supportive
of a central Court presence. Once again, with their different relations to
 Editor’s Introduction xxxi

the royal Court the missionaries were divided, with different mission
stations taking different stances: Rwaza in the north differed from Zaza
in the southeast.
Other factors were also relevant. This region had frequently served
as a staging area for challengers to Musinga’s claim as legitimate suc-
cessor to Rwabugiri; its resistance was a constant reminder of the con-
tested legitimacy of Musinga’s reign. It was also an area where indepen-
dent Europeans had operated at will—more often as brigands than as
traders. It was an area with its own multiple social cleavages and with
many lines of competing political divergence. It was an area of strong
religious traditions in opposition to state rule—with one notable move-
ment led by a female medium. With all its heterogeneity, and with all the
violence involved in its conquest, this region—especially in its relations
to the royal Court—brought into question the image of internal harmony
and social cohesion within the Rwandan polity.
Des Forges alludes to many other details that contradict the idealist
image of Rwandan homogeneity. The people of Bushiru, in the north-
west, mobilized around a Catholic priest to oppose Court exactions and
drive out the king’s delegated chiefs. The far southwest—a virtually con-
quered region—served as a political base for the son of one of the most
powerful scions of the Court to advance his own Court ambitions. By
accumulating resources and gaining the loyalty of other Court actors,
he became a formidable force of his own—even, at one point (as Des
Forges notes in chapter 6), politically challenging the king’s authority
there. Certain small polities of the west and southwest retained their
own independence well into the 1920s, before being conquered by
Court military units acting with full Belgian support. In its detail—but
also with its coherent analytic threads—such a Court history, therefore,
dissolves the earlier assertions of a homogeneous Rwandan social or-
ganization and instead opens up more complicated vistas, complex issues,
and new understandings.

T he larger context of dynastic history is also important in situating early

twentieth-century competition at the Court. This is, emphatically, the
study of a single reign at a specific moment of Nyiginya dynastic history.
But this study is noteworthy for more than just a single reign. By attend-
ing to the internal debates, the stratagems and the factions at the Court,
as well as by accounting for the changing and complex relations with
xxxii Editor’s Introduction

different regions, Des Forges opens the way to a new understanding of

other reigns as well.

Musinga was part of a ruling line that some royal enthusiasts say goes
back to a celestial origin almost a thousand years ago; they argue that
the kingdom developed inexorably over the years as the exemplar of
state organization in the area. But historical data suggest something dif-
ferent. The empirical evidence makes it clear that this was a region of
greater political diversity, more fluctuating fortunes, and a shorter royal
chronology than the conventional image conveys. By the early eigh-
teenth century Rwanda was one of a few preeminent dynasties in the
area, but its emergence as a state was no linear development; defeat and
decline were a part of the record as well as growth and expansion.
Thus, the history of the Nyiginya royal line differs from the model of
an ancient state in several particulars. It was, first, only one of several
dynastic units in the region. It consolidated its power only relatively
recently—from the mid-eighteenth century. It went through periods of
challenge—even regression—as well as of triumph. And it emerged out
of struggle, not destiny.
The key components to the development of the Nyiginya dynasty
seem to have resulted from the convergence of several cultural tradi-
tions. The legitimacy of the state rested on the authority of a set of in-
dependent ritualists at the Court (even though the Court constantly
sought to co-opt, contest, or control these actors). The historical roots of
this feature of royalty derived from societies farther to the west, across
Lake Kivu and beyond—ironically, from societies disdained as “uncivil-
ized” by Rwandan Court culture in more recent times. Overlaid on this
cultural foundation, a second influence derived from conceptual elements
associated with political traditions to the northeast. (The particular
role—and title, umugabekazi—of the queen mother within the Rwandan
royal Court provides an example.) The development of military orga-
nizations associated with the dynasties located in the grasslands of east-
ern Rwanda and beyond the Kagera River provided a third foundation.
Finally, the westward movement of the political core of the Nyiginya
dynasty into what is today central Rwanda brought these armies into
contact with societies of quite different cultural organization. From such
interactions emerged the development of a particular set of royal rituals,
of a strong sense of hierarchy—and of a Court culture distinct from
 Editor’s Introduction xxxiii

(and one that they considered superior to) people of different cultural
backgrounds.
Whatever the cultural roots of royalty may be, the Nyiginya dynasty
as we recognize it today derives from a period around the beginning of
the eighteenth century, associated in the royal chronicles with the reign
of a king named Ruganzu Ndori. In the traditions relating to his reign,
three elements stand out. First, it was a time of mobility; Ruganzu is
portrayed as traveling in triumph across the geographical landscape,
conquering all the areas now included within the postcolonial state of
Rwanda. Contested relations with earlier inhabitants form the second
theme attached to his reign; his travels are said to have been marked
by military conquest, especially in the western areas so crucial to the
composition of kingship. Finally, having established himself in central
Rwanda, he is said to have conquered or co-opted several local author-
ities as ritual protectors of the kingdom; they became hereditary ritual
authorities of the Nyiginya kingdom even as they often retained sov-
ereign authority over small domains of their own, independent of
Court control. Associated with these ritualists, it is said, a new drum was
crafted—as the symbol of royalty. In short, Ruganzu’s reign is asso-
ciated with the conjunction of eastern and western components, with
the convergence of the military and ritual components, and with the
construction of royalty itself. This period—the late seventeenth and
early eighteenth centuries—is when the kingdom began to take on the
geographical, military, and ritual dimensions we associate with it today.
A second period of growth was associated with the reign of Cyilima
Rujugira, in the mid-eighteenth century. It was an unusually complex
time, one in which the kingdom was threatened from the outside and
which was witness to internal conflict among serious competitors to
power; indeed there may have been a change in descent line at this time,
for Rujugira was probably a usurper. Nonetheless, from such political
challenges there emerged a new institutional skeleton to the kingdom.
In external relations, this was a time of the rapid growth of armies, both
in number and in their internal organization, as they recruited large
numbers of porters and requisitioned huge quantities of cattle and
grain. In time, this allowed armies to move long distances, extending the
reach of the Court. These patterns of requisition also became forms of
embryonic administration, deepening the presence of the Court in the
areas they occupied. Armies were assigned to a specific terrain, often
on the borders of the expanding state. They also became associated
with specific herds of cattle to ensure the upkeep of their members, with
xxxiv Editor’s Introduction

particular social groups to provide for them. But internal consolidation

was also associated with this process: while some army organizations
long preceded Rujugira, from his reign they seem to have taken on a
more self-conscious corporate pride. Enduring army leadership struc-
tures emerged, and specific army histories are retained from this period,
as these became social corporations in the true sense of the term.
At the time of Rujugira’s reign in the mid-eighteenth century the
Court also became more involved both with popular religion outside
the confines of Court personnel and with the development of a more
elaborate set of Court rituals. The Ryangombe cult, widely celebrated
across the broader region, seems to have become more widespread in
the country at this time. Given both the questions of legitimacy asso-
ciated with Rujugira’s accession and the increasing intrusion of military
demands at the local level, this cult—and in some respects a movement—
may indeed have served as a focus for alternative loyalties to the state.
Consequently, the dynasty may have felt it politic to incorporate a resi-
dent “leader” of this cult at the Court. Whatever the causes, from Ruju-
gira’s reign the Court began to appoint its own official celebrant of
the Ryangombe cult as part of its own ritual domain. Moreover, the
internal culture of the Court was transformed in other ways. From
multiple sources, we know that Court poetry, dance, and etiquette (all
associated with more formalized army training) became increasingly
emphasized at the Court. This period saw the development of the for-
mal ritual code (the ubwiru). Even the establishment of a definitive cycle
of royal names—with four royal names succeeding one another in each
cycle—showed an increasing self-consciousness of the Court as a class
of its own. In short, the mid-eighteenth century, coinciding with the
reign of Rujugira, was, as one historian notes, “a time of the recasting of
royal ideology.”
The early nineteenth century was also a time of significant change,
associated with the reign of Gahindiro—yet another king who came to
power in a disputed succession. This period saw a different kind of
growth at the Court, with increased factional competition, the emer-
gence of dominant Court actors, and the growth of a few lineages as
powerful political factions. Again, because of an irregular succession
there was a preoccupation with legitimacy, and hence with the presenta-
tion of royal ritual. Following a smallpox epidemic that took the lives of
several biru—ritual officials who together formed the essential “ritual
corporation” of the kingdom—the Court increased the number of ritu-
alists to guard against a similar calamity occurring in the future. In the
 Editor’s Introduction xxxv

process, the king appointed candidates of his own to nonhereditary po-

sitions as biru, thus ensuring that henceforth each king could appoint
some of his own ritualists. Such a change reduced the independence of
the biru and introduced competition among lineages and political fac-
tions to be named to positions of “official ritualist.”
Consequently, what most marked the Court at this time was the
growth of factional competition, with the result that powerful Court ac-
tors began to reach beyond the Court confines and assert power over
populations in the rural areas. Fueled by increased demands for mate-
rial goods at the Court, such an expansion of the interests of powerful
Court actors underscored the need for new relations of Court notables
with subservients who could provide material goods, labor, and luxury
items. This period saw the first extension of client ties, and over time—
at least in the central areas—there developed new forms of land claims,
new administrative procedures, and the elaboration of new forms of
cattle clientship (including ubuhake). Such powers over the local popu-
lations were extended to outlying areas only slowly and in an uneven
fashion; in many areas these were introduced only much later, during
colonial rule. This process of tightening control over rural people also
led to the increasing consolidation of aristocratic lineages at the Court.
Competition among them was most intense over issues of royal succes-
sion, in part reflected in the fact that for five of the next six royal succes-
sions the queen mother would be drawn from a single clan—something
not accepted in the official royal code.
Thus three periods, each associated with three long reigns—those
of Ruganzu, Rujugira, and Gahindiro—resulted in major institutional
developments at the Court: the establishment of the coherent kingdom,
the refinement of Court institutions (including both army formations
and ritual ideology), and the extension of Court power over the popula-
tion. Each of these periods of institutional consolidation corresponded
with a crisis at the Court, for each of these kings appears to have been a
usurper who came to power by military force. That required an expla-
nation, so each crisis of legitimacy brought a subsequent refinement of
Court ideology and a further development of royal ritual. With greater
focus on military matters, violence increasingly became the currency of
the Court politics, reaching its apogee in the late nineteenth century.
By the late nineteenth century a complex set of tactical maneuvers
at the Court had brought to power an extraordinary personality—
Sezisoni, to be enthroned as Kigeri Rwabugiri. He was ambitious, deci-
sive, and ruthless, whether in his executive actions at the Court or in his
xxxvi Editor’s Introduction

military expeditions abroad. In both domains he showed little respect

for custom—and little respect for human life. Under Rwabugiri, life at
the Court could be dangerous even for those close to the king: he sent to
execution his own mother, his biological father, and many other power-
ful courtiers. Outside the Court, increasing demands on the population
in many areas made life much more difficult, as Rwabugiri’s armies con-
stantly sought provisions for their continual campaigns and as Court
chiefs constantly sought to acquire prestations for the Court.
Over his long reign Rwabugiri was almost constantly engaged in
military endeavors: he occupied Gisaka in the southeast and sent ex-
peditions and raids far beyond the traditional Rwandan culture zone—
defined by the speakers of Kinyarwanda—to the north, the northwest,
and the west. But, as we have seen, his unexpected death left a political
vacuum at the core of the political behemoth he had created. During
his lifetime he had sought to avoid such an outcome by enthroning one
of his sons, Rutarindwa, as co-ruler during the last years of his reign.
But the deeper culture of the Court he had established prevailed over
the prescribed processes; on his death the Court entered a period not of
a smoothly defined transition of power to the designated successor, but
of intense political maneuvers that eventually led to the death of Ru-
tarindwa and brought to power the young Musinga, supported by his
ambitious mother and her two brothers.
This was the context in which Musinga acceded to power: the after-
math of a militarized epoch under a ruthless king; the accumulation of
frustration among many factions at the Court; the creation of a Court
culture of intense calculation; and a state under duress, as many neigh-
boring societies, occupied or attacked by Rwabugiri’s armies, sought to
reclaim their own autonomy. Furthermore, this period saw two particu-
lar new developments. One was the annihilation of one of the Court’s
premier army units by an armed force from the Congo (then part of Bel-
gian king Leopold’s “Congo Free State”). Another was marked by the
arrival of new agents within Rwanda: some were evangelicals garbed in
the long white gowns of the “White Fathers” missionary order, some
were armed “traders,” and some were formed of a new set of armed in-
truders, as first a set of interlopers intervened from the Congo Free State
and then the German East Africa authorities extended their power to
these areas, originally attractive as a potential labor pool.
Musinga’s Court thus faced significant challenges. How it addressed
them, and how these multiple demands affected internal relations at the
Court, form the essential focus of Alison Des Forges’s book.
 G     R  T  

akazi. Forced labor, usually done, with little or no pay, for the colonial
administration
baja (sing., muja). Servants, slaves, captives of war
barungu (sing., murungu). Employees of the Europeans, often
distinguished by their foreign dress
basemyi (sing., musemyi). “Those who speak”; interpreters
basumbwe (sing., musumbwe). Traders, generally from East
Africa
batora (sing., mutora). Agents of the Court who collected bananas
for beer and animals for divination
guhakwa. To pay court
gutora. To select, choose-out; used especially to refer to the White
Fathers selecting people who would have to take religious instruction
ibihunikwa (sing., igihunikwa). Provisions; the part of a harvest
that was given to the munyubutaka
ibisimba (sing., igisimba). Wild beasts; used to refer to Europeans
ibituku (sing., igituku). Red things; used to refer to Europeans
igikingi (pl., ibikingi). The smallest unit of command granted by
the Court; includes the right to control use of the land
igisonga (pl., ibisonga). Representative of a notable
ikizungu. Ideas and things of the Europeans
ikoro. Tax collected by the batware for the Court, a recognition of
royal sovereignty
imana. The divine essence that shaped the universe
inama. Councils of leading Christians
Inkemba. “The Destroyers,” or “The Predators,” warriors of the
Court who attacked the Bakiga of the north
itolero. The elite corps of a military regiment
inyangarwanda. Haters or repudiators of Rwanda, often used to
describe Christian converts

xxxvii
xxxviii Glossary

Kinyarwanda. The language spoken by Rwandans

mugaragu (pl., bagaragu). The weaker person in the clientship
agreement marked by the exchange of cattle
mugome (pl., bagome). A rebel
muhinza (pl., bahinza). The royal Court term applied to the rulers
of the small states within the Rwandan kingdom; usually seen as
having control over the elements or the fertility of the soil
mukarani (pl., bakarani). Clerks, or chiefs or sub-chiefs who began
their careers as clerks
munyubutaka (pl., banyabutaka). Officials named by the Court
to control the distribution of arable land and to collect a return on
its use
munyumukenke (pl., banyamukenke). Officials named by the
Court to control the distribution of pasture land and to collect a
return on its use
mupfumu (pl., bapfumu). Diviner
mutware (pl., batware). Commander of an ngabo
mwami (pl., bami). The supreme ruler of a kingdom
mwiru (pl., biru). Guardian of royal traditions, ritual specialist
ngabo. A military organization, a regiment; used also as a tool of
administration by the Court
ntore. A young warrior; a member of the elite corps of itolero
shebuja. The patron and protector in a clientship agreement marked
by the exchange of cattle
ubuhake. A clientship agreement whereby a powerful person
undertakes to protect a weaker one; marked by the grant of cattle
uburetwa. Labor done in return for the use of land, originally within
the framework of clientship
ubwiru. The ritual code of the kingdom, prescribing the rituals to be
performed by Court
umuganura. The formal ritual ceremony during which the first fruits
of a harvest are presented to the mwami
D  I    O B  N 
 1
A Tumult uous Tr a n s i t i o n

The Accession of Musinga

Ikanura amaso ntiryima ingoma.

[ To eye the drum longingly does not win it.]*

I n late 1896 Yuhi Musinga acceded to power as king of

Rwanda. † Located just south of the equator in central Africa, on
the highlands that mark the geographic backbone of the African
continent, this was a region of remarkable ecological diversity,
and therefore was home to a variety of occupational specializa-
tions: pastoralism in the open grasslands to the east; agriculture
in the fer tile highlands of the nor th, the center, and the west; and
hunting and trapping in the forests of the mountainous areas. But
because Rwanda lacked cer tain key resources (iron and salt among
them), a set of well-trafficked trade networks was also a par t of

*This proverb and others used in this work are from Nkongori and Kamanzi,
Proverbes du Rwanda, 57. The drum is the essential symbol of kingship. Physically the
royal drum (“Karinga”) is the central focus to the royal rituals legitimizing kingship.
Metaphorically, the term refers either to the kingdom or to a particular reign—the
claim to power.
† The original dissertation began with an overview of the social structures of

precolonial Rwanda and a summary of royal history. As explained in the introduction,

however, research carried out since the time of Des Forges’s fieldwork has greatly
enriched our understanding of these features. This section replaces the author’s original
introductory section, drawing on work published since the dissertation was written.

3
4 A Tumultuous Transition

the economic landscape, connecting various regions of Rwanda

with neighboring societies. As a generally fer tile and well-watered
region this area had, over many centuries, attracted people from
several physical stocks and different cultural backgrounds. From
such ecological variety and such a diversity of immigrants, signif-
icant cultural and occupational differences had emerged in the
region.*
The expansion of the power of the royal Cour t brought with
it a simplified set of social identities, recognizing essentially three
ethnic categories within its domain: Tutsi, Hutu, and Twa. For the
first European obser vers, too, such diversity begged for simple
clarification, and they imposed their own conceptual appara-
tus, both within and beyond the domain of royal power. Late-
nineteenth centur y European intellectual frameworks posited race
as the essential criterion by which social and physical diver sity
was categorized. Therefore, the diverse physical stocks and evident
occupational differences in this region were conflated into the
three categories recognized by the royal Cour t; these were then
redefined as racial groups, with each corresponding to a single
economic specialization and applied to the region as a whole:
Hutu as agrarians (later estimated at about 85 percent of the
population), Tutsi as pastoralists (about 14 percent), and Twa as
hunters (about 1 percent). Complicated forms of personal identity
and small-group mobility were represented within a simplified
histor y of “ethnic migrations” in which these three groups, pre-
sumed to be of distinct racial stocks, were said to have entered
the area in successive coherent “waves,” with Twa followed by
Hutu followed by Tutsi, resulting in a clear ethnic/ racial hierarchy.
In this simplified vision, each succeeding group dominated its
predecessor groups, resulting in a layered political and social
hierarchy. Within this conceptual universe, earlier social identities
and more precise histories were categorized as of atavistic, local
interest only; such was the power of colonial hegemony that only
“national” units were what counted.

*For an overview of the precolonial history of this region, see D. Newbury,

“Precolonial Burundi and Rwanda.”
 A Tumultuous Transition 5

That was the theor y. Today we know that social mobility does
not always occur as “migration.” Instead, mobility often takes the
form of individuals or social groups moving incrementally. When
carried out over centuries, such processes create complex cultural
landscapes, such as those that mark this region. Fur thermore, the
definitive link between occupation and cultural identity is not
always as clear as this conceptual image presumes. In Rwanda,
cattle-keeping and farming were complementar y, not exclusive,
activities; the skills required for each are not held by one social
group alone. Individuals and households could—and often did—
simultaneously tend cattle, till the soil, and trap game.
Historically, however, this was an area where regional differences
were significant, as were people’s loyalties to par ticular political
authorities. Even at the time that Musinga acceded to power some
of those local loyalties remained. Therefore, this geographically
diverse region was also politically diverse, and for much of its
6 A Tumultuous Transition

histor y included several distinct dynastic units. Nonetheless, over

time one dynasty, associated with the Nyiginya clan identity, had
come to dominate the politics of the region. That was Rwanda,
the kingdom that Musinga would come to rule. 1
The Nyiginya state was the product of a long political histor y.
Long before the emergence of the dynasty, large areas of forest
had been cleared by early arrivals, leading to lineage claims to the
land known as ubukonde. The association of land with a par ticular
lineage meant that sometimes bakonde (those who held land
rights) would accept clients on their land—often people who
had fled from elsewhere (from drought conditions, land shor tage,
or political demands). But in many areas such local autonomy
was disr upted by the political expansion of the kingdom. This
was especially true from the mid-eighteenth centur y, when the
Rwandan king Cyilima Rujugira, beset by serious militar y challenges,
reorganized the militar y str uctures of the state, establishing
permanent standing armies (ngabo) on its borders. 2 From these
“social armies,” which included many people attached to them as
por ters and as providers of food, there developed three attributes
that characterized the Nyiginya kingdom. The fir st was the ex-
pansion of the state itself, as these armies allowed the Cour t to
extend its influence to new areas. The second concerned insti-
tutional development. Stationed far from their home areas, these
armies established an administrative presence of their own, requi-
sitioning food, workers, and por ters from the local population.
This was the beginning of an administrative structure of a state
based on more than simply militar y campaigns, for these army
institutions came to define a clear hierarchy separating power
holders (the ntore, or army personnel) from ser vants (bagaragu,
or clients). These distinctions became the core of a culture of
hierarchy that marked the army units and became pronounced at
the Cour t. With such self-conscious distinctions in place, the
Nyiginya Cour t began to develop a strong sense of protocol, a
status consciousness expressed through refined etiquette that
was to mark the Cour t as separate from the society in an arena
where class and status were ver y impor tant. 3 Setting off the
Cour t elite from the society in general, these differences were
reinforced by language styles, par ticular food types, forms of
per sonal bearing, leisure activities, and individual ornamentation
(including clothing and hairstyles, as well as par ticular types of
 A Tumultuous Transition 7

bracelets and anklets). Along with this refinement of royal culture,

the Cour t also developed its own ideology, one justifying the rule
of the elite and expressed through a panoply of highly formalized
rituals and a set of historical narratives explaining the origins of
the dynasty. These elaborate ritual paradigms justifying royalty
were the third attribute of Cour t development. By the early nine-
teenth centur y such features had become codified into a royal
protocol known as the ubwiru, the ritual code governing various
aspects of ritual and political practice and the legitimizing feature
of royalty at the Nyiginya Cour t. The biru, those responsible for
performing the rituals, had a privileged place at the Cour t. 4 Thus,
the development of par ticular forms of army organizations, ad-
ministrative institutions, and ideologies ser ved as the foundation
of the emerging Nyiginya kingdom.
The continued expansion of the kingdom in the early nine-
teenth centur y brought new developments, as conquest also
implicated administrative norms. In the central areas of the king-
dom, by the ear ly nineteenth centur y a series of over lapping
authority str uctures had developed, which applied to lineage
8 A Tumultuous Transition

affiliation, to land, and to pasture (for cattle). For a given district,

distinct delegated Cour t officials were assigned to each domain.
Batware, or iginally ar my leader s, were increasingly assigned
administrative powers over specific lineages, including militar y
conscription and taxation (ikoro) in the form of cattle payments,
agricultural produce, or luxur y items such as mats of special
reeds, woven fiber anklet/ bracelets, or rare animal skins. Because
an individual army chief could have several different assignments
simultaneously (and because they were often reassigned), batware
often exercised power through individual lineage networks in
various regions. Other official delegates, called banyabutaka, were
responsible for specific land grants (and the people living on them).
Again, individuals at the Cour t could be assigned responsibility
for multiple ibikingi domains to respond to specific demands for
pasture. However, by the nineteenth centur y the kingdom had
expanded—and so had the number of elite positions at the Cour t
marked by possession of increasingly large cattle herds. In the early
nineteenth centur y, during the reign of King Yuhi Gahindiro, the
Cour t responded to specific requests for pasture by creating a new
type of authority, exclusively responsible for pastureland. These
delegates, banyamukenke, gradually extended their authority over
cattle-holders. But they also ser ved as a counter vailing presence
to batware and banyabutaka in any given region. 5
The result was the emergence of a complex administrative
mosaic that ensured the Cour t both bonding and flexibility. Such
over lapping appointments established more complete Cour t
authority over the people. With each delegated authority over-
seeing the actions of his colleagues, they also prevented any one
regional chief from accumulating power that in the end might
challenge the power of the Cour t (and potentially might lead
to secession). A complex political balancing act emerged at the
Cour t, reinforced by a system of parallel channels of power among
ambitious appointees. Consequently, over the course of the nine-
teenth centur y the Cour t became increasingly impor tant as the
sole effective arena for political maneuvering. As Des Forges
noted: “As the legitimacy of the Cour t’s power grew . . . powerful
men rarely opposed it openly but sought to control it from
within.” 6 Hence, the struggle for power and influence intensified
at the Cour t, as illustrated in the manner of Musinga’s accession
to power.
 A Tumultuous Transition 9

One of the ways such power was exer ted was through kinship
alliance, and so lineages became influential networks at the Cour t.
In this patrilineal society the royal lineage (the Bahindiro lineage
of the Banyiginya clan) was one such channel. But other lineages
were impor tant as well, and these manifested themselves in three
principal roles: as ar tisan specialists responsible for producing
par ticular items for the Cour t—iron goods, ornaments, mats, or
construction elements; as ritual specialists responsible for the
well-being of the sovereign or the state; or as the lineages of
the queen mother. In theor y the royal heir was to be chosen
from among the sons of a woman of a prescribed clan; the role
of queen mother was supposed to alternate in a regular cycle
among four par ticular named clans. But in practice, politics over-
came prescription. From among these four “matridynastic” clans,
one, the Bega, came to play a dominant role in the succession; by
the end of the nineteenth centur y, three of the last four kings had
been born to Bega mothers. Fur thermore, all three of those
sovereigns had come to power before their maturity, giving the
queen mothers significant influence over the affairs of the Cour t.
Thus political maneuvering often came strongly into play in the
succession process, with lineages fiercely competing over the role
of queen mother.
Such competitive maneuvers were crucial to the accession of
Musinga. Rutarindwa, Rwabugiri’s named successor and for ten
years his “co-ruler,” was the son of a woman of one matridynastic
clan, the Bakono. But she had died young (by Cour t execution),
and so Rwabugiri had named another woman, Kanjogera, as
Rutarindwa’s adoptive mother ; she was expected to ser ve as
queen mother on Rutarindwa’s accession to power. However, the
newly designated queen-mother-in-waiting already had an infant
son of her own, who was also eligible to succeed Rwabugiri. And
so it was she, along with two of her brother s in the Bakagara
lineage of the Bega clan, who maneuvered to place the young
Musinga in power. Having played a determinative role in the
succession, these three actors—the mother and two maternal
uncles of Musinga—remained extremely influential in the affairs
of the Cour t well into Musinga’s reign; indeed much of this
stor y details Musinga’s early subordination to them and his later
str uggle to free himself from the influence of these powerful
personalities.
10 A Tumultuous Transition

From the time of Rwabugiri, then, several conditions shaped

the actions at the Cour t. One was the diver sity of the society,
including both the cultural variations on the ground and the high
degree of social stratification that characterized Rwanda at the
end of the nineteenth centur y. Another was the character of the
Cour t, with its own formal etiquette and its own sometimes
r apidly changing alliances. A third was the per vasive role of
violence at the ver y core of Cour t culture at this time, as shown
both in the Cour t’s relations with those outside the Cour t and in
the activities among Cour t member s: Rwabugiri himself, for
example, had ordered the execution of his own mother, his
biological father, and several of the most influential actors at the
Cour t; in another case, the head of a powerful lineage killed his
sister (who was also the wife of the king of the day) with his own
hands; and whole lineages were sometimes wiped out in political
pogroms. 7 At the Cour t, politics mattered. Finally, it is impor tant
to recognize that the domain of the Cour t’s influence varied over
time, and these differences in the extent of Cour t influences were
par ticularly marked between reigns. Many areas of what are now
par t of Rwanda had long been autonomous; indeed, some had
actively resisted the extension of Cour t power into their domain,
while others had a more ambiguous relationship to the Nyiginya
state. In shor t, the current extent of the Rwandan state was
defined in large par t through the exercise of European power.
Rwabugiri combined an expansion of his authority outward
with the intensification of his rule downward. Greater control at
home enabled him to embark on militar y adventures abroad.
Awarding prestigious combat assignments and distributing the
fruits of victor y allowed him to satisfy the ambitions of his notables,
for militar y expeditions meant fame and renown in this highly
status-conscious culture. His militar y activities also took him to
many regions of Rwanda. These travels helped consolidate Cour t
rule in those areas, for as he traveled he was accompanied by the
Cour t, its numerous cour tiers, and several armies, all of which
made demands on the local population. In addition, campaigns
abroad often brought in large quantities of spoils, notably cattle—
valued both in themselves and in their utility as gifts, since bestow-
ing a cow on another could be seen as establishing a hierarchical
relationship between the two par ties. In shor t, Rwabugiri’s militar y
 A Tumultuous Transition 11

campaigns served many purposes over and beyond simple conquest

and extraction. Equally impor tant, they led to honor and wealth
for those at Cour t, and resources with which individuals could
expand and reinforce their client networks.
However, although Rwabugiri was almost constantly engaged
in such activities, many of the areas conquered during his reign
were only ephemerally incorporated into Rwanda. On his death
many such areas regained their autonomy; they were par t of
Rwanda only while force made it possible. Nonetheless Rwabugiri’s
expeditions could have a significant effect on regional politics. In
Kinyaga, in the southwest, and in some areas of the west of present-
day Rwanda, for example, occupation by Cour t personnel was
sufficiently enduring to establish a Cour t delegate as a powerful
local presence, to restructure local clientship relations, and to put
in place administration structures that endured after the king’s
death. But such areas were limited; following Rwabugiri’s death in
1895 many other areas reclaimed (or tried to reclaim) their inde-
pendence from Rwanda. It was only with European arms, as the
Germans sought to reinforce the Cour t’s claims and extend the
influence of the Nyiginya Cour t during Musinga’s reign, that many
of these areas were reincorporated into Rwandan administrative
structures. So the contours of Rwanda as we know it today are in
many instances a modern creation, a product of Musinga’s reign,
in which Cour t agency was combined with the actions of mission-
aries and the power of the colonial administration. Under Musinga
the state greatly expanded, as well as deepened.
Those are some of the impor tant themes to be addressed in
this work.

The Rwandan State at Rwabugiri’s Death

The political system left by Rwabugiri was extraordinarily complex and
flexible. In the most intensively governed areas of the kingdom, batware,
banyabutaka, and banyamukenke shared authority, the first collecting
ikoro taxes from men according to lineage, the others controlling the
usage of land and collecting a return on it. At the will of the Court, the
privileges of any one position could be held cumulatively with another,
in the same or in another region. The areas of the commands varied
greatly in size and were sometimes located in widely separated parts of
12 A Tumultuous Transition

the kingdom. Ibikingi land grants were scattered throughout the

holdings of the more powerful notables, allowing the Court to weaken
their power and to keep track of local developments. The most important
notables needed to be in constant attendance at the Court to defend
themselves against possible intrigues by their enemies and so left the
local supervision of their holdings to representatives, ibisonga (sing.,
igisonga), who might in turn further divide the command among their
followers.
Even Rwabugiri did not impose this intensive administration uni-
formly throughout Rwanda. The biru, the guardians of tradition, con-
trolled domains that paid nothing to the Court and even escaped the
reach of the mwami’s justice. In some areas (such as Bukunzi, Busozo,
Kingogo, and Bushiru) ritually autonomous leaders (referred to as
bahinza in the Court lexicon, but as bami by the local population), often
with renowned powers over the elements and the men under their
command, were left undisturbed except for having to acknowledge
the mwami’s sovereignty and to pay him a token tribute. Small states or
even powerful lineages profited from historical accident, their relative
inaccessibility, or the great fighting ability of their men to become direct
clients of the Court and so avoid the intermediate control of the notables.
In general, rule by the Court was most effective in the heartland and
shaded off in the outlying regions, especially in the west and north. In
these outer areas the Court ruled only through its batware, who were
satisfied with occasionally collecting ikoro by messengers who made
rapid forays into the area. No agents of the Court resided permanently
in such regions. Beyond these outlying regions, which were eventually
encompassed within the twentieth-century boundaries of Rwanda, lay a
still more amorphous area where the mwami exerted influence rather
than governed. The autonomous rulers of areas now within the bound-
aries of Uganda and Congo had suffered once or twice from Rwabugiri’s
campaigns and sometimes sought to avert further invasions by sending
occasional gifts to him.8
The central kingdom could be distinguished socially and culturally
as well as administratively from the outlying regions. The heartland
contained a far larger number of Tutsi, between 10 and 15 percent of
the total population. Tutsi eventually held most of the important com-
mands, although several Hutu had been granted great wealth and
power by Rwabugiri, and many others served as ibisonga or representa-
tives of more influential notables. Although the Tutsi, especially the
most powerful among them, preferred to marry among themselves,
 A Tumultuous Transition 13

many of the people of the central kingdom were of mixed Tutsi-Hutu

stock. Indeed the terms “Tutsi” and “Hutu” had come to describe class
more than racial origin since wealthy and influential Hutu were ab-
sorbed into the aristocracy and poor Tutsi fell into the group of Hutu.
Such mobility was usually marked by the marriage of the newly rich
or newly poor man with a woman of the class they were entering; the
transformation would be fully accomplished one or more generations
later when people ceased referring to its having occurred.9
The elaborate language and sophisticated art forms of poetry, music,
and dance so highly developed at the Court were universally admired
and imitated by the people of the central kingdom. In addition, the
extension of ubuhake cattle clientship with its clear distinctions between
superior and inferior had influenced people’s behavior. Fear of losing a
powerful protector led inferiors to agree with the strong and to comply
with their orders even if they found these repugnant. A resourceful
client, however, retained a certain freedom: if he chose his words care-
fully, he could satisfy both his own and his patron’s honor; if he planned
his actions carefully, he could achieve his own as well as his patron’s ends.
Inferiors often realized the possibilities of turning rivalries among the
powerful to their own advantage and often skillfully played one against
another.10 Rwandan reliance on ambiguous language and the employ-
ment of ruse later angered more straightforward Europeans. Few were
as perceptive as one who remarked that Rwandans saw communication
as a “not ignoble contest between two intelligences.”11
The relatively small number of Tutsi who lived in the outlying re-
gions had moved there in search of pasture for their cattle and in hopes
of escaping the demands of the Court and its agents. They remained
ethnically and culturally more distinct from the Hutu, yet dealt with
them on a basis of greater equality. Distant from Court, they paid less
attention to the fine points of culture so much admired by their counter-
parts in the central kingdom. Local Hutu communities, still concerned
primarily with the affairs of their lineages or small states, had developed
peculiarities of language and behavior that set those of one region apart
from those of another as well as from the people of the heartland. Both
the Tutsi and the Hutu of the outlying regions resisted the extension of
control by the Court and resented the cultural and social arrogance of
the people of the center.
Although variations in administrative arrangements and social and
cultural patterns divided the regions, the people of Rwanda shared
certain basic ideas about the relations among men and between men
14 A Tumultuous Transition

and the forces that governed the universe. They understood clientship
arrangements, whether expressed in terms of land or cattle. They ac-
cepted the existence of a creative force, imana, which could be made
manifest in objects or men. Many of them participated in worship of
the Imandwa, a group of spirits said to provide more immediate help in
the trials of life than the beneficent but passive imana. Most of them re-
spected the authority of the mwami even as they sought to evade his
power. And virtually all of them expressed their ideas in Kinyarwanda,
the shared language understood throughout the kingdom despite its
regional variations.

The Downfall of Rutarindwa

As Rwabugiri grew older, he became concerned with providing for an
orderly succession that would guarantee the gains in power and terri-
tory he had made. Hoping to break the pattern of children being in-
stalled as bami, he ordered that his heir, Rutarindwa, a young man in
his twenties, rule together with him during the last years of his life.
Rutarindwa was enthroned as co-regnant in December 1889, taking the
reign name of Mibambwe.*
Since Rwabugiri had killed Rutarindwa’s own mother some years
before, he now named another wife, Kanjogera, to serve as Rutarindwa’s
queen mother. According to tradition, substitutes chosen to act as queen
mothers had to be of the same lineage as the natural mother of the
mwami and could not have sons of their own eligible to rule. In addition,
a more recent restriction prohibited women of the Bakagara lineage of
the Bega clan from acting as queen mothers because some members of
the lineage had been permitted to learn part of the ubwiru (the esoteric
royal code).
In appointing Kanjogera, Rwabugiri ignored all these stipulations.
She was a Mwega (singular of Bega) of the Bakagara lineage, while
Rutarindwa’s own mother had been of the Bakono clan. She also had a
young son, Musinga, fathered by Rwabugiri and so eligible to succeed.12

*Royal names succeeded one another as part of a cycle of four “reign names” in a
prescribed fashion: Mutara, Kigeri, Mibambwe, and Yuhi; in theory, in alternate cycles
Cyilima was substituted for Mutara, though this was not followed with Musinga’s
succession.
 A Tumultuous Transition 15

Some notables, including some biru whose advice was being disregarded,
accused Rwabugiri of being blinded by his great love for Kanjogera,
who was his favorite wife. But Rwabugiri’s head probably played as much
a part as his heart in determining his choice. By naming a Mwega queen
mother for a son related to the Bakono, he could associate the powerful
Bega with the throne without giving them control over it. Rwabugiri
died suddenly in late 1895, just as his troops were embarking on an
expedition against Bushi on the west side of Lake Kivu. Despite rumors
that the impatient Bega had poisoned the great warrior, he actually died
from illness.13 Rutarindwa took power with apparent ease, unaware that
Kanjogera and her brothers, Kabare and Ruhinankiko, had already
begun secretly to plot his downfall.
Rutarindwa had been in power about six months when his authority
was challenged openly, not by the Bega but by a Belgian officer named
Georges Sandrart. Lieutenant Sandrart, who had been quelling a mu-
tiny of soldiers in the eastern part of the Congo Free State, had crossed
with several hundred Congolese troops into the southwestern corner of
Rwanda. After establishing a fortified camp on the hill Shangi on the
shores of Lake Kivu, Sandrart had tried to win the allegiance of local
notables to the Congo State. Rutarindwa sent several thousand of his best
warriors under the experienced commanders Bisangwa and Muhigirwa
against the invaders.14 Armed with spears and bows, the Rwandans
charged unsuccessfully: the Congolese had the advantage of superior
position and more efficient weapons. After his troops were driven back,
Bisangwa supposedly dispatched a messenger to Court, asking: “When
one is defeated abroad, one returns to his own country; when one is
beaten at home, where does one go then?”15 The Rwandans attacked
twice more before Sandrart killed Bisangwa with a bullet through the
head and thus dispersed the Rwandan troops.
Rwandan warriors had once before been defeated by an enemy
armed with guns. The German explorer Count G. A. von Götzen, the
first European to travel through Rwanda, had turned back a small force
sent against him by Rwabugiri in 1894.16 But this defeat had caused little
stir because so few were killed and because Rwabugiri had refused to
acknowledge the attack as an official expedition. At Shangi, Rutarindwa
had been committed to expelling the invaders. But the hundred or so
warriors who fell there included some of the best of the kingdom. The
battle quickly became known as a disaster that symbolized the supremacy
of European weapons over Rwandan ones and, by implication, Euro-
pean power over Rwandan power. This demonstration of weakness
16 A Tumultuous Transition

gave rise to such tales as the one that recounted that Sandrart had not
even moved from his chair when the Rwandans had attacked but had
merely motioned to his wife to halt the assault. Sandrart, of course, had
had no wife with him and, from the Belgian point of view, his victory re-
sulted from courageous effort rather than casual nonchalance; nonethe-
less, the tale indicates how unequal the Rwandans thought the contest
had been.17
Several weeks after the Shangi battle, a German officer from the
newly established station at Bujumbura, Burundi, arrived to notify
Sandrart that he was violating German territory as defined by the
Congolese–German Agreement of 1884. Rather than do battle, Sandrart
withdrew from Rwanda. The German officer returned directly to Bujum-
bura without passing by the Court to explain why he had expelled
Sandrart and his troops.18 Although the Belgian officer had left, the
impression of the weakness of the Court and its armies remained and
encouraged the Bega in their plot to install Musinga as mwami. Bisangwa
had been the most powerful of three notables charged by Rwabugiri with
protecting Rutarindwa. His death made it easier for the Bega to dispose
of the other two, Mugugu and Sehene. Before being killed, Mugugu
sent a warning to Rutarindwa that “they are cutting off your arms and
you do not realize it.”19 Despite such warnings, Rutarindwa took no
decisive action as the Bega gradually isolated him.
By December 1896 the Bega were confident of their strength. Ruta-
rindwa had just moved the Court to a new location on the hill named
Rucunshu, in the region of Marangara, not far from the center of the
kingdom. While constructing his residence, Rutarindwa was living in an
ordinary house, more modest and less easily defended than a royal resi-
dence with its large and sturdily built enclosure. Taking advantage of
this temporary weakness, Kabare gave the signal for the attack one day
in the late afternoon. The two sides were about evenly matched, and
they fought fiercely. The sudden arrival of reinforcements who sided
with the Bega turned the battle in their favor. Kabare seized his nephew
Musinga, a boy of twelve or thirteen years old, and lifted him in the
air, proclaiming him as the true mwami. As the attackers acclaimed
Musinga, increasing numbers of Rutarindwa’s supporters deserted him.
The legitimate heir, seeing no hope of escape, killed himself. His rela-
tives and loyal followers then killed each other or committed suicide. At
the last, one of them set fire to the house in which they had taken refuge
and where many of the precious possessions of the dynasty had been
stored. Apparently destroyed at this time was Karinga, the great drum
 A Tumultuous Transition 17

that symbolized the mwami as ruler of Rwanda. According to tradition,

no mwami could legitimately rule without it. When the damage was as-
sessed after the battle, and the loss of Karinga was reported to Kabare,
the pragmatic plotter is said to have responded, “We have the mwami;
we can make the drum.”20

The Troubled Accession of Musinga

Near the end of February 1897, Musinga and Kanjogera were officially
enthroned, the son taking the reign name of Yuhi V, the mother,
Nyirayuhi. Those biru who had opposed the illegitimate transfer of power
had already been eliminated by Kanjogera, Kabare, and Ruhinankiko.
Those who remained obliged the Bega triumvirate by performing the
necessary formalities to mark the beginning of a new reign.21
A few weeks after the completion of the ceremonies, the Court
was visited by a Captain Ramsay, who was accompanied by two other
German officers and three hundred armed soldiers. Ramsay had been
ordered by the governor of German East Africa to open the area to
German trade. He found the Court suspicious and reserved. Although it
readily provided him with supplies, it declined to receive him immedi-
ately. Impatient after a delay of two days, Ramsay mustered his officers,
soldiers, and brass band and marched into the royal enclosure. Passing
through a thousand or so men, all completely silent and all armed with
spears, Ramsay uneasily entered the official residence.22 He assumed
that the middle-aged man who met him wearing fine skins and a beaded
headdress was Yuhi Musinga. The man who played the role of mwami,
however, was actually Mpamarugamba, a notable in charge of the wor-
ship of the Imandwa spirits at the Court. In ordering him to replace
Musinga, Kanjogera and her brothers must have reasoned that the
powerful ritualist would be more able than a vulnerable boy to withstand
whatever mysterious forces the visitor could call into play. Mpamaru-
gamba was assisted by a “gigantic” notable who must have been Ruhi-
nankiko.* Kanjogera herself may well have followed the proceedings from
behind a screen, but she did not dare to meet the European.

*Ruhinankiko was approximately 7 feet 2 inches tall according to Ramsey’s estimate

(in “Über Seine Expeditionen”), and that of R. Nturo (interview).
18 A Tumultuous Transition

Ramsay recounts that after he had explained his mission, Mpama-

rugamba agreed to accept German protection and a German flag. The
acting mwami then complained vigorously about Belgian incursions
into Rwandan territory.23 In return for protection from the German
Empire, Ramsay requested a guarantee of Rwandan loyalty in the form
of a pact of blood brotherhood. Mpamarugamba revealed not the least
dismay at this suggestion, although blood brotherhood was perhaps
the most solemn engagement which a Rwandan could undertake and
was certainly not to be entered into lightly with such a strange partner.
He glibly explained to Ramsay that since he was a monarch and since
Ramsay was a great man and representative of a powerful king, it would
hardly be appropriate for them to execute the pact as ordinary people
did, by cutting their skins and ingesting a few drops of the other’s blood.
Instead, with the aid of Ruhinankiko, the dignitaries each proceeded to
tie a long blade of grass around the waist of the other; then, as Ramsay
put it, “we energetically shook hands and the blood brotherhood
between the king of Rwanda and me was established.”24
The German officer left the Court highly satisfied with what he
called “the main political success of the expedition,” completely un-
aware of how the Rwandans must have scorned his naive acceptance
of a mock ritual with a false mwami. Much to the relief of the Court,
Ramsay then headed south toward Burundi. At the last moment he de-
cided not to leave Rwanda without trying to find the sources of its two
main rivers, the Akanyaru and the Nyabarongo. Uncertain of Ramsay’s
intentions, the Court ordered its guides to keep him from finding them.
He laboriously searched the southern part of Rwanda for ten days be-
fore admitting defeat. He finally left the kingdom without knowing that
he once had been only a fifteen minute walk from one of the sources.25
Ramsay’s caravan demonstrated a wealth and power that the Court
realized could be useful in dealing with its enemies. The promise of
German defense against the Belgians and their Congolese troops and
against any internal threat must have encouraged the Court to accept
graciously an arrangement it could not have refused. That the German
officer required nothing concrete in return, and that he seemed so easy
to manage with a combination of courtesy and deception, most likely
reinforced the Court’s willingness to enter into the agreement. The
experience with Ramsay proved the advantages of dealing with the
Europeans by diplomacy, just as the disaster at Shangi had demonstrated
the impossibility of meeting them with force.
 A Tumultuous Transition 19

Only a month or so after Ramsay had left the country, Kanjogera

and her brothers were faced with a serious revolt in the south. Muhigirwa,
a son of Rwabugiri, had tacitly agreed to the coup by withdrawing the
forces he commanded from Rutarindwa’s side shortly before the attack
at Rucunshu. After the coup, he had recognized Musinga as mwami.
But Muhigirwa’s submission turned into revolt after intriguers convinced
him that the Court intended to kill him. Since the Bega triumvirate were
executing many whom they supposed to be their enemies, Muhigirwa
had good reason to fear for his life. To rally support against the Bega,
Muhigirwa proclaimed his own son mwami. The forces under Muhigirwa’s
command were the strongest in the kingdom, so the Court met his
challenge first through political maneuvering: by threats or promises of
rewards it won over many of his most influential followers. When the two
sides finally came to battle, Muhigirwa’s forces were greatly outnum-
bered. After a brief skirmish, Muhigirwa killed himself.26 Muhigirwa’s
revolt touched off a second uprising in the northeastern part of the
kingdom. One of Muhigirwa’s followers led devastating attacks against
the supporters of Musinga but failed to win the much needed allegiance
of two sons of Rwabugiri, Baryinyonza and Burabyo. After defeating
Muhigirwa, the troops of the Court moved to the northeast and cap-
tured his supporters and the two princes who still professed their loyalty
to Musinga.27
The main thrust of the northeastern revolt lay not in the raids by
Muhigirwa’s followers but in a simultaneous and perhaps coordinated
insurrection called Ruyaga, the “Tempestuous Wind.” Its leader, Mutwe-
wingabo, rallied the support of a large Hutu lineage, the Bateke, who
lived dispersed in Buganza, Rukiga, and Buyaga.28 The Bateke were
said to have rescued from troops of the Court one of Rwabugiri’s wives,
named Muserekande, a woman originally from Buha but who had sub-
sequently lived in the region of Bwanacyambwe.29 With her was her son
by Rwabugiri, Biregeya, who was still a child. The Court believed that
the Bateke wanted to place Biregeya on the throne. At about the same
time another of Rutarindwa’s supporters, Sebakara, who had fled to the
northwestern province of Bugoyi, began inciting the people in that area
to revolt against Musinga, prophesying that Biregeya would soon be en-
throned as mwami. Although Sebakara was given refuge by the people
of Bugoyi, his prophecy was not widely accepted.30
Mutwewingabo and Sebakara, and perhaps their closest followers,
may indeed have wanted to win the throne for Biregeya. But most of the
20 A Tumultuous Transition

Bateke and people of Bugoyi were interested not so much in replacing

one of Rwabugiri’s sons by another as in rejecting royal control over
their regions. Their uprisings sparked others throughout the parts of
northern Rwanda that had first been brought under firm royal control
by Rwabugiri. The Hutu rose up in movements that were local and
short-lived under the leadership of their lineage heads. They aimed
only to expel representatives of the Court who had recently taken up
residence in their regions or to chase off notables who had arrived to
collect the ikoro.31
The troops of the Court first put down the rising of the Bateke, deal-
ing them such a severe blow that they were never again an important
lineage. Similarly, Muserekande and Biregeya were supposed to have
drowned themselves to avoid capture by the troops that pursued them
into the Nyabishambi swamp in northern Rwanda. The troops next
swept westward through Buberuka, Mulera, Bugarura, Bushiru, Bu-
homa, and Cyingogo to Bugoyi. Under the guise of reestablishing royal
control, they pillaged and burned the possessions of all in their path,
whether or not they had actually rebelled against the Court. In most of
these provinces, the people met the attack as they had met previous
raids and as they would meet later ones: they gathered their most valued
goods and fled to the hills or the forest. But when the troops tried to
move from Cyingogo into Bugoyi, they were driven back by the people
of that region. Later reinforced by additional troops, the royal forces at-
tacked again and overcame the resistance. The troops—called Inkemba,
“The Predators,” by the people of Bugoyi—so devastated the region
that it suffered a serious famine soon after.32
Even after the troops had returned in triumph to the Court, Kanjo-
gera and her brothers feared the loss of their power. For all the ruthless
ambition shown in their coup, the trio, and particularly Kanjogera, were
disturbed by the supernatural implications of their act. If legitimate, the
mwami embodied imana. This sacred force could be passed only from a
mwami to his chosen successor. As a Rwandan poet expressed. it: “Who-
ever will possess royalty receives it from the hands of his father. There-
fore do not pretend that a revolution could deliver the Drum.”33 The
Bega had seized power and they had recreated the drum, Karinga, but
they could not convince themselves that they had captured imana.
Their specific fears of retribution centered on the spirits of those
who had been slaughtered in the coup and its aftermath. Throughout
most of Musinga’s reign, he and his mother participated in rituals and
sacrifices to appease these spirits. They sometimes would simulate being
 A Tumultuous Transition 21

killed and buried or being burned alive in hopes of persuading the

spirits that those responsible for the killings had died and that those who
continued to live were innocent. These ceremonies took place most often
in times of crisis, which were thought to have been called down on the
Court by the spirits.34
Unconvinced themselves, the Bega all the more energetically tried to
persuade others that Musinga ruled legitimately. Their arguments were
filled with contradictions: if Rwabugiri had meant for Musinga to rule,
why had he named Rutarindwa co-regnant? If Rutarindwa had illegiti-
mately seized power, why had Kanjogera served as his queen mother
and her brothers as his advisers? If Rutarindwa had not been correctly
enthroned and acknowledged, why had Musinga been proclaimed as
“Yuhi,” instead of as “Mibambwe,” the reign name that must be taken
by the successor to a Kigeri? After witnessing the Court’s suppression of
Muhigirwa’s revolt and the risings in the north, neither the notables nor
the people at large dared openly challenge the inadequate justifications
for the coup. But, as Kanjogera and her brothers realized, some leading
notables remained secretly loyal to the legitimist cause, either from
sincere dedication, personal interest, or a combination of these motives.
In addition, as the Biregeya movement in the north had shown, those
who wished to reject royal control might seize on the issue of legitimacy
as an excuse for revolt. Among the opponents of the Court, Musinga
was sometimes covertly called “Cyiimyamaboko,” “It is force that rules
the country.”35
Biregeya came to embody the fears of the Court. The truth about
this supposed son of Rwabugiri and Muserekande was soon lost in the
maze of half-truth and legend that grew up around him. Although
Muserekande seems without doubt to have been a historical figure, there
is some question whether she ever gave birth to a son; or, if she did,
whether he was still alive by the time of Rwbugiri’s death. Those who
argue against his existence point out that no one recalls the time and
place when gifts were presented to Rwabugiri to congratulate him on
the birth of this son, a custom that was usually observed at each royal
birth. Nor do any details remain about Biregeya’s place of residence or
education. Others believe that he did live, relating that he was captured
with his mother by the troops of the Court and then rescued by the
Bateke. Of those who would accept his existence at the time of the
Bateke revolt, some hold that he died with his mother in flight, others that
they escaped successfully to Nkore.36 The actual truth about Biregeya is
not nearly so important as his existence throughout the early part of
22 A Tumultuous Transition

Musinga’s reign as a symbol both for the Bega and their opponents,
epitomizing the fears of the one and the hopes of the other.
In dealing with the real and imagined threats to the new regime, the
Court was hindered by a division in its own ranks. Kabare and Ruhi-
nankiko, the two brothers who had allied with Kanjogera in seizing
power, began to struggle for ultimate influences over the queen mother
and her young son. This rivalry focused first on the fate of Baryinyonza
and Burabyo, the two sons of Rwabugiri who were accused of having
been ready to join Muhigirwa’s revolt against the Court. Ruhinankiko,
who was particularly close to Baryinyonza, tried to save the two, re-
minding Kanjogera how Baryinyonza had allied with them at the time
of the coup. But the queen mother was swayed more by the arguments
of Rutishereka, a Munyiginya who had joined the Bega party and who
was closely tied to Kabare. A bitter enemy of Baryinyonza, Rutishereka
convinced Kanjogera that one or the other of these sons of Rwabugiri
might someday supplant her own son on the throne. By order of the
queen mother, the two princes were killed in 1897.37
For about a year Rutishereka’s protector Kabare remained highly in-
fluential, but gradually Kanjogera began to resent his power. As Kabare
began to lose favor, Ruhinankiko attacked Rutishereka. In March 1898
Ruhinankiko persuaded Kanjogera that Rutishereka was using sorcery
against her in an attempt to placate the spirits of his fellow Banyiginya
killed at Rucunshu. Shortly thereafter, Rutishereka was accused of rally-
ing support for Biregeya in his domains in the eastern region of Gihunya.
Seeing his favorite increasingly threatened, Kabare asked Ruhinankiko
to help protect him. Ruhinankiko responded that he would try to save
him in the same way that Kabare had tried to save Baryinyonza—that
is, not at all. Kabare went to warn his client, telling him: “Pull your
clothes tightly about you so that you will not lose them if the wind knocks
you to the ground.”38 In June, Kanjogera confronted Rutishereka. He
professed his great loyalty to her, reminding her how he had turned
from the leader of his own family, Rutarindwa, who had greatly favored
him, to support the Bega. Kanjogera is said to have answered, “Since
you have betrayed such a benefactor, who could trust you now?” She
ordered him executed. Kabare, who had been so closely associated with
the supposed traitor, saw his influence diminish; he was replaced at the
side of the queen mother by Ruhinankiko.39
Afraid that the killing of Rutishereka alone might not sufficiently in-
timidate potential enemies, Kanjogera ordered fifteen other members
of his lineage executed at the same time. Although the Bega sometimes
 A Tumultuous Transition 23

used the promise of rewards to win supporters, they relied primarily on

execution and pillage, or the threat of them, to ensure obedience during
these first troubled years. A score of unfortunate notables and their kin
were killed between 1897 and 1900, while others, including sons and
brothers of Rwabugiri, saved themselves only by fleeing to Burundi.
This reliance on terror gave rise to the legend that Kanjogera personally
cut down her enemies with a large sword; she was said to have become
so dependent on this weapon that she kept it close at hand throughout
her life and even insisted that it be buried with her after her death.40
The Bega installed Musinga as mwami at a period when the kingdom
of Rwanda was at its greatest territorial extent and when the powers of
its ruler were at their height. The demands of the mwami were justified
by an ideology that made him the source of all wealth, while his orders
were executed by a complex and flexible network of institutions that re-
sponded readily to his direction. But the gains in royal power had enor-
mously increased the rewards of controlling the Court and had spurred
conflicts among factions eager to enjoy them. In winning the drum, the
Bega, the most powerful lineage of notables, had defeated Rutarindwa,
who represented the Court. But even as they made Musinga mwami
they were establishing the grounds for a new struggle between the Court
and notables. As a child Musinga obeyed his mother and her brothers,
but as a man he would seek to reassert the interests of his father’s lineage
and to restore the independence of the mwami.
 2
Th e C a t h o lic C h u rc h ,
t he Ger m a n Ad m in i s t r at i o n ,
an d t h e Ny ig inya C o u r t

Uhongera umwanzi amara inka.

[ He who offers reparations to his enemy will lose all his cattle]

A lthough the attention of the Court was focused mostly on its

internal struggles, Kanjogera and her brothers carefully watched the in-
stallation of European soldiers in the southwestern corner of Rwanda.
Since the border between the Congo Free State and German East
Africa had not yet been fixed, both German and Belgian officers estab-
lished outposts near Shangi in 1897 and 1898. Aside from of their origi-
nal appropriation of the land for their posts and occasional demands of
supplies and labor from the people in their immediate vicinity, these Eu-
ropeans asked nothing from the Court or its subjects. They wanted only
to establish a claim to the territory, not to govern the people of
Rwanda.1
Richard Kandt, a German physician who arrived in Rwanda in
1898 to search for the sources of the Nile River, was the first foreigner
interested in developing closer contacts with the Rwandans.* After

*Richard Kandt (1867–1918) was exceptional in German colonial service, both as a

Jew and as the first civilian administrative authority, referred to as the Resident of
Rwanda (1897–1913). But he was far more than an administrator. Among other interests
he was a psychiatrist, a sensitive ethnographer, an accomplished botanist and a gifted
writer. His classic book Caput Nili (subtitled “a sentimental voyage to the sources of the
Nile”) is respected not only for its comprehensive local-level observations but also for its

24
 Catholic Church, German Administration & Nyiginya Court 25

traveling for a year in and around Rwanda, he took up residence near

Shangi. Eager to explore the complexities of the Rwandan social and
political system, Kandt began studying Kinyarwanda, the language
common to all Rwandans.2
The indifference of most Europeans to learning about Rwanda
accorded well with the desires of the Court. Dealing with foreigners had
always been the exclusive privilege of the mwami and his most trusted
deputies. Other Rwandans were not to cross the frontier or to commu-
nicate with representatives of foreign rulers. Now that foreigners had
penetrated Rwanda, the Court hoped to control their contacts with the
ordinary people through notables who were assigned to them, suppos-
edly to see that their needs were met. Other notables obeyed the orders
of the Court and avoided contacts with the Europeans.3
The notables were just as happy not to have to deal with the strangers,
whom they called ibisimba, literally “wild beasts,” an expression that
incorporated ideas of contempt as well as fear. One European arriving
at the Court several years after the establishment of the protectorate
commented with pleased surprise on the “almost distinguished man-
ners” of the notables. Little did he or his fellows suspect that they failed
to elicit a similar judgment in return. Carefully schooled in civility and
self-discipline, the Rwandans of the Court often criticized the Euro-
peans for brutal or rude behavior. The notables realized, of course, that
some Europeans were more important than others. When dealing with
those of high rank, they hid their scorn for them behind a polite exte-
rior. Only when they came in contact with someone like Kandt, whose
small caravan revealed his relative poverty, did they show their con-
tempt. The Court failed to provide him with customary gifts of wel-
come, while the young men of the royal entourage more openly taunted
this weak European by offering him old potatoes and rotten bananas for
provisions.4

great literary merit. He seems to have been both trusted by the Court (as the first
European introduced to Musinga) and respected by the population: even in recent times
he was remembered with affection by the people of Kinyaga (his principal personal
residence) as a peaceful, respectful person (and one who spoke Kinyarwanda). After his
departure from Rwanda, while tending to victims of gas warfare in Poland during World
War I, he himself was stricken by a gas attack. His lungs and throat were severely affected;
he died of tuberculosis a painful nine months later, in April 1918. See Reinhart Bindseil,
Rwanda und Deutschland seit den Tagen Richard Kandts (Berlin: Bietrich Reimer Verlag, 1988).
26 Catholic Church, German Administration & Nyiginya Court

The Ar rival of the White Fathers:

Testing the Court
Unlike the notables of the central kingdom, other subjects of the
mwami overcame their repugnance to the ibisimba and sought protec-
tion from them. When the German explorer von Götzen had visited
Rwanda, he had traveled through the eastern part of the kingdom
known as Gisaka. Gisaka had been an independent kingdom under its
own dynasty until its conquest by Rwanda in the mid-nineteenth cen-
tury. Immediately after the conquest, the mwami had allowed the aris-
tocracy of Gisaka to continue governing the region, although he had
destroyed the ruling dynasty. Musinga’s father, Rwabugiri, had sought to
extirpate local loyalties and enrich his own favorites by replacing the in-
digenous notables with men from the central kingdom. The people of
Gisaka resented these recently imposed rulers and so enthusiastically
welcomed von Götzen and a later traveler named Ramsay. They hoped
to win the aid of these “mami-kings” against the powerful mwami of
Rwanda.5
Within the central kingdom, those who hoped for protection from
the strangers dared not accord them such a joyous reception. Instead,
they sought out the foreigners privately when the notables were absent.
Kandt wrote of the Hutu:
In the presence of their lords, they were sober and reserved and
tried to avoid our questions. But as soon as the Tutsi had turned
their backs on our camp, they were willing to tell us everything that
we wanted to hear and much that we did not because I could do
nothing about the numerous grievances about which they com-
plained, their lack of rights, their oppression.6

Kandt refused the role of protector, mocking the Hutu who “could only
whine and complain like women” after having let themselves be subju-
gated by the Tutsi. He casually suggested that they try “self-help.” In
northwestern Rwanda, Kandt found the Hutu still vigorously resisting
the extension of rule by the Tutsi, but not at all interested in his assistance.
In these outlying regions, the roles were reversed: it was the notables,
insecure in their authority and distant from supervision by the Court,
who sought his protection.7
The early attempts to secure the protection of Europeans fore-
shadowed what would happen when a larger number of foreigners
intent on making closer contacts with the people came to live in
 Catholic Church, German Administration & Nyiginya Court 27

Rwanda. Preparations for sending such a group began the year after the
protectorate was established. Roman Catholic missionaries of the So-
ciété des Missionnaires d’Afrique, usually known as the “White Fathers”
because of their customary white cassocks, decided to open a mission
station in Rwanda. The French cardinal Lavigerie had founded the
order in 1868 exclusively for work in Africa, and he had instilled in his
missionaries his own belief that Christianity would be widely accepted
in a country only when it was adopted by the chiefs.8 He emphasized
over and over that “in winning a single chief you will do more for the
advancement of the mission than in winning hundreds of poor blacks.”9
The key to winning the chiefs lay in taking their power seriously, making
certain that they realized that Christian teaching would support their
authority. Lavigerie decreed that the chiefs were not to be held to absolute
obedience of such laws of the church as monogamy; they should begin
the four-year preparation for baptism without having to make any sac-
rifices. Should they later withdraw when sacrifices were required, many
of their subjects who in the meantime would have been attracted to the
church would continue their instruction.10
At the turn of the century, Monsignor Jean-Joseph Hirth supervised
the White Fathers who were working in the Vicariate of Southern
Nyanza,* which stretched from Lake Kivu in the west to Mount Kili-
manjaro in the east. From his headquarters in German East Africa,
Hirth witnessed the initial success of the White Fathers in the neighboring
kingdom of Buganda.† Hopeful that a similar or even greater victory
might be won in Rwanda, Hirth directed several Fathers to establish a
post at Katoke in Bushubi to serve as a base for opening contacts with
the Rwandan Court. The envoys whom the Fathers twice sent to

*“Nyanza” here refers to the early European name for Lake Victoria, Victoria
Nyanza, not to the specific hill called Nyanza where the Rwandan Court was located
from 1899.
†In 1889 the Catholics had been driven out of Buganda (on the northern shores of

Lake Victoria) in the course of a civil war that had divided the country largely along
sectarian lines, first pitting Christians against Muslims, and then Anglicans against
Catholics. In the process, as the Catholic faction had been driven from positions of
power the priests had sought refuge at the southern end of Lake Victoria. It is from
there that Hirth planned his mission to Rwanda; the experience of the White Fathers in
Buganda had made him acutely aware both of the importance of gaining the adherence
of the local authorities, and of the threat to Catholic evangelical objectives posed by
competing Protestant missions.
28 Catholic Church, German Administration & Nyiginya Court

Rwanda were received well by the Bega rulers, who in turn dispatched
twenty representatives to convey their greetings to the White Fathers.
Since the Rwandan representatives undoubtedly also gathered as much
information as possible about the Fathers, Kanjogera and her brothers
were well aware of their activities by the time that the first Fathers ar-
rived at the Court in February 1900.11
En route the Fathers’ caravan had passed through Burundi, stopping
at the German posts at Bujumbura and Shangi. Since the Germans ap-
proved of the establishment of missions, the district officer, Captain von
Bethe, had sent his own interpreter ahead to prepare the Court for the
arrival of the missionaries. To be certain that the Court understood that
the Germans meant to back the Fathers in their request for a place to
settle, he also delegated two of his soldiers to accompany the caravan. The
German message was clearly received by the Bega rulers, who under-
stood the Fathers to be clients of the Germans, charged with handling
their spiritual matters.12 The realization that the Fathers were especially
concerned with the supernatural did not, however, lead them to under-
estimate the extent to which the Fathers might become politically in-
volved. They assumed that the European missionaries, like traditional
Rwandan diviners, could have a great influence on political decisions.
At Court the Fathers met with Ruhinankiko, Kabare, and Musinga’s
stand-in, Mpamarugamba, whom they took to be the real mwami. After
the missionaries had declared their desire to teach the Rwandans their
faith and had requested land on which to settle, Kabare took the lead in
trying to persuade them to accept a location in either the northwestern
province of Bugoyi or in Gisaka, in the southeast, both far removed from
the Central Court.13 Still allowed to participate in royal councils, though
with much reduced influence, Kabare perhaps hoped to regain the favor
of Kanjogera by restricting the missionaries to the outskirts of the king-
dom.14 But true to their instructions to locate as near as possible to the
center of power, the Fathers rejected these places so distant from Nyanza,
where the Court had taken up residence. In the end the Court conceded
them the right to settle at Mara or Save, two hills in the southern province
of Bwanamukari.15 Although closer to Nyanza, these hills were known
for their troublesome inhabitants; Rwabugiri had pillaged Save three
times for defying his orders.16 The Court hoped that the Fathers would
rapidly become discouraged in such an inhospitable setting.17
Speaking for the regents, Mpamarugamba also specified that the
Court was interested in secular learning. At some time in the future, a
Father could come to teach the reading and writing that seemed to be
 Catholic Church, German Administration & Nyiginya Court 29

such useful tools in dealing with Europeans. But religious teaching was
to be only for the Hutu and Twa. The Tutsi were not to be approached;
they were the men of the mwami and of him alone.18 While thus con-
sciously or unconsciously blocking the strategy of the Fathers, the Court
also indicated that even at this point it realized that full acceptance of
the new faith might be inconsistent with complete loyalty to the mwami.
Unable to refuse outright the clients of the Germans, the Court sought
to compromise by allowing them to instruct the ordinary people while
at the same time prohibiting them from preaching to the Tutsi, whose
allegiance the Court most valued.
The Fathers were disappointed at this restriction. As one put it, they
had found the young men at Court “the most interesting yet encoun-
tered . . . with an intelligent air, aware, curious, but yet discreet and
proper in their behavior.”19 But they were soon occupied with building
their post at Save and with getting acquainted with the neighboring
people. Afraid of the newcomers, the people agreed among themselves
not to give the Fathers wood or water, hoping that they would thus be
driven away. The Fathers first won the trust of the children, tossing
them beads, a valuable trade item, and asking them to bring food.
Cyitatire, brother of Musinga, commanded the region of Bwanamukali
and so was charged by the Court with helping the Fathers in their estab-
lishment. Under his orders, the people of the area brought materials
and built the Fathers’ first shelter. In these early weeks, no other mutware
visited the mission, although many sent Hutu representatives with gifts
of welcome.20
The Hutu rapidly learned to trust the Fathers. Before the first month
was out, the sick were arriving for medicine, and by the second month
the Fathers were remarking that “there [was] always a great crowd at
the station of those who work, sell and complain.”21 Even more impor-
tant to the Hutu than the medicine and trade goods was the potential
protection that the Fathers might give. In April the missionaries took in
about fifty children for religious instruction, commenting that they
could easily have had a thousand if they had had the means to care for
them. The Father Superior wrote that the children had come “to pay
court,” guhakwa, and referred to instructing his “clients,” bagaragwa [sic].22*
The Hutu, particularly those near the station, succeeded in capitalizing

*Like guhakwa, bagaragwa is the Father’s term; it should be bagaragu.

30 Catholic Church, German Administration & Nyiginya Court

on the opportunities created by the arrival of influential strangers with-

out incurring the attendant risks.
Suspicious about the missionaries from the start, the Court began to
be alarmed at their success in attracting the Hutu. In May 1900 the
Fathers remarked that the Hutu seemed to acknowledge only their au-
thority. The Court was further concerned because of the friendship that
had developed between the missionaries and Cyitatire. As a potential
rival to Musinga, Cyitatire had been distrusted at Court ever since the
coup in 1896. Although he had finished assisting the Fathers and had
left Save in March, he still had not returned to Nyanza by May. Because
his aid to the missionaries had gone beyond what the Court thought was
necessary, he feared accusation as a traitor and possible death at the
hands of Kanjogera and her brothers. To counter the Court’s growing
alarm, the Father Superior asked it to send several of its most trusted
batware to live near the mission and to see that the Fathers were “the
whites of Yuhi [Musinga] and not of Kyitatire.”23
Kayijuka and Kaningu, the two young batware sent by the Court,
overwhelmed the Fathers with gifts of cattle, goats, and produce.24 But
at the same time, the local Hutu repeatedly warned the Fathers that
these batware had come to attack the mission. The Fathers dismissed
these rumors as attempts of the Hutu to keep them from allying with
the batware. There was, however, a kernel of truth in the rumors. The
Court itself did not want war, but it warned the Fathers that there were
some batware who opposed its policy and wished to attack. In protesting
its good intentions to the mission, the Court frankly declared that it was
the friend of the White Fathers because they were the friends of Cap-
tain von Bethe.25
Those who wished to attack also realized that German support was
essential to the mission. They hoped to take advantage of the withdrawal
of the German troops who had temporarily left Shangi, in the far south-
west, to defend part of the Burundi–Congo frontier against a threatened
attack from the Congo.26 As the Father Superior commented, it was
fortunate for the mission that the border conflict was quickly resolved.
Otherwise, the militant faction might have won control at Court and
launched an attack on the mission.27 By June the German troops had re-
turned to Shangi. At this time Kabare was sent to command the troops
garrisoning the southern province of Bugesera against raids by Cyoya, a
powerful notable from Burundi. Although the need for a capable com-
mander at the frontier was real enough, Kabare’s designation to fill the
position was generally regarded as an exile from Court. It is possible he
 Catholic Church, German Administration & Nyiginya Court 31

had led the faction that advocated use of force against the Fathers. If so,
this commission to defend Bugesera was both a punishment and a con-
venient way of preventing him from causing further trouble in central
Rwanda.28
Although the Court itself had not planned to attack the mission, it
had taken the Fathers’ invitation to send observers to Save as a useful
opportunity to curb unobtrusively the growth of the missionaries’ influ-
ence. Its representatives Kayijuka and Kaningu discouraged the Hutu
from visiting the station. After complaining about this, the Father Supe-
rior succeeded in having the batware recalled to Nyanza. As soon as they
left the area, the Hutu returned in even larger numbers to the station,
probably seeing the White Fathers as victors in this power struggle with
the Court.29

Several months later, the Court and the missionaries faced off again in
a trial of strength. In August the Fathers heard the rumor that Njangwe,
one of their young Rwandan followers, had been killed at Nyanza. Al-
though one version of the story indicated that he had been condemned
for a theft committed sometime in the past, the Fathers were more in-
clined to accept another explanation, that he had been killed because
he was a “mugaragwa” [sic] of the missionaries.* They were determined
to secure punishment of the guilty party or at least some compensation
for the killing; they believed that if they did not, the Hutu would stop
coming to the mission.30
The Court, for its part, maintained that the young man had not
been killed, but that his whereabouts was temporarily unknown.
Kanjogera and Ruhinankiko were strongly attached to Kayijuka, who
was accused of the killing, and did not wish to punish him. Still, the
possibility that the Fathers might ask the Germans to intervene in the
case made them unwilling to refuse satisfaction to the missionaries.31 At
this time the Court continued to be threatened by raids of the Barundi,
which Kabare and his troops had not been able to end completely. It
was rumored that the Barundi were sheltering the contender Biregeya,
who was awaiting a propitious moment to cross the border and unseat

*Mugaragwa was the term used in the mission diary; it should have been umugaragu.
32 Catholic Church, German Administration & Nyiginya Court

Musinga. Indeed, there were some who said that Biregeya was already
at Save, where he was being protected by the White Fathers, who were
willing to support his claim to the throne.32
Reluctantly the Court decided to reach an accommodation with the
Fathers. To handle the delicate negotiations, it turned to Richard Kandt.
The Court reasoned that Kandt was close enough to the White Fathers
to be able to influence them but that he also stood enough apart from
them to be able to represent the interests of the Court.33 During his two
years in the kingdom, Kandt’s admiration for its social and political
system had developed into a sympathetic relationship with the Court.
Carrying on research in an unostentatious fashion—he traveled without
the large caravans and numerous soldiers who accompanied most
Europeans—he had demonstrated to the Rwandans that he trusted
them. Kandt must also have seemed more perceptive than his compa-
triots to the Rwandans: of the foreigners who visited Nyanza between
1897 and 1900, Kandt was the only one to declare that Mpamarugamba
was obviously a fake. Before arriving in Rwanda, Kandt had inquired
among neighboring peoples about the approximate age of Musinga.
Having everywhere been told that he was an adolescent, Kandt had no
difficulty realizing that the forty-year-old Mpamarugamba was only
playing the role of mwami. Several weeks before the Njangwe affair, the
Court had finally acknowledged that Kandt was correct and allowed
him to meet Musinga. From this time forward, Musinga himself met
Europeans when they came to Nyanza.34
Kandt agreed to serve as intermediary and arranged for the Fathers
to accept a compensation of forty cattle to be paid by Kayijuka. On the
order of the Court and under pressure from Kandt, who was temporar-
ily living near Kayijuka’s residence, the mutware paid the fine, all the
while maintaining his innocence.35 Ten days later the missing Njangwe
was found: he had been on a trading expedition to the northwestern
province of Bugoyi. When Kayijuka appeared with his supposed victim
at the mission, the Father Superior immediately admitted his mistake
and tried to return the cattle that had been paid as compensation. Kayi-
juka refused to accept them, declaring that the Father had demanded
them mistakenly but not maliciously and that “one does not take back
what one has given to his shebuja.”36 The embarrassed Father kept the
cattle, but in return loaded Kayijuka with gifts. As Kayijuka said:

What he then gave Kayijuka was simply immeasurable. You cannot

know really how much it was: all the Hutu who had accompanied
 Catholic Church, German Administration & Nyiginya Court 33

him [to the mission] had to carry something. You know yourself . . . ,
how numerous is the following of a prince. Kayijuka had even to
give up his hammock* so that they could take home all that he had
received from the Father.37

Kayijuka had originally been accused by an enemy who had hoped to

bring the rising young mutware into disrepute with the Fathers, the
Court, or both. But in the end, Kayijuka emerged the winner: his stand-
ing at Court did not suffer, and his ties with the Fathers were stronger
than ever. Though graciously acknowledging the missionaries to be his
patrons, he had in effect put them in his debt by refusing to take back his
cattle. His gift of cattle did not make them his clients, but it did oblige
them to see him as a generous and loyal follower whom they should sup-
port. Kayijuka was to draw upon this support throughout his life.38

Gisaka, the Church, and the Court

The Court had been all the more anxious to settle the Njangwe case
because at this time it was being faced with serious unrest in Gisaka. In
1897 Ramsay had remarked on the hostility between Rwandan rulers
and the people of Gisaka, predicting that if Rwandan policy toward
Gisaka did not change, the area might well revolt. Bishop Hirth, travel-
ing through the same region in October 1900, also described how the
people of Gisaka were suffering from exploitation by many Rwandan
notables who had arrived to live off the region. At the time of his journey,
inadequate rainfall and the resulting scarcity of food were contributing
to the general discontent.39
The leader of the nascent revolt, a man named Rukura, tried to rally
the dissatisfied to his cause by claiming to be descended from Kimenyi
IV Getura, the last great king of Gisaka. Although his claim was prob-
ably unfounded, a growing number of the people of Gihunya province†
were willing to accept him as a “mwami.”40 He was apparently also supported

*Instead of traveling by foot, the notables were often transported in hammocks

carried by Hutu clients.
†The former kingdom of Gisaka was formed of three semi-autonomous provinces:

Mirenge, Gihunya, and Migongo. In November 1900 the White Fathers had established
a mission at Zaza in Mirenge (the western-most of the three provinces). Gihunya was
the central province.
34 Catholic Church, German Administration & Nyiginya Court

by some Barundi, including Cyoya, the main instigator of raids by

Barundi into Bugesera, the province that adjoins Gihunya. In Gisaka,
Rukura had become allied with an American trader named Spears, but
also called by the Swahili name of Bwana Mzee [Mr. Old Man]. Spears,
whose illegitimate trading activities were opposed by the Rwandan Court,
may have hoped for the establishment of an autonomous Gisaka where
he would have greater freedom to carry on his business. In 1897 Rukura,
already hopeful of winning power in Gisaka, had persuaded a German
officer to give him a letter authorizing him to rule there as a subordinate
of the Rwandan mwami.41
Realizing that Rukura might once more enlist the protection of the
Germans, the Court sought help from Kandt. Kandt agreed that Ru-
kura must not be allowed to sever Gisaka from Rwanda and advised the
Court to seek the aid of the White Fathers as well. In late September
1900 Ruhinankiko, the most powerful man at Court, and his nephew
Rwidegembya, whose influence was fast growing, appeared at Save to
request the protection of the missionaries for the Court. Ruhinankiko
was most concerned since the uprising was centered in Gihunya, which
was under his own command. The Fathers, considerably disturbed by
the as yet unsettled Njangwe case and by the recent pillage of one of
their caravans in Gisaka, refused the Court’s request that they write to
the governor of German East Africa asking him to prevent Rukura
 Catholic Church, German Administration & Nyiginya Court 35

from taking control of Gisaka. Their decision reflected not only anger
at the Court but annoyance with Kandt as well, who they believed sided
too much with the Court.42 The Court, unaware of how greatly the
Fathers differed with Kandt, believed that the missionaries had refused
to support it only because they were displeased with the Court’s handling
of the Njangwe and pillage cases. The Fathers reinforced this impression
by lecturing Ruhinankiko and Rwidegembya on the need for prompt
action in these affairs.
Discontent in Gisaka abated somewhat at the end of 1900. But the
Court had learned a lesson: relations with the Fathers must be improved
in case the revolt should flare up once more. Beginning in October 1900,
the Father Superior noted in his diary that the Court seemed “better
disposed” to the mission and had ordered that it be supplied with much-
needed building materials. Several months later the Fathers were per-
mitted to install their leading catechist at Nyanza, where he was to teach
secular lessons to the notables. Soon the catechist was even being ques-
tioned at Court about religion. At Save itself, the Father rejoiced that
there was a “great movement of conversion” taking place on all the
neighboring hills. In January 1901 the mwami announced that he wished
his people to take instruction, a sentiment the local notables promptly
echoed. The Father Superior reported that approximately three thou-
sand postulants, mostly Hutu but including some Tutsi, had learned the
basic tenets of the faith. But even in their rejoicing, the Fathers won-
dered if the movement showed the sincere desire to convert or simply
an obedience to royal orders. Whereas those who had first visited the
mission had trusted the Fathers with their children, these later visitors
were mostly adults who hid their children from the missionaries. It
seemed that although these men had no choice but to take instruction
themselves, they feared exposing their children to “Nina rufu” [Nyina
urupfu, Mother Death], who was said to live at the mission and to subsist
on a diet of Rwandan children.43
In March 1901 Rukura and about one hundred followers, most of
whom were Baganda, began to cause serious disruption in Gisaka. Most
of the Tutsi of the Abarasa regiment, who were natives of the Gisaka
province of Gihunya, decided to support him. Seeking the protection of
the White Fathers, who, shortly before, had founded a mission in Gisaka
at Zaza, Rukura showed them the three-year-old letter from the Ger-
man officer naming him to command Gisaka. Rukura claimed, how-
ever, that the letter authorized him to rule the region independently, not
as a subordinate of the Rwandan mwami. The Father Superior at Zaza,
refusing to recognize the authorization, advised Rukura to leave the
36 Catholic Church, German Administration & Nyiginya Court

area since several Rwandan regiments were already in Gisaka and were
preparing to attack him. Discouraged at the refusal of aid from the
Fathers and intimidated by the prospect of a battle with the royal regi-
ments, Rukura retreated across the border into Bushubi.* Fearing re-
prisals for their support of the rebel, most of the leaders of the Abarasa
regiment fled to Burundi, taking with them several thousand of their
cattle. Since the retreat was effected quickly, only the rear guard of the
rebels actually engaged with the advancing Rwandan troops.44
In May the German officer Lieutenant von Grawert was still con-
cerned enough about discontent in Gisaka to make a show of force in
the region. Arriving from Bujumbura with a contingent of troops, he
traveled around Gisaka ordering the people of the region to obey the
Rwandan Court. Whether the Court specifically requested this expedi-
tion is unclear, but it certainly welcomed the expression of German sup-
port. While in Gisaka, von Grawert arrested the trader Spears, obliged
him to make restitution for ivory and cattle that he had taken more
by force than by rightful trade, and expelled him from Rwanda. Von
Grawert also conducted a punitive expedition against Cyoya, who had
been successfully raiding cattle in Bugesera. The German officer confis-
cated more than a thousand cattle from him, one-third of which he kept
for the government and two-thirds of which he presented to Musinga.45
The Court was very pleased with the simultaneous settlement of
these three problems in southeastern Rwanda. It believed that the
support the Fathers had refused in September but granted in March had
been essential in turning back Rukura and causing the Germans to inter-
vene. Satisfied with the outcome of its policy of good relations with the
Fathers, it sent messages of thanks to Save and Zaza; to the Zaza Fathers,
whose help had been most crucial, it also sent an ivory tusk and a cow.46

The Court, the Church, and

the Colonial Administration:
The Mpumbika Affair
With the uprising put down and no other crisis of similar magnitude in
view, the Court tried to discourage the interest in the missions it had

*Bushubi was an independent kingdom east of what is now Burundi and southeast
of Rwanda; in 1901 Rukura was captured there and imprisoned by the Germans. After
his subsequent release, he did not attempt any further incursions into Gisaka.
 Catholic Church, German Administration & Nyiginya Court 37

been fostering for six months. This was easily done with the Tutsi of the
Save area: those who had frequented the mission during the critical
months, apparently only because ordered to do so, soon stopped visiting
the Fathers. Many of the Hutu, however, having once been given the op-
portunity to develop ties with the powerful Europeans, were not anxious
to return to complete dependence on their Rwandan lords. Pressed by
the Court and notables to visit the missionaries, they had been forced to
overcome their initial fears about them; after several months of contact
with the Fathers, they became convinced of the advantages of continued
association with them. When the notables found their orders to cease
visiting the mission were having little effect, they resorted to threats and
force, which were more successful. By August 1901 attendance of the
Hutu had declined enough for the Fathers to be concerned about it.47
The situation in Gisaka presented the Court with more formidable
problems of control and diplomacy. Although Rukura was safely dis-
posed of, the Court understood the depths of dissatisfaction among the
people and indigenous notables of Gisaka, and it dreaded the emer-
gence of a new rebellious leader. Most afraid was Ruhinankiko, who in-
corporated the interests of the Court and those of Rwandan notables
holding domains in Gisaka. Of all the Rwandans with commands in the
area, he had been the most discredited by the uprising because the Aba-
rasa, which had led the rally to Rukura, was one of the army regiments
assigned to him.
Among the Gisakan notables who had not fled to Burundi, most
feared that the Rwandan notables would use the uprising as an excuse to
deprive them of even more of their domains, whether or not they had
participated in the rebellion. Many were so afraid of reprisals by their
Rwandan superiors that they did not even dare visit them to pay court
or receive orders. Of the notables who had escaped to Burundi, some
were quietly beginning to pave the way for a peaceful return to their
homes while others were still hoping to rekindle the flames of revolt.
Some of these notables had taken refuge with Cyoya, who was obvi-
ously an enemy of the Rwandan Court.
All parties—the Court, the Rwandan batware, the notables of Gi-
saka (whether at home or in exile), and even Cyoya—sought the support
of the Fathers at Zaza. Although the missionaries had stood with the
Court against Rukura, the Court and Rwandans feared (and the notables
of Gisaka hoped) that they might be persuaded to change their stand.
During the months following Rukura’s retreat, all the contenders courted
the Fathers with visits, compliments, gifts of cattle and ivory, and the
provision of men and material for the construction of their station. One of
38 Catholic Church, German Administration & Nyiginya Court

the most skillful was Mpumbika, a descendant of a mwami of Gisaka.

He commanded several hills, including that of Zaza, and his friendly
compliance with the desires of the missionaries eventually assured him
of their support. Mpumbika apparently had been one of the notables
most implicated in Rukara’s uprising. Apart from his alleged involve-
ment in this affair, his growing alliance with the Fathers and his poten-
tial strength as a leader—he had many supporters in the province of
Mirenge, where the Zaza mission was located—caused alarm and
hostility among the Rwandan notables. Ruhinankiko, eager for a scape-
goat and anxious to stamp out any desire for independence among the
notables of Gisaka, came to see Mpumbika as a serious threat to the
Rwandan Court.48
In March 1902 the Court executed several men of Gisaka and pil-
laged others who were accused of plotting revolt. Then, with tension
rapidly growing in Gisaka, the Court summoned Mpumbika to Nyanza.
The endangered notable convinced the Fathers that the Court was cer-
tain to kill him if he went. Perhaps too tied to Mpumbika to realize the
gravity of their move, the Fathers undertook to protect him. They wrote
to the Court to plead his case, in the meantime advising him to stay
in Gisaka. The Court refused the Fathers’ appeal and insisted that
Mpumbika be sent to Nyanza within a month. With his refusal to answer
this summons, Mpumbika set himself apart as a mugome, a rebel. The
Court announced that by associating himself with Mpumbika in this
refusal the Father Superior was also a rebel, and so it forbade all the
notables of the area to have any further contact with the mission.49
The Father Superior wrote to the German officer at Bujumbura and
to his own superior, Bishop Hirth, for assistance. In the meantime, as the
people of Mirenge province began preparations to fight in support of
Mpumbika, the Fathers began to realize the seriousness of the situation.
When the Court sent an envoy to make a local investigation, the Fathers
sent back with him a message that they believed was conciliatory: the
mwami was master in his own country and could do as he wished, pro-
vided that he did not make war; that, the Fathers could not allow.50
Not reassured by this message, the Court decided to try to use the
Fathers of Save against the Fathers of Zaza. It delegated Kayijuka, long
since restored to the favor of the missionaries, with the gift of a cow and
calf, to explain its position to the Save Fathers. When Kayijuka urged
them to continue supporting the Court against any local Gisakan leader,
the Fathers affirmed their intention to do so. Two weeks later, in an ef-
fort to ease the tension between the Court and the Zaza mission, one of
 Catholic Church, German Administration & Nyiginya Court 39

the Save Fathers replaced the Father Superior of Zaza. En route to

Zaza, the new Father Superior visited the Court to assure it of his ab-
solute neutrality in the “rather delicate” situation in Gisaka. But once in
charge of the mission, the Father Superior found it impossible to dis-
engage from the commitments his predecessor had already made. The
next month he wrote to the Save Fathers asking them to intercede at
Court to prevent Mpumbika from losing command of the hill Zaza.
With the new Father Superior thus engaged in the cause of the Gisakan
notables, the number of people coming to Zaza to complain against the
Rwandan notables grew each day. Apparently receiving no satisfaction
on the question of who was to command the hill Zaza, the Fathers
barred some of the mwami’s cattle from pastures on the hill. This move
must have caused shock and anger at Court; after all, did the land finally
belong to the Rwandan mwami or to the Catholic Fathers? The Court
asked the Save Fathers to see that the cattle were returned to the pastures
and to warn their colleagues at Zaza about the notables of Gisaka who
were trying to sow discord between the Court and the missionaries.51
By July the Court had decided to resolve the Mpumbika case. The
mwami recalled forty of his cattle that Mpumbika held from him,
saying he no longer wanted him as a client since he clearly preferred
the support of the White Fathers. The Father Superior realized that he
could not handle this issue personally, so he sent Mpumbika to present
his case to Captain von Beringe, who had recently been appointed dis-
trict officer at Bujumbura. Mpumbika apparently argued his case well,
since he returned with a letter to the Court indicating that he was not
to be deprived of his cattle. The mwami appealed once more to the
Fathers at Save, asking them if he could no longer do as he wished, if he
were no longer master in his own kingdom? At the same time the Court
sent off sixty envoys to present its side of the case to von Beringe.52
The envoys spent two months paying court to the German officer
and returned to Rwanda only in September when von Beringe himself
came to visit the mwami. By this time the officer was undoubtedly fully
informed of all the royal complaints about both the people of Gisaka
and the White Fathers. He came with instructions from the governor of
German East Africa to cooperate completely with the mwami, whom
he was to regard as the ultimate authority in Rwanda. He was not to
interfere in Rwandan internal affairs except at Musinga’s request.53
When the Father Superior of Save learned that von Beringe was at
Nyanza, he went to ask him to permit the founding of a new station,
preferably at the Court, and to order the mwami to build schools near
40 Catholic Church, German Administration & Nyiginya Court

the present stations and to encourage his people to attend them. The
Fathers, who had heard that von Beringe was friendly to the missions,
were astonished that he refused all their requests. He replied that were
they to establish a station at Nyanza, the Court would simply move
away; that the Fathers had enough stations in Rwanda for the moment
in any case; that to build schools would serve no purpose; and that the
mwami could neither prevent nor encourage his people to learn—each
was free to do as he wished. Even more surprising was that the officer
supported the Court’s demand that Mpumbika come to Nyanza at once
and sent three soldiers to see that the summons was obeyed. Before
leaving to continue on to northern Rwanda, von Beringe did assure the
Father that Mpumbika need spend only two months at Court, perform-
ing the customary services for his ruler; he would later return to Gisaka,
still with hills to command, although the number might be reduced
since the mwami felt that he had too many.54
Confident of German protection after these victories over the
Fathers, the Court moved to make an example of Mpumbika. Although
it merely imprisoned the notable himself, thus observing German wishes
that he not be harmed, it executed fourteen of his clients and friends as
soon as Mpumbika and his entourage arrived from Gisaka. The execu-
tions were supposedly ordered by Ruhinankiko and were carried out by
one of his favorites.55 In November the campaign against the notables
of Gisaka continued within Gisaka itself, with several more killed,
wounded, or pillaged. The Zaza Fathers, who greatly regretted the exe-
cution of Mpumbika’s men, in part because they saw that their prestige
would suffer because of it, became involved once more. “Doing every-
thing possible to prevent a war,” the Fathers protected some notables
and saved the property of others, including that of Mpumbika, who was
still held prisoner at the Court.56
When von Beringe learned of the killings, he ordered his subordi-
nate Lieutenant von Parish, who was stationed at Shangi, to investigate
the case. Whether from convenience or from a desire to give an impres-
sion of solidarity with the missionaries, von Parish held his inquiry at
Save. After concluding that the Court was responsible for the slaughter
of men whose safety had been implicitly guaranteed by von Beringe,
von Parish traveled to Nyanza in early January 1903 to impose a fine of
forty cattle on the mwami. Musinga protested that he had not even
known of the killings until after they were over. Mpumbika himself sup-
ported the testimony of the mwami and asked that he not be fined for
the killings. This may well have been one case proving the truth of the
 Catholic Church, German Administration & Nyiginya Court 41

proverb ntihica umwami hica rubanda: “It is not the mwami who kills, it
is his followers.” But when von Parish continued to insist that Musinga
must take ultimate responsibility for the actions of his subordinates,
even for a subordinate as powerful as Ruhinankiko, the mwami yielded
and paid the fine.57

Power Struggles at the Court:

Kabare and Ruhinankiko
Since the arrival of the Europeans, the Court, aware of its own limi-
tations, had dealt skillfully with the problems and advantages created
by the presence of the powerful strangers. Unable to ban the Fathers, it
had restricted their impact by relegating them to Save and by isolating
them from the Tutsi. Playing on the missionaries’ desire for good rela-
tions, it had cut them off from Cyitatire, the one Tutsi in the area who
constituted a threat, and had won from them a declaration that they
were the “whites of Yuhi, not of Kyitatire.” Concerned by the unrest in
Gisaka, the Court reached an accommodation with the Fathers over the
Njangwe case; when this proved insufficient to guarantee the support of
the missionaries in Gisaka, the Court engineered an impressive move-
ment to the church in the Save area while proving more hospitable to
the Fathers at Nyanza. The result was that the Court found greater sup-
port from the Fathers, and German intervention had soon repressed the
Gisaka uprising, expelled the troublesome trader Spears, and punished
the Court’s enemy Cyoya—all to the benefit of the mwami. The Court
then exercised its control over the new adherents of the Save mission,
forcing many of them to withdraw from their association with the
Fathers, while at the same time it wooed the Zaza Fathers, who occu-
pied a crucial position in the still delicate Gisaka situation. When the
Fathers at Zaza switched their support to local Gisaka notables, the
Court spent several months maneuvering to win them back, working
through their colleagues at Save. When all else failed and the test of
strength drew in the Germans, the Court won their support against
both the Fathers and the people of Gisaka.
But then the Court, seriously misjudging the extent of German sup-
port, executed Mpumbika’s followers and brought upon itself punish-
ment by the Germans. Although it had previously yielded to European
demands (as in the Njangwe case), and had curried favor with the
foreigners to secure their aid (as in the Gisaka uprising), the Court had
never before been obliged to recognize the full implications of the
42 Catholic Church, German Administration & Nyiginya Court

submission that it had made to the Germans in accepting the protec-

torate. While the Shangi battle had shown that the mwami lacked the
force to exclude foreigners from his country, the Mpumbika affair dem-
onstrated that he no longer had the power to administer the kingdom
with the autonomy he might wish. The Court was forced to accept that
there was now a superior authority that might not intervene often in
internal affairs, but that could intervene when it willed to do so.
Kanjogera, still the controlling force at Court, held Ruhinankiko
responsible for the crucial misstep that had led to the German assertion
of authority. She began to be swayed by those who argued that Ruhi-
nankiko’s policy of accommodation with the Europeans was too costly
for the benefits it procured. As Ruhinankiko’s policy came under attack,
his opponents massed for a challenge to his leadership. Although he had
displaced his brother Kabare as Kanjogera’s chief adviser and had had
him relegated to Bugesera, Ruhinankiko had never been able to destroy
Kabare’s power completely. Among the royal entourage there were still
many who preferred Kabare, who was apparently the more affable of
the two. Their ranks were swelled by all those who sought revenge for
the killings and pillage engineered by Ruhinankiko in 1899 and 1900, or
who hoped to profit from the reassignment of domains that would in-
evitably follow from the replacement of one favorite by another. Ruhi-
nankiko was accused of cutting the Court off from the people and of
exploiting the wealth of the country for his personal profit or that of his
clients.58
In February or March 1903 Kanjogera recalled Kabare from Bu-
gesera. By April the confrontation between the two brothers was clear.
For nearly two years, members of the two factions, evenly matched in
strength, struggled openly at Court, insulting and accusing each other
almost daily. Tension was so high that no notable came to Court un-
armed. From the time that Kanjogera recalled Kabare, she seemed to
be leaning to his side, but she was reluctant to commit herself too defin-
itively to one or the other. Musinga, on the other hand, clearly favored
Ruhinankiko. He may well have realized that if he were ever to assume
effective leadership, he would need strong allies in wresting control from
his mother and her family. Ruhinankiko, who had been cast in the role
of protector of the Banyiginya ever since he tried to save Musinga’s
brothers Baryinyonza and Burabyo from execution by Kanjogera and
Kabare in 1897, was more likely to fill that role than Kabare, who
seemed tied to the interests of the Bega.59
 Catholic Church, German Administration & Nyiginya Court 43

Standing with Musinga and Ruhinankiko were two leaders of the

Banyiginya: Sebuharara, an extremely personable mutware, and his
cousin, Cyaka. Musinga’s great affection for Sebuharara made it diffi-
cult for Kabare to dispose of him. Many of the Court feared that if they
acted against the mwami’s favorite during these years when he was just
becoming aware of his own power, they might stand to suffer once he
gained full control of the kingdom. Musinga’s hand, and thus that of Ru-
hinankiko, was strengthened by the presence at Court of the Indenga-
baginizi, the regiment that was then in training as nucleus for a new army.
Because Musinga himself was a member of this regiment, the young
men who belonged to it felt a special loyalty to him. Openly rejecting
the authority of their leader Ruhararamanzi, who belonged to Kabare’s
faction, they swore that they would assassinate Kabare himself if he ever
harmed one of their number. Musinga also promised that if any one of
them were killed, he would avenge him as soon as he took effective
command of the kingdom. Kabare, however, skillfully eliminated the
threat posed by these young men by gradually dispersing the members
of the regiment back to their home regions.60
In October and again in November 1903, Kabare’s men and Ruhi-
nankiko’s men engaged in small battles in Gisaka, but intervention by
the Zaza Fathers kept the fights from becoming serious. By January 1904
Kabare was powerful enough to send Sebuharara and Cyaka away from
Court, depriving them of most of their domains.61 Afraid for their even-
tual safety or anxious to secure what possessions remained to them, the
two tried to flee north to Ndorwa, accompanied by many of the young
members of Sebuharara’s regiment, the Abashamba. They were met by
troops of the Court at a hill called Rwata, where the two leaders and
hundreds of their men lost their lives after inflicting heavy losses on the
Court warriors.62 *
By eliminating Sebuharara and Cyaka, Kabare had greatly weak-
ened Ruhinankiko. Ruhinankiko’s cause suffered further in September
1904 when leaders of the Abarasa regiment who had been implicated in

*Apparently, some of the group had escaped the day before and sought help from a
German officer who was camped about twenty-five miles away, but he arrived too late to
save Sebuharara and Cyaka, who had burned themselves to death in a house when they
saw their cause was lost (Kagame, Les milices, 124, 136–37).
44 Catholic Church, German Administration & Nyiginya Court

the Gisaka uprising and who were still in exile in Burundi sent word to
the Court that they would like to return to Rwanda but feared Ruhinan-
kiko’s vengeance. This message reminded Kanjogera of Ruhinankiko’s
failures in Gisaka and at the same time tempted her with the return of
important men who would support the Court—once Ruhinankiko were
removed from it.63 Still Kabare hesitated, seeking stronger backing for
his final move. In November 1904 he reputedly asked von Grawert, who
was then at Nyanza, to allow him to kill Ruhinankiko and several of his
supporters “who wanted to rule in place of the king.” Von Grawert
supposedly refused, suggesting that he merely deprive them of their
commands instead. Finally, in January 1905 Kabare emerged victorious:
Ruhinankiko lost all but a single hill of his domains and was ordered not
to appear again in the inner enclosure reserved for the elite at Court.64
Kabare replaced all of the leaders of Ruhinankiko’s faction with men
from his own following. But, perhaps because of von Grawert’s refusal
to sanction Ruhinankiko’s execution, Kabare refrained from the killings
that had usually followed such a shift in political fortunes. In fact, his
elimination of Cyaka and Sebuharara and their men in April 1904 had
marked the end of the bloody era that began with the coup at Rucunshu
in 1897.
 3
The Miss io na ries, t h e C o u r t ,
an d t h e L oc a l C o mmu n i t y,
1904– 1910

Inkehwe ikubitirwa mukwayo.

[A man without a protector is beaten up to the door of his own house.]

I n the struggle for power at the Court, Kabare could argue that al-
though Ruhinankiko had mustered European support at critical junc-
tures, he had not managed to restrain the growth of European power.
While the Court was occupied with internal dissensions, by the end of
1903 the Fathers had established three more stations in addition to those
existing in Save and Zaza, one without the Court’s consent.1 The three,
Nyundo, Rwaza, and Mibirizi, were all distant from the Court at Nyanza,
but in combination with Save and Zaza they formed a chain encircling
the kingdom. Besides supporting enemies of the Court like Mpumbika,
the missionaries had gone so far as to expel several notables from the
domains they had received from the Court. The Fathers then appointed
replacements of their own choice or assumed command of the domain
themselves. On such an occasion, one Father commented that rule by
the missionaries could give nothing but satisfaction to “these poor
people.” He continued: “Certainly no harm could come from this
transfer of authority into the hands of a true Father of a religion whose
motto is ‘Justice and Fraternity.’”2 By 1904 word of the power of the
Fathers had spread even to Burundi and the Congo, where rulers facing
difficulties sent pleas for help to stations in Rwanda.3
As Kabare’s influence with Kanjogera grew, he persuaded her that
the Court must act more vigorously against the missionaries. When
the Fathers at Zaza placed a catechist in Buganza, an area of eastern

45
46 The Missionaries, Court, and Local Community, 1904–1910

Rwanda highly prized by the Court for its fine pastures and its historical
associations with the birth of the dynasty, the Court immediately de-
manded an explanation of this action, which had been taken without its
consent. The Fathers answered in a conciliatory fashion that they did
not plan a permanent establishment in the area, so the Court let the
matter drop temporarily. But when the catechist continued his preach-
ing, Kabare ordered his house burned and the teacher driven out. At
about the same time, the Court dispossessed Mpumbika, indicating to
the Fathers that it was planning to take a firmer stand against their
clients. Even Kabare was forced to acknowledge the impossibility of an
outright attack on the well-guarded missions. Instead, in February 1904,
he began a campaign of harassing messengers and caravans traveling to
the missions: this hampered the work of the Fathers while warning
Rwandans that the Court disapproved of any association with them.4
The Court resented the arrival of foreign traders—European, Arab,
Indian, and East African—as much as it did the installation of the
 The Missionaries, Court, and Local Community, 1904–1910 47

missionaries. Until the mid-nineteenth century, foreign traders had

been excluded from Rwanda and had had to exchange their goods at
the frontier. Musinga’s father, Rwabugiri, had permitted a certain num-
ber of East African traders, known as basumbwe, to enter the kingdom
and to trade after having paid tribute to the Court. At the beginning of
Musinga’s reign, the Court still regarded the right to trade as a grant it
gave to its clients, Rwandan or foreign, and from which it could draw a
profit. Even transactions among Rwandans at the few Court-established
markets in the northwest and southwest were supervised and taxed by
Court appointees.* Not understanding or not wishing to recognize the
Court’s prerogative, the Germans did not require traders who entered
Rwanda after the establishment of the protectorate to observe the cus-
tomary procedures. Nor did they impose regulations of their own: in
their eyes, Rwanda was open to all who cared to trade there. By 1904 sev-
eral hundred traders had come to take advantage of the opportunities.5
Some of the caravan leaders, especially the Europeans, visited the
Court on their own initiative, either because they wanted an escort to
requisition provisions for them en route or because they realized the
Court had accumulated the greatest concentration of resources with
which to buy goods. But many of the smaller traders held that the po-
tential aid or purchases by the Court would be outweighed by the de-
mands that it would make in return. They avoided Nyanza altogether.
Caravan leaders who did not secure Court representatives to accom-
pany them sometimes traded for the supplies they needed, but more
often they simply expropriated provisions from the local people. Traders
who hoped to sell cloth or beads in return for cattle or cattle hides found
that most Rwandans valued their cattle more than the foreign goods. To
stimulate the desire to trade, the foreigners resorted to force or threat of
force. As a German official commented, the Rwandans had no defense
against the demands of the traders unless they were ready to use vio-
lence themselves. Many of the East African traders were from Buganda
and were at least nominal Christians; they usually sought shelter at the

*That is in part why external traders mostly avoided formal markets overseen by
Court officials; in the nineteenth century and the early years of the twentieth century
most commerce was carried out through individual barter by itinerant traders.
See D. Newbury, “Lake Kivu Regional Trade,” 6–30; Lugan, “Echanges et routes
commerciales,” 33–39; Lugan, “Les réseaux commerciaux au Rwanda,” 183–212.
48 The Missionaries, Court, and Local Community, 1904–1910

missions and then made use of their link to the Fathers to extract more
provisions or to force more trade with the reluctant people of the area.6
Troubled though Rwandans were by persistent and demanding
traders, they never suffered the ravages of large-scale slave trading.
Rwandans had long kept in bondage some of their fellow countrymen
or foreigners captured in war. But generally they treated these servants
(known as baja) well, sometimes adopting them into their families.
During the reign of Rwabugiri a limited trade in slaves from west of
Lake Kivu and from northwestern Rwanda began to develop. Some
East Africans and Arabs came to buy slaves at a market at Kivumu in
north-central Rwanda, but they never made raids of their own to obtain
victims.7 As elsewhere in Africa, the trade was most vigorous during
times of famine, when people were obliged to sell others to obtain food
for themselves. Occasionally Rwandans sold children from their own
households or lineages, but such a sale was condemned by the rest of the
community. More often the victims were strangers or orphans with no
kin to protect or avenge them. Although some of the traders may have
paid court to the mwami, they apparently did so as general traders
rather than as slave traders. The Court, at least under Musinga, did not
acknowledge that the trade existed within the kingdom. Rwandans re-
garded the traffic as shameful, to be carried on as privately as possible,
Tutsi notables, however, sometimes aided the traders in making pur-
chases in return for part of the profits.8
Because external traders who disregarded the authority of the Court
had first dared enter Rwanda in the wake of the Germans, and because
many of them found refuge with the Fathers, the Court saw them as
clients of the Europeans. Like messengers and porters traveling to the
missions, these clients were far more vulnerable than the Europeans
themselves. Hoping both to frighten the traders into leaving Rwanda and
to demonstrate its resentment at the traders’ patrons, the Court began
attacking East African, Arab, and Indian traders in May 1904. By the
following September, between one and two hundred traders (and their
servants and wives) had been killed and all their goods pillaged.9 The
district officer, Captain von Grawert, was in Rwanda at the time of the
first attack. As yet unaware of the abuses committed by the traders,
he retaliated against the Rwandans who had assailed them, pillaging
and burning homes and crops for two days. While von Grawert was at
Nyanza, however, the Court won him over to its position; when he re-
turned to Rwanda in June and July, he refused to aid traders who had
survived Rwandan attacks or to punish the Rwandans who had assailed
 The Missionaries, Court, and Local Community, 1904–1910 49

them. As von Grawert’s refusal to support “his men” became known

throughout the kingdom, Rwandans interpreted it as a victory for the
Court. Probably with the encouragement of the Court, some spread the
story that von Grawert had become a mugaragu (client) of Musinga and
would henceforth do his bidding. The longer and further the story circu-
lated, the more fantastic it grew: some related that the Court had actu-
ally killed the German officer.10

The Extension of Royal Power to the North

During the months when the Court was beginning its attacks on clients
of the Europeans in central Rwanda, Fathers at the northern mission of
Rwaza had been experiencing growing difficulties with their “Bakiga”
neighbors.* The Bakiga had originally welcomed the Fathers, hoping
that the foreigners would ally with them against the Tutsi notables who
were trying to extend their control over the area. Rwabugiri had raided
this region several times, forcing some of the lineages to submit and pay
ikoro prestations to him and his batware. Other lineages, however, had
retained their independence: Court notables who ventured onto their
hills were fortunate to escape with their lives, to say nothing of the tax
revenues. The Fathers recognized that an alliance with the Bakiga
against the notables offered the greatest promise of immediate success
for the mission. But their superior at Save, Monsignor Hirth, had in-
sisted that they cooperate with the notables even at the risk of alienating
the local population. In accord with his instructions they tried working
through the local leaders, but the representatives of the Court saw these
autonomous authorities as rivals, not supporters, and gave them little
help. Nor were the Fathers any more successful. When they tried to get
one notable to requisition wood for construction from the Bakiga, he
answered their request with “a twisted little tree cut in three pieces.”11
Despite the evident ill-will of the Court notables, the Fathers continued
to advocate for the extension of their control over the area, thereby
losing the favor of most local people. Within several months of the
missionaries’ arrival, Bakiga were refusing to come to work or to sell

*The people of these regions did not always accept the Hutu–Tutsi social parameters
of the Court; instead there was a greater shared identity among people in these regions
as Bakiga, “the people of the mountains.”
50 The Missionaries, Court, and Local Community, 1904–1910

food at the mission. Those who associated with the Fathers were scorned
and beaten, sometimes even by the men of their own lineages.12
The Bakiga resented the missionaries not just because they were
supporting the Court notables but also because they were themselves
becoming demanding rulers instead of the babyeyi, or “parents,” that
they had originally promised to be. Rwaza had been the one mission
founded without the consent of the Court. Having no Rwandan Court
authority to grant them land, the Fathers had simply appropriated the
property they wanted. Although they paid the original holders of the
land, the dispossessed resented being forced to leave the property that
had belonged to their lineages for generations. Other Bakiga saw the
Fathers’ actions as a dangerous precedent that might one day result
in the loss of their own holdings.13 Because the missionaries needed a
great many workers for their construction projects, and because the
Bakiga refused to present themselves voluntarily to work for salaries, the
foreigners obligated the local notables or lineage heads to provide them
with eight hundred to a thousand workers per day. The Fathers re-
warded those who supplied the laborers and even gave a minimal salary
to the conscripted laborers.14 But the Bakiga felt that the payments
hardly compensated for the loss of their autonomy and the obligation to
work for the interlopers whom they feared and hated. In relying on
forced labor as in appropriating land, the Fathers were following pat-
terns established by Court notables who had moved into other regions.
The Bakiga around Rwaza who were aware of these procedures else-
where but who had not yet submitted to such demands from the Court
notables found themselves obliged to endure them from the Europeans.
When faced with resistance to their demands or with attacks on their
permanent employees (mostly East Africans), the Fathers and their
several dozen armed guards did not hesitate to execute punitive raids.
When German troops were in the area, they called upon them as well for
help in establishing their version of law and order around Rwaza. In late
July 1904 the Fathers launched such a raid in response to cries of distress
from several of their workers, who claimed to have been assailed without
cause while cutting trees in the forest. In fact the incident had developed
when the Bakiga tried to resist arbitrary demands by the Fathers’ men
for beer and livestock. But in this case, as in many others, the Fathers did
not suspect the abuses committed by their workers. Instead they severely
punished the Bakiga, killing several and destroying homes and crops.15
Coming after several similar incidents in the preceding months, this
attack pushed the Bakiga to unite against the foreigners. For two weeks
 The Missionaries, Court, and Local Community, 1904–1910 51

they alternately laid siege to the mission and defended themselves

against the raiding parties sent out by the Fathers. They were encour-
aged by the rumor of von Grawert’s death, which reached the area of
Rwaza at this time. As soon as the Fathers realized the seriousness of the
attack, they summoned help from a nearby Belgian post (in the Congo)
and from the mission at Nyundo. Aided by the Belgian officer and the
two Fathers from Nyundo (who had brought with them a force of two
hundred Rwandans), the Rwaza Fathers set out to take vengeance on
their assailants. The people in the immediate vicinity of the mission
quickly realized that safety and profit lay on the side of the Fathers.
Mobs of a thousand and more swelled the ranks of the attacking mis-
sionaries and joined in pillaging their less fortunate neighbors. The most
valuable booty captured was of course cattle. The Fathers kept some for
their own herd and gave others to the Fathers from Nyundo; then, like
Rwandan batware back from a military expedition, they distributed the
rest to their most valorous followers.16
The Fathers, who had not yet been able to establish good relations
with the notables, mistakenly attributed the decision to attack the mis-
sion to these representatives of the Court. Such was the hostility between
the notables and Bakiga that if the notables had proposed an attack, the
Bakiga would probably have abstained. The Bakiga even took advan-
tage of the general unrest following the attack to kill several envoys sent
by the Court to the area. Once the attack had been launched, however,
the notables encouraged the Bakiga to rid the area of the Fathers if they
could. While pretending to help, the representatives of the Court did
their best to handicap the Fathers in the struggle: the guides whom they
provided misled the Fathers’ raiding parties; the warriors who were
supposed to be helping in an attack disappeared quietly over the nearest
hill. The notables, like those in central Rwanda, harassed messengers
traveling between missions. They stripped one unfortunate of his
European-style clothes, symbol of his allegiance to the Fathers, and sent
him naked on his way.17

Adjudicating—or Avenging—Conflict
between the Missions and the Court
News of the violence at Rwaza may have briefly revived hopes at
Court of expelling the Europeans from Rwanda. In early August the
Fathers at Save heard that twenty bulls were being sacrificed daily at
Nyanza to determine if such an attempt could succeed. Whether these
52 The Missionaries, Court, and Local Community, 1904–1910

rites actually took place or whether this rumor, like many then circulat-
ing, was just another effort by the Court to frighten the Fathers and their
followers, the Tutsi did not take advantage of the trouble in the north to
attack missions in the center of the kingdom. But they did continue to
assail traders and the messengers and porters of the Fathers during
August and September. In late August the Court was even so bold as to
prevent two government soldiers from landing their boat on the shore of
Lake Kivu.18
When a caravan traveling to Zaza was pillaged in August, the Fathers
raided the area where the attack had occurred. At the homes of several
representatives of the Court, they retrieved much of the material that
had been taken. They also took several prisoners before being driven
away by a volley of arrows. When they reported the incident to Mon-
signor Hirth in Bukoba, he secured thirty soldiers from the Germans to
accompany the caravan that he sent to Zaza several weeks later. While
passing through the region of the first attack, this caravan also encoun-
tered trouble: in the ensuing battle, the soldiers killed at least ten men,
captured others, and pillaged many cattle. They delivered one prisoner,
the brother of a local notable, to the mission where the Fathers held him
for ransom—for fifteen cattle, a sum which they computed would pay
the cost of the ammunition they had used in punishing the area.19
After the Fathers at Rwaza had beaten off the attack of the Bakiga
and the Fathers at Zaza had taken such harsh reprisals against the assail-
ants of its caravans, the Court reassured the Fathers at Save that it had
no intention of making war on any of the missionaries. It also promised
them that their envoys would in the future travel freely throughout the
kingdom. By late September the Court knew that von Grawert had
been apprised of the incidents of July and August and that he would
soon be at Nyanza. Aware of the war that the Germans had waged the
previous year in Burundi against its uncooperative mwami, the Court
dreaded similar punishment, Musinga sent gifts of cattle to the Fathers,
even accompanying one such tribute with the declaration that he was
the mugaragu of the missionaries. In this way the Court hoped to win
the protection of the Fathers against possible German reprisals.20
Although willing to show submission to the missionaries, the Court
was not yet so frightened as to bow to their wishes completely. On in-
structions from von Grawert, Musinga heard the case of the Zaza Fathers
against the notables whom they held responsible for the pillage of their
caravan. One of the accused had already committed suicide during his
confinement at the mission. Musinga freed all the rest with the comment
 The Missionaries, Court, and Local Community, 1904–1910 53

that Tutsi simply did not steal. He did, however, deprive one of the
accused of his four domains in Gisaka and gave them to the Zaza
Fathers in compensation for their losses.21
Despite the fears of the Court, von Grawert arrived with the inten-
tion of restoring stability rather than meting out punishment. As he in-
formed the Fathers, he did not believe it worthwhile to make war for the
sake of a few cloth merchants. The German officer hoped to avoid any
open conflict that might lead neighboring colonial powers to think that
German control of Rwanda was ineffective. He was also concerned
about the internal political situation. Von Grawert’s fellow officer at Bu-
koba had reported that he had been asked for assistance by the clients of
Ruhinankiko’s protégés Cyaka and Sebuharara who had survived the
attack by warriors of the Court at Rwata the previous April. According
to the survivors, Kabare wanted to oust both the Europeans and Mu-
singa himself from the kingdom. As von Grawert may have realized,
this account was distorted by the survivors’ hopes of winning German
support for Musinga and Ruhinankiko, whom he favored. But the re-
port did alert von Grawert to the seriousness of the divisions that split
the Court. Fearing that punishment of the mwami might precipitate
total collapse, he preferred to be lenient in his judgment of the Court.
The district officer was convinced that the attack at Rwaza had been a
spontaneous local movement, so he had no trouble absolving the Court
of any responsibility in it. He did acknowledge that the Court had
sparked the attacks on traders in central Rwanda and ordered it to pay
five hundred cattle to merchants who had lost their goods. He blamed
the killings of merchants on several of Kabare’s clients who were
brought to Nyanza in chains and given twenty-five lashes each.22
Von Grawert then left Nyanza for several weeks to tour the rest of
Rwanda. At Rwaza, where the threat to European lives had been real
and where no considerations of Court politics were involved, he carried
out devastating reprisals on the Bakiga who had attacked the mission.
In the end the Fathers themselves had to ask mercy for some of their
neighbors. The German officer further drove his point home by threat-
ening that if the mission were ever attacked again, he would return to
inflict similar damage every six months, just before each harvest, until
the people of the area perished.23
During von Grawert’s absence from Court, some of his soldiers
(probably from East Africa or Burundi) used the opportunity to hu-
miliate the Tutsi prisoners left in their charge. They forced them pub-
licly to eat chicken, the food of Europeans, which the Tutsi considered
54 The Missionaries, Court, and Local Community, 1904–1910

loathsome. The many important notables who were obliged to witness

this act chorused in the background Ishyano mu Rwanda, “What a terrible
thing for Rwanda.” Later the soldiers forced the Tutsi notables to lower
themselves to the level of the Hutu agrarians by cultivating crops. These
insults may have made an even greater impression on the Court than
the soldiers’ killing several prisoners who were supposedly trying to es-
cape. Kanjogera was so horrified by these reprisals that she reportedly
fled Nyanza, while Kabare was supposed to be making his own prepara-
tions to go into hiding.24
After von Grawert and his men had left Rwanda, and the immediate
sting of the humiliations they had inflicted had eased, the Court could
look with some satisfaction on the results of Kabare’s policy of firmer
resistance. If the Court had hoped by a combination of harassment of
the Europeans’ clients and rumors of attacks to induce the Europeans
to leave, this aspect of their policy had failed. But their campaign
against traders had cleared Rwanda completely, if only temporarily,
of all foreign merchants except two white men. The Court and many
notables had profited handsomely from the pillage of the caravans of
the traders and missionaries. When in 1905 small groups of traders began
drifting back into Rwanda and again causing difficulties, the Court
complained to von Grawert’s representative, Lieutenant von Nordeck,
who had them arrested and beaten at Nyanza. After von Nordeck had
left, the Court felt he had authorized it to deal with traders as it wished:
their regiments continued to capture and abuse all those who displeased
the Court.25 In March 1905 von Grawert obtained an ordinance from
the governor of German East Africa closing Rwanda to all traders ex-
cept those licensed by the Germans. One condition of receiving such a
license might be the obligation to pay court to Musinga before begin-
ning to trade in Rwanda.26 This probably reflected the desires of the
Court, which did not wish to halt all trade but rather to control it for its
own profit.
The two white traders who had continued their commerce in cattle
during the worst attacks against foreign merchants were an Austrian
named Schindelar and a Boer named Pretorius. Unable to secure the
kind and quantity of cattle they wanted for the prices they were willing
to pay, the two resorted to taking hostages, beating notables, or simply
raiding the most attractive herds. When von Grawert had been in Rwanda
in October 1904, he had acted on the Court’s complaint against these
two and had required them to make restitution for the cattle stolen.
When they later resumed their commerce in northern Rwanda, the
 The Missionaries, Court, and Local Community, 1904–1910 55

Court hesitated to act directly against them and again called for German
aid. In the meantime, the Bakiga of the north executed their own form
of justice, killing forty-nine of Pretorius’s men, confiscating his cattle,
and driving him from the region stripped of even his personal posses-
sions. Lieutenant von Nordeck arrested Schindelar and Pretorius and
allowed Musinga to try them. The mwami decided to take two-thirds of
their cattle as compensation for the damage they had done, permitting
them to keep one-third.27
The Fathers turned the Schindelar-Pretorius case to their own ad-
vantage. For several months they had been trying to persuade the Court
to grant them yet another mission site, one in the very heartland of
the kingdom. After two brusque refusals from Kabare, the missionaries
asked von Nordeck to pressure the Court into making the concession.
The officer threatened to release the cattle traders unless the Court con-
sented to the new foundation. Finding the propaganda of the Fathers
less obnoxious than the continued confiscation of the cattle of the
kingdom, the Court agreed to the new mission. Von Nordeck then en-
forced Musinga’s judgment against the traders and expelled them from
Rwanda. Both he and the Fathers recognized how hostile the Court was
to the new mission, so von Nordeck provided a temporary guard of sol-
diers for the post, which was established at Kabgayi, not far north of
Nyanza.28

Missionary Enterprise and

the Mobilization of Hutu Labor
During the height of the 1904 crisis, when rumors proliferated that the
Court would attack the missions, the number of Hutu attending classes
at Save had dropped by 50 percent, while the people near Zaza were re-
fusing instruction altogether. When the Hutu near Rwaza attacked that
mission, the people of the vicinity who had been associating with the
Fathers quickly deserted them. As these incidents showed, Hutu were
attracted to the missionaries primarily because the foreigners appeared
powerful; when they saw the power of the Fathers waver, their loyalty to
them did not last.29
Like the notables, the Fathers first demonstrated their power in an
area by requisitioning goods and services from the Hutu. The demands
of the missionaries for labor for their initial temporary installations,
burdensome though they were, could be met by the people of the imme-
diate vicinity.30 When the Fathers began to plan for grander and more
56 The Missionaries, Court, and Local Community, 1904–1910

permanent structures, however, they realized that the labor required

far exceeded what they could obtain through pressure on local notables
or lineage heads. They would have to appeal to the Court, which
could mobilize thousands of men through the Court’s ngabo, or regi-
ments, the organizations used traditionally to call upon men for fight-
ing or porterage in war, or for building the residences of the mwami or
the batware.
When in July 1905 the Fathers at Save decided to begin constructing
the first permanent church in the kingdom, they requested the Court to
arrange the transport of several hundred giant trees from a forest three
days distant from the mission. The Court reluctantly named several of
its notables to supervise the work, giving them authority to call up some
of the ngabo of southern Rwanda. For four months approximately ten
thousand men were forced to labor for the new church. This “work of
the Romans,” as a Father proclaimed it, caused serious problems from
the start. Although the porters received a small payment for their work,
they complained that the Fathers must be trying to push them to revolt
by burdening them so heavily.31
The notables, better paid for their services, nonetheless used the op-
portunities offered by their positions to enrich themselves even further
at the expense of the Hutu. They excused from the labor all who would
bring them gifts, imposing the remaining burden on those too poor or
too stubborn to bribe them. Such a procedure limited the number of
workers available and so delayed the entire project. When the Fathers
impatiently demanded greater efficiency, the notables began hiding the
felled trees deep in the forest where the Fathers could not hope to find
them.32 As difficulties grew, the Fathers themselves interfered with in-
creasing frequency in the transport. Such interference distressed the
Court, because it demonstrated even more clearly that the missionaries
were the real authority demanding the labor; as one Father noted, the
Court was becoming known as the servant of the foreigners.33 Since
Save was only one of six stations, the Court saw similar demands being
made at all the others. Indeed, the Fathers at Zaza at one point planned
to ask the Court to provide one hundred thousand men for its construc-
tion projects, but they later dropped the plan.34 The immediate effect of
the Fathers’ oppressive requisitions was “disastrous” for the mission, as
one missionary commented, but in time these demands—showing the
power of the missions to command men—resulted in just that increased
respect for the Fathers which the Court most feared.35
 The Missionaries, Court, and Local Community, 1904–1910 57

The Dilemma of Proselytization

During their first years in Rwanda, the Fathers asked a different kind of
service from the people in their vicinity, one that previous authorities
had never demanded. Anxious to win converts, the missionaries and
their catechists visited the neighboring hills to urge the Hutu to come to
the mission for instruction. However, in many cases they overstepped
the line separating encouragement from requirement, sometimes in-
advertently but more often purposely. As the Father Superior of Save
wrote in March 1902: “It is indeed certain that with the Negroes more
than with others, salviter which inspires trust is necessary, but also fortiter
which inspires fear is required, because if one does not push them a
little (compelle intrare [the Latin actually means to force them to enter])
they will greatly delay the moment of their conversion.”36 This pressure
rather than any enthusiasm for the new religion brought many Hutu to
the missions. A Father at Save lamented, “[we have] very many who
have taken instruction, very many who come to the mission [but] . . .
rather few, perhaps 300, show themselves to be frankly for God.”37 In-
deed, many who were studying the catechism continued to perform the
ceremonies of the Imandwa belief system.*
After a visit to the Rwandan missions in 1903, Monsignor Hirth de-
cided that the Fathers had been relying too much on pressure in making
converts. He ordered them to withdraw the catechists whom they had
placed on neighboring hills, to send home catechists who came from
outside Rwanda, and to permit only informal proselytization by Rwan-
dan converts among their own relatives and friends.38 This more grad-
ual approach was itself abandoned after 1907, perhaps because the ar-
rival of a contingent of Protestant missionaries in that year stimulated
fears of losing large numbers of Rwandans to the “heretical” faith.
Once more, the Fathers began calling at the homes of the Rwandans;
once more, they obtained small holdings on the more distant hills where

*The Imandwa represented a set of religious belief patterns followed across the
Great Lakes region. These practices transcended separate family ritual practices,
combining many independent spirits and mediums into a coherent religious family, and
backed by traditions explaining the relationships among the diverse Imandwa spirits.
See Berger, Religion and Resistance; de Heusch, Le Rwanda et la civilisation interlacustre; and
Lyangombe.
58 The Missionaries, Court, and Local Community, 1904–1910

their catechists could live and teach those who found it difficult to come
often to the mission.39 This system of pressure operated efficiently for
years, although it was severely criticized by the Regional Superior of the
order:
The Negroes are often inclined to believe that [those] . . . who
come to us to receive religious instruction are thus fulfilling a duty
[corvée] which is due to us, like requisitions of a different kind are
due to temporal chiefs, native or European. . . . Catechists, . . .
tempted to see themselves as soldiers or agents of government, are
sent by the missionaries into the villages to gather the inhabitants
together voluntarily or by force to give them instruction for which
they feel no need and which they are not in the least disposed to re-
ceive. . . . Nor is it rare for the pressure and use of force to come di-
rectly from the missionaries who automatically register children
and young people . . . and even old people for catechism or school,
oblige them to come to the mission on certain days, and become
angry when the drafted recruits lack the desired assiduity and even
have recourse to violent methods to obtain this assiduity.40
As the Superior concluded, the system would “win no hearts,” but
it did substantially increase attendance at the missions. Rwandans
called this aggressive proselytization gutora, “to select” or “to choose out.”
Gutora had customarily described a mutware’s selection of the young
men who were to be his ntore, the elite warriors of his regiment. To be
chosen might mean wealth and prestige; but in any case, the invitation
could not be refused. In the same way, the Hutu did not dare refuse out-
right “selection” by the Fathers. Rather they tried simply to disappear or
to hide their children when the missionaries or their men were seen ap-
proaching. Or they pleaded illness or extra work as excuses to stay at
home. When the Hutu could find no excuse, they acquiesced in studying
the tenets of the faith or the letters of the alphabet as they accepted cul-
tivating for their traditional superiors or doing obligatory labor at the
mission.41
Nor did the notables usually openly oppose the Fathers’ attempts
at converting their subjects, bitterly though they resented them. They
knew that Hutu who began instruction would soon regard the Fathers as
patrons. When the notables were obliged to provide laborers for the
mission, they could take some comfort in this use of their men being
temporary and occasional. But when the Fathers began pressing people
to come for instruction, the notables knew that they were exacting a
more permanent commitment for regular attendance at the mission.
 The Missionaries, Court, and Local Community, 1904–1910 59

Since each notable measured his prestige in terms of the number of

men he commanded and computed his wealth partly in terms of the
amount of service that he could get from them, the required religious
instruction challenged their power even more drastically than did the
Fathers’ requisition of laborers.42 By the time the gutora system was in
full effect just before World War I, some notables were seeking to pre-
serve part of their power by compromising with the Fathers. They of-
fered to divide their men with the missionaries, as batware had custom-
arily shared their subjects with newly appointed rivals who were seeking
men to expand recently established regiments: if the notables sent all the
men from one hill for instruction, the Fathers would agree not to prose-
lytize on another.43 But the missionaries, true to their perceived duty to
convert all, steadfastly refused such arrangements. Relying on German
orders that each man was free to take instruction, they continued to exert
pressure that guaranteed that all who wished to convert and many who
did not would attend their classes. When forced into a confrontation with
the Fathers over the issue, notables publicly ordered that any of their
subjects who wished to take instruction could do so; then they exercised
their imagination to the full, devising ways secretly to impede the Hutu
from complying with the Fathers’ invitations.44
Throughout Rwanda the Fathers exerted pressure both to satisfy their
material needs and to oblige the Hutu to learn their dogma. In the out-
lying areas where the control of the Court was not yet well established—
at Mibirizi, Rwaza, Zaza, Murunda, and Rulindo—the missionaries
demonstrated their power even more directly. Either from a desire to
help their followers or from a sense of obligation to keep the peace, they
frequently became entangled in local disputes within or between lineages
or between Court notables and their subjects. They also found it neces-
sary to defend their property or messengers from attack in these areas
where even notables sometimes could not travel freely. The Fathers
themselves owned and used guns. In addition, during the early years,
several stations employed armed East African guards to assist the Fathers
in defending the mission or in keeping order in the region.45 When the
Fathers at Rwaza set out to punish those who had attacked the mission
in 1904, their small contingent was joined by large mobs of people from
the neighboring hills who were eager for the opportunity to plunder
under cover of the Fathers’ guns. Fathers at other stations almost invar-
iably attracted similar support whenever they attacked Hutu who had
harmed the interests of the mission or who persisted in troubling their
neighbors. In some cases the missionaries actively encouraged such
60 The Missionaries, Court, and Local Community, 1904–1910

groups to join them, summoning them with the customary sounds of

drum and horn that announced warfare; sometimes they just could not
prevent the mobs from following them. Unable to control these volun-
teers, the Fathers stood by while they pillaged the supposedly guilty
parties to their own satisfaction. Some of the first adherents of the Rwaza
mission recalled that the prospect of pillage was the major force attract-
ing the early supporters of the mission.46

The White Fathers’ Local Relationships

The Fathers preferred to settle all but the most serious disputes with
minimal involvement by the German authorities. Most of their stations
were too distant from German posts to be able to count on prompt
aid, but even at Mibirizi and Nyundo, where there were posts nearby,
the Fathers hesitated to call on the officials. Indeed, on those occasions
when the missionaries did summon government troops to attack an
area, the Hutu realized clearly the part played by the Fathers in their
punishment.47
But there were other tensions as well between the two forms of con-
trol. Although the Germans had originally favored the establishment of
missions as an inexpensive and efficient means of instituting European
control over Rwanda, they had learned from the Mpumbika affair and
similar cases that the Fathers could cause grave problems or exacerbate
conflict. The Germans also suspected that the missionaries, who were
mostly French-speaking if not of French nationality, would rather have
Rwanda governed by a frankly Catholic power, Belgium or France.
That the Rwandans sometimes called the Fathers Abafaranza, “French-
speakers” or “Frenchmen,” and that the Fathers did not effectively dis-
courage this practice stimulated this suspicion.48 The Fathers in turn re-
sented the German distrust but never found the means to dispel it.*
The Fathers’ use of violence, whether independently or through
government troops, naturally caused greater resentment among its vic-
tims than did their more pacific exercises of power. But by the same

*Although the order was international, including some Germans and Luxembourgers
serving in Rwanda, most White Fathers in Rwanda were indeed French (and some were
from Alsace, where resentment of Germans ran especially deep). Cardinal Lavigerie’s
religious base was in Nancy, in northeast France, not far from the Alsatian border.
 The Missionaries, Court, and Local Community, 1904–1910 61

token, the use of violence taught the Hutu to fear and respect the
Fathers more rapidly and dramatically. After many of the attacks, the
victims appeared at the mission with gifts to “make their submission” to
the Fathers. In some instances the gifts were meant only to guard against
similar reprisals in the future, but in others the tribute was the first step
toward a continuing association with the mission. As one Rwandan
remembered it, the Fathers attacked to proselytize.49
The results of each intervention or punishment varied according to
the circumstances of the case and the wisdom of the Fathers involved.
Sometimes a missionary could restore harmony to a lineage torn by
conflict, or stop short a battle by intelligently manipulating the parties
involved. But at other times, Fathers not wholly competent in the lan-
guage or ignorant of the local customs or over-anxious about their own
prestige could bring danger or injury to themselves and others. In one of
the worst such cases, a disputing lineage that was certain of the Fathers’
support used the cover of a supposedly peaceful conference with its
enemies in the mission yard to fall upon them, killing several while the
Fathers stood by helplessly.50
Rwandans quickly realized the utility of associating themselves with
the Fathers in order to be able to call on their support against all who
oppressed or threatened them. From the time a mission was founded,
the Hutu of the area sought the protection of the Fathers against the
representatives of the Court who ruled them. Many used attendance
at the mission as an excuse to refuse all customary obligations to the
notables. The Hutu tried this maneuver most often after the Fathers
themselves had secured some relaxation of customary obligations for
potential converts to facilitate their attendance at instruction.51 In other
cases Hutu rejected all orders of their shebuja (their patrons in an ubuhake
cattle contract), saying that they now had new patrons who would
protect them from any reprisals by the old. When engaged in disputes
with kin or neighbors, Hutu relied on the aid of the Fathers as well to
ensure victory.52
Since conflicts whether between superior and inferior or between
peers often culminated in judicial cases, one of the contenders usually
asked a missionary to hear the case. Although Rwandans recognized
and respected judicial expertise, they knew that the settlement of cases
depended more on the respective strength of the parties involved than
on the technicalities of precedent or even the facts of the case. The man
who secured a powerful protector to hear his case ordinarily won it. The
Fathers, who were both powerful and easily manipulated because of
62 The Missionaries, Court, and Local Community, 1904–1910

their relative ignorance of language and law, made ideal judges for their
adherents. Their popularity as judges grew until some Fathers were
called upon to hear cases virtually every day. The Father Superior at
Rwaza, for example, dealt with so many cases and found their complex-
ity so great that he kept a register of decisions for future reference.53

Like influential Rwandans who were ordinarily shebuja as well as

notables, in addition to exercising authority in the vicinity of their stations
the Fathers also dispensed wealth to their clients. Most Fathers regarded
traditional ubuhake as an impediment to their work because, as one
Father wrote, “A chief who has a cow has control over the man who has
borrowed the cow”;54 the clients of notables most hostile to the missions
would not lightly displease their shebuja by taking instruction. But some
of the missionaries—perhaps recalling the dictum of the founder of
their order, Cardinal Lavigerie, to “Be apostles, be nothing but that, or
at least be nothing except to that end”55—decided that they could be-
come shebuja themselves. Using the cattle they had purchased or ac-
quired through punitive raids, they secured bagaragu of their own to
work for, instead of against, the spread of Christianity. The missionaries
encountered serious problems, however, when they tried to use the
cattle to control the behavior of their clients. When they recalled their
cattle from clients who displeased them, as Rwandan shebuja did, they
found that the dispossessed rejected their teaching as well as the mis-
sionaries themselves; having become Christian to obtain a cow, they saw
no reason to continue accepting their shebuja’s religion once the rela-
tionship had been dissolved. After several years’ experience with this
kind of religious ubuhake, one Father bemoaned the reliance on grants
of cattle: “What harm these cattle have done to this poor mission!” add-
ing later that “many . . . [had] received baptism almost solely to receive
the profit of a cow.”56
The Fathers also had land to distribute to their followers. The grants
originally made by the Court to the missions had been vague in terms of
the boundaries and the rights attached to them. Before 1903 the Fathers
apparently held their land at the pleasure of the Court, probably send-
ing some form of payment to Nyanza once or twice a year. After 1903
the Fathers urged that their tenure made permanent and unconditional.
With German support they arranged over the next several years to pur-
chase their holdings from the Court for cloth or currency. The property
 The Missionaries, Court, and Local Community, 1904–1910 63

at Save was 200 hectares; at Kabgayi, 120; and at Zaza, between 100
and 125.57
Such extensive holdings in the densely populated kingdom neces-
sarily encompassed the arable land or pasture of some Rwandans. The
Fathers sometimes permitted the original occupants to remain on the
land without further arrangement, but more often they expropriated
the property, paying them for the land itself and for any crops on it. In
areas where the land had not yet come under the control of the Court or
wealthy Tutsi, the Hutu resented the expropriation as much as they
would have similar action by representatives of the Court. The Fathers
invariably found the land exceeded their own needs, so they then
granted the remainder to those who solicited it, often the very people
whom they had dispossessed.58 This was the same way in which notables
extended their control over the holdings of Hutu lineages. The Fathers
also distributed plots to Hutu who had left their original holdings be-
cause of conflict with their kin or with their superiors, to strangers from
other regions, even to Christians who came from outside Rwanda.59 The
Court apparently expected the missionaries to grant land to their fol-
lowers as its notables did to their men: when Kanjogera dispossessed a
Christian and the Fathers complained to Musinga, he answered that the
Christian was their man; they could easily grant him a part of their own
holdings. If the Fathers revoked their grants of land, the results often re-
sembled the consequences of their recall of cattle. At Save one of the
“most devout” Christians returned cross and rosary to the Fathers after
they had taken back part of the land that they had granted to him.60
As distributors of land, the Fathers were banyabutaka (notables in
control of the land) as well as shebuja (patrons through cattle clientship)
to the men on their property. Like banyabutaka, the missionaries col-
lected payment in labor and crops for the use of the land.61 Originally
unaware of the complexities of the Rwandan political system, the Fathers
failed to recognize that a man had multiple obligations to several au-
thorities. Instead, they assumed that as banyabutaka they had exclusive
control over their men and tried to prevent batware who ruled the same
men as members of their ngabo from giving them orders. In so doing
they created endless disputes with notables jealous of their own author-
ity. Sometimes one party or the other called in German officials to sort
out their conflicting claims.62 Annoyed by the time lost and the bitter-
ness engendered by these disputes, the Germans restricted the holdings
acquired by the Fathers after 1908 to twenty or twenty-five hectares of
sparsely populated land. The officials tried to require that the original
64 The Missionaries, Court, and Local Community, 1904–1910

inhabitants leave the property immediately and permanently and that

the Fathers no longer play the role of banyabutaka.63 In some cases the
missionaries ignored these restrictions, usually while trying to arrange
questions of authority privately with the local notables. The Hutu did
their best to hinder such attempts at arrangement because they wanted
to use the confusion over their obligations to escape traditional duties.64
These conflicts of authority damaged the interests both of local notables
and of the Court itself. Since the batware had been granted the right to
command by the Court, any incursions on their authority lessened its
own suzerainty.65
In addition to the customary forms of wealth, the Fathers offered
other valuables to their clients. The missionaries combated the slave
trade by stopping all caravans passing in their vicinity and freeing the
captives. At first, they sheltered the victims only briefly before sending
them back to their homes. But perhaps because they believed the vic-
tims would only be subject to recapture, perhaps because they did not
want to lose the opportunity to proselytize, the Fathers at Zaza began
keeping at the mission those whom they had freed. Since they lacked the
resources personally to care for and educate those freed, the mission-
aries assigned them to converts who were supposed to give them this
attention in return for assistance in their homes and fields. Some of
the “guardians” exploited and abused the freed slaves, who may have
suffered as much from this Christian form of bondage as they would
have from other more usual forms of servitude. The system never en-
compassed more than several hundred freed slaves and lasted only a few
years, but it did reinforce the image of the Fathers as generous distrib-
utors of wealth—and benefits—to their favorites.66
The Fathers established rudimentary schools at all their missions to
teach reading, writing, and arithmetic as well as catechism. Since the
Rwandans at first saw no reason to prize European skills, the Fathers
used material incentives to spur attendance. Sometimes the children
were paid outright; at other times they received a salary in return for
some work that they did after school hours. Young Rwandans gradually
came to realize that European education guaranteed long-term as well
as immediate benefits, especially after the establishment of the German
Residency in 1908 and the ensuing growth in the business community
increased opportunities for employment. The most promising of the
young scholars found all their needs met by the Fathers. Some were sent
on to higher studies at a seminary, while others were provided with jobs
 The Missionaries, Court, and Local Community, 1904–1910 65

with other Europeans. Those who remained in the employ of the mis-
sion were often given both land and wives by the Fathers.67
Rwandans from all levels of society saw the missionaries as dispensers
of much coveted trade goods. The ordinary people sought beads and
cloth, while the notables wanted such novelties as umbrellas or dog
collars. The exchange of produce or livestock for these items was always
easier and sometimes possible only for those who stood well with the
Fathers. At Zaza such good relations depended on mastery of religious
knowledge: those who brought produce to exchange for cloth could carry
out the trade only if they could also recite the Lord’s Prayer.68
From their very arrival the Fathers were said to have a capacity that
could determine the fates of their Rwandan neighbors: the power to
control rainfall. Musinga and his notables often turned to the mission-
aries when drought threatened, especially when the efforts of traditional
rainmakers had failed. In several instances when rain was critically
needed, large numbers of Rwandans began to take religious instruction,
either spontaneously or on the orders of their superiors. They brought
gifts, too, to encourage the Fathers to arrange for the rains; after the rain
had fallen they brought more tribute to show their gratitude. Although
the missionaries usually tried to explain that they did not cause the rain
but merely prayed for it, they did keep on accepting the gifts and enroll-
ing the supplicants in their classes.69
Rwandans were attracted by the power and wealth of the Fathers,
not by their appearance or habits. One Rwandan recalled that when he
first saw one of the Fathers striding across his hill in his long white robe,
he was so horrified he wanted the earth to open and swallow him; when
it did not, he ran as fast as he could in the opposite direction.70 Rwan-
dans sometimes called the Fathers and other Europeans ibituku, “red
things,” because of the unappealing color they assumed when exposed
to the tropical sun. Most Rwandans, particularly the Tutsi and those
most under their cultural influence, scorned eating as a vulgar bodily
function not to be carried out or even discussed in polite society. The
Fathers and the employees whom they brought from East Africa were
plainly much concerned about what they put in their stomachs and had
no compunctions about publicly satisfying their hunger. Among the
foods that Rwandans found most disgusting were chicken and eggs; they
kept chickens only to provide animals for divination. When the mission-
aries consumed these foods with such apparent relish, the Rwandans re-
ferred to them as hyenas or classified them as Twa, deemed inferior in
66 The Missionaries, Court, and Local Community, 1904–1910

every way (and often taken to be forest dwellers outside of normal civil-
ization); sometimes they were not counted as human beings at all. As fit-
ting tribute to men who so forgot their dignity as to feast on such things,
the Rwandans sometimes met European requisitions of food by giving
them rotten eggs.71 Since the Fathers had brought no cattle with them,
some Rwandans assumed that they had not known this animal before
their arrival in Rwanda. The donkeys and pigs that the missionaries had
brought were seen as pathetic substitutes for the noble cow. As a sign of
their disdain, when called upon to furnish the Fathers with cattle, Rwan-
dans sometimes sent the most decrepit beast available, convinced that
the Europeans would not know a good cow from a bad one. And indeed,
in one case a Rwandan gave a “cow” to the Fathers, who graciously ac-
cepted it only to discover the next day that the “cow” was a bull.72
If Hutu found reason to ridicule the Fathers, all the more did Tutsi
notables look upon them with contempt. The Europeans’ assertion of
racial and cultural superiority challenged the elite Tutsi’s own claim to
occupy the pinnacle of ethnic and cultural development. One Euro-
pean traveler noted that one could easily distinguish Tutsi from Hutu:
the Tutsi with their finer sensitivities were so much more offended by the
odor of Europeans that they covered their noses and mouths when in
the company of the foreigners.73
At first most Rwandans scorned any of their fellows who associated
with the Fathers. As the benefits of such association became increas-
ingly clear, however, many grew more tolerant of those who sought pro-
tection or wealth from the missionaries, especially if this were done on a
temporary basis for plainly defined ends. But they continued to call
those who made a permanent commitment by converting to Christian-
ity inyangarwanda, “haters or repudiators of Rwanda.” Elite Tutsi con-
demned the inyangarwanda most consistently and harshly, but even Hutu
preferred not to associate with them. Especially in the early years the
converts were treated like Twa—excluded from sharing drinking straws
or pipes with others, and ridiculed whenever possible. Their kinsmen
and former friends refused the food and lodging customarily offered to
even casual acquaintances. Parents exposed to such ostracism because
they had allowed their children to attend mission classes sometimes sub-
sequently resorted to beating or tying up their children to keep them
from the mission.74
During their first two or three years in Rwanda, the Fathers relied on
foreign employees, catechists from Buganda, and guards and laborers
 The Missionaries, Court, and Local Community, 1904–1910 67

from other parts of East Africa. As they attracted greater numbers of

Rwandan followers, the missionaries used them to replace the foreign
Africans. Rwandans who became catechists naturally were converts, but
others who had not completed or even begun religious instruction some-
times attended to the material aspects of mission life. The employees of
the mission, known as barungu, were usually distinguished from other
Rwandans by their dress. Too much men of the world to use traditional
skins or bark cloth, they wore lengths of woven cloth or discarded Euro-
pean clothing that they had obtained from the missionaries. Some Rwan-
dans particularly recalled the little hats the barungu wore, perhaps old
fezzes gotten from the Fathers who originally wore them as part of their
habit.75
Christians in general, and particularly employees of the mission,
from time to time used the power that derived from their association
with the Fathers to intimidate their fellow Rwandans. Converts confis-
cated hoes from those who cultivated on Sundays, or beer intended for
use in ceremonies of the Imandwa religion. Messengers and porters and
guards of caravans extorted gifts or simply plundered along their routes.
Those who requisitioned supplies or laborers for the Fathers collected
produce or livestock from Hutu or Tutsi who wished to be excused from
meeting the demands. One ambitious man at Rwaza built up a fine herd
of cattle within a year by using this method. When the gutora system of
enforced religious instruction was operating, catechists could require or
excuse attendance at class, and many grew wealthy from this preroga-
tive. Playing on the Fathers’ known opposition to traditional divination
or sacrifice, the catechists required gifts before allowing such ceremonies
to be carried out in their vicinity. Some catechists forced notables to pay
them well to avoid fabricated denunciations as enemies of religion.76
A number of enterprising Rwandans with no real association with
the mission also learned to profit from supposed ties with the Fathers.
Some had worked briefly for Europeans or traveled outside Rwanda
and so could impress potential victims with a few words of Swahili or
another foreign tongue. Others relied on material signs, such as reli-
gious medals, tools, or even pieces of paper that they had managed to
acquire. Since the Fathers frequently did send their barungu along to
make requisitions or supervise labor in an area, Rwandans had difficulty
distinguishing the real from the imposter. At Mibirizi the Fathers adopted
the usage initiated by the Germans of sending a bullet along with
an envoy when they wanted goods or laborers. At least one Rwandan
68 The Missionaries, Court, and Local Community, 1904–1910

profited from this by arming himself with a “rifle” made of a hoe handle
and a sack of “bullets” made from reeds; thus equipped, he lived well
for some time.77
Many of those victimized by real or supposed followers of the mis-
sion did not dare complain to the Fathers. Notables who themselves
suffered or saw their people suffer exploitation ordinarily feared further
problems if they complained, so they too kept silent. When the mission-
aries were informed of abuses committed by genuine adherents of the
mission, they sometimes excused the exploiters with no more than a rep-
rimand, especially if the offenders had managed to cover their crimes
with a supposedly religious rationale. When the Fathers heard of illegiti-
mate use of their authority by those with no tie to the mission, they invar-
iably did their best to capture and punish the offender, but they learned
of only a small portion of the incidents that actually took place.78
After Kabare’s attempt to oppose more vigorously the spread of Eu-
ropean power, the authority of the Fathers continued to grow as they
requisitioned goods and laborers, used force to protect themselves and
their followers, intervened in disputes and judged cases, and distributed
wealth to their favorites. Exercise of power by their followers, real or
supposed, magnified the impact of their own use of authority. By 1908
Musinga was writing to the Fathers wategetze neza, “you have com-
manded well,” using the traditional term to describe their use of power.
Some notables even acknowledged the Fathers’ authority by giving
them a portion of the tax they had collected for the Court.79 Hutu had
become so accustomed to viewing the missionaries as rulers that when
asked to name who commanded the hill of Mibirizi, one replied, “We
have no rulers but the Fathers.”80 At other missions the Hutu offered to
stop cultivating when one of the Fathers died because this was the usual
practice when a notable died.81 Some of the Fathers accepted the role of
ruler only with qualms, but others willingly and even eagerly assumed
power. One Father complained querulously when faced with resistance
to his orders, “These people of Gisaka respect no one, not God or par-
ents or chiefs,” failing to indicate in which category he placed himself.
Another denounced a disobedient man as igisome, “rebel,” traditionally
applied to those who refused to recognize the authority of the mwami.82
Monsignor Hirth, as well as his superiors in the order, tried to restrain
the growth of the missionaries’ power because it hindered cooperation
between the Fathers and the Court and notables. Letter after letter rep-
rimanded the Fathers for their interference in secular affairs. One Father
relaying Hirth’s instructions wrote:
 The Missionaries, Court, and Local Community, 1904–1910 69

Do not meddle in any aspect whatsoever of the affairs of the chiefs.

We have no business interfering in judicial cases, questions of taxes
or obligatory labor, movements or appointments of chiefs, deci-
sions of the king or his important Batwale [batware]; this is not our
mission and grace was not given to us for that. We must absolutely
not seek to make ourselves feared, to command or to dominate;
this is a dangerous error . . . [that] can only excite the animosity
and defiance of the chiefs.83

The Fathers acknowledged in principle the wisdom of winning the

notables rather than competing with them. They regularly preached
and sporadically practiced the rule that the authority of the Court and
its notables must be acknowledged. They sometimes went further and
tried to win the friendship of the notables with gifts, such as grants of
cattle or coveted pastureland.84 But these occasional attempts at coopera-
tion foundered on the Fathers’ susceptibility to pleas by the Hutu for
aid against the notables. The desire to protect a Christian or to attract
potential converts, or the more general obligation to insure justice or to
protect the prestige of the mission, led the Fathers into one dispute after
another with the Court and notables. Once the Fathers had regularly
exercised power, even abstention from involvement became a form of
action: since the balance between contenders shifted so easily according
to the attitudes of the powerful, refusal by the Fathers to intervene
weakened the position of the man who had sought their help. Only at
missions where Fathers had shunned secular questions from their very
arrival in the area could they or their successors hope to keep their po-
litical role a small one. The Fathers at Kansi succeeded best in avoiding
involvement, perhaps because their station was founded late enough—
in 1910—for them to benefit from the experience of their confreres.85
As the power of the Fathers became more firmly implanted each
year, the Court and its notables acknowledged the seriousness and per-
manence of the threat posed by the missionaries. The challenge of the
Fathers resounded even in the names given them by the Hutu, such as
Mwami w’abahutu, “the Mwami of the Hutu” and Rukizaboro, “Savior of
the Poor.”86 Instead of persisting in efforts to force them to leave
Rwanda, the Court and notables turned to developing ways to use the
power of the Fathers for their own ends.
Kabare and Musinga, circa 1910
 4
Mu s ing a ’s C o m in g o f A ge,
1905– 1913

Ahaje ubwanwa haba hanze ubwana.

[ When the beard appears, childhood disappears.]

W hen Kabare won supreme influence at Court in late 1904, Mu-

singa was a young man of twenty or twenty-one. He had already taken
several wives and fathered two or three children.1 According to Rwan-
dan practice, Musinga should have attained full manhood when he had
first married at the age of seventeen or eighteen. But after one of his
visits at Court, Kandt commented that the mwami was not likely to free
himself of the control of the Bega: “For I have seen too often how this
boyish figure at every word looks anxiously to the giant figures of Ruhe-
nankiko [Ruhinankiko], Rudegembja [Rwidegembya] among others, in
constant fear of finding disapproval in their eyes.”2 Kabare’s defeat of
Ruhinankiko saddened and humiliated Musinga, who had much pre-
ferred the loser to the victor. When Kabare and the other Bega used
Ruhinankiko’s fall to kill or dispossess many important Banyiginya who
had been associated with him, Musinga had no power to save his pa-
ternal relatives, not even those closest to him, like Sebuharara, who was
killed in the April 1904 massacre. During the struggle for power, Kabare
had dispersed Musinga’s own guard, the regiment named Indenga-
baganizi; in so doing, he had deprived the young mwami of his one per-
sonal source of support as well as of the social companionship of his
favorite comrades.
Musinga was a slender young man, about 6 feet 6 inches tall, but he
did not otherwise conform to the aesthetic ideal of the Tutsi. His upper

71
72 Musinga’s Coming of Age, 1905–1913

teeth protruded and his eyes were too prominent. Extremely near-
sighted, he often fixed his visitors with a myopic stare. Later in life he
was to be fitted with European-made glasses, but he apparently never
wore them regularly. He spoke slowly and rather softly. Like other Tutsi,
he shaved the hair from his head except for two crescent-shaped
patches. The direction in which the crescents faced were unique to him,
a sign of his royal position.* When attired in the leopard skins and
beaded headdress that symbolized his office, he made an impressive fig-
ure. In ordinary dress of loosely draped cloth tied at the shoulder he was
not a handsome man, although the German who recorded that “he is
the ugliest Ntussi that I saw in all of Rwanda” was surely exaggerating.3
The son of two powerful and strong-willed parents, Musinga must
have learned to respect parental authority early in life. Had Kanjogera
been simply a wife of Rwabugiri, Musinga would have seen his father
only occasionally: the mwami, like his notables, endowed his wives
with separate domains where they lived with their children and which
the mwami visited at his pleasure. But since Kanjogera became queen
mother after the enthronement of Rutarindwa as co-regnant in 1889,
she and most likely Musinga as well frequently traveled with the mwami.
The child undoubtedly feared his apparently omnipotent father, who
was renowned for his quick temper. Musinga probably knew that although
Rwabugiri favored Kanjogera over his other wives, his father did not
especially care for him. The mwami bestowed on Musinga none of the
real or ceremonial marks of esteem that he granted to some of his other
sons.4 His appointment of Kanjogera to reign with Rutarindwa demon-
strated that he differentiated sharply between his attitude toward the
mother and toward the son.

Musinga and His Mother

Although the shadow of Rwabugiri must have loomed over Musinga’s
early years, his development was far more closely guided by Kanjogera.
She had had only one other child, a son who had died in infancy. If the
relationship between them was like that in most Rwandan families, Mu-
singa slept in his mother’s bed until he was about three years old and

*The signs of royalty remarked on were symbolically important, but they were also
new, most dating only from Rwabugiri’s reign.
 Musinga’s Coming of Age, 1905–1913 73

after that shared her house, sleeping behind a partition. Between the
ages of ten and twelve, Tutsi boys ordinarily left their mothers’ homes
for the residences of their fathers’ shebuja or batware. There they
learned how to serve a patron and how to represent the interests of their
fathers. If chosen to participate in an itolero (the elite corps of a regi-
ment), they would be further trained in military, political, and literary
skills.5 Sons of bami were sometimes entrusted at this age to faithful ser-
vants or clients of the Court who were to provide for their security as
well as their education. Musinga supposedly spent some time in the care
of a Hutu client of Rwabugiri who lived in southern Rwanda. But by
the time of Rwabugiri’s last campaign against Bushi, which was cut
short by his sudden death, Musinga, then about twelve years old, had
rejoined the Court and participated in the attack.6
In Tutsi families the influence of the mother over her son often per-
sisted even after he was thrust into the largely masculine world of the
shebuja’s or mutware’s residence. Continuing maternal influence was
accepted as understandable but not desirable in a society where a son’s
interests were tied first and foremost to the lineage of his father. Such
domination by a mother was known as ubukururamweko, “trailing a woman’s
sash around after one’s self.”7 Among the Tutsi, the Bega women of the
late nineteenth century were said to be domineering mothers. As one
Rwandan concluded after giving numerous examples, “You may know a
woman is a Mwega if it is she who commands in the household.”8 But
even among the Bega, Kanjogera was renowned as an exceptionally
overbearing woman, perhaps because she had the intelligence to arrive
at the ends defined by her strong will. She was a handsome woman, tall
and well-built, but by her nature, “she was more man than woman.”9
Kanjogera began building her influence while Rwabugiri was still
alive. After his death and her participation in the coup, she became the
most powerful person in Rwanda. Although apparently unwilling or un-
able to act completely independently, she first controlled the balance of
power between Kabare and Ruhinankiko and then awarded victory in
the struggle to Kabare. Like the other Bega who had planned the coup,
Kanjogera feared the day when her son might develop a sense of loyalty
to his father’s lineage and would find the control of the Bega oppressive.
Although bami theoretically could not reign without their mothers,
many of them had found ways to limit or eliminate maternal influence.
The implicit threat that Musinga might act independently once he be-
came an adult made it all the more necessary for Kanjogera to control
him closely when he was an adolescent. At the same time she knew that
74 Musinga’s Coming of Age, 1905–1913

should Musinga die, she would find herself deprived of all wealth and
position. Haunted by fear of reprisals—supernatural or otherwise—by
the Banyiginya, Kanjogera sought to protect her son as much as herself
from any possible harm. Afraid of attack at night, she insisted that her
son continue to sleep in her quarters, although according to custom he
should have had his own house as soon as he became an adult. Tor-
mented by the fear that she or Musinga might be poisoned, she often re-
fused the food or drink that had been prepared for them, sometimes
making those responsible for it consume it on the spot to prove that it
had been safe.10
As Musinga became more mature, he increasingly resented Kanjo-
gera’s domination. Much of the bitterness between them resulted from
the coup. Musinga knew his position depended on the intrigues of his
mother and her kin, not on a right he had inherited from his father.
Kabare and Kanjogera constantly interfered with his attempts to renew
contacts with his paternal relatives, banning some of his brothers from
the Court. Kanjogera was said to have once reproached Musinga for
not expelling the Europeans from Rwanda; the mwami retorted that
since her kin had decimated the ranks of the Banyiginya, he had no
more reliable warriors to assist him in such a struggle.11 Although Mu-
singa sometimes privately maneuvered free of his mother’s control, he
never publicly opposed her. Throughout his adult life, he continued to
defer to her “like a child,” to accept her insults—she sometimes called
him an imbecile—and even her blows without protest. The pattern of
obedience established early had been established well.12

As the mwami, Musinga played the central role in the rituals that con-
tributed so much to the awesome character of the Court. As one Father
observed, the notables who were so arrogant and assertive when in their
own domains became suddenly humble and obliging when face to face
with their ruler at Court.13 After having completed the private religious
ceremony that began each day, Musinga would appear wearing his
beaded headdress and would take his seat at the entrance of his residence
to receive the requests and complaints of his notables. Only the most
favored notables were permitted to enter the inner courtyard before the
residence of the mwami, while their entourages, sometimes numbering
fifty or sixty clients each, waited in the public area outside the enclosure.
When pleas had been made and cases heard, Musinga would announce
 Musinga’s Coming of Age, 1905–1913 75

the decisions. Then the drums would roll and the assembled notables
would applaud, indicating their submission to the royal will. As one
participant recalled, the mwami would then put aside his headdress: “one
would say that today he is not going to kill us, that will be for tomorrow;
this mwami . . . is a good patron today; when he takes off his decorations,
the animal is no longer the leopard, now he is our kinsmen, although
there is always something of royalty which remains with him.”14
Although Musinga alone had the role of spokesman and so sym-
bolized the power of the Court, most Rwandans knew that his voice
had not been the only or even the predominating one in the decisions.
Kabare took his place among the other notables when cases were pre-
sented, while Kanjogera followed the arguments from behind a screen
within the residence. They were the final arbiters in deciding how to use
the traditional methods of execution, pillage, and reward to secure obe-
dience from the notables and their subjects.15 As late as 1907 Kanjogera
was still remarking, “If the Tutsi do not obey us, we will kill them”; but
the Court had been using such drastic measures less and less since Ka-
bare’s assumption of power.16 They depended rather on revoking com-
mands from those whom they distrusted, often subdividing the domains
into even smaller units to reward a larger number of supporters. The
Court had at its command more subtle means as well: it could demand
increased taxes or gifts from those who lacked respect, or it could retain
at Nyanza any notable who seemed inclined to disobey. In one case the
Court permitted an offending notable to return home only after the men
under his command had filled several enormous baskets with beads and
a large storehouse with hoes. The time required for the tribute to be
gathered allowed the notable’s rivals to gain strength in his region, while
the requisitions necessary to meet the ransom ensured that he would
lose support among his clients and subjects.17
While Musinga participated in these exercises of power against those
his mother and uncle feared, he could not use the same methods against
those he himself wished most to attack. He might occasionally persuade
Kanjogera and Kabare to pillage some unimportant notable whom they
had previously favored, but he would never be able to push them to harm
their own major clients. So long as Kanjogera and Kabare retained
widespread support from the influential and wealthy, Musinga could not
hope to rule independently.
For some time Musinga had realized the possibilities of using
the Europeans to strengthen his position at Court. Although neither
Ruhinankiko nor Kabare had shown any willingness to learn the skills
76 Musinga’s Coming of Age, 1905–1913

necessary for ready communication with the foreigners, Musinga had

begun to study Swahili in 1903 with a teacher provided by the Fathers.
By early 1905 the mwami could converse easily in Swahili with the
Europeans, the only person at Court able to do so.18
Following the attacks on traders and clients of the Fathers in 1904,
Musinga successfully divorced himself from the anti-European stance of
Kabare and Kanjogera. After investigating the incidents, von Grawert
reported to his superiors, “Musinga’s relation to the whole affair can
only be described as praiseworthy.”19 Musinga’s first attempts to im-
prove relations with the missionaries were cut short by his mother and
her kin. When Musinga accepted gifts from the Fathers in November
1904, agreeing to consider their request for a new mission site, Kabare
and his nephew Rwidegembya took the gifts and returned them to
the Fathers while at the same time rejecting the request. Several months
later, Kanjogera removed a Christian from his command, replacing him
with one of her favorite servants. When the Fathers protested to Mu-
singa that her action violated custom, Musinga did not argue the ques-
tion of rights but merely replied with regret that although he might be
mocked for his impotence, there was nothing he could do to change his
mother’s decision.20
In July 1905 Musinga again tentatively explored the possibility of
cooperating with the missionaries. He summoned a convert to Court to
question him on the Fathers’ attitudes toward himself and the Court and
on their future plans. Satisfied with the convert’s responses, Musinga
promised the man a cow, thus accepting as client one of the inyangar-
wanda, the “repudiators of Rwanda,” who were still deeply scorned by
Kanjogera, Kabare, and their followers. In August the Fathers sent two
new teachers to Nyanza to teach more Swahili and reading and writing
to Musinga and fifty children of his notables. Musinga obliged the mis-
sionaries by agreeing to provide porters for the timber needed to build
the church at Save. The Fathers responded with gifts they thought suit-
able for a ruler: an armchair covered in velvet and “an artistic bed with
mosquito netting, mattress and curtains.”21

Musinga and the White Fathers

This attempt at better relations foundered on the excessive demands
and tactless behavior of the Fathers. Musinga feared the power they
came to exercise through the massive wood-transporting operation, and
 Musinga’s Coming of Age, 1905–1913 77

he resented their abuse of his notables who did not comply rapidly with
the priests’ orders. In addition, the Fathers offended Musinga and his
counselors by disregarding his explicit prohibition against felling or
damaging any of several kinds of trees that were associated with the
spirits of past bami, or were thought for some other reason to embody
imana, the dynamic force of creation. In one instance, the Fathers tried
to dynamite one particularly venerable tree that was identified with the
spirit of the great mwami Ruganzu Ndori. The Court and many ordi-
nary Rwandans too must have been pleased when European technical
skill proved insufficient to uproot the giant tree.22
In the early months of 1906 Musinga’s growing distrust of the
Fathers drove him once more into accepting the guidance of Kanjogera,
Kabare, and their nephew Rwidegembya, who was increasingly favored
by Kanjogera. Under their influence, Musinga came into conflict with
the missionaries over their client Léon Rutwaza, a Tutsi who had lost his
commands in land and cattle some time before to his uncles who were
influential at Nyanza. Rutwaza had then sought employment and pro-
tection from the Fathers and had converted to Christianity. After their
hard struggle to obtain a site at Kabgayi in central Rwanda, the Fathers
had lacked the missionaries to establish the post immediately. In the
meantime they erected some temporary buildings, which they left under
the charge of Rutwaza, who was also to supervise building a more per-
manent station. The Fathers, like Rwandan notables, had taken charge
of a new domain, then moved on to other areas, leaving a favorite to
represent them. And like many such representatives in the absence of
their superiors, Rutwaza abused his powers to increase his influence in
the area, especially on the hills commanded by his uncles. When Rutwaza
began demanding labor and gifts from Hutu, they complained to their
customary superiors, who included Kabare and Rwidegembya. Since
the area around Kabgayi was one of the major regions from which
notables “drew their milk,” Kabare and Rwidegembya were angered
both by Rutwaza’s exercise of authority and by the loss to him of wealth
that might otherwise have been theirs. Musinga protested to the Fathers
and asked them to withdraw Rutwaza from Kabgayi, but they took of-
fense at the request and decided to defend their man. When the mission-
aries heard rumors that Musinga was planning to execute Rutwaza, one
went immediately to Nyanza to express his anger at the accusations
against his client: he even went so far as to threaten the mwami or any-
one else who injured Rutwaza.23
78 Musinga’s Coming of Age, 1905–1913

To his dismay the Father found the Court unmoved by his intimida-
tion. As he wrote, “After all we know it well; they are mocking us: they
know that we need their help and they wish to show us that they alone
command in Rwanda.”24 The new confidence of the Court rested on
recent reassurances given them by the Germans. In September 1905,
after an absence of three years in Germany, Kandt had returned to
Rwanda “talking as if he were to be Resident,” as one of the Fathers
commented acidly.25 In 1905 Rwanda and Burundi had each been put
under a civilian Resident who was to exercise his authority through the
mwami. Captain von Grawert was originally named to hold the two of-
fices concurrently. Since he spent the greater part of his time in Bujum-
bura, he or his superiors had arranged for Kandt to act as a semi-official
representative on the spot.26 Musinga had granted Kandt some land in
Nyantango, two days distant from Nyanza, where he devoted his efforts
mostly to scientific research. But Kandt remained in close touch with
the Court. His admiration for the Rwandan political system and his de-
sire to aid the mwami in strengthening his authority made him an effec-
tive advocate for Musinga with von Grawert. When the official Resident
visited Rwanda in February 1906, he had fresh in his mind the recent
Maji-Maji rebellion that had devastated a large area of German East
Africa. Kandt accompanied him to Nyanza, where the Court elab-
orated on all the recent demands of the Fathers. Von Grawert appar-
ently indicated to the Court that he would make the Fathers moderate
their requests and improve their behavior. And so, when a Father passed
by Kabgayi right after von Grawert’s visit at Nyanza, he heard rumors
that the Resident would expel the missionaries from this new station, or
that if he allowed them to remain he would forbid them to demand
labor from the people on surrounding hills.27
Soon after Kandt presented the German message directly to the
Fathers: the authorities feared another outbreak in East Africa that might
spread to Rwanda; this was hardly the moment to offend the Court by
excessive demands. The Germans would not support the requests of the
missionaries, who thus had to win the cooperation of the Court by their
own efforts, the more diplomatically the better. Kandt suggested that the
Fathers remove Rutwaza and personally supervise all future construc-
tion. He warned them that von Grawert had been so annoyed at their
involvement in political affairs that he had wanted to place a new mili-
tary post in Rwanda, primarily to supervise them. Kandt had dissuaded
him this time but predicted that he might not be so successful if the
question arose again.28
 Musinga’s Coming of Age, 1905–1913 79

The Court, the Germans, and the Missionaries

Faced with further trouble with the Fathers in the next months, Mu-
singa again made use of Kandt and von Grawert. When the Fathers
wanted to cut timber in the forest of Budaha, north of Nyantango, Mu-
singa replied that this was impossible because he had already designated
these trees for Kandt’s use.29 After reports of the Fathers’ clients insult-
ing, threatening, and even beating notables in their efforts to get trees
transported reached Court, Musinga informed Kandt, who repri-
manded the missionaries. When the Fathers again felled some of the
sacred trees, Musinga protested to von Grawert, who delivered a stern
warning to the missionaries to respect such trees.30 The Fathers at Zaza
sent several cases involving Christians to Court and urged Musinga to
decide for the converts. The mwami handed the troublesome cases to
Kandt who found the evidence insufficient and dismissed the whole af-
fair. During 1906 the Germans also decided to prohibit any foundations
of new missions in the near future. Whether or not this decision was
made at Musinga’s specific request, his complaints about the Fathers
must certainly have helped persuade the Germans to take this course.31
Yet Musinga still turned to the Fathers for particulars. For example,
as a symbol of his support for the mwami, Kandt had given him a gun.
But when he neglected to provide sufficient ammunition, Musinga did
not hesitate to request bullets from the Fathers.32 In a like manner, the
mwami wanted to use Kandt against the Fathers, but never at the cost of
completely severing relations with them; after all, the Fathers could still
help him against Kabare and might at some time be useful against the
Germans themselves. When the Fathers took Kandt’s admonition seri-
ously and tried for better relations with Musinga, the mwami readily
responded with compliments and gifts of cattle. When one of Kabare’s
clients accused the missionaries of again felling sacred trees, Musinga
saw the accusation as a tactic to isolate him from the Fathers. He quickly
accepted the explanation the Fathers gave of the affair, urging them not
to take offense at the accusation and not to return the cow he had given
them shortly before: to do so would demonstrate a clear break with the
mwami and so would weaken him in his struggle against Kabare.33
During August and September 1906 Musinga continued his studies
with a client of the Fathers, but of the fifty other Tutsi who had begun
to learn with him, only three remained, probably indicating that
Musinga was becoming more isolated by the anti-European group at
Court. During his interviews with his teacher and with Rutwaza, who
80 Musinga’s Coming of Age, 1905–1913

had been restored to favor and who now served as messenger between
Musinga and the Fathers, the mwami constantly inquired about the
missionaries’ beliefs, attitudes, and plans. His approach toward their
dogma softened sufficiently for him to declare, “I do not hate your God;
but I could never do what the Christians do.” When dealing with the
Europeans or their representatives, Musinga began receiving them
alone for the first time, sending away even Kabare and Rwidegembya.34
In October Musinga obliged the Fathers by ordering that more trees
be transported to Kabgayi. The notables subordinate to some of the
most important men at Court, including Kabare and Rwidegembya,
delayed or refused to execute Musinga’s commands. When the mwami
learned this, he was furious. Cooperation with the Fathers had become
a test of strength between the young man who wanted to rule and his
maternal relatives who wanted him only to reign. Musinga summoned
all the disobedient notables and made them swear one by one on his spear
that they would execute his orders. Impressed by this act, the notables
then complied with his commands. Rutwaza, who had brought the re-
port of their disobedience to Nyanza, wanted to return immediately to
Kabgayi. But Musinga, anxious to demonstrate his control over a man
of the missionaries and eager for the added support of his presence, in-
sisted that he remain several days at Court.35 To counter the charges of
Kabare’s party that the men of the missionaries were lost to royal au-
thority, Musinga sought opportunities to show his control over them. He
notified the Fathers, for example, that he wished converts to greet him
with applause, as did all other Rwandans, a custom they had apparently
been neglecting.36 On another occasion Musinga asked Rutwaza to read
a passage to him. The convert at first declined, saying he was barely
literate. But when Musinga insisted and Rutwaza obliged by stumbling
over a few words, the mwami congratulated him on his obedience and
rewarded him with a watch, “a Zenith.” Rutwaza had no interest in the
watch, which he immediately sold, but he rejoiced to think that the
“Zenith” was “the beginning of a cow,” which indeed it was. Within
several months this formerly outcast Tutsi had received the cow that
made him a mugaragu of the mwami.37 In December 1906 Musinga
once more pleased the missionaries by declaring that he would like to
see all his people learn to pray.38 Soon after, he indicated his trust in
converts by allowing one to serve as a royal drummer, a position of great
ritual importance.39
Throughout 1907 and into 1908 Musinga continued to draw strength
from his relations with the Fathers as he sought to wrest effective control
 Musinga’s Coming of Age, 1905–1913 81

of Rwanda from Kabare and his followers. In January 1907 the fire that
symbolized the vitality of the dynasty and which was kept constantly
burning went out through the carelessness of its guardians. Alarmed
at possible reprisals by the spirits of his ancestors, Musinga killed those
responsible. Kabare’s opponents accused him of having arranged the
accident.40 Although Musinga did not dare take up such a serious accu-
sation, which would have allowed him to rid himself completely of his
uncle, several months later he felt secure enough to revoke some of the
domains commanded by Kabare and his clients. In July 1907 he also de-
prived Rwidegembya of some prized pastureland and granted it to the
Fathers. In September Musinga decided that Kabare and Rwidegembya
lived too far from Court to allow for careful observation of their activi-
ties. He ordered these two most powerful notables to build their homes
at Nyanza itself on a site between the Fathers’ school and the residences
of some notables friendly to Musinga and the missionaries.41

The Missionaries as Mediators

to Court Confrontation
As Musinga consolidated his hold on power, the threatened notables
sought to protect themselves by improving their own relations with the
missionaries. The Fathers suddenly found notables were willing to pro-
vide men and materials for their construction projects, and were eager
to visit the mission, or to send their bagaragu (clients) or their ntore
(young warriors in training at their residences) to pay their respects for
them. Kabare took the lead in this movement. Although he did not
deign to visit the Fathers personally, his ntore came to the Kabgayi mis-
sion nearly every day. By September 1907 so many notables were visiting
Kabgayi that the missionaries sent the least important of them away
without the long conversation that Rwandans held to be the essence of
courtesy. In an astonishing contrast to the lamentations of even six
months before about the aloofness of the notables, the Fathers now
complained that the flood of Tutsi visiting them was interfering with the
daily work of the station.42
Even when relations between Musinga and the Fathers had deteri-
orated in 1906, the mwami had sought to retain some tie with the mis-
sionaries; so later, when relations improved, he did not abandon his
vigilance toward them. As one of the Fathers remarked perceptively,
Musinga’s installation of Kabare and Rwidegembya next to their school
at Nyanza was meant to control the missionaries as well as the notables.43
82 Musinga’s Coming of Age, 1905–1913

As he had done earlier, Musinga from time to time delayed providing

promised men or materials to remind the Fathers that his cooperation
was essential to getting what they needed. And as before, he turned to
Kandt and von Grawert when he felt the missionaries were interfering
with the exercise of his power.44
In July 1907 there arrived a new group of Europeans, Protestants of
the Bethel-bei-Bielefeld Mission, who offered Musinga yet another
prospect for balancing the power of the Fathers. When the leader of the
mission, Pastor Ernst Johanssen, first visited Nyanza to request land for
a station, Musinga inquired carefully into the differences between his
group and the Catholics. Most importantly, he wished to know if the
Protestants would try to expel the Catholics.45 Through contacts with
Christian traders from Buganda, to the northeast of Rwanda, Musinga
must have known about the grave conflicts engendered in their kingdom
by differences between Protestants and Catholics. Seeing the utility of
encouraging competition among the missionaries, Musinga refused the
sites proposed by the Protestants and instead granted them land near
the Zaza station. When the Protestants requested a second post the next
month, Musinga did his best to place them near Save, but he finally al-
lowed them to settle at Kirinda, a day’s travel northwest of Nyanza.46
In 1907 Musinga was eager for good relations with the Fathers too
because he hoped they would shield him from possible dangers arising
from the planned visit of the Duke of Mecklenburg, a member of the
German royal family who was to come to Rwanda in August. Musinga
and the Bega feared that every powerful European who visited the
Court might end their illegitimate reign and place a new heir on the
throne. Because Mecklenburg came with an impressive expedition of
more than six hundred soldiers and porters, and because von Grawert
exaggerated the nobleman’s importance to ensure his warm welcome,
his visit sparked especially great fear at Nyanza. Rumors multiplied:
some said the duke was himself a personification of the lost Biregeya;
others said he was bringing the prince with him to install on the throne.
Throughout the kingdom the usual conversation and visits among
notables gave way to collecting hundreds of pounds of food and hun-
dreds of goats and fine cattle for Musinga to present to the nobleman.
Musinga summoned all his major bagaragu and their clients to Court,
threatening to recall his cattle from any who did not come. Between six
and eight thousand notables gathered at Nyanza to protect their mwami,
who some believed would be taken captive by the powerful German.
Kanjogera supposedly fled Nyanza, while Kabare appeared only once
briefly during the duke’s visit.47
 Musinga’s Coming of Age, 1905–1913 83

Tension reached a peak when Musinga presented his gifts to the

duke; the procession of bearers took almost an hour. In the Rwandan
context of clientship, where acceptance of gifts by a shebuja indicated
approval of his client, the duke’s acceptance of Musinga’s tribute would
mean his continued support for the mwami. However, even after Mu-
singa’s gifts had been accepted, he could not relax: he was said to find it
impossible to sleep while there was a single European in his capital, and
now he found himself surrounded by ten of them with all their accom-
panying soldiers and servants. The only incident that marred the visit
was an attack on one of the duke’s messengers who was following the
expedition to Court. When the mwami learned of the incident, he con-
demned to death the accused assailant, a mugaragu of one of his most
favored notables.48
The strain of dealing with the Europeans and their implicit threat to
the rule of Musinga and the Bega produced a sharp reaction at Court in
the weeks following the visit. Musinga, said to be disgusted by the smell
of so many Europeans and so many European things, ordered bags of
toilet soap given him by the Germans removed from his storehouse and
thrown in a nearby swamp. He wanted only to be left in peace to recover
his composure. The notables too responded to the passing of the danger.
Some talked of how the Europeans had not dared harm their ruler,
while others released their repressed resentment on followers of the mis-
sionaries. A member of the expedition, the ethnographer Jan Czeka-
nowski, who had remained at Court to do research, received no cooper-
ation from the mwami or the notables. Despite his persistent inquiries,
they refused to recount to him the history of the kingdom. Perhaps
because they were appalled by Czekanowski’s careful attention to the
bones of victims of Court executions, which lay unburied in a cave near
Nyanza, they refused to allow themselves to be measured for his charts.49
Six weeks after the duke had left, a messenger of the Protestants
stole some goods and insulted one of Musinga’s bagaragu while en
route to Court. Musinga restrained his anger long enough to inform the
Protestants of their man’s misdoings. When the Protestants sent back
word that Musinga should punish the accused, the mwami and his
notables gave vent to the anger that lay below their polite exterior in
dealing with the foreign interlopers. First Musinga, then the notables,
beat the man until they were exhausted. Rwidegembya and Kayondo,
another Mwega just coming into prominence, punished the accused
most harshly. As the notables beat the man, they expressed the idea that
attacking the client of a strong man serves the same purpose as attack-
ing the patron himself: “It is a European whom we are beating,” they
84 Musinga’s Coming of Age, 1905–1913

said. Musinga supposedly declared that he had had to execute one of

his men who had robbed the duke’s messenger, and now he would kill
one of the Europeans’ men who had dared to injure his client. He hoped
thus to regain the respect of those who had been mocking him, saying
that he was afraid of the Europeans and that he was their man. After
the accused had been executed, the spirits of the notables soared. Some
pointed out the cadaver to a Father and told him that the mwami would
do the same to him if he did not obey.50
Having somewhat reestablished the balance with the Europeans
through this execution and having gradually won power from Kabare,
Musinga ended 1907 as mugabo ukomeye, a strong and mature adult.51
From this time on, Kabare’s importance declined slowly but steadily.
Aware of Kanjogera’s attachment to this brother, the mwami never
dared oust him completely from Court, but he did manage to limit him
to the role of elder statesman. Although only middle-aged, Kabare was
frequently ill and could devote less attention to public affairs. Kanjo-
gera, anxious for him to preserve his health, nagged him regularly about
drinking too much, but his condition continued to worsen. In 1909 he
left Court voluntarily for the first time since the coup and spent months
resting at his residence at Gisanze, near the Save mission.52
Seeking to strengthen his ties with the Fathers, Kabare called two
Christians to Gisanze and asked them to represent him at Save. During
the conversation, Kabare offered beer to the converts, thus breaking the
resolve he and many other Tutsi had maintained of not sharing a drink-
ing straw with the inyangarwanda, the “repudiators of Rwanda.” When
later questioned by a nephew about why he had done so, Kabare re-
minded the young man that his own father had been among the first
to drink with a Twa who had been ennobled by Rwabugiri. Clearly, a
pariah who had assumed great power was by definition no longer a
pariah.53 Throughout the next two years, Kabare maintained friendly
relations with the Fathers, giving them cattle and even visiting their
church. Musinga meanwhile countered his advances to the missionaries
with his own gifts.54
The conflict between the young ruler and his once all-powerful
uncle never openly exploded. Kabare grew steadily weaker until his
death in March 1911. By this time Musinga was firmly in command.
Those influential at Court, including Rwidegembya and Kayondo, were
then exerting their power through the mwami, not in opposition to him.
But if Musinga had triumphed over the Bega men, he had not freed
himself of the Mwega woman. On several occasions rumors spread that
 Musinga’s Coming of Age, 1905–1913 85

the mwami was seeking a site for a new residence and would return to the
pattern of shifting capitals followed by earlier bami. Such a system would
have permitted him to assign a residence to Kanjogera and to live sepa-
rately from her.55 But none of the attempts at relocation ever brought re-
sults. When Kabare died, Kanjogera became persuaded that Musinga’s
half-brother, Cyitatire, had poisoned him. So powerful was she that the
mwami had to advise Cyitatire to leave Nyanza until Kanjogera’s desire
for vengeance subsided; he could not guarantee the safety of even a
member of his own father’s lineage against his mother’s wrath.56

The Court’s Growing Alliance

with the Germans
The visit of the Duke of Mecklenburg symbolized rising German
interest in Rwanda and marked a turning point in relations between
the Court and the Germans. Since the establishment of the protectorate,
the German presence had been limited in extent and intention. Each of
the military posts at either end of Lake Kivu had had only one Euro-
pean officer—sometimes not even one was present—and a small num-
ber of East African troops. The military were to prevent any infringe-
ments on German territory from the neighboring Belgian and English
colonies and to keep the peace; they were not to intervene in local polit-
ical affairs. The civil administration, represented informally by Kandt,
usually took a stand in internal affairs only at the request of the mwami
or after great pressure from the missionaries. The soldiers had required
labor and supplies from the Rwandans in their vicinity, as had traveling
officials, but even these material demands had not seriously burdened
the Rwandans or offended the Court.
While the costs of the German presence had not been excessive,
the advantages had been substantial, providing the Court with support
against rebellious subjects and over-assertive missionaries. Several months
after the duke had left, the knowledgeable Kandt was officially named
Resident, replacing von Grawert. After assuming office on December
31, 1907, Kandt began planning for his new capital at Kigali in the cen-
ter of Rwanda. Musinga recognized that an administrative center in the
heart of the kingdom would mean more intensive European control,
thus altering the balance between the costs and benefits of association
with the Germans. For the first time in his relations with Kandt, he sent
him the cow and calf that customarily accompanied the request of a
mugaragu to his shebuja, asking the new Resident not to construct
86 Musinga’s Coming of Age, 1905–1913

the capital at Kigali. Kandt refused the request and pushed ahead with
his plans.57
The vast requisitions of labor and materials for building the town
first demonstrated the greater interference with Rwandan life that Mu-
singa had feared. To create the orderly though small capital he wanted,
Kandt made use of 32,000 work days for construction and another
28,000 for transport, mostly for wood from the distant forests of Bushiru.
The construction workers received a minimal salary, while the porters
received nothing. When the post of Gisenyi was being developed into a
town a year later, labor was also obligatory and unpaid, although there
then existed regulations forbidding such a procedure.58 Kandt continued
to allow caravans of traders to appropriate their supplies en route, as did
all officials of the administration. As Kigali grew into a market center,
the number of trade caravans increased. In 1910, 2,117 caravans with
more than 20,000 men came to Kigali; the Rwandans had to provide all
these men with food, water, and firewood. In 1911 the Resident recog-
nized that this burden was excessive and ordered traders to pay for their
supplies. Given the lack of supervision by the Germans, probably few
actually did so.59
Except for Kandt, none of the Germans who served in Rwanda
seriously tried to learn Kinyarwanda or to study Rwandan customs.60
Their ignorance and their way of life as colonial officers cut them off
from what was taking place around them. Their resulting impatience
when orders were not efficiently executed often led them to resort to
force, which they believed to be a language easily understood by all. The
policy only aggravated matters. As their demands increased in number,
so did the occasions when they were not fully or promptly met, and so
did the number of resulting punitive attacks on Rwandans.61
Subordinates of the Germans, like the followers of the Fathers, fre-
quently abused the authority given them by their superiors. One of the
worst cases took place in Bugoyi when government soldiers killed four
Hutu, injured many more, and devastated a large area in their attempts
simultaneously to requisition laborers and to make a profit for them-
selves. The victimized Hutu appealed to the Fathers at Nyundo, who
intervened for them with the commanding German officer at Gisenyi.
The commanding officer was so horrified by what he learned in investi-
gating the affair that he publicly reprimanded his second in command,
also a German, who had supposedly been supervising the soldiers. This
dismal affair ended with the junior officer going into the woods and
shooting himself.62
 Musinga’s Coming of Age, 1905–1913 87

However, relatively few Rwandans were so fortunate as to have mis-

sionaries in the vicinity to come to their defense. The great majority had
no choice but to obey orders or to flee. Occasionally the victims were
pushed beyond the limit of endurance and took their own revenge. Such
was the case in the northwestern province of Kivuruga, where a soldier
raped a girl and then held her for ransom. The fiancé and kinsmen of
the girl killed the soldier. While acknowledging that the soldier had
committed a crime, Kandt felt that he must uphold German prestige by
punishing those who had killed him. Realizing, however, that the ignor-
ance of the local officials made it impossible for them to discover the ac-
tual killers, Kandt authorized an attack that destroyed the homes and
crops of the entire region.63
As the mission stations had done before them, the German posts
spawned a great number of pretended employees who exploited their
fellow Rwandans. One of the most ambitious operated in an area
near the northwestern mission of Murunda where few Europeans ever
passed. Aware that the Germans were beginning to build roads in other
parts of Rwanda, this entrepreneur claimed to be authorized to con-
struct a road across the region. His persuasive powers were so great that
he mobilized the needed workers and materials and did indeed build a
small road. He carried his enterprise a step further by then seeking
out the Europeans to get his reward but learned to his dismay that in
European eyes an enterprising spirit did not excuse misappropriation of
authority.64
Unlike the Fathers, the Germans involved themselves little with con-
flicts among Rwandans even after the establishment of the Residency.
Concern for maintaining the authority of the Court and notables both
limited the number of cases they agreed to hear and dictated that many
of their decisions in conflicts between notables and subjects favor the
notables. Kandt stated the official position in 1911: “The policy of the
Imperial Government and therefore of its Residency is based upon up-
holding and strengthening the authority of the Princes and the Sultan
under all circumstances, even when in the process the Wahutu must
suffer injustice.”65 Except when pressed particularly hard by the mis-
sionaries to hear a case, the Germans generally insisted that all affairs be
judged first by notables and be brought to them only on appeal.66 The
Hutu rarely sought German assistance, partly because of their known
prejudice for the notables, partly because of language difficulties: all
conversation had to pass through an interpreter, who could easily be
bought by the notables with their greater resources.67 In addition, all
88 Musinga’s Coming of Age, 1905–1913

Rwandans associated the Germans with arbitrary and unreasonable use

of force: as one Father wrote, “They fear Kigali like the devil.”68 The
small number of civilian administrators—there were only five at the
most—also served to make their impact on local disputes relatively light
and geographically limited.69
Kandt and his successors reserved the right to intervene in any case
when they thought the principles of equity were being violated, but
in general they tried to effect changes in the judicial process by acting
through the mwami. In 1911 the Resident persuaded Musinga to ban
the use of certain forms of torture. The mwami traditionally had had
the power to prohibit the taking of vengeance by the kin of a man who
had been killed; the Germans encouraged Musinga to exercise this
power with increasing frequency, especially when the killing had been
accidental. When the mwami was slow to act or when it seemed his
order would not be obeyed, the Germans sometimes stepped in to
protect an accused killer. In some cases they executed those who had
disobeyed the mwami’s decree forbidding vengeance.70 The Germans
also attempted to discourage use of execution as a political tool by the
Court. They occasionally protected important notables who were in
danger, and they tried unsuccessfully to require Musinga to obtain their
approval before condemning a man to death. Since no administrator
lived at Nyanza, the mwami remained free to execute whom he wished,
although he apparently ordered the killings done less publicly than they
had been before the establishment of the Residency.71
Relatively respectful of royal authority in matters concerning only
Rwandans, the Germans were less so in affairs related to their own
interests or those of other foreigners. In 1911 the interim Resident Gu-
dovius became impatient with the complexities of the traditional system
and the resistance to orders of some of the notables. He began experi-
menting with the appointment of “Government chiefs” (Regierungsamt-
wale) who would see to the efficient implementation of his commands
and act as intermediaries between Rwandans and strangers traveling
through the area. After suppressing a rebellion in northern Rwanda
in 1912, Gudovious also decided to appoint a few “reliable” notables to
traditional positions of command. For his first “government chief,” Gu-
dovius chose Rwamaga to rule in Mutara (in the northeast); for his first
appointment of a mutware, he selected Biganda to command part of
Mulera (in the north). Gudovius may have named several others to posi-
tions of power but certainly not many. He also obtained Musinga’s ap-
proval prior to making the appointments. In 1913 German officers at
 Musinga’s Coming of Age, 1905–1913 89

Gisenyi tried naming converts to be chefs du bunetsi, or “chiefs of forced

labor,” and briefly used government soldiers to command hills near
their post. Meant to expedite requisitions, both attempts failed, and the
Germans returned to a policy of leaving commands in the hands of tra-
ditional leaders.72 None of these innovations affected enough people or
lasted long enough to disrupt the traditional system, but they did indi-
cate a growing European tendency to make changes which could sap
the power of the Court.
In 1911 Kandt first informed Musinga that the Germans were
considering imposing a head tax in Rwanda. The year before, they had
begun collecting a tax by houses in the trading centers around their posts,
but this tax had affected primarily foreigners since few Rwandans lived
in the towns. Nonetheless, Musinga immediately recognized the danger
of the proposal: to pay a tax was to acknowledge submission to a supe-
rior; and those who took the Germans as their superiors could use the
protection of the foreigners to escape from obligations to traditional
rulers, including the mwami himself. Musinga secretly summoned one
of Kandt’s most trusted employees and pleaded with him to have Kandt
postpone imposing the tax. Whether the mwami’s arguments carried
great force with the Resident or whether Kandt was simply limited by
his lack of personnel, he did nothing more about the proposal. Indeed,
Musinga later claimed that Kandt had promised that he would not
begin taxation until 1920.73
Kandt’s replacement, Captain Wintgens, either respected royal au-
thority less or needed the revenue more than his predecessor. Whatever
his motive, in June 1914 he ordered the tax collected from those Rwan-
dans who lived near the administrative centers of Kigali, Gisenyi, and
Cyangugu. Approximately 150,000 Rwandans paid the one rupee charge
for themselves and their immediate families. Musinga had tried to mini-
mize the political effect of such a tax by persuading the Germans to allow
his notables to collect it for them, thus reinforcing Court powers. With
such an arrangement, the Hutu would have seen that the notables still
stood between them and the Germans and so would have been less
likely to seek German assistance in escaping traditional obligations. It
would also have given the notables and Court an opportunity to profit
from the tax themselves. Wintgens refused this plan and used his own
subordinates for the collection. Musinga persisted, however, eager to
draw some return from the unfortunate development, ordering his
notables to collect tax in regions not covered by the German collectors.
The Germans learned of this effort, which was successful in some areas,
90 Musinga’s Coming of Age, 1905–1913

only when Hutu near the Rwaza mission complained to the Fathers
about this new imposition.74
Wintgens reported with satisfaction that “One can even speak of joy
of payment” among those who came to give their rupees to the govern-
ment. Like Musinga, he believed that the Hutu paid willingly because
they expected the Germans would in the future “protect them against
the despotism and injustice of the Tutsi.” Despite Musinga’s fears and
Wintgens’s cheerful analysis, hope for protection against the notables
was not the sole motivation for payment. Because those who paid were
those who lived nearest the German posts, they were the same people
who had most often been forced to work for the Europeans, generally
without remuneration. Many Hutu assumed, and some were explicitly
promised by German officers, that payment of the tax would exempt
them from any future obligatory labor. Since the amount of the tax ap-
parently freed them from the burdens spent laboring for the Germans,
they naturally paid the tax with enthusiasm.75

The Court’s Delicate Alliance

with German Power—And Its Limits
Musinga resented the expansion of German power, but he continued
to employ it to his own advantage. When faced with rejection of his
authority by powerful heads of Hutu lineages, he had the Germans
execute them. Confronted with notables who openly disobeyed him, he
used German troops to capture and pillage them. When dealing with
more subtle challenges, like that from his cousin Rwidegembya, Mu-
singa knew how to play on the backing of the Germans to keep the
ambitious notables in place.76 The mwami also called for German
help, usually successfully, in restraining the expansion of the Fathers.
Throughout 1907 and much of 1908 the Germans refused the Fathers
permission to found any new stations. When the missionaries tried in
1909 to force Musinga to allow a Father to live permanently at Nyanza
to supervise their school, the mwami relied on the Resident’s help in
blocking the plan.77 In addition, the Germans kept on backing Musinga
in confrontations with the missionaries over judicial cases. In 1909 and
1910, the Fathers at Zaza were in conflict with the Court almost con-
tinually over one case or another. Their intervention culminated when
Father Léon-Paul Classe, Vicaire Délégué of Rwanda and thus the im-
mediate superior of the order for that region, wrote to Musinga threat-
ening sanctions if he did not decide several cases as the missionaries
 Musinga’s Coming of Age, 1905–1913 91

wished. Confident of Kandt’s support, Musinga disregarded the warn-

ing and decided against the Fathers’ clients.78
Meanwhile, one of the Fathers at Kabgayi had allowed himself to be
drawn into protecting a Hutu against his shebuja. The Hutu had had
five of his cattle recalled by his patron in 1905 because his shebuja
charged him with failing to meet customary obligations. Five years later,
he again displeased his shebuja and was deprived of another three cattle.
At about the same time he began frequenting the mission, seeking the
support of the Fathers. In the end, he convinced them that he had lost
the cattle because he had wanted to take religious instruction. One of
the Fathers ordered the shebuja to return the cattle, including those re-
claimed five years before, and threatened to take the case to Musinga
and to have the shebuja removed from his command if he did not comply.
The shebuja, who was within his rights, refused the order but tried to
appease the missionary by giving him a bull. The Father, unwilling to re-
linquish what he saw to be a just cause, asked Musinga to judge the case.
With the unanimous agreement of the notables who heard the case with
him, Musinga decided in favor of the shebuja. When the Father protested,
Musinga consented to send an envoy to investigate on the spot. Judging
the Father’s anger to be too great to contend with alone, Musinga asked
for Kandt’s backing. He requested the Resident to decide not on the
substance of the case but on the right of a missionary to threaten one of
his notables with removal for refusing the order of a European. Mu-
singa asked Kandt: “Where is it to lead? There are missionaries through-
out the entire country. Should it be possible for any notable to be re-
moved if one of his men complains about him to the mission?”79 Kandt
assured the mwami that should a Father ask him to remove a notable, he
had only to refuse.80 Although indicating to Musinga that the conflict
had arisen from a mere misunderstanding, Kandt was more candid and
critical of the Fathers when writing to his own superior about the case:
“In my opinion this is nothing other than an attempt at power made by
an ambitious man who seeks to rule.” On the basis of Kandt’s report,
the German East African Government censured the Father for his
conduct.81
Musinga’s attempts to use the Germans against the missionaries
failed when the administrators judged that supporting the missionaries
would bring the administration benefits that would outweigh any losses
to royal authority. In late 1908 Musinga tried to prevent the foundation
by the Fathers of two missions at Rulindo and Murunda and by the
Protestants of a new station at Rubengera. Remarking to Kandt that he
92 Musinga’s Coming of Age, 1905–1913

had already given the Europeans so much, Musinga asked why he

should have to give more. Kandt insisted that Musinga grant the sites
because he believed the missions would contribute to law and order
in these regions, all three of which still escaped close central control.82
Unable to prevent the foundation of the new missions, Musinga delayed
the establishment of one of the Fathers’ stations by four months, the
other by seven months. He refused even to receive the Vicaire Délégué
Father Classe when he came to Nyanza to expedite the proceedings.
The Protestants had still less success in obtaining Musinga’s approval:
he never deigned to answer their request. Only after Kandt had used
the fortuitous presence in Rwanda of a large expedition of government
soldiers to reinforce “language never before heard at the capital” did
Musinga agree to complete the formalities for the Fathers’ stations and
to give up his opposition to the Protestants’ mission.83
As Mpumbika’s case had first showed, the notables could respond as
quickly as the Court to the potential advantages of the European pres-
ence. Those faced with burdensome requisitions from the Germans
excused their inability to comply by complaining that their subjects had
become clients of the Fathers and refused to obey them. Those troubled
by unreasonable demands from the missionaries made certain the Ger-
mans heard all the details of their difficulties.84 Notables reprimanded
at Court for returning less than the usual amount of tax covered their
own misappropriation of the tribute by explaining that the Fathers had
hindered their efforts, while those seeking to depart early from Nyanza
declared they had to return home to assist the Germans.85 Material de-
mands by the Europeans gave them, like the mwami, an excuse to ex-
tract further service and goods for themselves from their subjects. When
rivalries developed among the notables, the contenders often sought to
win the support of the missionaries or the Germans to strengthen their
positions. The Hutu, too, made full use of the European presence: they
claimed to be bagaragu of the mission in order to refuse demands of
their superiors or to intimidate their enemies; they sought protection of
the Fathers against punitive attacks by the Germans or exploitation by
their employees.

The Shifting Alliances of the Court

Rwandans realized that rapid shifts in relationships with the Europeans
could be essential to making the most of their presence. Several weeks
after Musinga had been involved in a bitter dispute with the Fathers, for
 Musinga’s Coming of Age, 1905–1913 93

example, he reversed himself and was offering to settle all future differ-
ences privately with the missionaries, implying that neither party could
trust the Germans. Within a month after Kandt, in a fit of temper, had
gravely insulted Musinga by calling him “a dog stupider than any other
dog,” the mwami was enlisting his aid against the Fathers. To facilitate
such changes in their positions, Rwandans tried to maintain at least
superficially courteous relations with the Europeans. With their training
in self-control and masterful use of language the Court Tutsi had the ad-
vantage over Hutu, who generally—without training in court etiquette—
did not learn these skills so well. Especially at Court, open hostility
between Rwandans and Europeans was rare. The mwami himself never
deigned to scorn the Europeans to their faces, although he did permit
his notables subtly to mock the missionaries from time to time for their
vulgarity in eating or their inability to master the intricacies and subtle-
ties of the Rwandan language, Kinyarwanda.86 The notables in turn al-
lowed their clients to indulge in respectively cruder demonstrations of
their low opinion of Europeans and their clients; in one case, the baga-
ragu of an important Tutsi expressed their contempt by bombarding
converts with cow dung and appropriate associated epithets.87
In general the Europeans tried to reciprocate the polite behavior of
the mwami and his notables. The Germans stressed their respect for the
Court by arranging a special ceremonial with dress uniforms and pre-
sentation of arms whenever they came to Nyanza. The Fathers were less
ostentatious but still usually behaved properly to Musinga. Both mis-
sionaries and officials, however, were less able than the Tutsi to control
their feelings. When faced with delay in carrying out their orders or with
resistance to their plans, they often gave in to insulting, beating, or im-
posing humiliating punishments on the very notables whose authority
they were supposed to be strengthening. When the Europeans indulged
in such behavior as forcing the proud notables to do menial labor, they
gave great pleasure to the Hutu who heard of the incidents.88 Clients of
the Europeans imitated their patrons whenever they dared, disobeying
and ridiculing their traditional superiors.89 The occasions when repressed
hatred and scorn broke into the open reflected the deeper conflicts
between Rwandans and Europeans and the expression of such tensions
caused each side to become more bitter. Tutsi humiliated by Europeans
could feel themselves superior to the foreigners whose self-discipline had
failed them, but they could neither forgive nor forget the injury. Euro-
peans disdained those who harassed European allies. Each party felt
itself the injured party.
94 Musinga’s Coming of Age, 1905–1913

When Tutsi flattered or showed interest in the Europeans, some

foreigners were misled into thinking the notables were coming to accept
them or their ways. Visitors to Court were pleased by Musinga’s close
attention to their language, their ideas, or the various examples of Euro-
pean technology that they had brought to show him. They saw his inter-
est as the simple and sincere admiration of a primitive man for a higher
civilization. Undoubtedly Musinga was impressed by the pedal organs,
record players, and model steam engines demonstrated at the Court, but
rather than just marveling at European inventions, he was more inter-
ested in finding out all he could about European objectives, policies, and
practices. In a discussion about the merits of coffee as a cash crop, for
example, Musinga learned that the Germans hoped to stimulate coffee
production to enable more Hutu to pay them tax. Knowing this, Musinga
could urge his notables, who had the right to take their cattle where they
wished, to drive their animals through fields where the Hutu were trying
to cultivate coffee. Several years after the distribution of thousands of
coffee plants to the Hutu, there was none left standing.90
Musinga and his notables especially sought information that would
permit them to discern conflicts among foreigners. By 1914 all the im-
portant notables in the kingdom had converts among their bagaragu.91
Musinga had of course been among the first to grant cattle to the hated
Christians. He and the notables realized that the converts were invalu-
able sources of information about what took place at the missions as
well as useful intermediaries in dealing with the missionaries. While
eager to learn all about the interlopers, the Court and notables tried to
keep the foreigners ignorant about Rwanda. Musinga and his followers
invariably directed a barrage of questions at visitors, thus distracting
them from inquiring about Rwanda. When foreigners did manage to
ask about the history or the customs of the kingdom, they usually re-
ceived no answer or answers so vague as to be of no help. One of the
Protestants commented to Musinga on the richness of the tribute which
he had seen passing his mission en route to Nyanza and asked the
mwami where he stored such wealth. The missionary not only received
no reply, but after returning home he remarked that the porters had
changed their route so that he would no longer have the opportunity to
monitor the passage of the mwami’s wealth.92
In dealing with the Europeans, Musinga and his notables depended
on delay and ambiguous language when they feared to refuse outright
the requests of the foreigners. One German official wrote in frustration:
“Open refusal to obey is not in the Tutsi character; he makes promises
 Musinga’s Coming of Age, 1905–1913 95

in the usual way; [but] the result for us is the same . . . no practical re-
sults.”93 Because Kinyarwanda was so rich in nuance and because the
Court communicated orally with Europeans, there was ample latitude
for using difficulties of communication to evade issues. The Fathers re-
alized this danger as early as 1903 and tried to require that communica-
tions from the Court be in writing. Musinga and the notables resisted
this attempt to limit their flexibility for another five or six years. But
after the founding of the German Residency, which also made use of
writing as well as of the foreign tongue of Swahili, the notables found
themselves increasingly subject to the intrigues and demands of inter-
preters and scribes. Although usually unwilling to study European skills
themselves, a few of the notables began arranging with the Fathers for
their clients or one of their sons to learn Swahili and reading and writ-
ing. Cyitatire, a notable who wanted to make the most of his investment
in good relations with the Europeans, candidly asked the chief em-
ployee of the Kansi mission whether it would be more advantageous to
study religion (that is, a tool for handling the Fathers in particular) or
Swahili (a tool for dealing with Europeans in general). Disregarding the
subsequent advice, Cyitatire sent his client to learn Swahili. Although
increasingly able to draw on scribes from among their own men, the
notables continued to prefer using oral Kinyarwanda with its richer
possibilities for misunderstanding and did so whenever they could.94
The Germans frequently lamented the reluctance of the Tutsi to ac-
cept European education. They blamed the missionaries, the only real
teachers in Rwanda, for discouraging the notables’ desire to learn by
including religious materials in their supposedly secular classes. Even
when the notables decided to send clients to learn language skills, only a
few dozen began to study. To train larger numbers of young men who
could succeed their fathers as notables, the Germans established their
own school, excluding from it all religious instruction. During its four
years of operation (from 1910 to 1914), however, the school never at-
tracted the important Tutsi whom the Germans wanted most to edu-
cate. At first the Residents attributed the failure to an uninspiring
teacher who had been brought from East Africa, then to the decrepit
building in which classes were held. Finally, in 1913, the Germans built a
fine new school in Kigali and hired two Rwandan teachers. To ensure
that the Tutsi would take advantage of these facilities, they pressured
Musinga to order his notables to send their sons to school. Musinga
complied with their desires but encouraged his notables to send only
their bastard sons, sons of clients, or even ordinary Hutu to study. The
96 Musinga’s Coming of Age, 1905–1913

Germans apparently never suspected that their crop of scholars con-

sisted of those who would never rule or at least never rule an important
domain. While the outcast sons of the elite suffered inside with their
ABC’s, the real future rulers of Rwanda congregated outside the school
to hoot and jeer at them.95
The Germans sometimes blamed their lack of “practical results” on
the complexities of the traditional system. Looking at it from the stand-
point of European bureaucrats whose functions were clearly defined,
they saw the flexibility of commands, the intertwining of responsibil-
ities, the “splintering of power” as major obstacles to efficient adminis-
tration.96 But at other times they laid the fault on Musinga himself.
While convinced of his unswerving loyalty to the Germans and his de-
sire to comply with their wishes, the Residents all believed that Musinga
did not rule as effectively as he should. Kandt mentioned his “very play-
ful character,” implying that Musinga did not take his responsibilities
seriously, while Wintgens later made the broader charge: “The majority
of the people do indeed still obey him for traditional demands and de-
cisions, but as soon as something new, something in any way unpleasant
is asked, he is as good as helpless and only after long discussions and
threats to the disobedient on our part will our request sometimes be
carried out.”97
Apparently none of the Germans questioned the sincerity of Mu-
singa’s professed agreement with their desires nor the reality of his help-
lessness in obtaining compliance. They did not recall the many instances
when the mwami had successfully imposed new burdens on his people
in the name of the Europeans: the massive levees of workers to trans-
port materials and construct European buildings, the frequent provision
of supplies for passing caravans, the “tax collection” of 1914 that Mu-
singa effected nominally for the Germans but really for himself. Had
they considered these cases, the Europeans might have concluded that
the pose of impotence ranked at least part of the time with delay, eva-
sion, and ambiguity as ways to deal with foreigners. Although generally
jealous of any European exercise of authority, Musinga and his notables
recognized the existence of situations in which conceding the power to
act to the foreigners would not substantially reduce their own power and
might even contribute to it. Thus when the Germans made troublesome
demands from which Musinga could expect no profit, he preferred that
the onus of the requisition fall on them, not on the Court; claiming
weakness, he maneuvered them into the position of giving the unpleas-
ant orders themselves. In the same way, notables who were faced with
 Musinga’s Coming of Age, 1905–1913 97

difficult judicial cases in which they wished to offend neither party

passed the affairs to the Fathers for judgment.98
Musinga and the notables were constantly aware of the challenge
that the foreigners might pose to their authority, but they knew how to
take advantage of confrontations with the Europeans or with other
Rwandans so that the European presence did not inevitably diminish
their power. By 1912 Kandt was reporting that the notables readily ac-
knowledged two masters, the Resident and the mwami.99 But for the
notables and for ordinary Rwandans as well, Musinga remained the ul-
timate authority. Although the Europeans had made incursions into his
prerogatives, he still controlled the rewards and sanctions that deter-
mined the fate of Rwandans.100 Only when the Europeans actively and
completely assumed the power over life and death, the prerogative to
grant and recall domains, and the right to tax the wealth of the king-
dom could they displace the mwami as ruler of Rwanda. Under the
Germans, the threat had been suggested but never developed.
Muhumusa at the time of her capture by the British
 5
E xt end ing C o ur t Powe r,
1905– 1913

The Conquest of the Northern Regions

Let a Tutsi in your house, you will find him in your bed.

A s a child Musinga had accompanied his father on some of his fa-

mous campaigns to assert royal authority over new areas. Later, as an
adolescent and mwami himself, Musinga saw many of these same re-
gions, conquered by his father, slip from the control of the Court. Torn
by internal struggles and distracted by the problems of dealing with the
newly arrived Europeans, the Court could just muster the resources to
quell uprisings in northeastern and northwestern Rwanda in 1897 and
1898. But it could not reestablish its domination of the regions west of
Lake Kivu or north of the volcanoes—regions that had expelled the
Court’s representatives following the death of Rwabugiri. It lacked the
strength to organize an expedition against the Barundi who captured
and for a short time held part of southwestern Rwanda, and it needed
the help of the Europeans to suppress the revolt in Gisaka.1

The Evolution of Administrative Control

Although the Court could not conquer new regions, or even maintain
its authority over all the areas won by Rwabugiri, it did deepen the tex-
ture of royal administration in the central regions by granting new do-
mains in these areas to many notables. Anxious to weaken the opposi-
tion and to ensure the support of its followers in the wake of the coup of
1896, the Bega-dominated Court deprived many Banyiginya and their

99
100 Extending Court Power, 1905–1913

clients of commands, which it then divided among an even greater num-

ber of its own clients.* In the same way, after defeating Ruhinankiko in
1904, Kabare subdivided the domains he had revoked from his brother’s
supporters and distributed them to a larger number of his own favorites.
The dispersion of commands was clearest in outlying areas where
Rwabugiri had given large blocks of territory to his clients. For example,
in the northeastern residences of Gatsibo and Gasabo the Court appor-
tioned the domains of ubutaka and umukenke among many of its followers.
It also granted to many individuals those commands that Rwabugiri’s
son Muhigirwa had held cumulatively in the southern provinces.2
The increase in the number of representatives named by the Court
led to more intensive administration in regions that previously had been
only nominally under the rule of the Court. To be able to meet the Court’s
demands for taxes and to provide for their own needs, the notables im-
posed new or additional obligations on Hutu who before had escaped
with little (or infrequent) payment imposed on them. In some cases
notables devoted more effort to developing their own wealth and influ-
ence than to contributing to the wealth or power of the Court. The most
ambitious among them even took the initiative in expanding their do-
mains, independently asserting their own authority over people or areas
that had not been granted to them.3 In other cases weak notables were
intimidated by the challenges of ruling rebellious regions and simply
made no meaningful attempt to establish control over them.4 The Court
probably realized from the first the various dangers that attended its fail-
ure to exercise firm direction over the extension of central authority, but
only after having removed Ruhinankiko from power was Kabare able to
turn his attention to the problem of expansion. Displaying the same
vigor that he had shown in his policies toward Europeans and their fol-
lowers, Kabare persuaded the Court to assert its power more actively in

*Even in the central areas of the kingdom, Court rule was variable over both space and
time. Before the twentieth century many localities had been outside Court administrative
control entirely. Some were ritual domains, autonomous of the Court. Others were seen
as not productive enough to contest. Still others had successfully defended themselves
over the years against Court intrusion. With the rejection (or withdrawal) of Rwandan
overlords from many occupied areas after the death of Rwabugiri, however, Court
attention came to focus more on those central areas that had remained outside the
permanent Court administrative matrix.
 Extending Court Power, 1905–1913 101

regions not yet fully obedient to it. In 1905 the Court ordered many of
its notables to take up residence in the domains they had only visited
from time to time to collect ikoro.5
As Musinga began displacing Kabare from the center of power,
the mwami too advocated the extension of the Court’s authority.6 He
certainly wished to increase the wealth and prestige of the Court as his
father had done, but, again like Rwabugiri, he also saw expansion as a
convenient means for controlling important and ambitious notables.
The greater the rivalries among the notables, the more easily he could
assert his power over them. Since rights and boundaries were not clearly
defined in regions that were just coming under central rule, conflicts
between notables flourished in these areas.7 Musinga allowed such dis-
putes to multiply and become bitter by refusing to decide cases brought
to him for settlement or by neglecting to have his judgments enforced.
When he did judge such conflicts, he naturally used the opportunity
to strengthen his favorites and to weaken his opponents. The powerful
batware Bushaku and Rwidegembya disputed their respective rights in
northwestern Rwanda for years. During 1909 and 1910, when Musinga
favored Rwidegembya, he supported his attempts to appropriate do-
mains claimed by Bushaku; in 1911 and 1912 the mwami found Rwide-
gembya had become too powerful and so decided that Bushaku’s claims
were legitimate.8 Where the notables of a region seemed to agree too
well, Musinga might introduce a new element to stimulate disputes or to
remind them of his ultimate power. In 1910 he granted a new command
in the north to a Hutu notable who was to replace the batware of the
area as collector of ikoro for that year and to have certain other rights
which were left undefined. Under cover of this ambiguous mandate, the
royal representative could push his and the Court’s authority as far as
his ingenuity and the resistance of the batware would allow.9
At the beginning of Musinga’s reign, the authority of the Court and
its representatives varied from region to region and sometimes from hill
to hill. In the outlying regions even the formidable Rwabugiri had some-
times been able to rule only those hills immediately adjacent to his resi-
dences; the notables who governed under Musinga, being less power-
ful and often less courageous, controlled proportionately smaller areas
around their headquarters in the hostile regions. In parts of Bugoyi
notables dreaded traveling between the small islands of central control;
they chose their routes carefully and armed themselves well before set-
ting out.10 The region near Rwaza was nominally under the control of
102 Extending Court Power, 1905–1913

Nshozamihigo, a son of Rwabugiri and brother of Musinga, but the

Hutu of this area refused to recognize the authority of the Court or its
representatives. In 1904 the Hutu were still speaking mockingly of “Ka-
singa,” or “Little Musinga,” a diminutive that referred to his authority,
not to his size or age. When the representative of the Court arrived to
take command of his region for the first time, they greeted him with
jeers and showered him with stones and clods of dirt.11
In carrying on the expansion begun by their forebears, Musinga and
his notables relied on the same arrangements their predecessors had
used, adopting specific tactics suited to the particular situation. In re-
gions like Bugarura or Nyantango in the north or Buhanga in the south,
where the Hutu had never regularly paid ikoro, the batware arrived
more and more frequently to collect this tax.12 In areas like Bumbogo,
Buberuka, and Bukonya in the north, or Kinyaga and Bashumba in the
south, where the Hutu had long acknowledged royal authority by the
payment of ikoro or by the execution of ritual duties for the Court,
notables gradually appropriated land, installed residences, and began to
exert direct local control. Lineages that had formerly paid their ikoro di-
rectly to the Court (thus gaining recognition) were now forced to deliver
their prestations to the local notables.13 The notables also obliged the
Hutu to do uburetwa labor or to give them a certain part of their harvests
in return for using land that the indigenous lineages had previously held
without reference to outside authority.14 To draw the most profit from
these outlying domains and to protect them from incursions by rivals,
the notables began spending more and more time in areas they re-
garded as “the country of the Hutu.” In Bugoyi in the northwest and in
parts of Busanza, Ndara, Bwanamukari, and Nyaruguru in the south,
where notables previously had exercised immediate local control over
some hills, the number of notables resident in the area and the number
of hills under their command increased dramatically.15 The Court
sought to establish its control over Tutsi as well as Hutu in regions like
Bwishaza and Kanage along Lake Kivu, and parts of Bukonya and Ki-
bari as well—all areas where certain Tutsi had asserted authority over
the Hutu without close supervision by the Court. Similarly, in Gisaka
many of the indigenous notables who commanded Hutu were displaced
by notables from the central kingdom. These Tutsi, forced to bow to the
superior power of the Banyanduga (the people of the central areas of the
kingdom), apparently resented the extension of royal control as much as
did the Hutu.16
 Extending Court Power, 1905–1913 103

The Move to the North

Although the Court extended its control in many parts of Rwanda, Ka-
bare and later Musinga directed the main thrust of expansion to the
rich northern regions: they were tempted by the wealth of the area and
driven by the fear that the Bakiga there might revolt again, as they had
during the first years of the reign. Recalling that rebel leaders had rallied
support with the cry that Musinga was a usurper, the Court was dis-
turbed by the growing power of a woman in Mpororo who claimed to be
a former wife of Rwabugiri and mother of his legitimate heir. Rwabugiri
had raided Mpororo several times, but neither he nor Musinga had been
able to control it effectively. Among her own subjects, this woman was
known as Muhumusa, but Rwandans from the central kingdom called
her Nyiragahumusa and usually identified her with Muserekande, mother
of Biregeya, who had disappeared after the Bateke rising in 1897 or 1898.
Others said she was Nyakayoga, former wife of Rutarindwa (the imme-
diate successor to Rwabugiri) and the mother of his son.17
Already a powerful presence in 1903, Muhumusa based her au-
thority not only on her supposed association with the Court but also on
her reputed spiritual powers as a medium linked to a social move-
ment which had entered Rwanda from the north or the east in the mid-
nineteenth century.18 The central focus to this movement was the vener-
ation of a female spirit, Nyabingi, reputedly a historical figure who had
been a queen or servant to a royal family. Although certain places were
renowned as training centers for those who wished to serve Nyabingi,
the dogma of the cult was no more fixed than the history of its origins.
Anyone who had been moved by the spirit could serve her; anyone who
could convince others that he had been so moved could intercede with
her on their behalf.19 Some mediums, like Muhumusa, were able to de-
velop their spiritual powers into secular authority. They levied tribute
on all who feared retribution from the spirit, sometimes making use
of groups of young men who resembled Rwandan regiments in their
training and organization. Several mediums (including Muhumusa)
also used insignia of power that imitated those of the Rwandan Court.
However, given the prevalence of attempted identification with the
Court by various parties, as well as the diverse explanations offered of
Muhumusa’s association with the Nyiginya kingship, it is likely that she
was not Muserekande. But whether or not the Court believed her to be
Rwabugiri’s former wife, it feared that others might accept her claim.
104 Extending Court Power, 1905–1913

Beginning in 1905 she started inciting her people to attack the central
kingdom to install her son on the throne. The Court took this threat
seriously enough to ask the Germans to attack her, but they refused to
do so at that time.20
The Court was further distressed by a series of raids in north-central
Rwanda led by Basebya, a Twa.21 Many Twa in secluded forest or
swamp areas lived as much from pillaging travelers as from traditional
ways of hunting and gathering. Of these groups, Basebya’s was most
feared because of its size, organization, and ruthlessness. Unlike other
Twa, who rarely troubled their immediate neighbors, they regularly at-
tacked Bakiga who farmed land near their refuge in the Rugezi swamp.
The victims sometimes attempted to resist their pillage: one group living
on a peninsula in Lake Bulera even tried to dig a wide ditch through the
neck of land that joined their holdings to the bank, hoping that the Twa
would not cross the water to attack them. But most found it easier to mi-
grate to a more peaceful region or to join forces with the Twa in raiding
others. One man who saw Basebya attack recalled, “Any Hutu who
wanted his fill of meat, who wanted his fill of beans joined his following
and they came ten thousand strong to pillage the hills.” So effective were
they that sometimes Tutsi who wished to protect or increase their herds
of cattle also joined Basebya’s forces.22
The Court worried about Basebya not only because of the destruc-
tion he caused, but also because of their concern that he might ally him-
self with Muhumusa—whose headquarters were not far from Rugezi.
Basebya had once been a client of Rutarindwa, then of Cyaka, who
was killed by troops of the Court in April 1904.23 Obviously no friend of
the Bega, he would prove a formidable foe if he joined his followers
to Muhumusa’s supposedly legitimist movement. Therefore, in 1905
the Court sent several of its ngabo to attack Basebya. But despite their
greater number, the Court troops were no match for the Twa, who
could always retreat into the thick swamp that only they knew how to
cross. Basebya was apparently a skillful tactician. Having learned one
night that two forces of Tutsi were approaching his camp from opposite
directions, he devised a plan of escape that devastated the enemy. When
the two forces were in position, one awaiting word from the other that it
was ready to attack, Basebya had his men set fire to their camp, yelling
and screaming. Then the Twa escaped, quietly retreating into the dark-
ness, leaving the two Tutsi groups to rush headlong at one another, each
presuming that the other had already attacked and that those whom
they saw preparing to fight were the Twa enemy. During the campaign,
 Extending Court Power, 1905–1913 105

Rwanda Revolts

the Court reportedly sent Ruhararamanzi, the commander in chief, a

heifer. This symbol conveyed the message, “You are to stay on the field
of battle until you defeat the enemy, even if in the meantime this heifer
matures enough to calve.” Ruhararamanzi’s dedication to the task was
not that long-lived. After several months of pursuit that had netted only
some cattle, he returned to Court with the booty. As soon as he had
withdrawn, Basebya and his men resumed their raiding of the country.24

European Power and

Court Presence in the North
In the north the power of the Court was challenged as well by the grow-
ing authority of Europeans. No part of Rwanda saw so many European
106 Extending Court Power, 1905–1913

travelers or had so many European establishments as the north. Not only

missionaries but agents of the German, Belgian, and British administra-
tions had posts in what the Court viewed as the northern part of its king-
dom. Several independent “traders” frequented the area as well. Musinga
was perhaps unaware of the details of contestation among these various
actors, but he did realize that the efforts of such European powers to
establish sovereignty in the disputed territory could have serious con-
sequences for his own authority.25 His representatives must therefore
establish their rule before external European authority was so firmly im-
planted as to exclude the Court’s effective exercise of power in the region.
But in addition to their threat, the presence of Europeans also of-
fered a more positive inducement to expansion: their authority could be
used to buttress that of the notables. The Fathers were committed in
principle to fostering royal control throughout the kingdom. In 1905 the
Court persuaded the Fathers to implement the principle more vigor-
ously, especially in the area around Rwaza. Musinga wrote the mission-
aries that his batware were coming to collect ikoro and asked them to
use their influence to ensure that the Hutu paid promptly and well.
When the mwami found his notables could not seize local leaders to
bring them to Court, he addressed himself to the mission for help. If his
representatives were unable to carry out a judicial decision he had pro-
nounced, Musinga turned to the Fathers for its execution.26 When Mu-
singa suspected his batware were becoming too independent so far from
Court, he called on the missionaries to keep watch on them.27 In addi-
tion to meeting such specific requests, the Fathers regularly preached
obedience to the mwami. In 1912 they began adding a prayer for Mu-
singa and his batware to the end of the Lord’s Prayer, and in 1913 they
ordered photographs of Musinga, eighteen inches square, to hang in all
their classrooms.28
The Germans were even more committed to the extension of royal
control. While he was Resident, Kandt wrote that the Hutu were “wild
and inclined to disobedience.” In areas not governed by representatives
of the Court, he saw only “anarchy” and concluded that he had no al-
ternative to supporting the rule of Musinga and his notables.29 Musinga
found the Germans helpful for services like those he requested from the
missionaries, but he drew most heavily on their strength when he needed
major demonstrations of force. The small northwestern kingdom of
Bushiru had been raided several times by Rwabugiri in his efforts to es-
tablish firm control there. But since the beginning of Musinga’s reign,
the people of Bushiru had resisted further expansion of royal control.
At Musinga’s request, the Germans launched four expeditions against
 Extending Court Power, 1905–1913 107

Bushiru between 1909 and 1914.30 Following the unsuccessful expedition

against Basebya in 1905, the mwami never again sent his ngabo to fight
without the support of German troops. His failure to launch any further
independent expeditions resulted partly from the availability of German
troops, which he could call on at no cost to himself or his notables, and
partly from the attitude of the Germans, who wished to discourage the
use of force by the mwami.31
When the notables went into a hostile region to collect taxes, install
their residences, or require uburetwa, they usually tried first to impose
their rule through the men at their own command. No notable arrived
from the central kingdom without his retinue of relatives and clients, all
prepared to do battle to establish a control from which they hoped to
profit. The band of outsiders, if well trained, could sometimes obtain
the submission of an area by its efforts alone. But more frequently, the
arriving notables exploited the divisions among the local people to win
the help of one lineage or group of lineages in attacking its enemies.
Some such associations lasted only for the duration of the battle. Others
were the first step in the establishment of longer-term relationships,
such as represented in ubuhake clientship: such a client would represent
his shebuja after he had returned to the central kingdom and would
continue to enjoy the protection of the powerful outsider. Those who
had pillaged neighbors under cover of the notables often found such
guarantees of continuing protection most useful after the notables had
left the area.32
When people of a region successfully resisted the force or strategy of
the notables, the representatives of the Court followed the lead of the
mwami and turned to the Europeans for aid. In areas where the influence
of the Fathers was great, they sought their support. Often the mission-
aries would send one of their men along with the suite of the notables as
they collected their taxes: the presence of this representative of the Euro-
peans, even though he was not armed, ordinarily sufficed to make the
Bakiga respect the notables’ demands. One notable was told: “If you
had not had the men of ‘Bwana’ with you, you would have found nothing
here but sticks to chase you away.”33 In other cases, the Fathers per-
suaded unwilling lineage heads to serve as local representatives of the
notables or allowed their men to lend their authority to any judicial pro-
ceedings that the notables feared might cause difficulty.34 Some Hutu
saw the aid given by the Fathers as the decisive element in the establish-
ment of local control by the Tutsi. One recalled: “It was [the Fathers]
who made them come here in the sense that before the Fathers arrived,
a Tutsi collected ikoro and then returned to his home in Nduga [central
108 Extending Court Power, 1905–1913

Rwanda,] . . . because they feared this region, which they called a region
of rebels; they said that no one could live here; they came to live here
only after the Europeans multiplied in the area.”35
When the notables estimated that the influence of the missionaries
would not suffice to produce submission, they requested the help of the
Germans, sometimes directly, but more often through the Court. The
Germans ordinarily responded as fully as the notables wished, sending
soldiers with them into the regions that had rejected their control. One
Rwandan remembered that the notable would stand on a hilltop, point-
ing with his spear to the homes he wished attacked; then, with the sol-
diers providing protection with their guns, the notable and his men
burned and pillaged. When the attackers had satisfied their desire for
vengeance and their greed, they and the soldiers divided the spoils.36
The representatives of the Court were quick to take advantage of
European plans and actions, which were conceived with no intention
of expanding the authority of the notables. They used the demands for
supplies from passing caravans or from permanent posts to extend their
rule over lineages that until then had escaped their control. Both the
notables and the Hutu knew that the Germans would back the notables
even more promptly and harshly when they were requisitioning goods
or services for the Europeans than when they were collecting them for
the Court.37 A Father who observed the success of the notables in turn-
ing European demands to their own use commented: “It is likely that
the Bahutu [or Bakiga] have not yet seen the end of their miseries. . . .
The new burdens will not erase the old ones but will be added to them
and the Batusi [sic] will not fail to find a new source of profit in them.”38
When the Germans launched expeditions to meet challenges to their
own authority, they often relied on the notables and their following—
local people as well as clients from the central kingdom—to supplement
their forces. The notables and their men shared in the booty: women,
cattle, other livestock, and produce. But the less tangible increase in the
power of the Court representatives outweighed the immediate material
returns of such campaigns: each time they participated in such a joint
exercise of force, their subsequent threats of summoning European
soldiers became more believable.39
Those who refused to submit to the rule of the notables had several
alternatives. They could simply stand and fight. Some did so and de-
layed the payment of taxes or the sacrifice of rights over their land for
months or years. But as the notables increased in number, as they made
their demands more frequently and were often backed by the superior
 Extending Court Power, 1905–1913 109

power of the Europeans, most Bakiga found open resistance too costly.
Tied to their land, they dreaded being driven from it; dependent on
their crops, they feared seeing them burned. Others left their holdings
voluntarily, clearing new lands far enough in the forest to escape control
for yet another generation. The time and effort required to make such
land arable, however, discouraged most people from adopting this alter-
native. In many cases the demands of the notables at the start were not
great enough to justify the sacrifices necessitated by such a move. While
most Bakiga found open opposition or emigration too difficult, many
found profit and pleasure in harassing the notables who came to reside
in their areas. No notable retired for the night without being certain his
clients were present to keep the watch. Despite these precautions, the
local inhabitants made the notables pay well for the privilege of residing
in their vicinity: they frequently stole their cattle and occasionally man-
aged to set fire to their homes.40

The Bakiga and the Court Representatives

Like the notables, the local populations sought to use divisions among
their opponents to their own benefit. Where rivals disputed control of a
lineage or a piece of territory, the Bakiga sometimes succeeded in play-
ing them off in such a way as to preserve their autonomy or to limit the
amount of tax they had to pay. In theory a client had the right to appeal
against oppressive notables to the mwami, who was said to be a final, just
arbiter. In fact, such appeals were possible only when a man’s mutware
was willing to speak for him at Court against his oppressor. Since many
of the notables who were imposing their demands on Bakiga during this
period were indeed their own batware, such recourse to Court was
excluded.41
Only Hutu who had special relationships with the Court might hope
by their own efforts to win royal support against the extension of control
by the notables. Of the several dozen lineage heads in the northwest
who were clients of the Court, most, like the leaders of the Batembe or
Bahigo of Bugoyi, owed their position to their supposed spiritual powers;
but others, like Rukara of the Barashi of Mulera, had obtained their in-
fluence at Court through their authority in their own areas. These heads
of lineages, and also local leaders respected for their reputed control
over rainfall, sometimes persuaded Musinga to protect them against his
own representatives. In some cases he granted relief to the claimants
simply because he wished to check the representative in question. In
110 Extending Court Power, 1905–1913

other cases he gave his assistance against Germans as well as notables—

because he believed the welfare of the entire kingdom might suffer from
changes in the existing situation: for years Musinga protected the small
kingdom of Bukunzi in southwestern Rwanda because its ruler was re-
puted to be a powerful rainmaker who would inhibit rainfall throughout
the kingdom if Bukunzi were attacked.42
Some Hutu who failed to win the help of Musinga or who had no
hope of receiving it sought protection from the Europeans. Not many
dared to ask for aid directly from the Germans, because they were known
to favor the notables and because all communication with them had to
pass through interpreters who were usually bought by the notables.43
Hutu who found the notables’ demands oppressive usually turned instead
to the Fathers, hoping that they would either act themselves or speak for
the Hutu to the Germans. Playing on the missionaries’ susceptibility to
pleas for justice or mercy, or on their desire to win converts, the Hutu
often persuaded them to deviate from their principle of supporting the
notables to give them assistance.44
The installation of powerful persons from outside the region, both
European and Rwandan, upset relationships between and within lineages
by introducing a new authority who could offer protection. In areas
where notables had become established during the preceding century,
the increase in their numbers and the arrival of Europeans accelerated
the process; in areas that had before been undisturbed, change was ini-
tiated.45 In conflicts among lineages, contenders began seeking the sup-
port of powerful outsiders, including both the notables who encouraged
these disputes for their own ends and the Fathers who often became in-
volved in such disputes through well-intentioned ignorance. Lineages
made strong by outside support attempted to win control over their still
unaffiliated neighbors, appropriating their land or infringing on other
traditionally recognized rights. The new protectors, especially the Euro-
peans, tried to halt the execution of vengeance and offered their own
form of justice to replace this customary guarantee of protection that
had been so important to the unity of the lineage.46
Notables addressed their demands for goods and services to the
lineage head, the spokesman for his family group. When the lineage failed
to meet their demands, the notable took him captive and sometimes
tortured him until his kin ransomed him. The position of lineage head
held potential advantages as well as certain risk: many such leaders en-
tered into ubuhake arrangements with notables, receiving cattle and ex-
emption from certain obligations for themselves and their kin. In some
 Extending Court Power, 1905–1913 111

cases the notables regularly allotted them part of the tax collected. As
the lineage heads became responsible for satisfying the demands of the
outside authority, some began to seek control over their kin commensu-
rate with their new duties. Either fearing possible consequences should
the notables’ demands not be met, or from personal ambition, they
began to rely on their association with the outsiders to build their own
authority within their family group. The presence of an outside author-
ity also encouraged some individuals to seek support in disputes that
would previously have been settled completely within the lineage. In-
stead of accepting the decision of their kin or, if dissatisfied, of choosing
to leave the land of the lineage, the contenders appealed to the outside
protector. As the lineage heads based their authority more on outside
support, other members of the lineage also must have seen outside help
as increasingly necessary. In some cases outsiders assumed so much in-
fluence within the lineage that the Bakiga turned to them for a decision
when succession to the position of lineage head was disputed.47
At first the Bakiga scorned those who associated with the outsiders,
even if such association was supposed to protect or bring advantage to
the family group as a whole. Such arrangements were seen as entangling
and degrading, to be resorted to only by the weak who could not fight
for themselves. Those who accepted ubuhake with the notables were
mocked as “dogs of the Europeans.”48 But as parties who succumbed
to the temptation to seek outside help emerged more frequently victori-
ous in their disputes, others began to find this alternative increasingly
acceptable.
As notables began receiving grants of ubutaka from the Court,* they
started defining their domains by hills instead of by lineages. As they in-
stalled residences in the area and began to requisition regular taxes in
produce and in uburetwa labor, they needed more formal representa-
tives with wider powers to ensure the efficient functioning of their resi-
dences while they were at Court. Sometimes they entrusted this position
to a client from the central kingdom, whose authority in these matters
was thus imposed on all the lineage heads of the area; at other times
they assigned the responsibility to a local lineage head who then assumed

*Ubutaka grants were assignments of land grants with partial authority over the people
who lived on them—with the clients’ responsibilities divided among several different
authorities.
112 Extending Court Power, 1905–1913

authority over people from other lineages who resided within that do-
main.49 During the early part of Musinga’s reign few notables were able
to move to the final stage of control in northern Rwanda, that of com-
plete authority to confiscate and distribute land, but they had begun to
appropriate land for their own use and to require goods and labor from
the local people in return for assigning them the very land they used to
hold freely. As the outsiders began to assume control over the distribu-
tion of land and (in theory) to offer protection against enemies, they
were taking on functions previously exercised exclusively by the lineages.
Bakiga in turn increasingly came to value clientship ties with patrons
and to place less importance on relationships within the lineage, thus
gradually beginning a transformation similar to that which had taken
place in many areas of central Rwanda over the preceding generations.

Combating Resistance in the North

However, peaceful process was not the only pattern in play. Rukara,
head of the Barashi lineage, was the strongest indigenous leader in
northern Rwanda during the early years of Musinga’s reign. The Bara-
shi and those affiliated with them numbered between six and eight thou-
sand, making them the largest unified family group in the north, and
they possessed extensive territory at the base of the volcano Muhavura
in Mulera. During one of his expeditions, Rwabugiri had killed Rukara’s
grandfather as a rebel and a bandit but had established better relations
with Rukara’s father, Bishingwe, to whom he gave cattle and a Tutsi
wife. Bishingwe’s men then joined Rwabugiri’s troops on their raids into
Nkore—and became famous for their courage. Drawing on his high
standing at Court, Bishingwe began to transform his relations with his
kin, exercising his authority over them in an increasingly harsh manner.
When Bishingwe was killed by a passing European, Rukara, still in his
twenties, sought to assume all the power wielded by his father and to
increase it further. He attracted more and more men from outside the
lineage to his following, granting them the use of some of the lineage
lands.50 This group of clients, dependent on him personally, supported
his attempts to enforce his will on his kin.
Despite his position as client of the Court and the support of his
clients, Rukara failed to obtain the absolute obedience he desired from
the men of his lineage. On one occasion, after having agreed to provide
supplies for a passing European caravan, Rukara ordered one of his
kinsmen to fetch water for the travelers. The man stubbornly refused,
 Extending Court Power, 1905–1913 113

asking, “Am I not also an Umurashi?” In the end Rukara had to send a
client to do the task. Tall and handsome, Rukara apparently resembled
his mother, who was Bishingwe’s Tutsi wife. He prized this tie, describ-
ing himself as a Tutsi, although by the Court’s definition he was really
a Hutu, since membership in one’s ethnic identity was prescriptively
determined patrilineally. He admired and imitated the manners and
speech of the Tutsi. The Barashi also called him a Tutsi, but they were
referring to his manner—his attempts to exercise authority that was not
customarily his—not to his parentage or manners.51 For Rukara the
nominal was a term of pride; for others, it was one of rebuke.
When notables from the central kingdom began competing with
Rukara for control of the area he regarded as his, he sought the support
of the nearby Fathers of Rwaza. When they declined to take sides in
the dispute, Rukara then turned to the mwami. Musinga decided in favor
of Rukara in several cases, but failed to implement his judgments. With
his petitions to the Court having proved fruitless, Rukara resorted to at-
tacking his Tutsi enemies directly. They in turn took cover behind the
Germans, forcing Rukara to seek the assistance of the missionaries once
more.52 Summoned to the Court in 1907, Rukara ignored the summons
until Musinga threatened to have him fetched by a German soldier.
Once he had Rukara at Nyanza, Musinga retained him for eight months,
perhaps hoping simply to keep him out of trouble, perhaps planning
eventually to execute him for a supposed insult to Kanjogera. Rukara
had reputedly refused to accept the judgment of the Court in a case
decided against him, commenting that no man would abide by the deci-
sion of a woman, referring to Kanjogera, who had followed the proceed-
ings as usual from behind her screen. He added that if he had wanted a
woman’s judgment, he would simply have presented the case to his own
mother. Kanjogera was said to have taken great offense at this slur on
her judicial competence. Rukara finally won release from the Court by
appealing to a White Father and the German ethnographer Czekanow-
ski, who happened to be passing through Nyanza. At first Musinga re-
fused to let him go, but he gave in after Czekanowski had personally
threatened him with a pistol.53
After returning north, Rukara encountered increasing difficulty
in exercising control over the Barashi. One of his kinsmen, Sebuyange,
had rejected his leadership altogether and attracted a significant part
of the lineage to his position. As the struggle between Rukara and Se-
buyange developed, each sought the support of the missionaries, par-
ticularly of the Father Superior of Rwaza, Father Loupias, a huge man
114 Extending Court Power, 1905–1913

whose influence in the region was as impressive as his physical size. As

one of the Fathers wrote, each leader realized that Loupias’s coopera-
tion could ensure his success. Neither spared attempts to win his approval:
frequent visits, gifts of all kinds, efforts to bribe mission employees to
speak well of them. As the Father recorded, “if Lukara brought us a
bull, the next day we would be sure to see Sebuyangi . . . bringing us
another.” Sebuyange was even supposed to have offered to become a
Christian if Loupias would help him. At first the Father wisely declined
involvement, advising both parties to take the conflict to Musinga. Neu-
tral as this response appeared, it actually favored Sebuyange, since Ru-
kara was then out of favor at Court. When Rukara sent his gift to Mu-
singa to ask consideration of his side of the case, Musinga refused it.54
Although Rukara found it useful to call on outside support when in
difficulty, he did so without apparent harm to his own sense of dignity.
Not afraid to insult Kanjogera at Court, on his own territory he went
even further. He supposedly called his retreat in the forest his “Nyanza”
and referred to his own son as Musinga. When he swore, he swore by his
own name, not by that of the mwami. He was said to have proclaimed
that Musinga ruled in his territory and Rukara in his. One Father re-
marked bitterly that “He lumps together and scorns equally Batutsi and
Europeans.”55 Even during the months when he was seeking Loupias’s
support, he met a demand from the Father that he thought was unjus-
tified with a gift of rotten eggs. When once visiting Rwaza, Rukara had
to wait some time before seeing the Father Superior. He coolly entered
his parlor and sat down in the chair reserved for Father Loupias himself.
When another attendant, panic-stricken at such disrespect, urged him
to move at once, Rukara responded, “And is my ass not as good as his?”
and remained where he was.56
At the end of March 1910 a messenger from Court asked Loupias to
accompany him to the territory of the Barashi, where he was to announce
Musinga’s decision in the conflict between Rukara and Sebuyange. Al-
though Loupias had performed similar services for Musinga in the past,
this time he agreed only reluctantly, fearing one or both parties might
resort to violence. After the contenders had come together, the envoy
announced that each man was to command those who wished to follow
him. Rukara refused to accept this judgment, which would have removed
many men from his authority. Immediately another notable, who had
accompanied the envoy, announced that the messenger had misrepre-
sented the judgment. Loupias declared that since there was doubt about
the decision, the case would have to be sent back to Court. At that point
another Tutsi asked the Father to hear his charges that several Barashi
 Extending Court Power, 1905–1913 115

had stolen some of his cattle, including one cow belonging to the mis-
sion, which he had been keeping for the Fathers. After hearing the argu-
ments, Loupias demanded that Rukara order the Barashi involved to
return the cattle immediately. When Rukara refused, the Father lost his
temper and, with his rifle in one hand, grabbed Rukara with the other.
From the crowd, a Murashi called out, “Will you allow your leader to be
killed by this beast?” A volley of spears sped toward the Father. His fol-
lowers, more accustomed to such warfare, dropped to the ground in-
stantly and escaped injury. The Father was struck in the head and died
later that day.57
With the killing, the Barashi closed ranks behind Rukara. Even Se-
buyange helped him to escape. The Germans, extremely disturbed by
the possible consequences of the murder of a European, responded with
carrot and stick: they offered one hundred cattle for Rukara’s capture,
and they harshly and repeatedly attacked his kin in hopes of forcing
them to inform on their leader. Musinga sent troops from Court to join
in the attacks. As usual the notables shared the booty of these raids with
the soldiers. One notable, Biganda, profited from the support of the
Germans and the momentary submission of the Barashi to establish his
authority as their mutware.58 Neither the promised reward nor the pun-
ishments persuaded the Barashi—or any other people of the area—to
turn in Rukara. Although he returned to his home region after having
first fled into the Congo, the Europeans could not capture him. The
longer he eluded capture the greater became his fame. Some believed
that he would eventually drive all Europeans from northern Rwanda;
many, including some Christians, did not accept such an event as likely
but still provided against all eventualities by sending gifts to the fugitive.59

A lthough the Germans were ordinarily willing to meet Musinga’s re-

quests for armed support, they sometimes delayed or gave their aid in
ways that disturbed the Court. About a year after Basebya defeated the
ngabo of the Court in 1905, the Germans launched an attack against
the Twa, but without great result. During the next several years Basebya
ravaged the area that lay within a six hour radius of the Rugezi swamp,
from Buberuka south into northern Bumbogo, and from Lake Bulera
east to Ndorwa. Much of the land that had been cultivated returned to
bush as local people fled rather than endure his exactions. More powerful
than any of the Court-appointed notables in the area, he was feared by
the Tutsi as much as by the Bakiga. By 1909 Basebya had attracted
116 Extending Court Power, 1905–1913

enough clients to organize them into a regiment, the Basengo, while his
Twa formed the regiment Ibijabura. Of course the most important
notables did not personally participate in his regiment, but they did send
him gifts and did acknowledge his authority in the area. Basebya had no
intention of pushing his control into the heartland: he was content, as
he put it, to rule north of the Nyabarongo River, leaving Musinga the
territory to the south.60
Despite this reported concession by the Twa, Musinga continued to
seek German aid in defeating him. Kandt decided to attack Basebya in
February 1909. Although the prospect of such a campaign undoubtedly
satisfied Musinga, its timing probably had depended more on the con-
siderations of European diplomacy than on the will of the mwami. In
November 1908 Belgian troops had moved considerably south of their
previous posts and had tried to establish a station near Lake Bulera.
Kandt had managed to get them to withdraw, but he and his superiors
were concerned about Belgian territorial claims. By the next February
the German Colonial Office had decided that it would be unlikely to
obtain an acceptable agreement with Belgium over the disputed terri-
tory, and so it hoped first to reach a settlement with Great Britain. Since
the Germans agreed with the British that boundaries should be drawn
to coincide as much as possible with African political units, they were
anxious to ensure that the northern region seemed clearly to belong to
Musinga; the unrest caused by Basebya might call into question the
extent of royal control over that area.61
German colonial troops from Bujumbura, reinforced by a contin-
gent from Bukoba, spent six weeks trying to capture the elusive Basebya.
They were assisted by several ngabo of the Court as well as by some
Tutsi who served as spies. When the Germans returned as empty-
handed as the Court troops had four years before, most Europeans
blamed the Tutsi for misleading the soldiers. They claimed that impor-
tant notables, especially Rwidegembya, found association with the Twa
too profitable to be sacrificed. But one of the Fathers at the Rulindo
mission attributed Basebya’s success to his mobility and strategy. He re-
ported that the Twa and his followers trailed the soldiers by a few hours
as they moved from place to place and camped each night where the
Europeans had stopped the night before. The campaign did have some
effect, however. Basebya settled into a more quiet life. Repeating an
effort made several years before, he sought good relations with the
missionaries: in a truce with the Rulindo Fathers, he gave them a cow
and promised not to attack their followers.62
 Extending Court Power, 1905–1913 117

Musinga must have found the Germans’ delay in ferreting out

Basebya annoying, but he found their approach to Muhumusa far more
frightening. Despite his repeated requests for expeditions against her,
the Germans did nothing until June 1909, a month after they had settled
the northeastern border with Britain. Since the delimitation was to
be based partly on Musinga’s territorial rights, the Germans may have
wished to ensure that Muhumusa and her subjects in Mpororo be
willing to acknowledge Musinga’s suzerainty. Musinga sent two of his
batware—Nturo, who commanded in Ndorwa, and Rwatangabo, who
ruled in Mutara—to Mpororo with a guard of Rwandan troops and
German soldiers. Whether the purpose of the expedition was to nego-
tiate with Muhumusa or to capture her is unclear; perhaps the Germans
favored the first and the Rwandans the second. In any case the com-
bined force took her and brought her to Kigali where Kandt wanted to
keep her temporarily under his supervision—perhaps until he ascer-
tained if she would acknowledge Musinga’s authority. The Germans
apparently gave her one hundred cattle for her support while she was at
the capital.63
Musinga was concerned by the respectful treatment that the Ger-
mans accorded Muhumusa. Kandt’s increasingly frequent use of his
power to overrule the mwami, as in the recent founding of Kigali and
the three missions, along with the passage of large numbers of troops
through the kingdom in 1909, may have seemed to him to be setting the
stage for an attack on the Court itself. After Muhumusa arrived at Ki-
gali in July, a rash of rumors swept eastern Rwanda every few weeks,
proclaiming the advent of Biregeya or some other leader whom the
Germans were going to name as mwami. The people of that area, look-
ing for a leader to restore their independence from the Tutsi of the cen-
tral kingdom, talked of another revolt against the Court.64
Musinga distrusted his own notables as well as the Germans and
the people of Gisaka. Of the two who had gone to meet Muhumusa in
June, Nturo was a Munyiginya, Rwantangabo a Mushambo (the domi-
nant clan identity in the northeast). Many Banyiginya hoped for the end
of a reign still dominated by the Bega, while the Bashambo had suffered
much at the hands of the Batsobe, the closest allies of the Bega. When
Muhumusa was carefully retained at Kigali by the Germans, Musinga
feared that these two notables had plotted with her against him. The ac-
cusations were never made public and neither emissary was openly pun-
ished, although the rumor spread that Musinga himself had whipped
Rwatangabo. In September the anxiety at Court reached a peak when
118 Extending Court Power, 1905–1913

another large expedition of German soldiers arrived en route to the

border region where the British and the Belgians seemed about to do
battle. Once more, Biregeya was reported to be in the kingdom, and
once more, Musinga entertained accusations of intrigue among his
notables. The Court was said to be planning an attack on Europeans, a
rumor that Kandt took seriously enough to warn the missionaries to
take precautions.65
Seeing the depth of anxiety at Court, Kandt ordered Muhumusa
sent to Bukoba, where he supposed she would be out of trouble for the
foreseeable future. But tensions dissipated only slowly in the kingdom.
In October a group of Barundi were reported to be trying to enter
Rwanda across the Kagera River to install Biregeya as mwami. The
Rwandans ordered by the Court to guard the frontier attacked them.
Ten or so men were killed on each side. In fact, the Barundi had just
been porters bringing supplies to some Europeans. In December 1909
and again in January 1910 rumors spread about the coming of a new
mwami, but they evaporated without further incident.66

Defining State Boundaries

By 1910 Musinga had realized that although the Germans wanted him
to extend his authority, they were not always ready to support him when
and where he wished. During 1910 and 1911 he was to learn that they
might refuse to back his claims altogether when they conflicted with
European diplomatic arrangements. In May 1910 representatives of
Germany, Belgium, and Great Britain agreed on boundaries among
their Central African possessions. In 1911 the International Delimitation
Commission marked out the lines that were henceforth to determine the
limits of Rwanda and its neighbors. In 1909 the German Colonial
Office had feared that a major territorial cession might trigger a serious
rebellion in Rwanda. The Court was convinced that all of Rwabugiri’s
conquests represented permanent Rwandan territory. However, Kandt
regarded the boundary adjustments as relatively minor: occupied terri-
tory on Ijwi Island and at the northern tip of Lake Kivu went to Bel-
gium, while a strip of territory to the northeast was ceded to Great Brit-
ain. Defining the boundaries of the state in this way, Kandt felt, would
not push the Court to revolt, although it was likely to cause “silent
embitterment” on the part of Musinga.67
The Germans measured the extent of the cession in terms of what
they had previously claimed, but the Court saw it in terms of the far
 Extending Court Power, 1905–1913 119

larger territory that had once been conquered (or even just subjected to
raids) by Rwabugiri. Although Rwandan control was no longer effective
on Ijwi, Musinga and his Court still regarded parts of Bushi to the
southwest and some of the small territories to the north as belonging
to the kingdom. They did indeed react with the “silent embitterment”
Kandt feared, but they had been experiencing this sentiment ever since
they had first been made to submit to European power. After the estab-
lishment of the protectorate by the Germans, the Court also had to la-
ment the intrusion into its territory of the Belgians and the British, who
by 1904 had established posts in what they regarded as their possessions
of the Congo and Uganda.68 Indeed, the cessions of 1910 distressed
Musinga not because they were the first losses to the Europeans but
because they were further losses in a process begun a decade before.
Since Musinga would in the future be unable to reassert or expand
his power in the ceded regions, the people who lived beyond the bound-
aries would eventually lose their allegiance to the Court. But Musinga
knew that the boundaries established by Europeans did not necessarily
have any immediate effect on the Africans marked off by them. In pre-
vious years some people who lived in territory claimed by the Belgians
or the British had continued to acknowledge Musinga’s rule, while
others on the German side of the frontier had rejected it. In most cases
European administration was not yet intensive enough to determine the
relationships of these peoples to the Court: those who wished to obey
continued to obey; those who dissented did so. The major exceptions
had occurred in Belgian territory, where the local European authorities
had expelled Rwandan notables, killing several in the process.69 For
their part, the British had allowed people on their side of the border to
continue their gifts to Musinga, provided this acknowledgment of his
suzerainty was voluntary, and they maintained this policy after the 1910
agreement.70 Musinga was naturally far more disturbed by the actions
of the Belgians than by those of the British: it was not the establishment
of artificial lines that counted so much as the attitude of the European
power with which the Court must share its authority.
Musinga probably resented the boundary adjustments mostly as a
betrayal by his German protectors. In the test of strength with opposing
powers, the Germans had failed to back their client, although he felt he
had done nothing to deserve such repudiation. He spent many months
trying to induce the Resident and through him the German Emperor to
take a firmer stand for the rights of their Rwandan client. Perhaps hoping
that such a change might take place, Musinga ignored the six-month
120 Extending Court Power, 1905–1913

period of grace granted by the Europeans and refused to withdraw his

men and cattle from those territories that had escaped his control.71
As the International Delimitation Commission was completing its
work in September 1911 near Mpororo, its progress was interrupted by a
new anti-European movement directed by Muhumusa. Having escaped
from detention in Bukoba several months before, she had quickly re-
established her power in Mpororo with the help of Basebya and of an-
other lieutenant named Ndungutse. Her men led attacks against those
who had sided with the Europeans, driving many to seek refuge at the
British post of Kumba. Kandt led a force north to capture her again but
failed. At the end of September, however, a joint British–German group
led by the officers of the Delimitation Commission seized her after kill-
ing some forty of her followers. The British assumed responsibility for
her and deported her from the district.72
Nonetheless, news of this rising spread throughout northern Rwanda;
the report of Muhumusa’s capture traveled much more slowly. Before
her capture and in collaboration with Basebya, Muhumusa had sent
messengers as far as the forests of Bugoyi to alert the Twa there to
prepare for an attack on the Europeans. Around the Rwaza mission,
opponents of the Fathers talked of how Muhumusa would soon be
driving all Europeans from the country. When a Christian was murdered
in October, the Fathers and their followers became increasingly worried
and clients of the mission dared not venture beyond their own hills. But
by December some of the people of the north had given up their hopes
(and others had relinquished their fears) that Muhumusa would defeat
the Europeans.73

New Resistance to Court Expansion

By the end of January 1912, the Hutu of north-central Rwanda were ac-
claiming a new leader who promised them relief from the most serious
cause of discontent in their area: direct local control by the notables.
This man, Ndungutse, instructed the Bakiga to refuse all further ubu-
retwa labor to the notables. He offered to lead them in expelling from
the region all notables who had unjustly appropriated land for their
own use or who demanded tax payments not sanctioned by custom.74
Although he had probably been with Muhumusa when the Europeans
attacked her, Ndungutse had nonetheless managed to escape with Ba-
sebya, and the two had established a headquarters near the Rugezi
swamp in that part of Buberuka that was firmly committed to the Twa.
 Extending Court Power, 1905–1913 121

Ndungutse may have been born or lived for some time in northern
Rwanda, perhaps in Busigi, or he may have originally come from Mpo-
roro; in any case he had lived in Mpororo long enough for the people of
north-central Rwanda to describe him as a “stranger.” Some people re-
member him as Tutsi—or the equivalent in Mpororo, Hima—others as
Hutu.* Perhaps he was of mixed parentage. He probably resembled the
physical type of a Tutsi since he persuaded many of his followers that he
was of royal blood.75
Seeking to make his authority legitimate, Ndungutse raised his
own status from that of lieutenant of Muhumusa to that of her son.
Since Muhumusa was sometimes identified with Muserekande, wife
of Rwabugiri, and at other times with Nyakayoga, wife of Rutarindwa,
Ndungutse was thought by some to be the son of Rwabugiri (and thus
the same as Biregeya) and by others to be the heir to Rutarindwa. Many
accepted his claim to royal parentage, backed as it was by all the trappings
of royal power: Ndungutse had his drum, wore a beaded headdress and
the royal hairstyle, and was carried about in a hammock.76
Playing on his supposed tie to the Court, Ndungutse gained his
greatest strength in areas where royal authority had been fairly well es-
tablished for generations: from Buberuka south to Bumbogo, Busigi,
and Buriza. He led a rising against Musinga, whom he accused of ac-
quiring power illegitimately. But this was not a revolt against the king-
ship, since he himself planned to replace the mwami; he advocated an
end to uburetwa labor for the newly installed notables but not to ikoro
prestations for the Court, which had long been accepted in the area.77
In areas further west, from Mulera south to Bukonya, Buhoma, and
Bushiru, Ndungutse gathered support among many who rejected or
chose to overlook his claims to royal blood. Rukara, still being harassed
by the Europeans two years after the death of Loupias, met with
Ndungutse while considering whether to join forces with him. He
carefully looked over the supposed heir to the throne, then told him

*The Hima were cattle people both in the regions north of Rwanda (in Mpororo
and Nkore) and in Rwanda. But the political salience of the denomination differed in
the two societies: in Rwanda they were considered outside the structures of power, and
virtually autonomous of Court rule—just as in agrarian areas of the north the Bakiga
were also considered an identity outside the normative Hutu–Tutsi dyad of dependence
associated with Court power. In Nkore (and though with less stratified social layers, in
Mpororo) Hima were considered the politically superior class.
122 Extending Court Power, 1905–1913

outright: “You claim to be the son of Rwabugiri? You do not deserve to

be called his son, you are not even fit to be his Umutwa. As for me [I
know because] I have lived there at Court. If you wish, let us unite, but
do not talk to me any more about being the son of Rwabugiri.”78 Others
who had only recently experienced the extension of royal control and
the imposition of ikoro were not attracted by Ndungutse’s legitimist
claims, but they did see the powerful stranger as a useful leader around
whom they could rally to drive out the notables who were taxing them.
Traditional hostilities among lineages had apparently prevented any
locally powerful lineage head, like Rukara, from being able to muster
the widespread backing necessary for such a rising. Among those who
doubted or wished to disregard his legitimist claims, as well as among
those willing to accept them, Ndungutse reinforced his authority by
claiming great spiritual powers. He sometimes used the rhetoric and
ritual of the Nyabingi movement, probably as a result of his association
with Muhumusa, but he also claimed other abilities generally attributed
to famous military figures, such as being able to turn back arrows shot at
him or to bewitch or to spread disease among his enemies.79
Muhumusa’s rising had been directed specifically against Euro-
peans, but once Ndungutse began to operate independently, he strove to
divorce himself from this anti-European image. On three occasions he
offered cattle to the Fathers at Rwaza, proclaiming them to be his “ma-
ternal uncles.” One of his representatives called frequently at Rwaza to
maintain contact with the missionaries. But unsure of his claim to legiti-
macy and of his ambitions, the Fathers refused his gifts and advised
those under his influence to ignore his appeal. They told Ndungutse
that they would not deal with him—“recognize him,” as they put it—
because he was sheltering Rukara. Still the rebel leader persisted, in-
structing his men to do no harm to the Fathers, their men, or their prop-
erty.80 At Rulindo he persuaded the Fathers of that mission to accept his
gifts of cattle, and he ordered that their followers should also be left un-
disturbed. In late February two soldiers and several Christians who had
been with them were killed by a man named Banzi and his kinsmen,
after he and his people had suffered the exactions of soldiers for at least
a year without having been able to obtain redress from the Germans.
The timing of their attack may have been coincidental, but it was prob-
ably related to the unrest growing in the region as Ndungutse’s power
increased. The rebel claimant immediately sent a messenger to Rwaza
offering to attack Banzi and his men from one side if the Fathers would
arrange for an attack from the other. Only after the Fathers refused his
 Extending Court Power, 1905–1913 123

offer did he agree to Banzi’s request for refuge. Ndungutse also did his
best to cultivate relations directly with the Germans, sending them cattle
and offering to cooperate with them.81
Those of Ndungutse’s followers who were disappointed at his ap-
parent friendliness toward the Europeans may have seen it as a tempo-
rary necessity like his cooperation with the Twa. One of the Fathers asked
some Bakiga of Kibari why they continued to acclaim Ndungutse when
the Twa associated with him had just ransacked their homes and
granaries. They replied that for the moment Ndungutse needed the Twa
and so could not restrain them; when his power was firmly established,
he would certainly end their depredations. Perhaps they reasoned simi-
larly that Ndungutse would use the Europeans to displace Musinga and
assert his control over the kingdom and then would shuck them off as he
would the Twa.82
Rwandans further removed from Ndungutse’s actual center of oper-
ations heard of and applauded his ties with Muhumusa, Rukara, and
Banzi. They delighted in anecdotes like the one that had Ndungutse
telling Rukara he had nothing to fear from the Europeans; Ndungutse
reportedly continued, “I am the master of the Europeans. . . . I put goat
milk on a stool and they lick it like dogs.”83 Either they did not know
about or they chose to ignore his attempts to establish relations with the
intruders. Especially those who had suffered most from the proximity of
European centers of activity seem to have transformed him in their own
minds from a leader of opposition to the notables into a symbol of re-
sistance to the Europeans. The Twa of the Bugoyi area looked to him
to continue Muhumusa’s movement. The people of Bushiru, who had
borne many demands from the Germans at Gisenyi for supplies and
forced labor, refused all further requisitions and reportedly sought alli-
ance with Ndungutse. As his fame as an opponent of Europeans grew,
his reputed magical powers expanded to include the ability to turn
bullets directed at him into water.84
In the ten weeks from the end of January to the beginning of April
1912, Ndungutse gathered support in one northern area after another.
All of the territory between Lakes Ruhondo and Bulera and the Rugezi
swamp and as far south as the road that connected Ruhengeri and
Kigali stood solidly behind him. Hutu of many parts of Busigi, Buriza,
Bumbogo, Kibari, Bukonya, Buhoma, and Bushiru had accepted his
leadership, while others in these same provinces looked upon him with
increasing favor. He had made sorties to within three hours of Kigali
itself. Wherever he passed, he was welcomed with gifts and acclaimed
124 Extending Court Power, 1905–1913

with rejoicing. Rarely did his followers have to use force against the
people of an area. They directed their violence almost exclusively against
the notables, especially those of the Bega and Batsobe lineages. The Eu-
ropeans interpreted their special hatred of these lineages as proof of
Ndungutse’s legitimist claims, since it was they who had engineered the
coup at Rucunshu. But more important to Ndungutse and his men,
these two lineages had been the main agents of expansion in north-
central Rwanda.85
As the notables fled south across the Nyabarongo River, bringing
their reports of killing and destruction to Court, Musinga became
desperately afraid. Some of his important notables were looking to
Ndungutse as a symbol of legitimist opposition to a reign still dominated
by the Bega. Two influential Banyiginya, Kanuma and Bandora, even sent
representatives to pay court to the rebel.86 These notables were ready
to accept Ndungutse’s claim to rule to cover their own ambitions, while
overlooking his policy of opposition to expansion by representatives of
the Court. Fearing betrayal by the men of his father’s lineage and their
allies, Musinga turned once more to the Bega. Haunted by guilt over his
usurpation of the throne and with his dread that Biregeya was coming to
take vengeance for the Banyiginya, Musinga summoned the Bakongori,
a lineage that specialized in ritual duties at Court, placed them under
the direction of Rwidegembya, and ordered them to conduct ceremonies
throughout Rwanda to discover which of his ancestors were causing the
disturbances in the kingdom. The diviners concluded that Karara and
Burabyo, two of Musinga’s brothers who had been killed shortly after
the coup, were responsible for the unrest. Musinga immediately took
steps to try to placate them.87
The mwami did not rely solely on a spiritual defense, however. He
summoned his best-trained ngabo, including his personal guard, the
Indengabaganizi to attack the challenger. He also requested troops from
the Germans to reinforce his own warriors. Since Kandt was then on
leave in Germany, the responsibility for handling this crisis fell on Gu-
dovius, the interim Resident. Gudovius knew less about Rwanda and
cared less about the Court than did Kandt. Although he was inclined to
support Musinga because of his past services to the Germans, he seems
to have been tempted by the promises of the rebel leader. Musinga had
indeed obliged the Resident many times, but as Gudovius knew, his will-
ingness to cooperate was always limited by his desire to maintain what
he could of his traditional powers. A new mwami, completely depen-
dent upon the Europeans because he had been installed by them, might
 Extending Court Power, 1905–1913 125

prove easier to manage. Uncertain at first about Ndungutse’s claims to

legitimacy, he finally decided that his popularity with the Hutu and the
panic he caused at Court proved his genuine descent from Rutarindwa.
Gudovius was also confused by the apparent contradictions in Ndungu-
tse’s attitude toward the Europeans: he was said to oppose them, but he
persisted in trying to win their support, and so he decided to refer the
whole matter to the governor of German East Africa. In the meantime,
he accepted Ndungutse’s gifts and sent him some in return.88
Having rejected Musinga’s pleas for an immediate attack, Gudovius
installed four military camps on the outer periphery of Ndungutse’s
territory to keep the rebel from expanding the area he controlled. The
German officer may well have held out hope of eventual recognition to
the leader while asking him to halt his attacks. In addition to refusing to
commit his own forces, Gudovius several times restrained the Court
troops from campaigning against Ndungutse. Although he allowed
some of Musinga’s warriors to join the cordon around the rebellious
area, he ordered other regiments dispersed.89 As Gudovius continued to
delay, Musinga watched those troops permitted to remain in the north
vegetate in their camps: the warriors grew more discouraged every day
because of rivalries among the batware, an epidemic of dysentery, and
the severe cold and wetness of the northern climate.90 Whether Gudo-
vius favored supporting Ndungutse against Musinga or whether he was
simply trying to keep the situation in hand while awaiting further or-
ders, Musinga must have feared that Gudovius was planning to remove
him from power. Never before had he been forced to realize just how
completely he depended on the support of the hated Europeans.

Breaking Local Resistance

In early April Gudovius either received orders to suppress the rebellion
or decided for himself that Ndungutse’s strength was growing too rap-
idly for him to delay an attack any longer. Ndungutse was also in action.
Perhaps aware that a campaign was being planned or perhaps just tired
of having to deal with the independent, contentious Rukara, Ndungutse
took the Hutu prisoner and sent him to a German post on 6 or 7
April.91 But this gesture failed to persuade Gudovius to change his plans.
On 8 April the Resident left Kigali for a forced march to the heart of
Ndungutse’s territory. With a small contingent of colonial soldiers and
some three thousand Rwandan troops, he attacked Ndungutse’s residence
at dawn. Forewarned of the attack or recovering quickly from their
126 Extending Court Power, 1905–1913

surprise, Ndungutse’s men sent a shower of spears down on the officer

and his troops. The soldiers opened fire and killed about fifty of Ndungu-
tse’s warriors. Gudovius personally shot and killed a man who was trying
to escape over the enclosure that surrounded the residence. Court spies
who had infiltrated Ndungutse’s following identified the victim as the
rebel leader, but others claimed that he had escaped before the attack
and had fled to British territory. Whether killed or simply decisively
defeated, Ndungutse did not reappear to challenge Musinga.92
Impatient with the lack of firm administration that had allowed
Ndungutse’s movement to develop, Gudovius resolved that if Musinga
were to command in the north, he and his representatives must com-
mand completely. To this end, the German officer executed a “demon-
stration campaign” through the regions that had really or reportedly
supported Ndungutse. As he wrote, his aim was: “punishment of the in-
subordinate districts and their peoples and chiefs by causing the greatest
possible damage until complete submission; otherwise, destruction of
crops and settlements, and occupation of the theatre of operations by
chiefs appointed by the Resident who are faithful to Musinga.”93 Re-
assured by the decisive German action, the mwami encouraged Gudovius
to teach obedience to all who had rebelled. His notables were equally
willing to take advantage of the situation. They accompanied the Ger-
man troops, pointing out which areas should be attacked. Some regions
were devastated because of past opposition or anticipated future oppo-
sition to the notables, even if they had not taken a stand for Ndungutse.
The soldiers and the Rwandan warriors accompanying them swept
westward from Buberuka to Bushiru, then returned eastward, following
a path through Bukonya and Kibari.94 The Fathers at Rwaza, who had
been notified early of the attack so that they might warn their followers,
traced the progress of the troops by the train of refugees across the hills
in one direction and the procession of captured hostages, cattle, sheep
and goats in the other. On 3 May one of the Fathers recorded: “The
war continues; the batutsi massacre, are without mercy, half of the pop-
ulation of Bumongo [a neighboring region] will be destroyed. Groups
of women are led away and will become the booty of the great chiefs.”
But by this time the campaign had achieved its purpose, and by 5 May
the Resident was able to write the Fathers that “the country is pacified
up to Buberuka.”95
In the wake of the German attack, the notables of the central king-
dom who had previously held commands from the Court returned to
their northern domains, bringing with them numerous clients to attend
 Extending Court Power, 1905–1913 127

to the more intensive administration desired by both the mwami and

the Germans.96 In addition, Musinga sent notables to live in regions
such as parts of Bukonya and Bumbogo where resident representatives
of the Court had never ruled before. In all these areas, the rebellion that
had aimed to limit immediate rule by the notables resulted instead in its
expansion. The regions of Bushiru, Mulera, or Ndorwa that were most
difficult of access or offered less obvious booty, however, remained free
of the direct control of the Banyanduga. There, the inhabitants con-
tinued to work their land independently, sometimes paying only ikoro
to nonresident batware and sometimes paying no tax at all.97
While the troops were still in the north a Tutsi client of Basebya
revealed the hiding place of the Twa to the Germans. Basebya had
been at Ndungutse’s residence when the Germans had attacked, but
he had managed to escape. Rwubusisi, brother of Rwidegembya, ar-
ranged a meeting with Basebya, supposedly by telling him that he
brought gifts from the Court and that he wished to become his client.
Rwubusisi was accompanied by four African soldiers dressed as
Rwandans, carrying their rifles hidden in rolled grass mats. Rwubu-
sisi met Basebya at a clearing in the forest. They drank and chatted
until the notable was able to approach close enough to seize the Twa.
The soldiers drove off Basebya’s followers and escorted the captive to
the German camp. Afraid that Basebya might escape, Gudovius exe-
cuted him on the spot.98
The last of the three rebels, Rukara, was tried 18 April at the
German post of Ruhengeri. After Gudovius had found him guilty and
condemned him to die, he asked Rukara if he had anything to say. The
undaunted Rukara responded, “When a man has a great name, he must
expect to die for it.”99 As the procession set off for the gallows, a mem-
ber of the crowd—perhaps Sebuyange, the very man who had chal-
lenged Rukara’s leadership of the Barashi—called out a message sug-
gesting a possibility for escape. Although his hands were shackled, Rukara
was quick to implement the suggestion. He grabbed the bayonet of the
soldier ahead of him, who was leading him by a chain, and killed him
with it. As he turned to flee, he was struck down by a volley of bullets.
Although Rukara was all but dead, Gudovius ordered him hung anyway
and left his body on the gallows for the next day. The officer hoped thus
to impress the Bakiga with the inexorability of European justice, but
most found a different lesson in Rukara’s death: even the followers of
the missionaries had to agree that a man who took his own vengeance
before death was indeed a man of worth.100
128 Extending Court Power, 1905–1913

After having eliminated the three rebel leaders, Gudovius returned

to Nyanza to participate in the celebrations marking the suppression of
the rising. He certainly must have been expecting a warm and humble
welcome from the ruler whose throne he had just guaranteed. Although
Musinga emerged the victor, his recognition of assistance rendered
made him no more an admirer of the Europeans than his three oppo-
nents had been. He did go through the motions of thanking Gudovius,
presenting him with “a great elephant tusk,” but he then in a more subtle
way showed his hatred for the man whom he had expected to betray
him.101 At Court celebrations after battles, warriors always declaimed
poetry of their own composition, glorifying their feats in battle. As com-
mander, Gudovius was entitled to similar praise. Since the European
naturally could not compose his own poem, Musinga had a Court poet
prepare and declaim Gudovius’s account. It began: “I am wearer of the
hat, chief of the Sergeant, an elegant young man and an officer worthy
of his soldiers.”* Probably in reference to Gudovius’s delay in confront-
ing Ndungutse, it continued, “I traveled past on my donkey with all the
rashness of a warrior.” After recounting the attack, the poem remarked
on the gifts brought to the German by the defeated: “about one hun-
dred stalks of ripe and green bananas . . . goats, both yellow and black
and white . . . pigs without number and about one hundred crested
cranes.” He was said to have received not cattle, the only animals of any
true value, but goats, eaten only by Hutu, and pigs, not then eaten by
any Rwandans. No honey for fine liquor, but bananas for the most com-
mon beer were given him, along with crested cranes, a game bird that
Rwandans did not hunt because it was the symbol of the Banyiginya
clan. The poem concluded, “After I arrived at . . . Nyanza, the king of
all humanity came before me graciously, offered me different provisions,
and said to me, ‘Here is your share, O Being with Strange Beard and
Hair, Runner of the Forests! No enemy would dare attack us as long as I
have you with me. You alone truly inspire fear.’”102
Some Rwandans could not neglect the opportunity to curry favor
with Gudovius and reported the insult to him. Seeking an appropriate
form of retaliation, Gudovius learned that Musinga could best be
humiliated by being forced to exhibit his most prized cattle, the

*And presumably only of his soldiers. Furthermore, these were colonial soldiers,
hired from other territories, and scorned by Rwandan ntore.
 Extending Court Power, 1905–1913 129

long-horned inyambo, before the European. Exhibiting cattle before

one’s shebuja was the traditional means of acknowledging his authority
over all the cattle so shown. Since inyambo were the exclusive property
of the mwami, this exhibition would be a public acknowledgment of
Musinga’s clientship to Gudovius.
Musinga complied with Gudovius’s order. This symbolic act prob-
ably troubled the mwami less than his realization of how much he had
needed German aid to retain control of his kingdom in the preceding
months. During the five years since he had assumed a larger role in gov-
erning Rwanda, he, like Kabare before him, had drawn most success-
fully on European resources to expand the authority of the Court and
its representatives in areas where their control had been weak or non-
existent. When the people of the north united behind Ndungutse in op-
posing this expansion, Musinga was forced to acknowledge that having
extended royal control on borrowed resources, it could maintain the
ground won only with more of the same. German attitudes toward
Muhumusa and Ndungutse had also raised a more serious prospect to
trouble the Court: could some other claimant to the throne convince
the Germans of his legitimacy and persuade them to remove Musinga
in his favor? In the future Musinga would have to redouble his efforts at
steering a course between the outward compliance needed to retain
European support and his inward determination to maintain all possible
attributes of that power which his ancestors had so carefully created in
preceding generations.
 6
N ew E urop ea ns, N ew C o u r t
Ta c t ic s, 1 9 1 3 – 1 9 1 9

The Arrival of the Belgians

Inkoni ivuna igufwa ntiivuna ingeso.
[ The stick breaks the bones, it does not break habits]

W ith the outbreak of World War I, Musinga was freed from the fear
that the Germans might try to replace him with another ruler. They
faced a likely attack by far stronger British and Belgian forces massed in
Uganda and the Congo; the Germans had to rely on Musinga to keep
order within Rwanda and to guarantee their provisions. They sought to
ensure his loyalty by promising to conquer and return to his control all
the territory lost to Rwanda after Rwabugiri’s death and in the bound-
ary delimitations of 1911. As a first step in this direction, they rapidly
and effortlessly drove the Belgians from Ijwi Island in the early months
of the war.1

World War I and Rwandan Colonial Control

As the news of the war spread quickly through the kingdom, many
Rwandans hoped this conflict might bring an end to colonial rule.2 Mu-
singa too may have privately cherished such hope, but in the meantime
he publicly supported the Germans and ordered his subjects to do the
same. If the war were to mean not the elimination of the colonial powers
but merely reapportionment of their holdings, Musinga wanted to be
sure that the Germans would win. Above all, he feared a Belgian victory.
Ever since the first battle with the Belgians at Shangi—a disaster for the
Rwandans—the Court had experienced only trouble with the officials

130
 New Europeans, New Court Tactics, 1913–1919 131

from the Congo. Court representatives who had entered Belgian terri-
tory to collect taxes had been killed or expelled. Like other Rwandans,
Musinga and Kanjogera had heard of the abuses by Belgian soldiers or
officials from refugees who had fled the Congo.* Once hostilities asso-
ciated with World War I had begun, the Belgians together with the British
raided Rwandan territory, pillaging cattle, other livestock, and produce
to feed their troops. The raids, which cost several important notables
large numbers of cattle, only increased the Court’s hatred and fear of
the Belgians and their allies.3
Aside from the anticipated return of territory, Musinga stood to
gain more immediately from cooperation with the Germans. Since most
Rwandans refused to accept the Germans’ metal or paper currency, the
administration had to requisition supplies and porters through the Court.
As the number of German troops grew from a few dozen at the start of
the war to more than one thousand by January 1916, the Court profited
handsomely from this arrangement. The Germans, for example, recog-
nized Musinga as the owner of all the cattle in the kingdom and paid
him, rather than the notables, for the loan of three thousand milking cows
and for the delivery of another three hundred cattle a year for slaughter.
However, the notables who had produced the cattle lost nothing, since
they had collected them without payment from their inferiors. As
before the war, both Court and notables used German support to make
additional demands for their own gain, including requiring three days’
uburetwa labor from their clients instead of the previous two.4
Musinga used the increased German backing to intimidate further
his Bega kin, whose position had been eroding since Kabare’s death in
1911. He allowed one of his favorites to deprive his influential cousin
Rwidegembya of a large domain in the north and soon after sent Rwide-
gembya on a campaign against the Hutu of a distant region (Itabire), in
a thinly disguised temporary exile from the Court. Musinga was also
looking with increasing disfavor on his cousin Kayondo, another mem-
ber of the Bega, who would play a major role throughout the rest of his
reign. Kayondo had been orphaned when a child and had grown up
under the care of Kanjogera, his father’s sister. From the start, Musinga

*From time to time mutineer soldiers from the Force Publique (the military force in
Congo) had entered territory claimed by the Rwandan Court and created havoc among
the population. (See C. Newbury The Cohesion of Oppression, 54–57, for an example of
this.) Consequently, the Court was wary of invasion from the west.
132 New Eruopeans, New Court Tactics, 1913–1919

had resented this rival for his mother’s attention. Later, Musinga took of-
fense because even after Musinga acceded to power Kayondo continued
the casual relationship they had known as children and showed him no
special respect, even though he was mwami. Because of Kanjogera’s
continued affection for Kayondo, Musinga did not openly attack his
cousin. Instead, he began delegating greater power to Kayondo’s subor-
dinates, thus subtly weakening him. Musinga also indirectly attacked his
powerful brother Nshozamihigo, who had saved his life and his extensive
holdings in northern Rwanda by siding with the Bega at the very start of
Musinga’s reign. Given this earlier history, Musinga had always feared
that Nshozamihigo might someday betray him for a new candidate for
the throne, but he had not dared move against him. Now he permitted
Nshozamihigo’s rivals to encroach upon his northern domains.5
Musinga also felt confident enough of German support to ignore
the order that required him to seek their approval for all executions.
Eager to demonstrate his continuing power over the lives of his subjects,
and still sensitive to the rumors of intrigues that had plagued his earlier
years, the mwami ruthlessly attacked those notables accused of having
tried to poison him. In February and again in August 1915, he ordered
alleged poisoners killed along with their immediate kin. Musinga also
hoped to use European techniques to increase his power. He had readily
complied with a German request for young notables to serve as soldiers
and guides with their troops, hoping that the notables would bring their
European training into his service at the end of the war.6
Under the cover of meeting German requisitions, the notables ex-
panded their rule in the north and the west of the kingdom. The Ger-
mans had no time to investigate their many claims for aid and usually
just provided them with the requested soldiers whenever they reported
insubordination among the Bakiga. With the help of the soldiers, the
notables forced the Bakiga of the north-central region of Buriza to do
uburetwa labor for the first time. In the northeastern area of Ndorwa,
they raided and pillaged people whom they had not previously dared to
attack.7
As the pressures of the war grew, the German administration warned
the missionaries to avoid any possible grounds for conflict with the
Court or notables. As a result, those missionaries who in the past had
protected some of the Hutu against Court incursions were now forced
to refuse them further help. They had to close their school at Nyanza
when Musinga hinted that this might be desirable, and to suffer quietly
the insults the notables began heaping upon the converts. At some
 New Europeans, New Court Tactics, 1913–1919 133

stations, the missionaries were even required to help the notables collect
supplies for the troops, which they then sent to Nyanza for Musinga’s in-
spection before dispatching them to their final destination.8
The war brought structural as well as directly political changes. The
Fathers had to close several of their stations temporarily because of a
reduction in the number of their missionaries and restrictions on the
location of certain among them. By the end of the war, the Protestant
stations were all closed permanently. In such areas, the number of prac-
ticing Christians dwindled rapidly, as some converts or postulants dropped
the foreign religion to return to their former spiritual practices, and
others drifted off to seek their fortune in military camps or towns like
Kigali or Bujumbura. In several places even the physical evidence of the
missionaries’ presence was removed as the local people pillaged and de-
stroyed their buildings. Not surprisingly, at even the most stable missions
Hutu sometimes lost enthusiasm for Christianity as news of closings
elsewhere lent substance to rumors of the departure of all Europeans.9
The Bakiga of northern Rwanda were angered by the increased de-
mands of notables and Europeans and encouraged by the uncertainties
of the war. Some looked (again) to the Nyabingi movement for leader-
ship in the crisis. Mafene, a descendant of the woman who had brought
the movement to Rwanda in the nineteenth century, assumed increasing
power in Buberuka and Ndorwa as he preached refusal of all the
foreigners’ demands. Once the Germans learned of his teaching, they
quickly sought him out and killed him in 1915.10
Later in 1915 there appeared a “mysterious Mututsi” who for a few
brief months united the Bakiga of the north with representatives of the
Court in opposing the foreigners. His name, Bichubirenga, “the clouds
pass by,” referred to the troubles caused by the presence of the Euro-
peans. The notables allied with him included Nyindo, a brother of Mu-
singa, and Katuregye, both of whom had ruled in the part of northern
Rwanda that had come under British administration in 1911. They had
remained loyal to Musinga, and with the outbreak of war they re-
sponded to his call for aid by fleeing British territory and establishing
themselves on the German side of the border. On orders from Musinga
they aided the Germans in resisting Belgian and British raids and
launched small attacks of their own into the Congo or Uganda.11 Bichu-
birenga joined in such missions. Indeed, the Germans valued his aid
so highly that they gave him a herd of cattle to keep his allegiance. But
he, like the Court representatives, regarded alliance with the Germans
as a temporary tactic to be used against the Belgians and British before
134 New Eruopeans, New Court Tactics, 1913–1919

turning against the Germans themselves. He explained to the Bakiga

that he had cast a spell on the Europeans to make them fight each other;
when they were done fighting, he and his men would destroy any who
were left. He warned all associated with the missions to renounce their
link with the Fathers before his ultimate victory: only those converts who
had rejected Christianity, “vomited the poison of the Europeans,” and
had been accepted back into their lineages could be saved.12
Like the earlier rebel leader Ndungutse, Bichubirenga used links with
the Nyabingi movement to mobilize his followers. And like Ndungutse,
he was welcomed with gifts and feasting wherever he traveled. The num-
ber of his adherents in Mulera, Buberuka, Ndorwa, and Bukamba grew
steadily from November 1915 through January 1916. His followers were
attracted by the expectation of booty from his raids as well as by his
larger promise of eventual salvation from the foreigners. In January he
mustered a force of several thousand to attack a Belgian post at Chahafy,
promising his men would be protected from European bullets by his
presence and that of his extraordinary white lamb. After a five-hour
battle in which the Force Publique troops had the advantage of superior
location and machine guns, his warriors retired with only a few injuries
and a captured stock of weapons and ammunition. Rather than keep
the arms for local use, Bichubirenga sent them through Nyindo to the
Court, perhaps as an incentive to Musinga to take up a broader struggle
in the center of the kingdom. But this movement, which hinted at the
possibility of cooperation between the Court and the Bakiga resisters of
the north, was cut short by the Belgian and British invasion of Rwanda
in April 1916. As the new colonial armies pushed forward, Nyindo and
the other notables surrendered to them while Bichubirenga vanished,
leaving behind him the unfulfilled hope of expelling the foreigners from
Rwanda.13

The Initial Effects of Belgian Ar rival

In the face of the Belgian and British invasion the Germans quickly
retreated southward. They were accompanied both by their Rwandan
troops and by most of the notables who feared facing the combined
forces of the invaders and the Bakiga without German support. When
the commanding German officer, Captain Wintgens, arrived at Nyanza,
he cheerily shook Musinga’s hand and assured him that the Germans
would soon return. Witnessing the hastiness of the German withdrawal
 New Europeans, New Court Tactics, 1913–1919 135

and the impressive size of the Belgian invading force, Musinga could not
have placed much faith in the immediate fulfillment of such a promise.14
The Court barely had time to weigh alternatives in dealing with the
victors before the Belgian advance guard arrived on 19 May 1916. Their
officers marched brusquely into the royal enclosure and ordered two
notables to take them immediately to Musinga. Unable to understand
the command, which was given in Swahili, the two tried to explain in
Kinyarwanda. Taking this as a sign of resistance, the Belgians shot both
men. One died immediately, the other shortly after from his wounds.
Frightened and humiliated by the killings of his men in his own enclo-
sure, Musinga hurried to pay court to the Belgians, accepting their flag
and promising to have no further contacts with the Germans. Musinga
knew that his hopes for expanding his kingdom had been dashed and he
suspected that the new colonial administration would be much harder
to tolerate than the old.15
The local Belgian commander, General Tombeur, had been in-
structed by the Colonial Ministry that any conquered German territory
would be held as a pawn for negotiations after the war. Thus Tombeur
was to concentrate on winning the cooperation of the “native chiefs” so
as to guarantee the security of the troops and order within the territory.
Hard pressed to feed his troops and transport their materiel, Tombeur
ignored these instructions. Suspicious of Musinga, and believing that he
would not (or could not) deliver the needed supplies, he allowed his sub-
ordinates to institute more direct administrative structures, dividing the
kingdom into an eastern sector with headquarters at Kigali, and a west-
ern sector with headquarters at Gisenyi. The Belgian officers made their
demands directly on the notables, thus eliminating the Court from its
profitable position as intermediary between the Europeans and its sub-
jects.16 More important to Musinga and Kanjogera than the loss of
wealth, however, was the loss of power as the Belgians assumed respon-
sibility for rewarding those notables who accommodated the new direc-
tives and punishing those who proved recalcitrant. Skeptical and impa-
tient, the Belgians more frequently found occasion for punishment than
for reward. The Belgians and their Congolese soldiers abused the of-
fending notables by imprisoning them, stripping them of their fine
cloths, beating them, and making them cultivate fields, or requiring
them to empty the waste of other prisoners. At first the subjects or cli-
ents of imprisoned notables hurried to try to ransom their superiors
with gifts or to try to bribe the soldiers to treat them less harshly; but
136 New Eruopeans, New Court Tactics, 1913–1919

eventually they tired of this and left the notables to the sole aid of their
kin and the Court.17
Some of the weak looked with satisfaction on the punishment of the
strong, but others feared what the Europeans might do to them if they
so abused the powerful. Some of the Hutu took heart as the Belgians
sought to win their support in case of possible difficulties with the notables.
To reconcile them to the requisitions demanded by the administration,
the Belgians excused them from some of their traditional obligations to
the notables. Some officers pledged that the Hutu would be given abso-
lute control over their land and the fruits of their labor. Occasionally an
officer would hear complaints of the Hutu against their notables and
would implement these promises in his decisions. In the central king-
dom, the sum of concrete actions was small but sufficed to raise the
expectations of the Hutu and the ire of the notables.18
The shift in European support from the Tutsi to Hutu had its
greatest effect in the north. The Belgians wanted reprisals against the
notables who had led raids across the border. The Bakiga were happy to
point out the residence of any Tutsi who had oppressed them, whether
or not he had fought for the Germans; here were new Europeans to pil-
lage and burn for them as the Germans had formerly done for the rep-
resentatives of the Court.19 The Tutsi had driven most of their cattle
south ahead of the encroaching forces, but they had left behind a few
rich herds. The Belgians confiscated these cattle and, since they could
not care for them themselves, distributed them among Hutu, in some
cases coincidentally restoring to them the same animals the Tutsi had
appropriated sometime previously.20
One group of Hutu who profited more than others from Belgian
protection were the basemyi, “those who speak,” or the interpreters. Nat-
urally, none of the Belgians spoke Kinyarwanda and few knew more
than a smattering of Swahili, so the basemyi became the effective agents
of local administration, assigning requisitions and arbitrating disputes.
The Belgians preferred to recruit basemyi from the missions, perhaps
believing their Christian training would make them more trustworthy
and more virtuous. But if no converts were available, they would hire
anyone who could communicate with them. One Rwandan recalled:
“In fact anyone . . . who knew how to get along went to the Europeans;
it was enough if he could talk to him; the European would hire him and
would tell him to go requisition certain things and [the Rwandan]
would go.”21
 New Europeans, New Court Tactics, 1913–1919 137

The basemyi rapidly enlarged their areas of responsibility far beyond

what the Belgians had assigned to them. Knowing their European patrons
could not do without them, they felt free to exact gifts and services
from notables and people alike. One who was named Mbonyubgabo—
Wilhelmi or Guillaume, depending on the colonial overlord at the
time—even began confiscating part of the traditional taxes and tribute
en route to the Court.22 Perhaps the most notorious of all the basemyi
was Serufigi. Once a servant to the German officer Wintgens, from
which experience he had acquired fluency in Swahili and familiarity
with the ways of Europeans, Serufigi had shed his loyalty with his uni-
form as Wintgens began retreating. He went straight to the new Belgian
post at Kigali and was promptly hired. As the Belgians’ most trusted
interpreter, Serufigi controlled the flow of information to the officers.
He soon made the local notables realize that his good will was essential
to avoiding the dreaded punishments of beating or imprisonment. The
notables paid him court, giving him cattle and women on demand. Mu-
singa himself sought to enlist Serufigi’s support, but the bold interpreter
rejected the cattle that Musinga had sent to seal their clientship.23
Musinga was tormented by the loss of authority to these upstart
clients of the Belgians. Their pretentious assumption of the habits of the
Tutsi—being transported in hammocks, holding evening séances—
only emphasized their more serious appropriation of the powers of the
notables. During 1916 and early 1917 their power was so great that Mu-
singa dared not act against them. It was even rumored that the Belgians
might divide Rwanda, giving the northern half to Serufigi, the southern
half to Mbonyubgabo.24
While the Court and notables were naturally appalled by the dislo-
cations caused by the Belgian administration, even many of the Hutu
came to regret their arrival. Belgian promises of less tax and service to
the notables were too rarely kept, while their demands for produce and
labor for themselves multiplied. In addition, among the hundreds of
troops that accompanied them, some escaped the control of their offi-
cers and robbed and raped at will. The troops behaved so badly in
northern Rwanda that the Belgians had to prohibit them from leaving
the post without a European officer.25
In the wake of the Belgian arrival, famine and epidemics enor-
mously aggravated the misery of the Rwandans while adding to the
feeling that the change in colonial administration portended worse to
come.26 The “Rumanura” famine began in the northwestern region of
138 New Eruopeans, New Court Tactics, 1913–1919

Bugoyi, where the combatants had consumed most of the available food
and where the requisition of porters had sharply reduced the number of
men who could cultivate the fields. From there it spread to other areas as
famine victims flowed to other regions, increasing the demand on food
supplies throughout the northwest. In addition to military requisitions,
the harvest of early 1916 was poor. Those who remained in Bugoyi sur-
vived on roots and wild plants, hoping for an improvement once the
troops had moved on. But in November 1916 came torrential rains that
destroyed the harvest for the next season. Poor weather continued for
another eighteen months. So desperate were some people that they
pawned their children in hopes that they would at least be fed by their
owners and that the pittance from their pawnship relationship would
sustain the rest of the household for a short time.* In this context, the
ruthless sometimes kidnapped the most vulnerable to benefit from
pawning them, claiming them as their own children, with no intention
of redeeming them and keeping the loan received—in effect selling
them. Though they saw this as slave trading, the Belgians did little to
prevent such transfers within Rwanda. They worried, however, about
British disapproval of such transfers occurring across the border and
being defined as slave trading, so they concentrated their feeble efforts
against the traffic at the frontiers.27
With the famine came devastating epidemics: smallpox, dysentery,
grippe, and spinal meningitis. More than half the people of Bugoyi
were driven from their homes in search of food, and as they dispersed
they carried the epidemics throughout the kingdom. The flood of refu-
gees and the poor growing conditions spread the famine to neighboring

*A pawnship relationship consisted of the temporary transfer of a person to

another family in return for food transferred to the originating family. The family
receiving the child was responsible for the good treatment of that person (including
their food and protection); in turn they could benefit from that person’s labor during his
or her stay. The person so transferred was returned when the original loan was repaid.
In times of need this reduced the demands for food on the originating household and
ensured the survival of the transferred person. Among Rwandans it was understood as
a temporary condition, but it was seen by Europeans as a “sale” of a person and hence
as a form of slavery. Such misunderstandings were not only the product of European
interpretation of any material exchange as a “sale,” but intensified because combating
slavery served as one of the most powerful ideological pretexts justifying colonial
occupation in the first place—to European powers the suppression of the slave trade
(and later, slavery) was a foundation to their claim to a “civilizing mission” in Africa.
 New Europeans, New Court Tactics, 1913–1919 139

regions and created serious scarcities elsewhere. Even eastern Rwanda,

which escaped the worst of the famine and human epidemics, bore the
brunt of an epidemic of trypanosomiasis among cattle. Thousands of
cattle died, leaving many Tutsi impoverished and the Court itself a
great deal the poorer. The administration and the missions did their
best to cope with these multiple catastrophes by distributing medicine,
food, and seeds. Severely hampered by lack of resources, they could re-
lieve the suffering of only a relatively small number of those affected.28
Faced with these crises, Musinga and Kanjogera turned to tradi-
tional sources of help. Believing that the Banyiginya killed at Rucunshu
were largely responsible for the misfortunes, they engaged in all the cere-
monies and sacrifices presumed useful in moderating their wrath. In the
past bami had sometimes had one of their sons join in the worship of
the Imandwa to ensure the spiritual protection of the Court by these
spirits; it was probably at this time of serious suffering that Musinga di-
rected his son Rudacyahwa to be initiated into the movement. But some
notables urged more direct action. They wanted to drive out the Bel-
gians, who were seen as the cause of all the disruptions of a formerly
agreeable life. The leading Bega, Rwidegembya and Kayondo—and
apparently Kanjogera herself—were convinced of the need for such an
uprising and began arguing for a prompt attack on the Belgians. Mu-
singa must have been tempted: both his own authority and the existence
of the kingdom itself appeared to be facing destruction. Yet the over-
whelming odds in favor of the Europeans made him hesitate. At a time
when the monarchy was marginalized by the occupying officers, he
knew that to try and fail would only push the Belgians even further in
the direction of eliminating the monarchy.29
But from September 1916 the notables grew bolder in their talk.
Many of the Belgian troops had followed the line of battle to the south
and were safely distant. Rumors were frequent that the British or the
Germans might come to aid the Rwandans if they revolted. After several
months of such talk, the Belgians became seriously concerned for their
own safety, reprimanding Musinga harshly and commanding him to halt
the rumors. Although the mwami may have given the desired order, dis-
satisfaction was too deeply rooted for such an edict to have any effect.30
The Belgians turned to the White Fathers for advice, as they would
do repeatedly throughout the rest of Musinga’s reign. The Fathers, who
had always seen Musinga’s maternal relatives as the primary obstacle to
his conversion, identified the Bega as the chief opponents to Belgian
rule. The decisive Superior of the Save Mission, Father Huntzinger,
140 New Eruopeans, New Court Tactics, 1913–1919

agreed with the Belgian Commander Van Aerde that it was necessary to
teach the Court “a lesson in savoir faire.”* They settled on the powerful
Rwidegembya to serve as an example to the Court and notables. He was
arrested at Nyanza in December 1916 and after being subjected to many
humiliations was dispatched to prison in the far northwest. Appalled by
the treatment of Rwidegembya, the notables rapidly spread the news of
his arrest. Some even anticipated that he would soon be executed. The
shame and fear aroused by the incident were so great that one of
Rwidegembya’s clients committed suicide.31
Musinga could well have used this occasion to blame Rwidegembya
for all the agitation in the kingdom. He could have ingratiated himself
with the menacing foreigners while eliminating any future challenges
from the powerful Mwega notable (and his own cousin) whom he
distrusted. Although the mwami had used Europeans in the past and
would use them in the future against the Bega, in this case he stood
united with his maternal relatives against the foreigners. He first im-
portuned the Belgians for Rwidegembya’s release, accompanying his
requests with gifts of cattle. When this produced no result, Musinga
threatened an uprising against the Belgians. They took the threat seri-
ously and in turn threatened Musinga himself with arrest and perhaps
deposition. The commander summoned an additional battalion of troops
to reinforce his own men. A few hundred yards from the royal enclosure,
the Belgians installed their artillery and machine guns. The Rwandans
did not attack.32
By February 1917 this momentary unity of the Court and notables
had crumbled, never to be rebuilt under the rule of Musinga. Only two
months after Musinga had stood by Rwidegembya, Rwagataraka, Rwide-
gembya’s son, betrayed the mwami to save his father and to guarantee
his own safety. Before the war, Rwidegembya had recognized the energy
and ability of his son, who was just entering manhood, and had granted
him command of the vast southwestern region of Kinyaga, a domain
that Rwidegembya himself had received during the early years of Mu-
singa’s reign. During the war, Musinga had ordered Rwagataraka to aid
the Germans, which he did brilliantly in battles against the Belgians at

*It is interesting that Huntzinger was advising the Belgians, since he was Alsatian—
and therefore possibly opposed to German rule. He was also a forceful personality and
one of the least deferential priests toward the royal family. For more on Père Huntzinger
see Linden and Linden, Church and Revolution in Rwanda, 130 ff.
 New Europeans, New Court Tactics, 1913–1919 141

Cyangugu. Once the Germans started to retreat, Rwagataraka and his

men went over to the Belgians. The new administration distrusted his
switch in loyalties and imprisoned him briefly before allowing him to re-
sume his command of Kinyaga. After his own brush with Belgian power,
Rwagataraka feared for his father’s life. Convinced that Musinga was
powerless to save him, Rwagataraka hoped to win grace for Rwidegembya
by accusing Musinga. He reported to the Belgians that Musinga had
been in touch with Captain Wintgens, whose messenger he was hiding
at Court.33
The Belgians accepted the accusations blindly, confronted Musinga
with the charges, and ordered him to produce the supposed messenger.
The frightened Musinga at first handed over one of his own servants,
but Father Huntzinger, the Belgians’ ever-present adviser, informed them
that this was not the man they were seeking. Musinga then claimed that
the accused man had gone to Kigali. Convinced by now that they were
dealing with a plot, the Belgians took Musinga from his residence at
gunpoint and locked him in jail while they sent for the man in Kigali.
Kanjogera, panicked and outraged, began summoning the notables for
battle. But when her representatives conferred secretly with Musinga
at the jail, he forbade such an attack. He could not ignore the virtual
impossibility of success nor the drastic consequences of failure. After
Musinga had forbidden an attack, the notables took the only alternative
course: they fanned out from Nyanza to collect cattle in hopes of ran-
soming their ruler. Their efforts were not needed. By nightfall the Bel-
gians in Kigali had located and interrogated the supposed messenger.
They could find no evidence to support the accusations, so they imme-
diately released him and Musinga. They took no action against Rwaga-
taraka, either because they believed he had been honestly mistaken or
because they did not want to discourage other potential informants.34
Perhaps by coincidence, or perhaps because he had heard of the ac-
cusations against Musinga, Serufigi, the notorious interpreter, accused
the mwami and several of his important notables of poisoning the milk
supply of the Belgian officers at Kigali. He named Basomingera, who
commanded a large domain which he coveted, as the immediate agent
of Musinga’s plot. The Belgians believed Serufigi as easily as they had
Rwagataraka. They arrested Basomingera and telegraphed their supe-
rior for permission to arrest and begin prosecuting Musinga. As Rwandans
remember the events, the Belgians were so convinced of the guilt of the
accused that they had erected a gallows on the market place at Kigali
before the trial had even begun. Before the Belgians could stumble
142 New Eruopeans, New Court Tactics, 1913–1919

further into error, someone examined the “poison” that had been pre-
sented as evidence; it was nothing more than specks of dirt and hair ac-
cumulated during the milking process. One of the Fathers, aware of the
frequency of accusations of poisoning among Rwandans, also intervened
to point out that the Belgians had been duped by their interpreter.35
By jailing Musinga, the Belgians showed clearly that they had as-
sumed ultimate power in Rwanda, something that foreigners had never
done before. Implied in their treatment of him was their right even to
remove him from the throne if they so chose. The notables believed that
the Belgians had acted “to uncover Musinga front and back,” “to de-
stroy his pride,” so as to prove that they had become the real rulers in
Rwanda.36 Through a determined effort, the Court kept word of the
brief imprisonment from spreading far. But for the notables and their
clients who did learn of the arrest, Musinga became “a lost man,” liable
like themselves to Belgian orders and punishments. The Bega, led by
Rwidegembya ( just freed by the Belgians and greatly impressed by their
power), his brother Rwubusisi, and their cousin Kayondo, were among
the first to adjust to the new situation. They began paying court to the
Europeans in hopes of building regional bases of power; with an im-
potent Court, or no Court at all, they would rule for the Belgians.37 As
the Bega sought the protection of the Belgians and began to desert the
Court, Musinga grew increasingly bitter against them, while Kanjogera,
torn by divided loyalties to her kin and to her kingdom, watched in great
distress.

Belgian Reassessment:
Working with the Court
The report of the poison plot triggered a sudden reversal in Belgian
policy. In late March 1917 Commander Malfeyt, who was governing the
occupied territories for the Belgians, realized that his subordinates were
losing control of themselves and of the situation. Victims of their own
impatience and ignorance as well as of ambitious intriguers, the local
authorities were destroying the very structure through which they were
to rule. Coming just after the rumors of a general revolt and of contacts
with the Germans, the poison plot convinced Malfeyt that a drastic
change was necessary to “reestablish calm” in Rwanda. By ordinance
number 5 of 6 April 1917, Malfeyt “restored the kingdom of Musinga”
by reinstituting the residency system used by the Germans and so elimi-
nating direct command by Belgian officers over the two halves of the
 New Europeans, New Court Tactics, 1913–1919 143

kingdom. To implement the new policy of cooperation with the Court,

Malfeyt dispatched Major De Clerck, a veteran of twenty years experi-
ence in the Congo, to be the first Belgian Resident at Kigali. De Clerck
quickly disposed of the poison charges by finding Musinga completely
innocent. He then devoted seven days to hearing Musinga’s complaints
against the other Belgians who had made the mwami “like the least of
his Watuzis,” as Musinga told De Clerck.38
Musinga rejoiced at the new Belgian policy. When De Clerck began
to press him for changes in Court life in return for the renewed support
for his authority, Musinga obliged all the more willingly since most of
the changes were so superficial. He presented first his mother, then his
children—including his presumed heir—to De Clerck and other Euro-
peans. He ordered the ladies of the royal family to sit for photographs
to please the souvenir-hungry military men. He offered cigarettes and
champagne to European visitors and even condescended to drink in
their company. During the smallpox epidemic he agreed to be vacci-
nated, a measure he had refused before the war. He outfitted his sons in
shirts, trousers, and fezes, and for state occasions he donned a sky-blue
uniform with gold braid that the Belgians had given him, though he hes-
itated to wear the yellow shoes that completed the outfit. When the ad-
ministration later gave him a Buick automobile, he consented to riding
in it several times before the vehicle finally succumbed to the damage in-
flicted by the poor roads. The Fathers, advocates of the European in-
dustrial way of life as much as of Christianity, concluded, “The greatest
obstacles to civilization are falling.”39 Given the readiness with which
the Fathers accepted the form for the substance of change, it is not sur-
prising that the less experienced Belgians were similarly pleased with the
“civilization” of the Court. De Clerck and his superior Malfeyt repeat-
edly assured the Colonial Ministry that Musinga was doing everything
possible to give satisfaction to the administration.40
De Clerck hoped to couple the restoration of Musinga’s authority
with a continuing commitment to improving the lives of the Hutu. Like
other Europeans, De Clerck thought the Court could never recognize
the need to moderate the burden on its subjects according to circum-
stances; therefore, force from above would be required for reform. He
did not understand that the Court viewed temporary exemption from
tax or service as a way to demonstrate its generosity, like the distribution
of wealth it had collected, and thus as a means to ensure the allegiance
of its subjects. But the Resident sought permanent relief through gen-
eral, universally applicable edicts—not temporary, targeted tactics. In
144 New Eruopeans, New Court Tactics, 1913–1919

July and August 1917, he pressed Musinga to decree that Hutu should
receive double the amount of land that they were currently cultivating,
that they should do uburetwa for only the customary two days instead of
the three more recently demanded by notables, and that they should be
able to keep all the produce of their fields and earnings from porterage
without risk of confiscation by notables. To make the judicial system
correspond to European ideas of justice, De Clerck himself prohibited
the taking of vengeance and the testing of witnesses by poison or or-
deal. The Resident also hoped to eliminate the many complex disputes
over control of men and cattle by prohibiting dissatisfied subjects or cli-
ents from seeking the protection of new superiors. He also declared that
a shebuja’s right to recall his cattle from his bagaragu would be limited.
To guard against future famines, De Clerck ordered all Rwandans to
plant manioc, a tuber crop that resisted drought and could be conserved
in the earth for several years before harvesting, and trees that suppos-
edly would contribute to more regular rainfall.41
Just as Musinga had consented to the superficial changes in the ways
of the Court, so he dared not refuse agreement to these more funda-
mental changes in the organization of the kingdom. But with the help of
his notables he could and did prevent the changes from having any
meaningful effect in virtually all parts of Rwanda. De Clerck had antic-
ipated resistance from the notables and had instructed his subordinates
to inform all the Rwandans directly of their new rights and obligations.
The notables countered this measure by bribing the basemyi—who
would announce the reforms. By the time the Belgians’ proclamations
had passed from French to Swahili to Kinyarwanda, they bore little
resemblance to the original. Even when the Hutu managed to hear of
their new rights, they ordinarily had no means of exercising them. They
could not approach the Europeans without the help of the basemyi,
whose fees for such services were excessive. In addition, the Hutu could
not risk the possibility that an accused notable would learn the identity
of the complainant and take reprisals against him. The only Hutu who
learned the full extent of the decrees and who were able to use them
against the notables were those who frequented the missions, the very
people who already stood the greatest chance of receiving protection
from exactions. Even the Fathers did not always welcome the opportunity
to help the Hutu implement their new rights. They hoped that the new
flexibility at Court about European ways might be stretched to include
conversion to Christianity, and they wished to do nothing to diminish
the likelihood of such a happening. Confronting the very foundation of
 New Europeans, New Court Tactics, 1913–1919 145

the notables’ identity—command over subordinates—was not a way to

gain their allegiance. In instructing the Fathers to help where they could
in publicizing the decrees, Bishop Hirth added the warning that the
missionaries were not “to make themselves odious” to the notables by
reporting abuses to the administration.42
One ordinance, however, was more warmly received by the Fathers:
in July 1917 Musinga proclaimed freedom of religion for all Rwandans.
Although the Fathers hailed this as a great victory, Musinga had been
allowed to decree that no one could be obliged to change his faith as
well as that no one could be prevented from doing so. While guarantee-
ing that anyone who wished to could convert, the mwami was also pro-
tecting his people against the gutora system of forced instruction that
the Fathers had been employing increasingly since the installation of
the Belgian administration. The Fathers’ circumspect behavior during
the war had given way to far more vigorous solicitation of catechumens
as they realized how fully the Belgians supported their civilizing mission.
Through the notables, the Court spread the word that the prohibition
against forced conversions was meant to carry more weight than that al-
lowing for changes in religion.43
Participation in these proclamations of reforms, sham though they
were, cost Musinga and Kanjogera some of their pride. They were de-
termined to draw full benefit from this sacrifice and to prove that it was
they who again ruled Rwanda. The missionaries and their followers
offered a prime target for such a demonstration. As the Belgian support
for religious change had led the Fathers to revive the gutora system, so
the administration’s reliance on the missionaries for political advice
and practical help enabled them to acquire again some of the secular
authority they had relinquished during the war. Musinga hesitated to
attack the Fathers themselves, since they were so closely linked to De
Clerck, so he struck first at the Christian basemyi who had gotten their
appointments on the Fathers’ recommendation and who had extended
their areas of responsibility under the Fathers’ protection. In April 1917
he reprimanded the Christians severely for their abuses and made them
directly answerable to the Court instead of to the neighboring missions
for their exercise of authority. In August he imprisoned and whipped the
most notorious of them, including Guillaume Mbonyubgabo, who was a
favored client of Father Huntzinger of Save. To oblige De Clerck, Mu-
singa then let the charges against them drop and released them from jail.44
At the same time he won permission to issue a new decree stating
that the Fathers had come to teach, not to command; that they had no
146 New Eruopeans, New Court Tactics, 1913–1919

power to requisition laborers or produce; and that they had no authority

to interfere in political or judicial matters. This was the only one of the
reform decrees of 1917 that was widely propagated by the notables. It
signaled a clear victory by the Court over the Fathers. By April 1918 the
Court was strong enough to press the case against the Christian basemyi.
Musinga’s notables sent to arrest them also heaped much abuse and
humiliation on them. When the Christians and their kin resisted arrest,
De Clerck supported Musinga’s men by sending soldiers under a Euro-
pean officer to the area. After a brief trial, the Court stripped the basemyi
of all the wealth and power they had appropriated.45
Having destroyed the clients, the Court moved against the patron.
Of all the Fathers, Musinga and Kanjogera particularly hated Father
Huntzinger. He had been the most influential adviser to the Belgians who
had undermined their power from April 1916 to April 1917. In addition,
he concentrated his proselytizing efforts on the young Tutsi of the Court,
even trying to win the affections of Musinga’s own sons. In March 1918
the Father intervened in a territorial dispute between two important
notables in his region, one of whom had been friendly to the mission-
aries, the other of whom detested them. Invoking the August decree
against such interference, Musinga persuaded De Clerck to reprimand
the Father harshly. In April the Father tried to protect the Christians
who had been arrested by the Court. Armed with such evidence of the
Fathers’ continuing involvement in secular matters, Musinga demanded
some kind of exemplary discipline from the administration. De Clerck
tried to arrange the affair by calling Huntzinger to Nyanza for an inter-
view with Musinga, but the meeting exploded into angry recrimina-
tions. De Clerck reluctantly agreed with Musinga that Huntzinger should
leave Rwanda. Faced with the joint decision of the Rwandan and Bel-
gian authorities, Huntzinger’s superiors agreed to transfer him elsewhere.
Within a few days of his trip to Nyanza, the Father was gone. The Court
celebrated his departure as a great victory. Several versions of his final
interview with the mwami circulated throughout the kingdom to ex-
plain his hasty departure. Although the details differed, most accounts
agreed that Musinga had thoroughly humiliated the Father and had
finally grabbed him by his beard and slapped him across the face.46
Whether or not the violence had actually taken place, Rwandans partic-
ularly relished this part of the tale.
Destroying the power of the Christian upstarts and expelling a mis-
sionary from Rwanda pleased Musinga enormously, but even more im-
portant to him was bringing the notables back to complete obedience to
 New Europeans, New Court Tactics, 1913–1919 147

the Court. Musinga now used the Belgians to punish the men who had
tried to build up their own centers of power under Belgian protection in
the months just before De Clerck’s arrival. Only four months after Mu-
singa had tried so desperately but vainly to free Rwidegembya from Bel-
gian imprisonment, he was eager and able to arrest him on his own au-
thority. This time he imprisoned not just Rwidegembya, but also his
brother Rwubusisi and their cousin Kayondo. Musinga wanted to disci-
pline these Bega decisively but not ruthlessly. Unlike the clients of the
Europeans, these were men of great power and prestige: to destroy
them completely would be to deprive the Court of potential allies and
to ignore their past close ties with Kanjogera and Musinga himself.*
After keeping them in prison for several months, Musinga finally con-
sented to receive them once more, granting them pardon and accepting
their humble pledges of renewed obedience. Musinga also administered
less severe disciplinary action to fifty-five other notables who had fol-
lowed the Bega leaders in paying court to the Belgians.47

Tensions over Defining

Administrative Structures
Musinga understood that having reestablished his control, he needed
to exercise it constantly to retain the obedience of his more powerful
subjects. After April 1917 he could once again determine which of his
notables would have to fulfill the still enormous Belgian demands for men
and supplies. He naturally assigned the heaviest burdens to the notables
he wished to test or to intimidate, such as Kayondo. As it became clear
that Kayondo was out of favor, some of his men began deserting him for
other protectors. Thus weakened, Kayondo often lacked the resources
to meet the requisitions imposed by the Court. The mwami interpreted
his failures as further proof of disobedience from this cousin who
seemed never to respect him enough.
Musinga’s initial moderation in dealing with the Bega gave way to
abuse of Kayondo. He humiliated him and had him whipped, inflicting
scars on Kayondo that would never vanish. In 1917 and 1918 the mwami

*All three of those arrested were fraternal nephews to Kanjogera. In addition,

Kayondo had been raised by Kanjogera and was the elder brother to Kankasi, one of
Musinga’s wives.
148 New Eruopeans, New Court Tactics, 1913–1919

also deprived five leading notables of all or part of their domains, which
he then granted to men of unquestioned loyalty to the Court. He forced
other notables whose submission he doubted to stay at Nyanza, some-
times for years without returning to check on their domains. Their au-
thority in their holdings was undermined, giving greater advantage to
their rivals. This tactic had the added advantage of making the notables
in question appear irresponsible and ineffective to the Europeans, who
judged their performance by the quality of administration in their hold-
ings. It thus made future European support for them less likely.48
Guarding against alliances of Europeans and notables in outlying
areas occupied a fair amount of Musinga’s attention. Although De
Clerck had demonstrated his strong support for the mwami, his ad-
ministrative subordinates in the several camps distant from Nyanza
sometimes—by the slowness of communication or the complexity of
the issues at hand—felt obliged to resolve questions themselves instead
of referring them to Nyanza for a decision. Operating within a bureau-
cratic mindset and hampered by the diffusion of responsibility in the
traditional system, some of these officials favored allotting authority to
command all other Rwandan appointees to a single predominant not-
able of a region. Musinga immediately recognized the danger to his
power inherent in such an arrangement, as it undermined the nature of
the competing administrative domains. When the Belgian administrator
in southwestern Rwanda named Rwidegembya’s son Rwagataraka to be
responsible for enforcing all government orders on the other Court del-
egates, Musinga struck down the arrangement within a few days. To en-
sure that Rwagataraka would not further consort with the Europeans,
the mwami relied on a well-rehearsed tactic, surrounding him with in-
formants and rivals. He granted several domains within Rwagataraka’s
territory to unimportant Tutsi who would owe their sole allegiance to
the Court, and he named one of Rwagataraka’s enemies to command a
neighboring province. Rwagataraka understood the implied threat and
withdrew into a more retiring role.49
In the north-central region of Mulera, a similar situation developed
into a more serious struggle that pitted Musinga against the local notable
and the Belgian administrator. Musinga’s brother Nshozamihigo, who
commanded vast domains in the north, had been losing favor at Court
when he died in 1916. His son Nyirimbirima, a grandson of Rwabugiri,
also failed to please Musinga, perhaps because Musinga felt he could
always hope to succeed to the throne. From August to November 1917,
Musinga kept Nyirimbirima at Nyanza, from time to time abusing
 New Europeans, New Court Tactics, 1913–1919 149

and whipping him. By the time the notable returned to the north, the
people of the area were refusing to recognize his rule. To remedy this,
the local administrator wanted to accord extraordinary powers to
Nyirimbirima, to make him into the “Umwami of Mulera.” Realizing that
Nyirimbirima had been badly frightened by Musinga, who had warned
the young man of the consequences of associating with the Europeans,
the administrator sought to reassure him with “father-to-son chats,” as
he put it. But such paternal gestures were countered by a steady barrage
of threats from Nyanza. When the administrator was posted to a new sta-
tion in February 1918 and replaced by a man unknown to Nyirimbirima,
Musinga seized the occasion to warn his nephew that he had won Euro-
pean consent to arrest and perhaps to execute him. The young man
hastily summoned his kin and clients, gathered a few hundred of his
thousands of cattle, and fled across the border. Musinga then gave his
extensive domains to Gakwavu, a loyal client who had held no impor-
tant commands previously.50
In their eyes, the colonial administration was committed to strength-
ening the power of the Court. They saw the “rationalization” of adminis-
trative structures as part of this process; the Belgians had become com-
mitted to upholding the notables’ power as part of the effort to rebuild
the authority of the Court. However, independently of the Court, the
notables profited from European support in reasserting or extending
their control over their inferiors. In the central kingdom, the Belgians
needed only to withdraw the minimal protection they had been offering
Hutu clients to see the notables augment their control. The Hutu soon
learned that the reform decrees were meaningless as a way of protection;
as one sadly put it after trying unsuccessfully to win Belgian protection
against a notable, “They harden their hearts.” As the Belgians sacrificed
the rights of the Hutu to augment the authority of the notables, only the
Hutu clients of the missions continued to enjoy European support.51
In outlying areas, the notables called on the Europeans for more
active support in taking control of the Hutu. For much of the vast
northeastern part of the kingdom, where such support was not origi-
nally given, the notables generally left the Hutu in peace. The notables
asked for help most often in reestablishing their control in the north-
west, whence they had fled so hastily in 1916. Even when they received
the requested assistance their success in implanting their rule varied
greatly from one region to another. In the northwestern region of Bugoyi,
the notable Rwakadigi skillfully used the Belgians, as he had earlier used
the Germans, to establish a firm local base of power. During the decade
150 New Eruopeans, New Court Tactics, 1913–1919

Rwakadigi had ruled Bugoyi, he had grown from a poor Tutsi represen-
tative of a distinguished notable to a wealthy and powerful notable him-
self. Like Musinga, he masterfully used divisions among Europeans to
protect himself while he used the hostilities among his subordinates to
tighten his hold over them. Before the war the Hutu of Bugoyi had been
strong enough to prevent Rwakadigi and his men from taking control of
the land their lineages had cleared generations before. But the massive
exodus of people seeking relief from the famine of 1916 through 1918
opened new opportunities for the notables. They claimed possession of
all vacant lands and later refused to allow the returned refugees to re-
occupy it without first paying for its use and acknowledging their authority
over it. Rwakadigi also was able to force the men who had refused to do
uburetwa for him to cultivate his fields by asserting that the Europeans
had granted him new powers. When the Fathers of the Nyundo mission
were drawn into the defense of the victims, Rwakadigi forestalled their
interference by turning the administrators against them. Once the Hutu
began gaining again in strength and numbers, they were able to slow the
growth of Rwakadigi’s power, but they could not win back the territory
lost to him.52
Rwakadigi was able to turn European support to his advantage so
successfully in part because he had exclusive control over much of the
region, and in part because the Hutu were so weakened and disorga-
nized. In the north-central region of Mulera the notables also profited
from European backing, but the rivalries among them and the relative
strength of the Bakiga there (who had not suffered nearly so seriously
from the famine as the people of Bugoyi) hindered the expansion of
Tutsi control. The fall from favor and subsequent flight of Nyirimbirima,
the most important notable of the region, had opened the way for
ambitious competitors to poach on his territory before his successor,
Gakwavu, arrived to take command. Men who had ruled for Nyirimbi-
rima faced a bitter struggle in trying to preserve their holdings against
both the poachers and the more legitimate clients who later arrived to
rule for Gakwavu. During the year or so of intense competition among
the old and the new notables, the rivals needed the support of local
lineages both to defend their territory and to convince the administrator
that they actually could rule effectively. Although the Belgians were com-
mitted to upholding control by the notables, they could not maintain a
notable in power if all his supposed subjects refused to obey him. Always
seeking to maximize their autonomy from outside control, the local
leaders were quick to realize their importance to the notables, and they
 New Europeans, New Court Tactics, 1913–1919 151

gave their support only in return for arrangements that benefited them-
selves and their kin. In some cases they were able to oblige the notables to
protect them from requisitions for the Europeans. Those who could not
or would not make such arrangements were then assigned the whole
burden of European demands in food and service for that region. If they
failed to produce the quota, the notable could call in the Belgian soldiers
to attack and pillage their homes and fields. Such a use of outside force
embittered the resisters and only increased their recalcitrance.53
Between the resisters and the lineages protected by the notables,
there were few left to meet the enormous demands of the post. As a re-
sult, by the end of 1917 the Belgians were actually receiving less from the
north than they had before the reimposition of rule by the notables. Re-
ferring to these people as “Hutu” and thus defining them in their pre-
sumed “customary” relation to the Court, the Belgians could not decide
if all the Bakiga were in rebellion against these “customary norms” or if
the notables were merely deceiving them, keeping the taxes for their
own ends. The vacillations in policy reflected this uncertainty. One ad-
ministrator wholeheartedly backed new claims by the notables for such
services as uburetwa from their people; another promptly withdrew the
support, arguing that such claims would push the people to open rebel-
lion against the Europeans as well as the notables.54 The Belgians hoped
to back the notables enough to allow them to impose their control effec-
tively but not so much as to permit them to rule oppressively. Such a
carefully balanced policy would have been difficult to execute under any
circumstances, but given the administrators’ ignorance of the area and
the language, it was clearly impossible. The Bakiga saw only the existence
of European support for the Tutsi, not their attempt to moderate this
support. The notables encouraged such a vision. Consequently the re-
sisters broadened their opposition to include the Europeans themselves.
The Bakiga employed the whole range of traditional tactics against
the Europeans and the notables. They lured them into ambush and they
attacked them openly. They stole their possessions and burned their res-
idences. They sometimes fled an area, leaving it empty of population
when the outsiders approached; at other times they stood their ground
and refused to allow them to pass. Sometimes they acquiesced in the or-
ders of the outsiders and then just neglected to honor such demands.55
By November 1917, at the height of the famine when conditions
were most harsh, the local Bakiga lineages controlled Mulera. The not-
ables no longer dared live there. The most important of them found
pressing business at Court, while their representatives sought safety at
152 New Eruopeans, New Court Tactics, 1913–1919

the European post or on the land of the few lineages that had proved
loyal to the Court. Even with more than one hundred soldiers at his
command, the administrator was virtually confined to his post. Al-
though in his reports he tried to excuse his inactivity by citing the diffi-
culties of traveling at night or the risks of fording streams, he clearly was
immobilized by fear of the people. Since his messengers were attacked
within a mile of the post, he could not even requisition food for himself
or his troops. In his correspondence he remarked that “the prestige of
the European has disappeared because he must beg food from those
who are willing to bring it to him.” Not surprisingly, the Hutu gathered
on the hills surrounding the post to call down tauntingly that the Bel-
gians were nothing but women.56

Breaking Resistance in the North

While a great number of the people of Mulera were resisting the
notables and Europeans during late 1917 and early 1918, their actions
were brief, local, and generally coordinated only within each lineage.
The hostilities among the lineages—a product of local autonomy—had
always hindered unified opposition to the outsiders; the events of the
war and the period immediately following had only exacerbated these
antagonisms among the Bakiga. The influence of the Fathers, the most
powerful European patrons in the region, had wavered during the war,
while that of the Tutsi had dissipated when the notables had fled south in
1916. The weakening of powerful outsiders had opened lines of cleavage
in the local community, exposing their followers to retaliation from those
who had suffered from the increasingly intrusive presence of Europeans
or Tutsi. Then the revival of the power of the missionaries and the re-
turn of the notables had again strengthened their clients and allowed
them, in their turn, to take reprisals on those who had been persecuting
them shortly before. The nearest approach to unity among the Bakiga of
Mulera was a kind of informal sanctuary that most of the resisters were
willing to extend to those pursued by their common enemies.57
But while unity escaped the local resistance, the lack of central or-
ganization that diffused the effect of the resistance also ensured its per-
sistence. The Belgians at first supposed that if only they could arrest the
heads of the lineages leading the opposition, then the others would sub-
mit. After a year of vainly following this strategy, the local administrator
had to admit it had no noticeable effect. He wrote the Resident despair-
ingly, “If you arrest the ‘mugabo’ [ head ] of a lineage, they just replace
 New Europeans, New Court Tactics, 1913–1919 153

him with another and continue worse than ever.”58 Resistance was
founded on the determined widespread opposition of many to the rule
of the outsiders, not on centralized policy making or the persuasive
powers of a few leaders.
The notables and the Europeans began to regain control of Mulera
only in late 1918 when Gakwavu arrived from Court to take up Nyirimbi-
rima’s command. As he settled the rivalries among the other notables,
they began to turn their attention to establishing control over their do-
mains instead of competing among themselves for increased holdings.
The Belgians welcomed the establishment of a new hierarchical order
among the notables and began to act more decisively to support it. With
European support assured, and less dependent on negotiating for the
support of the local leaders, the notables could assert their command
over them more ruthlessly. The increased punitive activity of the notables
and the Europeans made it more costly for Bakiga to resist than to com-
ply with requisitions. The small islands of territory controlled by the
notables—sometimes no more than Court fictions—expanded in size
and grew in number. In a few places Court delegates actually dared build
residences in their domains, and to begin requiring uburetwa labor from
their subjects. In most they were content to be able to collect the general
tax (ikoro) and the occasional payment of part of the harvest (ibihunikwa)
as well as, of course, the requisitions for the Belgians. In most of these
areas, judicial affairs were still handled first by the heads of the lineages,
although the more persistent litigants were beginning to appeal deci-
sions that displeased them to the notables—beginning to change their
status from autonomous Bakiga to subject Bahutu.59 Still, the islands of
Court control were interspersed with areas that continued to resist both
Tutsi and Europeans, in a patchwork that generally corresponded to the
division of the region by lineage.
The people of the north recognized that the absence of one univer-
sally acclaimed leader made a decisive attack on the outsiders impos-
sible. Some spoke longingly of Bichubirenga or even of Ndungutse, but
no new leader of that stature appeared.60 In the southwest, the autono-
mous states of Busozo and Bukunzi were also being pressured by the
Europeans and notables. A man who had fled the famine in Bugoyi
brought the teachings of the Nyabingi movement to the people of these
mountains in the south. He attracted a number of adherents before the
administrator learned of his presence and arrested him, thus cutting
short the development of the movement.61 In the north-central region
of Bushiru—another domain with its own mwami, autonomous of the
154 New Eruopeans, New Court Tactics, 1913–1919

Court—the people rallied to a different kind of religious figure, a White

Father. Father Prior had lived in the region for several years and had
earned the respect of the people by the fairness with which he settled
their disputes. When the notables made use of Belgian backing to begin
raiding and pillaging Bushiru in an effort to establish their control, the
priest intervened to plead the case for the Bashiru. When the adminis-
tration failed to acknowledge his concerns, the Father himself ordered
the Tutsi to leave the people of Bushiru in peace. The Tutsi threw back
at him Musinga’s order that missionaries should exercise no political au-
thority. Father Prior then decided on immediate action.62 As one of his
followers recalled: “Hearing that, he [the Father] got up and told us to
follow him. . . . [W]e began saying, ‘Ah, this little European is great.’
Father Prior took his gun and his clients; he ordered the drum of alarm
beaten, saying ‘Come to help me, oh men of Bushiru, because the Tutsi
are going to exterminate Rwanda.’ That same day, the Tutsi left to go
home and so peace was reestablished.”63 As the Tutsi beat a retreat, the
people of Bushiru divided the spoils, which included a number of cattle
of the Tutsi, as well as their own previously confiscated property. Under
the leadership of the European patron, their resistance served to guar-
antee their peace and independence for some time to come.

With the support of the Germans during the early years of the war, the
Court had wielded increasing power over its subjects while its notables
had extended their control over the Hutu. The mwami and his repre-
sentatives had then lost strength precipitately through the humiliations
and harsh measures of the first year of Belgian administration. Musinga
and Kanjogera had had cause to worry about their personal safety, their
positions as rulers, and the continued existence of the kingdom as they
had known it. The notables had been forced to take orders from the Eu-
ropeans and had seen their subjects encouraged to make claims against
them. Even those who hoped to benefit from the initial attempts to im-
prove their condition could hardly have found the Belgian promises any
compensation for their increased demands.
When the administration realized that the crumbling of royal power
might result in either revolt or anarchy, they dramatically changed pol-
icy. The Court and notables adapted quickly to the necessities and pos-
sibilities of this new direction. While making superficial concessions and
promising serious reforms, they successfully blocked any changes that
 New Europeans, New Court Tactics, 1913–1919 155

might threaten their power. Musinga used De Clerck’s solid support to

destroy the influence of the Christian upstarts, to expel a European mis-
sionary, and to bring his own notables back to obedience to the Court.
The notables reasserted or extended their authority with active Belgian
support in some areas, with their approval everywhere. The Hutu and
Bakiga obviously suffered most from the reversal in policy, but many of
them, especially in the north, continued to resist the rule of Europeans
and Tutsi alike.
Despite his original fears of the Belgians, Musinga ended the first
three years of their administration apparently stronger than at the start.
Before the war, the experience of the Ndungutse revolt had showed the
Court that once it had extended its rule in the north with German sup-
port, it would have to rely on that support to maintain it. Now Musinga
and Kanjogera must have realized that the authority they had once
exercised on their own had been restored only with Belgian assistance.
To keep that authority they would have to retain Belgian support.
Nyirakabuga, Kanjogera, Kagesha, Musinga, Murebwayire, and Kankazi, circa 1917
 7
Allia nc es T h a t B i n d —
and D iv id e, 1 9 1 9 – 1 9 2 2

Belgian Rule and the Court

Inkomezi yacyaane ica imigozí
[ To pull too hard breaks the bonds]

I n the atmosphere of superficial cordiality that followed the Belgian

decision to restore power to the Court and notables, Musinga and his
representatives agreed to participate in a referendum meant to ascertain
their preference of colonial administration. The Belgian Colonial Min-
istry organized the referendum in November 1918. As Woodrow Wilson’s
ideas about the self-determination of peoples gained currency among
the diplomats who were dividing up the spoils of war in Europe, the min-
istry was anxious to be able to present evidence of the Rwandan desire
for continued Belgian rule. First Musinga pledged his loyalty to Bula
Matari, as the Belgian administration was known.* Then the notables in

*The term “Bula Matari” means literally “The Breaker of Rocks.” It originally
applied to Henry Morton Stanley’s brutal conduct toward Africans as he forced workers
to build the railway from the Atlantic coast to Léopoldville. But it became the general
term applied to Belgian administration by Africans in the Congo. The fact that Rwandans
also used the term “Bula Matari” to apply to colonial power only underscores the extent
to which many colonial policies introduced in Rwanda originated (directly or indirectly)
in Léopoldville, the administrative capital of the Belgian Congo. There were distinctions
between the two colonial jurisdictions: as former German territories, Burundi and
Rwanda were legally “Mandated Territories” under the League of Nations (and, after
World War II, “Trusteeship Territories” under the United Nations); this gave them a

157
158 Alliances That Bind—and Divide, 1919–1922

the various regions solemnly declared their devotion to the Belgians, in

their most elegant language. As one of the missionaries who observed
the proceedings remarked, the Rwandans had no choice. Only one par-
ticularly bold notable declared that he was indifferent about which Eu-
ropeans advised the Court, so long as none were Christian.1 Presumably
his vote was not recorded in Europe.

The Ambiguities of Indirect Rule

As the Rwandans were proclaiming their loyalty to the Belgians, the Bel-
gians were undertaking an even more significant commitment to the
Court and notables. The Belgians were allocated control over Rwanda
by the Orts-Milner Convention of 30 May 1919, although the formal-
ities related to its status as a mandate territory under the League of
Nations were not completed until 1924.2 Once the convention had guar-
anteed Belgian rule in Rwanda, the Colonial Ministry had to decide on a
policy for administering the kingdom. Dissatisfied with the results of
earlier direct administration in the Congo, and impressed by the econ-
omy and efficiency of the British administration in Uganda, the Ministry
chose an approach of “indirect rule.”* Ministry officials optimistically

distinct status from direct colonial rule. Jointly, Burundi and Rwanda also had their own
“Vice Gouverneur.” While officially he served under the governor-general in Léopoldville,
in practice he exercised considerable autonomy, reporting directly to the Belgian
Minister of Colonies. In addition, many administrators and policymakers who served in
Burundi and Rwanda had long experience in those territories; they developed a strong
esprit de corps and were often acutely sensitive to the structural and historical differences
between Burundi and Rwanda, on the one hand, and Congolese societies, on the other.
Nonetheless, Congo remained the dominant concern of Belgian administrators, and
many of the colonial policies drawn up for Congo also influenced the concepts and
implementation of policy in Burundi and Rwanda. The use of the term “Bula Matari”
in Rwanda alludes to this factor.
*Many of these policies were instituted by Louis Frank, an influential Minister
of Colonies of the Christian Liberal political party, and implemented by Governor-
General Maurice Lippens (until early 1923). As noted above, there was a complex
relationship between Belgian colonial policy in the Congo and the policies implemented
in Rwanda and Burundi; as Mandated Territories under the League of Nations (and
later as Trusteeship Territories under the United Nations) these two territories were neither
directly under the colonial governor-general, nor entirely autonomous administrative
spheres. However, whatever the formal legal status might be, within Belgian politics
Congo carried much greater administrative weight than did Rwanda-Urundi, and policy
in Congo often influenced policy in the Mandated Territories.
 Alliances That Bind—and Divide, 1919–1922 159

predicted that Rwanda could be administered easily through its “nat-

ural” rulers, with the subtle guidance of the colonial power, since it
was one of the rare “nations” inherited from precolonial Africa and it
constituted a “type of perfectly organized society.”3 Although first im-
plemented as a wartime expedient, governing through the Court and
notables became enshrined as the central tenet of Belgian administration.
As one of the officials wrote: “only this framework [of the traditional
system] can assure us of having the indispensable instrument for all prog-
ress, an authority extending its control to all the elements of the society.
As such, it is irreplaceable and we cannot destroy it or compromise it
without creating chaos.”4
The officials did not acknowledge the contradiction between their
desire to respect the authority of the Court and their hopes of using it to
“civilize” Rwanda. The mwami’s power was built upon his right “to kill
and to enrich.” Yet the Belgians defined “civilization” partly by the se-
curity of persons and the assurance of individual control over property.
The colonizers could “civilize” the kingdom only to the extent that they
limited the Court’s power over life and property; yet by limiting this
power, they would undermine the very authority on which they hoped
to draw when implementing further changes.
The Court realized better than the Belgians the implications of
yielding any part of its power “to kill and to enrich.” De Clerck in-
formed the Court in 1917 that it could no longer impose a death sen-
tence on any of its subjects without the approval of the Resident. But
the Court ignored this restriction, as it had ignored a similar one de-
creed by the Germans. It no longer executed victims publicly as a dis-
play of its power; it killed only minor servants of the royal household in-
stead of notables; and it may have executed fewer people than it would
have without the Belgian presence. But it maintained the principle that
the mwami could kill.5
The administrators may have stood so far outside Rwandan society
that they never learned of the executions, but they could not have failed
to remark the frequency with which the Court and notables ignored
their often repeated orders guaranteeing security of property. When
faced with such cases, the administrators, who had been instructed both
to protect the weak and to maintain the power of the strong, ordinarily
took the easier course of supporting the powerful. Over time they in-
creasingly had come to regard the Tutsi, who seemed physically and
culturally more like Europeans, as their natural allies in ruling the Hutu.
In addition, they were reluctant to be drawn into matters that often took
so much time and effort—and patience—and which exposed so
160 Alliances That Bind—and Divide, 1919–1922

thoroughly their ignorance of Rwandan customs. On the rare occasions

when the administrators were moved to intervene on behalf of the
weak, the Court and notables circumvented their decisions by delaying
their execution, distorting their intent, or reversing them as soon as the
administrator had forgotten about them.6
The Belgians were more concerned with a related problem: that
of ensuring notables a stable tenure in command. While the Court re-
garded the allocation of commands as an element of the wealth and
power it distributed among its loyal followers—and their capricious
character as a symbol of the power of the king—the Belgians saw these
appointments as elements in an incipient “native administration”
modeled on European ideals. To implement the transformation of the
complex Rwandan administrative systems of overlapping relationships
into a simple, hierarchical bureaucracy, the Belgians first needed to
know who was governing where. The intricacy of the traditional pattern
of commands and the variety of proper names and generic terms of the
many subdivisions of the kingdom created confusion enough, but the
Court and notables fostered even more obfuscation as they sought to
evade burdensome duties imposed by the administration. Both the com-
plexity of the system and the subtlety of the language lent themselves to
such an objective. Since the leading notables were usually at Court, they
would delegate responsibility for governing their domains to subordi-
nates. When it came to dealing with the administrator, each subordinate,
no matter how unimportant, seemed always to find another man further
down the chain of command to represent him. The administrators often
ended up giving orders to some obscure client who had no power in the
area whatsoever. Not only was there a bewildering multiplicity of repre-
sentatives, but they were always changing according to the whim of a
superior—for any purpose and at varying time intervals. Especially if
the administrator found a man with whom he could work well, that man
would be sure to disappear, removed from his functions by a superior
who feared such compatibility with the foreigner.7
In 1919 and 1920 the Belgians ordered the Court and notables to
inform the administration before changing any of their subordinates.
When this directive had no effect whatsoever, they tried to control the
system by forcing the notables to submit all changes in command to the
Court. In theory, the Court would then submit such proposals as well as
any others it wished to initiate to the Resident for approval. In practice,
however, the Court and notables complied with these arrangements
only when it suited them. The Belgians cared more about maintaining
 Alliances That Bind—and Divide, 1919–1922 161

its apparent agreement with the Court and notables and about uphold-
ing their prestige than it did about tidying up the indigenous system, so
they took no action to enforce obedience to their orders. The Resident
could not even get the Court to fill his request for a complete list of all
the notables in Rwanda until four years after he had made it.8
The authority of the Court depended on intangibles as well as on
its direct power over the lives and property of its subjects. Musinga and
Kanjogera were determined to preserve the ideas, ceremonies and
customs that contributed to the legitimacy of their rule. They themselves
believed in the efficacy of some of the rituals, as much as did their people.
Having taken the drum by force, they were all the more concerned to
perform faithfully the ceremonies necessary to appease the spirits of those
killed by the coup and thus to ensure a return to power and prosperity
for Rwanda.9
While some of the ideas and ceremonies that justified rule by the
mwami clearly had religious implications, other customs had no spiri-
tual basis but were simply regarded as contributing to the aura of
majesty surrounding the Court. The Europeans did not distinguish be-
tween the religious and the customary, but rather lumped all together as
“superstitions.” When the Resident De Clerck began encouraging the
establishment of schools throughout Rwanda in 1917, the goal was in
part that, at least for these promising young men, education would
break the grip of “superstition” as well as convey the skills deemed use-
ful to the administration. The schools were to teach morality rather
than Christianity as such, but their lessons were meant to show young
Rwandans that their own values were inferior to European ones. Since
the schools were located at missions of the White Fathers and directed
by them, the prohibition against religious instruction was rarely ob-
served. At one such supposedly secular school, the principal reading text
was L’Histoire Sainte.10
The Court predictably resisted De Clerck’s pressure to send the sons
of chiefs to these schools. Musinga had long realized the value of liter-
acy and linguistic skills in dealing with the Europeans. He had learned
Swahili and could read and write. But while he needed such knowledge
to ensure the accuracy of his communications with the Europeans, his
notables would have no need for these techniques and might possibly
use them against the Court. As under the Germans, Musinga and Kanjo-
gera sought to restrict European education to young men who were so
poor, weak, or unpromising that they could pose no threat to the Court
and important notables. The Rwandans called European learning
162 Alliances That Bind—and Divide, 1919–1922

amarozi, “poison.” Some believed that European ideas would actually

cast a spell over the young, while others used the term merely to indicate
that such learning would spoil well-born young men for the lives they
were destined to lead. To evade the Belgian order that “sons of chiefs”
attend school, the Court and notables used the tactics that had suc-
ceeded in misleading the Germans. They enrolled instead the sons of
clients, bastard sons, or sons who were obviously not intellectually
gifted. One even registered a son who had died some time before.11
Once De Clerck became aware of this practice, he and some of the
White Fathers carefully explained to Musinga that the administration
was going to be relying increasingly on young men trained in European
skills. If the Court refused to allow capable young notables to acquire
these talents, they would have no chance to rule; the Hutu and poor
Tutsi would replace them. This argument swayed Musinga, although
Kanjogera and many of the notables still opposed any compromise. In
June 1918 Musinga wrote to the Royal High Commissioner, who gov-
erned Rwanda and Burundi, declaring that his main objection to the
schools was their association with the missions. He would consent to
place his sons in a school run by the administration and staffed by lay
instructors, but he could never permit them to be taught by the mission-
aries who “teach . . . scorn for the law of our fathers” and who would
persuade the young notables “no longer to like living in our ways.”12
Recognizing how adamant the Court was on the issue of religion,
the Belgians agreed to open their own secular school at Nyanza in 1919.
Musinga enrolled his three oldest sons, Munonozi, Rudacyahwa, and
Rudahigwa, and ordered the young men training as ntore at the Court
to study as well. The ntore members, however, had grown up in an envi-
ronment where European learning was regarded as unfit for men of
their caliber. Having guessed that the ntore might balk at orders to come
to school, the administrator at Nyanza one day simply marched them all
into a military barracks, shut the door, and told them that they were
now students and the building was a school. While their names were re-
corded one by one, the young men looked from one to the other fear-
fully, wondering what form the “poison” might take. They were then or-
dered to give the names of comrades who were absent. Some hesitated,
but others complied readily. According to one involuntary student, “You
said to yourself, it is not right that I should go to die alone.”13 Knowing
that it might be some time before the ntore discovered the charm of Eu-
ropean learning, the administrator informed them that anyone who
 Alliances That Bind—and Divide, 1919–1922 163

missed one day of class would receive twenty-five blows of the whip.
Many of the notables disapproved of Musinga’s decision to allow his
sons and ntore to study, but most followed his example. Only a very few
chose to send their sons to distant hills in the outlying regions where
they might be safe from European education.14

Conversion and the Court

The Court was especially sensitive to the possibility of religious “poison-
ing” in the schools because several important young Tutsi had recently
converted to Christianity. At the beginning of the war, only a few hun-
dred poor and weak Tutsi—those outside the Court elite—had openly
accepted Christianity (although several important young notables had
secretly sought instruction from the Fathers). These secret catechumens
dared to confess their convictions openly only after the Belgians had ar-
rived and declared their intention to support the Fathers and protect
converts. Among these important Tutsi were the Munyiginya Semutwa,
a grandson of Rwabugiri (and son of Cyitatire) and nephew of Mu-
singa; two others were Bega—Naho and Gasana—both nephews of
Kabare. Musinga disposed of Gasana by naming him to supervise a
caravan of Rwandan porters carrying Belgian supplies to Tabora; like
many of his fellow countrymen, he died en route from one of the low-
land diseases to which he had no immunity. Semutwa and Naho per-
sisted in their beliefs and were baptized at Christmas in 1917.15
Because Semutwa was “a child of the drum,” a direct descendant of
a mwami, his conversion caused particularly great distress at Court.
Kanjogera had long hated Semutwa’s father, Cyitatire; only Musinga’s
defense of his brother had saved him from her wrath in the past. Now
Musinga joined his mother in condemning Cyitatire for permitting
Semutwa’s conversion; they refrained from stripping Cyitatire of all his
holdings only because they knew the Europeans were committed to de-
fending Semutwa and his father. As it was, Semutwa, a slender, soft-
spoken young man of seventeen or eighteen, was abused physically and
verbally by his fellows. At social evenings at Court, he was mocked as
one who preferred learning to ruling (kwiga to kwima) and as one who
had chosen “the white of the religious medal” over “the white of [his
lineage’s] cattle.” Semutwa and Naho were banished from ordinary
contact with their former associates, who unhesitatingly labeled them
inyangarwanda, “haters of Rwanda,” and ibisome, “rebels against the
164 Alliances That Bind—and Divide, 1919–1922

mwami.” Perhaps to strengthen Semutwa’s resolve, perhaps to empha-

size his distinctiveness, the Fathers gave the new convert one of their
cast-off habits, which he wore even at Nyanza. Despite constant en-
couragement from the Fathers, Semutwa could not bear the torment to
which he was exposed. After several years as a practicing Christian, he
returned to the traditional faith and even joined in the religious cere-
monies at Court. He did not feel strong enough to reassert his Christian
beliefs until several years later, when the power of the Court had been
considerably weakened.16
The first conversions of leading Tutsi, and the Europeans’ obvious
scorn for Rwandan ideas, spurred the Court to defend the traditions of
Rwanda more vigorously. One impertinent young administrator, Oscar
Defawe, ridiculed the traditional prohibition against rulers with the
reign name of Yuhi from crossing the Nyabarongo River. Since Mu-
singa had the name of Yuhi, he could travel only in the part of Rwanda
south of the river. Defawe reasoned that if he could be made to cross
the river and to see that the action would bring him no harm, then he
would be able to travel more widely and supervise more closely the way
his notables ruled. The administrator invited Musinga to accompany
him for a drive in the new Buick the Belgians had presented to the
Court. He drove straight for the river and obviously meant to force Mu-
singa to cross it. As the mwami realized his intention, he insisted that the
car be stopped. The vehemence of his vow that he would die rather
than make the crossing impressed Defawe; the disappointed administra-
tor gave up his plan and turned back to Nyanza.17
By 1920 Musinga and Kanjogera were concerned enough about
the threat of Christianity to go to extraordinary lengths to prevent its
further spread. They chose a relatively minor notable who was a cate-
chumen to serve as an example and ordered him severely beaten. He
escaped alive but died soon after of his injuries. When the Belgian Min-
ister of Colonies, Louis Franck, visited Rwanda they chose the opposite
approach of complete submission to win a guarantee of religious free-
dom from him. They explained that Rwandan religious ideas were their
heritage just as Christianity was the heritage of the Belgians. Regardless
of what the missionaries preached, Christianity could never replace
Rwandan beliefs as a foundation for the rule of the mwami. First Kanjo-
gera, then Musinga knelt before Franck to plead that they never be forced
to convert. Embarrassed by what he felt to be a reasonable request,
Franck readily assured them that religion was a matter of free choice in
 Alliances That Bind—and Divide, 1919–1922 165

all civilized countries.* Under the Belgian administration, he promised,

neither the mwami nor his mother would be made to give up beliefs
they cherished.18

Rivalries at the Court:

The Inshongore
Musinga and Kanjogera welcomed Franck’s declaration, but prob-
ably put little faith in it. They were beginning to believe Belgian promises
less and less. Despite their guarantee of protection for the mwami
and Rwanda, the Belgians had ceded the eastern part of Rwanda to the
British under the terms of the Orts-Milner Convention. The Resident,
then E. Van den Eede, had tried to dissuade the diplomats from the
cession because he feared its effect on the Court. When these efforts
failed, the Resident delayed informing Musinga. Van den Eede, a man
of apparent good will but little experience or determination, stood in
awe of the Court and dreaded the explosion of anger sure to follow the
announcement. In late December 1919 Van den Eede could postpone
the unpleasant duty no longer, since the news was already being dis-
cussed by traders in Kigali. He reluctantly traveled to Nyanza to tell
the Court.19
Musinga and Kanjogera understandably were shocked by the news:
the ceded territory comprised about one quarter of the total area of
Rwanda and included the former kingdom of Gisaka, conquered by
Musinga’s grandfather and father; part of the region of Mubari, re-
vered by the Court as the center of the original Rwandan kingdom; and
part of Buganza, prized by the Court and its leading notables for its
broad pasturelands. Their sense of betrayal was all the greater since the
Resident himself could offer no convincing justification for the cession.
His explanations about the British need for a convenient route for their
projected Cape-to-Cairo railway rang hollow in face of the enormous
dislocations the decision was sure to bring for the Court and thousands
of its subjects.20

*Freedom of religion was both an essential principle to the mandate from the
League of Nations and a factor of considerable importance among the Belgian political
parties (dividing Liberals and Socialists from Catholics); Franck was a Liberal.
166 Alliances That Bind—and Divide, 1919–1922

The Resident assured the Court that Belgian diplomats had recog-
nized the injustice and were already working to arrange a return of the
territory. Musinga and Kanjogera, however, were not convinced by such
assurances; they planned to implement their own measures to ensure
their continuing sovereignty in eastern Rwanda, adopting a strategy
they had used with some success to maintain control over areas ceded
by the Germans to British and Belgians in 1911. The Court ordered its
notables to disregard changes in the colonial administration and to
continue ruling their domains as agents of the Court.21
The cession strengthened Musinga’s and Kanjogera’s resentment of
the foreigners—and reinforced their determination to resist measures
they introduced. At the same time, it created a situation in which such
resistance would be extremely effective. In working for the retrocession
of the territory, officials of the Colonial Ministry made their request in
the name of Musinga and framed their case in terms of restoring the in-
tegrity of a well-established kingdom. As their efforts intensified in 1920
and 1921, public attention in Europe was drawn to Rwanda and to the
relationship between the Court and the colonial administration. Any
open disagreement between Musinga and the Belgians would have been
embarrassing and might have doomed the diplomatic efforts to failure.
Musinga sensed that the Resident particularly needed his cooperation
and that he felt uneasy about the cession’s having been made. Musinga
took every occasion to remind Van den Eede how badly the Belgians
had treated him, and raised the issue especially when he wanted to
obtain something from the Resident.22
Although Van den Eede himself anxiously cultivated good relations
with the Court, he was not so effective in keeping his subordinate ad-
ministrator at Nyanza, Oscar Defawe, from offending Musinga and
Kanjogera. The Rwandans called Defawe “Sebiziga,” a name based on
the Kinyarwanda verb meaning “to force.” One Rwandan who worked
under his direction explained that “He understood that without using
force one could get nowhere with the Tutsi, who surpass all others in po-
litical skills.”23 In addition to representing the Resident at Nyanza,
Defawe supervised the school there, teaching the sons of notables that
their “minds were empty” before being filled with European education.24
To see the students being taught such ideas naturally distressed the
Court. Defawe was convinced that European ways of training the body,
like those of improving the mind, surpassed Rwandan methods. He
insisted that the students learn to swim and took them regularly to prac-
tice in a nearby stream. The Court at first regarded such an exercise as
 Alliances That Bind—and Divide, 1919–1922 167

merely ridiculous, but after one of Musinga’s sons was nearly drowned,
the Court opposed the lessons as a useless risk. Defawe continued with
the lessons while the issue was being appealed to the Resident. When
an epidemic of spinal meningitis struck the school in September 1919,
many Rwandans believed that the illness resulted from the swimming
lessons. In November, Musinga’s oldest son and presumed heir, Munonozi,
died of the disease; the following March, the next eldest, Rudacyahwa,
also died of meningitis. Musinga suffered greatly from the loss of these
two sons, perhaps all the more so because he, like many others, saw their
deaths as related to the European “poison” to which he himself had
ordered them to submit.25
The growing rift between Musinga and Defawe provided tempting
opportunities for those who were out of favor at Court. In particular,
with a few followers Kayondo (a Mwega), and Nturo (a Munyiginya)
began building ties with the administrator. Although this new associ-
ation had nowhere near the impact of a similar move by Kayondo,
Rwubusisi, and Rwidegembya in 1917, because official Belgian policy
was now committed to upholding the authority of the Court, it none-
theless did foreshadow future developments that would have enormous
consequences for the Court.
Kayondo and others skillfully found ways to please and flatter
Defawe. When evening was falling, they would make their way to his
new brick home, which sat primly at one end of the spanking, straight-as-
a-ruler avenue, opposite the sprawling royal enclosure. When the Euro-
pean had finished his solitary dinner, they would share his port and cigars.
With the aid of a young relative or client who knew Swahili, they would
regale him with amusing anecdotes and answer his questions about
Rwandan history and custom. In between they would sandwich in bits
of information that would enhance their own reputations or detract
from those of their enemies, the current favorites at Court.26
These notables wanted to use Defawe to influence the Court, not to
destroy it. Kayondo’s case best illustrates their fears and hopes. In the
years after the war he had begun taking a leadership role among the
Bega, replacing Rwidegembya, who was aging and who had been losing
power under the steady if indirect attack of the mwami. The more in-
fluential Kayondo became, the more Musinga disliked him and tried to
curb him with heavy assignments of requisitions for the Europeans.
More serious for Kayondo, even Kanjogera seemed to be losing interest
in helping him, perhaps because she, like Musinga, was becoming more
attached to Bandora, one of Kayondo’s worst enemies. Bandora, then a
168 Alliances That Bind—and Divide, 1919–1922

minor notable of the Banyiginya clan, had helped the Bega establish
their power at the time of the coup. To reward him for his devotion,
Kanjogera had entrusted to him stewardship over part of Kayondo’s in-
heritance while the orphaned Kayondo was still a child.
When Kayondo became an adult and requested the return of his
property in 1905, Bandora felt strong enough at Court to ignore his re-
quests. Kayondo finally asked the Court to order the return of the nu-
merous hills, the many clients, and the rich herds of cattle that were his
inheritance. Faced with a difficult choice between two favorites, Kan-
jogera dictated a decision in favor of Kayondo but refused to force Ban-
dora to comply with it. Although Kayondo submitted his case several
times more before and during the war, he never received satisfaction.
After the war, Bandora’s power grew as the Court turned to him more
frequently for political advice. In 1918, for example, he scored a signifi-
cant victory in persuading Musinga that Nyirimbirima was dangerous
to him and should be driven from Rwanda; he then influenced the
mwami to distribute Nyirimbirima’s commands to Bandora’s own kin
and friends. Kayondo was forced to acknowledge that he might never
displace Bandora at Court. He would probably never win back his in-
heritance, and he might even be deprived of the wealth he did control.
One evening Kayondo called on Kanjogera to confront her with the sit-
uation. If she refused to help him, he would “take the issue all the way
to Europe [or to the European administrators]” if he had to.27
Musinga and Kanjogera believed that to try to win back Kayondo
and others like him by generosity would demonstrate only weakness. As
quietly as possible they began to move against all those they supposed
were paying court to the Belgians. They consistently decided cases
against them, deprived them or their clients of commands (of course
without European knowledge or approval) and, with ironic satisfaction,
continued to assign them the heaviest requisitions for the Europeans.28
These harsh measures only drove the favorites of Defawe closer to their
foreign patron. Even more serious for the Court, accusations of disloy-
alty multiplied as notables sought to damage their old enemies by link-
ing them with the Europeans. As the intriguers played upon Musinga’s
and Kanjogera’s sensitivities to any slight, the rulers reacted by taking
vengeance on both the innocent and the guilty and thus drove even
more of the notables to seek the protection of the Europeans.29 The
Court sometimes called these notables Abahababyi, “The Accusers,”
because they carried tales to the administrator, or Abangayuhi, “The
Haters of Yuhi,” a reference to Musinga’s reign name. But most often
 Alliances That Bind—and Divide, 1919–1922 169

they were known as Inshongore, “The Proud, Vain Ones.” A poet of

the Court gave them this name, taking it from a pack of Nturo’s hunting
dogs. The Court and its followers found the image of yapping dogs
chasing after their master most appropriate for those who sought the
favor of the Europeans.30
The Inshongore were a diverse group united only by their fear of
Court power and their hope of using the administrator to protect them
from it. A few sincerely admired the European culture that Defawe
supposedly represented; of these few, several were interested in Christi-
anity and would soon convert to it. But the leaders Kayondo and Nturo,
and most of the others, wanted only to use European power while con-
tinuing to ignore European culture. Although the Inshongore included
more Bega than Banyiginya, the royal lineage was represented by Nturo
and others as well. The followers of the Court and the Inshongore were
never divided simply according to lineage; indeed, brothers who were
competing for their father’s wealth or sons quarreling with their fathers
often took opposite sides. Although Kayondo directed his efforts to win-
ning supporters among the young, there were young and old in both
camps. Willingness to accept European ideas, kinship, clientship, age,
and the ever-important and ever-shifting alliances and rivalries among
the notables all worked together to determine which side a notable
would choose.
The complexity and the flexibility of positions emerges from an
examination of the choices made by Rwidegembya and his son Rwaga-
taraka. In 1917 Rwagataraka had sought to free his father from jail by
ingratiating himself with the Belgians; to this end, he had accused Mu-
singa of maintaining contact with the Germans—a very sensitive point
for the Belgian administrators. Over the course of the next three years,
Rwidegembya had continued to lose favor at Court. Rwagataraka, mean-
while, anxious to escape burdensome paternal supervision and eager to
reestablish good relations with the Court, had worked to please Musinga.
A rival of Rwagataraka had embittered the dispute between father and
son by suggesting to Rwidegembya that he was falling from royal favor
because of his own son’s intrigues. Since the Court chose to support
Rwagataraka in the dispute, Rwidegembya was driven closer to the
Europeans, whom he detested.31
Although the number of Inshongore remained small through 1921
and 1922, they had enormous influence on life at Court. By raising the
issue of allegiance to the Court, they sharpened old hostilities while
creating a whole raft of new enmities. The Inshongore paid court to the
170 Alliances That Bind—and Divide, 1919–1922

administrator reluctantly. Their rivals knew this and frequently attacked

them for disloyalty. The Inshongore covered their misgivings by recall-
ing how the mwami himself had often used European power for his own
ends. But such excuses did not eliminate their feelings of guilt. To restore
their self-respect, they tried harder to denigrate their enemies who re-
mained loyal to the Court. Not since the coup that had brought Musinga
to power had there been such a “time of hatreds.”32
As both the Court and the Inshongore actively sought supporters,
the majority of the notables tried to evade pressure from these com-
peting factions for their open commitment. Only one leading notable,
Rwubusisi, was able to remain neutral throughout the rest of the reign.
Rwubusisi was a moderately wealthy Mwega who had benefited from
the protection of his uncle Kabare, his aunt Kanjogera, and his cousin
Rwidegembya. In 1917 he had followed others who had paid court to the
Belgians in hopes of establishing their own centers of power. But by
1920 he realized the potential danger of such divisions within the ranks
of the Court and notables. As the bitterness grew on both sides, he
emerged as a man of rare integrity and foresight who earned the respect
of both groups by refusing to tolerate rumors and secret accusations.
Impatient as he was with intrigue within his own circle, he understood
the susceptibility of the Court and Inshongore to such tactics. Patient
and diplomatic, he worked constantly to reunite the sadly divided
notables and to forge new ties between them and the Court. But the guilt
and fears of the Inshongore and the insecurity and sense of betrayal of
the Court produced a spiral of hatred that not even Rwubusisi could
break.33
The defection of the Inshongore caused a subtle shift in the relation-
ship between Musinga and Kanjogera. The tension that had been
growing between the two as Musinga struggled to assert his own author-
ity, a tension not unlike that which had existed between previous bami
and their mothers, eased considerably. As Kanjogera’s favorite kinsmen
moved into opposition, she was forced to identify her interests increas-
ingly with those of her son. At the same time, although she still par-
ticipated in all major decisions at Court, she exercised her power more
privately than before the arrival of the Belgians. After having finally
agreed to receive Europeans, she invariably charmed all those who met
her with her with her dignity, gracious manners, and elegant way of ex-
pressing herself.34 But she adamantly refused to engage in serious politi-
cal discussions with them. She left the responsibility of working out the
daily details of living with the Europeans to Musinga. The loss of some
 Alliances That Bind—and Divide, 1919–1922 171

of her own coterie of Bega combined with her refusal to deal directly
with Europeans gradually diminished Kanjogera’s role in the royal
partnership.35

Cracks in the Alliance

As Musinga was beginning to attack the Inshongore he also moved
against Defawe. In 1920 several Rwandans had tried to kill the adminis-
trator. The arrows meant for him wounded some soldiers instead, and
he escaped unhurt. Whether or not Musinga had been involved in the
attempt, he seized the occasion to complain to Van den Eede about
Defawe. The Resident had only shortly before moved his own head-
quarters from Kigali to Nyanza, as part of the effort to establish better
relations with the Court. When Musinga asked Van den Eede to transfer
Defawe elsewhere, the Resident complied, much to the disgust of Defawe
and some of the White Fathers. Defawe returned to Nyanza briefly in
1921, but when he behaved no more respectfully to the mwami than
before, Musinga demanded that he leave Rwanda permanently. Van
den Eede consented. In November 1921 Defawe left to take a post in
neighboring Burundi. The “expulsion” of Defawe, so similar to the inci-
dent involving Father Huntzinger in 1918, was celebrated by the Court
and its loyal followers as another great victory over the Europeans.36
After a year in Nyanza, Van den Eede moved his headquarters back
to Kigali because he found that he was being influenced too much by
the Court and was thus “compromising the prestige of the Resident.”
He even proposed to his superiors that all Belgians be withdrawn from
Nyanza and that the administration return to communicating with the
Court by letter as the Germans had done.37 Such a measure, which
would have pleased the Court enormously, was never adopted. None-
theless, the Court drew strength from its ability to intervene decisively in
matters ordinarily considered the exclusive province of Europeans.
In 1921 the Court forced the Belgians to back down over the unlikely
issue of the proper treatment for cattle infected with rinderpest. By 1920
the highly infectious virus, which had spread from Uganda, was killing
about 60 percent of the Rwandan cattle that contracted it. Preserving
the cattle of the kingdom was one of Musinga’s highest obligations.
As soon as the epidemic struck, he undertook the traditional ritual to
cleanse the kingdom of the disease. The Belgians too were anxious to
safeguard the cattle because they hoped to make the export of cattle
skins one of the main items of foreign trade. The administration sent a
172 Alliances That Bind—and Divide, 1919–1922

veterinarian to Court to explain the latest methods of controlling the

disease through quarantine, vaccination, and immunization. Showing a
remarkable willingness to experiment, perhaps because of the seriousness
of the epidemic, Musinga agreed to cooperate in implementing such
measures. He delegated some of the ntore from Court to learn the nec-
essary techniques to aid the veterinarians, and he ordered his notables to
comply with a Belgian regulation that made vaccination compulsory.38
The campaign foundered on the resistance of the notables who
hesitated to expose their cattle deliberately to the disease and on the im-
perfections of the vaccine itself. The most stubborn notables hid their
cattle and refused to report cases of illness, thus hindering both the vac-
cination and the quarantine. Some had concluded from earlier Belgian
attempts to increase the land for cultivation, at the expense of pasture
land, that the Europeans did not realize the value of the animals and
wanted to rid the kingdom of them. Their worst fears seemed justified
as the failures in the vaccination program multiplied. The methods for
producing the vaccine were still rudimentary, and some early doses were
so potent that the vaccinated animals died from the artificially induced
disease. Veterinarians tried to avert this danger by giving an immunizing
serum along with the vaccine. This did sufficiently counteract the vac-
cine to keep the cattle from dying, but it also attenuated the immunity so
much that the vaccinated animals might soon after contract the disease
elsewhere.39
In early 1921 the failures of the program and the arguments of
the notables opposed to it pushed Musinga into resisting it. By March
the Court’s prize herds of cattle were being driven to secret locations
to avoid the veterinarians. Several months later, perhaps encouraged
by the Court, the notables turned to violence to halt the compulsory vac-
cination program and a soldier was killed in an attack on a veterinary
station in Bugesera, in southeastern Rwanda. By the time the crisis
had come to a head, Van den Eede had been replaced as Resident by
Georges Mortehan, an extremely strong-willed administrator. But in this
case the Court refused so adamantly to sanction any more compulsory
vaccination that Mortehan felt it necessary to rescind the regulation that
provided for it. The Court had won another victory on an issue it re-
garded as vital to the well-being of the kingdom.40

The Church and the Court

The placement of administrators and the use of European methods of
preventing disease were matters of importance but not of principle to
 Alliances That Bind—and Divide, 1919–1922 173

the Belgians. By contrast, the guarantee of freedom of religion stood at

the heart of their civilizing mission—at both the legal and ideological
levels. Yet even on this issue they were unwilling to risk an open break
with the Court in the early 1920s. For example, they did nothing while
the Court recalled cattle from the converts or pressured catechists not to
teach. In addition, Musinga eased their efforts to ignore the issue by
making a show of interest in the foreign religion. He visited the church
at Save in 1919 and attended his first Christian ceremony at Kagbayi in
1922. When several Seventh Day Adventists founded a mission near
Nyanza, Musinga became friendly with one of them, a Belgian named
Monnier.* Intrigued by the bitter hostility between the Catholics and
the advocates of this fundamentalist, millenarian sect, he even invited
Monnier to preach at Court. When the Société Belge des Missions Prot-
estants sponsored the return to Rwanda of a German missionary who
had served there before the war, Musinga extended a warm welcome to
him too. In addition, there were always a number of Muslim traders
present at Nyanza, hoping to do business with Musinga or the notables.
With such a variety of foreign beliefs represented, Musinga (or one of the
notables) could often provoke lively debates among the different advo-
cates. The Court greatly relished the usual end to such sessions, an explo-
sion into acrimonious name-calling and accusation.41
Everyone at Court understood that the preaching and disputations
were meant to amuse, not to convince. Since 1917, when the conversions
by Semutwa and Naho had drawn upon them such universal oppro-
brium, no more important Tutsi had converted. Then in late 1920 or
early 1921, Rwabutogo, a son of Kabare who had been studying at the
Nyanza school, declared his intention to convert. His adoption of Chris-
tianity had far greater impact than the earlier conversions because he
had become deeply devout and felt morally obligated to try to convert
his fellow students. Musinga and Kanjogera refused to tolerate his pres-
ence and would gladly have banished him from Nyanza, but Rwabutogo

*In Church and Revolution in Rwanda (153), Ian Linden and Jane Linden note that the
Seventh Day Adventists first occupied the abandoned Lutheran stations before opening
their own mission at Gitwe. Monnier was originally accompanied by an American “who
slipped in from Uganda” before he was expelled from the territory, presumably by failing
to follow immigration norms (176n.24). It is ironic that ten years later, when Catholicism
had become the “religion of the powerful” according to Linden and Linden (202–3),
Adventism had become the culte de contestation (“inheriting the mantle of Nyabingi”) for
the increasingly burdened Hutu.
174 Alliances That Bind—and Divide, 1919–1922

had been taken under the protection of Louis Lenaerts, who had re-
placed Defawe as administrator and schoolmaster. Rwabutogo was ex-
tremely intelligent and had stood at the head of his class, so Lenaerts
was happy to make him his secretary. Rwabutogo’s proselytizing efforts
first bore fruit among the relatively poor young Tutsi who were or who
hoped to become his clients. Lacking the kind of prestige that gave
Rwabutogo the assurance to declare his faith openly, these young
men—most of them fifteen or sixteen years old—pursued their religious
training secretly. When school was dismissed, four or five of them would
sneak off into the bush to study the catechism together. At night they
would go to Rwabutogo in small groups for more formal instruction.42
When Musinga and Kanjogera learned of the secret classes, they
were outraged. Their anger was all the greater when their investigation
revealed that even Musinga’s son Rwigemera, then six or seven years
old, had been participating in some of these sessions. Musinga beat his
son severely and sharply reproved the boy’s mother, Nyirakabuga, who
professed ignorance of the whole matter. Musinga also made her vow
never to permit any of her children to take religious instruction without
his consent. The administrator Lenaerts and the Resident Mortehan re-
fused to make the Court implement the guarantee of freedom of reli-
gion, although the Fathers importuned them for help. The missionaries
had no choice but to counsel the young catechumens to be patient and
to continue their learning as unobtrusively as possible.43
In 1921 Musinga and Kanjogera ordered that Rugulira, a servant
accused of having poisoned their milk, be beaten to death. When the
Resident learned of this killing, he strictly reiterated the earlier prohibi-
tion against further executions by the Court.44 Soon after, the Belgians
also repeated their injunctions about respect for the property of sub-
ordinates and about the need to obtain their approval before making
changes in command. In 1922 they decreed that anyone who accepted a
command without their approval would be subject to two years impris-
onment. They also sought greater equity in the judicial process by re-
quiring cases at Court to be heard in the presence of the administrator.
The regulations concerning security of property and commands were
largely ignored by Court and notables. The judicial arrangement was a
farce, partly because the administrator was too ignorant of the language
and law to be able to follow the proceedings intelligently, partly because
the Court evaded any decisions imposed by him by simply rehearing the
case at night after he had retired.45 Only the prohibition against further
executions was observed, perhaps because Musinga was unwilling to
 Alliances That Bind—and Divide, 1919–1922 175

give the Inshongore such an important reason for accusing him to the
Europeans. Realization that the Court had relinquished the power to
kill spread very gradually, but its ultimate effect would be great. One
Rwandan commented of the mwami: “Of course he could [kill as he
wished,] and besides, he did because it was his country. . . . [He killed]
until the Europeans arrived and became more powerful than he.”46
One reason the Belgians had hoped to restrict the demands of the
notables on their subordinates was to enable the Hutu to meet Belgian
requisitions and to free them for eventual employment in a developing,
European-dominated economy. Like the Germans, the Belgians col-
lected taxes and imposed forced labor. The colonial form of forced
labor was known to the Rwandans as akazi to distinguish it from Court-
derived forced labor (uburetwa); in fact both were implemented by the
same Court-appointed chief. However, because the German needs were
smaller and their resources more limited, they had imposed their de-
mands on relatively few people, mostly on those who lived in the vicinity
of their posts. Now the demands were universalized. Those who had
suffered under the Germans found little to differentiate them from the
Belgians. As one Hutu remarked: “The Germans beat you on your ass,
the Belgians on your back.”47 But the many others who had known of
German demands only through hearsay found life under the Belgians
much more difficult than under the earlier administration. The Belgians
originally demanded only one or two francs from each lineage of per-
haps ten men; by 1921 they were beginning to ask this amount from each
individual adult man. The requisitions for porters dropped off after the
end of the war, but soon the Belgians were forcibly recruiting men to
build the system of roads they believed necessary to enable future devel-
opment of the economy. They also needed men to transport material
for their new towns.48
When instructed to protect the Hutu, the administrators did little
and excused their inaction by referring to the need to uphold the au-
thority and prestige of the notables. However, when ordered to collect
taxes or build roads, the administrators reacted with vigor, knowing that
their own performance would be assessed according to such measurable
achievements as the miles of road built or the amount of tax collected
rather than by any vaguely defined improvement in the conditions of
the Hutu. They felt more confident in dealing with such relatively famil-
iar and simple—quantitative—matters than they did in trying to un-
ravel the complexities of Rwandan custom. They assigned quotas to the
notables; the only question was whether or not the notables had filled
176 Alliances That Bind—and Divide, 1919–1922

them. If they had not, the administrators scolded, beat, and jailed them;
they confiscated their cattle; or they indiscriminately destroyed their
homes and crops.49 Faced with such sanctions, the notables in turn
placed heavy demands on their subordinates. They sometimes forced
their people to pay the tax two or three times over or to sacrifice their
labor more frequently than they were supposed to if such measures
were necessary to meet the quotas. The Hutu were soon complaining
amafaranga aratwica—“Taxation is killing us” (literally: “The money [re-
quired for taxes] is killing us”).50 Ironically, the notables often were able
to meet their quotas only by threatening to deprive their subjects of the
very property the Belgians were supposedly guaranteeing.
Notables who regularly met Belgian demands were ordinarily left in
peace to add their own burdens to the backs of the Hutu as they willed,
under the cover of acting for the Europeans. The “bananas needed to
make the Europeans’ bread” became a standard excuse for those notables
who wished to draw on their subjects’ banana plantations to make their
own beer. Since the administrators required the notables to lend them
milk cows to provide dairy products for their tables, the notables also used
this as a good excuse to borrow cattle from subordinates. Men suppos-
edly recruited to do akazi might end up tilling the notables’ fields. An
administrator might occasionally intervene to obtain porters or laborers
for a neighboring mission or commercial firm; but the pay for such labor
ordinarily went to the notable, not to his men. The notables soon were
making such arrangements for themselves, especially with merchants who
offered desirable European products. Credit was easily arranged, with
payment met by the subsequent labor of the notables’ men.51
Hutu who suffered under these increasing burdens had several ways
of dealing with the problem. Within the central kingdom, the simplest
answer was to pay court to the notable who imposed the burdens. Since
a shebuja always favored his bagaragu—sometimes relieving them com-
pletely of meeting European demands—some Hutu entered into an
ubuhake (cattle clientship) relationship with the notables. Other Hutu
chose the less binding and less enduring—but also less certain—expedient
of simply giving gifts to the notables, thus winning a temporary respite
from the demands.
Hutu who lived near missions could choose to pay court to the mis-
sionaries, and increasing numbers of them did so. In the five years from
1919 to 1924, the number of Roman Catholics in Rwanda doubled from
13,000 to 26,000. Despite the dramatic conversions of a few leading
Tutsi, virtually all of these converts were Hutu or poor (non-Court)
 Alliances That Bind—and Divide, 1919–1922 177

Tutsi. As the oldest and most extensive missionary group established in

Rwanda, the White Fathers had an obvious advantage in attracting fol-
lowers. But the new missions as well, the Adventists and the Belgian
Protestants, were able to build up followings as their missionaries too
demonstrated a willingness to act as patrons.52
The ways in which the Fathers offered protection and wealth were
changing during the early 1920s, probably from the combined pressure
from the administration and the superiors of the order. In 1920 the in-
fluential Father Classe, who as pro-vicar directed the affairs of the order
in Rwanda, was recalled by the Superior General of the White Fathers,
apparently because of conflicts among members within the order, and
between the order and the administration, over the Fathers’ interven-
tion in political and judicial matters.* Several months after the recall,
the Superior General wrote to all the Fathers sternly admonishing them
for their “failure in discretion in mixing unduly in the affairs of the na-
tives and those of the European administration” and ordering them not
to meddle again in such affairs.53 Some Fathers ignored the directive,
but others took heed. Instead of intervening directly in problems that
were brought to them, they would send a word to the local administra-
tor. Such a friendly explanation usually led to the desired result.54 Pre-
viously the Fathers had offered wealth through grants of cattle or land.
Most missions discontinued such practices after the war. Instead, they
greatly expanded their facilities for training young men in the skills nec-
essary for success in the European-dominated sectors of Rwandan life.
Those who learned literacy or trades from the Fathers never had trouble
finding employment.55

*As noted above, on several occasions local missionaries became involved in judicial
proceedings relating to the requisitions of Court-appointed notables over local leaders
or members of the peasantry. But from the dismissal of Father Huntzinger, and
especially with the rise to influence of Father Classe (“that most ardent of Tutsiphiles”—
Linden and Linden, Church and Revolution, 109), the missionaries at Kabgayi strongly
supported the Court and sought to discipline individual missionaries who questioned
that premise. The rift among the White Fathers, and the disastrously low morale among
the members of the order, became such that in May 1920 Father Classe was recalled to
Europe for two years. While there he made himself indispensable to the Belgian Colonial
Ministry by lobbying the League of Nations for the return of Gisaka (which since World
War I had been placed under British rule) to the domain of Belgian administration—
and to rule by the Rwandan royal court. Classe returned to Rwanda as Vicar Apostolique
of the Rwanda mission in 1922.
178 Alliances That Bind—and Divide, 1919–1922

While the Fathers may have yielded place to the administrators as

the final arbiters of disputes, they nonetheless remained absolutely es-
sential as patrons. Few Hutu dared to approach the administrators di-
rectly, and those who did often wished they had not. As one Rwandan
put it, the administrators “just never saw the Hutu.”56 Because of the
administrative load (and the increasing distance of Europeans from
Africans) the Belgians spent a great deal of their time in their offices.
When they traveled, few troubled to attempt conversations with the
Hutu. Some made their journeys ensconced in hammocks borne by
servants—just like the Tutsi—and absorbed in the latest newspapers or
books from Belgium. One administrator, who became known under the
name of “Cumi n’abiri” (“Twelve”), was always annoyed when the Hutu
tried to intrude on his thoughts; if any greeted him along the road, he
supposedly would respond with a wave of the hand and “Cumi n’abiri,”
an order to give the man twelve blows for having addressed him. Such
behavior was hardly typical of most administrators, but news of incidents
like this circulated widely and discouraged the Hutu from approaching
the administrators.57

Consolidating Colonial Rule

Nonetheless, as the British quickly learned during their brief sojourn in
eastern Rwanda, Hutu would readily seek protection from the adminis-
trators if they believed help might actually be granted them. The British
took control of eastern Rwanda in March 1922. The transfer of terri-
tory had been postponed for a year and a half as the Belgians tried to
arrange guarantees for Musinga’s continued sovereignty in the area.
The British finally agreed that the representatives of the Court could
continue to hold their domains, to visit Nyanza occasionally, and to take
tribute to the mwami, provided none of the gifts were collected through
forced contributions. Through several important appointments, the
British made clear their intention to replace all the Rwandan notables
eventually with descendants of the original aristocracy of Gisaka. They
even considered restoring the old kingdom itself. The Rwandan notables
feared and resented the British plans, so they cooperated with the British
even less than they did with the Belgians. Indeed, they often carried
complaints about them to Nyanza or even to the Belgians.
With mistrust and hostility growing on both sides, the British and
Rwandan notables were soon enemies. The British listened favorably
to the complaints of the Hutu partly because of this enmity, partly to
 Alliances That Bind—and Divide, 1919–1922 179

establish their own rule independent of the Nyingina Court, and partly
because they were intent on freeing Hutu from service to the notables so
that they could contribute to the economic development of the region
through a pattern of peasant production, along the lines of Uganda and
Tanganyika. After the first few startling British decisions in favor of the
Hutu, the ordinary people began flocking to them with numerous com-
plaints against their notables and shebuja. But the Hutu hardly had time
to take account of their good fortune before eastern Rwanda was re-
turned to Belgian control and their potential protectors vanished. Like
the Hutu in the rest of Rwanda, the people of the eastern regions now
could be certain of a sympathetic hearing from the administrator only if
they approached him with the aid of a missionary.58
As the colonial administration grew, the administrators also replaced
the Fathers as the most desirable employers. But the missionaries con-
tinued to be essential in preparing for employment with the administra-
tion. The Belgians’ increasing emphasis on ruling through the notables
was leading them into a policy of increasingly explicit ethnic discrimi-
nation. From the early 1920s on, they began to reserve the places in their
schools for “Tutsi.” While some Hutu could still enter the schools under
the guise of being Tutsi or through some extraordinary demonstration
of ability, the great majority who wanted a European education could
obtain it only in the schools of the Fathers.59
While the administration reached via the Fathers was the most
powerful source of protection, Christians had available to them more
immediate sources of assistance too. Before the war, the Fathers had or-
ganized councils of leading Christians, called inama, at one or two of the
missions. The inama had then played no significant role and ceased to
exist altogether during the war. With the postwar spurt of growth in the
Christian community, the Fathers reorganized the councils and multi-
plied them among missions. This time the inama responded to a real
need among Christians and rapidly grew in strength at all the Catholic
missions. At first the councils were meant to aid the Fathers in ensuring
the regular performance of Christian duties by converts and catechu-
mens, but they soon took on wider-ranging duties. They settled disputes
among Christians, supported them in conflicts with notables, and orga-
nized treasuries to provide financial aid in times of distress. By 1922 the
inama at the central mission of Kabgayi was sufficiently influential to
be consulted by Musinga on affairs concerning local Christians. When
the Fathers realized that the political and judicial role of the inama was
far exceeding its religious role, they tried to redirect the energies of the
180 Alliances That Bind—and Divide, 1919–1922

councils back to more religious matters. With that shift the inama rap-
idly began losing popularity, so the Fathers once more relaxed their po-
sition and allowed them to resume their role in the temporal affairs of
the community.60
Like the people of the central kingdom, some of the Hutu of the
outlying regions decided that cooperation with the notables or alle-
giance to the Fathers offered the least painful way to ease the increased
burdens from the administration and notables. Other Hutu lineage
heads took advantage of the relatively weak position of the notables in
their areas and tried to establish a working relationship directly with the
administrator. They hoped to overcome the Belgians’ predilection for
ruling through the notables by showing that they could govern even
more effectively. In some areas, leaders of still independent lineages
managed to fill more of the European demands than did notables who
commanded neighboring Hutu groups. Nonetheless, they won at best
only a temporary respite for themselves and their kin; the Belgians per-
sisted in believing that the backward Hutu could not possibly govern
themselves and eventually placed notables in command over them.61
Throughout the early 1920s, many Hutu continued to refuse the or-
ders of both notables and Belgians. The most vigorous opposition took
place in Mulera, where groups like the Bagesera, the Bachuzi, and the
Basigi resisted with force: they vowed that they would fight until there
was not a man among them left alive. Notables, catechists, and even the
administrator himself dreaded having to deal with them. In other re-
gions where the notables did not have to fear continually for their lives
or property, they still could not deliver the taxes or laborers the adminis-
trator demanded; when the notables arrived to make requisitions, the
Hutu deserted the region or just refused to comply with their orders.
Notables who faced a considerable number of resisting lineages within
their commands risked violence from the Hutu if they tried to make them
obey and punishment from the administrator if they did not. Indeed,
several found the risks of ruling outweighed the benefits, and abandoned
their commands to return to the central kingdom.62
While most Hutu cooperated with the powerful or resisted them
through sporadic, local demonstrations, a significant number of others
continued to hope for the arrival of a dynamic leader who would rally
all the people to defeat both the Europeans and the notables. The Hutu
of the central kingdom expressed this hope in the royal idiom: a new
mwami would enter Rwanda to expel the foreigners and to restrain the
 Alliances That Bind—and Divide, 1919–1922 181

demands of the greedy notables.* In 1921 Hutu in southern Rwanda

talked of such a new ruler being about to arrive. In outlying areas, how-
ever, the mwami was not so generally taken to be the protector of the
weak; the “new mwami” motif was less compelling. Instead, in some
areas the Hutu placed their hopes in the Nyabingi movement. In south-
western Rwanda, for example, several thousand Hutu followed a prophet
of Nyabingi in attacking classrooms built by the missionaries and eagerly
complied with his requests for gifts. Advocates of Nyabingi in the north-
western region of Gisenyi also directed their resentment chiefly toward
Christians and Fathers, showering them with insults and abuse. But such
protests remained more symbolic than real: the Belgians easily suppressed
these demonstrations simply by arresting the prophets.63
In 1919 followers of Nyabingi united with actively resisting Hutu
lineages in the north to pose a serious challenge to the administration
and notables. The Hutu of Buberuka had begun accepting the rule of
the Tutsi in 1918. The Fathers of the Rwaza mission felt the area was
safe enough for them to install two catechists there. But by early 1919 the
catechists had been drawn into local squabbles and had become the
focus for resentment against the Europeans and the Tutsi, with whom
they were friendly. In May, probably spurred by a local revival of the
teachings of Nyabingi, the Hutu drove the catechists from Buberuka.
The network of Nyabingi associations stretched across the border from
the northern Rwandan regions of Buberuka and Ndorwa into the dis-
trict of Kigezi in Uganda. In April a Rwandan prophet had crossed into
Uganda and led an attack on men building a road for the British. News
of the continued resistance against the British led by the prophet

*Throughout the region the mwami was expected to ensure the well-being of the
people; indeed, his legitimacy was proven by productive fields, soft rains at the appropriate
times, and peaceful conditions. (For an exploration of these values, see Packard, Chiefship
and Cosmology.) Ecological or political stress sometimes brought forth demands for a
“new mwami” who could ensure those conditions. Because these concerned basic values
and focused on questions of legitimacy, such movements often took the form of religious
expression, analogous to millenarian movements in many other cultures. The religious
dimension ensured not only social justice but also the power of the supernatural in
bringing about that goal. Of several such movements in this culture, the Ryangombe
cult most prominently held forth the potential of an alternative order (de Heusch,
“Mythe et société féodale,” 133–46; Vidal, “Anthropologie et histoire,” 143–57). For a
broader regional consideration, see Berger, Religion and Resistance.
182 Alliances That Bind—and Divide, 1919–1922

Ndochibiri spurred the hopes of Rwandan adherents of the movement.

After the British ambushed and killed Ndochibiri in June, a Rwandan
prophet claimed to have succeeded to his great powers.64
By September that prophet, Mburanumwe, had gathered a signifi-
cant number of adherents whom he ordered to do no forced labor for
outside authorities—no akazi for the Europeans and no uburetwa for
the Tutsi. The notables feared him partly because of his loyal followers,
and partly because of the number of men who indirectly supported
him. They did not dare arrest him. The administrator at the relatively
distant post of Ruhengeri was too suspicious of maneuvers by the
notables or too occupied with other affairs to take their warnings about
Mburanumwe’s growing strength seriously. In October, Mburanumwe’s
forces were greatly strengthened by his alliance with Kadiho, an impor-
tant lineage leader who controlled many of the men of the region of
Bukamba. Kadiho had long acknowledged the authority of the Court
and had collected ikoro for the batware; in return he and his kin had
been left free from more intensive rule by the Tutsi. At the beginning of
the Belgian administration, Kadiho had been one of the lineage heads
to seek a direct accommodation with the Belgians. But by 1919 he had
found the demands of the Europeans too great and was beginning to ig-
nore them, probably under pressure from his kin. The local administra-
tor hoped to restore control over Kadiho and his men by installing a
Tutsi notable over them. Fearful that the Court would approve such an
intensification of central rule, Kadiho began searching for effective
ways to resist it. At about this time one of his kinswomen became at-
tracted to Nyabingi and began to speak as a prophet. Kadiho used her
as a bridge to Mburanumwe.65
To strengthen their forces, Kadiho and Mburanumwe reached out
to seek the aid of resisters in British territory—illustrating, again, the ar-
tificial nature of the boundary as well as the solidarity of resistance. Ka-
diho promised to provide the cattle to reward these new allies for their
support, and Mburanumwe used the network of Nyabingi associations
to communicate the promise to potential followers. By January 1920
Kadiho and Mburanumwe had taken control of most of northern
Buberuka and Bukamba. Several times they repulsed the Tutsi and
Belgian-trained soldiers sent against them, and they threatened to at-
tack the local administrative post and the Rwaza mission. Meanwhile,
the Hutu of the neighboring provinces of Bukonya, Buhoma, Kibali,
and Bugarura were heartened by the Nyabingi revolt and redoubled
their resistance against the notables. Just as the movement was reaching
 Alliances That Bind—and Divide, 1919–1922 183

impressive size, it was cut short by Kadiho’s death in 1920, apparently

from natural causes. His son Rwamakuba feared that he could not rally
his kinsmen as successfully as had his father, and he sought an accommo-
dation with the Belgians. Mburanumwe disappeared, probably fleeing to
British territory. Within a few months, the Tutsi had taken control of
Kadiho’s command and reasserted their rule elsewhere. Although Nya-
bingi would not serve as focus for revolt again in the northwest, the move-
ment continued to provide hope of eventual salvation from central rule.66

As the Belgians formally took control of Rwanda, they became increas-

ingly committed to ruling through the Court and notables. Having re-
built his power in 1917 and 1918 with Belgian support, the mwami, too,
became increasingly aware that the administration now depended on
him as much as he depended on it. Armed with this knowledge, he was
able to forestall the changes in the traditional system that the Belgians
had decreed and to assert his continuing control over such vital issues as
religious freedom, the treatment of cattle, and even the assignment of a
European administrator. In his efforts to guarantee the continued alle-
giance of the notables, he drove a small but significant number of them
into the very alliance with the Europeans that he wanted most to pre-
vent. Distressed as he was by these Inshongore at the time of their defec-
tion, he would suffer much more from their opposition in the future.
Along with their support of the Court, the Belgians also needed to
uphold the authority of the notables, as they were asked to increase
their demands on the Hutu. With no relief from the burdens imposed
by the notables and with ever growing requisitions by the administra-
tion, some Hutu turned to the missionaries for protection. Others sought
accommodation with the notables. Still others continued to resist under
the leadership of their lineage heads or as followers of the prophets of
Nyabingi. But for all their different pathways seeking redress, many
Rwandans saw Belgian rule as the beginning of the “time of the whip.”67
Hutu bore its sting most often, but Tutsi suffered from it occasionally as
well. Musinga was still sheltered by the Belgians’ commitment to rule
through him; should this commitment fade, however, he would be left
most exposed of all.
 8
Div id e a nd Ru l e,
1922– 1925

Emerging Factions at the Court

Ubuhake bubi bujya kukwica bukaguca iwaariyu.
[ When a bad master wants to destroy you, he isolates you from your kin.]

T hrough 1922 Musinga and Kanjogera continued to rule effectively

and to hold the loyalty of most of the Court notables. But the concessions
they had made to the Europeans and the defection of the Inshongore
had unmistakably altered life at Court.

The Belgians, the Court, and

the Inshongore
In 1922 the German missionary E. von der Heyden returned to Nyanza
for the first time since the war. He found the royal residence virtually
unchanged, dozens of neat grass buildings surrounded by a maze of
interconnecting enclosures and passages. Still clustered around the royal
residence were the homes of the ten thousand or so notables and ser-
vants who were in attendance on the Court. He remembered the royal
enclosure as being full of notables who had vied for the privilege of en-
tering there, where they might observe the mwami and perhaps be no-
ticed by him. Now von der Heyden found it strangely empty. Since the
administrator Louis Lenaerts was at the residence so frequently during
the day, the notables had begun saving their visits for the evenings when
they would not have to see him.
Lenaerts, who had succeeded Defawe as the administrator at Nyanza,
was named Bwanakweri, “Mr. Truth,” by the Rwandans because that

184
 Divide and Rule, 1922–1925 185

was what he was always demanding in his dealings with the notables.
Trained as a teacher, Lenaerts had been recruited to direct the school at
Nyanza and then was later brought into service as an administrator.
Good-natured and well-intentioned but blind to the complexities of the
matters he handled, Lenaerts from the start had made himself at home
in the royal enclosure. On the occasion of von der Heyden’s visit, the
missionary sat down properly to chat with the mwami outside his resi-
dence, but Lenaerts casually darted in and out of the house, neglectful
of the strict sense of privacy that even ordinary Rwandans felt about
their homes. Eager to show the German missionary the progress that
the Court had made under Belgian rule, Lenaerts was soon calling von
der Heyden away, interrupting his courtesy visit to the mwami and lead-
ing him through narrow passages to another enclosure. There, Musinga’s
oldest children were waiting all in a row, attired in ill-fitting European
clothes; Lenaerts doubtless appreciated the visitor’s gasp of surprise and
delight. After taking von der Heyden to talk with Kanjogera—an expe-
rience that would not have been open to him in 1914—Lenaerts con-
cluded his tour of the royal quarters and allowed the missionary to
take his leave. Von der Heyden was properly impressed but carried away
the feeling that although “civilization is certainly something very good,
yet it seemed to me that something valuable had also been taken away.”1
Musinga seemed to him much older and greatly disturbed by the loss of
that “something valuable,” which the missionary could not identify more
precisely; yet the mwami also seemed “valiant” in his determination to
continue trying to rule as he had before.2
Musinga’s distress resulted not just from such trivial but humiliating
daily compromises he had to make with the ever-present Belgians, but
also from the growing influence of the Inshongore. The mwami treated
the administrator with cordial courtesy, but Lenaerts, like Defawe, re-
sponded more readily to the attentions of the Inshongore. Worried by
the success of his enemies with Lenaerts, Musinga was susceptible to
suggestions that the Inshongore had won supporters even among his
own wives. At any one time Musinga had seven or eight wives in addi-
tion to several concubines. The majority of the wives, including the two
who competed for the place of favorite, Nyirakabuga and Kanyange,
were Bega. Nyirakabuga, the mother of two sons and two daughters by
Musinga, was a niece of Kanjogera. Handsome, witty, bold, and ambi-
tious, she was an excellent example of what people thought of Bega
women—at least in the eyes of those who equated political power with
personal presentation. Kanyange, of less distinguished antecedents, was
186 Divide and Rule, 1922–1925

apparently more gentle and retiring. She had given Musinga two sons
and a daughter. The rivalry between the wives naturally focused on the
question of whose son would succeed Musinga. At the end of the war,
Kanyange had been displacing Nyirakabuga as favorite, and so her son
Munonozi was generally presumed to be the heir. In 1917 and 1918
Nyirakabuga hoped to improve her son Rudacyahwa’s chances of suc-
ceeding by winning European support for him. Rudacyahwa, then a child
of eight or nine years old, secretly expressed an interest in Christianity
to Father Huntzinger, who was then often visiting Nyanza.3
Nyirakabuga had had long experience with Europeans. When the
Germans had first asked to meet some of the ladies of the royal house-
hold, Musinga had presented Nyirakabuga and another of his wives to
them. The Germans and later the Belgians came to prefer Nyirakabuga
to all of Musinga’s other wives, perhaps because she emerged from the
polite reserve ordinarily observed by aristocratic women. She readily
took the foreigners as equals and enjoyed their company. The White
Fathers who came to Nyanza always asked to see her, and she in turn
sometimes accompanied them a short distance on their way home, a
courtesy usually extended by Rwandans to their visitors but rare for
women of the Court, who did not often go out in public.4
When Kanyange’s son Munonozi died of spinal meningitis in 1919,
Nyirakabuga’s associations with the Europeans had already stirred the
suspicion and anger of many at Court. Enemies of the Bega accused
her of having poisoned Munonozi, but dropped the charge when her
own son Rudacyahwa died of the same disease soon after. Nyirakabuga
transferred her hopes to her son Rwigemera, then one of the two oldest
sons left to Musinga, but for a while she pursued her plans less actively.
Once Lenaerts had arrived in 1921, Nyirakabuga set about winning
his friendship and support. The ebullient young man was charmed by
Nyirakabuga, whom he called Nzoga Komeye, or “Strong Beer.” The
two were soon so much at ease with each other that they were engaging
in wrestling matches before Musinga himself. On one such occasion, the
six foot tall Nyirakabuga knocked the much shorter Lenaerts to the floor
of the royal residence and ordered three of her servants to sit on him.
When the laughing Lenaerts called on Musinga to help him, the mwami
expressed his disgust at such behavior and told him that any man who so
lost his sense of dignity deserved what he got.
At the same time Nyirakabuga was apparently hoping to involve
the Fathers in helping her son. Then six or seven years old, Rwigemera
was the child caught and harshly punished by Musinga for having a
 Divide and Rule, 1922–1925 187

catechism book, and Musinga sternly warned Nyirakabuga that further

close association with Europeans was out of the question. Despite her
independent spirit, Nyirakabuga still feared the mwami and sensed on
this occasion that she had gone too far. After this, she dutifully took to
her bed whenever Europeans came to call and claimed to be too sick to
see them.5
But she had reformed too late. The enemies of the Bega, led by
Bandora—still in conflict with Kayondo—and Gashamura, the leading
mwiru (or ritual specialist) at Court, had persuaded Musinga to send
away Nyirakabuga and his other Bega wives. None of the others main-
tained such direct contacts with the Europeans but, said Bandora’s allies,
they were all related to Kayondo and might aid the Inshongore in betray-
ing the Court. In February 1923 Musinga sent Bandora and Gashamura
around to the residences of the Bega wives, informing them that they
were to return immediately to the homes of their fathers or brothers.
Their children would remain at Court. Bandora and Gashamura’s
accusations soon seemed justified: one wife who was a half-sister of
Kayondo became dependent on him for support, and her son received a
substantial grant of cattle from him; another wife married Nturo, who
shared the leadership of the Inshongore with Kayondo; and Nyiraka-
buga was chosen by the Europeans to command a region in eastern
Rwanda. Although Musinga was able to block her appointment for a
time, she finally took control of her new domains with the support of
the Europeans. From there she continued working to win the drum for
Rwigemera.6
As the Court and the Inshongore competed for the support of the
administrator, both parties also sought the help of the White Fathers,
especially of Léon-Paul Classe, who had returned to Rwanda in 1922
with the new title of Bishop of Rwanda. After Classe’s recall to Europe
in 1920—a result of internal disagreements among the missionaries
over the issue of the Fathers’ involvement in political affairs—he had
again won the complete confidence of his superiors. With twenty years’
experience in Rwanda, he was the natural choice to be bishop of the new
diocese created shortly after his return in 1922; its domain coincided
with the kingdom of Rwanda. While in Europe, Classe had spent some
of his time helping officials of the Colonial Ministry prepare their case
for the retrocession of eastern Rwanda, a question that interested him
in part because two Catholic missions were located there. Having
gained the support of the ministry in Brussels, Classe was well placed to
make his opinions count with the local administration.7
188 Divide and Rule, 1922–1925

Classe and the Court

The only issue on which Classe failed to obtain the agreement of the
administration was that of the education of young notables. The bishop
wanted his missionaries to run the schools for the notables because only
in that way could he be sure that the young notables would learn to
equate Christianity with Catholicism. Otherwise, they might someday
be tempted to choose one of the “heretical” sects, such as the Belgian
Protestants or the Seventh Day Adventists, both of which were begin-
ning to attract adherents. Mindful of the Court’s opposition to mission
schools, the administration continued to insist that secular schools were
necessary for the young notables.8
Unable to use the schools to block the Protestants, Classe was quick
to see the possibility of using the Court and notables against them. He
welcomed overtures from both the Court and Inshongore, but leaned
more strongly toward the Court, still by far the more powerful of the
two. Classe had always acknowledged Musinga’s power in hopes of
using it to the benefit of the Church, while Musinga had long respected
the Bishop’s astute political sense. Through subtle, day-to-day contacts,
Classe and the Court worked out a vague accord from which both hoped
to profit. Classe had no immediate expectations that the Court would
adopt Christianity, but he hoped for superficially good relations that
would lead the administration to conclude that Catholic-run schools
for notables had become acceptable to the Court. A close association
between the Fathers and the Court would also keep the notables from
showing any interest in the Protestant sects. As Classe commented later
regarding a similar arrangement, “It is only politics, but in a country
like this, politics have their influence.” Musinga knew that Classe’s
opinions carried more weight with the Resident and the governor than
those of Lenaerts, so he hoped to counter the Inshongore’s alliance
with the administrator by his own accord with the bishop. He willingly
flattered Classe and the Fathers with all the small marks of favor that
they felt were so important. He also encouraged his notables to oppose
the founding of Protestant missions or classrooms within their domains,
partly to oblige the Fathers and partly because Protestant converts were
even less inclined to be obedient subjects than the Catholics.9
In April 1923 the Fathers consecrated the cathedral they had just
constructed at the mission of Kabgayi. To bestow due solemnity on the
occasion, they arranged for many of the administrators to attend, with
an honor guard in full uniform. They also pressed Musinga to attend
 Divide and Rule, 1922–1925 189

with his sons and principal notables. To the dismay of many of his fol-
lowers, Musinga consented to witness the Christian ceremony. Since he
never spent a night away from Nyanza, he slept at the Court and rose
before dawn to travel the twenty or so miles to Kabgayi. A crowd of
thousands had gathered outside the cathedral. Their tumultuous wel-
come made clear that they had come to see the mwami on one of his rare
journeys away from Court rather than to join a Christian celebration.
Although Musinga was clothed in a much beribboned, gold-braided uni-
form, he was clearly recognizable to them as their ruler, a man of power
who held his own, even against the foreigners. As Musinga made his way
through the throng, his people chanted Mwami wachu aruta abandi, “Our
king is greater than all others.” They hurried to present him with the gifts
that showed their acknowledgement of his authority. When Musinga
entered the cathedral, the hundreds of converts who had fought for the
privilege of attending the Christian ceremony departed from the planned
program to burst into applause, the customary greeting of Rwandans to
their king. The applause followed the mwami as he walked slowly down
the aisle and took his seat at the front.10
After the ceremony and celebrations of traditional song and dance,
the mwami departed for his capital in the evening. The night was cold
and the walk to Nyanza long and uninviting. The Inshongore saw no
reason to comply with the custom that dictated that they accompany the
mwami on the tedious journey. Many other ordinarily loyal notables
also decided to stay behind, perhaps to show their disapproval of his
original decision to attend the ceremony. As the night grew darker, the
crowds following the royal hammock faded away, leaving the mwami
with only his sons and a few of his most faithful followers to escort him.
When one of the sons began to falter from fatigue, Musinga descended
from the hammock to allow the boy to ride and continued the rest of the
way on foot. The next day the weary ruler exacted heavy fines in cattle
from many of the notables who had not followed him and had some of
the others whipped.11 The harshness of the punishment may have re-
flected Musinga’s bitterness at realizing that so few of his notables sym-
pathized with his readiness to sacrifice the externals to preserve the core
of his power. Unlike the common people who were willing to applaud
him even as he entered a church, the notables were ready to use his con-
cession on some issues to refuse obedience to him on others.
By June 1923 Classe felt strong enough to push Musinga into a fur-
ther concession on the issue of religion. He instructed students from
Nyanza who had been studying the catechism secretly to make an open
190 Divide and Rule, 1922–1925

declaration of their faith. They informed their patron and teacher,

Rwabutogo, of their intention and sought the protection of Lenaerts
before taking action. One of the students then appeared at school wear-
ing one of the Fathers’ habits and a religious medal. When Musinga
learned that the student was flaunting the signs of a new faith, he strode
to the school. As he entered the classroom, the students fell quiet. He
took a chair at the front of the room and sat with his back to the stu-
dents. He carefully declared once again the right of each to choose his
own religion. Then he asked all who were studying the catechism to rise.
As the six bravest catechumens stood, Musinga turned and examined
them one by one, pronouncing the name and lineage of each. Then he
left the school. The catechumens were greatly intimidated by the in-
cident. When the young man who had appeared in the habit was called
to Kanjogera’s residence soon after, he dared go only because he was
confident of the support of Rwabutogo and Lenaerts. To his surprise
Kanjogera promised him the grant of a cow instead of some punishment.
Musinga presented the cow soon after, remarking that this would give
the Inshongore one less reason for accusing him to the Europeans.12
Musinga and Kanjogera acted not just from fear of accusation by the
Inshongore but also from a recognition of Classe’s power. The need for
his continuing support had driven the Court one step further from its
original stalwart opposition to European ideas.
Once the Court had taken the stand of permitting conversion to
Christianity, the Inshongore resolved to encourage it. Although Ka-
yondo, Nturo, and most of the other Inshongore had no intention of
converting themselves, they actively sought links with those who had de-
cided to accept Christianity and recommended that their own young
followers adopt it. They intended in this way to demonstrate that they
were willing to cooperate with Classe. They also hoped to attract sup-
porters among the ntore at Court, most of whom had given up their
earlier fear and distrust of European education and had come to admire
the ikizungu, the ideas and things of the European. The Inshongore be-
lieved that the more closely the young were associated with European
power and culture, the more likely they would be to accept their leader-
ship and to reject that of the Court. Under their direction, those who
opposed the Court for political reasons came together with those who
opposed it for religious reasons, and the division between supporters
and enemies of the Court was extended down into the ranks of the
young.13
 Divide and Rule, 1922–1925 191

The Inshongore attracted far fewer of the ntore than they had hoped.
The great majority of the young men managed to combine an admira-
tion for European culture with a continuing respect for the Court, in the
same way that they carried on the two apparently incompatible roles of
student and ntore. As students, they passed their mornings in a class-
room learning Swahili and French, studying history and literature, and
practicing the skills necessary for keeping the registers that Europeans
prized so highly. As ntore, they spent their afternoons executing military
exercises and elaborate dances and their evenings drinking, conversing,
and listening to music and poetry in attendance on the mwami or one of
his notables. Proud of their own mastery of European skills and yet
anxious to defend the mwami to whom they owed allegiance, these young
men developed a lively hostility toward the Inshongore, who only pre-
tended to admire European civilization in order to use European power
to influence the Court. Since the leading Inshongore were batware, these
young men of the Court became known as the Ibyanga-batware, “The
haters of the Batware.” Honing their court skills, they practiced their
abilities at repartee and verbal attack on the Inshongore; they even
enjoyed roughing up one or two of them if they caught them out alone
at night. They especially hated Condo, the mutware who commanded
their company, because he was seeking the help of the Belgians in a
conflict between his lineage and that of Gashamura, a mwiru—a royal
ritualist—and a favorite of the Court. Consequently, they refused
Condo’s orders, and when he tried to discipline them, they returned his
punishment blow for blow. They finally persuaded Musinga to replace
him with another notable as head of the ntore.
The Ibyanga-batware showed even less mercy to their own classmates
who supported the Inshongore. As the conflicts multiplied between
ntore who supported the Court and those who opposed it, the high mo-
rale and strict standards of conduct that had characterized earlier mili-
tary formations began to crumble. The ntore drank too much, brawled
constantly among themselves and with others, and even raped the young
women of the vicinity. Seriously troubled by this disintegration of
standards, Musinga called his own supporters as well as the other ntore
to account for their misconduct. The young men accepted the beatings
he meted out to them, but this exercise of royal authority could not
reinstate the unity and discipline that had disappeared.14 Torn by the
same divisions that plagued their elders, the company would finally be
disbanded under pressure from the Belgians.
192 Divide and Rule, 1922–1925

Administrative Changes and the Court

By 1923 the Belgians were becoming disillusioned with their hopes of
transforming Rwanda through a powerful but compliant Court—but also
one whose power was real while its compliance was only apparent. Now
better informed about the activities at Court through the Inshongore,
the Belgians were beginning to resent the extent to which their orders
were disregarded. Their dissatisfaction was relayed to the officials in the
Colonial Ministry. In their report on the administration of Rwanda
during 1923, these officials no longer talked of a “perfectly organized
society,” but instead of a “little advanced society” where the colonial
administration must expect sometimes to take measures that are opposed
by the Court.15
Distressed by the lack of progress in the past, the Belgians were
all the more eager for change in the near future. A flurry of economic
activity in the Congo spurred their hopes for similar development in
Rwanda, and perhaps more closely coordinated with that of the Congo.
M. Marzorati, the governor of Rwanda and Burundi, intended to stim-
ulate economic development by introducing new consumer goods. He
assumed that once Rwandans had been exposed to bicycles, typewriters,
furniture, and sewing machines, they would easily take to cultivating
cash crops like coffee or cotton, to mass producing their finely woven
baskets, and even to selling their cattle. Apparently under pressure from
officials in the Congo, Marzorati wanted to supply markets there with a
steady flow of cattle. He suggested importing horses, each one to be ex-
changed for twenty-five cattle. Asked to comment on this idea, one local
administrator reported tersely and correctly that no Rwandan would
exchange even one head of cattle for a horse, far less twenty-five.16 One
official, foreseeing the day when he might be called upon to execute
these “grandiose” plans, even asked the White Fathers for help in bring-
ing Marzorati back to reality.17
Although the Resident, Mortehan, and his agents shuddered at some
of Marzorati’s ideas, they agreed that economic development was essen-
tial and that it could take place only as the administration gained firmer
control over the kingdom. When the British agreed to return eastern
Rwanda to Belgian administration in August 1923, Mortehan saw this as
the perfect opportunity for demanding greater cooperation from the
Court. The Belgians would now be free of the perception by the Court
of having done the Court an undeserved injury, while Musinga, he ex-
pected, would feel gratitude for the Belgian efforts on his behalf.18
 Divide and Rule, 1922–1925 193

In September, Mortehan repeated Belgian dictates about the

stability of commands and the secure tenure of property. As before, the
Court and notables listened politely and then sought to evade the di-
rectives. A few administrators tried briefly to enforce the orders before
being distracted by other matters or succumbing to fears of harming the
prestige of the notables.19 More significant was the Resident’s decision
to deprive Musinga of the right to assign the responsibility for making
requisitions of the population for the Europeans. The Belgians were im-
patient with the inefficiency that resulted from the Court’s allocation of
quotas according to political criteria rather than according to ability to
fill them. Administrators in the outlying regions for some time had been
ignoring the requirement that assignments be made by the Court and
instead had been distributing quotas—directly to the notables in their
regions. The Court had kept control, however, of the distribution within
the central kingdom.
By 1923 the Belgians’ hopes for economic development made them
more anxious to build their roads and towns rapidly and efficiently. At
the same time, the Inshongore, who were beginning to win Mortehan’s
sympathy, multiplied their complaints to him and Lenaerts about Mu-
singa’s use of the requisitions to punish them. Mortehan ordered that
Musinga could continue assigning the requisitions in one small region,
where most of the commands were held by his favorites.20 In all other
areas, however, the administrators would be responsible for giving orders
directly to the notables. To avoid having to deal with the multiplicity of
notables in each region, the administrator generally charged the most
important notable in each area with executing the orders. Where no
single notable was clearly preeminent, the administrators named one
cooperative man to be “akazi chief.” Never popular with the notables
because its risks outweighed its rewards—and because of the hatred it
unleashed—this position would later be eliminated as other changes in
the political system made it unnecessary.21
By establishing such “akazi chiefs,” the Belgians took the first step
toward a bureaucracy by which they hoped to establish a simplified,
hierarchical system of clearly defined and unified territorial commands
of roughly similar size. The Belgians wanted to put such a system in
place not just to conform to their ideal of bureaucratic organization but
also to be able to implement their orders promptly. They expected that
they would be able to control the mwami and notables more easily once
they became dependent on payment by the administration. In 1923 they
began paying the mwami 5 percent of the total Belgian tax collected in
194 Divide and Rule, 1922–1925

Rwanda and the notables 5 percent of the amount collected within their
domains.* The Belgians hoped too that once the Court and notables had
this extra income from sources outside simple expropriation, they would
be less likely to place their own personal exactions on their people.22
The Belgians planned to change the people who governed Rwanda
as well as the system by which it was governed. They expected to obtain
firm command over the kingdom by placing in positions of power those
whom they had trained. They had especially great hopes for coopera-
tion from the young men who had studied at the Nyanza school. The
first class of thirty completed their studies in November 1923. The grad-
uates were supposed to spend six months or more as apprentices to local
administrators before being named to positions of command, but when
Lenaerts explained the plan to Musinga, he balked at sending off to
distant posts those very men who were the best of his ntore. They had
been trained to attend him, to entertain him, to defend him. Nonethe-
less, the administration decided to ignore his opposition, if only to prove
to the Court and the ntore that they had become its young men now. On
the day when the posts were assigned, the formation of ntore marched
together for the last time to the royal enclosure to dance and declaim
their praises for the mwami. As they sang him a song of adieu, Musinga
wept openly. Perhaps he was recalling the moment eighteen years before
when the Bega had ordered Musinga’s fellow ntore dispersed from
Nyanza so that they would not rally behind the young mwami in his
struggle against his maternal kinsmen. Although several hundred ntore
were left at Court, they were greatly disorganized by this dispersal of
their leaders as well as by the struggles between supporters and oppo-
nents of the Court. Gradually the company disintegrated, with most of
its members drifting away from the Court. No new ntore were ever
called to serve Musinga.23

The Expansion of Court Rule

The Belgians coupled transformations within the heartland with the ex-
tension of control over the outlying regions. While they always invoked

*These policies replicated those in the Congo, where there was much more engage-
ment in a monetary economy—an example of how policies in Congo found their way to
Ruanda-Urundi. Despite the difficulties for the people of finding the money to pay the
tax, this did make Musinga wealthy and thus helped him extend his clientship networks.
 Divide and Rule, 1922–1925 195

the mwami’s name to legitimize the expansion, the Belgians had taken
his place in encouraging the notables to intensify their rule in the out-
lying areas. In the north, the partnership of the Europeans and the
notables that had begun tentatively under the Germans reached its full
development after 1923 when the vigorous administrator E. Borgers
arrived to take command of Mulera. Borgers methodically set about
“organizing” Mulera, establishing control by the Europeans and Tutsi
thoroughly in one region at a time, by bringing greater force to bear
against resisters than previous rulers had been able (or willing) to do.24
As the Belgians took over the direction of expansion, deciding where
notables would be installed and providing the force necessary to support
them, they also determined the system through which they would rule.
They wanted above all to prevent the development of the complexities
that made the system in the central kingdom so difficult for them to
manage. Under Borgers’s direction, the notables took up large, fairly
unified blocks of territory, which they could then parcel out among their
followers. Within each command, only one notable ruled the people
and, where he could get the Hutu to agree, the land. He also collected
tax and requisitions for the Belgians. The distinctions among different
domains of authority—such as the batware, banyabutaka, and akazi
chiefs—were removed; these new domains eventually became known as
chefferies (“chiefdoms”) and sous-chefferies (“sub-chiefdoms”), depending
on their size, population, and place in the new standardized administra-
tive hierarchy.
In the few areas of Mulera where notables had commanded before
the arrival of the Belgians, the administration could not simply ignore
their domains in creating the chiefdoms and sub-chiefdoms. But be-
cause these commands were larger and less fragmented than in the
south, the Belgians hoped to experiment with them to find the most effi-
cient way of transforming the existing system. Mulera was especially
suited to such trials because Rwabugiri himself had begun his experi-
ment there of combining the commands of batware (with authorities
over individuals) and banyabutaka (with authority over land). For ex-
ample, the domain of Gakwavu, who had succeeded to the combined
command created by Rwabugiri, offered a natural base for the system
the Belgians wished to construct in Mulera. As a beginning, the admin-
istration in 1924 instructed Gakwavu to collect the ikoro from all men
within his domain, whether or not he commanded them as their mut-
ware. Part of the ikoro collected from men he did not command as mut-
ware was then sent to Nyanza, where the mutware who did command
them presented their ikoro to the Court. The Belgians reasoned that if
196 Divide and Rule, 1922–1925

these batware lost their role as collectors of ikoro, their commands

would fall into desuetude and the administration would be left with one
man, such as Gakwavu, in command of each region. Borgers also per-
mitted Gakwavu to appropriate domains of other notables where they
were interspersed with his own holdings. As Gakwavu either forced the
representatives of other notables to obey him or simply removed them
to install his own men, the administrator shut his eyes. As other impor-
tant notables in the north were granted the right to collect all the ikoro
within their domains, they too used the measure to expand their holdings
at the expense of other notables. Since these illegitimate acquisitions—
completely outside the control of the Court—resulted in larger com-
mands under fewer men, the Belgians did nothing to stop them.25
With the expansion of administrative control in Mulera, the Belgians
could intervene significantly for the first time in the distribution of
domains by the Court and notables. However, in the central kingdom
where the Belgians had found the complex system of commands already
in place, they had not been able to master its intricacies sufficiently to
allow them to control appointments and removals by the Court and
notables. In the north, where the commands were being established
under their direction, they could be certain that the Court was not
granting any large holdings without their knowledge. Even small domains
granted by the notables would be known to the administration. The
appointments were supposedly made by the Court and Resident acting
together, but in fact, the choices were made locally; the effective agent
of European control was the territorial administrator rather than the
Resident. Borgers ordinarily permitted the notables to propose candidates
for grants within their domains subject to his approval. But he intervened
more decisively when he wanted certain notables, whom he deemed un-
suitable, removed from their commands. In some cases, the administrator
even named lesser notables directly, without referring to the notables
commanding the region involved, the mwami or the Resident.26
As administrators came increasingly to control the distribution of
commands, the notables (and others who hoped to become notables)
began to court them assiduously. Soon Borgers had a retinue of followers
much like that of powerful Rwandans, with the major difference that the
clients of the European were likely to be literate, perhaps Christian, and
possibly drawn from families without close Court ties. Borgers’s most
noteworthy client was a non-Court Tutsi named Magera. The son of a
man who had paid court to Nyirimbirima before he had fled Rwanda,
Magera had ignored his father’s loyalties to become a client of Gakwavu,
 Divide and Rule, 1922–1925 197

Nyirimbirma’s rival and successor. The ingratiating young man had

become a favorite of Gakwavu, in part because he had arranged for
Gakwavu’s marriage to one of his comely sisters. Once Borgers arrived
to supplant Gakwavu as the most powerful man in Mulera, Magera
transferred his loyalty to him and rose rapidly in his estimation, partly
because of his literacy and intelligence, partly because of another lovely
sister, whom he gave in marriage to Borgers. The administrator endowed
Magera with numerous profitable commands for himself and presented
his father and brothers with an entire region as their domain. Confi-
dent of Borgers’s support, Magera intrigued constantly against the other
notables in the area, especially against his old patron Gakwavu, and
treated them with the greatest insolence. As for the ordinary people, if
they wished to talk with Magera, they had first to greet his dog, a dog
that he had named Musinga.27
As the number of commands multiplied, the Belgians and notables
needed to recruit several hundred lesser notables to govern at the local
level. The number of Tutsi resident in Mulera was too small to provide
sufficient candidates for all the positions to be filled, so the Belgians and
important notables looked to the south for new subordinates. Tutsi with
little wealth or political power and with few influential kin hurried to
Mulera to share in the distribution of commands. These Banyanduga
(men from the central areas) came equipped not only with literacy skills
but also with an arrogant certainty of the superiority of the ways of the
Tutsi, which many of them flaunted all the more aggressively because of
the very lack of distinction of their own backgrounds. They had no re-
spect for the Bakiga, the “men of the hills” as they called them, and ex-
pected to stay in their country only so long as necessary to make a for-
tune and a reputation. Since they were new to the region, they needed
land on which to settle; and since they did no manual labor they needed
laborers to till the land for them. Because they regarded the local
people—“Hutu” in the new lexicon, as administrative hierarchies were
extended to the region—as hardly fit company for an important notable,
they welcomed friends and relatives (or even previously unknown para-
sites) who followed them north to share in their good fortune.28 One
witness from Bukonya recalled how a man from the south might estab-
lish himself in the area:

He would come and ask hospitality from some Hutu who hap-
pened to be on his route; when the Hutu had taken care of his
lodging, he would ask who commanded that hill. And he would go
198 Divide and Rule, 1922–1925

to him the next morning and say, “The Hutu at whose house I
stayed last night took good care of me, my lord, and I ask to be al-
lowed to continue to live with him.” After two or three days he
would say, “I have a wife and a child who are indeed badly off; I
would like to go and get them so that you could install them some
place.” The notable would tell him to go get them and when he
brought them back, he would install them in the enclosure of the
Hutu, saying they had no other place to go. And the next day, he
would take another Hutu and tell him to go fetch water for him.
And if you tried to object, he would say, “I have received you from
such and such a notable, may your mother be mutilated. . . .” and
you would say nothing more. And thus he got this hill, tomorrow
that one, and another the day after that. And the rope did its work
among us; if you had a cow, he would tie you up until you gave it to
him. In this way they took the cattle, if you have heard that they
had cattle, . . . until the [expropriated] cattle covered the [entire]
hill. . . . In this way they came to command the country and not in
any other. As I saw it, I have told it.29

In 1923 and 1924, lineages in Kibali, Bukonya, and Bugerura tried to

resist the extension of central control with the kind of violence that they
had used to safeguard their rights in the past. Under Borgers’s direction,
the notables and soldiers suppressed their uprisings ruthlessly. From this
experience and from the constant presence of Belgian troops and police
in the north, most other lineages decided that further armed resistance
was futile. At the same time, the local lineages were finding that the
notables had far less need for their active support. Instead of relying on
local alliances to establish their control over recalcitrant subjects, the
notables simply called in the soldiers and police; instead of calling on
local supporters to defend their domains against rivals, they sought the
protection of the administrator. Local people were left with only two al-
ternatives, seeking an accommodation with the powerful or refusing to
comply with orders. The minority, often members of weaker lineages,
chose the former; the majority took the latter pathway. The point at
which each lineage would decide to refuse compliance naturally dif-
fered, but most rejected the notables’ attempts to take control of their
land and to force them to do uburetwa labor.30
As the Bakiga changed from open resistance to refusal to comply
with orders, the Belgians altered the punishment from armed attack to
imprisonment. Many heads of lineages served several weeks or months
in jail, usually without noticeable effect on their behavior. In one case
 Divide and Rule, 1922–1925 199

the younger men of the lineage felt that their lineage head was getting
too old to survive incarceration one more time so they secretly arranged
to comply with the local notable’s demand for uburetwa. As soon as the
old man learned that they had left for the notable’s fields, he hurried
after them and marched them home again before they had the chance
to lift their hoes. In such particularly stubborn cases, especially if the
lineage had complied only partially (or not at all) with demands of the
administration for tax and akazi, the Belgians would exile the heads of
the lineages to other parts of Rwanda for the rest of their lives. Such
measures, however, failed to break the resistance of most lineages.31

Colonial Pressures and

the Demise of the Small Polities of the West
By the mid-1920s the Belgians had generally accepted the contention of
the Tutsi that only they knew how to rule. Although they would make
exceptions for gifted individuals, the Belgians had given up the idea of
permitting large groups of Hutu to govern themselves. In late 1924 and
early 1925, Borgers supervised the end of the Belgian experiment in self-
rule by the northern political community. The people of the small state
of Bushiru had greatly impressed the Belgians with the strength of their
resistance against Court Tutsi in 1920. A White Father who had served
in Bushiru had argued their case persuasively with the administration,
pointing out that this state differed from other outlying regions because it
had a universally acknowledged ruler, or muhinza.* The Belgians lacked

*As elsewhere in this region the local term for a legitimate sovereign was mwami.
In these small polities the power of the mwami over his subjects was severely limited;
legitimacy depended on ritual integrity not political power. The term muhinza was a
term of opprobrium used by the Court to apply to the rulers of such small states (ruling
over domains the Nyinginya Court claimed as its own territory). However, because state
officials and early anthropologists generally adopted Court lexicon (and the Court’s
perspectives) the term muhinza became widely replicated in the literature; see Nahimana,
Le Rwanda, 191–222, esp. 220–22: “le titre d’umwami . . . a été remplacé par celle
d’abahinza par les abami nyiginya lors de leur expansion; ils imposèrent aux abami hutu
vaincus le titre d’abahinza. . . . L’utilisation du titre umuhinza à la place de celui d’umwami
est . . . récente.” See also Nahimana, “Les principautés Hutu du Rwanda septentrional,”
115–37; for an extensive example of such a kingship: D. Newbury, Kings and Clans,
passim, esp. chap. 2.
200 Divide and Rule, 1922–1925

the resources to conquer Bushiru at the time anyway, so they agreed to

rule through the muhinza, then an old man named Nyamakwa.32
Because of the strength of the resistance shown by the people of
Bushiru (the Bashiru), the Belgians supposed that Nyamakwa must be a
powerful and effective ruler. In fact, the Bashiru had fought so vigor-
ously out of a general and fierce resentment against the Tutsi who had
been raiding their rich region in the years during and just after the war.
Nyamakwa merely acceded to the attacks that his people were already
determined to make. The power of the muhinza derived in part from
his position as head of the strongest lineage in Bushiru, in part from his
supposed abilities to control the fertility of the soil and protect the crops
against harmful pests. As the most powerful man in Bushiru, Nya-
makwa exercised authority over political and judicial questions. His ad-
ministration, however, consisted of only one formal counselor, the Mu-
vuguruza, “the one who contradicts,” and of his family and followers.
Without a regular army, he could enforce his decisions only when he
had the support of most of his people.33
The Belgians at first were pleased with the results of ruling through
the muhinza. They took the readiness with which the Bashiru filled their
requisitions as one more proof of the effectiveness of Nyamakwa’s rule.
Again, they were mistaken. The Bashiru feared the extension of control
by the Tutsi as much as did their muhinza and they were willing to
cooperate with the Belgians to forestall it. As the Belgian demands grew
in 1921 and 1922, however, the Bashiru lost their enthusiasm for Belgian
rule, and Nyamakwa had increasing difficulty getting the administra-
tion’s orders executed. To meet such increasing demands, the muhinza
was constantly forced to exercise power more ruthlessly and over matters
he had not previously controlled.34
As Nyamakwa threatened to call in the Belgians to make his people
obey, his relationship with them began to change. Long after, several Ba-
shiru recalled the shift, “Seeing Nyamakwa live with his superiors . . .
with the Europeans, we began to fear him.”35 Eventually the muhinza
became blind and could no longer supervise his new duties personally,
so he delegated them to his sons. Some found ruling for the European a
burden, even with the added powers it brought. One of Nyamakwa’s
sons told an administrator who threatened to remove him from his com-
mand for some inadequacy, “It would be the greatest service you could
do me.”36 Others readily exploited their new responsibilities for their
own profit, confiscating goods and lands to which they had no right.
 Divide and Rule, 1922–1925 201

When Nyamakwa proved unable to control such abuses, those who

suffered most from them began to use force to defend themselves. As
the Bashiru divided for or against Nyamakwa, fighting became more
frequent; as one observer commented, “people did not respect each
other any more.”37
Nyamakwa had hoped to guarantee his own and his people’s in-
dependence by taking on new responsibilities of European colonial
administration directly. But he could not transform his position as
muhinza, based on ritual legitimacy and working for the benefit of the
people, into that of agent for the colonial bureaucracy within a hierarchy
of external command. His failure seemed to the Belgians only one more
proof of the incapacity of Hutu in governance. So they proposed to Mu-
singa that Bushiru be brought under the more conventional administra-
tion by Court-delegated Tutsi. The mwami, who had long been encour-
aging his notables to bring Bushiru under Court control, agreed. With
the Resident’s approval the Court named a young man who had served
both Musinga and the Belgians well. He quickly divided up Bushiru
among his followers, removing the last vestiges of political power from
the muhinza.38
Although the Belgians had taken the place of the Court in directing
expansion in the north, they were carrying on the same thrust which the
Court had encouraged throughout Musinga’s reign. When the Belgians
decided to take control of Bukunzi and Busozo, however, they were vio-
lating the Court’s long tradition of protecting these two small south-
western states. The Court had given a special status to Bukunzi because
its ruler, renowned for his rainmaking abilities, supposedly could control
the rainfall for all of Rwanda. But it protected Busozo apparently because
of an accident of history. According to Court historical narratives,
when one of the great bami of the past, perhaps Ruganzu Ndori of the
seventeenth century, had traveled in the southwest, he had repeatedly
encountered hostility from the people of all areas except Busozo. In
appreciation for his welcome there and in response to the request for
protection from the mwami of Busozo, Ruganzu Ndori had granted the
state a special status that succeeding Rwandan rulers had always re-
spected. Even though it was Busozo that had sheltered Ruganzu, in Court
perspectives the ruler of Busozo was known as the “daughter of the
Court,” a term frequently used by Rwandans to mean a minor or weak
person in need of protection. The people of Busozo were expected to
provide the Court with a tribute of herbs, woods, and animal skins,
202 Divide and Rule, 1922–1925

presented through a Court-nominated mutware.* Bukunzi had a differ-

ent relationship with the Court. Relying on his reputation throughout the
region as a guarantor of rainfall, the ruler of Bukunzi was given consider-
able deference. Although he provided a small tribute to the Rwandan
mwami, he received the equivalent or more in gifts from the Court. Un-
like the ruler of Busozo, the ruler of Bukunzi sent his tribute through his
own messenger. Except for these symbolic gifts to the Court, the people
of Busozo and Bukunzi were free of rule by the Tutsi.39
In the years right after the war, the Belgians had respected the spe-
cial status of these two states, partly because of the Court’s defense of
them, partly because of intervention again by Fathers of a local mission.
In March 1923 the mwami of Bukunzi died. One of his wives, Nyiranda-
kunze, used the provision for ritual killings that were supposed to take
place after the death of a mwami as an excuse to execute several politi-
cal opponents. Others who feared her continued reprisals sought refuge
with the neighboring Fathers, who in turn reported on their plight to the
administrator. The Belgians were apparently too occupied in the north
to consider taking control of Bukunzi, so they proposed instead to re-
move some of its territory from the new mwami, who was still a child,
and give it to Rwagataraka, the influential Mwega notable who gov-
erned the neighboring region of Kinyaga. When the proposal was made
to the Court, Musinga opposed it because he feared that any loss of ter-
ritory might provoke the new mwami to withhold the rain. Hard pressed
by the Resident, he finally gave nominal consent to the move but pri-
vately arranged with Rwagataraka, then one of his favorites at the Court,
so that the transfer would have no actual effect.40
When Bukunzi still had not submitted to control of either Euro-
peans or notables a year later, the administration decided to invade
the territory and capture Nyirandakunze and her son, the mwami. The
new territory was promised in advance to Rwagataraka, who was
chosen to lead the expedition into Bukunzi. Apparently to please the
Court, Rwagataraka managed to mislead and delay the troops so badly

*Such prescriptions were clearly based on Court perspectives, as shown by the

claims that this rugged mountainous forested kingdom sent its tribute through a mutware
long before the presence of the Court was effective or enduring in this area. For more on
the recent relationship of these areas to the Court, see C. Newbury, The Cohesion of
Oppression, 39, 63–65.
 Divide and Rule, 1922–1925 203

that Nyirandakunze and her son escaped. The administrator was fu-
rious, all the more so because he could see no reason for such a betrayal
by Rwagataraka, the likely beneficiary of the expedition. Eventually, the
Belgians occupied Bukunzi militarily, and forced the people of the area
to pay tax, to do akazi for the state, and to accept the rule of the Tutsi.
But for a year the people refused to reveal the hiding place of their
traditional rulers. To expedite the search, the Belgians singled out one
former adviser to Nyirandakunze for intensive interrogation; when “he
was finally tired of being beaten,” as one observer put it, he revealed
their hiding place. It was only two miles from the military headquarters.
In a nighttime raid, the Belgians killed Nyirandakunze, who fought
valiantly with a spear against their guns, along with several of her sons.
The young mwami was captured and put in jail, where he died soon
after.41
The rulers of Busozo had viewed developments in neighboring
Bukunzi with alarm and had sought to make an accommodation with
the Europeans. The queen mother, Rudasumbwa, had already profited
once from European aid; the Germans had helped her install her son as
mwami at the time of a succession dispute in 1905. Now she and her son
arranged to meet the Belgian demands for tax and laborers in return for
being allowed to continue to rule. But, as with Nyamakwa in Bushiru,
they were unable to extend their powers to keep pace with their new ob-
ligations. Their people refused to keep the promises the rulers had made
to the Belgians. Even after the Belgians had moved troops into Busozo
to prop up their authority, they could not fill the European requisitions.
When the mwami died in 1926, the Belgians assigned Busozo to a neigh-
boring Tutsi notable.42
After two and a half years of military occupation, the Belgians
forced Busozo and Bukunzi into their administrative system. Ironically
enough, they described this incorporation as “restoring the authority”
of the mwami. In reality they had shown that their intention to establish
a uniform system of administration throughout Rwanda took prece-
dence over the Court’s desire to continue in some cases the more flexible
arrangements of the past. The people of Busozo and Bukunzi, like the
Hutu in other areas, had idealized the mwami as their protector against
the excessive greed of the notables and later against the centralizing
zeal of the Europeans. With the destruction of the special status of Bu-
kunzi and Busozo, the Court’s ability to protect the weak and those who
it felt was essential to the welfare of the kingdom suffered a serious blow.
204 Divide and Rule, 1922–1925

Court Administration and

Colonial Bureaucracy
In late 1924 and throughout 1925, the Belgians pressed ahead with
the changes they deemed necessary in the traditional system. Pleased by
the results of the experiment in Mulera with unified tax collection, they
decreed that in the future only banyabutaka throughout the kingdom
would collect the ikoro within their domains. As the heads of armies,
and the original Court representatives to most regions, the batware had
already lost their role as defenders of the Court with the arrival of Eu-
ropean troops; now they were to be deprived of their functions as agents
of the royal administration. As the Belgians hoped, their positions
began to evaporate. To further limit the number of officials entitled to
collect tax for the Court, the Belgians also prohibited requisitions by the
batora, special agents of the mwami who had had the right to gather up
bananas for beer or animals for divination. The authority of the Court
and notables to demand cattle from their clients under certain circum-
stances was also ended. Aware that Kanjogera and Musinga often coun-
tered Belgian intervention in the judicial process by rendering their own
decisions secretly at night, the Belgians required that all cases be de-
cided only in the administrator’s offices in the presence of a European,
and recorded in a register—measures designed to eliminate Kanjogera’s
influence, since she still refused to sit publicly at judicial hearings.43
By the mid-1920s the Belgians were moving more vigorously to
change the system as their hopes for the economic development of
Rwanda grew. They also began pressing the Hutu harder for labor to es-
tablish the facilities necessary for development. But as demands from
the Europeans and the notables increased, resistance continued in al-
tered forms. Group opposition yielded to individual withdrawal as more
and more Hutu left Rwanda for the British-administered territories to
the east. There they were free from taxes and forced labor; they received
better salaries as well. Although most of the migrants went to work only
for a period of months and then returned to Rwanda, their departure
nonetheless posed a serious threat to the Belgian plans for development.
The more Hutu became acquainted with the attractions in the east, the
more difficult and costly it would be for Belgian enterprises to keep
them in Rwanda.44
The Belgians could not prohibit emigration, because they feared the
British would protest to the League of Nations and because they did not
want to sacrifice the resources needed to implement such a measure.
 Divide and Rule, 1922–1925 205

They correctly realized that the pressures in Rwanda were as important

as the lure of higher salaries in accounting for the Hutu exodus. Unwill-
ing to cut back on their own demands, they sought to limit the exactions
that the notables were making on the Hutu. At the end of 1924, they or-
dered that in the future Hutu were to do two days labor out of seven in-
stead of two days out of five for uburetwa. In a policy again reflective of
that in Congo, they installed fifteen courts in the various territories to
settle cases previously judged informally by notables or administrators.
Where administrators could not oversee the operation of the courts
through their personal attendance, they were expected to monitor the
records kept of the sessions. In the outlying regions, where abuses of the
Tutsi were most brutal, administrators were supposed to judge cases in
which Hutu brought complaints against notables.45
The Belgians believed that inserting these new measures within a
system of multiple bureaucratic safeguards would ensure their effective-
ness. To be certain that the Court collected only the proper amount of
tax through the correctly designated representatives, the Belgians re-
quired all taxes to be inventoried at the local territorial posts before
being forwarded to Nyanza. One copy of the inventory was to accom-
pany the caravan, another was sent separately to the administrator in
Nyanza, and a third was held in the territory for later comparison
against a copy returned from Nyanza after having been checked by the
administrator there. This system regulated those taxes that the notables
chose to present at the territorial offices, but not those they continued to
send privately to Court. To be sure that the notables demanded only the
two days a week of uburetwa, the Belgians required them to keep regis-
ters. The notables maintained their books in perfect order and still re-
quired excessive labor that was just never inscribed; if a dependent re-
fused the supplementary work (often to meet personal demands of the
notable or his family) they would not be inscribed for having fulfilled the
legally required obligations. As for the courts that were supposed to pro-
tect the Hutu, the notables soon learned the kinds of evidence that were
needed to sway the Europeans and had no difficulty collecting it.46
So long as the Belgians supported the notables against the Hutu, all
the decrees of changes in the system, no matter how encumbered they
were with detailed regulations, would have had little effect. In the same
way, Belgian restrictions on the powers of the Court would have made
little difference if the Belgians had not begun to withdraw their support
for the mwami. In late 1924 the Resident intervened to grant the rich
holdings of Kabare to his son, the Christian Rwabutogo, whom Musinga
206 Divide and Rule, 1922–1925

detested. The decision injured a favorite of the Court who had been
overseeing the domains as steward. Soon after, the Resident deprived
three important notables, Rwakadigi, Sebugirigiri, and Biganda, of
their holdings in the north. All three had been favorites of the Court.47
By these decisions the Belgians showed that they were now going to
control the distribution of wealth and power; the infringement on royal
prerogative that had begun relatively inconspicuously with Borgers in
the north was brought home to the heart of the kingdom. What was
more, in exercising their power, the Belgians were favoring opponents of
the Court and harming those loyal to it.
The Court saw clearly the implications of these decisions and tried
to win European favor again. Musinga returned to the studies he had
dropped nearly two decades before and ordered the leading notables
to accompany him to class. He cooperated enthusiastically with the
Fathers in combating the growing influence of the Protestants. He re-
buffed representatives of the (Anglican) Church Missionary Society
who tried to win him over with rich gifts, and he ordered his notables to
encourage the building of Catholic mission outstations in their domains
to preempt the Protestants who wanted to build there. Many notables
hoped that cession of some land to the Fathers and the contribution
of labor to build their out-stations would satisfy them, but others ap-
proached the matter more thoroughly and ordered their subjects to
attend instruction. They did not, however, go themselves.48
The notables too sensed the drift of Belgian policy. Increasing num-
bers of them felt the need to develop good relations with the adminis-
trator while still maintaining their ties of loyalty to the Court. To be
presented favorably to the Belgians, some of these notables forged links
with the powerful Kayondo or Nturo. Unable to attack such leading
Inshongore directly, Musinga tried to combat their growing influence by
undermining their strength. He sought to turn their clients and subordi-
nates against them by calling on the loyalty that all Rwandans were sup-
posed to owe to the mwami. He made a number of minor notables his
own bagaragu to win them from their support of shebuja who were
Inshongore. He also encouraged ambitious young men to work against
their fathers or older brothers in hopes that they might displace them
from their commands.49
As Musinga struggled to regain the initiative, Kayondo struck at him
decisively. Although Kayondo remained outwardly polite to Musinga
and Kanjogera, he was increasingly confident of the support of the Bel-
gians and wanted to use his new power to punish the Court for having
 Divide and Rule, 1922–1925 207

rejected him. He focused his attack on Gashamura, Musinga’s great fa-

vorite and trusted adviser. Many of the leading Tutsi privately scorned
Gashamura as a bumpkin. Some called him a Hutu, perhaps referring
to the distant origins of his family rather than to his immediate parents.
His ancestors had been commanders for the Court for many genera-
tions, but their domains were in the northern mountainous regions
known as the “country of the Bakiga,” and they were not wealthy in
cattle. One Rwandan who had known Gashamura at Court described
him as “not nearly so handsome as the Hutu of the central kingdom
and even uglier than the Hutu of the hills.” He continued:
Just by looking at him you could see that he was a little Hutu, just
by his appearance, his language, his very short clothes, and by the
fact that he bared his ass completely when he went to the toilet. He
was so much a Hutu that you would think that no one would dare
to share anything [e.g., a drinking straw or a pipe] with him.50

But none of the scoffers had dared to challenge Gashamura’s posi-

tion. As head of the Batsobe lineage, Gashamura was the leading ritual
specialist in Rwanda, a position next in importance to the mwami and
the queen mother. His most important duty was the preparation and
presentation of the first fruits of the annual harvest to the Court at a
ceremony called Umuganura, a festival of great joy because “by celebrat-
ing Umuganura, the mwami ensured the richness of his country.”51 As a
ritual affirmation of royalty over several days of celebration, the Court
displayed its hospitality and generosity to all. One Rwandan who par-
ticipated in the feasting recalled that every person had his place and
a right to enjoy the wealth of the Court: “The mwami turned no one
away, and if some one tried to turn you away, you could fight with him,
no matter who he was.”52 During the day, herds of cattle, led by the
prize royal cattle, filed by to demonstrate the inexhaustible wealth of
Rwanda. Porters too passed by the mwami and his mother to show off
the ikoro and gifts of beer from their regions. The celebration touched
even those who were too distant to enjoy the hospitality of the Court.
Everyone rejoiced in the greatness and generosity of the mwami, and
everyone waited until he had tasted the first fruits before sampling the
new harvest themselves.53
Kayondo attacked Gashamura because of his political role at Court,
but he apparently knew that his accusations would be more effective
with the Europeans if they were put in terms of Gashamura’s ritual
functions. The Belgians found it hard to understand why Musinga
208 Divide and Rule, 1922–1925

opposed measures that they thought were so reasonable. Unable to

comprehend the sincerity of his desire to defend the traditions he had
inherited, the Belgians increasingly explained his opposition as the re-
sult of the evil influence of sorcerers. The multiple ritual prescriptions
that surrounded the mwami were taken as binding him to tradition and
preventing his move to modernity. When Kayondo reported that the
presence of ritualists like Gashamura and the practice of rites like
Umuganura strengthened Musinga’s will to resist Europeans orders, the
Belgians readily believed him. When informed further that Gashamura
and other ritualists had assured Musinga and Kanjogera that some
supernatural intervention would soon end foreign rule, the Belgians
resolved to exile Gashamura from Rwanda.54
The Belgians made their decision in late 1924, but did not imple-
ment it until March 1925. In the meantime, Musinga learned their plans
and did everything possible to save Gashamura. The Belgians impris-
oned Gashamura in January 1925 for his refusal to execute a decision by
the Resident that awarded part of his holdings to a rival. Hoping that a
large concession on this matter might sway the Resident, Gashamura
promised ready compliance and with Musinga’s consent even tried to
give his rival other domains that had never been in dispute. This last
desperate attempt failed to move the Belgians. One night in March,
Gashamura was taken secretly and transported in a closed hammock to
Burundi where he spent the rest of his life.55
Musinga, who had not even been permitted to bid adieu to his
old friend and confidant, was overwhelmed by the Belgian action. He
appealed three times for help to the Fathers, the only Europeans he
thought might still be receptive to his pleas. They of course refused to
intervene on behalf of a “sorcerer.” Before Musinga had even begun to
recover from the blow, the Belgians told him that Umuganura was pro-
hibited and along with it all the other rituals included in the ubwiru, the
sacred code of the Court.* The Court could retain its diviners and
could continue to consult the spirits as did ordinary Rwandans, but all
the ceremonies that made the Court unique and that contributed to the

*This was part of a broader colonial assault on social rituals throughout the region.
Umuganuro, the analogous royal ritual in Burundi to that of Umuganura in Rwanda,
was suppressed from 1929, and Ryangombe rites (associated with the Imandwa) in
Rwanda from the 1930s. On the suppression of Umuganuro in Burundi, see Gahama,
“La disparition de Muganuro.”
 Divide and Rule, 1922–1925 209

legitimacy of its rule were forbidden.56 Religion was acceptable but

“superstition” was not. The Belgians were beginning to fear the author-
ity they had once praised so highly.
Musinga and Kanjogera could have refused to accept the prohibi-
tion. They could have abdicated in defense of the principle of retaining
the ceremonies, or they could have attempted to mount an armed resist-
ance, which would almost certainly have failed. Any of these alterna-
tives would probably have resulted in their removal from power. They
could not risk removal, because it would leave the drum in the hands of
one of Musinga’s sons, who were still children and incapable of resisting
the Europeans. While acquiescing in the end of the ubwiru was a pain-
ful sacrifice, Musinga and Kanjogera were willing to make it since it was
the only way that they could continue to rule.
When Umuganura was not celebrated as usual in June 1925, the end
of such rituals at Court became widely known. Even while recognizing
that the Court could not have acted otherwise, Rwandans resented its
yielding to the Europeans on this issue. They felt personally diminished
by their rulers’ sacrifice of these ceremonies that were supposed to guar-
antee the wealth of the kingdom. They lost respect for Musinga and
Kanjogera for no longer “having the complete royalty,” “for no longer
governing according to the old ways of the past.”57
With Musinga thus weakened, the Europeans and the Inshongore
pressed him further. When he agreed to attend a celebration at the
Kabgayi mission, the Fathers and administrators urged him to spend the
night there instead of returning to Nyanza, as he had always done in
the past. Musinga agreed. The Inshongore regarded this as a fine oppor-
tunity to recall their rejection of royal prerogatives under similar circum-
stances two years before, when they had refused to accompany Musinga
back to Nyanza. The morning after the mwami’s first night outside his
capital, the Inshongore refused to present their cattle for his inspection,
a standard courtesy by notables when the mwami was in their region.58
Such injuries to royal prestige seemed slight in comparison to the
major blow that Kayondo and the Belgians delivered to royal power at
the end of 1925. Kayondo had persistently asked the Resident to hear
his still unsettled case against Bandora and Kanuma, who retained part
of Kayondo’s inheritance. The Resident finally consented and person-
ally conducted the hearings. Because Musinga’s stand on the case was
clearly known, the Resident refused to allow him to participate in the
deliberations or even to assist as an interpreter at the proceedings. The
Belgian awarded the decision to Kayondo.59 From the time of the first
210 Divide and Rule, 1922–1925

Europeans, Rwandans, including Musinga himself, had sought to in-

volve these powerful persons in Rwandan disputes. But they had turned
to them as protectors who might influence a more powerful Rwandan
authority to act in their favor. With the settlement of Kayondo’s case,
the Belgians had displaced the mwami as the final arbiter in conflicts,
the authority to whom Rwandans must now direct their pleas. Not only
had the Belgians appropriated power from the Court, they were using it
against the mwami.

B y the mid-1920s Musinga realized that the Belgians were replacing

him as the real authority in the kingdom. They had displaced him from
his role of directing the expansion of central control in the outlying re-
gions; they were appropriating his power to distribute commands; they
were assuming his authority to settle disputes. Musinga saw that the Bel-
gians would use the growing power in their own interests, which in his
eyes were not the same as the interests of the Court or of the kingdom
as a whole. Much as he wanted their favor and the assurance that they
would continue to support him, he could not bring himself to partici-
pate enthusiastically in their plans for destroying what he regarded as es-
sential. The Inshongore, with far less responsibility for the welfare of the
kingdom, found it easier to win and keep European favor. And they
would continue using this favor in an increasingly bitter struggle against
the Court.
 9
The R a t iona liz a t io n o f Powe r,
1925– 1931

The Deposition of Musinga

Inkuba ebyiri ntiziba’mugicu kimwe
[ Two thunders cannot live in the same cloud ]

G reatly shaken by his loss of power in 1924 and 1925, Musinga sought
immediately to regain the initiative against the Inshongore. He let it be
known that Bandora would reopen the case against Kayondo, and he
confidently predicted that this time he would win. Most of the notables
still respected Musinga’s political skills, and they remembered too how
unpredictably he had first lost, then regained Belgian support in 1917.
They could not ignore the possibility that he might regain his former
power, and so they still did not dare to desert him completely. But they
did deem it wise to try to please the Europeans and their men as well as
the mwami.1

Caught in Competing Loyalties:

The Younger Notables
While the older men among these notables, like the original Inshongore,
hoped to draw on European power without being touched by European
culture, the younger men found European civilization increasingly at-
tractive. Especially after 1925 and 1926, when the Belgians began to in-
sist that the Court and notables appoint only men who had had some
European education, ambitious young men began to regard European
learning as a privilege. Just as in the past young men had competed for a
place in the most distinguished groups of ntore, where they hoped to

211
Musinga in his colonial uniform (courtesy of Jan Vansina)
 The Rationalization of Power, 1925–1931 213

win the favors of an important notable or of the mwami himself, these

young men now scrambled for seats in school, especially in the school at
Nyanza, the seat of the central court, where they hoped to attract the
attention of the administrators. While the older men themselves refused
to study and ordinarily preferred not to send all their sons to school,
they usually permitted one or two of those sons to learn European skills
so that they could represent their fathers with the administrators. When
fathers did oppose European education, some young men placed ambi-
tion over obedience and stole away to class anyway. One such secret
scholar recalled that he had learned the vowels and was just beginning
the consonants when his father appeared at the school door to drag him
home.2
Although the Belgians declared forthrightly their desire to have
notables become literate, they indicated more subtly their wish to have
them become Christian as well. The young notables nonetheless under-
stood their meaning. By 1928 virtually all the young men at the Nyanza
school were Christian or in the process of becoming Christian. Once
the young men at Court had shown the way, the young notables in
schools elsewhere began to flock to the churches too. Most of the older
notables hoped to accomplish by friendship with the missionaries what
their sons expected to achieve by beginning religious instruction, but by
1928 and 1929 even some of them were reluctantly attending the classes
in catechism. The movement toward Christianity, which had originally
been a way of opposing the Court, now became a general effort to
accommodate European wishes. It paralleled the rush for secular edu-
cation. The notables counted on their acceptance of Christianity as a
means both to raise their standing with the Belgians and to ensure the
support of those powerful protectors, the White Fathers.3
Just as the notables regarded conversion as one important way of
paying court to the Europeans, many of their clients and subjects felt
obliged to change their religion to follow the notables. Often the mere
announcement that a notable was about to begin learning the catechism
sufficed to bring his clients and subjects to the church as well. In describ-
ing the conversion of subordinates of the Christian Rwabutogo, one of
his clients recalled: “When he had begun to take instruction and he had
just received command over this region, not even the old men here
could keep themselves from going to take instruction. If you were at
Rwabutogo’s home and he went down on his knees to pray, you could
not just stand there and look. It used to be like that: what your patron
loved, you loved too.”4 When the pressure of example had no effect,
214 The Rationalization of Power, 1925–1931

some notables frankly ordered their people to begin attending cate-

chism classes. Others preferred to offer the grant of cattle as an incen-
tive to beginning instruction.5
The ideas of clientship permeated the Rwandan form of Chris-
tianity: catechists assigned to instruct notables became their clients;
godparents were regarded as shebuja and were abandoned for others
by godchildren who felt they were not being properly protected. While
many people entered the church with their notables, others turned to
Christianity as a way of protecting themselves against them. Once the
notables had drawn closer to the Fathers, their subjects often felt the
need to counter their added strength by establishing bonds with the mis-
sionaries. In both cases the great majority of people accepted Christian-
ity within the framework of clientship.6
As the movement spread out from Nyanza and down from the
notables to the people, the number enrolled for religious instruction rose
dramatically. When the new diocese had been established in 1922, it had
counted about five thousand in its catechism classes; by 1925, this num-
ber had doubled and by 1927 it had nearly doubled again for a total of
almost twenty thousand enrolled. Although the Fathers naturally liked
to ascribe the movement to the impetus of the Holy Spirit, in their pri-
vate communications they acknowledged the basically political nature
of people’s motives. Undismayed by the evidence of self-interest at
work, Monsignor Classe merely advised his colleagues to seize the op-
portunity to try to convert base motives into spiritual ones.7
The young men most impressed with their own mastery of Euro-
pean ideas and skills scorned their elders who hesitated to adopt the
foreign ways. They did not spare Musinga himself. Although they dared
not confront him outright, a number of the young men took pleasure in
parading around the outside of his enclosure at night, singing the Chris-
tian hymns and chants that the mwami and his mother particularly
detested. Much offended by such behavior, Musinga commented sadly
that these young men who were supposed to be protecting the enclosure
around his residence seemed intent instead on tearing it down. The
usual standards of etiquette at Court had disintegrated badly in face of
the bitterness between supporters and opponents of the Court, but such
frank affronts to royal power were rare. The Inshongore and men loyal
to the Court insulted each other like “low, miserable people,” as one of
Musinga’s wives put it, but members of both groups avoided open con-
frontation with the mwami. Even the bold Kayondo preferred not to
contradict or criticize Musinga or Kanjogera to their faces.8
 The Rationalization of Power, 1925–1931 215

Although the notables went through the motions of acknowledging

Musinga’s authority, the mwami knew as well as they that many of them
were seeking an accommodation with the Belgians. To counter this drift
toward the administration, the Court in 1926 began propagating rumors
about an imminent end to Belgian rule. The Court itself could have had
little faith that this much-desired event would transpire in the near future,
but it hoped to diminish the notables’ desire to cooperate with the Euro-
peans by thus playing on their hopes and fears. Perhaps it even hoped
that rumors of such resistance might affect the Belgians as earlier rumors
had shaken the Fathers and the Germans.9
From 1926 on, Musinga also tried to counteract the growing influ-
ence of the Fathers by indicating a preference for the most radical Prot-
estant group in Rwanda, the Seventh Day Adventists. Musinga invited
the Adventist preacher to address the Court and ordered the notables to
attend his sermons. Musinga’s friendship with the Adventists disturbed
the administration nearly as much as the Fathers, because they saw the
millennial doctrine of the Adventists as a dangerous invitation to social
unrest.* They may even have believed it was linked to the rumors of an
end to their administration.10

Confrontation between the Court

and the Mwami
The Belgians’ disillusionment with Musinga had been growing, but they
had lacked any firm basis for action against him because his resistance
was so subtle and amorphous. Given the Adventists’ reputation in the
region for opposition to certain colonial directives, the local administra-
tion could now argue that the rumors and the links with the Adventists
were unquestionable proof of his resistance. It asked the governor to
arrange for his deposition. When the governor called for the advice of
Classe, the bishop overlooked Musinga’s alliance with the Adventists

*Such millennial doctrines were widespread in Africa in the 1920s and a source of
great concern to the colonial powers, including the Belgians in Congo; see Higginson,
“Liberating the Captives,” 55–80. Other religious movements also concerned the Belgians
in Congo at this time: see Asch, L’église du prophète Kimbangu; MacGaffey, Modern Kongo
Prophets. For other cases elsewhere in Central Africa, see Fields, Revival and Rebellion in
Central Africa; Ranger, “The Mwana Lesa Movement of 1925,” 45–75. For Tanzania, see
Ranger, The African Churches of Tanzania. For Uganda, see Welbourn, East African Rebels.
216 The Rationalization of Power, 1925–1931

and intervened in his favor. He may have hoped that his exercise of in-
fluence would bring Musinga back to his earlier position of favoring the
Catholic Church, or he may just have felt that the moment was wrong
for the deposition. None of Musinga’s sons was old enough to rule by
himself, and a period of rule by regents could bring more problems than
it solved, as the developments in neighboring Burundi were amply dem-
onstrating.* The governor either was influenced by Classe’s argument or
encountered opposition from his administrative superiors to the idea of
deposing the mwami. The proposal was dropped.11 Nonetheless, from
this time onward the Belgians and Musinga saw each other as enemies.
Once the Court learned of the proposal, some of its advisers
urged Musinga to resign. A few of those who gave this advice may have
been secretly in league with the Inshongore, but others were sincerely
concerned that unless Musinga took the initiative of stepping down in
favor of one of his sons, the administration might install one of the
Inshongore in power or end the monarchy altogether.12 Notables who
had lost the favor of the Court in the past had sometimes resigned—
before they could be removed—to save their holdings for their sons.
Therefore, from the mid-1920s, increasing numbers of older notables
yielded power to their educated sons rather than face the annoyance of
daily demands from the Belgians.
Musinga refused to resign. Most fathers who resigned trusted the
sons who were to succeed them, but Musinga did not trust either of the
two older sons who might follow him to the throne. Rwigemera, then
thirteen, had been steered by his ambitious mother into a course of
apparent obedience and loyalty to the Europeans. Although the mother,
Nyirakabuga, had sworn to Musinga that she would never permit her

*In Burundi the various regional chiefs, all members of the royal family, had much
greater autonomy than those in Rwanda at the time. On succession, therefore, an incoming
monarch (often young himself ) had to confront the regional power of his uncles. This was
complicated by the fact that the two reigns before German imposition were exceedingly
long, and the stability of those reigns both entrenched the power of the regional chiefs
and exacerbated the internal conflict between Batare (the descendants of Ntare), and
Bezi (the descendants of Mwezi) appointed as chiefs. Furthermore, at the time of German
arrival in Burundi, the king was seriously challenged by several claimants from outside the
royal family; it was German power that virtually defined the administrative capacity
of the central court. For a revealing comment on the importance of “indirect rule” to
colonial ruling strategies written in 1925 by the Belgian governor of Ruanda-Urundi, see
Ryckmans, “Le problème politique au Ruanda-Urundi,” 407–13.
 The Rationalization of Power, 1925–1931 217

children to take religious instruction without his approval, both Rwige-

mera and his sisters had already begun to study the catechism. A great
favorite of the Resident and some of the missionaries, Rwigemera had
ignored his father’s orders by beginning instruction. The other son,
Rudahigwa, then sixteen, was more devoted to Musinga. His mother,
Kankazi, had never been a favorite like Nyirakabuga and had never
shown as much drive or political ability. Her brother Kayondo, looking
to the end of Musinga’s reign and to Rudahigwa’s possible succession—
and as the object of Musinga’s earlier scorn—sought to ingratiate him-
self with his sororal nephew. He had given Rudahigwa a fine herd of
cattle and provided him with a retinue of clients. Rudahigwa had ac-
cepted Kayondo’s generosity but without seeming to be won over by it.13
Musinga knew of course that at his death one of these sons would
probably succeed him. Having lost all hope of influencing Rwigemera,
he concentrated on impressing Rudahigwa with the necessity of resist-
ance to the Europeans. From time to time, Musinga might have won-
dered if his efforts would have any lasting effect. When reminded by a
visitor of the rapid passage of time, he began to brood on how he was
aging, although he was then only in his forties.14 Recognizing that his
rule must end, however, was different from voluntarily ending it him-
self. His principal responsibility was to ensure the continuation of the
dynasty—the role with which he had been invested. In considering res-
ignation, therefore, Musinga must have considered some of the same
factors that led him to sacrifice Gashamura and elements of the royal
code, the ubwiru, rather than the drum itself. His dilemma lay in iden-
tifying the point at which accepting the humiliations of compromising
with the Europeans threatened the core components of kingship, assess-
ing the risk that his continuing resistance might push them into action
against the monarchy itself. Either consciously or unconsciously he ap-
parently decided it was his responsibility to continue to rule until death
or a superior force removed him.
News that the Belgians had considered removing Musinga spurred
hopes and sharpened rivalries among the notables. Some of the power-
ful men who had originally allied with the Europeans as a form of pro-
tection against the mwami now began planning how to use the Euro-
peans to destroy Musinga; even those who supported Musinga in the
past began to prepare for the day when he would no longer rule. Like
notables in the past, these men wanted to gain control of the Court by
investing their own candidates with the drum. Kayondo’s choice was Ru-
dahigwa, his sister’s son. By late 1926, Kayondo’s opponents, including
218 The Rationalization of Power, 1925–1931

Rwagataraka and Serukenyinkware, were coalescing to support Nyiraka-

buga’s son Rwigemera. Rwagataraka had won Musinga’s support in the
early 1920s as he struggled to assert his independence from his father
Rwidegembya. Through 1926, when the mwami offered him one of his
daughters in marriage, he had continued to receive marks of favor from
the mwami. Although Rwagataraka usually managed to please the
Europeans by efficient rule over his extensive holdings in southwestern
Rwanda, he always professed loyalty to the Court. But in 1926 Rwagata-
raka ended his long quarrel with his father and so entered more fully
into the web of plans of the Bega. By chance, he had also been critically
ill twice during 1926 and had been saved both times by the solicitous
care of the Fathers. Perhaps in honest gratitude, perhaps with more de-
vious ideas in mind, Rwagataraka cultivated a friendship with several of
the Fathers, especially the very influential Father Lecoindre, and won
their trust. Serukenyinkware, a distinguished notable who served the
Court as adviser, diviner, and mwiru, had also been building ties with
Lecoindre. Apparently with the Father’s agreement, this budding rela-
tionship was kept a secret from the Court. At least according to Seru-
kenyinkware, Musinga continued to trust him completely.15
Just as Kayondo had moved against the mwami by attacking first
Gashamura, then Bandora, so Rwagataraka and Serukenyinkware,
acting in a parallel but unrelated move, began to accuse Bandora too.
They persuaded the Europeans that Bandora was the evil genius behind
Musinga’s resistance to the Belgians and that it was he who was pre-
dicting the imminent end of Belgian rule. With shrewd sensitivity to the
Europeans’ scorn for those engaged in mystical practices, they insisted
that Bandora was a mupfumu, a diviner, when in reality he held a more
secular office.16
As the Europeans began to respond to the charges against Ban-
dora, Rwigemera and his supporters began to accuse Musinga as well.
Throughout 1926 Rwigemera had been working to obtain greater sym-
pathy and support from the Fathers by portraying himself as persecuted
by Musinga for his religious beliefs. Musinga was certainly beginning to
show his hatred of Christianity more openly at this time, but his specific
actions against Rwigemera were limited to mild measures, such as cutting
back on the amount he gave him for support and wearily reiterating
his warnings that “With those people, you will have only miseries.”17
Probably at Nyirakabuga’s direction, her daughters, barely more than
children, joined in Rwigemera’s accusations against Musinga. The three
told the Europeans that Musinga opposed Christianity primarily because
 The Rationalization of Power, 1925–1931 219

it taught higher standards of sexual morality, which led them to refuse

his desires for incestuous sexual relations with them.18
Homosexual practices used to occur with some frequency among
men, especially among the young ntore in training at Court or at the
residence of a mutware. Such an exchange of sexual favors was con-
sidered neither immoral nor extraordinary, especially if women were not
available. Musinga apparently engaged in homosexual acts with favor-
ites at Court, although certainly not to the exclusion of relations with his
wives and female servants. However, he did not—or so assert Rwandan
accounts—engage in sexual activity with his own son or his daughters.19
Indeed, the charges of incest and homosexuality may well have reflected
the influence of Christian teaching: that the history of the Christian
martyrs of Buganda, who had been killed for refusing the sexual advances
of their ruler, was often reiterated by the priests in Rwanda may have
inspired the story.*
Rwagataraka carried the plot further by informing Father Lecoindre
that on Bandora’s advice Musinga was preparing to poison Rwigemera.20
Conditioned by tales of Musinga’s supposed sexual debauchery and by
reports of Bandora’s evil influence, the normally sensible Lecoindre and
his usually perceptive superior, Monsignor Classe, let themselves be de-
ceived by this oldest of Rwandan accusations. Once the story had been
passed to the Belgians, they undertook an investigation that produced
nothing. They did use the affair, however, as an excuse to send Bandora
and some of his associates away from Court, thus stripping Musinga of
more of the men whom he trusted and confided in. The supreme irony
of this sad tale harked back to 1918, the year when the Belgians were so
proudly acclaiming the “civilization” of the Court. Like many outside

*In June of 1886 the kabaka (king) of Buganda had thirty-two of his Catholic pages
executed, supposedly because they refused to engage in homosexual acts with the king.
In the eyes of the Catholic Fathers, the mass execution conferred martyrdom on each of
the victims. It was also one of the key events leading to the civil wars in Buganda—
which eventually resulted in the overthrow of the kabaka, the rise to power of the former
pages, and the exile of the White Fathers. It was while in exile at the southern end of
Lake Victoria that Monsignor Hirth prepared for the White Fathers’ evangelical mission
to Rwanda. In Rwandan Catholic circles, therefore, the events in Buganda resonated
with particular force because it was indirectly related to the White Fathers’ establishment
in the country. On the Baganda “martyrdom” see Rowe, “The Purge of Christians at
Mwanga’s Court,” 55–71. For details on the events, see Thoonen, Black Martyrs, and Faupel,
African Holocaust.
220 The Rationalization of Power, 1925–1931

the intimate circle of the Court, the Belgians believed that tradition
forbade the mwami from seeing any of the sons who might succeed
him. When Musinga went through the motions of breaking this “tradi-
tion” to see his sons, the Belgians rejoiced at this sign of progress and at
the regularity with which Musinga saw them after that. Yet eight years
later they prohibited Musinga from seeing any of his young children
alone.21

The Shifting Loyalties

of the Notables
In 1926 and 1927 several large Belgian banks and business firms began
planning for investments in Rwanda. Rich veins of tin had been dis-
covered in eastern Rwanda and had attracted the attention of mining
companies. Other firms had received extensive concessions of land for
growing coffee and the black wattle tree, valuable for its tannin extract
in treating hides for export—an important element as the administra-
tion hoped to reduce the number of cattle by providing export markets
for them. As the Belgians saw their long-standing hopes of economic
development move closer to fulfillment, they began to hurry the pace of
change in the traditional system. Only with a well-organized, efficiently
functioning administrative system could they encourage and profit from
economic development.22
In 1926 the Resident won the Court’s agreement to create no new
ibikingi, those smallest units of command that so fragmented the politi-
cal system of the central kingdom. Thereafter, the Belgians worked
actively to eliminate the ibikingi that already existed. Under the heavy
pressure of Belgian requisitions, many of those who held ibikingi resigned
from their commands rather than face such constant harassment. When
the holders resigned, died, or left for other regions, their ibikingi were
consolidated into contiguous commands. To expedite the process and
achieve their goal of territorially unified holdings, the Belgians began
urging notables to exchange domains among themselves. Since the
domains were of disparate size and value, some notables were bound to
profit and others to lose by the exchanges. Naturally, those who stood to
lose evaded or delayed making the exchanges.23
Until 1928 the Belgians pressured the notables to resign or make ex-
changes, but did not generally force them to do so. However, during
1928 and 1929, Rwanda was hit with a catastrophic famine. Made public
 The Rationalization of Power, 1925–1931 221

in the British press, this demanded Belgian action.* When the adminis-
tration found that large numbers of notables had failed to execute
measures designed to end the famine, it removed many of them from
their commands and merged their domains with the holdings of others.
Having seen how efficient it was to reorganize the system by fiat, the
Belgians proceeded to rearrange the Court administrative appointments
on a massive scale, using force where necessary to get the notables to
comply. In the highly fragmented territory of Kigali, for example, they
reduced the number of major notables from 119 to 7 and the number of
minor notables from 324 to 79 in the space of four years.24
In constructing their new system of chiefdoms and sub-chiefdoms,
the Belgians preferred using the already existing large domains as build-
ing blocks. Where no large domains existed, they chose a notable who
had served them well in the past and used his domain as the core to
which other holdings were added. The new chief exercised the right to
collect all taxes for the Court and to claim all labor services formerly
due to batware or banyabutaka. The administration never formally
settled the allocation of many other rights, because the issues were too
complex or too sensitive. But it did implicitly encourage the new chiefs
to appropriate these other rights wherever they could. Most chiefs
quickly took advantage of the Belgian backing to divest notables under
their command of their remaining privileges.25
As the Belgians worked to simplify and align the hierarchy of chiefs
and sub-chiefs, they were dismayed by the continuation of ubuhake
arrangements that sometimes made the client of one notable the subject
of another. Anxious to avert future conflicts, the Belgians wanted
ubuhake arrangements to be aligned with political relationships. But

*Named “Rwakayihura” by the Rwandans, this famine was particularly severe in

the southeast (the former region of Gisaka), where over one-third of the population
either died or fled the region for work in British territories—a serious loss of labor for
the Belgian colonial project. The fact that this occurred only shortly after the British
occupation of the area (and after the establishment of the first Anglican mission
station—of particular note for the White Fathers) only added to Belgian concerns. In
the end, the famine served as a catalyst for restructuring the colonial state in Rwanda,
increasing the administrative reach with such projects as the required cultivation of
drought-resistant crops, extensive terracing, and the cultivation of swampland, which
brought the state ever more fully into the lives of the peasants. See D. Newbury, “The
Rwakayihura Famine.”
222 The Rationalization of Power, 1925–1931

because the ramifications of ubuhake were so extensive and so compli-

cated, they never arrived at a uniform policy for attaining this end.
Notables who exchanged commands were urged to exchange clients at
the same time. Some who refused to do so were allowed to maintain their
protection of their clients, while others arbitrarily lost some or all of their
clients to the man who replaced them in command of the region. In
other cases, the administrators despaired of sorting out the strands of
obligations and simply assigned the cattle in full property to the clients.
Even when no exchange of holdings was involved, a shebuja might lose
his rights over his cattle and clients when a new chief happened to take
command of the region in which the clients lived.26
The Belgians saw the reorganization as a change in personnel as well
as in structures. By 1928, 130 of the young men trained at the Nyanza
school had been given commands. Sixty-four more were in training as
secrétaires indigènes, or, as the Rwandans called them, bakarani (sing., muka-
rani ), “clerks.” Their European training set these young men so much
apart from their compatriots that Rwandans continued to call them
bakarani even after they had received their commands.27
The bakarani named to commands were all young, some of them
only sixteen or seventeen years old. A significant number of them came
from poor Tutsi lineages or from mixed parentage. While the sons of
important notables occasionally encountered problems because of their
youth and inexperience, they usually managed to command some re-
spect because of their wealth and distinguished ancestry. The bakarani
who were poor, however, faced a constant struggle to win obedience,
especially if they counted wealthy Tutsi among their subjects. Conse-
quently, to prop up the prestige of the bakarani, the administration
often endowed them with all of the cattle and clients of their predeces-
sors, leaving the former notables, some claim, virtually destitute.28
The Belgians were soon taking pride in the concrete changes
brought by the reorganization. The residences of several of the chiefs
and sub-chiefs were being transformed into “centers of civilization”
that the Belgians hoped to scatter through the kingdom. Instead of the
traditional round residences of straw, surrounded by enclosures made
of trees and woven reeds, the new chiefs often built solid rectangular
homes of brick, thus eliminating the need for the many workers formerly
summoned annually to maintain (and sometimes reconstruct) the tradi-
tional residences and enclosures. Ignoring the symbolic importance of
such services as a demonstration of continued allegiance, the Belgians
congratulated themselves on freeing laborers for more economically
 The Rationalization of Power, 1925–1931 223

productive tasks. Next to the chiefs’ homes arose the neat offices, the
overnight shelters for passing Europeans, the court buildings, the mar-
kets that in Belgian eyes constituted the appurtenances of civilization
they were so eager to transmit. Some chiefs had begun altering their own
appearance as well as that of their residences. They wore European-
style clothes instead of the gracefully draped cloths or skins; they washed
with imported soap and scorned their elders who had dirty fingernails.
Apt pupils of Lenaerts, these bakarani carefully noted all the details of
their official lives in registers and made inventories in triplicate of all the
taxes they sent to Court.29
Although the young chiefs may have been adding European accou-
trements into their personal attire, they also brought their own ideas, es-
pecially those about clientship, into the bureaucracy, much as they had
earlier taken them into the Catholic Church. Administrative reorga-
nization meant that paying court to the administrators became both
vastly more important and more feasible. Previously, notables had
feared punishment by the Belgians; few had felt in danger of losing their
commands, however, because of Belgian intervention. As the adminis-
tration drastically cut the number of commands while simultaneously
appointing bakarani, the notables came to realize that only a few of the
older generation would be left to rule—and those few would have to
please the Belgians. As the holdings of the notables became increasingly
consolidated, the Belgians insisted that they reside in their domains.
Spending much of their time in one territory rather than at the Court,
the notables established closer relationships with the local administra-
tors. As they had done in the past with the mwami or the batware, they
now paid court to the administrators, passing the evening hours with
them after work, and perhaps arranging for female companionship as
well. Most administrators responded warmly to such attention. Often
unwilling or unable to undertake serious evaluations of the notables’
work, some administrators could not help but assess their performance
on the basis of such personal contacts.30
The kinds of rivalries that had previously existed among notables
sharpened as they struggled to win or retain one of the reduced number
of commands. The differences in way of life between the older notables
and the younger bakarani embittered the competition, as notables accused
the younger men of aping Europeans, while the bakarani scorned their
elders for clinging to their traditional habits.31 One such conflict set the
clerk Kayitakibwa against the older notable Ndekezi. The two men ruled
in the northeast, a region that was just coming under intensive central
224 The Rationalization of Power, 1925–1931

control in the 1920s. Because of his European training, Kayitakibwa

was favored by the administrator, who, in the name of efficiency, put
him in charge of collecting requisitions in Ndekezi’s area as well as his
own. Ndekezi resented the young and arrogant intruder and fought
Kayitakibwa’s attempts to extend his influence into his administrative
domain. For his part, Kayitakibwa tried to bring Ndekezi into line by as-
signing him a disproportionate amount of the work and supplies to be
furnished to the administrator. He kept the Belgian from learning of the
maneuver by increasing the number of people recorded as being under
Ndekezi’s command. Through such maneuvers, Kayitakibwa’s intrigues
against the old notable eventually brought discredit onto Ndekezi, who
was removed and his domain given to Kayitakibwa. However, Kayita-
kibwa then found it impossible to correct the falsely elevated population
figures for his new command. To admit his plot or to fail to produce
adequate tax returns would have lost him the favor of his Belgian patron.
So Kayitakibwa extorted cattle and money from his subordinates to
pay the difference. Such abuses were risky in an area where control by
notables had been only recently established; on one expedition to collect
extra revenue from his subjects, Kayitakibwa and his men were attacked
by Hutu who resented his exactions. In the fracas, the young clerk was
killed.32
In their competition, both old and new notables made full use of the
resources at hand. Those in favor with the administrators, like Kayita-
kibwa, used their positions against those who were not. They also played
on the presence of diverse colonial agents. Those who had not obtained
the support of an administrator might turn to an agricultural agent or to
the Resident himself. Many took advantage of their relationships with
missionaries to bring their rivals into disfavor with the administration;
not surprisingly, competing notables allied with rival religious groups.33
By making cooperation with the Europeans increasingly necessary,
the colonial reorganization quickened the movement of notables away
from the Court. It also emphasized the shift of power away from the
Court to those notables who were most trusted by the Belgians. Men like
Kayondo, Nturo, Rwagataraka, and Rwubusisi had risen in the good
graces of the administration because their agreeable attitude contrasted
so sharply with Musinga’s growing resistance against European mea-
sures. In the past, just as favorites like Kabare had exercised power by
swaying the judgments of the Court, so now these notables affected
the decisions of the European authorities rather than exercising power
directly themselves. For example, before the administrators rearranged
 The Rationalization of Power, 1925–1931 225

the commands in an area, they generally consulted the prominent local

notables. Musinga could still block some of the appointments he op-
posed, and he could still propose young men for new commands. But he
intervened infrequently and succeeded only after major effort, while the
favored notables exercised their influence daily and almost effortlessly
over the administrators in their regions.34 Realizing that power had
shifted, the other notables reluctantly turned their attention from Mu-
singa to the men who could present them favorably to the Europeans.
One observer described these developments in the idiom of ubuhake
where the clients’ regular rebuilding of a shebuja’s enclosure demon-
strated their continuing loyalty to him: “Everything was finished; Mu-
singa began to grow poorer and to see his enclosure gradually fall to the
ground. It was above all Kayondo who was talked about and no one else
mattered any more.”35
The Court’s hatred of the notables most trusted by the Belgians
grew in proportion to their influence. But Musinga could no longer af-
ford to reject everyone who made accommodations with the Europeans.
The original Inshongore had been few and had defected when the
Court was strong; those who now sought European protection were the
majority and the Court was weak. The mwami now tested the loyalty of
his followers not by their resistance to European power or their rejection
of European culture, but by their willingness to support the Court.
Sebagangari was one of the distinguished old notables who had been
most devoted to the Court. In 1918 he had been granted a large domain
in southern Rwanda, including some hills that bordered on the European-
drawn boundary with Burundi. But within a few years he had lost
Musinga’s favor, and to protect himself from the Court, Sebagangari
had sought Belgian support. Although the old notable continued to
observe all the traditional ways and did everything possible to hinder
the spread of Christianity, he had by this one act earned Musinga’s
enduring enmity. When Sebagangari became involved in a dispute with
a powerful notable from Burundi over control of some of the hills on
the border between the two kingdoms, Musinga refused to support his
claim that the territory was part of Rwanda and belonged under his
control. Musinga later modified his stand, but the Belgians awarded
some of the area to the notable from Burundi. In short, Musinga had
been willing to sacrifice part of the territory his fathers had wrested
from Burundi only after long and bloody battles in order to punish
Sebagangari for his defection and to warn others against similar disloyalty
to the Court.36
226 The Rationalization of Power, 1925–1931

Just as Musinga might spurn the most traditional of notables if they

used the Europeans against him, so he favored any bakarani and Chris-
tians who would help him against the administration and the mission-
aries. One secretary who handled the administrator’s correspondence at
Nyanza used to pass Musinga copies of confidential letters; in return,
Musinga arranged for him to receive a command. Musinga also won
the services of a Christian teacher at the Nyanza school, who would
take care of such private errands as intimidating witnesses to prevent
them from testifying at judicial hearings. He later granted the teacher a
command. Musinga arranged for these domains to be in or near the
holdings of Inshongore, thus combining rewards for service rendered
with opportunities for further support in the future.37
Musinga tried to keep abreast of administrative policies so that he
would be better able to use them to his own ends. When he learned that
certain notables were losing European approval, he would begin to
make it known to the colonial agents that the Court was displeased with
them. When the men were removed by the administration, Musinga
could claim that the decisions had been taken in response to his wishes.
As his power dwindled, he tried more desperately to use the administra-
tion to discipline his enemies. Since traditional obligations were the one
area where the mwami still had the right to demand obedience, he con-
tinually complained to the Europeans that certain of the notables had
failed to send the required number of laborers or the customary num-
ber of cattle to Court. Many of the charges were without foundation,
either because the notables had actually met their obligations or because
Musinga’s demands were not justified by custom, but the administrators
frequently lacked the time or the resources to determine their accuracy.
The Court used this stick frequently, but it was a weak one indeed with
which to beat the notables into submission.38

The Effects of State Support

of the Notables
The reorganization forced the notables to court the Europeans more as-
siduously, but it also led the administration to support the new notables
more vigorously. Tampering with the indigenous system made the Bel-
gians uneasy. They feared that Rwandans might question the changes
they had made and might reject the authority of the men they had ap-
pointed. They quickly punished any slight to one of their chiefs or sub-
chiefs, hoping in that way to avert more serious threats to authority of
 The Rationalization of Power, 1925–1931 227

their appointees. But as they jumped to defend their own appointees,

the Belgians were drawn into backing all the notables more firmly. To
this end, the administrators began to accept more rigidly the myth of
the superiority of the Tutsi, using it to explain their own neglect of the
Hutu and to justify increased demands on them: the Tutsi were born to
rule, the Hutu to labor; the Tutsi were intelligent and decisive, the Hutu
stupid and docile.* When one administrator learned that the notables of
his region had been extorting money from the Hutu under the guise of
collecting taxes, he issued a proclamation explaining the correct proce-
dure for paying taxes and receiving evidence of payment. He concluded
that anyone who “paid tax” any other way was surely an “imbecile”—
and only deserved to lose their money. Mistaking fear for stupidity, the
administrators would not protect the Hutu from the notables.39
The reorganization itself made it easier for the notables to rule more
oppressively. With the simplified hierarchy of sub-chiefs and chiefs, the
people had less opportunity to turn rivalries among the powerful to
their own advantage. The traditional concern of a mutware for his men
did not carry over easily into a bureaucratic framework where pleasing
European administrators was more important than keeping the alle-
giance of one’s subjects. As one Rwandan commented about the differ-
ences between the older notables and the bakarani: “The former were
concerned about their men in order to win their respect; the latter took
care of their assignments to avoid removal from command.”40 The in-
experience of the bakarani and their eagerness to establish their author-
ity and wealth, especially if they had had little to begin with, led them
into ever more excessive demands from their men. At the same time, the
Belgians’ disruption of long-established ubuhake ties left many of the
weak without the protection that may have shielded them in the past.
The notables devised a remarkable range of ways to exploit their
subjects. In particular, they distorted traditional law and customs. In the
past, for example, a shebuja had had the right to recall from his client

*The intellectual roots to these assumptions are deep. The foundations for seeing
ethnic groups as racially distinct—with all that implied for personal qualities as well, in
the eyes of some—were first articulated for this region in the work of John Hanning
Speke ( Journal of the Discovery of the Source of the Nile, 1869), and ardently embraced by
those such as Monsignor Classe. The rise of the myth of Tutsi superiority among Belgian
administrators in Rwanda coincides with the rise of fascism in Belgium (especially with
the emergence of fascist political parties from the early 1930s).
228 The Rationalization of Power, 1925–1931

only those cattle he had once granted him and their offspring; but from
the late 1920s, shebuja began demanding all the cattle of the client, no
matter how those cattle had been obtained. Some of the chiefs and sub-
chiefs required even those subjects who had received no cattle from them
to do the duties formerly asked only of cattle clients. Others collected ex-
cessive tax money and kept the surplus, or forced laborers requisitioned
to do colonial akazi labor to work in their own personal fields instead.41
In addition to burdens imposed by the notables, the Hutu had to
contend with higher taxes and increased demands for akazi from the
administration as well. Not surprisingly, increasing numbers of them
began leaving Rwanda to escape these demands and to earn the high
salaries offered in British-administered East Africa. In the late 1920s,
approximately fifty thousand Rwandans a year, about one-sixth of the
adult male population, went to work temporarily in Uganda or Tangan-
yika.42 By 1928 the Belgians had to admit that their attempts to stop the
emigration by restrictive customs and health regulations had failed mis-
erably. They then began to offer Rwandans payment for some of the
akazi they were called upon to do—to turn (unpaid) “forced” labor into
“required” (paid) labor—but the amount offered was too small (and the
conditions too harsh) to induce the workers to stay at home. Since the
Belgian administrators generally would take no effective action to limit
the demands of the notables, and since they would not reduce their own
requirements, Hutu continued to stream abroad. Yet as more men emi-
grated, the number left at home had to face ever heavier burdens since
neither the notables nor the administration reduced their requisitions to
account for the loss of population.43
The emigration continued in a somewhat different form from the old
practice of dealing with oppressive rulers by temporary flight or more
permanent removal to another region. Hutu also continued trying to
play off the powerful against each other. Although the possibilities for
maneuver had been greatly reduced by the reorganization, the conflicts
between bakarani and old notables could still sometimes be used to the
profit of the ruled. Associating with the Europeans offered greater pos-
sibilities than ever for subjects who sought to escape the control of their
chiefs. The Belgians’ eagerness to ensure an adequate supply of labor for
European enterprises led them to free regular employees of such enter-
prises from many of their traditional obligations. The workers regarded
such relief as one of the main attractions of European employment.
Many of their kin tried to claim the right to similar relief by the mere fact
of being related to the workers, a continuation of the traditional idea
 The Rationalization of Power, 1925–1931 229

that ubuhake undertaken by one member of the lineage usually worked

to protect all of its members.44 The proliferation of different kinds of
missions stimulated the kind of clientship that had previously been re-
served mostly for the Fathers. Rwandans rapidly sensed how the differ-
ences among the religious groups could be used for their own protection.
In these circumstances, because the rulers were almost all Catholics, the
dissatisfied among their subjects often turned to the Protestants.45

Further Resistance to the New Demands

Rwandans in the central regions preferred to escape from rather than
confront the authority of their rulers. Hutu in regions like Mulera,
Bushiru, Bukunzi, and Busozo, where the rule of the Tutsi was becoming
firmly established, were turning to noncompliance with orders as their
way of protecting themselves. The Hutu of the northeast were just be-
ginning to take up the tactics of armed resistance even as the Bakiga of
the northwest were giving them up as futile. Until the late 1920s the
people of Ndorwa, Buberuka, Rukiga, and Ruyaga had been under the
effective rule of their lineage heads, paying taxes only occasionally to
the notables who dared not come to reside in these areas.46 Once the
Belgians had established their control over the northwest and southwest,
they set to work on the northeast.
At first, the extension of central control (and local resistance to it)
followed the pattern set in Mulera. The Bakiga fought against the newly
installed chiefs and sub-chiefs with flight, refusal of orders, and sponta-
neous attacks on the person or property of the new delegates—such as
the attack that felled the unfortunate Kayitakibwa. But in late 1927 and
early 1928, the Bakiga of Rukiga and Ndorwa seemed to have found a
leader who could unite them in a more organized movement against the
Europeans and the chiefs. The Bakiga never learned his original name
or place of origin. They usually called him Semaraso, “Father of
Blood,” and they believed that he had come from the British-ruled terri-
tory to the north.47 The Belgians described him as a Muhima,* one of

*Hima was the ethnic label of those in power in Nkore, a precolonial society (later
a district—Ankole) in what is now Uganda. But in Rwanda, “Hima” has been a label
applied to those who are mostly pastoralists and outside the channels of power. For the
most part, they were treated as autonomous of the state.
230 The Rationalization of Power, 1925–1931

the cattle people who constituted a small minority on both sides of the
Rwandan–Ugandan frontier.48 But some of his followers remarked that
he was short; their description of his physical appearance and of other
aspects of his behavior might indicate that they saw him as of at least
partly Hutu stock, irrespective of his ethnic heritage. He also had an enor-
mous head of hair and was missing one of his toes. He spent no more
than one day and night in any one place and traveled only after dark.
Meant primarily to ensure his security, these measures also enhanced the
aura of mystery he tried to cultivate. Like the earlier leader, Ndungutse,
Semaraso experimented with various bases for legitimacy. Sometimes he
claimed to be a son of Rwabugiri; sometimes he announced that he had
come with special supernatural powers; sometimes he claimed to be
Ndungutse himself. He was in touch with the local leaders of the Nyabingi
movement, but he had not established himself as a true Nyabingi prophet.
The Bakiga rallied to his support because he offered strong action against
the measures that troubled them, not because they wholeheartedly ac-
cepted any one of his claims to legitimacy.49
Also like Ndungutse, Semaraso explored the possibility of an accom-
modation with local authorities, in this case with several chiefs and
sub-chiefs. After these men refused to deal with him, in March 1928 he
proclaimed himself leader of a crusade against the Tutsi and the Euro-
peans. With a thousand or so followers, he attacked and put to flight the
chief Rutayashwage, who was much detested for abusing his subjects.
Word of Semaraso’s success spread, lending credibility to his claims of
being invulnerable. Several days later Semaraso and two thousand
men attacked the chief Rukeratabaro. They laid siege to his residence
for four days, but Rukeratabaro had been forewarned and successfully
withstood the attack. As Semaraso withdrew after this failure, his pop-
ularity began to decline. The arrival of colonial troops hastened his
fall. After several more small guerrilla attacks on the troops and chiefs,
Semaraso and his most important supporters fled across the border to
Uganda.50 He and his men had killed a dozen Tutsi, had burned the
residences of forty more, and had stolen one hundred cattle. In retalia-
tion, the Tutsi killed several dozen people, jailed thirty more and de-
stroyed the homes and harvests of one thousand Bakiga.51 The ease with
which the revolt was put down did not erase the Belgians’ original shock
at the outbreak of such widespread resistance. The people of neighbor-
ing Buberuka had also been on the point of rising when they had learned
of Semaraso’s success. The Belgians occupied the region with troops for
three and a half years, installed a new administrative post, and pushed
 The Rationalization of Power, 1925–1931 231

for more intensive local rule by chiefs and sub-chiefs to ensure that a
similar rising would not occur in the future.52
The Bakiga of Rukiga and Ndorwa were confident enough of their
unified strength under Semaraso to attack the Tutsi. However, the
people of eastern Rwanda, particularly the area that had comprised
the kingdom of Gisaka, recognized the impossibility of their taking such
action against the Europeans or the notables from the central kingdom.
They found solace instead in the ideas and associations of the Nyabingi
movement. Nyabingi prophets had been well received in this part of
Rwanda since the nineteenth century, but their popularity seems to have
increased in the mid-1920s. Regional pride and sense of identity had
been reawakened during the brief period of British rule that had ended
in 1923. At least some of the Nyabingi leaders played on this sense of
distinctiveness and on the real grievances of the people against the rulers
from Rwanda proper.53 While advocates of Nyabingi dared take no di-
rect action against the Europeans or notables, they harassed those who
frequented the missions and exacted gifts from the Rwandan notables.
When the Fathers goaded the local administrator into arresting some of
the prophets, he had to capture them secretly at night because popular
support for them was so widespread. The Belgians followed the arrests
in Gisaka with a concerted effort to arrest other Nyabingi leaders
throughout Rwanda. Although they jailed a number of them, they suc-
ceeded only in driving the movement underground. In the midst of the
terrible famine of 1928–29, Nyabingi leaders were still able to collect
gifts of food from their followers.54
It was not only expressions of established religious traditions that
emerged in these conditions, but entirely new movements as well. For
example, in 1927 near Lake Muhazi in Buganza, a new religious move-
ment attracted the attention of Rwandans who honored the mwami
and hated the Europeans. A Hutu named Rugira announced to some
women who had come to draw water that a woman would emerge from
the lake to expel the Europeans from Rwanda. The woman, who would
have great powers, was sometimes called Nyiraburumbuke, sometimes
Ndanga. With her would come her brother, who would distribute seeds
for a miraculous new kind of sorghum, which “when scythed would not
bend, when winnowed would yield no husks, when made into beer
would leave no residue.”55 To show their devotion to this extraordinary
new pair of rulers, the people were to sing and dance at the shores of
the lake. And to demonstrate their real commitment to them, they were
not to sow until the Saviors appeared with the seeds of new sorghum.
232 The Rationalization of Power, 1925–1931

The people of Buganza, especially the women, took up the word

eagerly and flocked every night to the shores of Muhazi, where they
created new songs and dances. Some of the people reported visions,
while others refused to plant their crops for the coming season. One girl
proclaimed herself Nyiraburumbuke. When she failed to convince the
people of her own region, she moved to southern Gisaka, where she
created a new nucleus for the movement, linking it to Lake Mugesera.
The people of this region responded enthusiastically too, and soon
women were bearing their gifts to the lakeshores from all over Gisaka
and the eastern part of Rwanda proper.56
Ndanga’s followers called upon the Court and notables to join
them in struggling against the Europeans. One of their songs predicted
that Musinga and his mother (here referred to by her reign name of
Nyirayuhi) would come to pay homage to Ndanga and to Rububura,
the great bull that symbolized her power. They sang:
Rububura is bellowing.
Toward evening the Karinga begins beating in its turn.
Musinga is exalting her,
Nyirayuhi is adoring her. “Let us be calm,
Tomorrow I will sacrifice a man for you.”
Ndanga, Royal Pillar
Ndanga, Supporter of abami,
Ndanga, Desire of the humble,
Ndanga, Hope of the abatware.57

The Court and notables gave no sign of responding to her call. The
Christian notable Rwabutogo forced Rugira to denounce his original
prophecy as a joke. When this did not discourage Ndanga’s adherents,
the Belgians sent soldiers to disperse the dancing women and to arrest
their leader. Like the followers of Nyabingi, the adherents of Ndanga
hid their faith but did not reject it. As late as 1929 some of the people in
Gisaka still refused to plant their crops.58

The Famine of 1928 and Its Aftermath

The pressures that had been building on the Court, on the notables, and
on the people were enormously magnified by the devastating famine
that began in 1927 and lasted through 1929. The steady exhaustion of
the soil and the lowering of the water level in eastern Rwanda over a
period of centuries had left agricultural production there extremely
 The Rationalization of Power, 1925–1931 233

sensitive to weather conditions. Too much or too little rain inevitably

meant serious scarcity of food for at least one growing season. Shortages
in 1924 and 1925 had led the Belgians to establish regulations that pro-
vided for an increase in the amount of land cultivated and that required
people to plant manioc, a tuber that could be left in the ground for as
long as three years and so constituted a natural reserve in case of the
failure of regular crops. The notables, who feared the loss of valuable
pastureland, blocked the measures providing for more land to be culti-
vated and took no interest in trying to force the Hutu to plant manioc.
The Belgians did virtually nothing to overcome the notables’ resistance
or to enforce the regulations on the Hutu.59
The Belgians were more concerned about economic development
than with averting famine. As they increased their demands for porters
and laborers, they forced cultivators to leave their plots. In 1926 food
production began to decline. At the same time, Governor Marzorati
tried to satisfy his colleagues in the Congo by exporting food to feed
workers there. In 1927 insufficient rains brought the first signs of scarcity
to eastern Rwanda, but the administration continued to increase its
requisitions for laborers and to ship food to the Congo.60
When the first harvest of 1928 also failed for lack of rain, the scarcity
became a famine. By October, death by starvation had become com-
mon in eastern Rwanda. As the enormity of the crisis dawned upon
officials at the Colonial Ministry, they began to foresee embarrassing
repercussions at the next meeting of the Commission on Mandates. The
Resident, probably as much in response to pressure from above as to the
prospect of further suffering below, ordered administrators to place
famine relief above all other work. Tons of food were purchased and
transported to the stricken region for distribution.61
The administration was convinced that the situation could be reme-
died only by extending cultivation in the marshy lowlands where crops
could grow even if the rainfall continued to be below normal. To mobi-
lize people to clear and plant the marshes, it needed the cooperation of
the notables. But most of the notables were concerned about the fate of
the cattle that constituted their principal source (and symbol) of wealth.
Realizing that the wet lowlands would offer the only certain pasturage if
the rains continued to fail, they continued to block the extension of cul-
tivation there. The Belgians were angry and frustrated at finding even
Inshongore like Kayondo and Christians like Rwabutogo hindering
their plans. In desperation, the Resident sought Musinga’s help in get-
ting the notables to act. While the mwami joined enthusiastically in
234 The Rationalization of Power, 1925–1931

punishing any of his opponents who had disobeyed the Belgians’ orders,
he did no more than they to extend cultivation.62
Although the Belgians set no example of disinterested generosity,
they could not comprehend how the Court and notables could so cal-
lously disregard the fate of their subjects. The administrator at Nyanza
was shocked that Musinga neglected to feed the few dozen starving
people he had sent to the royal enclosure for assistance. Neither he nor
his colleagues who passed the story from one to another understood that
Musinga regarded these people as the responsibility of the administra-
tor, to whom they had first appealed. If they had been his clients, he
would have cared for them to the extent of his resources. In the same
way, the Belgians failed to note how many of the notables aided those
whom they felt obligated to protect even as they turned others away.63
The Court and most of the notables may have felt that the famine
itself was the responsibility of the Europeans. The amount of land cul-
tivated in the past had been sufficient as long as the rains had been plen-
tiful. The Court had always undertaken to ensure that the rains would
fall by giving regular gifts to rainmakers, like the mwami of Bukunzi,
and by performing those parts of the ubwiru prescribed for times of
drought whenever necessary. Now the Belgians had disrupted the Court’s
relationship with the rainmakers and had prohibited it from performing
these rituals. In the eyes of Court and notables, cultivation of the marshes
could not produce enough food to save Rwanda. Unless it rained
enough to permit ordinary harvests elsewhere, the famine would con-
tinue. And if enough rain fell to permit usual harvests elsewhere, culti-
vation of the marshes would be unnecessary.
The Belgians blamed the notables for the continuation of the fa-
mine. They believed that if the notables had only helped extend the
area under cultivation, the lack of rainfall would have been less critical.
Their anger was tinged with panic at the prospect that the next growing
season might bring no improvement. As the Resident wrote to his ad-
ministrators, “there is not a moment to lose, for what would the League
of Nations say if we did not get out of this bad situation as soon as pos-
sible.”64 The Belgians took increasingly harsh measures to try to force
the notables to cooperate. They removed the worst offenders, deprived
many other notables of parts of their domains, and beat and fined most
of the rest. They forced many of them to sell some of their cattle to pur-
chase sweet potato plants and slips of manioc for their people. Finally, in
January 1929 they warned the notables that if the famine were not
ended within three months, their cattle would be slaughtered to feed the
 The Rationalization of Power, 1925–1931 235

hungry; cattle held under ubuhake would become the full property of
the clients; and all the newly cultivated land would be given to the Hutu
free of all taxes or payment to the notables.65 The administrators might
never have executed these threats, but some of the notables apparently
thought that they might. A number of them resigned their commands
and others fled outright to British territory, taking their cattle with them.
Musinga himself began corresponding with both African and British au-
thorities in Uganda to explore the possibility of his taking refuge there.66
By early 1929 the crisis had become a catastrophe for both the
Rwandans and the Belgians. The famine had cost at least 35,000–40,000
Rwandan lives and through death and flight had left vast areas of the
east virtually unpopulated. The Belgians had spent approximately four
million francs or one hundred thousand dollars on famine relief and
had exacted tremendous sacrifices from Rwandans in more prosperous
regions, all without having appreciably ameliorated the situation. It was
no coincidence that Marzorati was replaced as governor in January
1929 by Henri Postiaux and that Georges Mortehan lost his post as
Resident soon after to H. Wilmin.67
When Postiaux toured Rwanda in April 1929, he was struck as much
by the demoralization of the notables as by the suffering of the people.
Faced with the impossibility of governing the kingdom without at least
a semblance of cooperation from the notables, he ended the strictest
measures that had been used against them. The administrators ceased
imposing excessive fines, whippings, and exaggerated threats; instead,
they returned to their earlier policy of propping up the notables’ pres-
tige and authority. The governor also rescinded the measures that had
been disrupting ubuhake and which served as one of the major griev-
ances of the notables. In the future, no notable would lose his clients
except as punishment for some particular instance of misbehavior.68
Postiaux wanted to reestablish good relations with the notables
partly because he wanted to get rid of Musinga. The mwami offered
little assistance to the administration in their efforts to address the famine
conditions; indeed, he threatened to embarrass it seriously by his con-
tacts with the British. Postiaux hoped even to win permission from Brus-
sels to end the monarchy altogether and to establish direct administra-
tion by the Resident and the notables.69 The ministry, already dismayed
by the unfavorable publicity aroused by the famine, refused to consider
Postiaux’s proposals. Obliged to maintain the mwami in power, Postiaux
sought a new accord with him. In August he met with Musinga for
two days, during which time he “defined the role of Mwami as the
236 The Rationalization of Power, 1925–1931

European administration conceives of it.” This meant executing deci-

sions made by the Belgians and adjudicating difficulties among Rwan-
dans that were too trivial to merit Belgian attention. The governor in-
sisted that Musinga could govern capably only if he traveled throughout
the kingdom to supervise the work of his notables; traditional restriction
or not, the mwami would have to cross the Nyabarongo River.70 The
balance of power between the Court and the administration had shifted
greatly over the decade. What Musinga had refused to Defawe in 1919
he had to yield to Postiaux in 1929. Over Kanjogera’s strenuous objec-
tions, he crossed the river and traveled to Kigali in the presence of the
governor. Musinga had taken a number of ritual precautions before-
hand, including temporarily investing one of his young sons with the
drum so that the Court could maintain that the restriction had not been
violated. When Musinga had safely returned to Nyanza, the Europeans
patronizingly remarked to him that giving up such a ridiculous custom
had obviously done him no damage.71 They were blind to the context—
the erosion of royal prestige that resulted from each of these steps mak-
ing Musinga more like other men.
Musinga of course realized the loss of respect that attended giving
up such customs. In return for his sacrifice, he demanded and obtained
significant concessions from the governor. Aware that his power was
being sapped by the arrangements made by administrators with their
favorite notables, he had agreed to travel partly to be able to counteract
the growth of such local alliances. Now he persuaded the governor to
order the administrators to accord due respect to the mwami when he
visited their districts. No administrator could intervene publicly in deci-
sions made by Musinga; at most he could advise him privately, and if
the mwami disregarded his advice, he could not overrule him but could
only appeal the issue to the Resident. Similarly, any differences between
the mwami and the Resident could be resolved only by appeal to the
governor. Musinga would be protected against the prejudices of the
local administrators and against the intrigues of notables who courted
them. The administrators also were strictly warned to respect the
mwami’s right to approve all new appointments, a right they had fre-
quently ignored in the past.72
With renewed energy Musinga set about rebuilding his power. He
intervened to protect his favorites from the Belgians. He exacted gifts
and tributes above the amounts the Belgians had decided were permis-
sible. Secretly he ordered notables to grant ibikingi to his followers.73
On occasion he even tried to circumvent the notables and appeal directly
 The Rationalization of Power, 1925–1931 237

to the people, calling on the traditional image of the mwami as protec-

tor of the humble. He transformed the journeys that the Belgians had
insisted upon into little campaigns to win the active allegiance of his
subjects. To his delight, he found that the Hutu, especially those far
from the influence of missionaries, administrators, or bakarani, still
regarded him as the personification of wealth and power. He traveled
in great style, accompanied by a large retinue of notables and Twa
musicians and entertainers. As the royal drums announced his arrival,
throngs of people would rush to applaud him, acclaim him, and dance
for him. From time to time he would descend from his hammock, order
his notables to stand back, and walk a distance so that the people could
see him better. At his stopping places he would receive the complaints of
the humble, bending forward to listen attentively. When he prevailed on
some ordinary man to lodge him for the night, he would give him a cow
the next morning to compensate him for his trouble.74

The Deposition of Musinga

As Musinga struggled to regain power through the end of 1929 and
into 1930, the notables watched, some hopefully, some fearfully. The
Belgians as well as the Rwandans believed that he might reestablish his
control over the kingdom. In late 1930 the new governor of Ruanda-
Urundi, Charles Voisin, decided to prevent this by trying again to remove
Musinga.
When Voisin consulted Monsignor Classe, the bishop fully con-
curred. In the four years since he had protected Musinga against such a
move, he had seen the mwami become increasingly set against the
Fathers and Christianity. While Classe had lost his earlier admiration for
one of Musinga’s sons, Rwigemera, he had come to respect the other,
Rudahigwa, who was now an adult. Rudahigwa was still devoted to
Musinga. He had just recently sacrificed the large herd of cattle that
Kayondo had given him rather than be influenced by the Inshongore’s
hatred of his father.75 Yet Rudahigwa had also been educated by the
Europeans and might well someday accept Christianity. Classe rightly
guessed that if offered the drum, Rudahigwa would take it, especially if
the only alternative were leaving it to Rwigemera, who had so often
plotted against Musinga. Classe handled all the delicate arrangements
with Rudahigwa. He also prepared the way for acceptance of the pro-
posal in Brussels by publishing an excoriating article in L’Essor Colonial et
Maritime that detailed Musinga’s faults and advocated his removal. With
238 The Rationalization of Power, 1925–1931

Classe working from outside and the governor working from inside
the bureaucracy, they won the approval of the Colonial Ministry in
mid-1931.76
Faced with the necessity of explaining the decision at the next meet-
ing of the Commission on Mandates, the ministry asked the governor to
provide specific justifications for the removal. Since Musinga had always
avoided the kind of outright defiance that would have provided a clear
excuse for ending his rule, the local administration could supply only
vague generalities about “oppression, favoritism, egotism, and disordered
private life.”77 It could hardly explain that it had come to fear and distrust
the authority it had once admired. The Belgians had hoped to transform
the bases of Musinga’s legitimacy and to use his power for their own
ends. They had expected him to be proud of the sky-blue uniform with
gold braid and to be content with formalities and the “role of Mwami as
the European administration conceived of it.” But Musinga preferred
the beaded headdress and the leopard skin, and he refused to accept the
Belgian assessment of his role and of the ultimate interests of the king-
dom. As long as the Belgians left him in possession of the drum, he would
keep struggling to build his power, partly for his own benefit and partly
to defend the kingdom.
The Belgians feared that some of the notables might rally to Mu-
singa when the deposition was announced, so they planned the action
with the greatest care. All the important notables were called to Kigali
on 12 November 1931, supposedly to hear the governor speak about a
new economic program. That morning in Nyanza, some eighty miles
away, the governor told Musinga of the deposition and ordered him to
be ready to leave within forty-eight hours for the post of Kamembe on
Lake Kivu, which would be his future residence. According to one of his
intimates, Musinga accepted the news “like someone who had expected
it for a long time.” The governor demanded that Musinga send the
royal drums to the administrative office immediately. Just as Musinga
had refused to resign voluntarily, so he refused to part willingly with the
drums that symbolized his power. The Europeans came to seize them
that night at the royal residence. On the morning of 14 November, Mu-
singa, along with Kanjogera and seven of Musinga’s wives and their
children, left Nyanza for the last time, accompanied by several hundred
of their most loyal servants and clients.
He traveled as he had always liked to, in a hammock borne by the
Twa of the Court. As the sad caravan wound its way to the southwest,
the notables were approaching Nyanza from the north en route from
 The Rationalization of Power, 1925–1931 239

Kigali. When the governor had not appeared for his address and the
notables had been ordered to go to Nyanza to meet him, they had
guessed what had happened. The administrators kept close watch over
them, marching them in a group, but forbidding them to talk and pre-
venting them from gathering together in the evenings at their resting
places. As they neared Nyanza, the new Pontiac automobile the admin-
istration had bought for Musinga the year before was driven out to pick
up Rudahigwa and transport him the rest of the way. The notables had
been concerned for Musinga’s fate, but even more for the fate of the
monarchy. They feared that the Belgians would destroy the institution
totally, or perhaps even install one of the Inshongore in power. They
were greatly reassured to know that the traditional pattern of succession
would be respected and that the Europeans had chosen the son Mu-
singa himself had favored.78
On 16 November Rudahigwa was proclaimed mwami with the
name Mutara. The proclamation was made by the governor, and the
name had been chosen by Classe. The military band played a flourish,
and the soldiers fired a salute. The governor presented the drums to
Rudahigwa, but there were no other traditional ceremonies. Under the
watchful eyes of the soldiers, the notables joined in the acclamations
that always welcomed the enthronement of a new ruler. They had been
warned that any signs of displeasure would send them into exile after
their former ruler. On the following days, the local administrators called
together the remaining notables and the people of their districts and in-
formed them of the deposition. All stressed that any movement or even
expression of opinion in favor of Musinga would be harshly punished.
One told the assembled crowd, “Rejoice because the administration has
given you a [new] mwami.”79
The people hardly needed the explanation. Many of them con-
tinued to swear in the name of Musinga instead of that of Rudahigwa,
while others persisted in remarking that Rudahigwa was the “Mwami of
the Whites.”80
The administration would have preferred removing Musinga from
Rwanda altogether, but Rudahigwa had begged that his father be allowed
to remain in the kingdom. The Belgians tried unsuccessfully to isolate
Musinga from his former subjects. None of the important notables
visited him openly, but some made secret trips by night along the lake to
spend a few hours with him. “Everyone who was human, and there were
few who weren’t” continued to send him gifts, according to one observer.81
Even Kayondo made a generous gift of ivory to Kanjogera.
240 The Rationalization of Power, 1925–1931

The queen mother died in 1933, but Musinga continued to hope and
plan for a return to power. A son born to him in the 1930s was named
Nzakigarura, “I will get it back.” Rumors of his imminent return circu-
lated frequently enough to disturb the Belgians, although few outside
Musinga’s most devoted followers believed in them. After the outbreak
of World War II, Musinga supposedly sought to establish ties with the
Germans, hoping his former masters might finally fulfill their promise to
return. After a new wave of rumors about Musinga’s restoration swept
Rwanda in 1940, the Belgians exiled Musinga to the Congo, where he
died four years later. At the time of his removal, one European com-
mented that no one had taken up arms to defend him since “He never
did anything for his country.” But Rwandans who continued to honor
him throughout the 1930s with their gifts and their concern felt that he
deserved their loyalty and affection. One who had been a young muka-
rani at the time remembered that even he had paid Musinga this volun-
tary tribute because “he had done so much good for all of us.”82
 E’  E  

Musinga left Nyanza on 14 November 1931. Passing through Nyantango

and Bunyambiriri across the high crest of the Congo–Nile watershed,
the caravan of some 700 people (including over 450 porters) took a week
to arrive at Kamembe, a commercial center in the far southwestern
corner of the kingdom. Located at the southern tip of Lake Kivu and
separated from central Rwanda by a wide swath of tropical montane
forest, Kamembe was accessible to Rwandans only by the circuitous
route Musinga himself had followed; few Rwandans would have access
to their deposed king.
Kamembe was selected by the administration with care. It was
located in Kinyaga, a region considered distant from Rwanda, not just
geographically but culturally as well. Central Rwandans saw the area as
cold and wet; they disdained the inhabitants of Kinyaga, referring to
them derisorily as “Banyabungo”—the generic term for the people of
the Congo—or “Bashi”—more specifically, those immediately west of
the Rusizi River. The Belgian administration shared such views: one ad-
ministrator characterized the area as “sad and humid” with a “lugubri-
ous wind”; one of the chiefs of the area, he noted, was a “true Shi who
understands neither Kinyarwanda nor Swahili.”1
Politically, too, Kamembe was carefully selected. Its distance from
the central regions both reduced the capacity of the deposed mwami to
interfere in the conduct of the Court and made it difficult for his former
subjects to bring him gifts—for while some, especially among the chiefs,
welcomed his dismissal, others seemed to recognize his struggles with the
colonial order. Even if Musinga was no longer king, many, including
some of those displeased with his rule, still acknowledged him as mwami.
Rudahigwa was seen as “the mwami of the whites,” placed in power by
colonial authorities under European-designed procedures, bypassing the
Rwandan authorities who alone could perform the rituals that legitimized

241
242 Editor’s Epilogue

his rule. He could not be the true mwami of Rwanda as long as Musinga
was still alive. Power and ritual status were separate domains.2
Kamembe was a strategic choice for another reason. The preemi-
nent Rwandan political authority in the region was Rwagataraka, the
son of Rwidegembya and scion of the Bakagara lineage of the Bega
clan. This was the lineage whose members had masterminded the coup
of Rucunshu and who had dominated Court politics during Musinga’s
reign; Rwagataraka’s paternal grandfather was the full brother of Ka-
bare and Ruhinankiko, and the half-brother of Kanjogera. Musinga had
been exiled to the region dominated by the head of the lineage that had
both made him king and molded his actions. His life had come full circle.
More importantly, Rwagataraka had shown himself a loyal ally to
the Belgian administration over many years. Furthermore, he had had a
troubled relationship with Musinga: “Rwagataraka is the enemy of Mu-
singa,” wrote the Belgian administrator of Kamembe shortly after
Musinga’s arrival there. Musinga concurred: “Rwagataraka hates me,”
he had written two years earlier. However, there were structural as well
as personal factors in play. Rwagataraka’s original appointment as chief
to the region was part of the struggle between the Bega and the Banyi-
ginya: Rwagataraka’s father, Rwidegembya, had displaced a member of
the royal family as commander of the army assigned to this region.
Originally, Rwagataraka’s assignment was seen as a promotion; he
was young at the time. But it was also in part an exile, for this area was
far removed from the Court. Though the region commanded resources
as a trade corridor (especially important for iron products coming from
the west) it was also considered politically peripheral—populated by
Shi and by sorcerers. But Rwagataraka had his own alternative politi-
cal pathway: after World War I he had proved effective as a “modern-
izer” and adept at working with the Belgians—so much so that at one
point, as Des Forges relates, he even turned in his own father for plot-
ting with the Germans, charges for which Rwidegembya spent several
months in prison. So Rwagataraka had a history of using Europeans as
his own powerbase. During Musinga’s deportation to Kamembe, this
collaboration between Rwagataraka and his overlords continued. The
Belgians kept close watch over Musinga, and the administrator recog-
nized Rwagataraka’s “constant assistance in the surveillance of Musinga’s
activities.” But he also noted the “deep-seated pride” of Rwagataraka
(“the prototype of his race”), adding on another occasion: “He is Tutsi;
that says it all.” The public disdain he held toward Musinga, noted the
administrator, was unhelpful.3
 Editor’s Epilogue 243

The animosity was also personal. Rwagataraka had married Mu-

singa’s youngest daughter, Musheshambuga. As Rwagataraka had moved
closer to Catholicism, she also expressed a desire to convert. Following
directly on the public conversion of Musinga’s favorite son—an act
Musinga had seen as treason in the context of his struggles with the
Church—Mushesambuga’s announcement provoked a passionate re-
action on the part of the mwami; if she proceeded with this, he wrote, he
would curse her forever. But Rwagataraka’s eventual conversion allowed
him to retain only one wife, and to conform to Church doctrine he ex-
pelled Musheshambuga from his household; in part, of course, this was
also a rejection of Musinga. However, this was more than a simple sepa-
ration: he drove her out in abominable conditions. Even the Belgian ad-
ministrator, so tied to Rwagataraka politically and not likely to comment
on domestic arrangements, was moved to note in a letter to the governor
that the conditions of her expulsion were “absolutely blameworthy” and
had elicited strenuous critique from the “Watusi” of the region. So
desperate—and so visible—was her plight that the administrator himself
was moved to provide sustenance for her and her young child.4
Despite the geographical, cultural, and political isolation of Musinga,
the authorities kept close watch on his activities. Rumors abounded, and
the administration kept careful record. One notable came from Gatsibo
in the far northeastern corner of the kingdom to arrange for the mar-
riage of his daughter to Musinga; Belgian reports noted that the diviners
had determined that such a marriage would guarantee Musinga’s return
to Nyanza. Other reports asserted that Musinga had sent representatives
to negotiate with the British in southwestern Uganda for the cession of
Rwanda to Britain—an irony, given Musinga’s strenuous opposition to
the earlier British occupation of Gisaka. The feared emissaries were
carefully monitored. A Rwandan woman married to a man in Uganda
was said to carry secret communications from the British to Musinga on
her visit to her family in Nyanza; the Belgians were particularly dis-
turbed when she temporarily disappeared from their surveillance. In the
end, she was prevented further access to Rwanda. The local administrator
in Kamembe expelled “all Tutsi and Batwa” from Musinga’s compound,
an action Musinga protested to the governor; his appeal was rejected.
The authorities were adamant: removing all Batutsi from Musinga’s
compound would actually “render a service to Musinga by distancing
him from all sorts of intrigue.”
In myriad ways the policy of political control was transformed into
one of personal humiliation. Unannounced early morning censuses
244 Editor’s Epilogue

of Musinga’s compound were initiated. Among those found who did

not meet approval, some were whipped, others were sent on their way
through the forest (not the road). On one such raid a letter was found
from the Ligue contre l’Impérialisme et l’Oppression Coloniale,” a
Brussels organization; to the administration “the security of the state
and of public order would be threatened should Musinga receive a sub-
sequent letter [from the league].” One rumor noted by the Belgians
claimed that Musinga had obtained poison from his cook, a Shi; the
search for outside agitators was very thorough. But active surveillance
was not limited to Kinyaga. To prevent inconvenient rumors, every
“Chef de Poste” was asked to announce the deposition of Musinga on
the morning of 14 November—all at the same time—and to inform the
Resident, then and at regular intervals thereafter, of the people’s reac-
tions to this decision; the administrators’ responses were quite detailed.5
Earlier colonial reports had concluded that Musinga held very little
influence in the country. But with the German occupation of Belgium
in May of 1940 the tone had changed, and Musinga’s earlier connec-
tions with the Germans were recalled. “In the current circumstances
any source of trouble, any unwanted interference in the authorities’
ability to carry out policy must be suppressed.” And so new plans were
developed. Musinga, concluded the Resident in a memorandum of 17
June, “retains a certain influence that could become more active under
these conditions. It is necessary therefore to remove him from Rwanda.”
Other reports noted a popular story from early in Musinga’s reign that
he would be sent to live near a large body of water until the Germans
returned and restored him to power. In his own letter to the governor of
Ruanda-Urundi, Monsignor Classe—Musinga’s implacable opponent—
noted that a person had asked him if it were true that Rudahigwa had
been arrested by the Germans and Musinga would be returned to
power. He ended his letter to the governor by noting that “[ i ]t is regret-
table that in these days Musinga remains in Ruanda-Urundi,” thus
appearing to support a policy of further deportation. Administrative
documents also noted that many former chiefs, particularly those dis-
missed by more recent government policy, continued to send gifts and
cattle to Musinga; the interpretation was that they sought reestablish-
ment should Musinga be returned to power, while those chiefs installed
by the Belgians would be dismissed.6
Such rumors among the people in the hills apparently sparked fears
among the officials and served as the basis for a rapid set of consul-
tations. Within two weeks of the first memorandum, a new policy was
 Editor’s Epilogue 245

determined: Musinga was to be deported with five wives and eleven

children, and with no domestic assistants, to Kilembwe, on the Malungu
plateau in Moba district on the western shore of Lake Tanganyika, 150
kilometers south of Albertville (later renamed Kalemie). Essentially, it
was a place accessible only by boat. In the thorough fashion typical of
Belgian colonial administration, two of Musinga’s elder sons were also
deported. They were seen as potential claimants to power in Musinga’s
absence and therefore a potential alternative to popular loyalty to Ru-
dahigwa: “Their presence in Ruanda-Urundi,” noted the Belgian gov-
ernor, “compromises public tranquility.” To ensure such tranquility,
Musinga’s political insulation was complete: his geographical isolation
was exceeded only by his social isolation.7
Great effort was taken to prevent Musinga’s suicide before leaving
Rwanda, for “this would present serious difficulties for [Rudahigwa]. It
would not be long before pretenders to power would arise and, sur-
rounded by the halo of the legend would easily create trouble every-
where.” Therefore, Musinga was not informed until 19 July 1940, the
eve of his forced departure. After having been told of the decision he
was kept in isolation and under guard at the administrative post. The
next morning Belgian authorities went to the mwami’s residence to
inform Musinga’s wives of their immediate departure. His goods were
packed. “Few items, no valuables, little money,” noted the administrator’s
report. Musinga’s cattle could not be taken with him; they were to be
sold on the open market. The report characterized his departure in stark
terms: “Few spectators, no reactions among those departing. No inci-
dents en route. A normal departure, without difficulties. All went well.”
The soldier guarding Musinga on the eve of his definitive departure
from Rwanda said the king had wept during the night.8
Musinga died at Kilembwe, far removed from Rwanda, on 25
December 1944.

With Musinga’s death an era had passed. Born at the apogee of Rwabu-
giri’s rule, Musinga had been a principal figure in the coup of Rucunshu;
he had witnessed the arrival of European power and the establishment
of a powerful missionary order; he had overseen the expansion of royal
power to areas of weak penetration; and he had participated in the
deepening of administrative influence throughout the reconfigured king-
dom. All along he had sought to retain the integrity of the kingship
246 Editor’s Epilogue

against both external and internal challenges. But if structural and insti-
tutional changes at the level of royal Court politics were significant, the
changes in the lives of the people were profound. Musinga’s life was cer-
tainly one of those affected by the political transformations of the day,
but the people in the hills felt these changes even more deeply.
Under Rudahigwa, conditions changed for the people as well as for
the administrative structures of the state. For the chiefs, the administra-
tive powers in their hands were augmented even as their contacts with
the people diminished. For the people, forced labor was increased as
export crops became required; in the words of an eminent Rwandan
historian, under Rudahigwa “the country became a vast forced labor
camp.”9 Taxes were added and became required in monetary terms—
to be paid by individuals, not corporate groups. Required work in the
fields and in the compounds of the Rwandan authorities became com-
mon and widespread. Whatever the deficiencies of Court rule under
Musinga, it was not surprising that with the changing circumstances of
his successor many people looked back with nostalgia to an earlier con-
cept of kingship, which Musinga had embodied and for which he had
struggled, in his own way, against very steep odds.
 A : R  I     

Name Father Grandfather Clan Location

Bahimana Ningura Baturina Zigaba Butozo,

Rukiga

Bahinbano Makambira Ruzigura Gesera Rushaki,

Giciye

Baseke Burindi Ndabaramiye Bungura Giciye

Bazatoha Hingabugabo Nyamubyeyi Zigaba Murehe,

Mayaga

Bazirake, Mishura Semataka Gesera Ruhinga,

Dominique Bugarura

Bichunchu, Mpakaniye Ndayundi Banda Gatonde

Pancras

Bidahunga, Segaceke Sekimonyo Bungura Rambura,

Isidore Bushiru

Bigirankana Kazimano Kwisaba Singa Giciye

Bihame Kasozi Rubanzangabo Zigaba Bunyereri,

Busozo

Bikuramuki Nyemina Nyantaba Nyiginya Kigali

Buhuhano, Mbona Ndabaramiye Bungura Rambura,

Isidore Bushiru

Busuhuko, Mihiko Ndabukiyumwami Sindi Rugari,

Silasi Bugarura

247
A : R I      (Continued )

Name Father Grandfather Clan Location

Bwico Rusesangabo Sebitenge Singa Mwiyanike,

Bushiru

Byahene Ruhunga Ndahiriwe Nyiginya Nyakibungo,

Mayaga

Byimana Balinimwe Bambabura Zigaba Kamucuri,

Rukiga

Eleasar Sagatwa Nyamunesha Nyiginya Bwishaza

Gahakwa Nyamuco — Bungura Muremure,

Bushiru

Gakona Gacuma Byamuchanyi Shambo Ibare,

Mirenge

Gakunkiko Simpenzwe Mashora Rihira Rambura,

Bushiru

Gashyekero Mvuyekure Ruhemu Gesera Nyangurago,

Karago

Gasimba Magumirwa Mutana Zigaba Butozo,

Rukiga

Gatanazi Rugema Gatarera Singa Mugina,

Rukiga

Gaterere Shorabili — Zigaba Rushaki,

Rukiga

Gatete Mucinya Nyangezi Ha Kabuye,

Buriza

Gatuhe, Beyanga Gahinda Zigaba Butozo,

Canisius Rukiga

Gumira Rugamvu Nyantaba Nyiginya Mutima,

Muyaga

Guriro, — — Gesera Ndorwa,

Isaie Karago

Habyarinka, Rwamagege Ndabateza Singa Kiganda,

Musa Bugarura

248
A : R I      (Continued )

Name Father Grandfather Clan Location

Harimenshi Nyamwanga Gasiga — Ndorwa,

Karago

Isidore Ruganda Ntama Tsobe Muhanga,

Bukunzi

Kabera Karyeja Birakwate Zigaba Rushaki,

Rukiga

Kaburiyeri Nsekuye Bihirimana Gesera Rambura,

Bushiru

Kagenza, Mujawamwiza Ruhomoranda Cyaba Ibare,

Karoli Mirenge

Kagisha Ntamuhanga Gishimba Cyaba Rambura,

Bushiru

Kamana, Sebarabena Ndabavuna Sindi Kibonwa,

Michel Gatonde

Kamere Nshaka Bizeyi Singa Rwaza,

Bugarura

Kanyamudari, Kimonyo Nyamukera Zigaba Gege,

Albert Bugarura

Karyabgite Sendashonga Ruhararamanzi Shambo Byumba

Karyeja Kagambira Kibashyira Zigaba Rushaki,

Rukiga

Kidogo Gicemwa Nsoro Gesera Bururi,

Busozo

Komayombi, Serugaryi Gisimba Cyaba Rambura,

Th. Bushiru

Makatsi, Hagumagatsi Sendakize Gesera Ntuntu,

Samuel Kabagari

Makeri Rwamagaju Karama Sindi Bugerero,

Busigi

Mbonye, Rwabushi Simbayobewe Banda Karambi,

Paul Kabagari

249
A : R I      (Continued )

Name Father Grandfather Clan Location

Miruho Gateba Nyamunegamacumu Sindi Gatonde

Mitima, Bigaruka Sengoga Zigaba Buhanda,

Nabor Mulera

Mpakaniye Bivagonya Muhima Gesera Rambura,

Bushiru

Mugabontazi, Kinyana Ndimbira Tsobe Gisozi,

Berchmans Bwanacyambwe

Muhama, Ntabana Rugazika Nyiginya Kabuye,

Chrysostome Buriza

Muhire Gatabazi Mazuru Sindi Munanira,

Bukonya

Muhizi, Bihirumuhatse Biguma Nyiginya Nyagahinga,

Léonidas Bwishaza

Muniga Segaju Nyankiko Nyiginya Nyakibungo,

Mayaga

Munogo Bilinzira — Zigaba Tusi,

Kiyombe

Mutabazi, Bishaka Kimonyo Gesera Rwaza,

Michel Bugarura

Mutarambirwa Muhirwa Rubundo Gesera Ruhanga,

Gatonde

Mutungirehe, Matabaro — Zigaba Nzaza,

Matayo Mirenge

Ndagiriye Nyagasaza Muhimpundu Bungura Ndorwa,

Karago

Ndenzago, — — Gesera Rwaza,

Ignace Bugarura

Ngaboyisonga, Muheto Bihama Singa Rwaza,

Calliope Bugarura

Ngerageze Mushokambere Sezirahina Banda Rugari,

Bugarura

250
A : R I      (Continued )

Name Father Grandfather Clan Location

Ngezahayo, Rudahari Murama Shambo Muhanga,

Joseph Bukunzi

Ngwije Kagenza Muhire Banda Gatovu,

Kabagari

Nibacece Murumunawasasa Gapfuzi Gesera Ndorwa,

Karago

Nkuriye, Kamonyo Sedigi Gesera Rambura,

André Bushiru

Nsabimana, Ndahiro Ruhumba Nyiginya Cyumba,

Gabriel Kabagari

Ntababa Barasobanya Kwiriha Bungura Mwiyanike,

Bushiru

Nturo, Sebinagana Seruvurungana Zigaba Butare

Raphael

Nturo, Kajeberi Bukaburana Bega Kabuye,

Sylvestre Buriza

Nyamuhinda, Ruguri Muramira Singa Gaseke,

Sabini Mulera

Nyandera Rushonda Byakunda Bungura Giciye

Nyirakabuga Cyigenza Rwakagara Bega Nzaza,

Mirenge

Nzabarinda, — — — Kabagari
Zorobakeli

Pascal Birahamye Muziga Cyaba Muhanga,

Bukunzi

Petero Migabo Rwitaba Bega Ntaga,

Mirenge

Ruchamubyuma Rwamirego Kagabo Nyiginya Mayaga

Rugambarara Nyamurara Rubega Shambo Nyakabuye,

Bukunzi

251
A : R I       (Continued )

Name Father Grandfather Clan Location

Rugerabicu Gahima Mudende Gesera Nyangurago,

Karago

Rugirankana, — — Singa Rwaza,

Joseph Mulera

Rujukundi, Rukundabayenzi Gapfunsi Gesera Rambura,

André Bushiru

Rusabagira Nshunguyinka Sentama Banda Gatonde

Rushaki Bogorogoza Mabare Zigaba Rushaki,

Rukiga

Rushara Mutsimanganya Rukamata Bungura Rambura,

Bushiru

Rutangira Ngirashema Muyoboke Nyiginya Mara,

Busanza

Rutabagisha Nzarubara Macoco Sindi Itumba,

Busigi

Rutamu Kabera Rugagaza Nyiginya Nyakizu,

Butare

Rwakabayiza — — — Mayaga

Rwakaje Bigirumwami — Zigaba Tusi,

Kiyombe

Rwenda Biteguje Ndungutse — Giciye

Rwigemera Musinga Rwabugiri Nyiginya Kigali

Sebagenga, Bizuru Semishabiki Gesera Akamazimwe,

Karoli Giciye

Sebahunyi Mugabwambere Rukangangabayombe Nyiginya Vumbi,

Butare

Sebitenge Rutungura — Singa Mwiyanike,

Bushiru

Sebuyange — — Gesera Ruhanga,

Gatonde

252
A : R I      (Continued )

Name Father Grandfather Clan Location

Segatwa, Mukenga — Bungura Gitwe,

Mossi Kabagari

Sekigarama — Ntibanyurwa Bungura Ndorwa,

Karago

Semagema Karamira Nshatse Zigaba Ruhanga,

Gatonde

Semarora, Birara Bukuba Singa Bumara,

Marc Mulera

Semusaza Muyoboke Rukarabuka Sindi Murama,

Kabagari

Semutwa Cyitatire Rwabugiri Nyiginya Butare,

Mvejuru

Serukenyinkware Musho Butare Singa Kibuye,

Bwishaza

Shikama, Bigaju Rutihunza Singa Kivunda,

Médard Bukunzi

Simbagaya, Mirimo Ngirokoyeze Zigaba Rwaza,

Gallican Bugarura

Toringabo Mihigo Mbona Bungura Gitebe,

Giciye

European Interviewees

Sandrart, Georges: Administrator in Rwanda, 1923–1952; interviewed in Brussels, December 1967.

Schmidt, R.J.L.: Administrator in Rwanda, 1929–1959; interviewed in Brussels, December 1967.

253
 N 

C . A T T

1. For the history of the Nyiginya dynasty see Vansina, Antecedents to Modern Rwanda.
For a general survey of the history of the region, see Chrétien, The Great Lakes of Africa.
For more general works on the precolonial history of Rwanda, see de Lacger, Ruanda;
Kagame, Un abrégé de l’ethnohistoire du Rwanda; D. Newbury, “Precolonial Burundi and
Rwanda.”
2. For the histories of these armies, see Kagame, Les milices.
3. One example is found in the dynastic poems: Kagame, La poésie dynastique du
Rwanda ancien, and Introduction aux grands genres lyriques de l’ancien Rwanda; A. Coupez and
T. Kamanzi, Récits historiques rwanda dans la version C. Gakaniisha; A. Coupez and Th. Ka-
manzi, Littérature de cour au Rwanda; Vansina, “Historical Tales (Ibiteekerezo) and the History
of Rwanda.” For the analysis of one such poem, see D. Newbury, “Bunyabungo.”
4. On the dynastic rituals, see d’Hertefelt and Coupez, La royauté sacrée. For the
analysis of one such ritual, the annual First Fruits ceremony, see D. Newbury, “What
Role Has Kingship?”
5. For a discussion of the extension of land authority at the beginning of the nine-
teenth century, see Rwabukumba and Mudandagizi, “Les formes historiques.”
6. A. Des Forges, “Defeat Is the Only Bad News,” 17.
7. This is a theme in many of the sources on this period; see especially Vansina,
Antecedents to Modern Rwanda, chap. 7; Kagame, Un abrégé de l’histoire du Rwanda, 13–129; de
Lacger, Ruanda, 354–69.
8. Interviews with Makeri, Rutabagisha, Isidore, Pascal, Shikama, Ngezahayo,
Rugambarara, Bihame, and Kidogo. Kagame, Le code des institutions politiques du Rwanda
précolonial, 121–24; Czekanowski, Forschungen, 102–5, 107, 246–48.
9. Maquet, Le système de relations sociales, 127; d’Hertefelt, Les clans du Rwanda ancien,
56–60.
10. Maquet, Le système de relations sociales,165, 177, 191–94; Kagame, Les organisations
socio-familiales, 272–74.
11. Kandt, Caput Nili, 253.
12. D’Hertefelt and Coupez, La royauté sacrée, 334.
13. Interview with Nsabimaana; Birasenyeri, “Notes sur les faits et gestes de Rwabu-
giri,” J. H. Derscheid Collection of Documents on Rwanda and Burundi, consulted
courtesy of Professor René Lemarchand (hereafter cited as “Derscheid Collection”).
14. De Lacger, Ruanda, 362; Kagame, Les milices, 49, 166.

255
256 Notes to pages 15–23

15. Interview with Muhama.

16. Von Götzen, Durch Afrika von Ost nach West, 174.
17. Interviews with Mugabontazi, R. Nturo, Byahene, Serukenyinkware, Semutwa,
and Rwakabayiza; Pagès, Un royaume hamite, 196–97.
18. De Lacger, Ruanda, 362.
19. Verhulst, “Renseignements.”
20. Interviews with Gatete, S. Nturo, Nsabimana, Mugabontazi, Bazatoha, and
Rwakabayiza; de Lacger, Ruanda, 366–70; Pagès, Un royaume hamite, 199–200; Delmas,
“Le Rwanda et autour de lui,” 69.
21. Kagame, “Un règne mouvementé.” [This has since been published as chapter
9 in Kagame, Un abrégé de l’histoire du Rwanda.]
22. Ramsay, “Über Seine Expeditionen,” 314.
23. He may have been referring to the Shangi battle of the previous July or to the
reestablishment of a post by Congo Free State troops sometime in 1897 (Anonymous,
Historique et Chronologie, 14, 95; Louis, Ruanda-Urundi, 43).
24. Kagame, Les organisations socio-familiales, 214–23; Ramsay, “Über Seine Expedi-
tionen,” 315.
25. Ramsay, “Uha, Urundi und Ruanda,” 180; Ramsay, “Über Seine Expedi-
tionen,” 315–17; Kandt, Caput Nili, 333.
26. Interviews with Gatete, S. Nturo, Rwakabayiza, and Byahene; Kagame, Les
milices, 48–49; Kagame, “Un règne mouvementé,” 2–3.
27. Kagame, “Un règne mouvementé,” 3–4.
28. Kagame implies that the two revolts were one, but those consulted in the
area did not link the two. The question needs further study. Kagame, “Un règne
mouvementé,” 4, and Les milices, 41–42; interviews with Karyabgite, Gasimba, Rwakaje,
and Munogo.
29. Interview with Mugabontazi; Kagame, “Un règne mouvementé,” 4–5, and Les
milices, 42. Karyabgite states that Muserekande was from Bujinja.
30. Pagès, Un royaume hamite, 211.
31. Interviews with Karyabgite, Gasimba, Rushaki, Byimana, Gatanazi, and Karyeja.
Kagame, “Un règne mouvementé,” 4–5; Kandt, Caput Nili, 270; de Lacger, Ruanda, 368;
and R. P. Martin, “Notice Historique sur le Bumbogo,” and R. Schmidt, “Notes sur les
Droits des Abaskyete,” both in the Derscheid Collection.
32. Interviews with Rushaki, Byimana, Gatanazi, Karyeja, Sebitenge, Bwico,
Ntababa, Kagisha, Mpakanye, and Gakunkiko. Kagame, “Un règne mouvementé,”
4–5; Pagès, Un royaume hamite, 213.
33. Kagame, “Le Rwanda et son roi,” 47.
34. Interviews with Nyirakabuga, Serukenyinkware, Sebahuniye, and Bazatoha; de
Lacger, Ruanda, 221–29.
35. Interviews with Semusaza, Byahene, and Gumira.
36. Interviews with Mugabontazi and Karyabgite; Kagame, “Un règne mouve-
menté,” 5.
37. Interviews with R. Nturo and Gumira; Kagame, “Un règne mouvementé,” 5.
38. Interview with Gumira.
39. Interviews with Muniga and Byahene; Kagame, “Un règne mouvementé,” 7;
Verhulst, “Renseignements.”
40. Interviews with Gumira, Nyirakabuga, Byahene, R. Nturo, Gatete, and S. Nturo;
Kagame, “Un règne mouvementé,” 7.
 Notes to pages 24–32 257

C . T C  C ,

 G A ,   N  C
1. Louis, Ruanda-Urundi, 43; Historique et Chronologie, 105; Diaire de la Mission de
Nyamasheke (hereafter cited as Nyamasheke), Archives de la Société des Missionaires
d’Afrique, Rome.
2. Kandt, “Bericht,” 114–24.
3. Kagame, Le code des institutions, 55–56; see also the accounts of von Götzen, Durch
Afrika von Ost nacht West; Ramsay, “Uha, Urundi und Ruanda”; and von Parish, “Zwei
Reisen durch Ruanda,” 5–13, 73–79.
4. De Lacger, Ruanda, 385; von Götzen, Durch Afrika von Ost nach West, 161; Kandt,
Caput Nili, 254, 258–59.
5. Von Götzen, Durch Afrika von Ost nach West, 161; Ramsay, “Uha, Urundi und
Ruanda,” 179; Ramsay, “Über Seine Expeditionen,” 311.
6. Kandt, Caput Nili, 239.
7. Kandt, Caput Nili, 271, 356.
8. Un Père Blanc, “Idées principales,” 353.
9. De Lacger, Ruanda, 385.
10. Un Père Blanc, “Idées principales,” 377–79, 386.
11. De Lacger, Ruanda, 381.
12. De Lacger, Ruanda, 383; Ruterandongozi, “Après les premières missionnaires,” 32.
13. De Lacger, Ruanda, 386.
14. Interview with Serukenyinkware.
15. Interviews with Semutwa and Rutangira.
16. Diaire de la Mission de Save, May 1900 (hereafter cited as Save; citations of
diaries always give the most specific reference possible, whether it is the exact date or
simply the month and year), Archives de la Société des Missionaires d’Afrique, Rome.
17. Interviews with Byahene and Mugabontazi.
18. Nothomb, “Petite histoire,” 11n.1.
19. De Lacger, Ruanda, 385.
20. Interviews with Rutangira and Byahene; Save, April 1900.
21. Save, February and March 1900.
22. Save, April and June 1900.
23. Save, May 1900.
24. Save, May 1900; Kayijuka, “Lebensgeschichte,” 121, 149.
25. Save, May 1900. Interviews with S. Nturo, Byahene, Serukenyinkware, Semutwa,
and Rwakabayiza.
26. Louis, Ruanda-Urundi, 44; Save, February and July 1900.
27. Save, May 1900.
28. Save, June 1900. Interviews with S. Nturo, Gatete, Muniga, Byahene, Mbonye,
and Mugabontazi.
29. Save, June 1900.
30. Save, September 1900; Kandt, “Bericht,” 120.
31. Kayijuka, “Lebensgeschichte,” 121, 149.
32. Save, June 1900.
33. Kayijuka, “Lebensgeschichte,” 121, 149.
34. Kandt, Caput Nili, 251, 252; “Bericht,” 115–16, 123; Save, August 1900.
35. Kayijuka, “Lebensgeschichte,” 122, 150.
258 Notes to pages 32–44

36. Kayijuka, “Lebensgeschichte,” 124, 152.

37. Kayijuka, “Lebensgeschichte,” 124, 153.
38. See, for example, Kayijuka, “Lebensgeschichte,” 125, 154, ff.; and Save, January
1904, April 1905.
39. Ramsay, “Über Seine Expeditionen,” 310–11; Kandt, “Bericht,” 118.
40. Abbé Kagame (Les milices, 162) and Père Pagès (Un royaume hamite, 622, 625)
accept Rukura’s claim, but Kandt, who actually met him, was skeptical, partly because
a White Father who had long served in Bushubi stated that Rukura had been born there
and had never before been in Gisaka (“Bericht,” 122). Informants in Gisaka agreed that
Rukura was not a descendant of Kimenyi nor even a native of Gisaka (interviews with
Nyirakabuga, Kagenza, and Gakona). In L’évolution (51), Vansina noted the widespread
use, throughout the Great Lakes region, of similar claims to justify the seizure of power.
41. Save, March and September 1900; Diaire de la Mission de Zaza, 30 May, 2 June
1901 (hereafter cited as Zaza); Kandt, “Bericht,” 122.
42. Save, September 1900. This was only the first of many conflicts between the
missionaries and the lay scientist, who was Jewish by birth. See de Lacger, Ruanda, 420;
Van Overschelde, Un audacieux pacifique, 70 ff.
43. Save, October, November, December 1900, January 1901.
44. Save, March and May 1901; Zaza, 24 May, 16 June 1901; Kagame, “Un règne
mouvementé,” 9–10; Kagame, Les milices, 162. Interviews with Kagenza and Gakona.
45. Save, June 1901; Kagame, “Un règne mouvementé,” 10.
46. Save, March 1901; Zaza, April 1901.
47. Save, April and August 1901.
48. Zaza, April, 8 May, 3 June, 7, 12–20 July, 1, 4, 15, 16, 18 August, 9 September
1901, 6, 17, 25, 30 March, 12, 13, 15 April 1902.
49. Zaza, 22 and 24 March, 12 and 22 April; Save, April 1902.
50. Zaza, 22 April, 9 May 1902.
51. Save, May, June, 28 July 1902; Zaza, 3 May, 2 June 1902.
52. Save, August, 2 July 1902; Louis, Ruanda-Urundi, 122.
53. Louis, Ruanda-Urundi, 122; Save, January 1902.
54. Save, 29 September, 8 October 1902.
55. Save, 8–16 October 1902; Zaza, October 1902.
56. Zaza, October and November 1902.
57. Zaza, November and December 1902; Save, 10 and 20 November, 23 and 30
December 1902, 3 January 1903.
58. Kagame, “Un règne mouvementé,” 10. Interviews with S. Nturo, Gatete,
Nyirakabuga, Muniga, Byahene, Gumira, Mbonye, and Mugabontazi.
59. Interview with Nyirakabuga. Verhulst, “Renseignements Historiques et
Politiques”; Kagame, “Un règne mouvementé,” 10; Save, 21 April 1903.
60. Kagame, Les milices, 51; Kagame, “Un règne mouvementé,” 10–11.
61. Save, 13 October 1903, 1 January 1904; Zaza, 6 November 1903; Anonymous,
Historique et Chronologie, 48.
62. Save, 7 April 1904; Verhulst, “Renseignements Historiques et Politiques”;
Kagame, “Un règne mouvementé,” 11–12.
63. Zaza, 21 September 1904; Kagame, Les milices, 163.
64. Save, 13 November 1904, 2 January 1905; Zaza, 8 January 1905. Interviews with
R. Nturo and Mugabontazi.
 Notes to pages 45–51 259

C . T M,  C, 

 L C , ‒ 
1. Father Brard [to Father Classe], 15 December 1903, Rwaza, Correspondence
Religieuse. [On the establishment of the mission stations in Rwanda, see Mbonimana,
“L’instauration d’un royaume chrétien au Rwanda,” and Linden and Linden, Church and
Revolution in Rwanda.]
2. Save, October 1901; for other examples, see Zaza, 20 October 1901 and Diaire
de la Mission de Mibirizi (hereafter cited as Mibirizi), 24 March 1905.
3. For examples of such appeals, see Mibirizi, 19 August–16 October 1904; Zaza,
December 1902; Save, 12 August 1904.
4. Zaza, December 1903, January 1904; Save, February 1904. Interview with
Serukenyinkware.
5. Interviews with Nyirakabuga, Rugambarara, Sebitenge, Bwico, Ntababa,
Gasimba, Kabera, and Gaterere; Czekanowski, Forschungen, 274–75; Louis, Ruanda-
Urundi, 124–25.
6. Louis, Ruanda-Urundi, 125; Save, 20 April 1903; Zaza, 9 June 1902.
7. Interviews with Nyirakabuga, Rutamu, Karyabgite, and Semutwa. Diaire du
Poste de Marie Immacule de Marangara (hereafter cited as Kabgayi), 2, 14 February, 20,
21, 30 May, 25 June 1906; de Lacger, Ruanda, 344, 428; Dufays, Jours troublés, 46. [ For a
more recent summary of the trade in slaves, see Chrétien, “The Slave Trade in Burundi
and Rwanda,” 210–30.]
8. Interviews with Rutamu, Karyabgite, Semutwa, Kamana, Mutarambirwa,
Mutungirehe, Petero, and Nyamuhinda. Diaire de la Mission de Rwaza (hereafter cited
as Rwaza), 12 April 1905, 28 January, 19 May, 27 May to 3 June 1906. The diary of the
Zaza mission has the fullest information on the slave trade because many of the caravans
traveling to the east coast passed nearby. See, for example, the entries for September, 10
October 1903, March 1905, 29 September 1905, January, 22 March, 24 November
1906.
9. Save, 15 and 17 May, July, 14 August, 27 September 1904; Zaza, 1 August 1904;
Father Brard to Fathers Barthelemy and Classe, 1 September, 4 October, 1904, Rwaza,
Correspondence Religieuse.
10. Save, 15 May, July 1904; Brard to Barthelemy and Classe, 1 September 1904;
Rwaza, Correspondence Religieuse.
11. Rwaza, 4 February 1904.
12. Rwaza, 27 March, 4, 18, 28 April, 21 October 1904.
13. Interviews with Busuhuko, Ngerageze, Rusabagira, Mutarambirwa, Kamere,
Mutabazi, and Mitima. Brard [to Classe], 15 December 1903, Rwaza, Correspondence
Religieuse.
14. Rwaza, 4 and 28 April, 1 July 1904; Dufays, Jours troublés, 30–31.
15. Rwaza, 18, 20, 24 June, 11 and 21 July 1904. Interviews with Semarora,
Nyamuhinda, Habyarinka, Kanyamudari, and Ngaboyisonga.
16. Interviews with Habyarinka, Kanyamudari, Ngaboyisonga, Ndenzago, Bazirake,
Simbagaya, Kamere, Mutabazi, Nyamuhinda, Semarora, and Mitima. Rwaza, 21
July–4 September 1904; Brard to Barthelemy and Classe, 4 and 6 September [ but
should be 4 and 6 October] 1904; Rwaza, Correspondence Religieuse; Dufays, Jours
troublés, 32–37.
260 Notes to pages 51–56

17. Interview with Mitima. Rwaza, 6 August, 12 and 20 September, 5 and 10 October
1904; Save, 6 and 23 August 1904; Brard to Barthelemy and Classe, 1 September 1904;
Rwaza, Correspondence Religieuse; Rwaza, 6 August, 12 and 20 September 1904;
Dufays, Jours troublés, 36, 38–39.
18. Save, 6, 10, 11, 23 August 1904; Brard to Barthelemy and Classe, 1 September
1904, Rwaza, Correspondence Religieuse.
19. Zaza, 1 August, 1–21 September 1904; Brard to Barthelemy and Classe, 1 and 19
September, 4 and 6 September [October] 1904, Rwaza, Correspondence Religieuse;
Save, 9 and 16 September 1904.
20. Save, 19 and 28 September 1904; Zaza, 21 September 1904.
21. Zaza, 15 September 1904; Save, 22 September 1904. Zaza, September 1930,
also reviews these events and recounts the later history of the four domains given the
Fathers.
22. Save, 1–2, 14, 23 October, 4 November 1904; Brard to Barthelemy and Classe, 4
September [October] 1904; Rwaza, Correspondence Religieuse; Louis, Ruanda-Urundi, 126.
23. Interviews with Habyarinka, Kanyamudari, Ngaboyisonga, Ndenzago, Bazirake,
Simbagaya, Nyamuhinda, Semarora, and Mitima. Rwaza, 16–23 October 1904; Dufays,
Jours troublés, 41–43; Louis, Ruanda-Urundi, 123.
24. Save, 14 and 23 October 1904; Pagès, Un royaume hamite, 655n.1; Czekanowski,
Forschungen, 126.
25. Brard to Barthelemy and Classe, 1 and 28 September, 4 September [October]
1904, Rwaza, Correspondence Religieuse; Save, 17 February 1905; Rwaza, 19 September
1904, 23 April 1905.
26. Louis, Ruanda-Urundi, 126–27; the text of the ordinance is given in Save, 27 April
1905.
27. Rwaza, 24, 28, 30 December 1904; 1, 14, 18, 19, 29 January, 3 and 7 March 1905;
Save, 21 January, 6 February 1905; Zaza, November 1904, 8 January, February 1905;
Louis, Ruanda-Urundi, 124.
28. Save, 13 November, 29 December 1904; 6 February 1905; Kabgayi, Fondation,
13 February 1905; Nothomb, “Petite histoire,” 18–19.
29. Save, 11 August, 9, 22 September 1904, 17 February 1905; Zaza, August 1904;
Rwaza, 29 and 10 July 1904; Brard to Barthelemy and Classe, 1 September 1904, Rwaza,
Correspondence Religieuse.
30. Kabgayi, 25 February 1905, 24–28 and 31 January, 3 March, 20 May, 22 Sep-
tember 1906, 5 September 1908; Zaza, 9 September 1901; Rulindo, Cahier de Conseil,
19 February 1909, 29 January 1910, 25 August 1912 (hereafter cited as Rulindo); Diaire de
la Fondation de Murunda, Kanage (hereafter cited as Murunda), 20 May 1909, 18 June
1914; Mibirizi, 22 December 1903, 27 February, 5, 6, 11 March 1904; Rwaza, 28 November
1903, 1 July 1904, 3, 29 January 1905; 19 March 1906. Interviews with Semagema,
Busuhuko, Ngerageze, Gakona, and Kagenza.
31. Save, 2 July 1905; details of the transport of trees are in Save, 12 May, 2, 15, 24
July, 17 August, 4 September, 2 and 15 October 1905, 2 January, 19 and 26 March, 2 and
20 April, 24 May 1906; and in Kabgayi, 15 February 1906.
32. Save, 2 and 15 October 1905.
33. Kabgayi, 15 February 1906.
34. Rwaza, 3 October 1906.
35. Save, 15 July 1905.
 Notes to pages 57–61 261

36. Save, March 1902. See also Save, October–November 1900, April 1901, 25
August 1902; Zaza, November and December 1902, February and March 1903; Mibirizi,
22 December 1903.
37. Save, August, 19 September 1902.
38. Save, 7 July 1903; de Lacger, Ruanda, 401–2.
39. Zaza, 27 January, 18 February, 13 April 1908; Kabgayi, 6 and 7 February 1909.
40. L. Roussez, Supérieur Régional to White Fathers, 16 July 1913, Kigali, Corre-
spondence Religieuse.
41. Interviews with Rutangira, Busuhuko, Ngerageze, Mutarambirwa, Gahakwa,
Rwenda, Semagema, Gatete, S. Nturo, Muhama, and Segatwa. Rwaza, 3 January 1905;
Bishop Hirth to White Fathers, 30 January 1911, Classe to White Fathers, 18 December
1912, Rwaza, Correspondence Religieuse; Save, 17 June 1907; Diaire de la Station de
Notre Dame des Apôtres, Kansi (hereafter cited as Kansi), 25 April 1911; Kabgayi, 19
October 1909.
42. Zaza, 23–25 May, 17 August 1911; Kansi, 23–24 January 1912; Kabgayi, 6–7 Feb-
ruary 1909; Classe to White Fathers [1912], Classe to White Fathers [17 April 1913], Kigali,
Correspondence Religieuse. Interviews with Nyirakabuga, Rutamu, and Muhama.
43. Zaza, 28 June 1908, 22 April 1911; Save, 17 June 1907.
44. Such maneuvers are recorded in all the diaries, but the most interesting took
place at Zaza; see entries for 5 September 1908, 6 April and 3 May 1911, and 5 September
1913.
45. Save, November 1901, August 1903; Zaza, 15 October 1901, 13 August 1903, 13
April, 1 August 1904; Murunda, 2, 4, 9 July 1909, 30 February 1912; Diaire de la Station
de Nyundo (hereafter cited as Nyundo), 5 August 1908, November–December 1910, 22
April 1911, 18 February 1913 ; Mibirizi, 27 and 30 November 1905, 2 December 1910;
Rwaza, 9 February, 20 March, 21 July–19 August 1904, 14 September, 4 October 1906, 5
August 1908, 15 April 1909, 1 April 1910; Dufays, Jours Troublés, 21, 23–26, 52, 63, 71.
46. Interviews with Ndenzago, Bazirake, Simbagaya, Habyarinka, Kanyamudari,
Ngaboyisonga, Semarora, Kamere, Mutabazi, Nyamuhinda, and Mitima.
47. Mibirizi, 22–25 June 1904; Rwaza, 13–20 June 1904, 28 April 1905.
48. Louis, Ruanda-Urundi, 176–177, 180n.4, 182; de Lacger, Ruanda, 382, 397–98;
Johanssen, Ruanda 32. Diaries and correspondence of the Fathers frequently refer to
misunderstandings with the Germans; see, for example, Save, 8 June 1905.
49. Zaza, 19 September 1904; Rwaza, 4, 6, 7, 28 November 1904, 5 August 1908.
Interviews with Busuhuko, Ngerageze, and Kamana. Dufays, Jours troublés, 42–43.
50. Murunda, 18–24 September 1913; the diaries of Murunda, Nyundo, and Rwaza
are especially rich in other examples, successful and unsuccessful, of intervention by the
Fathers.
51. Rulindo, 18 April 1909, 1 December 1912, 18 May 1913; Save, May 1900, 8 and
20 April 1906, 22 August, 15–17 and 19 September 1907; Kansi, 21 July 1912; Kabgayi, 12
January 1907, 9 February 1908, 30 April 1910; Zaza, March and December 1903, May
1904, March 1905, March 1906, 28 May 1907, 14 January, 25 February 1910, 4 April, 24
May 1911; Nyundo, 5 September 1908; Father Delmas to [Captain?] Wintgens, 20
December 1910, Rwaza, Correspondence Officielle; Classe to White Fathers [1912], 17
April 1913, Roussez to White Fathers, 16 July 1913, Kigali, Correspondence Religieuse;
Kandt, “Bericht,” 120. Interviews with Semagema, Rusabagira, Mutarambirwa,
Nyirakabuga, and Mitima.
262 Notes to pages 61–64

52. Save, 6 June, 10 September 1902, 5 January 1914; Murunda, 22 and 31 January
1913; Kansi, 15 February 1911; Zaza, 2 and 15 June 1910; Kabgayi, 28 November 1909;
Nyundo, 3 and 4 November 1910, 21 July 1911; Rwaza, 6 November 1904, 17 May 1906.
Richard Kandt, Resident, to White Fathers at Rwaza, J.N. 705, 25 August 1911; Interim
Resident Gudowius to Father Superior, Rwaza, 9 December 1911, J.N. 975; Delmas to
Resident, 10 January 1912, all in Kigali, Correspondence Officielle. Interviews with
Isidore, Pascal, Shikama, Ngezahayo, Kamana, Rusabagira, Toringabo, Bahinbano,
Bigirankana, Muhama, Mugabontazi, and Nyamuhinda.
53. Rwaza, 10 February 1911. Interviews with Nyamuhinda, Kamere, Mutabazi,
Isidore, Pascal, Shikama, Ngezahayo, Habyarinka, Kanyamudari, Ngaboyisonga,
Busuhuko, Ngerageze, Semagema, Kagisha, Mpakaniye, Gakunkiko, Sebitenge, Bwico,
Ntababa, Gashyekero, Rugerabicu, and Guriro. Rwaza, 22 February, 2 May, 11 December
1904; Zaza, July 1902, 13 August 1903, May, June 1904, 14 July 1909; Nyundo, 24 June
1908; Save, 31 January 1907, 19 April 1909, 8 June 1912; Murunda, 2 January 1913;
Kabgayi, 24 March, 26 August 1906.
54. Zaza, 22 March 1906.
55. Un Père Blanc, “Idées principales,” 379.
56. Zaza, 13 January, 22 September 1907; also Zaza, 8 January 1905, 2, 7, 10, 12
December 1906, 13 May 1908; Rwaza, 15 and 20 September 1910; Classe to White
Fathers, 8 June 1908, Hirth to White Fathers, 9 June 1908, Classe to White Fathers, 21
October 1910, Hirth to White Fathers, 28 August 1912, Classe to White Fathers, 18
December 1912, all Rwaza, Correspondence Religieuse. Interviews with Mitima,
Habyarinka, Kanyamudari, and Nyaboyisonga.
57. Rwaza, 18 June 1904; Kabgayi, 20 February 1906; de Lacger, Ruanda, 387–388.
On land holdings: Zaza, 11 November 1906; de Lacger, Ruanda, 388, 396. While many
notables held very large estates (for pasture), these mission holdings were nonetheless
enormous when compared to most agricultural plots; at the end of colonial rule the
average agrarian plot was roughly half a hectare.
58. Interviews with Kamere and Mutabazi. Rwaza, 23 April 1904, 17 January 1906;
Rulindo, 15 October 1911, 17 November 1912; Kansi, 22 December 1910, 4 and 6 January,
28 July 1911; Kabgayi, 22 January 1908; Murunda, 7 November 1912, 10 October 1913;
Zaza, 19 August 1910, 16 March 1912; Classe to White Fathers, 13 January 1916, Kigali,
Correspondence Religieuse.
59. Interviews with Kamere and Mutabazi; Murunda, 5 November 1912, 1 August
1913, 14, 27, 30 March, 2 April 1914; Classe to White Fathers [1912], Kigali, Correspon-
dence Religieuse.
60. Save, 2 June 1905, January 1909.
61. Classe to White Fathers, 13 January 1916, Kigali, Correspondence Religieuse;
Classe to White Fathers, 28 March 1909, Rwaza, Correspondence Religieuse; Zaza, 3–4
April 1911.
62. Zaza, March 1906, 22 September 1907, 7 and 13–14 April 1909, 3–4 April 1911,
16 March 1913, 15 and 20 January 1913.
63. Rulindo, 15 October 1911; Kansi, 21 April 1911; Kandt to Classe, J.N. 867/08, 3
November 1908; Kigali, Correspondence Officielle.
64. Hirth to White Fathers, 23 May 1908, Rwaza, Correspondence Religieuse;
Zaza, 5 September 1908, 13 and 14 April 1909, 25 February, 30 June, 20 August 1910, 26
February, 23 April, 15 May 1911.
 Notes to pages 64–69 263

65. Kabgayi, 20 February 1906; Zaza, 11 November 1906; Kandt to Classe, J.N.
867/08, 3 November 1908; Kigali, Correspondence Officielle.
66. Zaza, 24 November 1906, 6 January 1908.
67. Interviews with Ndenzego, Bazirake, Simbagaya, Mitima, and Nyamuhinda;
Mibirizi, 14 June 1910; Kabgayi, 21 April, 9 June 1909; Rwaza, 29 December 1910;
Classe to White Fathers [1912], Kigali, Correspondence Religieuse.
68. Zaza, April 1903. For examples of the importance of one of the missions as a
trade center, see Kansi, 1 January, 15 May, 5 November 1911, 8 and 11 October, 13
November 1912.
69. Almost all the diaries mention one or more occasions when the Fathers were
asked to make rain. A particularly interesting example is recorded in Zaza, 30 October
to 14 December 1908. When the efforts of the missionaries once failed, Musinga even
asked the German Resident to try his hand at making rain (Kabgayi, 1 June 1909).
70. Interview with Semusaza.
71. Pagès, Un royaume hamite, 655n.1; Czekanowski, Forschungen, 126; Kabgayi, 10
February 1905.
72. Interviews with Gashyekero, Rugerabicu, and Guriro; Zaza, 26 and 27 October
1910.
73. Czekanowski, Forschungen, 126.
74. Interviews with Mugabontazi, Semarora, Nyirakabuga, Rutamu, Rwakabayiza,
Serukenyinkware, Ruchamubyuma, Segatwa, Rusabagira, Gashyekero, Rugerabicu,
Guriro, Mutungirehe, Nyamuhinda, Habyarinka, Kanyamudari, and Ngaboyisonga.
Zaza, 23 June 1907.
75. Interviews with Rwakabayiza and Semarora. Classe to White Fathers, 28 October
1911, Rwaza, Correspondence Religieuse.
76. Interviews with Semarora and Nyamuhinda. Mibirizi, 10 May 1905, 23 June
1909; Rwaza, 1 January, 22 March 1904, 3 January, 19 and 28 March, 4 April, 1 May, 16
August 1905, 30 January 1907, 17 October 1908, 3 March 1909, 22 May 1910; Save,
March, 16 July 1902, 14 December 1906, 2 February, 16 April 1907; Zaza, 13 March 1906,
12 January 1907; Murunda, 28 April 1912, 17 May 1913; Nyundo, 8 March 1911; Kansi,
14 July 1912; Kabgayi, 20 May, 26 June, 10 September, 19 October 1906, 7 and 19 October
1909, 26 July 1910.
77. Mibirizi, 2 June 1904; Rwaza, 22 March 1904, 3 January, 4 April 1905; Kabgayi,
11 February, 30 October 1906.
78. Mibirizi, 10 May 1905.
79. Kabgayi, 21 February 1908; Zaza, March 1913.
80. Mibirizi, 26 May 1904.
81. Zaza, 2 November 1908.
82. Murunda, 10 October 1913; Zaza, 12 December 1906; Father Soubielle to
Wintgens, 30 December 1910, Rwaza, Correspondence Religieuse.
83. Classe to White Fathers [17 April 1913], Kigali, Correspondence Religieuse.
84. Rwaza, 14 April 1910; Hirth to White Fathers, 28 August, Classe to White Fathers,
18 December 1912, Rwaza, Correspondence Religieuse; Classe to White Fathers [1912],
Kigali, Correspondence Religieuse. Kabgayi, 12 May 1906, 31 July 1907.
85. As is clear from Johanssen’s account in Ruanda, esp. 175, the Protestants more
consistently abstained from secular questions and so never won the same repute as
rulers as did the Fathers.
264 Notes to pages 69–77

86. “Umwami w’Hutu” was Father Brard of Save, Kabgayi, 3 January 1907; Father
Dufays was known as “Rukizaboro” in the area of Rwaza (Dufays, Jours troublés, 52).

C . M’  C  A, ‒ 

1. Interview with Nyirakabuga. Musinga’s first children all died within several
years of birth, probably from natural causes rather than from a plot by Kanjogera,
which the Fathers believed in on the basis of popular rumor. See, for example, Save, 15
August, 17 October 1905, 15 May 1907. In 1907 Musinga told the German missionary
Johanssen that he had only one child who was still an infant; this was probably Ba-
kayishonga, daughter of Nyirakabuga, later baptized with the name Emma (interview
with Nyirakabuga). Also Johanssen, Ruanda, 41; Kabgayi, 24 June 1907.
2. Kandt, “Bericht,” 121.
3. Meyer, “Auf neuen Wegen,” 120; Czekanowski, Forschungen, 252–53.
4. See, for example, the ngabo Rwabugiri created in honor of other sons in Kagame,
Les milices, 172–73.
5. Vincent, L’enfant, 102, 169, 181; Kagame, Les organisations socio-familiales, 256–63,
274–77.
6. Czekanowski, Forschungen, 238; Birasenyeri, “Notes sur les faits et gestes de
Rwabugiri,” Derscheid Collection.
7. Kagame, Les organisations socio-familiales, 262.
8. Interview with R. Nturo.
9. Quote from interview with R. Nturo; see also interviews with Nyirakabuga,
Muhama, Rutamu, and Rucamubyuma.
10. Interviews with Gatete, S. Nturo, Muhama, Nsabimana, Mugabontazi, and
Rucamubyuma.
11. Interviews with Mbonye, Gumira, and Mugabontazi.
12. Interviews with Nyirakabuga, Bazatoha, Rwigemera, Semutwa, Rwakabayiza,
Byahene, Gumira, Karyabgite, R. Nturo, Rucamubyuma, Serukenyinkware, Gatete,
S. Nturo, Muhama, Bikuramuki, Nsabimana, Mbonye, Mugabontazi, Mitima, Kamere,
Ndenzago, Bazirake, Simbagaya, Rwakaje, and Munogo. The only informants to
dispute the general opinion of Musinga’s obedience to Kanjogera were Rutamu and
Rutangira, who were both Banyiginya.
13. Mibirizi, 3 November 1908.
14. Interview with Sebahunniye. See also Czekanowski, Forschungen, 256–60.
15. Interviews with Nyirakabuga, R. Nturo, Muhama, Gumira, Karyabgite, Ru-
camubyuma, Bazatoha, Mugabontazi, Segatwa, Mitima, and Kamere.
16. Save, 26 September 1907. [ But the context of this diary entry was important:
this was the time of the visit of the Duke of Mecklenburg, accompanied by a massive
caravan; see below. The frenzy at the Court associated with this visit might have affected
Court policies in the short run.—Ed.]
17. Interview with Byahene. Czekanowski, Forschungen, 256–57.
18. Save, 1 August 1903; Kabgayi, 27 December 1904.
19. Louis, Ruanda-Urundi, 125n.6.
20. Save, 13 November 1904, June 1905.
21. Save, 5 and 24 July, 17 August 1905.
22. Save, 2 December 1905; Rwaza, 7 June 1906; Kabgayi, February–September
1906, esp. 9 July 1906.
 Notes to pages 77–86 265

23. Kabgayi, 12 and 15 February; 2 and 4 March 1906.

24. Kabgayi, 4 March 1906.
25. Save, 2 September 1905.
26. Although German records mention no official appointment for Kandt, he was
clearly representing the German East African government in Rwanda in early 1906; see,
for example, Kabgayi, 24 March 1906, and Zaza, March and May 1906.
27. Kabgayi, 1 March 1906.
28. Kabgayi, 24–25 March 1906.
29. Kabgayi, 1 March 1906.
30. Save, 15, 20, 30 April 1906; Kabgayi, 12–14 and 18 July 1906; Bezirks-Offizier
Hauptmann [ Werner] von Gravert to Militarposten Kissenyi, Ishangi und Militarstation
Usumbura, 11 July 1906, Rwaza, Correspondence Officielle.
31. Zaza, May 1906; Kandt to Classe, I, no. 101/09, 11 March 1909, Kigali, Corre-
spondence Officielle.
32. Save, 28 May 1906.
33. Kabgayi, 1, 2, 12 June, 12–14 July 1906.
34. Kabgayi, 31 August, 2, 7–8, 30 September 1906.
35. Kabgayi, 28 October 1906.
36. Save, 6 October 1906.
37. Kabgayi, 28 October 1906, 11 May 1907; Save, 6 October 1906.
38. Zaza, 10 December 1906.
39. Kabgayi, 28 October 1906, 11 May 1907; Save, 6 October 1906; Zaza, 10
December 1906; Czekanowski, Forschungen, 258.
40. Kabgayi, 6 and 11 January 1907.
41. Kabgayi, 11, 13, 20 June, 31 July 1907; Save, 26 September 1907.
42. Kabgayi, 4 September 1907; visits from the Tutsi are noted almost daily in the
Kabgayi diary beginning in April 1907.
43. Kabgayi, 26 September 1907.
44. Save, 6 June, 7–8, 12, 14 August 1907.
45. Johanssen, Ruanda, 41.
46. Johanssen, Ruanda, 41, 47–49.
47. Save, 22 July, 9–11 August 1907; Kabgayi, 17–18 July 1907.
48. Czekanowski, Forschungen, 253–54; Friedrich, Herzog zu Mecklenburg, 109–11; Save,
29 September 1907.
49. Kabgayi, 13 and 18 August 1907; Save, 14, 17, 22 August, 15 and 19 September,
17 October 1907; Czekanowski, Forschungen, 127, 279, 286.
50. Save 19 and 22 October 1907.
51. Kabgayi, 13 June 1907.
52. Interviews with Nyirakabuga, R. Nturo, Rutamu, Semutwa, and Serukenyikware.
53. Ruterandongozi, “Après les premiers missionnaires,” 31–34; Kayihura, “Ceux
qui out bu au même chalumeau que Kabare,” 37–42.
54. Zaza, 1 March 1909; Save, 20 and 24 January, 2 February 1909, 2 February 1910.
De Lacger, Ruanda, 403–5, also recounts the incident but mistakenly places it in 1907.
Interviews with Gumira and R. Nturo.
55. Kabgayi, 11 and 22 December 1907.
56. Interview with Semutwa. Kansi, 16 April 1911.
57. Kandt to Catholic Mission at Kabgayi, J.N. 1356, 3 January 1911, Kigali, Corre-
spondence Officielle.
266 Notes to pages 86–92

58. Nyundo, 15 July, 6–8 August, 29 September 1911, 26 May 1913; information
communicated by Professor Marcel d’Hertefelt.
59. Nyundo, 15 July, 6–8 August, 29 September 1911, 26 May 1913; information
communicated by Professor Marcel d’Hertefelt.
60. Rwaza, 10 March 1911; Mibirizi, 24 July 1914.
61. Nyundo, 19 November 1911; Mibirizi, 7 March 1914; Rwaza, 10 January 1908, 1
December 1910, 27 February 1911.
62. Nyundo, 14 October 1912. For other examples, see Nyundo, 7 and 15 July, 10
December 1911, 10 February 1912, 12 May 1913; Rwaza, 6 March 1911, 5 June 1913; Save,
15 March 1908; Mibirizi, 29 April 1904, 7 August 1908.
63. Louis, Ruanda-Urundi, 178–79; Rwaza, 1, 3, 4, 7, 10 January 1911.
64. Nyundo, 2 March 1911.
65. Kandt to the Catholic Mission at Kabgayi, J.N. 1356, 3 January 1911, Kigali
Correspondence Officielle.
66. Zaza, 22 April 1909; Mibirizi, 24 June 1904; Rwaza, 21 April 1913.
67. Nyundo, 8 August 1911; Kabgayi, 4 January 1911; Mibirizi, 24 June 1904.
68. Zaza, January–February 1912.
69. Louis, Ruanda-Urundi, 183–84, 204. By comparison, the number of missionaries
in 1912 totaled fifty-five, of which forty-four were Catholics.
70. Kandt to White Fathers, J.N. 705, 25 August 1911, Gudovius to Father Superior,
J.N. 975, 9 December 1911, and Delmas to Resident, 10 January 1912, all in Kigali
Correspondence Officielle; Delmas to Wintgens, 27 November 1910, Delmas to Resident,
23 October and 3 November 1911, and [Kandt] to White Fathers, J.N. 788, 18 October
1911, all in Rwaza, Correspondence Officielle; Hirth to White Fathers, 22 November
1911, Rwaza, Correspondence Religieuse.
71. Interviews with Bazatoha and Serukenyinkware. Jahresbericht 1913 by Wintgens;
[ Un Missionnaire] “Notice sur le Ruanda,” 1916, Gouvernement Belge, Ministère des
Colonies, Service des Territoires des Colonies, dossier AE/II no. 1847, portefeuille 3288
(hereafter cited as “Notice sur le Ruanda”).
72. Interview with Karyabgite; information communicated by Professor Marcel
d’Hertefelt; Louis, Ruanda-Urundi, 152–53; Nyundo, 23 February, 12 May, 2 July 1913.
73. Kandt, Caput Nili, xx–xxi; “Notice sur le Ruanda.”
74. Louis, Ruanda-Urundi, 158–60; Murunda, 12 February 1914.
75. Murunda, 12 February, 9 and 11 June 1914; Nyundo, 13 August 1914.
76. Interview with Bazatoha; Kansi, 10 September 1912; Mibirizi, 7–20 August 1908.
77. Kabgayi, 22 July 1907; Zaza, 29 August 1908; Gudovius to Classe, J.N. 780, 24
August 1909, Kigali, Correspondence Officielle.
78. See especially the cases of Bitangampunzi, May to December 1909, of Thuriba
and Musa, February to December 1909, and of Andrea, May to November 1910, all in
the Zaza diary; also the entries 27–28 January, 11–12 February, 28 November, and 1
December 1909.
79. Kandt to Catholic Mission at Kabgayi, J.N. 1356, 3 January 1911, Kigali, Corre-
spondence Officielle.
80. Kabgayi, 4 January 1911; Louis, Ruanda-Urundi, 180–81 and 181n.8.
81. Kabgayi, 4 January 1911; Louis, Ruanda-Urundi, 180–81 and 181n.8.
82. Kandt to Classe, I, J.N. 867/08, 3 November 1908, and J.N. 856/08, 24 October
1908, Kigali, Correspondence Officielle.
 Notes to pages 92–99 267

83. Kabgayi, 16 and 19 February, 16 March 1909; Nyundo, 1 April 1909; Zaza, 19
and 20 February 1909; Kandt to Classe, I, J.N. 101/09, 11 March 1909; Johanssen,
Ruanda, 197–98.
84. For some interesting examples of these apparently common tactics, see Nyundo,
3–9 May 1911; Rwaza, 27 December 1910, 20 and 22 January, 10 December 1911; Delmas
to Wintgens, 20 and 29 December 1910, Rwaza, Correspondence Officielle.
85. Classe to White Fathers, 24 October 1909, Rwaza Correspondence Religieuse;
Nyundo, 2 February 1912.
86. De Lacger, Ruanda, 393; Johanssen, Ruanda, 169–70, 176, 179–80.
87. De Lacger, Ruanda, 393; Johanssen, Ruanda, 169–70, 176, 179–80; Kabgayi, 25
September 1906.
88. Save, August 1901; Nyundo, 8 September 1911; Mibirizi, 19 August 1906; Zaza,
12 May 1909. When in 1914 the governor of German East Africa ordered that Tutsi
were no longer to be beaten, the Resident protested strongly; Louis, Ruanda-Urundi, 203.
89. Zaza, 4 April 1911, March 1913; Kansi, 9 December 1911. Superiors of the
Fathers often reprimanded them for their own abuses of notables and for permitting
their followers to be similarly disrespectful. See, for example, Classe to White Fathers at
Marangara [Kabgayi] 1912; Roussez to White Fathers at Kabgayi, Carte de Visite
Regulière, 27 March–7 April 1913, Classe to White Fathers [17 April 1913], and Roussez
to White Fathers, 16 July 1913, all in Kigali, Correspondence Religieuse.
90. “Notice sur le Rwanda”; Johanssen, Ruanda, 164, 176, 241–44; Czekanowski,
Forschungen, 252, 254, 286.
91. Rwaza, Rapport Trimestriel, April 1914.
92. Johanssen, Ruanda, 61–62; Czekanowski, Forschungen, 286.
93. Louis, Ruanda-Urundi, 158.
94. Nyamuhinda; Kansi, 31 October, 3 December 1912; Rwaza, 18 May 1911, 3
December 1912, 19 April 1913; Mibirizi, 25 March 1914, 9 April 1915; Zaza, March 1903,
25 January 1908; Kandt to Classe, J.N. 351/10, 16 March 1910, Kigali, Correspondence
Officielle.
95. Louis, Ruanda-Urundi, 185–86; interview with Rutamu.
96. Information communicated by Professor Marcel d’Hertefelt.
97. Louis, Ruanda-Urundi, 157–58.
98. Classe to White Fathers, [17 April 1913], Kigali Correspondence Religieuse.
99. Louis, Ruanda-Urundi, 160. Johanssen made a similar comment about the Hutu
(Ruanda, 192).
100. All my informants agreed that Musinga still commanded Rwanda during the
period of German administration. Those furthest removed from the centers of power
certainly did not realize the number of demands made upon the mwami by the Europeans
or the number of times that he complied with them. Those closest to the Court were
aware of these incursions on Musinga’s power, but they were also better placed to
witness how the mwami used the Europeans to his own ends. Their unanimous judgment
was that the Germans “came and went” without ever ruling Rwanda.

C . E C  P, ‒ 

1. Birasenyeri, “Notes sur les faits et gestes de Rwabugiri,” Derscheid Collection.
Kagame mentions the Rundi invasion of southwestern Rwanda in Les milices, 130; it is
268 Notes to pages 100–102

also recorded in information given by Isidore, Pascal, Shikama, and Ngezahayo

(Bukunzi-Busozo, Group 1).
2. Anonymous, Historique et chronologie, 60, 182, 184; Verhulst, “Renseignements”;
Anonymous, “Notes des Pères Blancs,” Derscheid Collection; Kagame, Les milices, 48–50;
124.
3. The Batsobe and Basyete were among the first and most persistent in expanding
their control, particularly in north-central Rwanda. The Court was not always informed
of their activities and sometimes disapproved when it learned of them. See R. P. Martin,
“Notice historique sur le Bumbogo” (hereafter cited as Martin, “Notice historique”),
and [ Robert] Schmidt, “Notes sur l’histoire récente de la province du Bumbogo” (here-
after cited as Schmidt, “Histoire récente . . . Bumbogo”), both in the Derscheid Collection.
Also, interviews with Makeri and Rutabagisha. For another case of individual initiative
disallowed by the Court, see Kagame, Les milices, 130.
4. Although domains known to be profitable were enthusiastically contended for,
those reputed to produce little but trouble were feared and avoided whenever possible.
In 1907, for example, Musinga could find no one to accept the command of rebellious
Ndorwa (Czekanowski, Forschungen, 255, 262, 269), and he later had difficulty persuading
Rwidegembya to take command of part of Buberuka (interview with Karyabgite).
5. Rwaza, 17 and 20 February, 1, 7, 14–19, 31 March, 5, 12, 14 April 1905.
6. Rwaza, 12 May 1910.
7. Instances of such conflicts are recounted by Muhizi and Eleasar (Bwishaza);
Gasimba (Rukiga); Karyabgite (Central Kingdom); Sebuyange (Bukonya); and Nkuriye
and Buhuhano (Bushiru, Group 1). For others, see “Notes des Pères Blancs,” Martin,
“Notice historique,” and Schmidt, “Histoire récente de . . . Bumbogo,” all in the Der-
scheid Collection; Rwaza, March, April, and September 1905, 11 September 1906, June
and July 1907, 28 October 1910, August and September 1911; and Delmas to Musinga, 11
November 1912, Rwaza, Correspondence Officielle; and Murunda, 9 January 1913.
8. Czekanowski, Forschungen, 281–82; Rwaza, 1 April, 22 August 1905; interviews
with Muhizi and Eleasar; Murunda, 14–20 October, 9 November, 2 December 1912, 9,
28 April, 17–28 July 1913; Nyundo, 27 March 1910.
9. Rwaza, 28 October 1910; Classe to White Fathers, 21 October 1910, Rwaza,
Correspondence Religieuse.
10. von Beringe, “Bericht des Hauptmanns von Beringe,” 234–35, 264–66, 296–98,
317–19.
11. Rwaza, 25 December 1903, 12 January, 21 October 1904; Dufays, Jours troublés, 20.
12. Interviews with Gumira, Bichunchu, Semarora, Mitima, Kamere, Ndenzago,
Bazirake, Simbagaya, Habyarinka, Kanyamudari, and Ngaboyisonga; Rwaza, 25
December 1903, 22 February 1904; Anonymous, Historique et chronologie, 112–4; Reisdorff,
Enquêtes foncières, 50.
13. Interviews with Miruho, Rusabagira, and Mutarambirwa; Nyundo, 3 April
1911; Mibirizi, 14, 23, 27 March 1971.
14. Interviews with Rusabagira, Karyabgite, Rutamu, Makeri, and Rutabagisha.
Martin, “Notice historique,” and Anonymous, “Situation politique du Bumbogo, 12/
31/29,” both in the Derscheid Collection; [ H. Willems] “Administration du Territoire
au point de vue indigène, Residence du Ruanda, Territoire de Ruhengeri,” in Rwandan
Archival Materials (hereafter cited as Willems, “Administration de . . . Ruhengeri.”);
Rwaza, 16 August 1905, 10 January 1909; Classe to Resident G. Mortehan, 3 May 1928,
 Notes to pages 102–106 269

Kigali, Correspondence Officielle (the substance of this letter was published by G. De

Meire, “Quelques considerations”; Reisdorff, Enquêtes foncières, 18; and Pagès, “Note sur
le régime des biens,” 395–96). [On the evolution of labor forms, see Vidal, “Economie
de la société féodale Rwandaise,” 52–74; C. Newbury, “Ubureetwa and Thangata,”
97–111.]
15. Interviews with Rutamu and Kamana. Records of commands from Busanza,
Ndara, Bwanamukari, and Nyaruguru indicate a great increase in the number of
notables commanding in the early years of Musinga’s reign (the records are in Archives
de la Prefecture de Butare [hereafter cited as “Archives Butare”]). Pagès’s list of notables
commanding a part of Bugoyi shows an increase from seventeen under Rwabugiri to
thirty-three under Musinga (Un royaume hamite, 694–98).
16. Reisdorff, Enquêtes foncières, 60; Anonymous, Historique et chronologie, 111–12; Zaza, 26
January 1910. In some areas, like Bukonya, Hutu had worked out accommodations with
Tutsi who had been settled in their neighborhood for generations. Some Hutu, like Se-
magena (interview), trace their difficulties with the Tutsi to the arrival of the Banyanduga.
17. According to Karyabgite (interview), Rwabugiri captured Muserekande and
Nyakayoga during an expedition to Bujinja; he took Muserekande for his own wife and
gave Nyakayoga to Rutarindwa. This link in the origins of the two women may explain
why there is confusion about whether Muhumusa was supposed to have been the wife of
Rwabugiri or of Rutarindwa. She was apparently not of Rwandan birth. Nyirakabuga
(interview) also mentions Muserekande and Nyakayoga as being closely linked.
18. Dufays, Jours troublés, 10–11.
19. For descriptions of Nyabingi and Muhumusa’s role in the movement, see
Philipps, “The Nabingi,” 319–21; Bessell, “Nyabingi,” 73–86; Pauwels, “Le Culte de
Nyabingi,” 337–57; Edel, The Chiga, esp. 148–59; and Brazier, “The Nyabingi Cult.”
[ Four more recent works dealing with the Nyabingi phenomenon are Freedman,
Nyabingi: The Social History of an African Divinity (Tervuren: Musée Royal de l’Afrique
Centrale, 1984); Feierman, “Colonizers, Scholars, and the Creation of Invisible Histories”;
Hopkins, “The Nyabingi Cult of Southwestern Uganda”; and Des Forges, “‘The Drum
Is Greater than the Shout.’”]
20. Edel, The Chiga, 151–53 (on the regalia); “Notes des Pères Blancs.”
21. Basebya is generally said to have been the son of Nyirantwari, a Twa woman;
some say his father is unknown, while others claim he was a Hutu [or Mukiga] of
Bukonya or Mulera; Interviews with Rusabagira, Sebitenge, Bwico, Ntababa, Sebagenda,
Nyandera, Baseke, Kaburiyeri, Komayombi, Gahakwa, Rwenda, Habyarinka, Kanya-
mudari, and Ngaboyisonga.
22. Interviews with Karyabgite, Rusabagira, Mutarambirwa, Sebuyange, Makeri,
Rutabagisha, Habyarinka, Kanyamudari, Ngaboyisonga, Kamere, Mutabazi, Kabera,
Gaterera, Rwakaje, and Munogo. Rwaza, 22 April, 18 August 1905; Dufays, Jours troublés,
58–62; Louis, Ruanda-Urundi, 148; Anonymous, Historique et chronologie, 142–43. The figure
in the quotation (from Rusabagira) is of course not meant to be taken literally.
23. Interviews with Muhama and Mugabontazi. Anonymous, Historique et chronologie,
142.
24. Interviews with Gatete, S. Nturo, and Karyabgite. Rwaza, 18–26 August 1905;
Dufays, Jours troublés, 59–60; Anonymous, Historique et chronologie, 142. The quote is from
Rwaza, 25 August 1905.
25. For the European conflicts over this area, see Louis, Ruanda-Urundi, part 1.
270 Notes to pages 106–109

26. Rwaza, 15–17 June 1905, 12 July 1907, 31 August 1912; Delmas to Musinga, 11
September 1912, Rwaza, Correspondence Officielle.
27. Classe to White Fathers, 16 January, 1 and 21 October 1910, Rwaza, Correspon-
dence Religieuse.
28. Hirth, “Instruction pour la bonne marche de la chrétienté de Rwasa,” 17 June
1912, and Classe to White Fathers, 3 April 1913, both Rwaza, Correspondence Religieuse.
29. Kandt to the Catholic Mission at Kabgayi, J.N. 1356, 3 January 1911, Kigali,
Correspondence Officielle.
30. Interviews with Sebitenge, Bwico, Ntababa, Nkuriye, Buhuhano, Rushara,
Rujukundi, Bidahunga, Harimenshi, Sekigarama, Nibacece, and Ndagiriye. Classe to
White Fathers, 31 January 1910, Rwaza Correspondence Religieuse; Kandt to Hirth,
J.N. 1090/1, 30 October 1912, Kigali, Correspondence Officielle.
31. Interview with Bazatoha. See below for Germans’ refusal to allow Musinga’s
troops to attack his rival Ndungutse independently.
32. Interviews with Busuhuko, Ngerageze, Rusabagira, Kamere, Mutabazi,
Ndenzago, Bazirake, and Simbagaya. Czekanowski, Forschungen, 247.
33. Rwaza, 17 March 1905.
34. Rwaza, 14 March 1905.
35. Interview with Simbagaya. Examples of aid given by the Fathers to notables
trying to establish their authority can be found in the Rwaza diary, February through
April and August to September 1905, 26 April 1906, June 1909, January, June, and
December 1910, and May 1915; in Rwaza, Correspondence Religieuse, letters of Classe
to White Fathers, 14 September, 24 October 1909, 12 May, and 21 October 1910; and in
the Murunda Diary, 17 May, 1 June 1909, and 31 March 1914.
36. Interviews with Rusabagira, Bichunchu, Miruho, Kamana, Mutarambirwa,
Sebuyange, Semagena, Sebagenda, Nyandera, Baseke, Kaburiyeri, Komayombi,
Toringabo, Bahingano, Bigirankana, Gashyekero, Rugerabicu, Guriro, Gahakwa,
Rwenda, Semarora, Mitima, and Nyamuhinda. Rwaza, 2 March, 5–6 October 1909, 3
May 1910; and histories of the provinces Buhoma-Buhanga, Bukonya, Kibali-Kivuruga
in Willems, “Administration de . . . Ruhengeri.”
37. Nyundo, 3 April, 3–9 May 1911; 14 October 1912; Pagès, Un royaume hamite, 643;
Czekanowski, Forschungen, 271.
38. Nyundo, 25 August 1911.
39. Rwaza, 1–10 January 1911; Nyundo, 25 August 1911; interviews with Rushaki,
Byimana, Gatanazi, and Karyeja.
40. Interviews with Gumira, Busuhuko, Ngerageze, Nkuriye, Buhuhano, Rushara,
Rujukundi, Bidahuaga, Sebitenge, Bwico, Ntababa, Toringabo, Bahingano, Bigirar-
kana, Gahakwa, Rwenda, Gashyekero, Rugerabicu, Guriro, Mitima, Nyamuhinda,
Kamere, Mutabazi, Habyarinka, Kanyamudari, Ngaboyisonga, Rusabagira, Muta-
rambirwa, and Semagena. Nyundo, 18 January, 19 February 1908; Rwaza, 12 January, 11
October 1904, 30 March 1905, 17 July 1906, 27 June, 12 November 1907, 9 June, 5 October
1909, 3 May, 28–30 December 1910, 10–11 May 1917; Rwaza, Correspondence Officielle;
Provinces Bukonya, Kibali-Kivuruga, and Buberuka, in Willems, “Administration de . . .
Ruhengeri,”; Czekanowski, Forschungen, 274.
41. Interviews with Karyabgite, Makeri, Rutabagisha, Gatete, S. Nturo, and
Muhama. Rwaza, 19 March 1905, 25 June–12 July 1907; Martin, “Notice historique,”
Schmidt, “Histoire récente de . . . Bumbogo”: Pagès, Un royaume hamite, 643; Kagame, Le
code des institutions politiques, 37–38.
 Notes to pages 110–114 271

42. Interviews with Makeri, Rutabagisha, Isidore, Pascal, Shikama, Ngezahayo,

Nkuriye, Buhuhano, Rushara, Rujukundi, Bidahunga, Gashyekero, Rugerabicu,
Guriro, Nyamuhinda, Kamere, and Mutabazi. Rwaza, 22 August 1905; Mibirizi, 1
October 1907, 26 April 1910, 24 July 1914; Nyundo, 3 April 1911; Pagès, Un royaume hamite,
658–59; Pauwels, “Le Bushiru,” 227–28; Czekanowski, Forschungen, 269.
43. Nyundo, 8 August 1911; Mibirizi, 24 June 1904; Pagès, Un royaume hamite, 658.
44. Nyundo, 11 March, 8 August 1911, 14 October 1912; Mibirizi, 24 June 1904, 30
April 1907, 14, 23, 27 March 1911; Rulindo, 18 April 1909, 1 December 1912; Murunda, 14–
21 September 1914; Classe to White Fathers, 3 March 1911, Rwaza, Correspondence Re-
ligieuse; Delmas to Lieutenant, February 1911, Rwaza, Correspondence Officielle; Rwaza,
Rapports Trimestriels, April 1913; Rwaza, 28 May 1909; Pagès, Un royaume hamite, 658.
45. Interviews with Busuhuko, Ngerageze, Kamana, Rusabagira, Sebuyange,
Mutarimbirwa, Semagena, Kamere, Mutabazi, Ndenzago, Bazirake, Simbagaya,
Habyarinka, Kanyamudari, Ngaboyinsonga, Gasimba, Gatuhe, and Bahimana. Czeka-
nowski’s remarks on these changes are most perceptive; see especially Forschungen, 233–
51, 264–65, 267. See also Reisdorff, Enquêtes foncières, 18, 78, 118, and Pagès, “Note sur le
régime des biens,” 416.
46. Interviews with Kamana, Rusabagira, Mutarambirwa, Semagena, and
Nyamuhinda. Records of missions in the north note many instances of interference by
the Fathers in disputes within or between lineages. For the most interesting, see Murunda,
2, 22, 31 January 1913; Nyundo, 29 February 1908, 15 August 1909, 3–4 November 1910,
22 April 1911, 19 May 1915; Rwaza, 13 July 1908, 8 March 1910, 14 August 1911, 24
August 1912. For attempts by the Fathers to end vengeance, see Rwaza, 13 August, 1
December 1910, 22 October, 8 November 1915. For German attempts to end vengeance,
see Rwaza, 4 April 1908, 1 April 1910.
47. Murunda, 22 January 1913; Delmas to Wintgens, 18 January 1914, Rwaza, Cor-
respondence Officielle; Reisdorff, Enquêtes foncières, 18.
48. Rwaza, 22 Feburary, 27 March, 29 July 1904.
49. Kamana of Bukonya recalled: “The Abanyamuvumu began and those who
commanded ubutaka came after. When they were spread throughout the country, they
chased the Abanyamuvumu [from their positions of authority] and the latter did nothing
more.” Abanyamuvumu means literally “men of the umuvumu,” the ficus tree that was
planted at the entrance to the enclosure; it refers to heads of lineages. Also interviews
with Mutarambirwa, Karyabgite, Rutamu, Gumira, Ndenzago, Bazirake, Simbagaya,
Gasimba, Gatuhe, Bahimana. Rwaza, 29 January 1910; Reisdorff, Enquêtes foncières, 56.
50. Dufays, Jours troublés, 65–67; Kagame, Les milices, 166; Czekanowski, Forschungen,
242, 246–47, 248. Lineage heads in other areas also used the land of the lineage to build
their own power; Czekanowski (Forschungen, 250–51) describes this in Bugoyi, and Reisdorff
mentions it throughout his Enquêtes foncières.
51. Czekanowski, Forschungen, 246–47; Rwaza, 1 April 1910; interview with Mitima;
Dufays, Jours troublés, 65–66.
52. Czekanowski, Forschungen, 282; Rwaza, 1 April, 15 May, 22 August 1905, 18
February 1906, 13, 16 February, 8, 14 November, 9 December 1907, 26 March–4 April,
30 April, 13 November 1908, 2 March, 12, 15 June 1909, 1 April 1910.
53. Dufays, Jours troublés, 68–69. Interviews with Busuhuko, Ngerageze, Muhama,
Semarora, Mitima, Rugirankana, and Rucamubyuma. Rwaza, 1 April 1910.
54. Rwaza, 1 April 1910; interviews with Habyarinka, Kanyamudari, and Ngaboyi-
songa; Classe to White Fathers, 15 March 1910, Rwaza, Correspondence Religieuse.
272 Notes to pages 114–121

55. Rwaza, 1 April 1910.

56. Interviews with Habyarinka, Kanyamudari, Ngaboyisonga, Ndenzago, Bazirake,
Simbagaya, Rugirankana, Semarora, and Mitima.
57. Interviews with Mitima, Gumira, R. Nturo, Busuhuko, Ngerageze, Gatete,
S. Nturo, Kamere, and Mutabazi. Dufays, Jours troublés, 72–74. Several months before,
Loupias had struck Rukara in the course of a dispute, and his men had fled without
defending him; this may have influenced the decision of the Barashi to react so decisively
on the day of the murder (Rwaza, 1 April 1910).
58. Interviews with Semarora, Rugirankana, Kamere, Mutabazi, Ndenzago,
Bazirake, and Simbagaya. Rwaza, 5–9, 12–26 April 1910; Kabgayi, 9 April 1910; Zaza,
18 April 1910; Dufays, Jours troublés, 74; Louis, Rwanda-Urundi, 178–79; Anonymous, His-
torique et chronologie, 140–42; Resident ad interim, “Lukarras Ende,” [Deutsches Kolonialblatt? ],
included in the Derscheid Collection. By holding Rukara responsible for the crime of
his two kinsmen and the Barashi as a group responsible for the actions of these three,
Kandt showed that he could oppose general vengeance for murders of Rwandans while
still demanding it for the killing of a European.
59. Classe to White Fathers, 21 October 1910, Rwaza, Correspondence Religieuse;
Rwaza, 12, 14, 30 April, 2 May, 11 June, 10–12 October 1910.
60. Interview with Karyabgite; Rwaza, 3 February 1906; Kabgayi, 7 February 1906;
Dufays, Jours troublés, 58, 61–62.
61. “Die Batwa Zwerge in Ruanda,” 6–7; Louis, Ruanda-Urundi, 60–64, 74, 148–49.
62. Interview with Karyabgite; Nyundo, 8 April 1909; Savi, 10 April 1909; Kabgayi,
11 April 1909; Rwaza, 30 March, 3 April 1909; Dufays, Jours troublés, 60–62.
63. Interviews with Karyabgite, Nyirakabuga, Gatete, and S. Nturo; Rwaza, 23
August 1909; Kabgayi, 10 July 1909; Zaza, 24 June 1909; Louis, Ruanda-Urundi, 145–48.
Anonymous, Historique et chronologie, 179, confuses this expedition with one in 1911.
64. Interviews with Nyirakabuga, Karyabgite, Gatete, S. Nturo, and Muhama;
Zaza, 18 February, 24 June, 7 and 18 July, 13 and 25 August 1909.
65. Zaza, 7, 18 July, 7–26 September 1909; Kabgayi, 5 September 1909.
66. Zaza, 11, 22 October, 5 November, 1 December 1909, 7 January 1910; Louis,
Ruanda-Urundi, 147.
67. Louis, Rwanda-Urundi, 75, 79–91.
68. Save, 13 November 1904.
69. Nyundo, 20 July, 19 November 1911; Czekanowski, Forschungen, 253–54; Pagès,
Un royaume hamite, 652.
70. Louis, Ruanda-Urundi, 195.
71. Information communicated by Professor Marcel d’Hertefelt.
72. Schloback, “Die Vermarkung des deutsch-englischen Ruanda-Grenze,” 1041–
46; Jack, On the Congo Frontier, 239–40; interviews with Rwakaje and Munogo.
73. Nyundo, 12 November 1911; Rwaza, November 1911; Delmas to Resident, 3
November 1911; Kandt to White Fathers, 7 November 1911, Rwaza, Correspondence
Officielle.
74. Interviews with Karyabgite, R. Nturo, Ndenzago, Bazirake, and Simbagaya.
Rwaza, 8 and 11 February 1912; Kansi, 9 February 1912; Louis, Ruanda-Urundi, 154.
75. Interviews with Semarora, Nyamuhinda, Karyabgite, Muniga, Rugirankana,
Kamere, Ndenzago, Bazirake, and Simbagaya. Rwaza, 20 February 1912; Kansi, February
1912.
 Notes to pages 121–126 273

76. Interviews with Muniga, Gumira, Karyabgite, Nyirakabuga, Busuhuko,

Ngerageze, Kamana, Rusabagira, Toringabo, Bahimbano, Bigirankana, Gahakwa,
Rwenda, Gatete, S. Nturo, Muhama, R. Nturo, Mugabontazi, Semarora, Nyamuhinda,
Rugirankana, Ndenzago, Bazirake, Simbagaya, Habyarinka, Kanyamudari, Ngaboyi-
songa, and Gasimba. Rwaza, 5 January, 20 February 1912; Nyundo, 2 February 1912;
Dufays, Jours troublés, 74–75; Anonymous, Historique et chronologie, 143. Still another ex-
planation held that he was not the son of a mwami, but of a mwiru, one of the guardians
of the ritual traditions at Court, preparing the way for Biregeya who would come later
to claim the throne of his father (Kansi, 3 and 9 February 1912).
77. Interviews with Karyabgite, Nyirakabuga, R. Nturo, Ndenzago, Bazirake, and
Simbagaya. Rwaza, 8 and 11 February 1912; Kansi, 9 February 1912; Louis, Ruanda-
Urundi, 154.
78. Interview with Karyabgite.
79. Interviews with Karyabgite, Mitima, and Mugabontazi. Rwaza, 10 February
1912; Nyundo, 2 February 1912.
80. Rwaza, 5 January, 6 February, 7 April 1912; Delmas to Musinga, 11 September
1912, Rwaza, Correspondence Officielle; Dufays, Jours troublés, 76.
81. Rwaza, 11, 22, 29 February, 8 April 1912; Delmas to Resident, 26 July 1912,
Rwaza, Correspondence Officielle; Louis, Ruanda-Urundi, 155; Dufays, Jours troublés, 75;
interview with Karyabgite.
82. Rwaza, 22 February 1912.
83. Interview with Karyabgite.
84. Interview with Semarora; Nyundo, 2 February 1912; Rwaza, 5 January 1912;
Kansi, 9 and 26 February 1912; Louis, Ruanda-Urundi, 155.
85. Interview with Karyabgite; Kansi, 9 February 1912; Nyundo, 9 March 1912;
Rwaza, 8, 11, 13, 15, 20, 22, 24, 26 February, 11 April 1912; Kabgayi, 2 February 1912;
Gudovius to Missions of Kabgayi, Rwaza and Nyundo, 8 April 1912, Rwaza Correspon-
dence Officielle; Rulindo, 4 February, 17 March 1912; Louis, Ruanda-Urundi, 154–55;
Dufays, Jours troublés, 75.
86. Interview with Muniga; Kansi, 21 April 1912; Dufays, Jours troublés, 75.
87. De Lacger, Ruanda, 229–36.
88. Interviews with Bazatoha, Karyabgite, Muniga, Gatete, Muhama, and S. Nturo.
Kagame, Les milices, 175; Anonymous, Historique et chronologie, 143; Louis, Ruanda-Urundi,
155; Rwaza, 11 and 25 February 1912.
89. Interviews with Karyabgite, Bazatoha, Muniga, and Semarora. Kansi, 9 and
26 February, 24 March 1912; Rwaza, 15, 21, 24–26 February 1912; Kansi, 26 February
1912; Louis, Ruanda-Urundi, 155.
90. Kansi, 26 February 1912.
91. Interview with Semarora; Rwaza, 7 and 8 April 1912; Kansi, 15 and 16 April
1912; Dufays, Jours troublés, 76.
92. Interviews with Karyabgite, Bazatoha, Muniga, Habyarinka, Kanyamudari,
Ngaboyisonga, Semarora, Mbonye, Busuhuko, Ngerageze, Rugirankana, Ndenzago,
Bazirake, and Simbagaya. Rwaza, 11 and 13 April 1912; Kansi, 21 April 1912; Anonymous,
Historique et chronologie, 143–44; Louis, Ruanda-Urundi, 156.
93. Louis, Ruanda-Urundi, 156.
94. Interviews with Nyamuhinda, Rusabagira, Semagena, Sebagenda, Nyandera,
Baseke, Kaburiyeri, Komayombi, Toringabo, Bahinbano, Bigirankana, Gahakwa,
274 Notes to pages 126–133

Rwenda, Gashyekero, Rugerabicu, Guriro, Makeri, Rutabagisha, Karyabgite, Semarara

and Mitima. Anonymous, Historique et chronologie, 144; Louis, Ruanda-Urundi, 157; Hirth to
White Fathers, 11 and 22 April 1912, Rwaza, Correspondence Religieuse.
95. Rwaza, 14–18 April, 2–5 May 1912; the quote is from Rwaza, 3 May 1912.
96. Interview with Rusabagira.
97. Interviews with Karyabgite, Rusabagira, Makeri, Rutabagisha, and Semagena.
Rwaza, 17 April 1912; Provinces Buhoma-Buhanga, Bukonya, Kibali-Kivuruga, Bukamba,
Buberuka in Willems, “Administration du . . . Ruhengeri”; Anonymous, Historique et
chronologie, 162, 165.
98. Interviews with Nyirakabuga, Karyabgite, Mutarimbirwa, Toringabo, Ba-
hingano, Bigirankana, Gatete, S. Nturo, Muhama, Mugabontazi, Ngwije, Habyarinka,
Kanyamudari, Ngaboyisonga, Gasimba, Kabera, Gaterere, Kamere, and Mutabazi.
Provinces Ndorwa and Buberuka in Willems, “Administration du . . . Ruhengeri”;
Anonymous, Historique et chronologie, 144–45.
99. Interviews with Busuhuko and Ngerageze.
100. Interviews with Semarora, Mitima, Rugirankana, Habyarinka, Kanyamudari,
and Ngaboyisonga. Rwaza, 18 April 1912; Dufays, Jours troublés, 76; Anonymous, Histo-
rique et chronologie, 142.
101. Louis, Ruanda-Urundi, 157.
102. The text of the poem and the incident to follow are recounted in Gishoma,
“La Chute de Musinga.” [See also Kagame, Les genres lyriques du Rwanda, 56.]

C . N E, N C T,

‒ 
1. Resident De Clerck, “Rapport d’ensemble sur la Situation de la Residence du
Rwanda et sur l’activité de l’administration,” Gouvernment Belge, Ministère des Colonies,
Service des Territories des Colonies, dossier AE/II no. 1847, portefeuille 3288x (here-
after cited as De Clerck, “Rapport”); Louis, Ruanda-Urundi, 208–9. [ For an account of
the effects of this on Ijwi Island, see D. Newbury and C. Newbury, “King and Chief:
Colonial Politics on Ijwi Island,” 221–46.]
2. Rwaza, 28 September 1914; Save, 23 August, 13 November 1914.
3. Louis, Ruanda-Urundi, 193; Save, 1 December 1914; Rwaza 3, 19 March 1915;
Willems, “Administration du . . . Ruhengeri.”
4. DeClerck, “Rapport”; Léon-Paul Classe, “L’organisation politique du Rwanda
au début de l’occupation Belge,” 28 August 1916, in the Derscheid Collection; “Notice
sur le Ruanda.”
5. Interviews with Rutamu, Semutwa, Mugabontazi, Gumira, R. Nturo, and
Rwakabayiza. Father Classe to Commandant Van Aerde, 6 December 1916, Kigali
Correspondence Officielle.
6. Interviews with Semutwa, Gatete, S. Nturo, Muhama, Karyabgite, R. Nturo,
and Rwakabayiza. Save, 23 August 1914, 20 February, 18, 28, 30 August 1915; Zaza, 8
June 1914.
7. “Notice sur le Ruanda”; Willems, “Administration . . . du Ruhengeri”; interviews
with Rushaki, Byimana, Gatanazi, and Karyeja.
8. Rwaza, 12 and 13 June 1915; Kansi, 1–21 September 1914; Save, 5 August 1915;
Kabgayi, October 1914.
 Notes to pages 133–137 275

9. Rwaza, 4 October 1914, 31 January, 8 May, 10 June 1915; Murunda, 22 August

1914; Kansi, 17 August 1914; Save, 15 and 23 August, 1914; Nyundo, 25 December 1914;
Ernst Johanssen, Führung, 233–34, 236–39, 245.
10. Anonymous, Historique et chronologie, 153; Rwaza, 13 May 1915; Willems, “Admin-
istration . . . de Ruhengeri.”
11. Rwaza, 20–30 November, 3 December 1915; Hopkins, “The Nyabingi Cult of
Southwestern Uganda,” 282–84.
12. Rwaza, 3–20 December 1915, 12 February 1916.
13. Interviews with Rwakaje, Munogo, Rugirankana, Kamere, and Mutabazi.
Rwaza, 25 and 28 January, 6–12 February, 25 and 30 March, 2 and 7 April 1916. In
“Nyabingi,” 82–83, Bessell identifies Bichubirenga with Ndochibiri (Ntoke Mbiri), a
Nyabingi leader who harassed the British until 1919, but they were probably two differ-
ent individuals, though they may have cooperated in the attack on Chahafy. Ndochibiri
was said to be from Buhunde (in Congo), a short man with only two fingers on one
hand, while Bichubirenga was supposedly a Tutsi who spoke Kinyarwanda and had no
such disfigurement. See also Hopkins, “The Nyabingi Cult of Southwestern Uganda,”
286–88.
14. Interviews with Semutwa, Kamere, and Nyamuhinda. Rwaza, 15 May 1916;
“Notice sur le Ruanda”; Thaddée Gishoma, “La Chute de Musinga,” typescript
consulted courtesy of Professor René Lemarchand, Department of Political Science,
University of Florida.
15. The victims were Segore and Rwamiheto. Interviews with Semutwa, Gatete,
S. Nturo, Muhama, Rwakabayiza, Byahene, and Muniga.
16. Louis, Ruanda-Urundi, 216–17; De Clerck, “Rapport”; Commissaire Royal
Malfeyt, “Note sur le Rapport Politique du Rwanda,” 3 January 1919, Gouvernement
Belge, Ministere des Colonies, Service des Territories des Colonies, dossier AE/II, no.
1847, portefeuille 3268 (hereafter cited as Malfeyt, “Note”).
17. DeClerck, “Rapport.” Interviews with Gatete, Muhama, S. Nturo, Mugabontazi,
Kagenza, Gakona, Bazatoha, Muniga, Byahene, R. Nturo, Ruchamubyuma, Semutwa,
and Serukenyinkware.
18. DeClerck, “Rapport”; Save, April 1918; Zaza, 31 January 1917.
19. Nyudo, 26 August 1916; Rwaza, 14–18, 20 June 1916.
20. Interviews with Semarora, Ngaboyisonga, Kanyamudari, Habyarinka, Kamere,
Mutabazi, and Nyamuhinda. Nyundo, 26 August 1916; Rwaza, 14–18, 20 June 1916.
21. Interview with Nyamuhinda.
22. Interviews with Semarora, Nyamuhinda, Kamere, Semutwa, Rwigemera,
Serukenyinkware, Sebahunyi, Rwakabayiza, Rutamu, Nyirakabuga, R. Nturo, Byahene,
Muniga, and Bazatoha.
23. Interviews with Gatete, Muhama, S. Nturo, Mugabontazi, Mbonye, Karyabgite,
R. Nturo, Rutamu, Rwigemera, and Serukenyinkware.
24. Interviews with Rwigemera and R. Nturo.
25. Interviews with Bichunchu and Rusabagira. Rwaza, 4–7 May, 12 June, 30
September 1916; Kabgayi, 23 July 1916; Kansi, 25 May 1916; Sous/officier Collard,
“Rapport Politique,” December 1917, Ruhengeri Letterbook, Rwandan Archival
Materials (hereafter cited as “Letterbook”).
26. Pagès, Un royaume hamite, 452; Father Classe to Commandant, 22 March 1917,
Kigali, Correspondence Officielle; see also the Nyundo Diary for the entire period. [For
276 Notes to pages 138–148

a more recent treatment covering some of the same ground, see Lugan, “Causes et
effets,” 347–56.]
27. Commissaire Royal (?) to Resident, 26 June 1918, no. 2341/J, Gouvernement
Belge, Ministère des Colonies, Service des Territories des Colonies, dossier AE/II, no.
1847, portefeuille 3290; Zaza, 30 July 1918.
28. De Clerck, “Rapport.” See also the diaries of Nyundo, Rambura, and Kabgayi
throughout the period. Interviews with Gashyekero, Rugerabicu, and Guriro.
29. Interviews with Bazatoha and Serukenyinkware.
30. Save, September 1916; Kabgayi, November 1916.
31. Save, December 1916; Kabgayi, 10 December 1916; Classe to Commandant
Van Aerde, 6 December 1916, Kigali, Correspondence Officielle. Interviews with Muhizi,
Byahene, Muniga, and Ruchamubyuma.
32. Interviews with Ngwije, Semusaza, Makatsi, Bazatoha, Byahene, Muniga,
Karyabgite, R. Nturo, Nyirakabuga, Ruchamubyuma, Rutamu, Rwakabayiza, and Seru-
kenyinkware. Kabgayi, 19 December 1916; Save January 1917; De Clerck, “Rapport.”
33. Anonymous, Historique et chronologie, 96; De Clerck, “Rapport”; interview with
Rwigemera.
34. Save, February 1917. Interviews with Rwakabayiza, Serukenyinkware, Semutwa,
Rwigemera, Karyabgite, R. Nturo, Nyirakabuga, Muhama, and Gumira.
35. Interviews with Gatete, Muhama, S. Nturo, and Mugabontazi. Zaza, 18 March
1917; Kansi, 17 March 1917; Save, March 1917; Malfeyt, “Note.”
36. Interviews with Bazatoha and Mugabontazi.
37. De Clerck, “Rapport”; Malfeyt, “Note.”
38. De Clerck, “Rapport”; Malfeyt, “Note.”
39. De Lacger, Ruanda, 469; Kabgayi, 21 July 1920; Bishop J. Hirth to De Clerck,
no. 212-B, 29 December 1917, and Father Classe to De Clerck, no. 103-B, 29 October
1917, Kigali, Correspondence Officielle.
40. Malfeyt, “Note.”
41. De Clerck to Mgr. Hirth, no. 350/A/24, 3 July 1917; De Clerck to Messieurs,
no. 791/a/53, 21 August 1917, Kigali, Correspondence Officielle.
42. Save, August 1917; Kansi, 11, 12, 16 August 1917; Bishop Hirth to White Fathers,
Kabgayi, 7 July 1917, Kigali, Correspondence Religieuse.
43. De Clerck to Mgr. Hirth, no. 350/A.24, 3 July 1917; Kigali, Correspondence
Officielle. Interviews with Gatete, Muhama, S. Nturo, and Rutaangira.
44. Kansi, 22 and 26 April, 18 August 1917; Save, April 1917, April 1918.
45. Kansi, 16, 22, 28 April 1918; Save, March, April 1918.
46. Save, March, April 1918. Interviews with Nyirakabuga, Muhizi, Bazatoha,
Byahene, Muniga, Gumira, Gatete, Muhama, S. Nturo, R. Nturo, Ruchumabyuma,
Rutamu, Rwakabayiza, Semutwa, and Serukenyinkware.
47. De Clerck, “Rapport.”
48. Interviews with Bikuramuki, Byahene, and Muniga. Willems, “Administra-
tion . . . du Ruhengeri”; Kansi, 27 February 1918; Zaza, 2 June 1917; Collard, “Rapport
politique,” November, December 1917, Letterbook.
49. Mibirizi, 24–25 May 1918; R. Bourgeois to J. M. Derscheid, 6 December 1933,
and “Rapport établi en réponse au questionnaire adressé en 1929 par M. le Gouverneur
du Ruanda-Urundi à l’Administrateur du Territoire de Kamembe,” in the Derscheid
Collection. [For more on Rwagataraka’s rule in southwestern Rwanda see C. Newbury,
The Cohesion of Oppression, chap. 4, esp. 59–67.]
 Notes to pages 149–159 277

50. Rwaza, 23 December 1917; Collard, “Rapport Politique,” November, December

1917 and January, February 1918, and Chef de Poste J. Mertens to Resident, no. 8, 26
February 1918, all in Letterbook.
51. Nyundo, 7–8 November 1917.
52. References to Rwakadigi, his demands on the Hutu, and his quarrels with the
Fathers dominate most of the entries in the Nyundo diary from June 1917 through
March 1918. [For the dislocations associated with the Rumanura famine, see the sources
cited in notes 26, 27, and 28 above.]
53. Willems, “Administration . . . du Ruhengeri;” Collard and J. Mertens, “Rapport
Politique,” November 1917 through December 1918, Letterbook. Interviews with
Sebuyange, Mutarambirwa, and Mitima.
54. Collard, “Rapport Politique,” January 1918, Letterbook; interviews with Mitima,
Nyamuhinda, Kamere, and Mutabazi.
55. Collard and Mertens, “Rapport Politique,” November and December 1917,
and January through September 1918, all in Letterbook; interviews with Nyamuhinda,
Mitima, Kamere, and Mutabazi.
56. Collard to Resident, 19 November 1917, and “Rapport Politique,” November
and December 1917, both in Letterbook.
57. Collard to Resident, 19 November 1917, and “Rapport Politique,” November
and December 1917, both in Letterbook.
58. Collard to Resident, 19 November 1917, Letterbook; interviews with Kamere,
Mutabazi, and Nyamuhinda; Anonymous, Historique et chronologie, 146–47.
59. Interviews with Ngaboyisonga, Habyarinka, Kanyamudari, Rusabagira,
Semarora, and Mutarambirwa. Rambura, 17 November 1917. Willems, “Administra-
tion . . . du Ruhengeri.”
60. Nyundo, 9–30 December 1917, 13 June 1918.
61. Mibirizi, 2 July 1917.
62. Interviews with Rugerabicu and Gashyekero.
63. Interview with Rugerabicu. [ For more on the autonomy and social organiza-
tion of Bushiru, see Pauwels, “Le Bushiru,” 205–322; F. Nahimana, “Les ‘bami’ ou
roitelets Hutu,” 1–25; and Nahimana, Le Rwanda. Bushiru, Bukunzi, Busozo, and
Kingogo (another autonomous polity) were definitively incorporated into the Nyiginya/
colonial administrative network only in 1924–25. E. Ntezimana, “L’arrivée des Euro-
péens”; C. Newbury, The Cohesion of Oppression, 63–65; Nahimana, Le Rwanda, 294–99;
F. Nahimana, “Expansion du pouvoir central.”]

C . A T  B — D,

‒ 
1. Zaza, 29 December 1918.
2. See Louis, Ruanda-Urundi, chap. 21, for the diplomacy leading up to the
convention.
3. Gouvernement Belge, Ministère des Colonies, Rapport sur l’Administration Belge des
Territoires Occupés de l’Est-Africain Allemand, 5, 10 (hereafter cited as Gouvernement Belge,
Rapport sur l’Administration des Territoires Occupés).
4. Gouvernement Belge, Ministère des Colonies, Rapport sur l’Administration Belge du
Ruanda et de l’Urundi, 1921, 18 (hereafter cited as Gouvernement Belge, Rapport sur
l’Administration du Rwanda).
278 Notes to pages 159–168

5. Gouvernement Belge, Rapport sur l’Administration des Territoires Occupés, 15; inter-
views with Ruchamubyuma, Sebahunyi, R. Nturo, and Rutamu.
6. Interviews with Georges Sandrart (a former colonial administrator in Rwanda,
1923–52, he served as Resident—the highest administrative post in Rwanda, with some
breaks, from 1944 to 1951), R. Nturo, Nyirakabuga, Bazatoha, Semutwa, Ruchamubyuma,
and Muhama. Nyundo, 20 January 1919; Gouvernement Belge, Rapport sur l’Administration
du Ruanda, 1921, 39–40.
7. Interview with Sandrart; Gouvernement Belge, Rapport sur l’Administration du
Ruanda, 1921, 19; Anonymous, Historique et chronologie, 148.
8. Anonymous, Historique et chronologie, 148; Kabgayi, 29 November 1922.
9. Interviews with Bazatoha, Sebahunyi, Semutwa, Nyirakabuga, and
Serukenyinkware.
10. Gouvernement Belge, Rapport sur l’Administration Belge des Territoires Occupés, 17;
Société des Missionnaires d’Afrique (Pères Blancs), Rapports Annuels, 15:38 (hereafter
cited as Pères Blancs, Rapports Annuels).
11. Interviews with R. Nturo, S. Nturo, Gatete, Muhama, Bazatoha, Muniga,
Karyabgite, Nyirakabuga, Rutamu, and Rutaangira. Kansi, 26 April 1917; Murunda, 13
March, 20 September 1917; Rulindo, 10 February 1918; Rwaza, 18 November 1917; Save,
April 1917; Kabgayi, 2 June 1917.
12. Musinga to General Malfeyt, 23 June 1918; Gouvernement Belge, Ministère des
Colonies, Conseiller Militaire, dossier 319, portefeuille 2654.
13. Interview with R. Nturo.
14. Interview with Mugabontazi.
15. Pères Blancs, Rapports Annuels, 13:262, 279.
16. Interviews with Semutwa, Rutamu, Rutangira, Mbonye, Mugabontazi,
Byahene, Muniga, R. Nturo, Rwakabayiza, Sebahunyi, Serukenyinkware, Gatete,
S. Nturo, and Muhama.
17. Interviews with Muhama, Gatete, and S. Nturo.
18. Kagame, “Un règne mouvementé,” 15; Nyundo, 12 July 1920; Pères Blancs,
Rapports Annuels, 15:362.
19. See Louis, Ruanda-Urundi, chap. 21, for negotiations concerning the cession.
E. Van den Eede to Father Classe, 9 December 1919, 7 and 18 January 1920, Kigali,
Correspondence Officielle; Kabgayi, 28 December 1919; Rwamagana, 27 December
1919. [ For more recent work on the cession, see J. Rumiya, Le Rwanda sous mandat belge,
81–129; and D. Newbury, “The Rwakayihura Famine.”]
20. Van den Eede to Classe, 9 December 1919, 7 and 18 January 1920, Kigali,
Correspondence Officielle.
21. Zaza, 10 April 1922; Pères Blancs, Rapports Annuels, 1922, 20–21.
22. Zaza, 7 February and 13 March 1922; Classe, “Un triste sire.”
23. Gishoma, “La chute de Musinga,” 6.
24. Cayen, “Dans l’Est africain conquis,” 32.
25. Interviews with Nyirakabuga and Rwigemera; Defawe to Monsieur le Docteur,
no. 270, 12 November 1919, Kigali, Correspondence Officielle.
26. Interviews with Sandrart, Mugabontazi, Bazatoha, Muniga, Byahene, Semutwa,
Serukenyinkware, R. Nturo, Ruchamubyuma, Gatete, Muhama, and S. Nturo.
27. Interviews with Bazatoha, Bikuramuki, Rutamu, Semutwa, Mugabontazi, and
Nyirakabuga; Gouvernement Belge, Ministère des Colonies, Rapport présenté par le
 Notes to pages 168–176 279

Gouvernement Belge au Conseil de la Société des Nations au Sujet de l’Administration du Rwanda-

Urundi, 66 (hereafter cited as Gouvernement Belge, Rapport au Conseil de la SDN ).
28. Zaza, 6 January 1920; Father Classe to Van den Eede, 23 May 1920, Father
Lecoindre [?] to Resident, 29 November 1921, Kigali, Correspondence Officielle.
29. Interviews with Bikuramuki, Gatete, Muhama, S. Nturo, R. Nturo, Nyirakabuga,
and Serukenyinkware.
30. Interviews with Muniga, Byahene, Bazatoha, Serukenyinkware, Nyirakabuga,
Rwakabayiza, Semutwa, Gumira, Karyabgite, and Muhizi.
31. Interviews with Nyirakabuga, Rutamu, Serukenyinkware, Muhama, Mugabon-
tazi, Byahene, Muniga, Bazatoha, and R. Nturo.
32. Interviews with Nyirakabuga and Bazatoha.
33. Interviews with Nyirakabuga, Bazatoha, Gatete, Muhama, S. Nturo, and
Mugabontazi.
34. See, for example, Cayen in “Dans l’Est africain conquis,” 16, 21.
35. Interviews with Nyarakabuga, Bazatoha, R. Nturo, Mbonye, Mugabontazi,
Semutwa, Rutamu, Rwigemera, Rwakabayiza, Byahene, and Serukenyinkware.
36. Kabgayi, 13 January 1920, 1 November 1921; interviews with Semutwa, Ru-
camubyuma, Bazatoha, and Rwakabayiza.
37. E. Van den Eede, “Note sur la situation politique au Ruanda,” Gouvernement
Belge, Ministère des Colonies, Service des Territories des Colonies, dossier AE/II, no.
1847, portefeuille 3288.
38. Veterinarian Carlier to Father Lecoindre, 1 December 1921, Kigali, Correspon-
dence Officielle; Kabgayi, 15 March 1920; Gouvernement Belge, Rapport sur l’Administration
des Territoires Occupés, 29; Gouvernement Belge, Rapport sur l’Administration du Ruanda, 1921,
77–78.
39. Nyundo, 10, 21, 22 December 1921; Service Vétérinaire, no. 194 to Mgr. Hirth,
20 February 1918, Kigali, Correspondence Officielle; Maurer, “Rinderpest,” 75–84.
40. Rwamagana, 16 March 1921; Zaza, 20 June 1921; Gouvernement Belge, Rapport
sur l’Administration du Ruanda, 1921, 78.
41. Kabgayi, 12 April 1919; Kansi, 5 March 1920; Zaza, 2, 5 November 1920; Pères
Blancs, Rapports Annuels, 15:374, 17:526; interviews with Segatwa, Semutwa, Muhama,
Gatete, and S. Nturo.
42. Interviews with Sandrart, Muhama, Gatete, and S. Nturo.
43. Interviews with S. Nturo, Rwigemera, Nyirakabuga, R. Nturo, Semutwa, and
Rutamu; Kagame, “Un règne mouvementé,” 15; Johanssen, Führung, 252.
44. Interviews with R. Nturo, Rucamubyuma, Rutamu, Sebahunyi, Gatete, S. Nturo,
and Muhama; Kabgayi, 8 December 1921.
45. Kabgayi, 29 November 1922, 23 October 1923; Gouvernement Belge, Rapport
sur l’Administration du Ruanda, 1922, 25; “Rapport établi en réponse au questionnaire
adressé en 1929 par M. le Gouverneur du Ruanda-Urundi à l’Administrateur du Territoire
de Nyanza,” in the Derscheid Collection.
46. Interview with Makatsi.
47. Collective interview with Ndenzago, Bazirako, and Simbagaya.
48. Interviews with Segatwa and Rutamu; Gouvernement Belge, Rapport sur
l’Administration du Ruanda (1921), 31, 1922, 9.
49. Interview with Sandrart; Mibirizi, 8–19 March, 8 April 1920; interviews with
Bazatoha, Rutaangira, Gatete, Muhama, and S. Nturo.
280 Notes to pages 176–185

50. Pères Blancs, Rapports Annuels, 17:538.

51. Le Gouverneur ff. Ryckmans to Resident, no. 1861/Org. 5, 17 December 1926,
and L. Borgers to Resident, no. 61/Org., 24 February 1927, both in Rwandan Archival
Materials; Father Classe to Resident, 21 October 1933, Kigali, Correspondence Officielle;
Kansi, 6 May 1919; Zaza, 10 January 1920; Nyundo, 2 February, 5 September 1919, 13
September 1921.
52. De Lacger, Ruanda, 494; interviews with Segatwa, Mugabontazi, Muhama,
Gatete, and S. Nturo.
53. Léon, Evêque de Pacando, Supérieur Général de la Société des Missionnaires
d’Afrique to [ White Fathers], 1 April 1921, Kigali, Correspondence Religieuse.
54. The diaries and correspondence of the White Fathers offer innumerable examples
of this procedure. Interviews with Isidore, Pascal, Shikama, Ngezahayo, and R. Nturo.
55. Interviews with Muhama, Mugabontazi, and Mbonye; Mgr. Classe to Très
Révérend Père [ Marchal], 23 September 1923, Archives de la Société des Missionnaires
d’Afrique, G. B. Ruanda, Correspondence Mgr. Classe.
56. Interview with Muhama.
57. Interviews with Muhama, Gatete, S. Nturo, Mitima, and Bichunchu.
58. Interviews with Mutungirehe, Petero, Gakona, and Kagenza; Zaza, March–
May, 15 July, 25 August 1922, 16 June 1923.
59. De Lacger, Ruanda, 509; interviews with Muhama, Gatete, S. Nturo, and R. Nturo.
60. Kabgayi, 25 January 1921, 5 May 1922; Pères Blancs, Rapports Annuels, 15:377, 17:
507, 35:45.
61. “Rapport Politique, 1921, Territoire de Kabaya,” Derscheid Collection.
62. J. Mertens, “Rapports Politiques,” 1–4 trimestres, 1919, in Letterbook; Anony-
mous, Historique et chronologie, 128–29.
63. Gouvernement Belge, Rapport sur l’Administration du Ruanda, 1922, 5; Mibirizi, 13
July 1919; Pères Blancs, Rapports Annuels, 35:43.
64. Father Schumacher to H. Willems, 8 May 1919, Willems to Père Supérieur, 9
May 1919, both Rwaza, Correspondence Officielle; Hopkins, “The Nyabingi Cult of
Southwestern Uganda,” 302–6. [For overviews of these recurring Nyabingi movements,
see Freedman, Nyabingi, and Feierman, “Colonizers, Scholars, and the Creation of
Invisible Histories.”]
65. Father Schumacher to H. Willems, 8 May 1919, Willems to Père Supérieur, 9
May 1919, both Rwaza, Correspondence Officielle; Hopkins, “The Nyabingi Cult of
Southwestern Uganda,” 302–6; Schumacher to Willems, 2 September 1919, Willems to
Père Supérieur, no. 97, 2 September 1919, Schumacher to Willems, no. 65, n.d., all
Rwaza, Correspondence Officielle; “Rapport Politique,” 3 trimestre, 1919, Letterbook;
Willems, “Administration . . . du Ruhengeri.”
66. Willems, “Administration . . . du Ruhengeri”; Schumacher to Chef de Poste,
no. 67, 9 January 1920, Chef de Poste to Père Supérieur, no. 1, 9 January 1920, Chef de
Poste Deben to Schumacher, 31 March 1920, all Rwaza, Correspondence Officielle.
67. Interview with Rusabagira.

C . D  R, ‒ 

1. Johanssen, Führung, 252.
2. Johanssen, Führung, 252.
 Notes to pages 186–195 281

3. Interviews with Nyirakabuga, Bazatoha, Rutamu and R. Nturo.

4. Interview with Nyirakabuga. [ It is worth noting that Nyirakabuga herself appears
to have been a principal source for many of these observations on the Court and on
particular Court actors.—Ed.]
5. Interview with Nyirakabuga.
6. Interviews with Nyirakabuga, Rutamu, and Semutwa; Kabgayi, 11 and 13
February 1923; “Rapport établi en réponse au questionnaire adressé en 1929 par M. le
Gouverneur du Rwanda-Urundi à l’Administrateur du Territoire de Nyanza,” Derscheid
Collection (hereafter cited as “Rapport établi . . . 1929”).
7. De Lacger, Ruanda, 477–78, 493–99.
8. Classe to Très Révérend Père [ Marchal?], 14 June and 23 September 1923;
Archives de la Société des Missionnaires d’Afrique, G. B. Ruanda, Correspondence
Mgr. Classe (hereafter cited as Classe correspondence).
9. Classe to Marchal, 10 March 1923, 14 June and 23 September 1923, 4 June
1927, Classe to Très Révérend Père, 23 September 1923 and 18 March 1924, all Classe
Correspondence.
10. Kabgayi, 8 April 1923.
11. Kabgayi, 8 April 1923.
12. Interview with Muhama; Van Overschelde, Un audacieux pacifique, 122–23.
13. Interviews with Bazatoha, Rutamu, R. Nturo, Muhama, Gatete, and S. Nturo.
14. Interviews with Bazatoha, Rutamu, R. Nturo, Muhama, Gatete, and S. Nturo;
Kabgayi, 3 May 1923.
15. Gouvernement Belge, Rapport sur l’Administration du Ruanda, 1923, 28. [ These
annual published Rapports are complicated constructions, passing through many
bureaucratic layers of administration and often adjusted at each layer. First the Resident
distills the separate Territorial reports into one general synopsis that is then sent to the
Vice-Governeur-Général of Ruanda-Urundi, in Bujumbura, who then amends it as he
sees fit before sending it to the Governeur-Général in Léopoldville (or, after Mazorati,
directly to the Ministry of Colonies in Brussels). The lower agents have no control over
how their observations are represented at higher levels. From these different layers it is
difficult to decipher which observations or recommendations pertain to each level in the
administrative process. Consequently the reports must be used with caution as testimony
to local events. In this case, however, one can assume that the report stems from the
Resident (or from Mazorati, then the Vice-Governeur-Général).—Ed.]
16. Kansi, 10 August 1923; Nyundo, 11 September 1923; Kabgayi, 25 February,
1923; Au [Administrator] Dardenne to Resident, 10 February 1924; Dardenne to Haut
Commissaire Royal, 12/AB, 17 February 1925, Archives de Butare.
17. Hais to Mgr. Classe, 10 September 1923: Kigali, Correspondence Officielle.
18. Hais to Mgr. Classe, 10 September 1923: Kigali, Correspondence Officielle.
19. Mibirizi, July 1923.
20. Interview with Bazatoha; “Rapport établi . . . 1929.”
21. “Rapport établi . . . 1929.”
22. Miscellaneous receipts, Dossier Finances, 1923–1924, Archives de Butare.
23. Gouvernement Belge, Rapport sur l’Administration du Ruanda, 1923, 6; inter-
views with Rutamu, Muhama, Gatete, S. Nturo, and R. Nturo; Kagame, Les milices,
176–76.
24. Willems, “Administration . . . du Ruhengeri,” passim.
282 Notes to pages 196–205

25. Resident, p.o., Keyser to Delegates, no. 1521/Org. 5, 20 August 1925, Archives
de Gisenyi; Willems, “Administration . . . du Ruhengeri,” passim; E. Borgers to Resident,
no. 136/P.I., 26 April 1925, Archives de Ruhengeri; interview with Semarora.
26. Willems, “Administration . . . du Ruhengeri.”
27. Kabgayi, 10 May 1924. Interviews with Gumira, Muhama, Gatete, S. Nturo,
Rutamu, Ruchamubyuma, Rusabagira, and Nyirakabuga.
28. Interviews with Rusabagira, Nkuriye, Buhuhano, Rushara, Rujukundi,
Bidahunga, Kagisha, Mpakaniye, Gakunkiko, Toringabo, Bahinbano, Bigirankana,
Gahakwa, and Rwenda. Willems, “Administration . . . du Ruhengeri”; Pagès, “Au
Rwanda,” 359–77.
29. Interview with Rusabagira.
30. Interviews with Semarora, Kamana, Muhire, Bichunchu, Miruho, Rusabagira,
Mutarambirwa, Sebuyange, and Semagema. Willems, “Administration . . . du Ruhengeri.”
31. F. Wouters to Resident, no. 196/P.I., 30 September 1926, Archives de Ruhengeri;
interview with Rusabagira.
32. Rapport Politique, Territoire Kabaya, 1921 (consulted in the Derscheid
Collection).
33. Interviews with Nkuriye, Buhuharo, Rushara, Rujukundi, Bidahunga, Kagisha,
Mpakaniye, Gakunkiko, Sebitenge, Bwico, Ntababa, Sebagenda, Nyandera, Baseke,
Kaburiyeri, Komayombi, Toringabo, Bahingano, and Bigirankana. Pauwels, “Le
Bushiru,” 210–13.
34. Rapport Politique, Territoire Kabaya, 1921, 1923 (consulted in the Derscheid
Collection).
35. Interviews with Harimenshi, Sekigarama, Nibacece, and Ndagiriye.
36. Rapport Politique, Territoire Kabaya, 1923 (consulted in the Derscheid
Collection).
37. Interview with Kagisha.
38. Rapport Politique, Territoire Kabaya, 1924, 1925 (consulted in the Derscheid
Collection).
39. Interviews with Rugambarara, Bihame, Kidogo, Isidore, Pascal, Shikama, and
Ngezahayo. Pagès, Un royaume hamite, 311; Pauwels, “Le Bushiru,” 214–17.
40. Mibirizi, April–May, 1923. Interviews with Rugambarara, Kidogo, Bihame,
Isidore, Pascal, Shikama, and Ngezahayo.
41. Mibirizi, 21 January, March–May 1924, March 1925. Interviews with Rugamba-
rara, Bihame, Kidogo, Isidore, Pascal, Shikama, and Ngezahayo. [More recent sources
include Ntezimana, “L’arrivée des Européens,” and C. Newbury, The Cohesion of Oppres-
sion, 65 and 258–59, note 42.]
42. Mibirizi, 7 January, 20 March, August, 17 September 1924, 24 August, 17
December 1925; interview with Rugambarara.
43. “Rapport établi . . . 1929”; Rapport au Conseil de la SDN, 1924, 12.
44. Classe to Très Révérend Père, 1 August 1925, Classe Correspondence; Pères
Blancs, Rapports Annuels, 37:104, 116, 134, 137.
45. Rapport au Conseil de la SDN, 1924, 12; Mortehan to all Délégués, 359 Org. 1, 3
April 1926, Archives de Ruhengeri.
46. Mortehan to all Délégués, 359/Org. 1, 3 April 1926, Coubeau to all Délégués,
no. 1362, 24 September 1926, and Resident Coubeau to all Délégués, 186/Org. 5, 5
February 1927, all in Archives de Ruhengeri.
 Notes to pages 206–216 283

47. “Rapport établi . . . 1929”; Rwamagana, 6 and 30 June, 4 August, 1924; Kabgayi,
28 November 1924; Nyundo, 22 September, 16 October 1924.
48. Pères Blancs, Rapports Annuels, 36:65, 85–87; Kabgayi, 15 February 1924.
49. F. Thielemans, “Notes sur l’Histoire de la province de Mvejuru sous Yuhi
Musinga,” and “Rapport établi . . . 1929”; Jugement no. 99, Tribunal de Police d’iSave,
15 December 1924, Archives de Butare.
50. Interview with R. Nturo.
51. Interview with Sebahunyi. For a full description and the text of the ritual of
Umuganura, see d’Hertefelt and Coupez, La royauté sacrée, 76–93. [ For an analysis and
explanation of the important ritual, see also D. Newbury, “What Role Has Kingship?”
89–101.]
52. Interview with Sebahunyi.
53. Interviews with Sebahunyi, Bazatoha, R. Nturo, Nyirakabuga, and
Serukenyinkware.
54. Interviews with Bazatoha, Rutamu, Serukenyinkware, and R. Nturo; E. Borgers
to Resident, no. 69/P.I., 25 February 1925, Archives de Ruhengeri.
55. Interview with Muhama; E. Borgers to Resident, no. 61/P.I., 19 February 1925
and no. 69/P.I., 25 February 1925, Archives de Ruhengeri.
56. Kabgayi, 12 and 15 March 1925; interviews with Bazatoha, Nyirakabuga,
Semutwa, Serukenyinkware, R. Nturo, and Rutamu.
57. Interview with Bazatoha.
58. Kabgayi, 20 April 1925.
59. Kabgayi, November 1925; Rapport au Conseil de la SDN, 1925, 66.

C . T R   P,

‒ 
1. Interviews with Bazatoha, Ruchamubyuma, and Serukenyinkware; “Rapport
établi . . . 1929.”
2. Interviews with R. Nturo, Muhama, Gatete, S. Nturo, Semutwa, Mugabontazi,
and Muhizi.
3. The importance of the movement emerges clearly in all the diaries of the
period. The Rapports Annuels summarize the Fathers’ reactions to the movement; see
especially 38:174–75, 180–81, 183, 185–86; 39:204.
4. Interview with Muhama.
5. Kabgayi, 19 August 1931; Nyamasheke, 27 January 1930; Rulindo, 18 August
1930; Governor Voison to Resident, 2307/Just. c.J. 9, 11. April 1931, Archives de Kigali.
6. Zaza, 5 January 1927; Rwamagana, 10 January 1927, 20 February 1928; Murunda,
15 June 1931.
7. Pères Blancs, Rapports Annuels, 17:522, 20:434, 23:272; Rulindo, 7 February 1925.
8. Van Overschelde, Un audacieux pacifique, 124; Kagame, “Un règne mouvementé,”
16; interview with Nyirakabuga; “Rapport établi . . . 1929.”
9. Rapport au Conseil de la SDN, 1926, 66.
10. Kagame, “Un règne mouvementé,” 15; Classe to Marchal, 4 June 1927, Classe
Correspondence.
11. De Lacger, Ruanda, 525.
12. Kagame, “Un règne mouvementé, 17.
284 Notes to pages 217–225

13. Interviews with Nyirakabuga, Rwigemera, Bazatoha, R. Nturo, Semutwa,

Muhama, Gatete, S. Nturo, and Mugabontazi.
14. Johanssen, Führung, 252.
15. Interviews with Nyirakabuga, Bazatoha, Serukenyinkware, Ruchamubyuma,
and R. Nturo. [ It is worth noting that in addition to being a principal actor in these ac-
counts, Serukenyinkware himself was also one source (among several) for reconstructing
these events.—Ed.]
16. Rwagataraka to Father Lecoindre, 14 September, 6 11, and 30 November, 1
December 1926; Serukenyinkware to Lecoindre, 1 December 1926, Kigali Correspon-
dence Officielle.
17. Interview with Rwigemera.
18. Classe, “Un triste sire.”
19. Interviews with R. Nturo, Rutamu, Semutwa, Mugabontazi, Rwakabayiza,
Bazatoha, and Ruchamubyuma.
20. Rwagataraka to Lecoindre, 1 December 1926, Kigali, Correspondence Officielle.
21. Classe, “Un triste sire”; Rapport au Conseil de la SDN, 1926, 67.
22. Rapport au Conseil de la SDN, 1927, 103–4.
23. Rapport au Conseil de la SDN, 1926–1931, section “Politique Indigène.”
24. R. J. L. Schmidt, “Rapport Politique du Territoire de Kigali, 1933,” Derscheid
Collection.
25. Kagame, Les milices, 76–77.
26. F. Thielemans to Resident, 33/P.I., 30 January, 1929, G. Mortehan to E. Wouters,
2424/PIA, 25 May 1929, Archives de Ruhengeri; Administrateur Territorial Stagiaire
Franck to Resident, 172/PIC, 30 March 1931, M. Simon to Chef de Poste, 2527/PIC, 26
November 1931, Archives de Butare.
27. Rapport au Conseil de la SDN, 1928, 53.
28. Interviews with Serukenyinkware and R. Nturo; Kabgayi, 21 June 1931.
29. Diaire de la Mission d’Astrida, 2 July 1928; Mortehan to Délégués, 2755/Org. 5,
27 December 1927, Governor Marzorati to Resident, 727/A. 24, 6 March 1928, Archives
de Ruhengeri.
30. Interviews with Semutwa, Rutamu, Mugabontazi, R. Nturo, Nyirakabuga,
Bazatoha, Muhama, Gatete, and S. Nturo.
31. Interviews with Serukenyinkware and Rutamu; Wouters to Resident, 97/P.I.G.,
26 February 1930, Archives de Ruhengeri; Tribunal de Police de Kigali, R.M.P. 686 of
24 January 1930, Archives de Bujumbura; Rapport Politique, Territoire de Kabaya,
Derscheid Collection.
32. Testimony taken by E. Wouters concerning the burning of the camp at
Tangata, Tribunal de Police de Ruhengeri, R.M.P. 480, 10 February 1930; Adjoint
Henckaerts to A.T. Servranckx, 1026/P.I., 24 October 1931; Père Danneste to the
administrator, 27 October 1931; A. Servranckx to Resident, 833/P.I., 29 October 1931,
all in Archives de Ruhengeri.
33. Examples abound in the diaries and correspondence of the Fathers; for one
interesting case, see Zaza 10 and 14 May, 10 August 1930.
34. Interviews with Sandrart and Schmidt (European administrators), Semutwa,
Rutamu, Bazatoha, Mugabontazi, Gatete, Muhama, and S. Nturo.
35. Interview with Rutamu.
 Notes to pages 225–231 285

36. Testimony of Sebagangari heard by G. J. F. Dardenne, Tribunal de Police de

Butare, 22 November, 1927; Resident of Urundi to E. Wouters, 29 November 1927;
Wouters to Resident of Urundi, 192/Div., 1 December 1927, Archives de Bujumbura;
Report by E. Hurel, Superior of Isavi [Save], 16 June 1928, Archives de Butare.
37. Mortehan to the Governor, 1956/P.N.B., 29 December 1926, Archives de
Bujumbura; R. Bourgeois, “Rapport Politique de Territoire de Nyanza, 1934,” Derscheid
Collection; interview with Kamere.
38. Musinga to Resident, n.d., Archives de Butare; Coubeau to Délégué-
Ruhengeri, 1525/ Mus. 2, 21 October 1926; Délégué to Resident, 237/ Mus., 4 November
1926; L. Borgers to Chef de Poste, Kabaya, 282, 31 December 1926; Mortehan to all
Délégués, 117/Mus. 2, 6 February 1926; all in Archives de Ruhengeri.
39. Tribunal de Police de Kibuye, R.M.P. 135, 21 May 1931; Tribunal de Police,
R.M.P. 109, 3 February 1930, Archives de Ruhengeri.
40. Interview with Muhama.
41. Interviews with Semutwa and Rutamu; Maquet, Le système des relations sociales,
153–54; Classe, “Pour moderniser le Ruanda.”
42. This figure is cited in Pères Blancs, Rapports Annuels, 36:104 for 1924–1925 and is
repeated by the colonial administration in Rapport au Conseil de la SDN, 1929, 75.
43. Marzorati to Resident, 2605/A16, 21 September 1927, Archives de Ruhengeri;
Rapport au Conseil de la SDN, 1928, 143; Pères Blancs, Rapports Annuels, 39:202.
44. Tribunal de Police de Kibuye, R.M.P. 686, 24 January 1930, Archives de
Bujumbura; Délégué Parmentier to M. Lestrade, no. 412/ Divers, 9 December 1930,
Délégué Parmentier to Resident, no 39/ P.I. 18 January 1931, Archives de Gisenyi;
Mortehan to all Délégués, 2564/Org. 5, 5 December 1927, Archives de Ruhengeri.
45. Interviews with Mugabontazi, Muhama, and Segatwa; Borgers to Resident,
345/Mus., 5 November 1925, Coubeau to all Délégués, 59/Org., 9 January 1925,
Archives de Ruhengeri.
46. Interviews with Makeri, Rutabagisha, Gatuhe, Bahimana, Gasimba, Rushaki,
Byimana, Gatanazi, Karyeja, Kabera, Gaterere, Rwakaje, Munogo, Rwigemera, and
Karyabgite.
47. Interviews with Makeri, Rutabagisha, Gatuhe, Bahimana, Gasimba, Ru-
shaki, Byimana, Gatanazi, Karyeja, Kabera, Gaterere, Rwakaja, Munogo, Rwigemera,
Karyabgite.
48. Wouters to Resident, 99 bis/Op. Milit., 2 April 1929, Archives de Ruhengeri.
49. Interviews with Makeri, Rutabagisha, Gatuhe, Bahimana, Gasimba, Rushaki,
Byimana, Gatanazi, Karyeja, Kabera, Gaterere, Rwakaja, Munogo, Rwigemera, and
Karyabgite.
50. Interviews with Makeri, Rutabagisha, Gatuhe, Bahimana, Gasimba, Rushaki,
Byimana, Gatanazi, Karyeja, Kabera, Gaterere, Rwakaja, Munogo, Rwigemera, and
Karyabgite. Coubeau to Délégué-Ruhengeri, 496/ Op. Milit., 25 March 1928, Wouters
to Resident, 99 bis/Op. Milit., 2 April 1928, 121/0p. Milit., 24 April 1928 and 191/Op.
Milit., 11 June 1928 all in Archives de Ruhengeri.
51. Rapport au Conseil de la SDN, 1928, 42.
52. Rapport au Conseil de la SDN, 1930, 18.
53. Interview with Sandrart.
54. Rwamagana, 11–13, 24 March, 17 August 1925, 28 February 1928; Mortehan to
286 Notes to pages 231–240

Délégué-Gisenyi 1313/Tr. Pol. 2, 8 July 1927, Archives de Ruhengeri; Tribunal Territorial

du Rwanda, R.M.P. 952/Kg., 10 December 1930, Archives de Kigali.
55. Gishoma, “La chute de Musinga,” 5.
56. Gishoma, “La chute de Musinga,” 5.
57. Gishoma, “La chute de Musinga,” 5.
58. Gishoma, “La chute de Musinga,” 5;”Rapport établi . . . 1929”; Rapport au Conseil
de la SDN, 1929, 81; Zaza, 6 April 1927.
59. Rapport au Conseil de la SDN, 1925, 84.
60. Conseiller Juridique Jamoulle, “Note pour M. le Gouverneur,” 26 July 1929,
and attached “Resumé de la Situation au point de vue stocks et exportation de vivres,”
Archives de Bujumbura; Resident to all Délégués, 2509/Dis., 24 October 1928, Archives
de Ruhengeri; Pères Blancs, Rapports Annuels, 38:171–72.
61. Resident to all Délégués, 2509/Dis., 24 October 1928 and 2396/Dis., 11 October
1928, Archives de Ruhengeri.
62. Coubeau to Délégué-Nyanza, 4422/Dis., 20 August 1930, and 1463/P.I. 2, 13
March 1930, Archives de Ruhengeri.
63. Classe, “Un triste sire.”
64. Coubeau to all Délégués, 136/Dis., 10 January 1929, Archives de Ruhengeri.
65. Coubeau to all Délégués, 3077/Dis., 29 December 1928, Archives de Ruhen-
geri; and Coubeau to all Délégués, 136/Dis., 10 January 1929, Archives de Ruhengeri.
66. Wouters to Resident, 193/P.I., 1 June 1929, 360/P.I., 26 October 1929; H. Wilmin
to Wouters, 5887/P.I.G., 21 November 1929, Archives de Ruhengeri; F. Thielemans to
Resident, 14/P.I., 21 January 1920, Archives de Butare; Zaza, 13 January 1929; Astrida,
19 April 1929.
67. Postiaux to Governor-General, 67/Sec., 16 February 1929, Postiaux to Brussels,
telegram 58/Famine, 3 July 1929, Archives de Bujumbura; Pères Blancs, Rapports Annuels,
39:201.
68. Astrida, 19 April 1929; Wilmin to all Délégués, 4982/Org. 25, 9 October 1929,
Archives de Butare.
69. Astrida, 19 April 1929.
70. Borgers to Délégués, 3982/Org. 25, 22 August 1929, Archives de Butare.
71. Interviews with Serukenyinkware and Nyirakabuga.
72. Borgers to Délégués, 3982/Org. 25, 22 August 1929, Wilmin to Délégués, 4498/
P.I. 2, 18 September 1929, Archives de Butare.
73. F. Thielemans to Resident, 535/P.I., 4 January 1930, Coubeau to Délégué-
Nyanza, 1353/P.I.C., 10 March 1930, Thielemans to Resident, 77/P.I.C., 4 February
1931, Archives de Butare.
74. Interviews with Kagisha, Mpakaniye, Gakunkiko, Gashyekero, Rugerabicu,
Guriro, Sebitenge, Bwico, and Ntababa.
75. Interviews with Bazatoha, Serukenyinkware, R. Nturo, and Rwakabayiza.
76. Classe, “Un triste sire”; de Lacger, Ruanda, 531–33.
77. Rapport au Conseil de la SDN, 1931, 58.
78. Interviews with Rutamu and Ruchamubyuma; de Lacger, Ruanda, 533–38.
79. Rwamagana, 14 November 1931.
80. Rapport Politique, Territoire de Ruhengeri, 1932, Rwandan Archival Materials.
81. Interview with R. Nturo.
82. Interview with R. Nturo.
 Notes to pages 241–246 287

E’ E 

1. Bourgeois, Témoignages, 60.
2. Kagame, Un abrégé de l’histoire du Rwanda, 195–96. For the reactions to the
announcement of Musinga’s deposition, see the correspondence in response to No.
2390/Doss. Musinga of 10/11/1931.
3. 96/P.I./Mus. of 30/1/1932, A. T. Shangugu [Dryvers] to Governeur (Usumbura);
for a copy of Musinga’s letter, see de Lacger, Ruanda, 529; on Rwagataraka’s career, see
C. Newbury, The Cohesion of Oppression, 60–63.
4. No. 96/P.I./Mus. of 30/1/1932, Dryvers to Gouverneur.
5. 179/Dos. Mus. of 8/2/32; Délégué-Nyanza to Resident; 70/RDos. Mus. of
1/2/32, Resident to Délégué; 69/Relegation Musinga of 15/1/1932, Resident to Chefs
de Poste Nyanza et Shangugu; 68/P.I./Mus. of 21/1/1932, A. T. Shangugu to Resident;
96/P.I./Mus. of 30/1/32, Chef de Poste Kamembe to Gouverneur.
6. Kagame, Un abrégé de l’histoire du Rwanda, 196–97; 768/Sec. of 9/6/1940, A. T.
Shangugu to Gouverneur; 8/Cab. of 17/6/1940, Resident Simon to Gouverneur
(Usumbura); Letter 2799 of 3/7/40, Classe to Gouverneur.
7. No. 2673/Cab of 3/7/1940, Gouverneur to A. T.-Nyanza and 2674/Cab. of
4/7/1940, Gouverneur to A. T.-Shangugu; Telegram 191 of 3/7/1940, Gouverneur to
Gouveneur-Général/Leopoldville; Kagame, Un abrégé, 2:197.
8. No. 78/Cab. of 25/7/1940, A. T.-Shangugu to Gouverneur (Usumbura).
9. Kagame, Un abrégé de l’histoire du Rwanda, 205.
 B   

U S 
Oral informants constitute the most important source for this study. They are identified
fully in the appendix.
The rich documentary sources for the period of German administration have
disappeared from Rwanda and from Burundi. They supposedly were transported to
Brussels by the Belgians at the end of their administration, but the Archives of the
Colonial Ministry, now a part of the Archives of Foreign Affairs, has no record of having
received them. Hence the archives had not yet been fully classified at the time of the
research for this project. The absence of classification and insistence upon observing a
fifty-year lapse before permitting consultation of documents meant that very few of the
documents from the Belgian period of administration had been available for consulta-
tion in Brussels at the time of this research.
At the time, fragmentary and completely disorganized collections of documents
from the Belgian period remained in Rwanda at the prefectural offices in Gisenyi,
Ruhengeri, Kigali, Cyangugu, and Butare, and in Burundi at the Ministry of Justice in
Bujumbura. Materials consulted at these various locations are identified only by the
place name since there were no systems of classification to which one could refer. A
certain number of the most useful of these sources had been microfilmed and were
available for consultation at the Sterling Memorial Library, Yale University, under the
title Rwandan Archival Materials. An extremely valuable collection of Belgian documents
was assembled by J. M. Derscheid in the early 1930s. Through the great kindness of
Professor René Lemarchand of the University of Florida, I was able to make extensive
use of a microfilmed copy of this collection.
The logs kept by the White Fathers at their various missions, referred to in
the text as “diaries,” constitute the single most informative written source for the period
of Musinga’s reign. Nearly as important are the letters exchanged among the Fathers
and between the Fathers and the colonial administrators. The diaries are located at the
Archives de la Société des Missionnaires d’Afrique in Rome, as are the annual reports of
the order and the correspondence of Mgr. Léon-Paul Classe. Other diaries and corre-
spondence had been collected at the Archbishopric of Kigali, where the letters were
classified as either “Correspondence Officielle” or “Correspondence Religieuse.”

289
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 I 

Abanyamuvumu (heads of lineages), 271n49 “Inshongore” under this heading; Kayondo);

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Bakiga (mountain people), 47–51, 53, 103, 108– nomic motives for policies of, 175, 204–5;
9, 112, 120–21, 127, 132–36, 150–55, 197– emigration of Rwandans as response to
99, 229–31 policy of, 204–5, 228; expansion encour-
Bakongori lineage, 124 aged by, 194–95; Hutu and administrative
Bandora, 124, 167–68, 187, 209, 211, 218–19 policies of, 136–37, 144, 149–51, 175, 204–5,
Banzi, 122–23 228; land grant policy of, 220–21; Mu-
Barashi lineage, 112, 115, 272n58 singa exiled by, 240–45; Musinga’s im-
Barundi, 31, 33–34, 99, 118 prisonment by, 141–42; and Musinga’s sov-
Baryinyonza (brother of Musinga), 19, 22, 42 ereignty, 135–36, 139–42, 154–55, 204,
Basebya, 104–5, 115–17, 120, 127, 269n21 205–10, 216–17, 224–25, 235–40, 243–45;
basemyi (interpreters), 136–37, 144–46 Orts-Milner Convention and control of
Basomingera, 141–42 Rwanda by, 158–59; and religious freedom,
Batembe, 109 164–65; Rudahigwa promoted as mwami
Bega: administrative structure of the, 99–100; by, 217–18, 237–39, 241; and rule through
anti-European attitude among the, 27– Court or notables, 142–47, 149, 157–61,
28, 82–83, 139–40, 170–71; coup and Mu- 183, 192, 200, 223–25, 235–36; Rutarindwa
singa’s accession, xxv, 16–17, 19–23, 42– and, 15; taxes levied by, 175–76, 205, 246;
43, 71, 82, 142; as dominant matridynastic territorial claims of, 18, 24, 85, 105–6, 116–
clan, 9, 14–15, 73; Kanjogera as member 20, 130–31, 134–35; and traditional Rwan-
of, 9, 22–23, 73–74, 84–85, 139, 142, 147– dan cultural institutions, 159–62, 161, 164,
48, 170–71; Musinga and power struggles 192, 204, 208–9, 222, 233–36 (see also and
with the, 73–74, 84–85, 101, 131–32, Musinga’s sovereignty under this heading );
147–48, 242 (see also as pro-European treatment of notables by, 135–36, 220–21;

297
298 Index

Belgium (continued ) and, 47; ubuhake cattle clientship, xxvi–

violence as political instrument of, 178, xxvii, 13, 61, 62, 107, 110–11, 176, 221–22,
197–98; White Fathers as allies of, 51, 60, 225, 227–29, 234–35; uburetwa labor, xxii,
139–40, 145; World War I and contest 102, 111, 131; usurpation of authority
over Rwandan territory, xv, xxiv–xxv, over, 99–100; White Fathers as patrons
130–31 within, 33, 46, 50–51, 58–59, 61–63, 68,
Bichubirenga, 133–34, 275n13 77–78, 152–54, 176–78
Biganda, 88–89, 115, 206 coffee, cultivation of, 94
Biregeya, 19–22, 31–32, 82, 117–18, 124 Condo, 191
Bisangwa, 15, 16 Congolese-German Agreement, 16
Bishingwe, 112 conversion to Christianity: abuse or scorn of
blood brotherhood, 18 converts, 93, 94, 120, 122, 132, 146, 163–
Borgers, E., 195–97 64, 173; clientship relationships and, 62,
boundaries, establishment of formal state, 214; coercion and, 57–65; of “freed”
118–20 slaves, 64; Hutu and, 176–77; among
Buganda kingdom, 27–28, 219 lower status groups, 64, 174, 176–77;
Bugoyi, 19–20, 86, 101–2, 109, 120, 123, 137– Musinga’s opposition to, 80, 145–46,
39, 149–50, 153 162–65, 188–89, 237, 243; notables and,
Bukunzi kingdom, 110, 153, 201–3, 229, 234 163–64, 213–14; as political gesture, 35,
Burabyo (brother of Musinga), 19, 22, 42, 142 37, 110, 190, 213
Bushaku, 101 coup of Rucunshu, xxiii–xxv; and accession of
Bushiru, xxxi, 12, 86, 106, 123, 153–54, 199– Musinga, 16, 20–21; anxiety about legiti-
201, 229 macy or fear of reprisal, 73–74, 139; and
Busozo kingdom, 12, 153, 201–3, 229 destruction of Karinga, 16–17
Court culture: European influences and, 93,
cattle: rinderpest epidemic and vaccination 143–44; manners and etiquette of, xxxvi,
program among, 171–72; social and cul- 6–7, 10, 25, 93–94, 170, 191, 214; ritual
tural significance of, xxvi, 66, 104–5, 128– and ceremonial aspects (see rituals, royal);
29, 192, 232, 234–35; ubuhake clientship, violence as element of, 10; women’s roles
xxvi–xxvii, 13, 61, 62, 107, 110–11, 176, in, 186 (see also queen mother, role of )
221–22, 225, 227–29, 234–35 cultural subregions of Rwanda, map of, 5
chickens, 53–54, 65–66 Cyaka, 43–44, 53
Classe, Fr. Léon Paul, Vicaire Délégué, 90–92, Cyitatire, 29–30, 41, 85, 95, 163
187–90, 214–16, 219, 227n, 237–39, 244 Cyoya, 34, 36, 37
clientship agreements: administrative control Czekanowski, Jan, 83, 114
and, 99–100, 107; assertion of patron’s
rights within, 150; economic exploitation de Clerck, Maj., 143–46, 148, 155, 159,
of pretended relationships, 67–68, 224; 161–62
Europeans and, 28, 83–84, 93, 109–12, Defawe, Oscar, 164, 166–69, 171
128–29, 204, 222, 233–35 (see also White documentation, 281n15, 289
Fathers as patrons within under this head- dress, 67; European style adopted, 223; as
ing ); as frame for Rwandan Christianity, symbol of kingship, 72, 238
214; King as ultimate patron within, xxvi; droughts, xxix–xxx, 65, 234; drought-resistant
and land rights, 6; political nature of, xxvi, crops, 144, 221n
xxxv, 11, 39, 49, 75–76, 213; ritualists and, drum (Karinga): coup and destruction of, 16–17;
12; social hierarchy and institution of, xxvi, and legitimacy of kingship, 3, 20; as sym-
xxxv, 12–14, 73, 75, 93, 112; trade rights bol of kingship, 161, 232, 236
 Index 299

education: Belgian schools, 161–62; employment factionalism at Court, xxvii, 53; Belgian ad-
opportunities and European, 64–65, 177; ministration as context for, 167–71, 206–
and factionalism in the Court, 188–91; 10; the Inshongore and, 165–71, 174–75,
German schools, 95–96; missionaries and 183–93, 206, 209–11, 214, 216, 225–26,
secular, 28–29, 39–40; Musinga’s pursuit 233, 237, 239; Kabare and Ruhinankiko
of, 79–80, 206; as “poisonous” European as rivals, 22–23, 28, 30–31, 41–44, 100
influence, 161–65, 167; religious instruc- famine, xxix–xxx, 20, 137–38, 144, 150, 220–
tion, 29, 35, 189–90; resistance to Euro- 21, 231, 232–35
pean, 95–96, 161–62; secular instruction, Franck, Louis, 164–65
35, 64–65, 162; traditional training of freedom of religion, 145, 162, 164–65, 173–74
young Tutsi men, 73
elites. See notables Gahindiro, King Yuhi, xxxiv, xxxv, 8
emigration, 204, 227–28 Gakwavu, 149, 150, 153, 195–97
epidemics, xxxiv, 137–39, 143, 167, 171–72 Gasana, 163
ethnic and cultural subgroups in Rwanda, 4–6, Gashamura, 187, 191, 207–8
113, 121n, 151. See also specific groups geography of Rwanda, xxix–xxx, 3–4
Europeans: “civilizing” mission of, 94, 138n, 143, Germany, 15–16; abuse of Rwandans by, 53–54,
145, 159, 161, 164–65, 172–73, 185, 222–23; 86–87; administration of Rwanda by, 78,
conflicts among, 94; cultural superiority 85, 88–89, 117, 267n100; as ally of Court,
assumed by, 161, 166, 192; establishment 17–18, 40–41, 48–49, 77–79, 85–93, 119–
of capital in Kigali by, 85–86; foreign 20, 131, 133–34, 159–60, 244; clientship
traders and, 46–49; language barriers and, agreements and, 83, 128–29; consolida-
25, 86–88, 93, 95, 135, 136–37, 144; mur- tion of royal control as objective of, 106–
der of Fr. Loupias, 114–15; as rivals for 7, 118, 124–25; Duke of Mecklenburg’s
political power, 83–84, 88–89, 92–93, 97; visit to Rwanda, 82, 85; as military ally of
Rwandans and negative perceptions of, the Court, 99, 106–9, 115–17, 126, 128–29,
35, 53–54, 65–66, 93, 123, 128; Rwandans 139, 140–41; Musinga as humiliated by,
as perceived by, 13, 24–25, 93–94; ter- 128–29; Musinga’s relationships with Ger-
ritorial claims of in Rwanda (see land, mans, 90, 96, 126, 128–29, 134, 267n100
European claims to). See also Belgium; (see also as military ally of the Court under
Germany; Great Britain; resistance and this heading); resistance to, 54, 94; territorial
anti-European sentiment; White Fathers claims of, 116; White Fathers and, 34–35,
executions, political, 10, 22–23, 75, 83, 127; 39–40, 63–64, 77–78, 79, 82, 90–92
Belgian policy and, 159, 174–75; German gifts, 10; as influence, 37–38; as insults or tokens
policy and, 88, 90, 127; missionaries at- of scorn for Europeans, 128–29
tempts to intervene in, 38–39, 40; as royal Gisaka: autonomy of, xxviii, 26, 33n, 102, 165,
prerogative, 159 178, 243; revolt and resistance in, xxviii–
expansion of Nyiginya kingdom: Belgian en- xxx, 33–38, 43–44, 68, 99, 117, 177n, 221n,
couragement of, 194–95, 201–3; European 231–32; map of, 34; White Fathers’ role in
establishment of state boundaries, 118– Mpumbika case, 36–41
20; evolution of administrative control Gisenyi, 86; as administrative center, 135;
and, 99–102; German military as ally in, Nyabingi movement at, 181; requisition
106–7, 126–27, 129; military organization policies at, 86, 88–89, 123
and, 6–8; and protected status of smaller Great Britain: administrative policies of, 120,
polities, 12, 199–203 178–79; and capture of Muhumusa, 120;
expansion of Nyiginya kingdom, map, 7 Court’s relationship with, xxx, 119, 139,
extortion, 67 235, 243; in eastern Rwanda, 178–79,
300 Index

Great Britain (continued ) Indengabaginizi regiment, 43, 71, 124

192–93, 204–5; economic motives for poli- Inshongore (Court faction), 165–71, 174–75, 183–
cies of, 179; Hutu and administration by, 93, 206, 209–11, 214, 216, 225–26, 233,
178–79, 181–82, 204–5, 228; slavery pro- 237, 239
hibited by, 138; territorial claims of, 105– International Delimitation Commission,
6, 116, 118–20, 130–31, 133–34, 165–66 118–20
Gudovius, Lt., 88, 124–29
guns: as European military advantage, 15, 134, Johanssen, Ernst, 82
140, 203; White Fathers and, 59, 79, 154 justice system: Belgian policies and traditional,
gutora system, 58–59, 67, 145 204; Court’s role in, 74–75, 101, 109; Kandt
as civil administrator, 87–89; as political
hierarchy, cultural, 6–7; administration power instrument, 101; punishment of kinship
and, 160–61; Belgians and disruption of, groups or lineages by, 272n58; White
135–37, 220–22; clientship agreements Fathers and dispute resolution, 59–62, 68–
and, xxvi, xxxv, 12–14, 73, 75, 93, 112; 69, 81–85, 96–97, 106, 146, 177–78
Court culture and institutionalization of,
6–7, 74; education and, 161; ethnicity Kabare (uncle of Musinga), xxiii, 15, 70; anti-
and, 4–5, 13, 197–98; and exercise of European stance of, 54, 76, 79–80; death
royal power, 96; gifts and, 10–11; insults of, 84; as dominant political power, 75;
and humiliation, 128–29; military struc- Kanjogera and, 42, 45–46, 73; mission-
tures and, 6, 11; social identities and, 4–5; aries and, 28, 30–31; Musinga’s power
and social status of Europeans, 65–67, struggle with, 79–81, 84, 101; role in coup,
93. See also lineages; monarchy; notables 16; Ruhinankiko as rival of, 22–23, 28,
Hirth, Bishop Jean-Joseph, 27–28, 33, 49, 145; 30–31, 41–44, 100; White Fathers and, 45–
objection to interference in secular affairs, 46, 81, 84
68–69 Kabgayi mission, 55, 63, 77–78, 91, 177n, 179,
homosexuality, 218–19 209; cathedral at, 188–89
Huntzinger, Fr., 139–40, 141, 146, 177n, 186 Kadiho, 182–83
Hutu, xxvi, 4; Belgian policy toward, 136–37, Kagesha, 156
144, 149–51, 175, 204–5, 228; British ad- Kamembe, Musinga’s exile to, 241–42
ministration and, 178–79, 181–82, 204–5, Kandt, Richard, 24–26, 32, 34–35, 78–79, 82;
228; clientship relationships and, 176; as administrative responsibilities of, 78, 85–
conscript labor, 55–56, 175; conversion to 92, 97, 116–20, 272n58; Court and, 24–
Christianity, 176–77; emigration to avoid 25, 32, 34; on Hutu, 26; on Musinga, 71,
Belgian control, 204–5, 228; Europeans 93, 96; White Fathers and, 34–35
as patrons or protectors of, 109–10; geo- Kaningu, 30–31
graphic concentration of, 12; Kandt on, Kanjogera (Nyirayuhi), 113, 156; anti-European
26; revolt led by Ndungutse, 120–29; so- stance of, 76, 139; coup and seizure of
cial status of, 12–13, 269n16; as transla- power by, xxiii, 73–74; designated as sub-
tors, 136–37; White Fathers and the, 29– stitute queen mother, xxiii, 9, 14–15; exe-
30, 37, 55–56, 61, 65–66, 68 cution of rivals by, 22–23; as favorite of
Rwabugiri, 72; Kayondo and, 131–32, 139,
ibikingi, 8, 12, 220, 236 147n, 168, 214, 239; Musinga’s relation-
ideology, Court, 6–7 ship with, 72–74, 84–85; political power
Ijwi Island, 118–19, 130 of, 73–74, 75; relationship with Ruhinan-
ikoro. See taxes kiko and Kabare, 42, 45–46, 73
Imandwa belief system, 14, 17, 57, 67, 139, 208n Kankazi (Musinga’s wife), 156, 217
 Index 301

Kansi mission, 69, 95 Lecoindre, Fr., 218–19

Kanuma, 124, 209 legitimacy: Biregeya as rival for throne, 82; coup
Kanyange (Musinga’s wife), 185–86 and perception of Musinga as usurper, 20–
Karing (royal drum), 3, 16–17, 20, 161, 232, 236 21, 103, 124; drum and rituals of kingship,
Kayijuka, 30–33, 38 3, 16–17; Europeans as threat to Musinga’s
Kayitakibwa, 223–24, 229 rule, 82–83, 129; Muhumusa’s movement
Kayondo: anti-European stance of, 83–84, 139; as challenge to Musinga’s, 103–4, 121,
European allies and power of, 142, 167– 269n17; Ndungutse as rival for throne, 121–
69, 187, 190, 206–10, 224–25, 233; Kanjo- 22, 124; revolts and legitimist causes, 21,
gera and, 131–32, 139, 147n, 168, 214, 103–4, 121–22, 124; ritual code and, 7;
239; as Musinga’s ally, 84; as Musinga’s Semaraso’s claims to, 230; and sovereign
rival, 131–32, 147–48, 167–69, 187, 206– muhinza in small polities, 199–200; well-
10, 211, 214, 217–18, 225 being of kingdom linked to monarch’s,
Kigali: as administrative center, 135; establish- 181n
ment of colonial capital at, 85–86 Lenaerts, Louis, 173–74, 184–86, 188, 190,
Kilembwe, Musinga’s exile to, 245 193–94, 223
Kinyarwanda language, xxv, 14; Europeans lineages: erosion of traditional power structures
and language barriers, 25, 86–88, 93, 95, based on, 110–12, 153, 271n49; ethnic iden-
135, 136–37, 144 tity and patrilineality, 113; land grant do-
mains and, 111–12; matridynastic clans
labor conscription, 55–56, 90; akazi, colonial and, 9, 14–15; role and responsibility of
form of, xxii, 175–76, 182, 193, 195, 199, lineage heads, 110–11; traditional kinship
203, 228; for construction of capital in alliances and political power, xxiii, 8–9, 10,
Kigali, 86; as uburetwa, 175; White Fathers 96, 124, 147; White Fathers as allies of the
and, 50, 55–56 Court, 49, 92–93
Lake Victoria, 27n Loupias, Fr., 113–15, 272n57
land, European claims to, 24, 165–66; Belgium
and, 24, 85, 105–6, 116–20, 130–31; estab- Mafene, 133
lishment of formal state boundaries, 118– Magera, 196–97
20; Germany and, 116; Great Britain and, Maji-Maji rebellion, 78
116, 118–19, 165–66 Malfeyt, Cmdr., 142–43
land rights, 8, 12, 62–63; Belgian administra- manioc, 144, 233–35
tion of, 196–97, 205–6, 220–21; claims on Marzorati, Alfred, 192, 233, 235
vacant land after famines, 150; clientship matridynastic clans, 9, 14–15
agreements and, 6; Europeans and ad- Mbonyubgabo, Guillaume (Wilhelmi), 137,
ministration of rights to, 112; ibikingi and 145
control of land, 8, 12, 220, 236; ubutaka, Mburanumwe, 182–83
111–12 Mecklenburg, Adolf Friedrich, Duke of,
language: ambiguity and, 13, 94–95; Europeans 82, 85
and language barriers, 25, 86–88, 93, 95, methodology, xv–xvi, xxvii
135, 136–37, 144; Kinyarwanda as com- Mibambwe. See Rutarindwa (Mibambwe)
mon, 14, 25; regional cultures and, 13; Mibirizi mission, 45, 59, 60, 67–68
role of basemyi (interpreters), 136–37, 144– military: and consolidation of state, 10–11;
46; Swahili and communication with Eu- European territorial claims as motives
ropeans, 67, 76, 95, 135, 136, 144, 161, 191 for military campaigns, 116; Germans
Lavigerie, Cardinal Charles Martial Allemand, as military allies, 99, 106–9, 115–17, 120–
27, 60n, 62 29, 139, 140–41; ntore (Rwandan youth
302 Index

military (continued ) 99; as weak and ineffective ruler, 96–97,

battalion), 6, 194, 219; and pillaging, 20; 126; White Fathers and (see under White
and revolts, 19–20; ritual code and, 7; Fathers)
structures and institutions of, 6–7 Muslims, 173
missionaries. See Protestant missionaries; Mutwewingabo, 19–20
White Fathers
monarchy, 96; Belgians and elimination of, 139, Naho, 163–64
154, 239; execution as royal prerogative, names: European given names, 178, 184–85;
174–75; power struggles among potential royal “reign names,” 14n, 21
successors to, 148–49; rituals and symbols Ndanga cult, 231–32
of kingship, 72, 81, 161, 207–9, 235–38; Ndekezi, 223–24
royal lineage system and, 8–9, 14–15; and Ndochibiri (Ntoke Mbiri, Nyabingi leader),
well-being of kingdom, 172, 181, 207–9. 181–82, 275n13
See also legitimacy; succession Ndori, Ruganzu, 77
Monnier (Seventh Day Adventist pastor), 173 Ndungutse, 120–29, 155, 230
Mortehan, Georges, 172, 174, 192–93, 235 notables: administrative roles of, xvii, 20, 26, 37,
Mpamarugamba: fake mwami, 17–18, 28– 49, 56, 89, 99–102, 107, 110–12, 150–51; as
29, 32 administrators of Court will, 126–27, 144;
Mpumbika, 37–41, 46 as Belgian administrative agents, 150–53,
Mugugu, 16 157–61, 175–76, 180, 183, 193, 198, 204–5,
Muhigirwa, 15, 19, 22, 100 223–25, 226–28, 229, 233–34; Belgian
muhinza, 199–201 treatment of Rwandan, 119, 135–37, 139–
Muhumusa, 98, 103–4, 117–18, 120–23, 129, 40, 144–45, 149, 175–76, 205–6, 220–23;
269n17 British treatment of Rwandan, 178; client-
Mulera region, 88, 148–53, 180, 195–97 ship relationships and, xxxv, 12, 75, 100–
Munonzi (Musinga’s son), 162, 167, 186 102, 107, 110–12, 176, 204, 227–28, 233–
Murebwayire, 156 35; conversion to Christianity of, 163–64,
Murunda mission, 91–92 213–14; Court culture and, 6–7; as Euro-
Muserekande, 19–22, 103, 121, 269n17 pean allies, 148–49; European education
Musheshambuga, 243 and, 35, 59, 62, 65, 67, 95, 161–63, 166,
Musinga, Yuhi, ii, 70, 156, 212; accession of, 188, 191, 211–12; factionalism and rivalries
xxiii, 3, 9–10, 16–17, 20–21; Bega, power among, 21, 80–81, 101, 117, 124, 132, 150–
struggles with, 73–74, 84–85, 101, 131–32, 51, 165–71, 223–26; German cooperation
147–48, 242 (see also Kayondo as rival of with, 87–88, 106–10, 115, 131–34, 154; of
under this heading); Belgian administration Gisaka linked to revolt, 33–41; ikoro collec-
and (see under Belgium); Christianity and, tion as administrative role of, 122; inter-
80, 145–46, 162–65, 188–89, 237, 243; actions between Europeans and, 25–26,
death of, 245–46; German administration 49–51, 53–54, 66, 82–83, 93 (see also White
and (see under Germany); Kabare, power Fathers under this heading); military activities
struggle with, 79–81, 84, 101; Kanjogera’s and status of, 10, 107; relationship with
relationship with, 72–74, 84–85; Kayondo Musinga, 74–75, 82, 117–18, 132, 146–48,
as rival of, 131–32, 147–48, 167–69, 187, 165–71, 183, 224–26, 239 (see also adminis-
206–10, 211, 214, 217–18, 225; mother and trative roles of under this heading ); replace-
uncles as regents for, 23, 71; physical de- ment of traditional system with bureauc-
scription of, 71–72; potential successors racy, 193, 195; status and customs of, 33n,
of, 216–17; resistance to Europeans by, 92, 65, 74–75, 93; tax collection by, 204–5,
95–97; Rwabugiri’s relationship with, 72, 229; traditional power structures and, 160;
 Index 303

White Fathers as rival authorities of, 54, precipitation: droughts, xxix–xxx, 65, 234;
56, 58–59, 61, 63–69, 76–78, 84, 91–92, rainmakers, 109–10
93, 110. See also clientship agreements Pretorius (Boer trader/raider), 54–55
Nshozamihigo (brother of Musinga), 101–2, Prior, Fr., 153–54
132, 148 property: European systems of property rights,
Ntoke Mbiri (Ndochibiri, Nyabingi leader), 159, 174–76, 193; missionaries and appro-
181–82, 275n13 priation of, 50, 63–64; traditional Rwan-
ntore (Rwandan youth battalion), 6, 194, 219; dan systems of, 161, 222, 234–35. See also
European training of, 162–63, 173, 190–91 land rights; ubuhake cattle clientship
Nturo, 117, 167, 169, 187, 190, 224 proselytizing. See conversion to Christianity
Nyabingi cult, 103–4, 122, 133–34, 153, 181–83, Protestant missionaries, 57–58, 133, 188, 229,
230–31, 275n13 263n85; establishment of missions by,
Nyakayoga, 103, 269n17 82, 91–92; as patrons in clientship arrange-
Nyamakwa, 200–201 ments, 177; relationship with Court, 83–84,
Nyanza: as earlier name for Lake Victoria, 27n; 92, 94, 173, 188, 206. See also Seventh Day
as location of Court, 27n, 238–39; royal Adventists
prestige and, 189, 209, 236; school at,
194, 213, 222 queen mother: role of, xxiii, xxxii, 9, 73; Kanjo-
Nyindo (brother of Musinga), 133–34 gera and, 9, 14–15, 21–22, 72
Nyiraburumbuke (religious spirit), 231–32
Nyirakabuga (Musinga’s wife), 156, 174, 185– rainfall in Rwanda, map, 2
87, 216–18 rainmakers, 65, 109–10, 201, 234, 263n69
Nyirandakunze, 202–3 Ramsay, Capt. Hauptmann von, 17–19, 26, 33
Nyirayuhi: reign name of Kanjogera, 17. See religion: cathedral in Kabgayi, 188–89; client-
also Kanjogera (Nyirayuhi) ship and Christianity, 214; European atti-
Nyirimbirima (nephew of Musinga), 148–50, tudes toward traditional, 77, 79, 161, 208–
168 9; European religious education, 29, 35,
Nyundo mission, 45, 86 189–90; freedom of, 145–46, 162, 164–65,
Nzakigarura (Musinga’s son), 240 173–74; Imandwa belief system, 14, 57, 67,
77, 139, 208n; Islam in Rwanda, 173; Mu-
oral histories as sources, xv–xvi, xxvii, 289; list singa’s opposition to Christianity, 80, 145–
of Rwandan interviewees, 247–53 46, 162–65, 188–89, 237, 243; Nyabingi
Orts-Milner Convention, 158–59, 165 cult, 103–4, 122, 133–34, 153, 181–83, 230–
31, 275n13; Nyiraburumbuke movement,
pawnship, 138 231–32; rainmakers as protected class,
pillage: Belgians and, 151; of European mis- 109–10; sacrificial practices of Rwanda,
sions or caravans, 28, 34, 48, 52, 54, 133; 67; vs. social custom and ritual, 161;
German cooperation in, 90, 108, 132; by vengeful spirits of the dead, 22. See also
mobs associated with missionaries, 59– conversion to Christianity; Protestant
60, 108; as traditional political instru- missionaries; White Fathers
ment, 20, 23, 38, 75, 104 resistance and anti-European sentiment: Ba-
poetry, in praise of warriors, 128 kiga and, 47–51, 120–23, 127, 132–34, 151–
poison: Court rivalries and poison plots, 15, 74, 55, 197–99, 229–31; Bushiru and, 199–
85, 132, 141–43, 174, 186, 219, 244; Euro- 200; Court and, 79–80, 83–84, 145–47;
pean influence as, 134, 161–63, 167; as ju- cult leaders and, 120, 122, 123, 181–83;
dicial instrument, 144 cults and, 120, 122, 123; European in-
Postiaux, Henri, 235–36 fluence as “poison,” 134, 161–63, 167;
304 Index

resistance . . . (continued ) of power, 37; Kabare as rival of, 22–23,

Kabare and, 54, 76, 79–80; Kanjogera 28, 30–31, 41–44, 100; Kanjogera and,
and, 76, 139; Kayondo and, 83–84, 139; 42; missionaries and, 28
land cessions and, 165–66; Musinga and, Rukara, 109, 112–15, 121–23, 125–27, 272n57,
76, 79–80, 92, 95–97, 145–47, 215–18, 272n58
224–25; Nyabingi movement and, 122, Rukeratabaro, 230
133–34, 153, 181–83, 230–32, 275n13; and Rukura, 35–38, 258n40
opposition to Christianity, 145–47, 163– Rulindo mission, 91–92, 116
65; rebel leaders as magical figures, 123 Rutarindwa (Mibambwe): coup and death
revolts: against Belgian rule, 139–40; in Gisaka, of, 16; as designated successor, 9, 14,
33–38; legitimist causes and, 21, 103– 21; Kanjogera as designated adoptive
4, 121–22, 124; Muhigirwa and, 19, 22; queen mother of, xxiii, 9, 14–15
Ndungutse as leader of Hutu, 120–29, 155, Rutayashwage, 230
230; 1912 rebellion in northern Rwanda, Rutishereka, 22
88; Rukura and effort to incite, 33–36; Rutwaza, Léon, 77, 79–80
Ruyaga (Tempestuous Wind), 19–20 Rwabugiri, Kigeri, xxiii; consolidation of power
reward: as political instrument, 75, 97. See also by, 10; death of, 15; institutional transfor-
cattle; clientship agreements; land rights mations implemented by, xxiv–xxv; Ru-
rinderpest, 171–72 tarindwa as designated successor to, 9,
ritualists (biru), 7, 9, 12, 124; and accession of 14, 21
Musinga, 17; autonomy of, 12, 100n; po- Rwabutogo, 173–74, 190, 205–6, 213, 232, 233
litical roles of, 28 Rwagataraka, 140–41, 148, 169, 202–3, 217–20,
rituals, royal: to appease spirits of the dead, 20– 224, 242–43
21; Belgian dismissal of, 161; drum and le- Rwakadigi, 149–51, 206, 277n52
gitimacy of kingship, 3, 236; fire as sym- Rwamaga, 88
bol of dynasty, 81; military structures and, Rwamakuba, 183
7; mock blood brotherhood performed by Rwatangabo, 117
Mpamarugamba, 18; and political power, Rwaza mission, 45, 50–51, 53, 55, 59–60, 89–
236; prohibition against crossing Nyaba- 90, 106, 113–14, 126, 182; Muhumusa and,
rongo River, 164; sacrifice, divinatory, 51– 120, 122; Nshozamihigo as authority in,
52; ubwiru (ritual code), 7 101–2
Roman Catholic missionaries. See White Rwidegembya, 34–35, 76, 81, 84, 101, 116, 131,
Fathers 147, 167, 169–70; Belgian imprisonment
Rubengera mission, 91–92 of, 140–41, 142, 147, 242
Rudacyahwa (Musinga’s son), 139, 162, 167, Rwigemera (Musinga’s son), 174, 186–87, 216–
186, 217 19, 237
Rudahigwa, Mutara (Musinga’s son), xvi, Rwubusisi, 127, 142, 147, 167, 170, 224
162, 217, 237, 239–40, 241, 244–46
Rudasumbwa (queen mother of Busozo), sacrifice, divinatory, 51–52, 65, 67, 204
203 Sandrart, Lt. Georges, 15–16
Ruganzu Ndori, 201 Save mission, xxviii–xxix, 28, 34, 38–39, 45,
Rugira, 231–32 55, 62–63, 76
Rugulira, 174 Schindelar (Austrian trader/raider), 54–55
Ruhararamanzi, 104–5 Sebagangari, 225
Ruhinankiko (uncle of Musinga), xxiii, 15, 17–18, Sebakara, 19–20
34–35, 40; Gisaka uprising and erosion Sebugirigiri, 206
 Index 305

Sebuharara, 43–44, 53, 71 Tutsi, 4; geographic concentration of, 12; social

Sebuyange, 113–15, 127 status vs. other ethnic groups, 12–13. See
Sehene, 16 also notables
Semaraso, 229–31 Twa, xxvi, 4, 29, 65–66, 84, 123, 237, 238;
Semutwa (nephew of Musinga): and conver- Basebya as rebel leader of, 104–5, 115–
sion to Christianity, 163–64 17, 120, 127
Serufigi, 137, 141
Serukenyinkware, 217–18 ubuhake cattle clientship, xxvi–xxvii, 13, 61, 62,
Seventh Day Adventists, 173, 177, 215–16 107, 110–11, 176, 225, 227–29; European
sexual morality, 218–20 property rights systems and disruption
Shangi battle, 15–16, 18 of, 221–22, 234–35; shebuja’s role in, 32–
shebuja (patron in cattle clientship), 32–33, 61, 33, 61, 62, 83, 107, 128–29, 144, 176, 214,
62, 83, 107, 128–29, 144, 176, 214, 222, 222, 225, 227–28
225, 227–28 uburetwa labor, xxii, 102, 107, 111, 131, 132, 144,
slavery and slave trade, 48, 64, 138 150, 153, 182, 205; contrasted with Euro-
social identities, 4–5, 13. See also hierarchy, pean conscription of, 175; resistance to
cultural institution of, 120–21, 150–51, 198–99
Spears (American trader/raider), 34, 36 ubutaka (land rights), 111–12
succession: and coup of Rucunshu, xxiii–xxv, ubwiru (ritual code), 7
16–17, 20–21, 73–74, 139; lineages and, Umuganura, 207–9
14–15; potential successors of Musinga,
216–17; power struggles among potential Van Aerde, Cmdr., 139–40
successors, 148–49 Van den Eede, E., 165–66, 171–72
suicide, 19, 43n, 140, 245 Voisin, Charles, 237
Swahili, 67, 76, 95, 135, 136, 144, 161, 191 Von Beringe, Capt., 39–40
swamps and marshlands, xxix–xxx, 104, 120– Von Bethe, Capt., 28, 30
21, 123, 221n Von der Heyden, E., 184–85
Von Götzen, Count G. A., 15, 26
taxes: Belgian levy of, 175–76, 204–5; and ex- Von Grawert, Werner, 36, 48, 51, 52–53;
pansion of royal control, 100–102; Ger- and Kabare/Ruhinankiko rivalry,
man levy of, 89–90, 96–97; ikoro and tra- 44; as Resident administrator of
ditional collection of, 8, 11–12, 20, 49, 92, Rwanda, 78
101–2, 121–22, 127, 153, 176, 193–96, Von Nordeck, Lt., 54
204; prohibition by Belgians of custom- Von Parish, F. R., 40–41
ary requisitions, 204; punitive levy of, 75;
as royal prerogative, 96–97, 102, 107–8, White Fathers: as Belgian allies or advisors, 51,
205; White Fathers and collection of, 106, 60, 139–40, 145; consolidation of royal
107–8 control as objective of, 106–8; and Court
Tombeur, Gen. Charles, 135 politics, 37–41, 45, 81, 84, 90–91; disagree-
trade: Court and control of, 34, 46–48; formal ments among, 38–39; economic advan-
markets, 47; networks in Rwanda, 3–4; tages of association with, 66–68; educa-
Schindelar-Pretorius case, 54–55; supplies tion provided by, 28–29, 35, 177, 188; as
appropriated by traders, 86; White Fathers French nationals, 60; German adminis-
and dispensing of trade goods, 65 tration and, 34–35, 39–40, 60, 63–64, 77–
trees: destruction of sacred, 77, 79; requisition 78, 79, 82, 90–92; harassment of, 52–
of lumber, 49–50, 56, 76–77 53; Hutu and the, 29–30, 37, 55–56, 61,
306 Index

White Fathers (continued ) patrons in clientship arrangements under

65–66, 68; labor and resources requisi- this heading); secular roles adopted by, 59–
tioned by, 49–50, 68, 76–77; letters and 62, 68–69, 81–85, 106, 146, 177, 178
diaries of as sources, 289; missions estab- Wilmin, H., 235
lished by, 27–31, 45, 46, 50, 56, 91–92, 105; Wintgens, Capt., 89–90, 137, 141; on Musinga,
Musinga’s relationship with, 34–35, 49, 76, 96, 134
79–82, 81–82, 92–93, 188–92 (see also as ri- World War I: administrative changes during,
vals to Court authority under this heading ); as 132–33; colonial control in context of, xv,
patrons in clientship arrangements, 33, 46, xxiv–xxv, 130, 135, 140–41, 145, 152, 154,
50–51, 58–59, 61–63, 68, 77–78, 120, 152– 157, 179
54, 177–78; Protestant missionaries as com- World War II, 240
petition for, 82; punitive raids and pillag-
ing mobs linked to, 59–60; resistance at Yuhi V (reign name of Musinga). See Musinga,
Court to, 45–46, 76, 91–92, 145–46; and Yuhi
ritualists’ traditional role in Rwanda, 28;
as rivals to Court authority, 31, 37–41, 69, Zaza mission, xxviii–xxix, 33n, 35–41, 43, 45–
91–92, 145–46, 168–69, 177 (see also as 46, 52–53, 56, 63–65, 79, 90
 A   D      
Histor y, Politics, Culture

S  E   
Thomas Spear
David Henige
Michael Schatzberg

Spirit, Structure, and Flesh:

Gendered Experiences in African Instituted Churches among the Yoruba of Nigeria
Deidre Helen Crumbley

A Hill among a Thousand: Transformations and Ruptures in Rural Rwanda

Danielle de Lame

Defeat Is the Only Bad News: Rwanda under Musinga, 1896–1931

Alison Liebhafsky Des Forges, edited by David Newbury

Power in Colonial Africa: Conflict and Discourse in Lesotho, 1870–1960

Elizabeth A. Eldredge

Nachituti’s Gift: Economy, Society, and Environment in Central Africa

David M. Gordon

Intermediaries, Interpreters, and Clerks: African Employees in the Making of Colonial Africa
Edited by Benjamin N. Lawrance, Emily Lynn Osborn, and
Richard L. Roberts

Naming Colonialism: History and Collective Memory in the Congo, 1870–1960

Osumaka Likaka

Antecedents to Modern Rwanda: The Nyiginya Kingdom

Jan Vansina

Being Colonized: The Kuba Experience in Rural Congo, 1880–1960

Jan Vansina