The Rwandan Context of the Royal Rituals
Following a period of important military expansion and internal political consolidation, the kingdom of Rwanda included close to two million people within a highly centralized polity and hierarchized society at…
Ritual as Communication: Structuralists and the Analysis of Drama
Rituals are essentially formalized social drama. They are performed by people; therefore (where not esoteric) they invariably focus attention on the social aspects of the ritual, because in the performance…
What Role Has KingShip: An Analysis of the Umuganura Ritual of Rwanda
An Analysis of the Umuganura Ritual of Rwanda as presented in M. d’Hertefelt and A. Coupez, La royauté sacrée de l’ancien Rwanda Divine kingship is one of the hoary tropes…
Bunyabungo: The Western Frontier in Rwanda, 1750–1850
Social hierarchy is manifested in many ways: politically, economically, and culturally. And asserting superiority occurs in many forms, including literary narratives, where assumptions of social superiority can be expressed in…
The Clans Of Rwanda: A Historical Hypothesis
Colonial historiography assumed that African societies were static, permanent, and primordial. The presence of “clans” in African societies was taken to prove to the case, for clans were seen as…
The Colonial Legacy in the Postcolonial Period
Following a second exile of seventeen years, Ntambuka, Ndogosa’s son and successor, returned to Ijwi just before independence in the territorial division of the island remained as it had been…
The Social Impact of the New Game
One of the blinders on colonial perceptions resulted from the perpetuation of the myth of indirect rule. Because he was local to Ijwi and a member of the royal family,…
The Changing Political Game
New Goals, New Rules, New Strategies During his long retreat and flight, Ndogosa had acted to avoid relinquishing sovereignty. For him, the question of sovereignty had been more important than…
The Changing of the Guard under Colonial Rule
The death of Rwabugiri, the Rwandan conqueror, led to the withdrawal of direct Rwandan power from Ijwi. But the reestablishment of the royal Sibula line in the southern part of…
King And Chief On Ijwi Island
One early legacy of colonial rule in Africa was an academic focus on the process of elite formation in African societies. A product of the perceived political needs of the…
Labor Demands
The growth of plantations and other enterprises in Kinyaga led to a progressive augmentation in the wage labor force. Labor demands from Europeans in Kinyaga had to compete with demands…
Kinyagans And Wage Labor
Work for Europeans within Kinyaga offered only minimal economic advantages; salaries were on the whole low, particularly when compared to benefits to be gained through the sale of livestock and…
The Death of Rwabugiri
The thin veneer of Rwandan administrative occupation is again evident from the events following Rwabugiri’s death, about a decade after the death of Nkundiye. Rwabugiri died in a canoe off…
The Administration of Rwabugiri on Ijwi
Ijwi under its Havu king had always been independent of Rwanda ritually, politically and militarily. However, both ritually and politically there were indeed royal elements similar to those in Rwanda—perhaps…
The Death of Nkundiye
The limited aims of Rwabugiri’s attack on Ijwi are best demonstrated in the initial results. Nkundiye was placed as chief over the south by the Rwandans, politically assuming his father’s…