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 entertaining ways, even as the narrative carries a powerful didactic lesson. This chapter draws on one of the many literary tropes of Rwandan court culture directed toward people not of Rwandan culture (and considered distinctly less worthy by Rwandan elite culture). But such blatant representations are sometimes more a reflection of the speaker than of the object: they illustrate the speaker’s own sense of superiority by mocking the differences of others from them—“they don’t do these things as [well as] we do.” Moreover, such alterity (attributing lesser status to “others”) also becomes an important tool of internal group cohesion: to belong to a group, one has to accept the denigration of an agreed target group—the “other.” This text illustrates this process at work in Rwanda at a time of the emergence of strong elitist tendencies in Rwanda, associated with the consolidation of a distinct court culture where etiquette, dress, dance forms, style, values—and expressed superiority—all became critical to one’s acceptance. Distinguishing oneselffrom others—and distinguishing between royal cultures and commoner culture—became imperative to one’s social advancement. Far from showing precolonial Rwanda as a land of egalitarian harmony, these sources illustrate the deeply hierarchical nature of Rwandan court culture. However, there was an irony here, since the western frontier zones that were the object of court disdain were also in fact areas of enormous creativity and productivity: the differences were worthy of disdain only in the eye of the beholder.

The concept of the frontiers paradoxical: distinct from the metropolitan society, a frontier society can only be defined and perceived in relation to the cultural heartland of which it is an extension. This relationship between frontier and metropole is critical, differentiating the frontier from other types of “peripheral” areas, such as the “bush” or the “outback.” From the perspective of the metropole, the bush and the outback are seen negatively, as truly peripheral areas; the frontier, on the other hand, is usually seen positively, as geo-graphically peripheral but not unimportant. Bush and outback are not seen as areas of external expansion for the metropole, while the frontier often is; nor are they seen as crucial to the cultural identity of the heartland, while the frontier often is.

But while identified by reference to the metropole, the frontier is a zone where the cultural values of the metropole are very much at issue. By providing alter-natives to metropolitan culture—in the form of different cultural values or even a perceived lack of culture—the presence of the frontier may well threaten the harmony and hegemony of metropolitan values. Consequently, the frontier zone is a region on which the essential values of the metropolitan society are projected with great intensity, creating an identity for the frontier in relation to the metropole that reinforces or justifies the metropole’s claims to the frontier. Yet these projected values need only focus on the core ties to the frontier, but not replicate those of the core area itself. The values used to shape this identity are therefore selective values, determined by conditions within the metropole and not by the realities of the frontier. They are therefore often idealized values that may be declining or even absent in the cultural heartland. By thus reinforcing the ideological underpinnings seen as constant and enduring within the heartland, the created identity link between frontier and metropole may obscure the tensions of a society in rapid change.

The idealization of the western American frontier, for example, became important approximately with the closing of the frontier and the late-nineteenth-century transformation of the eastern cities. In the “land of the free” on the western frontier, it was argued, individual initiative was rewarded with wealth and status, even while in fact the lives of those on the frontier were often marked by physical hardship and violence. But the myth of the West grew in the East; in ideological terms, the characterization of “freedom” on the western frontier came to be reflected back onto the metropolitan areas, and eventually applied to the polity as a whole. In this case, therefore, the metropolitan areas adopted the perceived values of the frontier zone as their own, even though these may in fact have been as far removed from the reality of life in the metropole as they were from that of the frontier.

These are the images of the frontiersmen, who are seen as an extension of the metropole into the frontier zone. But there is also another aspect of the frontier, represented most directly by its indigenous population. For societies expanding through conquest, the concept of the frontier also lends itself to ideologies that justify state expansion and rationalize the incorporation of new groups. The most common form of this ideological construction is found in the opposition between the metropolitan values and the cultural stereotypes of those to whom the frontier zone is their homeland. Juxtaposing two cultural ideals in a polarized form invariably emphasizes the humanity of the metropolitan culture in opposition to the inhumanity—or anarchic culture—of the “barbarians.” As illustrated below, the choice may be posed in stark terms: culture or chaos. Such an attitude often justifies the inhumane treatment of the “barbarians” by the representatives of “civilized” society—by incorporation, elimination, or extirpation. The conceptual paradigm of the frontier, then, is as much a product of the perceptions of other cultures (generated by political conditions within the metro-pole) as it is a product of the ethnographic realities on the ground.

The history of the Central African kingdom of Rwanda provides an example of the association between the growth of the frontier concept, the development of metropolitan ideology, and the westward expansion of Rwandan social and political structures. It illustrates how certain values, initially strongly anchored in the military expeditions to the west (conquest and hierarchy), came to be incorporated as essential elements of the political ideology of the Rwandan central court, and applied even within (perhaps most strongly within) the central regions. Historical traditions provide abundant evidence of the strength of the oppositions between Rwandan culture and non-Rwandan culture: regardless of their origins, emigrants to the west from the Rwandan culture area were seen (both by the central court and by the original inhabitants of the region) as “Rwandan” relative to those who lived in the western highlands. Furthermore,the culture of the inhabitants of these regions is portrayed in the Rwandan literature in monolithic terms, as a single atavistic culture associated with the stereo-types applied today to peoples living farther west still, west of Lake Kivu.

To the Rwandans, the inhabitants of these areas were collectively known as “Banyabungo” (or “Bashi”), though in fact several distinct ethnic groups were represented in these lands. Therefore, although today applied to areas west of Lake Kivu, the term “Bunyabungo” (the locative form of the personal plural nominal “Banyabungo”) can be taken as historically representative of non-Rwandan societies of the western areas in general, including the regions now of western Rwanda but west of the Nile-Congo divide; even today the people of central Rwanda often refer to the inhabitants of western Rwanda as “Banyabungo.” Therefore, rather than referring to a precise cultural entity, the term is used in the classificatory sense of a relative category, in opposition to the concept of “Rwandan-ness.” And it is almost invariably used in a derogatory manner, to mean“non-cultured” as well as “non-Rwandan”—in the political lexicon, the two were synonyms. The term “Bunyabungo” therefore encodes the basic opposition inherent in the Rwandan conception of the western frontier.

But the significance of these concepts was not limited to the frontier zone. Most analyses of the Rwandan state emphasize the expansion of state institutions, stressing the impact of Rwandan structures on conquered areas. Less attention has been given to the transformations that occurred within the Rwandan heartland; it is assumed that, except for changes in scale, central Rwandan institutions remained largely unaltered as a result of the western frontier experience. In fact, the expansion of the western frontier had significant repercussions on the internal development of Rwandan political culture: the hierarchical administrative forms and the cultural distancing so apparent on the western frontier appear to have developed roughly at the same time in central Rwanda, as the values associated with the Rwandan expansion became more deeply embedded within Rwandan central court institutions in metropolitan areas. In this way the western frontier in Rwanda had a profound impact on the internal development of Rwanda, not only through expansion itself but in terms of wider political and cultural changes, as the inclusion of large numbers of culturally distinct populations provided a model for social interaction throughout the areas where Rwandan state structures were found. These changes therefore were a product not of a unidirectional cause-effect relationship (following the political hierarchy), but of mutual reinforcement between center and periphery—with effects in both domains.

In pursuing these themes, the discussion will first focus on the westward expansion of the Rwandan state, based on published historical traditions. Doing so will provide the political context within which to examine the development of Rwandan cultural stereotypes applied to the west. The second section illustrates the nature of the cultural stereotypes by drawing on examples from Rwandan Court literature. I will argue that the use of non-Rwandan cultural traits in ways that portray non-Rwandans as “acultural” beings reinforces a particular concept of Rwandan-ness. Thus the frontier becomes not simply a geographical place, but also a conceptual field for a set of attitudes affecting identity and culture— but attitudes generated in a particular political context. The third section examines the types of interaction that occurred across the cultural divide delineated in the literary productions of the court. The same people who (in some social contexts) stress the barbarous nature of their western neighbors also trade with them, marry with them, and move to settle among them. These forms of inter-action bring into question the set of conceptual oppositions portrayed in the court literature and emphasize the contingent nature of such characterizations. The significance of the discursive (and class) contexts in generating these stereotypes reinforces the conclusion that such portrayals speak more to the nature and conditions of the central areas that generated them than they do to the nature of the people they purportedly described.

The stateof Rwanda emerged in its earliest forms near Lake Mohazi, on the open savannah areas between Lake Victoria and Lake Kivu. This was pastoral country par excellence, and the various states that gradually took shape there were originally built on the alliance of pastoralist groups. Rwanda was, in the beginning, one state among many in this region, and through several centuries of turbulent political history, the nucleus of this state was gradually displaced west-ward until it was located in the area near the Nile-Congo divide—a forested highland area, geographically quite different from its original homeland in the east. Although there had been some contact between the Rwandan Court and the areas farther west (even as far as Lake Kivu) in earlier periods, it was not until the reign of Cyilima Rujugira in the mid-eighteenth century that there appears to have been a permanent Rwandan presence in the area between the divide and Lake Kivu.

As the Rwandan state grew and as its center gradually shifted westward, its state structures also came to encompass a greater variety of ethnic groups, distinguished as much by their relative social positions and access to power in theRwandan state as by cultural or geographical factors. In later years, as the state structures took stronger form, these multiple ethnicities were categorized essentially in bipolar terms, as “Tutsi” and “Hutu” (though there were important differences within each group, and individual family status could sometimes shift, gradually, from one category to another). The Tutsi shared essentially pastoralist cultural values, and virtually all positions of political authority within the Rwandan state were held by Tutsi. The Hutu were, in general, associated with agriculturalist values (though many Hutu owned cattle as well); as the state structures expanded and rigidified, Hutu were increasingly excluded from positions of effective power.

During the reign of Rujugira, Rwanda faced the combined military threat of three of its most powerful competitors in the region, Burundi to the south, Gisaka to the east, and Ndorwa to the northeast. Eventually, Rwanda was able to prevail over its rivals, although in various forms the struggle with Ndorwa and Gisaka was to extend over several reigns and even into the period of colonial rule. But the history of these wars is not in itself important to this discussion. What is important are the internal administrative reorganization, the new conception of the state, and the inclusion of different cultures within the state that resulted, for the changes brought about by these wars had significant repercussions on Rwanda’s later expansion to the west.

Two of these alterations proved particularly important: in military reorganization, and in internal administrative restructuring. More armies were formed during the reign of Rujugira than under all the kings before or (with one exception) since: together, the armies formed by Rujugira represent about one-third of all the armies for which historical records remain todays associated with this growth in army formations was a new policy of posting armies permanently to certain areas, thus making these units suitable for occupying a conquered area as well as for raiding. At the same time, this policy provided a more enduring continuity to the umuheto group, the corporate groups performing military/administrative functions within the Rwandan state structures. Although drawn from geographically diverse areas—another policy that became increasingly prevalent under Rujugira—army members (assigned by the court) joined together for several years of common service in areas outside their home regions; the lack of geographical concentration to recruitment enhanced the armies’ common focus on the court. In addition, the very expansion of the army organizations provided positions of leadership and recognition for the court to bestow upon its favorites. In a period of increasing status consciousness, control over the distribution ofprestige in this manner was one of the most valuable resources in the hands of the court.

Originally, this change in policy toward permanent army postings was dictated by military necessity, but over time other functions served by the new policy became more important. Chief among these was socialization to the Rwandan state norms and the development of embryo administrative structures channeling family prestations to the court—and thus also providing a means of accumulating material goods in the hands of the court elite. As the educational and administrative functions of these hereditary “social armies” became increasingly important from the time of Rujugira, the armies themselves became the principal mechanism for incorporating new populations into the administrative structure of the state. Formerly, booty seized during raids was sent to the court, while individual families were required to send provisions to their members in the army; but overtime these differences between booty seized from raids and resources accumulated from individual army members blurred. Increasingly (and especially from the mid-nineteenth century) the armies included some lineage groups that supplied prestations on a regular basis, regardless of the state of military mobilization, and thus these transfers gradually took on more of the characteristics of tribute. In addition to provisions for warriors, these included prestige goods— bracelets, mats, artifacts—that were sent to the court; over time, the army leader (appointed by the court) became increasingly an administrative official responsible for prestations rather than a military leader renowned for the spoils of war delivered to the court. Administrative prestations from within the umuheto group therefore came to replace the earlier spoils of military raiding outside the territorial domain of Rwanda, and the administrative functions of these umuheto groups came to predominate over the military functions.

At the same time, army organization itself became more hierarchical as army membership came to include virtually all social groups. It is from the time of Rujugira, for example, that the first Hutu sections of armies are noted in the sources.Not all were warriors, however; many (and this applied especially to Hutu groups) were simply associated with army administrative structures and thus required to provide prestations. Thus the army played a paradoxical role: it served as a means of assimilation to Rwandan forms for some, but it also served to keep others from full assimilation (by the hierarchical structures of its internal organization), and these groups continued to provide prestations on a permanent basis. Such forms of army organization created and reinforced social distance from inhabitants of new areas even while spreading Rwandan norms tothese areas. In this way, the army came to serve as an ideal administrative structure for the expansion of the Rwandan state, combining military, administrative, and educative functions, while being closely controlled, politically and ideologically, by the royal court. With this consolidation of power, the state was no longer dependent on alliances with various groups, each of which drew its political strength from resources essentially outside the control of the central court. Instead, the court became the dominant political actor, having a preponderant role in the distribution of political resources among the various factions in the country. This concentration of power meant that the court was increasingly able to demand services and goods from the various social groups of the country, and to punish those that did not comply with these demands. Equally important, it was able to withhold rewards from those (often Hutu) whom it defined as outside the immediate political system and whose former autonomy had previously made it possible for them to accumulate goods independently of their status at the central court. What was important in this process was the relationship that emerged between military expansion and administrative consolidation: throughsuch internal reorganization, the augmentation of power at the center resulted from, as well as facilitated, Rwandan expansion to the west.

Growing Rwandan military capacity and the increasingly exclusive character of the central political arena also had important repercussions in the frontier areas that are today western Rwanda. In the wake of expanding Rwandan hegemony in the east, those who fled Ndorwa and Gisaka to search for refuge from Rwandan state power often moved west, into (and beyond) the highland areas of the Nile-Congo divide. Despite occasional military forays, these areas had, for the most part, remained until then outside of Rwandan control. The arrival of refugees with cultural characteristics similar to those of the Rwandan central court changed this relationship. Since most refugees were apparently from the military war zones of Ndorwa and Gisaka, they were not, strictly speaking, Rwandans. But they nonetheless shared attributes that made them appear Rwandan to the peoples of the highland areas. Their very presence may have attracted more direct Rwandan military thrusts into the area; often, indeed, they did develop later ties to the central court of Rwanda, serving as the vanguard in establishing Rwandan administrative structures in the area. Consequently, in retrospect, they were often seen as Rwandan from the beginning, politically as well as culturally. In addition, within the context of Rwandan westward expansion, these refugees from central court power were often retroactively claimed as Rwandan colonizers by the central court, especially where they later came to serve as the nucleus for the growth of new army organizations.

The expansion of this western frontier is difficult to trace with precision because the Tutsi “colonists” (originally “refugees”) did not move into the area in any regular pattern. Instead, their slow penetration over several generations created a loose series of intersecting ties that eventually became incorporated within the political network of the central court. But these ties did not form a continuous web; many areas remained independent of this network, and in some cases Tutsi refugees continued to move farther west still, to Itombwe and Gishari in the mountainous highlands west of Lake Kivu.In other cases, small polities along the Nile-Congo divide remained autonomous of the central court until well into the period of colonial rule.

The general pattern of the penetration of central court norms into the western areas can be followed through the court traditions relating to army expeditions (sometimes only raids) and through the settlement patterns of Tutsi families. Tutsi movements were first directed west from Nyantango, near the bend in the Nyabarongo River and the ritual centers of the kingdom at Rukoma andBumbogo. From Nyantango, the armies pushed westward through the lower areas across the divide toward Lake Kivu, reaching the lake in the area of Bwishaza and Rusenyi, in present Kibuye Prefecture.Initial Rwandan presence in these areas may date to long before Rujugira’s time,but it seems clear that the patterns of continuous settlement and continuous claims of the court in these areas date only from the reign of Rujugira. Traditions from the areas themselves (which differ from central court claims) and army locations also indicate the recent of this expansion of central court power.Subsequent military expeditions were made south to Kinyaga (the provinces of Impara and Biru) and north to Bugoyi.

The history of the Abagwabiro lineage illustrates the gradual nature of Tutsi penetration into the western areas. Originally from Ndorwa, this family moved first to the area of Bunyambiriri along the Nile-Congo divide, just west and southwest of the Rwandan heartland in Nduga, probably during the reign of Rujugira. From there, they moved north into what is today Gisenyi Prefecture (the area of Bugoyi) in northwestern Rwanda.This pattern of movement suggests that here was a family seeking autonomy from the Rwandan central court, rather than serving as its agent (as the court sources imply). Furthermore, in most sources, Macumu, the lineage head, is described as Hutu (i.e., not a direct participant in central court politics), while central court traditions describe him as Tutsi (or one of their own). But whatever their early status, in later generations the Abagwabiro were to forge ties to the central court. Perhaps their tenuous position as eastern refugees without a foothold in local political networks, in an area of strong interaction with areas farther west, made them willing as well as likely candidates for this role. Their orientation toward Rwandan cultural values provided a basis for later claims by the Rwandan court that they had always been “official representatives” in the area.

Similar patterns of incorporation are found in Kinyaga, in the extreme southwest of the country, where a significant proportion of the present population claims to have arrived from farther east, especially from Ndorwa and Gisaka, during the reign of Rujugira or his successor Ndabarasa.Although the precise war leading to their exodus is not cited in these traditions, the process conforms to that above, and the timing of these wars would confirm the general agreement noted in the sources that many groups arrived during, or just after, Rujugira’s reign. Subsequently, many of these immigrants were instrumental in forging ties between this remote region (Kinyaga) and the central court political arena.

The very intensity of the military struggles to the east, with Gisaka and Ndorwa, has obscured the historical record of Rwanda’s military ties with thewest. But even the murkiness of this record has its lesson to convey: military records, army postings, the nature of later central court alliances with “Tutsi” refugees (from the defeated states),and even the nature of the terrain and the structure of earlier political groups—all these lead to a common conclusion that this area was not one where a clear military front was in evidence, as had occurred in wars to the east. This area became part of Rwanda not by a once-for-all campaign and the subsequent redrawing of political boundaries. Conquest in the west occurred piecemeal, gradually. Rwandan penetration here was discontinuous, both geographically and temporally. This was an area of the slow absorption of varying degrees of Rwandan (i.e., central court) penetration, often an area of refuge for those seeking autonomy from central court power but carrying with them Rwandan norms of language, dress, and consumption. Most of all, this Rwandan character was conveyed in a quality of social behavior: in the turn of a phrase, in the type of poetry recited over the evening fire, in the nature and mechanism of social alliance (cattle contracts often, rather than blood pacts or marriage ties), perhaps also in religious concepts. The spread of central court power was especially evident in the aloof social bearing of the elite, a bearing bred in court etiquette, nurtured in army training, and matured in contacts with the west.

Thus, while we lack the military details, the cultural implications of this move west are clear. And they were as important to the central court arena as to the incorporated western areas themselves. For complementing the growth of administrative structures was the growth of increasingly rigid categories of social classification. In fact, the concepts of social distancing appear to have intensified with the expansion of the Rwandan state into areas which did not share its basic cultural norms. It was a period in which Rwandan society was becoming strongly hierarchical. And just as the material spoils from western raiding strengthened the court, it seems very likely that the norms and classifications developed in the western conquest areas—where cultural differences were more marked, political structures more rigid, and social differences hence more accentuated—were carried back into the central areas to serve as a model for the general structural development occurring in the central arena of the Rwandan kingdom.

The literature of the Rwandan Court articulates these concepts of social distancing and demonstrates the norms inculcated by Rwandan army training: the glorification of military prowess, of personal heroism, and of the invincibility of the state. These values appear vividly in the individual praise poems by which a warrior celebrated his own virtues before his army colleagues or before the court. Such ibyivugo (singular, icyivugo) are recited rapidly and at full voice, with great formality, often with the speaker brandishing a spear.The artistry is evidenced by the number of syllables pronounced in a single breath, the complexity of the poetic allusions, and the audacity of the deeds claimed, as well as by the presence and bearing of the speaker.

The features so apparent in these poems—the militaristic ethic, the training in court etiquette, the glorification of the power of the state, and the stress on individual achievement in the conception of heroism so characteristic of court culture—are even more apparent in the dynastic poetry (ibisigo; singular, igisigo) glorifying the kings and especially their military deeds, and in so doing denigrating the conquered peoples. These poems, too long to include here, detail the reigns of each of the last sixteen kings to figure in the royal genealogy. They form an important body of warrior literature, asserting Rwandan values at the official level of the court in the same way that the individual praise poems do for the armies and their members.

In other types of literature, such as the ibiteekerezo historical narratives, the contrast in Rwandan perceptions between their own cultural values and those of the western peoples is similarly marked. This opposition is apparent both in the political distinctions made between western kings and those of Rwanda (as they are portrayed in the Rwandan narratives) and in the cultural features that the traditions commonly attribute to the western peoples. Among such traditions, the best known relate to Ruganzu Ndoori, a Rwandan king who appears as the quintessential epic hero of Rwanda.One of the most widespread traditions dealing with his reign concerns his rivalry with a courtier named Muvunyi, son of Karema. It is an exciting tale of intense competition between friends, a story filled with espionage, temptations, and daring. It is told through a text replete with hyperbole, cultural allusions, references to magical power, and humor. Of particular interest here is the way in which these stylistic elements relate to Rwandan perceptions of the western cultural frontier. Before discussing these textual elements, however, it will be necessary first to sketch out the main lines of the story.

(1) The story tells of a western king, Gatabirora, son of Kabibi, son of Kabirogosa, “the Mushi” with his teeth filed to a point; Gatabirora, son of Kabibi, son of Kabirogosa who was tied by a string to a chicken, and thence to his mother so that she might know when her son had died. 

(2) One day Gatabirora sent a message to Ruganzu, the Rwandan king, summoning him to build for him an enclosure of the same dimensions as hisown (that of Ruganzu) and requiring him to send enough butter to make a drinking trough for his cows, as they were tired of always drinking from a trough made of sand. All this because, according to Gatabirora, Ruganzu lives in the country of his father, Kabibi. 

(3) On their arrival at court, the messengers are stupefied with awe at the size and fine construction of the enclosure and at the numbers and bearing of the courtiers. Realizing the danger they would be in were they to relate the message as given, they simply say they have come to pay their respects on behalf of Gatabirora. Ruganzu thanks them initially, but by a clever ruse— aided by generous quantities of the court’s best honey beer—he tricks them into conveying the message in its entirety. 

(4) Ruganzu responds to their true message with a long praise poem (icyivugo). He then mutilates the messengers and sends them back to Gatabirora. 

(5) Ruganzu then publicly offers his wager—a challenge to anyone at the court to kill Gatabirora before he does. Muvunyi accepts the challenge by placing his spear next to that of Ruganzu and drinking from the same urn as Ruganzu— drinking it dry, in fact. (These are actions that in most contexts would be considered acts of lèse-majesté; indeed, they can be considered as such here.) Muvunyi then leaves the court, and his father sets him obstacles to overcome to prepare him for his coming ordeal. 

(6) On Muvunyi’s departure from the court, Ruganzu makes plans to distract Muvunyi by providing him with beer, dancing, and women. Ruganzu then leaves immediately for his confrontation with Gatabirora, though the agreement was that they would set out only on the eighth day. 

(7) Ruganzu meets Gatabirora and they begin by sparring. Finally, Gatabirora hurls his spear. It misses Ruganzu, but the force from it as it flies by knocks Ruganzu unconscious and sets the forest ablaze. 

(8) Muvunyi learns of Ruganzu’s departure and sets out in all haste towards Gatabirora’s. After many adventures en route, he arrives just as Ruganzu falls unconscious. After reciting his own icyivugo, Muvunyi kills Gatabirora and leaves, having cut off the head and testicles of the western king. 

(9) On awakening, Ruganzu finds that Muvunyi has killed Gatabirora. He is at first angered at having lost the wager. But in the end Ruganzu is placated by Muvunyi’s father, and the two are reconciled, the one achieving status and fortune, the other retaining his kingdom against the insolence of“Gatabirora, son of Kabibi, son of Kabirogosa, the Mushi with the filed teeth.” 

The story is of interest not only because it is one of the best known of Rwandan stories of this kind, but also because it deals with the problem of the conceptual differences by which Rwandans set themselves apart from western cultures. The story as a whole is interesting because it talks of a western king seeking to alter—even to invert—the structure of relationships between himself and Ruganzu by demanding prestations from the Rwandan king. Significantly, this attempt is expressed through a contest in a domain in which the Rwandan court prides itself as clearly superior to its western neighbors, that of material culture. The western king seeks to build a thatched house and cattle troughs equal to those of the Rwandans.

(1) But the tenor of the narrative is set even before the story begins to unfold, with the announcement of the names “Gatabirora, son of Kabibi, son of Kabirogosa.” “Gatabirora” and “Kabibi” are representative of common names found in the west. “Kabirogosa,” however, is even more explicitly tied to the west, as a Rwandan deformation of the (more recent) Havu dynastic name “Kamerogosa.” He is identified as a “Mushi,” one of the names applied to mean “those of the west” and carrying very strong pejorative connotations in Rwandan usage. He is characterized as having filed and pointed teeth, a custom disdained by Rwandans, whose cultural norms do not allow for bodily mutilation for ornamentation or for ritual purposes. In fact, filed teeth are not common among the Havu or Shi; they are most closely associated with the forest cultures west of the Mitumba Mountains, west of Lake Kivu. Thus this portrayal combines elements from many cultural groups—some even beyond the immediate frontier —to create a single general category in opposition to Rwandan norms.

Finally, Gatabirora’s own masculinity and independence are questioned by the use of a metaphor common in this type of story: his genitals are tied by a string leading to a chicken that would inform his mother of his death.27 (Other versions of this tale—even more scandalous—note that the string was held directly by Gatabirora’s mother without any intermediary.) Aside from the obvious suggestion of dependence on the mother (an allusion, perhaps, to the tendency to matrilateral succession in royal practices in the west28), the metaphor also carries the implication that Gatabirora will die alone in the forest, with no one to bring news of his death but a chicken. There is also an allusion here (which is in fact the basis of the metaphor in question) to the form of dress of the “un-couth” forest peoples of the west, who formerly dressed only in a loincloth tied between the legs and around the waist.

Nor does Gatabirora’s mother escape the caustic tone of the Rwandan narrative: she is portrayed as hiding monkeys and cockroaches between her legs. The characterization ends with a phrase of gibberish Kihavu, a language used in areas west of Lake Kivu, repeated at intervals throughout the narrative. In many respects, then, the initial portions of this tale establish the tone by which the western cultures will be characterized throughout.

(2)The parody of western character continues as Gatabirora assembles his messengers. There are seven of them, as we find out later. This is a deformation of the conventional numerical scheme applying to royalty, which is associated with multiples of four (most frequently eight). Seven, then, represents non-royalty, or perhaps pretentious and gauche attempts to claim royal status on the part of the hopelessly inept Gatabirora. This image is reinforced by the nature of the meal offered them on their arrival at home. The meal consists of taro, a root plant closely associated with forest cultures but disdained as food by the Rwandans. To serve this food to others, especially as part of a formal presentation to his own men, would be, in the eyes of most Rwandans, either a bad joke or a most pointed insult.

Following the meal, Gatabirora informs the messengers of their mission: to demand of Ruganzu a new house and a new drinking trough for cattle. All this is phrased in mock Kinyarwanda, the language of Rwanda, filled with mispronunciations: “Ruganzu, king of Rwanda,” for example, becomes “Rugamvu ga Gwanda.Gatabirora offers a long recitation of his own self-characterization, similar in form to the praise poetry of Rwanda but including elements that would be anything but heroic to Rwandan audiences and with a hilarious transformation of the conventional icyivugo form: “Go and tell Rugamvu ga Gwanda that it is Katabirora [who speaks], Katabirora son of Kabibi, son of Kabirogosa, the Mushi with the pointed teeth, who comes drawing with him the string [tied to his genitals], who brings with him the chickens cackling in the forest…. [then there is more gibberish in Kihavu]. It is he, Katabirora, who sends you these messengers. You will say to him ‘Leta seke, leta seke’ [a deformation of the Ki-Havu imperative “leta soko,” bring tribute or offer prestations].” The command is explicit, as is the threat of punishment for disobedience: for failing to pay court in this manner, Rugamvu ga Gwanda will be chewed up and spit out like so much tobacco (a northern commodity, but also associated in Rwanda with western trade networks). All this is based on the assertion that “Rugamvu ga Gwanda” lives on the land of Gatabirora’s father, Kabibi.

(3)The next episode describes the reaction of the messengers from the forest to the court of Ruganzu. It illustrates the simple naiveté of these men, over-awed by the splendor of the Rwandan court. They are stupefied and see that the simple home of Gatabirora could not begin to compare with the grandeur of the court of Ruganzu. And so they decide to change their message; in fact, they invert it, by saying that they bring the greetings of Gatabirora, that Gatabirora seeks to come to Ruganzu bearing prestations of the forest (mats, ubutega fiber bracelets and hoes), and that the land that Gatabirora inhabits is not the land of his father, Kabibi, but that of Ruganzu’s father, Ndahiro. Such an inversion illustrates the lack of character of these forest bumpkins; but Ruganzu’s reaction to it and his careful distrust of such flattery also show the celebrated cunning intelligence of the court milieu.

In other versions of the story, this theme is drawn out at greater length.The messengers arrive, and no one understands them when they speak their own language; they are portrayed as walking up to various courtiers and addressing them as Ruganzu, mistaking the noble bearing of person after person at the court (never having seen such splendor before) for that of the king himself.These forward, uncultured visitors, lacking all finesse and social grace, then eat rotten food offered them and drink the dregs of others—food and drink no one at court would deign to touch. Having filled themselves like gluttons, they fall asleep and in their sleep break wind in such volume that Ruganzu himself is awakened by the noise. Flatulence is, in fact, a common pejorative theme applied to westerners within the Rwandan court context—the epitome of the uncultured barbarian. One version of the narrative continues with the men awakening and speaking, again, in gibberish or pidgin Kinyarwanda. In both versions discussed here, there is reference to Gatabirora, the son of Kabibi of Kabirogosa, the Mushi who lived in the forest of Nzira, a reference to yet another narrative tale dealing with westerners.Once again, as with the theme of flatulence, the manner in which this theme is inter-twined with the main story forms an important element in the meaning conveyed. By thus relating this narrative to other traditions dealing with westerners (or, in the case of Nzira, to unsuccessful Hutu opposition to Tutsi expansion), the superiority of the Tutsi court culture is further emphasized by allusion to the larger corpus of traditions on the common theme.

Ruganzu then shows his pleasure (and his sarcastic turn of mind) by summoning each of his warrior courtiers separately and reciting in turn their praise poems, recounting their military exploits and heroic deeds. He ends each recitation with “Have you heard how this Mushi has sent me a good message!” Finally, after Ruganzu has finished showing his gratitude to the messengers and extended a formal invitation to Gatabirora to visit his court, one of the messengers breaks down and reveals the true message. He begins with gibberish and continues by noting that since Gatabirora had provided them with such a sumptuous feast of delicious taro before sending them off, the messengers cannot betray him by hiding the truth. He then tells Ruganzu what Gatabirora had asked for: “Leta seke [give tribute]!” In the second version considered here, the messengers add that if Ruganzu does not obey, Gatabirora will take off the clothes of his mother, the one who chases monkeys and hides cockroaches between her legs. Such a statement of course is an unimaginable, unthinkable blasphemy in the form of a barbaric oath, and underscores once again the disgusting, crude nature of these western “Banyabungo.”

(4) Ruganzu then responds with a long praise poem of his own, by implication contrasting the glories of the Rwandan regime and the refinement of the Rwandan language with the blunt straightforwardness of the uncultured “Bashi.” Included in this response are many references to the western areas and themes shared with other ibiteekerezo. One such fragment, drawn from a story well known to Rwandan audiences, tells of the formation of Lake Kivu from an indiscretion on the part of Nyiransibula (a reference to “the mother of Nsibula,” the eponymous founder of the Basibula dynasty), portrayed a woman from the western areas (i.e.,“Bunyabungo”) serving at the Rwandan court. One day, while sweeping the courtyard, she created a scandal by breaking wind—loud and clear

—before the assembled courtiers pondering the affairs of state. (As in the story of Gatabirora’s messengers, there is ample latitude here for a graphic performance in the telling of this tale.) Exiled from the court, she threw out her chamber pot; where it broke, a gigantic flow of water issued forth, flooding the entire surrounding area and eventually creating Lake Kivu. By magical means, Ruganzu was able to halt the rising waters and thus save Rwanda.Finally, to return to the story of Gatabirora, Ruganzu terminates his response to the western messengers— but in reality addressing his own warriors—with “Have you heard the dog of a Mushi come to insult us here!” (In Kinyarwanda, there is a play on words between this phrase and the phrase he repeated earlier: “Have you heard the good news,” thus dramatizing the contrast between the two responses all the more.)

In the account given here, Ruganzu then kills all but one messenger (again a common theme in these stories), whom he mutilates and sends home to Gatabirora. After limping home—falling, crying out, and lamenting on the long road back to his king—the surviving messenger finally enters Gatabirora’s compound, where he begins once again with his gibberish Kihavu and goes on to tell Gatabirora how Ruganzu responded. “He is here, he is here, and you will burn, you will die, you will die.” He faints, and to revive him the courtiers bring bells to ring in his ears. Although bells are used in some court ceremonies in Rwanda, they are most frequently associated with the anticourt Ryangombe rituals; they are also, of course, used on hunting dogs, perhaps the strongest connotation (associated with western cultures) drawn to mind in this context. After hearing his laconic story, Gatabirora looks up in fright and asks, “Where are they coming from? Where will they pass amongst my nettles, amongst my reeds, amongst my taro plants?” This final reference, of course, serves as yet another reminder of the forest milieu and the inferior staple food attributed to these simple and hopelessly uncultured “Bashi” of Gatabirora. In another version, Ruganzu mutilates each messenger in a different way, cutting off a leg of one, an arm of another, an ear of a third. He then hands each the severed part, saying: “Here, these are your provisions for the return trip. Go and tell Gatabirora I shall be there.”

The remainder of the narrative (sections 6 to 9 in the synopsis above) deals with the competition between Muvunyi and Ruganzu—the drama of the wager, the cunning of Ruganzu’s tactics, the excitement of the race to Gatabirora’s, and the heroics of Muvunyi in assuring Gatabirora’s death. It is entertainment at its most intense. But these later sections concern us less here, for though intriguing in themselves, they do not directly offer the parody of western cultures that is so effectively portrayed in the earlier sections—and that is the subject of our focus.

The important point of such comparisons between western cultures and Rwanda is not just that these stories portray western peoples as uncouth, but that they relate to elements deemed central to Rwandan culture. The references to such uncultured behavior, such unrefined language, and such unthinkable foods are all framed as deformations of accepted Rwandan etiquette rather than as valid characterizations of western peoples. In reality, then, the parody also serves as a commentary on exquisite Rwandan norms, reinforcing Rwandan identity by stressing the non-Rwandan quality of the western cultures. To be sure, there are allusions to western traits in the names, the literary themes, the foods; but these are taken out of context and thus can only be judged in the context of the Rwandan cultural norms of the listener. It is this perspective that makes them seem so ridiculous, not the inherent quality of the traits alone (though allusions such as those to the cockroaches or the flatulence are clearly derogatory on their own account). The portrayal of western cultures in the narratives therefore need not be valid in itself to have its maximum effect; it need only provide unthinkable oppositions to Rwandan culture. The major role of the allusions to the west is to make the story plausible (and entertaining), to provide some kind of narrative line to hold together the images offered. Although ostensibly a cultural commentary on western peoples, the terms employed are not always terms of ethnographic ascription; instead, they are generated by a particular context of oppositions and used to enhance those oppositions. It is thus the nature of therelationships that defined the “frontier,” not the presence of some “objective” frontier that defined the relationships among groups.

The literarysources, however, reflect only one aspect of the frontier concept: they speak for the ideology of the Rwandan central court alone. The influence of these norms was of course very strong; even the local nonroyal traditions tend to pick up the stereotypes of social categories as defined by these court perceptions. But such a view of the frontier—stressing idealized norms and polarized oppositions—tends to overlook, or even to contradict, the day-to-day behavior of westerners, which reflected the strong linkages at work both within the area (which today forms part of western Rwanda) and with areas farther west still. Looked at from the point of view of interaction networks, there was no clear hiatus dividing Rwandan and western norms; in fact, the evidence at hand suggests that until quite recently non court Rwandan people had closer ties with the west than with the east, the area of most intensive court culture. The most significant forms of social distancing were those that separated the court milieu from non-court milieu within Rwanda itself. To illustrate this important difference in court perceptions and local perceptions, three forms of linkages between western Rwanda and areas farther west will be discussed briefly here: commerce, marriage ties, and mobility.

Recent research has altered our understanding of the intensive commercial networks that existed in this region, at least in the late nineteenth century and probably from well before. What is particularly pertinent to the present discussion—and the feature that apparently obscured this commercial activity from earlier researchers—is that it was conducted outside the court milieu. But even before these studies were undertaken, there were suggestions of significant levels of commercial contacts that included a wide network of ties throughout the western region of Rwanda. Though markets were present (indicating the intensity of the trade in some areas), commercial interaction mainly occurred through many individual traders, dealing with trade partners linked to them by kin ties, blood-pact ties, or other, more informal social ties. Typical of the testimony from the western areas are these descriptions from Ijwi Island (in Lake Kivu, just west of Rwanda) by participants in the trade from more recent periods.

[The people of Ijwi] took beans and sorghum to Rwanda for goats and bulls. They [the Rwandans] then took them to Nduga to buy livestock, [to] Nduga and Nyanza. [Nduga is the general area of central Rwanda; Nyanza was the location of the royal capital during colonial rule but is used in a metonymical sense to refer to the royal court.] The food we grew here—in great quantities…. The beads we bought in Karhana, Kabare, Ngweshe, [all to the west and southwest of Lake Kivu]. The burhega [fiber bracelets] we made ourselves, here on Ijwi. We made them from vines in the forest called ndambagizi and ntunda. After cutting them and drying them we wove them, wove them, wove them … like this … in patterns so they look nice—so! Then we took goats to Butembo, to the land of Ndalemwa [to Mubugu, west of the Mitumba Mountains in Congo] to look for burhega. We took sorghum and bought burhega [in Butembo]… .

The Batembo brought burhega made of vines [ishuli] and we carried them to Rwanda. That was before the amafranga [European money] arrived; there were no amafranga then. They brought burhega and we took them to Rwanda to buy goats. On returning from Rwanda we took the goats to Irhambi [on the western shore] to sell them there. But this was done with friends. In those days whosoever did not have a friend was not able to buy anything. [Commerce was carried out through networks of blood brothers (“friends”).]

There were no markets, but one could go [to Rwanda] to look for a friend. Then you could ask for a cow or a goat. One had to have a friend to trade.

[Summary:] Migamba, a man of the Ishaza clan came from Rwanda [to Ijwi] to buy things here. Rubenga [the interviewee] was looking for goats and goatskins for his wife [or for “his marriage”]. So Migamba told Rubenga to come to Rwanda to look for skins there. When he [Rubenga] went there, they made a blood pact in Rwanda. He took beer and beans and went to look for goats in Rwanda. There in Rwanda he traded cultivated crops and food and “harvests” and hoes for goats. When he made friendship, he did not actually make a blood pact but only exchanged things like beans [except for the blood pact with Migamba].

Thus the trade passed through many hands, and included many families in informal networks. To be sure, these testimonies refer to the early years of the colonial period, that is, to the early years of the twentieth century. But because there were no barriers to earlier involvement in this type of network, it seems reasonable to see in these descriptions a model of commercial ties in the area for as long as the demand conditions held. Given the mobility found in this sub-region (a matter discussed below), local trade was undoubtedly a part of this regional interaction, even though trade directly with the court milieu may have developed only more recently.

The most important items mentioned in the sources (both oral and written) are the ornamental ubutega bracelet-anklets that elite Rwandan women wore by the hundreds on their legs. Traded in the thousands in Rwanda, these delicate items of raffia or other fiber, woven into a distinctive design, were fabricated in the areas west of Lake Kivu. Because the trade in ubutega was strongly influenced by central court demand, trade patterns for these commodities are not representative of the overall network of local trade patterns within the region. Nevertheless, because they are so distinctive and hence are so often mentioned in both oral and written sources, ubutega trade patterns are useful in tracing the extent of this broader commercial network; included were regions stretching from far to the west of Lake Kivu to the area of the Rwandan Court east of the Nile-Congo divide.People in most areas in between were also participants in the trade, as producers, intermediaries, or consumers. Although ubutega are the most frequently cited commodity in this commercial network, many other products were traded as well. Important among these were tobacco, salt, hoes, and foodstuffs from the north and northwest, and mats, hoes, and foodstuffs from the southwest. Livestock—goats and, more rarely, cattle—were the most frequent Rwandan return item traded for ubutega and other goods from the west.

Essentially similar commercial mechanisms prevailed for all such items. Although hoes (and sometimes ubutega) traveled with specialized traders—and traveled greater distances—most of this localized trade appears to have involved short distances between each transaction, moving from hand to hand within the commercial web. Mutual dependence, even trust, was essential in such a commercial network, one that included many participants and into which entry was easy. Commercial relations in this area, therefore, convey no sense of the clear-cut oppositions, posed in terms of culture/barbarism so prevalent in the court traditions applying to this region. In fact, they underscore the importance of linkages, not oppositions—linkages demonstrated both by the fact of widespread commercial interaction and by the nature of such interaction, characterized by face-to-face transactions where friendship networks were important in facilitating material transfer.

Marriage ties also seem to cut across the cultural barrier posited by Rwandan literary sources. Precise data on this are scanty, but the message is clear. While marriage ties on a hierarchical axis—between court families and local residents —appear to have become more and more rare,41 marriage ties both between different regions of present-day western Rwanda and between those regions and areas farther west still, around and beyond Lake Kivu, were neither difficult to arrange nor infrequent.

One social sector for which data on such ties are preserved (although incompletely) is that of the local ruling families among the many small autonomous polities that existed in the area before Rwandan penetration and incorporation. Numbering well over a score, these political units expressed their autonomy through the ritual authority of their rulers, or abami; singular, umwami.Though the data on marriage ties are very incomplete, it is clear that these abami sometimes married among themselves. Rugaba, the umwami of Mpembe, for example, is said to have married women from Bugoyi in northwestern Rwanda and Bukunzi in southwestern Rwanda.Other sources mention the marriages between people from Bukunzi and Bumbogoand between Mashira, the umwami of Nduga in central Rwanda, and a woman from an unnamed polity on Buzi, a peninsula in the northwest of Lake Kivu.Bukunzi data add that the kings there maintained marriage ties with the Shi kingdoms to the west (especially Ngweshe). Mobility patterns would also indicate that there were few barriers to marrying within the region, as new immigrants to an area apparently had little difficulty in establishing themselves.

If there were few obstacles to marriage among the different regions of what is now western Rwanda, the same is true for marriages between people in this area and regions farther west. This was especially true for women marrying “out,” from areas of what is now western Rwanda toward areas farther west; it was a general characteristic of these social networks that women moved west. (It is not uncommon to find Rwandan-born women married on Ijwi, but rare to find Ijwi-born women married in Rwanda.) The same general trend is found west of Ijwi, where Ijwi women are married to partners on the Congolese mainland, but few women from the west marry men on Ijwi.

Without data on the massive scale required to establish this point, such an observation can only be suggestive. Nonetheless, these observed tendencies mesh with both marriage institutions and ideological explanations. Bridewealth is greater in the west, and hence it is financially beneficial to the bride’s family, generally speaking, to marry women west; conversely, it is disadvantageous to marry women east. Ijwi ideology explains this tendency to marry women west in another way: there is not enough food in Rwanda, say the people of Ijwi; Ijwi women who marry in Rwanda will starve, and eventually they will return home.At the least, such an explanation obviously agrees with the Ijwi practice of constantly sending food to family members living east of Lake Kivu; at the same time, it serves as an Ijwi commentary on how stingy Rwandans are in terms of food exchange.

The general movement of women toward the west is a phenomenon that blends with the third element considered here, the mobility of people within the region. Both trade and marriage presuppose some forms of mobility, but these were probably less indicative of the linkages within the region than were movements that led to permanent settlement in new areas. Indeed, trade and marriage ties were in part a result of the movement of people, both eastward and westward. There is a great deal of evidence suggesting movements into north-western Rwanda (Bugoyi) and southwestern Rwanda (Kinyaga) from regions farther west. For Bugoyi, Pagès notes that “les Bagoyi … sont presque tous originaires du ouest du Lac Kivu.”In the list he gives of “clans et sous-clans” of Bugoyi, almost one-half (twenty-seven of fifty-seven) claim a western origin,and elsewhere he provides numerous examples of this immigration to Bugoyi from the west.

In more recent periods, however, the overall trend of this movement seems to have been reversed, and it is now generally toward the west. It is possible that this shift was associated with the political pressures connected with the expansion of the royal court structures into this area. Many people moved from present-day western Rwanda onto highland areas known as Gishari, northwest of Lake Kivu, from at least the nineteenth century (and probably considerably earlier), and this movement continued well into the twentieth century, both as part of colonial policy and for less formal reasons.Similarly, the immigration of families from western Rwanda onto Ijwi Island is noticeable from about the middle or late eighteenth century, and intense communication between Ijwi and areas east of Lake Kivu through family ties, blood-pact ties, and commercial channels has continued in some instances into the present.Such an enduring historical pat-tern apparently met with few obstacles—a testimony to the strength of cultural continuities in the region. Even during the wars directed against Ijwi in the late nineteenth century by the Rwandan king Rwabugiri, these local-level contacts across the lake continued virtually uninterrupted—indeed, they flourished. They were to play a part in the war itself and in the subsequent administration, as re-cent immigrants who could claim ties to Rwanda were often favored as appointed administrative authorities during the Rwandan occupation.

The reality of such linkages east and west of the lake therefore challenges the categorical polarization and regional differentiation portrayed in the traditions of the Rwandan Court. This again illustrates the contextual nature of the concept of the frontier: both in terms of geographical distance (held mostly in the central court milieu, well removed from contact with the west) and, perhaps more significantly, in terms of the social class in which such perceptions originated. It was predominantly those tied to the court milieu (as soldiers, narrators, or even servants) who articulated this set of frontier perceptions. But frontier concepts were important not only as they were applied to the frontier zones themselves; they also had significant internal applications, for the hierarchical categories ap-plied to the frontier were also applied within Rwandan society, a society marked by a high degree of social stratification. Indeed, as noted earlier, when drawn in such stark terms, the concept of the frontier could be used to reinforce and ex-tend the internal structures social hierarchy.

The dual implication of these perceptions went further still. As the populations of the west gradually adopted Rwandan cultural norms, they also adopted the form of expression and hence the mode of characterization of others implicit within court perceptions.Thus the literary genres of the court—which included such core images as we have noted above in the Gatabirora tale—came to be adopted, recounted, and enjoyed by the people of these western regions even while they continued with the activities that belied such superficial stereo-typical characterizations. The literary models provided a good tale, whose hilarity to the listeners may have partly resided in the shocking frivolity of such a portrayal. In these areas, in fact, such stereotypes may have acted to discredit or to parody the Rwandan heroes themselves, serving as local versions of Don Quixote. As court perceptions gradually penetrated the area, however, these people west of the Nile-Congo divide—who were themselves included among the original referents of the tale—increasingly accepted such portrayals as “true,” but they applied the stereotypes to others farther west still. In so doing, of course, they reinforced their own identity as Rwandans, in this increasingly polarized (but evolving) context opposing “us” to “them.” For each people, therefore, the “barbarians” always lived farther west.

However the relativity of such a frontier concept lies not only in geographical or social parameters but in situational parameters as well. The “frontier” is not defined by the intrinsic elements of a given situation alone, but in a concept— generated by political perceptions of the day and phrased in terms of clear cultural oppositions, even polarization. The arbitrary aspect of the frontier concept applies even where the frontier zone is located in an area perceived as “empty” (though often such a categorization simply neglects—or denies—the presence of other inhabitants, as illustrated in the western frontier of the United States, the Canadian far north, or the Australian outback). For just as there is always continuity in interaction between cultures, so there is always an evolving inter-action between culture and nature, and to oppose “empty” areas to “inhabited” areas is to deny this continuity. The oppositions implied in the frontier dis-course, then, are a product of perceptions generated outside the frontier area it-self, not emerging from within it: we choose where to define ruptures within complicated continuities. Thus the frontier metaphor speaks more to the metropolitan area than to the apparent locus of reference, the frontier zone itself. This may in part explain the problems involved in defining the American frontier, and the long debate that has followed from such definitional problems.

Literary genres such as those discussed above have an important place in the shaping of the frontier image. Often the action portrayed in such tales takes place on the boundaries of the real and the fictive, on the frontiers of culture. By continually exploring the cultural boundaries that define the social group and the limits of acceptable cultural features and behavior, such stories are constantly redefining “us” by defining “them.” The frontier concept itself differed little by social and geographical context—after all, in this case the people in the west had stereotypes of other people farther west still. But the political significance which these images acquired and to which these clichés applied did vary, for these images were embedded in political activity and the clichés justified political action. And they did more than that. The power that made such clichés effective came in part from the metropolitan elite’s sense of internal cohesion and cultural arrogance, themselves a product of the contrasting cultural universes portrayed by the images of the frontier. In Rwanda, as elsewhere, the concept of the frontier was thus both effect and cause of specific kinds of political interaction.

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https://uk.amateka.net/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/Bushi.pnghttps://uk.amateka.net/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/Bushi-150x150.pngBarataSocial & cultureSocial 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 entertaining ways, even as the narrative carries a powerful didactic lesson. This chapter draws on one of the many...AMATEKA