Mutara Semugeshi and Mibambwe Gisanura: Innovative Kings or Imaginary Kings?
Such questions can be extended. Many of the uncertainties in the traditions attributable to Nyamuheshera appear also in the traditions of his immediate predecessor and successor. To Mutara Semugeshi are attributed few historical traditions, over a reign that Kagame estimates…
On Kigeri Nyamuheshera, One of Rwanda’s Great Warrior Kings
Thus the external evidence relating to Ruganzu suggests that Ruganzu may have lived sometime near, and maybe shortly after,1700. Of course, the search for such chronological precision may be, as Henige suggests, but a chimera. Nonetheless, inquiry of this type…
Comparative Explorations from West of Lake Kivu
First, the Abozi on Ijwi, who are said to be a part of the Balega clan, take their name from Mwoozi, an ancestor who is said to have helped Ruganzu escape by canoe from some (unspecified) enemies. The Abozi trace…
Burundi and Rwanda: The Recurring Ntare
In Burundi, south of Rwanda, there occurred a similar process of reconstructing the royal line, a process that assumed the cyclic succession of a given set of dynastic names and the correspondence of Rundi dynastic generation lengths with those of…
Recontextualizing Rwandan Dynastic Chronology
The ideology of kingship asserted that kingship was legitimated by its antiquity: the dynasty was at the heart of Rwandan culture, so the founding of the dynasty must (logically) correspond to the origin of the culture. By one official source,…
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 of precolonial Africa as seen by outside observers. Associated with…
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 Nyamisi, one of the islands near the western shore of…
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 introduced by immigrants to Ijwi but more likely drawn (both…
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 mantle but without Kabego’s ritual position. Tabaro retained power in…
The Death of Kabego
At the time of the Rwandan attacks, Kabego was an old man whose long reign had been peaceful until the outbreak of the succession struggle. It does not appear that Kabego himself took any active role in these struggles; he…