Sources of History
Senior 1 · History and Citizenship
Sources of History
Lesson 2 of 5
22 min
Historians never simply "know" the past; they work it out from sources. Look closely at Source A, a metal plaque outside the Ethnographic Museum in Huye. The words are in Kinyarwanda.
Source B is a sentence written for this lesson in the style of a school textbook: "The Ethnographic Museum in Huye opened in 1989 and displays objects from everyday life in Rwanda's past."
Both sources give the same year. But they are different kinds of evidence. The plaque was made at the time, by the people who opened the museum. The textbook sentence was written later, by someone who used other sources. That difference is the first thing a historian checks.
Definition
Historical source: anything that gives information about the past: an object, a document, a picture, a recording, a place or a person's memory. Example: the museum plaque in Source A.
Definition
Primary source: a source produced at the time being studied, by someone who took part in or witnessed the events. Example: the 1989 plaque; a photograph of Yuhi V Musinga's court taken around 1917.
Definition
Secondary source: a source produced later by someone who did not witness the events, usually by studying primary sources. Example: a textbook, a history book, a documentary film, or Source B above.
Definition
Archaeology: the study of the human past through material remains (objects, bones, buildings and sites) that are usually recovered by careful excavation. Example: the stone tools found at Olduvai Gorge in Tanzania.
Definition
Artefact: an object made or shaped by people, such as a pot, a hoe, a basket or a stone tool. Example: an agaseke basket in a museum case.
| Type | Examples from Rwanda and Africa | Strengths | Weaknesses |
|---|---|---|---|
| Written | letters of German officials after 1897; explorers' books; mission diaries; the Rosetta Stone | exact names and dates; can be reread and checked | few written records in Rwanda before 1900; writers often outsiders with their own interests |
| Oral | dynastic poems (ibisigo), royal genealogies, proverbs, elders' memories | the main record of Rwanda before writing; gives the people's own view | can change as it is retold; weak on exact dates |
| Archaeological | iron-smelting furnaces, pottery, bones, stone tools, royal sites | shows daily life of ordinary people; can be dated scientifically | objects do not speak: the meaning must be interpreted; many remains decay |
| Visual and audio | colonial-era photographs, rock paintings, films, radio recordings | shows how people and places looked | a photographer chooses what to show; pictures can be staged |
| Other sciences | links between Bantu languages; customs studied by anthropologists; radiocarbon dating | reaches periods with no writing at all | needs expert knowledge; gives broad patterns rather than events |
Worked example: primary or secondary?
A student is studying Yuhi V Musinga, who reigned from 1896 to 1931. Classify each source, giving a reason.
Rule to remember: the question you are asking decides the category. The 2011 book is secondary for Musinga's reign, but it would be a primary source for a project on "how historians wrote about Rwanda in the 2010s".
Important
No single source is enough. A good historian collects several types of source and compares them. When an oral tradition, a written account and an archaeological find all point the same way, the conclusion is much stronger.
The Ethnographic Museum in Huye (Source A) holds tools, weapons, baskets, clothing and musical instruments used in Rwanda before and during the colonial period. Each object is a primary source for the way people farmed, herded, built houses and made music. The labels and displays around them are secondary sources: museum staff wrote them later to explain the objects.
The museum is one of several run today by the Rwanda Cultural Heritage Academy. Others include the King's Palace Museum in Nyanza, which you will visit in Unit 4, and the Kandt House Museum in Kigali, built in 1908 for the first German Resident of Rwanda, Richard Kandt.
History Skills: "Primary and Secondary Sources in History Explained". Watch for the test the presenter uses to decide whether a source is primary.
In groups of three: You want to find out how ordinary farming families in your sector lived 200 years ago. No one wrote anything down there at that time. Which types of source from the table could still help you? Rank them from most to least useful and be ready to defend your ranking.
Practice
Sources and credits
This lesson adapts CC BY-SA material and is shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.
