Origin and Expansion of Rwanda Kingdom
Senior 1 · History and Citizenship
Origin and Expansion of Rwanda Kingdom
Lesson 1 of 4
25 min
Nobody wrote anything down in Rwanda before the 1890s. So how do we know anything about its early history? The chart shows the main kind of evidence for each period. Study the colours before you read on.
Long before any king ruled, people lived in the hills of what is now Rwanda. Archaeologists have found Stone Age tools, and iron-smelting furnaces and pottery about 2,500 years old. The farming, iron-working communities spoke Bantu languages, the family of languages to which Kinyarwanda belongs. Over the following centuries people cleared forest, grew sorghum, beans and bananas, kept cattle and goats, made pottery and baskets, and hunted in the forests.
By the 15th century the region was divided among many small kingdoms and chiefdoms. Among them were Gisaka in the east, Bugesera in the south-east, Ndorwa and Mubari in the north-east, and Nduga in the centre, as well as many smaller chiefdoms in the north and west.
The people of these lands shared one language, one set of beliefs and customs, and the same clans (amoko). Members of about eighteen clans lived all over the country, and people of every social group belonged to them. Ruling families came from particular clans: tradition links the Abanyiginya with the Rwanda dynasty, the Abagesera with Gisaka and the Abazigaba with Mubari.
Definition
Clan (ubwoko): a large group of families who believe they descend from a common ancestor and share a name and a totem (a symbolic animal or plant). In Rwanda about eighteen clans, such as the Abanyiginya, Abega, Abasinga and Abagesera, were spread across the whole country.
Definition
Nyiginya dynasty: the line of kings (abami) of the Abanyiginya clan who ruled the Rwanda Kingdom until the monarchy was abolished in 1961.
Definition
Mwami: (plural abami) the king of Rwanda. The mwami was believed to be chosen by Imana (God), was the head of the army and the government, and was bound by the rules of ubwiru.
Definition
Dynastic drum (ingoma ngabe): a sacred drum that was the emblem of the kingdom itself: whoever held it held the kingship. The most famous was Karinga.
What the court traditions say. The royal family traced its ancestry to Kigwa, who is said to have come down from heaven, and to Gihanga, remembered as the founder of the kingdom and credited with bringing fire, cattle, iron-working and the royal drum. The kingdom is said to have begun as a small realm around the hill of Gasabo, near Lake Muhazi, and to have grown under kings such as Ruganzu I Bwimba. Tradition says that Bwimba gave his life as an umutabazi (a liberator who sacrificed himself) so that Rwanda would win a war against Gisaka.
What historians conclude. Historians treat Kigwa and Gihanga as figures of legend: stories that explained and honoured the monarchy. There is no other evidence that they lived. They agree that a small state grew up near Lake Muhazi, but they disagree about when the kingdom really began:
Worked example: sorting statements by the evidence behind them
Task: For each statement, decide what kind of evidence it rests on and how confident a historian can be.
Rule: the further back in time, the more we rely on oral tradition alone, so the more carefully we must say "tradition says" and give dates as estimates.
Important
Some colonial-era writers invented theories that Rwanda's people came from different "races" with separate origins. Historians have rejected these theories: they were not supported by evidence and were later used to divide Rwandans. The evidence shows one people sharing one language, one culture and the same clans.
Gasabo is a hill on the shore of Lake Muhazi, north-east of today's city of Kigali. Tradition remembers it as the place where the Nyiginya kings first ruled a small realm, surrounded by stronger neighbours: Gisaka to the east, Bugesera to the south and Ndorwa to the north. The name lives on in Gasabo District, one of the districts of the City of Kigali.
For historians, Gasabo shows how oral tradition and place can support each other. Many separate traditions, told in different parts of the country, place the kingdom's beginning near Lake Muhazi, and the royal court kept up ritual links with the area for centuries. This does not tell us when the kingdom began, but it makes the where fairly secure.
Rwanda Cultural Heritage Academy (in Kinyarwanda): the history of Rwiri-Nturo, a site linked in tradition with the dynastic drum Karinga. Listen for how the site is connected to the kingship.
Think, pair, share: Many kingdoms in the world, not only Rwanda, told stories that their first king came from heaven or was chosen by God. Why might a royal family want such a story to be believed? Does the story tell us anything true, even if it is a legend?
Practice
Sources and credits
This lesson adapts CC BY-SA material and is shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.
