Organisation of Pre-colonial Rwanda
Senior 1 · History and Citizenship
Organisation of Pre-colonial Rwanda
Lesson 1 of 5
25 min
Before tin roofs and bricks, most Rwandan families lived in round houses like this one. It was rebuilt at the Ikirenge Cultural Centre in Rulindo District to show how people once lived. Look at the photograph, then read the questions under it.
Worked example: what a reconstruction can and cannot tell us
Every Rwandan belonged to three groups, each inside the next: a household, a lineage and a clan.
Definition
Household (urugo): the homestead of one family: a father, his wife or wives, their children and sometimes other relatives, living together inside one fenced yard.
Definition
Lineage (inzu): a group of families descended from one known ancestor, usually three to five generations back, led by an elder. Members supported each other in marriage, disputes and ceremonies, and often held land together.
Definition
Clan (ubwoko): a very large group of lineages who believe they share a distant ancestor, with a shared name and a totem. Rwanda had about eighteen clans, among them the Abanyiginya, Abega, Abasinga, Abazigaba and Abagesera.
Definition
Patrilineal: tracing family membership through the father. In Rwanda a child belonged to the father's lineage and clan.
| Group | Size | Led by | What it did |
|---|---|---|---|
| Household (urugo) | one family | the father, with the mother running the home | produced food; raised and taught children; men cleared land, herded and built, women farmed, cooked and wove |
| Lineage (inzu) | several related households | an elder (umukuru w'inzu) | shared land and help; arranged marriages and bride-wealth; settled quarrels; honoured ancestors |
| Clan (ubwoko) | thousands of people all over the country | no single leader | gave identity and a sense of kinship everywhere; guests from the same clan were welcomed as relatives |
In pre-colonial Rwanda the words Hutu, Tutsi and Twa described people's social and economic position, not separate races or tribes. They were linked above all to wealth and way of life: wealth in cattle and closeness to the court were associated with the word Tutsi; farming with the word Hutu; pottery, hunting and some service at court with the word Twa.
Important
In the 1930s the Belgian colonial administration wrote an "ethnic" category on every person's identity card, and treated the categories as fixed races. This turned flexible social positions into rigid labels and was later used to divide Rwandans. Rwanda abolished these labels on identity cards after 1994, and today all citizens are Banyarwanda.
Households and lineages depended on each other. When a family had to clear a field or bring in a harvest, neighbours came to help, and the family repaid the help later with work or with food and beer. This custom of shared farm work was called ubudehe.
The idea did not disappear. In 2001 the Government of Rwanda gave the name Ubudehe to a national programme in which each village (umudugudu) meets to decide on its own development priorities and to support its poorest households. An old form of social organisation was given a new use.
Tip
Memory hook: think of three rings, from small to big: urugo (my home), inzu (my family line), ubwoko (my clan). "Home, line, clan."
Think, pair, share: In the 1800s, a person could move from one social category to another. Why did writing a fixed category on every identity card, in the 1930s, change how Rwandans saw each other? What does this teach us about how labels can shape a society?
Practice
Sources and credits
This lesson adapts CC BY-SA material and is shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.
