Religion, Culture and Arts
Senior 3 · English
Religion, Culture and Arts
Lesson 2 of 5
25 min
Let's begin
A museum keeps objects behind glass, but some of the most important things a people has ever owned cannot go in a glass case: its beliefs. In this lesson a guide at a museum in Huye talks to a school group about what Rwandans believed before Christianity and Islam arrived, and how those beliefs sit beside the religions most Rwandans follow today. Then you present a traditional tool aloud, and learn why fluent speakers seem to "swallow" some of their sounds.
Important
Listening script: In the Room with No Glass Cases, for six readers
Only the readers open the script; everyone else keeps it closed until the tasks are done. About three and a half minutes. The guide, teacher and students are imagined; the museum and the beliefs are real.
GUIDE (Mrs Mukankusi): Welcome back. Before we go into the next room, I want to talk about something you cannot see in a glass case: what Rwandans believed before Christianity and Islam arrived. Who can tell me the Kinyarwanda word for God?
KEZA: Imana.
GUIDE: Exactly. Long before the first missionaries came, Rwandans believed in one God, Imana, who created everything and gave life, children, rain and good harvests. Imana was thought to be good, so people did not live in fear of Imana. There is an old saying: Imana yirirwa ahandi igataha i Rwanda. God spends the day elsewhere, but comes home to sleep in Rwanda.
HIRWA: Did people pray to Imana in a special building?
GUIDE: Good question. No, there were no temples. People spoke of Imana in daily life, and you can still hear Imana in many names: Uwimana, Habimana, Hakizimana. Think of your classmates' names!
AISHA: Then who were the spirits my grandfather talks about?
GUIDE: Those were the abazimu, the spirits of people who had died. Families believed that their ancestors stayed close to them. If a family forgot them, people feared the spirits might send illness or bad luck, so families honoured them with small offerings of food and drink in little huts beside the house.
GLORIA: And what is kubandwa? Our history teacher mentioned it.
GUIDE: Kubandwa was a ceremony that brought people into the cult of Ryangombe, a hero who led spirits called the imandwa. People who had been initiated felt like one family, even if they came from different clans. There was singing, and those taking part played the roles of the spirits.
HIRWA: How did people know why something bad had happened to them?
GUIDE: They visited a diviner, an umupfumu, who explained the cause of the misfortune and advised what to do.
KEZA: Do Rwandans still believe these things?
GUIDE: Most Rwandans today are Christians, and there is a Muslim community that has lived here for more than a century. Catholic missionaries opened their first mission at Save, not far from here, in 1900, and Islam came with traders from the East African coast. But notice that the old word did not disappear. Christians pray to Imana in Kinyarwanda, and many Muslims use the word too when they speak Kinyarwanda. And some old customs live on as culture rather than religion: umuganura is now a national harvest day.
MR RUZINDANA (teacher): So what should my students take away from this room?
GUIDE: Respect. When you study the beliefs of the past, don't laugh at them. Ask which questions people were trying to answer: Why are we here? Why do we suffer? How should we live together? Our ancestors asked those questions, and so do Christians and Muslims today. Now, follow me, and please don't touch the drums in the next room, however tempting they are.
Copy and complete the table.
| Word | What it meant | One detail the guide gives |
|---|---|---|
| Imana | … | you can still hear it in names such as … |
| abazimu | … | families offered them … in … |
| kubandwa | … | the people initiated felt like … |
| umupfumu | … | people visited one when … |
3. In which year, and where, did Catholic missionaries open their first mission?
4. How did Islam reach Rwanda, according to the guide?
5. What does the saying "God spends the day elsewhere, but comes home to sleep in Rwanda" suggest about how Rwandans saw their country?
6. Why does the guide end with a warning about the drums? What does it show about her?
Definition
ancestor (n): a member of your family who lived long before you, such as your great-grandmother. The adjective is ancestral.
initiate (v): to bring someone into a group or a belief, usually through a ceremony. The ceremony is an initiation.
diviner (n): a person believed to find out hidden causes or the future by special signs or methods. To do this is to divine.
missionary (n): a person sent to another country to spread a religion; the place where missionaries live and work is a mission.
The guide says that our ancestors, Christians and Muslims ask the same great questions. The table sets traditional Rwandan belief beside the two religions that most Rwandans follow today. Read across each row.
| Traditional Rwandan belief | Christianity | Islam | |
|---|---|---|---|
| God | Imana, the one creator and giver of life | One God, known through Jesus Christ; called Imana in Kinyarwanda | One God, Allah; Rwandan Muslims also say Imana in Kinyarwanda |
| Teachings kept in | speech: proverbs, names, songs and stories | the Bible | the Qur'an |
| Place of prayer | the homestead; small huts for the ancestors' spirits | a church | a mosque |
| Regular worship | no fixed weekly day; ceremonies at birth, marriage, death and harvest | Sunday for most churches; Saturday for Seventh-day Adventists | prayer five times a day; the Friday midday prayer together |
| Great celebrations | umuganura, the harvest festival | Christmas and Easter | Eid al-Fitr and Eid al-Adha |
| Honouring parents | taught through proverbs and in itorero | the commandment to honour father and mother (Exodus 20:12) | kindness to parents, especially in old age (Qur'an 17:23) |
Each tradition is described here only in outline. Ask a religious leader or your Religious Education teacher for more.
A good short presentation of an object follows the questions a listener has in mind, in order.
| Step | Useful language |
|---|---|
| 1. Name it | This is an igisabo. In English we would call it a churn. |
| 2. Describe it | It is made of … It is about … long / high. It is shaped like … |
| 3. Who made it and how | It is carved / woven / fired by … First … then … |
| 4. How it is used | You hold it … and … It is used for …ing. |
| 5. What it means | In the past it showed … Today it is … / People still … |
| 6. Invite questions | Does anyone have a question? / Would anyone like to hold it? |
Guess the tool. In groups of four, each person chooses a tool from lesson 1 and describes it in four sentences without naming it, starting with its material and ending with its use. The group may ask three yes/no questions. Example: "I'm made of a dried gourd. I'm hollow and have a long neck. Someone shakes me for a long time. When she stops, there is butter inside me." (igisabo)
Role cards. Work in pairs. A presents; B asks two follow-up questions. Then swap.
Worked example
Turning notes into a 30-second presentation
Notes: ikibindi; clay; potter; dig clay, shape, dry, fire; water; on head; still used in villages.
Fluent speakers do not say every word separately. They join words together (linking) and sometimes drop a sound completely (elision). If you expect every sound, you will mishear fast English; if you add sounds that are not there, you will sound slow. Kinyarwanda syllables mostly end in a vowel, so Rwandan learners often add a vowel to break up English consonants (milk said as "miliki"). Connected speech goes the other way: it removes sounds.
| Feature | What happens | Written | Said |
|---|---|---|---|
| Consonant to vowel | a final consonant joins the next word's vowel | made of · hold it · an igisabo | "mei-dov" · "hol-dit" · "a-nigisabo" |
| /t/ or /d/ dropped | between two consonants, /t/ and /d/ often disappear | next day · last week · old man · handbag | "nex day" · "las week" · "ol man" · "han-bag" |
| Weak vowel dropped | an unstressed vowel inside a word vanishes | different · interesting · family · camera | "diff-rent" · "in-tresting" · "fam-ly" · "cam-ra" |
| Weak forms | small words lose their full vowel | bread and butter · a cup of milk · I want to go | "bread n butter" · "a cup ə milk" · "I want tə go" |
Listen, then say. Read slowly, then at natural speed, joining the words: "Next week my grandmother and I want to hold an old igisabo and make butter for the family."
Tip
Elision is for listening first. You must understand "nex day", but you do not have to say it. In an examination or a speech, clear is better than fast. Linking consonant to vowel, however, makes you sound fluent with no loss of clarity, so practise that one.
Warning
Elision of /t/, from Tim's Pronunciation Workshop, BBC Learning English (about 3 minutes). Write down three phrases where /t/ disappears, then find one more in the sentence in this lesson's "Listen, then say" task.
Practice
Sources and credits
Written by Ganzaa, except the photo credited above. This lesson adapts CC BY-SA material and is shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.
