Antecedents to Modern Rwanda: The Nyiginya Kingdom
Antecedents to Modern Rwanda: The Nyiginya Kingdom
by Jan Vansina
University of Wisconsin Press, 2004 eISBN: 978-0-299-20123-4 | Paper: 978-0-299-20124-1 | Cloth: 978-0-299-20120-3 Library of Congress Classification DT450.34.V3813 2004 Dewey Decimal Classification 967.57101
ABOUT THIS BOOK | AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY | REVIEWS | TOC | REQUEST ACCESSIBLE FILE
ABOUT THIS BOOK
To understand the genocide and other dramatic events of Rwanda’s recent past, one must understand the history of the earlier realm. Jan Vansina provides a critique of the history recorded by early missionaries and court historians and provides a bottom-up view, drawing on hundreds of grassroots narratives. He describes the genesis of the Hutu and Tutsi identities, their growing social and political differences, their bitter feuds, revolts, and massacres, and the relevance of this dramatic history to the post-genocide Rwanda of today.
2001 French edition, Katharla Publishers
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY
Jan Vansina is the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Professor and the Vilas Professor in History and Anthropology at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. His many books include his 1994 memoir Living with Africa, Oral Tradition as History, Kingdoms of the Savanna, and The Children of Woot, all published by the University of Wisconsin Press.
REVIEWS
"For historians . . . the choice is clear. Only at their peril will they ignore Vansina’s seminal contribution to our understanding of one of the most complex and controversial chapters in the history of the continent. There are few books about Africa today I would qualify as a magnificent achievement. This is one of them."— Rene Lemarchand, African Affairs
“[Vansina] is both the leading historian of pre-colonial Africa, and a writer of unparalleled authority on the use of oral tradition. . . . This book is the culmination of nearly fifty years of interest and research in Rwanda.”—Shane Doyle, Leeds African Studies Bulletin
“An original interpretation of Rwandese history from the beginning of the kingdom to the advent of the colonial era.”—John M. Janzen, The American Historical Review
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Contents
Maps 000
Preface 000
Acknowledgments 000
Abbreviations 000
Note on Spelling 000
<LINE SPACE>
Introduction 000
The Oral Sources 000
1. Central Rwanda on the Eve of the Emergence of the Kingdom (seventeenth century) 000
The Country and its Inhabitants 000
Field and Herd. Subsistance Activities 000
Kinship and Society 000
Polities 000
2. The Rwanda of Ndori 000
Foundation of the Kingdom 000
Subsequent Military Campaigns: Conquests or Raids? 000
Government: The Ritual Institutions 000
Instruments of Government: The Corporations 000
The Realm 000
Conclusion 000
3. Towards the Centralisation of Power 000
The Seizure of the Herds and of the Land 000
The Armies 000
At the Hub: Court, King, and Elites 000
Recasting Royal Ideology during Rujugira's Reign 000
The Weight of the State 000
4. Ruling in the eighteenth Century 000
Government from Gisanura to Rwaka 000
Governance under Rujugira and Ndabarasa 000
Foreign Relations under Gisanura and Mazimpaka 000
Foreign Relations under Rujugira and Ndabarasa 000
Conclusion 000
5. Social Transformations in the Nineteenth Century 000
Social Transformations in General
Hutu and Tutsi
6. The Triumph of the Great Families and Its Consequences 000
The Civil War and the Supremacy of the Elites 000
Struggles for power at the Court during the Reigns of Gahindiro and Rwogera 000
Expansion of the Kingdom Eastwards and International Trade 000
A Spontaneous Expansion towards Lake Kivu and the Land of the Volcanoes? 000
Conclusion 000
7. Nightmares: The Age of Rwabugiri (1867-1896) 000
Political Crises and Wars from 1867 to 1889 000
Isolation Breached and the Hatching of a Coup d'état 000
A Nightmare of Violence as a Political Tool 000
A Balance Sheet 000
In Conclusion: History and the Present 000
<LINE SPACE>
Appendix 1: Chronology 000
The Foundations 000
Dating Rwabugiri's Reign 000
From 1796 to the Death of Rwogera 000
Before 1796 000
Appendix 2: Predynastic Fairy Tales: Central Rwanda before Ndori 000
Works Cited 000
Index 000
Library of Congress Subject Headings for this publication: Rwanda Kings and rulers, Rwanda History
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