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.

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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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