The frontier regions were overseen by the military chiefs, who were an important element in the security and organization of the nation. Their rôle was both defensive and offensive, with many military chiefs securing the borders in times of relative calm, while striking out on cattle raids against neighboring tribes under less pacific circumstances. The great chief and the army chief were often one and the same person, and this identification of the military with the nobiliary persisted throughout the history of the kingdom. Finally, the abiru, or guardians of tradition, played an important part in the administration of the mwami, and provided guidance on matters related to the “supernatural powers” of the king, as well as on questions of court ritual and protocol.

 

H.M. Yuhi V Musinga at the Royal Palace of Nyanza

 The kingly power of the mwami was symbolized by the kalinga, a large ceremonial drum frequently decorated with the dried heads and dessicated testicles of vanquished opponents of the royal armies. Rwandan author and historian Benjamin Sehene writes that “an atmosphere of veneration and a grand ceremonial

surrounded the kalinga (“token of hope”), which was kept in a palace, protected day and night by a special guard.” This important symbol was painted with the blood of bulls, which gave it a reddish-brown appearance, and was often escorted by three other royal drums, called “He possesses knowledge,” “the Country expands” and “the Nations are subject to me.” If ever the kalinga were lost or captured in battle, it was universally believed that this setback would certainly signal disaster for the entirety of the Rwandan nation.

 

The Kalinga

 Such was the nature and organization of the independent kingdom that first greeted the eyes of European explorers of the mid-19th century when they ventured into the region of Lake Victoria on their quest to discover the source of the Nile River. John Hanning Speke was the first of the British explorers to mention the Kingdom of Rwanda in his writings, and it was during the time of the great Mwami

Kigeli IV Rwabugiri (r. 1853-1895) that the nation knew its last days of total independence. Under his reign, Rwanda had successfully resisted the incursions of the Arab slave traders who had attempted to penetrate the interior in search of human grist for their satanic mills, and Kigeli IV was himself the first mwami to ever set eyes upon a European within the confines of his formerly secluded kingdom.

Kigeli IV Rwabugiri is considered to have been one of the very greatest of the abami, despite a considerable reputation for harshness in dealings with his subjects. His strict administration imposed a draconian regime on the once semi- independent Tutsi and Hutu chieftains of the Rwandan hinterland, frequently confiscating their holdings and eventually breaking their political power in the country. He also established a more modern army, one that was equipped with guns, and which successfully blocked most foreigners from entering the tiny state during the greater part of his reign.

In the domain of socio-political engineering, Kigeli IV relied on a number of feudal structures, such as the uburetwa (“labor for land”) system, which was somewhat analogous to the institution of serfdom practiced in medieval Europe. Although his reign officially began in 1853, it was not until 1860 that Kigeli IV Rwabugiri managed to unite all parts of Rwanda under his strong, centralized rule. Despite the      fiercely independent spirit of its monarch, Rwanda fell under the control of the German East Africa Company by an act of the Berlin International Conference of 1884-85. The regions of Rwanda and Urundi were ceded to Germany as colonial spheres of interest, and it was during the final year of Kigeli’s long reign that a caravan of over six hundred men, led by the German Count von Götzen, finally penetrated the borders of the kingdom.

On May 29, 1894, Count von Götzen was received by the mwami in person while the Royal Court of Rwanda was in residence at Kageyo, near the present-day town of Gisenyi. The German soldiers organized military parades and demonstrations of marksmanship, as well as a display of fireworks. For his part, the mwami made a valuable gift of livestock to the foreign visitors, and appeared to be moderately pleased with the encounter. What he could not know, however, was that this meeting would mark the beginning of a painful and tremendously difficult century for his formerly isolated kingdom, a century that would see her increasingly on the defensive against a carefully planned and minutely coordinated takeover by European rulers whose domains lay thousands of miles away from the sacred enclosure of his simple palace. Unknown to Kigeli and his abiru, the Rubicon had been crossed, and sadly there was soon to be no reasonable hope of a safe return.

 

PART II

Beneath the Banner of Christ the King: Rwandan Abami of the Colonial Era (ca. 1895-1959)

Within a year after the arrival of the German explorers at Kageyo, the great Mwami Kigeli IV Rwabugiri had died, and had been succeeded by one of his sons, who had been chosen by the abiru according to time-honored custom, and who reigned under the name Mibambwe IV Rutarindwa. There was intense dissatisfaction at court, however, as the new monarch was not considered to be an entirely suitable choice, particularly at a time when foreign encroachment on Rwandan soil loomed large on the socio-political landscape.

Consequently, the reign of Mibambwe IV was not a long one, and he was duly replaced on the throne in 1896 by Yuhi V Musinga (r. 1896-1931), another of Mwami Kigeli’s sons by his wife Kanyogera (Nyirajuhi V), in what has come to be known as the Coup d’Etat of Rucunshu. In accordance with Rwandan royal tradition, the ousted king was put to death for the benefit of the nation, the kalinga was presented to the new monarch and the supreme authority passed naturally into the hands of the successor designated by the abiru.

The new mwami, Yuhi Musinga, born in 1883, was a far more congenial choice for the majority of the Rwandan Royal Court, and as a result, under the regency of his mother and her brother, Kabare, the young king quickly consolidated his power base within the kingdom. At this critical juncture in the history of the nation, the

leaders moved quickly to strengthen the structures of the state, primarily in an effort to neutralize the increasing incursions made on national sovereignty by the German colonial machine. Despite minor disturbances in a few isolated regions of the country, including the illegal installation of a “mwami in rebellion,” Ndungtse, from 1911 to 1912, Mwami Yuhi reigned steadily and wisely over his kingdom, maintaining a firm hand on the reins of power throughout the early decades of his sovereignty.

 

H.M. Mwami Yuhi V Musinga

Over the years, the promising young king grew into an impressive and eminently royal figure, his demeanor exuding a mixture of stern authority and fatherly benevolence. Photos of the monarch from this period show him to have been a

commanding presence, one who is clearly at the center of attention in all his doings, and yet one who is strangely sympathetic in his majesty. Backed by his regents and abiru, the monarch did his best to stem the increasingly strong tide of demands made by the German colonial powers, but also came to realize that in matters of military technology and mechanized warfare, as well as in sheer deceitfulness, the foreign interlopers clearly held the upper hand.

 

Mwami Yuhi V Musinga with Members of the Royal Court of Rwanda

Thus were born a number of the concessions made to the German authorities over the course of the years, some of which were to bear bitter fruit in the decades to come. In 1899, the Mwami officially recognized the German “protectorate,” known as

Deutsch-Ostafrika, and in 1900 reluctantly consented to the foundation of a Catholic monastery at Save, which was run by the Order of the White Fathers, and which effectively opened the door to the eventual conversion of most of the country to the Roman Catholic faith. Despite the myriad spiritual and practical benefits brought about by the introduction of the faith of Christ into his domains, Mwami Yuhi Musinga remained deeply suspicious of European missionaries throughout the entirety of his reign, and viewed their activities as largely aimed at eroding his supreme royal authority at a time when that authority was already under considerable attack by growing waves of colonial opportunists.

Yuhi V Musinga with the White Fathers Missionaries

 In 1908, the German Resident, Richard Kandt, a sort of “overseer” of the colonial protectorate, established his headquarters at Kigali (present-day capital of the Republic of Rwanda), and this move ultimately inspired the quasi-permanent establishment of the Royal Court of Rwanda at Nyanza, which quickly became the epicenter of the Rwandan administrative system. The mwami inhabited a noble and spacious enclosure, the confines of which were considered to be “sacred ground” by his many faithful subjects.

 

H.M. Queen Kankazi, Mother of Mutara III Rudahigwa

 The month of March, 1913, saw a joyous event in the birth of a son (and eventual heir) to Mwami Yuhi V Musinga, but within the coming year, troubling developments in Europe would come to overshadow the personal happiness of the Rwandan monarch. Increasing political tensions among several of the European powers, coupled with the assassination of the Austrian Archduke Franz Ferdinand in the summer of 1914, quickly led to an almost universal declaration of war on the Continent in August of that fateful year. Franz Ferdinand, nephew of Franz Josef, the reigning Emperor of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, had been shot in Sarajevo, Serbia, by a young Serbian nationalist, Gavrilo Princip, and the resultant tension created by this act drew the majority of European nations into the first epic conflict of the 20th century.

The immediate result of this conflict on the kingdom of Rwanda was the invasion of its territory by Belgian troops, in direct and flagrant violation of treaty agreements previously established to shield the African protectorates from just this sort of aggression. Yuhi V Musinga, caught in a crossfire between the Germans and the Belgians, reluctantly threw in his lot with the forces of Kaiser Wilhelm II, with whose emissaries he already had a long-standing, if somewhat unequal relationship.

Thousands of Rwandans were killed in a variety of battles, and Yuhi’s efforts to minimize the effects on his kingdom of this almost universal conflagration, entirely the making of the foreign powers, were sadly futile. By 1916, however, Belgian troops had emerged victorious over German colonial forces, and Rwanda was effectively at the mercy of yet another European power.

With the catastrophic disturbances engendered by the protracted hostilities, famine was widespread throughout the country for the entirety of the war, and when the conflict had ended, the Treaty of Versailles of 1919 officially conferred a mandate over the nations of Rwanda and Burundi to the Kingdom of Belgium.