Pre-colonial Burundi (1300 - 1890)

Updated April 2005

The current ethnic differentiations in Burundi have their origin in patterns of human settlement that began to take final shape in the Fifteenth Century. Oral traditions and archeological evidence suggest, but do not demonstrate conclusively, that the gradual encroachment of Bantu speaking agriculturalists from Mali and the Central African Republic (the Hutus) on the indigenous hunter gather societies that originated in the Congo Basin (the Twas), was overlaid by waves of conquest by a cattle herding culture of Nilo-ethiopian origin (The Tutsis) (Oketch & Polzer 1992, 91, Global Internally Displaced Person Project 2005).

By the Sixteenth Century the patchwork of monarchies that covered what is now Rwanda and Burundi began to be consolidated through conquest into ever fewer territorially extensive states.

When Burundi enters recorded history the Burundian kingdom is already a complex integrated social structure bound together by a common loyalty to the monarchy, by the extensive system of government and administration that had been developed and by the elaborate bonds of personal client-patron relations that tied the people of various strata of society to one another. Moreover they shared a common language, religion and ethno-political identity (Bayefsky.com 1992, Kimber 1996). The Arusha Accord put it thus:

During the precolonial period, all the ethnic groups inhabiting Burundi owed allegiance to the same monarch, Umwami, believed in the same god, Imana, had the same culture and the same language, Kirundi, and lived together in the same territory. Notwithstanding the migratory movements that accompanied the settlement of the various groups in Burundi, everyone recognized themselves as Barundi (US Institute of Peace Library 2002).

Social identity, privileges and social obligations depended on an array of factors. These included lineage, cattle ownership and usage, occupation and standing in the complex social and political hierarchies that exercised executive and judicial power. These hierarchies also controlled the distribution of land (Global Internally Displaced Person Project 2005).

The designations Hutu, Tutsi and Twa came to refer primarily to lineage and occupation and these groups were stratified internally along lines of wealth and socio-political standing. Neither internal nor external identity boundaries were rigidly determined at birth and one could move upwards and downwards in class within these caste-like structures as well as between them. This was further cemented by intermarriages between classes and castes (Global Internally Displaced Person Project 2005, Bayefsky.com 1992).

Over all of this stood a class of administrators and rulers descended from the royal lineage called the Abagwana who staffed the economic social and military state structures, and over them the king (Mwami) in whose name they ruled.

References

BAYEFSKY.COM 1992 "Core reports: Burundi", [www] http://www.bayefsky.com/core/hri_core_1_add_16_1992.php [opens new window] (accessed 22 Oct 2007).

GLOBAL INTERNALLY DISPLACED PERSON PROJECT 2005 "Ethnic background and pre-colonial times" IN Burundi, [www] http://www.db.idpproject.org/Sites/IdpProjectDb/ idpSurvey.nsf/wViewCountries/E2C06B557E7DD5A7C12567DA002B9852 (page off-line Oct 2007).

KIMBER, C 1996 "Coming to terms with barbarism in Rwanda and Burundi" IN International Socialism 73, December, [www] http://pubs.socialistreviewindex.org.uk/isj73/kimber.htm [opens new window] (accessed 22 Oct 2007)

OKETCH, JS & POLZER, T 1992 "Conflict and Coffee in Burundi" IN Lind, J & Sturman, K (eds) Scarcity and Surfeit: The ecology of Africa's conflicts, Institute for Security Studies, [www] http://www.iss.co.za/pubs/Books/ScarcitySurfeit/Chapter3.pdf [PDF document, opens new window] (accessed 22 Oct 2007).

US INSTITUTE OF PEACE LIBRARY 2002, "Article 1: Precolonial period" IN Arusha peace and reconciliation agreement for Burundi, [www] http://www.usip.org/library/pa/burundi/pa_burundi_08282000_pr1.html [opens new window] (accessed 22 Oct 2007).