Antecedents to Modern Rwanda: The Nyiginya Kingdom

Appendix 1: Chronology

207 appendix 1 Chronology Chronology is an essential foundation for history and any change in the calculation of a chronology can have quite substantial effects. That is the reason why here we focus once again on the chronology of the Nyiginya kingdom even though the topic has already been the object of much research, including some of my own.1 For none of the earlier attempts has proven to be satisfactory. Moreover, the new chronology at which we arrive here entails major consequences . Among others, let us observe, for instance, that the kingdom was probably founded around 1650, almost six centuries after the 1091 date proposed by Kagame.2 Further, the new date is not earlier than most of the dates proffered for the emergence of other kingdoms in the immediate vicinity as well as elsewhere in the Great Lakes region.3 The sources only become credible and more numerous from the middle of the eighteenth century onward, as is also the case elsewhere in the region. A great territorial expansion only starts here circa 1780 (Buganza) and not centuries before. Rugaju’s rule stretched over more than twenty-five years and not over a few years as some had thought. Such examples show that the adoption of a new chronology brings us to a new understanding of the history it relates to, and that justifies the presence of this appendix. The Foundations Until now all authors have established a chronology for Rwanda before 1895 on the basis of the official dynastic list of kings, by accepting the claim that the monarchs nearly always succeeded from father to son, and using an average number for the length of a dynastic generation.4 Moreover, authors have used references to eclipses of the sun and comets to attempt to make such calculations more precise. This procedure does not resolve the following problems. First one has to determine who really founded the kingdom, if all the kings who appear on the dynastic list are historical personages or not, and if the succession did indeed pass from father to son. Secondly, one needs to take into account the fact that an average of generation length is an average. It can only be valid for a number of generations, not just for one or two. Moreover, this average number does not take male longevity into account. Most adult men died before or around forty years old.5 As far as the kings are concerned, one observes that no less than eight of those about whom data are extant suddenly died or died at a fairly young age, to wit: two died in an accident, one was killed in war, and five died of illness (5). Among the two remaining kings one was reputed for his longevity. On the other hand, three kings were enthroned as children , and a fourth one when he was just about a young man. Moreover, readers should realize that a researcher always chooses an eclipse or comet by looking for it within a window of time previously determined by a calculation based on an average generational length. The first step is to determine the list of kings. One observes that the kingdom begins with RUGANZU Ndori and not with RUGANZU Bwimba as has hitherto been believed. In the next appendix, we will see that the list of the socalled predynastic kings is not credible. Moreover, one of the later kings on the usual list, KIGERI Nyamuheshera, seems to be fictional as well.6 He was probably added later on to construct a complete cycle of dynastic names. But that means that there is a gap in the dynastic list that prevents us from dating the preceding kings. Among these, MUTARA Semugeshi, aka BICUBA, aka NSORO Muyenzi,7 may well refer to two or even three different kings, either in succession or as coevals. One can only observe, then, that RUGANZU Ndori’s reign was followed by a dark age during which the number of kings who reigned cannot be determined. An absolute chronology can only be reconstructed from Gisanura onward. It is true that two kings, KAREMERA Rwaka and MIBAMBWE Rutarindwa, have been deleted from the official list, but nonetheless they were remembered and even the length of their reigns was not forgotten. Finally, one observes that Rujugira is supposed to be a half-brother of Rwaka and Rutarindwa the half-brother of Musinga who was to succeed him. The second step consists in obtaining a date in...