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217 appendix 2 Predynastic Fairy Tales: Central Rwanda before Ndori Although RUGANZU Ndori was the real founder of the Nyiginya kingdom, almost all historiographers1 start the known history of the kingdom much earlier with another RUGANZU, whose personal name was Bwimba.2 He lived on the hill of Gasabo and ruled over several adjacent hills, as well over the historic province of Buganza, south of Lake Muhazi. And even Bwimba was not the first king, but of his predecessors only the names are known, a chain of names linked to the mythical fall from heaven of Kigwa, the ur-ancestor of the royal dynasty, and, later on, to the first mythical ruler Gihanga, “the Creator,” who is said to have ruled over all the known lands of the Great Lakes. But Bwimba is the first king whose deeds are related “when the curtain finally opens”3 on history. From that moment onward, a set of traditions seems to report the emergence of this embryonic kingdom of Gasabo and its growth through the acquisition of lands, first to the north of the Nyabugogo, and later in Rukoma and Nduga.4 Yet an analysis of the literary coherence of this set of traditions reveals that it is really a disparate body created by stitching various odds and ends together with bits of various tales of origins.5 First comes a set of beautiful romantic tales about RUGANZU Bwimba and CYIRIMA Rugwe, which also includes the later story of MIBAMBWE Mutabazi’s marriage to a princess of Buha and the war for succession that followed that event. Smith realized6 that these stories are in fact fairy tales, or perhaps disguised myths. Everything pertaining to them is fictitious down to the very names of the protagonists, except for MIBAMBWE Sekarongoro whose names are identical to, and borrowed from, those of Gisanura.7 Second is a set of traditions that tells stories about campaigns of conquest conducted more or less together by KIGERI Mukobanya and his son, or, according to some, by his younger brother, MIBAMBWE Mutabazi, a set of traditions that concludes with the depredations and the final defeat at Ishinjaniro of a group of foreign invaders called “Nyoro.” As far as we can tell, there are no convincing parallels between these traditions and known tales of fiction. Mukobanya could actually have been a real person and the polity the traditions claim he created in Buriza, Bumbogo, and Rukoma may well have existed. A third set of traditions constitutes the cycle of the last king of Nduga, Mashira, or “the End.” It consists in divinations and prophecies that display the magic powers of kings.8 These stories are part and parcel of a genre of tales of fiction, related to riddles, for which parallels can be found elsewhere. The whole cycle is fictitious, even the part that portrays Sekarongoro Mutabazi as the tenacious adversary and later victor over Mashira.9 For a character called Sekarongoro Mutabazi does appear in all three sets of traditions and serves to unify. Then follow some bits about a certain YUHI Gahima, an imaginary king. The data supplied for this king are derived either from the preceding cycle (Nzaratsi) or based on anachronisms (the conquests). Then comes the tragedy of NDAHIRO10 Cyamatare, which belongs to the cycle of Ndori, for Cyamatare lost his realm and his life after having sent his son Ndori to Karagwe where he was kept safe. Once again, this king is a figment of the imagination, but his story could have been conceivably inspired by the fate of some lord in Nduga, who was overcome and killed in the mountains to the west of the upper Nyabarongo. The intelligentsia at court molded this disparate batch of fictions and reminiscences into a single whole by imposing a chronological sequence on them that turned their protagonists into a series of kings succeeding each other from father to son. The fabrications consisted not just in tying the cycles of tales together , but also in providing them with a concrete context of places (capitals, battles, cemeteries) and kinship with dynastic names, queen mothers, and even the latter’s clans. This process may well have begun in Ndori’s lifetime or shortly thereafter, when the ritualists came up with the idea of making him a scion of a legendary Cyamatare, thus turning him into not only the legitimate successor to the whole of Nduga but also to all the lands in the north that had been ravished by Byinshi the...

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