Defeat Is the Only Bad News: Rwanda under Musinga, 1896–1931

2. The Catholic Church, the German Administration and the Nyiginya Court

24 2 The Catholic Church, the German Administration, and the Nyiginya Court Uhongera umwanzi amara inka. [He who offers reparations to his enemy will lose all his cattle] Although the attention of the Court was focused mostly on its internal struggles, Kanjogera and her brothers carefully watched the installation of European soldiers in the southwestern corner of Rwanda. Since the border between the Congo Free State and German East Africa had not yet been fixed, both German and Belgian officers established outposts near Shangi in 1897 and 1898. Aside from of their original appropriation of the land for their posts and occasional demands of supplies and labor from the people in their immediate vicinity, these Europeans asked nothing from the Court or its subjects. They wanted only to establish a claim to the territory, not to govern the people of Rwanda.1 Richard Kandt, a German physician who arrived in Rwanda in 1898 to search for the sources of the Nile River, was the first foreigner interested in developing closer contacts with the Rwandans.* After *Richard Kandt (1867–1918) was exceptional in German colonial service, both as a Jew and as the first civilian administrative authority, referred to as the Resident of Rwanda (1897–1913). But he was far more than an administrator. Among other interests he was a psychiatrist, a sensitive ethnographer, an accomplished botanist and a gifted writer. His classic book Caput Nili (subtitled “a sentimental voyage to the sources of the Nile”) is respected not only for its comprehensive local-level observations but also for its traveling for a year in and around Rwanda, he took up residence near Shangi. Eager to explore the complexities of the Rwandan social and political system, Kandt began studying Kinyarwanda, the language common to all Rwandans.2 The indifference of most Europeans to learning about Rwanda accorded well with the desires of the Court. Dealing with foreigners had always been the exclusive privilege of the mwami and his most trusted deputies. Other Rwandans were not to cross the frontier or to communicate with representatives of foreign rulers. Now that foreigners had penetrated Rwanda, the Court hoped to control their contacts with the ordinary people through notables who were assigned to them, supposedly to see that their needs were met. Other notables obeyed the orders of the Court and avoided contacts with the Europeans.3 The notables were just as happy not to have to deal with the strangers, whom they called ibisimba, literally “wild beasts,” an expression that incorporated ideas of contempt as well as fear. One European arriving at the Court several years after the establishment of the protectorate commented with pleased surprise on the “almost distinguished manners ” of the notables. Little did he or his fellows suspect that they failed to elicit a similar judgment in return. Carefully schooled in civility and self-discipline, the Rwandans of the Court often criticized the Europeans for brutal or rude behavior. The notables realized, of course, that some Europeans were more important than others. When dealing with those of high rank, they hid their scorn for them behind a polite exterior . Only when they came in contact with someone like Kandt, whose small caravan revealed his relative poverty, did they show their contempt . The Court failed to provide him with customary gifts of welcome , while the young men of the royal entourage more openly taunted this weak European by offering him old potatoes and rotten bananas for provisions.4 Catholic Church, German Administration & Nyiginya Court 25 great literary merit. He seems to have been both trusted by the Court (as the first European introduced to Musinga) and respected by the population: even in recent times he was remembered with affection by the people of Kinyaga (his principal personal residence) as a peaceful, respectful person (and one who spoke Kinyarwanda). After his departure from Rwanda, while tending to victims of gas warfare in Poland during World War I, he himself was stricken by a gas attack. His lungs and throat were severely affected; he died of tuberculosis a painful nine months later, in April 1918. See Reinhart Bindseil, Rwanda und Deutschland seit den Tagen Richard Kandts (Berlin: Bietrich Reimer Verlag, 1988). The Arrival of the White Fathers: Testing the Court Unlike the notables of the central kingdom, other subjects of the mwami overcame their repugnance to the ibisimba and sought protection from them. When the German explorer von Götzen had...