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Bushi and the Historians: Historiographical Themes in Eastern Kivu*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  13 May 2014

David Newbury
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Extract

Historical studies of Kivu are still in their very infancy. Recent work has been carried out in Bufulero, Bushi, Buhavu, and Bunande, but lacking the results of these studies, historians working from published materials have very few sources at their disposal. Existing sources include works by Colle, Moeller, Willame, and Cuypers, with the latter two based primarily on the former, at least in their historical dimensions. Because the sources are so few and are essentially similar, little critical attention has been given them; by constant citation and repetition they have become hallowed as truth and used as a basis for teaching and university theses. By this process such essentially colonial interpretations have become entrenched in the historical ontology of the region. This paper proposes to review some of the written sources in light of current research in the region, by first presenting certain themes which appear to have guided earlier historical inquiry and then discussing the works of these four influential authors in light of these themes.

The first attempts to record historical traditions in the Kivu area were influenced by earlier studies of Rwanda which emphasized the centralized and hierarchical nature of the Rwandan state. Many of the early missionaries and Zairean priests in Kivu, men to whom contemporary researchers owe much for their accumulated sources, had close contacts with the seminaries and published work in Rwanda. In most historical works, Rwanda was seen as the end development for other states in the region, and prominence was given to those historical factors which were assumed to have had a common impact throughout the area.

Type
Research Article
Information
History in Africa , Volume 5 , 1978 , pp. 131 - 151
Copyright
Copyright © African Studies Association 1978

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Footnotes

*

The present paper is a revised and expanded version of a paper which appeared in Enquêtes et documents de l' histoire africaine, 1(1975), pp. 1-29. I am grateful to Jean-Luc Vellut for his comments and encouragement and to Richard Sigwalt and Elinor Sosne for their comments on the present draft.

References

1. Cuypers, J-B., “Les Bantous interlacustres du Kivu” in Vansina, Jan, ed., Introduction à l'ethnographie du Congo (Kinshasa, [1966]), pp. 201–11Google Scholar; idem, L'alimentation chez les Bushi (Tervuren, 1960).

2. Moeller, A., Les grandes lignes des migrations des Bantous de la province Orientale du Congo Belge (Brussels, 1936), pp. 29–30.Google Scholar

3. Cuypers, , “Les Bantous interlacustres,” p. 204.Google Scholar

4. Ibid.

5. Ibid.

6. Cuypers, , L'alimentations p. 19Google Scholar, based on Moeller, Les grandes lignes.

7. Ibid., p. 17, with emphasis added.

8. Ibid., citing Hiernaux, J., Les caractères physiques des Bashi (Brussels, 1953)Google Scholar, and Hiernaux, , Analyse de la variation des caractères physiques humains en une region de l'Afrique centrale: Ruanda-Urundi et Kivu (Tervuren, 1956).Google Scholar

9. Hiernaux, , Les caractères physiques, pp. 5–6.Google Scholar

10. Ibid., pp. 7, 9.

11. Cited by Cuypers, , L'alimentation, p. 17Google Scholar, Hiernaux, , Analyse, p. 34.Google Scholar

12. Cuypers, , L'alimentation, pp. 20, 21.Google Scholar

13. Ibid., p. 20.

14. Ibid.

15. Ibid., p. 22.

16. Recent research which should alleviate this lack has been undertaken by Cenyange Lubula, Bishikwabo Cubaka, Njangu Canda-Ciri, Pilipili Kagabo, Elinor Sosne, and Richard Sigwalt.

17. Willame, H., Les provinces du Congo: structure et fonctionnement, IV. Kivu central (Kinshasa, 1964).Google Scholar

18. Ibid., p. 115.

19. Ibid., p. 114.

20. Ibid., pp. 156-57.

21. Ibid., pp. 122, 156-57.

22. Ibid., p. 115.

23. Ibid., p. 122.

24. Moeller, , Les grandes lignes, pp. 10, 16–17, 115–16.Google Scholar

25. Ibid., pp. 16n1, 115n1.

26. Moeller's attempt to combine all the traditions into a single “pure” synthesis is reminiscent of the administrative innovations he initiated throughout Orientale province, including Kivu. These included the sometimes arbitrary establishment of larger administrative secteurs. comprising several chefferies. It is possible that these administrative preoccupations and the demands of administrative efficiency influenced his interpretation of the historical and sociological data by encouraging him to look for common historical origins even among the peoples for whom the traditions and ethnographic data did not directly support such a hypothesis.

27. Moeller, , Les grandes lignes, pp. 7–8, 14.Google Scholar

28. Ibid., pp. 108-09, 110.

29. Viaene, L., “La vie domestique des Bahunde,” Kongo-Overzee, 17(1951), p. 113Google Scholar; Biebuyck, D., “De Mumbo-Instelling bij de Banyanga,” Kongo-Overzee 21(1955), p. 441Google Scholar; idem, “Organisation politique des Nyanga: la chefferie Ihana,” Kongo-Overzee 22(1956), p. 304; Cuypers, , “Les Bantous interlacustres,” p. 204.Google Scholar

30. Biebuyck, for example, wrote that “leurs traditions historiques remontent au Bunyoro (Uganda).” Biebuyck, , “L'organisation politique,” p. 304.Google Scholar This form and the quality of his fieldwork throughout the area would indicate that this was drawn directly from Nyanga oral sources but it is possible, in the absence of specific citation, that it was a resumé of Moeller's conclusions. Viaene, like (probably) Moeller, worked closely with the “royal” family of Bunyungu (Buhunde) and they probably drew their historical data primarily from similar milieus, though separated by a generation and by the publication of Les grandes lignes.

31. Moeller was involved in the administration of Orientale-Kivu Province for seventeen years, the last seven as Vice-Governor-General, and he had an important impact on administrative theory and practice in the area. Later he trained intending colonial administrators at the Université Colonial for several years.

32. Moeller, , Les grandes lignes, pp. 29–30.Google Scholar

33. Ibid., pp. 31-32.

34. Ibid., p. 116.

35. Paradoxically, Moeller also incorporated a variant of the conquest theory by postulating that part of the Shi migration turned back on itself, roughly retracing its steps from Lwindi and, according to Moeller, “subjected the autochthones as well as the [migrating] clans which had remained behind [in Bushi].” Moeller, , Les grandes lignes, p. 117.Google Scholar

36. Colle, P., “L'organisation politique des Bashi,” Congo 2(1921), pp. 657–84Google Scholar; idem, Essai de monographie des Bashi, Bukavu, 1937.

37. Colle, , “L'organisation politique,” pp. 657–58Google Scholar; idem, Essai, p. 220/paragraph 141. References to Colle's Essai. are to the pagination of the mimeographed version issued at Bukavu in 1971, since this is more readily available.

38. In this regard Cuypers, though distinguishing between central and peripheral Shi Culturally, does not specify the grounds for his differentiation. L'alimentation, p. 13 et passim.

39. Colle, , “L'organisation politique,” p. 657.Google Scholar

40. Colle, , Essai, p. 220/141.Google Scholar

41. Ibid., p. 275/187, with emphasis added.

42. Cuypers, , L'alimentation, p. 20Google Scholar; Willame, , Les provinces du Congo, p. 115.Google Scholar

43. Moeller, , Les grandes lignes, p. 17.Google Scholar

44. Colle, , “L'organisation politique,” p. 659Google Scholar; idem, Essai, p. 221/141.

45. Ibid., p. 221/264-66.

46. Cuypers, , L'alimentation, p. 22Google Scholar; Willame, , Les provinces du Congo, p. 115.Google Scholar

47. Colle, , Essai, p. 256/174.Google Scholar

48. See Sigwalt, R. and Sosne, E., “A Note on the Luzi of Bushi,” Etudes d'histoire africaine, 7(1975), pp. 137–43Google Scholar, for further discussion.

49. Colle, , “L'organisation politique,” p. 658Google Scholar; idem, Essai, p. 220/141.

50. Ibid., pp. 71-78/94.

51. For example, Sosne, E., “Kinship and Contact in Bushi: A Study of Village Level Politics,” PhD diss., University of Wisconsin, 1974Google Scholar, and Sigwalt, R., “The Early History of Bushi: An Essay in the Historical Use of Genesis Traditions,” PhD diss., University of Wisconsin, 1975.Google Scholar