The imposition of ‘civilising measures’ in the context of a policy of indirect rule included reinforcing the position of the king while at the same time weakening and eventually destroying his symbolic power base. This led to a dramatic shift of authority, as did the imposition of central rule to the entire country and the introduction of a uniform and ‘rational’ administration, even where the kingdom had no historical presence or legitimacy. Together with this extension of the central kingdom’s reach, the spreading of the Tutsi political monopoly, while Hutu had held political office in the past, greatly contributed to Hutu resentment.

This chapter provides an orientation in the people, place and time of the book’s setting. It examines the precolonial history of the kingdom of Burundi, including the parameters of ethnic identity, societal stratification and dynamics of power in the nineteenth century. Through German conquest and transfer to Belgian control after the First World War, it considers the nature of chiefly authority and colonial ethnic policy, brought into focus by civil war and anticolonial rebellion in the early twentieth century. Focusing subsequently on the relationship between a subject peasant population on the border and their imposed chief, Pierre Baranyanka, it explores the chief’s authority of ‘commandement’, and the popular evaluations of his behaviour. While required to perform deference and obedience, the peasant population talked about politics through keen observation of personal behaviour, gossiping about the chief’s attitudes towards the king, and exchanging jokes and parables that expressed political opinion about their social superiors. With the return of the first elite students to study abroad, the chapter ends with the arrival of the ‘time of politics’ in the north of Burundi.