Two neighbouring republics in Central Africa.
Despite their differing contemporary political situations, the same three ethnic groups – the Hutu, Tutsi and Twa – are located in Rwanda and Burundi. From the 16th century the Tutsi kingdom of Rwanda has shared the history of Burundi. In both republics, the majority is Hutu, Bantu-speaking farmers culturally related to peoples of the Democratic Republic of the Congo who have been dominated by Tutsi dynasties since the 16th century when these cattle-breeders arrived in Rwanda from the north. The Tutsi conquered the area and founded a feudal kingdom, wielding absolute power over the other population groups although they represented only about 15% of the total population. In the late 19th century, both Rwanda and Burundi were under German control and from 1920–62 were moved to Belgian colonial rule. In 1959, a Hutu uprising destroyed the Tutsi feudal hierarchy and overthrew the monarchy. Violent inter-ethnic rivalry between the Hutus and Tutsis culminated in the near-genocide of the Rwandan Tutsis in 1994 after the Hutu president was assassinated.
The ‘pygmean’ Twa subsist mainly as hunters, living in the forests and volcanic regions of northern Rwanda, or as farmers and professional potters in central Rwanda. They form about 1% of the population. In addition to these three main groups, there are some small groups of Kiga and Hima (from Uganda) in northern Rwanda, and a group of Nyambo (from Tanzania) in south-eastern Rwanda.
The peoples of Rwanda and Burundi do not live in villages; each family occupies a hill or part of a hill which is cultivated or used for pasture. Agriculture and cattle-raising form the basis of the economy and there is almost no industry.
For centuries the royal court of the former Tutsi ruler or mwami and those of his major chiefs were centres of cultural life and musical performance. Several musical genres and instruments, even ensembles, were associated with the mwami. Among the symbols of royal power were the ingabe drums of Rwanda (Karinga, Mpatsibihungu, Kiragutse and Cyimumugizi) and the karyenda and rukinso drums of Burundi. In addition to these dynastic drums, several other types of drum were used during rituals relating to the mwami and the kingdom.
Musical instruments are few in Rwanda and Burundi in comparison with other central African regions, possibly because the peoples there show a marked preference for vocal genres. Nearly all instruments are played exclusively by men.
The herdsmen’s notched flute, umwirongi in Rwanda and umwironke in Burundi, has two to four finger-holes and is played while herding cattle, or at night to pass the time. It is made from reed, bamboo or wood, and measures 30 to 50 cm. The ihembe, a side-blown antelope horn, is used as a signalling instrument for hunting and communal work; the trumpets used in the amakondera ensemble are side-blown and made of bamboo (fig.1).
There are two main types of membranophone: the cylindrical single-headed ingaraba drum of the Twa amakondera ensemble (fig.1), and the iÃgoma (Ngoma) drum with two skins laced together (fig.2) in Rwanda and single pegged heads in Burundi (fig.3) IÃgoma refers to both the ensemble and the drum itself, which is played to accompany the girls’ dance imbyino.
Chordophones are the most common instruments. The large inanga trough zither; fig.4) is the most important; it is tuned pentatonically, the single string being laced seven or eight times to and fro along the length of the trough-shaped body. It is placed at court either solo or to accompany pastoral, humorous or moralizing songs or epic and historical songs sung in praise of the mwami. Yuki III Mazimpaka, who ruled Rwanda in the first half of the 18th century, was considered a remarkable poet-composer of inanga songs depicting the rise of the Tutsi kingdom and his own heroic deeds. Most of the inanga songs have been transmitted orally, with little variation, from generation to generation and are thus an important source of information for the early history of the Rwandan kingdom. The inanga was formerly played mainly by professional musicians but has subsequently become free to be played by anyone; as a result the traditional themes of the inanga songs have been supplanted by accounts of everyday events and contemporary political personalities. Burundese musicians developed a style described as ‘whispered’ singing.
The iningiti (a single-string fiddle derived from Uganda; see fig.5) is used to accompany songs about persons and events in a less elevated and more improvisatory style than the inanga. The singer generally sings falsetto. The large umuduli or umunahi (musical bow) is played by the Hutu, and like the iningiti accompanies songs commenting on everyday events. It is played in the same way as in Uganda: while playing the string the musician beats a basic rhythm on the gourd resonator with a rattle.
The ikembe is a lamellophone which spread from the Democratic Republic of the Congo to Rwanda through Burundi; it has 11 to 13 metal keys and is played with both thumbs. Various types of rattle exist, such as the ikinyuguri gourd rattles, used for the cult of Lyangombe, the chief spirit; the amayugi bells attached to the necks of dogs while hunting; and the inzogera ankle rattles (fig.6), worn by the intore and imbyino dancers (see §3 below) to stress the rhythm.
The three main instrumental groups are the iÃgoma, amakondera and insengo. In Rwanda, the iÃgoma ensemble (fig.2) consists of seven to nine large drums: the ishakwe or ishaako is the is the smallest and plays a continuous basic rhythm in high pitch; three or four medium-pitched inyahura are played, one by the master-drummer; and there are three or four low-pitched ibihumurizo. Both inyahura and ibihumurizo are played in a uniform ostinato rhythm. All drums are beaten with umulishyo (drumsticks). Although ensembles of this type originated at the court of the mwami, they occur in various regions where they perform on festive occasions. Their repertory consists of up to 30 pieces, each with its own rhythmic organization. The main rhythms are the igihubi (important in ritual centring on the mwami) and the ikimanuka, in which the leader of the group plays all the drums himself. Ex.1 shows some of the patterns of the rhythm umunyuramatwe.
The iÃgoma drum ensemble (fig.3) is regarded by the inhabitants of Burundi as one of the most representative elements of the musical tradition of the country. A semi-circle of between 20 and 24 tall footed drums are arranged around a central drum, the inkiranya. The amashakwe, which play in uniform basic rhythm are on one side, the ibishizo on the other. All have single pegged heads and are stick beaten, one person to each drum. Players move in turn to the central drum inkiranya, dancing while playing and singing praises to the persons in whose honour they are performing, while the others beat out a steady but subtle rhythmic accompaniment.
The amakondera ensemble (see fig.1) of Twa musicians consists of six to eight bamboo trumpets, an ingaraba drum and a ruharage drum. Each trumpet has its own melodic ostinato pattern; these are combined in performance. The most usual names for the trumpets are inkanka, urugunda, insengo and inshuragane. This ensemble accompanies the intore dancers.
The insengo ensemble, consisting of five or six cylindrical flutes made of wood wrapped with skin from a bull’s throat, had ritual significance for the Tutsi dynasties and occurs only in northern Rwanda. The individual names of the flutes partly correspond to the iÃgoma drum names, for example ishakwe, igihumulizo and indahura. At court, only members of the Abasindi clan were allowed to play them.
Women do not play these string or wind instruments but do have a quasi-instrumental genre called ubuhuha (‘to blow’) for which they cup their hands together, forming resonators to amplify and modify pitches produced by lip vibration (as when blowing a trumpet).
Solo, group and choral singing are all heard in Rwanda, performed by both men and women. The ibihozo (lullaby), sung by women or young girls, is a solo genre. Antiphonal songs, in which the two singers have equal parts, include the different types of cattle song (amahamba, kubangulira, gushora, imyoma, etc.); in the ibisigo (sung dynastic poetry) various soloists alternate although exceptionally the parts may overlap. In another important type of solo performance the singer accompanies himself on an instrument such as the inanga, iningiti or umuduli. Eloquence is an envied quality expressed in singing, hence the considerable amount of parlando and recitative in the songs.
Responsorial solo and choral songs form the most important stylistic group and have many functions: the imbyino, ikinimba and ibyishongoro songs accompany dancing; others are related to the spirit cults or are performed during the amahigi (hunting ritual); amasare are sung to keep time when rowing and kwidoga during agricultural work in the fields; the indilimbo and ibitaramo songs are sung at night for male entertainment. The accompanying instrument, if any, is generally the ikinyuguri in the Lyangombe cult, or an iÃgoma drum in the imbyino dance; nearly all songs can also be accompanied by rhythmic hand-clapping.
The Twa vocal style is distinct from that of the neighbouring Hutus and Tutsis: it is based entirely on the yodel technique, with an individual polyphonic structure. This yodel style is also characteristic of other Twa peoples of central Africa, which indicates that the Twa have retained their own traditional music styles despite their contact with Bantu and other peoples.
Dancing is always collective; there is no solo dancing. Men and women have their own dances and dance together only during the Lyangombe cult ceremonies. Dancing tends to be more expressive than that of other parts of central Africa; both men’s and women’s dances involve violent movements of the arms and the upper part of the body, with high leaps and stamping of feet.
The best-trained and organized dancers from Rwanda are the intore. They originated at the court of the mwami, where children of noblemen, as future leaders, were taught the arts of eloquence and fighting, as well as local traditions and dances. The intore dancers are now merely picturesque additions to celebrations.
The inkaranka, ikinimba and ikinyemera are war dances found chiefly in northern Rwanda. The imbyino and ururengo are typical women’s and girls’ dances, intended for entertainment. The imbyino is performed throughout the country at every celebration by groups of six to eight young girls, accompanied by a chorus with two soloists and an ruharage drum; its modernized musical style shows traces of Western influence. Traditional imbyino dance and song is performed by older women; it has a graceful style, a rich polyphonic structure and a flowing melodic line.
Although these dances are performed mainly by Hutus and Tutsis, the Twa are generally considered the best dancers. While most other dancers perform in a state of frenzy, the Twa perform the same dances in a more supple and graceful style. In certain rhythms of the intore there are traces of a similarly gentle style, probably due to the frequent participation of Twa performers.
As in the other former kingdoms of this interlacustrine area, the music is basically pentatonic. Hutu music clearly shows Bantu elements found in most areas of central Africa. Their melodies are built mainly on anhemitonic pentatonic scales, sometimes extended to hexa- and heptatonic; the use of the 3rd within a curved melodic line is particularly characteristic (see ex.2). Songs are primarily monophonic and responsorial with sporadic overlapping of solo and chorus and occasional use of drone and ostinato.
Tutsi music reveals Arab influences, chiefly in the use of melisma, ornamentation and microtonal variations, in diatonic as well as chromatic scales; parlando style and repeated notes are prevalent. In their group songs heterophonic structures are common; a general descending contour characterizes inanga music.
Twa music contrasts sharply with Hutu and Tutsi music in that it is characterized by melodic yodels and movement in parallel 4ths and 5ths, suggesting connections with ‘pigmy’ music.
From 1973–88 J. Gansemans undertook an ethnomusicological investigation of Rwanda, commissioned by the Royal Museum for Central Africa, Tervuren (Belgium), and by the National Institute for Scientific Research, Butare (Rwanda), which collects and analyses cultural and anthropological data.
In massacres in Burundi in 1993, it is estimated that up to a third of the Tutsi population were killed and in 1994 in Rwanda that more than one million Rwandans died through genocide and the civil war. During the early 1990s urban bands in Rwanda, such as Impala, Les Fellows, Bisa (a university band) and Ingenzi, played music based on Congolese rumba, reggae and rock. This kind of music suffered particularly after the events of 1994. Within Rwanda, it became unfeasible for musicians to earn a living: only one band, Ingeli, tried to reform but were unsuccessful. More than two million Rwandans were forced to flee to neighbouring countries and many musicians live in exile, particularly in Brussels. Most notable of these include, from Rwanda, the singer Cécile Kayirebwa and Jean Mutsari, who plays bass, guitar and mouth organ and has set up the band Kirochi Sound; and from Burundi, Khadja Nin, who made a series of CDs in international fusion style during the 1990s.
Traditional music seems to have been less affected by the war and some musicians have made it onto the world music scene. The Hutu Master Drummers of Burundi, for example, who traditionally played only for the Tutsi ruler or mwami, toured Britain in 1999.
R. Günther: Musik in Rwanda (Tervuren, 1964)
D. Hiernaux-L’Hoest: ‘Music from Rwanda’, BM 30 L 2302 [disc notes]
H. Tracey: ‘The Sound of Africa: Rwanda’, AMA TR 57–8 [disc notes]
L.A. Verwilghen: ‘Songs of the Watutsi’, FE 4428 (1952) [disc notes]
J. Gansemans: Les instrumetns de musique du Rwanda (Tervuren, 1988)
J. Gansemans: ‘Rujundiri, maître de l'inanga’, FMD 186 (1990) [disc notes]
J. Gansemans: ‘Polyphonies des Twa’, FMD 196 (1993) [disc notes]
J. Gansemans: ‘Musiques du Rwanda’, FMD 206 (1995) [disc notes]
J. Gansemans: ‘Musique traditionnelle du Rwanda’, ECPC 04–05 [disc notes]
J. Gansemans and B. Schmidt-Wrenger: ‘Zentralafrika’, Musikgeschichte in Bildern, I/9 (1986)
H. Meyer: Die Barundi (Leipzig, 1916)
B. Zuure: ‘Poésies chez les Barundi’, Africa, v (1932), 344–54
J.-B. Ntahokaja: ‘La musique des Barundi’, Grand Lacs, lxiv/4–6 (1949), 45–9
L.A. Verwilghen: ‘Songs of the Watutsi’, Folkways P 428 (1952) [disc notes]
A.P. Merriam: ‘Les styles vocaux dans la musique du Ruanda-Urundi’, Jeune afrique, vii (1953), 12–16
R. Bourgeois: Banyarwanda et Barundi, i (Brussels, 1957)
R. Brandel: The Music of Central Africa (The Hague, 1961)
M. Vuylstèke: ‘Musique du Burundi’, OCR 558 511 (1988) [disc notes]
R. Barbaglia: ‘Musique africaine du Burundi’, CLVLX 296 [disc notes]
J.-P. Jacquemin, R. Trillo and J. Sezirahigha: ‘Rwanda & Burundi’, World Music: The Rough Guide, i (London, 1999), 608–12
PETER COOKE/J. GANSEMANS