Gakondo

The Royal Poetry

presented by
Rose-Marie Mukarutabana

Ibisigo

Another Rwandan author and poet, Cyprien Rugamba, also wrote extensively on this particular genre. His works include:

• La poésie dynastique rwandaise, source d'histoire, Mém. Licence en Sc. Historiques, Université de Louvain, 1966;
• Le Poète dynastique rwandais. Aspects de sa formation et de son action, in « Africa-Tervuren », XXII, 2-4, 40/45, 1976
• Caractéristiques littéraires de la poésie dynastique rwandaise, in Rapport de l'Institut national de la Recherche scientifique, 1977;
• La Tradition orale rwandaise, in « Education et Culture », no. 7-8, pp. 111/120;
• Préalables à l'interprétation de la Tradition orale, in «La Civilisation ancienne des peuples des Grands Lacs, 1981, pp. 331-348.

In this latter work, Rugamba makes the point that the Ibisigo poetry is difficult to understands not only because of its complicated symbolic pattern, but also because the poets Abasizi "subscribed to the mystique of kingship as propounded by the 'biru' (priests)": tributaries d'une mystique dont les biru entourent la royauté (p. 333). Rugamba is referring to the doctrine of sacred kingship, which is indeed central to the whole Rwanda Tradition. The Ibisigo do indeed specialize in what may be termed doctrinal expositions.

Nyirarumaga, Elective Mother
We are told that, as a genre, the Ibisigo existed from ancient times, but it was restructured and further developed by Nyiraruganzu Nyirarumaga, Queen Mother of the great Saviour-King Ruganzu Ndori. It should be noted that the Kinyarwanda title usually translated as "Queen Mother", Umugabekazi, literally "Commanderess", would perhaps be better rendered by "Sovereign Lady". According to Tradition, this great lady, who is one of the great contributors to the Wisdom Teachings of Rwanda, established a royal institution named "Intebe y'Abasizi" (the Chair of Poets), whose role was to promote and preserve the art of Ibisigo. The Queen Mother herself, along with her great son, composed a number of poems.

Who was this lady? The Saviour King Ruganzu met her on his way from Karagwe, an old kingdom to the north-east of Mubari, in present-day Tanzania, close to Lake Victoria. At some stage, Ruganzu came almost face-to-face with a band of killers sent by his uncle and worse enemy, Byinshi. The latter has usurped the throne, and he did not want the rightful heir to return and claim it. Ruganzu made one of his famous sprints, and when he had out of sight of Byinshi's henchmen, he saw a homestead, and dashed into it for cover. He found a young woman sitting in the front room of the house, doing some weaving. She agreed to hide him, took him into her own quarters, returned to the front room and went on with her work.

Meanwhile, the Abanyabyinshi killers had followed the direction Ruganzu could be presumed to have taken, but they had failed to find him. So they concluded that he must have been hiding in one of the homes they had passed. They returned, and began their search. Soon they reached the young woman's home, and surrounded it, preparing to enter and search for the young prince. The young woman sent Ruganzu a coded message, to the effect that the house was surrounded heard them: he appeared to have vanished, and there was neither trace of direction Ruganzu, and the only escape was... underground! So he dug a hole in the centre of the house, with the intention of digging a tunnel through which he would try to escape.

As it turned out, just under the surface of the house floor was a preexisting hole. This hole is variously said to have been a snake hole, a rabbit warren, a cave where monkeys lived, or the underground quarters of a mythical animal named inyaga. At all events, the animal was kind enough to participate in the work of making an underground passage large enough for the king to travail through, all the way to the other side of the mountain. When he emerged, after one last hurdle, and gasped for fresh air, he realized he was no longer on Karagwe territory, but was already in his own kingdom!

Later, as he was preparing for the ceremonies of Royal Consecration, and an adoptive mother was needed to stand in his dead mother's stead, and be Queen Mother Nyiraruganzu, the King sent for the young woman who had saved his life, who had thus been a second mother to him. Her name was Nyirarumaga. Thus the humble young woman had been raised to the status of elective mother and consort to the greatest king of Rwanda, just as the King himself had been raised from humble herd boy to king, and symbolically, from the Hole Umwoobo w'Inyaga to the Throne of the Kings of Rwanda. Being thus raised, the two sovereigns would begin their cooperation in the great work of raising the kingdom of Rwanda from the dark tomb into which it had been thrown by the Mushi king Ntsibura, his evil mother Nyirantsibura, and their accomplices, the Abanyabyinshi, those princes of Rwanda who sacrificed all decency to their love of material goods.

When peace and law and order had returned to Rwanda, King Ruganzu and Queen Nyirarumaga began her mission of cultural revival. She collected all the scattered remains of Rwanda Cultural Heritage, reorganised the royal lore, the mythology, the rituals, the genealogical lists and poetry, reformed and institutionalised their mode of development and preservation, and so on. Kagame tells us that the lady Nyirarumaga was a great poet herself, as was her spiritual son, the king, and between them, they composed a good number of the poems in the official collection, some of which are extant, albeit in fragments. Such that this great pair of sovereigns should also be given the title bestowed on their ancient predecessor Rubunga: "Mwungura wunguye Ingoma Ubwenge", the Augmentor who augmented the wisdom of the kingdom.

Seat of Wisdom
One of the major innovations attributed to the Sovereign Lady Nyiraruganzu was the setting up of a royal structure known as Intebe y'Abasizi, the "Seat of Poets", or "Institute of Royal Poetry". This royal institute was responsible for the composition and memorisation, training of young poets, teaching and preservation of the poems Ibisigo, which are central to the knowledge and understanding of the major aspects of Rwanda Wisdom Teachings, as we shall see when we come to the discussion of selected poems.

The Ibisigo poems encapsulate in verse form, not only the major events of each of the kings of Rwanda, following their genealogical order, but also the main tenets of Rwanda Wisdom. Examples of such tenets include:

1. the divine origin of man, who is the "grand-son" of the King of Heaven
2. the divine, or superhuman status of the king, for, by virtue of his initiate status, for once a man has taken the Royal Initiation, and undergone the Ritual known as Inzira y'Ukwimika, The Way of Royal Consecration, he is no longer a mere man, umuntu, but a divinity, imana, having passed into another nature kingdom altogether.
3. the mediating role of the king, consequent upon this status of a minor god, or a Son of God
4. the doctrine of the Servant King, who becomes a Saviour of his human brothers by serving them to the supreme sacrifice of his life, all in obedience to his Father
5. the doctrine of sacred warfare, in defence of the King's People, the "Royal Herd", of whom the King is the Good Shepherd.

These important formulations are often shrouded in near-hermetic symbolism, so that many of the Ibisigo are yet to be properly understood as symbolic teachings of inner realities. Outwardly, these poems extol the deeds of valour and wisdom of the Kings of Rwanda, civilising agents par excellence. However, once one has reflected on the meaning of some of these poems, the import becomes clear. This is the case with such pieces as "the King is not a man, he is a god" - Umwami si umuntu ni imaana. To many, including C. Rugamba, this nothing but exaggerated praises by servile persons intent on culling favours from the Kings. To others, including A. Kagame, this is legitimate poetic license, a way of suggesting that the king is the great benefactor of his people, an expression of divine providence. However, when this idea is considered from the angle of the process of initiation and evolution of conscience, especially within the framework of the ceremonials of the consecration of kings as described in the Ubwiru rituals, on the one hand, and on the other, and the general trend of the whole of Rwanda Wisdom Teachings, it becomes clear that the poem is about the king being a high initiate, a divinity.

True enough, the symbolism of these poems is extremely "recherché", and often so code-like that it has defied even the extensive scholarship of Alexis Kagame. We shall do our best in bringing to light some of the hidden meaning of these poems, as we understand it, leaving the rest to the future generations. No doubt the future will produce men and women able to decipher this code.

It is unfortunate that, by the time Alexis Kagame began his recordings, only fragments of the works of these two Great Ones were extant: he was too late in the day, and the full texts had gone with the brains on which they had been imprinted... Kagame told us that the 168 poems collected were only a fraction of what had existed before the shock of colonialism overturned the cultural cart of Rwanda. Still, the surviving stock is far from being negligible, and we should be grateful to Kagame's persistence for this inestimable treasure, which we have yet to understand properly.