Mythmaking:The Hamitic Hypothesis
By then, however, another myth had taken hold, one imported from nineteenth-century Europe that placed yet another construction on the history of Tutsi hegemony. Like its precolonial counterparts, the Hamitic myth underwent fundamental changes of substance and meaning; it therefore came to be seen and interpreted in very different ways by Hutu and Tutsi. It is indeed an ironic commentary on the malleability of myths that the same “Hamitic hypothesis”15 should have provided European administrators and missionaries with a powerful argument in support of Tutsi domination, and thus subsequent generations of Hutu politicians with the most devastating ideological ammunition against it.
For the early Christian missionaries, the Tutsi stood as the finest example of the Hamitic race, described by Seligman as “pastoral ‘Europeans,’ arriving wave after wave, better armed as well as quicker witted than the dark agricultural Negroes.”16 In the eyes of these Christians, the Tutsi clearly belonged to a higher order of humanity than the Hutu. For this reason, they were seen as ideally equipped to act as the privileged intermediaries between the European colonizer and the “dark agricultural” masses. Tutsi superiority was manifested in their tall, arresting physique, their extraordinary capacity for self-control, and their ability to exercise authority.
The “scientific” authority of Diedrich Westerman, among others, also was cited in support of the view that the Tutsi were an exceptionally gifted and attractive race: “The Hamites are light skinned, with a straight nose, thin lips, narrow face, soft, often wavy or even straight hair, without prognathism.…Owing to their racial superiority they have gained leading positions and have become the founders of many of the larger states in Africa.”17 What made the Tutsi even more attractive was the fact that they were presumed to be of Ethiopian origin. This ancestry meant that at some point in the distant past, they must have been exposed to biblical influences, which would also explain why they were disposed to embrace Christianity. As Ian Linden puts it, “It seemed to the missionaries that Hamitic history had involved the progressive dilution of some religious essence preordained to flower into the fullness of Christianity.”18 All of this history and speculation was entirely consistent with the prejudices and preconceptions of nineteenth-century European ethnology, but it was also perfectly compatible with the view that some Tutsi had of themselves. Hamitic theories showed an uncanny fit with the mythologies of traditional Rwanda; once incorporated into the work of historiographers, it became increasingly difficult to tell them apart.
Reimagining the Myth in the Early Twentieth Century
Through much of the 1920s and 1930s, Rwandan historiography was cross-fertilized by the confluence of two complementary streams of mythologies: one specific to Rwandan society, the other borrowed from nineteenth-century European race theories. Court traditions gave Christian missionaries a striking illustration of the Hamites as “born rulers, superior in every respect to the ‘dark agricultural’ masses.” The Hamitic frame of reference gave scientific respectability to the work of Tutsi historiographers. In the meantime, the coincidence of views between European and Tutsi historians gave European administrators a rationale for the most extreme and extensive application of indirect rule.
This said, it would be highly misleading to view the “invention” of Rwandan traditions as a straightforward, linear transfer of the Hamitic myth to historiographers and ultimately to African ideologues. If one can speak of “invention by tradition,” then it is important to consider the twists and turns that have accompanied the reinterpretation of traditions. The work of Alexis Kagame is a perfect example. Kagame was a Tutsi historian of considerable reputation, as well as a social actor with strong political commitments. In this latter capacity, his endorsement of the Hamitic frame of reference is not nearly as significant as his attempt to put a modern, Eurocentric construction on Rwandan traditions by casting them in a juridical mold. His Code des institutions politiques du Rwanda pré-colonial, published in 1952, is a case in point.19 Precolonial Rwanda was not just a “royaume Hamite,” to use the title of a celebrated work by Father Pagès.20 It was a traditional state system regulated by codes of laws, juridical norms, and unwritten rules. Just as the rituals of kingship were described as the “code ésotérique de la monarchie,” 21 Rwanda's precolonial institutions were carefully regulated by customary laws, much in the same way that in prerevolutionary France, the “fundamental laws of the realm” imposed specific restrictions on the king's authority. What made traditional Rwanda eminently modern and susceptible to constitutional transformation was not the plasticity of its traditions, but the fact that they were so carefully codified.
Kagame's intellectual processes speak volumes for his political goals. Both are excellently analyzed by Claudine Vidal. “If there is only one word to describe Kagame's philosophy of history,” she writes, “it is ‘le juridisme.’ ” Kagame systematically draws analogs between Rwandan and European institutions. Thus, for example, he assimilates personal power to administrative functions, relations of subordination to contracts, and royal decisions to fundamental laws. In so doing, Kagame identifies precolonial Rwanda with a European nation that has gone beyond the stage of feudalism. He creates an image of it as an absolute monarchy tempered by a military code and offering safeguards against social injustice.22 Kagame had no interest in exalting the merits of an arbitrary, omnipotent kingship. His overriding concern was to show that the institution of kingship, by virtue of its rich array of customary codes, was remarkably well equipped to evolve into a constitutional monarchy. Kagame's history, in short, was designed to get Europeans to see that Rwandan traditions were neither arbitrary nor decadent. To the contrary, they contained within their folds the promise of a democratic renewal. Kagame's painstaking reinterpretation of traditional Rwanda was consciously designed to influence the basic constitutional choices facing the Belgian trust authorities in the decade preceding independence.
As a politically committed intellectual, determined to save the monarchy from itself, Kagame showed unusual foresight and imagination. As an historian, however, he showed little inclination to depart from the basic tenets of the Hamitic tradition; pre-Tutsi traditions went virtually unnoticed. Not until 1962, with the publication of Jan Vansina's path-breaking work, L'évolution du royaume rwanda dès origines à 1900, did the flaws in Kagame's writings, and much of the historical literature on Rwanda, come to the attention of Rwandan historians.23 The history of Rwanda as the story of exceptional men performing exceptional feats just did not stand up to the historical record. What was left out was the rich history of preconquest Hutu states, some of which survived until the 1920s, and some of whose customs, rituals, and conceptions of authority were assimilated by Tutsi clans (and all this happened long before the term Tutsi gained currency in the area).24 Rather than a superior civilization imposing its rule on an inferior one, the evidence revealed a far more complex story. Ironically, much of what made the Hamites so captivating in the Europeans' eyes turned out to be the result of selective cultural borrowing from the supposedly inferior agricultural societies.
Here, then, was a view of history that came as close as any to reflecting Ranke's ideal of “how things really were.” More important, it could provide a meaningful rationale for cooperation and mutual respect between Hutu and Tutsi. This possibility was not to be realized, however. As independence loomed on the horizon, confronting Hutu and Tutsi (and Europeans) with basic tactical decisions, the Hamitic view of history reasserted itself with a vengeance, but not without undergoing some extraordinary changes in meaning and substance.
The Politics of Memory in the Historical Present
Commenting on the distinction between myth and ideology, Benjamin Halpern makes the argument that “the study of myth is a study of the origins of beliefs out of historic experience,” whereas “the study of ideology is the study of moulding of beliefs by social situations.”25 Though analytically distinct, the two are intimately linked to each other.
It was in Rwanda during the social revolution of 1959 to
