Sarah Watkins

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Africa

Graduate Student
M.A., University of Louisville, 2008

Advisor: Stephan Miescher
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By the nineteenth century, the Rwandan monarchical system had developed into one headed by a ritualist king, or mwami, who ruled with his equally-powerful mother until her death. Both held power simultaneously as ritual practitioners and political actors, but to differing degrees. The position of umugabekazi, often translated as “queen-mother,” but which more literally means “chief commandress,” was initially imagined as a mechanism for keeping rival families from challenging the dominant Nyiginya Dynasty, yet grew into a position of formidable political power, particularly over the course of the nineteenth century as a function of changing social and political dynamics, as well as the machinations of the individual women who held the post. An exploration of these women as portrayed through oral historical narratives, royal rituals, and local and family histories reveals a society in flux, and a monarchical system increasingly dependent upon intimate personal relationships: mothers and sons, fathers and daughters, husbands, wives, and lovers. Within this context, it is apparent that the power of the mwami, relative to the umugabekazi and other intimates, waned when faced with the innovations of joint rulership that developed in the late-eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, culminating with the reign of Nyirayuhi V Kanjogera (r. 1895-1931), who has become the iconic image of the Tutsi monarchy for both supporters and detractors over the course of the post-colonial period. The case studies presented here refocus the historiography of the late Rwandan monarchy on its women rulers, which has in the past centered on the kings, warriors, and male ritual practitioners, and instead reveal a royal court in which power was more ambiguously gendered then previous literature has implied. Further, this portrayal raises larger questions about the nature of monarchy itself, and its sometimes perilous reliance upon a network of intimate relationships. Finally, it advances the current discourse within Rwandan studies about the nature of social identity in the period immediately prior to and during the early decades of colonial rule, complicating notions of nationalized identity with those of family, regionalism, gender, religion, and class.