We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.
We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.
People of the Land
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 03 October 2019
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.
To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure [email protected] is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.
Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.
Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.
To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.
To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.
