The Los Angeles Times, September 14, 1924, p.J9:
With a Prince Among the PygmiesBy PRINCE WILLIAM OF SWEDEN
Strange Human Race in the Heart of Africa,
Mentioned by Homer and Herodotus...
Prince William, second son of King Gustav V. of Sweden, led the recent Swedish Zoological Expedition into Central Africa in search of specimens of rare mountain-gorilla and other important objects. In the course of its advance through Uganda to the Lake Kivu country and the great Birunga volcanoes, then northward to the Nile, the expedition collected nearly 1000 specimens of scientific interest...
The volcanic tract of country north of Lake Kivu, the heart of Africa, has for long been comparatively unknown... The lake itself was only discovered as recently as 1894 by Count von Goetzen, and from that time the mists began to disperse slowly from this mysterious neighborhood. The man who beyond all comparison has done the most valuable work in its exploration is Duke Adolph Freidrich of Mecklenburg.
The first mountain gorilla reached Europe as early as 1903... But thirteen years were to elapse before a specimen reached Sweden... The Belgian State had most kindly accorded us permission to shoot fourteen specimens (two from each volcano,) which number were secured. The animals are otherwise under protection.
There are several ways of reaching the heart of Africa. One may either pass through ex-German East Africa, now Tanganyika territory, by rail via Tabora and reach Lake Tanganyika at Ujiji, and from there Uvira at the northern end of the Lake. Thence one follows the Rusissi Valley to Kivu and continues by canoe to the volcanic district.
Or one may, with the help of the Congo rivers and railways, reach Albertville on the western shore of Tanganyika, unless one prefers, as did Count E. von Rosen, to work up from the south via the South African railway system.
Finally, there is the approach by rail from Mombasa through Kenya Colony to the Victoria Nyanza, across this by boat, and then from one of the harbors on the western shore by caravan through Uganda or Ruanda [Rwanda]. For several reasons we chose the last route.
Thus it happened that the Swedish Expedition to Central Africa assembled in Nairobi, the capital of the Kenya Colony. The nucleus of the expedition consisted--besides the writer--of Count Nils Gyldenstolpe, on whose shoulders were laid, in perfect safety and confidence, the scientific arrangements, aupported by the English taxidermist, Allan Ruddleand [, and] Oskar Olsson, one of Svensk Filmindustri's engineers...
After twenty-four hours journey [by railroad] we arrived at Entebbe, the capital of Uganda.
On January 22 the expedition passed M'barara and just a week later it was assembled in Kabale.
We left the hospitable Kabale on Sunday, January 30, and began the last toilsome walk toward the heart of Africa. Every trace of civilization was left behind us. In front of us there was only barren wilderness.
From the valley below Kabale, whose low middle ridge constitutes the watershed of the rivers of the district, the narrow path winds upward. Green slopes with bushes and high grass rise on either side. Their soft contours give the impression of hills, but in reality they are high mountains.
After a few hours climbing we reached the first ridge and looked, astonished, down the other side. It is a view that remains in the memory. Framed between green slopes the narrow Lake Bunyoni lies deep beneath our feet. Like a silver ornament with encrusted emeralds the surface glistens with its round islands, which are invisible from here in relief against the water.
A few long, dark objects cut narrow lines across the river. They are the canoes that are to bring us across. And on the other side, far away beyond the circumjacent mountains, an impressive misty blue cone grows up towards the clouds: the top of Muhavura. For the first time the goal of our wanderings is in sight...
Now we are descending again and in a while we stand by the shore of the lake, which is sparsely covered with papyrus. Here a great surprise awaits us. A real, live compatriot, Commander Elias Arrhenius, in the service of the Belgian government and for a long time in the Congo army, meets us with a true Swedish handshake...
Behungi lies on the edge of the mountain chain which forms the eastern wall of the great Central African Rift Valley, which embraces, amongst others, Lakes Tanganyika, Edward and Albert, like an enormously broad and deep ditch. The mountains begin in Rhodesia and stretch in an almost unbroken chain all the way to the country around Bahr-el-Jebel. Almost halfway the valley is closed up by the massif of the Birunga volcanoes.
Deep down beneath my feet lies the fertile Bufumbira plain. It looks as if a gigantic, green, tumultuous, tempest-tossed sea had suddenly become petrified and formed waves and circular crater cones. The people down below look like ants; only with the help of field-glasses can I distinguish them. But then the lava plain lies almost 900 meters below the spot where I stand. Like three gigantic pyramids, Muhavura, Mgahinga and Sabinio all rise up in a row on the other side. The volcanoes assume massive proportions.
Further away one can catch a glimpse of Mikeno and a blue, misty shape in a white skull-cap which is Karissimbi, the highest of the giants. To the right the mirror of Lake Mutanda dazzles the eye and to the left the restless surface of Chahafi and Mulero glistens in the light of the setting sun...
The following day I made my first acquaintance with the pygmies... It was only in 1866 that the pygmies of Herodotus were re-discovered by a missionary, and thanks to the travels of Stanley, Du Chaillu, and others their existence was further confirmed.
Nowadays we know of several different tribes of pygmies. Those that we came into closest contact with are called are called Ba-twa, and they live chiefly in the great forests east of Kivu and the Birunga volcanoes. They are a shy race who live by hunting, or when that fails, by stealing. Formerly it happened regularly that the tribe lay in ambush and shot at all passing safaris [, and] with their poisoned arrows, killed or frightened away the escort and then took what they needed of its goods...
Nowadays they are, however, comparatively respectable, thanks to the personal influence of Capt. Phillips, an English official at Kabale. He has, after patient labor, succeeded in bringing about peaceful intercourse with the tribe... The last time he was there Phillips mentioned our expedition and said that we should like to meet them.
"Perhaps," answered the little man, "if they bring salt, for salt is good. In any case we shall accompany them and be so close to them all the time that we shall be able to reach them with our hands. But they will not see us."
After we had shouted out fine promises of salt the whole day, about twenty Ba-twa at last came out to receive this ardently desired delicacy.
They are not so strikingly small. According to measurements made in the forest of Bugoye during the Duke of Mecklenburg's expedition, the average height would be about four feet eight inches. The color of the skin is very dark, the heads are round, the noses flat. The body in general is harmoniously developed, the shoulders are broad and the chests full. Around the loins they wrap a skin, but otherwise they are naked.
Their worldly good they carry in a small bag on their backs, in which the "fire sticks" are also stuck. There are two of these, cut from the same wood and a little thicker than an ordinary pencil. One, in which a hollow has been carved, is put on the ground and is held there firmly by one foot. The point of the other is then made to rotate in the hole. This is done by rotating the stick with great speed between the two hands, whilst at the same time pressing sufficiently on the stick beneath. Soon the friction has so heated the two pieces of wood that dried grass or tinder which had been put around the hole catches fire.
It is astonishing with what speed and confidence the pygmies handle their fire implements. Withing the space of a few minutes, which to a European seems inexplicably short, the fire flames up. I tried myself to carry out the performance, but am ashamed to say that I did not succeed, and after half an hour's energetic drilling I had to give up the attempt. At that stage the palms of my hands threatened to catch fire, but by no means the grass.
Some members of the dwarf tribes, especially those on the Kwijwij Island in Lake Kivu, make simple and beautiful vessels of clay, showing a developed though unconscious trend toward the artistic; but otherwise they have no handicrafts. They lead a nomadic life in the forests and settle where it suits them for the moment. Their huts are also of the very simplest construction.
Their arms consist of short spears, besides bows and arrows. The necessary hardware they obtain from the Bahutu in exchange for skins and meat. Arrows both with wooden and iron tips are used. The latter are mostly painted with a slowly killing vegetable poison. A knife of crescent shape (a sort of panga) on a handle finally completes the equipment of the well-to-do.
Strictly speaking, one cannot call them a race of pygmies, for the average height is too great. Probably they are descended at one remove from some pure-blooded pygmy tribe, but they have been mixed with some foreign element during the course of time.
If you ask such a little gentleman what he himself knows of his descent, he will answer that the tribe comes from a very remote place far away in the south. But nobody knows anything more exactly. There seem to be no traditions left in their case.
The pygmies had promised to help us to drive the mountain elephants out into the little open spaces at Chuya. But the animals were too cunning and preferred, for very natural reasons, to keep to the protecting forest fringe.
The people of the region, called by the common name Banya Ruanda, include three distinct races with much the same religion and from the beginning united under the same scepter: Batusi, Ba-hutu and Ba-twa.
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Rwanda News
KIGALI WEATHER
Rwanda - a small and centralized country dominated by rugged hills and fertile volcanic soil - has exerted disproportionate influence over the African Great Lakes region for centuries. A Rwandan kingdom increasingly dominated the region from the mid-18th century onward, with the Tutsi monarchs gradually extending the power of the royal court into peripheral areas and expanding their borders through military conquest.
While the current ethnic labels Hutu and Tutsi predate colonial rule, their flexibility and importance have varied significantly over time. The majority Hutu and minority Tutsi have long shared a common language and culture, and intermarriage was not rare. The Rwandan royal court centered on the Tutsi king (mwami), who relied on an extensive hierarchy of political, cultural, and economic relationships that intertwined Rwanda’s ethnic and social groups.
Social categories became more rigid during the reign of RWABUGIRI (1860-1895), who focused on aggressive expansion and solidifying Rwanda’s bureaucratic structures.
German colonial rule began in 1898, but Belgian forces captured Rwanda in 1916 during World War I. Both European nations quickly realized the benefits of ruling through the already centralized Rwandan kingdom. Colonial rule reinforced existing trends toward autocratic and exclusionary rule, leading to the elimination of traditional positions of authority for Hutus and a calcification of ethnic identities. Belgian administrators significantly increased requirements for communal labor and instituted harsh taxes, increasing frustration and inequality.
Changing political attitudes in Belgium contributed to colonial and Catholic officials shifting their support from Tutsi to Hutu leaders in the years leading up to independence.
Newly mobilized political parties and simmering resentment of minority rule exploded in 1959, three years before independence from Belgium, when Hutus overthrew the Tutsi king. Thousands of Tutsis were killed over the next several years, and some 150,000 were driven into exile in neighboring countries.
Army Chief of Staff Juvenal HABYARIMANA seized power in a coup in 1973 and ruled Rwanda as a single-party state for two decades. HABYARIMANA increasingly discriminated against Tutsi and extremist Hutu factions that gained prominence after multiple parties were introduced in the early 1990s.
The children of Tutsi exiles later formed a rebel group, the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF) and began a civil war in 1990. The civil war exacerbated ethnic tensions and culminated in the shooting down of HABYARIMANA’s private jet in April 1994. The event sparked a state-orchestrated genocide in which Rwandans killed approximately 800,000 of their fellow citizens, including approximately three-quarters of the Tutsi population.
The genocide ended later that same year when the predominantly Tutsi RPF, operating out of Uganda and northern Rwanda, defeated the national army and Hutu militias and established an RPF-led government of national unity.
Rwanda held its first local elections in 1999 and its first post-genocide presidential and legislative elections in 2003, formalizing President Paul KAGAME’s de facto role as head of government. KAGAME won reelection in 2010, and again in 2017 after changing the constitution to allow him to run for a third term.
CIA World Factbook: Rwanda
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