Hunde / Bahunde

Hunde / Bahunde / Kobi / Rukobi

The Hunde people also (Bahunde, Kobi, Rukobi) are descendants of Bantu people primarily inhabiting the Kivu region of the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Many live in the Masisi, Rutshuru and Walikale territories. Some Bahunde also live in Rwanda and southwestern Uganda. They number approximately 950,000 and speak the Hunde language.

Among the massive capture of Bantu speaking people, many of the Bahunde were captured and sold during the Arab slavery of Africans, many more were also captured by the Portuguese and shipped during the trans Atlantic slavery, and with the coming of the European coloniser, the Bahunde Kingdom was reduced to chiefdoms and forced to convert to Christianity and Islam after a decade of resistance and resilience. The Bahunde have been in conflict with the Banarwanda of Rwanda many times long before independence, in particular with the Tutsi; a cushitic or nilotic tribe in Rwanda, Burundi and Uganda, many Bantu kingdoms in this region.

Hunde People

Identification

The Bahunde (Hunde), with whom are included the kindred Nyanga (Banianga, Wanianga, Wanyanga), are a Bantu tribe reported to be akin to the Baniabungo and Konjo. Among them live Pygmies, whom the Bahunde recognize as the former masters of the land.

 

Basic Economy

Primarily agricultural, with bananas the staple crop. Also grown are eleusine, sorghum, maize, sweet potatoes, string beans, and gourds. Animal husbandry is important. Cattle, sheep, goats, and chickens are kept. The animals are milked, and butter is made. Some sources mention hunting, fishing, and trade incidentally.

 

Sex Division of Labor

Men alone hunt, fish, engage in commerce, clear land, herd livestock, and milk cows. Women make butter. Both sexes engage in agricultural work; men grow bananas, share with women the task of cultivation, and harvest maize and sorghum, but women harvest most crops and do most of the weeding.

 

Property

All land and cattle theoretically belong to the king. There is no private property in land. Individuals inherit usufruct without power of sale, and fields left untilled for 3 years revert to the status of collective (or chief's) property.
Inheritance is patrilineal — by eldest son, then eldest brother.

 

Social Stratification

Slavery prevails. Slavery both in settlement of debt and for crime are reported for the Nyanga, as well as social classes of royalty, nobility, freemen, clients, and .ordinary slaves.

 

Family

The normal residential unit among the Bahunde is an independent polygynous family.

 

Settlement Pattern

The Bahunde ll^ve in villages of cone-cylinder huts with reed or bamboo walls and conical thatched roofs.

 

Community Organization

A Bahunde village is said to comprise a number of families almost always of the same clan. The Nyanga practice circumci­sion, but the Bahunde do not.

 

Local Government

One source mentions local headmen are among the Nyanga.

 

State

Both the Bahunde and the Nyanga have petty states "with central authority, dynasties, nobles, dignitaries, councillors, grand initiators, social groups of different status, principles of subordination and fusion of alien groups, institutions of clients and servitude, elaborate judicial instituations, etc."; also a queen-consort (nyabana), a queen-mother (mumbo), a queen-sister, and divine king (mubake or mwami). The Bahunde formerly had several independent kingdoms, which the Belgians in 1925 consolidated into one (previously much the largest).

The king maintains a. court with pages and specialized attendants such as a royal coifeur, a royal smith, ar.d a royal carpenter. He administers his kingdom through an organization that includes governors (batambo), and he is supported largely by forced labor on his fields and on public works, by harvest and livestock taxes in kind, and by a share of all game caught. He is assisted by a council of high ministers (bakungu), consisting of the eldest brother (shamwani) of the ruler, who enjoys almost as much authority as the "king; the prime minister (shabakungu), who is responsbile for seeing that the king rules according to law and precedent; and the provincial governors (shahatambo).

Other state functionaries include a brother of the ruler, who is commander-in-chief for the army (muhunga); the guardian of the royal tombs (muzinba); and the keeper of the royal drum (mwirii), who serves as regent between the death of a. king and the installation of his successor.

The high ministers are hereditary, with succession from father to son. The king, on the day of his accession marries a half-sister or cousin designated for this position by the ruler's father while alive; she hold the title of queen-mother and provides the heir (not necessarily the eldest son, but one chosen after the king's death by the ministers and provincial governors).

The queen-mother does not live with the king but has her own states, livestock, and servitors. The king also marries another cousin, the true
quenn-consort, and her son succeeds if the quenn-mother has no produced an heir.

 

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