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Zaire Bantu-Speakers of the Eastern Highlands
From the northern end of Lake Tanganyika to Lake Edward
are a
number of groups that share cultural and political
features among
themselves and with the interlacustrine Bantu-speaking
peoples of
Rwanda, Burundi, southwestern Uganda, and northwestern
Tanzania.
Most live at an altitude of 1,400 meters or more with a
handful
sited in the lowlands. Whereas all are cultivators, those
in the
highlands proper also raise cattle, primarily for milk and
milk
products; the few lowland groups that are unable to raise
cattle
have turned, like their forest neighbors, to hunting and
fishing.
The highland Bantu-speakers have known, possibly as
early as
the fourteenth century, the presence of centralized states
ruled by
members of specific descent groups thought to have come
from the
interlacustrine states to the northeast. Traditionally,
only one of
their number, the Furiiru, were organized into a single,
relatively
small state. More often there were several states, for
example,
among the Shi, that despite their small size carried the
heavy
apparatus of royal family, court officials, and hierarchy
of
chiefs.
A degree of ethnic consciousness overriding membership
in
specific states developed during the late 1950s and early
1960s.
The clearest example of the situational character of this
consciousness came in 1964 when Shi irregulars joined the
national
army in opposing a rebel group passing through their
territory
because the rebels were perceived as outsiders led by
Kusu.
Data as of December 1993
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