Ganwa is the name for the princely group that traditionally ruled

Burundi Burundi, officially the Republic of Burundi, is a landlocked country in East Africa. It is located in the Great Rift Valley at the junction between the African Great Lakes region and Southeast Africa, with a population of over 14 million peop ...

. They formed a distinct

social class A social class or social stratum is a grouping of people into a set of Dominance hierarchy, hierarchical social categories, the most common being the working class and the Bourgeoisie, capitalist class. Membership of a social class can for exam ...

that was neither

Hutu The Hutu (), also known as the Abahutu, are a Bantu ethnic group native to the African Great Lakes region. They mainly live in Rwanda, Burundi, and Uganda where they form one of the principal ethnic groups alongside the Tutsi and the Great L ...

nor

Tutsi The Tutsi ( ), also called Watusi, Watutsi or Abatutsi (), are an ethnic group of the African Great Lakes region. They are a Bantu languages, Bantu-speaking ethnic group and the second largest of three main ethnic groups in Rwanda and Burundi ( ...

, although they were affiliated with the latter. They have launched several appeals to be recognized as a distinct socio-cultural grouping.

Origins

Burundi's Ganwa dynasty were not from the Hima stock, as was the case for the Nyiginya dynasty of Rwanda. The White Father Bernard Zuure reported that the first king of Burundi (Rufuku, father of Ntare) was a Hutu: "Everybody here says so, and the princes themselves told me they do not descend from a Tutsi". The Ganwa kings of Burundi did not like to be called Tutsi because the Tutsi were associated with the Hima, who were despised.

References

African traditional governments Ethnic groups in Burundi African dynasties Nobility in Africa Ganwa people {{Burundi-stub