Burundi and Burundi Bwacu

Burundi, a small African nation with a rich tapestry of history and culture, takes center stage in our latest exploration, encapsulated by the unique musical traditions symbolized by its national anthem. We dive deep into the circumstances surrounding the creation of this anthem, which emerged in the wake of the country's independence in 1961, highlighting not just the melodies but the poignant narratives woven into its lyrics. As we traverse through Burundi's past, we uncover its colonial struggles, marked by a distinct resilience that informs both its identity and its music. With a fascinating blend of traditional Burundian rhythms and Western influences, the anthem stands as a testament to the nation's spirit—one that celebrates survival and unity rather than militaristic triumphalism. Join us as we unpack not only the song's musical intricacies but also the deep emotional resonance behind its words, revealing how this small nation continues to assert its place in the global concert of nations.

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-020-76873-x

Speaker A: 00:00:00

Foreign hello, and welcome to the Anthems Podcast. I'm Patrick, and I'm here to tell you the story of a song that helps to tell the story of a nation.

Today we are traveling 10,321 kilometers or 6,413 miles. And even though it's impossible to ride a bike away from the Philippines, I want to know how many calories I would burn doing it.

Assuming that I am 200 pounds and I am able to go 100 miles a day for 64 days, I'll burn nearly 560,000 calories. That's a lot of energy. In fact, it's 1.6 times what's in a lightning bolt.

that hit our Target Nation in: 2021

You knew I was about to say, we'll be talking about Burundi. Officially the Republic of Burundi. Today we are in a country that at 2.5%, has a population growth that is more than twice the world average.

And we're here because it's time to return to Africa and go somewhere that I've never heard of before. Again, Burundi is one of the smaller countries in Africa, only covering about 0.1% of the continent.

It's also one of the few countries there that are basically the same territorial footprint as they were before colonialism. Another thing that's carried through the colonial occupation is a unique and long standing musical tradition where drums play a very important part.

Perhaps the tradition is best exemplified by Les Tambonaires du Burundi, or the Royal Drummers of Burundi, a dance troupe that is performed all over the world. They play the Royal Drum, a traditional instrument with mythical place in the culture.

These performances are a combination of beats, dances, heroic poems and traditional songs. It's such an integral part of the culture that UNESCO recognizes it as part of humanity's general heritage.

The drummers are also a good reason for me to tell you about Burundi, Bwaku, or our Burundi. I landed on Burundi not even knowing of a dish I enjoy from there, which is actually not that odd given the huge variety of cuisine on earth.

But it's on my soon to be eaten list though, because I love red beans, rice, onions, plantains, cassava, which is sort of like kale and grilled goat or chicken. It all sounds good to me.

As a country that is stricken with serious poverty, the cuisine follows a simple and rustic tradition that is sure to leave me with another couple of pages in my ever growing recipe library. I can't wait to try it, and you are not going to have to wait any longer to hear the reason that this episode exists. Enjoy.

Foreign My initial reaction is that it feels celebratory, kind of like something that I'd hear a group of people singing together at a party. The general vibe is kind of like a casual march, so a little bit different from where we've been recently.

Again, I went on quite a deep dive to decide what to play for you, and this time the choice was kind of made for me because the other versions out there are either acapella or instrumental or just really, really bad. I feel like we need to hear the full experience on the show, especially with something that has percussion as a central part of the culture.

Because drums are important, they're obviously not the only interesting aspect of the country, though. A fuller look can be had at what they have to offer at the Living Museum and Zoo in the country's capital.

This is, as far as I can find, a nearly singular place on the continent and contains a variety of indigenous flora and fauna on the nearly seven and a half acre grounds. They also have local craftspeople doing live traditional work in a fully restored pre colonial Burundian dwelling that you can check out.

Kind of a cool way to preserve the heritage there and give people a chance to experience the country. So where on earth do we go to see this cultural repository?

Burundi was a tricky country to locate for me since I don't know where the Great Rift is and I also didn't know where the Great Lakes region is in Africa.

It's bordered to the north by Rwanda, Tanzania to the east, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo with Lake Tanganyika, one of the aforementioned African Great Lakes lakes making up the southwest boundary. So if you, unlike this podcaster, know where any of those places are, it's not a hard spot for you to find.

For our purposes, I think the best way to get there is a direct set of directions.

miles, roughly: 1470

Luckily for the nation, they are supplied by rivers that are fed by Lake Victoria, another African great lake. It happens to be the second largest lake on earth by area.

Lake Tanganyika is is another important source of water as well as being our geological feature of interest today. This is the deepest lake in Africa and is the second largest freshwater lake by volume in the world. It and Victoria are both beat out by Lake Bacal.

That got a brief mention in episode eight. When we talked about Russia, I was very surprised to learn that it has 16% of all of the fresh water that we know about it.

So I suspect when we get to the eventual water wars sometime in the future, this is going to be a really important place because of some real satisfying to read about fluid dynamics. Enormously deep bodies of fresh water can be river fed and river drained and still not have mixing throughout their entire volume.

What that means is that past a certain depth which is different depending on the maximum depth in a particular part of the lake, you get an anaerobic environment. If you go deep enough, that means no oxygen, and no oxygen means that nothing lives there except for a couple of very specific bacteria.

And they only live in places where other chemicals besides H2O are present. Reed Smarter people talk about it in reference 51 I am not an expert here, but I do have an odd relationship with gigantic lakes like this.

On the one hand, I find it terrifying for so much water to be in one spot. Yes, oceans, seas and giant fish tanks are also scary. But the chemistry and physics and biology of these lakes are endlessly fascinating.

And I have not even mentioned what else lives here. Consider it a recommendation though, because we've got a timeline to get to and a narrative to get rolling with.

Burundi, we get to just start towards the beginning. It's satisfying to get to do that.

I mean, this is an African country, so I don't actually mean the very beginning of when scientists think people started living there because it's almost always too far back for a show about national anthems. But it does happen.

tions of kings all the way to: 1850

Despite what I'm about to sketch out, and despite most other African nations receiving dramatic artificial transformations as a result of Western colonialism, Burundi achieved this stability with a well defined hierarchical political structure. And of course in part the geography that enables a stable footprint.

And some luck, there were some racially and culturally motivated divisions in the country pre Colonial, but they were buffered by divisions between the ruling class and everybody else.

There are two dominant ethnic groups in Burundi, the Hutu and the Tutsi, with the now technically former ruling class consisting of mostly the cattle herding Tutsi with 14% of the population, and the agricultural based hutu making up 85% of the rest of the population. I will note that the Twa people also constitute about 1% of the population here.

They're incredibly interesting and someone ought to do an entire deep dive on them. Can't be me though. Pre colonial times was all something of a fluid situation, ethnically speaking.

e're going to jump forward to: 1856

Between about: 1856

These were survey trips and were basically the German government encouraging the development of private fiefdoms that people made with terrible agreements that exploited the people living there already. So kind of the same story that gets repeated over and over again in the colonial world.

situation. By the end of the: 1880

They were rightly afraid that the Germans were going to encroach on their trade, including lucrative ivory and slave operations.

ilitary needed to mobilize in: 1888

They used taxation, forced labor, and the eventual death of more than 300,000 people to get their way. It happened in a few countries too. So unfortunately we're going to hear about this again.

tion was brought to a halt in: 1916

And they instituted indirect rule that was basically structured on the existing mostly Tutsi aristocratic structure.

But we will get the country through that and independent in a little bit though, because our sort of poet was born a couple of years ago, Jean Baptiste.

Tahokaja was born sometime in: 1920

,: 1948

Flemish to Karundi. Then, in: 1962

We're going to put a pin in that, though.

And since Jean was the only Burundian linguist working on Karundian scholarship, he was appointed to head a writing committee for the anthem's lyrics.

ecoming professor emeritus in: 1980

nd in: 1995

,: 1934

Yet another man that I know very little about his life, despite actually knowing quite a bit about him and his place in history. And yet another Burundian man that ended up as a Catholic priest and is referred to as an abbot.

Actually, I'm not sure I mentioned that Jean was also called an abbot in several sources. This continues the odd tradition I've uncovered of Catholic priests having an outside role in the story of national anthems.

They're not always involved, but they are involved an awful lot. Crazy. It's an interesting thing for me to discover, and it's a topic that I gotta Address someday.

d to lean pretty heavily on a: 2013

Our composer priest is referred to by himself and other sources as a priest, a musicologist and a lawyer. I can say a few more things about Mark for sure, even though it's not a ton of information.

t a doctorate in canon law in: 1973

rsity until his retirement in: 2003

I know he wrote at least three books as a lawyer and a musicologist, Customary Law of Burundi, the Marriage Dowry of Burundi, and a repertoire of Burundi in music titled Umuyera Wuberundi. It is said to have written more books and had a structural effect on the country's legal system, but I can't find any other details on that.

We also know that in: 1961

We're going to have to put a second and final pin there though, and hear about the circumstances of that composition after we get the country to independence. So we're going to time jump back now after I know that Father Mark passed of unspecified causes.

March in: 2013

So a king for each half of the country called the Muami and chiefs and sub chiefs helping to do the government stuff again. The ruling class was mostly Tutsi and a majority of the rest were Hutu.

The choice was largely influenced by something called the Hamitic hypothesis, H A M I T I C. It has the general feeling of something rooted in racism because Tutsi people had lighter skin most of the time, so they must not be all that African. It's gross stuff. And it further stratified the Burundian society and you could read about it on your own. I'm not talking about it anymore.

The Belgians were more directly involved than the Germans were in a beneficial way because the people at the League of Nations were watching them. They definitely still siphoned profits off the countries though.

And if you're familiar with what the Belgians did in the Congo, you are only shocked at the leniency they showed in this case.

se brought massive famines in: 1916

and it meant that as late as: 1961

When that happened, the League of Nations dissolved because apparently they were supposed to prevent that from happening. More reading for me to get to at some point, I guess, but oh, I forgot to remind you, pull the pins, we're nearly there.

So just get them both out at the same time. After the war, the United nations was formed and the area was ostensibly set on a Belgian directed path to self government.

and a revolution in Rwanda in: 1960

st in: 1961

shown some musical talent in: 1961

And so he went into seclusion for a week to compose. He said that he just let himself be carried away by the verse and created the notes.

Unfortunately, they went with a pre recorded piece for the debut rather than a live performance. The father is not sure who made that call, but. But his disappointment does come through in the interview.

Regardless, upon final submission, the overall composition was accepted by the judges. And so with that we have our anthem and I can go on to discuss the song itself. Musically speaking, this is quite the thing.

It stands at a crossroads of Western and traditional Burundian music. Doesn't really come through. How weird this song is. In the version I could find that had music and lyrics and burundian drumming.

So reference 50 in the show notes is a link to an instrumental version as composed. It's a march like song in 44 played Mastoso, which is around 90 beats per minute and it has an Easy to understand, evenly placed rhythm.

The melody repeats through each verse and it's balanced. Couple that with a major key, usually F or G, and a 1, 4, 5 chord progression, and we get something that's really singable again.

We had a composer that nailed the assignment. None of that sounds weird, right? But listen to this thing.

When you hear it instrumentally, the musical fusion of something put together with Western musical techniques and performed with properly East African technique results in something that could come off of a modern movie soundtrack. It completely blows my mind. We get a very fun piece of music that is crafted to fit a very specific set of lyrics.

Lyrically speaking, Burundi is at least as interesting as it is musically. It was written by a team of writers, which is not super unusual for an anthem. We got a couple of their names earlier on.

It was advised by one actual linguist that specialized in in the language. The group was tasked to craft an unmistakably Burundian tune. So they kept it in their native tongue.

And Kirundi is exactly the language that would develop in a society with a strong oral tradition for transmitting their history because it's a great language for repetition and parallelism. The latter is a grammatical device that lets us use the same parts of speech to describe related ideas or concepts.

The cadence and the rhythm of the writing mirror Burundi's traditional praise poetry very closely. I suspect that's on purpose.

It relies more on sonic buildup than formal rhythm and makes use of short, kind of punchy lines that makes it well suited as a performed song. The translation that I'm reading is a translation into English from the official version that was translated into French from Kurundi.

It can be found on my 11th edition copy of National Anthems of the World. Beloved Burundi, gentle country, take your place in the concert of nations Acceding to independence with honorable intentions.

Wounded and bruised, you have remained master of yourself. When the hour came, you arose, rising up proudly into the ranks of free people.

Receive then the congratulations of the nations and the homage of your sons and daughters. May your name ring out through the universe. Beloved Burundi, Sacred heritage from our forefathers recognized as worthy of self government.

With your courage you also have a sense of honor. Sing the glory of liberty. Conquered again, O Burundi, worthy of our tenderest love, we vow to your noble service Our hands and hearts and lives.

May God who gave you to us, keep you for us to venerate under the shield of unity in peace, joy and prosperity.

The poem that almost sounds like a prayer does not open with a celebration or a call to arms like Many other anthems do, but the writers choose to highlight resilience instead. It's an interesting choice only before you know stuff about the country, whereas at the end of everything I've learned, it just seems appropriate.

The people here triumphed and achieved freedom with endurance through quite a bit of suffering without surrendering. They're almost certainly trying to evoke a sense of national martyrdom and highlight it as a symbolic gesture.

The Germans were so terrible to their holdings that the other colonial powers called them the flogging colonies says a lot. It's easy to imagine that things like forced labor and and imposed division for decades can leave long scars on people.

It really doesn't come through in this translation, but the emotional center of the entire poem is the part that says in English, rising up proudly into the ranks of free peoples. But the karundi you hear sung in the beginning of the show is not what the translation says the author actually wrote.

Rise up, rise up, rise up and become part of the authority.

The anthem is peppered with these inaccuracies, like the second line not saying, take your place among the nations, but literally saying, plant a spear in the institutions. It understandably drives me a little bit up the wall.

And I didn't realize that it was a thing until I was playing around with a translator maybe 20 minutes before writing what you're hearing.

Why on earth would the Burundian government go through all the trouble of creating a culturally distinct and actually pretty good song and then have the official translation into French just be wrong? I'll touch that in a moment because I did get an explanation, but I gotta finish telling you about the lyrics as read.

But do note that I am using the literal translation to inform what I'm saying in order to get the original emotional intent correct. So we have a poem that is written as a praise song for the nation of Burundi.

When the writers talk about rising up, I said that contains the emotional center of the piece and got derailed while trying to clarify the meaning of that. They're not talking about a violent uprising. Instead, they're talking about rising up into selfhood and shaking off their former masters.

It's a celebratory announcement and they're proudly displaying themselves to the world. It's a pretty effective dramatization of the moment when survival becomes national pride.

The last two stanzas take a look out from and then back in at the nation. In the first line of the second to last stanza, the authors say, beloved Burundi, sacred heritage from our forefathers.

In the literal translation, it's none. They don't really mean heritage, they mean inheritance.

Heritage is more of a thing you look at, and ancestry with a different weight to it, and it implies stewardship, not just a gift, but also a responsibility.

They seem to be looking for balance in this one, with the people called to fight for the country's dignity, but that they should also care for the land with their hearts and lives.

The poem goes on to buck postcolonialism anthem trends, and instead of a triumphant yell, they simply ask for unity, peace, prosperity and divine protection. They want continuity and a Burundi that remains whole, safe and loved.

It's a refreshing set of ideas that do actually pop up in anthems here and there. But why are the translations so wrong? Well, Kurundi is a Banto language.

It's a group of something like 600 languages that is itself part of the Bantoid language family. The Bantoid family is no longer seen as a valid linguistic classification. It's more of a big lumping together of stuff.

So it's purely historical, and the languages that are in it are all parts of other groups.

The entire point of that, before I need a shovel here, is that none of these languages do well translating outside of the larger linguistic family, with French and English definitely sitting outside of the larger linguistic family of Bantu. Now, I did say that I'm not a linguist, so I expect that this is clumsy and probably wrong if you are, but please let me know.

But it definitely makes sense to me.

It's also not a unique problem for this language family, and I suspect it's the reason that instructions for things are so difficult to understand sometimes.

So the official French translation had a goal of being flowery and diplomatic rather than trying to preserve the deep cultural meaning that is sort of baked into Quirundi. It's a satisfying enough answer for me in that I actually get one and I don't have to tell you guys, oh, I don't know again.

And it makes other translations that I've read for other things make a little bit more sense too. I suppose that means I've learned something here, but that was guaranteed to happen in Burundi.

Given that I knew literally nothing about the place or the song that they've picked, what I found is another fascinating nation populated by people that have maintained a cultural identity and cohesiveness through colonial occupation that is frankly, kind of astonishing. I also think this has a chance to be the most interesting song that's been covered yet.

You'll have to let me know what you think after I let you know how in the credits, the writing, recording and production for the show are done by me and I wrote and played the theme music. The music was used with my permission. Unless otherwise noted, the anthems I play are free to play.

This time I played the only audio that I could find that had both singing and music. It's a widely distributed version of the anthem and I am unable to pinpoint the source, but I tried.

My sources are in the show notes and they live@anthemspodcast.com I can be found on Facebook and WhatsApp as the Anthems podcast. I do post about the show, but mostly I'm depending on word of mouth to get that done for me.

That means I'm asking you to help me get the episodes onto whatever platform you can with the hashtag anthemspod.

It would be cool if you shared this content and there is a chance it increases awareness of the support that Burundi desperately needs from the rest of the world due to agricultural and economic shortfalls in the country.

-: 8375

-: 4255

Maybe you have stolen a megaphone from an angry human shouting obscenities and really specific insults on a crowded New York subway, and in attempt to diffuse the situation, you start quoting facts from this very episode. Or maybe you just listen to another one. Either way, I still think you're awesome. Where do you think we'll be next time? Sam.

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