An understanding of the precolonial past, however, is not sufficient to fully fathom the contemporary nature of ethnicity in Rwanda, for colonization left indelible markings on Rwanda's ethnic structure. By the end of the colonial era, the linkages between ethnicity and power had been fundamentally altered as a result of the many changes wrought by the colonial state Beginning in 1897 with the establishment of German colonial rule in Rwanda, and continuing until 1962 when Rwanda officially gained its independence from Belgium, Rwanda's colonial administrators(first German, then Belgian) critically reinforced the growing tendency toward ethnically structured social stratification The European attitude towards ethnicity in Rwanda revolved around the Hamitic hypothesis This then-fashionable theory" held that all peoples exhibiting signs of true civilization"in Africa must have been descended from a superior"Caucasoid "race originally from northeastern Africa. In relation to Rwanda, this theory led to the construction of Tutsis as a group that was considered both foreign and also distinctly superior to the Hutu majority. As anthropologist Johan Pottier explains, "Belgian colonists contributed to the ideology of (elite) Tutsi self- consciousness an explanation of physical difference in terms of ancestral migration- for which there was no firm empirical basis-and they made all Tutsi superior, all Hutu inferior. This stands in stark contrast to the precolonial linkages between Tutsi and power, in which context it was only the Tutsi elite, primarily drawn from the nyiginya clan, who were socially constructed as superior to the Hutu This perceived racial divide was not purely ideological, but was translated into concrete institutional policies Implemented by the colonial state in Rwanda, these policies explicitly In the case of Rwanda, it was assumed that the precolonial Tutsi monarchy was evidence of foreign descent, for Europeans refused to believe that such a symbol of civilization"as a monarchy could have its as a group must be of foreign descent Lemarchand, African Kingships in Perspective, 74-5; Mamdani, When Victims Become Killers, 35, 80 88; Prunier, 7; Des Forges, 36; Christopher Taylor, Sacrifice as Terror: The Rwandan Genocide of1994 (Oxford New York: Berg, 1999), 55-94 Johan Pottier, Re-imagining Rwanda: Conflict, Survival and Disinformation in the Late Twentieth Century(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002),1129 An understanding of the precolonial past, however, is not sufficient to fully fathom the contemporary nature of ethnicity in Rwanda, for colonization left indelible markings on Rwanda’s ethnic structure. By the end of the colonial era, the linkages between ethnicity and power had been fundamentally altered as a result of the many changes wrought by the colonial state. Beginning in 1897 with the establishment of German colonial rule in Rwanda, and continuing until 1962 when Rwanda officially gained its independence from Belgium, Rwanda’s colonial administrators (first German, then Belgian) critically reinforced the growing tendency towards ethnically structured social stratification. The European attitude towards ethnicity in Rwanda revolved around the “Hamitic hypothesis.” This then-fashionable “theory” held that all peoples exhibiting signs of “true civilization” in Africa must have been descended from a superior “Caucasoid” race originally from northeastern Africa.32 In relation to Rwanda, this theory led to the construction of Tutsis as a group that was considered both foreign and also distinctly superior to the Hutu majority.33 As anthropologist Johan Pottier explains, “Belgian colonists contributed to the ideology of (élite) Tutsi self￾consciousness an explanation of ‘physical difference’ in terms of ancestral migration – for which there was no firm empirical basis – and they made all Tutsi superior, all Hutu inferior.”34 This stands in stark contrast to the precolonial linkages between Tutsi and power, in which context it was only the Tutsi élite, primarily drawn from the nyiginya clan, who were socially constructed as superior to the Hutu. This perceived racial divide was not purely ideological, but was translated into concrete institutional policies. Implemented by the colonial state in Rwanda, these policies explicitly 32 In the case of Rwanda, it was assumed that the precolonial Tutsi monarchy was evidence of foreign descent, for Europeans refused to believe that such a symbol of “civilization” as a monarchy could have its origins in “savage” sub-Saharan Africa. Based on this assumption, the Europeans assumed that the Tutsis as a group must be of foreign descent. 33 Lemarchand, African Kingships in Perspective, 74-5; Mamdani, When Victims Become Killers, 35, 80, 88; Prunier, 7; Des Forges, 36; Christopher Taylor, Sacrifice as Terror: The Rwandan Genocide of 1994 (Oxford & New York: Berg, 1999), 55-94. 34 Johan Pottier, Re-imagining Rwanda: Conflict, Survival and Disinformation in the Late Twentieth Century (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002), 112