Lisa Ndejuru performs the story of Kigwa, part of the Rwandan oral culture passed on from generation to generation. These stories are called Ibitekerezo, from the verb Gutekereza, which means “to think”:

The story starts like this: Kasi was a king. He had two wives. One of them was called Gasani. She was beautiful. She was his favourite. She was beloved by the king, but she was very, very sad. Because she couldn't have a child. One day a woman passed by and asked her, “Queen, what will you give me if I can tell you how to have a child?” Gasani said, “What do you want?” And she said, “Take me on. Take me in to be one of your ladies, and house me and feed me.” The queen says, “Done.”

Soon she takes the woman in, and she asks her, “So now what?” “Well,” said the woman, “on the day of the sacrifice of the multicoloured bull, when the sayers, the seers, the soothsayers are off to deliberate, we have to go in and... The woman whispers a secret to the queen. “Okay, but before that, bring in a jar and put a bed against that wall.” “Done.” On the day of the sacrifice, the woman came into the place and took out the heart, with the lung still attached. “Now what?” “Now we have to put it into the jar.” “Okay.” They put it into the jar. “And now?” “Now you have to pour milk on it. Morning and night.” “Okay, for how long?” “For the time a woman is pregnant.” “Okay.”

And so, for the whole time a woman is pregnant, the queen poured milk, morning and night, into the jar. At the end of those months, the queen heard a sound. She said to her husband, “I hear something. Um... Would you go and see, check what’s going on.” So the husband leaves. He runs to the jar and took out this beautiful child: Kigwa. She fell in love immediately. She was holding him to her. And her husband came back and said,

“Is that?”

She said, “Husband, you may congratulate me. I have borne you a child."

The king was like, “What? No, no, no, no, no, no, no. You weren’t expecting.”

“Husband, a woman is always expecting.”

The king was so upset. He was furious, and he would not calm down. He was sure this child was not his child. He wanted it killed. The queen thought he would calm down. He didn’t calm down.

At one point she called her woman. She said, “Lady, come. Bring this child, bring him to my mother in the country. So the woman took the child and went off to the queen’s mother’s place. And the king would send off people after that child to have it killed, and the people would never do it. They would come back and say, “King, this child, he’s perfect. Whose child could he be but yours?” The king would not calm down. It would come upon him in waves, and he would send people off to kill the child. “Kill it!” And every time people would come back and say it: “Your Majesty, no one else. He can’t be anyone else’s child.” But the king was angry.

But the years passed. One day he decided, “I’m going to see for myself.” He went, and he saw. And Kigwa had grown into this beautiful, healthy boy. The king was like, “True. Who else's child could this be but mine? Let him grow up at the court with his brothers.” And so it came that Kigwa was sent to court to grow up with the other princes. He grew and grew into a strong, healthy, beautiful, articulate young man. And one day, he was off with his brothers in the forest. They were hunting. And Gasani’s mother came to court that day. And she looked at her daughter and said, “Daughter, do you feel that children should lie to their parents?” Gasani was like, “No, of course not.” “Would you tell me who this child is? What happened? Because you know, and I know, you were not expecting a child. You couldn’t have children.” Gasani hemmed and hawed, and: “Fine.” And so she told her mother everything. The milk, the bull, the lady, all of it.

“Kigwa is the ancestor of all Rwandans.”

Behind the partition was a man who heard the whole story. He ran off into the forest where Kigwa was, and Kigwa had just put down the prey. And he went in front of them all and said, “Kigwa, of course, you’re this amazing hunter. You are the son of the bull.” But Kigwa was like “What?” He was heartbroken. He was sure his brothers would not claim him as their own, and so he decided to leave. And one of his brothers, who was not a brother, decided to go with him. And two of his sisters, who were not his sisters, decided to go with him as well. And he took a bull and a cow and also a dog—well, two dogs, male and female—and a rooster and a hen, and some turtledoves, and a whole slew of other animals. And they went. They left. And they walked. And there, where they settled, there was the beginning of Rwanda. Kigwa is the ancestor of all Rwandans.