For a lighthearted tour through Rwandan folklore, it starts darkly enough with the children being taken away under pretext of the war effort. The Belgians treated the populations of their colonies as slaves, which explains why Rwandans found it hard to exchange their heroes like Kibogo for the priests’ Yezu and Maria. My delight in their irrepressible spirit mirrored my anger at the cynical efforts of colonists and academics to exploit them.
Karekezi told how, to save Rwanda from famine, a famine like the one that had raged during the last war that the Bazungu waged among themselves, one of the king's sons, named Kibogo, had been chosen by the soothsayers to be sacrificed and save the country that was on the verge of perishing. And this Kibogo was also called Akayezu. He wore a beautiful white habit like the padri and spoke the language of the padri, like in the Mass when they speak to their Imana. And so, as they were about to sacrifice Kibogo, who was also this Akayezu, at the top of Mount Runani, up there, on that mountain right over there, just above us, a cloud came to fetch him and he rose up to Heaven like the padri's Yezu and perhaps someday he too will return.
