Burundi: de quoi vivait l'État

Burundi: how the State made a living.- In Burundi, by the end of the 19th century, the forms taken by the exercise of power as well as the complex relationship between producers and their exploiters can be explained by the structure of subordination. Political relationships linked with access to the land were the most general expression of personal dependence. They implied a network of tribute relationships (Mehrarbeit) which supported in part the operation of royal and princely estates. Quantitative data drawn from a wide representative corpus allows an analysis of taxes in kind and labour levies: their origins, their local and historical variations according to social differentiations, their weight in the daily life of the rural masses and the way in which they were accepted. This leads to a twofold, self-contradictory and inconciliable version for the labour levies: a corvée for some, a trifle for others. Which is far from astonishing considering that they refer to the extant social relations and class division.