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Thinkers

Alexis Kagame

African · Africa · 1912 to 1981

Rwandan priest, historian and poet who also wrote about the thought of the Bantu-speaking peoples.

What it is

Alexis Kagame (1912 to 1981) was a Rwandan Catholic priest, historian and poet who also wrote about the thought of the Bantu-speaking peoples. He was born at Kiyanza and died in 1981, and he wrote in both Kinyarwanda and French. He was ordained a priest in 1941, and his research and writing covered the oral history, traditions, poetry and literature of Rwanda.

Philosophy is only one part of what he did, and he is hard to place in a single field. He worked at once as a priest, a poet, a historian and a scholar of the language and traditions of Rwanda.

The main ideas

  • Bantu philosophy compared. One of his major works, from 1976, is a comparative study of Bantu philosophy. Its title means "the Bantu philosophy compared", and it covers all the Bantu languages.
  • Writing a tradition down. He is said to have introduced the written art, in Kinyarwanda and in French, to his country, and he also wrote on its poetry and its history.
  • Old Rwanda. His research looked back to ancient Rwanda, its traditions, its lyric poetry and its history, and he published on them in two languages.

What it looks like in practice

Imagine a student in Rwanda who has a proverb in Kinyarwanda and wants to know what it assumes about the world. In the spirit of Kagame's work, they would look at the words themselves, at the poems and histories where such sayings appear, and at what other Bantu languages have to say. This is an illustration of the method, not a passage from his writing.

Books and moments

  • 1941. He was ordained a priest.
  • Kinyamateka. He edited this journal.
  • Rome. He took a doctorate at the Gregorian University.
  • 1969. Introduction aux grands genres lyriques de l'ancien Rwanda, a study of the old lyric forms of Rwanda.
  • 1976. La Philosophie Bantu comparée, his comparative work on Bantu philosophy.
  • 1981. He died on 2 December.

Questions and criticism

  • Can a language show a philosophy? It is fair to ask whether the structure of a language tells us how its speakers think about being, or whether people can think in ways their grammar does not show.
  • One thinker for many peoples. A book that compares the Bantu languages invites the question of how much the peoples who speak them have in common, and how far one scholar's picture of them can stand for the rest.
  • Philosopher or historian? He worked as a priest, poet, historian and scholar, so it is fair to ask where his philosophy begins and his history ends.

Close neighbours

The pages on Kwame Gyekye and Leopold Senghor show two other African thinkers of the twentieth century.

Written by epchē in our own words, and checked against independent sources on 29 October 2026. The sources are listed below.

Who they connect to

Influenced

  • John Mbiti · Mbiti and others read his work on language and being in their own studies of African thought. (scholars disagree about this link)

Other African thinkers

Sources we used

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