Shi

The Shi, plural Bashi and singular Mushi, are a Bantu people of the South Kivu highlands, occupying the Mitumba mountain country called Bushi around Bukavu, between Lake Kivu and the equatorial forest. They speak Mashi, a Central Bantu language that served as a lingua franca across neighboring chiefdoms.

Local tradition holds that the Bushi kingdom centered on Kabare was founded before 1388 and long defended its independence against Rwanda; the Shi were one people under several rival kingdoms, each ruled by a sacred mwami assisted by a queen mother, elders and court nobility. They venerated the supreme deity Nyamuzinda through ancestral spirits called Bazimu.

By the 1800s their farming country exported hoes, leather and brass-wire bracelets used as currency, while importing salt, iron and livestock from Rwanda, Burundi and neighboring chiefdoms.