The Hutu

The Hutus are an ethnic group which live in parts of Burundi and Rwanda. This group is one of three in the two countries making up 90% of Rwanda's population and 85% of Burundi's population. All together there are approximately 12-13 million Hutus.

Originally they arrived in Africa during the first century AD, forcing then habitants, the Twa, to flee. Then in the late 14th and early 15th century the Tutsi arrived which resulted in the economic and political domination of the Hutus. Eventually a civil war broke out amongst the two in the mid 90s (see previous blog on Hotel Rwanda). Hutus overcame Tutsi dominance and elected the first Hutu President.

Centered around the clan, Hutus share responsibilities equally amongst the men and women when it comes to farming. They depend heavily on cattle for food and money. For the most part they speak two main languages- Kirundi in Burundi and Kinyarwanda in Rwanda. Those who are active traders may also speak Swahili. Then there are the few who are educated and speak French. All but about a fourth of the Hutu population practice Roman Catholicism, instead of their native tribal religion. This is a result of the European missionaries who began converting natives in the 1800s.

After seeing the movie Hotel Rwanda it was still somewhat cloudy about who the Hutus and Tutsis were/are. So, I searched and found this article of information about the Hutus. It is interesting to see how the European domination, particularly through religion, appears in almost every aspect of African history. For example, Hutus conversion to Roman Catholicism.

Photo Source: Photo1 and Photo2

Source: Hutu