| Total population |
|---|
| 2.5 million (Rwanda and Burundi) |
| Regions with significant populations |
| Rwanda, Burundi, Eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo |
| Languages |
|
Kirundi, Kinyarwanda, French, English |
| Religion |
|
Predominantly Roman Catholicism |
| Related ethnic groups |
|
Hutu, Twa |
Tutsi (pronounced /ˈtuːtsi/; Tutsi pronunciation: [tūtsī]) are an ethnic group in Central Africa. They are the second largest population of peoples in Rwanda and Burundi, the other two being the Hutu (largest) and the Twa (smallest).
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The ideas surrounding supposed ethnic groups in Rwanda have a very long and complicated history. The definitions of "Hutu" and "Tutsi" may have changed through time and location. Social structures were not identical throughout Rwanda. There was clearly a Tutsi aristocracy that was distinguished from Tutsi commoners, and wealthy Hutu were often indistinguishable from upper class Tutsi. When the Belgian colonists conducted their censuses, they desired to classify the people throughout Rwanda-Burundi with a single classification scheme. They merely defined "Tutsi" as anyone with more than ten cows or a long nose. The "Caucasian-like" noses of some Rwandans invoked historical and racial theories to explain how some Africans acquired such noses. According to these early twentieth-century Europeans, the straight noses possessed by some of the Tutsi people could only be explained by the presence of racial Caucasian ancestry, believed to be transmitted by way of Ethiopia. Hence, the Tutsi were assumed to be a racially superior people of a primarily Horn African and/or North African ancestry, with even a Middle Eastern heritage suggested at times. The Hutu, on the other hand, are thought of as merely a Bantu people of ultimate Central African origins.
Beginning about 1880, Catholic missionaries arrived in the African Great Lakes region. Later, when German forces occupied the area, the conflict and efforts for Catholic conversion became more pronounced. The Tutsi resisted conversion, and the missionaries found success only among the Hutu. In an effort to reward conversion to the Catholic faith, traditionally Tutsi land was confiscated and given to Hutu tribes, igniting a conflict that has lasted into the 21st century.[1]
Some Tutsi believe they are descended from the ancient Israelites and have a mystical connection to Israel.[2]
Modern-day genetic studies of the Y chromosome suggest that the Tutsi are largely of Bantu extraction (80% E1b1a, 15% B, 4% E3). Paternal genetic influences associated with the Horn of Africa and North Africa are few (1% E1b1b), and are ascribed to earlier inhabitants that were assimilated. The Tutsi, in general, demonstrate a close ethnic kinship with neighboring Bantu populations, particularly the Hutu.[3]
...generations of gene flow obliterated whatever clear-cut physical distinctions may have once existed between these two Bantu peoples -- renowned to be height, body build, and facial features. With a spectrum of physical variation in the peoples, Belgian authorities legally mandated ethnic affiliation in the 1920s, based on economic criteria. Formal and discrete social divisions were consequently imposed upon ambiguous biological distinctions. To some extent, the permeability of these categories in the intervening decades helped to reify the biological distinctions, generating a taller elite and a shorter underclass, but with little relation to the gene pools that had existed a few centuries ago. The social categories are thus real, but there is little if any detectable genetic differentiation between Hutu and Tutsi.[4]
In Rwanda, a centralized system of monarchy based on the Tutsi monarch, the Mwami, existed. In the northwestern part of the country (a predominantly Hutu-inhabited area), the society more closely resembled that of Bugandan society, with large regional landholders instead of a central monarch.
Today, there is little difference between the cultures of the Tutsi and Hutu; both groups speak the same Bantu language. The rate of intermarriage between the two groups has traditionally been very high, and relations between the two were considered, most of time, normal up until the 20th century. Hutu men often took Tutsi wives, though Tutsi men rarely married Hutu women. The ethnicity of the father was used by the society to label the ethnicity of the children, in time, partially contributing to the continued larger proportion of Hutu in the region. Many, though, have concluded that Tutsi was and is mainly an expression of class or caste, rather than ethnicity. Though, even today, experts dispute whether similarities between Hutus and Tutsis are from common ancestry, frequent intermarriage, or both.
One difference noted by school principals during the 1980s was that although secondary school intakes were governed by quotas mandated by the Habyarimana government (in line with the proportions of the tribes within the country), and by competition within tribes, the students of Tutsi origin (14% of intake) on average were almost 50% of graduands. This tended to result in accusations of tribal favoritism.
The Tutsi were ruled by a king (the mwami) from the 15th century until 1961. The monarchy was abolished by the Belgians, in response to the desires of Hutu, following a national referendum leading up to independence.
Both Germany (before World War I) and Belgium ruled the area in a colonial capacity. The Germans, like the Belgians before them, theorized that the Tutsi were originally not from sub-Saharan Africa at all. They thought that they had migrated from somewhere else. The German colonial government gave special status to the Tutsi, in part because they believed them to possess racial superiority.. The Germans considered the Tutsi more 'presentable' compared to the Hutu, whom they viewed as short and homely. As a result, it became colonial policy that only Tutsis could be educated, and only Tutsis could participate in the colonial government. Since the Hutus were in the majority such policies engendered some intense hostility between the groups, who had been peaceful enough with each other before colonization. The situation was exacerbated when the Belgians assumed control following World War I. Recognizing their ignorance of this part of Africa, they sought advice from the Germans, who told them to continue promoting the Tutsis, which they did.
When the Belgians took over the colony in 1916, they felt that the colony would be better governed if they continued to classify the different populations in a hierarchical form. Belgian colonists viewed Africans in general as children who needed to be guided, but noted the Tutsi to be the ruling culture in Rwanda-Burundi. In 1959, Belgium reversed its stance and allowed the majority Hutu to assume control of the government through universal elections.
In Rwanda, a backlash of oppression against the Tutsi by the Hutu led to many cultural conflicts, including the Rwandan Genocide of 1994, in which Hutus who were in power then, killed an estimated 500,000 - 1,000,000 people, mostly of Tutsi origin. Tutsis, who had formed a strong rebellion while in exile in Uganda, led a liberation war and came back to their country in 1994, to finally lead the country.
In Burundi, a campaign of genocide against Hutu population was made in 1972. In fact, the Hutu majority attempted many revolutions against the leading Tutsis but in vain. This led extremist Tutsis in power since independence to conduct serious oppressions especially against educated Hutus. [5][6][7][8][9] and up to 200,000 Hutus died.[10] In 1993, Burundi's first democratically elected president and also a Hutu, Melchior Ndadaye, was assassinated by Tutsi officers, as was the person constitutionally entitled to succeed him.[11] This sparked a period of civil strife between Hutu political structures and the Tutsi military, in which an estimated 800,000 Burundians died. There were indiscriminate mass killings first of Tutsis, then of Hutus; of these, the former have been described as genocide by the United Nations International Commission of Inquiry for Burundi.
Currently in Burundi, following the famous 2000 Arusha Peace Process, Tutsis (minority, but historically dominant in power and army) share power in a more or less equitable manner with Hutus (majority).
Ethnic Tutsi Rwandans (Banyarwanda) concentrated on the Itombwe Plateau of South Kivu, in the eastern region of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), close to the Burundi-Congo-Rwanda border are called "Banyamulenge". The term "Banyamulenge" has been the focus of much controversy and was increasingly used from the late 1990s onward to refer to all ethnic Tutsis living in North and South Kivu.
The first arrival of Banyarwanda from Rwanda may have occurred in the seventeenth century. However, the first significant recorded influx of Banyarwanda into South Kivu is dated to the 1880s. Banyarwanda migrants continued to arrive, particularly as labor migrants during the colonial period. The name "Banyamulenge" was chosen in the early 1970s to avoid being called "Banyarwanda" and seen as foreigners.
The ambiguous political and social position of the Banyamulenge has been a point of contention, leading to the Banyamulenge playing a key role in the run-up to the First Congo War in 1996-7 and Second Congo War of 1998-2003.