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Tutsi
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The Tutsi are one of three native peoples of the nations of Rwanda and Burundi in central Africa, the other two being the Twa and the Hutu.
ideas surrounding real and 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.
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The Tutsi are one of three native peoples of the nations of Rwanda and Burundi in central Africa, the other two being the Twa and the Hutu.
Origins
The ideas surrounding real and 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 German 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 "European-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 such organization and such noses could only be explained by European descent, transmitted by way of Ethiopia. Modern day genetic studies on the y-chromosome show the Tutsi to be 100% of African origin (80% E1b1a, 15% B, 4% E3, 1% E1b1b) with little to no East African genetic influence. In fact, the Tutsis are most genetically similar to the Hutu. There is currently no mtDNA data available for the Tutsi.
It is arguable that the current conflict between the tribes of the African Great Lakes around the Great Rift Valley of Central Africa can be traced to the time of Solomon, the last of the great kings of the Jewish Davidic empire. According to the Bible, Solomon had seven hundred wives and three hundred concubines (1 Kings 11:3). The wives are described as foreign princesses, including Pharaoh's daughter. The relations between the Queen of Sheba and Solomon are also discussed in both the Bible and the Quran. The Kebra Nagast, or the Book of the Glory of Kings, is an account of the origins of the Solomonic Dynasty of Ethiopia in which Menelik I (originally named Ebna la-Hakim, "Son of the Wise"), was the first Emperor of Ethiopia, is said to be the son of King Solomon and the Queen of Sheba.
The Zagwei clan of the Tutsi people of Burundi have an oral tradition that says they originated in the area around Ethiopia when the area was known as the Kingdom of Kush, at the time a Jewish kingdom also encompassing present day Sudan
. When the Jewish Kush kings were replaced with, first Christian rulers (see Darfur), and then Moslem rulers, several clans migrated to the African Great Lakes region, which includes present day Burundi, Rwanda, and parts of Uganda, Tanzania and the Congo. In this region, these clans reconstituted a South Kushitic Empire, which lasted until the 1500’s AD.
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 the Hutu tribes, beginning a conflict that has lasted into the 21th century.
Culture
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 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 peaceful up until the 20th century. Tutsi men rarely took Hutu wives, while Hutu men often took Tutsi wives. The ethnicity of the father determined the ethnicity of the children, however, which partially contributes to the continued larger proportion of Hutu in the region. Many have concluded that Tutsi is mainly an expression of class or caste, therefore, rather than ethnicity. Experts dispute whether similarities between Hutus and Tutsis are from common ancestry, frequent intermarriage, or both. The separation of the groups is sufficiently profound, however, that in any community in Rwanda, everyone knows who is Hutu and who is Tutsi; the genocide demonstrated a level of ethnically-based hatred that is hard to explain simply on colonial "definitions".
One cultural 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 demonstrated a much stronger drive to succeed, with the result that by the end of secondary school, the Tutsi usually were nearer 50% of graduands. (This argument was the same one used by the apartheid government in South Africa to justify educational favoritism for Europeans in that country.) This tended to result in accusations of "favoring the Tutsis", and was a contributor to the animosity of some in the genocide.
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 both Tutsi and Hutu, following a national referendum leading up to independence.
Colonial influences
Both Germany (before World War I) and Belgium ruled the area in a colonial capacity. The Germans theorized that the Tutsi were not originally from sub-Saharan Africa at all. They thought that they had immigrated from somewhere else. When the Belgians took over the colony in 1916 from the Germans, they felt that the colony would be better governed if they continued to classify the different races in a hierarchical form. They felt that Africans in general were children who needed to be guided, but noted the Tutsi to be the ruling culture in Rwanda-Burundi. In 1959 the Belgians reversed their stance and allowed the majority Hutu to assume control of the government through universal elections. The Hutu and Tutsi relationship is very different in Burundi and Rwanda. In Rwanda, a backlash of oppression against the Tutsi by the Hutu led to many cultural conflicts, including the Rwandan Genocide, in which Hutus killed an estimated 500,000 - 1,000,000 Tutsi. In Burundi, the Tutsi led a genocide that killed an estimated 80,000 - 100,000 Hutus in 1972.
When Rwanda and Burundi were German colonies (known as German East Africa) the 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 stay with the Tutsis, which they did.
Post Colonial History of Tutsi - Hutu conflict
In Burundi, a campaign of genocide was conducted against Hutu population in 1972, and an estimated 100,000 Hutus died. 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. This sparked a period of civil strife between Hutu political structures and the Tutsi military, in which an estimated 800,000 Burundians have 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.
See also
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