Origins of Hutu, Tutsi and Twa

The origins of the Hutu, Tutsi and Twa peoples is a major issue of controversy in the histories of Rwanda and Burundi, as well as the Great Lakes region of Africa.

[1] When Europeans arrived in Rwanda to begin documenting traditions, Rwandan society consisted of three ethnicities that also serve as social castes.

The now rejected hypothesis posits that the Tutsi were of Hamitic stock whom originated from the Horn of Africa, and subsequently conquered Rwanda and brought civilization to the region.

Noting the fossil record of a tall people with narrow facial features several thousand years ago in East Africa, including locations such as Gambles Cave in the Kenya Rift Valley and Olduvai Gorge in northern Tanzania, Hiernaux argues that while there was a migration, it was not as dramatic as some sources have proposed.

noted that the influx of pastoralists around the fifteenth century may have taken place over an extended period of time and been gradual and peaceful, rather than sudden and violent.

It appears clear that pastoralism was practiced in Rwanda prior to the fifteenth century immigration, while the dates of state formation and pastoralist influx do not entirely match.

This raises the question of how much of the changes around the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries was the result of an influx of people as opposed to the existing population being exposed to new ideas.

[7] More recent studies have de-emphasized physical appearance, such as height and nose width, in favor of examining blood factors, the presence of the sickle cell trait, lactose intolerance in adults, and other genotype expressions.

It is unclear whether this similarity is primarily due to extensive genetic exchanges between these communities through intermarriage or whether it ultimately stems from common origins.

... 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.

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.