There is little reliable information on the origins of the Hutaym, which is consistent with the name's being a derogatory term applied by outsiders to socially low-ranking groups.
One story, however, attributes their pariah status to an act of incest by the eponymous ancestor Hutaym, who was presumably an Arab.
[1] James Raymond Wellsted, who visited them in the early 1830s, speculated that they were the Ichthyophagi mentioned by classical authors.
[1] The term Hutaym first appears in Arabic literature around 1200, then again in Ottoman tax records of the early 16th century.
By the 19th century, as recorded by several European travellers, the term being used to describe a low caste and not a specific tribe.