Hutu
ethnic group native to the Great Lakes region of Africa
The Hutu (), also known as the Abahutu, are a Bantu ethnic group native to the African Great Lakes region. They primarily live in Rwanda, Burundi, Uganda, and the eastern parts of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, where they form one of the principal ethnic groups alongside the Tutsi and the Great Lakes Twa.
Demographics
The Hutu is the largest of the three main population divisions in Burundi and Rwanda. Prior to 2017, the CIA World Factbook stated that 84% of Rwandans and 85% of Burundians are Hutu, with Tutsis being the second largest ethnic group at 15% and 14% of residents of Rwanda and Burundi, respectively. However, these figures were omitted in 2017 and no new figures have been published since then.
Etymology
The idea that Hutu is etymologically derived from a word that signifies slave was advanced by Ernest Viaene (1910, p. 1047) and contradicted by René Bourgeois, who suggested that it originally meant "lords" in relation to the subordinate Twa pygmies. René Bourgeois reported that among the Mongo people of the DRC, Bantu people who ruled the local Twa were called "Bahoto" or "Bawoto", terms cognate to the “Bahutu” of Rwanda and Burundi, and which meant “lords” in the local language (not serfs) because they governed over the Pygmies.
Origins
The Hutu are believed to have first emigrated to the Great Lake region from Central Africa in the great Bantu expansion. Various theories have emerged to explain the purported physical differences between them and their fellow Bantu-speaking neighbors, the Tutsi.
This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “Hutu” as ethnic group native to the Great Lakes region of Africa. Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.
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The subject matters to the general reference register because the source frames it as ethnic group native to the Great Lakes region of Africa. Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.
Named sources, stable identifiers and responsible institutions provide the strongest route from overview to verifiable evidence. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jul 31, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q192647. The first chronological checks are 2017, 1910 and 1047.
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This entry incorporates text from “Hutu” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.