Editing Hutu (section)

== Origins ==

{{main|Origins of Hutu, Tutsi and Twa}}
 
The Hutu are believed to have first emigrated to the Great Lake region from [[Central Africa]] in the great [[Bantu expansion]].<ref name="Luis">{{Cite journal | doi = 10.1086/382286 | pmc = 1182266 | title = The Levant versus the Horn of Africa: Evidence for Bidirectional Corridors of Human Migrations | pmid = 14973781 | year = 2004 | last1 = Luis | first1 = J | last2 = Rowold | first2 = D | last3 = Regueiro | first3 = M | last4 = Caeiro | first4 = B | last5 = Cinnioglu | first5 = C | last6 = Roseman | first6 = C | last7 = Underhill | first7 = P | last8 = Cavallisforza | first8 = L | last9 = Herrera | first9 = R |display-authors=3 |journal = [[American Journal of Human Genetics]] | volume = 74 | issue = 3 | pages = 532–44 }}</ref> Various theories have emerged to explain the purported physical differences between them and their fellow [[Bantu languages|Bantu]]-speaking neighbors, the Tutsi. The Tutsi were pastoralists and are believed to have established aristocratic control over the sedentary Hutu and Twa. Through intermarriage with the Hutu, the Tutsi were gradually assimilated, culturally, linguistically, and racially.<ref>International Institute of African Languages and Cultures, Africa, Volume 76, (Oxford University Press., 2006), pg 135.</ref>

Others suggest that the two groups are related but not identical, and they also suggest that the differences between them were exacerbated by Europeans,<ref name="udayton">{{cite web |url=http://academic.udayton.edu/race/06hrights/GeoRegions/Africa/Rwanda01.htm |title=Sexual Violence and Genocide Against Tutsi Women |access-date = 2007-01-03 |editor-last=Vernellia R. |editor-first=Randall |date=2006-02-16 |publisher =[[University of Dayton]] }} excerpt from {{cite journal |last=Green |first=Llezlie L. |title=Gender Hate Propaganda and Sexual Violence in the Rwandan Genocide: An Argument for Intersectionality in International Law |journal=[[Columbia Human Rights Law Review]] |date=Summer 2002 |volume=33 |issue=733 |ssrn=2272193 |url=https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2272193}}</ref> or they were exacerbated by a gradual, natural split, as those who owned cattle became known as the Tutsi and those who did not own cattle became known as the Hutu.<ref name="HRW-1"/> [[Mahmood Mamdani]] states that the [[Belgian colonial empire|Belgian colonial power]] designated people as Tutsi or Hutu on the basis of cattle ownership, physical measurements and church records.<ref>{{cite book |first=Mahmood |last=Mamdani |date=2001 |title=When Victims Become Killers: Colonialism, Nativism, and the Genocide in Rwanda |publisher=Princeton University Press |isbn=0691102805 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=S2KYDwAAQBAJ&pg=PP1}}</ref>

The debate over the ethnic origins of the Hutu and Tutsi within Rwandan politics predates the [[Rwandan genocide]], and it continues to the present day,<ref>{{cite journal |last=Newbury |first=Catharine |title=Ethnicity and the Politics of History in Rwanda |journal=[[Africa Today]] |volume=45 |issue=1 |date=1998 |pages=7–24 |jstor=4187200}}</ref> with the government of Rwanda no longer using the distinction.