Hutu

Describes works produced by the African people of the same name living mainly in Burundi and Rwanda, but also in Uganda, Tanzania, and Democratic Republic of Congo. The Hutu came into the Great Lakes region around 1000 to 500 BCE. Among the resident Twa pygmy peoples, they established an agrarian society based on the family unit. They were gradually dominated by a feudal system headed by the aristocracy of the nomadic Tutsi people in the 14th or 15th century. The Tutsi monarchy in Rwanda was overthrown 1959-1961. The European colonial period created tensions between the two groups that remain problematic.