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Banyarwanda
The Banyarwanda (Kinyarwanda: Abanyarwanda, plural; Umunyarwanda, singular) are a Bantu ethnolinguistic supraethnicity native to the northern African Great Lakes region, primarily the modern countries of Rwanda and Burundi. The Banyarwanda are also ethnic minorities in neighboring DR Congo, Uganda and Tanzania.
Although the ethnic make-up of Burundi is similar to that of Rwanda, Banyarwanda is a political neologism used solely in Rwanda since the 1990s in order to mitigate ethnic division within the country following the Rwandan Civil War and the 1994 Rwandan genocide.
In the 1930s the Belgian colonial authorities, who controlled both Congo, Rwanda and Burundi at the time, implemented programs to encourage large numbers of Banyarwanda to emigrate to the Belgian Congo from Rwanda and Burundi. The population of Banyarwanda has increased later by large numbers fleeing violence in those two countries especially in the 1960s and the 1990s.
An estimated 524,098 Banyarwanda live in Uganda, where they live in the west of the country; Umutara and Kitara are the centres of their pastoral and agricultural areas.
The Banyarwanda, through their language of Kinyarwanda, form a subgroup of the Bantu peoples, who inhabit a geographical area stretching east and southward from Central Africa across the African Great Lakes region down to Southern Africa.
Scholars from the Royal Museum of Central Africa in Tervuren, building on earlier work by Malcolm Guthrie, placed Kinyarwanda within the Great Lakes Bantu languages. This classification groups the Banyarwanda with nineteen other ethnic groups including the Barundi, Banyankore, Baganda and Bahunde.
The Banyarwanda are descended from a diverse group of people, who settled in the area through a series of migrations. The earliest known inhabitants of the African Great Lakes area were a sparse group of hunter gatherers, who lived in the late Stone Age. They were followed by a larger population of early Iron Age settlers, who produced dimpled pottery and iron tools. According to some theories these early inhabitants were the ancestors of the Twa, a group of aboriginal pygmy hunter-gatherers who remain in the area today. Between 700 BC and 1500 AD, a number of Bantu groups migrated into the territory, and began to clear forest land for agriculture.
Some state that the forest-dwelling Twa lost much of their habitat and moved to the slopes of mountains. Others argue the Twa came to exist as a group who were in a close client relationship with the farmer populations, and that perceived physical distinctions are not from separate Origins, but caused by the advantages of small stature in forest hunting leading to more opportunities to have children and to those of higher stature leaving the group. The removal of taller women from the marginalized class group may have also played a role.
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Banyarwanda
The Banyarwanda (Kinyarwanda: Abanyarwanda, plural; Umunyarwanda, singular) are a Bantu ethnolinguistic supraethnicity native to the northern African Great Lakes region, primarily the modern countries of Rwanda and Burundi. The Banyarwanda are also ethnic minorities in neighboring DR Congo, Uganda and Tanzania.
Although the ethnic make-up of Burundi is similar to that of Rwanda, Banyarwanda is a political neologism used solely in Rwanda since the 1990s in order to mitigate ethnic division within the country following the Rwandan Civil War and the 1994 Rwandan genocide.
In the 1930s the Belgian colonial authorities, who controlled both Congo, Rwanda and Burundi at the time, implemented programs to encourage large numbers of Banyarwanda to emigrate to the Belgian Congo from Rwanda and Burundi. The population of Banyarwanda has increased later by large numbers fleeing violence in those two countries especially in the 1960s and the 1990s.
An estimated 524,098 Banyarwanda live in Uganda, where they live in the west of the country; Umutara and Kitara are the centres of their pastoral and agricultural areas.
The Banyarwanda, through their language of Kinyarwanda, form a subgroup of the Bantu peoples, who inhabit a geographical area stretching east and southward from Central Africa across the African Great Lakes region down to Southern Africa.
Scholars from the Royal Museum of Central Africa in Tervuren, building on earlier work by Malcolm Guthrie, placed Kinyarwanda within the Great Lakes Bantu languages. This classification groups the Banyarwanda with nineteen other ethnic groups including the Barundi, Banyankore, Baganda and Bahunde.
The Banyarwanda are descended from a diverse group of people, who settled in the area through a series of migrations. The earliest known inhabitants of the African Great Lakes area were a sparse group of hunter gatherers, who lived in the late Stone Age. They were followed by a larger population of early Iron Age settlers, who produced dimpled pottery and iron tools. According to some theories these early inhabitants were the ancestors of the Twa, a group of aboriginal pygmy hunter-gatherers who remain in the area today. Between 700 BC and 1500 AD, a number of Bantu groups migrated into the territory, and began to clear forest land for agriculture.
Some state that the forest-dwelling Twa lost much of their habitat and moved to the slopes of mountains. Others argue the Twa came to exist as a group who were in a close client relationship with the farmer populations, and that perceived physical distinctions are not from separate Origins, but caused by the advantages of small stature in forest hunting leading to more opportunities to have children and to those of higher stature leaving the group. The removal of taller women from the marginalized class group may have also played a role.