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Rutara people
Total population
14,606,000[1][2]
Regions with significant populations
Uganda, Tanzania, the DRC and Rwanda
Languages
Rutara languages
Religion
Belief in Ruhanga
Related ethnic groups
other Great Lakes Bantu people

The Rutara peoples (endonym: Banyakitara, Abanyakitara) are a group of closely related Bantu ethnic groups native to the African Great Lakes region. They speak mutually intelligible dialects and include groups such as the Banyoro, Banyankore and Bahaya.

History

Proto-Rutara people originated in the Kagera Region of Tanzania near Bukoba in the year 700AD. They then expanded northwestwards spreading Rutara language and culture into western Uganda and eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, regions that would one day become Bunyoro, Mboga, Nkore, Mpororo, etc. This movement of ideas and practices is likely to have marked the inception of the eras of the Batembuzi and Bacwezi, a period only dimly and fabulously remembered in the later oral traditions, but one in which the key political ideas and economic structures of the later kingdoms first began to be put into effect. [3][4][5][6]

Notes

  1. ^ "People Group profiles, lists, resources and maps | Joshua Project".
  2. ^ https://www.peoplegroups.org/Default.aspx
  3. ^ Stephens, Rhiannon (2 September 2013). A History of African Motherhood: The Case of Uganda, 700-1900. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 9781107030800.
  4. ^ Elfasi, M.; Hrbek, Ivan (January 1988). Africa from the Seventh to the Eleventh Century. UNESCO. ISBN 9789231017094.
  5. ^ Wrigley, Christopher (16 May 2002). Kingship and State: The Buganda Dynasty. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 9780521894357.
  6. ^ Schoenbrun, David L. (1993). "Cattle herds and banana gardens: The historical geography of the western Great Lakes region,ca AD 800?1500". The African Archaeological Review. 11–11: 39–72. doi:10.1007/BF01118142. S2CID 161913402.
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