The Weyto, also referred to as Wäyto or Watta, have been one of the Konso tribe that migrated to the northern Ethiopia, through time they have castes among the Amhara people of Africa. Their endogamous strata has existed in the hierarchical Amhara society, one of the largest ethnic groups found in Ethiopia and neighboring regions. Their hereditary occupation was hunting and leather work. . The Weyto people are described in historical texts as a group of hippopotamushunters in Ethiopia around Lake Tana, Lake Zwai and Bahir Dar. Due to their diet on hippopotamus meat, the Weyto have been considered an outcast people and despised by Amhara and other ethnic groups. Enrico Cerullilinked them to two other outcast groups of Ethiopia with similar names and live primarily as hunters: the Watta or Manjo of the Gibe region and former Kingdom of Kaffa; and the Watta amongst the Borana people. Similar castes with hunting occupation live in other parts of the Horn of Africa, states Ephrem Tadesse, such as "the Watta among the Oromo, the Fuga or Mana among the Gurage, the Manjo among the Kaffa, the Kwegu among the Mursi/Bodi, the Hadicho among the Sidama, and the Mijan and Yibir among the Somali". The Weyto have been a small part of more elaborate Amhara caste system, ranked higher than slaves in its social stratification system. According to Donald N. Levine, an Ethiopian Studies specialist, the caste system depended on: endogamy; hierarchical status; restraints on commensality; pollution concepts; traditional occupation; inherited caste membership. Scholars accept that there has been a rigid, endogamous and occupationally closed social stratification among Amhara and other Afro-Asiatic-speaking Ethiopian ethnic groups. However, some label it as an economically closed, endogamous class system or as occupational minorities, whereas others such as the historian David Todd assert that this system can be unequivocally labelled as caste-based. The Weyto are reported to have once spoken a Weyto language, likely belonging to the Cushitic family. The language became extinct at some point in the 19th century. According to the 1994 national census, 1172 individuals were reported belonging to this ethnic group; it was not an ethnic choice in the 2007 census. The general term for hunter-gatherers in Ethiopia is Wayṭo/Woyṭo in Amharic, Watta in Oromo, Fuga in the Gurage, and Manjō in Kafa. At least one group is reported to have called themselves Addō or Addoyē, though that may be the Oromo word for 'potters', another minority caste. Despite being lumped under common terms for hunter-gatherer, the Amharic-speaking Wayṭo of Lake Tana are a distinct people from the Kafa-speaking Manjō of the Keffa Zone, as well as from other Wayṭo/Watta/Fuga groups elsewhere in Ethiopia.
