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The indigenous people within the Kasai River Basin up to Maniema understood themselves to be descendants of "AnKutshu Membele", then in the 20th century many accepted the colonially imposed category and term Tetela (or Batetela in the plural). "Batetela" is now understood as an ethnic group of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, most of whom speak the Tetela language.
This term "Batetela" was either a corruption or mistranslation off the mid- to late 19th-century term known as "Watetera" which was used to describe the people from this region which Arab slave traders termed "Utotera".
The place Utotera was located in present-day "Maniema" within today's eastern DR Congo, consisting of bilingual populations who today can be identified as "Songye" or "Luba" and "Kusu".
According to Emil Torday a "tetela speaking" group bearing the Luba title "Sungu" claimed the name "Batetela" was given to them by the Arabs.
The chief of the Watetera was a Luba or Songye man named Kasongo Lushie and his Watetera were a collective of people from his ethnicity, which included subjects then referred to as "Wakussu", who in historical archives can be identified today as "Songye", or "Luba" and "Tetela"(Kusu).
The "Wakussu" from the Barua (baluba lands) lands in Maniema were sometimes collectively referred to as "Manyema" if not "Watetera".
The Luba, Songye and bilingual, Kitetela speakers from the 1870s Barua lands (Baluba Lands)in Maniema had a custom of wearing parrot feathers. When the Arab slave traders witnessed this they began to refer to them as "Kusu" (Wakussu) people which is a corruption of the word "Kasuku", which means parrot.
The term Kusu had since developed to the point, of removing the original, Songye or Luba populations off "Watetera" , except the "Kitetela" speakers off maniema who today maintain the name "Kusu".
In 1910, the Methodist Episcopal Church South established a church mission in Wembo-Nyama identifying their work with the "Otetela" people. Daniel and Edith Mumpower began to record and document the Otetela language starting in 1914.
Indigenous people off Maniema to Sankuru who reported themselves as descendants of AnKutshu or AnKutshu-membele (not to be confused with "Kusu") had indirectly and directly accepted the new reported and imposed label "Tetela" as an ethnic label in the early 20th century, which began to apply to all across the northern kasai basin up to Maniema irrespective of their original family names.
In the late 19th century a group of Watetera people bearing the Luba title "Sungu" had placed themselves within the southern areas in today's sankuru district where the term Batetela was used first to describe the "Sungu" but then later imposed on the indigenous forest populations and others who initially understood themselves to be descendants of AnKutshu or AnKutshu membele.
According to Emil Torday the term "Batetela was not in general use", which supports the term "Batetela" being a 20th-century application, unknown to the majority of the populations who later accepted this term as an ethnic category
Today the name "Batetela" is now accepted as the name for people living in the region between Lusambo and the Upper Congo River, in the provinces of Sankuru District and Maniema. They live by hunter-gatherer, fishing, farming, and raising cassava, , and . They are understood to be related to the then "Wakussu" people who remained in Maniema only separating from them in the late 1800s after the arrival of Arabs and Belgians in the region. Many understood as "Tetela" and some of today's Kusu are subgroups of the larger Mongo people group.Kisangani and Bobb 501 The Kusu people are concentrated between Kibombo and Lubao. In the mid to late 19th century they were under the rulership of the Kilembwe rulers and chief Kasongo Lushie where some came under the influence of Arab traders while the "Sungu" and other bilingual populations ventured inland towards the eastern section within the Kasai basin. At this period of time the term "Wakussu" was used to describe these bilingual populations, which included people who spoke a language known as "Binji" (A Songye language).
Some of these "Wakussu" groups were understood to be arabised, speaking Swahili and had adopted Islam. For example, a group of "Binji" speakers later referred to as "Zappo Zap" were reported to have been arabised. A notable person thought to have been from the Wakussu collective was Slave raider known as "Ngongo Lutete" who was also reported to have been arabised.
The late 19th century ethnic identifier for many of these arabised groups were "filled teeth" which was initially reported as a custom for "cannibals". Only later it was understood as a general custom not necessarily associated with cannibalism.
Belgian authorities in the early twenty century categorised "Kusu" as a people within today's Kivu Province and the term "Tetela" applying to any "Kitetela" speaking people in the Northern Kasai Province. According to Emil Torday he was told the name Motetela comes from a god named Motetela, meaning either "he who laughs not" or "he at whom one may not laugh", though this name was not known by the majority populations within the early 20th century and during this same period American missionaries discovered the original term to describe a Supreme deity in "Kitetela" was referred to as "Djungumanga". According to Emile Torday The people bearing the Luba title "Sungu" arrived in today's sankuru district with term "Winya" to describe god and not "motetela". From the early 20th century the term Winya to describe god evolved to Unya Shungu as the name for god, which allegedly meant father of heavens.Torday 372–373
Tetela have a large and colorful set of proverbs that are used for a wide variety of purposes, from rebuking to encouraging, usually by adults.Ndjeka Elizabeth Mukanga, Epenge Albert Tshefu, Ambaye Albertinre Tshefu. 2020. Great Collection of Tetela Proverbs on the African Wisdom. Pittsburgh: Dorrance Publishing.
During the period immediately following independence, Patrice Lumumba, a Tetela, was a prominent politician and the first Prime Minister of the Democratic Republic of the Congo before his assassination in 1961. Researcher Ludo De Witte suggested that the geographic fragmentation of the Batetela throughout multiple Congolese provinces and their socio-economic dependence on the country as a whole was an important factor in the anti-tribalism and nationalism of figures such as Lumumba.
In 1975, many Batetela were from the military.
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