diff --git a/meta/classes/base.bbclass b/meta/classes/base.bbclass
index 4f1e2dd788..4f57c3ff4d 100644
--- a/meta/classes/base.bbclass
+++ b/meta/classes/base.bbclass
@@ -1008,6 +1008,13 @@ def base_after_parse(d):
         depends = depends + " git-native:do_populate_staging"
         bb.data.setVarFlag('do_fetch', 'depends', depends, d)
 
+    # Mercurial packages should DEPEND on mercurial-native
+    srcuri = bb.data.getVar('SRC_URI', d, 1)
+    if "hg://" in srcuri:
+        depends = bb.data.getVarFlag('do_fetch', 'depends', d) or ""
+        depends = depends + " mercurial-native:do_populate_staging"
+        bb.data.setVarFlag('do_fetch', 'depends', depends, d)
+
     # OSC packages should DEPEND on osc-native
     srcuri = bb.data.getVar('SRC_URI', d, 1)
     if "osc://" in srcuri:
diff --git a/meta/classes/sanity.bbclass b/meta/classes/sanity.bbclass
index 5cf0677957..e11bdd2218 100644
--- a/meta/classes/sanity.bbclass
+++ b/meta/classes/sanity.bbclass
@@ -83,7 +83,7 @@ def check_sanity(e):
 	if not check_app_exists('${BUILD_PREFIX}g++', e.data):
 		missing = missing + "C++ Compiler (%sg++)," % data.getVar("BUILD_PREFIX", e.data, True)
 
-	required_utilities = "patch help2man diffstat texi2html makeinfo cvs svn bzip2 tar gzip gawk"
+	required_utilities = "patch help2man diffstat texi2html makeinfo cvs svn bzip2 tar gzip gawk hg"
 
 	# qemu-native needs gcc 3.x
 	if "qemu-native" not in assume_provided and "gcc3-native" in assume_provided:
diff --git a/meta/conf/bitbake.conf b/meta/conf/bitbake.conf
index 7f64b03aac..59aa2efea2 100644
--- a/meta/conf/bitbake.conf
+++ b/meta/conf/bitbake.conf
@@ -119,11 +119,15 @@ DATETIME = "${DATE}${TIME}"
 
 # python-native should be here but python relies on building 
 # its own in staging
+# mercurial-native is required to pull mercurial repositories (hg://...)
+# we don't have it yet in the recipies so let's assume it's provided by
+# the underlying OS
 ASSUME_PROVIDED = "\
     bzip2-native \
     cvs-native \
     grep-native \
     diffstat-native \
+    mercurial-native \
     patch-native \
     perl-native-runtime \
     python-native-runtime \