Kunama (people)
The Kunama are an ethnic group in the highlands of southern Eritrea . With 107,000 members, they make up around 2.5% of the population of Eritrea (as of 2001). Their language, the Kunama , belongs to the Nilo-Saharan language .
They are of Nilotic origin, originally all followers of a traditional ethnic religion . You now live in a Muslim environment and are also the target of missionary attempts by the Catholic Church . About half of the Kunama still hold on to their natural beliefs, half have already adopted Islam, others Christianity.
The Kunama are organized matrilineally , so it is inherited from mother to daughter, not from father to son. Women enjoy more freedom and decision-making power than women from other ethnic groups. The Kunama are also the only group in Eritrea that does not know about female circumcision .
Due to the war, but also due to the settlement and resettlement policy of the Eritrean government, the Kunama are torn out of their previous settlement contexts and mixed more strongly with the other ethnic groups, which additionally endangers the preservation of their culture. Impoverishment would accelerate the loss of one's own culture and lower the status of women.