Anuak

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Anuak man

The Anyuak (own name Anywaa or Añwaa , other spellings: Anyua , Anywak , Anwak , Anuak ) are a Nilotic people who are native to southeast Sudan and the Gambela region in western Ethiopia .

Missionaries estimated their number to be 26,000 in Ethiopia in 1991 and 52,000 in Sudan; in 2003, according to Encyclopaedia Aethiopica , their total number was 100,000 to 200,000. In the 2007 census of Ethiopia, 89,051 people were registered as Anyuak.

Way of life and culture

The Anyuak live along rivers and farm. Their main crops are corn, sorghum, tobacco, pumpkin and cowpeas . They also make a living from fishing, cattle breeding and hunting, but hunting has lost its importance due to the decline in wild animal populations. Traditionally, the villages, which have several hundred inhabitants, are the largest political unit. They are headed by a village chief ( kwaaro ) or "nobleman" ( ñieya ); in Ethiopia, these hereditary titles and other Anyuak traditions were abolished after 1974 under the communist Derg regime. The Anyuak language is called Anyua and belongs to the group of Luo languages within the western branch of the Nilotic languages .

history

According to tradition, the Anyuak came to their present-day area from the southwest and are of the same origin as the Shilluk people living in South Sudan . There have been conflicts with the neighboring Nuer for a long time .

Up until the abolition of slavery in Ethiopia, Anyuak were captured as slaves by highland Ethiopians. Anyuak also sold slaves themselves in the highlands in exchange for firearms.

In Gambela, whose affiliation with Ethiopia goes back to the end of the 19th century and which was increasingly integrated into Ethiopia from 1956, the Anyuak made up the majority of the population until the 1980s. This changed when the communist Derg government settled tens of thousands of people from other parts of the country in Gambela as a result of the drought and famine in the Ethiopian highlands and Nuer fled there from the civil war in South Sudan . In 2007 the Anyuak made up 21.16% of the population of Gambela. The Derg regime also preferred the Nuer to the Anyuak.

After the derg was overthrown in 1991, the Anyuak resistance movement Gambella People's Liberation Movement (GPLM) became a partner of the new ruling coalition EPRDF in Gambela. Within the GPLM there were conflicts between Anyuak subgroups. In 1998, the EPRDF ordered the merger with a Nuer party to form the Gambella People's Democratic Front (GPDF). The Gambella People's Democratic Congress , the Anyuak opposition party , was weakened by the arrest of its leaders before the 2000 elections. In 2003 the EPRDF dissolved the GPDF and formed the Gambella Peoples' Democratic Movement as a coalition of three newly founded, ethnically defined parties for the Nuer, Anyuak and Majangir .

The conflicts between the Anyuak, Nuer and "highlands" are also violent. Anyuak militias have attacked "highlanders" civilians on various occasions. On December 13, 2003, “highlanders” and Ethiopian soldiers killed over 400 Anyuak in the city of Gambela .

See also

literature

  • Conradin Perner : The Anyuak: Living on Earth in the Sky. An analytic account of the history and culture of a Nilotic people. holistic monograph, summary of the research results in 8 volumes, Helbing & Lichtenhahn Verlag, Basel 1994–1996 ( Vol. I - The Sphere of Spirituality ISBN 3-7190-1330-8 , Vol. II - The Human Territory ISBN 3-7190-1507 -6 ) and Schwabe-Verlag, Basel, 2003–2016 ( Vol. III - The Human Being ISBN 3-7965-1272-0 , Vol. IV - A personal Life ISBN 978-3-7965-2227-7 , Vol. V - The Anyuak Village - Center of Civilization (on Social Structures and Justice) ISBN 978-3-7965-3211-5 , Vol.VI - The Political Body: Power and Authority ISBN 978-3-7965-3402-7 , Vol VII - Spheres of Action, Anyuak Art ISBN 978-3-7965-3465-2 , Vol. VIII - Anyuak Histories. With a Bibliography ISBN 978-3-7965-3552-9 ).
  • Conradin Perner: Anyuak Religion. In: Journal of Religion in Africa. Vol. II, Leeds, 1992.
  • Conradin Perner: Anyuak - A Luo Language of the Southern Sudan: Dictionary and short Grammar. Human Relations Area Files Inc., Yale, 1990.
  • Edward E. Evans-Pritchard : The Political System of the Anuak of the Anglo-Egyptian Sudan. ( Monographs on Social Anthropology 4). Lund, Humphries & Co., London 1940. (Reprinted by AMS Press, New York NY 1977, ISBN 0-404-12041-5 ).
  • Dereje Feyissa: The Ethnic Self and the National Other. Anywaa Identity Politics in Reference to the Ethiopian State System. In: Bahru Zewde (Ed.): Society, State and Identity in African History. Forum for Social Studies et al., Addis Ababa 2008, ISBN 978-99944-50-25-1 , pp. 123-153.
  • Douglas H. Johnson: On the Nilotic Frontier. Imperial Ethiopia in the southern Sudan, 1898–1936. In: Donald Donham, Wendy James (eds.): The Southern marches of imperial Ethiopia. Essays in history and social anthropology. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge et al. 1986, ISBN 0-521-32237-5 , pp. 219-245 ( African studies series 51).
  • Godfrey Lienhardt : The Situation of the Death. An Aspect of Anuak Philosophy. In: Anthropological Quarterly. Vol. 35, No. 2, 1962, ISSN  0003-5491 , pp. 74-85.

Web links

Commons : Anuak people  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Monika Sommer: Traditional Instruments of Conflict Resolution and Mediation among the People of Gambella, Ethiopia. In: Wolbert CG Smidt: Discussing conflict in Ethiopia. Conflict Management and Resolution: Proceedings of the Conference "Ethiopian and German Contributions to Conflict Management and Resolution", Addis Ababa, 11 to 12 November 2005. African Studies 32, 2007, ISBN 978-3-8258-9795-6 , p. 32 .
  2. ↑ a b c David H. Shinn, Thomas P. Ofcansky, Chris Prouty: Anuak People and Language. In: Historical dictionary of Ethiopia. New Edition, 2004, ISBN 0-8108-4910-0 .
  3. ↑ a b Mechthild Reh: Añwaa language and Eisei Kurimoto: Añwaa ethnography. In: Encyclopaedia Aethiopica. Volume 1, 2003, ISBN 3-447-04746-1 .
  4. ↑ a b Central Statistical Agency : Summary and Statistical Report of the 2007 Population and Housing Census Results (PDF), (pp. 73, 83)
  5. ↑ Profile of the Anyuak on Gurtong.org (English)
  6. ^ A b John Young: Along Ethiopia's Western Frontier: Gambella and Benishangul in Transition. In: The Journal of Modern African Studies. Vol. 37/2, June 1999, pp. 321-346.
  7. ^ Medhane Tadesse: Gambella: The impact of local conflict on regional security. Institute for Security Studies, Tshwane (Pretoria) (pp. 9–19)
  8. ^ A b Human Rights Watch: Targeting the Anuak: Human Rights Violations and Crimes against Humanity in Ethiopia's Gambella Region. 2005.