Bonuses (people)

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The Boni are an ethnic group in northern Kenya and southern Somalia that traditionally lived as hunters and gatherers , but today only partially maintains this way of life. They live in different groups in the hinterland of the coast between the Tana and Jubba rivers . Their language is one of the Cushitic languages and is most closely related to Somali .

Daniel Stiles estimated their number in 1981 at 1200 in Kenya and 1500-2000 in Somalia.

Designations

The bonuses in Kenya call themselves aweer , while the northern groups in Somalia call themselves Kilii . In Swahili they are referred to as (Wa) Bonuses , which they themselves are increasingly adopting. This designation could be derived from the Somali term boon for people of low status. It has therefore also been proposed to replace it with Aweer in the scientific literature , but this is controversial as not all subgroups use this self-designation.

General terms for “hunter-gatherers” such as (Wa) Sanye in Swahili and Waata in Oromo are also used for the bonuses, but they are unspecific and can also refer to the Dahalo and others.

language

The bonuses speak their own language, which is also called bonuses or aweers. Most of them also speak Swahili , Somali or Oromo . Boni belongs to the Omo-Tana subgroup of the East Cushitic languages . Within the Omo-Tana languages the bonuses belongs together with Somali and Rendille at that subgroup Bernd Heine as Sam languages referred. Together with Somali, it forms the eastern branch of the Sam languages.

Origin and history

From a linguistic point of view, there are two possibilities for the origin of the bonuses: They could have already lived in the dry forests near the coast before the immigration of Sam speakers and later adopted a Sam language through contacts with Sam shepherds at the edge of the forest. It is more likely, however, that it was part of the eastern Sam who moved to these forests and gave up ranching in favor of hunting and gathering. It may be that they had lost their cattle through drought, war or robbery, but also that they first came into the woods with cattle, but then lost it through animal diseases transmitted by tsetse flies .

Of the Kijee subgroup , most are said to have originally been Oromo , who joined the Boni after being defeated by Somali . Kijee is the name of the Oromo bonuses.

In the Gosha area on the lower Jubba River in Somalia, boni were probably the only permanent population until the mid-19th century, when former Somali slaves came, founded villages and practiced agriculture. Initially, these new settlers had to pay tribute to local bonuses, but soon they outnumbered them and were able to subdue them.

present

Today most of the bonuses in Kenya only partly live from hunting and collecting and supplement this with slash and burn farming, wage labor and (barter) trade. The expansion of settlements, roads, irrigation projects and other infrastructure in their area makes it difficult for them to maintain their way of life. In addition, hunting was banned for species protection reasons, which severely affects the bonuses, but could not prevent the activities of poachers (especially Somali). Part of their area is protected as the Boni National Reserve . The Kilii supplement their traditional livelihood mainly through cattle breeding.

In Somalia, bonuses have also been affected by the civil war since 1991 .

literature

  • Daniel Stiles: Hunters of the Northern East African Coast: Origins and Historical Processes , in: Africa: Journal of the International African Institute , Vol. 51, No. 4 (1981)
  • Bernd Heine: Language and Dialect Atlas of Kenya Vol. 10: Boni Dialects , 1982, ISBN 978-3-496-00523-0
  • Bernd Heine: The Sam Languages. A History of Rendille, Boni and Somali. In: Afroasiatic Linguistics 6 (2). 1-92, 1978.

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Catherine Besteman: Unraveling Somalia - Race, Violence, and the Legacy of Slavery , University of Pennsylvania Press 1999, ISBN 978-0-8122-1688-2
  2. ^ Daniel Stiles: Tribals and Trade: A Strategy for Cultural and Ecological Survival , in: Ambio , Vol. 23, No. 2 (March 1994)
  3. ^ Richard Heywood Daly, Richard B. Lee: Boni and Dahalo , in: The Cambridge Encyclopedia of Hunters and Gatherers , Cambridge University Press 1999, ISBN 978-0-521-57109-8