Dassanetch (people)

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Dassanetch in Ethiopia

The Dassanetch (also spelled Dhaasanac, Dassanach, Dassanech, Dasanach, Dasanetch ) are a pastoral people who live in southwest Ethiopia and northeast Kenya in the lowlands on the lower reaches of the Omo River and on the northern and northeastern shores of Lake Turkana . In Ethiopia, 48,067 people were registered as Dassanetch in the 2007 census, mostly in the woreda Kuraz in the region of the Southern Nations, Nationalities and Peoples ; in Kenya there are several thousand.

The neighboring peoples ( Nyangatom in the north, Hamar in the east, Turkana in the south and west) call the Dassanetch Geleb . In older sources the terms Merille and Reshiat also appear . Like their neighbors, the Dassanetch make a living from keeping cattle, in addition to growing sorghum, corn and beans and fishing. Local as well as imported products are sold in the markets. Tourism is also becoming increasingly important for the Dassanetch.

The Dassanetch language belongs to the Omo-Tana subgroup of the East Cushitic languages of the Afro-Asian language family .

The Dassanetch are divided into eight tribal divisions, some of which are of different origins and have joined the Dassanetch throughout history. These sections are further subdivided into clans, which in turn are subdivided into "houses" or "families". Often clans are spread over several sections. The Dassanetch identify themselves primarily through their affiliation at clan level. There are also two endogamous moieties and a system of age groups. Traditionally, the two lower incisors are removed.

The Dassanetch were first mentioned in writing - under the name Reshiat - in 1892 by the explorer Ludwig von Höhnel , who in 1888 with Sámuel Teleki was the first European to visit the area of ​​Lake Turkana. This was followed by further mentions in research reports around the turn of the century, which, however, dealt more with the geography than with the inhabitants of the area. At the time of the Italian occupation of Ethiopia , the Dassanetch found mention in some Italian ethnographic studies in the 1930s and 1940s.

literature

  • Uri Almagor: Pastoral Partners. Affinity and Bond Partnership among the Dassanetch of South-West Ethiopia. Manchester University Press, Manchester 1978, ISBN 0-7190-0685-6 .
  • Claudia J. Carr: Pastoralism in Crisis. The Dasanetch and their Ethiopian Lands. University of Chicago - Department of Geography, Chicago IL 1977, ISBN 0-89065-087-X ( University of Chicago, Department of geography - Research Paper 180).
  • Mauro Tosco: The Dhaasanac language. Grammar, texts, vocabulary of a Cushitic language of Ethiopia. R. Köppe, Cologne 2001, ISBN 3-89645-064-6 ( Cushitic language studies 17).

See also

Web links

Commons : Dassanetch  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Central Statistical Agency : Summary and Statistical Report of the 2007 Population and Housing Census Results ( Memento of March 5, 2009 in the Internet Archive ) (PDF; 4.7 MB), p. 84
  2. ↑ a b c Mauro Tosco: Đáasanač , in: Siegbert Uhlig (Ed.): Encyclopaedia Aethiopica , Volume 2, 2005, ISBN 978-3-447-05238-2
  3. ↑ Almagor 1978, p. 3f.