Guji-Oromo

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The Guji (seldom also written Gudji or Gu geschriebeni ) are a subgroup of the Oromo . They live predominantly in southern Ethiopia in the administrative zone Borena or in the newly established Guji zone in the Oromia region , a small part also lives in the area of Wondo Genet in the Sidama zone and in the Nechisar National Park in the region of the southern nations , Nationalities and peoples . The Guji population is around one million. Historically, they were also called Jam Jam or Jam Jamtu by neighboring peoples .

Way of life and culture

Social order

The Guji are a confederation of three groups - the Uraga, Mati and Hoku - who consider each other to be related by blood. Historically, these sub-groups each had their own areas and their own “age class leaders ” ( abba gada ) as political leaders. They act together in conflicts, help each other with economic difficulties and perform rituals together within the framework of the gada system. Cultural differences are small, people can move freely between the three groups and settle in another group's territory, and mixed marriages are common. All three groups are divided into the endogamous moieties Kontoma and Darimu. At the next lower level, the Uraga and Hoku are each divided into seven and the Mati into three exogamous clans.

The clans, in turn, are divided into a varying number of segments called mana ("house"), which comprise numerous patrilineal lineages . The individual families are patriarchal extended families. Marriages are usually concluded on the basis of personal choice and agreement between the families of the bride and groom. Polygyny , patrilocalism , sole inheritance to the firstborn, and marriage-in-law are common. Traditionally, the families lived scattered across the hills and formed "neighborhoods" ( ola ), but in the 1980s the Guji were forced to move into closed villages under the control of the Ethiopian government.

Traditionally, the Guji society was determined by the gada age class system . This system divides the life of the individual into stages, which ideally span eight years and between which the transitions are celebrated ceremonially. Each level is associated with certain activities, social roles, commands and prohibitions. The gada system has lost some of its former military, economic and legal functions. There are currently 13 gradations between childhood and age in the Guji.

Economy

The Guji inhabit different altitudes from mountain areas over 3000 meters to deep, hot grasslands. In the highlands they mainly grow barley and legumes, in the valleys maize and teff , and every household has a field with ensete if possible . Culturally, the Guji attach the greatest importance to cattle husbandry, and those who own a lot of cattle are highly respected, while those who do not own cattle are not considered to be real Guji. Sheep, goats and horses are also kept.

religion

In the traditional Guji religion, cattle are also important for sacrificial acts. The old religion of the Guji includes belief in a god ( Waqa ) and in the devil ( Durissa ). In shrines called woyyu there is prayer and sacrifice. Certain people are assigned special ritual powers, such as the Qallu as the religious leader in the gada system and the abba gada . These personalities are accordingly responsible for ritual and religious acts, including communicating with oracles, obsession, and prophecy. More recently, however, there have been changes due to modernization and the introduction of the major world religions, and since 1974 in particular, numerous Guji farmers have converted to Christianity (especially Protestantism) or Islam.

history

Empire, communism

The Guji consider their area to be the country of origin from where the Oromo expanded in the 16th and 17th centuries, and in fact this country of origin is likely to be in the Guji area or in the vicinity. Within the Oromo, the Guji are closest to the neighboring Borana and Arsi . These three subgroups speak a common dialect of the Oromo language called Borana-Arsi-Guji, and are also historically and culturally related.

The Guji of Wondo Genet have lived among the Sidama there for centuries and have assimilated them culturally. With the exception of the Sidama and the Gedeo , the Guji traditionally viewed all neighboring ethnic groups as enemies (Borana, Arsi, Burji , Konso, Wolaytta, Koyra, Gamo, Garre ), especially the Arsi and Borana. With the Sidama they were allied against the Arsi.

The Guji explained their hostile relations with the Arsi and Borana with a legend, according to which Boro , Arse and Gujo were three half-brothers whose mothers got into an argument. The three sons fought at their side together with other family members, resulting in deaths, and then the three mothers and their children returned to their fathers. The three groups characterized their relationship with the term Siddi Saddin , "three enemies against each other". In doing so, they viewed each other as akaku or “people of equal value ”, and killing them is the greatest honor ( mida or mirga ). This honor was connected with the right to butter the hair for two years, to sing certain songs and to take part in the "ceremony of those who killed an enemy of equal value" at the kuda festival. Killing an enemy from another ethnic group was not a great honor. For economic and political reasons, as well as the requirements of the gada system, there were repeated conflicts.

In 1896 the Guji area was conquered by Menelik II's troops and incorporated into Ethiopia. Contacts with neighboring ethnic groups, which had previously mostly been restricted to trade in peripheral areas, now also took place in markets and in cities, but entering each other's areas was still dangerous. Probably after the conquest, Guji increasingly moved westwards into the Rift Valley down into the area of ​​today's Nechisar National Park and as far as Arba Minch in order to evade the näftäñña system.

In the second half of the 20th century, Gedeo - whose own area is densely populated - came to the Guji area to settle as tenants. After the communist Derg regime came to power, the land reform of 1975 made land state property , for which Guji farmers and their Gedeo tenants received heritable rights of use. This weakened the position of the Guji and strengthened that of the immigrated Gedeo.

The Guji, who lived as ranchers in the area of ​​the Nechisar National Park established in 1974 , were forcibly evicted in 1982 because their presence and overgrazing by their herds of cattle was seen as a threat to the national park.

From 1986 the Guji were forcibly resettled in closed villages under the control of the Ethiopian government, a strategy used in large parts of the Oromo and Somali areas to combat rebel groups such as the Oromo Liberation Front . The forced relocations resulted in livestock losses, local overgrazing and deforestation, and the impoverishment of the Guji. At present, the Guji are trying to restore their tried and tested former way of life and to rebuild houses in their former places.

Since 1991

After 1991, the new EPRDF government made profound changes to the administrative structure of Ethiopia by introducing a federalism based on ethnicity . This redesign also changed the relationship between the Guji and their neighbors, with Guji and other Oromo moving closer together and distancing themselves from the non-Oromo. In 1992 there was a conflict between the hitherto allied Sidama and Guji over Wondo Genet over the question of whether the area should belong to the Oromo region of Oromia or the Sidama zone region of the southern nations, nationalities and peoples . The Sidama allied on the one hand with the Hadiyya , Kambaata and Wolaytta - whom they had fought before - and the Guji and Arsi on the other. When Wondo Genet was largely assigned to the SNNPR, Guji protested unsuccessfully with a petition to the government. Guji children in the Sidama Zone have been taught in schools on Sidama ever since . In 1998 there were conflicts with the Gedeo in connection with land rights.

The Oromo Liberation Front had already promoted a feeling of togetherness among all Oromo and ethnic nationalism, as did the Democratic Organization of the Oromo People, allied with the EPRDF , which govern Oromia. These efforts led to a reconciliation ceremony between Guji and Arsi, who vowed to treat each other as brothers from now on. The idea behind this was not least to be able to better assert common interests as Oromo, for example with regard to the language of instruction. When fighting between the Borana and Garre broke out in 2001, Arsi and Guji fought on the side of the Borana. Nonetheless, some of the Guji and Arsi who live deep in the Sidama territory have maintained their relationships with the Sidama, established by neighborhood, friendship, marriage, and kinship.

The Guji, displaced from Nechisar National Park, returned in the 1990s. From the mid-1990s onwards, the authorities planned to resettle the Guji from the park with the support of the EU. In addition to efforts to protect the park and use it for tourism, fears by the regional government of the SNNPR that the Oromia region could claim the park due to the presence of the Guji also played a role. In December 2004, park rangers and police burned down hundreds of Guji temporary houses.

swell

  1. ↑ a b c d e f g h i j k l m Tadesse Berisso: Changing Alliances of Guji-Oromo and their Neigbors: State Policies and Local Factors , in: Günther Schlee, Elizabeth Watson (ed.): Changing Identifications and Alliances in Northeast Africa: Ethiopia and Kenya , 2009, ISBN 978-1-84545-603-0 (pp. 191–199)
  2. ↑ a b c Paul TW Baxter: Guǧǧi , in: Siegbert Uhlig (Ed.): Encyclopaedia Aethiopica , Volume 2, 2005, ISBN 978-3-447-05238-2
  3. ^ Godana Getachew: Do People and Culture Matter in Conservation of Natural Resources? A Study of Impacts of Conservation Policies in Nach Sar National Park and Yayo Forest in Iluabba Bora Zone , Masters Thesis, Addis Ababa University, Department of Social Anthropology, 2007 (quoted in Abiyot Negera Biressu, 2009)
  4. ↑ a b Abiyot Negera Biressu: Resettlement and Local Livelihoods in Nechsar National Park, Southern Ethiopia , Thesis Submitted for the Degree: Master of Philosophy in Indigenous Studies Faculty of Social Science, University of Tromsø Norway, 2009 (PDF; 12.0 MB)

literature

  • John T. Hinnant: Guji of Ethiopia , Cross-Cultural Study of Ethnocentrism , 1972
  • Joseph Van de Loo: Guji Oromo Culture in Southern Ethiopia . Berlin: Reimer, 1991.
  • Tadesse Berisso: Modernist Dreams and Human Suffering: Villagization among the Guji-Oromo , in: Wendy James, Donald L. Donham, Eisei Kurimoto, Alessandro Triulzi (Eds.): Remapping Ethiopia: Socialism and After , ISBN 978-0-8214- 1448-4 , pp. 116-132.