Kwama (people)
The Kwama , also called Gwama , Komo or Koma , live in the border area of Sudan , here in the state of An-Nil al-azraq (Blue Nile), and Ethiopia and here mainly in the woredas Mao and Komo Special Wereda.
Their language can be assigned to the Nilosaharan languages . Culturally and linguistically, they belong to the Komuz and Komo, to which the neighboring communities of Gumuz , Uduk , Koma and Opuuo also belong.
history
Although they traditionally settled a larger area, they were pushed back into the hinterland by the Oromo from the 18th century. Nowadays, however, there are still isolated villages in which Kwama, Oromo and Berta live together. Other peoples, especially the Oromo, often refer to the Kwama as Mao . People who live in southern Ethiopia and near the Sudanese border often call themselves Gwama and use the term Kwama for their compatriots who live in the north and far from the border.
Since the 1980s, the Kama and their neighbors have been drawn into the fighting between the independence-seeking peoples of South Sudan and the Sudanese central government. However, the settlement area of the Kama was not assigned to the national territory of South Sudan, which has been independent since July 2011. Negotiations about the future of the area are to follow.
In recent years, the Ethiopian state has relocated many people of this ethnic group so that they can get to schools and hospitals more easily.
Manners
The Kwama live mainly from growing grain. New fields are exposed by slash and burn . Their main food is sorghum , from which they brew beer (depending on the dialect shwe or shul , nationally called Merisa in Sudan ) and make millet gruel ( pwash or fash ). They also go hunting, fishing and collecting honey. The sorghum beer is drunk in the group, provided it has been clarified, from a large pot using straws.
The sisters of the other family are married ( cross-cousin marriage ), but this tradition is in decline. The Kwama are organized into clans , which in turn are divided into subclans. Kwama only marry exogamously outside of their own clan. Polygyny is common. Ritual experts ( sidimumun or isbish ) predict the future or carry out healings in Swal Kwama huts ("House of the Kwama").
bibliography
- FD Corfield: The Koma. In: Sudan Notes and Records 21, 1938, ISSN 0375-2984 , pp. 123-165.
- VL Grottanelli: Burial among the Koma of Western Abyssinia. In: Primitive Man 20, 1947, 4, ISSN 0887-3925 , pp. 71-84.
- Joachim Theis: After the raid. Ethnography and history of the coma . Trickster, Munich 1995, ISBN 3-923804-52-0 , ( Sudanesische Marginalien 3), (Simultaneously: Berlin, Freie Univ., Diss., 1991: Destruction and restoration of a people, history and ethnography of the coma (Gokwom) in Sudan -Ethiopian border area ).