Macha-Oromo

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The Macha (also Mecha , Matcha , Macca or Mäč̣č̣a ) are a subgroup of the Oromo in western Ethiopia . They live south of the Blue Nile (Abbai) in the north-western part of the Oromia region or in parts of the former provinces of Wellega , Illubabor , Kaffa and Shewa . A small number of them also live north of the Blue Nile in the Wambara area in the former southern Gojjam .

The area of ​​the Macha is a high plateau with undulating hills and some higher mountain massifs. Traditionally, the Macha hardly settle below 1500 meters, as there would be a risk of sleeping sickness and malaria .

history

The Macha arrived in the second half of the 16th century as part of the general expansion of the Oromo in the area south of the Blue Nile. The state structures that previously existed there had already been destroyed as a result of the wars between the Ethiopian Empire and the Sultanate of Adal under Ahmed Grañ and by campaigns and slave raids by Christian warlords and kings, and the resident population decimated. The Ethiopian monk Bahrey as the most important chronicler of the Oromo migrations names the Macha and the Tulama as subgroups of the Borana and mentions different clans and lineages of the Macha.

The establishment of the Macha in their present area seems to have taken place in smaller groups and not through larger segments, so that the same clan names are represented in numerous places in the area. The existing, well Omotic - and nilosaharanisch -sprachige population was subjected, as gabaro (also gabbaro or gabar , Oromo for "those who serve") refers to and gradually assimilated and added to the clan structures of Macha.

The Macha originally had a common gadaa system with the Tulama, whose center ( cheffe ) was south of today's Addis Ababa . Towards the end of the 16th century, however, the Macha established their own gadaa with cheffe in Odaa Bilii / Tute Bisil in the upper Gibe valley. A man named Makkoo Bilii proclaimed the independent gadaa of the macha there. In their traditions, Tulama and Macha blame each other for this break.

In 1963 the "Macha and Tulama Self-Help Association " ( Macha and Tulama Self-Help Association ) was founded primarily by Oromo, but also by members of other ethnic groups in southern Ethiopia. This initially dealt primarily with local issues and the promotion of local development, but soon began to campaign for political and cultural freedoms for all Oromo. As a result, it was banned in 1967. A successor organization was founded in 1994, which was again banned in 2004.

swell

  • Jan Hultin: Mäč̣č̣a and Mäč̣č̣a and Tulama , in: Siegbert Uhlig (Ed.): Encyclopaedia Aethiopica , Volume 3, 2008, ISBN 978-3447056076
  • Alessandro Triulzi: United and Divided. Boorana and Gabaro among the Macha Oromo in Western Ethiopia , in: Paul TW Baxter, Jan Hultin, Alessandro Triulzi: Being and Becoming Oromo. Historical and Anthropological Inquiries . Nordiska Afrikainstitutet, Uppsala 1996, ISBN 9789171063793 (pp. 251-264)