Plato on the Omo: reflections on decision-making among the Kara of southern Ethiopia

Abstract

The paper presents an ethnographic description of the institutions and processes of decision-making among the Kara of Southern Ethiopia, central among them the council of spokesmen called the borkotto bitti. Comparing these practices as well as the Kara's own discussions of them with equivalent practices of their cultural neighbours, the Hamar, reveals the extent and complexity of social imagination in the Lower Omo Valley. The philosopher Plato's treatise on the philosopher-kings of the utopian city (“Republic”) offers another foil for the ethnographic data in its dense discussion of the links between decision-making, personal virtue, status, accountability and the common weal, which mirrors the Kara's own reflections. The inevitable contradictions in the political system are accordingly treated not simply from an analytical perspective, but as an actors' problem.

Keywords:

• Ethiopia
• South Omo
• Kara
• Plato
• decision-making

Notes

1. Plato, Republic, 270

2. Lydall and Strecker, Baldambe, 125, 212

3. Kopytoff, African Frontier, 66

4. Here, I wilfully disregard the fragmentary reports of Plato's attempts to implement his idea of a state run by philosophers at Syracuse in Sicily (Rosen, Plato's Republic, 9; Waterfield, “Introduction,” xiv).

5. Plato, Republic, 222f.

6. As a confirmation of this hypothesis ex negativo, in several instances committee members were harangued for not fulfilling their duties, mostly as they were privileging one sub-group of Kara over another.

7. Compare Richards, “The Nature,” 9.

8. The borkotto bitti go unmentioned in the first study of the Kara (Gezahegn, “The Karo”).

9. Bailey, “Decisions by Consensus,” 20.

10. The totality of people calling themselves “Kara” comprises the ethnic majority, whom I call the “true Kara”, as well as in increasing ritual distance the Bogudo, the Gomba, and the Moguji as the four ethnic categories which are recognised as being “of the land”, as well as a number of immigrant Nyangatom-Kara. For each of these categories, different ritual rules apply. I am writing here primarily in reference to the “true Kara”, as the borkotto bitti are mostly “true Kara”.

11. See Strecker, “Political Discourse” and Strecker, “Do the Hamar Have a Concept of Honor?” on the Hamar donza.

12. These three principles were never espoused as such, but for each, I have heard people complain about the failure of one of the kabin to act accordingly, and I induced the “principle” accordingly.

13. See Strecker, Traditional Life, and Epple, “Ritual und Rollendifferenzierung,” 250, for the Hamar and Bashada zarsi respectively.

14. Strecker, Traditional Life, 59, and “Political Discourse.”

15. Richards, “The Nature,” 3.

16. Bailey, “Decisions by Consensus,” and Kuper, “Council Structure.”

17. Bloch, “Decision-Making,” 44f. Further references refer to the same argument.

18. Given how late the Omo Valley was explored by record-keeping travellers (see Girke, “Respect and Humiliation”), we have exceedingly little information about times as recent as the mid-nineteenth century. The Kara themselves are not particularly concerned with keeping a linear record of time, and even genealogical memory is rather shallow. Still, it is striking that in several historical narratives which I have recorded (for example, the destruction of the Garchi, see below as well as Girke, “The Ädamo”), borkotto bitti feature as the main actors, which of course might reflect current prejudices as much as historical fact, considering that other scholars (e.g., Bassi, pers. comm.) have recorded versions of this very story which emphasised an individual leader.

19. Plato, Republic, 134.

20. There are three separate borkotto bitti bodies, one for Labuk, and one each for the Nyuwaya and Nyiuwariya sections of Dus. I discuss these sections (ball’ in Kara, i.e. “dancing/meeting ground”) in Girke, “The Ädamo.”

21. See Strecker, “Hamer Speech.”

22. The “spear” refers to the ritual spear which is wielded by speakers during the osh, as they walk up and down the taasa and talk. Yihr-men, that is the spiritually most valued elders whose first son has already gotten married, no longer wield the spear while speaking. They are also denied participation in warfare, or even long-distance travel.

23. Bailey, Decision by Consensus; Kuper, “Council Structure,” 14.

24. Black, “Tyranny,” 614.

25. Bailey, Saving Lie.

26. The Kara both cherish displays of cleverness (paxalmamo) in internal arenas as well as highlight it as one of the diacritical features which sets them apart from (and above) their neighbours. See Girke, “The Ädamo.”

27. Kuper, “Council Structure,” 19.

28. In this regard it will be interesting to observe whether at some point in the future any of the young Kara men who have found employment with the administration will be called upon to join. Most of them certainly are acknowledged as clever and adept in their ways of dealing with the government, and in learning English and Amharic, but at the same time they seem to be trusted less to consistently act for the greater good of “the Kara”, i.e., there is some doubt as to their character and moral worthiness. Thus, inviting any of them to join the borkotto bitti must be a well-considered action.

29. Lydall, “Hamär Dialect.” See also Lydall, “Having Fun” and Tedlock, “Ideophone.”

30. In my PhD thesis (Girke, “The Ädamo”), drawing on earlier work by David Turton and others, I discuss how the polities of South Omo are caught in what I call the “Wheel of Autonomy.” This refers to a systemic relationship to their respective neighbours which requires them to constantly reassert their difference from others by visible exerting their agency if they want to retain their autonomy; the ultimate danger here is the dissolution of the polity. There are some striking instances around (for example the Gomba, Bogudo, Murle; see also Tornay, “Omo-Murle Enigma”).

31. As I develop further below, while the Hamar do not have borkotto bitti per se, YN's comparison or translation of Hamar and Kara institutions is highly suggestive.

32. See Girke, “Bondfriendship.”

33. Epple, “Ritual und Rollendifferenzierung,” 51; Strecker, Traditional Life, 60.

34. Kuntsale is the name of the dwarf papyrus, which sports long, slender stalks that stick out above the surrounding vegetation. This notion complements the image of the spokesmen as tall grass which towers over lesser vegetation, i.e., the zarsi-grass (Strecker, “Political Discourse”). Whereas today's Kara spokesmen get some opportunity for honing their oratory in the aforementioned kompteh, Strecker pointed out that for the Hamar it was their cattle camps which served as “a sort of school for public speaking” (Lydall and Strecker, Baldambe, 250). Kara men rarely spend much time in cattle camps, due both to the relative paucity of cattle as well as the proximity of pasture.

35. Lydall and Strecker, Baldambe, 125. The Hamar bitta is in many ways the equivalent of the Kara bitti. Lydall and Strecker give the etymology of bitta, the parallel Hamar office, as “the first”: the Hamar bitta was the first to enter the land and to call people from all the surrounding areas to become his subjects (ibid.).

36. Lydall and Strecker, Baldambe, 203; Strecker, “Political Discourse.”

37. When borkotto bitti speak for the Kara, this is usually not done in terms of their being borkotto bitti; instead, they are cast as “influential elders”. The whole borkotto bitti institution and its central role in Kara decision-making is kept away from outsiders’ attention, with tactics reminiscent of how the Dassanech protected their “bulls”, the leaders of the senior age-set and both political and spiritual guardians of the country, from the administration's prying eyes (Almagor, “Institutionalizing a Fringe Periphery,” 107). In the 1970s, the Dassanech had instead selected “leaders for the foreigners” (kansitch okumba, Almagor, “Year of the Emperor,” 1; similar to the Kara kabin of today), who could act as a cordon sanitaire between outsiders and the Bulls. Otherwise, they were especially tasked with estimating people's herd sizes for taxation, a duty so undesirable that the position of kansitch okumba became hereditary (Almagor, “Institutionalizing a Fringe Periphery,” 103f).

38. Strecker, “Political Discourse.”

39. Epple, “Ritual und Rollendifferenzierung,” 51.

40. The frequency and range of interaction is different and somewhat more restricted during the farming season from August/September to January/February, as people leave the permanent settlements and set up camp at their fields along the river.

41. Strecker, “Do the Hamar Have a Concept of Honor?” The subsequent quotes are from the same source.

42. Lydall and Strecker, Work Journal, 254f.

43. Kopytoff, African Frontier.

44. Leach, Political Systems, 197.

45. Cartledge points out many recent cross-fertilizations between the study of the classics and contemporary anthropology (Cartledge, “Greeks and Anthropology”).

46. Plato, Republic, 135.