Primary identities in the lower Omo valley: migration, cataclysm, conflict and amalgamation, 1750–1910

Abstract

This article applies the notion of primary identity to explore the emergence of ethnic identities in the southern-most tract of the lower Omo valley. Current identities here are the result of two correlated patterns of movement that have occurred over the past 150 years: migration to the valley by organised pastoralists and scattered groups, and a general movement down the river and into the Omo delta, where the ecological niche generated by the regular flooding of the Omo River provided a rich variety of livelihood alternatives. The major migrations reported here were connected to great population movements that occurred in East Africa from the nineteenth century, often provoked by cataclysmic events: thus, Daasanach recall the occurrence of large floods, Nyangatom stress the destructive impact of the Ethiopian conquest, while Kwegu and Kara were hit by sleeping sickness epidemics. These cataclysms led to the disappearance of some of the primary groups whose existence and prosperity were recorded by earlier explorers, and to processes of assimilation. The historical reconstruction presented here shows that the notion of primary groups needs to be linked to an understanding of “clusters” of peoples, gathered in localities characterised by high interaction and co-presence of different primary groups. It will be argued that these “clusters” were the crucial nodes for the elaboration of culture and identity.

Keywords:

• Ethiopia
• oral history
• ethnicity
• Omo
• cataclysm

Notes

1. Tornay, “Omo Murle Enigma”; Turton, “Movement, Warfare and Ethnicity.”

2. Adams and Anderson, “Irrigation,” 528; Anderson, Eroding the Commons.

3. Waller, “Ecology, Migration,” 348–9.

4. This research was undertaken as part of the AHRC-funded “Landscape, people and parks: environmental change in the lower Omo valley, southwestern Ethiopia” research project no. A/H E 510590/1, based at the African Studies Centre, University of Oxford. I am indebted to David Anderson and David Turton for their valuable advice. Interviews are here quoted with reference to the internal research coding system (designated MB, followed by the number of the interview).

5. Waller, “Ecology, Migration,” 349.

6. Waller, “Ecology, Migration,”, 350.

7. Turton, “Meaning of Place,” 267; Turton, “Movement, Warfare and Ethnicity,” 151, 159, 165.

8. Turton, “Meaning of Place,” 275. For an overall picture of identity through movement in the lower Omo, see Turton, “Movement, Warfare and Ethnicity.”

9. Turton, “Mursi Political Identity,” 19.

10. Bassi, “Community Conserved Areas”; Bassi and Tache, “Borana Conserved Landscape”; Bassi, “Politics of Space.”

11. Barth, “Introduction.”

12. Turton, “Movement, Warfare and Ethnicity,” 164.

13. In 1993, SNV-Ethiopia facilitated a large inter-ethnic peace-making ceremony in Arbore, documented by Ivo Strecker and Alula Pankhurst in the film Bury the Spear! Several international actors, government bodies and NGOs have subsequently promoted peace initiatives based on inter-ethnic committees of elders. These initiatives continue to play the important role of building shared understanding about rights to natural resources and rules.

14. The Randal and Koro sections are likely to be the result of the late assimilation of destitute Rendille and Samburu after the natural disasters of the 1880s and 1890s: Sobania, “Peoples of Lake Turkana,” 66–70, 72, 113–14, 202–3, 206; Almagor, Pastoral Partners, 14–18.

15. MB27; MB40; MB 43. Sobania also reported this story: “Peoples of Lake Turkana,” 58, 73–4.

16. Almagor, Pastoral Partners, 19–21; MB27; MB43.

17. Lotikori Yerakal, a known and respected elder in Daasanach, helped me to gather this group of Elelle elders, including an oral historian.

18. Aneesa Kassam critics to the work of Gunther Schlee show that the Gabra are a composite group of heterogeneous origin (Kassam, “Gabra Ethnohistorical Origins”).

19. Tornay, Les Fusils jaunes, 100, 108; MB34. See also MB39. The Nyangatom clearly differentiate between the “Marille” (Marle) and the Ngi-Marile (Daasanach) (MB29).

20. MB46.

21. Gil-Romera et al., “Long-term Resilience.”

22. She had never met a Borana and was not aware of Borana living in southern Ethiopia, although she knew of Gabra living to the east of the Daasanach.

23. MB43.

24. Lamphear, “Origin and Expansion of the Turkana,” 31, 36; Lamphear, Traditional History, 194; Lamphear, “Ateker ‘New Model,’ ” 67–8, 71. Sobania is very cautious about the identification of these Oromo speaking communities, but nevertheless refers to a process of partial assimilation of Borana by Samburu: Sobania, “Peoples of Lake Turkana,” 73–4, 76–7, 84–5, 89–90. Some early seventeenth-century sources written in Ge'ez indicate that by the end of the sixteenth century “Borana” had already emerged as a specific primary identity among the Oromo-speaking communities of southern Ethiopia: Beckingham and Huntingford, Records of Ethiopia; Lusini, “Storia dell'Etiopia”; Tubiana, “Un ethnographe Éthiopien.”

25. MB43 and MB46.

26. Strecker, “Traditional Life,” 17. This tradition is also reported in Petros, The Karo, iv, 5–7. The same tradition is shared by the Bashada, a group closely related to the Kara (Epple, “Culture Contact”).

27. Waller, “Ecology, Migration,” 347.

28. Lamphear, “Ateker ‘New Model’”; Tornay, Les Fusils jaunes, 80–2.

29. MB46.

30. Sobania, “Peoples of Lake Turkana,” 72–3.

31. MB40.

32. MB27; MB40.This reconstruction was provided as a preamble to the story of adoption of the sick Borana man.

33. Tornay, Les Fusils jaunes, 109; MB39.

34. MB39.

35. Tornay, Les Fusils jaunes, 82–3.

36. Tornay, Les Fusils jaunes, 90.

37. Tornay, Les Fusils jaunes, 108–9.

38. MB32.

39. Tornay, Les Fusils jaunes, 100.

40. MB32.

41. Tornay, “Omo Murle Enigma,” 129.

42. Tornay, Les Fusils jaunes. This plug, made of a section of horn, is different from the terracotta discs still used by the Mursi.

43. Tornay, Les Fusils jaunes. This plug, made of a section of horn, is different from the terracotta discs still used by the Mursi.; Tornay, “Murle.”

44. Tornay, “Omo Murle Enigma”; Tornay, “Murle.”

45. Hieda, “Omo-Murle,” found only a few elders capable to use words of the old languag

46. 1MB30.

47. Turton, “The Kwegu and the Mursi.”

48. Matsuda, “Koegu and their Neighbours.”

49. Hieda, “Koegu.”

50. MB30. But southern Kwegu provide contradictory statements concerning their ability to cultivate at earlier times.

51. The review of Dardano's cartography of Bottego's exploration seems to indicate that the course of the Omo and the spot of confluence may have slightly altered since 1896.

52. MB36.

53. Matsuda, “Koegu and their Neighbours.” See also Girke, “The Ädamo,” ch 4.

54. MB36; MB29.

55. David Turton suggests that the Mui river, a western tributary of the Omo, is important in Kwegu identity (personal communication, 2009). This fits with recent statements of the central Kwegu (Lewis and Woodburn, “Final Narrative,” 7). In 1896, Bottego identified an autonomous community of Bachaa (“Kwegu” in Mursi and Bodi language) between the Bodi and the Mursi, in a tract of the Omo corresponding to the confluence of the Mui and Omo Rivers.

56. Girke, “The Ädamo,” 109–10 and following pages. See also Petros, The Karo, 5.

57. Donaldson Smith, “Somaliland (Conclusion),” 228; Cavendish, “Through Somaliland”, 385; von Höhnel, Discovery, 168. The “Marle” misspell in this last source is corrected into “Murle” in von Höhnel, “Subsequent Exploration Part 1,” 26; de Léontieff, “Explorations,” 114. Jean Lydall, personal communication, Oct. 2009.

58. Sobania, “Peoples of Lake Turkana,” 52–4.

59. Megerssa, “Oromo World View”; Megerssa and Kassam, “Rounds of Time.”

60. For the timing of these cataclysmic events, see Bassi and Tache, “Oromo Eschatology.”

61. MB41; MB6; MB7.

62. Butzer, Level of Lake Rudolf, ch. 3.

63. Carr, Pastoralism in Crisis, 271; Butzer, Level of Lake Rudolf, 140–3.

64. Butzer, Level of Lake Rudolf, 143.

65. von Höhnel, Discovery, 166–200. By the time of du Bourg de Bozas’ exploration in 1902, the Daasanach appeared to have fully recovered, despite the negative impact of Ethiopian military campaigns (Tornay, “Omo Murle Enigma,” 129–32).

66. Vannutelli and Citerni, L'Omo, 355, 362. Cavendish, “Through Somaliland,” crossing the area a few months later, reports “Darsonich.”

67. Von Höhnel, Discovery, 163. The “Reshiat” did not allow them to travel west of the Omo River.

68. The course of the river might have slightly altered here.

69. MB46.

70. MB34.

71. MB30; MB32; MB39.

72. MB30. Baldambe reported that Murle owned cattle before the Ethiopian conquest, pastured at Kizo, Omalle, Wolait, Dunka, Irbangode, Karawa and Aiba (Jean Lydall, personal communication, Oct. 2009).

73. The place was still under cultivation by the Ngarich in 2009, on the eastern bank of the Omo River.

74. MB32; MB39.

75. MB39.

76. MB39.

77. Tornay, Les Fusils jaunes, 112–23; Tornay, “Omo Murle Enigma,” 136.

78. MB32; MB34; MB39.

79. MB21; MB22; MB23.

80. The other peoples of lower Omo generally disregard the claims of ancient Murle to pastoralism. But Murle elders have mentioned engagement of the Ngi-murtuny in hunting by trap as a complementary activity (MB30).

81. Detail based on the ‘‘Map of an Expedition to Lake Rudolf, 1894_95,’’ by Dr. A. Donaldson Smith, Sheet I, inserted in The Geographical Journal 8, no. 2 (1896), John Wiley and Sons.

82. MB46.

83. MB30; MB32; MB39.

84. Turton, “Movement, Warfare and Ethnicity.”

85. MB32.

86. MB23.

87. Vannutelli and Citerni, L'Omo, 362 and “Itinerarari della seconda Spedizione Bóttego (1895–1897) costruiti secondo i rilievi e le osservazioni della Spedizione,” Tav. 4^a

88. The Turkana use the same term to indicate the 1918 “Turkana Patrol,” the British-led military campaign that reduced the Turkana to destitution with a permanent impact on their society: Tornay, “Le Triangle Ilémi”; Lamphear, “Turkana Leadership,” 240–1.

89. MB32.

90. Bulatovich, Ethiopia.

91. de Léontieff, “Explorations.”

92. Turton, “Exploration,” 5 and following pages.

93. Smith, “Somaliland (Conclusion),” 228. Cavendish, “Through Somaliland,” 384. Tornay rightly suggests that 10,000 is an exaggeration.

94. Tornay, “Omo Murle Enigma,” 129–31. In December 1899, Donaldson Smith, “Lake Rudolf,” 607, found only a few huts on the western side of Omo River.

95. MB34.

96. Kassa, “Hamar-Bako Awraja,”, ch 1. de Léontieff, Provinces Équatoriales, 35–6, 72.

97. Tornay, “Omo Murle Enigma,” 130–2, 139. The area where De Bozas found the mixed “Puma” community correspond to that earlier identified by Bottego.

98. MB22. Bhiibhii's reform and his leadership were independently confirmed by a second Kara elder, MB21, and the practice of intermarriage between the Murle and the Ngi-murtuny during the time of sleeping sickness was independently confirmed by a Nyangatom elder in Kibish, MB39.

99. MB34. His name is sometimes pronounced “Bheebhee.”

100. Tornay, “Omo Murle Enigma,” 133. An elder of the Kara/Gomba claimed that the Kara died in the epidemic after the Mullaya crossed to the western bank.

101. Tornay, “Omo Murle Enigma,”, 132.

102. MB30; MB34; MB39. Mention of this last move by the Ngi-murtuni is compatible with a Mursi tradition mentioning that the Mursi clan called Changuli came from the south (David Turton, personal communication, March 2010).

103. MB3.

104. Billoreau, “Mission de Bozas”; Tornay, “Itinéraire de Bozas.” I am grateful for the kind collaboration offered by Serge Tornay and Stéphane Kraxner (archivist of the Institut Pasteur) in accessing the documentation of Du Bourg de Bozas’ expedition.

105. MB24; MB21.

106. MB22. Elders of Kara/Gomba independently confirmed that the Mursi were displaced by the Kara, see MB24.

107. MB23.

108. Maurette, Mission De Bozas, 300.

109. Maurette, Mission De Bozas, 292, 296–300; Tornay, “Omo Murle Enigma”, 130–3.

110. MB46.

111. Almagor, Pastoral Partners, 19–21.

112. MB30.

113. This story was also recorded by Sobania.

114. MB40. Butzer, Level of Lake Rudolf, 123, 136.

115. Strecker, “Traditional Life,” 19; Petros, The Karo, ch. 1; Girke, “The Ädamo,” 88 ff.

116. Girke, “The Ädamo,” 63–4. Girke suggests this internal war is mentioned by Neumann, who was in Dus at the beginning of 1896: Girke, personal communication, Feb. 2010; Neumann, East Equatorial, 328.

117. MB21; MB22; MB23; MB24.

118. MB24.

119. MB12.

120. MB24.

121. Waller, “Ecology, Migration,” 363–4, describes the relationship between pastoralists and niche cultivators as “symbiotic.”

122. The Nyangatom/Ngarich still today allocate land to the Nyangatom by specifically demarcating it within the inundated area.

123. Turton, “Movement, Warfare and Ethnicity,” 162.

124. Waller, “Ecology, Migration,” 366.

125. Reference to the introduction of bride wealth seems to indicate that the Nyangatom were the element of union between communities that were previously competing.

126. Turton, “Movement, Warfare and Ethnicity,” 161.

127. Turton, “Movement, Warfare and Ethnicity,” 161.

128. Waller, “Ecology, Migration,” 367.

129. MB20. Nyangatom have recently sought permission to re-open it.