An Archaeology

of Resistance

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 ARCHAEOLOGY IN SOCIETY SERIES

Series Editors
Ian Hodder, Stanford University, ihodder@stanford.edu
Robert W. Preucel, Brown University, Robert_Preucel@brown.edu
Rowman & Littlefield Senior Editor: Leanne Silverman, lsilverman@rowman.com

In recent decades, archaeology has expanded beyond a narrow focus on economics and
environmental adaptation to address issues of ideology, power, and meaning. These trends,
sometimes termed “postprocessual,” deal with both the interpretation of the past and the
complex and politically charged interrelationships of past and present. Today, archaeology
is responding to and incorporating aspects of the debates on identity, meaning, and politics
currently being explored in varying fields: social anthropology, sociology, geography, his-
tory, linguistics, and psychology. There is a growing realization that ancient studies and
material culture can be aligned within the contemporary construction of identities under the
rubrics of nationalism, ethnoscapes, and globalization. This international series will help
connect the contemporary practice of archaeology with these trends in research and, in the
process, demonstrate the relevance of archaeology to related fields and society in general.

Books in this series:

An Archaeology of Resistance: Materiality and Time in an African Borderland, by Alfredo

González-Ruibal

Archaeology beyond Postmodernity: A Science of the Social, by Andrew M. Martin

(2013)

UNESCO, Cultural Heritage, and Outstanding Universal Value: Value-based Analyses

of the World Heritage and Intangible Cultural Heritage Conventions, by Sophia Labadi
(2013)

The Dark Abyss of Time, by Laurent Oliver (2011)

In Defense of Things, by Bjørnar Olsen (2010)

Dwelling, Identity, and the Maya: Relational Archaeology at Chunchucmil, by Scott

Hutson (2009)

The Social Construction of Communities: Agency, Structure, and Identity in the

Prehispanic Southwest, edited by Mark D. Varien and James M. Potter (2008)

Archaeology and the Postcolonial Critique, edited by Matthew Liebmann and Uzma Z.
Rizvi (2008)

Collaboration in Archaeological Practice: Engaging Descendant Communities, edited

by Chip Colwell-Chanthaphonh and T. J. Ferguson (2007)

Appropriated Pasts: Indigenous Peoples and the Colonial Culture of Archaeology, by

Ian J. McNiven and Lynette Russell (2005)

Archaeology of Performance: Theatre, Power, and Community, edited by Takeshi

Inomata and Lawrence S. Coben (2005)

Book 1.indb ii 2/25/14 6:21 AM

 An Archaeology
of Resistance
Materiality and Time
in an African Borderland

Alfredo González-Ruibal

ROWMAN & LITTLEFIELD

Lanham • Boulder • New York • Toronto • Plymouth, UK

Book 1.indb iii 2/25/14 6:21 AM

 Published by Rowman & Littlefield
4501 Forbes Boulevard, Suite 200, Lanham, Maryland 20706
www.rowman.com

10 Thornbury Road, Plymouth PL6 7PP, United Kingdom

Copyright © 2014 by Rowman & Littlefield

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any
electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems,
without written permission from the publisher, except by a reviewer who may quote
passages in a review.

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Information Available

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

González-Ruibal, Alfredo, author.

Archaeology of resistance : materiality and time in an African borderland / Alfredo
González-Ruibal.
pages cm
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-1-4422-3090-3 (cloth) — ISBN 978-1-4422-3091-0 (electronic) 1. Indigenous
peoples—Ethiopia—Politics and government. 2. Government, Resistance to—Ethiopia.
3. Borderlands—Africa, East. 4. Gumuz (African people) 5. Berta (African people) 6.
Ethnoarchaeology—Africa, East. I. Title.
DT380.G66 2014
963.3—dc23 2013042558
™ The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of American
National Standard for Information Sciences—Permanence of Paper for Printed Library
Materials, ANSI/NISO Z39.48-1992.

Printed in the United States of America

Book 1.indb iv 2/25/14 6:21 AM

 To Falqui and Xurxo

To Ana, always

Book 1.indb v 2/25/14 6:21 AM

 “They have neither priests, nor rulers, all men being looked upon as
equals.”
—Henry Salt, 1816

“Generation of free men, they hardly feel the restrains of a chief and al-
most always live independently.”
—Pellegrino Matteucci, 1877

“The negro finds himself in conditions of true liberty and not—like many
people who consider themselves civilized—under the yoke of a disguised
slavery . . . he is tyrannized by no-one.”
—Juan Maria Schuver, 1883

“It is, therefore, improbable that any attempt to group villages under para-
mount chiefs would meet with any measure of success. The chiefs as a
whole are of little consequence.”
—Anonymous British administrator, 1927

“They lack a true political organization, living voluntarily in absolutely

democratic groups.”
—Conti Rossini, 1928

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 Contents

Acknowledgments ix
Introduction xiii
Outline of the Book xv

1 Time and Materiality 1

1.1 Archaeological Ethnographies
1.2 Archaeologies of Resistance
1.3 The Archaeology of Borderlands
1.4 Time
1.5 Materiality

2 Ecology of a Shatter Zone 45

2.1 Landscapes
2.2 States
2.3 Deep Rurals and Peasants
2.4 Bandits, Missionaries, and Travelers

3 Direct Action against the State: The Gumuz 91

3.1 Resisting the State North of the Blue Nile
3.2 The Enemy’s Point of View: Origin Myths, Things, and
Knowledge
3.3 Making a Community of Equals: Technology, Consumption,
Exchange

vii

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 viii Contents

3.4 Bodies of Resistance

3.5 A Sense of Danger

4 Between Domination and Resistance: The Bertha 173

4.1 Memories
4.2 A Fractured Identity
4.3 Double Belief: Between Paganism and Islam
4.4 Double Materiality
4.5 Double Performance

5 Of Mimicry and Mao 241

5.1 The Making of a Subaltern People
5.2 Invisibility and Hybridity
5.3 The Gender of Resistance
5.4 A Space for Resistance
5.5 Remembering the Forest
Epilogue 325
References 335
Index 363
About the Author 381

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 Acknowledgments

My first thanks go to Víctor M. Fernández, without whom I would have

never gone to Ethiopia in the first place. I remember fondly our many con-
versations on theory, politics, and literature on our long trips through the
country. This book has a great intellectual debt to Víctor and particularly to
his seminal article on resistance in the region (Fernández, 2003).
In my struggles with the material culture of the borderland, I have never
been alone. I have to mention first my friends Álvaro Falquina (Falqui) and
Xurxo Ayán, who accompanied me all these years and to whom this book
is dedicated. My work benefited from the invaluable collaboration of Dawït
Tibebu, Geremew Yenesew, Derïb Worku, Yonathan Sahle, and Tesfaye
Tekalïñ, who took the project as their own and in many ways made it more
interesting. I would also like to thank Geremew Feyissa, who came with us
to the field during the earlier part of this project and ended up doing his own
Ph.D. dissertation on the Gumuz, and Wolde Darsema, who survived the first
2009 trip with extraordinary good humor and patience. We left many friends
in Asosa: Melkamu and Tesfaye Oli participated in the fieldwork at different
points; Melesse Bigeretu, a great professional at the Culture Bureau of Asosa;
and Markos, who died shortly before the completion of this book. Our drivers
deserve a very special mention. To define them as drivers would be a crass
understatement though, as they have been translators, assistants, language
teachers, and friends: Agajï Derïbew, Abebe Yaläw, Melkamu Mengistu,
and, in our final field season, Tesfaye Mäkkonen.
The Authority for the Research and Conservation of Cultural Heritage
provided authorizations for fieldwork and support in a fast and efficient way.
The same can be said of the regional ministries and bureaus of culture in the

ix

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 x Acknowledgments

regional states of Benishangul-Gumuz, Gambela, and Oromia. For uncon-

ventional research like this one, which required permits for unconventionally
large areas of survey, the flexibility and generosity of these institutions has
been fundamental for the development of the investigation. Thanks are also
due to the chairs of the many weredas (municipalities) who kindly attended
to our requests (providing permits, guides, and information) and the many
local officers who helped us in the field. Other people in Ethiopia offered
advice and support in different occasions: Tekle Hagos, Temesgen Burka,
and Tesemma Ta’a, from Addis Ababa University, Andreas Neudorf (SIL),
Christoff Hermann, and Father Juan González Núñez. Other members of the
research project directed by Víctor M. Fernández shared their insights or col-
laborated in the fieldwork: Alfonso Fraquas, Carmen Ortiz, Salomé Zurinaga,
Cristina Charro, Luis Luque, and Ignacio de la Torre. Ignacio has offered help
in different ways ever since we worked together in Benishangul in 2002. On
my own project, I had the luck of collaborating with other enthusiastic col-
leagues: Carlos Marín, Manuel Sánchez-Elipe, Teresa Sagardoy, and Carlos
Nieto made up the team of the 2010 archaeological season in Gambela and
Dembi Dollo. Marisa Ruiz-Gálvez gave us a hand documenting pots and
houses during her holidays. She has also been an important source of intel-
lectual inspiration in my research since my undergraduate years.
In fact, this book would have been very different without the influence of
many people. From Almudena Hernando, I have learned more, and in more
ways, than it can be acknowledged here. Between 2005 and 2008, our con-
versations in the forests of Maranhão (Brazil), while doing ethnoarchaeology
among the Awá, forced me to rethink many things. I owe to her many of the
ideas developed here on time, change, and psychoanalysis—and the opportu-
nity to work with one of the last groups of hunter-gatherers of South America.
Ana Rodríguez-Mayorgas, my wife, introduced me to the world of oral his-
tory and cultural memory, providing crucial references and ideas, all of which
decisively changed the orientation of this book (and made it far more interest-
ing). This book is dedicated to her (who has never visited Ethiopia), too. My
parents have also been a source of constant support throughout these years
in many different ways (although they preferred that I continued working on
the Spanish Iron Age). Michael Shanks, Bjørnar Olsen, Tim Webmoor, and
Chris Witmore opened a new world for me while I was a postdoctoral fellow
at Stanford University; the following pages are proof of their inspiration in
all things material. I am also very grateful to Alexander Meckelburg, Worku
Derara, and Álvaro Falquina for reading an earlier draft of the manuscript and
offering very helpful comments and criticisms. Thanks are also due to two
reviewers of the proposal that gave suggestions for improving the volume.

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 Acknowledgments xi

Needless to say, the greatest debt is with all those people of Ethiopia with
whom I worked for ten years. The main informants are all quoted in the notes.
However, it would be difficult to mention the hundreds of people that opened
their houses to us and gave us permission to make maps of activity areas, take
photographs of baskets and gourds, and draw their pots. What could have
been a rather awkward situation often ended up being a festive moment, full
of laughs and jokes. I thank them for their patience, their generosity, and for
everything that they have taught me. With all its flaws and shortcomings, this
book intends to be, above all, a homage to them.

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Book 1.indb xii 2/25/14 6:21 AM
 Introduction

This book revolves around one question: What are the strategies and circum-
stances that have allowed a group of egalitarian societies to survive in one of
the earliest areas of state formation in Africa? The question of how minority
groups resist the state is certainly not new: for the last three decades at least,
it has been asked by anthropologists, sociologists, and historians. It has also
been asked by some of the ethnographers who have worked in the Sudanese-
Ethiopian borderland, which is the area covered in this book (James, 1979;
Jedrej, 1995). However, there are three differences at least that are worth
pointing out. First, this is a book about living peoples that is written by an
archaeologist. This implies a particular way of looking (Shanks, 2012). Sec-
ond, if archaeology is the science of things from the past, an archaeological
approach to living peoples should necessarily focus on materiality and time.
These, in fact, are two relevant topics to explore notions of resistance. My
point is that many non-state communities that resist the state in its margins
do so because they do not want to change. In order to arrest change, they find
a valuable ally in material culture. Things make history slow and stabilize
relations (Lucas, 2012: 201–3; Olsen, 2010: 139–41). Third, while most his-
torical and ethnographic research on resistance has examined either a single
group or a large area where different communities seem to have developed a
similar mode of resistance (e.g., Scott, 2009), this book examines how differ-
ent groups display different attitudes of resistance. A student of the region has
noted that the “cultures of resistance” of the Sudanese-Ethiopian borderland
“can vary enormously, even with the relatively small area of a single region”
(Jedrej, 1995: 114). However, a systematic comparison of those “cultures of
resistance” has never been attempted.

xiii

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 xiv Introduction

This book is about the present but also about the past. During the last few
decades, ethnographers have been increasingly concerned with incorporat-
ing history into their narratives. It is my contention, however, that the way
ethnographers have made sense of history is still often couched in unilinear
perspectives, and that an archaeological approach, with its focus on material-
ity and the multiple temporalities of things, can provide a useful critique of
historicist ethnographies. I believe that archaeologists can help understand the
present in a different way (González-Ruibal, 2006a; Harrison, 2011). In part,
this is because they do not exactly work with the past, but with what is left of
the past in the present (Olivier, 2008; Shanks, 2012)—traces and fragments.
This book is archaeology because it deals with what is left from the past in
the present: pots and spears, houses and granaries, words, landscapes, origin
myths, technological knowledge, and bodily gestures. These are fragments of
a very ancient history at times, which survive today, sometimes transformed
into weapons of resistance, tools for keeping certain political values and a
sense of community under the pressures of the state, more powerful groups, or
globalization. Traces have to be understood as residues as well, in psychoana-
lytic terms—a sort of pollution, a traumatic remnant from the past that haunts
the living. Walter Benjamin (1994: 505) called for a history made with the
detritus or rags of history. Archaeology may well be the name of that history.
Archaeology, then, can become both a complement to purely ethnographic
perspectives on contemporary societies and an alternative to unilinear his-
torical accounts. The idea, however, is not to alienate archaeology from an-
thropology—or history, for that matter. Quite the opposite: a hundred years
ago, archaeology and anthropology were not too different in the way they
examined society, in their enthusiasm for things, and in their concern for the
long term. Thus, the idea is also to reclaim, through archaeology, what was
valuable in culture-historical and diffusionist anthropology. While this work
intends to be archaeology in a very explicit way, it is also so in a Foucaldian
sense. An archaeology of resistance has to be necessarily a genealogy of
modes of countering inequality and their conditions of possibility.
Finally, this book is also a reaction against the emphasis on discourse that
has long characterized the humanities and social sciences. More specifically,
my dissatisfaction is with the equation between the right to narrate and politi-
cal emancipation. Many of the peoples I have worked with do not have a well-
articulated discourse like a W. E. B. Du Bois or an Aimée Césaire, but that
does not mean that they do not deploy very powerful, and often successful,
forms of resistance. Non-verbal forms of resistance are not necessarily ephem-
eral or intangible: false compliance, feigned ignorance, foot-dragging, and the
like. (Scott, 1990: xiii). The forms of resistance that I will explore here are as
deeply inscribed and enduring as the texts studied by postcolonial scholars
and as independent from discourse as the actions described by anthropologists.

Book 1.indb xiv 2/25/14 6:21 AM

 Outline of the Book

This book is divided into five chapters. The first chapter deals with theo-
retical issues related to time and materiality. This includes a reflection on
the relationship between archaeology and ethnography, which is necessary
to locate the present work; the ways in which archaeology has approached
resistance and contributed—or not—to understand this phenomenon more
widely; and a review of archaeological and anthropological perspectives on
borderlands. Time and materiality define archaeology at large, but they are
particularly important in an archaeology of the present that intends to be of
consequence beyond its disciplinary boundaries. Regarding time: first, the
concepts of history are revised that prevail in anthropology and postcolonial
historiography. I argue that historians and anthropologists have fallen into
modernist tropes, which prevent us from fully understanding the temporality
of nonmodern communities. My point is that, contrary to the ideas of change
and connection that prevail in the language of the social sciences, concepts
of isolation and stasis are fundamental to better grasp the particular tempo-
ralities (and spatialities) of many nonmodern and marginal peoples. These
temporalities are inextricably related to things, as materialized memories that
abolish time.
This leads me to the next issue: materiality. I propose an approach to ma-
teriality that is based on three related foundations: French anthropology of
technology, a symmetrical perspective, and psychoanalysis. The first stresses
the necessity to look at structural relations between different kinds of arti-
facts, techniques, and bodily gestures, instead of looking at them in isolation,
as it has often been the case. It also emphasizes the relevance of the techni-
cal choice, which is also a political decision. The second approach adds an
ontological emphasis that insists on the mutual constitution of people and

xv

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 xvi Outline of the Book

things and their radical inseparability. The third perspective, psychoanalysis,

stresses the unconscious nature of material culture. A psychoanalytic per-
spective is needed to counterbalance the excess of confidence in purposeful
human agency of the last three decades.
The second chapter delves into the cultural history of the Sudanese-
Ethiopian borderland as a shatter zone: a murky area of contact between state
and non-state peoples. I will address the long-term ecology of the frontier.
The narrative will take into account hunters, kings, bandits, and peasants, but
also forests, rocks, and rain. I will present, thus, some of the main historical
actors that have shaped, and still shape, this wide area and that will appear
throughout the book, including its social formations. The Sudanese-Ethiopian
borderland has been inhabited for millennia by a bewildering array of soci-
eties, both state and stateless. I propose a typology of state and para-statal
organizations that tries to make sense of the variability of ranked polities that
can be found in northeast Africa, from their origins in the early second mil-
lennium BC to the present. What interests me most is the nature of power in
these polities and their behavior with regard to the borderlands, which can be
more or less benign or predatory. Those who have suffered from the consoli-
dation of ranked polities are two kinds of subaltern peoples: those who live
within the state and those who live on its margins. I use the widely accepted
label “peasants” to describe the first group. For those who live on the periph-
ery of the state, I resort to the notion of “deep rurals” that was first used in the
region by anthropologist Charles Jedrej (1995). Their egalitarian ethics are
similar to those of peasants, but they have managed to avoid full incorpora-
tion into the state. Deep rurals are my main concern: all the peoples studied
in the third part of the book can be considered as such. Sparsely populated
borderlands are also an ideal place for outcasts, holymen, adventurers, and
criminals. Local populations, either peasant or deep rural, often protect them,
sometimes absorb them, and, more frequently, suffer their abuses.
Chapters 3 to 5 examine in some detail three cases of resistance in the
Sudanese-Ethiopian borderland through three strategies that are exemplified
by as many ethnic groups: Gumuz, Bertha, and Mao. The Gumuz offer a case
of open resistance along the state line. They (or their forebears) are among
the first egalitarian groups to have suffered from the emergence of stratified
and expansive polities. Although they have retreated from the more exposed
areas, which have been conquered by the state, the Gumuz have mostly stood
firm in their ancestral land and have often reacted with violence to attempts to
drive them off, raid them, or subject them. This has led to an obsession with
boundary maintenance, which is played out in rituals, beliefs, and material
culture. With a long history of slavery and abuses, traumatic memories (and
their materialization in artifacts and landscape) are an inherent part of being

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 Outline of the Book xvii

Gumuz and today shape their reactions to new threats—including multina-

tionals and development projects.
The situation of the Bertha is quite different. For the last three hundred
years, they have acted both as dominators and dominated, and the same strat-
egy that may be deemed of domination in one context can become a form of
resistance in another. This ambiguity is obvious in the case of Islam, which
has been used to legitimate their depredations on their “pagan” neighbors, but
has also been used as a weapon of resistance against the state. Islam, how-
ever, has at the same time created a rift within the Bertha themselves. The
split consciousness that characterizes them is not a state of mind alone: it is
impossible to understand without paying attention to material culture and the
way in which it articulates different temporalities and modes of being.
The Mao are a society (or rather societies) made up of a mishmash of eth-
nic communities that have in common an experience of subalternity. Their
history is one of gradual marginalization. Today, they do not react to external
hegemony with open confrontation, but with subtle strategies that involve
bodily gestures, dress, and the use of space, among other things. I would
argue that mimicry, in the sense proposed by Homi Bhabha, is a good way
of describing the attitudes of resistance among the Mao. There is, however,
a wide spectrum of practices, depending on the group of Mao considered,
from those that have been incorporated into the hegemonic regime, to those
that resist more strongly in the margins. If the Gumuz are one and the Ber-
tha two, it could be argued that the Mao are multiple. For the Mao, material
objects—such as houses and spears—are a way of relating to core values in
their culture, which revolves around notions of an epic past, the forest, and
the wild, in stark opposition to the peasant world of their conquerors.
The last section of the book is an epilogue (or an epitaph). It deals with the
last communities that have dodged the grasp of the state until very recently:
the Koman groups (Komo, Gwama, and Opuuo) that have chosen to live in
voluntary isolation in the remotest lowlands. As opposed to the other three
cases, I have been able to witness here the sudden incorporation of the last
“wild” people into the nation-state.

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Book 1.indb xviii 2/25/14 6:21 AM
 1
Time and Materiality

1.1. ARCHAEOLOGICAL ETHNOGRAPHIES

Describing contemporary societies is widely considered to be the preserve

of ethnography, but the present work is avowedly not this kind of research.
When I say this, I do it with the utmost respect toward ethnography, but with
no regret. In recent years, ethnography has become the method par excellence
in the social sciences, and it has achieved an enormous aura of respectability.
Everybody wants to do ethnography: historians, psychologists, sociologists,
archaeologists, and, perhaps significantly, capitalist companies (Arnould and
Wallendorf, 1994). It is in this context that the term “archaeological ethnog-
raphy” has become widespread. Its meaning, however, is far from straight-
forward. I would suggest that it is possible to identify at least four types of
archaeological ethnography, each with its own advantages and shortcomings.
The first model of archaeological ethnography was provided by ethnoar-
chaeology. This consists in work carried out by archaeologists, usually with
nonmodern communities, with archaeological questions in mind, an archaeo-
logical methodology, and analogical purposes (e.g., Binford, 1978; Hodder,
1982; Lane, 2006; Politis, 2007; Roux, 2007; Watson, 1979). Ethnoarchae-
ology intends to take into account all those material aspects that have been
usually neglected by ethnographers, such as technology, the management of
waste, landscape, the abandonment of settlements, the construction and orga-
nization of domestic space, and the biography of ordinary things (see David
and Kramer, 2001). The ultimate aim of these studies is to provide analogies
that allow interpretation of the archaeological record, to propose and test
middle-range theories (Raab and Goodyear, 1984; Schmidt, 2010; Wylie,
1985), and to understand the transformation of systemic—or living—contexts

Book 1.indb 1 2/25/14 6:21 AM

 2 Chapter 1

into archaeological ones (Schiffer, 1972). While the nomothetic, positivistic

basis that characterized New Archaeology and thence ethnoarchaeology has
receded in the last few years (but see Gallay, 2011; Roux, 2007), archaeo-
logical ethnography as practiced by ethnoarchaeologists is still not interested
in studying living peoples per se, or not as a primary goal, but as providers
of archaeological lessons that can be applied to other contexts, preferably
prehistoric. The problems inherent in analogical reasoning, from an episte-
mological point of view, have been hotly debated (David and Kramer, 2001:
43–54; Wylie, 1985), but the ethical problems have been the object of less
controversy (but see Gosden, 1999: 9). It seems obvious that studying other
people for their potential to deliver analogies is not the most postcolonial
thing that comes to mind and that the ethnoarchaeological procedure itself
is a good example of the denial of coevalness in its crudest way (González-
Ruibal, 2006a, 2009).
In this book, no analogies are sought or proposed. I am not interested in
the people I study as purveyors of archaeological information, but in them-
selves, their culture, and their history, and in wider anthropological issues
of resistance, power, materiality, and temporality. This does not mean that
one cannot tap the case studies for archaeological comparisons, but, after all,
archaeologists do that all the time with anthropological and historical works,
without these being ethnoarchaeology for that reason or the work of compari-
son itself ethnoarchaeological. Although I find the archaeological ethnogra-
phy of ethnoarchaeologists problematic, this does not mean that it does not
have anything to offer beyond analogy-seeking prehistorians. Some of the
classical work of ethnoarchaeologists (and some new work as well) was able
to deal with the rich materiality of nonmodern societies in original ways (Bin-
ford, 1991; Horne, 1994; Politis, 2007; Watson, 1979). In the case of Lewis
Binford, he showed the possibility of linking together data from interviews,
participant observation, and material evidence gathered using archaeological
methods. This work, on the other hand, has also been influenced by post-
processual ethnoarchaeology as espoused by Ian Hodder (1987), which has
been little practiced in general (but see Lane, 1994, 1996). As opposed to the
expedient studies and short stays of processual ethnoarchaeologists, Hodder
insisted on the need of taking contextual history and culture seriously and do-
ing long-term studies. His comparative approach to large geographical areas
shared by different groups has also been influential on my research (Hodder,
1982; also Lemonnier, 1986, 1992).
A second kind of archaeological ethnography that has developed during
the last decade or so is a self-reflective practice with two variants. It can be
an attempt to bring to the foreground what was traditionally perceived as
the (picturesque) background of any research: local communities, alterna-

Book 1.indb 2 2/25/14 6:21 AM

 Time and Materiality 3

tive discourses, and practices (Castañeda and Matthews, 2008; Hamilakis

and Anagnostopoulos, 2009). According to Hamilakis and Anagnostopoulos
(2009: 67), archaeological ethnography is “a highly contested and thus fertile
cross-disciplinary as well as transcultural, politically loaded space; a space
for multiple conversations, engagements, interventions, and critiques, centred
on materiality and temporality. This space encourages the downplaying of
the distinction between past and present, and between diverse publics and
researchers of equally diverse backgrounds.” A second subtype is an ethno-
graphic study of archaeological work—rescue archaeology in an American
metropolis or an excavation in the Maya lowlands, for example (Edgeworth,
2006). This streak of archaeological ethnography shows the way in which
archaeological knowledge is also constituted through its practices, tools, and
sociotechnical interactions.
If ethnoarchaeology was triggered by scientifist concerns and was not much
worried by the local context, this second type of archaeological ethnography
is just the opposite: it is critical with scientific aloofness and characterized
by self-reflection and public engagement (Hamilakis and Anagnostopoulos,
2009; Meskell, 2005). While I find this kind of archaeological ethnography a
badly needed check on archaeology’s disengagement with local stakeholders,
I find two issues that deserve some criticism: in the first place, some of this
work is far too centered on narratives (narratives about the past, about monu-
ments, about rights), rather than on materiality and material practices (but see
Hamilakis, 2011). The weight is too much on ethnography and too little on
archaeology. Secondly, as in other self-critical practices of postmodern and
postcolonial archaeology and anthropology, there is a risk of navel-gazing
(a discourse on discourse) and granting too much relevance to archaeology
and heritage in people’s lives. In any case, this book is not archaeological
ethnography for the mentioned reasons, but because it does not attempt to
scrutinize the relationship between the people I study and local and foreign
concepts and practices of heritage. However, I would like to conserve what I
find most necessary and appealing of this endeavor: its critical, postcolonial
concern for the subaltern and the attention it pays to forgotten or repressed
cultural practices.
A third kind of work that sometimes goes by the label of archaeological
ethnography is a strategy pursued by post-processual archaeologists to come
with fuller and richer accounts of the past and “to plunge deeply into people’s
lives” (Sinclair, 2000: 475). This latter quest has deeply marked archaeol-
ogy since the 1970s (Deetz, 1977; Hodder, 1986) and is behind a variety of
archaeological accounts of the past with the word “ethnography” in the title
or subtitle (Tilley, 1996; Verhoeven, 1999). In my opinion, however, post-
processual archaeologists have not been looking for thick descriptions in the

Book 1.indb 3 2/25/14 6:21 AM

 4 Chapter 1

right place. Whereas archaeologists tend to associate thick description with

ethnography and more particularly with the work of Clifford Geertz, the truth
is that historians of the Annales School were producing richly textured narra-
tives—and of the past!—well before Geertz came up with the term. Michael
Shanks is the only archaeologist I am aware of who has explicitly associ-
ated thick description with the Annales School rather than with symbolic
anthropology (Pearson and Shanks, 2001: 60). Furthermore, unlike Geertz,
the Annales historians were keen on material culture, perhaps not in an ar-
chaeological way, but they certainly incorporated things into their accounts
(see Braudel, 1966; Le Roy Ladurie, 1975). Geertz’s thick description is not
so much concerned with the actual account of things and facts, either mate-
rial or immaterial, or the density of lived lives, as with unveiling symbolic
structures that orient thoughts, discourses, and actions. Cultural analysis, he
says, is “guessing at meanings, and drawing explanatory conclusions from the
better guesses” (Geertz, 1973: 20). The gist of a semiotic approach to culture
would be “gaining access to the conceptual world in which our subjects live
so that we can, in some extended sense of the term, converse with them”
(Geertz, 1973: 24). It is, basically, learning another language. Of course,
a symbolic approach to social life (unravel meanings) is not incompatible
with thick descriptions of another, more material kind. My intention here
is to prove that guessing at meanings and manifesting the material world
should be part of the same endeavor: making our accounts of the social world
richer and deeper. I do not think ethnography is the best way, despite recent
developments (including visual anthropology and material culture studies),
to offer descriptions of social worlds, which are thick simultaneously from a
symbolic and material point of view. I do not find a real engagement among
most ethnographers with materiality (rather than things), although there are
exceptions (Taussig, 2004).
A fourth type of archaeological ethnography, however, tries to deal with
this material lack of conventional ethnographies by resorting to an archaeo-
logical perspective that is applied not to the past, but both to the past and the
present, in (materially) thick descriptions of specific regions (Forbes, 2007;
also Hamilakis, 2011). This is the kind of archaeological ethnography that
better fits the present volume: an archaeological ethnography that takes into
account materiality, multitemporality, and alternative experiences of history
and place. In any case, I still think that the work presented here can be simply
labeled archaeology.
If I feel uneasy with the concept of archaeological ethnography, it is not
just for theoretical reasons. Methodologically, this work does not fit the
usual standards of ethnography (nor has ever attempted to). For standard
ethnographic practice, I understand the work of a single researcher (or at

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 Time and Materiality 5

most two) living with a particular community for protracted and continuous
periods of time, during which he or she learns the language and is able to
know the community in some depth and to establish relations of trust with
some of its members. My fieldwork in Ethiopia was carried out interruptedly
in nine field seasons between January 2001 and March 2010, totaling around
twelve months in the country, in addition to a preliminary one-week visit in
2000. During this period, I visited western Ethiopia during eight different
months (January, February, March, April, June, October, November, and
December) and some of the groups I worked with were only visited during
one or two of those months. The area where fieldwork took place occupies
around eighty-five thousand square kilometers (the size of a small country,
like Austria). There are around twenty-one main ethnic groups in this large
tract of land (Bertha, Gumuz, Boro, Gwama, Komo, Bambasi Mao, Hozo,
Seze, Sith Shwala, Anfillo/Busase, Opuuo, Añuak, Nuer, Sabu, Majangir,
Agäw, Oromo, Amhara, Kambata, Hadiya, and Shekkacho). Unlike a clas-
sic ethnographer, I did not spend all the time with the same people or in the
same village: in fact, the gist of this project consisted of visiting as many
different villages, areas, and peoples as possible, in order to compare them.
And I should not say “I,” actually, because I was never alone. At all times
I was accompanied by colleagues, drivers, guides, and translators, although
our group never involved more than six people (two or three researchers and
two or three assistants) or less than three. Besides, our work also involved
some conventional archaeological research, including excavation, mapping,
and survey of prehistoric, historic, and contemporary sites. I mention this so
that it is clear that research has been a collective (and multidisciplinary) work
and, in this sense, it is, again, quite different from classic ethnography—a
lonely undertaking.
The nature of our investigation has prevented me from becoming ac-
quainted with people in a more personal way. We never spent more than two
weeks in a single village, and the more usual figure was three or four days.
There is little intersubjectivity in this work and very little of the processes
through which anthropologists go during their fieldwork. I did not make
friends in the communities and always remained a total stranger, although
my relations and that of my colleagues with the people we worked with were
almost always very friendly. I have not learned any of the languages of the
diverse communities (beyond civilities, greetings, and many names of pots,
agricultural implements, and house parts). The quality of my information
is, however, better when interviews were carried out in Amharic (of which
I understand something) than when they were carried out in Oromo or Su-
danese Arabic, the other linguae francae used in western Ethiopia. Also, my
information is better when I had to rely on just one translator than when we

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 6 Chapter 1

needed two. Fortunately, this happened only in rare occasions—for example,

with a Ganza talking in Gwama to a Gwama talking Oromo to my colleague
mentally translating from Oromo to Amharic and then to English (and myself
translating mentally from English to Spanish, although all my notes were di-
rectly taken in English). As it will become obvious, I have relied heavily upon
the work of historians, sociologists, and anthropologists who have worked in
the region. There is not, however, a single proper ethnography of any of the
main groups with which I deal (Bertha, Gumuz, and Mao).
My research, then, cannot be portrayed as ethnography, archaeological eth-
nography, or ethnoarchaeology. Yet I am not pretending to invent something
new. On the contrary, as I said in the introduction, it is archaeology that I do,
and I defend it as such, without trying to find atonement for its limitations in
the promise of ethnographic (or other) methods. I find necessary, however,
to explain what my particular vision of archaeology is and why I consider
it useful to understand the present. The next sections will try to clarify this.

1.2. ARCHAEOLOGIES OF RESISTANCE

Archaeologists have invested much effort into understanding the nature of

power. From different theoretical perspectives, they have approached the
origins, development, and maintenance of rank and social inequalities. They
have looked at political economies and explored landscapes, architectures,
and artifacts of power. Much less emphasis has been put, until recently, in
examining resistance to power and the production of equality (see Osborne,
2007) and, in fact, it is surprising that a proper archaeology of the phenom-
enon has not been defined so far. There was an early interest in post-proces-
sual archaeology (and ethnoarchaeology) for material strategies of resistance
(David and Kramer, 2001: 397–98; Hodder, 1991; Miller et al., 1989; Parker
Pearson, 1982; Welbourn, 1984), but the approach was soon dismissed as
too simplistic. Nevertheless, the study of resistance, although not necessary
by this term, continued in historical archaeology sensu latu—that is, in the
archaeology of those periods for which we have written records. Sometimes
resistance in historical or contemporary contexts has been approached from a
feminist or Marxist point of view (e.g., Casella, 2001; Leone, 1995; McGuire
and Larkin, 2009). The concern with resistance in historical archaeology is
understandable, as the origin of writing is linked to the origin of the state and
this to stronger inequalities and, therefore, starker forms of resistance, which,
in turn, can be explored more easily through a variety of sources: material
and textual. We have to distinguish here between two different archaeologies
of resistance. On the one hand, we have the study of ancient colonialism and

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 Time and Materiality 7

imperialism; on the other, historical archaeology proper, that is, the archaeol-
ogy of modernity and European expansion.
The first kind of archaeology has mostly renounced the concept of re-
sistance and substituted other terms, such as “discrepancy,” which is more
polite—and less political (Hingley, 2005; Mattingly, 1997, 2010; Van
Dommelen, 1997, 2006). The focus is on the fuzzy boundaries between
dominators and dominated, fluid encounters, entanglements, creativity, and
hybridization. “A stress on creativity,” notes Gosden (2004: 25), “takes us
away from notions such as fatal impact, domination and resistance or core
and periphery emphasizing that colonial cultures were created by all who
participated in them, so that all had agency and social effect, with colonizer
and colonized alike being radically changed by the experience.” I have argued
elsewhere that this rejection of “fatal impact, domination and resistance” is
far from politically innocent and that it in fact unwittingly endorses neoliberal
ideology and, more specifically, its celebration of multiculturalism, individ-
ual agency, and fluid identities, all of which conceal real power asymmetries
(González-Ruibal, 2012). Many archaeologists stress that an emphasis on
creativity does not have to downplay severity, power, and violence (Cañete
and Vives-Ferrándiz, 2011; Dietler, 2010: 117–82; Silliman, 2005: 62–65).
While I totally agree with this point of view, the fact is that many studies do
downplay domination and hegemony by offering an overoptimistic vision of
agency (where people seem to negotiate power even in situations of genocidal
colonialism or totalitarianism), by identifying resistance with often subtle
cultural disagreement, or by mixing both perspectives.
The “discrepant experiences” school of Roman provincial archaeology
(Mattingly, 1997, 2010) is particularly prone to grant too much conscious
agency to communities and individuals (subaltern or not) and does not usu-
ally allow enough space to power and political asymmetry. The result is the
uniformization of practices of resistance (or rather cultural disagreement) all
over the Roman Empire (e.g., Hingley, 2005). Thus, in these studies, almost
any allodoxic use of things is identified with discrepancy and that discrep-
ancy is invariably cast in terms of identity—seldom in political terms. From
this perspective, the use of Roman iconography in non-canonic ways or of a
vernacular language becomes a conscious form of disagreement and even a
veiled threat to representatives of the imperial order (Mattingly, 2010: 241).
The same can be said of forms of consumption: differential rates of acquisi-
tion of particular kinds of imported pots are taken to show the enduring cul-
tural autonomy of the subjected with regard to Roman or Greek hegemony.
This paradigm is a faithful, yet largely unacknowledged, reproduction of
Daniel Miller’s theories for the capitalist world (e.g., Miller, 1991). To put
it in a very simplified way, Miller states that people are not passive victims

Book 1.indb 7 2/25/14 6:21 AM

 8 Chapter 1

of capitalism, but creatively, and sometimes subversively, consume mass-

produced goods and reappropriate them for their own needs—namely, con-
structing individual identities, often at odds with dominant ideologies. The
idea of reappropriation and negotiation of social meanings has also been in-
fluentially developed, for non-Western peoples, by Nicholas Thomas (1991),
who in turn has had an important impact on the archaeology of colonialism
and cultural encounters (Dietler, 2010). Following these lines, archaeologists
in recent years have constructed narratives of social discrepancy that have a
rather benign conception of colonial power and sometimes an anachronistic
flair. They tend to assign values to nonmodern communities that are alien to
them—most notably a very postmodern sense of identity. I do not intend to
invalidate Miller’s theories on consumption, though, and in fact, his work
has been influential here to understand choices among the borderland peoples
(e.g., see sections 3.3 and 5.2). What I intend to add is a more political dimen-
sion, a stronger concern with power.
Regarding power, it is true that ancient colonialism and cultural encoun-
ters did not usually have the devastating character of modern phenomena.
While Romans enjoyed massacring and looting other peoples, they were also
ready to accept them as equals, once vanquished, something that never oc-
curred to a Belgian or a Spaniard in Africa during the twentieth century. The
atrocities of colonial states from the sixteenth century onward are impossible
to deny, and their functioning is often that of a continuous state of excep-
tion: in some cases, they engaged in veritable genocidal strategies (Le Cour
Grandmaison, 2005). It is not surprising, then, that the study of resistance in
historical archaeology has acquired a more political character and that there
has been a stronger interest in open conflict, despite a growing concern with
consumption. The two groups that have received more attention are slaves
(Ferguson, 1992; Hall, 2000; Orser and Funari, 2001) and indigenous groups
(Silliman, 2001, 2005). Research has focused mostly on everyday forms of
resistance: Martin Hall’s excellent book on colonial Chesapeake and South
Africa is probably the best exponent of this line of investigation (2000).
He resorts to the theories of James C. Scott to unravel the complex rela-
tions between colonizers and colonized, masters and slaves, in two different
colonial settings. However, open rebellion has been also studied. The most
thoroughly researched case is the Pueblo Revolt in the United States’ South-
west (Liebmann, 2012; Preucel, 2002; Preucel, 2006: 210–46; Wilcox, 2009).
The Pueblo Revolt is comparable to the cases studied here, because it is an
example of long-term resistance to colonial rule, in which a combination of
accommodation, rebellion, and revitalization were employed throughout the
seventeenth century and even later to deal with Spanish rule and to express
political, economic, and religious discontent. The persistence of an attitude

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 Time and Materiality 9

of resistance explains the survival of a strong indigenous identity to our day

and casts doubts on the very notion of “conquest” (Wilcox, 2009). Historical
archaeologists have also studied communities that have been able to escape
power and survive in the margins of states: this is the case of maroon com-
munities of slaves and indigenous peoples, which have been explored in the
Americas (Orser and Funari, 2001; Weik, 1997, 2012) and Africa (Marshall,
2012). The material evidence, however, is often flimsy and ambiguous (see
overview in Weik, 2012), and many historical archaeologists have been more
interested in confirming or refuting written sources than in developing a true
archaeology of resistance. There are some parallels between communities
of escaped slaves and those studied in this book. Some of the groups of the
Sudanese-Ethiopian borderland have a “maroon mentality” and have devel-
oped material strategies similar to those of maroon groups in the Americas
and elsewhere: they have fled to remote regions in a conscious attempt at
escaping domination and reproducing their egalitarian way of life.
It is useful to draw a distinction here between resilience, resistance, and
rebellion. It has been argued that the end of political utopias with the fall of
real socialism brought an increased interest in resistance, which became a
trending topic in the social sciences (Brown, 1996; Hollander and Einwohner,
2004). However, as Brown (1996: 729) has argued, these studies focus on
“the political nuances of daily life,” at times to the point of triviality: in some
cases, it is difficult to ascertain in what way watching soap operas or having
a particular hairstyle can be mobilized as a successful practice of resistance.
The same can be said of the things that have been described as “discrepant”
by archaeologists. This emphasis on gentle resistance is not surprising, as
political conflict has been mostly crossed out by the post-political agenda of
the social sciences. It is perhaps not a coincidence that the influential work of
James Scott (1985, 1990) has mostly focused on “hidden transcripts,” that is,
veiled forms of resistance that allow the subaltern to get their way to a point,
without openly opposing power (which can be dangerous). The word that
better describes this attitude is resilience, rather than resistance: the capacity
to adapt, psychologically and socially, to power through the development of
cultural coping mechanisms (see also Rubin, 1996: 241). Thus, when Ortner
(1995: 186) speaks about “the ability of social beings to weave alternative,
and sometimes brilliantly creative, forms of coherence across the damage [in-
flicted by power],” it is resilience that she seems to be describing. Rebellion
lies at the other extreme of the spectrum of resistance: it is usually violent
and heavily politicized.
Whereas resilience may happen all the time, rebellions explode in par-
ticular moments, when the pressure of domination is no longer bearable.
Resilience works often at an unconscious level, beyond discourse, whereas

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 10 Chapter 1

rebellion implies a political consciousness, which can be emancipatory (as

the Pueblo Revolt of 1680) or reactionary, as in the case of the War of Canu-
dos in Brazil (1893–1897) and the Cristero War in Mexico (1926–1929).
Both resilience and rebellion are usually found in groups that have been
incorporated into states (see Scott, 1985, 1990). Resistance proper, instead,
is more often found among communities that have managed to survive in the
periphery of state formations (Scott, 2009). In fact, their attitude of resistance
can be perceived in their ability to escape external rule and their decision not
to be incorporated into hierarchical political structures. Sometimes societies
that resist are nominally conquered, but they continue to live virtually outside
the state (except for the payment of tribute). This is the case with the groups
studied in this book, which had only started to fall under state control while
the study was being carried out (see Markakis, 2011).
Thus, the archaeology of resistance that is espoused here is not one that
looks at mere “discrepancy” or an ability to adapt to power to survive, or
that explores sudden bursts of violence against the state. It rather interrogates
resistance structurally—as a form of being: that is, a political ontology of
resistance. This archaeology of resistance tries to examine resilience, resis-
tance, and rebellion as different forms of being against domination. This does
not mean, therefore, that trivial gestures, forms of consumption, or veiled
actions have to be overlooked. Quite the contrary: the idea is to study them
not as isolated, and rather harmless, phenomena, but as signatures of a more
complex system of resistance. Unlike many studies on subtle modes of op-
position, I am interested in resistance that works and for me this does not
mean necessarily one that results in social change—as Rubin (1996) defends.
Sometimes what the social actors want is that things do not change: in the
cases studied here, it is the agents of power who are interested in transforma-
tion (making the other into law-abiding subjects). I agree with Rubin, though,
in that resistance must have an effect in power, but this can be simply mak-
ing power uncomfortable, to destabilize domination and force dominators to
develop new power strategies. To study resistance as a form of being does
not imply understanding that resistance is “pure” (Hollander and Einwohner,
2004: 549) or free from internal divisions (Ortner, 1995: 175). A social life
of resistance can be as troubled and complex as any other, if not more so.
There are precedents of archaeological studies on societies of resistance.
Some archaeologists have been looking at egalitarian formations in worlds
dominated by hierarchical polities. The aforementioned studies on the Pueblo
Revolt or on maroon communities are a good example of this. I would like to
draw attention here to the work that has been carried out by my colleagues at
the Institute of Heritage Sciences from the mid-1980s onward on Late Prehis-
toric societies in Europe, under the influence of Pierre Clastres (Criado, 1989:

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 Time and Materiality 11

80–82, and forthcoming; González-García et al., 2012; Parcero-Oubiña,

2003): this book is much indebted to their approach to egalitarian polities and
their use of Clastres—a thinker who has been unjustly ignored by mainstream
social sciences (Criado, forthcoming). Clastres (and Criado) show us that
lacking a state is not a failure, but an achievement: that societies are not state-
less, but against the state—against social division and all its consequences.
Nevertheless, one of the main problems that we face is the lack of a true
archaeological framework for understanding the phenomenon: there is no
archaeology of resistance in the same way that there is an anthropology of
resistance (Clastres, 2001; Graeber, 2004; Scott, 1985, 1990, 2009). We im-
port theory from outside, instead of looking at the strengths of our discipline
(González-Ruibal, 2013a). This book is not a general overview of forms of
resistance from an archaeological point of view. However, through an examina-
tion of particular case studies in the present, it intends to offer theoretical tools
for such an archaeology of resistance, which is also, in a sense, an anarchist
archaeology (Angelbeck and Grier, 2012). It is so because it intends to expand
the political imagination of archaeologists, to offer a critique of authoritarian
forms of power, and to vindicate the achievings of egalitarian societies as viable
forms of organization in the past and in the present. David Graeber (2004: 95)
has argued that anthropologists have much to offer to anarchism, as they are
the only group of scholars who know anything about actually existing stateless
societies. This is not exactly true: archaeologists have not only studied a bewil-
dering variety of anarchic societies in the past but, as this book tries to prove,
they can also study them in the present. I said before that this is “in a sense”
an anarchist archaeology, because it is not concerned so much with anarchist
political theory, with modes of fighting the state, or with alternatives to it. If I
am not too concerned with the state as such, this is because, as Žižek (2007)
has pointed out, it is great capitalists who “resist” the state today. Thus, under
the umbrella of the state, it is actually multinationals, warlords, missionaries,
and slave traders who threaten, or have traditionally threatened, the freedom
of egalitarian peoples in the Sudanese-Ethiopian borderland. This work, then,
is a reflection on egalitarianism and forms of social existence without domi-
nation—irrespective of whether it comes from the state or any other form of
political or economic institution, public or private.
Archaeology’s contribution to a theory of resistance has to be in the realm
of materiality and time, as both issues are at the heart of the discipline. Ar-
chaeology’s approach to things and the past is what makes it unique to other
forms of knowledge. An archaeology of resistance, then, should look at how
the material world and the past are involved in the production of resistance:
how things and memories—especially habit memories and incorporating
practices (Connerton, 1989: 72)—are mobilized to resist oppression, exac-

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 12 Chapter 1

tions, or assimilation, as well as to reproduce egalitarian and relational values.

There are two other important issues that are inherent to an archaeological
approach: first, archaeology, through its focus on things, has a particular
ability to look at the unsaid, at what lies beyond discourse (see chapter 5).
As Clark and Wilkie (2006: 358) note, “When people’s personhood is denied
through sexism, racism, and other forms of oppression, the material world
is the location of struggles and yields evidence of strategies of resistance.”
Therefore, it is not narratives of resistance that we should try to find (or not
just those), but rather, material practices of resistance. This means paying
attention both to the everyday and the trivial (as archaeologists usually do),
but also to the unconscious: what is performed or enacted without fully real-
izing it or without the support of an articulate verbal discourse. It is a visceral
resistance that is played out in bodies, gestures, proxemics, and the making
and using of things. Secondly, archaeology has traditionally worked with
the long term. Resistance is not something that simply emerges ex nihilo:
all resistance (or lack thereof) has a history, often a very deep one, so deep
that we may be tempted to think that it does not even exist. Archaeologists,
as Foucaldian genealogists, should delve into what we tend to feel is without
history (Foucault, 1984: 76).

1.3. THE ARCHAEOLOGY OF BORDERLANDS

The study of resistance is often linked to the study of borderlands, since

liminal areas are often a sanctuary for peoples against the state (bandits,
disgruntled peasants, indigenous communities, nomadic pastoralists).
Thus James Scott’s (2009) study of Zomia is the analysis of an immense
borderland, inhabited by communities that exist close (and in relation) to
states. The study of borderlands has understandably acquired relevance in
the social sciences during the last few decades, as these have always been
spaces of intense creativity from a political and cultural point of view. We
have to distinguish here a variety of borders: those between states, between
states or empires and non-state peoples, and between ethnic and other social
groups. In archaeology, the buffer zones of empires and states have been
receiving quite a lot of attention during the last few decades, in some cases
due to the influence of postcolonial theory, in others due to the interest of
processual archaeology in state-building and the integration of expanding
political economies.
Archaeologists and anthropologists have been interested in boundaries for
a very long time: culture-historical archaeology and Kulturkreis anthropology
had as their main goal the definition of the limits between different ethnic

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 Time and Materiality 13

groups or cultures. The (usually) fuzzy frontiers in themselves were not of

much interest, except to know where a group ended and another one started.
After the decline of culture history, boundaries again became a matter of
concern during the 1970s, in the guise of spatial patterns of material culture
distribution, an issue related to the question of style (Hodder, 1982; Sackett,
1977; Wobst, 1977; see critique in Lemonnier, 1986). This time, more em-
phasis was put on contact situations and on zones of cultural friction (Wobst,
1977), ethnicity was ruled out as the only explanation (Hodder, 1982), and
other forms of social boundaries were explored (see examples in Stark, 1998).
Particular attention has been paid since the 1990s to the daily production of
material boundaries through practice (Dielter and Herbich, 1998; Lightfoot
et al., 1998).
Postcolonial approaches have focused mainly on the creation and nego-
tiation of identities in imperial borderlands, which are ideal environments
because they are both zones of cultural contact and are removed enough
from the state core as to allow the emergence of alternative forms of life and
social identity. Roman archaeology and historical archaeology have been the
two areas where these approaches have gained greater currency. In histori-
cal archaeology, the seminal articles by Kent Lightfoot (1995; Lightfoot and
Martínez, 1995) have to be mentioned. While not properly postcolonial, in
the sense that it does not cite the canonical texts (Bhabha, Said, Spivak, etc.)
(for a postcolonial approach to borders in historical archaeology, see Naum,
2010), his concerns are similar as are his findings: complex, hybrid cultures
that emerge in the liminal space between the colonizer and the colonized’s
worlds. Lightfoot has demonstrated how native identities and cultural prac-
tices in California survived and developed in new ways in what was es-
sentially a multicultural frontier (also Silliman, 2001). He has also stressed
the inherent creativity of border zones, whose inhabitants are far from being
passive consumers of the innovations produced in the imperial core. To better
understand the cultural logic of the frontier, Lightfoot proposes to change the
focus from the macro to the local.
This perspective is shared by Roman archaeologists interested in boundar-
ies. A similar move away from simplistic narratives of acculturation (“Ro-
manization”) has occurred in the archaeology of the Roman Empire, which
has gone hand in hand with a greater attention to the imperial peripheries
(Hingley, 2005; Mattingly, 2010). Here, the concepts of postcolonial theory
have been more widely incorporated (Jiménez, 2010), but the approach is
not inherently different to that of North American historical archaeology: as
we have seen in the previous section, a similar interest is found in hybridity,
identity, and cultural negotiation. Although not cast in postcolonial terms, the
works of Peter S. Wells (1999, 2005) on the Germanic frontier share similar

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 14 Chapter 1

concerns (mainly, the contribution of “Barbarians” to the making of imperial

culture) and a comparable focus on small communities and local experiences
versus imperial narratives.
It is probably worth noting that both in North America and Europe, many of
the archaeologists that are leading this postcolonial turn on imperial frontiers
have a background in prehistory. This is not a coincidence: they are research-
ers with an interest in non-state societies and an anthropological sensibility.
However, the critique that can be raised of these frontier studies is similar to
that of the archaeology and anthropology of resistance: by looking too much
at the local, daily life and indigenous communities (an understandable bias in
a prehistorian), dominant approaches tend to downplay power asymmetries,
violence, and the long-term effects of imperial politics. However, these issues
are taken seriously by other approaches. Ferguson and Whitehead (1992),
for instance, have focused on war, a common reality in tribal borderlands of
states and empires, while Gómez Romero (2002) has studied the technologies
of power (such as forts) deployed by the postcolonial Argentinian state in its
frontiers with indigenous groups. In turn, Parker (2006) has emphasized the
many faces of borderlands, which comprise a variety of “boundary sets” (geo-
graphic, political, demographic, economic). These, in turn, lay in a continuum
between fluidity and fixedness. While postcolonial approaches have rightly
emphasized the porosity of frontiers, which explains the cultural mixtures to
which borderlands give rise, we should not forget that some boundaries are
much less porous than others, and that political and economic imperatives
often make them almost impregnable (McGuire, 2013; Weizman, 2007).
There is no reason why the study of politics and culture should exclude
each other. In fact, one of the things that I will try to prove here is that, in the
shatter zone of states, politics produce culture and culture produces politics.
Differing historical experiences of violence and disempowerment are behind
the way in which people in the Sudanese-Ethiopian borderland appropriate,
hybridize, use, and discard material culture. “The problematic process of
identification” (Naum, 2010: 126) is a reason for much less anxiety than the
maintenance of political equality and the survival as autonomous peoples
against the pressure of the state.
This alliance of culture and politics is very present in the production of the
“internal African frontier,” according to Kopytoff (1987), which, despite its
enormous relevance, has been largely overlooked by archaeologists (both in
Africa and elsewhere). The anthropologist notes that in Africa, minor move-
ments of existing societies to the frontiers, caused by internal or external
struggles (Ibid.: 20), may result in their territorial expansion, but it can also
lead to the creation of new polities and eventually the emergence of distinct
societies (Ibid.: 6), once they have disengaged from the metropole. Despite

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 Time and Materiality 15

the separation from the original society, social and, above all, cultural ties
remain that account for the similarities found across large regions of Africa
in political and religious institutions and cultural traditions. The original
homeland remains important in the collective memory of the new polity, and
reference to it is made through ritual and royal paraphernalia (Ibid.: 75) and
other material elements, as we will see. This model of frontier is compatible
with the concept of the borderland as a dynamic and hybrid space that has
been defended from postcolonial standpoints, although in internal African
frontiers social actors are in a more symmetric situation, as compared with
empires and colonial states. In fact, it is the shared background that explains
the success of frontier societies on the continent (Ibid.: 27).
What distinguishes African frontiers is both the fact that they have been
traditionally unpoliced and that the people from the core areas that settle in
the periphery are not colonial agents, a prelude of an invasion to come: it is
more an issue of small groups of “political entrepreneurs” that mix with local
populations, even if they eventually subject them (Ibid.: 49). This peculiar sit-
uation favored the formation of small, autonomous polities (Ibid.: 11) where
emigrants could construct their desired social order; this is the case both for
egalitarian groups that found shelter in mountainous areas (Froelich, 1968)
and disgruntled aristocrats aspiring to power (Caulk, 1984). Irrespective of
their origins, state societies have produced stateless communities on the fron-
tier and vice versa (Kopytoff, 1987: 76). Regarding the local communities
that migrants encounter: if not always assimilated, they are always “tamed
structurally” (Ibid.: 55). In the case of those communities with a hierarchical
tradition, they have been made into a subaltern class, put into a special niche
as providers of specialized services, transformed into outcasts, or kept in the
geographical margins of the new society—situations widely documented in
Sudan and Ethiopia.
Kopytoff’s theories, in fact, are very pertinent to the present work. His
description of ethnogenetic processes in the peripheries of established groups
or states tallies well with the culture history of some of the societies studied
here. Thus, both the Mao groups and their masters, the Busase, are classic
examples of frontier societies, and the label can be extended to the Bertha. All
of them have in common a history of migration that gave way to new polities
and cultural forms. In addition, it can be argued that if the Koman groups have
not disappeared altogether (as anthropologists have been warning since the
1930s), it is undoubtedly due to their capacity to attract “the ethnic and cul-
tural detritus produced by the routine workings of other societies” (Kopytoff,
1987: 7). Ethiopia also fits the concentric model of the “deep frontier” devel-
oped by the anthropologist, with a core area, surrounded by a ring of closely
integrated dependencies, itself bordered by vassal polities, tribute-paying

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 16 Chapter 1

communities, and finally the marches, which were only reached by raids and
the sporadic collection of tribute. It is this final ring with which we will be
dealing most of the time here.
The question of frontiers (both internal and external, state and tribal) has been
on the agenda of northeast African studies for quite a while. This is understand-
able given the history of border wars (Tronvoll, 2009), ethnic conflicts (Fukui
and Markakis, 1994), and weak states that have only recently consolidated their
power in their unruly borderlands (Markakis, 2011). Yet here, too, borders are
spaces of immense cultural creativity, not only of violence and conquest. It is
the many boundaries (cultural, political, geographic, and economic) that criss-
cross the countries of the Horn of Africa that explain their endless cultural and
social diversity and their essential hybrid nature. It is a stunning hybridity,
which is also produced by a mixture of diverse times and things.

1.4. TIME

An archaeology of the present seems paradoxical and it seems so for a ques-

tion of time: archaeology is the study of things from the past, whereas what is
proposed here is to study things that are not from the past but very much alive
in the present. With other archaeologists, I would argue that the temporality
with which archaeology works has its own peculiarities (Lucas, 2005; Oliv-
ier, 2008; Witmore, 2006). It is different, among other things, because it is not
historicist, and it is precisely because it is not historicist that an archaeology
of the present is feasible: an archaeology that studies a multiplicity of times
through its materialization in a plurality of things. In this section, I will try to
demonstrate three things: first, that the historical discourse of anthropologists
and postcolonial historians is still too much tinged with a modernist and his-
toricist bias, which is visible both in their insistence on constant change and
global connections, and in their abhorrence of “the archaic.” Secondly, I will
argue that the temporality that anthropologists and many historians tend to re-
ject on epistemological and moral grounds is actually the nonmodern time of
the subaltern (including indigenous peoples and marginalized communities).
Finally, I contend that some of the essential characteristics of materiality
(durability, ability to stabilize collectives, resistance to change) are crucial in
constituting nonmodern temporalities and in effecting resistance.

Modern Temporality for Nonmodern Peoples

Since the publication of Johannes Fabian’s Time and the Other, it has become
common currency to criticize classical anthropology for denying coevalness to

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 Time and Materiality 17

the subjects that it studied: “a persistent and systematic tendency to place the
referent(s) of anthropology in a time other than the present of the producer of
anthropological discourse” (Fabian, 1983: 31). This temporal distancing of the
Other is what he calls allochronism. According to Fabian, from the very origins
of anthropology as a discipline the Other has been located in an archaic time,
different (and far) from our own: to do fieldwork was to engage in time travel-
ling (Fabian, 1983: 7). Others, described as “primitives,” have been considered
undeveloped embryos of ourselves—the Moderns—failed embryos, in fact, be-
cause of their inability to go beyond their archaic stage of development. These
stages of development have been described at length in the most historicist, uni-
lineal fashion, first by evolutionary anthropologists like Tylor and Morgan in
the nineteenth century, and again—in a more complex and non-racist way—in
the 1950s and 1960s by neo-evolutionary anthropologists. Locating the Other
in a particular stage of the unilineal scale of development has had sinister co-
lonial implications, but anthropologists not involved in the colonial enterprise,
in the way functionalist and evolutionist ethnographers were, did not escape
allochrony either, according to Fabian: Lévi-Strauss, for instance, is ruthlessly
criticized, among other things, for his use of the taxonomic-allochronic terms
“primitive” and “savage” and for his denial of historical time (e.g., Lévi-
Strauss, 1966): “structuralism contributes to the Time-distancing conventions
of anthropological theorizing and writing” (Fabian, 1983: 60) and, in the last
instance, to neocolonialism (Ibid.: 69). I will try to redress this view and show
that by using terms like “savage” and “primitive” Lévi-Strauss and Pierre
Clastres (2001) were much closer to anticolonial, emancipatory discourses than
those who reclaim “history” for all non-Western communities and who might
be unwittingly backing neoliberal agendas.
Many authors have followed Fabian’s critique in different disciplines, in-
cluding history and archaeology, and it has become now part of the common
sense of the social sciences and the humanities to insist that Others are our
contemporaries, that they are not primitives and that they have a history. In
Fabian’s book, two of the recurrent themes that we will find repeatedly in
anthropological and historical works of the last three decades are eloquently
expressed: the critique of the archaic and the conception of history as change.
With a third theme—connections—they make up the triad that informs the
historical imagination of (most) anthropologists and (many) historians today.
Reviewing the way in which these themes have been deployed in current
social thought would need a book in itself. Here, I will only look at some
representative examples to show how the critique of the archaic and the pre-
occupation with change work and are ever-present.
Fifty years ago, Lévi-Strauss (1966: 234) wrote: “It is tedious as well as
useless . . . to amass arguments to prove that all societies are in history and

Book 1.indb 17 2/25/14 6:21 AM

 18 Chapter 1

change: that this is so is patent. But in getting embroiled in a superfluous

demonstration, there is the risk of overlooking the fact that human societies
react to this fact in very different fashions.” However, anthropologists still
seem worried with demonstrating that all societies go through transforma-
tions. Marshall Sahlins (1985: viii) argues, referring to Hawaii and minimiz-
ing the novelty of Captain Cook’s voyage, that “cultural change . . . has been
going on for millennia.” While Sahlins (1985: vii) eloquently proves that,
“History is culturally ordered, differently so in different societies.” It seems
to me that he fails at showing different temporalities in the making of history.
The very notion of history as change on which Sahlins focuses is a culturally
ordered way of perceiving history. Horrified by ahistorical visions of “primi-
tive cultures” characteristic of colonial sciences, anthropologists have ended
up at the other extreme of the spectrum, portraying nonmoderns in an endless
process of creative transformation, scarcely different from our restless mod-
ern existences (see Bauman, 2000). There is a modernist bias in privileging,
as most anthropologists and historians do, history as change. There are other
possible histories—histories of continuity, of the very long term, histories of
slow rhythms and ancient remnants—but these have been condemned as po-
litically incorrect during the last few decades. Yet these histories of refusing
change and innovation can be the most progressive: for egalitarian groups,
resisting alterations in the social fabric means resisting inequality, division,
and the state (Clastres, 2001). Unlike the perspective of some colonial an-
thropologists, which saw nonmodern communities as deprived of history,
“trapped in repetitive cycles of structural time” (Comaroff and Comaroff,
1992: 24), I will argue that they do have a history, but one that cannot be
modeled on our own temporality. In fact, we ought perhaps to rethink what
history is in the first place.
The new wave of historical anthropology of the 1980s was inaugurated,
among others, by Eric Wolf (1999). He was one of the first in calling attention
to the intricate history of nonmodern peoples, but at the same time also con-
tributed to shaping the history of nonmodern societies in Western terms. This
is apparent in the way the history of extra-European peoples are described
as marked by continuous changes and connections, but also in the emphasis
on the strong relationship between non-European societies and the modern
world. Wolf, drawing upon world-systems theory and Marxism, vindicated
the history of non-European communities, showing both the radical changes
undertaken by those communities and their contribution to the modern world.
Wolf’s main concern is to show that “pristine survivals from a timeless past”
do not exist and that the history of the global processes set up in motion by
Europe and that affected non-European societies is also their history (Wolf,
1999: 385). “So anthropologists look for pristine replicas of the precapitalist,

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 Time and Materiality 19

preindustrial past in the sinks and margins of the capitalist industrial world,”
criticizes Wolf (1999: 18). But do they? Not any longer. I would say, para-
phrasing Wolf, that they look for pristine replicas of the capitalist, industrial
present in the sinks and margins of the capitalist industrial world.
A similar emphasis on both change and modernity can be found in recent
books. Hardt and Negri (2009: 68), for example, celebrate that “precolonial
civilizations are in many cases very advanced, rich, complex, and sophisti-
cated; and the contributions of the colonized to so-called modern civilization
are substantial and largely unacknowledged.” Dipesh Chakrabarty (2000),
in turn, stresses both processes of transformation and the interplay with mo-
dernity in his portrays of Indian communities. The list of authors that, from
the early 1980s, have insisted in the historicity of non-Western societies
and their relationship to the expansion of modernity and capitalism is long
(e.g., Comaroff and Comaroff, 1992; Sahlins, 1985; Thomas, 1991), but the
schema underlying those works is quite similar: native communities have a
long history of change; their traditions and historicity affected the way cul-
tural contact took place between them and the colonizers; native communities
intervened in the course of modernity; native communities did not disappear
after contact nor were they “acculturated.” Rather, they simply changed (as
they had been doing before the conquest), and have arrived to our days, trans-
formed as we, Westerners, have been after contact as well. The historicity
of the modern and the nonmodern were parallel and homologous, until they
encountered each other and became intertwined in one single temporality.
This is all politically correct, if it were not for the fact that the master referent
is modernist history.
Among the anthropologists who have confronted history during the last
few decades, Jean and John Comaroff stand out. They have criticized the sub-
altern position of other cultures vis-à-vis modernity in our historical imagi-
nation. They argue that “peripheral populations do not acquire history only
when they are impelled along its paths by the machinations of merchants,
missionaries, military men, manufacturers, or ministers of state. Bluntly put,
a truly historical anthropology is only possible to the extent that it is capable
of illuminating the endogenous historicity of all social worlds” (Comaroff
and Comaroff, 1992: 24). I could not agree more with this perspective, but I
am not sure that the Comaroffs follow their statement to its last consequences.
On the one hand, they have paradoxically devoted their greatest efforts to
understanding the (rather short) history of entanglement between the Tswana
and colonial agents (Comaroff and Comaroff, 1991). They are interested, in
the first place, in exploring how non-Western peoples “fashioned their own
visions of modernity” (Comaroff and Comaroff, 1992: 5). In this, they follow
the trend of historicizing colonial encounters from the native point of view,
which has been outlined previously.

Book 1.indb 19 2/25/14 6:21 AM

 20 Chapter 1

On the other hand, and more importantly, the Comaroffs’ insistence on

transformation and dynamism betrays a modernist conception of history,
which might be at odds with local temporalities. They claim to rupture with
the basic tropes of Western historiography, which they identify with biog-
raphy and event (Comaroff and Comaroff, 1992: 27), but forget three other
basic tropes: change, connection, and the negation of remnants. The first two
tropes are characteristic of positivist historiography, the third of all historiog-
raphy. Like Benjamin’s (1968: 257) unrelenting Angel of History, that “keeps
piling wreckage upon wreckage” in its wake, the Comaroffs perceive change
in every culture as “perennial, ongoing, inevitable” (Comaroff and Comaroff,
1992: 23). This might not be the empty time of modernity, but it certainly
is the empty time of postmodernity, where everything is fluid, fragmentary,
complex, and ambiguous (Bauman, 2000)—another sort of neutral time, now
fit for the colorful histories of little peoples, rather than universal narratives of
progress. Historical anthropology, for the Comaroffs, “is dedicated to explor-
ing the processes that make and transform particular worlds,” but why would
a historical anthropology not study what is left from the past in particular
worlds, what is not fluid, but thick, sticky, and persistent?
The problem is that the Comaroffs, like most other social scientists today,
abhor the archaic. They criticize the divide between the “primitivist fiction”
of self-perpetuating traditional orders, on the one hand, and the unbounded
worlds of modernity, dismissing that view as “pastoral archaism” (Comaroff
and Comaroff, 1992: 32). Not surprisingly, the Comaroffs’ book opens with
a mockery of a newspaper article describing “mystic warriors” who fight with
magical objects in the Mozambican civil war—the quintessence of exotic
archaism (Ibid.: 3–5). My point is that anthropologists have dealt with the
archaic all too rapidly and, in so doing, they have ironically ended up espous-
ing a historicist time. From this neo-historicist perspective, remains from
the past are, if not completely annihilated, transformed beyond recognition.
No prehistoric remnants are perceived to exist, or at least they are put under
suspicion—this is also the spirit of Hobsbawm and Ranger’s (1983) legend-
ary book The Invention of Tradition. The denial of tradition is quite clear in
James Scott’s outstanding study of highland communities of southeast Asia.
The author argues that foraging (the oldest of all subsistence practices), far
from being something from the deep past, is a rather recent adaptation to his-
torical conditions of flight from the state (Scott, 2009: 185, 189), an argument
that has been made already for hunter-gatherers of South America (Balée,
1994; Clastres, 2001). The same applies to slash-and-burn agriculture, which
was invented after escaping from the irrigated rice fields of the state (Scott,
2009: 197), tribal organizations, which was a response to hierarchical and
centralized political organizations (Ibid.: 210), and the absence of literacy.

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 Time and Materiality 21

One wonders if anything existed before the state, beyond a proclivity toward
resisting it.
How is it that social scientists perceive the words “prehistoric” and “ar-
chaic” today as insults? What is wrong with what does not change, what
remains from the deep past? The only problem I can see is that it does not fit
our modern(ist) sensibilities. We have internalized too much the image of the
Angel of History and we find it now difficult to imagine the Other as having a
history that is not cast in Western temporal terms, that is, marked by continu-
ous change, interaction, sophistication, and complexity. I have the impres-
sion that, in a more subtle and democratic way, we are repeating the mistake
of Afrocentrists, when they tried to find the world-history of the state—in
Ranajit Guha’s terms (2002)—everywhere in Africa, as if the absence of the
state prevented the Other from being part of history proper (González-Ruibal,
2009: 124). Now, having generally admitted that history exists beyond the
state, the question is to go a step forward and fully accept a historicity of other
temporal rhythms. We have to accept the historicity of societies against his-
tory, to paraphrase Clastres (2001), and this means making sense of temporal
mixtures (heterotemporalities) that are different from our own. Appraising
these particular heterotemporalities is necessary for an understanding of
“endogenous historicities,” using the Comaroffs’ words. Yet what they offer
us is (a masterful) “endogenous history,” rather than historicity, because an
exploration of temporality is largely absent. The time of the Tswana and that
of the white settlers fit together. It is their cultures (and culture-histories) that
do not, and what the anthropologists study: the ways in which the Tswana and
the missionaries struggle, negotiate, cooperate, seduce, and fight each other
and produce novel cultural products and historical settings. At the end of the
day, though, the framework is the time of modernity. The time of “perennial,
ongoing, inevitable change.” The time that leaves no one behind.
We refuse anything that may be taken for primitive or archaic. Thus,
when an isolated group of hunter-gatherers in the Amazon forest is found
by invading settlers, we are not willing to accept it in our epistemological
and ethical master narratives until it has been proven that its members were
originally living in settled villages as intensive agriculturalists, before being
chased away by the turmoil brought by the Portuguese colonization. Paradig-
matic examples of this widespread procedure abound (e.g., Clemmer, 2009).
Although we consider this historicizing procedure a rather new invention, it
was already used by Lévi-Strauss more than half a century ago. The French
anthropologist already talked about “pseudo-archaism” to refer to groups that
had been mistakenly considered as very primitive in Brazil. He considered that
their situation could be explained by a historical process, very much in line
with current anthropological thinking. “We have seen,” writes Lévi-Strauss

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 22 Chapter 1

(1987 [1952]: 152), “that in a vast region of the world . . . those societies
that might look like the most archaic are all affected by contradictions in
which we can discover the mark of the event, impossible to ignore.” Wolf
and Clastres further inquired into what used to be a rather counterintuitive
discovery. Today, however, it has become common knowledge: “primitives”
do not exist, they are just the effect of the state and/or modernity—a conclu-
sion that neither Lévi-Strauss nor Clastres would have ever endorsed. We do
not want to hear about “primitives” anymore. This is eloquently shown in
the controversial case of the Tasaday (Hemley, 2007), the alleged group of
isolated foragers from the Philippines who were “discovered” in the 1970s.
They were first presented as a pristine group of Stone Age peoples. This im-
age was counterattacked with a very postmodern view that they were pure
hoax. It seems that the truth is somewhere in the middle. However, the radi-
cally historicizing stance of the postmodern anthropologists focuses immedi-
ately on change and contact. Why not look at what links the Tasaday with a
non-state, nonmodern past? With traditions of foraging that have existed for
millennia? The point is not that many anthropologists deny the supposedly
archaic character of any society as a whole (something with which I whole-
heartedly agree); they also try to deconstruct any trace of “primitiveness” in
any particular group and are not very interested in examining the cultural
mechanisms employed to keep things “primitive” (or old). This way of rea-
soning explains that some anthropologists seem more enthralled watching
Australian Aborigines watching Hollywood videos (Michaels, 2002), than by
the unique fact that they have managed to keep an artistic expression rooted
in the Pleistocene (Mulvaney and Kamminga, 1999: 367–68), that thrived
until well into the twentieth century (Layton, 1992: 17–27) and that still bears
meaning for contemporary indigenous communities. Similarly, most scholars
are more keen to show that Native Americans have been always changing
since they arrived in America (an obviousness, as Lévi-Strauss remarked),
whereas the fact that they have kept traditions that can be traced back to ten
thousand years ago (Echo-Hawk, 2000) seems to produce less excitement.
These outstanding achievements of preservation and reproduction are down-
played by (post)modern anthropologists for whom only transformation and
change reflect human creativity and genius. I consider, instead, that resisting
change requires as much ingenuity as producing it.
This emphasis on transformation, which emerged in the 1970s (especially
after the rise of postmodern anthropology), was a countermeasure against
imperial narratives that denied the history of indigenous and subaltern
peoples. However, many societies insist in proving colonialists right and are
tremendously amnesic with regard to their own historical experience. They
rejoice in the abolition of history as change, which is equated with trouble,

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 Time and Materiality 23

ontological insecurity, and political inequalities (Hernando, 2002: 69–79;

fig. 8, 2012: 73, fig. 3; Scott, 2009: 275–76). Interestingly, the first thing a
Sabu elder told me in my first interview with his people—to the uneasiness
of the postcolonial ethnographer—was: “I want you to know this: that we
live exactly as our ancestors did”1—the fact that this was not exactly the case
is secondary. Yet despite much fuss about hearing or not hearing the voice
of the subaltern, we are not actually paying attention to them—both because
we are too afraid of committing the colonialists’ mistake and deny history to
indigenous communities (Suzman, 2004: 214) and because it contradicts our
rationality. I agree with James Suzman (2004) when he points out that we
have to distinguish more carefully between historical consciousness, on the
one hand, and the past as exposed through historical inquiry, on the other. He
argues that some societies, such as the Kalahari San, may be ahistorical in
important ways. James Scott also points out that “how much history a people
have, far from indicating their low stage of evolution, is always an active
choice” (Scott, 2009: 237).
Whereas nineteenth-century anthropologists could not bear the idea of a
historical nonmodern society, it seems that today most anthropologists and
historians cannot stand the prospect of a group that has not had a history,
which can be mirrored upon our own, at least in rhetorical terms. K. Birth
rightly points out that much contemporary anthropology desires to document
and see change (Birth, 2008: 14), but this is actually a desire that perme-
ates all social sciences and humanities. The answer to the question that I
posed previously (why do we reject the archaic?) is simply: because we
love history—understood as perpetual change. But why do we love history?
Basically, because it is at the heart of our identity as (post)moderns (Birth,
2008: 15). Amor fati. As (post)moderns, we have replaced evolution (the
universalistic trope of the classic modernism) for history (which leaves room
for diversity, small narratives, and the local), but the concern for change as
essential to being human remains the same (see Hernando, 2012).
Along with change and the negation of remnants from the past, the third
element at work in the historical imagination of anthropologists and archae-
ologists is interaction. Like change, contact is also crucial for our modern
identity: we live immersed in a network, physical and virtual, that brings
together all the corners of the world (Castells, 1996). It is therefore not
strange that our concern for networks is extended to the past (e.g., Knappet,
2011; Van Dommelen and Knapp, 2010). This supermodern spatiality and
temporality (Connerton, 2009; Harvey, 1990) is so deeply ingrained in our
worldview and in our identity, that it is hard for us to conceive Others (of the
present or of the past) as living outside an intensely interconnected existence.
Furthermore, as it occurs with change, connection (which implies mobility)

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 24 Chapter 1

is good; it is cosmopolitan. Rootedness, instead, is perceived as reactionary

(Friedman, 2002: 30). Nations, ethnic groups, and rooted senses of belong-
ing are things of the past. It is time for routes not roots (Clifford, 1997). Tim
Cresswell (2006: 25) notes that “In contemporary social thought, words as-
sociated with mobility are unremittingly positive. If something can be said to
be fluid, dynamic, in flux, or simply mobile, then it is seen to be progressive,
exciting, and contemporary. If, on the other hand, something is said to be
rooted, based on foundations, static, or bounded, then it is seen to be reac-
tionary, dull and of the past.” If we do not value roots anymore (after the les-
sons of Nazism, the Rwandan genocide, and the Balkan wars), we would not
want them for the people we study. We want them to be cosmopolitans, not
nationalists (Friedman, 2002: 29). Nevertheless, many groups not only have
tried (and sometimes managed) to avoid contact and exchanges with other
peoples, they have even built a discourse and developed an ethos around it.
In some regions of South America, indigenous communities are in “voluntary
isolation,” refusing all contact with the modern world (International Work
Group for Indigenous Affairs, 2007). Refusing contact, as refusing change, is
part of the identity of many nonmodern communities—less and less so, as the
nation-state and capitalist multinationals encroach upon their last sanctuaries.
It is more than identity: as Harvey (1990: 432) reminds us, “attachment to a
certain conception of time and history is a political decision.” I agree with
Fabian (1983: 51) that the anthropology of time becomes the politics of time.
If that is true, then by imposing on the peoples we study a notion of time as
change and fluidity, we are also imposing a particular politics (those of late
capitalism). As social scientists, we have to be very aware of the space and
time we wish to promote (Harvey, 1990).
To conclude, during much of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, West-
ern identity was exclusivist—the pure Other, the primitive par excellence,
had no history and was isolated. Postmodernity, and the associated discourse
of multiculturalism, brought a necessity for inclusiveness. This has meant
temporal inclusiveness, in the guise of history, and spatial inclusiveness, in
the shape of multi-sited ethnographies, which explore interactions in the real
and virtual worlds (Marcus, 1995). I argue that truly respecting the temporal-
ity of the Other—and, by extension, Others themselves—means overcoming
the anxiety of making the Other historical in modernist terms. My impression
is that, in the end, making the Other our contemporary is not done for the
Other’s sake, but for our own, for the uneasiness that it produces in us is its
real difference—in this case, experiences of time that abolish the very idea
of time as we live it. Fabian (1983: 35) writes that “It takes imagination and
courage to picture what would happen to the West (and to anthropology) if
its temporal fortress were suddenly invaded by the Time of its Other.” Since

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 Time and Materiality 25

Fabian’s book, however, the Other has still been invaded by our time—now
the time of multiculturalism. For truly appraising difference, we have to ac-
knowledge that the alterity of the Other cannot be neutralized or made to be
amenable to our own fantasies. We have to admit that Others live in their own
time and although part of it can be translated into our own, another part, a
core of radical difference, cannot and should not. This core can be somewhat
equated with what has been termed “the archaic,” a deeply problematic and
connoted concept that I will try to reclaim in a later section.

History and the Time of the Subaltern

A step forward to do justice to other kinds of history is to take multiple tem-
poralities into account. In recent years, the idea of heterotemporality or mul-
titemporality has been gaining adepts, including archaeology (Olivier, 2008;
Witmore, 2006). Among the strongest proponents in the field of history is Di-
pesh Chakrabarty. “The writing of history,” writes Chakrabarty (2000: 109),
“must implicitly assume a plurality of times existing together, a disjuncture
of the present with itself.” This applies not just to history, but to other social
and human sciences as well. Chakrabarty channels multitemporality through
a double concept of history inspired by Marx. What he calls History 1 is the
universalistic and abstract history of capital (Chakrabarty, 2000: 63). History
2, in turn, is what Marx describes as “remnants” of “vanished social forma-
tions” (Ibid.: 64). Chakrabarty contends that both histories cannot be sepa-
rated: the multiple pasts of History 2 “inhere in capital and yet interrupt and
punctuate the run of capital’s own logic” (Ibid.), by suggesting “another time
that is not on the same, secular, homogeneous calendar” (Ibid.: 93). However,
Chakrabarty’s approach tends to privilege, metadiscursively, History 1 in that
it sets the pace and framework of the historical narrative. The protagonist of
History 2 is still just “a minor term in a dialectic that will emerge into a more
equitable universality” (Bhabha, 1994: 341). Besides, concepts that are ulti-
mately Western, such as labor and capital, and European dating systems still
furnish the orientational frameworks for structuring the past (Birth, 2008: 14).
History 2 is, as Chakrabarty himself notes, an irruption/interruption of the he-
gemonic abstract history of capital. A similar line is followed, as we saw, by
Eric Wolf (1999), for whom the historicity of the non-Europeans is marked
by the master referent of European history (or the expansion of capital, to be
more precise), and Hardt and Negri (2009: 67–70), who consider the anti-
modern stance of indigenous peoples resisting modernity as already/always
encompassed by modernity, even before modernity itself. The outstanding
prevalence of History 1 is perhaps nowhere more obvious than in Scott’s
anarchist history of Upland Southeast Asia. According to the anthropologist,

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 26 Chapter 1

we should not see Hill Peoples as “pre-anything. In fact, they are better un-
derstood as post-irrigated rice, postsedentary, postsubject and perhaps even
postliterate” (Scott, 2009: 337). In this way, the Other cannot be conceived to
live in their own temporality: a time that is neither pre- nor post-. It is always
dependent on the temporality of the state or capitalism: History 1.
This symbolical and totalizing preeminence granted to History 1, either as
an enabling or disabling space of historical agency, has to be displaced. Ver-
nacular histories and nonmodern experiences cannot be continually overshad-
owed by the hyper-referentiality of modernity, either explicitly or implicitly.
Yet the agency of the subaltern that many scholars investigate and celebrate
today always exists in strict dependence to the temporalities of History 1. It is
a historical agency within modernity, the colony, or the state. With Bhabha,
I argue that we need a re-inscription of the sign itself (history as the sign of
modernity)—a transformation of the site of enunciation; otherwise, we run
the risk of falling into a mimetic discourse that maintains the hegemonic
structures of power (Bhabha, 1994: 337).
Privileging History 2 does not mean to forsake the burden of dominance
and violence that is ever-present in History 1. It implies going to the site and
moment of enunciation, before the split of History between modernity and its
subaltern epiphenomena. It means making nonmodern temporalities the sign
that prevails in the inscription of History: delving into vernacular experiences
of rooted stasis and deep time, revaluing the remnant and the archaic. Deep
time, in fact, is what is lacking in most historical ethnographies, focused on
cultural encounters between indigenous peoples and colonial modernity or
the nation-state. Anthropologists see the effects of the European expansion of
the late fifteenth century onward and the multiple and contradictory histori-
cal experiences unleashed by it: this is their horizon of historicality. But they
are less interested in engaging with deep temporalities—the very ancient in
the very present. After the demise of diffusionist anthropology (which was
indeed interested in deep history), the only master referent for the histori-
cally minded anthropologist would be History 1 (state and modernity), which
looked much more manageable and empirically sound—the state history of
the written letter. Looking at History 2 is risky, because in a sense it implies
retaking the path in which diffusionist anthropologists once got lost—with
often nefarious consequences. Emphasizing History 2 also implies a politi-
cal move. By crossing out the master referent, we can avoid the anxiety of
making the subaltern stand to its demanding needs. We do not have to make
the societies we study fit history-as-change-and-interaction. We do not have
to find a way of making people vernacular modern or alter-modern. It does
not mean that they are not struggling with modernity or that they have not
changed in centuries, but these master referents of historicity—modernity

Book 1.indb 26 2/25/14 6:21 AM

 Time and Materiality 27

and change—are downplayed here. In this narration, thus, History 1 will be

always present, but it will be more like a menacing shadow, behind the slow,
dense temporalities of History 2.
Upon closer inspection, it turns out that the two histories of capital that
Chakrabarty retrieves from Marx to build postcolonial theory are not much
different from temporal dualities (or multiplicities) suggested by other schol-
ars. These perspectives, however, are perhaps more radical, in that they sug-
gest ways of debunking the primacy and naturalization of History 1. These
theories come from an anthropologist and a philosopher who are less anxious
about the state and capitalism than Chakrabarty—and most current social
scientists, for that matter. When one talks about dichotomic historicities, one
that comes readily to mind is Lévi-Strauss’s famous distinction between hot
and cold societies. According to the anthropologist, cold societies tend to
salvage the “debris of past events” and “annul the possible effect of histori-
cal factors on their equilibrium and continuity” (Lévi-Strauss, 1966: 234), as
opposed to hot societies, which resolutely internalize “the historical process,
making it the moving power of their development.” The object of cold societ-
ies is “to make it the case that the order of temporal succession should have
as little influence as possible on their content” (Ibid.). Therefore, it can be
said that hot societies are those that make themselves at home in History 1,
whereas cold societies are those in which the rhythms and temporalities of
History 2 prevail. Unlike Chakrabarty, Lévi-Strauss did not make cold history
dependent on hot history. Cold history is a political and cultural achievement:
the art of stopping time.
Another take on double temporality is that of philosopher Jacques Rancière
(1992). Rancière puts politics back in the dual temporality: History 1 is the
history of the powerful, History 2 that of the subaltern. They do coexist, but
one is hegemonic and silences the other. According to the philosopher, the
new way of writing history of the Annales School reversed the equation, kill-
ing the king and allowing the repressed temporality of the subaltern classes
to emerge. When the historian metaphorically enters the king’s office and
examines his desk, he finds two kinds of paperwork, ambassadors’ dispatches
and the futile papers of the poor, “those who speak outside the truth, invad-
ing the lost time of history” (Rancière, 1992: 50). This “invasion” is akin
to Chakrabarty’s “irruption/interruption,” but the difference between both
metaphors is not trivial: the historicity of the subaltern in Rancière invades,
eats away at, and gobbles up the time of the king; it makes its truth prevalent
over that of History 1.
Although their theories differ, Lévi-Strauss, Rancière, and Chakrabarty
agree in that History 2, or cold history, or the futile paperwork of history,
is the time of the subaltern: workers, peasants, indigenous people, stateless

Book 1.indb 27 2/25/14 6:21 AM

 28 Chapter 1

peoples, the poor. Another point of agreement that unites Rancière and
Chakrabarty is the vehicle of expression of History 2. The historian considers
that the pasts of History 2 are “partly embodied in the person’s bodily habits,
in unselfconscious collective practices, in his or her reflexes about what it
means to relate to objects in the world as a human being and together with
other human beings in his given environment” (Chakrabarty, 2000: 66). Ran-
cière, in turn, writes that the history of the subaltern is the world of “objects
and tools, the practices of the everyday, uses of the body, symbolic behavior.
The entire domain, in short, of the great regularities of material life” (Ran-
cière, 1994: 58; also Connerton, 1989: 18–19). History 2, then, is not just the
time of the subaltern, it is also the time of things. The time of the subaltern
is the time of things and this is so among other reasons, because, as Michel
Serres (1995: 87) reminds us, “[t]he object . . . stabilizes our relationships,
it slows down the time of our revolutions. . . . The object, for us, makes our
history slow.” The time of things has traditionally been a time of resistance,
the time of that which moves slowly and drags with it the weight of the past:
this is why Marinetti and the futurists wanted to burn down museums and
monuments, and celebrated those things that apparently escaped the fate of
things: airplanes and cars, artifacts of speed and movement. Ironically, even
those things have ended up slowing down history’s pace: the late Victorian
machinery of cars has changed little for well over a hundred years, and there
has been no major breakthrough in aeronautics for more than half a century
(Edgerton, 2011). Even the supermodern is archaic.

Reclaiming the Archaic

Those who explored for the first time the relationships between deep tem-
porality, the time of the subaltern, and the time of things were evolutionist
and diffusionist anthropologists. The work of Baumann and Westermann
(1948), for instance, can be considered archaeological, in that they try to
reconstruct, mostly through material culture, the deep history of all African
cultures: the artifacts existing in the present allow us to know the past. That
the culture-historical school produced flawed narratives and was suffused
with colonialist intentions should not detract from the value of some of their
insights. The problem is that the way in which they understood the particular
temporality of the nonmoderns was mediated through a historicist concept
of the “archaic,” which saw most elements of the past in the present as inco-
herent remnants, debris from particular historical trajectories (Harris, 2001:
164–68; Lucas, 2012: 29–33). The study of cultural remnants was perceived
more or less like historical linguistics (Froelich, 1968: 25; Lucas, 2012: 32).
Thus, there are elements in contemporary Indo-European languages that pre-

Book 1.indb 28 2/25/14 6:21 AM

 Time and Materiality 29

serve traces of a past of ancient warriors and nomadic pastoralists that have
no concordance with present societies but somehow managed to survive in
modern languages. In the same way that philologists tried (and still try) to
recover history through the lexical traces of remote pasts, anthropologists felt
capable of retracing the historical evolution of traditional societies by look-
ing at awkward institutions and archaic artifacts. The work of archaeologists,
linguists, and anthropologists was quite similar (Lucas, 2012: 31): they all
studied relics, survivals, and remnants that, although absurd in the present,
offered a window into the past.
This of course is a historicist perspective that creates a strong divide be-
tween past and present. Still, it admits that the past is not completely over
but lingers through material and immaterial traces in the present. In the case
of anthropology, the archaic remnants could be tangible or intangible. Relic-
tual artifacts (such as elements of dress, adornments, or digging sticks) were
sometimes considered to have survived because they are too unimportant
(Froelich, 1968: 33). I will try to show here that it is rather the opposite:
they were too important to just let them go, although their importance is not
always obvious.
Archaism did not affect isolated elements; some groups were perceived as
remnants in themselves and accordingly named with the temporal prefix pre-
or ur-: they were considered the living ancestors of other, more developed
groups. These pre- peoples are a perfect example of the allochronic practices
of anthropology that, as we have seen, Johannes Fabian (1983) criticized. In
the case that concerns us here, the ethnic groups of the Ethiopian-Sudanese
borderland were called “Pre-Nilotes” (Grottanelli, 1948, 1966; Murdock,
1959: 170–80), a term that implied a double primitiveness: they were the
primitive ancestor (pre-) of a primitive people (the Nilotes). Grottanelli’s
Pre-Nilotes added to an already long list of prehistoric fossils in Africa that
were the object of an abundant literature during the first half of the twentieth
century. Culture-historical anthropologists struggled to define large cultural
circles that comprised what seemed to be the most archaic civilizations of sub-
Saharan Africa. Some of those proposals seem absurd today. This is the case
of the boomerang culture circle or Afro-Australian culture, with origins in the
Palaeolithic and that spread, as the name indicates, between eastern Africa and
the Pacific (Ankermann, 1905: 82–83). Other culture circles are less bizarre,
but still have the problem of trying to find common historical origins and
cover impossibly extensive areas: the Euro-African hunters of the steppes that
stretch from southern Africa to Morocco from the Late Palaeolithic onward
are a good example (Baumann and Westermann, 1948: 40–48). Other attempts
were more realistic: Grottanelli’s concept of “Pre-Nilotes,” despite its errors,
singled out a variety of peoples that clearly had a lot in common: they are

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 30 Chapter 1

more or less the borderland communities that are examined in this book. One
of the last efforts at defining (and refining) archaic cultural circles—that of
Jean-Claude Froelich (1968)—had some useful points as well. Froelich looked
at mountainous pockets in the northernmost part of sub-Saharan Africa and
explained the cultural peculiarities of the peoples who inhabit them not as the
result of their supposed common cultural origins (like Baumann and Wester-
mann, 1948: 65–71), but rather as the product of their ability to escape from
the control of the state and “civilization.” These paléonigritiques are described
as “peoples apparently passive, conservative, attached to the land and closed
up in islets surrounded by younger populations and subjected to continuous
pressure by these more active elements” (Froelich, 1968: 10). In this way, he
somewhat anticipates later anthropological models, such as those of Wendy
James (1979, 1980) or James C. Scott (2009).
Anthropologists have criticized the unscientific and speculative nature of
culture-historical reconstructions and their emphasis on insignificant material
details to reconstruct ambitious long-term histories. The critique was often
correct, the counterproposal not. The riposte to culture-historical anthropolo-
gists consisted, on the one hand, in replacing culture-history with either no
history at all—the choice of structuralism and functionalism—or with the
homogenous empty time of historicism—the choice of postmodernism. Re-
garding things, the solution was to abandon them altogether. Things were for
museum curators, not for real anthropologists (Lemonnier, 1992: 11; Pfaffen-
berger, 1992: 492–93).
A similar biography of disengagement with archaic traces and deep history
can be suggested for other disciplines. In their obsession with origins and
their attempt at reconstructing history, culture-historical anthropologists were
not alone: psychoanalysis was involved in a similar quest during the same
period, often with homologous results. Anthropologists and psychoanalysts
shared the same premises: the past leaves traces in the present; by looking at
these traces, we can discover the origins of contemporary phenomena and re-
construct their historical processes. Although Freud himself doubted his own
reconstructions (Brenneis, 1999: 189), psychoanalysis, for many, became as-
sociated with wildly speculative history as much as culture-historical anthro-
pology. As with this later discipline, a widespread solution was to abandon
or downplay history: this was the case with Gestalt, behaviorism, and cog-
nitivism, mainly in the United States. The problem with psychoanalysis and
culture-historical anthropology’s notion of the archaic was their insistence
in specific origins: a moment in time and a geographical location. Consider
Freud’s famous analysis of “The Wolfman.” He explicitly reconstructs a very
particular moment and place, an Urszene, to which the neurosis of his patient
can be traced back: the cogitum a tergo of his parents in a warm summer

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 Time and Materiality 31

afternoon that took place while the eighteen-month-old child was present in
a cot located in the parent’s bedroom (Freud, 2006: 225–26). The neurotic
patient later transformed the original material in different ways throughout
his life, through varying associations of the repressed experience to different
things, people, and places. Freud later qualifies in various ways this Urszene,
but the detailed original reconstruction remains baffling.
When psychoanalysis and culture-historical anthropology fail, therefore,
it is not when they call attention to the apparently incongruous fragments
of the past in the present. They fail when they try to fit historicist temporal-
ity: a temporality that is plotted along a lineal trajectory, which begins in a
very specific moment in time and is punctuated by equally specific historical
episodes. Those disciplines work best when they detach themselves from
historicism, when they reveal temporal mixtures and pleats and forget about
specific origins.
How does anthropology conduct its critique of the archaic? A good exam-
ple of the procedure is offered by Scott (2009: 189). He resorts to the example
of the Sirionó of Bolivia, which were depicted as a Palaeolithic survival by
its first ethnographer (Holmberg, 1969 [1950]). The group was revisited by
Stearman (1984) who discovered that they have been in fact crop-growing
villagers until the 1920s, when they became hunter-gatherers after a series
of epidemics that killed a large part of the population—again the master
referent of modernity introducing change and history into a people without
history. The story, however, might be more complex. As far as we know, the
Sirionó have never stopped being horticulturalists, not even when they were
studied in the 1940s, but the weight of agriculture and foraging has varied
through time, depending on the circumstances. As cultural practices, they
are both very ancient, neither of them an invention of colonial encounters—
although colonial processes have had a role in shaping them. The important
point, though, is that a heavy reliance on hunting is far from being a recent
innovation among the Sirionó and the key to its importance is given by ma-
terial culture and specifically their bows and arrows. The relevance of these
objects among the male Sirionó was such as to become the identifying sign
of the community in the eyes of outsiders: Holmberg called them “Nomads
of the Long Bow.” Obviously, this is not something that could be improvised
overnight or after an epidemic.
More importantly, the bows and the high number of arrows that the Siri-
onó carry with them recall the situation of other Tupi-Guarani groups who
live thousands of kilometers away, in northeastern Brazil. This is the case of
the Awá, with whom I had occasion to work (González-Ruibal et al., 2011).
They make an extremely similar kind of bow and also carry with them a
huge number of arrows. The extraordinary care invested by the Awá and the

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 32 Chapter 1

Sirionó in making, mending, using, and even discarding bows and arrows,
and their manifold structural connections with other phenomena in their
cultures, has been interpreted by my colleagues and me as an index of the
ontological importance of these weapons (and hunting) among them. Bows
and arrows make the Sirionó and the Awá human beings. As the Awá and the
Sirionó were separated during the Tupi-Guarani migrations and they did not
have the chance to meet again at least since the sixteenth century, the only
way their bows and arrows can be so similar is because they were similar
before they parted company a thousand years ago. There is no need to deny
that the Sirionó and the Awá had a complex history of interaction with the
state or that their livelihoods have been dramatically affected by it. However,
too much emphasis has been placed already on these external agents—in
History 1—and very little on what remains against all odds. There is some-
thing “archaic” among the Sirionó and the Awá, remnants of the deep past
that are active and important in their present lives—not mere relics. It would
be wrongheaded to make of the bow just another invented tradition of the
sort that anthropologists and historians cherish so much: an English-made
Scottish kilt (Trevor-Roper, 1983) or an Aboriginal Australian spearhead for
British collectors (Harrison, 2002). To reduce the bow or hunting to a kind of
invented tradition does not only devalue the culture of the Sirionó and Awá.
It also overlooks the fact that maintaining alive the archaic—in the sense
of ta archaia, old things (Olsen et al., 2012: 3; Witmore, 2009b)—is some-
thing that requires enormous efforts of care and curation (Olsen et al., 2012:
203–7). The refusal to accept the archaic is based on a very modernist notion
of time and materiality. For some historians and anthropologists, it seems
to be difficult to accept that a thing from the remote past is not exclusively
from the past but also from the present (Witmore, 2009b: 31). The fact that
a technology is ten millennia old does not make it less contemporary than
the latest digital device. We should not try to deny its archaic character, but
rather wonder at the continuous work that has been invested in maintaining
ta archaia among us. There is growing awareness that pasts must be worked
for in order to endure (Olsen et al., 2012; Witmore, 2009b: 33) and also that
things are continuously changing, decaying, and falling apart and therefore
huge efforts are needed to produce stability (Hodder, 2012: 64–70, 209). To
maintain a pottery technology or a throwing stick from the Neolithic to our
days is an impressive feat. We owe those feats of stabilization more often
than not to subaltern peoples: women, slaves, servants, indigenous peoples,
and the working classes.
It is probably for this reason that maintenance activities have been tradi-
tionally marginalized in the humanities and social sciences, as opposed to the
activities geared toward transformation and innovation (Montón-Subías and

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 Time and Materiality 33

Sánchez-Romero, 2008). Almudena Hernando reminds us: “[m]aintenance ac-

tivities are vital for the support of the group, but they are structurally opposite
to activities that are associated with individuality and power. Because of this,
they have not been recognized by History” (2008: 13). Old things have been
forgotten; new things have been given precedence. This is obvious in archae-
ology. The study of the European Bronze Age, for instance, has traditionally
revolved around the things that change: masculine artifacts of war and work
(spears, swords, axes). The objects made or used by women and that changed
much less, such as pottery or quern stones, the things that speak of slower
temporal rhythms, ancient times, nurturing, and cooperation, have been mar-
ginalized from archaeological discourses until very recently. Reclaiming the
archaic, then, means also reclaiming the labor and experience of the subaltern.

1.5. MATERIALITY

In the previous section, we have seen how the temporality embraced by an-
thropology rejected deep time and remnants. This move also implied a rejec-
tion of things, as deep time and material culture were closely linked in the
culture-historical discourse, which used objects to reconstruct wildly specula-
tive historical trajectories. Anthropologists, however, threw out the baby with
the bath water, and the baby has not yet been fully recovered (Olsen, 2010).
There has been, of course, a reawakening in the interest for material culture
in cultural anthropology (Miller, 1991), but this interest has been partial for
at least four reasons: (1) it has massively focused on the symbolic qualities
of things and selected only those things that were more easily amenable to
a hermeneutic approach (Olsen, 2010); (2) it has overlooked materiality it-
self (Hodder, 2012; Olsen, 2003, 2010); (3) it has done without collectives
of things and their manifold relations (Hodder, 2012); and (4) it has largely
forgotten production and discard (but see Douny, 2007), and privileged
consumption instead (González-Ruibal, 2006a). These problems affect the
diverse schools of modern material culture studies differently (González-
Ruibal, 2006a: 119–20). Thus, the German tradition has kept a totalizing
view of material culture, which can be seen in the diverse monographs of
sub-Saharan African communities that are still being published (see a critical
overview in Hahn, 2003). Even if they have kept and sometimes developed
the material richness of early anthropology, the problems with their approach
are threefold: first, they do not deal with people and things anymore (as in
late-nineteenth- and early-twentieth-century ethnography), but just things;
second, they seldom take into account Western technology; and finally, they
usually work with outdated sociological frameworks (but see Hahn, 2005).

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 34 Chapter 1

The French or French-speaking tradition, following Durkheim’s and later

Mauss’s legacy, is much richer from a sociological point of view, but it is
rarely totalizing (see the journal Téchniques et culture). Thus, the Pétréquins
study axes (Pétréquin and Pétréquin, 1993) or pots (Pétréquin and Pétréquin,
1999) in impressive detail and with remarkable sociological sensibility, but
they do not explore the relations between them, the whole ecology of things
in the Melanesian societies that they study. In fact, with a remarkable excep-
tion (Lemonnier, 1992), few authors deal with full material assemblages,
despite Pierre Lemonnier (1992: 9) bemoaning “how little chance there is
of understanding the material culture of any society by studying just a few
artefacts, or, worse, by studying artefacts of only a single type.” On the other
hand, classic anthropologists such as Godelier, Meillassoux, or Clastres
rarely take material culture into account; at the most, they see objects as mate-
rial metaphors of wider social facts (e.g., Godelier, 2002).
Finally, the British school, with its prevailing focus on Western artifacts,
after the postcolonial turn, reflected in the Journal of Material Culture, has
also deprived us of the holistic approaches of early ethnographies. They have
even led us further away from other ways of using, thinking, and engaging
with material culture. This is what happens when anthropologists return home
from the tropics, as Latour (1993: 100) criticizes. Thus, material culture spe-
cialists have studied mostly industrial objects, such as cars (Miller, 1991).
And even when they look beyond their country, material culturists seem to be
interested mostly in partial studies—see, for example, the otherwise wonder-
ful work of Glassie (1999), with chapters on carpets and pots—or on Western
commodities in non-Western contexts (Miller, 1998, 2001). Contrary to what
Lemonnier recommends, home decorations, blue jeans, cars, or cell phones
are usually studied in isolation in this tradition. Ethnoarchaeology has been,
in some cases, a way of engaging more fully with the materiality of traditional
communities and with complex assemblages of people and things, as we have
seen, but the problems in this case are the analogical uses to which the ma-
terials have been usually put and the scarce social interpretation of the data.
It can be argued that archaeology is in a good position to overcome these
flaws, because the discipline has traditionally dealt with symbols as well as
with matter, with entire collectives of humans and things, and with complete
chaîne operatoires (Olsen et al., 2012; Skibo and Schiffer, 2008). In that,
archaeology has kept the indiscriminate interest of early ethnography in the
whole materiality of social life, from the way of tying a knot to a ritual house.
This interest is perfectly captured by Marcel Griaule, when he says that “all
human activities are translated into objects, and we can say that, theoreti-
cally, it would be possible to achieve knowledge of a society by founding
the observation on everything it has created or used and by surrounding it

Book 1.indb 34 2/25/14 6:21 AM

 Time and Materiality 35

with a maximum of documentation” (1938: 7). Having remained faithful to

materiality in all its variety and complexity, archaeology should be able to
undertake the study not just of past material cultures, but present ones as well
(Harrison, 2011). To give justice to the relevance of things, however, three
issues have to be considered: ontology, the unconscious, and texture.

Ontology
Since the late 1970s, great attention has been paid by archaeologists and
anthropologists to the symbolic aspects of material culture (Hodder, 1982).
Artifacts are considered to be meaningfully constituted and, as symbols, to
be actively manipulated by social actors to attain certain ends, such as ac-
quiring or legitimating status, contesting power, marking an ethnic identity,
negotiating the individual self, or performing gender (Hodder, 1982: 85–86).
At the same time, it has been argued that things have to be granted a more
active role in culture. From the post-processual point of view, material culture
is not a mere reflection of society, but is deeply involved in its constitution
and transformation: “material culture transforms, rather than reflects, social
organisation according to the strategies of groups, their beliefs, concepts
and ideologies” (Hodder 1982: 212). Despite talk about “symbols in action”
and the active role of material culture, what post-processual theory mostly
encouraged were studies of human actors manipulating artifacts for diverse
purposes. Thus, for instance, Ian Hodder (1982: 121) wrote that “The Lozi
example shows how the dominant group may consciously and carefully ma-
nipulate material symbols in order to justify and legitimate its power” (my
emphasis). From this perspective, artifacts are but a medium in the hands of
people who use them in their manifold social engagements—a view similar
to that maintained by behavioral archaeologists (Skibo and Schiffer, 2008).
These views are still quite dominant. For Christopher Tilley (2006: 63), “Cre-
ating things is a fabrication of the social self,” and the same is argued for the
exchange and consumption of things. Thus, Kula shells are an example of
things used in making social identities through the intertwining of the biog-
raphies of both shells and people in continuous circulation (Tilley, 2006: 63).
Recent critiques, often stemming from post-processual perspectives, insist
that there is more to material culture than meaning and also that symbolism
is but one facet of the nature of things, not necessarily and not always the
most crucial (Hodder, 2012; Jones, 2007; Knappett, 2002, 2012; Olsen, 2003,
2010). This does not mean that meaning is not important: the interpretation of
social meaning is, in fact, an important aim of this book. Rather, the critique
to hermeneutic excesses reminds us that things are more than a blank and
malleable surface on which to project our needs, desires, ideas, and values:

Book 1.indb 35 2/25/14 6:21 AM

 36 Chapter 1

things are an inextricable part of us, an extension of our bodies (Webmoor

and Witmore, 2008). We are not only through the use of things, but also
through the making of things (Dobres, 2000; Olsen et al., 2012: 157–95).
This latter aspect has been forgotten, due to the limited agency of people in
the production of artifacts in industrial and postindustrial societies, which is
reflected in material culture studies’ focus on consumption. One of the inter-
ests of looking at nonmodern communities is the chance of understanding the
ontological relevance of making (Dobres, 2000; González-Ruibal et al., 2011;
Ingold, 1990). Taking materiality seriously implies rethinking some assump-
tions taken for granted among many practitioners of the social sciences, such
as the absolute centrality of human agency: social roles are distributed among
human and non-human actors alike (Hodder, 2012; Knappett and Malafouris,
2008; Latour, 1992; Olsen et al., 2012).
An ontological approach to things, as will be defended here, considers
ecologies of humans and non-humans woven into the same existential sphere
(Webmoor and Witmore, 2008), but these ecologies are wildly different from
one society to the other: ontological approaches in recent years precisely em-
phasize this diversity (see Alberti and Marshall, 2009; Alberti et al., 2011).
What does not vary is the fact that humans and things cannot be separated.
This means that a bow does not have to be less important than a spirit, and
a pot deserves, a priori, as much attention as the mother’s brother. This does
not mean that all artifacts are equal, as no anthropologist would believe
that all kinship positions or ritual performances have the same relevance in
a given society. Therefore, although I will refer to very different kinds of
things throughout the book, there will be some artifacts that will play a more
prominent role in the narrative than others, because they have a more crucial
ontological role. Those artifacts could be considered in some cases material
technologies of the self. Elsewhere, we have defended that a technology of
the self could be identified by the following traits (González-Ruibal et al.,
2011: 14):

1. It has preferably to be built by his or her owner.

2. Its fabrication, use, and maintenance have to take time and require intel-
lectual concentration and educated sensorimotor skills.
3. It must be recognized by others as personal (even inalienable) property.
4. It has to be individualized to a certain degree (that is, to be clearly dis-
tinguishable from similar items belonging to other people).
5. It has to be intimately tied to its owner (it might be often carried away
with him or her, even when it is not used).
6. It must have a corporeal, prosthetic character, as an extension of the
human body.

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 Time and Materiality 37

7. Its making and use must be frequent and imply routine: the repetition of
the same acts is fundamental to the maintenance of ontological security
and the continuity of being.
8. When the owner dies, it has to be buried with him or her or destroyed;
it is not usually inherited or used by other persons after death.

It is important to bear in mind that this self does not have to be the individual
self of Western modernity: it can be the relational self of nonmodern com-
munities (Hernando, 2012). Some of the objects to which I will refer here can
be properly considered technologies of the self: for instance, bows and arrows
for Gumuz men, and necklaces and baby bags for Gumuz women. However,
not all artifacts that are ontologically crucial in the constitution of a certain
group of people can be easily described as a technology of the self. There
is another concept that is useful for describing things that have ontological
value, independent of whether they are technologies of the self or not: core
objects. Ernst Boesch (1991: 333) defines a “core object” as “one which, by
its usages and ritual connectedness, appears to be vital for the self-definition
of a culture.” A core object is the ritual hut of the Mao or the beer pot of the
Bertha, which do not fit well to the concept of technology of the self. How-
ever, artifacts that constitute a technology of the self are always core objects.

The Unconscious
A turn to ontology requires another shift in perspective that has not been
fully performed thus far: from the realm of the conscious to that of the
unconscious. This is a change implicit in the turn from a focus on symbol-
ization and communication to a concern with ontology. Ontology implies a
relation between humans and non-humans that is prior to symbolization and
therefore deeper and less obvious for the human actor. A turn to ontology
implies rethinking and evaluating critically the vocabulary so common in
post-processual archaeology and material culture studies that includes terms
such as “strategy,” “negotiation,” and “manipulation,” which inevitably
implies a conscious human actor and a rather passive material world. From
this perspective, things are only activated by human agency. However, from
an ontological point of view, non-human actors are already/always activated
and at work, independent of symbolic action. They can be further symbol-
ized, of course, and, in some contexts (such as culture contact or social
crisis), actively manipulated. But this latter situation, at least in traditional,
nonmodern societies, should be considered the exception, not the rule. Pierre
Bourdieu’s notion of doxa is useful here (see Pauketat, 2001; Silliman, 2001).
According to the sociologist, “when there is a quasi-perfect correspondence

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 38 Chapter 1

between the objective order and the subjective principles of organization

(as in ancient societies) the natural and social world appears as self-evident.
This experience we shall call doxa, so as to distinguish it from an orthodox
or heterodox belief implying awareness and recognition of the possibility of
different or antagonistic beliefs” (Bourdieu, 1977: 164). The problem with
archaeological and anthropological studies in the wake of postmodernism is
that their emphasis on orthodoxy and heterodoxy has eclipsed the much more
common state of things, that is, the doxa, the unreflective reality of ordinary
social life. This unreflective reality is stressed by another sociologist, Paul
Connerton (1989), when he talks about “incorporating practices,” such as
bodily gesture and movement. These are essentially unconscious, as opposed
to “inscribing practices,” which have been traditionally prioritized by the
hermeneutically leaned social sciences (Connerton, 1989: 100–1). Conner-
ton is wrong, though, when he considers that these incorporating practices
are “largely traceless” (Connerton, 1989: 102; see critique in Olsen, 2010:
123–24). Archaeologists regularly document these practices: when they map
the interior of a house, with their distribution of artifacts and activity areas,
they are mapping bodily movements and, thus, incorporating practices (Hod-
der and Cessford, 2004).
In a sense, a turn to the unconscious implies for the archaeologist to be-
have like a psychoanalyst. It is well known that psychoanalysts do not simply
want their patients to tell what they know but do not tell other people. They
also want to know what the patients themselves do not know. By looking at
materiality and material practices, archaeologists should also be able to dis-
cover what the people whom they study do not know of themselves or barely
know. That material culture and the unconscious are strongly related has
already been pointed out by other anthropologists and archaeologists. Leroi
Gourhan noted that “crepuscular consciousness” (conscience crépusculaire)
was the most common state in the more habitual technical practices (1965:
20). Henry Glassie (1975: 11), in turn, argued that “occurrences [in material
culture] cannot be explained by appeal to consciousness alone, because the
historic pattern is at least as much the product of the unconscious as it is of
the conscious.” As we have seen, the unconscious is also crucial in the theory
of practice, despite the Anglo-Saxon hijacking of the theory to suit their
concerns with agency. According to Schwartz (1997: 10), for Bourdieu, the
“sociologist is to the ‘social unconscious’ of society as the psychoanalyst is to
the patient’s unconscious.” Bourdieu himself was aware of the parallelism. In
his Masculine Domination (2001: 3–5), he argues for “an objective archaeol-
ogy of our unconscious,” a socioanalysis that is capable of objectifying the
categories of the androcentric unconscious.

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 Time and Materiality 39

It is not necessary to look among scholars inspired by structuralism to find

statements that emphasize the unconscious. Evans-Pritchard (1970: 232), for
example, considered that Nuer spears were invested with a “deeper symbol-
ism” (as compared to sacrifices, rites of passage, and healing rituals) of which
the Nuer were not fully aware: “there is a deeper symbolism which is so em-
bedded in ritual action that its meaning is neither obvious nor explicit.” Ian
Hodder himself (1982: 180), in his study of Nuba personal art, states that “it
is difficult to see how verbal information could add to the analyses. In this re-
spect the archaeologist is in the same position as the student of art and design
of modern societies.” Elsewhere, the same author argues that “it should be
clear however that the ideas that archaeologists reconstruct are not necessar-
ily the conscious thoughts that would have been expressed if we could travel
backwards through time and talk to people in Prehistory” (Hodder, 1992: 18).
What is said does not exhaust meaning. If this is so in prehistoric times, it has
to be the case also in the present: things can convey non-explicit meanings.
Furthermore, “There are gaps, shadows, silences, and absences which are not
simply outside discourse, but are often structurally excluded by discourse”
(Lucas, 2004: 117). These silences can be traced through material behav-
iors. Most archaeologists, however, have preferred to eschew absences and
interruptions and focus on active negotiation and agency, thus forgetting the
relevance of the unconscious. I think that archaeology can make an important
contribution in this area, among other things, because the gist of archaeology
is to work, as Deetz (1977) famously put it, with “small things forgotten.”
Small, forgotten things are also the material with which psychoanalysts
work: “The very things that are new about psychoanalysis and are most
characteristic of it are the ones that are neglected, dismissed as a mistake,”
wrote Freud (2006: 242). Psychoanalysis found those neglected things “in the
rubbish-heap, as it were, of our observations” (cited in Ginzburg 1980: 10).
In a similar vein, Walter Benjamin refers to the “inconspicuous corners of
existence,” the overlooked materials—“detritus of history”—that are able to
reveal the nature of the past powerfully (1994: 505). Carlo Ginzburg (1980)
compares Freud to the late-nineteenth-century art critic Giovanni Morelli,
who called attention to ear lobes, fingers, toes, and even nails in the paintings
of great masters in order to ascertain their authorship. We could add still an-
other category of scholars: again, the forgotten and vilified culture-historical
anthropologists. Like Freud, Morelli, and Benjamin, they also looked for
traces, forgotten things, mistakes, and lapses, and the banal more generally.
The anthropological traces were frequently material: a way of tying a knot or
weaving a basket, a scarification design, a type of hearth, or a thatched roof.
With these materials, culture-historical anthropologists built their histories.

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 40 Chapter 1

That they were often far-fetched or wrong should not make us overlook the
fact that they belong to the same evidential paradigm (Crossland, 2009).
“Even buried, even maimed, even ignored, the remote past of which memory
is lost continues to express itself in the present, in some way ‘across’ [à trav-
ers] all the subsequent evidence,” writes Laurent Olivier (2008: 216). What
he says comparing psychoanalysis and archaeology could have been de-
fended by any anthropologist of the early twentieth century trying to arrange
his or her material data from African or South American societies.
Archaeology similarly works with banal details, the neglected and the re-
pressed. As the archaeology it intends to be, this book pays attention to the
rubbish heap of our observations: more specifically, it digs up the dump where
evolutionist and diffusionist anthropologists started to excavate. It looks at
huts and fences, bows and arrows, spears, honey gourds and beehives, pots
and scarifications. Unlike the prehistorian who only has artifacts, however,
I can compare material traces, practices, and gestures with discourses: those
of the dominant groups, those of the dominated, and still those of the people
who were neither masters nor slaves, the travelers and chroniclers who wrote
about the peoples with whom I have worked. Yet even the prehistorian can
compare the hegemonic uses of material culture and those that escape con-
scious appropriation.
A focus on the unconscious might be argued to go against the goals of this
book: examining resistance. Many authors argue that there cannot be resis-
tance without consciousness (see debate in Hollander and Einwohner, 2004).
How is it possible to do an archaeology of resistance? My point is that when
one resists, one does so not only in an active conscious way, but also unwit-
tingly. This is related to the political ontology of resistance to which I referred
in a previous section (1.2). Bodily gestures and manners of doing and using
things (technical gestures), which are fully and unreflectively incorporated
into one’s being, can become daily acts of resistance that are recognized as
such by others. For instance, one may consciously go bare-breasted in defi-
ance of hegemonic rules that prescribe concealment of the body in public and
at the same time display an unconscious bodily hexis (such as a way of carry-
ing a pot) that makes members from the dominant group aware of a different
ethos at work. Resistance in egalitarian societies facing the state is a full-time
activity, which keeps working, as does the brain when one is sleeping.

The Textures of Things

In the previous two sections, I have explored what could be called the depth
of things, what is beyond the surface and has to be “excavated”: the deep
ontological relations that tie people and things together, and the unconscious

Book 1.indb 40 2/25/14 6:21 AM

 Time and Materiality 41

nature of an important part of our material engagements with the world—

including, sometimes, resistance. We will return to the surface now (Harri-
son, 2011). One might wonder, in the first place, whether the surface of things
is important at all. Even those who do not usually take things into consider-
ation admit that objects, or at least some of them, are important, in the way
they materialize social meanings and social relations, but the surface of things
is hardly considered. By surface I mean here what can be sensorially expe-
rienced: the texture of things. Sensoriality (sound, taste, touch, and smell)
has been quite absent in ethnographic accounts until recently (see critique in
Witmore, 2006) and when it has, ethnographers have been mostly interested
in interpreting and translating the cultural meaning of sensorial experiences in
different contexts (a remarkable exception is Taussig, 2004). But what about
these rich textures of the world that resist inscription (Witmore, 2006: 271;
also Hurcombe, 2007; Witmore, 2009a)? The things in themselves have been
quite absent from ethnographic monographs since the demise of material
culture in the 1920s. Directly related to this is the limited amount of images
present in typical ethnographies, a situation confirmed in every monograph
produced in our area of study (Evans-Pritchard, 1970, 1992; James, 1979,
1988; Jedrej, 1995; Theis, 1995). In the few images offered in these studies,
people invariably occupy the foreground, whereas the thingliness of daily
life can hardly be grasped in the blurred fragments of background that we are
permitted to see. Pots are, at best, mere props, and huts, a shallow scenario
where humans ring the tune. If there is a sense that describing the material-
ity of things, bodies, and landscapes is not the proper job of ethnography,
picturing them is perceived, in addition, as colonial and reifying. This has
been, of course, true: It is not mere chance that the most lavishly illustrated
monograph belongs to the most colonial of the anthropologists who worked
in the region (Grottanelli, 1940). That ethnographic photos are voyeuristic
and inquisitorial has been abundantly proved, but so are ethnographic texts
(Rosaldo, 1986), and this has not prevented ethnographers from interviewing
people (often on very intimate things) and exposing the private lives of their
research subjects. The critique of the visual and of the ethnographic inquiry
has encouraged more ethically conscious forms of fieldwork. However, the
truth is that the critique of the visual has erased visuality from conventional
ethnographies (images have been mostly ghettoized in special journals and
monographs), whereas the critique of ethnographic texts has instead encour-
aged new ways of writing and engaging with the subjects under study.
In stark opposition to the sobriety of conventional ethnographies stand
coffee table books of “wild tribes” (for Ethiopia, see Giansanti, 2004). There
is a bias here toward those raw materialities that are associated with a world
perceived as primitive, but the truth is that one can imagine better how it is

Book 1.indb 41 2/25/14 6:21 AM

 42 Chapter 1

to live physically in a pastoralist village through popular photography books

than from a typical ethnography. It is not my intention here to defend these
books, though, but to bemoan the fact that manifesting the material richness
of specific worlds has been traditionally left in the hands of untrained travel-
ers. I think that we have to recover the textures of the world and “the noise,
ruckus and commotion associated with things—those qualities that otherwise
recede into the background” (Witmore, 2009a: 521) and make them a relevant
part of our research. Archaeologists are well suited to do this, given that they
have never abandoned material textures.
What I am proposing is simply transferring the way archaeologists mediate
the ordinary materiality of past worlds into the present. This, in fact, is noth-
ing new: it is what ethnoarchaeologists have been doing since the late 1950s,
although with other aims in mind, as we have seen (see section 1.1). The plan
of a reindeer butchering site of the Nunamiut (Binford, 1991) conveys as
much information about a daily activity as a detailed account of the symbolic
and social aspects of hunting. I have already mentioned the several ethnoar-
chaeological projects carried out during the 1960s and 1970s that documented
settlements of nonmodern communities in rich detail (Horne, 1994; Watson,
1979), but the tradition was unfortunately discontinued. Gustavo Politis’s
stunning monograph on the Nukak is an exception (2007). The photographs
and maps included in the book are as much a part of the narrative as the text
itself (see also Mans, 2012). In the world so depicted, we see people, we see
their rainforest, their animals, their houses, their blowpipes and hammocks.
As it has already been pointed out, however, well before ethnoarchaeologists
began drawing and photographing pots, scatters of artifacts, and kilns, anthro-
pologists had been doing that for decades. In the case of Ethiopia, the works
of Haberland (1963) and Straube (1963), among others, have rich textual and
visual information of almost every aspect of material life.
The relevance of material textures is, in my opinion, clear. For manifesting
a lived world, meaning is not enough (Olsen, 2003). My interest in textures
emerges simultaneously from a fascination for early ethnographic accounts
and a dissatisfaction with ethnographies where one can hardly obtain an
impression of how people’s material life actually is, except by prying into
the background noise of photographs. One might be able to know almost
everything about cosmology, perceptions of illness, spirits, forms of social
violence, land rights, rites of passage, and the political imagination. It is not
my intention to downplay the enormous intellectual feat of ethnographic thick
description. But these complex and nuanced narratives often fail to convey, at
the end of the day, the sense of lived life: they are thick in meaning, but this,
for me, is not thick enough. We still need to capture the immediacy of things:
the rhythmic sound of the grinding stone and the rough touch of an old pot.

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 Time and Materiality 43

NOTE

1. Interview conducted in the village of Yeri (Gambela region), March 2010.

Book 1.indb 43 2/25/14 6:21 AM

Book 1.indb 44 2/25/14 6:21 AM
 2
Ecology of a Shatter Zone

Mountains reject big history.

—Fernand Braudel (1966: 45)

James C. Scott describes the “shatter zones” between states as zones “of ref-
uge . . . where the human shards of state formation and rivalry accumulated
willy nilly, creating regions of bewildering ethnic and linguistic complex-
ity” (Scott, 2009: 7). The description fits perfectly the Sudanese-Ethiopian
borderland (figure 2.1), an area of great cultural diversity, where a variety
of small-scale communities have resisted political inequalities for centuries,
if not millennia (Fernández, 2003). This rugged and isolated land, described
as “inaccessible and uncontrolled, the natural refuge of outcasts” (Crawford,
1951: 153), has acted as a safe haven for people escaping or fighting the state,
including egalitarian groups, holymen, and brigands (Caulk, 1984; McHugh,
1994; Triulzi, 1981). In that, this mountainous borderland has to be added to
a list of geographically complex areas elsewhere in the world, which have
equally thwarted the controlling efforts of the state and the emergence of elite
cultures (Braudel, 1966: 34–57; Froelich, 1968; Scott, 2009). From the cen-
ter, shatter zones are alternatively regarded as regions where nothing happens
or which are mired in chaos. But things do happen in the borderland, although
not with the rhythms of the state, and there is an order, although not the order
of power. In this chapter, I will attempt to offer some fragments for a cultural
history of the frontier, bringing to the fore a diverse array of historical actors:
from mountains to slave traders.

45

Book 1.indb 45 2/25/14 6:21 AM

 Figure 2.1. Above: Map of Ethiopia with current divisions (based on ethnicity). Below:
Map of the region with main settlements studied in the book. In the case of multi-ethnic
villages, the ethnic identifier refers to either the main group inhabiting the place or the
indigenous group. 1. Guba. 2. Jarenja. 3. Bowla Dibatsa. 4. Manjari. 5. Maataba. 6.
Mandura. 7. Dobbi. 8. Bakuji. 9. Boka. 10. Sirba. 11. Karsa Kosoru. 12. Lugo. 13. Ate
Meti. 14. Deguba Bedisa. 15. Dimtu. 16. Dor. 17. Wämbära/Däbrä Zäyt. 18. K’onti. 19.
Gizen. 20. Kurmuk. 21. Dul. 22. Khomosha. 23. Obora. 24. Menge. 25. Ondonok. 26.
Fudindu. 27. Fulederu. 28. Ura. 29. Asosa. 30. Bambasi. 31. Mus’a Mado. 32. Karkege-
Boshuma. 33. Boshuma. 34. Banga Dergo. 35. Ishgogo Gedashola. 36. Tulu Bundara.
37. Rubo. 38. Boni Bekere. 39. Kombolcha-Egogirmos. 40. Dumme. 41. Arabi. 42.
Dengi-Shura Maramo. 43. Tobbe-Lop’i. 44. Boji Gara Arba. 45. Kuch’i. 46. K’wak’eb.
47. Benshuba. 48. Keser. 49. Kazam. 50. Yengu. 51. Pukong. 52. Gwankei South. 53.
Gwankei North. 54. Mugi. 55. Yetti. All images courtesy of the author unless otherwise
noted.

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 Ecology of a Shatter Zone 47

2.1. LANDSCAPES

The Escarpment
The geography of Ethiopia is notoriously dramatic, and it is precisely in the
borderlands where the radical contrasts that characterize the region are better
seen. In western Ethiopia, this contrast is epitomized by the escarpment, a
rocky wall that falls toward Sudan, often abruptly, from eighteen hundred to
six hundred meters. Due to its steepness, the escarpment is virtually unpopu-
lated: a true no-man’s land, where vegetation and climate change dramati-
cally in a few hundreds of meters. For somebody coming from the Sudan, the
escarpment has the aspect of a rampart, the first hint of another world. With
its massive presence, it is much more than a backdrop for human dramas: it
is an actor in itself, even a moral persona. This is obvious in descriptions by
travelers who arrive to the Ethiopian highlands from the Sudanese lowlands:
“After several days of difficult marching through belts of bamboo, and with-
out meeting any inhabitants,” writes a British colonial officer, “we suddenly
came on a new type of country on the main plateau level. Delightful park-like
country with short grass—a pleasure to canter over—neat farmsteads and a
considerable amount of cultivation. The people were Gallas [Oromo], here
a fine looking and prosperous brown race of farmers, raising good crops
and owning fine cattle” (Gwynn, 1937: 154–55). After the disorder of the
transition zone between the Sudanese plains and the plateau, the Ethiopian
highlands appear, for a representative of the (colonial) state, as a relative form
of civilization.
The other defining geological elements in the borderland, along with the
escarpment, are mountains, inselbergs, and rocky outcrops. The fantastic
geology of Ethiopia has always impressed strangers: “There, knocked down
rocks, erratic boulders, aiguilles, buttresses, disordered ridges, truncated
cones, peaks, cubical masses,” writes Arnauld d’Abbadie of his first sight
of the Ethiopian escarpment in 1838 (D’Abbadie, 2008: 61). In western
Ethiopia, some of these granitic or basaltic formations are truly memorable,
like the Famatsere inselberg. They have not called the attention of foreign
travelers only. From prehistoric times, indigenous groups have felt attracted
by the most significant geological features of the landscape, and their histo-
ries have become intertwined with the geological history of the land. This is
not surprising: vast swathes of land are covered with monotonous forests in
which the only landmarks are these towering rocks. Archaeological research
confirms that rock shelters were a privileged place of residence from the
Middle Stone Age onward (Fernández et al., 2007). They continued occupied
until recent times: in Ajilak (Gambela), a shelter was occupied by a group
of pottery-making hunter-gatherers as late as the eleventh or twelfth century

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 48 Chapter 2

AD and other shelters show traces of recent occupations (González-Ruibal et

al., forthcoming). In Benishangul, outcrops and granitic caves yield Bertha
pottery from the eighteenth to the early twentieth centuries (Fernández and
González-Ruibal, 2001). In troubled times, mountains and inselbergs became
ideal places for different communities to find refuge from slave raids and
warlike neighbors: this is the case with the Bertha (Triulzi et al., 1981: 30–31)
and the Boro of Guba, near Sudan (James et al., 1996: 181), who were living
in “inaccessible cliffs” during the 1880s.
Mounts and rocks have always been a space of the sacred. It can be high
mountains, like the Tulu Welel, which is the residence of Shanchi Gai, a
Busase god (Grottanelli, 1940: 318), or a simple hill, such as Kuch’i, con-
sidered sacred by the Hozo Mao. For the Maban, every jebel (hill) has its
own spirit who lives amid the rocks (Evans-Pritchard, 1932: 37), and the
Ingessana hills are saturated with shrines (Jedrej, 1995). Outcrops can host
benevolent or evil spirits: benevolent like Shanchi Gai, malignant like the
spirits of Famatsere, who manifest themselves as strong winds that prevent
people from climbing to the top of the inselberg. Interestingly, the foothills of
Famatsere were covered with Neolithic pottery, showing that the outcrop had
been a place of reference for thousands of years. The pagan spirits of rocks
and mountains were often transformed into something else. The shelter of Bel
Bembishi, which has prehistoric paintings, is used today by the Bertha for Is-
lamic rites (Fernández, 2011). In the sanctuary of Yaa Beldigis, a mosque was
built near an impressive rocky outcrop where it is said that Al-Faki Ahmad
Ummar, a Nigerian holyman, stopped to pray on his way to Mecca (Ishihara,
2009). All seems to indicate that the rock was meaningful well before the faki
decided to transform the place into a Muslim shrine.
Yet more than anything else, the rocks and mountains of the escarpment are
a geological form of resistance: an obstacle for the state to extend its roads,
for slave traders to raid, for missionaries to reach the would-be converts. The
Ethiopian western escarpment is the equivalent to the Dogon’s cliffs and the
Nuba and Mandara mountains (Froelich, 1968; Van Beek, 1992): a rugged
terrain that hampers centralization (and civilization). What a better environ-
ment for societies of resistance to thrive?

Badlands
The same geological accident that separates the Ethiopian highlands and the
Sudanese lowlands creates wildly different landscapes on both sides of the
rift. From the point of view of the highlanders, the lowlands, called k’wolla
in Amharic and gammoji in Oromo, are bäräha, a term that can be translated
as “desert” or “wilderness”: a land unsuitable for plow cultivation (Donham,

Book 1.indb 48 2/25/14 6:21 AM

 Ecology of a Shatter Zone 49

1986: 12). Opposite the deserts are the cool highlands: the wäyna däga and
däga (Amharic) or bädda (Oromo), which are located eighteen hundred
meters above sea level. Here a large part of the land is cultivated, inhabited,
and criss-crossed by roads and paths. The few remaining areas of woodland
are covered with junipers and Hagenia abyssinica—very different from the
lowland trees. The term bäräha is applied equally to the thick forests of
Metekel, the savannas and grasslands of Gambela, and the arid steppe of
the northern border, where only thorny bushes and some odd acacia grow.
Bäräha is, for the highlander, a place sparsely populated and scorched by the
sun. The chronicler of King Särs’ä Dïngïl reports about a raid in the Gumuz
lowlands of Metekel during the seventeenth century saying that “there was
much broiling sun and terrible heat for this road passed through desert land;
and the throats of the troops dried with the intensity of their thirst” (quoted
in Tadesse Tamrat, 1982: 349). Highlanders try to avoid the lowlands if pos-
sible. British explorer Weld Blundell, after a long trek from Addis Ababa
to the Dabus River in 1898, found that “My own muleteers, who were un-
defeated in endurance and toughness, all abandoned me at this point, and
refused to move for any wages I could offer” (Weld Blundell, 1906: 551), and
when another Briton, the consul of Dangïla, R. E. Cheeseman, attempted to
trek from this highland town to the Sudanese frontier across the Blue Nile in
1927, only two of his eighteen men were willing to go. “It was the supersti-
tion and atmosphere of evil enchantment attached to the Abbai Valley that
unmanned them,” writes Cheeseman (1936: 335). The highlanders do equate
the lowlands with evil and disease. It is a menacing environment and it is per-
ceived as such by all the groups that inhabit the plateau. A traditional Oromo
song says: “bad illness would come through gammoojii” (Negasso Gidada,
2001: 246). The perception of the lowlands as inhospitable and wild has not
changed substantially: unbearable heat is the main complaint of the people
from the plateau and with it come diseases that are absent or less prevalent in
higher ground, such as malaria and trypanosomiasis that ravage the lowland
people and their animals. The highland Agäw that moved to the lowlands,
in Gumuz land, bemoan that one or two oxen die of rinderpest every year
in every household and people are not free from disease either: “There is no
rest. Everyday somebody is ill with malaria.”1 No wonder that Thomas Lam-
bie, an American missionary working in the western Ethiopian borderland
in the 1920s, wrote: “If ever there was a pestilential spot in the world that
spot was Gambeila. Malaria mosquitoes and tse tse flies abounded, as well
as dysentery and other tropical diseases. The high plateau, on the contrary,
was singularly free from every kind of illness” (Lambie, 1943: 24). The same
contrast can be found in the Blue Nile, Beles, or Dabus valleys in relation to
the nearest higher ground.

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 50 Chapter 2

Although unpopulated, forested areas are not necessarily limited to the

lowlands; from the perspective of the highlanders, they are always equated
with wilderness and savage people. Thus, an old Boro man from the moun-
tain of Wämbära, in Metekel, despised the Gumuz as wild animals and, with
equal contempt, said that “they live in the forest.”2 In the Ethiopian plateau,
the remaining forests have often been a sanctuary for brigands and rebels
(Crummey, 1984: 265, and see below). If for highlanders wooded areas are
evil places, the perspective is quite the reverse for minority groups in the bor-
derlands: forests are not just full of vital resources (game, fish, honey, edible
plants), they are also associated with positive ideas of mobility, protection,
freedom, and independence. As opposed to the blanket term bäräha used
by highlanders, indigenous communities have a variety of denominations to
refer to different kinds of forests, savannahs, and steppes.
The phytogeography of the Sudanese-Ethiopian borderland is indeed varied
(Ash and Atkins, 2009: 28–30; Hermann, 2001: 5–6). All over the region, the
numerous perennial streams are flanked by riverine forests, with large trees,
bushes, palm trees, and bamboo. Broad-leaved deciduous forests prevail in
the areas that lie between eight hundred and seventeen hundred meters and
with a rainfall between eight hundred and fourteen hundred millimeters: this
is the most abundant kind of vegetation cover in the Benishangul-Gumuz
region and is characterized by Combretum-Terminalia woodlands with ficus,
sycamores, Acacia abyssinica, and tall grasses of the Hyparrhenia family. The
main groups discussed in this book (Gumuz, Bertha, and Mao) inhabit primar-
ily this kind of environment, although they can live and exploit neighboring
niches. Flat lowlands below eight hundred meters are dominated by acacia and
bushland. Drier areas with poorer, steeper soils—such as most of the western
escarpment—are covered by shrubland, bamboo, some baobabs and acacias,
and Boswellia (frankincense trees), which have been exploited since antiquity.
The zone above seventeen hundred meters was originally covered by
broad-leaved evergreen forests, but much of them have been cleared for pas-
ture or cultivation. Of these, the humid forests of southwestern Oromia are
those that are better preserved. They receive a larger amount of rain than most
other places in the borderland (up to two thousand millimeters a year), and
this is better distributed throughout most of the year. One of the most impor-
tant expanses of humid broad-leaved forest of the area covered in this book is
the Anfillo Forest: the land of the Busase and southern Mao. Although it has
suffered from heavy deforestation by Oromo peasants and coffee agribusi-
nesses during the last few decades (Grottanelli, 1966), large patches are still
preserved and recall Thomas Lambie’s description in the 1920s: “parasitic
growths hung from the trees and streamers of Spanish moss in the dampest
places gave a shaggy look to gigantic trees [Pouteriae]” (Lambie, 1943: 40).

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 Ecology of a Shatter Zone 51

Some lowland areas are covered by large swamps. The two most important
wetland areas are located in Gambela, between the Baro and Akobo rivers,
and the middle Dabus Valley. The latter is an area truly devoid of people.
Only some Mao hunters venture there. The last crocodiles and hippopotami
of Benishangul and western Oromia live in those swamps, as well as in the
Blue Nile. During the late nineteenth century, the swamps and forested valley
bottoms were rich in elephant herds and lions (Weld Blundell, 1900: 112–15).
Although at times lions and elephants are still spotted, it is mostly memories
that survive: place names such as Gara Arba (Oromo: Elephant’s Mountain)
or Anbässa Ch’ak’a (Amharic: Forest of the Lion), along with relics and
stories.

Weather-Worlds
“Because we generally think and write indoors,” writes Tim Ingold (2007:
32), “the world we describe in our writing is one that has been imaginatively
remodelled as if it were already set up within an enclosed, interior space. In
this as if world, populated only by people and objects, those fluxes of the
medium that we experience as wind and rain, sunshine and mist, frost and
snow, and so on, are simply inconceivable.” Yet one can hardly understand
the materiality of the Sudanese-Ethiopian borderland without paying atten-
tion to seasons, to the way wind, sun, and rain shape the material world and
the cultural practices that form part of that world. The year, as in other parts
of the Horn of Africa, is divided into two different seasons: the dry and the
rainy. The lowlands have shorter rainy seasons with less precipitation, and
the south is rainier and has longer wet seasons. Generally speaking, the rains
start in May and end in October. The highlands of Anfillo and neighboring
areas have rain until November and they start a month or so before, a fact
that explains the thick forests to which I have just referred. Seasonal changes
are more marked in lower areas. With the change of season, the landscape is
deeply transformed and so are the activities and rhythms. Juan Maria Schuver
offers a vivid description of the dry season in Gumuz land, in April 1882:

But the aspect of the country is all but lovely. Halfburned leaves & loose ashes
cover the ground, the trees always desolate & of scanty foliage show their
scorched stems & the otherwise graceful verdant canna [bamboo] is a mass
of singed & yellow leaves. The giant baobabs stretch their massive, barren
branches towards heaven as if crying for moisture. (James et al., 1996: 177)

The regions inhabited by the Bertha and other minority groups can be de-
scribed in similar terms. Seasonal changes are not just natural: the action of
people on the environment is as important to shape a season as the elements.

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 52 Chapter 2

In a sense, it is as if people helped nature to be more effective (making the

dry season drier). This is particularly the case among the Bertha and Gumuz
who burn virtually all land, not just the grassland and forests around their
settlements, but even the most remote corners of their territories, including
empty valleys and high mountains. The burning season starts in January, after
the harvest, and it is often followed by collective hunting expeditions (see
sections 4.1 and 5.5). The main reason for this extensive burning is to make
all landscape transitable and safe, because after the rainy season grasses and
other plants become an almost impassable obstacle and a dangerous refuge
for snakes and other animals.
Gumuz, Bertha, and Mao use wide areas of the bush in manifold ways: for
collecting honey, hunting, digging up roots, gathering plants and medicines,
fetching wood, and looking for clay or straw. It is the logic of the slash-and-
burn agriculturalist, a logic that is not understood by the state. Regional and
federal authorities try to stop the annual burning, without much success,
arguing that these traditional practices help erode the land and bring de-
sertification. This is not really the case so far. Paradoxically, it has been the
intensive agricultural practices brought with modernization and resettlement
in the 1980s that have caused ecological problems in the borderland (Wolde-
Selassie Abbute, 2004: 36). When population is low and the land plentiful,
slash-and-burn agriculture is a rational way of dealing with the environment.
The seasonal transformation of the landscape affects settlements as well.
Again, the Gumuz offer a good example of this transformation. Colors, tex-
tures, and smells change in the village. Father Juan González Núñez (2010:
101–2) describes beautifully the materiality of the dry season:

Houses are naked, planted in the middle of the parched earth, brown as the
surroundings, camouflaged as chameleons. There is not a single blade of grass
growing around them. The bamboo fences that surrounded the houses to prevent
the goats from eating the corn are knocked down and become a carpet for the
passerby. Tracks are erased, because it is possible to walk through the fields
everywhere and in every direction. Straw or crushed reeds are mixed with goat
excrements and ashes from the fires lit here and there. (My translation)

Seasonality is different for the highlanders. Of course, as in the lowlands,

the dry season turns the landscape from green to yellow, but here, seasonal
change is marked not by fires and ashy soil, but by the plow and the threshing
floor. Near the open fields or close to the domestic compounds, every family
threshes with oxen the harvested cereal during January and February; later,
winnowing will come with baskets and wooden shovels. With the beginning
of the rains in May and June, they will break open the ground with the plow
for sowing. The yellow stubble will then give way to fresh, brown earth, soon

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 Ecology of a Shatter Zone 53

to be covered by the green stems of teff, the tiny cereal of the highlands. The
highlanders bring their ordered landscapes with them when they descend to
the k’wolla. In the mixed settlements of Oromo and Mao in the Boshuma area
(Benishangul), Oromo homesteads stand out for their beautiful garden mosa-
ics, where chickpeas, tobacco, castor, gourds, and chili peppers ripen after the
rainy season in well-ordered beds.

2.2. STATES

States have been part of the landscape in northeast Africa for a long time
(Connah, 2001: 18–107; Edwards, 1998a, 2004; Finneran, 2007; Welsby,
1998), and the egalitarian communities of the Sudanese-Ethiopian borderland
have had to cohabit with these kinds of polities since the remote past. It is
useful, then, to distinguish the different models of state to which peripheral
peoples have adapted or resisted. I would suggest six types, which are not, of
course, limited to the Horn of Africa:

1. City-states: Kingdoms of Axum and Meroe (first millennium BC/AD),

Sudanese kingdoms from the Middle Ages to 1822 AD
2. Complex chiefdoms: Gonga kingdoms of southern Ethiopia (early first
millennium AD to late nineteenth century), Oromo chiefdoms (early
seventeenth to late nineteenth century AD), post-Axumite Ethiopia
(ninth to twelfth century AD)
3. Predatory organizations: Ethiopian Kingdom up to 1898; Turco-Egyp-
tian Sudan (1822–1881), Sudanese Mahdiyyah (1885–1899), Republic
of Sudan (especially after 1983), capitalist multinationals (especially
after 1945)
4. Colonial sates: Ethiopian Kingdom (1898–1974), Italian Eastern Africa
(Ethiopia: 1935–1941), Anglo-Egyptian Sudan (1899–1956)
5. Totalitarian states: Ethiopia (1974–1991)
6. Multicultural states: Federal Republic of Ethiopia (1991– ), Republic of
South Sudan (2005– )

As with any typology, there is inevitable simplification and intersection here:

colonial states can be defined as totalitarian and predatory too; city-states are
often quite multicultural, and for some periods, such as the post-Axumite, it
is difficult to define with certainty the nature of the political organization.
Nevertheless, introducing some measure of classification is important in or-
der to better grasp the relationship between state and non-state peoples in the
Sudanese-Ethiopian borderland.

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 54 Chapter 2

City-States
States and cities in northeast Africa developed gradually from north to south
(Edwards, 2004: 10). This development is punctuated by the rising and deca-
dence of urban centers (figure 2.2). Thus, from north to south, and following
the Nile upriver, we have Kerma (developed as a state after 2000 BC), Napata
(ca. 760 BC), Meroe (ca. 300 BC), Alodia (ca. 600 AD), and Sinnār (1504
AD) (Edwards, 1998a; Spaulding, 1985). As it occurred in Sudan, Ethiopia/
Eritrea also saw a north-south development of state polities. Around 800 BC,
complex chiefdoms or early states developed in Eritrea and northern Ethio-
pia (Finneran, 2007: 116–45; Phillipson, 2009, 2012; Schmidt et al., 2008a),
which led to the establishment of a pre- or proto-Axumite state around the
fifth century BC and the emergence of the Axumite Kingdom by the first half
of the first century AD (Phillipson, 2012: 69), in parallel with the consolida-
tion of the Red Sea as a main commercial route.
The Axumite Kingdom survived until the ninth or tenth century AD, when
it was finally overcome by the Agäw chiefdoms located further south. After
the disappearance of Axum, the state center swung to the south to Lalibela
(thirteenth-fourteenth century), although the royal court remained mostly
mobile. Unlike Sudan, Ethiopia does not have a continuous history of city-
centered states. The demise of Axum led to political fragmentation and the
disappearance of urban agglomerations. With the exception of the Gondarine
period (1606–1755), there were no permanent capitals until the foundation of
Addis Ababa (1886).
As states expanded southward throughout northeast Africa, the egalitarian
communities of the Sudan-Ethiopian borderland increasingly suffered reper-
cussions. The first serious slave raids were probably conducted as a result of
the stronger involvement of Egypt in Nubia during the New Kingdom (1580–
1080 BC). With the exhaustion of local resources, Nubia became a “pipeline
rather than the source” of the goods sought by the northern states (Connah,
2001: 23), which were extracted further south. Through the Nile came slaves,
ivory, and gold. Regarding slaves, Egyptians clearly distinguished between
different groups of “Nubians”: paler ones, who probably came from Nubia
itself, and darker ones, with black skin, thick lips, large round earrings, and
hairstyles in the shape of an inverted bowl, painted with red ochre (Kendall,
2003), all of which are features shared by the indigenous Nilo-Saharan popu-
lations of the Sudanese-Ethiopian borderland.
City-states were the first type of state to develop in this part of Africa. I
use the name to refer to these polities, because urban centers were their most
visible and relevant feature from a political and economic point of view.
Cities provided a certain degree of centralization and territorial articula-
tion. Although they sometimes managed to acquire a sizeable territory, they

Book 1.indb 54 2/25/14 6:21 AM

Book 1.indb 55
Figure 2.2. The expansion of the state in Sudan and Ethiopia. A. Circa 100 AD. B. Circa 1600 AD. In thick dash, the current distribution
of the indigenous groups of the Sudanese-Ethiopian borderland.

2/25/14 6:21 AM
 56 Chapter 2

were never strong enough to give way to authentic territorial states—of the
kind one finds, for instance, in ancient Egypt. State capitals, such as Kerma,
Meroe, Axum, and later Sinnār, were endowed with monumental architecture
and religious and political buildings (palaces, churches, mosques, mausolea).
Trade played an important role in their development, as well as good com-
munications (through the Nile and the Red Sea) with other state and non-state
areas. Related to both trade and the state was slavery, a staple in the exports of
Sudanic and Ethiopian kingdoms up to the early twentieth century. Graham
Connah defines both Nubia and Axum, the earliest urban zones in the region,
as “entrepôts,” commercial centers of import, export, collection, and distribu-
tion (Connah, 2001: 24, 107). The situation of the Horn of Africa between
Europe, the Near East, India, and Africa explains the relevance of commerce
(which is well attested archaeologically), but also the manifold external influ-
ences, from south Arabian to Hellenistic. Many of the products that the early
states could offer came from their borderlands, including the aforementioned
gold, ivory, and slaves, but also rhinoceros horn, ostrich shells, and frankin-
cense (Pankhurst, 1997: 28–32).
Foreign trade dramatically declined in Christian Ethiopia after the seventh
century AD, in parallel to the collapse of the city-state of Axum. In Sudan,
the same happened, due to political fragmentation and economic problems
(Edwards, 2004: 212–13), although slave raids in the borderlands probably
continued and towns remained stronger there. Commerce regained a role after
the expansion of Islam in Sudan during the Funj period, especially from the
mid-seventeenth century onward (Kapteijns and Spaulding, 1982: 45). The
capital, Sinnār, was described in 1710 as a “most distinguished trading city,”
with merchandise arriving from the Mediterranean, the Red Sea, India, and
Ethiopia (Triulzi, 1981: 87). Private traders enjoyed autonomous government
and a special social status (Kapteijns and Spaulding, 1982: 36). Chinese por-
celains and other exotic imports appear in Sinnār and secondary settlements
along the Blue Nile, coming through the Red Sea ports such as Suakin (Insoll,
2003: 97–99). George English (1822: 163), who visited the dilapidated capi-
tal of the Sultanate during its conquest by Egypt, noted that amidst the ruins
of the buildings numerous “fragments of porcelain, and sometimes marble”
could be seen. Intensive agriculture played a paramount role in the develop-
ment of most of these states, as they often occupied the only fertile terrains
(such as the middle Nile valley) in extreme environments.
Even if they exploited their borderlands, raids carried out from city-states
were apparently not very destructive. Triulzi (1981: 73) notes that the only
reported cases of slavery among the Bertha during the Funj period were
criminals who had not paid their fines. Luckily for the indigenous groups,
city-states often lacked the power to make themselves permanently present

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 Ecology of a Shatter Zone 57

in their periphery and therefore were unable to systematically and regularly

tax and control their fuzzy borders. A good example of this is the Funj king-
dom of Sinnār, which was nominally under control of western Ethiopia and
the northern Nilotic fringe. The sultan of Sinnār appointed local manjil in
the peripheral regions of the kingdom. These were tributary rulers in charge
of overseeing the districts that were under the jurisdiction of the sultanate,
and they had below them subordinate chiefs, called makk (Triulzi, 1981:
69; Spaulding, 1985: 41–42). Although they adopted some of the regalia of
the Funj ruling class (Robinson, 1931), they remained loyal to their native
customs and quite autonomous from a political point of view. As Triulzi
(1981: 71) points out, the southern borderland of Sinnār was “‘Funj’ only in
the sense that their rulers held Funj titles.” The frontier outposts of earlier
city-states, such as Alodia or Axum, are much less known and, in fact, the ter-
ritorial limits of these polities are quite imprecise (Phillipson, 2012: 77–78),
but the situation likely resembled that of the later Funj kingdom. In any case,
the rulers of city-states seem to have been lenient to their vassals, both in the
borderlands and in the center, when compared to other kinds of polities. Thus,
the Axumite kings presented themselves in royal inscriptions as concerned
with the welfare of their subjects (Connah, 2001: 98) and redistribution
was an important aspect of the relations between government and subjects
in Sinnār, where the sultan shared part of the taxes with needy commoners
(Kapteijns and Spaulding, 1982: 33).

Complex Chiefdoms
I use this term to refer to a series of ranked polities that emerged in southwest-
ern Ethiopia around 1300 AD and that survived independently until around
1900. They are sometimes considered states (“kingdoms”) in the literature,
but, from an anthropological point of view, they fit better the concept of
chiefdom. In any case, complex chiefdoms and states are taken as one here
in a Clastrian way—as power independent from society (Criado, forthcom-
ing): it is assumed that the real difference lies between egalitarian and non-
egalitarian societies (Clastres, 2001). Under the label of complex chiefdoms I
include both the so-called Gonga kingdoms (Kafa, Hinnario, Bosha, Shekka,
Boro, and Anfillo) (Bieber, 1923; Lange, 1982) and the Oromo polities of the
eighteenth and nineteenth centuries (Hassen, 1994). Albeit the many features
that would justify their being labeled as states (such as divine kingship and
a class system in the case of the Gonga kingdoms), they lack others that are
normally considered typical of state formations, such as literacy and proper
urban centers. Besides, many of these formations had strong corporate institu-
tions that are absent in the north and which, in some cases, severely curtailed

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 58 Chapter 2

the power of the sovereign. In addition, both Gonga- and Oromo-ranked poli-
ties originated under the influence of other states. In the case of the Gonga
kingdoms, their emergence seems to be in large measure an after-effect of the
expansion of the Ethiopian state from the north during the imperial period of
the thirteenth to fifteenth centuries (Fleming, 1984: 34), although endogenous
processes were, of course, important, including population growth and inten-
sive agriculture. This northern influence is visible in religion, political terms,
symbols of power (Levine, 2000 [1974]: 75), and origin myths, which often
place a “white king” at the beginning of the royal genealogy (Grottanelli,
1940: 300). The egalitarian Oromo pastoralists, in turn, developed complex
chiefdoms after contact with the Gonga polities, which they largely destroyed
and assimilated, including symbols of authority.
Both polities—Gonga and Oromo—were expansive and absorbed other
peoples: their collision with the egalitarian groups of the Sudanese-Ethiopian
borderland occurred around the late sixteenth or early seventeenth centuries.
The way they incorporated peripheral peoples, however, was different. The
Oromo tended to “adopt” others and transform them into Oromo. For these,
they had elaborate rituals, such as the Medhicha, which was commonly
used in the area of Wämbära, north of the Blue Nile, to assimilate the Boro
people. In the Medhicha ritual, the people that were going to be incorporated
had to break a yoke that symbolized their former ethnic identity and swore
an oath of allegiance to the Oromo: “We go where you go, we hate whom
you hate, we love whom you love.” The assimilated group received the clan
name of the Oromo who adopted them (Tsega Endalew, 2002: 10–11). The
process was buttressed with generalized intermarriage. The same process
occurred between the Oromo and the Busase of Anfillo (Negasso Gidada,
2001: 82–83). It seems, though, that this system of adoption worked mostly
with those with whom the Oromo shared a cultural milieu and racial charac-
teristics (such as the Gonga-speakers of Boro and Busase), but not with the
“blacks,” gurracha, the small communities of slash-and-burn agriculturalists
that were more often than not victims of slave raids by the Oromo (Gumuz,
Mao, Komo) (Tsega Endalew, 2002: 27). Although tolerance between the
Oromo and these peoples was greater than between the Ethiopian state and
its peripheral peoples, barriers have always certainly existed.
The Gonga kingdoms did not assimilate others. In the lands they conquered,
they established a dual social system, which has been described in terms of
caste (see critique in A. Pankhurst, 1999). This dual system that appears in
all Gonga kingdoms is based on two classes: there is a superior one, with a
paramount king who rules over both groups and a hierarchy of lesser kings,
chiefs, and noble families, and an inferior class, made up of the local people
(usually “blacks”) that have been subjected. They have their own leader and

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 Ecology of a Shatter Zone 59

a hierarchy of petty chiefs. This inferior or subaltern group has relations of

servitude with the ruling class. They usually have to till the land of their mas-
ters, pay tribute, provide corvées, serve in the army, and the like. However,
they are clearly distinguished from slaves, who also exist in these polities as
the outcome of wars of expansion (Fernyhough, 1989: 106; Haberland, 1993:
123). The asymmetrical relations between a master and a subaltern class con-
tinue today; in most of southwestern Ethiopia, there are marginalized groups
that undertake menial jobs, such as tanning, pottery-making, iron working,
circumcision, and hunting and gathering, and these groups are forced to live
in the outskirts of the settlements and are subjected to many taboos and social
restrictions (Freeman and Pankhurst, 2001).
A mention has to be made to the polities that emerged in Ethiopia after the
demise of Axum. They have only recently started to be explored in earnest
(Fauvelle-Aymar and Poissonier, 2012) and their effects on the western low-
lands, if they had any, remains unknown.

Predatory Organizations
Elsewhere, I have described the predatory state, following Achille Mbembe
(2000: 99–107), as characterized by “the militarisation of power and trade,
pillage as an economic strategy, the pursuit of private interest under public
command and the conversion of brute violence into legitimate authority”
(González-Ruibal, 2011: 275). To be sure, many state formations engage in
predatory practices. They can even be constitutive of its very being, such as
in the colonial state (Le Cour Grandmaison, 2005; Mbembe, 2003). One of
the features that identify a state as purely predatory, though, is the absence
of a discourse on reciprocity and responsibility. The colonial state did con-
struct a discourse on improvement and care, even if it was false, and it did
return something to the subjects, even if it was negligible in comparison to
its colossal exactions. Predatory states do not bother to justify their actions or
to present them as beneficial to the community. Foucault (1990: 86) argues
that “Power is tolerable only on condition that it masks a substantial part of
itself”: predatory power, like totalitarianism, is, in fact, unbearable. It is a
purely deductive regime: it does not produce anything (regulations, relations,
wealth). It seizes and appropriates everything: “things, times, bodies and ul-
timately life itself ” (Foucault, 1990: 136). Borderlands and shatter zones are
the favorite spaces of predation, where everything can be taken and no life
has to be respected. It is important to bear in mind that this kind of politico-
economic system is not restricted to states proper. Non-governmental entities,
such as capitalist multinationals, can behave like a predatory state, and I would
certainly include them among the predatory formations active in Ethiopia and

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 60 Chapter 2

Sudan: agribusinesses, mining ventures, and energy companies are some of

the current representatives of a predatory political economy in the borderland.
The states that replaced the Kingdom of Axum in the Ethiopian high-
lands were characterized by their fragmentation and instability: moments
of centralization were followed by the reaffirmation of warlords, the
proliferation of conflict, and devastation of the countryside (with ensuing
famines and epidemics). Even during the moments of centralization, both
internecine and external wars were common. Rulers often rose to power
through violence and imposed heavy tributes and tithes on their peasant
subjects, who bore the brunt of frequent wars and marauding armies living
off the land (Caulk, 1978). They also pillaged, in a more systematic way,
the borderland communities. The states of the second millennium AD in
Ethiopia can be fairly labeled as predatory. The terrible words of King Yo-
hannïs IV (1836–1889), after a particularly destructive campaign, transmit
well the nature of the predatory state: “I do not know whether it is through
my sin or that of the peasant, but I went on devastating the country” (Bahru
Zewde, 2002: 45). Depredation was particularly intense during the expan-
sion of the Ethiopian empire (late nineteenth/early twentieth centuries),
although the phenomenon itself can be considered colonial, as we will see
in the next section.
Predatory formations were also typical of the Sudanese states that replaced
the Sultanate of Sinnār. Both the Turco-Egyptians (1821–1885) and the Su-
danese Mahdiyyah (1885–1899) deployed predatory strategies. The ruthless-
ness with which the new lords occupied the borderland, massacring people,
killing herds, and burning down villages and fields was hitherto unknown.
The local elite group that flourished during this period, the Watawit, were
none the less predatory: historian Jay Spaulding (1985: 273) aptly refers to
them as the “vampires of the borderlands.” What these “vampires” preyed
on was both human and natural resources: slaves, gold, and ivory, the same
riches that had already been tapped by the state for two millennia. There are
several signs indicative of the predatory character of the new political-eco-
nomic regime, which are pointed out by Spaulding (1985: 293–94). Thus, in
Turkish Sinnār, slaves—most of them coming from the Sudanese-Ethiopian
borderland—were classified as “beasts along with other livestock, or occa-
sionally as ‘talking animals’ and were given derogatory names; household
slaves, even those that had been with the family for generations, were sold
or transferred to outsiders, and dead slaves were left to rot without proper
burial or simply tossed into the river.” Dehumanization of the Other is typi-
cal of predatory regimes. More generally, the Turco-Egyptian period implied
“exorbitant tribute, forced labor services, and unrestricted enslavement”
(Spaulding, 1985: 286).

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 Ecology of a Shatter Zone 61

Although the Egyptian government withdrew from the frontier after 1855,
its place was occupied by private companies, merchants, and adventurers who
continued to raid the Sudanese borderlands. The destruction of the Turkish
regime by the fundamentalist Mahdi followers in 1885 only helped to main-
tain the brutal exploitation of the region. According to James (1979: 38–39),
by the end of the Mahdiyyah, most of what was known as Southern Funj,
and included the land of the Uduk, Jum Jum, and Hill Burun, was almost
completely depopulated. During the nineteenth century, local predatory orga-
nizations developed in western Ethiopia, the most important of which was the
sheikhdom of the Khojele family (see Triulzi, 1981), who ruthlessly exploited
the borderland from his capital in Asosa between the early 1870s and the
1930s and clashed with other predatory rulers. Some of the western Oromo
chiefdoms of this period, such as Jote Tullu’s (1855–1918), could well fit the
image of a predatory leader: he greatly expanded his dominions, occupied by
violent means most of the region between the Baro and Yabus rivers, and,
like Khojele, enslaved the local Mao and Komo (see Meckelburg, 2012).

Colonial States
(Modern) colonial states are an evolved, sophisticated version of preda-
tory systems and, actually, many of them are the natural offspring of those
predatory systems. This is the case with the colonial occupation of western
and central Africa by Europeans, following the slave trade (Mbembe, 2000,
2003). Colonial states prey on human and natural resources, and are often
more destructive than local predatory regimes, given their access to a supe-
rior technology and control of the territory. However, as I have pointed out,
unlike purely predatory organizations, colonial states elaborate ideological
frameworks of justification and give something in return for their predatory
practices, even if this something (schools, roads) is aimed at taking better
hold of the country. There is another significant difference: whereas preda-
tory states and organizations are not concerned at all with transforming the
Other, for colonial regimes this represents a central concern—although a
deeply ambiguous one, as Bhabha (1994) has shown.
In the area under study, there are three main colonial powers: Britain, Italy,
and Ethiopia. The Turco-Egyptian rule, as we have seen, bears all the traits
of a predatory, rather than colonial, enterprise, at least in the borderland (in
Sudan it behaved more like a typical colonial power). Ethiopia was the only
country in Africa never to be colonized by a Western nation-state. However,
Ethiopia itself was a colonial power. During the reign of Emperor Mïnilïk II
(ruled 1889–1909), the country expanded greatly, reaching areas where the
state had never been before and that were as culturally alien for Ethiopians

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 62 Chapter 2

as they were for Europeans, such as the lower Omo valley or Gambela (Hol-
comb and Sisai Ibssa, 1990; contra Levine, 2000 [1974]). Unlike European
colonialism, the Ethiopian one was not followed by a decolonial process, and
those peripheral peoples who were incorporated into the nation-state during
the scramble for Africa have not yet acquired independence. The tool to ef-
fectively occupy the newly acquired lowlands, as well as the highland periph-
ery, was the näft’äñña system, which involved the resettlement of highland
soldiers in lands confiscated to the newly subjected peoples (Markakis, 2011:
103–12). A hierarchy of chiefs was also established, often using local rulers
and institutions, to systematically tax the new vassals. A typical colonial
procedure was also the kätäma or garrison towns and the forts established to
control the conquered land from the late nineteenth century onward. Many
important cities today, such as Addis Ababa itself or Jimma, emerged as
colonial settlements. Less studied, but of enormous importance to the region
under study is the displacement of unruly colonized peoples. Mïnilïk II did
not only resettle Amhara and other northerners in the conquered lands, he
also resettled indigenous peoples away from their lands, to work in unhealthy
lowland areas to which northerners were not adapted. From the region of
Benishangul, he displaced large numbers of Bambasi Mao people, who lived
around the Dabus River, to the Didessa Valley, two hundred kilometers to
the east, and even further away, to Mätahara, which is six hundred kilometers
from their homeland (Siebert et al., 2002: 9). The small number of Bambasi
Mao living in their core area today can be explained by this massive colonial
uprooting.
British colonialism had opposing effects to both sides of the Sudanese-
Ethiopian border. The British occupied the Sudan in 1899. They soon reached
an agreement with Ethiopia (1902) to fix the frontiers in their present con-
figuration (Marcus, 1963). After that, they started policing the borderland and
chasing slave traders. This virtually ended Sudanese slave raids (James, 1979:
44), but fostered an upsurge to the other side of the frontier (Abussamad H.
Ahmad, 1999), where chiefs such as the Bertha Sheikh Khojele and the Agäw
Z’äläk’ä Lik’u continued raiding the local populations. Many of the captured
people ended up as slaves in Sudan, despite British surveillance. However,
the Anglo-Egyptian Sudan became a safe haven for many Ethiopian peoples
fleeing the recrudescence of slavery. This is especially the case of the ha-
rassed Gumuz, many of whom crossed the border and ended up in towns like
Roseires and Gallabat.
The Italian colonial presence in Ethiopia was short-lived (1936–1941), but
left an enduring imprint in the cultural imagination of the borderland peoples.
Before the conquest by Mussolini’s armies, Italy had been active in the Horn,
first occupying Eritrea and then sending explorers and missionaries to Ethio-

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 Ecology of a Shatter Zone 63

pia and its periphery, including the western borderland: explorer Vittorio Bot-
tego went as far as Gidami, in western Oromia, where he was killed in 1897.
His geographic work and that of other explorers was crucial for the effective
occupation of the country during the fascist period. Regarding missionar-
ies, the most important role was played by the Consolata Mission (Sbacchi,
1998), which established centers in the western borderland. The goal of the
missionaries, in tune with the ideological justification of imperialism, was to
“evangelize and educate non-Christian peoples,” but they also kept detailed
diaries and reports that were later put at the service of the invading army
(Sbacchi, 1998: 320). Italian colonial authorities were openly racist (like
those of all other Western colonialisms) and issued racial legislation, which
was little felt in the borderlands, as the colonial presence there was flimsy
(González-Ruibal, 2010). Some roads toward western Ethiopia were, how-
ever, built or improved (especially the road from Addis Ababa to Nekemt),
which would later allow the state to have a better grip on the borderland.
The Italians behaved in the periphery like all other powers before: they made
little investments and focused instead on extracting its riches, namely, gold
and human resources, in this case not slaves but soldiers and workers. Along
with soldiers and engineers, scholars arrived, in the typical colonial alliance
between knowledge and power. The most important with regard to this book
was anthropologist Vinigi Grottanelli who sojourned through the land of the
Mao and Komo in 1939 and promptly published the result of his work with
the first group (Grottanelli, 1940). The reaction of the local populations of
western Ethiopia to the Italians varied widely: from strong resistance in the
form of guerrilla war (the Sayo Oromo) to hesitant collaboration (the Gumuz
in Metekel). The attitude usually depended on how they had fared under the
previous rule: former enslaved populations welcomed the end of slavery de-
creed by Italians, which was used by Mussolini as a justification to intervene
in Ethiopia.

Totalitarian States
For its arbitrariness, violence, and exploitation, colonial states have much
in common with totalitarian ones (Arendt, 2004). However, following
the conventional use of the term, there is only one experience that can be
deemed totalitarian to a certain extent in the Horn of Africa: the Därg or
communist regime of Ethiopia (1974–1991). This period had a profound and
lasting impact in the Sudanese-Ethiopian borderland. The Därg (Commit-
tee) was a paradigmatically modernist regime that engaged in ill-conceived
megalomaniac projects of development all over the country (Donham, 1999),
including, for the first time, the peripheral areas (González-Ruibal, 2006b).

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 64 Chapter 2

As a totalitarian state, the Därg also tried to tightly control the totality of
the country and development projects, and resettlement schemes looked like
adequate mechanisms to achieve the objective. The result was disastrous
and helped exacerbate ethnic conflict in the borderlands. For the Därg, the
western periphery was a terra nullius that could be resettled with hundreds
of thousands of peasants from famine-stricken areas in northern Ethiopia.
The goal was also to “Ethiopianize” the “wild people” of the borders, and
force them to abandon nakedness and live in sedentary settlements, among
other things (Markakis, 2011: 218, 222). The main zones of resettlement in
western Ethiopia were Eastern Metekel, which was inhabited by the Gumuz,
the area between Bambasi and Asosa (land of the Bertha), and the terri-
tory south of Gambela, whose indigenous inhabitants were mainly Añwaa
(Markakis, 2011: 220–24; Young, 1999). The settlers came predominantly
from Wollo and were Amhara and to a lesser extent Oromo. The presence of
the highland peasants led to conflicts with the indigenous populations, often
bloody (Wolde-Selassie Abbute, 2004), and as yet not fully resolved. The
conflict between the communist government and the many guerrilla move-
ments (Marxist, ethnonationalist, and others) had the unexpected effect of
raising the ethnic consciousness of many groups. The collapse of the regime,
after more than a decade of civil war that directly affected the borderland,
led to the interruption of most projects of agricultural development. They
left a legacy of deforestation and ecological degradation. Some landscapes,
such as those of Asosa and Pawe (Metekel), were seriously and irremedi-
ably damaged, and many people abandoned forever their ancestral lands. For
many indigenous groups, such as the Komo and the Gumuz, the experience
of communist rule was one of continuous insecurity, eviction, and movement.
However, the most enduring legacy of the Därg has been the settlement of
highlanders. In some cases, they have outnumbered even the largest indig-
enous groups: in the 2007 census, the number of Amharas in the region of
Benishangul-Gumuz was 170,000, as opposed to 163,000 Gumuz—out of a
total population of 783,000.3

Multicultural States
A federal system superseded the centralizing communist regime after the
latter’s demise in 1991. The Federal Republic of Ethiopia paid heed to the
claims of autonomy of several groups. The nation was thus divided into re-
gional states (kïlïl) according to the ethnic composition of the majority of the
population. In those regions where there was no tradition of large, centralized
polities or unified ethnic groups (such as Gambela and Benishangul-Gumuz),
the solution was to lump together different minority groups. The Southern

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 Ecology of a Shatter Zone 65

Nations, Nationalities, and Peoples’ Region, for instance, comprise forty-five

different ethnic communities. These range from tiny groups of hunters, fish-
ers, and shifting agriculturalists, such as the Nilo-Saharan–speaking Kwegu
(five hundred people), to the large Kafficho nation (more than six hundred
thousand members), a group of Omotic speakers with a long state tradition.
Despite criticisms, though, these divisions reflect the cultural history and
present situation of the Ethiopian peoples better than the old medieval limits,
which survived until the fall of the communist regime and that disregarded
ethnic boundaries altogether. Besides, the federal system has empowered,
for the first time in history, many subaltern communities that have been both
despised and exploited by dominant societies, as in the case of Benishangul-
Gumuz. Each of the new ethnic regions is endowed with a local parliament,
a president, and a degree of political autonomy.
There are, however, two main problems with the new system: first, as
Markakis (2011) has eloquently shown, the federal state is paradoxically
extending and intensifying the control of the central government in the bor-
derlands, which are exploited and surveilled more systematically than ever
before. The centralizing attitude of the federal government is perhaps best
seen in its employment of the wrong-headed methods of the previous to-
talitarian regime: the much-criticized villagization program of the Därg was
retaken in 2010 and 1.5 million people were scheduled for resettlement in the
borderlands by 2013.4 Paradoxically, then, the acceptance of regional auton-
omy is leading to the most centralized state that has ever existed in the Horn.
Secondly, the new map of the country is still inevitably a simplification of the
complex ethnic mosaic that is Ethiopia and, particularly, of the transforma-
tions that have occurred in recent times. Thus, in all regions there are people
out of place: in the Amhara region there are some Gumuz and, conversely,
many Amhara live in Benishangul-Gumuz since the 1980s’ resettlements and
are politically underrepresented (Young, 1999: 335).
In Oromia, the situation is particularly serious, because many Oromo por-
tray themselves as victims, continuously marginalized by the central state (in
the hands of Tigreans and Amhara). This is undoubtedly true, but to counter-
poise historical inequalities, they now deploy a strong, reactive nationalism
(see Baxter et al., 1996), which, ironically, has little concern for their own
subalterns: the minority groups that have been engulfed by the Oromo dur-
ing their expansion from the sixteenth century to the present. In multicultural
areas, such as western Oromia, local authorities tend to systematically negate
even the existence of such cultural minorities, a line that is followed by the
officially sanctioned Oromo party, which has refused to recognize minorities
within Oromia (Markakis, 2011: 244). Thus, other ethnic groups are not only

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 66 Chapter 2

politically disenfranchised (because they are in Oromia, but are not Oromo),
they are also invisible. I will return to this problem in chapter 5.
The process of federation has also had other unplanned consequences: it is
leading to the entification of ethnic groups whose nature is rather ambiguous.
Thus, in the case of Benishangul-Gumuz, the ethnicities that are acknowl-
edged are Bertha, Gumuz, Shinasha (Boro), Mao, and Komo. The latter two
tend increasingly to be considered as one: this suits outsiders, because it adds
simplicity to a messy ethnic situation and the indigenous groups themselves
because it empowers them, by swelling their numbers and giving them unity
(González-Ruibal and Fernández, 2007). The truth is, though, that under
the label Mao-Komo lies a diversity of peoples with quite different cultural
histories and identities (see chapter 5). The complexities of ethnicity in the
borderland are simplified with the federal system, and people end up being
forced into the ready-made categories defined by the state.
Compared to all other regimes in the Horn of Africa, the federal state can be
said to be the most lenient toward their citizens—admittedly, the standards are
not very high. If it can be said that there was no true revolution in the 1970s,
since the Därg continued the centralist policies of the traditional Ethiopian
monarchy (Holcomb and Sisai Ibssa, 1990), the same can be said of the rela-
tionship between the federal and communist regimes in relation to develop-
ment. There is a clear continuity in their policies, with all the problems that
they entail. Among other things, the federal state and the regional governments
give free rein to multinationals that promise development, no matter if this
implies giving away thousands of hectares of land virtually free to be used for
monocropping (see Markakis, 2011). Agribusinesses are forcing the relocation
of thousands of people in the peripheral regions of Gambela and Benishangul-
Gumuz, who also see their traditional livelihoods menaced by deforestation
and intensive cultivation (Wolde-Selassie Abbute, 2004). Furthermore, as I
have pointed out, the power of the state is stronger than ever: its capacity to
reach the remotest parts of Ethiopia has no parallel in the history of the nation.
This is helped by a good economic situation, which has seen Ethiopia grow-
ing more than any other country in Africa, with an average annual increase
in gross domestic product over 8 percent since 2003.5 With the growing rev-
enues, the state builds roads and sets up mobile phone towers that ease com-
munications and further improve the economy, but they also make stronger
the control of the state over the periphery and speed up the exploitation of its
natural resources. Many praiseworthy initiatives are also taking place. While I
have serious doubts about schooling, there is no possible critique to the expan-
sion of health centers and pumps that provide clean water.
Although the state (regional and federal) theoretically respects cultural
diversity, it requires this diversity to be framed in a very specific way. To

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 Ecology of a Shatter Zone 67

put it simply: cultural diversity means different dances, regional dresses

for those same dances, and different languages. The tendency is to produce
marketable ethnic identities, in the line denounced by the Comaroffs (2009),
which can be easily sold to tourists and the incipient Ethiopian urban middle
class. The marketing of ethnicity is well advanced in the lower Omo valley
(Abbink, 2000), where it is causing important tensions, and in the “tradi-
tional” restaurants of Addis Ababa. All ethnic groups in the country are now
encouraged, through folk festivals and local museums, to sell themselves.
The multicultural state behaves in a diametrically opposed way to most of the
regimes that we have seen so far in the way it meddles with the indigenous
peoples’ lives. For previous political systems, whether the Gumuz married
by sister exchange, the Komo went around naked, or the Bertha practiced
cliterodectomy meant little, as long as they paid taxes and did not fight. This
is no longer the case (see the epilogue).
Ethiopia is not the only multicultural state in the area. After the Compre-
hensive Peace Agreement of 2005, South Sudan has been organizing itself
under multicultural lines. The process is being less successful than in Ethio-
pia, due to the difficult heritage of internecine and external war, the lack of
local state experience, and the high degree of ethnic conflictivity. The differ-
ent groups of South Sudan have been traditionally fighting each other, often
within the limits imposed by social rituals and preindustrial weaponry. The
distress caused by half a century of modern war and the continuous input of
automatic weapons have made the situation extremely volatile. By the time
it ended, the long war against the north had degenerated into “a pattern of
interlocking civil wars . . . being fought on different levels” (Johnson, 2006:
127), which continued in different ways after the north and south definitely
split in 2011. These conflicts often affect western Ethiopia, which has to host
scores of refugees. Some of the ethnic groups that clash in Sudan are present
in Ethiopia, such as the Nuer and the Añwaa, and the clashes between Nuer
and Murle do not respect state boundaries. In a recent communiqué, the Nuer
and Dinka White Army warned the Murle: “This time we will go forest to
forest; bush to bush to clean out armed Murle youth. If they run to Ethiopia,
we will follow them there to clean them” (South Sudan News Agency, 2012).

2.3. DEEP RURALS AND PEASANTS

The borderland is the home of two different kinds of egalitarian communities

that have different relations with states. One group is largely native to the
lowlands, although the term “native” is contentious; the other is made up of
emigrants or people who have been resettled by the state, but originally lived

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 68 Chapter 2

in the Ethiopian highlands. While they both have egalitarian ethoi, their rela-
tionship to the state is quite different. The duality is succintly put by Charles
Jedrej (2004: 717): there are those who defy the government and those who
submit to it. “Deep rural” is a concept useful to define the first group, and
“peasant” is used to describe the second. The concept of peasant is well
known and has a long pedigree in sociology and anthropology (Chayanov,
1986; Shanin, 1971). In contrast, the notion of deep rural has not gained much
currency: it was first coined to describe some communities in west Africa
(e.g., Fanthorpe, 1998) and later applied to the Sudanese communities of the
Blue Nile area by Charles Jedrej (1995, 2004). Whereas the main character-
istic of peasant communities is their subjection to the state, what gives raison
d’être to the deep rurals is their existence on the margins of the state. Seen
from the center, deep rurals are backward, remote, and unassimilated tribal
peoples. Deep rural communities live in the outskirts of states and are charac-
terized by cultural conservatism, the prevalence of a strong moral economy,
and the refusal to interact with strangers, especially powerful ones or those
interested in changing their way of life. They deploy tactics of resistance such
as the refusal to grow cash crops, the avoidance of marriage alliances that
may allow outsiders to establish political influence over them, and indiffer-
ence toward world religions (Jedrej, 1995: 3). To defend themselves from the
state, which perceives them as backward and rebellious, they might choose
to escape, disperse, absorb others who flee oppression, or fight. Their moral
economy is not dissimilar to that of peasants, and they frown upon those who
try to acquire wealth, insist on reciprocity and communal help, and disprove
economic experiments that may lead to inequalities. Unlike peasants, though,
they resist full incorporation into the state.

Deep Rurals
Deep rurals are the protagonists of this book. Around twenty groups of the
Sudanese-Ethiopian borderland can be described as deep rurals, of which
around a dozen will be dealt with here. These deep rural communities of the
borderland are considered lowlanders by the Ethiopians, as they all live in the
k’wolla, that is, the land under eighteen hundred meters. The term lowlander,
however, can be confusing: for the Sudanese, the people of the Ethiopian
borderland are highlanders or mountaineers (Jebelawin), because they live
in higher ground, in comparison to the Sudanese plains. When speaking of
the deep rural communities, I will refer to them indistinctly as borderland
peoples or lowlanders, using in the latter case the Ethiopian perspective. In
this section, I will first outline the main characteristics of the different groups
that can be considered to engage in deep rural strategies, and, after that, a

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 Ecology of a Shatter Zone 69

brief description will be offered of the deep rural groups that will appear
throughout the book.

A Deep Rural Tradition

We know today that the minority groups that inhabit the borderland be-
tween Sudan and Ethiopia are more diverse and have more varied origins
than the first anthropologists who visited the area thought (see Fleming,
1984). The groups that Grottanelli (1948) called “Pre-Nilotes” are not all
related to the Nilo-Saharan stock, and they are certainly not the predecessors
of the modern Nilotes (Nuer, Shilluk, Dinka, etc.). However, some of the
unifying cultural traits that Grottanelli identified in the ethnic mosaic of the
region still hold some validity, especially if we oppose those traits to those
that characterize the neighboring societies: the Nilotes, the Sudanese Arabs,
and the Ethiopian highlanders. Differences exist in the conception of power,
age groups, marriage systems, gender, subsistence practices, religion, and the
like. Let us see them in more detail.
All indigenous groups in the area can be characterized by a strong egali-
tarianism among men—often at the expense of women. It has to be noted that
the influence of the state, especially the Sudanese state, has spread a series of
hierarchical titles from the time of the Funj Kingdom (manjil, makk), some of
which have remained in use until the mid-twentieth century (Disney, 1945). It
would be wrong to consider, though, that those who bear the titles are always
“chiefs.” In some cases, they have enjoyed positions of authority—such as
the manjil of Guba (Garretson, 1980)—but in others their power was severely
curtailed by the community, if they ever had any. The presence of chiefs or
even kings, called agur, has been described among the Bertha. The problem
with the labels is that they are often misleading and the real political power
enjoyed by the persons that hold the titles is extremely limited. In all cases, it
seems that when real, hereditary chiefs appear, such as the Bertha sheikhs of
the nineteenth century (see chapter 11 in Triulzi, 1981), they are an external
phenomenon. And even when chiefs rule, local communities still work as
egalitarian units. Interestingly, the chairmen of neighborhoods (kebele) ap-
pointed by the state (often young people) have very little authority among the
neighbors, who instead abide by the elders’ decisions. A remarkable politi-
cal phenomenon that has been documented in the area is the ritual of “king
killing.” Good descriptions are available for the Bertha and related groups
(Evans-Pritchard, 1932; Murdock, 1959: 174–78; Whitehead, 1934). It can
be considered a typical anarchist solution for curtailing monarchic power (see
Graeber, 2004: 22) and tallies with local antiauthoritarian values. The egali-
tarian ethos also explains the absence of social groups of any kind, including

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 70 Chapter 2

artisan groups, which are typically marginalized in the Ethiopian highlands.

The only division is by gender, and women are systematically disempowered
with respect to men. The age division is not institutionalized, unlike among
the Nilotes and the Cushitic Oromo. Elders are the ones who make political
decisions, but there are no age grades. The lack of formal age grades may
explain the absence of elaborate initiation rites. Although youngsters are
scarified, circumcised, or have their incisors removed (depending on the
group) when they reach puberty, the operation has little to do with the dra-
matic rites of passage of neighboring societies. In any case, where the staunch
egalitarianism of the deep rural communities is better seen is perhaps in their
systematic refusal to engage in wage labor (Davies, 1995: 67). This refusal
is particularly conspicuous in those places where agribusiness companies are
rampant. The Sabu, for example, live side by side with coffee plantations, yet
all laborers have to be hired from the highland peasantry, while the Gumuz in
Metekel refuse to work in oil palm and other industrial plantations.
Marriage systems are now changing under state pressure. The traditional
marriage among the Koman peoples (Gumuz, Gwama, Komo, and Mao)
consisted in sister exchange (James, 1979: 241–51), whose essential principle
is “that an exact balance should be preserved between the marrying parties”
(James, 1979: 241). However, this form of marriage has been considered a
harmful practice by the Ethiopian federal state and is now being replaced,
with variable success, by bridewealth. The traditional marriage is still preva-
lent among the Gumuz, especially in Metekel, north of the Blue Nile. Despite
the name, sister exchange does not necessarily imply swapping sisters. The
idea is that the bride-taking family has to provide another bride to the bride-
giving family. It can be a cousin or other relative of the groom. Another form
of marriage, practiced among the Uduk, consists in mutual agreement. The
Bertha have been deeply influenced by Islam and, especially among the Mayu
(the most Islamized Bertha), marriage among cousins is prevalent, as well as
bridewealth. Sister exchange has been described as a quintessential deep rural
strategy, a way of inhibiting outsiders from using marriage alliances to estab-
lish political influence over them (Jedrej, 1995: 3; also James, 1970, 1986).
James (1970) has also argued that the Uduk reject bridewealth because they
equate it with slavery: paying for the possession of a human being.
A matrifocal tendency has been noticed by James (1993), although it was
already pointed out—as “matriarchal traces”—by Grottanelli (1948: 308).
This matrifocality has deep roots and pervaded even hierarchical organiza-
tions, such as the Funj sultanate, where matrilineages had weight among the
ruling classes (Delmet, 1974: 122). Among the Uduk, the people studied by
Wendy James, matrifocality is mainly played out in matrilineality and in the
Gurunya cult. The latter revolves around the idea of preserving and reproduc-

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 Ecology of a Shatter Zone 71

ing human life and community (James, 1979: 203–32). The objective of the
cult, which rests entirely in the hands of women, is to save the lives of small
children, either boys or girls. In the last instance, it is the community as a
whole that is saved in this way, as children are fundamental for the survival
of the group as an autonomous and viable unit. Regarding matrilineality, the
Uduk live in villages whose inhabitants are all linked through matrilineal
ties (James, 1979: 16), a rather unique situation in the Sudanese-Ethiopian
borderland. Although the groups that will be studied here are both patrilineal
and patrilocal, they have matrifocal traits too. Thus, among the Bertha, a man
has to live in his in-laws’ village and work for them for one or more years,
until he is allowed to return with his wife to his father’s place. Among the
Ingessana, the groom is also expected to work for the bride’s parents and kin
(Jedrej, 1995: 27) and a similar situation has been described for the so-called
Burun (which includes Bertha-speaking peoples): the husband must work for
up to three years for the in-laws before he can take his wife to his father’s vil-
lage (Grottanelli, 1948: 306). Labor for the in-laws probably existed among
the Gule, where temporary matrilocality has been attested (Delmet, 1974:
129). The religious imagination also shows elements of matrifocality among
a variety of borderland minorities: for the Gumuz, the creator of humankind
is often imagined as a woman, Yamba, and women can become ritual special-
ists (gafea). This also happens in other groups, such as the Mao. Here, some
women play the role of sith mumun (literally, “man of spirits”), a specialist
able to cure people through dreams and prevent evil eye and winds and rains
from destroying crops. In the Sudanese and Ethiopian state cultures, instead,
women have no role (or a subaltern one) in the official religions, although
they might have an important one in popular practices, such as the Zar cult
in Ethiopia. Women can also participate in rituals of conflict resolution and
assemblies among many borderland groups.
Shifting agriculture is still prevalent throughout the region. The introduc-
tion of intensive plow agriculture by highlanders has not yet caused a massive
shift in the traditional technology of the borderland and although some people
among the Gumuz, Bertha, and Mao are starting to use the plow, the hoe and
digging stick were still prevalent during my visits to the area. Given the gen-
eral abundance of empty land, the indigenous communities prefer to continue
with the customary slash-and-burn method. Settlement mobility, however,
only occurs in some areas, such as the lands of the Gwama, Komo, Majangir,
and Sabu. The rest are fairly sedentary. The state has been trying to prevent
displacements for decades in a typical attempt at “legibility” (Scott, 1999; and
see the epilogue). The fertility of the soils, the overabundance of cultivable
lands, and the low population density has been argued by my informants in
different places to explain why their villages have not moved noticeably in

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 72 Chapter 2

decades, even without state pressure. In the Gambela region and in some parts
of Benishangul, seasonal displacements exist among the Nuer and it is also
practiced by their neighbors, the Opuuo. Cultivations are similar throughout
the region: sorghum and corn are the staple cereals, followed by finger mil-
let, all of which they use to make porridge and beer. They stand in contrast
to the highland cereal par excellence, teff, which is consumed by the Ethio-
pian peasants in the guise of a pancake or flat bread (ïnjära). Okra, peppers,
garlic, ginger, and other cultigens are also widespread over the borderland
and are employed for making the sauce that accompanies the porridge. The
borderland peoples have very few, if any, food prohibitions (with the excep-
tion of the Gumuz, see section 3.5). The omnivorous nature of the lowlanders
has been a reason for scorn and discrimination by their highland neighbors
(as well as Sudanese Muslims), who have strong prohibitions regarding the
consumption of pig and related animals (warthog), as well as other species.
Several authors have noted the existence of a hunting ethos among the peo-
ples of the Sudanese-Ethiopian borderland. Grottanelli (1948: 321) remarked
that “elements of a hunting culture” come to the surface amid what he called
“Pre-Nilotes.” More recently, anthropologists have noted the symbolic rather
than practical importance of hunting: James (1988) talks about the “archive
of a hunting people” to refer to the symbolic reservoir of the Uduk. Hunting
is regularly practiced by all peoples considered in this book and game, in
some cases, is an important source of proteins. However, the social relevance
of hunting exceeds by far its economic contribution: proof of this is the com-
munal hunt of the Bertha, Mao, and Ingessana (Jedrej, 1995: 60; and see
sections 4.1 and 5.5), which are all very similar in practical organization, the
material culture that is used, the timing, and the social meaning. Among the
Gumuz, the importance of hunting is expressed in material culture (omnipres-
ent bow and arrows) and origin myths. In relation to this, the hunting and war
weapons of the borderland peoples drew the attention of early ethnographers,
who were interested in material culture. Two kinds of weapons in particular
have attracted interest, for their deep prehistoric roots: bows and arrows and
throwing sticks/throwing knives. The former have been abandoned in most
parts of northeastern Africa, but still survive, or have survived until recently,
among diverse communities of the Sudanese-Ethiopian borderland, such
as the Uduk, Burun, Maban, and Gumuz (Grottanelli, 1948: 295–96). The
throwing knife existed until very recently among the Ingessana and Bertha
(Jedrej, 1995: 117–27). This is a typical Sahelian weapon that extends up
to Mali in the west and reaches as far as Gabon (Westerdijk, 1988). The
throwing stick is much less widespread in Africa, but is very common in the
Sudanese-Ethiopian borderland, where it is used by the Uduk, Bertha, Mao,
Komo, and Gwama.

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 Ecology of a Shatter Zone 73

Religion has always been considered a diacritical element to distinguish

the indigenous communities of the Sudanese-Ethiopian borderland. The dif-
ference is clearly perceived by the people themselves. It could be argued that
the difference between deep rurals and peasants is that the former do not have
religion sensu stricto. This is not strange, given the link between state and re-
ligion (Scott, 2009). Many lowlanders are very aware of this connection. An
old Gumuz put it bluntly to Father Juan González Núñez (2010: 173): “We
do not have religion. We, however, know Misa [spirit]. Misa is Mise-kuacha,
Mise-Tanka, Mise-guicha.” González Núñez says that the contradictory state-
ment proved that the Gumuz do have religion. In my opinion, though, the
old man was right. What they have is a rich corpus of religious beliefs, but
no religion proper. In relation to this, it has been noted that both the idea of
god and the idea of praying are absent among many peoples of the Sudanese-
Ethiopian borderland, such as the Uduk (James, 1988: 180, 219). This is not
exactly the case with the groups studied in this book. Gumuz, Bertha, and
Mao have been in contact with state societies for quite a long time and they
have been influenced by them. The gods of the borderland peoples, however,
often have little to do with those of the dominant societies. Thus, in the case
of the Gumuz, although Yamba has been mentioned as the mother of human-
kind and some authors refer to her as a supreme god or goddess (González
Núñez, 2010: 177–81, with qualifications; Meron Zeleke, 2010: 33), the truth
is that she has no clear part in Gumuz religious practices. Instead, it is the
abundant and multifarious Mus’a or Mis’a (spirits) that are really important in
daily life. Other groups that have incorporated god to their systems of belief
have done so under the influence of monotheistic religions: this is the case
with the Bertha, who have massively converted to Islam. Nevertheless, spir-
its—such as the Shuman (evil spirits) and Ro (the spirit of thunder)—still play
a paramount role, especially among the least Islamized Bertha groups. The
Mao, in turn, adopted Yere, the paramount divinity of the Gonga peoples, the
god of the sky (Huntingford, 1955: 135), but he has not been able to displace
spirits, such as the Annum (equivalent to the Uduk Arum), and Yere itself
is a “diffuse and remote figure” (Grottanelli, 1948: 317). Although Gumuz,
Bertha, and Mao pray, their prayers differ from those of the Christians and
Muslims, in that there are no standardized formulae or specific words that are
systematically repeated.
While the lowland peoples distinguish themselves from a religious point of
view from both the Nilotes (who do have gods) and the great state traditions,
they share with each other numerous beliefs and ritual practices. Among
those that have been pointed out, we have rainmakers (who often use stones
to bring rain) (Bertha, Gumuz, Mao, Uduk, Komo, Gwama), divination ritu-
als (using incense, cowries, or dreams) (Bertha, Gumuz, Mao, Uduk, Komo,

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 74 Chapter 2

Gwama), cleansing rituals that involve the rubbing of a sacrificed chicken

(Ingessana, Uduk, Gumuz), and spraying and spitting of beer, food, or medi-
cine as part of healing rituals or blessings (Uduk, Gumuz, Mao) (see Grot-
tanelli, 1948; James, 1988; Jedrej, 1995).
The Ethiopian-Sudanese borderland offers a bewildering mosaic of lan-
guages. The Nilo-Saharan family is by far the best represented, but there are
also Afroasiatic languages of the Omotic stock. The variety of languages
suggests a rather more complex history than that envisioned by Grottanelli
(1948) or Murdock (1959): what we have is much more than a pocket of
Mesolithic refugees surrounded by encroaching Nilote and Cushitic pastoral-
ists—although this could have been the beginning (Fernández, 2003). Peoples
from different traditions have come from the area at different times and for
different reasons, and have substantially contributed to the cultural mosaic of
the region. The details of these arrivals and displacements will be dealt with
throughout the book.
Bodies are also an element of difference. Almost all borderland peoples
practice scarifications and the perforation of earlobes, nose, or lips. The only
exception (today) are the Omotic-speaking Mao. Scarifications are related
to nudity, which was prevalent in the region until the late twentieth century,
and to an idea of the body that was in stark opposition to the one prevailing
in the Sudanese and Ethiopian states. If the scarified, pierced body of the
lowlanders was considered an element of primitiveness and thus inferiority
by the dominant groups, so was their skin color and racial features. Race has
an outstanding relevance in the relations between borderland peoples and the
rest. Race has typified the lowlanders as inferior people at least since the first
millennium BC (Pankhurst, 1977), when the divide between “Blacks” and
“Reds” was established for the first time. It is something impossible to con-
ceal—an indelible mark that makes otherness and subalternity always present
in any intercultural encounter.

People of the Lowlands

• Bertha: With around two hundred thousand individuals, the Bertha make
up the largest minority group in western Ethiopia. They live south of the
Blue Nile in the region of Benishangul. They speak a Nilo-Saharan lan-
guage that is not related to the neighboring languages of the same family.
The Bertha arrived in Ethiopia from the Sudan around the seventeenth
century and today live in both countries, although the majority of the
population lives in Ethiopia. They have massively converted to Islam
and many are bilingual Bertha/Arabic. Although there is no ethnography
of the Bertha, their recent history has been studied monographically

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 Ecology of a Shatter Zone 75

(Triulzi, 1981). The Bertha can be divided into at least three groups
speaking different dialects or languages (Mayu or Gebeto, Fadasi, and
Undu or Gamili).
• Gumuz: A group of about one hundred sixty thousand individuals (with
perhaps sixty thousand more in Sudan), it is the second largest indig-
enous community of the western Ethiopian borderland. They live mostly
north of the Blue Nile, although an important percentage of the popula-
tion lives in the lower Didessa valley (an affluent of the Nile from the
south). They speak an isolated Nilo-Saharan language, perhaps related to
the Koman group, to which I will refer later (Bender, 1994; Ehret, 2001:
88). The Gumuz constitute the largest community of followers of tradi-
tional beliefs north of the Blue Nile, although they are being targeted by
Protestant and Catholic missionaries. There is no proper ethnography of
the Gumuz, but they are the group that has received more attention by
researchers, with four monographies devoted to them (Geremew Feyissa,
2011; González Núñez, 2010; Tsega Endalew, 2006; Wolde-Selassie
Abbute, 2004) and several articles (e.g., James, 1975, 1977b, 1980; see
Grottanelli, 1943: 111–12, for the oldest references to this people).
• Mao: The Ethiopian census of 2007 gives a total number of forty-three
thousand Mao, of which the greater part (twenty-four thousand) live
in the region of Oromia, followed by Benishangul-Gumuz (twelve
thousand) and Southern Nations, Nationalities, and Peoples (2,500).
The problem is that Mao is a generic term that refers to black minority
communities, living in the margins of dominant groups. All Mao live
south of the Bertha people, with whom they share some villages. They
are all nominally Muslim, although the degree of observance varies with
age and from group to group. They were first studied, as a whole, by
Italian anthropologist Vinigi Grottanelli (1940), who did not properly
distinguish the diverse communities concealed under the generic name.
Their true cultural diversity and intricate histories were first sketched in a
prescient article by linguist Harold Fleming (1984), but no ethnographic
or historical studies have been carried out in the area since Grottanelli’s
time. Linguistic research, instead, has been important (Ahland, 2009,
2012; Siebert et al., 2002). In the area covered by this book, we can dis-
tinguish two clusters of Mao with five different ethnic groups:
○ Seze (northern Mao): A group of Omotic speakers (western Mao
cluster), their number is difficult to calculate, as the Ethiopian census
only admits the generic “Mao” and not the actual ethnic denomina-
tions used by the people. There is widespread confusion as to their
specific geographic location. I have been able to ascertain that their
land lies today between the weredas (municipalities) of Begi and the

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 76 Chapter 2

western part of Qondala (western Oromia). They live intermingled

with Oromo peasants. I was not able to identify a settlement only
inhabited by Seze. They can be around five thousand people or more.
Not all of them consider themselves Seze. Some speak the Seze lan-
guage but call themselves simply Mao, especially those living in the
surroundings of Begi. The Seze is in fact the name of the main clan of
the group. Their original self-denomination was probably Amai “the
people.”
○ Hozo (northern Mao): They are Omotic speakers, closely related to
the previous group, with whom they intermarry. They are a smaller
community, perhaps two thousand people. They mostly live around
the mountains of Gara Arba, in a bend of the Dabus River, but there
are also small communities in the area of Mendi (Oromia), to the
east of the Dabus. Some live in multi-ethnic villages with Oromo and
other Mao, but unlike the Seze, they do have ethnically homogeneous
villages. They call themselves Amó, which also means “the people.”
Hozo is actually the name of one of the Amó clans. Although now
vanishing, they still have elements of a distinct material culture.
○ Bambasi (northern Mao): They are also Omotic speakers and live in
three separate areas. Their original homeland extended to both sides
of the Dabus River valley near the town of Bambasi (thus the name
often given to them), in the regional state of Benishangul-Gumuz.
Many families were resettled during the late nineteenth century and
today they live in two other places: the Didessa Valley (Benishangul-
Gumuz) and Mätahara (Eastern Shewa, Oromia), in eastern Ethiopia.
Their original area is still home to around one thousand people. They
are known as Kweri by the other Mao groups.
○ Sith Shwala (northern Mao): They are the larger and more vibrant
Mao community. They are also the only Nilo-Saharan speakers
among the northern Mao. The Sith Shwala speak a Koman language
(see below) and, in fact, they were originally Gwama, before entering
contact with the Oromo and becoming “Mao.” Their language bears
little difference with Gwama (also called Kwama) (Zelealem Leyew,
2006). They may number around ten thousand individuals. They have
been less affected by the Oromo expansion and maintain some of their
traditions vigorously.
○ Southern Mao: This community emerged through the conquest of the
indigenous Komo and perhaps Majangir of western Ethiopia by the
Busase during the late sixteenth century. They lost their language or
languages and adopted the Omotic language of their conquerors (Yig-
ezu and Yehualashet, 1995), but today it is only spoken by around five

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 Ecology of a Shatter Zone 77

hundred individuals, mostly old people. The Mao and their overlords,
the Busase, were the focus of Grottanelli’s study (1940).
Given the number of people that identify themselves as Mao in the cen-
sus, it is possible that there are other Mao communities inside Oromia,
whose history and language (if still maintained) are as yet unknown.
• Komo/Koman: The name “Komo” and derivatives are used by the Ethio-
pian administration and different groups to describe a culturally related
cluster of minority groups that live between the Yabus and Baro rivers,
on both sides of the Ethiopian-Sudanese border (Komo, Gwama, Opuuo).
They all speak what have been called “Koman” languages, a neologism
that serves to identify this group of peoples as well (Bender, 1994). Ko-
man languages are also spoken by the Uduk and Gule in Sudan. Most
Koman populations declare themselves Muslims—with the exception
of the Opuuo, who have been influenced by Protestant missionaries.
However, the majority are still strong followers of traditional beliefs in
practice, with different degrees of religious syncretism. Throughout the
book, I will speak of “Komo” when it is used as blanket term to refer to
the “wild” people of the borderlands, mostly speaking Koman languages,
and Komo (without quotation marks) when I refer to the specific group.
○ Komo: They are also called Koma in Sudan (Theis, 1995) and Goma
by the Oromo (Tesemma Ta’a, 2003). Some groups in Ethiopia call
themselves “Kwama” (different from Gwama!). Their number is
difficult to calculate, because they live astride Sudan and Ethiopia,
often in unreachable areas for administration, and because they are
lumped together with other groups generically known as Komo, such
as Gwama and Opuuo. The Ethiopian census of 2007 tallies around
eight thousand “Komo” of which less than half should be properly
speaking Komo. In the 1970s, Bender (1975a: 65) calculated the
total population (Sudan and Ethiopia) as 4,500 individuals. The two
main areas of settlement inside Ethiopia are the Daga valley (called
Sonka in Ethiopia), south of Tongo and east of Gidami (Tesemma
Ta’a, 2003), and the area north of Gambela. They are one of the only
two minority groups that live in western Ethiopia that have been the
object of a proper ethnography (Theis, 1995). Theis’s work, however,
focused on the Sudanese Komo.
○ Kwama/Gwama: They were the original inhabitants of Benishangul.
They were displaced to the south by the invading Bertha during the
seventeenth and eighteenth centuries (Triulzi, 1981: 23). Some Ber-
tha intermarried with them, giving birth to a hybrid subgroup. The
Kwama were later chased toward Sudan by the Oromo, advancing
from the east. Today, the Kwama, who call themselves Gwama, live

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 78 Chapter 2

in the westernmost lowlands of Ethiopia, although many have been

resettled closer to the plateau. Those who did not emigrate to the
lowlands do not usually call themselves Kwama, but Sith Shwala
or Mao. They are called Mao by their Bertha and Oromo neighbors.
The number of Kwama was calculated by Bender (1975a: 67) as ten
thousand individuals, but since the time of his writing, many of them
have adopted a Mao identity, even if they still speak Kwama (as the
aforementioned Sith Shwala). Only the Kwama language has received
some attention by researchers (Bryant and Siebert, 2007; Grottanelli,
1944–1945; Zelealem Leyew, 2006). No ethnography has ever been
written on this people.
○ Opuuo: A small community of Koman peoples known as Shita in
Sudan (Bender, 1975a: 63–64; Corfield, 1938) and Opuuo or Opo
in Ethiopia. They number around two thousand people. They live in
widely scattered settlements around the Jokau River, an affluent of the
Baro from the right that separates Sudan and Ethiopia. They live in
close contact with the Nuer, with whom they sometimes intermarry.
Their territory was in fact partially occupied by their Nilotic neigh-
bors from the late nineteenth century onward and they were often
enslaved. Very little is known about them, although some information
gathered by Corfield (1938) on the Komo actually refers to them (for
their material culture, see González-Ruibal et al., 2013).
○ Ganza: Although properly speaking they are not “Komo” and they do
not even speak a Nilo-Saharan tongue, but an Omotic one (western
Mao cluster), the Ganza are strongly related to the Komo groups:
they share many of their customs (such as sister-exchange marriage,
communal beer drinking with straws, and ritual specialists), live in the
same villages, and often intermarry. They live in the Yabus valley,
mostly in Sudan, but several families have been resettled in Ethiopia.
• Sabu: Also called Shabo and Mikeyir, they are a small group that is not
recognized by the Ethiopian government. According to my calculations,
they number between one thousand and two thousand people. They
speak a language isolate, related to Koman. Like the Koman groups and
the Majangir, they have traditionally bartered forest products (game,
fish, and honey) with their highland neighbors (Oromo and Shekka-
cho). They have been heavily influenced by both Komo and Majangir.
The Shabo continue clearing new patches of land for cultivation and
changing their scattered settlements every few years. They still follow
traditional beliefs. Their intriguing language is the only aspect of their
culture that has been the object of research (Anbessa Teferra and Uns-
eth, 1989; Schnoebelen, 2009).

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 Ecology of a Shatter Zone 79

• Majangir: They number twenty-two thousand people according to the

last census. They live in the southeastern part of the Gambela region
and in the western part of Southern Nations, Nationalities, and Peoples.
They speak a Nilo-Saharan language of the Surmic cluster. They have
traditionally been in contact with the Komo and Sabu, with whom they
share a similar way of life (hunting and honey gathering are relevant).
They were studied ethnographically in the late 1960s (Stauder, 1972) and
have converted to Protestantism since then (Saton, 2002).

Peasants
As in the previous section, this one is divided into two parts: first, an over-
view of the peasant tradition will be offered and afterward the main peasant
societies of the region under study will be briefly described.

An African Peasant Tradition

There exists a peasant tradition in the Horn of Africa from the early first
millennium BC, based on plow agriculture and herding (Phillipson, 2012:
111–17). The use of the ox plow is unique in Africa and allowed for the in-
tensification and expansion of agriculture in the Ethiopian plateau: the plow
allows farmers to cultivate a surface two to four times larger than the hoe
(McCann, 1995: 47). It also has limits: the highland peasants have always
found it difficult to colonize those areas where trypanosomiasis and other
diseases of hot climates decimate their oxen. The ox-plow revolution, as Mc-
Cann (1995: 39–83) has demonstrated, is linked to a variety of phenomena
that have come to characterize the culture, landscape, politics, and economy
of the highlands, including property rights, gender relations, land use, debt,
and ecological adaptations.
The existence of peasants is dependent on states, so the cradle of the early
peasantry coincides with the emergence of the Axumite state in northern
Ethiopia and Eritrea. With the expansion of the Ethiopian kingdom, peasant
formations started to appear further south, although the assimilation of the ox
plow is not necessarily linked to the expansion of the state (McCann, 1995).
Former segmentary societies were engulfed by the state and their members
fixed in space and transformed into tax-paying, intensive agriculturalists.
Significantly, the name for “tenant farmer” in Amharic, the official language
of Ethiopia, is gäbar, from the verb gäbärä, “to pay tribute.” Heavy taxes
had to be paid to landlords and nobles, the Church, and the king. These were
especially burdensome in the state periphery and in recently annexed areas.
Today, taxation has been much simplified (and lightened): peasants have to

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 80 Chapter 2

pay an annual government tax (from the time of the communist revolution
all land is state-owned) and sometimes a rent to those who hold rights on the
fields. Thus, the Amhara peasants that were resettled in the lowlands dur-
ing the Därg now have to pay a rent to the indigenous populations, whose
entitlement to the land has been recognized by the state. While peasants are
incorporated into the structures of the state, this does not mean that they ac-
cept them gladly. As in other peasant traditions (Scott, 1985, 1990), there is a
strong tradition of resistance to state abuse, including open rebellion (Gebru
Tareke, 1996; Triulzi, 1980).
The expansion of the peasant tradition from the central Ethiopian plateau
to the periphery brought about not only economic and political changes, but
cultural ones as well. Although indigenous communities usually kept their
language and some customs, they adopted the religion of their new masters
(mainly Christianity), their dress (a long cotton wrap called shamma and a
blanket called gabi), food habits (ïnjära), handicrafts (pottery, woodwork),
and agricultural implements (the plow and yoke). Material culture, in fact,
has had a primary role in the construction and spread of the Great Tradition
from the central plateau, but this has been almost completely overlooked.
Even if the historical trajectories of the highlanders are very diverse and their
cultural variability is still obvious, differences within the highland peasants
are relatively minor compared to the gulf that separates them from lowland
communities (see Levine, 2000 [1974]). This is one of the reasons for which
I often refer to “highlanders” generically. The other reasons are that highland
communities are not indigenous to the borderland, that they have played the
role of dominators in relation to the aboriginal borderland communities, and
that they are perceived as one by the people of the lowlands.
There are two main highland groups that have played a primary role in the
western borderland: Amhara and Oromo. The Amhara inhabit the northern
highlands, whereas the Oromo occupy mostly the southern highlands or
what Markakis (2011) has called the “highland periphery.” Other highland
communities include the Omotic-speaking Boro and Busase and the Cushitic
Agäw. They have been largely assimilated to the highland koiné in either
their Oromo or Amhara version. There is at least one important difference
between the two main highland groups that has to be stressed: it has been
usually accepted that Oromo and Amhara have followed very different paths
in their relations with peoples they encountered. The Oromo tended to as-
similate others, while the Amhara subjected, marginalized, or expelled them.
As Levine (2000 [1974]: 80) has noted, the Oromo have been “more inclined
to adopt the culture of their new neighbors than to spread their own.” Fol-
lowing Lévi-Strauss’s (1955: 447–48) famous distinction, we could say that
the Amhara have historically followed an anthropoemic strategy, whereas the

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 Ecology of a Shatter Zone 81

Oromo have opted for anthropophagy. While there is a truth in this, reality
is, in fact, more complex: digestion has proved difficult to the Oromo in the
borderland and this explains that sometimes they have ended up resorting to
emetic strategies.

People of the Highlands

• Amhara: They form the historical core of the Ethiopian state. With
about twenty million people, they are the second largest ethnic group in
Ethiopia, where they occupy the central highland plateau. They speak a
Semitic language, which has its own form of writing, going back to the
first millennium BC. With their northern neighbors, the Tigreans, they
were early converts to Christianity (around the fourth century). The as-
sociation of literacy, monotheistic religion, and hierarchy that is present
in Amhara culture has been crucial in the making of the Great Tradition
of the Ethiopian highlands (Levine, 2000 [1974]). Although the Amhara
were originally restricted to the northern Ethiopian plateau, with the
expansion of the Ethiopian state they started to settle in the newly con-
quered regions as soldier-settlers (näft’äñña). The settlement of Amhara
in the western borderland began during the time of its incorporation into
the state (1898–1902) and increased dramatically due to the resettlement
policy of the communist regime.
• Oromo: They are the largest ethnic group in Ethiopia, with around thirty
million members, who speak the same Cushitic language with regional
differences. Their homeland lies somewhere in southeastern Ethiopia
(Hassen, 1994: 3–4). They expanded toward the west during the mid-
sixteenth century and entered into contact with the peoples of the western
borderland (Gumuz, Mao, and Komo) sometime around the late sixteenth
or early seventeenth centuries. They are more culturally fragmented than
the Amhara. This fragmentation is related to their history of expansion
and contact with other peoples, from which they have often assimilated
customs and ways of life. Although the Oromo were originally mobile
pastoralists and some groups still are (Guji, Kereyu, and Borana), the
large majority (including all the communities of western Ethiopia) are
sedentary, plow agriculturalists. They were traditionally segmentary and
endowed with democratic institutions—such as the chaffe or general as-
sembly—but due to both endogenous and exogenous causes, they ended
up developing territorial states (Hassen, 1994; Hultin, 1979). Since the
Second World War, they have developed a strong centrifugal nationalist
movement (e.g., Asafa Jalata, 1998). The Oromo are the only highland
society in contact with almost all lowland groups mentioned in this book:

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 82 Chapter 2

Bertha, Gumuz, Mao, and Koman peoples. In the western Ethiopian

borderland, they follow Islam, Orthodox Christianity, and Protestantism,
although traditional religious aspects are still very much alive (Bartels,
1983) and are often played out in material culture and technology (Bula
Sirika Wayessa, 2011; Temesgen Burka, 2009).
• Agäw: This term refers to a variety of Agäw-speaking people in Eritrea
and northern Ethiopia. Agäw comprises several closely related languages
and dialects belonging to the Cushitic family. Their speakers have been
linked to the Ethiopian state for more than a thousand years: during the
early second millennium AD an Agäw dynasty ruled Ethiopia. However,
Agäw-speaking groups, such as the K’ämant, have also formed com-
munities of resistance subsumed within the Ethiopian kingdom or on its
margins until the present (Gamst, 1969; Quirin, 1998). In the area under
study, there is a divide between the majority Highland Agäw (Awi) and
the minority Lowland Agäw (K’ämant, Kunfäl6), the latter living mostly
in Metekel. Their relations have sometimes been strained. Lowland
Agäw have lived as isolated communities, with scarce contact and no in-
termarriage with highlanders (Sewagegn Shiferaw, 2006). Despite living
in close vicinity with the Gumuz for centuries, the Lowland Agäw, like
other peasant groups, have refused intermarriage (Joswig and Moham-
med, 2011). The highland Awi, which today number more than half a
million, have inhabited a buffer zone between the lowlands and the core
of the Ethiopian state for a long time. Due to this strategic position, they
have been in charge of taxing the Gumuz (Tadesse Tamrat, 1988a). The
Agäw are Orthodox Christians, but with a varying influence of tradi-
tional beliefs, and their traditions (including material culture) have been
heavily influenced by the Amhara.
• Anfillo/Busase: They arrived at their present location in southwestern
Oromia from the southcentral part of the country during the late sixteenth
century, escaping from the Oromo invasion of their land. Their number
is difficult to calculate because they have been absorbed by the Oromo
and now consider themselves just another clan of the dominant group.
The descendants of the Busase might number around two thousand in-
dividuals. They were the members of the ruling class of the Kingdom
of Anfillo and today, still powerful, they constitute more a social class
than an ethnic group. They originally spoke an Omotic language (Gonga-
Kefoid cluster), which was adopted by their indigenous subjects (Yigezu
and Yehualashet, 1995). Their religious and political institutions, of
classic Gonga type, were studied by Grottanelli (1940), shortly before
they disappeared.

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 Ecology of a Shatter Zone 83

• Boro: They are commonly known as Shinasha. They number around fifty
thousand people and live mostly in the Wämbära Mountains as well as
in other pockets north of the Blue Nile, where they are in contact with
the Gumuz. Like the Busase, they speak an Omotic language of the
Gonga-Kefoid cluster and emigrated to their present location during the
sixteenth century, escaping from Oromo invasions. As it so happens,
the Busase are being absorbed by the Oromo, although their culture is
still very much alive. Despite being Orthodox Christians, they still have
many traditional rituals and beliefs related to their original Gonga reli-
gion (Abebe Ano, 2012; Tsega Endalew, 2005). Likewise, their material
culture was still clearly identifiable from that of neighboring groups at
the time of conducting this study.

2.4. BANDITS, MISSIONARIES, AND TRAVELERS

Indigenous communities and highland peasants have shared the Sudanese-

Ethiopian borderland with other groups. In this section, we will look at a di-
verse array of people who are characterized by three things: they are foreign-
ers to the frontier, they usually come from state areas (as envoys or escapees),
and they are mobile. Also, they meddle into the locals’ business, sometimes
side with them, and, more often than not, bring them trouble: stronger state
intervention or simply theft, violence, and conflict.

Bandits and Outlaws

Outlaws and adventurers fleeing from the grasp of the state are groups that
have routinely wandered through the borderlands. The sparsely populated
areas in between polities are the natural environment of brigands. Banditry
around the Sudanese-Ethiopian borderland has been attested to since antiq-
uity. An inscription from the mid-fourth century AD tells how King Ezana of
Aksum punished the Cushitic peoples north of Adulis for having plundered
royal caravans (Caulk, 1984: 201). These peoples are probably related to the
present Beja or Bedawi who live on both sides of the borderland between
Eritrea and Sudan.
Brigandage, with political undertones, is better attested after the sixteenth
century, and it reaches its climax in the turbulent decades of the Zämänä
Mesäfïnt, the “Era of the Princes” (1769–1855), when central state power
yielded to local warlords. From this period, we have the testimony of
James Bruce of Kinnaird (1790: 259–60). The Scottish traveler mentions “a

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 84 Chapter 2

settlement of Pagan blacks called Ganjar,” in a land nowadays occupied by

Gumuz, between the town of K’wara and the Sudanese border. The Ganjar
used to plunder Arab and Funj merchants coming from Sudan. According to
Bruce, they were escaped slaves and their number increased with the addition
of “vagrants and fugitives” from both Sudan and Ethiopia. Ethiopian outlaws
(shïfta) have not been precisely Robin Hoods, as Donald Crummey (1984)
has abundantly demonstrated. Banditry provided a tool for career mobility for
the Ethiopian ruling classes and the frontier turned out to be an ideal platform
for aristocratic would-be kings interested in increasing their economic and
human resources before bidding for the throne. It was also a way of showing
political dissent among the aristocracy (e.g., Garretson, 1982: 278–79). The
victims of shïftawoch were the merchants who used the international routes
between Sudan and Ethiopia, peasants, and the indigenous communities that
are the object of this book. Each collective provided a particular resource:
currency, followers, and slaves (which could be transformed into currency
as well). The latter two groups—peasants and indigenous peoples—also
furnished foodstuffs. Rebel warlords did not behave differently from state
representatives, who equally lived off the land (Caulk, 1978). The presence of
brigands probably reinforced the image of forested, marginal areas as an evil
no-man’s land: “entering the forest” became “both short-hand and metaphor
for shïftïnnät,” brigandage (Crummey, 1984: 265).
Without a doubt, the most famous aristocratic bandit of western Ethiopia
was Kassa Hailu, later Emperor Tewodros II (1855–1868), whose hometown
K’wara is a border enclave facing Gumuz land (Crummey, 1984: 268). Not
all brigands were of noble birth. Caulk (1984: 216) notes that in the last quar-
ter of the nineteenth century, “the whole border with the Sudan [was] infested
with highwaymen, cattle thieves and kidnappers.” This plagued the northern
part of the border, from the mountains of Wämbära near the Blue Nile to
present-day Eritrea and in some occasions led to inter-state cooperation, as
when Mïnïlik II asked the Sudanese dervishes to finish Kidanä Maryam, a
robber with a retinue of half a thousand (Tsega Endalew, 2006: 85). Dur-
ing the twentieth century, the phenomenon continued unabated, despite the
stronger grip of the state. As late as 1929, a band of two hundred shïfta was
still operating in a wide area between Lake T’ana and the Sudanese border
(Fernyhough, 1986: 154), encompassing a large part of Gumuz land. Patrols
were organized by the British after the liberation of Ethiopia from the Italians
in 1942 in order to put an end to the renewed energies of the robbers, who had
mixed with patriots during the turbulent times of the fascist occupation. The
southernmost part of the region studied here also became prey to robbers dur-
ing the early twentieth century. In the 1920s, American missionary Thomas
Lambie (1943: 40) reports the existence of brigands in the vast woodlands of
southwestern Oromia, who assault peasants and merchants from the Sudan.

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 Ecology of a Shatter Zone 85

However, the presence of banditry was felt more strongly in the north than
in the south, where slave raiders, rather than rustlers and robbers, predomi-
nated. The figure of the brigand and that of the statesman were often difficult
to differentiate in the southern marches: the best example of this confusion
is personified in Sheikh Khojele (Abdussamad H. Ahmad, 1999: 437–38),
the Bertha overlord who raided and looted both Sudan and Ethiopia and left
an indelible mark in the collective memory of the indigenous peoples. At the
same time, Khojele fostered the political unification of Benishangul before
being absorbed into the Ethiopian empire in 1898. Crummey (1984: 273) has
argued that the activities of these bandit-lords reveal “the criminal origins
of all state power.” In fact, banditry can be properly considered, following
James Scott (2009), a state effect: beyond the state there is no brigandage.
Meaningfully, the “Pagan blacks” who assaulted merchants in K’wara dur-
ing the eighteenth century were, according to Bruce of Kinnaird (1790: 260),
generally under the command of the governor of this border town. Brigand-
age, then, thrives in the margins of the state or when the central power loosens
its grip. This explains the reemergence of shïftïnnät after the collapse of the
communist regime in 1991. For several years, groups of former soldiers of the
regular army made a living as highwaymen, a phenomenon particularly acute
in border areas such as Benishangul-Gumuz (Ahrens, 1996). For the indige-
nous peoples, the exactions of bandits and the state look very much the same.
However, from a state perspective it is those who resist central power who
are the robbers. Thus, the Ingessana, who maintained their independence,
sometimes resorting to violence, in the Sudanese Blue Nile have often been
described as thieves (Jedrej, 1995: 5). The Ethiopian Mao were equally
portrayed as brutal robbers by the Arab merchants and some travelers (Mat-
teucci, 1879: 266), whereas the Gumuz were mentioned as cattle and cara-
van thieves at least from the time of King Susïnyos (r. 1607–1632) onward
(Tadesse Tamrat, 1982: 351). In fact, they were just defending their territories
against the state and the real brigands. This identification of the borderland
peoples and shïfta is motivated by another reason. The minority groups of
the frontier have frequently received outlaws and fugitives in their midst, a
custom that has sometimes turned against them (Jedrej, 1995: 4; and see sec-
tion 4.1). A Gumuz elder told me candidly that “The Italians taught us not to
accept the shïfta,”7 a term that, at that time, was used to identify both robbers
and the Ethiopian patriots fighting colonial rule.

Missionaries and Holymen

Brigands have shared the frontier space with other mobile peoples, who have
usually employed more peaceful methods to make room for themselves: reli-
gious men. Religion and politics, however, have always been tightly linked.

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 86 Chapter 2

When Dutch traveler Juan Maria Schuver was visiting the area of Guba, north
of the Blue Nile, he found two Sudanese fuqara (sg. feki) who had arrived in
Ethiopia to preach the gospel to the Mahdi and start the insurrection against
Turkish rule (James et al., 1996: 206). This kind of missionary became com-
mon currency in the permeable Sudanese-Ethiopian borderland, and they
have had an enduring effect in the local communities, especially among the
Bertha. The role of the preacher is often difficult to distinguish from that
of the merchant. Islam and trade are specially connected in Benishangul
(Triulzi, 1975; and see section 4.1). An interesting representative of those
prophets that thrived in the borderland is Al-Faki Ahmad Umar (d. 1953),
a Nigerian holyman from Bornu, whose cult has become extremely popular
throughout southwestern Oromia and includes a pilgrimage to his tomb (Ishi-
hara, 2009). This is not a unique instance. Communities of western Africans
settled in the Sudanese-Ethiopian borderland, such as the Fulani, known as
Takruri, living in the northern part of the Sudanese-Ethiopian border, around
the town of Gallabat (Robinson, 1926; Rossetti, 1910).
Although the fuqara had their greatest influence on the Bertha populations,
Islamic practices spread all over the borderland. Sometimes the material
culture associated with the practices has proved more successful than the
rituals themselves: a remarkable example is the khalwa or kalwa, a typical
Sufi institution related to withdrawal, seclusion, and meditation. It also refers
to the building or place where these take place. In the Sudan, in a general
sense, a khalwa is a place where one prays, but also a sheikh’s residence, a
room where a holyman receives guests, or a Quranic school (McHugh, 1994:
85–86). They are considered h.aram (sanctuary), a refuge for fugitives of
all kinds (Ibid.: 87). Undoubtedly, it was the Islamic preachers who visited
western Ethiopia, and especially Benishangul, during the nineteenth century,
who brought with them the idea of khalwa. However, local groups adapted it
to their particular ethoi and cultural principles. Almost all groups have small
huts called khalwa, but they are rarely used for prayer and much less for se-
clusion. It seems that the borderland peoples felt attracted to the idea of sanc-
tuary and hospitality, rather than the religious values. However, this does not
mean that the link with Islam is absent. In the Mao village of Boshuma, I saw
a Bertha man praying in front of a hut. I asked my informants about it, and
they told me that he was in Boshuma to pan for gold in the river; meanwhile,
he was living in a kalwa. They told me: “If a person says ‘salam ‘alaykum’
you give him a kalwa to stay,”8 even if, like the Mao, one is not precisely a
fervent Muslim (the village does not even have a mosque).
Not all religious missionaries were peaceful harbingers of another faith.
There were violent attempts at spreading religion. The most famous one is
the movement of the Mahdiyyah (1881–1898). While some of their repre-

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 Ecology of a Shatter Zone 87

sentatives, such as those seen by Juan Maria Schuver, came in peace, others
brought war and devastation to the borderland. Benishangul suffered several
invasions of dervishes, who brought holy war to Ethiopia, during the 1880s.
They even reached the Oromo-inhabited highlands: their incursions were
only stopped after the defeat of a large Mahdist army by the Ethiopian state
in the frontier between Benishangul and the Oromo chiefdom of Wällägga in
1888 (Terrefe Woldetsadik, 1968: 80–82).
Islamic missionaries were most important in the borderland for four centu-
ries. However, from the late nineteenth century onward, they found competi-
tors in Christian churches. The Täwahädo Orthodox Church of Ethiopia made
little attempt at Christianizing the borderlands, although there were experi-
ments from the seventeenth century onward. In the time of King Yohannïs I,
one of the principal monastic leaders was assigned with the evangelization of
Metekel (Tadesse Tamrat, 1988a: 14–15), including both Agäw and Gumuz.
The primary objective, however, was probably not the Gumuz, but the Agäw,
who were equally heathen, but red not black, and much less “primitive.” The
Agäw of Ch’ara and Metekel, however, did not feel up for it, because they
rebelled, killed monks, and desecrated churches. The Agäw were eventually
made into Christians, although K’unfel and K’ämant Agäw remained at-
tached to non-Christian traditions (Gamst, 1969; Quirin, 1998). The Gumuz
were mostly spared, as there are no mentions to them in the sources. How-
ever, they lived side by side with Orthodox monks, whose religious outposts
where in such remote places as the border town of K’wara. Nearby stood the
monastery of Mahebar Selassie, abode of the community of Saint Eusthasius,
of which James Bruce of Kinnaird (1790: 319) says, “All this tribe is grossly
ignorant, and through time, I believe, will lose the use of letters entirely.” In
the borderland, everything loosens up.
The Catholic and Protestant churches, however, took the mission of evan-
gelizing the lowland peoples seriously. The first (failed) attempt was carried
out by Portuguese Jesuits during the late sixteenth and early seventeenth
centuries in the core of the Ethiopian kingdom: it never reached the western
borderland. I have already mentioned the more successful activities of Italian
priests in the Ethiopian periphery during the late nineteenth and early twenti-
eth centuries and their role in supporting imperialism (see section 2.2). Amer-
ican evangelists were also very active, using Sudan, recently occupied by the
British, as a starting point: the Sudan Interior Mission founded churches in the
border region and soon spread into Ethiopia (James, 1979: 12; Lambie, 1943;
Tibebe Eshete, 1999). They were joined in the 1920s by Swedish Lutherans,
who established a stronghold in the Oromo capital of Nekemt, from where
they reached the peoples of the western borderland. An echo of this was the
short-lived mission of Sirba Abbay, who sought to evangelize the Gumuz of

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 88 Chapter 2

the Blue Nile. We met the missionaries (in this case from Norway) in 2001
and 2002, but they left soon afterward and the half-Christian Gumuz were left
to their own devices. Protestant missionaries have been somewhat more suc-
cessful in Kamashi, where several Gumuz, mainly women, have adhered to
Christianity, and in Gambela (Saton, 2002). North of the Blue Nile, Catholic
missionaries have established themselves in the weredas (municipalities) of
Pawe, Mandura, and Dangur. Again, they face enormous difficulties in con-
verting the Gumuz (see a good account in González Núñez, 2010). In 2005,
when I asked those who live near the Combonian nuns’ premises in Mandura
if they were Christians, they answered with an ironic smile: “We are trying.”

Travelers and Explorers

Travelers are directly linked to the expansion of the state: as spies, explor-
ers, administrators, or missionaries, their presence in remote lands was never
innocent. It usually meant new routes and new knowledge of the periphery
and, therefore, more visibility (and legibility) of its elusive inhabitants. This
link between state and traveler explains that references are much older and
abundant for the area north of the Blue Nile, where the state was well en-
trenched by the early first millennium AD, than for the region to the south
of the river. Among the first texts, we can mention the travelogue of Cosmas
Indicopleustes, from the sixth century AD, where trade between the Axumite
kingdom and possible ancestors of the Gumuz is described (Pankhurst, 1997:
28–30). With the decline of external relations after the collapse of Axum,
voyages by outsiders in the periphery disappear, only to resume with the
Portuguese missionaries during the sixteenth century. The references are
limited to an enumeration of the destructive campaigns of the Ethiopian
kings in the lowlands, where they loot, massacre, and enslave the Shank’ïlla,
the ancestors of the Gumuz, and other lowlanders (see Pankhurst, 1977). We
have to wait for the British travelers from the late eighteenth century onward
for more detailed information. Two important sources are James Bruce of
Kinnaird (1790, 1813), a Scot who spent some time in Abyssinia and left
few ethnographic data on the Shank’ïlla, and Henry Salt (1816), who of-
fered the first reliable information of the Gumuz. More detailed information
was provided later in that century by Dutch explorer James Schuver, who
visited the Gumuz of Guba in 1882 (James et al., 1996). From that moment
on, the presence of travelers in the borderland between Sudan and Ethiopia
increased exponentially on both sides of the Nile, in the context of the im-
perialist conquests.
South of the Blue Nile travelers appear with the expansion of Turco-
Egyptian imperialism: in 1821, Sinnār, the capital of the Funj sultanate, is

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 Ecology of a Shatter Zone 89

conquered and the region of Benishangul falls prey to the Turks, who were
accompanied by French geologist René Caillaud (1826). We owe him an
interesting text, which throws much light on the troubled circumstances of
life in Benishangul during the early nineteenth century. Other travelers with a
purpose were the Austrian Joseph Russegger, who also visited the Sudanese-
Ethiopian borderland as a geologist in search for gold. Russians, Frenchmen,
and Italians prospected the mineral riches of Benishangul (without success)
and left a few notes of minimal ethnographic value (Whitehead, 1934: 117).
The situation changed with the retreat of the Turks from the frontier, around
the mid-nineteenth century. Foreign missionaries, travelers, and soldiers then
crossed the border and offered their insights into the region and its peoples.
Many of them were Italians: Giovanni Beltrame, Romolo Gessi, Pellegrino
Matteucci, and Vittorio Bottego, among others (Gessi, 1892; Matteucci,
1879; Whitehead, 1934). Unfortunately, there is no Richard Burton for the
Sudanese-Ethiopian borderland and, although there is valuable information
scattered through the writings of travelers, ethnographic data are always scant
and poor. The only explorers who left notable observations were Juan Maria
Schuver (James et al., 1996) and Ernst Marno (1874), who visited the Blue
Nile in the 1870s and early 1880s and came across the main protagonists of
this book. Much richer work was produced after the demarcation of the fron-
tier between the Anglo-Egyptian Sudan and the Ethiopian empire in 1902.
Different kinds of travelers appear then: anthropologists, such as Evans-
Pritchard (1932), and colonial administrators, such as Frank Corfield (1938)
(the divide is notoriously fuzzy), to whom we owe insightful observations on
language and customs. Italians joined the enterprise before (Conti Rossini,
1928) and after (Grottanelli, 1940) the conquest of Ethiopia by Mussolini.

NOTES

1. Interview with a group of Agäw men in the quarter of Beter Safer, Manjari
(Pawe Special Wereda, Metekel Zone, Benishangul-Gumuz). March 21, 2006.
2. Interview with Asegge Arado (around ninety years old). Dor (Wämbära, Me-
tekel Zone, Benishangul-Gumuz). November 17, 2009.
3. http://www.csa.gov.et/index.php?option=com_rubberdoc&view=category&id=
72&Itemid=521.
4. http://www.hrw.org/news/2012/01/16/ethiopia-forced-relocations-bring-
hunger-hardship.
5. http://www.indexmundi.com/g/g.aspx?c=et&v=66.
6. Kunfäl is a derogatory term that the people reject. They call themselves simply
Agäw (Joswig and Mohammed, 2011: 6).

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 90 Chapter 2

7. Interview with Teso Labata, from Deguba Bedisa (Kamashi wereda, Kamashi
Zone, Benishangul-Gumuz), February 22, 2009.
8. Interview with Awsholi Hamis, Mao (Sith Shwala) from Boshuma (Bambasi
wereda, Asosa Zone, Benishangul-Gumuz). November 7, 2009.

Book 1.indb 90 2/25/14 6:21 AM

 3
Direct Action against the State: The Gumuz

War is against the State.

—Clastres, 2001: 216

Homo sacer, says Giorgio Agamben (1995), is the one who is deprived of the
condition of citizen and reduced to bare life, the one who can be killed with-
out it being either a homicide or a sacrifice. We associate automatically the
existence of the homo sacer with the regimes of biopower of high modernity.
While this is certainly correct in the terms described by Agamben, there are
other times and contexts in which members of a community have been partly
or totally deprived of their rights as humans, including the ancient Mediter-
ranean, from where the philosopher takes the concept. In fact, the situation of
the Roman criminal as described by Agamben (1995: 205) closely resembles
the historical experience of some lowland communities: “Since anybody can
kill him without committing a homicide, he can only save himself in a per-
petual flight or finding safety in a foreign country.” The Gumuz have been,
in a sense, homines sacri: persons who could be killed, robbed, and enslaved
due to their exclusion from the realm of political, legal, and ethical obliga-
tions. They have continually escaped to inaccessible lands to avoid violence
by the state and its agents. James Bruce put it crudely: they “are hunted by
their neighbours, like wild beasts” (Bruce of Kinnaird, 1790: 386). “Animal
people” are described by Michel Leiris’s guide in Mätämma (Leiris, 1934:
332). For hundreds of years, the Gumuz have been raided by highlanders.
For hundreds of years, the Gumuz and their northern neighbors, Nara and
Kunama, have stood firm in the frontier. To survive there, both physically
and culturally, the Gumuz have developed the most openly aggressive and
conservative strategies of resistance of all the groups studied here. They were

91

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 92 Chapter 3

in a sense benefited by a very early contact with the state, because this pro-
vided a sort of cultural vaccination for centuries to come. However, too much
immunity can end up making one sick.
While most black populations of the lowlands have been traditionally re-
garded in negative terms by the highlanders, the Gumuz, for their proximity
to the highlands, have been subjected more severely to stereotyping. An old
Boro asserted that “Gumuz are bad and ugly” while they (the Boro) are “red
like the Oromo.”1 Another old man from the same village bemoaned that the
new government “consider the Gumuz as men.” For him, the Gumuz are not
human beings, but “wild animals.”2 These ideas were very widespread among
highlanders of all social and ethnic groups. The priests from the religious con-
gregation of Zägé, in Lake T’ana, massively employed Gumuz slaves in their
coffee plantations up to the 1930s, associating dark skin with physical labor
(Abdussamad H. Ahmad, 1996: 546). Gumuz women fetched lower prices
than the paler Oromo in the slave market of Baso, in the Amhara highlands
during the mid-nineteenth century. While a beautiful Oromo girl could cost
as much as sixteen thalers, Gumuz women could be bought for four or six
thalers (Abdussamad H. Ahmad, 1989: 95). More problematic than aesthetics
is the association between blackness and evil (Gamst, 1969: 39). The devil
(Saytan) is usually represented in Ethiopian religious art as a horrible-looking
black from the lowlands. This was no Ethiopian invention, though; there was
a patristic tradition that related blackness, sin, and the devil, with explicit
reference to Ethiopians: “People of the Ethiopians means those who are
black, being covered with the stain of sin . . . we, Ethiopians that we were,
transformed ourselves and became white” (Jerome, quoted in Hood, 1994:
84–85). Highland Ethiopians have never seen themselves as black. Thus,
race became a reality that drew the line between one kind of human being
and the other: blacks and reds. The first mention to this divide is from about
400 BC in a Sabean inscription that refers to the “red” and “black” subjects
of a monarch (Tadesse Tamrat, 1982: 342). If the highlanders have usually
seen all black lowlanders as one (Shank’ïlla), the Gumuz have likewise con-
sidered all highlanders as one: they are generically called Shwa. The story of
the northwestern Ethiopian frontier is that of the conflict between Shwa and
Shankïlla, reds and blacks, state and tribe.

3.1. RESISTING THE STATE NORTH OF THE BLUE NILE

Centuries of Violence
A close look at the history of violence in the Ethiopian frontier is essential
to understand present attitudes of resistance among the Gumuz. The peoples

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 Direct Action against the State: The Gumuz 93

who live north of the Blue Nile were the first egalitarian, small-scale com-
munities to face the state. Their survival in the shatter zone for millennia is
almost a miracle. The Nara and Kunama, neighbors of the Gumuz, started to
feel the pressure of the state during Axumite times, if not before, and their
raiding is well attested to during the first millennium AD (Conti Rossini,
1928: 72, Pankhurst, 1977: 1–3). With regard to the ancestors of the Gumuz,
although they probably escaped the brunt of the Axumite encroachment,
they were actually within range of both the Meroitic and the Axumite states,
among other things, because their territory in all likelihood extended further
than it does today, after centuries of state expansion. Thus, people related
to the Gumuz probably inhabited the Gezira plains and the surroundings
of Sinnār, where a travelogue of the early nineteenth century still situates a
group of “Western Shangalla” (English, 1822). Shangalla, or Shank’ïlla, is
a derogatory term used by the highland Ethiopians to refer to black popula-
tions in the lowlands. During Axumite times, an inscription recorded by a
Greek-Egyptian geographer of the sixth century AD, Cosmas Indicopleustes,
mentions a slave raid in the land of the Bega and Tangaitae, on the borders of
Egypt (Pankhurst, 1977: 1). Although it might be pure coincidence, it is worth
noting that Bega is the name that the Gumuz give themselves, meaning “hu-
man” (Wolde-Selassie Abbute, 2009: 155). Most authors concur in situating
the region of Sasu in the land of the Gumuz, in present-day Metekel.
According to Cosmas, silent trade involving gold was conducted near the
Blue Nile sources between the Axumite merchants and the local populations
during the dry season (Pankhurst, 1997: 28–30; Tadesse Tamrat, 1998b: 11).
The Axumites obtained gold in exchange for salt and iron. There are several
continuities worth mentioning: salt ingots were the currency units to buy
slaves and gold in the area in the late sixteenth century (Álvarez, 1970: 99); in
Bruce’s time the “Shangalla” exchanged small pellets of gold for salt ingots
(Bruce of Kinnaird, 1790: 736–37); the Gumuz of Metekel mentioned to me
salt as the first item among the products that they acquire at the market today,
and Gumuz women still pan for gold in the rivers of Metekel. The existence
of trade would prove that, originally, the relationship between the state and its
periphery was not simply predatory. However, slaves were perhaps already
obtained among the ancestors of the Gumuz. Cosmas states that “most of the
slaves which are now found in the hand of merchants who resort to these parts
are taken from the tribes of which we speak”; that is, Sasu (Metekel?) and
Barbaria (Somalia) (Cosmas Indicopleustes, 1897: 67). The dark hour for the
Gumuz, however, arrived during the Middle Ages, with the consolidation of
the Ethiopian kingdom, the heir of Axum.
The first mention of the Gumuz in the Ethiopian chronicles, as Shank’ïlla
or Shangalla, is from the time of King Yïshak’ (1412–1429), who imposed

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 94 Chapter 3

a tribute on goats to the lowlanders. During the following five centuries,

the Gumuz were regularly plundered and enslaved by their highland neigh-
bors. It even became a custom among the Ethiopian highlanders (Agäw and
Amhara) to make the killing of a Gumuz a rite of passage (Abdussamad H.
Ahmad, 1988). According to textual and oral sources, the original homeland
of this group extended throughout the historical Agäwmïdïr (Haberland,
1953: 147) as far as Lake T’ana. Both Wolde-Selassie Abbute’s informants
in Metekel and the people I asked concured in pointing out the area south of
the lake as part of the original Gumuz homeland (Wolde-Selassie Abbute,
2004: 62–63).
Our knowledge of the Gumuz and their difficult relations with the state
increases after the late sixteenth century, with the establishment of the seats
of royal power around the Lake T’ana area (Tadesse Tamrat, 1988b: 10).
After the reign of Särsa Dïngïl (1563–1597), who left the first detailed de-
scription of a military expedition to Gumuz (“Shank’ïlla”) land, which was
fiercely resisted, Metekel suffered almost annual attacks (Tadesse Tamrat,
1988b: 12–13). In the time of King Susïnyos (ruled 1608–1632), some raids
are presented as retaliatory, against Gumuz stealing cattle, looting cara-
vans, and attacking people sent up to pick up cotton in the lowlands. Thus,
four centuries ago, the Gumuz were already adopting an active attitude of
resistance against state depredations, which were combined with seasonal
retreats. Iyäsu the Great (1683–1706) conducted at least eight expeditions
into Gumuz land and was the first king to control the area through indirect
rule (Tadesse Tamrat, 1988a, b): the tribute imposed on the Gumuz was col-
lected by their neighbors, the Agäw, many of whom were already living in
the lowlands, near Gumuz villages. From the chronicles, we know that the
ancestors of the Gumuz both fled to inaccessible mountains to escape the
raiders or fought them back, often causing heavy casualties. James Bruce of
Kinnaird (1813: 28) writes: “Hunting these miserable wretches is the next
expedition undertaken by a new king. The season of this is just before the
rains, while the poor savage is still lodged under the trees preparing his food
for the approaching winter, before he retires into his caves in the mountains,
where he passes that inclement season in constant confinement, but as con-
stant security.” These caves do not have to be taken as proper caverns, but
rather rocky outcrops or granitic shelters in hilly areas, which are commonly
called the same name as cave (washa), by the Amhara. The occupation of
these washa in turbulent times is well attested archaeologically among the
Bertha (see section 4.1).
Slave raids increased during the second half of the nineteenth century
and became annual during its last decades, although the Gumuz were more
prepared to defend themselves with the acquisition of the first firearms. With

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 Direct Action against the State: The Gumuz 95

the conquest of the peripheries of Ethiopia under Emperor Mïnïlik, the land
of the Gumuz fell under stronger control of the state, through garrison towns
(kätäma) and forts (Tsega Endalew, 1997: 53–54) and the appointment of
new local rulers. This meant more direct and ruthless exploitation by state
representatives, heavier taxation, and more slaves heading to the highland
markets (James, 1986: 120), but also an increasing participation of the Gu-
muz in the process. This is a phenomenon attested to by the Mao and Bertha
during the same dates and shows that the traditional political structures began
to crack under pressure. An old man from Mandura remembered that in his
childhood, the Gumuz even raided their own clan and sold the children to the
Agäw, who in turn sold them in the slave trade.3 Related to this political crisis
is the appointment of clan chiefs (unknown before or afterward).
Slavery is well attested to during the first third of the twentieth century,
when it reached a peak (Abdussamad H. Ahmad, 1999: 441). Raids were
conducted by the Agäw chiefs (Abdussamad H. Ahmad, 1999: 439) and the
manjil of Guba, who claimed Funj descent: Hamdan Abu Shok (Garretson,
1980: 205). Gumuz elders remember the Agäw chief Zäläk’ä Lik’u (a gov-
ernor appointed by the Ethiopian king) raiding villages in remote areas even
during the period of Italian occupation, after 1935.4 Not surprisingly, some
Gumuz embraced the Italian cause, if only for a while (González-Ruibal,
2010: 567–68). Until the end of the Second World War in the region, many
Gumuz fled to Gondar or Roseires (Sudan), escaping the slave raids.
The Gumuz were not only under pressure from the Ethiopian state. They
suffered exactions also from their southern neighbors, the Oromo and the
Boro, who arrived to the Blue Nile valley (one chasing the other) during
the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries (Garretson, 1989; Hassen,
1994: 30–31, 46–47; Tsega Endalew, 1997: 29–44). Although the Oromo
established institutional relations of friendship (michu) with the Gumuz, these
were often violated or were clearly abusive for the Gumuz (Tadesse Tamrat,
1988b: 16). Thus, michu did not prevent the dispossession of the Gumuz,
who were gradually chased away from their lands and banished to the most
inhospitable areas, a process that continues today. It seems, however, that
the strategy for enslaving the Gumuz was different south of the Blue Nile. In
Kamashi, Oromo chiefs (abba qoro) forced the Gumuz to work their lands
under threat of being sold away if they refused. As it happened in the north,
some Gumuz ended up collaborating in the slave trade: some Gumuz were
even appointed abba qoro, after the annexation of the region by the Ethiopian
armies (ca. 1898) (Abdussamad H. Ahmad, 1999: 436). However, according
to my informants, this was done only because they could not resist openly
(“we did not have guns”) and by participating in the trade, they could at least
mitigate the impact of slavery: they often gave away orphans.5

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 96 Chapter 3

The Sudanese Gumuz, who live near Gallabat and in the Dinder forests
and are often encompassed within the generic term “Hamej,” did not fare
better: they were enslaved, decimated, and expelled from their lands by the
Shukriyya and Dubaina nomads between 1830 and 1840 (Cerulli, 1956: 14).
There are still small Gumuz communities in the Dinder and the border town
of Mätämma, which was also an important market for slaves during the mid-
nineteenth century (Pankhurst, 1968: 352–53). Up to two thousand slaves
a year were sold there, many of them doubtlessly Gumuz. Paradoxically,
the Mätämma area became a sort of safe haven during the early twentieth
century, due to its proximity to the Sudanese frontier, which was patrolled
by British colonial troops. The effective end of slavery did not arrive until
1942 (Abdussamad H. Ahmad, 1999: 445) and isolated cases of enslavement
have occurred until much more recently. The effective incorporation of the
lowland territory into the state was not achieved before the late 1950s (Tsega
Endalew, 2006: 65). The time of Haile Selassie, in fact, is remembered by
old Gumuz as a period of relative welfare and peace,6 although several armed
rebellions are attested to (González Núñez, 2010: 89), which required the
intervention of the army.
The communist Därg, despite its rhetoric, still considered the Gumuz as
subalterns—or as non-existent. It is precisely the idea of terra nullius that
was behind the plan of resettling highland peasants in Metekel in the 1980s
(González-Ruibal, 2006c: 193). The state plans for Metekel included large-
scale deforestation (Getachew Woldemeskel, 1989: 369–70), the introduction
of monocropping (rice), and the settlement of eighty thousand highland peas-
ants (Amhara, Kambata, and Hadiya) (Gebre Yntiso, 2002). Many settlers
escaped: only thirty thousand were still living in Metekel a decade after the
project began. Those who stayed entered in a spiral of conflict with the Gu-
muz that reached its peak between 1991 and 1993, immediately after the fall
of the Därg (Wolde-Selassie Abbute, 2004: 249–54). Hundreds, including
more than three hundred settlers, died in interethnic clashes that had to be put
down by the new federal army. The Gumuz complained, in the interviews that
I conducted, that the Därg provided help and services to the resettled com-
munities, but not to them, who were expelled by new development schemes
and villages of säfäri (resettled people), with whom they often clashed7 (see
also Gebre Yntiso, 2003).
The dispossession of the Gumuz did not end after the fall of the commu-
nist regime. There is a change, however: from being a pure homo sacer, that
could be robbed and killed, they became simply invisible during the post-
communist period, and finally perfectible and developable. Aiming at the
modernization of the Gumuz, the regional government implemented a series
of policies for resettling the Gumuz in large nucleated villages in order to pro-

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 Direct Action against the State: The Gumuz 97

vide them with basic services. This took place mainly in 2004 and 2005. The
plan is, in fact, another state strategy to control the people of the borderland
and their economies—a typical attempt at legibility (Scott, 1999). Neverthe-
less, the consequences of resettlement, altering the spatial patterns of the
Gumuz and the possibility of causing social stress through centralization have
not been carefully considered. Gebre Yntiso (2003: 55) has rightly pointed
out that permanent settlement should not be a precondition for health, clean
water, veterinary care, and other programs. Another state project, this time of
the federal government, is the so-called Millennium Dam, which will flood
a part of the Blue Nile Valley in the area of Guba. Thousands of Gumuz will
be relocated from their ancestral lands by the time of its completion (2017).
There are also two kinds of non-state agents that have a disturbing im-
pact on traditional communities: missionaries and private companies. I have
already referred to the first group. Suffice to say here that, no matter how
well intentioned, Catholic and Protestant missionaries bring social distress
to the Gumuz, as they create new rifts in the society (between elders and
youngsters, men and women). Like the state, they start from the modernist
idea that the Gumuz live in a situation of moral, intellectual, and material
underdevelopment and that they have to be improved. Improvement implies
introducing literacy, with all its cultural consequences, and a religion that is,
in many substantial ways, radically different to Gumuz beliefs. The work of
missionaries can be considered parastatal rather than non-state, because they
have a crucial role in reinforcing state ideology. Thus, Juan Gozálbez writes
of Father Juan González Núñez’s speech to the Gumuz during mass: “he
touched a wide gamut of themes, including solidarity, the need to be included
in the structures and laws of the state, the Cross as a symbol of salvation, the
love for the Virgin, banishing the ghosts from the past, facing with hope the
challenges of the future” (in Gozálbez Núñez, 2010: 10).
Regarding private companies, they are becoming dangerous to the survival
of indigenous communities in Ethiopia. It is still a kind of violence or dispos-
session allowed by the state, as it is clearly the case in many Latin American
and African countries, but the main actors are non-governmental. Gebre
Yntiso (2003) denounces that between 1995 and 2000 more than 120,000
hectares of land were leased by the regional government to commercial
farms, gum and incense extraction firms, and mining companies, without the
permission of the local communities. The dispossession continues at an ac-
celerated pace: between 2006 and 2007, eighty thousand hectares were defor-
ested by a British multinational, Sun Biofuels,8 in Metekel to plant palm trees
for biodiesel and the Gumuz were expelled from their traditional territory
(González-Ruibal, 2009: 128). The multinational eventually abandoned the
place, because it was deemed unsuitable for the project, but no compensation

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 98 Chapter 3

was given to the Gumuz and the land was not reforested. Another multina-
tional, this time based in the United States, Ardent Energy Group,9 acquired
fifteen thousand hectares in the same area in 2009 and for the same purpose:
planting jatropha for biofuel. Modern capitalist entrepreneurs, like slave raid-
ers, are agents of an economy of predation, who deal with the borderland as a
terra nullius that can be exploited and laid waste: land and people are turned
into debris of the globalization process (Bauman, 2004).

Feuds and Raids

During centuries of harassment, the Gumuz have not simply been passive
victims. They have reacted against the people who enslaved, robbed, and
killed them with similar measures of cultural resilience and violence and
this has shaped their being to the present moment. As the highlanders were a
constant problem to the Gumuz who lived side by side with them, the Gumuz
have also been a problem—even a menace—for the highlanders living in the
borderland. French traveler Hughes Le Roux, who visited the Blue Nile area
at the turn of the twentieth century, commented that Mount Chok’i had to be
fortified by King Mïnïlik II to prevent the attacks of the “Shank’ello” from
the Didessa and Blue Nile valleys (that is, the Gumuz) (Le Roux, 1901). Dur-
ing Le Roux’s visit, the area seemed to be witnessing a war between Gumuz
and Oromo. In my interviews in lands inhabited by the Gumuz, I heard many
stories of violent resistance, of defense as well as of aggression, stories that
are very seldom, if ever, heard among other groups. They are told both by the
Gumuz and by their neighbors. Two areas have been particularly troubled in
recent times: the region between the Belaya Mountains and the Kar Range,
in eastern Metekel (specifically the weredas of Mandura, Pawe, and Bulen),
and Kamashi, south of the Blue Nile.
Metekel has always been the more conflictual region, because it has been
the true shatter zone for hundreds of years between the Gumuz and the Ethio-
pian state and its allies. In fact, the settlement by Gumuz of other regions,
such as Mätämma to the north and Wällägga to the south of the Nile, is often
explained because of conflicts in Metekel, which ended up with the flight of
several Gumuz communities to more peaceful areas (James, 1977b, 1986).
Violence in Metekel has been thoroughly studied in recent years (Tsega
Endalew, 2006; Wolde-Selassie Abbute, 2004) and therefore will not be
described in detail here. It will suffice to say that interethnic conflicts for the
last two decades have followed the common intraethnic model of the feud: an
act of violence or abuse (homicide or murder, theft, cheat, occupation of an-
other’s land, kidnapping of women, rape, or adultery) leads to reprisals, often
disproportionate, by the Gumuz, which in turn might lead to more reprisals

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 Direct Action against the State: The Gumuz 99

by those who started the trouble. It does not matter if the act that unleashed
the violence was involuntary. After the troubles of 1991–1993, violence in
the area has been of low intensity, usually involving less than ten killings
per feud (see Wolde-Selassie Abbute, 2004: 251–54). A lowland Agäw
commented that conflict had changed during the last decades: before, inter-
ethnic struggles in Metekel were confined to Gumuz and resettlers (mostly
Amhara), but in more recent times, they do not spare anybody and kill even
those Agäw who have been neighbors of the Gumuz for generations and who
can speak Gumuz.10 Youngsters with automatic weapons are usually behind
these aggressions. Years of civil war, the recruitment of Gumuz into the state
armies, the massive arrival of firearms, and the dwindling power of the older
people have drastically altered the situation in Metekel, as elsewhere in the
Horn of Africa (Turton, 1994).
In Kamashi, there has been both peaceful coexistence and open conflict. In
1953, there was a great revolt against the Ethiopian authorities based at the
town of Nejo (James, 1977b: 11). The revolt was motivated by the refusal to
pay taxes, as well as the encroachment of Oromo peasants on Gumuz land.
The latter has been the most important ground for conflict during the last few
decades. A recent attack took place in May 2008, which was quite widely
reported (Sudan Tribune, 2008). The attack was particularly violent and may
have claimed the lives of more than a hundred people, including women and
children, but the perpetrators were identified, almost a hundred of them were
put in prison, and six of the leaders were condemned to death. The people of
the Gumuz village of Lugo, close to the Blue Nile, told us about the event.11
According to their version, the conflict was motivated by the invasion of Gu-
muz territory by the Oromo from half a dozen villages near the escarpment.
The attack took place at night in the first location, and many houses were
burned to the ground. Some Gumuz also died in the encounter, although the
victims were predominately Oromo, who were caught unprepared. A ritual of
conflict resolution was organized in the Oromo settlement of Genji. However,
one year later, in March 2009, another Gumuz raid was apparently conducted,
this time in the village of Suge.12 In any case, the Gumuz claims about the
Oromo expansion can be verified on the ground: although through peaceful
means, peasants have settled deep in the heart of the Gumuz land in the Blue
Nile Valley and the Gumuz admit that they have been surpassed in numbers
by the highlanders. The situation, then, is not dissimilar to that of the late
sixteenth century, with peasants expelling slash-and-burn agriculturalists to
the margins. Only now there are no more margins left.
A third area of contention, apart from Kamashi and eastern Metekel, is
Wämbära—a mountain massif that emerges north of the Blue Nile. If the
lowlands are inhabited by Gumuz, the massif itself was first settled by Boro

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 100 Chapter 3

and later by Oromo (Tsega Endalew, 1997). From this prominent location,
they raided the Gumuz and occupied their lands. This has generated conflicts
into the present. An old Boro couple from Wämbära—Morka and Gebaye—
said that in 2003 the Gumuz came to their village from the lowlands, killed
people with bows and arrows and automatic weapons, burned down houses,
destroyed everything, and stole the cows. The Boro escaped to the nearby
town of Däbrä Zäyit and they stayed there until things calmed down. They
only felt safe enough to return to the village four months later, after the gov-
ernment sponsored a ritual of conflict resolution.13 Meaningfully, this tale of
violence was inserted into the long-term history of conflictual relations be-
tween Boro and Gumuz. Morka came from far north, the Dangur mountains,
which are surrounded by Gumuz settlements. He explained that, although the
Boro lived in the highlands there, their fields were in the lowlands, and vio-
lent encounters with the Gumuz were common. “They fought for the land,”
said Morka, “They also fought for alcohol [when they were drunk], but the
main reason was land. When the Boro trespassed the Gumuz border, they
were attacked by the Gumuz, even if they were not living in the area occupied
by the Boro.” They are aware that it is their entrance into Gumuz land that
sparks violence, but they do not understand the Gumuz’s stiff resistance to
leaving their territory, if they do not occupy it. It is a clash between two dif-
ferent rationalities, that of the slash-and-burn, mobile agriculturalist and that
of the peasant, who use and perceive the landscape in very different ways.
For the Gumuz, all land is already occupied and divided between the clans:
even forests and rivers, which are used for hunting and gathering (Dessalegn
Rahmato, 1989: 33–34). This violent response against perceived aggressions
is very typical of the Gumuz and rarely found in other groups, although there
are some instances of open opposition. The resort to direct action is more
than anecdotal: if living on the borderline of an aggressive state has shaped
Gumuz practical responses to the state, these responses have in turn shaped
Gumuz consciousness.
Aggression against aliens is just one kind of violence among the Gumuz
and in recent times not the more widespread one. Ferguson and Whitehead
(1992) distinguish three kinds of warfare in the shatter zone between states
and stateless societies (tribes): (1) wars of resistance and rebellion; (2) war by
indigenous people carried out under the control or influence of state agents;
and (3) internecine warfare. The Gumuz have all three kinds of war. So far,
I have focused on the first category. The second category is well attested to
historically. Groups of black slaves from the borderlands are recorded as elite
warriors and bodyguards, like the Ottoman janissaires, among the Ethiopian
kings from the fourteenth century (Pankhurst, 1997: 91) to the time of Mïnïlik
II, early in the twentieth century (Fernyhough, 1989: 124). They were also

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 Direct Action against the State: The Gumuz 101

employed by the Funj sultanate (Spaulding, 1985: 114). The practice of taking
peripheral people to fight state wars has not disappeared. “Blacks” form an
important part of the national armies of Sudan and Ethiopia. There are many
Gumuz that have been in the federal army of Ethiopia, at least in those areas
that have traditionally been in closer contact with the highlands. Army veter-
ans are easy to distinguish because they often wear combat boots and military
trousers or jackets, and many join the local police see (see figure 3.1).
Komander as a first name is relatively common among the Gumuz, re-
flecting acquaintance with military life. These experiences certainly help to
increase conflictivity in Gumuz communities. Today, they are an opportunity
for the Gumuz to see the outer world, touch modernity and receive some
money. In the recent past, other reasons were behind the Gumuz desire to en-
roll in a particular army. Many Gumuz joined the irregular banda regiments
of the Italians to fight against their erstwhile masters, the Agäw (González-
Ruibal, 2010: 567–69). They suffered reprisals after the end of the war, and
some of them were killed by Agäw patriots while trying to escape from
Ethiopia.14
The third kind of conflict identified by Ferguson and Whitehead, interne-
cine conflict, is the most widespread and troubling today (see Gebre Yntiso,
2003; Tsega Endalew, 2002, 2006; Wolde-Selassie Abbute, 2004). Here we
have to distinguish between endogenous and exogenous causes for internal
violence. Regarding the first, Gumuz feuds seem to fit well the kind of war
described by Clastres (2001) as typical of egalitarian groups. According to the
author, the role of violence is to preserve society undivided and autonomous,
and to thwart any attempts at centralization and hierarchization: “as long as
there is war there is autonomy” (Clastres, 2001: 213). He adds that “The will
of any community to assert its difference is tense enough so that the most
minimal incident can transform the desired difference in real difference”
(Clastres, 2001: 203). The most trivial issue can spark a conflict with the
neighbor. This is certainly the case with the Gumuz. The communities living
south of the Blue Nile, which have traditionally been the most isolated from
each other and from outsiders, had been traditionally engaged in constant
feuding. In the village of Lugo, I was told that until the arrival of the new fed-
eral government, “the different clans did not even sit together.”15 The feuds
here, as elsewhere, are triggered by a variety of reasons: adultery, abductions,
and disagreements in marriage arrangements are a leading cause of dispute,
which calls to mind Graeber’s (2004: 30) opinion that “in societies where the
only notable inequalities are based on gender, the only murders one is likely
to observe are men killing each other over women.” These are followed by
conflicts on commercial transactions, debts, alcohol-fueled brawls, and ac-
cusations of evil eye (Gebre Yntiso, 2003: 55; González Núñez, 2010: 112).

Book 1.indb 101 2/25/14 6:21 AM

 Figure 3.1. A Gumuz man armed with Kalashnikov and dressed in the uniform of the
ak’k’ababi militia (auxiliary police) with his wife in traditional attire and his child. As
a display of identity, it speaks eloquently of the relevance of weapons to Gumuz mas-
culinity.

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 Direct Action against the State: The Gumuz 103

Trespassing in other clan’s land can also lead to violence: the person who
hunts or simply walks around other people’s fields can be insulted, beaten,
or even killed. A killing is invariably avenged with another killing, which in
turn generates more violence. There is undoubtedly a deeply rooted desire to
maintain clan autonomy, which cannot be reduced to economic motivations
or fears of external invasion.
Nevertheless, I would not explain all Gumuz violence as a reflection of
the universal anarchist ethos of undivided societies as described by Clastres.
There are egalitarian groups in the Horn of Africa where feuding is prevalent,
as among the Gumuz, the Somali, the Afar, the Omo Valley peoples (Lewis,
1999; Turton, 1994), and others where it is much less common or non-
existent, as among the diverse Koman groups. There is a stronger presence
of conflict among pastoralists living in extreme environments (Somali, Afar)
or in zones of contact between pastoralists and agriculturalists (Omo Valley),
than among slash-and-burn cultivators (Koman). Although the Gumuz are
very similar to the Koman groups, their warring tendencies put them closer
to the pastoralists. Why is that so? I would argue that their long-term survival
on the state frontline has a lot to do with this. This is proved by the fact that
inter-clan feuds are much more prevalent in eastern Metekel, particularly in
the weredas of Mandura and Pawe, where Gumuz communities have tradi-
tionally lived in close contact with highlanders and have suffered more from
state violence. It is also where towns are found today: another product of
the state. It is in this shatter zone where violence is more disproportionate as
well: an Agäw who took part in a conflict resolution ceremony among Gumuz
(see below) told me that the ritual was convened because a betrayed husband
had killed not only the adulterer, but also the man’s father and wounded a
brother; the killer was himself killed by the adulterer’s family.16 Alcohol is
often behind internecine violence, and problems related to alcohol are much
more frequent in those communities established in peri-urban areas or close
to resettlement zones. An index of social stress is not just the increasing con-
sumption of alcohol, but of liquor with high alcoholic content (aräk’i), which
rapidly makes consumers drunk. As a distillate, aräk’i is around 40 percent
alcohol by volume, as opposed to 3 percent of sorghum or millet beer. In the
village of Manjari, a noticeable part of the population was invariably under
the effects of aräk’i, a fact that resulted in frequent quarrels. These can be
fatal, as most men in the settlement have rifles. Shortly before we arrived in
March 2006, three Gumuz had been killed during a night fight and their com-
pounds lay abandoned; their tombs were dug inside the compounds.
Not surprisingly, the Gumuz and their neighbors have devised a variety of
means to resolve conflict, either internecine or external. A traditional way of
creating alliances among the Gumuz is exogamy and sister-exchange marriage.

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 104 Chapter 3

By marrying outside the clan, the idea is to increase the number of affines/
allies (see Clastres, 2001: 208). The desire is always to marry in clans that
are far away and with which potential conflicts are rare, so that they can help
in feuds with nearby clans, where conflicts can be expected. Gumuz villages
are patrilocal units, where all members are linked by patrilineal ties and come
from the same clan (or a small number of clans, when the village is large).
Women, instead, come from a variety of clans. Thus, in Bowla Dibatsa, all
men came from the two clans that gave the name to the village. Women,
in turn, belonged to numerous clans, including Dachichaha, Dachigra, Di-
bukana, Diubiagia, and so on. Exchanging women as a way of preventing
conflict was already witnessed by James Bruce in the 1770s: after exchange
marriage, the family is “understood to be protected and at peace, perhaps for
a generation” (Bruce of Kinnaird, 1790: 737; James, 1986: 119), although
strikingly, the procedure was described for securing trading relations between
Gumuz and Agäw, not within Gumuz.
Other systems for creating relations include the Medhicha institution,
which has already been mentioned (see section 2.2) and that was used by the
Oromo to assimilate as equals into the Oromo community those whom they
perceived as equals (such as the Boro). This system has been rarely, if ever,
employed with the Gumuz. The adoption institutions of the Oromo always
involve a break with the past: the assimilated party has to throw away his or
her former identity and adopt a new one, a process that is metaphorically rep-
resented through the breaking of a yoke. Even if they could be “Oromized,”
it is highly unlikely that the Gumuz would accept the bargain. In that, they
seem to prove Clastres (2001: 204) right when he says that the logic of primi-
tive society is the logic of difference: “they refuse to identify with others, to
lose what constitute them as such, their own self and difference, their capac-
ity to present themselves as an autonomous Us.” With the Gumuz, the more
common procedure was the michu, which established institutional bonds of
friendship between Gumuz communities and Oromo. Similar forms of insti-
tutional friendship (wodajinet) occur among Gumuz and Amhara or Agäw in
Metekel. They work as associations of mutual help and people participate in
each other’s festivals and ceremonies. More or less institutionalizd friendship
had been traditionally used in relations between lowland Agäw and Gumuz
to protect each other. As with michu, it has been reported that the highlanders
tend now to take advantage of the Gumuz, whereas the latter seldom fully
trust their neighbors (Wolde-Selassie Abbute, 2004: 265–66). According to
the highlanders, the Gumuz also try to economically exploit the relationship
with Agäw and Amhara.17
When a conflict is already raging, the traditional way of stopping it is
through a ritual of conflict resolution. This has been the object of a large

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 Direct Action against the State: The Gumuz 105

amount of literature, to which I refer (especially Tsega Endalew, 2006;

Wolde-Selassie Abbute, 2004). The most widespread form or ritual is the so-
called mangëma. This seems a pan-Gumuz institution, as I have been able to
record it from northeastern Metekel to the southernmost part of Kamashi. The
mangëma is only called when the conflict is serious, which usually means
that there have been killings. It has been traditionally used to put an end to
Gumuz feuds but is progressively used, under state sponsorship, to solve
interethnic troubles. A good example of how the mangëma works was of-
fered by a neighbor of Bowla Dibatsa. The more recent ritual had taken place
because of the accidental killing of a woman. The conflict started for a trifle,
as it often happens. A member of the Bowla clan stole a bit of tobacco from
a Dibatsa man. The Dibatsa went after the Bowla, and there was a fight with
guns in which two men from Dibatsa and three from Bowla were killed, as
well as a Dibatsa woman who happened to be fetching water from the river.
A mangëma was called in which elders from the Dach’igra clan were asked
to act as referees. A group of around ten elders from each of the two clans
involved, as well as others from Dach’igra, took part in the ritual. Bowla and
Dibatsa people and elders gathered next to a river in the lands of the neu-
tral clan. Each group occupied one side of the river: the elders closer to the
river, the rest of the community behind the elders. A long piece of cloth was
stretched along the river so that both parties could not see each other. The
negotiation was carried out with the veil in the middle. An agreement was
eventually reached and a number of cattle was paid by each clan for each of
the people killed.
At times, women are exchanged through mangëma, as a further means of
reinforcing the peace. In mangëma, there is no idea of victory or defeat as in
a Western trial. The idea is to restore peace and good relations between clans.
This is expressed through a series of material symbols: the ceremony ends
with the breaking of a bone and the slaughter of a goat or cow. The breaking
of a bone symbolizes the end of the conflict; if a person breaks the agree-
ment, he will be broken like the bone. Other objects/metaphors can be used,
such as a leaf of a gourd plant, a bullet, a stone, a thorn, and donkey dung.
The violation of the peace will mean becoming mute like a stone, swollen
like a gourd, and so on (Wolde-Selassie Abbute, 2004: 256–59). Material
metaphors are present at other moments of the ritual: the cloth (a gabi) that
separates the two parties during the ritual is also meant to represent their
unity, because the blanket is made of two parts woven apart in the loom and
then sewn together.18
There are three remarkable facts in Gumuz conflict resolution rituals. First,
their origin: as it occurs with many other Gumuz rituals, it seems that this was
taken from their Boro neighbors, whom the Gumuz respect for their super-
natural powers. The Boro have a ritual ceremony that is extremely similar to

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 106 Chapter 3

Figure 3.2. Boro performing a conflict resolution ritual. Courtesy of the Bureau of
Information, Culture, Tourism and Social Affairs of Benishangul-Gumuz Regional State

that described by the Gumuz (see figure 3.2). In fact, the blanket (gabi) used
in some mangëma is a typical highland artifact, not produced or used in the
lowlands: the Boro, instead, not only wear it, they are also master weavers.
As we will see, appropriating what are deemed powerful protective devices
from other groups is part of the tactics of resistance deployed by the Gumuz.
The mangëma is undoubtedly a successful way of putting an end to bloody
feuds and, therefore, can be considered a way of protecting and sustaining
life.
Secondly, the variety of mangëma is unique in the Sudanese-Ethiopian
borderlands. While all other groups have traditional ways of coping with
interethnic or intraethnic conflict, only the Gumuz have such varied and
symbolically elaborate rituals. I have described here only one mangëma, but
there are many variants. Only a people that is so deeply marked by violence
could have put so much effort into devising means to end it and, furthermore,
to turn it into something socially productive. This is related to a third issue:
the logic of the mangëma is to make friends or allies out of enemies. This
explains why it works well among Gumuz and not so well between Gumuz
and highlanders. However, the same logic of becoming acquainted with the
enemy is evident elsewhere in relation to the highlanders: origin myths.

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 Direct Action against the State: The Gumuz 107

3.2. THE ENEMY’S POINT OF VIEW:

ORIGIN MYTHS, THINGS, AND KNOWLEDGE

Anthropologist Viveiros de Castro (1992) has argued that the enemy is

fundamental in defining the self among the Tupi-Guarani peoples of South
America. There is a symbolic economy of alterity that is based on the fa-
miliarization of the Other. This familiarization implies a sort of ontological
predation, which is enacted through (symbolic or real) cannibalization, mar-
riage, consumption, and war. For the Gumuz, the enemies do not have to be
incorporated into the family: rather, what Gumuz origin myths explain is that
enemy and self, Shwa and Gumuz, already share the same blood. To explain
this awkward affinity, the Gumuz have to resort to the enemy’s point of view.
If there is something that the Gumuz have plenty of, it is origin myths. In
that, they are very different from other people with whom I have worked,
who either lack (or have lost) an explanation of their deep origins, but have
a mid-term historical account (like the Bertha and the Mao), or who, having
the myths, do not put much emphasis on them, or not everybody knows them
(as among the Gwama). It is not that myths do not exist but, like violence, it
is much less conspicuous and active than among the Gumuz. The Gumuz are
always ready to tell about their origins, and they have almost as many stories
as there are villages. There are three aspects that are common to all tales:
that the Gumuz share the same origin—and are thus related as kin—with the
dominant groups; that they have been punished, either by God or by other
people; and that the history of the Gumuz to the present can be explained by
an unequal access to knowledge.
Gumuz accounts of their origins are, for the most part, based on the same
structure. This starts with an undifferentiated ethnic origin, in which all
groups (red, white, and black) were the same. A fatal mistake by the ances-
tor of the Gumuz condemned all his descendants to a subaltern position. The
primeval mistake was scorning or disobeying his father or mother or an in-
ability to learn new skills, depending on the accounts. The punishment vari-
ously consists in having a black skin, lacking clothes, living in the lowland
forests, and using hoes instead of plows. Material elements always have a
fundamental role in the description: there is a subaltern technology (hoes,
hunting and fishing implements, porridge) and a powerful one (horses, ïnjära,
plows, cars, airplanes). However, the Gumuz do not try to appropriate the
material culture of the dominators. This is often cast in fatalistic terms, as if
the Gumuz were condemned to use the hoe instead of the plow—I will return
to this in the next section.
The most basic and common origin myth, especially north of the Blue Nile
in the Metekel Zone, states that the Gumuz and the Amhara (or Shwa more

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 108 Chapter 3

generally) had the same mother, Yamba, who is considered divinity or a su-
pernatural being. At some point, Amhara learned to ride a horse and escaped
to faraway lands. He learned many things away from home and then returned
to rule the land. While Amhara was far away, Gumuz remained in the region
and learned nothing and therefore could be expelled by the skilled Amhara.19
Another version says that Gumuz and Amhara had to compete for food one
day: Yamba, their mother, served flat bread (ïnjära in Amharic) and porridge
(ŋga in Gumuz) to them, but to take the food they had to participate in a horse
race. During the race, Gumuz fell from the horse. Amhara rode well, arrived
first, and ate the flat bread. Gumuz arrived later and had to take the porridge.
After that, Amhara and Gumuz stopped living together.20
In the myths collected south of the Blue Nile, in Kamashi, knowledge and
skills are stressed in a different way. Here is a good example:

At the beginning, Oromo, Gumuz and Faranjï were the same. They had the same
father, God. Their father sent them to wash their clothes to the river. They went
to the river and Faranjï washed the clothes very clean; Oromo washed them
normally, and Gumuz did not wash them at all. When they returned from the
river, they showed their clothes to their father. Faranjï gave clean clothes to his
father and received mechanical things (cars, planes) in return; Oromo showed
his and got farming implements (oxen, plow). Gumuz came the last. He showed
his unwashed clothes and received hand tools (p’ale, t’aba, goda: hoe, digging
stick and sickle). Faranjï, Oromo and Gumuz asked then for a blessing. Since
Faranjï was a good son, he became white; Oromo, who is mixed, neither too
good nor too bad, and who brought the clothes neither dirty nor clean, became
of mixed color as well; to the third one, Gumuz, who did not wash the clothes
at all, God said: “You will remain black and will live in the k’wolla.” Thus, the
whites received a good blessing, the Oromo an average one and the Gumuz a
bad one. The father said to the Gumuz: “You will remain in the lowlands, fish-
ing. You will have to live in the desert.”21

Interestingly, knowledge is equated in all cases, and in a very Foucaldian

sense, with power. In consequence, all forms of (higher) knowledge can be
considered techniques of inequality. This is clearly the case with the horse
(employed in slave raids) or the plow (that enables the cultivation of more
land and, therefore, the creation of surplus and economic differences). The
Gumuz are convinced that theirs is simply a problem of learning: they have
been barred access to knowledge, but should they have it, the situation would
be redressed. This explains that schooling has become an obsession for them
during the twentieth century. In the 1940s, a veteran from the Second World
War, Galata Shashamo, went to Haile Selassie’s court in Addis Ababa to ask
for schools for the Gumuz (James, 1980: 45). The people from Manjari com-
plained that during the resettlement period, in the 1980s, the government did

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 Direct Action against the State: The Gumuz 109

not provide schools for them, and I heard the same complaints in Kamashi
and Mandura about the Gumuz lacking education before the establishment
of the present government. When talking about Haile Selassie’s time, some
elders in Metekel stressed the positive fact that a few of their folk were given
the chance to study in the highlands.
Now that ontology has become fashionable and that epistemology is regu-
larly criticized, it is important to emphasize that what we have in Gumuz
origin myths is indeed a form of native epistemology or, rather, a gnoseology.
It is so from a double perspective: it is a reflection on knowledge (and more
specifically on the relations between knowledge and power) and a theory of
how knowledge is acquired and distributed. It is assumed that by acquiring
knowledge, the effects of the original sin or failure will vanish and equality
among the different groups (Shwa, Faranj, and Gumuz) will be restored: the
idea is not of achieving supremacy, but equality. Discussing some Gumuz
conversions to Christianity in the 1950s, Simoons (1960: 55) notes that what
the converts wished more than anything else was “to be considered equals by
the Amhara.” That an unequal distribution of knowledge leads to an unequal
distribution of power is an experience that lies at the heart of Gumuz culture
and has important material ramifications, as we will see in the next section.
Yet in what sense can we say that Gumuz origin myths mirror the enemy’s
gaze? Tales of origins show a variety of external influences, some clearer
than others. In fact, the structure itself of the myth is foreign, as it is not found
in other borderland groups. That the structure itself is alien would not be
strange, given that the origin myth always depicts the Gumuz under a nega-
tive light. The Boro, for instance, have tales that are extremely similar to the
Gumuz. According to one account that I gathered in Wämbära,22

Boro, Domo [Amhara and Oromo] and Ak’o [Gumuz] were three brothers of
the same father, K’anini [Canaan], and they lived together in the land of Israel.
One day, K’anini asked his elder son, Ak’o, to bring him water. However, Ak’o
refused to do so. As a punishment, the father said to him: “you are a slave” and
condemned him to turn black. He said: “your face will be changed by the sun
and you will be dominated by the Domo and the Boro.” After that, a conflict
broke out between Boro and Domo for a girl whom both wanted to marry. The
father told Boro not to fight with his brother for that issue and, instead, ordered
him to emigrate and expand his territory. Boro, therefore, left. After some time,
the other brothers followed suit, but his father ordered them to go in different
directions to avoid conflicting with each other. For having rejected him, K’anini
banished his rebel son, Ak’o, to a lowland, unfertile place, whereas the other
two settled in the Highlands.

In a version recorded by Herma Plazikowsky-Brauner (1970: 38), the

brothers are four: Boro, Amhara, Galla (Oromo), and Schak’ra (Shank’ïlla

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 110 Chapter 3

= Gumuz). They were all the sons of Adam. At that time, people did not
die: they stayed one year in their graves and then resurrected. So did Adam.
However, whenever the resurrected Adam drank anything, the liquid drained
through his throat, because it had been gnawed by termites (see a strikingly
similar Uduk myth in James, 1988: 185). His son Schak’ra laughed because
of that and, as a punishment, Adam condemned Schak’ra to be black and be
the slave of the other three brothers. The tales bear more than passing resem-
blance with the Gumuz, who have adopted other customs and beliefs from the
Boro (such as conflict resolution rituals, as we have seen). It is not strange,
then, that they also incorporated the origin myth, which, after all, resonated
with their own experience of marginalization.
Another origin myth dispels all doubt about external influences on the
Gumuz explanation of origins. This story, which I collected in a Gumuz vil-
lage south of the Blue Nile in the Kamashi Zone, resembles the tale of cloth
washing mentioned earlier.23

Gumuz, Oromo, and Faranj come all from the same ancestor. Originally, they
were three brothers and Gumuz was the older one. One day, they entered their
father’s house and found him naked. Their reactions were different: Gumuz
laughed at him openly and his father cursed him saying: “Go to the forest and
be black!”; Oromo suppressed laughter and just said “mmmh!,” so the father did
not punish him: he gave him farms and an average knowledge. Faranj, in turn,
did not laugh at all and gave clothes to his father. Thus, he got the best blessing
from him: he is intelligent, wears clothes and has mechanical things.

The myth is clearly based in the Boro story mentioned above and, in the
last instance, in the curse of Canaan (Genesis, 9, KJV:20–27). According to
this story, Ham, Noah’s son, found his father drunk and naked. He told his
brothers, Sem and Japhet, who laid a garment upon his father without looking
at him. When Noah discovered what Ham had done, he condemned Ham’s
son, Canaan, to be “a servant of servants”:

“Cursed be Canaan! The lowest of slave will he be to his brothers.” He also said,
“Praise be to the lord, the God of Shem! May Canaan be the slave of Shem. May
God extend Japheth’s territory; may Japheth live in the tents of Shem, and may
Canaan be the slave of Japheth.” (Genesis 9:25–27)

A structurally similar story was collected in Kamashi by Wendy James

(1980: 47–48). In that one, biblical names (Kam, Adam, and Yakob) were
even used and the origin of the Gumuz was explicitly traced to Kam, which
is also considered an ancestor by the Boro (Plazikowsky-Brauner, 1970: 36;
also called Hamati: Ano Alula, 2012: 117). It is not striking that the story
rings a bell for the Gumuz. The curse of Canaan has been used in different

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 Direct Action against the State: The Gumuz 111

times to justify the superiority (and oppression) of one people over another:
Israel over Canaan, whites over blacks (Braude, 1997). The story was also
put to similar ends in Ethiopia: it can be read in the foundational book of the
Ethiopian kingdom, the Kebrä Nägast, “The Glory of the Kings” (Pankhurst,
1977: 4). What is surprising, in the case of the Gumuz, is the fact that it is the
subaltern group that uses the story to explain its own fate as a people. In that,
they clearly differ from other neighboring minorities: the Uduk, for instance,
feel that they have been spared by God from sheer extinction (James, 1979:
11), and the Mao simply consider that they have been chased from their lands
and subjected due to the sheer supremacy of the highlanders. Gumuz, Mao,
and Uduk, however, share something in common: a consciousness of their
subaltern existence, as a weak and politically unsuccessful people (James,
1979: 18). The difference is that the Uduk are apparently happy with sim-
ply having survived, the Mao feel powerless, and the Gumuz feel punished.
This explains the diverse strategies that they have deployed to survive: the
Uduk have always fled, the Mao accommodated, and the Gumuz resisted and
fought back. To understand how the Gumuz subvert the enemy’s gaze, two
things have to be taken into account.
First, myth-taking is coherent with a general tactic of resistance typical of
the Gumuz. They do not simply reject the Other altogether; they incorporate
and redeploy what they consider powerful, that is, whatever allows them to
understand themselves better, to be better protected, to fight back more suc-
cessfully, and, most important of all, to be considered equals with others.
The same strategy that we find in myths, we find in personal names. It is a
widespread Gumuz tradition to name a baby after something that has hap-
pened that day, which is often an event related to a foreign presence. In my
work in eastern Metekel, precisely the area more exposed to highland and
modern pressures, there was a high number of Gumuz that had Amharic and
Oromo names (Worku, Dästa, Gäläta). These are the same names of the reset-
tlers who occupied their lands during the communist period. Sometimes, this
appropriation of the other’s knowledge is done in a very conscious way and
with specific practical purposes in mind. Anderge Tanka, an old man from
Manjari, told me that during Haile Selassie’s time, he converted to Christian-
ity to get a job at the local administration or to become a village chairman;
similar conversions among men have to be understood in this way (Simoons,
1960: 55). It is important to note that, unlike the Mao (see section 5.2),
the Gumuz do not take the other’s customs as a disguise, but as a weapon.
Wendy James (1977b: 23) has argued that “Items from the cultural traditions
of highland Ethiopia and the Sudan are incorporated into the world of the
Gumuz; even items of their myths and legends, which are refashioned by the
Gumuz in the light of their own intellectual and moral experience; especially

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 112 Chapter 3

their experience of relations through history with the Ethiopian and Sudanese
peoples.” As we will see, however, this cannibalizing of the Other’s knowl-
edge is not restricted to legends, religious practices, or names, but also affects
material culture in a very particular way.
The second point has to do with the way in which the Gumuz understand
the origin myth. They do not simply incorporate the enemy’s point of view.
They do so with an important twist. If the curse of Canaan has been usually
employed to naturalize the inferiority of the Other (by white colonizers and
slave owners, for instance), the Gumuz find in it something different, some-
thing that is useful for their cause. For them, the myth historicizes inequal-
ity. It was a mistake, a contingency, a fatal event in a specific moment, that
placed the Gumuz in their current inferior position. But they are, in essence,
the same human beings as the Shwa and the Faranj. They accept with fatalism
their fall, but they reclaim simultaneously the same status of all other human
beings.

3.3. MAKING A COMMUNITY OF EQUALS:

TECHNOLOGY, CONSUMPTION, EXCHANGE

Making the Community

Something seems paradoxical in the Gumuz attitude toward their situation:
while there are some elements described in the origin myths that cannot be
easily changed (such as living in the lowlands instead of the highlands or
having airplanes), there are others that could: they could use plows instead of
hoes, and eat flat bread instead of porridge. The fact they do not use plows
more widely or eat ïnjära more often is related to an egalitarian ethos that the
Gumuz are not ready to discard.
Since Henry Salt (1816) met the Gumuz early in the nineteenth century,
all observers have described them as a society with strongly egalitarian and
collective values. As is usually the case, these values are transmitted through
tales and proverbs, which emphasize the need for sharing and cooperation.
Food, in particular, is considered something to be regularly shared, never
hoarded, and those who do not share are scathingly ridiculed in folktales.24
More than tales are needed, however, to reproduce egalitarian values. Egali-
tarianism is enacted in daily practice, through the use of space, through the
making and using of things, and through eating and drinking together. I will
look here at two issues: commensality and its relationship to agricultural
practices, and crafts.
Regarding the first, the Gumuz grant much importance to eating and, espe-
cially, drinking together. They spend a large part of their time, mainly during

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 Direct Action against the State: The Gumuz 113

the dry season, visiting neighbors and relatives, and sharing beer and coffee.
Men and women sit indoors, in the front part of the house, which is the area
reserved for guests and social activities, and sit on small benches with their
backs to the wall, chatting, smoking pipes, and sometimes playing the lyre.
Coffee is an innovation brought from the highlands, as proved by the mate-
rial culture attached to it (coffee pots, cups, trays, etc.). Coffee is a good ex-
ample of a foreign practice that is imported because it helps reinforce Gumuz
values: in this case, sharing. In the case of sorghum beer (kea), its collective
consumption has been interpreted in nearby groups as a tactic for socializing
surplus, instead of hoarding it (Jedrej, 1995: 5). This tactic is prevalent in
many borderland communities, such as the Majangir, who have institutional-
ized groups of beer consumers (Stauder, 1971: 134–37), the Opuuo, Komo,
Gwama, and Mao.
As other borderland peoples, the Gumuz consume sorghum beer in large
quantities during working parties: when a person wants to mobilize labor for
building a new hut or harvesting, he just passes the word: “tomorrow there
will be kea in my house.”25 However, casual consumption from house to
house is more frequent among them than among other groups, and it plays
a similar role in buttressing community ties through generalized reciprocity.
While doing fieldwork in Metekel, we were systematically offered kea in ev-
ery house we worked. This kind of generalized hospitality is not as common
in other groups, especially with outsiders. As it happens among the Ingessana
and others, the Gumuz do not store surpluses: they consume everything col-
lectively. It is telling that in the village of Manjari, where the Gumuz have
access to extra revenues from renting the land to highlanders, there is nothing
to indicate a higher standard of living. Rather, the opposite is true: the extra
income is spent in the extra consumption of alcohol (beer and liquor) and the
Gumuz of Manjari look, if anything, poorer than their neighbors.
That collective consumption is paramount, and in opposition to surplus, is
clearly visible in material culture: where the Gumuz and Agäw live together,
it is impossible not to notice the small number of granaries that the former
have in comparison with the latter. In Manjari, every Agäw household has an
average of three granaries of slightly higher capacity than the Gumuz. The
Gumuz, instead, never have more than one granary per household, something
that puts rigid limits on the storage of surplus (and, therefore, to its produc-
tion). In turn, what the Gumuz have plenty of are beer pots, which are much
more abundant and larger than their highland counterparts. Beer pots (east-
ern Metekel: tich’a kea; western Metekel: koga) cannot lack in any Gumuz
home. They are the largest containers in the pottery inventory, their size is
considerably bigger than any of the beer pots of neighboring groups (Bertha,
Mao, Gwama, or Komo), and they are very often decorated (see figure 3.3A).

Book 1.indb 113 2/25/14 6:21 AM

 Figure 3.3. A: Comparison of the beer pots of the indigenous borderland groups. B:
Two typical beer filters: Gumuz (left) and Bertha (right).

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 Direct Action against the State: The Gumuz 115

While Mao, Gwama, and Komo pots are usually around forty to forty-five
centimeters high and have a maximum diameter of forty-five centimeters,
Gumuz containers for brewing beer are in no case smaller than fifty centime-
ters long and have a forty-five-centimeter mouth. The most usual dimensions
lie between sixty-five and seventy-five centimeters in height, and it is not
strange at all to see koga over eighty centimeters tall. The Gumuz beer filter
(diŋa) is also bigger and more elaborate than that of other lowland groups
(figure 3.3B), which again shows the large amount of kea that the Gumuz
prepare and the central symbolic role of this drink. The monumental beer pots
occupy all of the back part of the house, where the process of preparing the
drink takes place. A minimum of four beer pots can be found in any house.
This is needed not only to supply the family, but also to give to those who
participate in working parties and the neighbors who drop by from time to
time.
The preparation of beer and porridge (which includes grinding the cereal)
fills most of the women’s time. The chaînes operatoires of both processes
are strongly interrelated (mixing water and sorghum floor, fermenting the
paste, baking it). Similar pots and technical gestures are employed and, in
fact, some pots receive a particular name (ticha ginza or ticha ŋga) depend-
ing on the use to which they are put (beer or porridge), as the same type of
vessel can be used for different purposes. It is not surprising, therefore, that
the Gumuz stick to porridge (ŋga), as the origin myth describes. Cooking
and eating flat bread (ïnjära) would entail a profound transformation of the
chaîne operatoire, a dissociation of food and beverage, and an alteration
of the material culture involved in the making of both. Things do not only
make history slow (Serres, 1995), they also stabilize collectives and relations
and make them durable (Hodder, 2012: 209; Latour, 1991; Webmoor and
Witmore, 2008: 59). Moreover, the similar chaîne operatoire for the produc-
tion of porridge and beer has deep social implications: women are not only
working for the family (porridge), but for the community as a whole (beer).
The cultivation of cereals, therefore, is as much a social issue (sustaining the
social body) as a biological one (sustaining the physical body): a surplus of
cereals is cultivated so that beer can be brewed for neighbors who participate
in the working parties for harvesting the cereal that will be used for brewing
beer for neighbors, and so on.
This perfect loop of labor is also the loop of equality. Any input may
unbalance the system. To avoid it, drinking out the crop is just one method.
Another form of curtailing surplus is by using hoes and digging sticks instead
of plows. This limits the amount of land that can be tilled and demands the
participation of large numbers of people. The use of the plow is becoming
more common in recent years, especially in Kamashi, south of the Blue Nile,

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 116 Chapter 3

but most Gumuz do not own a plow or cattle to draw it. In Metekel, they hire
it from Agäw or Amhara, who lend them in exchange for part of the crops. A
Gumuz informant from Manjari said to me, in typical fatalistic tone: “we pre-
fer plowing, but we do not have money to pay for the tools and the cattle.”26
However, an Agäw neighbor thinks differently. According to him, highland-
ers who live in Gumuz land have to pay rent for the land and many Agäw
work as laborers for the Gumuz, plowing their lands.27 Other Agäws have the
same impression: they say that only two or three Gumuz families in Manjari
(out of 150 families, more or less) have started plowing for themselves, al-
though the Agäw lend them cattle and donkeys.28 This coincides with my own
observations: I could only see a plow in one Gumuz homestead in the entire
village. Besides, the Gumuz do have cattle and they refer to it quite often in
the interviews, but the animals are kept as savings, for example, in case a
compensation has to be paid after a conflict, and for specific ceremonies, such
as weddings, when oxen are sacrificed (see also Gebre Yntiso, 2003: 53). In
that, they resemble other borderland groups, such as the Uduk (James, 1979:
100). There is another reason why the Gumuz are not very enthusiastic about
the plow: it is in direct opposition to burning. As we have seen, the Gumuz
burn down everything during January and February (see section 2.1). This is
done for fertilizing the fields and rendering them easier to cultivate, as well
as for facilitating movement through the forest. The digging stick and the hoe
are associated with burning, hunting, and gathering. Not plowing the land,
then, has to be understood more as an ethical and political decision—an ele-
ment of the moral economy of the Gumuz that prevents intensification and,
therefore, the emergence of social inequalities—and as a way of dealing with
the environment.
Even when the Gumuz engage in market economy and intensive agricul-
ture, they still stick to values typical of a moral economy. This is the case
with the community of Lugo, a small village close to the southern bank of
the Blue Nile, in the Kamashi Zone. Unlike other similar groups, the Gumuz
here have not refused the opportunity of increasing their income through the
plantation of sesame. Sesame decays quickly, so it is necessary to mobilize
a large amount of people to harvest it quickly. In small communities, this
requires hiring labor from neighbors and nearby villages, a fact that has
prevented some egalitarian communities from cultivating this plant (Jedrej,
1995: 5). However, the Gumuz of Lugo have managed to have their cake and
eat it too. Traditionally, the Gumuz always refuse to work for a wage for oth-
ers, something that in their mind is equivalent to slavery. But they do not have
much problem in having other people working for them: thus, in Lugo, they
hire highlanders (mostly Amhara) from the region of Gojjam, to the other side
of the Nile, to harvest the crop. In this way, the community of equals remains

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 Direct Action against the State: The Gumuz 117

so: nobody among the Gumuz will be the servant of anybody. A similar situ-
ation is found in Manjari and other places. In Manjari, the only way in which
outsiders are welcome is as k’enja (laborers) in Gumuz fields.29 This is a way
of preventing eventual dispossession by more intensive agriculturalists. This
situation is an ironic reversal of the historical trend, which had Gumuz work-
ing as slaves for highlanders.
The other important element to keep the community equal is technology.
Like most other borderland groups, the Gumuz lack the idea of the artisan
as somebody separated from the social body, which does exist among the
highlanders. Among the Gumuz, almost everybody is supposed to be able to
make virtually everything according to her or his gender: pots, sickles, hoes,
mats, baskets, beer filters, or houses, although some people invest more time
in making these things, are more proficient at it, and produce for the intereth-
nic market. Perhaps where the staunch democratization of handicrafts is better
seen among the Gumuz is in the work of metals. In other minority groups of
the borderlands, the work of iron is quite restricted. Some groups, such as the
Mao, have very few blacksmiths and depend on the Oromo for their supplies.
The Bertha also purchase regularly from Oromo metal workers and so do the
remote Komo people (Tesemma Ta’a, 2003: 171). In the 1920s, the Gule, Bu-
run, and Maaban from the Sudanese Blue Nile region already acquired their
iron implements from outsiders (Evans-Pritchard, 1932: 5, 19): a few commu-
nities provided tools to all the hill residents. Among the people who did work
iron (for themselves and for others) were the fiercely independent Ingessana.
Among the Gumuz, there is a high number of men who are able to make and
repair iron implements, almost as many as women potters (Figure 3.4).

Figure 3.4. Left: A Gumuz man working iron in Manjari. Right: Gumuz woman making
a beer pot in Maataba.

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 118 Chapter 3

The democratization of technology involves more than handicrafts, it also

includes spirits. As opposed to other ethnic groups, where ritual specialists
are rare, the Gumuz have an astonishing variety and number: gola, gafea, dïr-
musa, and ette. The latter, in turn, are particularly diverse and numerous. They
are endowed with a certain skill: Thus, there is the ettemusgidea (“master of
the spirit of the gidea tree”), etteshiya (“master of the shiya wood”), ettegagwa
(“master of the hunting medicine [gagwa]”), ettebiymangacha (“master of the
reconciliation [mangacha] medicine [biya]”), and so on. In the same village,
there can be more than one ritual specialist. I will deal with ritual specialists
in detail later in this chapter (see section 3.5). What interests me here is the
relative easiness with which one can become a ritual specialist and the similar-
ity between this process and that of becoming an artisan. To become a ritual
specialist, one has to see a spirit (gefich’a) during a dream (misumishiga).
Although this might look like a unique experience, it is not. Artisans (potters
and blacksmiths) often say that they learned their craft after a spirit appeared
to them in dreams: potters from Bowla Dibatsa, for instance, argue that they
can only make large pots (those used for brewing beer) if they have a dream
in which a spirit teaches them how. A smith from the same village asserted
that one night a spirit appeared to him saying “Wake up! I’m going to tell
you how to make metallic tools!” Similar experiences are recounted by ritual
specialists: an ette from Lugo in Kamashi who knew the medicines for hunt-
ing (gagwa) and reconciliation (biy mangacha) admitted that the knowledge
came to him through dreams.30 This shows that the Gumuz do not conceive
of artisans and ritual specialists as separate realities, as we do, but part of the
same sphere: what characterizes them is a knowledge that can be described as
technical, in that it implies a process of learning, a specific object and rules, a
different degree of skill, a chaîne operatoire that has to be carefully followed,
and a practical application. After all, as Mauss (2001 [1902]: 175) noted,
“magic is essentially the art of doing things” and in that, it is not different
from any technology; in fact, magic is situated somewhere between the realm
of religion and that of technology (Ibid.: 106).
It is no wonder that artisans (of material and immaterial things) are so
widespread. What the Gumuz origin myths emphasize are the problems
inherent in an unequal distribution of knowledge. The greater the distance
between those who know and those who do not, the greater the power dif-
ference. Thus, the abyss between Shwa (highlanders) and Gumuz is not as
great as that between Gumuz and Faranj (whites). Allowing for differences in
knowledge, even petty differences, could mean as much as opening Pandora’s
box: the whole community could break apart, as it once happened, when
the Shwa and the Gumuz parted ways. By making technological knowledge
democratic, no matter its purpose, the community remains equal: anybody
can have a dream and become an ette or a potter.

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 Direct Action against the State: The Gumuz 119

Dealing with Others

If porridge and beer can be said to be the substances that make the Gumuz
community, other material things make up the relations between Gumuz and
others. In fact, it could be argued that things are the fuel, sometimes very
literally, of interethnic relations. A group of Gumuz inventoried the com-
modities that they acquired from highlanders: “aräk’i, goats, chicken, clothes,
salt, onions and shoes.”31 None is a handicraft (shoes are industrial). The fact
that aräk’i (liquor) is mentioned first is meaningful. The production and con-
sumption of liquor and the material culture associated with it are deeply, and
conflictively, enmeshed in the social relations between Gumuz, Agäw, Am-
hara, and other groups. Basically, aräk’i involves the circulation of two kinds
of things: pots and alcohol. The first flows from lowlanders to highlanders
and the second vice versa.
To produce aräk’i, large pots are needed to ferment the cereal (preferably
finger millet). The highlanders do have these pots, called gan, but they are
not commonly available. Instead, as we have seen, Gumuz potters make
big containers (tich’a) very often, because they need them to brew the large
amount of beer that they consume every day and in social celebrations. The
highlanders, in turn, do not produce or share beer (called t’älla in Amharic)
so frequently: in the area studied by Simoons (1960: 168–69), Amhara
women made beer only once a month. Agäw and Amhara, then, buy tich’a
from Gumuz potters and then refit them to be employed in the production of
aräk’i for the market.
Aräk’i and beer are conceptualized very differently among the Gumuz. The
latter cannot be sold: it has to be given away. Aräk’i, instead, is a true com-
modity. It can be given away, as beer, but is not consumed so regularly. It is
more usually sold and bought. Thus, in the multi-ethnic village of Bakuji (Bu-
len wereda, southern Metekel), where Gumuz and Boro live together, we had
the occasion to visit the only locale resembling a bar that we have ever seen in
a settlement inhabited by Gumuz. What was sold there was, of course, aräk’i.
It has to be borne in mind that, on the one hand, like clothes, salt, and shoes,
aräk’i is alien to Gumuz culture. It is commonly produced among highland-
ers, but not among lowlanders (Simoons, 1960: 170–72), at least in northwest
Ethiopia. The spread of liquor goes hand in hand with colonialism, in this
case Turco-Egyptian (rakı): it did not become common before the end of the
nineteenth century (Willis, 2002: 40–41). On the other hand, the production
of aräk’i is complex and costly—unlike beer. Selling aräk’i between Gumuz
would be considered improper, at least in most communities, as transactions
that take the appearance of commerce are avoided. This is more so when it
has to do with things that are employed in socialization. Thus, the Gumuz
do not buy or sell aräk’i between them, but they do not have any problem

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 120 Chapter 3

in purchasing it from highlanders. Their consumption is strongly associated

with the marketplace, which is where the product is acquired—again in a
context of interethnic exchange.
The Gumuz are generally reluctant to acquire manufactured objects from
highlanders, although they do buy produce (coffee, corn, garlic, tomatoes).
In fact, they refrain from acquiring manufactured objects outside their group
in general. Thus, although they do acquire industrial products in the market
(such as plastic jerry cans to carry water, or clothes), they buy less different
things and less quantity than highlanders. In part, this is achieved through
self-production. A good example of this is gourds: while the Gumuz make ex-
tensive use of them for a variety of purposes, the highlanders are more prone
to buy plastic containers in the market, a fact that does not pass unnoticed
by the Gumuz.32 In each of the households that we studied in Manjari, there
were between ten and twenty gourds. The reliance on natural containers can
be considered one of the anti-market mechanisms of the Gumuz. The idea
is to purchase the minimum and to be as autarkic as possible. However, the
Gumuz do buy handicrafts from other groups from time to time. We inven-
toried and drew eighty-eight pots in eleven Gumuz households in the multi-
ethnic village of Manjari and of these, 19 percent had been made by highland
potters (Kambata or Amhara). Fifteen out of twenty imported vessels were
small pots for cooking stews (antersa in Gumuz, dïst in Amharic). The rest
was a madiga (for storing water or beer) and four met’ad—a large dish for
baking the typical highland bread, ïnjära. The number is smaller than the
pots acquired by their Agäw neighbors: in the same village of Manjari, out
of seventy pots from nine Agäw households, 38 percent had been acquired
from Gumuz potters; that is, the Agäw acquire twice as much pottery from
their neighbors than the other way round (see figure 3.5A/B). This is striking,
given that there are many highland potters working in the area, selling their
pots in the market and even intermarrying with Agäw (Wolde-Selassie Ab-
bute, 2001: 116). Nevertheless, the majority of the pots in Agäw homesteads
were the large tich’a for preparing aräk’i that I have already mentioned (six
cooking pots or antersa versus thirty-two tich’a).
The same situation exists with other handicrafts. While I could not spot
a single highland artifact, apart from the pots, in a Gumuz household in
Manjari, Agäw households were stuffed with Gumuz tools, including hoes,
sickles, daggers, wooden trays, stools, fishing nets, and even bows and ar-
rows—see Simoons (1958) for a description of Gumuz agricultural imple-
ments. To this we have to add different kinds of baskets that are made by the
Gumuz according to highland models in order to sell them to highlanders,
such as the ak’ïmbalo, the lid used for covering the ïnjära while baking. The
opposite does not exist (a highland handicraft targeting the Gumuz), except

Book 1.indb 120 2/25/14 6:21 AM

 Figure 3.5. A/B: Comparison of pottery assemblages from two typical households of
Manjari. Dotted pots are Gumuz. C: Comparison of Gumuz and highland cooking pots
(antersa/dïst). Courtesy of Álvaro Falquina

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 122 Chapter 3

for one exception that we will see below. In the same way that there is a
flow of aräk’i from highlanders to Gumuz and a flow of pots from Gumuz
to highlanders, there is a circulation of handicrafts from the Gumuz to their
neighbors and of vegetables and other secondary foods in the other direction.
The situation is structurally similar: in both cases, what goes from the Gumuz
homesteads to the highlands are durable goods, while what the Gumuz re-
ceive are things that are consumed fast, often collectively, and leave no trace.
It seems clear, therefore, that the Gumuz display an attitude of resistance
toward highland material culture that restricts exchanges to the minimum
and curtails any potential dependency on an alien technology. This is also the
kind of anti-market mechanisms that characterize the deep rurals throughout
the Sudanese-Ethiopian borderland (James, 1979: 102–11; Jedrej, 1995: 5,
26). Actually, the Gumuz do not have markets, like many other borderland
groups (Jedrej, 1995: 5). These exist only in areas where there are other
communities: relations between Gumuz cannot take the form of commercial
transactions.
Perhaps more striking than the Gumuz reluctance to purchase handicrafts
is the impermeability of their material culture to other traditions. This is par-
ticularly visible in pottery. It is very easy to distinguish a highland pot from a
Gumuz one (see figure 3.5C). The two styles are in many ways diametrically
opposed, from a technical, formal, and social point of view. The Gumuz have
not adopted any single trait from the highland tradition, and the same can be
said of the highlanders with regard to the Gumuz: they buy the pots from them,
but do not try to copy them, not even those traits that they acknowledge as
technically superior. There is only a significant exception: there is a (not very
common) pot that the Gumuz have copied from the highlanders. It is a version
of the amphoroid jar for liquids (madiga), which the Gumuz call nse ts’oleña,
meaning “pot for arä’ki.” A foreign drink can be stored in a foreign pot.
Impermeability is not restricted to pots, but extends to other elements of
material culture: the Gumuz do not replicate agricultural implements, houses,
granaries, or any other element from the highlanders, whereas the Agäw
acknowledge copying the Gumuz way of making houses using interwoven
bamboo walls, imitate Gumuz bows and arrows, and even have versions of
the decorated Gumuz granaries. In most cases, the Gumuz already have a ver-
sion of the artifact or technology in question that makes copying unnecessary,
but there is an exception to this: cloth. The Gumuz have traditionally bought
cloth from the Sudanese and the highlanders, but they have never adopted the
technology of weaving, perhaps because cloth has always played a secondary
role among the Gumuz and because the learning process is long and com-
plex, and therefore would be more difficult to socialize in a democratic way.
Instead, they produce raw cotton for their neighbors, who give the Gumuz

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 Direct Action against the State: The Gumuz 123

manufactured cloth in return (Wallmark, 1981: 88, 95), or allow them to buy
iron or cartridges (Davis and Ashabranner, 1959: 137). In the case of cloth,
the Gumuz made long, white skirts with it, which, again, were (and still are)
different from the highland attire. With the introduction of industrial fabrics,
this form of exchange has decayed dramatically, but it still survives in some
areas. As happens with aräk’i, weaving seems to be a technology that enables
relations between lowlanders and highlanders. Related somewhat to clothing
is the baby bag (dimba), another exception to the Gumuz rule of not acquiring
handicrafts from outsiders. Women purchase dimba made of cowhide from
highlanders, but, again, they rework it intensively to make it look Gumuz.
More will be said about this object in the next section.
The general impermeability of Gumuz material culture is quite striking if
we take into account that Agäw and Gumuz have lived side by side, even in
the same villages for the last seven hundred years. That a hybrid style has not
emerged proves that politics, more than time, is a key component of hybrid-
ization, although it is not always given the importance it deserves by post-
colonial anthropologists and archaeologists. Thus, the only hybrid pot (nse
ts’oleña) has emerged in the area where relations between ethnic groups have
taken a more egalitarian approach (Kamashi), whereas in the region where
relations have been more strained and the relations between lowlanders and
highlanders have been more asymmetrical, material mixtures do not appear:
they may buy things from the other group, but they do not mix styles. It is
surely not a coincidence that in Kamashi there are mixed couples of Gumuz
men and Oromo women.

3.4. BODIES OF RESISTANCE

Body Art
Most peoples of the Sudanese-Ethiopian borderland have been described,
at least since the late nineteenth century, as lacking any interest in artistic
expression (Grottanelli, 1948: 315–16). Instead, the body, especially the
female body, is a complex manifestation of aesthetical creativity and a sur-
face where the boundary between person and thing is thoroughly dissolved.
It seems as if the plainness of non-human materiality was counterpoised by
a large investment in human matter: bodies are scarified, pierced, covered
with adornments, perfumed, and smeared with ochre. Showing the decorated
body is, or has been until very recently, a crucial element of female resistance
against highlanders, missionaries, and agents of the state, all of whom hide
and reject the naked body (or the body altogether) as sinful, shameful, and
primitive. Their efforts to conceal it are now starting to bear fruit: with the

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 124 Chapter 3

increasing force and ubiquity of the federal state, during the last few years
women are not going bare-breasted for fear of being fined by the police and
expelled from the market (González Núñez, 2010: 216). Until very recently,
however, the Gumuz considered that wearing a full dress, which is typical of
highlanders, would result in “crazy and deviant behavior” in a Gumuz woman
(Wolde-Selassie Abbute, 2004: 228). They have also stopped practicing
scarifications in many places (both female and male), because it is persecuted
by the state as a harmful traditional practice. Despite pressures, bodies still
manage to become artifacts of resistance through their material persistence
and their incorporation of social practices. Paul Connerton (1989: 74) has
referred to a “mnemonics of the body” to refer to “culturally specific postural
performances.” Similarly, Bourdieu (1990: 73) argues that the body “enacts
the past, bringing it back to life” (his emphasis). The ability of the body to
make the past present transforms it into a powerful weapon of resistance: one
that denies change and stubbornly reproduces traditional values of equality
in the face of imposed transformation. Here we will see that the mnemonics
of the body are not restricted to gestures, but also involve the extended ma-
teriality of the body.
Gumuz women used to wear only a skirt, wrapped with another piece
of cloth around their waist (called duŋgwa), that hung to below the knees.
The skirt was traditionally made of abujedid (plain, white cotton cloth), but
today colorful industrial fabrics predominate. Abujedid skirts are still used
on special occasions, such as weddings and dances. As the style of the skirt
and the way of wearing it are not offensive to hegemonic morals, its use is
widespread and serves as an ethnic identifier in multi-ethnic contexts. Today,
in the areas that are closer to towns and main roads and more subjected to
state or parastate surveillance, women go covered, except inside their houses.
During my visits to Metekel between 2003 and 2006, many women still wore
only the long skirt and went bare-breasted, even when meeting highlanders.
In the multi-ethnic market of the town of Mender 4, the Gumuz could be eas-
ily seen in their full attire, bare-breasted, with their long skirt and the dimba
on their backs. They did not seem ashamed at all, and their attitude was rather
one of pride and defiance.
The displayed body is not actually naked: the skin is beautifully decorated
with scarifications (k’ot), which cover cheeks, arms, back, breasts, and bel-
lies (see figure 3.6). A typical female body scarification used in the back and
upper arms is made of small dots forming patterns (called “crocodile skin”).
Gumuz men also have k’ot, but only on their cheeks. In both cases, having
at least facial scars was deemed inseparable from being a Bega (a Gumuz,
a person) (Wolde-Selassie Abbute, 2004: 230), although, as I have pointed
out, the practice is being discontinued in many places and few of today’s

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 Direct Action against the State: The Gumuz 125

teenagers have scars. The k’ot used to be made when girls and boys reached
adolescence. Almost all people who were eighteen years old or more at the
time of fieldwork had scarifications. Facial scarifications are very diverse,
but they can be grouped into three main patterns with no apparent meaning:
a quadrilateral, often divided into two halves, filled with a grid pattern or
horizontal lines (jorgen); a circle with an inscribed cross (shaŋgi); and three
parallel lines (zod) (see figure 3.6). The first two kinds of scarifications are
the most typically Gumuz and the most widespread. They are also found
among the various Koman peoples.
One of the notable things in this bodily decoration is its deep history. Some
of the earliest dated evidence comes from representations of black slaves in
Egyptian reliefs from the second millennium BC. These “Nubians” probably
come from Nilo-Saharan communities and have their cheeks marked with
decorative scars (Fazzini, 2003). Indirect evidence of scarifications can be
found in prehistoric rock art, where similar motifs to the Gumuz jorgen have
been documented in the Horn (e.g., Zelalem Teka, 2008: 57–59). Particularly
interesting are two shelters in Benishangul where the largest percentage of

Figure 3.6. Left: Characteristic back scarifications (village of Dibatsa). Right: Body
scarifications of the indigenous groups of the Sudanese-Ethiopian borderland. Courtesy
of the author and Xurxo Ayán

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 126 Chapter 3

painted motifs corresponds to grid-like symbols identical to Gumuz jorgen

designs (Fernández, 2011: figure 4). The shelters were perhaps used for rites
of passage, in which youngsters could have received their scarifications as a
mark of their transition to adulthood, as it occurs in other sites with schematic
rock art in Africa (Gallay, 1964).
The cross inscribed in a circle (shaŋgi) is very popular among the Gumuz
and is also present among virtually all Koman peoples, among whom it is
found not only on cheeks (like the jorgen), but also on arms, breasts, and
material culture (such as baby bags and throwing sticks). This distribution
proves that it is an ancient design. In this case, we have relevant historical
information that throws light on its meaning. According to written sources,
the cross and the circle were the designs with which the Funj lords of Sudan
branded their slaves and livestock. The Funj icon was composed of two ele-
ments: a circle, which represented a kettledrum (nūqara)—the symbol of
kingly power in Sinnār—and a cross, which stood for the sticks (´as.aya) used
to play the royal kettledrum (Spaulding, 1985: 1). Relevant to understanding
the persistence of the shaŋgi scars today is that the circle representing the
kettledrum was related to concepts of femininity and life. It is worth remem-
bering that, in this context, the royal emblem was passed through the female
line within a ruling matrilineage (Spaulding, 2006: 399). Given the matrifocal
logic that impregnates the icon, it is possible that the Funj took their emblem
from preexisting symbols of fertility (Koman or Gumuz). Meaningfully,
the Gumuz, who usually decorate their granaries with breasts made of mud,
sometimes replace them with shaŋgi. This is a particularly common solution
in the Guba area, near the Sudanese frontier, where Islamic influence pre-
vents the use of breasts for decoration (see figure 3.7). Shaŋgi also appear in
the sticks (gumba) used by women for dancing. Not surprisingly, shaŋgi is a
symbol particularly popular with women and, with the decline of scarification
due to state pressures, it is still women who are more often scarified.
The female body is decorated in two other ways: by smearing it with ochre
and by covering it, tying it, and piercing it with adornments. Although not
as commonly as in Marno’s days (Marno, 1874: 253), Gumuz women still
anoint their bodies with grease and ochre on particular occasions. They make
a paste (gefeka) with sesame or castor oil (k’osha) and red ochre (dea), and
smear it on their bodies and hair. As one informant put it, in old times, if a
girl wanted to get married, “she had to look red.”33 Meaningfully, in those
places where women do not use ochre on their bodies anymore, such as in the
eastern part of Metekel, they still smear it on the baby bag (dimba),34 the skin
of the dimba becoming a substitute for the human skin. Ochre can be used
for ceremonies and social occasions, such as going to the market (Tadesse
Tamrat, 1982: 357, n. 27). Ochre is generally related to ideas of cleanliness:

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 Direct Action against the State: The Gumuz 127

Figure 3.7. Shaŋgi motifs in a granary in Jarenja (Guba wereda) without the inscribed
cross and in Manjari (Pawe wereda) with the inscribed cross.

after menstruation, women crop their hair and smear it with grease and ochre.
However, the main event for which women employ this pigment is for their
wedding, and they also used to wear a special skirt made of tree bark. In
Manjari, they add fragrant flowers (borija) to the mixture, so that the body is
not only pleasant to see and touch, but also to smell. The flowers that are most
commonly used are gardenias and roses (Zelealem Leyew, 2011: 124). The
result is a complete sensuous transformation of the person. The paste is first
prepared in small grinding stones, whose presence is ubiquitous in Gumuz
villages, and then anointed (see figure 3.8).
As it happens with scarifications, the use of ochre is undoubtedly very
ancient and widespread: evidence for the use of hematite is abundant for
prehistoric times (Fernández et al., 2007: 112, Figure 27; Kendall, 2003;
Schmidt et al., 2008b: 148). Historical information is available from the late
sixteenth century onwards: the chronicler of King Särs’ä Dïngïl reported on a
group of “black and naked slaves” in Metekel, some of whom “were painted
with white earth and the rest with red earth” (quoted in Tadesse Tamrat, 1982:
349). In 1882, Schuver saw a group of Gumuz warriors “smeared with fat and
ashes” (James et al., 1996: 193). The custom seems to have been more wide-
spread during the nineteenth century, and peoples that today have completely
abandoned it, such as the Bertha, still employed ochre as late as the 1870s

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 128 Chapter 3

Figure 3.8. A woman anoints with ochre the body of a young girl. Courtesy of the
Bureau of Information, Culture, Tourism and Social Affairs of Benishangul-Gumuz
Regional State

(Evans-Pritchard, 1932: 18). Despite the decline of nudity under state (or Is-
lamic) pressure, ochre has not disappeared. Quite the contrary: in the village
of Manjari, which is located in the middle of the resettlement area and close
to the zone capital, I found many women busy grinding ochre. It was not, or
not primarily, to spread on their bodies, but on their dimba.
Women further enhance their appearance with nose piercings, bracelets,
armlets, and earrings. Earrings and nose piercings are particularly represen-
tative of the Gumuz. In fact, they are typical of most indigenous groups of
the borderland: Gwama, Komo, Ganza, and “black” Bertha or Gamili. Large
earrings seem to have been prevalent among Nilo-Saharan communities at
least from the second millennium BC onward (Fazzini, 2003; Kendall, 2003).
Gumuz pendants are very easy to identify, because of their particular mor-
phology and decoration. They are flat and horn-shaped, with one end wider
than the other one, which is inserted in the ear, and they are engraved with
geometric motifs. The abundance of necklaces (which is also evident among
the Komo and Uduk) caught the attention of Juan Maria Schuver in 1882,
who noted that “nowhere have I seen the girls adorned as much as here, with
bead ornaments beautifully arranged according to individual taste” (James et
al., 1996: 194).

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 Direct Action against the State: The Gumuz 129

Gumuz women usually wear several thin bracelets, made of copper or

nickel, on each wrist, and armlets. In the area of central Metekel (Dangur),
armlets are more frequent than bracelets. They are now made of plastic
strings of different colors, but used to be made of goat leather or of wild
animals’ skin (see Leiris, 1934: figure 20), in which case they are considered
a protective amulet. The use of these armlets has been categorized also as a
“harmful traditional practice,” allegedly because it was tied too tightly, and it
has been abandoned in those areas more subjected to state surveillance.
Whereas other peoples, such as the Mao, purchase metallic adornments
from highland smiths, the Gumuz acquire them from local male artisans. How-
ever, women are very active at making adornments for themselves. They em-
bellish necklaces and bracelets with plastic and glass beads bought at the mar-
ket, although they also frequently use seeds and berries, whereas this practice
has been abandoned by most of the other borderland communities. Although
plastic and industrial alloys are more and more abundant, there is one kind
of adornment that is invariably made in the traditional way: anklets of dried
dom palm fruits, which are sewn together tightly. It is interesting that these
anklets are only worn by babies of both sexes until two years or so of age, in
which case they are called anchagwa, and by women for dancing (ants’its’a)
(as seen by Schuver in 1882: James et al., 1996: 195). That they have not been
substituted by plastic is perhaps due to the rattle effect of the dom fruits, which
is difficult to reproduce with the available industrial materials.
Perhaps one of the most characteristic things in Gumuz women’s adorn-
ments is the outstanding relevance of recycling and incorporation of foreign
objects. Necklaces and dimba are lavishly decorated with all kinds of arti-
facts: animal bones, teeth, claws, shell casings, small glass bottles, Islamic
and Christian leather amulets, calabash sherds, strips of leather, plastic,
metallic pieces, straps from digital watches, and cowries. They make a curi-
ous collection of both traditional and modern things. We have already seen
that the incorporation by the Gumuz of elements from other peoples, even
their traditional enemies, has to be understood as an appropriation of alter-
ity as a means of empowerment. The case of the necklaces proves that the
refashioning of alien knowledge is not just immaterial—as James (1977b: 23)
describes it—but also very tangible and implies a sensuous engagement with
the world and its substances.
Gumuz women are rarely, if ever, seen without their necklaces, bracelets,
and earrings. From the youngest children to the oldest women, they always
have some kind of adornment. Their relevance can be glimpsed in a historical
tale narrated in Ate Meti (Kamashi Zone). According to the story, in ancient
times people had a ritual that consisted of having a tree decorated with neck-
laces and bracelets (ch’äle in Amharic). If the adornments fell from the tree or

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 130 Chapter 3

the branches with necklaces were cut, great disasters would follow and people
would start killing each other. This is what happened at some point: the brace-
lets fell to the ground, war broke out, and the Gumuz had to escape from their
ancestral homeland and wander around until they could finally settle in their
present location in Kamashi.35 As it occurs with other groups in the region
(such as Komo and Uduk), women remove their adornments when they are
mourning, as well as during late pregnancy and for a time after childbirth
(Irwin, 1968: 132, 139). Whereas nudity and scarifications, key elements for
being Gumuz, have been repressed, the same does not happen with necklaces
and bracelets, which have acquired a renewed importance. As opposed to the
chaotic and colorful proliferation of recycled, artificial, and natural elements
with which Gumuz women enhance their bodies, highland women wear only
their sober and orthodox Maria Theresa thalers and silver crosses around the
neck (see figure 3.9). Given the amount of time devoted to their making, that
they are arranged according to personal taste, and their importance in shaping
and enhancing the body, female adornments can be considered “core objects”
(sensu Boesch, 1991) for the Gumuz, and more than that, a true technology
of the self (González-Ruibal et al., 2011).

Figure 3.9. Left: A young Gumuz girl adorned with a variety of industrial and natural
elements. Photo by Xurxo Ayán. Right: An Agäw family, with women dressed in tradi-
tional attire. Courtesy of Xurxo Ayán and the author

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 Direct Action against the State: The Gumuz 131

By clinging to traditional ways of displaying the body, Gumuz women

resist hegemonic bodily rules, which prescribe a certain kind of dress, adorn-
ment, and concealment of body parts. Resistance, however, is not restricted
to the bodies themselves or to the artifacts attached to them. It is also an
issue of bodily hexis (Bourdieu, 1990: 69–70), of daily technical gestures
that become subtle acts of resistance. This becomes obvious when one sees
Gumuz and highlanders together, for example, in the cultural and geographic
borderline defined by the Kar Mountains. As soon as one starts to descend
the escarpment, it is possible to see Gumuz women in their traditional attire,
bare-breasted, dimba on the back, and skillfully balancing their carrying
stick (ndiga) over their shoulders. Groups of highland women can also be
seen transporting bundles on their backs and covered from tip to toe. They
are both strong, heavy-working women, used to walking tens of kilometers
under heavy loads. Yet their bodily gesture is strikingly different. Gumuz
women walk upright and look people face to face. This is possible thanks
to an artifact: the ndiga, which balances the load and forces one to keep the
back straight. An identical carrying stick is used also by the Kunama, Nera,
and Hamej, all living immediately to the north of the Gumuz (Grottanelli
and Massari, 1943: 57–59; Rosetti, 1910: 969), the Ingessana (Jedrej, 1995:
87), and the Bertha who live closer to the Gumuz (Grottanelli, 1948: 302,
figure 3). Highland women, mostly Agäw and Amhara, trudge completely
bent under the disproportionate weight that they carry directly on their backs
(see figure 3.10). Members of every group know the other’s way of carrying
the load and yet every woman sticks to her customary way of doing things.

Figure 3.10. Left: Gumuz woman with ndiga in the road to Mandura. Photo by Víctor
M. Fernández. Right: An Amhara girl from Wollo, resettled in Benishangul, carries a
heavy load of sorghum on her back. Courtesy of Víctor M. Fernández and the author

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 132 Chapter 3

We know, from the time of Marcel Mauss (1936), that bodily gesture is not
innocent. It is not just culture that is at stake. Sometimes, it is a particular
ethics and a political stance. Bourdieu (1990: 72) notes that “the opposition
between the straight and the bent . . . is central to most of the marks of respect
or contempt that politeness uses in many societies to symbolize relations of
domination.” Usually, the male is associated with upward movements and
female with downward movements: “uprightness versus bending, the will to
be on top, to overcome, versus submission—the fundamental oppositions of
the social order.”
Thus, Amhara women walk bent under heavy loads whereas their husbands
walk free and upright, an axe on the shoulder; Bertha women do walk upright,
but their husbands still are on top, as they usually ride a donkey. Gumuz
women may have to carry loads heavier than their male counterparts, but they
are neither bent nor in a physically lower position than men. This is a thor-
oughly political and moral statement: what bodies are saying is that Gumuz
women refuse to bend. Words could not put it in a more eloquent way. They
do not bend in the market, where I saw them standing up and staring defiantly
at the rest of the people; all highland women were squatting low. They do not
bend when they come from the river, with the ndiga loaded with two large
gourds or jerry cans brimming with water. Finally, they do not even bend
when they grind at the grinding stone. In that, they differ from other groups
in the borderland, even those that have relatively more egalitarian relations
between men and women. The Gumuz use a system that allows them to avoid
kneeling when grinding. Gumuz grinding stones (gisha) do not lie on the
ground: they are set upon a wooden platform, a sort of table, that is covered
with mud (iligisha). This simple device allows them to grind upright (see
figure 3.11). Interestingly, the grinding table has probably been adopted from
highlanders, as the system is known among Amharas and Tigreans (Lyons,
2009: 150, Figure 9). In the case of the highlanders, the heavy grinding struc-
ture is consistent with more monumental and stable houses and an intensive
agriculture with high yields that require longer processing times. In the case
of the Gumuz, the choice of the raised grinders is in all likelihood related to
the women’s bodily hexis, rather than the amount of time devoted to grinding
(no different from other lowland groups). To understand this hexis, we have
to look at the status of women among the Gumuz.
Gumuz women have an inferior status as compared to men and, in some
areas where social stress is higher, they are subject to frequent mistreatment.
Only 21 percent of schooled children are girls (Befekadu Zeleke, 2002:
1581); women and girls are subjected to food taboos, and they are the ones
who suffer more from the potential troubles of sister-exchange marriage.
Nevertheless, they are still in a better position than women in the highland

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 Direct Action against the State: The Gumuz 133

Figure 3.11. Amäna Shami grinding on the elevated grinding stones inside her
house.

communities. The highlanders (including Amhara and Oromo) have a strong

patriarchal ideology. According to Levine (2000 [1974]: 54), “nearly all the
peoples of Greater Ethiopia consider women generically inferior, express
little if any appreciation of distinctively feminine traits, and harbor many
idioms of contempt for alleged female attributes.” This patriarchal standpoint
is straightfowardly manifested in a rich corpus of folktales and proverbs
(Bekele, 2010). Thus, the Oromo say that “women can grow tall, but without
wisdom,” while the Amhara argue that “a woman and a donkey can’t be kept
straight without the stick” (Markakis, 2011: 41). The abundance of popular
sayings has no match among the Gumuz, or among any other indigenous
group in the western borderland for that matter.
The status of women is invariably higher among the lowland communi-
ties, with the only exception of the Mayu Bertha, due to Islamic influence.
One index of this higher status is the absence of clitoridectomy, which is
widely practiced among neighboring dominant groups (and also the Bertha).
Although it is true that Gumuz consider women as polluting, they perceive
this pollution in quite different terms from highlanders. The latter think of
female contamination as mainly a threat toward men (Levine, 2000 [1974]:

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 134 Chapter 3

54), whereas for the Gumuz impurity is rather a danger for the community
as a whole, just one danger of pollution among many others. Also, while
sister exchange can be seen as a mechanism that reifies women, reality is
more complex, as they participate actively in the exchanges and see them as
a practice serving their own interests, in contrast to the bridewealth system
(James, 1986: 136).
The higher status of Gumuz women in society is seen in daily life, in their
participation in public events, their social attitudes, and, as we have seen,
their bodily gesture. Regarding the first point, women can participate in
public discussions, including rituals of conflict resolution. Elder women are
allowed not just to attend, but also to actively participate in the negotiations
during these rituals.36 Women can also be ritual specialists and many women
are, in fact, gafea, the most important kind of ritual practitioner among the
Gumuz. The public role of women, which is virtually absent among the high-
land peasants, was evident for me in the village of Bowla Dibatsa. We were
kindly hosted in a compound for several days by a Gumuz family: everything
was arranged by the older woman in the household, Amäna Shami, who was
our interlocutor for the length of our stay. Her husband did not interfere at all.
While it is true that the domestic space is traditionally the sphere of female
agency, relations with strangers are invariably delegated to men in patriar-
chal societies. Even when Gumuz women are beaten by their husbands, they
do not necessarily suffer meekly: Kalkidan Bekele (2007: 70) reports that
“Gumuz women are physically strong and in most cases they fight back their
husbands,” something that would be unthinkable among the Amhara. They
can also complain to the elders, who can punish the husband, although such
punishment is more symbolic than real.
It is significant, in this regard, that Gumuz women systematically refuse to
marry highland men (Amhara, Agäw, or Oromo). I have already noted that in
the Kamashi Zone I could document several cases of interethnic marriages,
especially in the villages closer to the plateau. Thus, in Deguba Bedisa, I vis-
ited the compound of a man, dead at the time of my visit, who had married
two Oromo women and one Gumuz. The women, who were in their forties,
dressed Oromo-style but used the ndiga to carry loads. In the neighboring
village of Dimtu, another Gumuz, also dead, married a young Oromo woman
who survived him. In those same villages, I was told that Gumuz women
plainly refused to marry Oromo men. They do not say why, although one of
them argued that they do not like them because they are “red”37—a reversal
of the highlanders’ dislike of “blacks.” This reason, however, should prevent
Gumuz men from marrying k’ai women too, but it does not. The truth is that
whereas the status of an Oromo or Amhara woman does not worsen by mar-
rying a Gumuz, the other way round it does. James also considers that Gumuz

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 Direct Action against the State: The Gumuz 135

women refuse bridewealth because they want to retain rights over their own
fertility, a desire based on traumatic memories of slavery (James, 1986: 138).
Using the ndiga, like raised grinding stones, implies a permanent material
memory of equality. Connerton (1989: 72) argues that “our bodies . . . keep
the past . . . in an entirely effective form in their continuing ability to perform
certain skilled actions.” It is not only that they keep the past: they force us to
remember it. I would equate the ndiga with the hotel key that Latour (1992)
offers as an example of the agency of artifacts. As the bulky weight of a hotel
key compels the guest to leave it at the reception desk, the ndiga forces (and
reminds) women to walk upright and to look others in the face. The ndiga,
like the hotel key, stabilizes relations. However, these are not just between
social actors (both human and non-human), but also between the past and
the present. Unlike the hotel key, the relationship stabilized by the carrying
stick is fundamentally a politico-moral one, which explains the resilience of
the artifact to disappearance. Thus, in the Gumuz communities living in the
Didessa Valley, which have been heavily influenced by the Oromo, women
still carry the ndiga as do the Kunama who have been resettled in refugee
camps (Lavall, 2009). The fact that, of all their traditional artifacts, they have
retained carrying sticks speaks volumes to their importance. If, as Connerton
(1989: 95) argues, in the cultivation of habit “it is our body which ‘under-
stands’” and if Bourdieu (1990: 73) is right when he says that “the body
believes in what it plays at,” then Gumuz bodies believe in not yielding.

Granaries and Anxieties

As in many nonmodern groups, the Gumuz value fertility highly. However,
there seems to be an extra concern with fertility, especially human fertil-
ity, among the Gumuz as compared to other neighboring communities. The
women who are not fertile may be expelled from the homestead and returned
to their parents’ village, something that is much less usual among other
groups, whose male population opts for marrying an extra wife when the first
one does not give offspring. A Gumuz man told me that he would say to a
barren wife, “You are being fed but you are not bearing any children. I don’t
want to be with you. Go away. There is no reason for you to stay with me. If
you don’t give me children, nobody will help me.”38 As in other groups in the
borderland, some Gumuz ritual specialists have the power to allow a woman
to bear children. The specialist who can help barren people is the dïmusa (see
section 3.5).39
The experience of slavery might be, as in other cases, related to the empha-
sis placed by the Gumuz on fertility in general and female fertility in particu-
lar. For a group continuously drained of their material and human resources,

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 136 Chapter 3

a certain excess of fertility, of the fields and of the people, has been almost
a prerequisite for survival. It is important to bear in mind that those who
suffered the slave raids most were women, and particularly young women
and girls: men were often killed and women and children taken as slaves
(Abdussamad H. Ahmad, 1999: 439). Women were fundamental not just for
the normal biological reproduction of the group, but also for establishing and
maintaining friendly relations with other clans through sister exchange. A
concern with creating and preserving human life is present also in other bor-
derland groups that have suffered greatly from slave raids, famine, and war.
The Uduk, for example, have developed a complex ritual for the promotion of
children’s life (Guruña), which is in the hands of women and revolves around
the central notion of the human community springing from the fertility of
women (James, 1979: 206).
Among the Gumuz, the relationship between female fertility and fertility
in general is materialized in granaries. Granaries are made of bamboo basket-
work and covered with a mixture of mud and straw. They can be normal or
double-sized (see figure 3.12). The second type is used for storing different
kinds of grain, usually sorghum (k’wancha) and finger millet (tank’a). These
large granaries are only found among the Gumuz. The word for granary is
telling: the most common designation is kuŋgwa, with variants (kuŋwa, kuŋa,
kua, kuwa) (Unseth, 1989: 629). Meaningfully, the word “breast” is kua or
kuwa (Bender, 1979: 58) and in many villages both “granary” and “breast”
are pronounced the same. Besides, the two words are in turn homophonic
with “milk” (kua). It is not strange, then, that Gumuz granaries are decorated
with breasts. This is a unique feature of the Gumuz, as no other society in the

Figure 3.12. Left: Double granary, decorated with breasts and scarifications in Man-
jari. Right: Pot decorated with breasts.

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 Direct Action against the State: The Gumuz 137

borderland decorates granaries at all and only the Bertha have decorations
of breasts, although inside houses (González-Ruibal, 2006b: 397), probably
due to Gumuz influence. This extra investment in granaries confirms Gumuz
preoccupations with promoting fertility and the strong relationship between
giving birth and producing grain: when a new couple inaugurates their house,
the elders make a sacrifice of a rooster, smear its blood on the central pole,
and say: “This house will be a good one. You will have good children in it
and you will have good crops.”40
Breasts are modeled with fresh mud and straw by girls and young women
(that is, fertile women). They are in charge not just of the decoration, but of
covering the entire granary with mud, whereas men make the structure and
the basketwork. This division of labor is coherent, because Gumuz women
make pots and Gumuz men make all things that involve the cutting and weav-
ing of bamboo (baskets, beer filters, mats, and house walls). The association
of pots and granaries is reinforced by the fact that there is a kind of pot that
is decorated like the granary: it is the one used to prepare the sauce with
which the porridge (ŋga) is eaten. The name of the pot is nse koga, kogwa,
or kuŋgwa (koga means “sauce” or “stew”: Amharic wät). Again, the name
is phonetically similar to “breast” and “granary.” These pots often have two
pairs of knobs around the neck in the shape of breasts.
Granaries are almost like a second female body. This prosthetic character
was eloquently put to me by an old Gumuz woman from Ate Meti: “Girls put
breasts on the granaries to show their beauty [the girls’ beauty]. It is a sym-
bol of their beauty.”41 It is their breasts, then, that they are modeling on the
mud. Apart from breasts, granaries often have scarifications as well. At times,
bodily scarifications are faithful reproductions of the kind that decorates bel-
lies, breasts, and faces: constellations of small dots (which are painted white
on the granaries) or the geometric patterns of the cheeks. Mud breasts are
often surrounded by a circular or elliptical molding, which recalls the circle in
shaŋgi scarifications and the symbol of the royal kettledrum of the Funj that
have been mentioned in the previous section as related to fertility.
It can be argued that granaries are decorated because they are not ordinary
things, they are the house of Zida, the spirit of agriculture, who helps the
Gumuz while working the land and harvesting, brings rain, prevents evil
winds from blowing, and defends people from disease. As the dwelling of
a supernatural being, the granary has to be approached with care: if women
are menstruating, they cannot go near a granary or they will have pain in the
breasts.42 They cannot cover them with mud either or decorate them. A ritual
has to be carried out before the contents of the granary are used: some grain
is picked up and put into a gourd, on top of which a rooster is sacrificed. Only
after the sacrifice can grain be eaten. Most people I asked noted that female

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 138 Chapter 3

breasts in granaries had no particular meaning: they are exclusively for adorn-
ment, but they remark that Zida likes this kind of decoration. The presence
of Zida in the granary is positive, because it protects the grain—among other
things, against robbers—so it is good to keep it happy. The spirit, though,
only lives in the granary when it is full of grain; the rest of the time, it resides
in the main house with Mus’a Mets’a. This explains why we can sometimes
find the same motifs of breasts and circles inside some houses that are molded
in granaries and the prohibition to menstruant women of entering the house.
By linking themselves with Zida through the granaries, women are ex-
pressing their crucial role in the reproduction of Gumuz society. Through
the fashioning of things (granaries and pots), they associate themselves, and
more specifically their bodies, with both raw and cooked food. They equate
giving birth and producing food, the two things that are basic for the survival
of the community. For women, then, granaries are at the same time a vehicle
of expression and part of their being, an extension of their bodies. It is not
strange, therefore, that the decoration of granaries changes when life condi-
tions of women change. The language of the granaries is a mute one: women
do not have an elaborate discourse about their art. As it occurs with other bor-
derland groups, it is often the men who have the discourse, who speak about
history and their culture, who openly express their political opinions. This
does not mean that women do not have a discourse of resistance, but it is of-
ten a non-verbal one. I would argue that theirs is the silent language of things
and the body, and these two powerful languages are combined powerfully in
granaries. Granaries say with mud what women cannot say with words. And
what granaries tell is a story of resistance. Not only of resistance to the state,
but also of resistance to the patriarchal order. Or maybe not even resistance:
sometimes it looks more like an expression of distress.
I have said that granaries, like women, are scarified. Meaningfully, in the
Gumuz language, writing and scarification are expressed with the same word:
k’ot (Uzar, 1993: 362). The Gumuz know that writing is a graphic way of
expressing thoughts—and so is scarifying. When women make scarifications
to granaries, it is as if they were writing on them, and it is not by chance that
those girls who are being educated at schools are beginning to introduce writ-
ing as part of the decoration. What is “written” on granaries varies depending
on the region and the pressures to which women are subjected. There are
three main areas (or contexts) of decorated granaries: the Guba region, the
Blue Nile Valley, and the buffer zones of Kamashi and central-eastern Me-
tekel (see figure 3.13).

1. In the Blue Nile Valley, granaries are generally decorated with two
small breasts, often surrounded by a circular molding. The decoration

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Book 1.indb 139
Figure 3.13. Distribution of Gumuz granary types.

2/25/14 6:21 AM
 140 Chapter 3

occupies a central position in the granary, although, due to its limited

size, it is not very conspicuous. In the same region, there are also
granaries with up to three pairs of small breasts and dotted decoration
depicting bodily scarifications.
2. In the Guba area, granaries are always decorated with geometric motifs,
as a result of Islamic pressure, as religion proscribes figurative images
(not to say naked female bodies). Here, as it has been pointed out,
women are usually covered (even veiled) and do not show their breasts.
The most common decoration is the single circle, a symbol of fertility,
or a circle with an inscribed cross. Moldings are used either to represent
scarifications or to give the granary a more anthropomorphic look.
3. The contact zones of Kamashi and eastern Metekel, and especially the
peri-urban areas, are those where a more varied array of motifs can be
found. All decorations present in other regions are used and other de-
signs are added, including writing. This type deserves closer attention.

The most prevalent of the non-traditional motifs to be found in contact

zones are anthropomorphic figures representing men, often with an erect pe-
nis and clearly marked testicles. Sometimes a man is holding his penis with
his right hand (see figure 3.14). Other times they have their arms akimbo,
thus forming a molding that reminds one of a facial scarification. Anthropo-
morphic figures can be big and occupy almost the entire wall of the granary.
In some examples, instead of the male figure, only the testicles and penis are
depicted, in some cases in between two breasts. Female representations are,
strangely enough, rare. I could only spot two examples, which were identi-
fied by their breasts or oversized vulvas. Instead, breasts are ubiquitous, but
they are different to those depicted in other areas, as they are often oversized
and their number greater than in other regions. A granary in Bowla Dibatsa
(Dangur) had fourteen breasts of different sizes, apart from other decorations,
and one in Maataba (Pawe special wereda) had twelve. Reliefs usually cover
the entire surface of the granary, and they are not well organized as in other
areas. Isolated scarifications, of the kind prevalent in Guba, exist, but are not
usual. Two elements are of special relevance: crosses, which reveal the influ-
ence of evangelization, especially in Kamashi Zone, and writing. Regarding
the latter, I found two interesting examples: one in Manjari had the name
gäbäya (market) inscribed between a man holding his penis, an arrow, and a
couple of breasts.
The second example comes from Ate Meti. It is a granary with breasts and
scarifications. The letters have been written with dots, as body scars. There
are two sentences: (1) geta näw Ïyäsus (“Jesus is Lord”), written in Amharic
but with the wrong syntax (in Amharic the verb, näw, goes at the end), and

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 Direct Action against the State: The Gumuz 141

Figure 3.14. Granary in Manjari with man holding penis, breasts, and letters (gäbäya,
“market”).

(2) Ï/R [Ïgzïabïher] säch’i näw (“God is generous”), also in Amharic but with
correct syntax this time. This reflects simultaneously the influence of school-
ing and evangelization. There are several Protestant communities in Kamashi.
In Lugo, we could hear the religious chants at night in one of the huts. They
do not have churches or priests, so they meet in each other’s house every
night to sing and pray. In Lugo, almost all Christians were women, only the
person who guided the prayer was a man. The same trend seems to also apply
in Metekel, this time with Catholics (González Núñez, 2010).
If the granary can be considered a “core object” (Boesch, 1991) for Gumuz
women, an object whose importance is so great that it is even an extension of
their self, then it is reasonable to expect that self and thing are transformed
simultaneously. It is not by chance that the non-traditional, excessive, and
disordered decoration of the granaries coincides precisely with those regions
where life is excessive, disordered, and breaking away from tradition. These
circumstances particularly damage women. In our stay in Manjari in 2006,
we were informed that two young women had recently committed suicide and
Father González Núñez (2010: 323–24) tells of the suicide of another woman

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 142 Chapter 3

in Mandura in 2009. The suicides have to do with family problems: the

obligation to engage in undesired marriages and the clash between the wish
for liberty and the restrictions imposed by the traditional order. Internal and
external violence, as we have seen, is rife in the peri-urban areas, alcoholism
is high, and women are often the victims of the situation, which witnesses an
increased patriarchal control. They cannot enjoy the benefits of moderniza-
tion, while at the same time lack the support and reassurance of the traditional
framework, which is falling apart.
What the Gumuz girls and women manage to do with granaries, then, is
what Rancière (1992) considers to be the task of the historian: with extraordi-
nary poetic power they literally make “the mud and crops speak.” They shape
their world, not with words, but with earth, straw, and grain. And the silent
language of the granary is sometimes a song to the earth and to themselves,
to their shared power to deliver life, and sometimes a shout of anxiety, of a
troubled present of unspeakable violence.

3.5. A SENSE OF DANGER

Paul Gilroy has noted that both Africans and Jews share the same feeling of
danger, fear, and vulnerability, which stems from their historical experiences
of persecution and exile. This experience explains why the figure of Moses
has proved resonant for slaves and their descendants (Gilroy, 1993: 206–7).
Significantly, the name for spirit or god in Gumuz is Mus’a, which is the
Islamic name for Moses.43 A ritual specialist told me that “Mus’a has helped
the Gumuz throughout history.”44 The Gumuz might have been acquainted
with this figure through their neighbors: the Sudanese Muslims, the K’ämant
Agäw, the Beta Israel (Ethiopian Jews), or even the Christian Amhara.
Among the Beta Israel, Moses plays a paramount role (Quirin, 1998: 216).
The K’ämant Agäw have a religion that has been described as “pagan-He-
braic.” Although the prophet (Muse) has a rather ambiguous role in K’ämant
religion, he is certainly well known (Gamst, 1969: 38). We have already
seen how the Gumuz are continuously reworking their myths and assimilat-
ing external influences (including biblical ones) to fit current situations and
concerns, although preserving the same narrative core. Moses, the liberator
and protector of slaves, could be easily identified with the local spirits—of
the house, sorghum, rain, earth, sky, tree, and so forth (Wolde-Selassie Ab-
bute, 2002: 1039)—which always have a protective character. The opposite
of Mus’a are the evil spirits (gefich’a gensema). They are often named with
a foreign term, too: Seytan. In the same way that there are many Mus’a,
there are uncountable Seytan: in the rivers, mountains, forests, and elsewhere
(González Núñez, 2010: 182).

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 Direct Action against the State: The Gumuz 143

The constant and regular invasions that have characterized Gumuz life
from ancient times to the present are crucial to understanding their cultural
attitudes and mechanisms of resistance. It is not just a feeling of abuse, it is
more precisely a diffuse and constant sense of danger: external forces are
always lurking around, ready to trespass the limits of the Gumuz world and
to bring misery and death. In the interviews with the Gumuz, more than with
any other group, I got the impression that they lived in a fragile world in
which any simple mistake could have tremendous consequences: if a men-
struant woman enters a house she will die, children will die if somebody eats
the first sorghum instead of offering it to Mus’a,45 and so on. The forces that
menace the Gumuz can have human or non-human shape, be tangible or in-
tangible, and people react toward them in different ways. The purpose, in any
case, is to create barriers to prevent invasions, to reestablish the boundaries
between the Gumuz world and the rest. For that, Gumuz mobilize all sorts
of things: ritual specialists, charms, medicines, fences, arrows, and automatic
weapons. I will group these devices according to whether they are aimed at
material or immaterial enemies.

Immaterial Invaders
The sense of vulnerability and danger caused by a long experience of abuse
can be linked to a typical Gumuz phenomenon: an obsession with pollu-
tion. Some fear of pollution is present among most societies (Douglas, 2002
[1966]), and it certainly exists in all communities examined here. Many non-
modern groups consider themselves perpetually exposed to contaminating
forces, such as evil eye, evil spirits, disease, and sorcery. Pollution, from this
point of view, can be regarded as a form of transgression of boundaries that
brings illness or death. This is not very different from what slave raiders and
state agents do to the Gumuz: they also break into their territory and wreak
havoc upon the people.
While some measures of protection are taken by all groups examined
here, irrespective of their cultural affiliation, the Gumuz seem to have an
extra concern with the trespassing of boundaries by evil forces. In that, they
closely resemble the neighboring Ingessana, whose anxieties, according to
Jedrej (2004: 724), are not structured in terms of transmission of evil through
reproduction and kinship, but “in the spatial terms of the persistent invasion
of their territory, localities, and homesteads, and even their bodies, by ma-
lignant external agencies which must be repeatedly identified, extracted, and
driven off.” This attitude is expressed through the rituals in which the evil left
by others in Ingessana land is expelled. In a large collective ritual witnessed
by anthropologist Akira Okazaki, a large group of Ingessana gathered, after

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 144 Chapter 3

a Dinka (Dingi) raid in their hills, to identify and extract all traces of “bad
things” left behind by the invaders. They walked and ran around the infected
territory, brandishing their spears, yelling, and throwing stones to evil things
or digging them up with digging sticks (Okazaki, 1992: 72). Material en-
emies, then, can leave immaterial traces of pollution. A similar fear toward
external polluting and trespassing agents is prominent among the Gumuz
and is manifested in different things: the prohibitions and ritual precautions
surrounding menstruation, pregnancy, childbirth, marriage, and sexual rela-
tions (including virginity and adultery). We should not think, however, that
invisible invaders are fought only with immaterial devices (spells, prayers, or
bans); they are, of course, crucial, but so are tangible things, such as poles
and roots.

Polluting Agents
The most dangerous moment of pollution is related to menstruation. The
material world of women changes during the menses: there are particular
huts, clothes, and stools for the menstruation period. Other everyday utensils
(such as pots or gourds) are prepared to be used exclusively during the men-
struation period (Kidanemariam Demellew, 1987: 23). The bark of a kind
of sycamore (Ficus vasta) was traditionally used as a loincloth (ch’ich’a),
in substitution of the most common species of sycamore (Ficus sycomorus),
which was used on the rest of the days (Zelealem Leyew, 2011: 124; also
Kidanemariam Demellew, 1987: 26); a special belt is worn around the waist,
still today, made of vegetal fiber (gita). Women have to sit on a special stool
(tuga gaya), which is the same as all other tuga, but is only used during
menstruation. When women reach menopause, they stop using the stool and
it is thrown away outside the village. Regarding daily activities, they have to
discontinue most of them, such as cooking, making pots, or filling granaries.
The potential effects of the presence of a menstruant woman are devastating:
pots will break while they are being made, crops will dry out, weapons will
not work, smiths will not be able to make tools, and the like. Their life is, in
fact, quite secluded at this time. During their first and second menstruation,
they have to live in a special house, a tiny hut called mets’a gaya, similar
in size and shape to the huts built by boys for themselves, when they reach
adolescence and leave the main house (obisi mets’a) (see figure 3.15). This
type of small structure is generically called kogwa or jibita. From the third
menstruation, they can stay in the main house, but always close to the door
(the space for guests) and they are never allowed in the back part of the house
(Geremew Feyissa, 2011: 271), where cooking is carried out and beer is
brewed. In some places, girls are confined into a special house during every

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 Direct Action against the State: The Gumuz 145

Figure 3.15. A Gumuz compound in Bowla Dibatsa with main house (right) and kogwa
for teenagers (left).

menstruation. Apart from seclusion, another way of avoiding the dangers of

menstruation is signaling the places that can be damaged by the menstruant’s
power: thus, in a cultivated field where Mus’a is believed to inhabit, a red
corncob is stuck on a pole as a warning.46
Women also have to live in seclusion during the last weeks of their preg-
nancy (Kidanemariam Demellew, 1987: 22), and they give birth in isolation
and far from the village, a fact that is not recorded among most neighboring
groups. Giving birth is considered dangerous and polluting. The birth of
twins, in particular, requires specific actions: the husband must slaughter
two goats or chickens and everybody must bring two things (for example,
two dishes of porridge or two cups of coffee). The woman has to eat from
both, first with her right hand, then with her left hand, and do the same thing
with coffee and beer. She cannot have sexual intercourse with her husband
until the children are one year old. Rather than the twins being polluting, it
seems that they are in a fragile position and can be polluted themselves. Thus,
anybody who wants to visit the mother has to leave his or her shoes outside,
because the house is considered to be clean.47

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 146 Chapter 3

The time of marriage is also a dangerous moment. The newlyweds have

to spend a week in isolation in a small hut (jibita) built for the occasion in
the groom’s father’s compound. Husband and wife must have their heads
covered lest they fall ill. After three days, they can leave the hut and uncover.
During this time, the new wife has to eat from a different pot (antersa) than
her husband and the rest of the husband’s family. These precautions seem
to be related to sex, as the couple is expected to lose their virginity in seclu-
sion.48 Even among well-established couples, sex is still a matter of pollution.
Thus, a blacksmith cannot have sexual relations the day before working in the
forge (Geremew Feyissa, 2011: 313).
Another concern that can be related to a fear of trespassing and pollution is
adultery. The traditional draconian punishment for adulterers among the Gu-
muz is surprising, given the casualness with which this issue is dealt among
other groups. In many neighboring communities, an irate husband might want
to wound or kill a man having sexual relations with his wife (James, 1979:
132; Tesemma Ta’a, 2003: 170), but there are no typified punishments for
extramarital sex or they are lenient—payment of a fine in specie. This is not
the case with the Gumuz. In his travel to the Guba area in 1882, Schuver
encountered a large assembly of armed men, covered with grease and ash.
They had just executed a woman who had committed adultery and the man
was sold as a slave (James et al., 1996: 193). Henry Salt (1816: 294) also
heard from a Gumuz that adultery was punished by death. Punishments for
adultery are still harsh. I was told that a husband is allowed to flog his wife
if she had sexual relations out of wedlock and, after that, to return his wife
to her parents’ homestead. Less severe solutions are often taken, though. Old
people may convene a ritual of conflict resolution to deal with the problem, as
an adultery case may easily lead to a violent clash between clans, as we have
seen. The council of elders usually demands that the adulterer pay a certain
number of animals (an ox or two cows), who are collectively consumed, and
some money is given to the elders who participate in the ritual. The woman
might be allowed to return to her husband’s house, but she will be assigned
a wadda, a person who is in charge of guaranteeing her good behavior and
who will have to pay a fine if the woman commits adultery again. While this
seems a more humane treatment than flogging or killing, it does not preclude
these options: a woman who commits adultery twice can be killed by her
husband,49 although the killing of the man who committed adultery is also
a possibility.50 Adulterers and their relatives, in fact, are regularly killed by
angered husbands.51
Sex out of wedlock is considered more serious when it occurs with some-
body from another ethnic group. Even if it is not adultery, having sexual rela-
tions with a Shwa (Agäw, Boro, Amhara, or Oromo) is regarded as a great

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 Direct Action against the State: The Gumuz 147

offense, at least for women. Women who have relations with foreigners are
subjected to social ostracism and will not be able to marry. Meaningfully, the
situation is expressed in terms of disorder: sex with highlanders is equated
with sex between a goat and a sheep (Geremew Feyissa, 2011: 226). This has
to be related to a wider concern with virginity, which, again, is exceptional
with the Gumuz among the indigenous borderland groups. A girl’s virginity
is highly valued and has to be kept until marriage (Kidanemariam Demellew,
1987: 24): if it is not, she can be returned to the family at the time of the wed-
ding, with all the conflicts that this might cause, due to the sister-exchange
marriage. Wolde-Selassie Abbute (2004: 242) recorded an episode of burying
alive a man who had deflowered a young virgin from his own clan, a crime
equated to incest.
Women are also subjected to food taboos, which are rare for men (Berihun
Mebratie, 2004: 115–16). These taboos are diverse, but always relate to meat
consumption. In some cases, some animals cannot be eaten in the villages
of the husband’s clan, but they can in the village of the woman’s clan; some
animals cannot be eaten if they have been hunted in a particular way or until
a certain age or status has been reached.
Although pollution is often caused by the action of one or several individu-
als, entire settlements can be affected. If following a suspicious death a ritual
specialist (gafea) decides that the village is infested with evil spirits (gefich’a
gensema) and the survival of the community is in danger, the settlement will
be abandoned and a new one founded nearby (Dessalegn Rahmato, 1989:
37). However, the evil spirits that infest a hamlet can be driven out through a
ritual (as the Ingessana do), called kemusa by the Gumuz. In this ritual, young
men play the yambelea, an assemblage of twelve bamboo flutes, to expel all
the spirits that cause the illness (Geremew Feyissa, 2011: 321–22). Ritual
prohibitions, in fact, particularly affect those things that are more precious for
the maintenance of the collective: this includes not only everything related to
human procreation, but also agriculture. Thus, water cannot be drunk near the
threshing floor, babies cannot suckle from their mothers’ breasts, and people
cannot wash their bodies until the grain has been completely stored in the
granaries (Berihun Mebratie, 2004: 128).
The practices of separation, protection, and defense against pollution are
present also among minority groups that live close to the Gumuz but had
been incorporated into the state at an early time. The Beta Israel or Falasha,
the Jewish minority who live, or used to live, near Lake T’ana, had to retire
to “huts of blood” during their menses and were more rigidly isolated than
Christian women during childbirth (Quirin, 1998: 210). The K’ämant Agäw
also separated women during menstruation and childbirth (Quirin, 1998:
204): like the Gumuz, almost every K’ämant homestead has a permanent hut

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 148 Chapter 3

for menstruant women, where they have to stay for seven days without leav-
ing for any reason (Gamst, 1969: 99–100). After labor, a woman has to enter
a temporary confinement hut, where she will stay with her baby for a week
(Ibid.: 100). Adultery is punished in these places more severely than among
the highland communities, and this includes death (Quirin, 1998: 210). There
also are religious restrictions on food, such as pork and fish (Gamst, 1969:
38, 80), which, in this case, affects the entire community. Both K’ämant and
Beta Israel have traditionally tried to resist incursions from outside by any
means possible, refusing to pay tribute, fighting, segregating themselves, and
clinging to peculiar religious practices (Quirin, 1998: 218), a historical expe-
rience that resonates with the Gumuz. Yet menstrual separation is also found
among the dominant Ethiopian society as well, and houses for menstruant
women exist in peasant villages and in monasteries alike (Edelstein, 2002:
160; Pankhurst, 1998). Regarding virginity, a concern with it is found among
groups, such as the Hadiya, that have traditionally lived in the periphery of
the state and that have been exposed to the influence of universal religions
(Braukämper, 1992: 201).
For a people so concerned with pollution, it is surprising that little attention
is paid to the maintenance of their households. They have, by far, the messi-
est compounds of all borderland groups. Bertha women regularly sweep the
frontal part of their houses and the Komo spend a lot of time keeping their
compounds clean and well arranged. The latter are the opposite of Gumuz
households. In a Komo yard, there is only leveled, trodden earth, and pots,
stools, and other objects are carefully organized around the spotless yard:
they are so concerned with physical cleanliness that they have three different
kinds of brooms (gorish wei, gorish beshermeda, gwarad), depending on
the surface to be swept (grinding stones, interior floor, external floor). In the
middle of a Gumuz compound, instead, one can find, in no apparent order,
ashes, bones, dust, stubble, feathers, grinding stones, fishing nets, broken
pots, and debris from different activities (see figure 3.16). Moreover, burials
are interspersed inside and between domestic compounds: although they are
usually placed in the back of the house (boŋgo mets’a), this is also where sev-
eral daily activities are carried out, such as pottery making (see figure 3.17).
For a society so obsessed with pollution, their lack of concern with
physical dirt might seem surprising. However, for the Gumuz, “The most
serious form of pollution . . . is ‘spiritual’ pollution” (Dessalegn Rahmato,
1989: 37). The situation is quite similar to that of the Sudanese Nuba. This
people, which has been included in the group of montagnard paléonigritiques
(Froelich, 1968), has many points similar to the Gumuz. They both live in
mountainous environments that have acted as sanctuaries against raids, have
been regularly attacked by slave traders, and have survived as an autonomous

Book 1.indb 148 2/25/14 6:21 AM

 Figure 3.16. Two ideas of cleanliness and order: the Gumuz village of Manjari (above)
and the Komo village of Yengu (below).

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 Figure 3.17. A burial in the middle of the village of Bowla Dibatsa.

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 Direct Action against the State: The Gumuz 151

group in the border of the state, suffering its depredations. Like the Gumuz,
the Nuba have developed a strong concern with pollution, reflected in their
fear of menstruation and food taboos (Hodder, 1982: 155–63). This concern
is paradoxically not extended to physical dirt, which is ubiquitous in their
compounds. What they are afraid of are evil spirits and disease, and they
protect their houses against them with elaborate decorations (Hodder, 1982:
161–62). Following Mary Douglas, Hodder relates anxieties over pollution
with troubled relations with outsiders. This seems to be the case with the Gu-
muz, too. It is perhaps not by chance that we found the dirtiest compounds in
the Pawe area (Metekel), the epicenter of the resettlement scheme and state
institutions. It is probably not a coincidence either that the Gumuz, who live
on the state borderline, are simultaneously surrounded by dirt and obsessed
with pollution, while the remote Komo clean their compounds twice a day,
but remain quite unconcerned with contamination.
While the Gumuz do not seem worried about the dirtiness of their houses,
they show, instead, a surprising concern with the cleanliness of their pots.
Unique among the borderland traditions is the custom of dry cleaning cooking
pots using smoke. Women light a small fire in front of their houses, with a
mixture of straw, corn leaves, and dung; they place above the fire an inverted
vessel (usually large tich’a for cooking porridge) and leave it there for a few
hours until it is considered free of dirt. The idea is to keep the pots clean and
prevent the porridge from sticking to the walls. It is tempting, however, to link
this emphasis on cleaning the cooking utensils with fears of the body being
trespassed by evil and disease, a fear that is present in food taboos, as well.

Cleansing and Protective Agents

Most invisible enemies can be dealt with on a daily basis with some simple
measures of protection; however, when a mistake has been made or evil spir-
its have managed to slither into the lives of people, it is necessary to resort to
a ritual specialist. The overabundance of ritual specialists among the Gumuz
does not only speak of their commitment to equality, as I have already noted,
but also of their ontological fears and perceptions of danger. It is not just that
the number of specialists is high: what is most striking is their diversity (see
González Núñez, 2010: 188–99; Wolde-Selassie Abbute, 2004: 74–76). A
world suffused with evil has to be counterpoised by a proliferation of experts
who are adept at cleansing evil, irrespective of its origin or nature. As it has
been described earlier, the Gumuz have a variety of ritual specialists of dif-
ferent power and skill: gola, gafea, dïmusa, and ette.
The gola is the most powerful specialist, described by Wolde-Selassie Ab-
bute (2004: 75–76) as a “witchdoctor” and a “prophet,” with a great ability

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 152 Chapter 3

to combat evil. Much more common is the next specialist in the ritual hier-
archy, the gafea, gafia, or gwahea (depending on the Gumuz dialect). The
gafea, who can be a man or a woman, is able to cure illnesses and make
rain. For dealing with disease, he often prepares medicines with plants and
roots, but the remedy has to be disclosed to him in dreams. It is possible
that the origin of the gafea is found among the Boro. During my stay with
the Boro people, I was told that the main ritual specialist is called gafa. The
gafa blesses the land and prays for the maintenance of peace, for success
in war, and for having wealth and food. Likewise, the Gumuz gafea has
the role of mediating with spiritual forces to bring fertility to the land and
people (Wolde-Selassie Abbute, 2004: 74). Both Gumuz and Boro gafea/
gafa can bring and stop rain. According to a Boro elder, the name gafa means
“power.”52 It is tempting to interpret this word as coming from “Kafa,” the
kingdom that is so closely associated to the origin of the Boro people in the
sixteenth century. The Gumuz from Kamashi admit that a large part of their
magical knowledge came from the Boro of Wämbära,53 who are considered
powerful magicians by other groups (Plazikowsky-Brauner, 1970: 31, 37;
Tsega Endalew, 2005: 10–11). Their ancestors living in the Kingdom of Da-
mot were already renowned for their esoteric powers (Pankhurst, 1997: 86).
While the name of the ritual specialist and some of their practices may be
influenced by the Boro, other elements certainly pertain to the common tradi-
tion of the lowlands: this is the case with oneiromancy, which can be found
among the Mao, Gwama, Ingessana, and other groups, and with particular
rituals, such as moving a chicken around the body of a sick person as part of
the curing ceremony (Jedrej, 1995: 52).
A third type of ritual specialist is the dïmusa. The dïmusa is able to dis-
cover the nature of an illness without touching the body of the sick person. He
burns incense and interprets the smoke to determine the evil agent. The same
procedure is used to foresee the future. This is similar to other specialists that
exist among the Uduk and Bertha (James, 1988; and see section 4.3). Some of
the abilities of the dïmusa are making people fertile and changing the direc-
tion of the wind to prevent crops from being destroyed. People come to pray
inside his house, where Mus’a resides around the central pole (michina) of
the hut, and to have their newborns blessed. Some dïmusa foresee the future
in dreams (misumishiga), rather than by burning incense. If the dïmusa sees
a catastrophe coming, he calls people to pray together so as to avoid it hap-
pening or, at least, to lessen its impact. Below the dïmusa, there is a variety
of ritual experts, called ette, that have already been mentioned.
The role of the central pole in the rituals of the dïmusa and gafea deserves
some attention. It has been argued that the symbolic relevance of the central
pole is a pan-Ethiopian trait (Levine, 2000 [1974]: 59). This is only partially

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 Direct Action against the State: The Gumuz 153

so. It is true that the central pole is found among the main architectural tradi-
tions of the Semitic, Cushitic, and Omotic groups, and that this element has
strong social or religious resonances. However, it is irrelevant as a building
element among most Nilo-Saharan societies, including the Bertha, Mao, and
Koman peoples. The only indigenous borderland group that systematically
erects a central pole, which is, in addition, endowed with religious meanings,
is the Gumuz. In all likelihood, this is another external element of power that
the Gumuz have appropriated for their protection. Again, it is very probable
that the source has been the Boro. The Boro pray to their god, Ik’o, around the
central pole (ira) of their houses, which has a phallic shape (a typical Omotic
feature). The prayer is often accompanied with collective beer drinking, for
which a large pot (k’unda) is placed next to the pole. They also spit on their
hands and then rub the central pole to ask Ik’o for favors. Salt bars are often
tied to the pole, because Ik’o likes to lick it with its cow-like tongue. The salt
bars can be offered to obtain the intervention of Ik’o in the healing of a sick
person. If the person dies, they untie the salt from the ira and throw it into
a river.54 Salt offerings are still placed on the pole by Christian Boro: an old
woman from Dor, in the mountain of Wämbära, tied a salt ingot to the central
pole as a gift to the Virgin Mary, who had cured her of an eye ailment.55 Apart
from salt and beer, other offerings are placed around or tied to the ira, such
as corn and gourd seeds and first fruits.
The Gumuz use the central pole (michina) in a similar way, but it seems
that it has a greater importance among them. As we have seen, they believe
that Mus’a Mets’a, the spirit of the house, lives there. Mus’a Mets’a is the
most important spirit for the Gumuz. Different rituals take place around the
michina: people pray to Mus’a Mets’a and ask the spirit for children, health,
or abundant crops. They take ill children there to be cured. They also make
different kinds of offerings, including first fruits: they hang the first millet
that is harvested from the central pole and believe that if they fail to do so,
their children will die. The same is done with corn, beans, and other fruits. Al-
though offerings of first fruits are hung only on the michina, people sprinkle
beer, aräk’i, and porridge all over the house floor after praying to Mus’a.
Another ritual consists in smearing the pole with the blood of a rooster after
inaugurating the house.56 The blood is also splattered on the floor in different
places. There are also differences with the Boro. For the Boro, the pole is a
medium of communication with god, whereas for the Gumuz, the michina is
understood rather as the spirit’s dwelling. Moreover, as Mus’a’s residence,
the central pole is primarily a protective device—against evil, disease, and
misfortune—in accordance with Gumuz concerns. Given the relevance of the
central pole for the Gumuz, it is not strange that it is a prominent material
feature in the house. The base is covered with mud, in which a platform is

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 154 Chapter 3

often prepared for placing offerings (see figure 3.18). As in the Boro case,
different objects are hung from the pole: the most valued possessions of the
Gumuz (such as money, ritual objects and amulets, adornments, and in some
cases schoolbooks and clothes) are usually kept on the michina, inside a
basketwork bag.
Another protective device that we had the chance to document is rather
unique. In the village of Ate Meti, a rainmaker (Abasho Dino) had fash-
ioned an altar (mokoshima) by piling together many stones. It is dedicated to
Zida, the agricultural spirit (the same that lives in granaries), and the ritual
specialist sacrifices there goats, sheep, and chickens to bring rain and stop
bad winds. The meat from the sacrifices is cut in little pieces and thrown on
the altar, and the blood is sprinkled in the four directions. The owner of the
altar had sculpted human-like figures, identified as his ancestors, that were
placed in front of the altar. Their role is to pray when he is not around (see
figure 3.19). There were other associated artifacts: an incense burner carved
in soapstone and an old Ethiopian sabre, probably from the late nineteenth
or early twentieth century. Behind the stone structure, there was another altar
that resembled a typical drying platform. The difference is that it had a large
carved stool underneath, where the ritual specialist sat during the ceremonies,
and that the platform was covered with a heap of grass. Abasho told us that
fresh grass was put there as an offering to Zida to obtain good crops. More
common are the arches made with branches of the gidea tree, which are
erected in the paths and roads around settlements to prevent evil from invad-
ing them. People gather around the arches and offer beer to Mus’a (González
Núñez, 2010: 180, 185). All three elements (central pole, altar, and arch) are
material artifacts whose role is to keep at bay immaterial enemies—invaders
of the Gumuz world. Material artifacts, however, are also used to stop very
tangible enemies, as we will now see.

Material Invaders
Spirits and disease are just one category of external invaders. The Gumuz
have traditionally faced, and still face, material enemies: from Axumite slave
raiders to present agribusiness companies. These enemies, unlike the ones
just mentioned, can be fought face to face and deterred in a physical way.
In this section, I will refer to two main mechanisms of resistance: domestic
architecture and weapons.

An Architecture of Fear
Wendy James (2000) has noted the prevalence of a particular dance pattern
in Africa that takes the form of a wide circle with a group of musicians in the

Book 1.indb 154 2/25/14 6:21 AM

 Figure 3.18. Michina inside two Gumuz houses. Above: Map of a house in Boka
with a large platform surrounding the central pole made of mud and stones.
Below: A smaller platform in a Gumuz house in Mandura. From the pole hangs
a bag with valuable and ritual objects.

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 156 Chapter 3

Figure 3.19. Gumuz altar in Ate Meti. In front of the altar, it is possible to see the
statue of an ancestor (left) and an incense burner (right, behind the hearth).

middle. She interprets this as a metaphor of the community, whose members

look at each other in equal terms within the circle and give their backs to the
outer world. The Gumuz have a version of this dance with equivalent implica-
tions. An interesting element in this dance is the attitude of the dancers: they
do not simply dance in a circle, they embrace each other tightly around the
shoulders or the waist, forming an authentic wall against the external world:
a fence of bodies. Fences, in fact, are an element that characterizes Gumuz
domestic architecture and the organization of village space. In that, they dif-
fer from most other groups in the borderland, who do not raise walls of any
kind, between themselves or between them and the external world. Not all
Gumuz compounds are fenced, and the distribution of fenced villages, as we
will see, is significant.
In his description of the Komo people in Sudan, Frank Corfield (1938: 154)
noted that as soon as slave raids declined in the borderlands due to colonial
patrols, the Komo changed their settlement patterns: their nucleated, stock-
aded villages gave way to dispersed, open farms. Something similar occurred
with the Uduk, who concentrated in dense settlements, sometimes surrounded
by palisades, during the worst years of slave raiding, but exchanged them
for scattered undefended settlements when peace arrived (James, 1979: 25).
This latter pattern can still be seen today in the Ethiopian lowlands, where

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 Direct Action against the State: The Gumuz 157

Komo villages extend for several kilometers, with domestic compounds far
apart from each other and with no fences at all. The same landscape can be
found among some Gumuz communities (James, 1977b: 11), but only those
that are located in remote places or far from contact with other groups. This
is the case of the Gumuz villages along the banks of the Blue Nile, such
as Sirba and Berkasa. Another region were Gumuz settlements are open is
Guba, where only independent “pagan” villages in the district ruled by the
local dynasty of Funj chiefs (Abu Shok) were traditionally raided (Garretson,
1980: 204–5), whereas the rest were protected, even from external raiders
(Abdussamad H. Ahmad, 1999: 438–39). This explains why most Gumuz in
Guba declare themselves Muslims, even if they hardly practice the religion.
Compared to the villages of eastern Metekel, settlements in Guba and the
Blue Nile Valley are smaller and with fewer inhabitants. In some cases, they
are less proper villages and more a sprawl of unfenced domestic compounds
or spaced clusters of compounds, like their Gwama or Komo counterparts
(see figure 3.20).
The tendency toward open, scattered spatial arrangements follows a politi-
cal logic. Dispersed settlements are an antipower mechanism and a guarantee

Figure 3.20. Boka: A scattered village near the Blue Nile.

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 158 Chapter 3

of freedom (Clastres, 2001; Scott, 2009). They respond to the same “centrifu-
gal logic” that Clastres (2001: 205, 213) identifies in primitive war and that
helps preserve autonomy and hamper social division. A scattered population
lends itself less well to control by hierarchical authorities than nucleated
settlements: it is logical that the Ethiopian state (like any state) has insisted,
from the 1970s, to resettle people in concentrated villages. The interruption
of fission as a way of coping with demographic growth is typically associated
with the emergence of early states (Connah, 2001).
However, fission and dispersal is sometimes sacrificed in situations of
great social stress (see figure 3.21). This is the case with the Gumuz of east-
ern Metekel. Where dispersal is not an available option, other solutions have
to be found. The most common one is the fence. The fence is a guarantee of
protection and autonomy when distance cannot be achieved.
Far from the Blue Nile, and especially in the areas of inter-group contact,
the organization of space varies dramatically. Every compound is surrounded
by a fence (chek’wa) and the entire village, from the outside, offers the ap-
pearance of an impregnable fortress. Fences, which are about a meter and half
high, not only protect domestic structures, they also enclose an area behind
the house (boŋgo mets’a) where the compound dwellers dump ashes and gar-
bage, make pottery, and have granaries. Fences usually enclose an even wider
area where the owners of the compound plant sorghum, corn, and vegetables
(lich’ela). Houses are constructed around a central yard: lisa mets’a or gisi
mets’a, which is also the name of the door (literally “house’s mouth”). Family
and neighbors meet to chat or carry out different activities here, such as wash-
ing pots or looking after the children, and this is where my interviews took
place. Houses, then, are located in the innermost area of the compound, re-
moved from the bamboo-flanked streets and from other compounds. Although
fences are pulled down during the dry season (between January and March)
and erected again before the rains start (April and May), this is not systematic:
the village is not stripped bare of barriers. It is done only with the fences that
have suffered more with the heavy rains and are in disrepair. Thus, every time
I visited Metekel during the dry season I saw many fenced compounds (see
figure 3.22). The limits of each homestead are, in any case, always discernible
because of the remnants of walls (poles and bamboo strips).
This closed, labyrinthine layout has two spatial implications: on the one
hand, Gumuz villages in contact zones have a much lower permeability (both
internal and external) and, on the other hand, they are much less flexible
in terms of perambulation (for the concept of permeability, see Hillier and
Hanson, 1984). Fenced villages impose a particular choreography: it is not
possible to walk freely, enter, or leave the village from whatever place one
wants to as in scattered settlements. This is particularly obvious in those set-

Book 1.indb 158 2/25/14 6:21 AM

 Figure 3.21. A. Gumuz village of the open type (Jarenja). B. Gumuz
village of the fenced type (Mandura area). C. Ingessana village in the
Tabi mountains (Sudan).

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 160 Chapter 3

Figure 3.22. Fenced compounds in Manjari during the dry season.

tlements that are organized along a main pathway or road (see figure 3.21B):
perambulation is here strictly controlled, because there are only two points
of entrance or exit at each end of the village, and the path itself is flanked
on both sides by bamboo fences. However, even if the layout is more closed
and impregnable than in remote zones, these are still villages of equals, with
a distributed spatial structure: all households have the same connection to the
outside. In other cases, nucleated villages grow in concentric circles, which
produce a labyrinthine layout. It is difficult to find one’s way: for someone
not acquainted with the village, it is easy to end up in a different house, in
a dead alley, or outside the village. Compounds often have funnel-shaped
entrances, which allow for a greater control of those who enter. In fenced
villages there are no empty, neutral places—a square or yard—where locals
or aliens can gather (except outside the village). The only public places are
pathways, which are narrow and surrounded by visual barriers. Villagers
meet in each other’s compounds, but it is a hostile place for outsiders: one
always feels out of place or without a proper place to be. The nearer settle-
ments are to contact zones, the more hostile they are for aliens. In relation to
this, it is worth noting that the Gumuz are the only group in the entire region

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 Direct Action against the State: The Gumuz 161

studied in this book that have not adopted the house for guests (the kalwa or
khalwa already mentioned). The khalwa among the Mao, Komo, or Bertha is
always open to strangers. During our fieldwork, we usually slept in our own
tents, but when we asked for lodging, we were hosted in teenage houses: the
small jibita. The owners were relocated elsewhere.
I have said that fenced compounds are atypical of the borderland groups
under study. There is, however, another community that resembles the Gu-
muz in their emphasis in physically marking the limits of the compounds: the
Ingessana. Although the landscape in the Ingessana Hills is characterized by
scattered farms, instead of nucleated villages, the appearance of individual
compounds very much resembles that of the Gumuz (Jedrej, 1995: 22–25).
Charles Jedrej notes that the Ingessana built the stronger and more elaborately
constructed homesteads in the Southern Funj. They are surrounded by a fence
of thorns (meiñ), which encloses an area of cultivated fields and tombs (kal).
Encircled by the kal stand the huts, granaries, and pens, which are united by
a stockade made of trunks (raok) stuck into the ground (see Figure 3.21C).
The Ingessana compound, then, has the labyrinthine and fortress appear-
ance of the Gumuz homesteads. The Ingessana have been described as be-
ing endowed with a “siege mentality” (Davies, 1995: 68): materiality, and
particularly the built environment, plays an outstanding role in shaping and
producing this mentality.
When I asked the Gumuz about the reason for fencing the compounds, they
always said that it is to prevent cattle and goats from eating the crops around
the houses.57 This seems to be the case also with the Ingessana: they have to
endure the annual visit of pastoralist Baggara whose animals are a danger to
their crops. Yet this only explains fences partially. There are groups, like the
Bertha, who live with cattle and goats and still do not resort to fences and,
on the contrary, there are groups who have relatively few animals and have
fenced compounds, such as the Añwaa. In addition, there are Gumuz who
do have goats in other places and still do not erect bamboo walls. When my
colleague Geremew Feyissa (2011: 339) inquired about this point, he was
told that “young people were more obedient in the past and looked after the
orchards more carefully.” This seems hardly convincing. We have to under-
stand fences as a technical decision that cannot be reduced to a mere practical
necessity. Even something as banal as a fence is full of social consequences:
thus, Pierre Lemonnier (1990) has noted that fencing an orchard to protect
it from pigs is just one technical possibility among many and that the fence
is entangled in myriad social, economic, and material facts in Papua-New
Guinea.
I would argue, then, that the fenced world of the Gumuz respond to differ-
ent reasons, not all of them directly functional, but all related: a social fear of

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 162 Chapter 3

theft, an experience of division and conflict, and a historical need for defense,
all of which have provoked a “siege mentality.” Regarding the first point, I
do not rule out the fear of cattle or goats destroying the crops as a rationale,
but there is an underlying social issue that is perhaps as important as the fear
of losing the sorghum and beans: the fear of entering in a spiral of conflict
with the owner of the animals. In a society where feuds and vendettas are so
prevalent and so easily sparked and where the memory of an offense is so
lastingly inscribed in people’s minds, it seems reasonable to keep one’s com-
pound as offense-proof as possible. Limits have to be very clear to avoid con-
flicts with neighbors and outsiders. Related to this is the obsession with theft
that is ever-present among the Gumuz of eastern Metekel. This obsession
relates to the concern with maintaining the limits of one’s property. Stealing
is considered one of the greatest offenses and with reason, as it implies the
breaking of trust, in which community relations are based, and it might lead
to internecine feuds, as we have seen—remember the stolen tobacco in Bowla
Dibatsa, which ended up with five people dead. “If you do not steal, you will
live longer,” a man from Manjari told me.58
Several stories or proverbs criticize those who steal from neighbors: in
them, those who are regularly robbed end up changing the product that is
stolen for another substance: sand instead of sesame or feces instead of
honey—to the disgust of the thief.59 It is also said that there are two things the
spirit of the granaries, Zida, dislikes most: menstruant women and stealing.60
To defend themselves from potential robbers, the Gumuz resort, apart from
fences, to a root (biya), which is buried beneath granaries to prevent them
from being robbed. It is thought that, if a sample from the earth trodden by
the thief is displayed on the back of the house near the granary for Zida to
see, the spirit will be able to discover the thief and punish him by provoking
an itch in his body, illness in the eyes, and even death (Geremew Feyissa,
2011: 238). People also believe that the stomach of a robber will swell with
the rains. This obsession with robbing is probably not just related to the em-
phasis on collective trust and the fear of feuding, it may also be linked to the
historical experience of taxation and looting that the Gumuz have suffered.
Those communities who have been more exposed to depredation by the state
and its associates were deprived of a part (or all) of their crops every year.
Duri Demeke, an eighty-year-old man from Bowla Dibatsa, remembered that
“The Agäw ate lots of goats and chicken. They slept in the Gumuz’s houses
after expelling their owners. They forced women to work for them. They stole
oil seeds and forced the women to grind them and prepare food.”61
Fences are structurally coherent in a world suffused with conflict. They
are not only a tool for preventing open conflict and preserving autonomy.
They are also a materialization of ongoing, latent conflicts and tensions, in-

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 Direct Action against the State: The Gumuz 163

ternecine and external. A divided world asks for walls. It is significant that
the granaries themselves are surrounded by bamboo fences. Again, people
argue that they have to be built in order to prevent goats from eating the grain.
However, their Agäw neighbors have goats and cattle and never fence their
granaries. Neither do other communities with domestic animals. In fact, the
granary itself, elevated on forked poles or stones and with the opening only in
the upper part, makes it virtually impossible for most animals to eat the grain
inside. Furthermore, I never saw a fenced granary in Guba or the Blue Nile
Valley, that is, in those areas where domestic compounds are not fenced and,
therefore, where granaries are more exposed.
The overabundance of defensive mechanisms, of barriers and divisions,
has to be put in relation to a historically shaped siege mentality, akin to that
of the Ingessana. Gumuz and Ingessana are societies against the state on the
state frontier, who have continually suffered slave raids and invasions, yet
have stood firmly on their ancestral lands: instead of retreating, they have
“turned inwards” (Jedrej, 2000: 293). In both cases, this has generated anxi-
eties toward trespassing, which are manifested in rituals, beliefs, and in the
material shape of their world: a besieged landscape of fences and partition
walls, to which the Gumuz resort when they cannot disperse. Not all Gumuz
are ignorant of the social implications of fencing the land. One of the persons
I talked with, Anderge Tanka, a man in his fifties from the village of Manjari,
was well aware of the historically contingent character of fences and of their
relation to wider changes in Gumuz society. He told me that they did not
have fences in the past and that they lived scattered in the forest: they only
started to erect fences when their mobile life stopped62—and their mobile
life stopped when the state started meddling with their lives, forcing them to
relocate and resettling people from elsewhere in their ancestral lands.
Finally, the general configuration of Gumuz villages—with their labyrin-
thine organization, funnel-like entrances, and constricted movements—looks
like an imprint from the past: a trace of trauma that reenacts in the present
ancient outrages from the time of slavery. As a living memory of that time,
villages reproduce the nucleated, labyrinthine layout that gave the Gumuz
a chance to escape from raiders. This latter point is best seen in a peculiar
architectural element: the back door (borwa).
Many Gumuz houses have two doors, a frontal one, which is always open
and in use, and a back one, which is almost without exception closed. The
only two minority groups in the area that have a similar architectural element
in the borderland area are the Boro and the Ingessana. The latter use it to go
to the fields behind the house (Jedrej, 1995: 24). The Boro, instead, explain
the back door in the same terms as the Gumuz do. When I asked the Gumuz
about these doors, they always gave me the same answer: in the time of

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 164 Chapter 3

slavery, the back door was used to escape when the raiders entered the com-
pound. I obtained the same reply all over Gumuz territory. It is surprising,
because most non-functional things are either non-explainable, because their
meaning works at an unconscious level (such as the decoration of pottery),
or are explained in functional terms (fences for goats). Back doors are a con-
scious materialization of a traumatic past and a continuous reminder of the
history of abuse endured by the Gumuz. The back door, however, does not
seem very functional. People do not spend much time indoors and even when
they do, they would hardly have the time to escape from the back door if the
raiders stormed inside the house. Yet some people insist that they were actu-
ally used for that: old Duri Demeke from Bowla Dibatsa said that his family
escaped that way in the 1930s.63 Interestingly, the back door is also related to
pollution: people used to fear that if meat was introduced in the house through
the front door, the family could be the victim of evil eye, so they had to use
the back one (Geremew Feyissa, 2011: 335). The same relation between the
back door and dirt exists among the Boro: they say that the rear door (gadi
fingishá) is used to throw away the rubbish so that the guests, who sit near
the front door (uri fingishá), do not have to see it.64 Both things (pollution and
danger) are complementary, as Douglas (2002 [1966]) has shown. The fact
that the back door is still opened even in small huts in resettlement villages,
such as Deguba Bedisa (Kamashi) (see figure 3.23), proves two things: the
extent to which a sense of danger has become the backbone of Gumuz cul-
ture, and the persistence of a memory of abuse, which is only understandable
if the abuse continues in some way in the present. “The house of our birth
is physically inscribed in us,” wrote Bachelard (1957: 32). What applies to
the ego, applies to society as a whole. The house of birth of the Gumuz is a
house with a wound.

Archaic Weapons
Living so close to powerful states, the Gumuz have always been well po-
sitioned to acquire state technologies. We have been seeing how the Gumuz
have rejected all those technologies that do not make them stronger. It does
not come as a surprise, then, that they have been eager to acquire firearms.
The increasing firepower of the Gumuz (especially since the input of Soviet
weapons in the 1980s) has made raids and feuds more dangerous and lethal.
At present, the Gumuz are, by far, the best armed group of the western bor-
derland, at least up to Gambela. This is resented by other communities: an
Agäw informant, Dästaw Bïrhane, said to me that “The Reds are not allowed
to arm themselves. If they try, the Gumuz would inform the government and
the government would disarm them.” There is a clear relationship between

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 Direct Action against the State: The Gumuz 165

Figure 3.23. House in the resettlement village of Deguba Bedisa with two doors.

weapons and political enfranchisement. The government to which our infor-

mant refers is the regional government. As we have seen at the beginning
of this book, regions have an ethnic basis and, in the case of Metekel, the
authorities belong primarily to the Gumuz ethnic group (followed by the
Boro). Amhara, Agäw, and other highlanders are virtually unrepresented in
the regional parliament—a complete reversal of the historical situation in the
borderland. The relationship between political enfranchisement and firearms
(or weaponry more generally) is not dissimilar to that which exists in the
United States. In both cases, rather than based on utilitarian grounds, the
right to bear arms is something related to fundamental ideas of citizenship,
community, independence, morality, and egalitarianism. The same Agäw
peasant who complained about the Gumuz being allowed to be armed told us
that the Gumuz “move from village to village with their guns. This is their
culture, they do not move without a knife, gun or bow. Even if they go to
the toilet or when they are taking coffee, they carry a gun. When a baby is
born, the relatives try to get a gun for him.”65 For the Gumuz, to be deprived
of their weapons is something deeply troubling. One of the things that an old
man from Kamashi remembered about the Italians is that they took the arms
from the people.66 An account provided by another man from the village of
Manjari, in Metekel, is eloquent in this regard. He was telling me about the

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 166 Chapter 3

many conflicts between the Gumuz and the government since Haile Selass-
ie’s era and the many times they had to move and resettle in different areas.
According to the old man, they had a violent clash with the Agäw during
the communist period, when living around Mount Belaya. Because of this,
all their guns were confiscated by the government. The Gumuz community
therefore decided to move again “in order to look for a new plot of land to
cultivate and to buy new guns.”67 The copulative sentence speaks volumes.
Being armed is placed at the same level with producing food. They are both
necessary to survive and reproduce Gumuz society: in those villages where
bridewealth is paid, the groom has to give guns and cartridges to the bride’s
family (Meron Zeleke, 2010: 80).
Rifles among the Gumuz are not a new import. A Boro elder from Wäm-
bära remembered that in the times of Haile Selassie, the Gumuz attacked the
Boro who tried to invade their lands with “wujïgra [Fusil Gras], nasmasär
[Vetterli], chirk’it [?], spears, etc.”68 A Gumuz from Mandura, who had fond
memories of the Haile Selassie period, told us about a paramount chief of
the Gumuz, Hersha, who had his own army at the time and posed a threat to
the state. He remembered that Hersha’s men were well armed with wujïgra
and wechefo (another variant of the Vetterli, a rifle from the 1870s).69 The
fondness for weapons, however, precedes the appearance of firearms, which
did not become common until the late nineteenth century, as in the rest of
Ethiopia (Pankhurst, 1968: 579, 590–91). In the chronicle of Särsä Dïngïl, the
first king to plunder the Gumuz land and leave a detailed account of it, it is
reported that the Gumuz (Shangalla) did not fight back against Särsa Dïngïl’s
invasion, “Even though these people were armed with shields and spears in
quantities beyond counting; and even though they were crackshots like the
children of Ephraim; and even though there was no one who did not carry
a bow and a quiver full of poisoned arrows” (translated by Tadesse Tamrat
[1982: 349]).
Shields have virtually disappeared; spears (ankase) have a varying impor-
tance (greater in the Kamashi area, due to Oromo influence); guns are very
widespread, but not all homesteads have one, and many of those who have
a firearm also have some traditional weapon. The only arms whose impor-
tance seems to have persisted through millennia are bows and arrows. The
survival of these archaic objects precisely in the area of the borderland where
automatic weapons are most abundant is as surprising as is great their social
relevance. The people from Lugo, in Kamashi, place their weapons in a hi-
erarchical order: they consider arrows their main weapon, secondarily, rifles,
and in third place, spears. The point is that the Gumuz are not the only group
to have used bows and arrows, but they are the only ones that still do, at least
in a regular and conspicuous way. The Mabaan, Jum Jum (Evans-Pritchard,

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 Direct Action against the State: The Gumuz 167

1932: 16; Grottanelli, 1948: 300; James, 1979: 44), and Uduk (James, 1979:
32, 150) are known to use or to have used these weapons until fairly recently
in the Sudanese side of the border. Regarding the Uduk, James (1979: 32)
writes that “a man regularly carries his six- or seven-foot bow with arrows,
some spears and throwing sticks and perhaps his fire-drill, when he traverses
bushland and forest,” but the impression is that these weapons were not as
present in Uduk life as they are among the Gumuz. This striking prevalence
of bows and arrows, then, requires an explanation.
Every Gumuz boy or man has at least one bow and a few arrows. Bows
(yedegwa) are made of bamboo and they are almost the size of an adult male
(1.70 meters). Bamboo is flattened, carved, and polished to give it the proper
shape. The front part of the bow is decorated with vertical carvings. There are
five different types of arrow: iron-made, leaf-shaped with barbs, called che-
degwa; iron-made, pointed, also with barbs, called benta; blunt wood-headed
for killing birds (oginsegwa); and flower-shaped, made of small sticks and
called beginsegwa, also for killing birds. A fifth type is like chedegwa but has
no barbs. It is called gent’a (all terms in the Gumuz dialect from Mandura).
Children receive a tiny bow when they are around six years old, and they use
it with arrows lacking the metal tip. “We could say,” writes Father González
Núñez (2010: 161), “that Gumuz children are born with bow and arrows
in their hands.” Unwittingly, the missionary is echoing the words of James
Bruce of Kinnaird (1813: 43), who said of the Gumuz two and half centuries
earlier that “they are all archers from their infancy” (see also Meron Zekele,
2010: 40; and see figure 3.24). Through time, the bow and arrows become
one with the Gumuz, who seldom walk out of the village without them.
The location of bow and arrows when they are not being used is telling:
they are systematically placed inside the house, in the frontal part, near the
door. To the other side of the door, exactly in the same position, one can find
one or more carrying sticks (ndiga). They are always stored in the same place,
but never together on the same side: if the bow is what defines a Gumuz man,
the carrying stick is what makes a Gumuz woman. As it happens with other
core objects, Gumuz bows and arrows are related to different rituals. They
were the only items that were buried with men, at least during the eighteenth
century (Bruce of Kinnaird, 1813: 44), and in the Kamashi area there are
ritual specialists who, before going to hunt or to war, put a medicine (biya) in
the arrowheads of the hunters so that they can hit the target. Women in some
villages are allowed to eat animals hunted with firearms, but not with bows
and arrows (Berihun Mebratie, 2004: 115; Meron Zekele, 2010: 58), a pro-
hibition extended to fish killed with arrows (Meron Zekele, 2010: 59). Bows
and arrows also appear in some origin myths: one of the primeval choices that
separated Gumuz and Shwa referred to arms. The latter opted for the shield

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 168 Chapter 3

Figure 3.24. Boys with bows and arrows in the village of Manjari.

and the spear, whereas the former took the bow and arrows (Wolde-Selassie
Abbute, 2009).
The question is, why keep the bow if so many other weapons are avail-
able? There is a practical side to it: cartridges are much more expensive than
arrows. But there is more to it. All groups in the borderland rely on core ob-
jects they carry with them at all times: Bertha men throwing sticks, Mao men
spears, Mao women the cloth for carrying children, Gumuz women carrying
sticks and dimba. These artifacts have an undeniable functional purpose, yet
their common use exceeds this purpose. In all cases, they have ended up con-
stituting the being of people and, in many cases, have become an element of
resistance (against change, others, the state). A good illustration of this excess
of purpose is provided by an English traveler in the land of the Kunama dur-
ing the nineteenth century: two of these bow-using people where found with
guns, “but these were carried as ornaments, for no powder was found with
any of them, nor did they appear to consider that at all as necessary accompa-
niment to a gun” (cited in Pankhurst, 1977: 28). The Kunama understood the
rifles probably as more than an ornament (but less than a weapon). Weapons
are a typical core object and a technology of the self in nonmodern societies

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 Direct Action against the State: The Gumuz 169

(e.g., González-Ruibal et al., 2011; Larick 1986; Levi, 1998; Rival, 1996).
They are particularly relevant in those societies where both war for self-
defense and hunting are of paramount real or symbolic importance. Thus, it
is often hunter-gatherers or slash-and-burn agriculturalists who rely heavily
on hunting that cherish their weapons more and are more reluctant to abandon
them, even when they are no longer practical.
For the Gumuz, hunting has been a vital activity until very recently and
they still hunt very often, either in groups or alone. Hunting rituals bear some
resemblance with those of other groups, such as the Mao and Bertha. Ritual
specialists are visited by the men going on collective hunts to obtain their
blessing, and a share of the hunt is deposited in their house as an offering to
Mus’a Mets’a upon their return (Geremew Feyissa, 2011: 217). Henry Salt
(1816: 380) noted that “The favourite occupation of men is hunting; and they
indiscriminately eat the flesh of the elephant, rhicoceros, buffalo, deer, snake,
rat, or whatever else they can procure.” At the turn of the twentieth century,
a community of “Shank’ïlla” (Gumuz or Mao) lived in the Didessa Valley
killing elephants (Weld Blundell, 1906: 542–44), and they were portrayed
as “mostly eaters of elephant.” Big game is now difficult to find and forbid-
den to hunt, so antelopes and warthogs are the most usual prey. They eat
the meat, and the skin is used as a medicine. It is worth noting that the meat
of warthogs and other wild animals is considered impure by their highland
neighbors (Orthodox Christians and Muslims), so hunting goes against hege-
monic beliefs. In fact, highlanders tend to despise their lowland neighbors as
people who eat everything. In the interviews with Gumuz in eastern Metekel,
people always complained of the disappearance of game with the resettlement
and deforestation of the 1980s. They say that there is virtually nothing to hunt
now (yet they still carry their bows and arrows). Going around with a bow is
for a Gumuz like for a highlander carrying an axe hanging on the shoulder.
They are more than artifacts: they are ways of dealing with the world. The
Gumuz hunts in the forest, the highlander fells the trees and clears the land
for cultivation.
Something that tends to characterize core objects and technologies of the
self is their antiquity. Bows and arrows are a very ancient technology—James
Arkell (1949: 107) called the Early Khartoum Mesolithic society “People of
the Bow” for the many quartz crescents that appear in their sites. But more
than age, it is their historical relevance that counts. If we are to trust the
written sources of the Ethiopian kingdom and the texts of travelers from the
eighteenth century onwards, it was bows and arrows that actually allowed the
Gumuz to survive as a group. Already in the late eighteenth century, James
Bruce (1813: 43) described them as the Shank’ïlla’s “chief weapons” in
the war against the Ethiopian state, but references are older. The chronicles

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 170 Chapter 3

tell of the arrows of the Shank’ïlla that forced the powerful Imam Ahmed
Grañ’s army, which was ravaging Ethiopia unrestrained, out of their land
in 1535 (Pankurst, 1997: 217). More than a century later, in the great raid
of 1651–1652 launched by the Emperor Fasilädäs through the lowlands, the
invading soldiers were again almost completely slain by the arrows of the
ancestors of the Gumuz (Pankhurst, 1977: 12–13; 1997: 355). The poisoned
arrows of the Shank’ïlla caused panic among highlanders. Although after the
late seventeenth century it seems that the actions of the Ethiopian armies in
Shank’ïlla land increased and became more effective, the lowlanders’ arrows
still took their toll (Pankhurst, 1977: 14). It is not surprising, then, that the
Gumuz came to identify themselves so strongly with this weapon. That the
bow and arrows are still crucial in making the Gumuz self shows to what an
extent conflict is part of their way of resistance—and being. Bows and rear
doors are material traces of a non-absent past that refuses to go away. They
prove Nietzsche right when he says that “only that which does not cease to
hurt remains in memory” (cited in Huyssen, 1995: 249).

NOTES

1. Interview with Morka Dumesu (around 80 years old). Dor (Wämbära, Metekel
Zone, Benishangul-Gumuz). November 17, 2009.
2. Interview with Asegge Arado (around 90 years old). Dor (Wämbära, Metekel
Zone, Benishangul-Gumuz). November 17, 2009.
3. Interview with Dimna Gaza, Duŋwagwa (Mandura wereda, Metekel Zone,
Benishangul-Gumuz). June 17, 2005.
4. Interview with Duri Demeke, Bowla Dibas’a (Gublak, Metekel Zone, Benis-
hangul-Gumuz), March 7–8, 2006.
5. Interview with Abasho Dino and Gärba Bäshir, two men in their seventies.
February 23, 2009, Ate Meti (Agelo Meti wereda, Kamashi Zone, Benishangul-
Gumuz).
6. E.g. Dimna Gaza, Duŋwagwa (Mandura wereda, Metekel Zone, Benishangul-
Gumuz). June 17, 2005.
7. Interviews with Dimna Gaza, Duŋwagwa (Mandura wereda, Metekel Zone,
Benishangul-Gumuz), June 17, 2005, and Anderge Tanka, Manjari (Pawe Special
Wereda, Metekel Zone, Benishangul-Gumuz). June 18, 2005.
8. http://www.sunbiofuels.com/.
9. http://www.ardentenergygroup.com/biodiesel.html.
10. Interview with Dästaw Birhane, an Agäw native from Metekel and fluent in
Gumuz (around 40 years old). Manjari (Pawe Special Wereda, Metekel Zone, Benis-
hangul-Gumuz). March 18, 2006. The interviewee spoke in Amharic.
11. Information provided by the chairman of the kebele, Lola Sawaltaje, a man in
his thirties (Lugo, Yaso wereda, Kamashi Zone, Benishangul-Gumuz), February 20,
2009.

Book 1.indb 170 2/25/14 6:21 AM

 Direct Action against the State: The Gumuz 171

12. http://www.oromoliberationfront.org/News/2009/Conflict%20Concocted%20
by%twentiethe%20TPLF%20Regime.html.
13. Interview with Morka Dumesu and Gebaye Ambo (around 80 years old). Dor
(Wämbära, Metekel Zone, Benishangul-Gumuz). November 17, 2009.
14. See note 4.
15. Interview with Lola Sawaltaje (a man in his early thirties) and Hundesa Bunti
(around 50 years old). February 20, 2009. Lugo (Yaso wereda, Kamashi Zone,
Benishangul-Gumuz).
16. See note 10.
17. See note 10.
18. Interview with Sanbata Bainbo, a Boro man in his seventies, K’onti (Bulen
wereda, Metekel Zone, Benishangul-Gumuz). November 20, 2009.
19. See note 4.
20. This version of the tale was gathered in two different places: in Manjäri (in-
terview with Berajo Dijë, Arabi Fansika, Bagu Zade and Bandoho Dina, March 17,
2006) and in Maataba (interview with Dergisha Manchila, March 19, 2006), both in
Metekel Zone (Benishangul-Gumuz).
21. Interview with Teso Labata, a man in his sixties. Deguba Bedisa (Kamashi
wereda, Kamashi Zone, Benishangul-Gumuz). February 22, 2009.
22. See note 2.
23. See note 5.
24. Interview with a group of Gumuz elders: Berajo Dijë, Arabi Fansika, Bagu
Zade and Bnadoho Dina (Manjari, Metekel Zone, Benishangul-Gumuz). March 17,
2006.
25. Interview with Yasu Chege (Manjari, Pawe wereda, Metekel Zone, Benishan-
gul-Gumuz), June 16, 2005.
26. See note 25.
27. See note 10.
28. Interview to neighbors of the Agäw quarter of Beter Safer (Manjari, Pawe
Special Wereda, Metekel Zone, Benishangul-Gumuz). March 21, 2006.
29. See note 10.
30. Interviews with Amäna Shami and Emanjel Embu, potters, February 8, 2006,
with Kutum Gao, blacksmith, February 11, 2006. Bowla Dibas’i (Gublak wereda,
Metekel Zone, Benishangul-Gumuz), and with ritual specialists Aberra Afoiye and
Tammane Lech’e, February 21, 2009 (Karsa Kosoru and Lugo, Yaso wereda, Ka-
mashi Zone, Benishangul-Gumuz).
31. See note 24.
32. Anderge Tanka argues that the highlanders prefer to buy plastic than to use
calabashes. Manjari (Pawe Special Wereda, Metekel Zone, Benishangul-Gumuz).
June 18, 2005.
33. See note 24.
34. Interview with Shambo Mahaya (Bowla Dibas’a, Gublak wereda, Metekel
Zone, Benishangul-Gumuz). March 11, 2006.
35. See note 5. There is a Boro influence in this myth.
36. Interview with Zegeyesh Zeke, a woman in her forties (Manjari, Metekel Zone,
Benishangul-Gumuz). March 16, 2006.

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 172 Chapter 3

37. Dimtu (Kamashi wereda, Kamashi Zone). February 24, 2009.

38. Manjari, Metekel Zone, Benishangul-Gumuz. March 18, 2006.
39. Interview with Aberra Foide, Karsa Kosoru (Yaso wereda, Kamashi Zone,
Benishangul-Gumuz). February 21, 2009.
40. Manjari (Pawe Special Wereda, Metekel Zone, Benishangul-Gumuz), March
18, 2006.
41. Interview with Yadani Jabane, a woman in her sixties, from Ate Meti (Agelo
Meti wereda, Kamashi Zone, Benishangul-Gumuz). February 23, 2009.
42. See note 39.
43. Depending on the Gumuz dialect it may sound more like Misa or Müsa. Fa-
ther Leone Zanni was the first to suggest the identification between Musa and Moses
(Grottanelli, 1943; also Simoons, 1960).
44. See note 39.
45. Interview with Dergisha Manchila (Manjari, Pawe Special Wereda, Metekel
Zone, Benishangul-Gumuz). March 19, 2006.
46. See note 45.
47. See note 34.
48. See note 24.
49. See note 36.
50. See note 15.
51. See note 10.
52. See note 2.
53. Interview with Obse Ñarcho, from Lugo (Yaso wereda, Kamashi Zone, Ben-
ishangul-Gumuz). February 21, 2009.
54. See note 18.
55. Interview with Gebaye Ambo, a woman in her seventies. Dor (Debre Bïrhan
wereda, Metekel Zone, Benishangul, Gumuz). November 17, 2009.
56. See note 45.
57. Interview with Kwahi Gideh and Bandoho Dina. Majare (Pawe Special
Wereda, Metekel Zone, Benishangul-Gumuz). March 20, 2006; interview with Ku-
tum Gao (Bowla Dibas’a, Metekel Zone, Benishangul-Gumuz). March 11, 2006.
58. See note 24.
59. See note 24.
60. See note 39.
61. See note 4.
62. Interview with Anderge Tanka, Manjari (Pawe Special Wereda, Metekel Zone,
Benishangul-Gumuz). June 18, 2005.
63. See note 4.
64. See note 55.
65. See note 10.
66. See note 21.
67. See note 62.
68. See note 1.
69. See note 3.

Book 1.indb 172 2/25/14 6:21 AM

 4
Between Domination and Resistance: The Bertha

Converted peoples have to strip themselves of their past.

—Naipaul, 1998: 72

The Gumuz, the Mao, and the Komo clearly fall in the category of the domi-
nated. Irrespective of the participation of some of their members in the work
of domination, theirs is an experience of subalternity. With the Bertha, the
situation is not so clear-cut. They are, at the same time, masters and slaves,
and this is reflected in their strategies of resistance, which are simultaneously
mechanisms of defense and tools of hegemony. This duality of the Bertha is
compounded in their very identity as a group: within the Bertha people, there
are those more prone to act as rulers and those who have a subaltern role.
The difference between the Bertha and their neighbors is epitomized in their
diverging histories: whereas Gumuz and Mao have histories of expulsion,
the Bertha is one of expelling others. Both Gumuz and Mao emphasize their
aboriginality or precedence in the land, the unfairness of their many banish-
ments, and the emptiness of the territory where they settled after being exiled
from their homeland. The Bertha tales acknowledge, without embarrassment,
a previous human presence in the occupied lands—a presence that haunts
their culture in many ways. Another element that makes the Bertha excep-
tional in the context of the Sudanese-Ethiopian borderland is their experience
of the two state traditions in the area: that of the Islamic Sudan and Christian
Ethiopia. They have suffered both in different ways and have resorted to the
former as a mechanism of resistance against the latter. As Enrico Cerulli
(1933: 112) wrote, “as always happens in Muslim countries, the foreign
domination, in this case Abyssinian, has necessarily led to the favoring of the
Arabic to the detriment of the local Berta dialects . . . provoking by reaction

173

Book 1.indb 173 2/25/14 6:21 AM

 174 Chapter 4

a major feeling of Muslim solidarity.” The experience of Islam under differ-

ent political regimes has left a trail of memories that actively constitute the
Bertha being today.

4.1. MEMORIES

We have solid data to talk about Bertha history for the last two hundred years,
thanks to the work of historian Alessandro Triulzi (1981). It is out of the
question that the original homeland of the Bertha lay in the Sudan, and this
has important implications for the cultural memory of the people. The Bertha
were one of the many Nilo-Saharan groups that made up the heterogeneous
Funj Kingdom (1504–1821). This foreign past is crucial in their definition
as a people today. Unlike the Gumuz or Komo, the Bertha are aware that it
was migration, or rather migrations, that make them as a people. There are at
least three periods of movement that have left a deep imprint in their collec-
tive memory: the Funj period in Sudan (up to the late seventeenth century),
the first migration into Ethiopia (late seventeenth/early eighteenth centuries),
and the arrival of the Sudanese traders (jallāba) into Ethiopia during the first
decades of the nineteenth century. These various migrations have shaped the
fragmented Bertha identity and deposited layer upon layer of cultural mem-
ory, themselves lying upon an older Nilo-Saharan bedrock. I would argue
that these times/movements provided the Bertha with three important things
to resist and to dominate (to resist other polities and to dominate weaker
peoples). The first time—the Funj sultanate—gave them a strong link to a
powerful state tradition, with its royal memories, practices, and objects, in no
way inferior to that of the Ethiopian state that eventually conquered the Ber-
tha. The second time—the original settlement in Ethiopia—gave the Bertha
an awareness of their own division, which would keep deepening. The third
time—the arrival of the jallāba—would furnish the Bertha with a monotheis-
tic religion and its cosmopolitan civilization, again, in no way inferior to the
universal creed of their would-be Ethiopian conquerors. These three times
still work actively, with diverse force and often through material devices, in
making the Bertha people.

Funj Memories
The Bertha are first mentioned in 1617–1618 in the Ethiopian chronicles
(Conti Rossini, 1920: 324). A raid was launched at that time by Emperor
Susïnyos into the territory of the Sinnār sultanate, in whose southern marches
the Bertha people (Bärta) were living. Their core area was probably between

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 Between Domination and Resistance: The Bertha 175

Roseires and Fazogli: old Bertha used to point toward Jebel Gerri (near
Roseires) as their original home (Triuzli, 1981: 23). In fact, many Bertha and
Bertha-related peoples still live in the Sudan under a variety of denominations
(Sillok, Burun, Jebelawin). Due to their Sudanese roots, the Funj memory
among the Bertha—or Funj mystique, as it has been called (James, 1977a)—
is greater than among other groups, with the exception of the Gumuz from
Guba (Kidanemariam Demellew, 1987: 5–6). Related to the Funj memory
are three prominent elements that I would like to discuss in this section: king
killing, sacred stones, and throwing knives.
King killing is a custom that has achieved fame for its discussion in James
Frazer’s Golden Bough. It was first mentioned by James Bruce, associated
with the court of Sinnār. According to the Scottish traveler, “the king ascends
his throne under the admission that he may be lawfully put to death by his
own subjects or slaves upon a council being held by the great officers, if they
decree that it is not for the advantage of the state that he be suffered to reign
any longer” (quoted in Evans-Pritchard, 1932: 44). Although there is no clear
evidence of this in the written records of Sinnār, the custom might have ex-
isted in some way, as it was very widespread in the areas under Funj influence
south of the Blue Nile. In fact, Bruce might be referring not to the Funj capi-
tal itself (Sinnār), but to the provincial capital of Fazogli: as his knowledge
of the region improved, he wrote that “the country of the Funge is Fazuclo,
and Guba east of Fazuclo” (Bruce of Kinnaird, 1813: 399; see Whitehead,
1934: 226). In fact, there are several references to this ceremony in Fazogli
(Evans-Pritchard, 1932: 44–45), which is considered by some Bertha as their
ancient capital. Italian explorer Pellegrino Matteucci (1879: 201–2) says that
all sheikhs from Fazogli almost up to Fadasi (Bambasi) were judged by their
subjects: the sheikh sat in a kind of throne and beside him stayed a dog. If the
trial was favorable to the sheikh, the dog was killed, if it was not, the sheikh
was put to death. Further to the south, in Jebel Tornasi (still in Bertha land),
the local king, who received the Funj title of manjil, was no longer killed and
in its place a dog was sacrificed (Evans-Pritchard, 1932: 45). Similar forms
of regicide were recorded by Evans-Pritchard (1932: 15) in Keili and Ulu.
All of them have Bertha-speaking communities and many of them, like the
Bertha of Benishangul, claim a Funj ancestry from Fazogli. The tradition of
king killing was taken to Ethiopia by Bertha emigrants, where it persisted for
a time in the shape of dog killing (Triulzi, 1981: 42–54). That the ceremony
of king killing in its diverse variants proved so successful among the southern
vassals of the Funj sultanate is perhaps not surprising. After all, it is a form
of giustizia popolare, popular justice, as Matteucci (1879: 203) described it,
or, to put it in another way, an anti-state mechanism. Through king killing
(either real or symbolic), the Bertha and other groups could simultaneously

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 176 Chapter 4

have a Funj ruler (makk or manjil) and maintain their egalitarian political sys-
tem. This is in accordance with the real lack of power that characterized most
chiefs of this region (with the exception of the rulers of Benishangul during
the late nineteenth century). Traveling in 1855, Italian missionary Giovanni
Beltrame notes that “these chiefs do not exercise any rights against those
among whom they live. The dignity with which they are invested is no more
than an honorary dignity” (cited in Whitehead, 1934: 222). That the king
killing is an anarchist mechanism of political resistance is made clear in that
the ceremony in Fazogli took place during a sort of carnival “when everyone
does what he likes best” (Frazer, cited in Evans-Pritchard, 1932: 46).
Regarding the second element, sacred stones, these exist among the Gule
people, the Bertha-speaking Sillok, and the Bertha of Benishangul, all of
them within the Funj area of influence. Among the Sillok, the sacred stone (a
standing granite pillar) was used in rainmaking ceremonies (Evans-Pritchard,
1932: 7, plate III). Its name was Soba. The stones of Gule had the same name
(Seligman and Seligman, 1965 [1932]: 428–29), which were used for heal-
ing, protection, and fertility rituals, and were still venerated in the early 1970s
(Delmet, 1974: 130–32). Meaningfully, the people addressed the stones
during religious ceremonies in their vernacular language (Gule, of the Ko-
man family), which was on the brink of extinction at that time and today no
longer exists. We could include here the shrines of the Ingessana, who have a
similar function and nature, as cosmic centers that embody the past in many
ways (Jedrej, 1995: 112–13). At least some of these shrines had stones called
“Soba” (Seligman and Seligman, 1932: 437). The stones did not have only a
religious aspect. They were also related to the Funj state: it was there where
the local manjil assumed office and as such, the main Soba stone in Gule was
called the “Stool of Kingdom” (Seligman and Seligman, 1932: 428). Interest-
ingly, Soba was the capital of the Alodian Kingdom up to 1504, when it was
conquered by the Funj, and it is believed that the majority of families aban-
doned the town and found refuge in Fazogli (Triulzi, 1981: 60). Soba was
indeed a heap of ruins by the 1520s (Crawford, 1951: 287). Chattaway (1930:
256) notes that there are two places called Soba near Roseires (north of Fazo-
gli) and the indigenous people, identified as “Hamej,” had the following oath:
“I swear by Soba, the home of my grandfathers and grandmothers, which can
make the stone float and the cotton boll sink.” It is likely that the Soba stones
of Gule and Sillok are material memories of an ancestral homeland upstream
along the Blue Nile. For them, Soba was probably no longer a physical place,
but an imaginary, powerful location. The material memories that are stones
and rituals replaced the intangible memory of stories and origin myths.
In Benishangul, the sacred rock was so important that it gave the name to
the entire region: Bela Shangul, which means Stone (bele) of the Divination

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 Between Domination and Resistance: The Bertha 177

Ritual (shaŋgur) (Triulzi, 1981: 28). It was also known as Bele Agur, the
Rock of the Chiefs, which brings to mind the “Stool of Kingdom” of the
Gule people. The word “chief” for agur is misleading. These agur were, in
all likelihood, religious specialists. The title closely resembles those of the
Ingessana custodians of territorial shrines, aur, who were appointed by a Funj
representative (the makk of Keili) (Seligman and Seligman, 1932: 432; Jedrej,
1995: 15). Given that the Bertha stone was for divination, it is more logical
to think that the agur was likewise a ritual office. The Bertha claim to have
brought the bele shaŋgur from their homeland in Sudan: it is now located near
the town of Menge, the core area of the old Bela Shangul, in the Tumat ba-
sin, which is where the first Bertha emigrants arrived. The appearance of the
rock is similar to that of Sillok, but the granite pillar (about forty centimeters
high) is in this case crowned by a polished, spherical stone in equilibrium.
This represents the balance that sustains the Bertha world: it is thought that if
the stone should slip from its place, disgrace will fall upon the people. Spe-
cial rites have to be promptly performed when it happens, in order to restore
the rock to its location (Triulzi, 1981: 29). Sacred stones were already pres-
ent in Sinnār during the heyday of the Funj. According to James Bruce, the
slave guards of the sultan who came from Fazogli and the provinces to the
south “worship a tree, and likewise a stone” (Bruce of Kinnaird, 1813: 344;
Crawford, 1951: 144). It is possible that sacred stones spread through Dar
Funj along with titles and rituals. If the spread of king killing rituals can be
explained for their political relevance in keeping society equal, the preemi-
nence of the sacred stones is justified by their ability to keep the universe in
order. Yet perhaps more importantly, what the Bela Shangul and Soba stones
conserve are the links of the Bertha-speaking peoples to their ancestral home
and to a prestigious past.
The third element is, again, a material memory: the throwing knife or
kulbeda. While they have been used among the Ingessana (called kolel) at
least until the 1970s (Jedrej, 1995: 122–27) among the Bertha, they seem to
have disappeared since then: we were only able to locate a broken one, in
a heap of scrap metal sold by an Oromo smith in the market of Asosa, and
another one, possessed by an old Bertha man in Asosa (see figure 4.1). The
throwing stick (baŋ), which is ubiquitous among the Bertha, seems to have
completely replaced the elaborate iron weapon. According to the description
of a colonial administrator, who spent some time in the southern Funj in the
1930s or 1940s, these knives are “commonly carried by Berta tribesmen on
the shoulders and flung parallel to the ground.”1 The specimens collected
by this officer have incised geometric and figurative decoration (giraffes,
elephant). The Ingessana used to decorate the blades of their throwing knives
with harmful animals (scorpions, snakes, and solifuges) and the handle with
harmless ones (deer, millipede) (Jedrej, 1995: 124). The Bertha kulbedas that

Book 1.indb 177 2/25/14 6:21 AM

Book 1.indb 178
Figure 4.1. Traditional
Bertha weapons: 1 and 2.
Kulbedas from Asosa. 3.
Kulbeda drawn by Ernst
Marno. 4 and 5. Bertha
barbed spears. Spears are
still regularly used. Cour-
tesy of the author and Ernst
Marno

2/25/14 6:21 AM
 Between Domination and Resistance: The Bertha 179

I have seen only have geometric motifs, but one depicted by Marno (1874:
taf. 7) do have scorpions on the blade.
The throwing knife was not part of the regalia of the Funj, for whom the
kingly weapon was the sword (Robinson, 1931). Nevertheless, I consider
the kulbeda part of the receding Funj memories because its presence in the
borderland coincides exactly with the northernmost area of the southern Funj
(occupied by Ingessana and Bertha-speaking peoples), it is associated with
chiefs, and its general area of distribution is the Sahelian belt of states and
chiefdoms—what diffusionist anthropologists called “Neo-Sudanic civiliza-
tion” (Bauman and Westermann, 1948: 71–77). Thus, the core areas of throw-
ing knives are the kingdoms of Bornu, Bagirmi, Wadai, Darfur, and Funj,
from whence they spread to their peripheries (Jedrej, 1995: 122; Westerdijk,
1988). Regarding the association with chiefs, in the southern Funj area, there
are references of the sheikhs’ slave guards armed with spears and throwing
knives (Matteucci, 1879: 14). With the other two elements considered here
the kulbeda has in common the relationship to power, in this case expressed
through war. However, it seems that among the Bertha, Ingessana, and other
borderland peoples, the original function of the weapon was replaced by
a merely ceremonial one: throwing knives appear systematically in early-
twentieth-century photographs in dances and rituals, fulfilling the same role
as the wooden throwing stick.
The Bertha, then, did not only carry with them to Ethiopia intangible
memories of their Funj past, but also artifacts that proved their belonging to a
prestigious state culture. Sacred stones and throwing knives are just a sample
of the memory objects that traveled with them: others, as we will see, were
drums, houses, and pots, and like the mentioned artifacts, played and still
play a deictic role among the Bertha: making another past and another place
present—here, now.

Settlement Memories
The Bertha emigrated to Ethiopia when the Funj sultanate was still strong.
When they arrived in the highlands (from a Sudanese perspective), they found
there a group they indistinctly remember as “Mao” or “Komo.” They were
in fact the ancestors of the present Gwama, who are, as we have seen (sec-
tion 2.3), one of the several groups labeled “Komo” by outsiders: the Bertha
admit that the valley of the Tumat River was occupied at that time by this
people, who called it tumatob, which means “to drink water” in Mao (Triulzi,
1981: 23). “To drink” is indeed called tobatob in the Gwama language. It is
not clear when the emigration of the Bertha took place from the hills of the
southern Funj into Ethiopia. As the Bertha were still in the Sudan during

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 180 Chapter 4

Susïnyos’s time (early seventeenth century), it is possible that the cause for
the movements was the conflicts between the Funj and the Hamej (mostly
Bertha-speaking), when the latter’s capital, Fazogli, was conquered by the
sultanate in 1685 (Triulzi, 1981: 24). This seems more plausible than the
moment of emergence of the sultanate (1504), which has also been suggested
(Triulzi, 1981: 24). Archaeological data corroborate the later date: a rock
shelter with typical Koman pottery was radiocarbon dated to 1490–1670 AD
(Fernández, 2011: 283). This means that in all probability Benishangul was
still inhabited by Gwama during the sixteenth century AD.
The migration of the Bertha to Ethiopia produced a typical frontier society
(Kopytoff, 1987) and created a political geography that left an enduring mark
on the cultural landscape of Benishangul. Every Bertha clan that arrived in
the new land established itself around a mountain, which gave its name to the
people in question (e.g., Fa-Undu, People or Clan of Mount Undu). It seems
that the great migration produced a reordering of kinship ties into territorial
ones (Triulzi, 1981: 31). This weakened and fractured the ethnic identity of
the Bertha, a situation with far-reaching and lasting consequences, as we will
see. The breaking apart of the Bertha during the migration period led to inter-
necine warfare, which is remembered in an origin myth of the Fadasi Bertha.
According to this story, when the five children of Berthu, the eponymus
Bertha hero, refused to obey their father and bring him the tail of a lion, he
cursed them saying, “May I curse you so that you may remain divided, that
you shall never see each other, that you shall always remain in enmity against
each other!” (Triulzi, 1981: 31). This story reflects current concerns with the
division of the Bertha people, to which I will return in the next section (see
section 4.2). The original settlement in Benishangul on steep hilltops is still
seen by the Bertha as proof of the climate of violence that prevailed at that
time. This mountainous settlement existed for a long time. In some areas, it
was not before the mid-twentieth century when it was completely abandoned
for the valley bottoms. The conflict was not only internecine. Wars with
neighbors and later with slave traders forced the people to maintain their
residence in inaccessible places. Thus, when Matteucci (1879: 214–15) asked
the Bertha living in the rocky Ethiopian foothills the reason for not electing
more suitable locations for their villages, they answered that if they did so
they would be easily attacked and robbed by the Tabi people (Ingessana)
(also Gessi, 1892: 159–60). It is interesting, however, that today Bertha col-
lective memory seems to focus more on the primeval division of the clans,
rather than on later conflicts (Turco-Egyptian period, Mahdiyyah), which are
scarcely known to the majority of the population.
During the archaeological survey of Benishangul (Fernández, 2004), many
of the early Bertha settlements were identified. Houses, granaries, hencoops,

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 Between Domination and Resistance: The Bertha 181

and other structures were built over stone pillars amidst rocky outcrops. Most
of these sites show impressive natural defenses and help envisage the climate
of violence and insecurity in which the early history of the Bertha in Benis-
hangul developed. The Bertha are aware that these remains belong to their an-
cestors: the conspicuous structural remains and the similarity of the sherds to
contemporary pots are easy to interpret and act as a reminder of the times of
trouble. Even the new generations know about the difficult beginnings of the
Bertha in Ethiopia: when excavating the remains of Fatoŋo, some youngsters
from a neighboring village informed us that this was the original settlement of
the Bertha group that lived in that area and that all Bertha groups were linked
to a particular mountain.
Internecine conflict was dealt with through two institutions: the etho,
which was the division of land rights among the clans under the leadership of
an agur (chief), and the feda or collective hunting ceremony, which ritually
enacted the division of the land every year (Triulzi, 1981: 30–37). The main
points of the hunting ceremony are the following:

• The hunt took place after the end of the harvest (January/February).
• The hunt brought together a number of different Bertha groups, each led
by their agur (chief), and all of them were coordinated by a paramount
leader of the hunt. The hunters were summoned with the sound of a
trumpet made with an antelope or buffalo horn (Marno, 1874: taf. 7).
• The weapons used were spears (ber), which were left to smoke slowly
on a platform above the hearth. During the “month of the spear,” im-
mediately before the beginning of the hunt, the weapons were cleaned
and sharpened.
• After the hunt ended, the meat was shared equally among the hunters, but
the paramount agur received the head, back, and foot of the prey.
• The collective consumption of beer (bas’a), by both men and women,
was an important part of the ceremony.

The collective hunt as it is carried today by different Mao groups (some of

them descendants of the aboriginal Gwama of Benishangul) shows striking
similarities with this ritual (see section 5.5). With the exception of the “month
of the spear,” I could document all other elements among the Mao. Triulzi’s
interpretation of the hunt also applies to the Mao, as we will see: there is a
stress on cooperation, equality, unity, the importance of the forest and its
resources, and the ownership of the territory. These values were played out
through walking the land together. There is also the possibility that the Mao
adopted the ceremony from the newcomers, but hunting has always played
an important role among the indigenous Koman peoples, to which the Mao

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 182 Chapter 4

belong: thus, the Komo also have a “hunting master” who coordinates a
collective hunt, after which beer is drunk (Theis, 1983). Another possibility
is that the ceremony comes from the shared background of the borderland
peoples, as the Ingessana, neighbors of the Bertha in the Sudan, also have a
hunting leader and a communal hunt (Jedrej, 1995: 60), and that its impor-
tance was enhanced in the new context of the Ethiopian mountains. In any
case, it is obvious that the feda worked as a commemorative ceremony that
allowed the Bertha to recall the time of the settlement. I have not been able to
record any instance of the festival as described by Triulzi, although in some
places people still have a less ritualized collective hunt in the forest (called
feda or kakab), which is carried out with dogs and spears at the beginning of
the dry season and involves an entire village.2 Although the traditional feda
seems to have decayed or vanished, other ceremonies are still used to remind
the people of the need for cooperation between different groups, of unity and
equality. Like the old feda, these ceremonies also imply a reconnaissance of
the land. I will refer to them later (see section 4.5).
There are other memories of the time when hunting and the forest where
paramount to the Bertha. The spear (ber) can be considered a material
memory of hunting. Bertha spears are different from those of all other groups
in western Ethiopia, but similar to the ones used in the old Southern Funj in
Sudan (Evans-Pritchard, 1932: 19): they have slender, barbed, and decorated
heads, and the designs have not changed much during the last century (see
Koettlitz, 1900: 52–53, figure 1). The spears bear the memory of the hunt in
ways other than the mere materiality. The Bertha have at least two games to
show prowess with this weapon. One of them, which was documented by
Cerulli (1933: 113) in the 1920s, consists of fetching a spear from the ground
with a specific gesture and position of the body. The other is still practiced
today and is interesting for its implications. It is called gorrosh and involves
two objects: a spear and a beehive ring. The participants throw the ring into
the air and then try to pass the spear through the ring before it falls to the
ground. This is considered both a sport and a form of training for the hunt.
It is still considered something deeply related to the Bertha identity and, in
fact, an old Bertha man from Asosa told us that he had written down its rules
and wanted to transform it into an official sport. The objects involved in the
game are meaningful. The spear and the aim of the game are unambiguously
related to hunting, but the beehive ring is also important. On the one hand,
like the spears for the feda, the rings are slowly smoked throughout the year
above the shetab, a platform situated over the hearth, where grain, gourds,
and other things are stored. On the other hand, honey, as a product of the for-
est, is still strongly related to the aboriginal inhabitants of the forest, the Mao
and Komo (see chapter 5 and epilogue). In the gorrosh game, hunting and

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 Between Domination and Resistance: The Bertha 183

gathering—the memory of the era of settlement—are metaphorically united

in a single gesture in the sky.

Jallāba Memories
The movement of Bertha groups to the Ethiopian mountains was followed
by other adventurers. The first of these travelers came perhaps soon after
the original Bertha migration. They were a small group of “Arabs,” that is
literate Muslims speaking only Arabic, who considered the Bertha backward
mountaineers (Jebelawin). Claiming a Funj connection, though, they man-
aged to intermarry with the Bertha and establish new polities in Benishangul.
For the local Bertha, it was undoubtedly a chance to renew their fading links
with their ancestral—and prestigious—homeland. Thus, Bertha chiefs were
eager to marry their daughters with these Funj “Arabs.” The new mixed group
established a lenient rule, only vaguely tied to the sultanate. The first product
of the intermarriage was the Bani Ummaya, who are known as Mayu. This
could only have been possible if matrilineages played a role in the Bertha
kinship system, as among other borderland groups and in the Sinnār sultanate
itself (Triulzi, 1981: 64).
The second emigration took place during the late eighteenth century and
would prove fateful in the long term for the history of Benishangul. The sec-
ond half of the century was a period of unrest in the northern Funj provinces,
which aggravated the situation of the peasants along the Blue Nile, further
exacerbated by famines and other calamities. Thus, many impoverished
Sudanese decided to become jallāba (petty trader) and go to the border-
land, famed for gold and ivory, to conduct trade with the local populations
(Spaulding, 1985: 278–83). There, as it had already been discovered, “a poor
peasant from the north could achieve social status and renewed self-respect
by simply claiming an ‘Arab’ origin” (Triulzi, 1981: 98). The acceptance of
the jallāba, following the traditions of hospitality and miscegenation typical
of the borderland, was a strategic mistake for which the Bertha people would
pay dearly (Spaulding, 1985: 283). By the 1850s, the descendants of the new
mixed group of Bertha (mostly Mayu) and Arab became the ruling class (Tri-
ulzi, 1981: 100). The new group was known as Watawit (Marno, 1874: 52),
which means “bat” in Bertha. The name might refer to their mixed origins
(Bertha woman and Arab man), akin to those of the bat (a mammal that flies
like a bird). The descendants of the Watawit claimed a superior status to the
rest of the Bertha, pagan and black, whom they regarded as ‘abid, or slaves.
During the second half of the nineteenth century, they would reveal them-
selves as ruthless chiefs, very different from the old Funj ones. They applied
themselves to exploiting the Bertha (especially the pagans), exacting a tribute

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 184 Chapter 4

in slaves and gold. This was first done for the Turco-Egyptian government
(1821–1855), then for their own sake, as sheikhs, and later for the Ethiopian
state that conquered Benishangul (from 1898 onward). Since the 1870s, the
most important of these new ruling families was Sheikh Khojele’s, estab-
lished in Asosa. Khojele conquered the territory of the other sheikhs, unified
Benishangul, and expanded his possessions until he collided with the equally
expansive Jote Tullu, an Oromo leader, in Mao land, south of Benishangul.
After the conquest of western Ethiopia by Emperor Mïnilïk II, the Khojele
family continued governing the region and their influence only started to
fade with the Italian invasion. During the time of this study, the Watawit/
Mayu, the descendants of Arab and Bertha, still had influence in the regional
administration.
Even if some Bertha enjoyed a position of domination during the troubled
period of foreign intervention, the truth is that, for the majority of the people,
the time between the Turco-Egyptian invasion and the Italians was a trau-
matic one that exacerbated the divisions in the social body. Bertha society
would become irremediably fractured. There are material memories of this
period of abuse still active today. Thus, apart from gold and slaves, the Bertha
had to pay tribute in sorghum during the nineteenth century and this was kept
in large granaries under the supervision of each local chief (agur or makk)
(Triulzi, 1981: 97). Interestingly, the Bertha have two kinds of granaries:
one that is similar in size and shape to that of their neighbors (called luba in
Bertha), and a large one, which resembles a house. Raised over high poles, it
has a cylindrical structure with a door and is covered by a conical roof, like
that employed to thatch houses (see figure 4.2). Inside this granary, apart
from cereal, people keep other things, such as agricultural implements, musi-
cal instruments, mats, and even Quranic tablets. The name of this granary
is Arabic-sounding: al-muraffa. Although we do not know how large the
granaries for storing the Turkish grain were, it is tempting to think that they
were similar to these muraffa. Further evidence, apart from size and name, is
the method of construction, which strongly recalls that of the Bertha houses
from the mid-nineteenth century, and the geographical distribution: although
they can be found in the lowlands, they are more numerous in Mayu land,
where tribute was gathered. The muraffa today are no longer the preserve of
chiefs, which have vanished, nor related to taxes. Every large household can
have one and they are abundant: the democratization of the muraffa can be
understood as an achievement of equality after a century of exactions.
The designation of the old rulers—Watawit—is no longer used, but this is
not the case with Mayu, which is a self-denomination for one of the three ma-
jor Bertha groups of Benishangul. Those who consider themselves Mayu still
look to the Sudan as their original homeland. The memory of the jallāba roots

Book 1.indb 184 2/25/14 6:21 AM

 Figure 4.2. Bertha granaries: above, photo of a muraffa in Abeyendu; below, a muraffa
and a small luba.

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 186 Chapter 4

are played out in material culture and performed both on special occasions
and in everyday life. There are two things that best represent the relation-
ship with the neighboring country: the jalla–biyya and the donkey. A priori,
it is easier to understand why the jalla–biyya, Sudan’s national dress, plays a
diacritical role among the Bertha. That of the donkey is not so immediately
obvious. Yet jalla–biyya and donkey are tightly related. The jalla–biyya was the
characteristic dress of the Sudanese merchants (jallāba). These jallāba are
described by missionary Giovanni Beltrame in the 1850s as possessing “noth-
ing in this world but a miserable hut where a wife and two or three children
are waiting for them, a donkey with the little merchandise they carried, a rag
of a shirt and a pair of broken down slippers” (quoted in Triulzi, 1981: 92).
The jallāba, then, became closely associated with the donkey that transported
the goods from Sudan into the Ethiopian highlands. Today, the image of the
Bertha wearing a jalla–biyya and a turban and riding a donkey is perhaps one
of the most defining features of the landscape of Benishangul (see figure 4.3).
The importance of the donkey in Bertha self-representation is made clear in
another way. In wedding ceremonies, at least among the Mayu of the Asosa
and Khomosha areas, the groom invariably wears a jalla–biyya and a turban

–
Figure 4.3. Mayu Bertha riding donkeys, with turban and jalla biyya, somewhere south
of Asosa. Courtesy of Xurxo Ayán

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 Between Domination and Resistance: The Bertha 187

Figure 4.4. Mayu wedding in Abramo, south of Asosa. The groom is wearing a brand
–
new jalla biyya, turban, and eyeglasses, and is riding a donkey. Courtesy of Christoff
Hermann

and rides a donkey, which he spurs with a cane or throwing stick, to go to his
would-be in-laws in order to meet his bride (see figure 4.4).
His retinue of friends and family surround him on foot, brandishing canes.
In the bride’s village, people will play traditional wasa and zumbara music
(see section 4.5). The new couple will spend up to three years living with
the wife’s parents and working for them. The interpretation of the wed-
ding ceremony of the Mayu is clear, even if nobody verbalizes it: they are
re-enacting the origins of the Mayu people, a mixture of Arab merchants,
who came in their white jalla–biyya riding their donkeys, and the daughters
of pagan Bertha chiefs. Meaningfully, among the lowland Bertha, who did
not mix with jallāba, the donkey plays no role in weddings. There is another
element of material culture that might seem outlandish, but makes a lot of
sense: eyeglasses. The groom riding the donkey wears large glasses, but only
during the procession from his village to that of his bride. This has to be put
in relationship with another feature that defined the immigrant jallāba, and
before them the Funj Arabs who gave rise to the Mayu: wisdom. As an old
Bertha, descendant of Arabs, put it to historian Alessandro Triuzli (1981: 93):

We did not come here, as the Bertha or the jabalawin, to beg or because we did
not have land. We came to teach them. They were ujum [ignorant]. And the
Rasūl, peace be upon Him, has warned us to take care of the ujum. If we had

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 188 Chapter 4

come in search of land or better life, we would have come as conquererors, not
as traders and teachers.

In this way, a long-lived “Legend of the Wise Stranger” developed among

the Bertha families of Sudanese ancestry (Triulzi, 1981: 120) and those who
had been poor peddlers became wise Muslim teachers. In the wedding cer-
emony, eyeglasses stand for the wisdom of those jallāba who came to reform
the customs of the pagan Bertha. But why glasses? The explanation is simple.
In Bertha language, “wisdom” and “wise” are translated are p’adiya, which
literally means “eye-strong” (see Bender, 1993: 304). What a more eloquent
way to show that the groom is “eye-strong” than putting on a pair of large
eyeglasses? What the Mayu are doing, therefore, is dramatizing their histori-
cal links to what they perceive as their homeland, Sudan. Every wedding is
more than just a wedding: it is a commemorative ceremony (Connerton,
1989) in which history is repeated through bodily gestures and material cul-
ture (jalla–biyya, turban, eyeglasses, donkey). During the marriage rituals, the
Mayu blur the difference between past and present and live, for a while, in
another time.

4.2. A FRACTURED IDENTITY

Paul Gilroy (1993), in the wake of W. E. B. Du Bois, talks of “double con-

sciousness” to refer to a hybrid identity that is both black/African and mod-
ern, and in which diasporic experiences have a remarkable weight. The same
concept, although in a quite different sense, can be applied to the sub-Saharan
peoples who have adopted Islam. They, too, are marked by an existence in
between in which travel (and translation) are crucial. They, too, strive to com-
bine tradition and universalistic beliefs—of a religious kind in this case. As I
have defended at the beginning of the book, this double identity is riddled with
problems: one element of the pair always plays a dominant role and the other
a subaltern one. Tradition is always trumped by modernity or, in this case,
Islam. The tensions of double consciousness are manifested in different ways
among the Bertha: language, dance, pottery, drink, the organization of space,
religious practices, and race. In fact, the term consciousness is perhaps not the
best way to describe this situation. Whereas Du Bois or Richard Wright were
intellectuals who theorized about the existence astride two worlds of people
of African ancestry, many Bertha do not have such a sophisticated introspec-
tion. What often prevails is a hegemonic Islamic consciousness overlapped
in different ways to a non-Islamic subconscious. The struggle does not occur
between two consciousnesses in equal terms then, but between a strongly

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 Between Domination and Resistance: The Bertha 189

objectified identity and another one that is subject to different degrees of

repression, depending on the place, context, and circumstances.
However, these two identities, Islamic and non-Islamic, are multifarious
and fragmented and intersect each other in different ways. Unlike other
groups, the Bertha have had a complex history of intermingling with other
communities. Some of these communities are more related to the state and
Islam, such as the Funj and the jallāba; others are societies against the state,
pagan and resilient, such as the Gumuz and the “Komo.” Depending on the
mixtures, we have different groups that call themselves or are called by oth-
ers with different labels: Jebelawin, Bertha, Watawit, Mayu, Undulu, and
the like. Jedrej (2004: 720) aptly described these “ethnic” denominations as
“points on scales between urban and rural, Muslim and pagan, superior and
inferior, and master and slave.” The history of mixtures between Bertha on
the one hand and dominant or subaltern groups on the other is apparent in
material culture, which reinforces ideas of civilization and primitiveness,
orthodox religion and heathenism. In the next section, I will follow the triple
division—Mayu, Fa-Kuŋkuŋ, Fadasi—that is evident to the Ethiopian Ber-
tha today (as it was two hundred years ago), but it is important to bear in
mind that this is a simplification of a messier reality, in which Islamic and
non-Islamic elements combine in numerous ways. The Bertha people could
be described as a locally perceived gradation between the palest and more
Islamized peoples, in one extreme, and the blackest and more “primitive” in
the other. In the Bertha imagination, these extremes are marked by the Suda-
nese Arabs on one side and the black “Komo” on the other. Closer to the first
group are the Mayu and to the second, the Fa-Kuŋkuŋ. In the middle of the
spectrum, we find the Fadasi and Jebelawin.
The Bertha are the only people of the entire region who exist simultane-
ously on the side of the dominators and on the subaltern. For the Mao, the
Bertha are an expansive people and they are identified with the traditional en-
slaving class: they are the “Arabs,” a denomination that the Mayu and Fadasi
Bertha like and sometimes use themselves. However, for the descendants of
those who suffered slavery, it brings negative recollections, because the Suda-
nese raiders of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries were identified as
Arabs. A Gwama elder spoke of the Bertha as “the sons of Sheikh Khojele,”
the infamous ruler and slave merchant.3 A Mao from the remote village of
Banga Dergo also identified the Bertha of Sheikh Khojele as the main raiders
of his people,4 and the name “Shogali,” by which the Bertha are sometimes
known, may refer to the Khojele dynasty (Cerulli, 1933: 112; Grottanelli,
1941: 570). The Uduk in Sudan had similar traumatic reminiscences: they
talk of “Kujul” as the arch-enemy, but Kujul could be any of Khojele’s
men. The Uduk ended up regarding all Bertha people without distinction as

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 190 Chapter 4

supporters of the sheikhs and all the sheikhs as allies of Khojele (James,
1979: 39). Other groups that suffered severely from Khojele’s incursions
were the Komo and the Gwama, who were expelled from the most exposed
areas in Ethiopia toward the more isolated and remote valleys near Sudan
where they live today. The constant slave raiding created a lasting hatred
between the Bertha and the Komo (Tesemma Ta’a, 2003: 173). These mi-
nority groups, though, ignore the fact that the Bertha themselves have been
traditionally marginalized and victimized by the dominant sectors of their
society. The Fa-Kuŋkuŋ did not fare better than the Mao, Gwama, or Komo,
and, in fact, they are closer to them in many ways than to the dominant Bertha
group—the Mayu.
What is interesting about the Bertha’s fractured identity (see figure 4.5) is
that domination and resistance are much less clear-cut than in the other cases
studied in this book. Thus, while the donkey, the jalla–biyya, or the Arabic lan-
guage can be considered objects of resistance against the hegemonic Ethio-
pian culture, as they reinforce the relationship with the neighboring country,
they are also perceived by other groups as a foreign form of cultural suprem-
acy. In the same vein, Islam is an element of identity among the Bertha that
allows them to distinguish themselves from the Christian Ethiopian highland-
ers who conquered their land in the late nineteenth century (Cerulli, 1933:
112) and were resettled there during the Därg. Besides, Islam provides an
ecumenic element of reference that enables the Bertha to establish religious
and political links with the neighboring Sudan and other Arabic countries,
bypassing the central state. This transnational source of legitimation—a kind
of vernacular cosmopolitanism (Bhabha, 1996)—is a powerful mechanism
of resistance against external forces, which is lacking in most other minority
peoples, who can only draw upon their vernacular tradition to resist. At the
same time, Islam is what justifies the sense of superiority of some Bertha with
regard to their less orthodox kinsfolk and to other borderland communities.
As modernity in other contexts, Islam is presented as a symbol of civilization
beyond discussion.

Mayu: The Mixed

The more Islamized land is that of the Mayu, who reject the name Bertha.
They claim to be descendants of the Umayyad dynasty (661–750), as their
own group name would prove. In that, they are only following an old Funj
tradition. In 1699, an official document declared the Umayyad pedigree of the
Funj and provided an interesting account of how the Umayyads ended up in
the Blue Nile (Holt, 1999: 159–62). According to the story, a certain Sulay-
man, one of the last members of the Umayyad family, escaped the Abbasid

Book 1.indb 190 2/25/14 6:21 AM

 Figure 4.5. Map of Benishangul with the main Bertha groups: Mayu, Fadasi, Gamili,
and Jebelawin. Towns and settlements mentioned in the text: 1. Fazogli; 2. Jebel Agaró;
3. Gizen; 4. Kurmuk; 5. Khomosha; 6. Menge; 7. Ondonok; 8. Asosa; 9. Bambasi/Fadasi.

Book 1.indb 191 2/25/14 6:21 AM

 192 Chapter 4

killing spree and took refuge in Ethiopia. Not feeling secure in his new home,
he decided to flee to the “country of the Blacks.” He became the ruler there
by marrying the daughter of their king. His descendants “intermarried with
the Blacks until they became part of them in every respect” (Ibid.: 162). It is
not surprising that the story rung a bell with the Mayu, themselves a mixture
of Muslim emigrants and local blacks. They are not a single community,
however; they come originally from a series of Bertha clans, which include
Fanaqoldi, Fanaoje, Fa-Undu, Fa-Dongo, and Fa-Sude (see map in Triulzi,
1981: 56).
The core of Mayu land stretches mostly through the higher lands of Benis-
hangul. It is well connected with the Sudan through two historical routes: the
road from Asosa to Kurmuk and from Menge to Gizen. Along these routes
emerged important settlements and markets, ruled by sheikhs and frequented
by Sudanese traders and holymen. Actually, urban agglomerations are one
of the defining features of Mayu society, as opposed to other Bertha groups.
Some of them have played a central role since the mid-nineteenth century
at least: Khomosha, Menge, Aqoldi, and later Asosa. Throughout this area,
there are archaeological remains of large settlements, sometimes spanning
several hectares. Meaningfully, one of these abandoned sites, on top of a
mountain near the modern town of Kubr Hamsa, is known as Al-Medina (“the
city”) (Fernández and González-Ruibal, 2001: 70–73, 76).
As it happened with the highlanders and the Gumuz, the Mayu have a
lighter color of skin than their kinsfolk and their facial features are more
similar to those of the Sudanese. They use Arabic often or Bertha mixed with
a good deal of Arabic and call the vernacular language ar-rut’ana: the dialect
(as opposed to the real language, Arabic). Other Bertha people, though, argue
that it is the Mayu who speak rut’ana, because they cannot speak Bertha well.
This reflects strong dialectical differences among the Bertha (Cerulli, 1947).
The life stories of the Mayu are marked by border crossings and experiences
in the Sudan: for trading, studying, or as political refugees.

Fa-Kuŋkuŋ: The Pure

The Fa-Kuŋkuŋ live in the eastern lowlands of Benishangul. They are a rural,
chiefless society. Their settlements—along the Dabus River—are scattered
villages, such as Undulu, Fudindu, Fulederu, and Ondonok. Although Fa-
Kuŋkuŋ is the best known clan, other clans of the area can be included among
the “pure Bertha without Arab blood,” which is how a young Mayu man de-
fined the Fa-Kuŋkuŋ to me5: such clans are Fana Rubandu, Fa-Belatafa, and
Fa-Shuman. All these peoples have to be identified with the Gamila (Grotta-
nelli, 1941: 569), who were first reported by D’Abbadie in 1845 (Conti Ros-

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 Between Domination and Resistance: The Bertha 193

sini, 1920) and probably before that by Renée Caillaud under the name Qa-
mâmyl (Caillaud, 1826: 414–25). Caillaud, in fact, also mentions Fa-Kuŋkuŋ
(Fâkoumkom) as a mountain range in the land of the Qamâmyl (Ibid.: 416),
which is crossed by the river Tumat. Interestingly, in the Ethiopian census
of 1994, 144 people declared “Gamili” as their ethnic identity, thus proving
the survival of this denomination and an ethnic consciousness. Bender (1976:
516) did not find sufficient grounds to separate Gamila from the main Bertha
cluster, but other linguists now consider that the differences between Bertha
dialects are remarkable enough to consider them languages per se (Blench,
2000). In the region of the Fa-Kuŋkuŋ, the language/dialect spoken is Undu
(Undulu is another denomination of the people). The Gamila, Fa-Kuŋkuŋ, or
Undulu, in fact, see themselves as different and are regarded as such by other
Bertha. Thus, when D’Abbadie met a Gamila man, who had been enslaved
by his Oromo neighbors, the slave presented himself as Gamila and different
from the Bertha, whom his group called “Mugo” (perhaps “Mayu”) (Conti
Rossini, 1920: 319). The rift between the civilized and the wild Bertha, then,
was already marked in the first half of the nineteenth century—in fact, it was
probably more evident at that time. The division was expressed in racial terms
then, as it is today: the term Gamila in all likelihood comes from Ga-Mili,
which in Bertha means “Black People” (Bender, 1976: 7; Triulzi, 1981: 189).
Interestingly, a similar name is given to themselves by a Mao group, the Sith
Shwala (“Black Men”; see section 5.2). In both cases, a subaltern identity (as
blacks) is accepted in a defiant, subversive way.
The alleged purity of the Fa-Kuŋkuŋ or Gamila is, of course, not such.
They are a mixture, too, but of a different kind. Instead of having intermarried
with the Arabs, the Fa-Kuŋkuŋ established relations with the local popula-
tions of Benishangul. As we have seen, the main Bertha historical account
tells that they expelled the indigenous “Komo” and took hold of their land,
but they did mix with the locals: surely not all “Komo” decided to go. If
multi-ethnic villages abound today in buffer zones, it would be strange that
they did not exist two hundred years ago. The lowland Bertha who are closer
to the Blue Nile also maintain relations with the Gumuz: there is even a Ber-
tha clan, called Fangaso, who speaks Gumuz (Ahland et al., 2002: viii; James
et al., 1996: 178). The darker skin and facial features clearly reveal the kin-
ship between the Fa-Kuŋkuŋ and other lowland groups. Not only their bodies
bear this ancestral imprint, their cultural practices do as well. What could be
called a Koman background is apparent throughout Bertha culture as a whole,
but it is stronger in this area, as we will see.
For the Mayu, all the Bertha of the lowlands are “blacks” and “primi-
tive.” In that way, they are reproducing, again, the cultural and political rift
underscored by geography that characterizes Ethiopia as a whole: dominant

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 194 Chapter 4

peoples with clear skin live in the highlands and dominate dark peoples in
the lowlands. People were still divided into mili and beni (black and red)
in the town of Khomosha in the 1970s (Triulzi, 1981: 114), a divide that
spoke of both race and power. During the slaving era of Sheikh Khojele, the
Fa-Kuŋkuŋ were not spared. Significantly, when the British sources refer to
slaves from Benishangul, they always speak about Bertha, but when they
talk about the local intermediaries who raid the villages and sell them in the
Sudan, they use the term Watawit (Arkell, 1928).
The tensions between the old Watawit and Gamila, Mayu and Fa-
Kuŋkuŋ, Arabs and blacks, still exist today, although under different
guises. According to some Bertha, these divisions are used by the govern-
ments of Sudan and Ethiopia to the detriment of the Bertha (Markakis,
2011: 350). Although this is true, the divisions are inherent to the Ber-
tha society itself. Thus, when the first government of the autonomous
region of Benishangul was established under Bertha rule, it soon split
due to tensions between the elite (Mayu) and the “Undulu” (Markakis,
2011: 348). Another recent problem for the administration of the territory
was the conflict between Mayu and Fa-Kuŋkuŋ. With the implementation of
the modern wereda (municipality) system, the two main Bertha groups ended
up included in the same administrative units. These units were based upon
the old Bertha sheikhdoms and their areas of influence (Menge/Bela Shan-
gul, Asosa/Aqoldi, Khomosha), and they included both dominators (Mayu)
and dominated (Fa-Kuŋkuŋ). Only the Fadasi remained mostly located in
one wereda (Bambasi). The Fa-Kuŋkuŋ and other lowland Bertha have been
reclaiming autonomy from Menge for a while. They want to have their own
wereda and complain that they are too far from the administrative center and
that communications are difficult. Menge can hardly be reached in one day
from most lowland parts of the wereda, a situation that favors internal rela-
tions among Fa-Kuŋkuŋ, to the detriment of external connections.
The conflict worsened during 2007 and 2008. The federal army had to
be sent to the region, and a permanent military camp was established in the
lowland village of Undulu. When we tried to go to Ondonok in November
2007, an officer told us that the people there were on the warpath and that
no one working for the administration had been allowed to enter the zone
for the last six months. In February 2009, we finally managed to reach On-
donok, although I am not aware of how the conflict was resolved—in any
case, the goal of autonomy was not achieved, as our papers were issued by
Menge. However, the people at the local kebele (the minor administrative
unit, depending on the wereda) behave very much as if they are autonomous:
a group of elders met and deliberated whether to let us visit the area. They
complained that foreigners had tried to enter their land bypassing them, in-

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 Between Domination and Resistance: The Bertha 195

cluding gold prospectors—a repetition of old affronts. The way in which the
regional government of Benishangul is dealing with the rift between Arabs
and blacks is mixing them to blur the differences. Thus, in the new village
of Ondonok, people from both the Mayu and Fa-Kuŋkuŋ groups have been
resettled together in 2004.

Fadasi: The In-Between

The Mayu do not only despise the “primitive” Fa-Kuŋkuŋ, they also catego-
rize the Fadasi as an inferior group. The Fadasi or Fadashi live in southern
Benishangul and their only “urban” center is Bambasi (originally called
Fadasi), which was the seat of one of the independent sheikhs of Benis-
hangul during the nineteenth century. The old Fadasi settlement was on a
mountain a few kilometers southwest of present day Bambasi, and the place
was dominated by the large house of the local sheikh. Unlike the Mayu and
the groups included under the label Fa-Kuŋkuŋ or Undulu, all Fadasi belong
to a single clan (Fa-Dasi). They do not usually call themselves Bertha and
prefer the name Fadasi (or Phadashi), which is uttered with contempt by the
Mayu. The same name is used to identify their language. In the 1994 census,
8.715 people declared a Fadashi ethnic identity (versus 116,084 people that
identified themselves generically as Bertha). The Fadashi can be regarded as
a middle ground between the orthodox Mayu and the “pagan” Fa-Kuŋkuŋ.
Like the Mayu, many of them descend from mixed marriages of Sudanese
merchants and local Bertha, and their political capital was a large, multi-
ethnic, and wealthy marketplace—the southern terminal of all Arab trade
in the region (Matteuci, 1879: 243; Triulzi, 1981: 130). They also had para-
mount chiefs (sheikhs), which are absent among the Fa-Kuŋkuŋ. However,
the Fadasi, unlike the Mayu, are in close contact with the Mao, who are re-
garded as “primitive.” The influence of the Fadasi on them is clear, especially
in the northern zone: regarding material culture, they have adopted the Bertha
throwing stick (baŋ), house plans, and pottery techniques.
The Fadasi were also raided by Sheikh Khojele up to the early twentieth
century, and the Mayu around Asosa used to have Fadasi slaves in their home-
steads until the arrival of the Italians in 1936.6 At the same time, however,
the Fadasi are an expansive people, a feature that characterizes dominant
groups in the region. Thus, they have expanded as far as Tongo (with Mayu
families), in the southernmost limit of Benishangul, where they live in multi-
ethnic villages. In some cases, they have gradually and peacefully expelled
the local inhabitants and today share the space with other dominant groups:
in T’enze, a former Mao settlement, there are only Bertha and Oromo now.
In other places, they form a minority in villages of a subaltern group: this is

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 196 Chapter 4

the case of Banga Dergo, where some Fadasi families live in a large Mao
settlement. According to a wereda officer in Tongo, however, the Bertha tend
to despise the Mao because, although nominally Muslim, they drink much
alcohol, have many pagan rites, and do not respect Islamic food prohibitions.7
Significantly, one of the few places where I have seen a rural Bertha observe
the praying time was in a Mao village (Boshuma), where he was temporarily
hosted by Mao, while prospecting for gold in the area. It seems that in the
border zone, one has to take the performance of one’s identity more seriously.
The Fadasi are similar to other Bertha groups who mixed not just with Arab
merchants but also with other indigenous populations. The most important of
these Bertha groups are the so-called Jebelawin living in the Sudanese moun-
tains south of Fazogli and up to the border with Ethiopia. They are described
by Pellegrino Matteucci and Juan Maria Schuver in the late nineteenth cen-
tury. Schuver states that they are “not yet true Berta, but Jebelawin (mountain-
eers) who speak a corrupt Berta dialect, are strongly mixed with Funj, Tabi
[Ingessana] and Hamaj, but are of the same complexion as other negroes. . . .
Only the chiefs . . . profess Mohammedanism more or less; the great mass
have remained pure pagans” (James et al., 1996: 24). Matteucci (1879: 216),
in turn, referring to the people of Jebel Agaró, writes: “[t]hey call themselves
Muslims because they intend to have a certain authority over those of the pure
Bertat [the Bertha land], who, albeit considering themselves their slaves, enjoy
a perfect independence. Some want to conclude from this that the Muslims
command over an inferior and pagan race; but I believe that they are neither
Muslim nor pagan: they are savage in temperament and nature, and in religion
they have just a mixture of Mohammedanism and fetishism.” In Matteucci’s
description, the Jebelawin seem to occupy a middle ground between the primi-
tive Fa-Kuŋkuŋ and the more Islamized Watawit or Mayu.
Other Jebelawin were the Bertha from Jebel Gule in Sudan. There, the
local Funj rulers were quite successful in defending their subjects from the
exactions of Turco-Egyptian slave raiders and Arab merchants and, for that
reason, Gule became a sort of sanctuary for Bertha escaping from other,
more exposed areas (Spaulding, 1985: 290). The region remained a space of
resistance that allowed for the survival of traditional communities (Ingessana,
Uduk, Maban, Komo). This explains Ernst Marno’s drawings of the Bertha
from this area—naked, with traditional headdresses and material culture
(Marno, 1874: plates 5 and 6). Some photographs taken during the first third
of the twentieth century by colonial administrators also show very traditional
Bertha in the Sudanese border.8 The difference between the Fadasi, Jebe-
lawin, and similar groups, on the one hand, and the Fa-Kuŋkuŋ, on the other,
is that the former had more or less Islamized chiefs, whereas the latter do not
seem to have reproduced the distinctions of pagan/Islamic, master/slave at

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 Between Domination and Resistance: The Bertha 197

all. This would explain Schuver’s description of these latter groups as “demo-
cratic” (Triulzi, 1981: 102) and that they are referred to by both travelers and
the Bertha themselves as “the true Bertha.”

4.3. DOUBLE BELIEF: BETWEEN PAGANISM AND ISLAM

While it is true that the time of tradition and the time of Islam are often con-
trasted in stark ways among the Bertha, this is not always the case. What one
could see as a contradiction, and some Bertha actually see it this way, others
understand as a seamless whole. However, even in those cases where tradi-
tion and Islam are brought together, the weak element remains weak, subor-
dinated to the universalist religion. An example of this is ritual specialists.
The Bertha have a traditional ritual specialist called ŋeri. The ŋeri can foresee
the future, cure different illnesses, deal with evil spirits, and bring rain. It is a
traditional figure very common among the borderland groups and, as such, a
link between the Bertha and other subaltern communities (see James, 1988).
Like other borderland groups, the Bertha also have a diversity of ritual spe-
cialists, but in their case, this diversity is structured in quite different terms.
To start with, it is strongly hierarchical. While the Gumuz or Mao admit that
some categories of specialists have more powers or abilities than others, they
do not actually rank them as the Bertha do. The other difference is that this
hierarchy includes both Islamic and non-Islamic specialists. The same hap-
pens in the highlands with the more traditional and resistant groups, such as
the K’ämänt Agäw: here Christian priests and traditional ritual specialists
coexist (Gamst, 1969: 31); the difference with the Bertha is that among the
K’ämänt the paramount religious leaders are (or used to be) “pagan” and not
Christian. The hierarchy of specialists among the Bertha has three levels: ŋeri
(the traditional ritual specialist), feki (a Muslim holyman), and sheki (a figure
that reunites religious and political qualities).

Ŋeri: From Diviner to Medicine Man

The ŋeri is the traditional healer and diviner of the Bertha and a proof of the
hegemonic tendencies of Bertha culture (even the pagan): the ŋeri has had an
outstanding influence on the religious practices of other peoples in the area,
mainly among the Uduk, who adopted his divination practices (James, 1988:
160, 269). The ŋeri used to have a paramount role among the Bertha, who
consulted him before undertaking any task, from building a house to going to
the market.9 Before building a house, for instance, the Bertha go to the ŋeri
to know whether the place is propitious. There are two main ways a ŋeri can

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 198 Chapter 4

get to know whether a place is adequate to establish a home. One of them

consists in lighting a fire of ebony or a wood called bibi. The character of
the chosen place is discovered by observing and interpreting the flames. This
ritual is called shaŋgur and, as we have seen, exists among the Bertha at least
since the time of their settlement in Benishangul. Divination through fire is
well attested to among other Nilo-Saharan groups in the area, like the Uduk
(James, 1979: 216–19) and the “Burun” (Mostyn, 1921: 208). Another rite
involves the use of cowrie shells (hudu) or, more rarely, seeds (castor beans).
The ŋeri throws seven shells or seeds to the ground and depending on their
pattern, he decides whether it is propitious to build a house in the selected
place or not. Ideally, six out of the seven shells must be aligned in a row;
if they fell at random, without any apparent order, the ŋeri can try again. If
the result is the same, the place where the house was planned to be installed
has to be abandoned. This practice of divination with cowries has also been
noted for the Komo (James, 1988: 275). Small polished stones—small quartz
pebbles, as among the Nuba (Seligman and Seligman, 1965 [1932]: 404)—
can also be used, in combination with cowries or seeds. These are called bele
ro (rain stones or thunder stones) and are well known among other Nilo-
Saharan communities, such as the Juo, Acholi (Butt, 1952: 89–90), Lotuko,
Nuba, Uduk (Seligman and Seligman, 1965 [1932]: 327, 398–99, 440–41),
and Maban (Wedderburn-Maxwell, 1936: 183). Among the Bertha, their use
is not constrained to rainmaking, as their name might lead one to suppose,
but to divination in general. Nevertheless, rainmaking is still one of the main
roles of the ritual specialist. Rainmaking rites take place in front of the ŋeri’s
house: a branch of wera (an aromatic tree) is stuck into the ground and water
from the river is spilled around it, while the ŋeri asks God to give rain to the
village. Traditional ritual specialists can also cure people and extract evil
spirits (shuman) from the bodies of people or their houses. It seems that the
spirits cannot be destroyed: they can only be moved to a new location (a tree,
a granary, an abandoned house), where they are kept imprisoned. Fires have
to be lit for the shuman and water must be brought in calabashes, in order to
appease them and keep them at bay.
With the increasing Islamization of the Bertha and the spread of more
orthodox beliefs, the ŋeri are being replaced by other specialists, who in
part practice their functions but without colliding with Islam. These spe-
cialists lack some of the more overt pagan customs (such as divination and
rainmaking) and have focused on others that are more compatible with the
Quran. This specialist is called mabai hes’eín, literally “medicine man,”
and his relationship with the ŋeri speaks eloquently of the split Bertha
identity. Audun Hamis, a mabai hes’eín who lived in the outskirts of Asosa,
was clearly uncomfortable with all questions that had to do with the tradi-

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 Between Domination and Resistance: The Bertha 199

tional side of Bertha life—just the opposite of what happened with the ŋeri
Ramadan Talow. His wife, who was around while I was conducting the
interview, interfered every time she thought the discussion was approach-
ing the issue of non-Islamic practices, trying to divert the conversation or
simply asking her husband not to speak. Audun Hamis insisted that he just
prepared medicines to cure sexual diseases, using roots and herbs, and this
was certainly true, but so do the ŋeri: Ramadan Talow can cure stomach
diseases using natural medicines. The alleged difference is that he does not
use non-Islamic rituals, yet Audun’s house was full of special substances
and things as well as particular places where these were mixed. Whenever I
asked him for the name or use of any of these elements to include it in my
plan, he refused to answer with a smile (quite unlike Ramadan). The ritual
aspect of these healing practices is downplayed or concealed, and emphasis
is put on the properties of the medicines themselves. In fact, Audun Hamis
argued that ŋeri and medicine men are in conflict: the latter use medicines,
the former Quranic verses as magic spells (that is, they make wrong use of
the sacred book). According to Audun, the mabai hes’eín refuses to assist
people who have previously resorted to a ŋeri, because his evil powers will
spoil the work of the medicine man.10 The ŋeri is then the inverted, evil im-
age of the mabai hes’eín. Yet, typical of Bertha double belief, even witches
know the Quran and making medicines implies more than knowledge of
natural resources.
Traditional doctors can be seen in many markets throughout Benishangul,
selling their products to Bertha and non-Bertha customers alike. I have found
them in places so far away as Kurmuk, in the northern limit of Benishangul,
and Kobor, in the southernmost part of the region (see figure 4.6). This proves
again the hegemonic tendencies of Bertha culture and its capacity to attract
other groups. They sell their medicines and services to people belonging to
any ethnic group, including Mao and Oromo. A recent study identified and
interviewed fourteen of these traditional Bertha healers (Teferi Flatie et al.,
2009): it seems that their growth goes hand in hand with the dwindling num-
ber of ŋeri. The study revealed that the Bertha increasingly go to the clinic
for conditions that they know can be easily cured through Western medicine
(such as malaria), but they still resort to traditional healers in other cases,
such as demon possession and body swelling, which are not solved in the
clinic. Again, this shows that there are still important questions of belief in
the practice of traditional healers. However, this is not necessarily incompat-
ible with Islam. This religion accepts the existence of spirits (jinn), some
of which are evil (shayatin). Some sheikh and fuqara are believed to cure
diseases and to deal with witchcraft. Double history is not always in conflict
(Chakrabarty, 2000).

Book 1.indb 199 2/25/14 6:21 AM

 200 Chapter 4

Figure 4.6. Medicines for sale in the Kurmuk market, close to the Sudan border. They
are variously used for protection against diseases and for curing stomach ailments and
animal stings. Courtesy of Víctor M. Fernández

Feki: The Magic of Writing

According to Ramadan Talow,11 the ŋeri occupies the lower echelon of the
ritual scale. Above the ŋeri, to whom people may go in the first place, is the
feki, a colloquial version of faqih (pl. fuqara). Ramadan admits that when he
is unable to cure a person, he sends him or her to the feki, whom he considers
just a more powerful ŋeri. Things do not seem to have changed drastically
for the last century and a half: Italian missionary Giovanni Beltrame already
noted that the “faqih” was only consulted “in case of serious sickness”; for
the rest, the people resorted to the traditional knowledge of elders (Triulzi,
1981: 139). Other Bertha see feki and ŋeri as basically the same; the differ-
ence is that the former use the Quran and the latter do not.12 As in other Mus-
lim countries, a feki is anyone known for piety and knowledge of writing and
of the Quran (McHugh, 1994: 17). The first fuqara arrived during the early
nineteenth century as poor jallāba and earned a living by writing amulets
with Quranic verses for protection and teaching writing and Islam to the sons

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 Between Domination and Resistance: The Bertha 201

of Bertha chiefs (Spaulding, 1985: 287). This link between writing, magic,
and protection is still alive among the Bertha, who believe that the feki can
cure illnesses or protect people from evil by resorting to the Quran, either by
praying or by making leather amulets (hiyab).
These hiyab have a small piece of paper inside with Quranic verses. The
ambiguous nature of the amulets is evinced in their widespread use among the
“pure Bertha” (Fa-Kuŋkuŋ and other rural groups), whereas people in towns or
more Islamized areas wear them less frequently. Amulets are tied around the
neck, often several together, or the upper arm. It is a kind of magic that is per-
formed by the feki: a young potter told me that she was not afraid of evil eye
affecting her pottery, because the Quranic verses recited by the feki protected
her,13 and another woman from the same village argued that the feki spared
her from the spirit of thunder (Ro), evil eye, and the devil. For that, he writes
verses on papers that are placed on the roof of the house. The defense against
Ro is a typical task of the ŋeri: the difference is that the non-Islamic rite con-
sists in hanging a horn on a pole next to the house (for which the intervention
of the ŋeri is not needed), instead of Quranic texts. The feki also writes papers
for protection that are hung at the entrance to the house—a notoriously dan-
gerous place—the same location where one can find offerings of first fruits to
the spirits or amulets of eggshells (González-Ruibal, 2006b: 397). Again, both
practices are not seen as incompatible, and sometimes one can find corncobs
and Quranic verses together in the same house. That the pagan ŋeri and the
Muslim feki are not always perceived as conflicting positions is seen in the
person of ŋeri Ramadan Talow: he wears a string of leather amulets that were
given to him by a feki to defend him against illness (see figure 4.7).
Quranic verses are used in non-orthodox ways: on the one hand, people
believe in writing as a sort of magic (thus the association of corncobs and
verses) and, on the other hand, the boundary between what is and what is
not writing is blurred. Thus, the prehistoric rock art of Bel Bembishi and
Bel ash-Sharifu is considered writing and people think that the paintings
come from God (Fernández, 2011: 285): one can be cured from an illness
by touching the “inscription.”14 An informant said that the paintings of Bel
Bembishi were from the origins of the world and were words from the Quran
written by Allah himself before the Bertha even existed.15 Writing is not the
only power of the feki; he can also prepare other amulets, such as the mashu,
which is made with the claws of an animal and helps protect people from
the weapons of enemies. However, writing is particularly endowed with
prestige among the Bertha, both for its magic qualities and its linkages to
the Sudan and Islam. Thus, even in small and remote villages it is possible
to see Islamic schools (madrasat) in traditional huts, with written wooden
boards hanging from their walls. As it can be expected, they are particularly

Book 1.indb 201 2/25/14 6:21 AM

 Figure 4.7. The ŋeri Ramadan and his wife, Nekura, both dressed in typical Mayu/
Sudanese style. Ramadan wears a string of amulets with Quranic verses given to him
by a feki.

Book 1.indb 202 2/25/14 6:21 AM

 Between Domination and Resistance: The Bertha 203

abundant in Mayu land, where the Quranic tablets bear witness of the conver-
sion of the “ignorant” (ujum) Bertha into Mayu wise men. It is probably more
than an anecdote that, whereas all traditional madrasa that I saw in Mayu land
(Famatsere, Dul, Ura) had the wooden tablets hanging inside the building, the
only one that I saw in Fa-Kuŋkuŋ territory (Fudindu) had the tablets hanging
outside, as if they were amulets or charms, surrounding the hut.

Sheki: Power and Religion

Above the feki there is the sheki (colloquial version of sheikh), who is an
old, wise man with both religious and political power. According to Bertha
informants, the sheki has to be a pure person and he can be elected by a group
of feki well versed in the Quran. The sheki is thought to have powers such as
curing people and foreseeing the future, which are usually attributed to a ŋeri,
and he can even perform them in places with a pre-Islamic background, like
the above mentioned rock shelter of Bel Bembishi.16 Although the sheki can
heal, he has more orthodox religious functions. The title of “sheikh,” as we
have seen, was used by the old rulers of Benishangul during the nineteenth
century, who controlled the land, had slaves, and administered justice from
the towns of Khomosha, Menge, Asosa, and Fadasi. Their political functions,
in this case, seem to have overwhelmed the religious ones. Nevertheless, it
is worth noting that one of the two official portraits that we have of Sheikh
Khojele depict him with a rosary in his hands, which is simultaneously a
symbol of piety and an old Funj emblem (McHugh, 1994: 84). Furthermore,
Khojele erected two public buildings in Asosa during the late nineteenth
century that mirror the double function of the sheikh (political and religious):
one of them a court for administering justice, the other a large mosque. Rul-
ers such as Khojele, however, were not the common sheki. The latter were
more numerous, in contact with the people, and respected, even venerated,
by them. The tombs of those who were more renowned for their piety and
religious deeds have become places of veneration and pilgrimage. This is the
case with the already mentioned Al-Faki Ahmad Umar, the Nigerian who is
buried in Ya’a Beldigis, south of Benishangul, and who is considered indis-
tinctly a feki (Al-Faki) or a sheki. Meaningfully, Ahmad Umar was consid-
ered an Abba K’orich’a (medicine man) by the local Oromo, with access to
the services of spiritual beings, a fact that proves that even sheki are deeply
imbued of folk Islamic and pre-Islamic beliefs (Ishihara, 2009: 507). While
the sanctuary of Ya’a Beldigis attracts followers from all over Ethiopia (we
even met Yemenis in his sanctuary), other sheki have a more limited appeal:
they are known and respected in a particular area. This is the case with sheki
Al-Hanun, who lived in the village of Obora, near Menge (see figure 4.8).

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 204 Chapter 4

Figure 4.8. The tomb of sheki Al-Hanun in Obora.

People gather around his grave to pray, especially during Islamic festivals.
Shekis’ tombs are sometimes built-up and marked with poles and white flags,
as in Sudan. The pilgrimage to shekis’ tombs is typical of popular Islam and
has often served to bridge the time of tradition and the time of Islam: Wah-
habism, however, has criticized these practices that are perceived as pagan
(Haji Gnamo, 2002: 111). In Benishangul, these seem orthodox in compari-
son to other indigenous beliefs.

4.4. DOUBLE MATERIALITY

A double (un)consciousness cannot be sustained in thin air. To the split

identity of the Bertha corresponds an equally divided materiality. The groups
that are examined in this book tend to have a rather homogeneous material
culture. There might be slight regional variations in the way pots are made
and houses built, especially in border zones, but that is it: despite divergences,
there is basically one Gumuz pottery style, one Mao dress, or one Gwama
house. The Bertha case is different. It is the only group where material culture

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 Between Domination and Resistance: The Bertha 205

is split in two, and this split is related to the tensions discussed in the previous
sections. Of course, not all material culture is divided. Many things are not
in a straightforward way. I will explore here three material elements that do
show this divide, but in a different form: pots, houses, and bodies. In the first
case the rift is internal: all Bertha households have a double kind of pottery.
In the second case, the rift is external: there are two main kinds of houses that
tend to be exclusionary. The third case is a mixture of the other two situations.

Pots
Bertha pottery is made by both men and women (González-Ruibal, 2005). In
that, they distinguish themselves from most other groups, with one exception
(see section 5.2): in all other communities pottery making is a female task.
This is not the case with the Bertha, where pottery types are clearly gendered.
There are male and female pottery styles, and they have very different appear-
ances, chaînes operatoires, and uses. Different, as well, are their temporali-
ties and their relations with other peoples and technical traditions.

Women’s Pots
Bertha women make pottery for preparing food, brewing beer, or storing
water. Female pottery is simultaneously the more conservative, and therefore
more strongly linked to an attitude of resistance, and the more innovative, a
fact that proves that change and stasis can sometimes coalesce. More than
male pots, female ones can be said to inhabit a heterogeneous temporality.
We can speak of a prehistoric Nilo-Saharan time that is made manifest in
Bertha pottery: the chaîne operatoire involves operations that have changed
little for the last eight millennia or more and that are similar to those present
in neighboring lowland ceramic traditions. It stands in opposition to the high-
land style. The Bertha style is characterized by pots of simple profiles (redo-
lent of the gourds from which they ultimately originate), with no moldings or
marked edges, a predominance of large vessels, and dull, earthy colors—in
opposition to highland pottery, which has complex profiles, moldings, and
marked edges, and bright, reddish coloring. Like the Gumuz or Mao pottery,
and unlike that of highlanders, it is a domestic production, which can be
sold, but it is made by potters who are not marginalized and who produce for
themselves as much as for the market. Here, as in many other issues, we find
a difference between Mayu and Fa-Kuŋkuŋ. Among the latter, most women
are capable of making pottery. Among the Mayu, there are villages (such
as Ura or Obora), where women specialize in producing pots and who sup-
ply them to those villages where there are no local potters. That Fa-Kuŋkuŋ

Book 1.indb 205 2/25/14 6:21 AM

 206 Chapter 4

women have kept technology democratic (unlike the Mayu) is not, of course,
a coincidence (see section 3.3).
Perhaps more surprising than the shared prehistoric background of Bertha
pottery is another of the times materialized in pots made by women: that
of the Meroe Kingdom (ca. 350 BC–350 AD). The awar (beer jar) shows
more than passing resemblance with the amphorae of the Meroitic period
(see Edwards, 1998b: figures 6.19, 6.20; Fernández, 1985). Amphoroid jars
were both handmade and wheelmade. The former were frequently decorated
with impressions on the shoulder. Decoration, shape, and use coincide with
the Bertha awar. It is important to note that the twisted roulette employed
in the decoration of the awar is a technique widespread in South Sudan,
especially among the Nilotes (e.g., Nuer, Añwaa), but is virtually absent in
Ethiopia (González-Ruibal et al., forthcoming; Livingstone-Smith, 2007:
figures 3 and 9). The continuity of the amphoroid type in Central Sudan
can be demonstrated from Meroitic through the medieval and Funj periods
(Crawford and Addison, 1951: xxix; Edwards, 2004: 250), to the present
(see figure 4.9).
There is nothing outlandish in that something that holds so much impor-
tance in the communal life of a group—the social consumption of beer—has
remained conservatively attached to the same type of container through
centuries. After all, beer was essential, and to a large extent still is, in the
work parties of the Bertha. Unlike other borderland communities, the Bertha
do have a specific word for this activity: maha. Maha can be mobilized for
building a house, harvesting cereals, or clearing the bush, but in all cases sor-
ghum beer (bas’a or as’elía) has to be offered to the participants. However,
the awar has perhaps changed little also because it implies a link with the
Sudan. It is a material memory that ties the Bertha not only to their ancestral
homeland, but also to a prestigious referent: the Funj sultanate. If it does
not play a more prominent role in Bertha culture as a whole, it is because
of its association with the weak twin of their split identity: the non-Islamic
time of tradition. Nonetheless, in those parts where tradition is stronger, the
numerous awar that one can find in a household and their lavish decoration
(in contrast with the plainness of other pots) clearly evince the symbolic and
social relevance of this container (see figure 4.10).
Although women’s pottery is rooted in the past, in tradition, and in the
household in different ways, this does not mean that it is static technology.
On the contrary, it is rather dynamic, even astonishingly so. Without a doubt,
women potters are more flexible and innovative artisans than their male coun-
terparts. There are different reasons for this, but one is that male pottery is
orthodox in many ways and therefore rigid and less prone to change. Female
pottery is not subject to any rule other than basic community values and, as

Book 1.indb 206 2/25/14 6:21 AM

Book 1.indb 207
Figure 4.9. Comparison of beer pots: Bertha, Meroitic, and Funj.

2/25/14 6:21 AM
 Figure 4.10. A pottery assemblage with nine awar from the Fa-Kuŋkuŋ village of On-
donok. Courtesy of Álvaro Falquina

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 Between Domination and Resistance: The Bertha 209

long as these are respected, there is room for innovation, including the assimi-
lation of technical solutions from other traditions. Thus, whereas the Gumuz,
as we have seen, are very reluctant to adopt pottery techniques or types from
other groups, Bertha women both borrow and lend.
In the village of Obora, which we visited several times between 2003 and
2007, I could detect relevant changes in the way pottery was produced and
commercialized, while always keeping faithful to basic aspects of tradition.
Thus, the women of Obora have introduced changes in their pottery, so as to
make it more appealing to an increasingly varied clientele, which includes
Bertha and highlanders (Oromo and Amhara living in the nearby town of
Menge). The women from Obora have no qualms with borrowing pottery
types from highlanders and modifying their own to make it fit the tastes of
their neighbors. Therefore, they have changed the shape of the baking plate
(gey) to make it flatter, so that flat bread (ïnjära) can be baked in it: they
stick to their chaîne operatoire but use the Oromo shape (ele), in order to sell
them to Oromo and other highlanders. Similarly, in the southern fringes of
the Bertha territory, which are multi-ethnic, Bertha potters have dropped the
making of most pottery types and specialized in gey/ele, which are attractive
to a wider clientele.
Regarding lendings, Bertha women use a system to make the pots non-
stick and more impermeable, a technique that has been assimilated by many
neighbors, including Oromo and Mao. It consists in splashing a liquid on
the pot as soon as it is taken out of the fire. The liquid, in contact with the
extremely hot surface of the pot, creates a glossy black coat over the vessel
(see figure 4.11). The substance is made with water and the tannin-rich bark
of different trees. The bark is first crushed and then left to ferment in water
for a couple of days.
The coating procedure is spreading fast to other groups and to different
kinds of pots. When I first visited the area in 2001, only the inner part of the
gey and the eñish had this treatment. By 2007, not only were these pots glossy
black inside and outside, but other pots that had never been varnished before,
such as the awar, now showed the characteristic patina. Furthermore, women
incorporated a new pottery type from the highlands—the clay stove (called
al-kanum by the Bertha)—to their repertoire and replicated it faithfully, but
with a twist: the red stoves were turned glossy black in the Bertha version
by the employment of the now merely decorative coating. Longacre et al.
(2000) proved that a blackening technique used in the Philippines to make the
pots glossy actually improves the performance of cooking pots by increasing
heating effectiveness and impermeability (a result that is consistent with the
Bertha case), but they did not find any correlation with strength. The black
coating, then, originally used by the Bertha for its mechanical qualities has

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 210 Chapter 4

Figure 4.11. A woman spreads the coating substance after firing the pots in Obora.
There are three eñish, two alkore, two stoves, and an awar. Courtesy of Víctor M.
Fernández

become a way of making the product more marketable, but also distinctly
Bertha. Before the women from Obora used the full coating on pots, Mao
women living fifty kilometers to the south had already appropriated the tech-
nique for similar decorative purposes and their Oromo neighbors, who knew
other treatments (Bula Sirika Wayessa, 2011: 319), soon followed suit. In all
cases, potters incorporate the innovation while remaining faithful in essence
to their own chaîne operatoires. The original discovery of the blackening
technique is in itself an indication of technical intelligence, experimentation,
and connections between techniques and artifacts (Hodder, 2012; Lemonnier,
1992): crushed bark has been used for a long time in the region for tanning
hides (Evans-Pritchard, 1932: 4).
While the use of black coating is perhaps the most conspicuous of the
strategies employed by the Bertha to sell pottery, it is not the only one. While
studying Bertha pottery, it struck me that although Bertha potters were those
more clearly oriented toward the market, their pots were also the crudest. The
modeling and polishing of a medium Komo or Gumuz pot takes slightly over
an hour; a similarly sized Bertha pot is ready for the fire in thirty minutes.

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 Between Domination and Resistance: The Bertha 211

This is related to two technical operations that only occur among the Bertha:
the hollowing of the lump of clay and the absence of polishing. The Bertha
do not make coils, but just hollow a large lump of clay and then stretch the
walls and hardly polish the vessel at all, apart from some basic smoothing of
the surface with a piece of calabash. Making coils and polishing with pebbles,
shells, and calabash consume most of the time of Komo, Gwama, and Gumuz
potters. In addition, the Bertha are the only group to use organic temper in-
stead of mineral temper or no temper at all, and are scarcely selective with the
clays. In fact, when making a pot, a Bertha will roll the lump on the ground of
her compound, thus mixing the clay with the local soil and stubble and other
debris present there. It has been shown that the use of organic temper is better
in that it enhances performance during manufacture, allowing for expedient
production, and makes pots lighter and thus easier to transport (Skibo et al.,
1989). Given the expediency of fabrication, potters can turn around more
vessels than any other neighboring group. In average, the Bertha pots are also
visibly smaller than their Gumuz, Mao, or Komo counterparts: this allows
women to carry more of them to the market. Bertha products are uglier and
less sturdy, but here the black coating helps to balance the equation.
In sum, women experiment, borrow without prejudice from other potters
(Bertha or non-Bertha), adapt to demand, and help create complex craft net-
works and solidarities between potters. A Gumuz would never experiment in
the way Bertha potters do, because they know that the way to the market is
also the way to inequality. In fact, Gumuz pots are literally anti-market, in
that their enormous size prevents them from being transported to the market-
place: people have to go to the potter’s house if they want to purchase a pot.
This enables a closer kind of social relations, which is different from those
more impersonal that develop at the marketplace. Nevertheless, I would not
say that this entrepreneurial character of Bertha pottery making is necessarily
in opposition to the social values of borderland communities. Benishangul,
more than other frontier areas, is subjected to the increasing pressures of a
global economy: metal saucepans and plastic containers arrive now more eas-
ily through a mesh of all-weather roads that connect the region with Sudan
and the rest of Ethiopia. They threaten domestic handicrafts. Besides, many
highland resettlers in the Asosa area also produce pottery in great quantities.
The technological innovations of Bertha potters (to change some things so
that nothing changes) can be considered, after all, a form of resistance.

Men’s Pots
Bertha men make only three kinds of pots: a coffee pot (jebena), a water jar
(al-briq, from the Arabic ‘ibriq), and an incense burner (hut’ani) (see figure

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 212 Chapter 4

Figure 4.12. The two main ceramics made by Bertha men: the jebena (left) and the
al-briq (right).

4.12). To say that Bertha men make pots is not exactly correct: it is Mayu
men that make them and this is not fortuitous, as we will see. The difference
between male and female pottery is very conspicuous. Actually, one style is
almost the reverse of the other. All three male pots have the same formal and
technical characteristics: shiny red color, heavily polished surface, and very
fine clay (mixed with mineral temper), which are in opposition to the crude
clay (mixed with vegetable temper), rough surface, and dull, earthy colors of
female pots. Jebenas are decorated with incised molds. These form designs
redolent of writing, and I have been told that sometimes they do have letters,
at least those jebenas used in mosques, although I was never able to check
this point. In any case, the connection with writing is interesting, given its
relevance in the Bertha imagination. What is true is that, within the limits of
the particular grammar, the decoration is very diverse (again, in contrast with
the plain and monotonous female-made pottery).
The context of production, distribution, and consumption are also very
different in the male and female traditions. Regarding production, whereas
female pots are fabricated in rural areas and in a variety of settlements (Mayu,

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 Between Domination and Resistance: The Bertha 213

Fa-Kuŋkuŋ, and Fadasi), male pots are produced only, to the best of my
knowledge, in two locations, both urban: the towns of Asosa and Khomo-
sha—both of them capitals of old Mayu sheikhdoms and with strong ties to
Sudan. Women devote only a fraction of their time to the craft, whereas men
are full-time specialists. Also, pottery made by women is produced outside
the house, while male-made pots are molded indoors.
With regard to commercialization and distribution, the difference starts in
the very moment the pots are taken to the market: jebenas are transported on
donkeys (we have seen the strong relation between the jallāba and this ani-
mal), and female pots on the women’s heads or backs. This despite the fact
that jebenas are considerably lighter than the large-sized and thick-walled gey
and is’u. Due to the different means of transportation, male pots can reach
further locations and in greater quantities. Once in the market, male and fe-
male pottery are sold in different places, often far apart.
Female pots are more than a marketable commodity: they are produced
for self-consumption and in some areas this is the main purpose of pottery
making. The marketable character of male pottery and particularly the jebena
is exemplified in three things: the long range of distribution, the fact that it
has a multi-ethnic clientele, and its availability in shops. Female pots have a
restricted range of distribution: cooking pots rarely move more than twenty
kilometers, and this includes the distance that potters walk to the market and
the distance covered by the customers (González-Ruibal, 2005: figure 10). In
contrast, jebenas can be found very far from their centers of production. They
are widely sold in the markets of Kobor, Begi, and Mendi, all located more than
one hundred kilometers from Khomosha and in Oromia state (see figure 4.13).
The appeal to a multi-ethnic clientele is characteristic of the jebena. We
have seen that female pots are sold in some cases to groups other than the
Bertha, but this tendency is more marked with jebenas. Thus, Bertha jebe-
nas are a serious competitor to Oromo coffee jars, even in places where this
ethnic group prevails. Thus, in the Mao and Oromo village of Mus’a Mado
(Benishangul), all four Oromo households whose pottery we inventoried
had Bertha jebenas only. Unlike the Bertha, Oromo coffee pots are made by
women, who apply the same chaîne operatoire of cooking pots: the result is
a vessel of dull color with no shine and rough surfaces, which fares badly in
comparison with the polished jebena. Moreover, the Bertha coffee pot is of-
ten the only vessel acquired outside the ethnic group in many cases. We wit-
nessed this in the Mao villages of Boshuma and Banga Dergo and even in the
remote villages of the Gwama, Komo, and Ganza, in the southeastern limit of
Benishangul. The reason is probably that the custom of coffee consumption
is foreign to these groups and they are, therefore, more prone to acquire out-
side the material culture related to it than to produce it themselves. There is,

Book 1.indb 213 2/25/14 6:21 AM

 Figure 4.13. A Bertha selling coffee pots in Kobor market, Oromia.

Book 1.indb 214 2/25/14 6:21 AM

 Between Domination and Resistance: The Bertha 215

however, an important limit to the success of the Bertha jebenas: they are
always bought by Muslims or followers of traditional religions, seldom by
Christians. Thus, the Amhara always acquire coffee pots from other Christian
Amhara. The jebena is clearly seen as an Islamic object and both religions
keep apart in Ethiopia. Finally, jebena and al-briq can be found in small
shops in towns, like Asosa, whereas cooking pots are never sold outside tradi-
tional markets or potters’ houses. What the jebena shows, in brief, is that the
expansive, hegemonic character of Mayu culture is played out even in such
humble things as coffee pots.
Finally, the context of consumption of male and female pots could not dif-
fer more. We have seen that female pottery is related to the time of tradition:
to a pre-Islamic world of collective beer consumption and socialization. Male
pots, instead, belong to the time of Islam. They are perfectly orthodox: they
are linked to clean substances—coffee, water, and incense—whereas female
pots are associated with dirty ones—alcohol and food. Male pots are attached
to the frontal part of the house, the area that is visible and accessible to guests.
Female pots are confined to the back of the house, concealed under a parti-
tion wall: an area linked to dirt, fermentation, and death (González-Ruibal,
2006b: 398). It is not strange, then, that when Mayu politicians wanted to
pick up a symbol of Bertha identity and, more particularly, of their links with
the Sudan, they chose the jebena and the al-briq, not the awar (González-
Ruibal and Fernández, 2007: 13). If they were interested in Sudanese roots
alone, they could have chosen the beer jar, which has deeper ones, but it is
an impure, unorthodox object. The jebena and the al-briq are canonical arti-
facts that belong to History 1, the one that interests political leaders in Africa
and elsewhere. The jebena is for the orthodox drink, coffee, in contrast to
traditional beer. The al-briq is used for ablutions before praying. The hut’ani
burns incense when people gather to drink coffee or when they pray in the
khalwa. Yet even the most orthodox objects can be subverted and it is not
strange to see broken jebenas hanging from long poles (like skulls or horns)
to protect houses from Ro, the spirit of thunder.
I pointed out at the beginning of this section that all Bertha households
(Mayu, Fadasi, and Fa-Kuŋkuŋ) have a double materiality in terms of pottery.
This is true, but only partially so. Beer pots are, of course, mostly absent in
the houses of faithful Muslims: they are, in fact, not very frequent in land in-
habited by Mayu. But, they are exceedingly common among the Fa-Kuŋkuŋ.
The relation is inverted with coffee pots. We inventoried and found 194 pots
belonging to fifteen houses: eight Mayu (Asosa) and seven Fa-Kuŋkuŋ (Fule-
deru and Ondonok). The percentage of cooking pots varies due to the access
of the Mayu from Asosa to industrial vessels, but the most striking difference
lies in the consumption of jebenas: in Asosa, they make up to 37 percent of

Book 1.indb 215 2/25/14 6:21 AM

 216 Chapter 4

all pots available in the houses, whereas in the Fa-Kuŋkuŋ village of Ondo-
nok they only represent 7 percent. This contrasts with the numerous awar:
23 percent of all containers in Ondonok households are beer jars, while not
a single awar was recorded in Asosa. While it is true that jebenas are widely
available in the market of Asosa, they can also be bought in the market close
to Ondonok. Yet in this latter place no household had more than one jebena.
The reason is simple: with the disappearance of beer, coffee has absorbed the
social functions of the other drink. Thus, in Mayu land, it is possible to see
communal jebenas and large groups of people consuming coffee—it recalls
the traditional work parties, where beer flows abundantly (see figure 4.14).

Houses: Home of Hegemony, Subaltern Homes

There are two main architectural traditions among the Bertha: one is char-
acterized by a concentric layout, the other by a partition wall (katiya) that
divides an open space into two (González-Ruibal, 2006b).17 The concentric
house extends throughout most of Mayu land, and the katiya model is typical
of the lowland Bertha (Fa-Kuŋkuŋ). The Fadasi tend to use the concentric
model. If a house is a reflection of the self, then perhaps nowhere else is the
split self of the Bertha more clearly seen.
The history of the concentric house can be traced for more than a century
and a half, thanks to the information provided by travelers to Benishangul. It
is a unique model, with no parallels among the other groups of the area and a
greater degree of elaboration than other vernacular architectural traditions. It
is not surprising, therefore, that foreign travelers offer quite detailed descrip-
tions of this structure, while they barely bother to mention other houses. It is
also significant of the hegemonic qualities of Mayu culture that the concentric
house, which is characteristic of the Mayu, has been traditionally described as
the typical Mayu house (Grottanelli, 1948: 298). Thus, Juan Maria Schuver
noted that “the Berta homesteads are mostly better constructed than those
of the sedentary Arabs of the Blue Nile plain and many are built on a raised
platform, supported by a number of granitic fragments” (James et al., 1996:
39). The raised houses were still in existence during the 1950s: the model
was recorded then among the Bertha-speaking Hill Burun in Sudan (Davies
and Ashabranner, 1959: 25). Houses on raised platforms probably disap-
peared with the end of an era of trouble (which had started with the Bertha
settlement of Benishangul) and the subsequent descent to the plains: the even
surface of the flatlands made raised structures unnecessary. Interestingly, the
original architecture from the era of trouble solidied in at least two different
ways: I have already mentioned that the large granary (al-muraffa) was a

Book 1.indb 216 2/25/14 6:21 AM

 Figure 4.14. A Mayu girl prepares coffee for collective consumption in the village of
Sensahalu (Sherkole). Courtesy of Víctor M. Fernández

Book 1.indb 217 2/25/14 6:21 AM

 218 Chapter 4

skeuomorphic version of the old home. The same can be said of the shetab,
the platform for storing grain and tools inside the house: it sometimes adopts
the shape of a miniature house raised on a platform. The Bertha might be safe
now from raids and war, but the grain is always threatened: what better form
of protection than the house that sheltered the Bertha for many generations?
The organization of the space indoors in the time of Ernst Marno and Juan
Maria Schuver is similar to the one still prevalent among the Mayu Bertha.
According to the Dutch explorer, houses had “a round and strong tower of
mudplastered bamboo in the centre, the interior of the tower forming a gra-
nary and general magazine, while the space between the tower and the outer
wall, forming a circular gallery is occupied by the family” (James et al., 1996:
39). A more thorough account comes from Ernst Marno (1874: 75–76), who
visited Benishangul a few years before Schuver, in 1869, but the description
coincides. Regarding inner space, Marno notes that “The cylindrical room in-
doors has a door in the opposite direction of the external one. The ring-shaped
room is frequently divided with partition walls.”
Except for the fact that houses are no longer raised over boulders or poles,
the Mayu or Fadasi homes have scarcely changed (see figure 4.15). The fact
that the doors of the outer and inner ring have different orientations, as well as
the existence of partition walls, give a labyrinthine appearance to the house:
looking from the outside, one cannot see anything, except the bamboo wall of
the inner ring. This complex layout is probably related to a stronger concern
with privacy and protection among the Mayu and Fadasi, as compared to the
lowland Bertha. Grain is still stored in the most secluded part of the house. It
is there also where stews are prepared and the head of the family and his wife
sleep. The outer ring is divided in three or more rooms, sometimes separated
by partition walls: the entrance is a space for guests and children, the rear
part is for fermenting cereal paste and cooking porridge, and the right side is
for keeping animals. The internal division of the house is unique among the
indigenous peoples of the Sudanese-Ethiopian borderland: most people only
have a thin wall that separates the cooking area from the rest of the space
(Gwama) or nothing at all (Gumuz, Komo, Opuuo). Spatial divisions come
with divided societies (Kent, 1990). It is not just an issue of functional com-
plexity, but of politics. Undivided societies (Clastres, 2001) cannot accept
divisions, either material or immaterial. Instead, highlander homes (Amhara,
Oromo, and Agäw) have many partition walls, sometimes strongly built with
poles and thick mud plaster, which restrict access and visibility. It is likely,
therefore, that the partitioned homestead of the Bertha originates in their ex-
perience of state and Islam in the Sudan.
Houses tend to be resistant to change, probably more than other material
elements and not just because they are more costly to produce (a Bertha hut

Book 1.indb 218 2/25/14 6:21 AM

 Figure 4.15. Above: Bertha (Mayu) concentric houses: A sketch from a Bertha house
of Mus’a Mado, drawn in 2007 (left), and a sketch by Ernst Marno (1874). Below: The
influence of the Bertha concentric house in different Mao groups. Courtesy of Álvaro
Falquina and Ernst Marno

Book 1.indb 219 2/25/14 6:21 AM

 220 Chapter 4

can be finished in four days). If the ontological inseparability between people

and things can be clearly seen somewhere, this is in houses. They are one with
people and change (or not change) accordingly: a vernacular tradition can
be preserved unaltered for centuries and then be thoroughly destroyed in the
blink of an eye. The architecture of the Mayu and Fadasi is, like any architec-
ture, a durable and active trace of the past. Like the Gumuz house (see section
3.5), it can materialize in a time of trauma, as in the shetab or the al-muraffa.
Yet it also makes visible and present an epic past and, in that, it works more
like the Mao house (see section 5.4). That the concentric house is ancient is
well known among the Bertha. When I asked people whether the model was
old or new, they invariably replied, with certain indignation, that it was very
old: “qadim, qadim!” (“old, old!”) said emphatically Audun Hamis, the medi-
cine man from Asosa, when I dared to ask whether the model could have been
developed in recent times. The concentric house is the house from the Sudan,
the one that the Bertha brought with them when they settled in Benishangul.
It is opposed to the indigenous home that the Fa-Kuŋkuŋ people use: it is a
house with a specific history versus a house with an undefined prehistory.
The specific history is again related to the Funj mystique (James, 1977a):
according to Mayu elders, the inner ring, the heart of the house (or “stom-
ach,” in Bertha parlance), is called Fazole. This is another denomination for
Fazogli, the legendary provincial town of the Funj sultanate, from whence the
Bertha come. It can be argued then that the Mayu dwell in the past.
Despite the fact that the organization of the concentric house breaks away
with indigenous categories of space, the model has proved exceedingly popu-
lar beyond the Bertha: it has been widely adopted by at least two different
Mao groups (bricoleurs par excellence) and even the Oromo: the Bambasi
Mao and Oromo from Mus’a Mado and the Sith Shwala Mao. This speaks
of the Mao way with more powerful groups. The situation also illustrates the
different nature of Bertha power, as compared to the highlands. It is more an
encounter of the middle ground kind (Gosden, 2004: 31) than a conquest and,
in fact, both Bertha and Mao admit that the settlement of the former in the
area has been through peaceful infiltration. The result is several multi-ethnic
Mao-Bertha settlements (Ishgogo, Banga Dergo, Mus’a Mado) south of Ben-
ishangul. While it is true that both groups do not mingle or intermarry, it is
also true that they do not fight each other. In relation to this, it is noteworthy
that the Bambasi Mao of Mus’a Mado had readily accepted the Bertha house,
but not that of their other powerful neighbors, the Oromo, probably because
the Bertha are still regarded as situated somewhere in an undefined space
between domination and subalternity. The acceptance of the concentric house
by the Mao, however, seems to have good reasons. It is only found in multi-
ethnic settings. Thus, in the villages of Ishgogo, K’wak’eb, and Mus’a Mado,

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 Between Domination and Resistance: The Bertha 221

Bertha, Mao, and Oromo live together. In Banga Dergo, it is Bertha and Mao
that share the space. The divided space of the concentric house suits a divided
society. It grants privacy in a context where neighbors are no longer related
by kinship and ethnic ties.
Ironically, the concentric house has been very successful, except among
one people: the lowland Bertha. While the Mao were adapting the house of
their invaders, the Bertha of the lowlands were doing the reverse: assimilating
the homestead of the people whose lands they were occupying. Instead of the
many divisions of the concentric house, the katiya model has just one parti-
tion wall (katiya) that divides the space into two; at times, there is not even
a katiya at all. Whereas in the Mao and Gwama house, from which it origi-
nates, the wall segments the space into two equal halves, in the Bertha case,
the distribution is about one-third (back space) and two-thirds (front space).
The general ordering of the space is similar (see figure 4.16), although in the
Bertha case the rear area is not used for sleeping, as opposed to the Mao. The
katiya house is prevalent in the Bertha lowlands, but the Fadasi and Mayu use
it too sometimes. Thus, the medicine man of Asosa, Audun Hamis, had two
houses, one concentric and the other of the katiya type (but without the parti-
tion wall). Meaningfully, it was the second hut that was used for traditional
activities such as keeping beehives, storing the artifacts used in the gorrosh
game, and preparing medicines.
As it happens with other elements of material culture, the katiya house not
only makes manifest certain social values (more egalitarian), but also reveals
the solidarities of the lowland Bertha. Through things, if not through words,
the Fa-Kuŋkuŋ relate to the Gwama, Mao, Komo, and Gumuz and contradict
a general identity that encompasses all Bertha in a single group. They literally
inhabit the same house: the undivided home of the lowland peoples.

Bodies
It is natural that the Bertha body is crossed by the same rifts of the other
material elements. We have seen that the duality of pottery coexists within
the same household, whereas architecture has a complementary distribution.
Bodies are a mixture of both situations. Again, we have a wide spectrum,
with the Islamic body on one side and the traditional body on the other. The
extremes, as usual, are well represented by the Mayu and the Fa-Kuŋkuŋ.

The Orthodox Body

The Mayu look like northern Sudanese. Men always wear a jallābiyya
and very often a turban (aimma) and a long scarf (keffiyeh), whereas women

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 222 Chapter 4

Figure 4.16. Comparison of a Fa-Kuŋkuŋ and a Mao house. Courtesy of Álvaro

Falquina

are dressed with the long, colorful tobe, have their heads veiled, and wear
few or no necklaces or earrings (figure 4.17). Jallābiyya and tobe are worn
by all Mayu at every occasion. Thus, in Gondil, the neighborhood of Asosa
where I conducted work among the Mayu, most women wore tobe and veil
at all times, even inside their homes and while doing their daily chores, and
men invariably wore their jallābiyya and very often a taqiyah, the prayer hat,
which is changed for the turban when going to the market or to a celebration.
An anecdote shows the Mayu love for their Sudanese dress: in February 2001,
a Mayu chairman of a kebele acted as our guide. He wore his spotless white
and unwieldy jallābiyya and accompanied us in a long trek through scorched
mountains in search of old Bertha settlements. When we returned, his dress

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 Between Domination and Resistance: The Bertha 223

Figure 4.17. Bertha women from Obora celebrating Mawlid dressed in the orthodox
tobe.

was grey. While the jallābiyya is certainly well suited for desert and steppe
environments, it is clearly not well adapted to the forests of Benishangul,
especially during the dry season!
Another diacritical element of the Mayu body is a peculiar kind of scarifi-
cation: three vertical strokes that adorn the cheeks of both men and women.
They are interpreted as the alif, the initial of Allah: another symbol of the
Islamic identity of the Mayu. This re-reading of pagan signs as letters of Al-
lah reminds one of the Bertha interpretation of rock art that I have mentioned
earlier. Although the triple alif is the most common type by far, sometimes
people are seen with the tiny scarifications typical of the Shukriyya nomads
of the Butana. Those who have them are men who have spent their youth in
the Sudan—another demonstration of the Mayu links with the neighboring
country. Something else distinguishes the Mayu attire from that of other
Bertha groups (or from all other groups, for that matter): leather shoes. The
Mayu are the only community in the borderland that has an ancient tradition
of shoemaking. Today, only a few old people continue with the craft, due
to the pressure of industrial products. The same artisans make other leather
products that are characteristically Bertha, such as bags and dagger sheaths.

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 224 Chapter 4

Figure 4.18. Leather shoes, belt, and dagger sheath made by Mohammed Jir. Courtesy
of Víctor M. Fernández

Shoes have traditionally marked the Mayu as civilized—in contrast with their
barefoot neighbors—and linked them to the Funj kingdom, where leather
sandals represented a sign of status (Robinson, 1931: 371). Like shoes, dag-
gers and dagger sheaths are other artifacts of Sudanese (“Arab”) origin (see
figure 4.18): the same types are found on both sides of the frontier. Although
they come originally from central Sudan, they have spread to a variety of
groups in the Sudanese-Ethiopian borderland, including Ingessana, Gumuz,
and Bertha, probably during Funj times. The Bertha dagger sheaths, although
very similar to the Sudanese, have at least one peculiarity: instead of being
black, they are dyed orange or red with henna, which is a natural preservative
for leather. Interestingly, it is the same pigment with which devout Muslims
dye their beards.

The Pagan Body

Fa-Kuŋkuŋ men sometimes wear jallābiyya, but there is less orthodoxy in
the display of the typical Sudanese garment. Many men simply wear Suda-
nese-style cotton trousers and a shirt. Likewise, the tobe is seldom seen among

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 Between Domination and Resistance: The Bertha 225

lowland Bertha women. They prefer the one-piece dress that only covers the
legs to the knee—the tobe goes down to the feet. They do not often wear a veil,
but a kerchief that covers their hair only and is tied at the back of the neck.
Perhaps what identifies Fa-Kuŋkuŋ women more clearly is the overabundance
of bodily adornments: a proliferation of necklaces with thick beads, nickel
or copper bracelets, and ear and nose piercings with large rings (see figure
4.19). This attire simultaneously separates the lowland Bertha from the Mayu
and places them closer to other subaltern communities, such as the Mao, with
whom Fa-Kuŋkuŋ women share dress, head cover, necklaces, earrings, and
headdress, and the Gumuz, who have the same earrings and nose piercings.
Nose piercings, in particular, are present among many lowland groups, such
as the Ingessana, Komo, and the Burun (Grottanelli, 1948: 292). While the
Mayu dress intends to conceal the body, the Fa-Kuŋkuŋ emphasizes it, at least
within the limits permitted by a hegemonic order that no longer tolerates nu-
dity or lavish scarification: this concern with the body is what actually relates
Fa-Kuŋkuŋ to other minority groups of the lowlands.
This relation can also be found in bodily gestures. Some lowland Bertha
women use the same carrying stick as the Gumuz (usually longer). It is re-
ported from the nineteenth century onward (Grottanelli, 1948: 302; Marno,
1874: taf. 6). In any case, Bertha women (both Mayu and Fa-Kuŋkuŋ) carry
their loads on top of their heads, unlike the highlanders: this is a bodily ges-
ture that implies the same upright position as the carrying stick. It is important
to note that the emphasis on the body (versus its concealment) of the lowland
Bertha is not only seen among women, but also men. Fa-Kuŋkuŋ men wear
their daggers tied around their biceps, as is common among other indigenous
borderland communities: this cannot be done when one wears a jallābiyya,
with its long and loose sleeves. One of the more visible traits that recall the
Koman background of the Fa-Kuŋkuŋ or Gamili is scarifications. In the place
of the canonic alif, they show a diversity of geometric scars, some of them
very similar to the Gwama and Gumuz, such as rectangles with crosses or
horizontal lines, zigzags, and ladder-shaped motifs (see figure 4.20). I have
already mentioned that exactly the same designs appear in the prehistoric
rock art of the region (Fernández, 2011), which was in all likelihood made
by the ancestors of the Gwama before being displaced by the Bertha. This is
another proof that the Fa-Kuŋkuŋ Bertha mixed with the local Koman popu-
lations and assimilated part of their cultural legacy.
Actually, except for the baby bag (absent among the Bertha), it would be
difficult to tell a Fa-Kuŋkuŋ from a Mao woman, whereas a Mayu can be
distinguished from a Mao from afar. It is not surprising, then, that the Mayu
enslaved their relatives during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries:
they could hardly see the difference (except for their shared language) be-

Book 1.indb 225 2/25/14 6:21 AM

 Figure 4.19. Fa-Kuŋkuŋ girl with beads, bracelets, nose piercing, one-piece dress,
scarf, and beads.

Book 1.indb 226 2/25/14 6:21 AM

Book 1.indb 227
Figure 4.20. Distribution of grid-like scarifications and Bertha woman with geometric facial scars.

2/25/14 6:21 AM
 228 Chapter 4

tween the Fa-Kuŋkuŋ and other groups of lowland “blacks.” In a silent way,
the scarifications, the dress and adornments, and the body gestures not only
speak about the culture history of the Fa-Kuŋkuŋ, Gwama, and Mao. They
also make visible the allegiances and solidarities of the lowland peoples.
They reveal another kind of identity, one that is not ethnic, but political.
The situation that has been depicted so far emphasizes the extremes for the
sake of clarity. However, it has to be taken into account that some people,
such as the Mayu of rural zones, can shift styles easily. Thus, in the village
of Obora, near Menge, in the lowland Mayu area, I could see women dressed
the Fa-Kuŋkuŋ way one day and the next putting their tobe and veils and
removing their necklaces to celebrate Mawlid (the Birth of the Prophet) (see
figure 4.19). There is something also that unites the bodily hexis of all Ber-
tha, irrespective of group or clan affiliation: the baŋ or throwing stick (see
figure 4.21). The ever-present baŋ is a core object of prosthetic character,
an extension of the male Bertha body. The baŋ is made from a flattened
and polished piece of bamboo (taŋa) between fifty and seventy centimeters
long. It is elbow-shaped and often resembles a hockey stick. To make it, it is
necessary to select a bamboo stem with part of the root bent at a right angle,
so that the elbow shape can be correctly fashioned. The baŋ can be used to
kill birds and other small animals, for defending oneself against wild animals
when walking through the bush, or to fight other people. I did not see any of
these uses, but I did see a more common one: as a prop in dancing (see section
4.5). In fact, it seems that the main use of the baŋ is just to be carried around
by men. It is a gendered artifact: although it is not prohibited for women to
pick it up, it is virtually impossible to see a woman walking around with a
throwing stick.
That the throwing stick is part of being a Bertha male is manifested when
four- or five-year-old children are given a miniature baŋ. Being Bertha, then,
is, from an early age, inseparable from carrying a throwing stick—as sport-
ing a bow and arrows is for the Gumuz. The relevance of these objects in
marking identity is obvious: the popular artists that depict the different ethnic
groups on the walls of bars in Benishangul-Gumuz never fail to paint a Bertha
with jallābiyya and baŋ, alongside a Gumuz woman with ndiga, the carry-
ing stick. The relevance of this artifact in making the Bertha, irrespective of
group or faction, is demonstrated by an old photograph of Sitt Amna (the
wife of Sheikh Khojele) that is kept at the museum in Asosa. In this image,
probably taken in the 1950s, the former slave trader is shown holding a baŋ
in her hands. This is quite surprising, because the throwing stick is not only a
non-Islamic element, but also a masculine one. However, if she was looking
for something, consciously or not, that clearly represented the entire people
over whom her husband and her once held sway, the baŋ is perhaps the most

Book 1.indb 228 2/25/14 6:21 AM

 Figure 4.21. A pan-Bertha artifact: the baŋ.

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 230 Chapter 4

appropriate artifact. Regarding the masculine character of the baŋ, we have

to remember that Sitt Amna was anything but a typical Bertha woman: when
her husband was imprisoned in Sudan, she took charge of his business and
was eventually put in jail for her slaving activities (Abussamad H. Ahmad,
1999: 438; Sikainga, 1995: 4). The baŋ, then, can become a ritual instrument,
a weapon, or a scepter of power. In all cases, however, what is out of the
question is that by brandishing the baŋ one becomes a Bertha.

4.5. DOUBLE PERFORMANCE

The tensions between Islam and tradition are particularly clear in dancing
and music and the material culture associated with it. The Bertha have dances
that are similar to those of other Nilo-Saharan groups in the area. In these
performances, people dance in circles while singing and playing instruments,
such as horns, calabash trumpets, and bamboo flutes, often accompanied by
some sort of percussion (James, 2000: 145). I have had the occasion to see
these dances among the Gumuz and Mao (Seze and Bambasi groups). These
traditional dances are a sort of counter-hegemonic practice to the sanctioned
musical forms of Islam, and they often coexist (James, 2000: 141–42).
Whereas most of the groups of the Sudanese-Ethiopian borderland, such as
the Gumuz, Komo, Gwama, and the Mao, mainly (or exclusively) perform
traditional dances and music, the Bertha, in consonance with their divided
identity, have both the hegemonic and the counter-hegemonic style. How-
ever, these styles are not divided according to ethnicity (Mayu/Fa-Kuŋkuŋ).
Even the most orthodox Mayu communities play traditional music for wed-
dings and other events.

Dancing to Resist
The most popular traditional style among the Bertha involves a group of men
(ideally twelve) playing very long gourd trumpets, called wasa, a name that
is also applied to the music and dance. An ensemble of twelve musicians is
called wasula. In every village there is a man or a group of men that are ca-
pable of making these musical instruments. We met an old man in the village
of Obora who did not only make the wasa, but also kept the instruments of
the entire place in his home (along with bamboo flutes, horns, and percussion
woods): he rented the instruments to people for feasts and weddings. For
making the trumpets, the artisans have to find very long gourds. These are
cut in rings with a knife or dagger and then assembled together, fitting the
narrower ones in the wider ones. The longer trumpets have to be reinforced

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 Between Domination and Resistance: The Bertha 231

with three or four long and thin bamboo strips, which are tied around the
gourds with strings made of tree bark. Bark is left soaking in water until it is
soft enough to be worked. The mouthpiece is also made of gourd, usually of
a different color, and is stuck in an inverted position into the narrow side of
the trumpet. The wasa maker from Obora said that he rubbed an onion on the
mouth of each trumpet to bring luck to the musician. In other places, a ŋeri
kills a rooster and rubs its bloody neck on the trumpets or flutes (Gozálbez,
2011: 312–13).
People play wasa music in different festive events (see figure 4.22). In
all occasions in which I have seen it or heard about it, it was in the context
of a wedding. While the music of bamboo flutes (zumbara) can be played
by children and teenagers, wasa is invariably played by adult men, often by
ensembles of older people. The dancers can play for hours, swinging, sweat-
ing, and beating the ground with their feet, until they enter a kind of trance.
Their lips crack and bleed. The blood flows through the gourds and drips
from the mouth of the instrument, but the trance makes the players immune
to pain. In that, wasa reminds the dervish dances of the Sudan, an unortho-
dox and popular Muslim practice. The music of the trumpets is rhythmically
underscored by percussion, for which the Bertha use a piece of hardwood
with the shape of a triangle that is put on the shoulder. They beat it with a
cow horn or another piece of wood, using the hand that is not holding the
trumpet. The wooden triangle is heavily polished, shiny, and decorated at
the angle with deep incisions—an oddity in the plain material world of the
Bertha. Other people accompany the wasa musicians brandishing throwing
sticks (baŋ) and dancing. Women do not play any instrument, but are al-
lowed to join the dance, behind the players. The wasa ensembles walk or run
while playing in an apparently chaotic way, but, from time to time, they stop,
gather in a straight row, and play together harmonically. A photograph from
the early twentieth century shows a group of eleven (probably twelve) Bertha
playing long calabash trumpets in this lineal arrangement and apparently
swaying in the same way as they do today.18
Unlike in other dances of the area, the wasa musicians do not gather in a
circle. The long size of the instruments would have made it difficult. How-
ever, this should not be interpreted in merely functional terms: there is a
political side to it. The history of the wasa music is strongly related to the
Funj kingdom. In the court of the sultan of Sinnār, there were groups of black
musicians, slaves and former slaves, who played in different ceremonies.
The sultan was often greeted and followed by a group of trumpet players.
The different attitude of zumbara and wasa players is perfectly conveyed in
two photographs from the time of the British colonial rule of the Sudan. In
one of them, taken in January 1930 in the village of Ora, a group of nine or

Book 1.indb 231 2/25/14 6:21 AM

 Figure 4.22. Men playing wasa at a wedding in Khomosha.

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 Between Domination and Resistance: The Bertha 233

ten Bertha plays zumbara for the colonial administrators and they adopt the
typical circular pattern, giving their backs to the foreigners (and in this case,
rulers).19 Interestingly, most of the people in the ensemble go naked from
the waist up and have a traditional headdress, of the kind already recorded
by Marno (1874: figure 5), showing that they were among the less Islamized
Bertha. Another colonial photo from 1933 shows a group of Bertha in Fazo-
gli—the former Funj provincial capital—playing wasa. Their attitude and
attire is quite different: they parade in a straight row and most of them wear
jallābiyya.20 Wendy James (2000) notes that different forms of power (reli-
gious and political) have tried to break the egalitarian dance pattern of the
circle, which characterizes the indigenous communities of the borderland,
and the musicians have been coopted by rulers. Bertha wasa ensembles might
have been one successful attempt at breaking the circle, although in the long
term the style has reverted to a form of resistance to a dominant ideology—
Islam.
Another kind of traditional Bertha music is zumbara, which is played with
bamboo flutes of different sizes. This flute ensemble has a perfect match in
the Gumuz yambelea that I have already mentioned, but the occasions in
which it is performed vary. Zumbara usually involves a larger number of peo-
ple than wasula and it can be played for weddings and other events, but also
for no particular reason. Other instruments are used in these occasions: ante-
lope horns (buluŋ), which are played as a transverse flute, as well as smaller
calabash trumpets and whistles. Women play maracas made with gourds
filled with seeds and whose sound recall the Gumuz ants’its’a, the rattle an-
klets worn by women. As in the case of the wasa, zumbara musicians walk,
or more often run, from place to place playing the flutes rather chaotically,
but, every little while, they gather in a place to play in unison. In this case, the
pattern adopted by the players is the traditional, closed circle, with the musi-
cians facing each other and their backs turned to the outer world. Those who
participate in the zumbara are usually younger, even small children, and the
presence of women is much more important. These two elements, in addition
to the circle pattern, are indicative of the subaltern and open character of this
dance, as opposed to the male-focused wasa.
We had the occasion to see a large celebration with zumbara music in the
village of Ondonok, in a remote part of Benishangul, near the Dabus Val-
ley (see figure 4.23). The event lasts all night. It starts at around ten. Some
youngsters and children meet around one of the domestic compounds and be-
gin singing and dancing. The group grows gradually and eventually segments
into two large crowds. In total, more than a hundred people are taking part
in the dance, which becomes noisier and more dynamic. Men and boys play
bamboo flutes, short gourd trumpets, horns, and whistles. Women play gourd

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 234 Chapter 4

Figure 4.23. In trance: girls dancing in Ondonok at dawn. Courtesy of Xurxo Ayán

maracas. Men only play instruments, whereas both women and children sing.
The two groups run and dance in different directions from compound to com-
pound and between the compounds and the place of the water pump. They
approach each other and separate again without ever fully meeting. They stop
in front of different houses, make a circle and dance and sing for a while, until
the leader of the group starts running again and everybody follows him to the
next place, where they reform the circle (see James, 2000: 149).
Women and girls dance together, sometimes in couples, sometimes in
groups of five or more, holding each other around the waist or the shoulders.
Young men stick together and move around like a single man. When they
stop, they make a closed, compact circle, all the time dancing and playing. It
has not rained for months and the ground is very dry. When the dancers beat
the ground with their feet, they raise thick clouds of dust. The party continues
in this guise all night long and it only recedes at dawn. A thin veil of dust cov-
ers the houses, granaries, trees, and the dancers themselves, who are sweating
and exhausted. At around seven, the two groups leave the village toward the
sunrise and finally meet at the entrance to the forest. They continue playing
there for about half an hour, but the crowd starts to dissolve. There is almost

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 Between Domination and Resistance: The Bertha 235

no singing now, only the sound of the instruments and the beating of the feet
on the ground. Older people, men and women, began to go out of their houses
and sit in circles of five or six to sip coffee with their neighbors. Women go
to the pump to fetch water.
When I asked about the motive for the celebration, they told me that they
were celebrating nothing. They just like to do that for fun, once a week or
so. It is worth noting that Ondonok is a resettled village. They moved people
from different places in the Dabus area, which is difficult to reach. As in
other resettlement projects, they mixed people from different communities,
people who did not know each other or who did not have much relation to
one another. The regular zumbara dances are undoubtedly an excellent way
of creating communitas where there was none, a communitas of the type
called by Victor Turner (1969: 132), “existential” or “spontaneous.” This
creation of communitas is particularly important in Ondonok, because there
are people from the Mayu and the Fa-Kuŋkuŋ groups. In the dance, both ways
of being Bertha become one. Contradictions are dissolved in the spirit of the
community.
Wasa, zumbara, and buluŋ are also used in other occasions that are im-
portant for creating a sense of community. This is the case with the working
parties (maha). Maha is organized for harvesting or for building a house. The
sponsor of the event has to provide food and beer (bordei). Traditional in-
struments are related here to non-Muslim activities, such as the consumption
of beer. The Bertha wasa and zumbara are not simply pagan customs, they
are also the music of a subaltern people and, as such, a symbol of resistance.
It is probably not by chance that the Uduk, who had stopped practicing the
athele’ (homologous to Bertha zumbara) under the influence of Christianity,
resumed it in the refugee camp of Kubr Hamsa near Khomosha, in the heart
of the Bertha country (James, 2000: 150). Undoubtedly, they saw zumbara
performances there that brought memories of their own way of expressing a
sense of the egalitarian community.

Dancing to Comply
Both wasa and zumbara are opposed to a hegemonic kind of music: that of
the drums. To start with, their names are foreign. Depending on the type and
size, they are variously called with the Amharic names käbäro and nägära
(from Amharic nägärit) or with the Arabic names noba and darbuka. Drums
are used in different events, which have in common their Islamic origin and
religious character. Whereas wasa and, especially, zumbara, are played on
profane occasions, drums are for religious rituals only, such as the Birthday
of the Prophet (Mawlid) or the Day of Arafa, which are both celebrated with

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 236 Chapter 4

great pomp across Benishangul. I have noted in the previous section that
whereas women in rural areas are not usually very anxious with regard to the
veil or the covering of the body, in Arafa or Mawlid they are all canonically
dressed. They also leave behind their bead necklaces, earrings, and other
pieces of jewelry that are very obviously related with the weak twin of the
double consciousness—the time of tradition. Unlike other celebrations, Mus-
lim rituals are attended by the village as a whole and they can be massive in
places like Asosa. As opposed to zumbara, where the sexes are mixed, a strict
division between men and women is enforced in Islamic ceremonies. Thus,
in the celebrations of the Day of Arafa in Asosa, men occupy the front row
and women the rear one, far behind, in the large communal prayer that takes
place in the football ground (figure 4.24). In the celebration of Mawlid in
Obora (Menge), a procession goes from the village to the tomb of a holyman
who is buried in the local cemetery. A group of men heads the procession,
playing drums and holding flags with Islamic symbols. The women come at
some distance behind, in silence (see figure 4.17).
Drums are played in other, more intimate occasions, though, but still
related to Islamic beliefs. We were told, for instance, that groups of people
gather around the rock paintings of Bel Bembishi to pray.21 They play drums
(käbäro), dance, and burn incense. This is a sort of mystic practice that is
redolent of dervish rituals in Sudan: one of the names for drum used by the
Bertha—noba—refers to a kind of drum used in Sufi ceremonies (McHugh,
1994: 88). Apart from Islam, drums are also historically related to power.
I have already mentioned that the Funj sultanate had an icon to represent
the kettledrum (nūqara), which was an emblem of power (see section 3.4).
Drums were also an insignia of rank given to the mek, the tributary chiefs,
by the sultan of Sinnār (Robinson, 1932). The royal kettledrum, according to
tradition, was given to the sultan by the Ethiopian Emperor Susïnyos (ruled
1608–1632), as a sign of vassalage (Robinson, 1931: 364). The relationship
between drums and kingship is also very strong and ancient in the Ethiopian
kingdom (Levine, 2000 [1974]: 57), a fact that explains the prevalence of the
Amharic term for drum among Bertha and other lowland groups. The Ethio-
pian monarchs marched to war under the sound of the drum and the same
instrument was (and still is) used in religious ceremonies. Meaningfully, a
group of Mayu from Asosa22 said that the nägära were played for announcing
the arrival of a king (for which they used the Amharic term negus), and some
elders from the village of Malo, in Menge, said that it was used to announce
a sheikh.23 This proves that the memory of their original use and their associa-
tion with power is still very present among the Bertha. This is probably one of
the reasons people rarely play drums along with zumbara and wasa.

Book 1.indb 236 2/25/14 6:21 AM

 Between Domination and Resistance: The Bertha 237

Figure 4.24. Celebrating Arafa in Asosa: Women, heavily veiled, occupy a single row
in the back. Courtesy of Víctor M. Fernández

Percussion, as we have seen, is not absent in traditional dances, but other

local instruments are employed instead of drums. I have already mentioned
the maracas played by women and the wooden triangles that are used simul-
taneously with the trumpets. It is worth remembering that women do not have
any role whatsoever in the orthodox Islamic music performed by the Bertha.
Another way of providing percussion is holding a piece of wood between the
legs and beating it with a stick, while simultaneously blowing the zumbara.
This kind of percussion is the habitual one in the goke dance of the Seze and
Hozo Mao, where it has an obvious phallic character, and among the Uduk,
where it is called athele’ (James, 2000: 142). Neither the triangle nor the
beaten wood are, of course, ever used in Islamic ceremonies of any kind.
The drum and the wood belong to two different realms. It is relevant that the
triangle is always carried on the shoulder. This is the same way the Bertha
carried—or used to carry—another kind of traditional artifact: the throwing
knife or kulbeda, which has already been mentioned. Along with kulbedas,
throwing sticks (baŋ) are also brandished while playing wasa or zumbara,
following the rhythm of the music.

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 238 Chapter 4

The association of the kulbeda and the baŋ with dances clearly reveals the
real nature of the latter, which has been repressed and forgotten. These were
war and hunting dances—the opposite of the disciplined music of Islam. The
impression is corroborated by the use of the buluŋ, the antelope horn, which
is employed among the Gumuz (James et al., 1996: 315), Ingessana (Jedrej,
1995: 33), Uduk (James, 1988: 44), and Mao (see below) to call out people
for war and for the collective hunt. These associations of the traditional
dances are probably not lost to many orthodox Muslim Bertha and even for
those of them who do not have a memory of such ancestral uses, they still
transmit an impression of wildness too strong to constitute an acceptable
cultural expression.
In more or less subtle ways, orthodox Muslim Bertha are undermining the
legitimacy of traditional music and dance. Thus, we were told that Bertha
musicians are playing the wasa trumpets less often because they are afraid
of being infected with human immunodeficiency virus (AIDS). Because their
lips crack and bleed if they play for a long time, they feel that they become
exposed to the transmission of the virus. This is at least the idea that has been
spread by certain Bertha authorities from Asosa. Of course, the possibility of
falling ill in this way is very remote, because they do not share the trumpets
while playing. The rumor is a way of equating the wild pair—pre-Islamic tra-
dition—with evil and death. It is yet another state attempt to curtail non-state
practices, not through prohibition in this case, but through more insidious,
and perhaps more effective, methods.

NOTES

1. Sudan Archive (Durham), G//S 387/1–4.

2. Interview with Addejig Abeni, Ondonok (Menge wereda, Asosa Zone, Benis-
hangul-Gumuz). February 18, 2009.
3. Interview with Tesfaye Gidemariam, in Keser (Mao-Komo Special Wereda,
Benishangul-Gumuz). February 11, 2009.
4. Interview with a group of Mao elders (Sith Shwala) in Banga Dergo (Mao-
Komo Special Wereda, Asosa Zone, Benishangul-Gumuz). December 21, 2007.
5. This is how they were defined by our Bertha assistant Hassaballa Azen, from
Menge wereda (Asosa Zone, Benishangul-Gumuz). February 18, 2009.
6. This information was provided, by Abderrahman, an old man from Abramo
(near Asosa), to Andreas Neudorf. February 26, 2006.
7. Interview in the wereda premises of Tongo (Mao-Komo Special Wereda,
Benishangul-Gumuz). February 7, 2003.
8. In Jebel Keili, Ingessana hills (SAD.A2/125), 1907; also, a group of Bertha
musicians in Dora playing bamboo flutes, naked and with traditional headdress
(SAD.717/1/154), 1933.

Book 1.indb 238 2/25/14 6:21 AM

 Between Domination and Resistance: The Bertha 239

9. All my information on the work of the ŋeri come from the interviews with
Ramadan Talow. I interviewed Ramadan in February 5, 2003, in his house of Keshaf
(Menge wereda) and on June 4, 2005, in his house of Menge (Menge wereda, Asosa
Zone, Benishangul-Gumuz).
10. Interview with Audun Hamis, Kebele 03-Gondil (Asosa, Benishangul-Gu-
muz). February 2001.
11. Interview with Ramadan Talow, from Menge (Menge wereda, Asosa Zone,
Benishangul-Gumuz). June 4, 2005.
12. Interview with Attair Hamid and Awed Abdulah in Obora (Menge wereda,
Asosa Zone, Benishangul-Gumuz). February 12, 2003.
13. Interview with Asiya Toka, seventeen years old, Obora (Menge wereda, Asosa
Zone, Benishangul-Gumuz). February 13, 2003.
14. Interview with Mohammed Nekura, a man in his eighties, from Menge (Menge
wereda, Asosa Zone, Benishangul-Gumuz). June 4, 2005.
15. Interview with Al-Mamun from Obora (Menge wereda, Asosa Zone, Benis-
hangul-Gumuz). February 3, 2003.
16. See note 15. See also Fernández, 2011.
17. A third tradition, which has strong concomitances with the katiya model, is
less widespread and will not be taken into account here. For a description of this
model see González-Ruibal, 2006a.
18. SAD A84-10.
19. The photograph by A.W. Disney has the following caption: “A Berta band at
Ora on occasion of visit by Nalder and self Jan 1930. Note the technique—a piece
of wood held between the legs is hit with a stick held in the right hand, while the left
hand holds a flute which is played at the same time” (SAD.717/1/154).
20. Photograph by J.A. Gillan, January 1933 (SAD A84/10).
21. See note 14.
22. Collective interview conducted in the town of Asosa. February 19, 2001.
23. Collective interview conducted in Malo (Menge wereda, Asosa Zone, Benis-
hangul-Gumuz). February 4, 2001.

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Book 1.indb 240 2/25/14 6:21 AM
 5
Of Mimicry and Mao

Discourse can be both an instrument and an effect of power, but also a

hindrance, a stumbling-block, a point of resistance and a starting point for
an opposing strategy.
—Foucault 1990: 101

Homi Bhabha in his essay “Interrogating Identity” quotes a poem by Meiling

Jin, a Guyanese woman of Chinese ancestry writing about the experience of
exile in England. The poet writes that one day she learned the “art of invisible-
ness” that allowed her to pass unnoticed among foreigners. Being invisible,
however, does not mean to simply disappear: her eyes keep watching—and
haunting (Bhabha, 1994: 65). The art of invisibleness has also been discovered
by the Mao, to whom we now turn. Their very existence, in fact, is based on
invisibleness, but one that, as in Jin’s poem, allows those who become invis-
ible to watch and haunt the dreams of the powerful. According to Bhabha
(1994: 80), it is “the disavowal of the emigrant woman—her social and politi-
cal invisibility” that “is used by her in her secret art of revenge—mimicry”
(his emphasis). We can extrapolate this to the Mao case. In both cases, we
deal with subaltern peoples subjected to hegemonic practices and discourses of
domination; in both cases, there is negation and disempowerment; and in both
cases, the subaltern resorts to invisibility as a tactic of resistance.
Disavowal exists in the case of the Mao in that they are not recognized by
the dominant Oromo. In our interviews, many Oromo asserted that the Mao
did not exist anymore, that they had become Oromo or that they had simply
vanished. Yet the Mao resist disappearing. Not in the Gumuz way, by mak-
ing themselves hypervisible, but in the opposite way, by passing unnoticed.
Interestingly, it was in those areas where the Mao were less conspicuous that

241

Book 1.indb 241 2/25/14 6:21 AM

 242 Chapter 5

the Oromo were more anxious in denying their existence. If the Mao did not
really exist, why so much anxiety? Because, as Bhabha (1994: 88) reminds
us, “Denial is always a retroactive process; a half acknowledgment that other-
ness has left its traumatic mark.” To understand how the Mao have become
invisible and uncanny, we have to investigate their historical origins.

5.1. THE MAKING OF A SUBALTERN PEOPLE

We have seen in the previous chapter that talking about the Bertha as a single,
homogeneous group is misleading. In the case of the Mao, this is much more
the case: Wendy James (1980) eloquently demonstrated that “Mao” is a blan-
ket term used by dominant groups, first the Busase and then the Oromo, to
refer to the peoples that they have subjugated or with whom they maintain
master-client relations. As we will see, the non-subjugated were lumped to-
gether in another group: the “Komo.” It is no wonder, therefore, that we find
a striking array of communities under the name “Mao,” speaking different
languages and with different cultural traditions. In fact, not all groups that
are called Mao accept such a denomination: while some apparently do not
know or use any term other than Mao to identify themselves (e.g., the Bam-
basi Mao), others cling with pride to their old ethnonyms and even reject the
label “Mao” as pejorative: this is the case with the Seze and the Sith Shwala.
Still, despite their cultural diversity, their different origins, and their different
acceptance of the imposed ethnonym, they have ended up sharing important
elements that have provided them with a larger identity and with a sense of
solidarity, both of which have been crucial in their present empowerment and,
in some cases, enfranchisement.
The Mao people have been created through a process of expansion led by
the Oromo and the Busase, but also through a process of accretion: the expan-
sion of the dominant groups kept adding people to the Mao pool. In this, the
Ethiopian Mao are not dissimilar to many marginalized communities living
in the peripheries or the interstices of states elsewhere in the world. This is
the case of some of the so-called tribals in India, who engage in hunting and
gathering and exchange forest products with urban dwellers and peasants
(Dash and Pradan, 2002). Unlike in South Asia and other parts of the world,
the available historical information about the Mao is limited and ambiguous,
because the dominant groups were as illiterate as the dominated and have not
left a historical record of their conquests. Besides, travelers, missionaries, and
ethnographers did not reach this remote area before the end of the nineteenth
century, and the information that they provide is scant and of low quality.
In turn, the rich oral history of the dominant groups (Busase and Oromo) is

Book 1.indb 242 2/25/14 6:21 AM

 Of Mimicry and Mao 243

a very valuable source of information that has been profitably explored by

Vinigi Grottanelli (1940) and Wendy James (1980).
There are important problems reconstructing the Mao history. In the first
place, unlike their masters, the Mao have a rather short and vague collective
memory. It is still longer than that of the Gumuz and Komo (probably due
to the influence of the historical consciousness of the dominant groups), but
it shares with them a clear disinterest in genealogies and historical events.
This is in stark contrast with their dominators, the Oromo and the Busase,
whose elders have a sharp memory going back to the sixteenth century. Thus,
whereas the history of these peoples is relatively full of detail, that of the
Mao is rather impressionistic. On the other hand, the transmission of cultural
memory is being interrupted by schooling, Islamization, or Christianization,
and the pressures of Oromo cultural hegemony, all of which was already
noted by Grottanelli (1966) in his second trip to the region in the 1960s.
The history of the Mao and that of their rulers is impossible to understand
independently. We have to delve into the origins of their interactions to un-
derstand the historical experience of both as well as their current relations.
For that, we have to turn our attention to another time and another place: the
time is the early first millennium AD. The place is the region located between
the Blue Nile to the north, the upper Omo River to the south, the Rift lakes to
the east, and the Dabus basin to the west (see figure 5.1). Today, the region is
inhabited by the Oromo, but a thousand years ago it was occupied by speakers
of Omotic languages. They belonged to at least two distinct language fami-
lies: one that is known by linguists as “Gonga-Kefoid” and another that is
called “Mao.” The Gonga-speaking communities were settled, intensive agri-
culturalists, who lived in a fertile land and soon multiplied. In the interstices
and borders of the Gonga communities lived the Mao-speaking peoples, who
had a preference for forest environments, where they practiced slash-and-
burn agriculture, hunting, and gathering. Originally, both Mao and Gonga
were egalitarian societies, but the latter started to organize under chiefdoms
perhaps during the late first millennium AD. This process probably took
place in the area located between Lake Wonchi and the Didessa Valley
(Fleming, 1984: 34–35), which is where the modern representatives of the
Gonga peoples locate their original homeland (Bieber, 1923: 497) and part of
the wider region where the powerful Kingdom of Damot developed from the
tenth century AD (Huntingford, 1989: 69). From there, they expanded west,
toward the Dabus Valley, and south, through the Gibe river basin, which they
almost fully occupied. We do not know virtually anything about this process,
due to the lack of archaeological research, but it was probably not very dif-
ferent from the one attested to in the Rift lakes area, to the east, where other
Omotic-speakers (Ometo branch) developed their own chiefdoms around the

Book 1.indb 243 2/25/14 6:21 AM

Book 1.indb 244
Figure 5.1. Reconstruction of the historical geography of the Gonga and Mao peoples.

2/25/14 6:21 AM
 Of Mimicry and Mao 245

same dates. From the twelfth or thirteenth centuries onward, there is clear
evidence of growing inequalities, increasing social complexity, war, and
contacts with northern Ethiopia. The most visible archaeological traces of this
process are a series of monumental stelae, which can be anthropomorphic,
phallic, or depict weapons (swords) and geometric signs. Under these stelae,
there are often burials with funerary offerings (Joussaume, 1995).
By the fourteenth century AD, the newly established Gonga chiefdoms
had as their northern neighbor the strong and expansive Ethiopian kingdom,
which was experiencing its heyday. Some of its aristocrats were exploring
new territories where they could exercise their power more profitably than in
their homeland, which was already carved up by feudal lords and the church.
They found a suitable area of expansion among the Gonga living south of the
Blue Nile. Theirs was a populous region, fertile and rich in gold and occupied
by polities whose power structure was flexible enough to be infiltrated and
dominated, but not as flexible and fissiparous as to be impossible to control
(as it occurred with the anarchic Mao). The Abyssinian aristocrats, like the
Sudanese merchants in Benishangul, mixed and intermarried with the ruling
Gonga families and gave rise to stronger chiefdoms, a typical frontier society
(Kopytoff, 1987), which adopted much of the regalia of the Ethiopian king-
dom, including ceremonies and royal artifacts and probably the concept of
the king as “hero, slayer and warrior” (Haberland, 1986: 38). The Orthodox
Christianity of the north also left an imprint: in the Gonga kingdom of Kafa,
the most important festival was Mashk’aro (Ethiopian Meskel), which com-
memorates the discovery of the True Cross (Huntingford, 1955: 135). Unlike
among the Bertha, the foreign element was assimilated in this case and the
Gonga languages, religion, and cultural traditions remained strong despite
northern influences. Thus, the kings of Kafa had crowns or hats decorated
with phalli, the traditional symbol of power in many societies of southern
Ethiopia (Huntingford, 1955: 117; Lange, 1982: 224). Many of the Gonga
dynasties, however, trace their genealogies back to a Nech’ Taro, a “white
king” that can be identified with the paler Ethiopian lords who emigrated to
the south.
The so-called Gonga kingdoms flourished and expanded as territorial states
for several centuries. During their expansion, they encountered many egali-
tarian groups of slash-and-burn agriculturalists and hunter-gatherers: some
of them were Omotic speakers (Mao-speaking peoples and perhaps others),
some Nilo-Saharan. Many egalitarian communities were subjugated and as-
similated as a servant underclass. Others remained in the periphery, free but
in a master-client relationship with the Gonga (like Pigmy and Bantu of the
Equatorial rainforest). This sociopolitical process explains the emergence
of dual systems (Orent, 1970). There are always two societies in the Gonga

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 246 Chapter 5

chiefdoms: a dominant, landowning one, who claims a foreign origin, and a

subaltern, landless, indigenous one. The situation resembles the Mayu/Gamili
situation among the Bertha, but the Gonga case is more complex. Among
them, both groups live together; they are both ranked and have their own
leaders, although they are ultimately ruled by a paramount chief (taro) from
the dominant group.
It is probably during the period of the Gonga expansion that the term
“Mao” or “Mawo” (Lange, 1982: 242, 260) spread to refer to the subaltern
peoples. Similar names for subjected groups are attested to and are still used
today. This is the case with Manjo, which is one of the most important sub-
altern communities in the Kafa region. The Manjo traditionally specialized
in hunting (Huntingford, 1955: 136; Orent, 1970: 229; Petros, 2001: 92–98).
Mao, Manjo, Mawo, Mano, Nao, and other subaltern groups documented
among the Gonga were small-scale indigenous communities that were incor-
porated into the lower layer of the Gonga social structure. They specialized
in jobs regarded as filthy and vile by the dominant society, such as tanning,
weaving, iron working, pottery making, and hunting. Their situation has
not changed much (Pankhurst and Freeman, 2001). Besides, the Gonga also
raided other regions for slaves. The status of slaves was inferior to that of the
Mao, as the latter could not be sold (Bieber, 1923: 40). The Gonga expansion
in all likelihood brought the physical or cultural annihilation of many small
groups: in some cases, only their names have been preserved, in others, not
even that (Haberland, 1993: 123).
The most important of the Gonga polities were Damot, Bizamo, Konch,
Kafa, Bosha, Hinnario/Enarya, and Sheka (Lange, 1982). Their capitals were
large centers defended with monumental earthen ramparts and ditches, which
often stretched for kilometers, enclosing the entire chiefdom (González-
Ruibal and Güimil, in press). It is difficult to imagine how the history of
Ethiopia might have been if it were not for a series of dramatic events that
took place during the mid-sixteenth century and put an end to the evolution
of these chiefdoms. The changes that occurred then not only shattered and
dislocated the emerging Gonga polities, but would also prove fateful for the
Sudanese-Ethiopian borderland.
At that time, the Oromo invaded the Gibe river basin and ran havoc in the
Gonga kingdoms. The reasons for the Oromo invasion have to be found still
earlier in time. During the Middle Ages, Islam had grown in the Horn of Af-
rica from the eastern coast, frequented by Arab merchants, to the highlands.
This growth was paralleled by that of Orthodox Christianity, which was car-
ried by Ethiopian missionaries from north to south. By the early sixteenth
century, the relations between the Christian and Muslim states in the Horn
had become extremely strained. Whereas previous conflicts between the

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 Of Mimicry and Mao 247

Christian empire of Ethiopia and the Islamic state of Adal had been within
limits, the new encounter became an all-out war, proclaimed holy—and thus
a jihad—by the Muslims. The leader of the Adal armies, Ahmad ibn Ibrāhim
al-Ghāzī, better known as Ahmed Grañ (“left-handed”), won victory after
victory and led the Ethiopian state to the brink of disappearance.
The war between Adal and Ethiopia is key to understanding subsequent
developments in the Horn. The conflict left both powers exhausted and the
countryside ravaged and weakened. Furthermore, the Christian kingdom
continued plundering the Gonga polities, which at that time had become
vassal states, and enslaving their people. This deprived Ethiopia of a buffer
zone that might have hampered or retarded the invasion of a new historical
actor in the region: the pastoralist Oromo (Hassen, 1994: 30–31, 46–47). The
Oromo were advancing from their ancestral homeland in the Bale mountains,
in southeastern Ethiopia, toward the north and west (Ibid.: 18–47). Drawing
upon earlier conquests, the Oromo invaded both the territory of Adal and the
southern marches of the Christian kingdom beginning in the mid-sixteenth
century. During the next hundred years, the invasions and raids continued
almost unabated. By the early seventeenth century, when the Oromo ran out
of steam, they were occupying an immense territory, from Kenya to the Blue
Nile. The Oromo did not create a unified kingdom. From the beginning, they
were divided into different, autonomous groups and as they expanded, divi-
sions increased. The segment that concerns us here is the Macha: this is the
group that headed west. In turn, the Macha divided into two: the Afre and the
Sadacha. The latter went to conquer the Gonga kingdoms in the Gibe basin,
while the Afre followed the routes to the Blue Nile and fell upon Bizamo,
the northernmost Gonga kingdom (Ibid.: 62–81). Their conquests ended in
the western fringes of modern Ethiopia, near the escarpment. The Oromo
conquests radically altered the ethnic and linguistic map of Ethiopia.
What happened to the old Gonga kingdoms? Some moved to their south-
ern hinterland. This was the case of Kafa, Sheka, and Bosha, who managed
to survive until the turn of the twentieth century. The inhabitants of Damot
fled to the north of the Blue Nile and disappeared as an autonomous polity,
subjected to the Ethiopian kingdom. The Boro people, who inhabited one of
the Gonga territories, emigrated also to the north of the Nile, but were not
subdued by the Ethiopian state until the late nineteenth century: they found
a safe haven in the inaccessible massif of Wämbära and even further north
in the mountains of Dangur, among the Gumuz. Other Gongas disappeared
and are not mentioned again as a people: their ruling dynasties were either
exterminated or mixed with the Oromo through adoption rites (see section
2.2). This is the case of Bizamo and Konch. Finally, a group of aristocratic
people from Gonga lands decided to try their fortune and establish a new

Book 1.indb 247 2/25/14 6:21 AM

 248 Chapter 5

chiefdom far from the Oromo, in the wilderness of the western escarpment.
These people were the Busase and their kingdom was Anfillo.

The Southern Mao

The Busase came from the core of the Gonga lands, in the Gibe basin. This is
something that is still remembered by the old people in the area.1 Enrico Ce-
rulli wrote that “according to historical traditions from Anfillo,” the kingdom
existed before Oromo expansion of the sixteenth century, and it was at that
time a large state that extended from the Baro River to the Blue Nile (Cerulli,
1933: 89). The Busase informants of Cerulli were probably remembering the
original extension of the Gonga polities, not Anfillo in particular. In fact, a
similar extension is transmitted by Oromo traditions for a Gaanqaa (Gonga)
kingdom that was gradually conquered by the Oromo (Negasso Gidada,
2001: 72). The Busase are linked to the Boro and may have lived originally in
the same area: linguistically, their two languages are the most closely related
of all Gonga-Kefoid (Bender, 1975b: 139). Their shared homeland could well
have been the historical Kingdom of Damot, destroyed in the 1560s (Hassen,
1994: 35–36). An old Busase from Begi, Itafa Fido, who is very knowledge-
able in history, mentioned “Damot” among the seven original clans that popu-
lated the Kingdom of Anfillo.2 In any case, it shows that there were people
from this region among the Busase who emigrated west. The Busase king list
further corroborates that Anfillo initiated its existence as an independent pol-
ity as a result of the dislocations brought about by Oromo expansion. Vinigi
Grottanelli recorded seventeen generations in 1939, which would lead us “to
the historical period in which we know to have happened . . . the mass migra-
tions of the Sidama [Gonga] peoples from their primitive seats to the north
and west” (Grottanelli, 1940: 303).
The Busase arrived in Anfillo with a heterogeneous group of people, which
would probably include dependents of the Mao or Mawo underclass. This
community was enlarged in Anfillo with the addition of the local groups who
submitted to them. They were probably Komo, but also Majangir and Kwegu
(Negasso Gidada, 2001: 86–88), the first of which still live in the periphery of
Anfillo. The indigenous peoples completely lost their language and adopted
their rulers’. In fact, it is mostly the subaltern class that has preserved the
language to the present, as their former rulers shifted to the new language
of power, afaan Oromo (Oromo language). Not all the indigenous people
submitted. Many escaped to the margins of the newly established kingdom.
These people, perceived as “savages,” were called, according to Grottanelli,
Gumnao (Grottanelli, 1940: 294). James recorded the terms Gumi Nao or
Gupi Nao for the same people (James, 1980: 66, n. 20). I have heard a similar

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 Of Mimicry and Mao 249

term among the so-called northern Mao. The term they employ is Gulmao,
which makes sense: gulu means mountain in Gwama, the only Nilo-Saharan
language spoken by any group identified as Mao. Thus, Gulmao means the
“Mao of the Mountains.”3 In fact, the term in the north was used to refer to
those Mao living in remote regions, often in mountainous areas, such as Boni
Bekere,4 a mountain range inhabited by many Mao communities north of the
towns of Begi and Qondala. The Gulmao are in opposition to the Susmao, the
Mao of the valley, who live in the lower lands south of Qondala.
According to the Busase origin myth recorded by Grottanelli (1940:
294–98), the Mao and the Busase were both born from a hole in the ground
in the forest of the Gumnao people—the true aborigines. At first all three
groups lived together, and the Mao (not the Busase) even married local
women. However, the Gumnao, resenting the growing power and wealth of
the Busase, eventually rebelled, were defeated, and left the land. The Gumnao
can be identified with the present Komo people. It is possible to see them in
the market villages that are closer to the forest selling fish, honey, and other
forest products in exchange for coffee and industrial commodities. Their
Gumnao ancestors were already known for “living on the fruits of the for-
est, hunting and raising animals” (Grottanelli, 1940: 294). The origin myth
clearly reveals that the Busase arrived to Anfillo with their Mao servants and
that these mixed with the local population.
They also carried with them a political organization that was typically
Gonga. There was a paramount chief or king, called taro, who ruled over the
entire kingdom. Under the taro there were several Busase chiefs, with the
title of abeto, who were like feudal lords, each governing a particular part
of the kingdom in the name of the taro. In Grottanelli’s time, they used to
live in large compounds with their wives (often Oromo), Mao dependents,
and slaves (officially freed after the Italian conquest). The Mao had their
own leaders: a paramount chief, called kedderaso, who was subjected to the
taro, and the niho, petty chiefs that were elected democratically among the
Mao elders and confirmed by the kedderaso (Grottanelli, 1940: 304). This
dual organization, as we have seen, is very typical of the Gonga polities: the
Sheko people, for instance, used to have “two large clan groups: the so-called
‘master clans,’ whose leaders trace their lineage back to the first king, and
the ‘slave clans,’ who apparently represent the autochtonous negroid basic
stratum, which was later superimposed by the ‘master’ clans” (Straube, 1963:
375). This unequal duality was still in place in 1939 when Vinigi Grotannelli
visited Anfillo, but was already disarticulated, at least officially, when he
returned to the area in the 1960s (Grottanelli, 1966). The past, however, is
reluctant to disappear: today the differences in socioeconomic status between
the Busase and the Mao are outstanding. During the late nineteenth century,

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 250 Chapter 5

Anfillo was finally conquered by the Oromo and the Busase elite gradually
coopted into the Oromo system.

The Northern Mao

When Vinigi Grottanelli visited western Ethiopia in 1939, he discovered two
groups of Mao, a southern one in Anfillo and a northern one around the town
of Begi (seventy-five kilometers to the north of Anfillo, in a straight line). He
explained the existence of the southern Mao through the historical migrations
of the Busase, but left the northern Mao unexplained. James (1980) consid-
ered that the term “Mao” was adopted to refer to subaltern communities by
those who superseded the Busase as the dominant society in the region: the
Oromo. This, however, would not explain why the people around Begi are
called Mao and not other groups subjected by the Oromo or who have master-
client relations with them. During my travel in the Begi region in November
2009, I discovered why there are northern Mao.

Figure 5.2. Map of the northern Mao territory with the four Mao groups and their
neighbors. Dots indicate the location of the main Mao villages visited for this study.

Book 1.indb 250 2/25/14 6:21 AM

 Of Mimicry and Mao 251

The area of the northern Mao is considerably larger than that of the south-
ern group: it stretches from Gidami in the south to Bambasi in the north
and from Mendi in the east to the escarpment in the west (see figure 5.2),
that is, around six thousand square kilometers—as opposed to one thousand
square kilometers covered by historical Anfillo. This region is now heavily
settled with Oromo and there are large areas actually devoid of Mao, as well
as depopulated zones, such as the Dabus valley, the Yabus swamps, or the
mountains of Gara Arba. The presence of the Mao is stronger the further one
goes to the margins of this area. There is much more cultural variety in the
northern cluster than in the south. Of the five Mao peoples known, four be-
long to the northern group: Seze, Hozo, Bambasi, and Sith Shwala. The first
three speak North Omotic languages classified by linguists as Mao. The Sith
Shwala speak a Nilo-Saharan language belonging to the Koman branch. It is
worth remembering that there is a fourth group that speaks a Mao language
(the Ganza), very closely related to Seze and Hozo (Bender, 1975b: 139). Un-
like the others, it is not located in the Ethiopian highlands but in the lowlands,
in the Sudanese frontier.
It seems logical that if there are Mao in the north, this is because there are
or were Busase in the area that conferred that name to their subaltern and pe-
ripheral peoples, as they did elsewhere. In 2009, I did find a group of Busase
living in the outskirts of Begi, the center of one of the densest populations
of Mao people. It was from them that I learned about the story of a Busase
migration from Anfillo to the Begi area. The two stories that I gathered are
different but both have important historical elements. The first story goes
like this:

There was a spring of mineral water in Anfillo, a hora, that was used by the
Busase to fatten up the cattle. The lord of the land [Amh. baläabet] was a cer-
tain Kalläko. He had brothers [relatives] who went there to water his cattle. His
brothers were watering his cows night and day. They had to work hard for him
and they got angry. Thus, one day they speared Kalläko in the ankle. His leg
bled and he left the country cursing the people. He cried: “Be scattered, Anfillo
people, for you have no unity!” Kalläko and their Busase followers emigrated
to the north and settled in the present weredas of Gidami, Qondala, and Begi.5

The other story is rather different:

There were two candidates to be king in Anfillo, Gimbi Garo and Nech’i Taro,
but only one could become the head of the kingdom. They were brothers: Nech’i
Taro was the older one. The brothers had to decide who would be king. The peo-
ple of Anfillo offered Nech’i Taro gold as a symbol of kingship,6 but he refused
it. Gimbi Garo, instead, accepted the gold and became king of Anfillo. When
Gimbi Garo was finally elected king, Nech’i Taro decided to leave Anfillo with

Book 1.indb 251 2/25/14 6:21 AM

 252 Chapter 5

his many Mao servants. He went to Gidami and from there to Shura Maramo.
He died in Shura Maramo and a k’iltu tree [sycamore] was planted on his tomb.7

Several data are relevant in these stories. Nech’i Taro (literally, “White
King”) is mentioned in Oromo and Busase oral traditions, but he does not fig-
ure in the list of Anfillo kings (Grottanelli, 1940: 302–3). Historian Negasso
Gidada suggests identifying him with a king called Tao, who is the sixth ruler
of Anfillo (Negasso Gidada, 2001: 82). This is plausible, because both my
northern Busase informants started their genealogies from a certain Tao—
whereas the southern Busase begin with Goddi, five generations before Tao.
On the other hand, there could have been some sort of semantic displace-
ment from “Tao,” the personal name of a king, to taro, the term for “king”
in the Anfillo language. Thus, the king who emigrated to the north (Tao) was
conflated with the mythical white (northern Ethiopian) king who founded
the Gonga chiefdoms (Nech’i Taro) during the early second millennium AD.
The story of the mineral water spring (hora) is also well known in the area.
It was told to us in Dembi Dollo by an Oromo and is recorded by Negasso
Gidada (2001: 82–83) and Bartels (1983: 73). In Oromo versions, the conflict
around the spring is not internecine between Busase, but between Busase and
Oromo. According to Negasso Gidada, an Oromo, Horro Hirk’o, took pos-
session of the hora, which was located south of Tulu Welel, during a hunting
trip. The Busase king Nech’i Taro could only drive his cattle to the hora
during the rainy season, when the Oromo were not around and he had to pay
a tax to Horro Hirk’o. Tired of Horro’s exactions, Nech’i Taro sent his Mao
to ambush and kill the Oromo chief, who was settled near the hora collecting
tribute. The reaction of the Oromo was to join his forces and attack Anfillo.
Many Mao and other subjects of Nech’i Taro were killed and the rest fled.
As a result, the Kingdom of Anfillo lost all lands south of Mount Welel and
withdrew to the forests of Anfillo proper (Negasso Gidada, 2001: 82–83). In
this story, Nech’i Taro was captured or killed by the Oromo and the royal
family and its retinue fled to the forest.
Gimbi Garo is a king known from other oral sources, as well, as the eighth
ruler of Anfillo (Grottanelli, 1940; Negasso Gidada, 2001), the grandson of
Tao. His reign was marked, again, by a border conflict between the Anfillo
kingdom and the Sayo Oromo (Negasso Gidada, 2001: 180). Gimbi Garo
summoned an Oromo expert in border delimitation (an abba qotto, “father
of the axe”), but his advice was eventually refused by the king. The hostili-
ties then resumed between the Anfillo and the Sayo Oromo. Gimbi Garo was
defeated and the kingdom of Anfillo lost more land and people at the hands
of the Oromo (Negasso Gidada, 2001: 82).
With the evidence at hand, it is possible to suggest that my northern Busase
informants are in fact conflating different historical episodes, all of which

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 Of Mimicry and Mao 253

took place around the mid-eighteenth century. The conflict among Nech’i
Taro, Gimbi Garo, and the Oromo was seen as a single episode, an interne-
cine conflict in both narrations, that ended up with the migration of part of
the Busase. That the Oromo do not appear at all might be motivated by the
fact that the Busase consider themselves Oromo now: from this point of view,
the conflict would have been internecine (among Oromo). It is also possible
that there were not one but two (or more) Busase migrations to the north, the
first of which would have been in the time of Tao and the rest would have
been caused by the continuing encroachment of the Oromo into Anfillo lands.
At the same time, it is possible that an actual element of internecine conflict
was at work as well. According to a Busase elder from Anfillo, Kebbede
Wagga and Gimbi Garo established legislation (Tuma Gimbi Garo) that was
not universally accepted. This led to conflicts “between father and son and
between clans.”8 As it occurred a few generations before the Oromo invasion
of the Gibe, the conflicts with the Oromo might have provided a scenario for
the Busase to divide themselves. The secession of the Anfillo kingdom would
then have been a small-scale replication of what happened with the Gonga
states in the second half of the sixteenth century. In both cases, we are dealing
with nice examples of frontier societies (Kopytoff, 1987).
The two northern Busase informants remarked the importance of Shura
Maramo as an arrival point of the emigrants from Anfillo. According to Itafa,
Kalläko and his relatives settled there with their Mao slaves: “The black
people came with them from Anfillo to Shura Maramo.” His descendants
later went to Gidami and finally to Begi, where he lives now. The Mao,
though, remained in Shura Maramo. In Itafa’s opinion, they were left behind
because they were not respecting their Busase lords: “They became proud.”9
This looks very much like an outright rebellion, which is comprehensible in
the new context, where the Busase were a minority and the Mao found other
peoples like themselves with whom they could establish links of solidarity.
Curiously enough, the Boro—the distant cousins of the Busase—argue that
they had to abandon their original homeland south of the Blue Nile because
another group, called Mo’o, were secretly having sexual intercourse with
Boro women before they were married. In both cases, what we may have
is some sort of resistance among the subjected classes (Mao/Mo’o), which
eventually leads to the migration of the ruling groups.
My first hint at the existence of a Busase group in this area came from
Shura Maramo, the first place where the emigrants from Anfillo settled in
the northern region. I found a Mao man there who claimed to belong to a
certain Aphelo clan, a name that reminded me of the early denomination
of the Busase kingdom in the seventeenth century and the one provided
by Schuver, D’Abbadie, and others during the nineteenth century: “Afilo”

Book 1.indb 253 2/25/14 6:21 AM

 254 Chapter 5

(Cerulli, 1956: 13; James et al., 1996: 41). It has to be borne in mind that
the Mao mix the phonemes /ph/, /f/, and /p/ (Ahland, 2009). Our informant
told us that old people used to say that the Aphelo clan had its origins in
Anfillo.10 Grottanelli (1940: 281) had already found several members of
this clan in the 1930s and argued that they were “isolated individuals from
different clans, united under that name due to their provenance; they have
abandoned their primitive language and adopted the language of the north-
ern Mao; they live scattered, without a village of their own.” The name
possibly means that the Mao clan in question literally belonged to a Busase
family from Anfillo. That is, it represents a fossilized marker of servile
status. It might have also originally worked as a sign of distinction between
those Mao that came with the Busase and those who were already there and
with whom they eventually mixed. When the Busase arrived at the Begi
area, they found free populations of slash-and-burn agriculturalists. They
identified them as Mao, as they had done before with similar groups, and
established master-client relations with them. Unlike the Nilo-Saharan ab-
origines of Anfillo, however, the peoples that the Busase encountered were,
like them, speakers of Northern Omotic languages (identified as “Mao” by
linguists). In a sense, it can be said that the Busase re-encountered the Mao,
as thousands of years before they had spoken the same language and lived
together. As Fleming (1984: 31) puts it, “clearly, the Mao that the Busasi
came to rule where kinsmen!”
What were these Omotic speakers doing in this remote region? Accord-
ing to Fleming (1984: 35) in Proto-Gonga times (before 1000 AD), the area
between the Dabus and Didessa rivers was occupied by Koman peoples, the
region of Nekemt (east of the Didessa) belonged to the Mao, and to the east
lived the Gonga. The location of the Mao in the Dabus Valley (where the
Busase found them during the eighteenth century) could be explained by
the Gonga expansion, which caused a domino effect: the Gonga expelled
the Mao to their western periphery and the Mao pushed against the Koman.
There is, however, another possibility, which is based on the archaeological
record. In the site of Kunda Tamo, located very close to the Bambasi Mao
core area, we excavated a site radiocarbon dated to 1985 BP (Fernández et
al., 2007: 122–23). The pottery that we found has nothing to do with the local
Nilo-Saharan tradition. It resembles, instead, the little we know of the North
Omotic pottery (González-Ruibal and Güimil, in press). It is possible, then,
that some Mao groups were already living along the Dabus Valley two mil-
lennia ago and were, therefore, neighbors of the Koman peoples. This would
explain their many cultural similarities.
When the Busase arrived to Begi, they did not find all the four groups that
are known today as “Mao.” The core of the new Busase settlement area was

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 Of Mimicry and Mao 255

occupied by the Seze and Hozo, who speak strongly related Mao languages.
In their northern and western periphery, there were Nilo-Saharan Gwama,
some of whom entered the orbit of the Busase and then became Mao them-
selves. These Gwama abandoned their former name and now call themselves
Sith Shwala. The northernmost Mao group, which lived beyond the deserted
Yabus swamps, was never incorporated into the Busase world, although they
maintained relations with other Mao. Unlike their southern counterparts, the
northern Mao did not lose their heterogeneous identities, never abandoned
their languages for that of their masters, stuck to their traditions, and contin-
ued producing their idiosyncratic material cultures. Today, this cultural diver-
sity is disappearing under the homogenizing influence of the new masters, the
Oromo, but it can still be perceived.
Despite their greater freedom and autonomy, the northern Mao still had
a subaltern position in relation to the Busase. Mikael Kadida insisted in the
paternalistic relations that they had with the Mao, but he did so to emphasize
the differences with chattel slavery. Mikael argued that “The Busase used to
say ‘our Mao.’ They were not slaves, they were just servants,” as opposed to
the Oromo, who consider that “all blacks [gurracha] are slaves.”11 This vision
was not shared by the older Itafa Fido, who said that the Busase enslaved the
Mao: “They sold them as cows.” However, the first impression is coherent
with what we know from other Gonga chiefdoms: Bieber (1923: 40) says
that the Manjo dependents of Kafa families could not be sold, as opposed
to those captured in wars, or enslaved for debts or crimes. Probably, Itafa is
mixing two different relations with subaltern groups: the Mao proper and the
peripheral peoples (such as the Sith Shwala, Gwama, or Komo) who were ac-
tually raided and enslaved, as we know from other oral sources.12 The Oromo
mistreatment of “blacks,” that Mikael mentions, is also a fact: Bartels (1983:
178–81) recorded dozens of Oromo sayings that despise slaves (garba) and
blacks in general. The Oromo conscience of domination over the “blacks”
is perhaps best expressed in a phrase attributed to a local chief (Fitawrari
Qumburi Tullu): Dhalanaan garban nabaatee, gudanaan fardan nabaatee,
rakina hin beku (“When I was born, a slave carried me / when I was bigger,
a horse carried me, I don’t know what a problem is”).13
Those who did not want to become subalterns or slaves had only one
option: to escape. Many actually did. They found refuge in the hot, rugged
lowlands that extended toward Sudan, where the Busase or Oromo were not
willing to settle. Those who emigrated beyond the reach of the new masters
were collected under the label “Komo” by the dominant society, a name that
came to mean “wild people,” as opposed to the amenable Mao (James, 1980).
These wild peoples were the Gwama, Komo, and Ganza. The first two are
Koman, but the third is a group of Mao speakers, whose language is strongly

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 256 Chapter 5

related to Seze and Hozo. Unlike their kinfolk, they apparently decided not
to comply but to live a free life in the lowlands: in 2009, I had the chance to
see their staunch defense of their autonomy and identity (see epilogue). The
persistence of the “Komo” peoples was fundamental as a cultural reservoir
for the Mao. The Mao did not only have relations with the Busase (and later
Oromo), they have also kept in touch with the “Komo” and this has helped
them to keep their shared cultural memory alive, their memory of the wild, to
which I will refer in later sections.
The situation of the northern Mao worsened during the nineteenth century.
On the one hand, Sudanese slave merchants raided their lands from the time
of the Turco-Egyptian conquest of the Sudan (1821) until the turn of the
twentieth century (González-Ruibal, 2011). The Mao, referred to as Amam
by the Sudanese (James et al., 1996: 47), were feared as fierce warriors who
defended their land successfully. On the other hand, the Oromo gradually ab-
sorbed the Busase by intermarrying with them,14 and the former paternalistic
relations that they had with the Mao, as we have seen, turned more exploit-
ative: the Mao were forced to hand in slaves from their communities, which
they did (often orphans or widows).15 Moreover, while the Busase had always
been thin on the land, the same would not occur with the Oromo. During the
1910s, Amhara soldiers (näft’äñña) were settled in Oromia and they were
given Oromo peasants as servants. These peasants revolted due to the heavy
exactions of the näft’äñña and escaped westward. They were granted land by
the Bertha lord, Sheikh Khojele, but the land in question already belonged
to the Mao, who put up a violent resistance for a while (Triulzi, 1980: 189),
under the leadership of a temporary war chief called Kutu Golja.16 They were
finally defeated and punished by Khojele, an episode that has left an indelible
mark in Mao memory. Many left the land, which was seized by the Oromo.
It is interesting that one of the acts of resistance remembered in Oromo songs
involved the killing, roasting, and eating by the Mao of the oxen brought by
Oromo peasants. For the Mao, meat was first of all game meat and it was to
be shared, not hoarded. Cattle go against Mao principles. The Mao action,
then, was simultaneously a performance of an antithetical way of living
(hunting versus pastoralism) and of an ethics of egalitarianism.

5.2. INVISIBILITY AND HYBRIDITY

The case of the northern Mao is quite unique. Historically, the general trend
is that the Gonga lords conquered indigenous groups and reduced them to a
landless, dependent status. These groups lost most of their cultural features,
often their language. Being deprived of the opportunity to freely cultivate

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 Of Mimicry and Mao 257

their lands, they specialized in menial tasks that were despised by the ruling
classes (such as tanning and pottery making) or exploited economic niches
with which they were already acquainted (hunting and gathering) (Freeman
and Pankhurst, 2001). Yet the case of the northern Mao is different; they
managed to preserve much of their traditions and social organization. How-
ever, the process of marginalization that started with the arrival of the Busase
in the eighteenth century continued, exacerbated, after Oromo conquest of
the area. In some places, such as Gidami or the outskirts of Begi, the Mao are
all but transformed into an impoverished, marginal community. They have
become invisible as an ethnic group.
The difference between other marginalized minorities in Ethiopia and the
northern Mao is that the occupation of the land by the dominant groups is
not as complete here as elsewhere: there are still corners where the Oromo
presence is minimal (as in the periphery of the Mao land) or non-existent
(as in the “Komo” area). Besides, unlike other similar subaltern communi-
ties, the Mao are now enfranchised thanks to their recognition as an ethnic
group in Benishangul-Gumuz. They form a political unit with the “Komo”
(Mao-Komo) (González-Ruibal and Fernández, 2007). Yet this is not just a
modern, artificial invention to regain empowerment and visibility. It reflects
centuries-old relations of solidarity between two kinds of subaltern peoples:
those who decided to comply (Mao) and those who decided to run away from
the state (Komo).

Making the Other Invisible

Oromo identity is predicated on a basic mechanism: the thorough absorption
of the Other. They pride themselves at that. Oromo scholars and politicians
praise the legendary flexibility of their people, who have been able to incor-
porate a bewildering variety of peoples into their ethnicity. There is a truth
in this, otherwise it would be difficult to understand how Oromo occupied,
in less than a century, an area twice as large as the territory conquered by the
Ethiopian kingdom, ruled by Amhara and Tigreans (the Habasha, for Oromo
nationalists), in over a thousand years. Furthermore, whereas within the his-
torical territory of the Ethiopian state there are a variety of groups that have
remained culturally autonomous (such as the various Agäw, the Argobba, or
the Beta Israel), Oromo territory seems at first sight extraordinarily bereft of
other nationalities. The rites of adoption that have been described in previous
chapters explain the dissolution of otherness into Oromo sameness. Thus,
Mohammed Hassen (1994: 21) praises the “Oromo genius for assimilation”
that “quickly claimed any non-Oromo, defeated or otherwise.” But is this ac-
tually true? Is it true that any non-Oromo has been assimilated? I have already

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 258 Chapter 5

questioned that this was actually the case with the Gumuz of Kamashi and the
same doubt can be extended to the Mao. Yet precisely because the absorption
of the Other is crucial for the collective being of the Oromo, the fractures
and crevices in the system of “Oromization” are perceived with alarm and
thoroughly negated. Admitting that the Oromo may not be able to assimilate
the Other is tantamount to saying that there is a problem with being Oromo
in the first place, that the alleged “genius for assimilation” might have been
exaggerated. The problem is that Oromo nationalists (including some aca-
demics), in their just fight against the rule of the centralized Ethiopian state,
have tended to create an idealized image of their people and their institu-
tions, which is an inverted mirror of the Habasha identity: democratic versus
authoritarian, tolerant versus racist, flexible and progressive versus rigid and
conservative (see Asafa Jalata, 1998; Asmarom Legesse, 2000). They cannot
admit that, at times, they can be as racist, undemocratic, and rigid toward
other groups as the Habasha rule has been traditionally (Baxter, 1994: 173).
It is hard for them to accept that sometimes their anthropophagic practices fail
and they end up resorting to anthropoemic methods (repression, expulsion,
discrimination), very much like their Habasha rivals. Furthermore, in the new
federal state, acknowledging that some of the peoples of Oromia are not yet
assimilated can be a political mistake: they might want to be enfranchised
and obtain some autonomy within—or without—Oromia. It is not all Oromo
who share this intransigent ideology toward diversity. It is mostly the upper
classes, the nationalists, the administration, and some politicians who feel
more menaced by the stubborn Mao otherness. This became clear to me in
my visits to the towns of Mugi (southern Mao) and Qondala (northern Mao).
In October 2009, we went to the town of Mugi, which lies today in the
center of Anfillo, to check if there were still people that identified themselves
as Mao, spoke the language, and preserved any of the traditions documented
by Vinigi Grottanelli (1940). A linguistic report on the Mao from 1990 indi-
cated just five hundred speakers (old people) out of a group of one thousand
individuals who still recognize themselves as Mao or Anfillo (Lewis, 2009).
It turned out that it was impossible for us to check the persistence of a Mao/
Anfillo population. The officers at the Mugi wereda were at pains to prevent
our work, but they did so in such a strenuous way that it became a revealing
experience in itself. As usual, we went to the local administration to ask per-
mission to do our research and look for guides. The officers (Oromo) denied
that the Mao still existed. The culture officer told me that his predecessor
tried to collect typical Mao objects a few years before, but he could find none.
Was there stronger proof that the Mao as such no longer existed? As a re-
searcher (and advocate) of material culture, I had to admit that he had a point.
However, I insisted that I wanted to see that for myself. Maybe they did not

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 Of Mimicry and Mao 259

produce things, but they might use them in particular ways, as material cul-
ture studies have proved with mass-produced artifacts (Miller, 1991, 1998).
The officers still tried to discourage us. Their first tactic was procrastination.
When they realized that we were not giving up, they took us to visit an old
man in Mugi, who was more than eighty years old and allegedly Mao. The
old man did not want to talk about the Mao. He just said that, in the past, the
Busase were the masters and the Mao were their serfs. The situation lasted
until the Italian invasion, when the Mao “stopped cultivating and grinding
and working for the Busase.” He denied that the Busase were anything other
than members of an Oromo clan. He mentioned the name of another man,
Kebbede Wagga, who apparently knew more about history than him and then
gave us some names of Mao villages: Yetti, Yebbi, and Goshiro.
When we asked the wereda officers to take us to any of these villages, they
insisted that the Mao were all mixed with the Oromo, that they were indistin-
guishable, and that the villages were very far, more than four hours walking
on foot. We lost some more time with paperwork in the wereda and while we
were waiting taking tea, our driver, Abebe, asked some youngsters about Mao
villages in the vicinity. They admitted to their existence, not very far from
Mugi (around ten kilometers), but said that it was not advisable to go there,
because the Mao “throw stones at people and then hide.” Seeing that we were
still intent on visiting a Mao village, the wereda officers decided to change
tactics. They would prove to us that the Mao no longer existed in a Mao vil-
lage itself. As it happened, the village of Yetti was not four hours away on
foot, but thirty minutes by car followed by twenty minutes of walking. The
village lies south of Mugi in a heavily forested area, now being progressively
destroyed by coffee agribusinesses. The show put up by the Mugi officers
was so obvious that even the inspectors from the federal and regional govern-
ment, Shiferraw and Tesfaye, started to grumble. The tiny village that we saw
was mostly inhabited by Oromo. We found, however, a person of darker skin
who looked like a Mao. His name was Yusuf Ofga. The officers asked him
to take us to his house and there, under the gaze of the security and culture
officers of the wereda, he confessed that he was an Oromo, his fathers and
grandfathers were all Oromo and that everybody in Yetti was Oromo and had
never heard of any Mao living in the area ever. Yusuf clearly felt coerced
and embarrassed—and so did I, for having forced the situation. We left the
village. The officers thought that they had proved their point. One of them
asked me: “Are you satisfied now?” On our way back through the forest, we
saw many black people, clearly not Oromo or Busase. Shiferraw and Tesfaye
commented to me that these people were ostensibly Mao, but I let it go,
because I did not want to discuss with the officers, who had been kind to us
in their way, and even less to create trouble for the harassed Mao. When we

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 260 Chapter 5

arrived at the car, Abebe the driver told us that Mao people had kept going
back and forth through the road all the time. We returned to Mugi.
The next day we decided to visit Kebbede Wagga, the person who, accord-
ing to the first old man that we interviewed in Mugi, knew history well—he
actually did: he was Wendy James’s main informant in the 1970s (James,
1980). Again, he was clearly not a Mao. This time I decided to ask him
straightforwardly if he was a Busase. He admitted that he was “and also him,”
he said, pointing to the security officer that had accompanied us all the time
since we arrived in Mugi. This explained everything. Going to the wereda of-
ficers asking for the Mao was like entering a plantation house in Mississippi
asking the owners to show the slaves. This is a history that they do not want
to remember, not because they are ashamed of it, but for two other reasons:
first, because the structural inequalities continue with little changes, despite
the official rhetoric. Yusuf lives in a tiny hut and works as a laborer and
gathering honey, like their Mao ancestors did. Kebbede, as an old baläabat—
landlord—lives in a large house and has coffee plantations.
The second reason is that the Busase do not consider themselves as a dif-
ferent group anymore. They identify themselves as Oromo. Kebbede and the
security officer inserted the Busase history in the history of Oromo expansion
as just another clan. They proved the Oromo right when they say that they
thoroughly assimilate the Other. To become Oromo, one has to reject one’s
identity, literally forget one’s ancestors, and fully embrace the new ethnicity
and the new ancestors provided by the Oromo (Bartels, 1983: 177; Hassen,
1994: 21). They clearly did a good job with the Busase. But not with the Mao,
because the Oromo excel at dealing with those whom they perceive as equals,
but not with those whom they regard as inferior—the gurracha or “blacks.”
With them, their behavior is no less supercilious than the Habasha with their
own “blacks.” Oromo nationalists see the success of the Busase story and
forget about the Mao failure.
The story repeated itself among the northern Mao in Qondala, a few days
later. I have to say that I had no problem at all with the Oromo officers of
Begi, who were extremely helpful and even interested in a peculiar way in
the history of the local Mao. But Qondala was another story. The local culture
office was eloquent enough: there were posters of Oromia covering the walls,
the genealogical trees of the Oromo with all the historical clan subdivisions,
and a collection of traditional Oromo artifacts. However, at the beginning,
things went smoothly, as I was not only interested in going to Mao villages
but Oromo ones as well. With the culture officer of Qondala, we visited sev-
eral homesteads of Oromo pottery makers near the town. When I had enough
of wandering through the labyrinthine compounds of the Oromo and asked
the officer to visit some Mao villages, his expression suddenly changed. He

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 Of Mimicry and Mao 261

said first that there were no Mao around Qondala: they had all become Oromo
and “hide their identity.” That seemed contradictory: If they have become
Oromo, why should they hide their identity? Then he said that there are in fact
“pure Mao,” but they live very far away, near the Dabus River, and it takes
eight hours on foot to reach them. Those who live closer are unreachable,
too, because the road is impracticable due to the heavy rains (the rainy season
extends here well into November). That set the tone for the rest of our work
in Qondala: the officer resorted to all imaginable tricks to prevent our work
with the Mao. His efforts were all the more striking given the overwhelming
presence of the subaltern people in the area—unlike in Anfillo. Simply, they
could not be concealed from us. The situation took an ugly turn in our sec-
ond visit to the area, a few months later. We tried then to go with a group of
Seze in a collective hunt. After trying to prevent us from going by all means
imaginable, he ended up threatening with putting all Mao in jail for poaching.
I will refer to this episode again later (see section 5.4).
To understand the situation, we have to bear in mind that the region
between Mugi and Begi (Qondala was part of Begi until very recently)
is the epicenter of the Oromo Liberation Front, a radical nationalist party
very active in the armed struggle until 2002. In several occasions during
our years of fieldwork, we were unable to visit the area allegedly because
of Oromo Liberation Front actions. In fact, Mugi and Begi are towns where
the Front regularly recruits young soldiers (Medhane Tadesse, 2011: 24),
and there are reports of a bloody battle between Oromo guerrilla and fed-
eral soldiers in Gara Arba, in the middle of the Hozo Mao territory. The
strong nationalism of some local Oromo helps turn the Mao even more
invisible.
Yet it would be wrong to think that the invisibility of the Mao is just an
Oromo chimera. The truth is that where the Oromo presence is stronger, the
Mao are actually vanishing as a group with specific cultural traits (Grotta-
nelli, 1966). In the village of Arabi (Begi), for instance, the Mao had some
problems in remembering their language (Seze) as they often use Oromo in
their daily interactions with their neighbors (overwhelmingly Oromo). It took
three people, several discussions, and many hesitations to complete a word
list. In general, it was extremely difficult in the area under Oromo influence
to gather information about history, traditions, or religious beliefs. The pro-
cess of erasure of cultural memory that characterizes the process of becoming
Oromo (and, very importantly, Muslim) was already at work here. This was
not always a voluntary process: some Mao clearly felt pressed to conceal their
traditional customs—not to say when there were Oromo officers around. This
might seem understandable, but the situation with the Gumuz was quite dif-
ferent: they did not have any problem talking about traditional customs (even

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 262 Chapter 5

those banned by the state) when there were highlanders around. In Bakuji, a
village inhabited by Gumuz and Boro, a Boro said in a loud voice, while I was
interviewing a group of Gumuz in 2009, that there were no people in the area
when the Boro arrived. Hearing their indigeneity unfairly denied, the Gumuz
jumped from their seats, called him a liar, and made him shut up. That would
be unthinkable among the Mao, who always adopt a humble, silent position
in front of the Oromo.
In places like Arabi or Egogirmos, the Mao do not even preserve their
ethnic self-denomination: they have fully adopted the term of their domina-
tors and call themselves simply “Mao.” Even when they maintain their own
names, these have often been transformed by Oromo or Bertha hegemony.
Thus, the Sith Shwala called themselves originally, and until not long ago,
Kwama. Most of the people I interviewed no longer remembered this name.
Those who did, such as in the peripheral villages of Boshuma and Banga
Dergo, understood it as something from the past: interestingly, “old men”
are called collectively Sith Kwama in Banga Dergo, that is “Kwama men.”
As we will see in a later section (5.4), the traditional ritual house is called
Swal Kwama, the “house of the Kwama.” The erasure of memory also works
with things. As the culture officers of Qondala and Anfillo had warned us,
they have very little of a specific material culture: even beehives, which are
crucial for the Mao, are disappearing. In some areas, the intense deforestation
carried out by Oromo farmers has left no room for beekeeping. A cultural
anthropologist may think that whether a people makes things is largely irrel-
evant. As an archaeologist, I have to disagree: making things, makes people
(Dobres, 2000; González-Ruibal et al., 2011; Sharp, 1952). The vanishing of
Mao handicrafts is part and parcel of the process of invisibilization.
It is in peripheral places, where Oromo or other outsiders have not yet be-
come dominant, where the Mao still cling to their traditional identity, politi-
cal values, and things. It is in the margins, too, where they are most likely to
reject the term “Mao” and use their self-denomination instead: this is the case
of the Hozo, who live between a bend in the Dabus River and the Gara Arba
foothills. They call themselves with their ancient name Amó, “the people.”
The Seze people who live in Dumme, south of Qondala, strongly asserted
their identity when I asked them: they told me unambiguously that they were
not Mao, but Seze. When I insisted and asked if they were “Seze Mao,” they
said to me: aydälläm, Seze bïcha (in Amharic, “no, only Seze”).17 The same
occurs with the Sith Shwala in general. They use with pride their self-given
(new) name, which translates as “Black Men.” It is almost a sign of defiance:
“we are black, so what?” It is also among these remote Mao that material cul-
ture is more different and less hybrid. It can be identified not simply as Mao,
but more specifically as Hozo or Sith Shwala. Thus, the granaries made with

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 Of Mimicry and Mao 263

bundles of grass are only found among the Hozo. They were first documented
by Grottanelli (1940: figures 48 and 49), and I saw them in 2010. The same
occurs with fish traps and cylindrical baskets, all of them diacritical Hozo ar-
tifacts (which apparently have passed unnoticed by Oromo culture officers!).
Moreover, as we will see in section 5.4, it is in these peripheral lands where
the pan-Mao artifact par excellence, the beehive-shaped hut, still survives.
It is not only that Mao material culture is produced there. As important is
the fact that the Mao objects (namely pottery) made in peripheral places like
Boshuma or K’wak’eb reach other villages where handicrafts are no longer
being produced and in this way help other Mao materially reproduce their
“Maoness.” Furthermore, the Mao activities par excellence (hunting, gather-
ing, beekeeping, and fishing) are mostly practiced in peripheral areas, where
the forests are still abundant (see section 5.4).
Nevertheless, with the exception of a few remote villages (Kuch’i, Karkege
and Boshuma, Banga Dergo), Oromo hegemony is strongly felt almost ev-
erywhere. Thus, even in places like Dumme (the same place where the Seze
insisted on being Seze, not Mao), they were adamant in their rejection—at
least in theory—of those traditional practices that either collided with Islam
(such as beer drinking) or were considered unorthodox (such as the ablation
of incisors, which they used to practice, scarification, or sister-exchange mar-
riage). Questioned about ritual specialists, they insisted that they were long
gone and that their work was evil. Their discourse faithfully replicated the
hegemonic one. What is not perceived as un-Islamic (such as collective hunt-
ing), they showed no embarrassment in acknowledging, but ritual specialists,
dances, sister exchange, and beer drinking were, at least officially, described
as un-Islamic and therefore abandoned: “The sheikh and the Quran told us not
to sing goke [traditional songs and dances],” said a Seze elder to me.18 The
situation of the Sith Shwala is different. Those who live close to the Oromo
tend to present themselves as obedient followers of Islam, but I had the im-
pression that it was often tongue in cheek. An anecdote helps to illustrate this.
I asked Mahmudi Masale, a Sith Shwala from Rubo (near the town of Begi),
whether they drank t’äj (honey wine) and he said they did not, because it was
forbidden by Islam. I then asked if they drank traditional sorghum or maize
beer and he admitted that they did. Then Wolde Darsäma, our culture inspec-
tor at the time, asked, “and what do you do if you get drunk?” And Mahmudi
responded with a naughty smile: “if we get drunk, we go to sleep.”19
In general terms, then, Oromo hegemony goes hand in hand with a process
of marginalization of the Mao that erodes their cultural memory. When I
asked the Seze in Egogirmos if they had folktales, an old man told me that
they used to have, but not anymore, and a Hozo woman in Dengi answered
the same question with a sad smile and looked elsewhere. The same question

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 264 Chapter 5

among the Gumuz resulted in dozens of stories. I saw Oromo children making
fun of Mao women in the Qondala market, and whenever I saw Mao people
outside their villages, they looked clearly tense and harassed. In the village of
Dengi, where Oromo, Seze, and Hozo live together, I was walking about with
a couple of children and asking them who lived in each of the homesteads.
Whenever it was a Mao compound, they lowered their voice, as one would
do in front of the house of a criminal or a handicapped person. The truth is
that many Oromo consider the Mao uncouth and primitive. A wereda officer
in the town of Tongo informed us that Oromo parents tell their children that
they look like Mao when they misbehave. Aware of the other’s perception,
when the Mao go to the market, they occupy peripheral areas, reproducing
on a microscale both their social and geographical position. Not only that:
they also turn their backs to the rest of the people present in the market in
order to avoid all unnecessary interaction. They avoid eye contact at all costs.
Whenever I addressed a Mao in the market to ask a simple question (such as
the price of a calabash or the village she came from), the disturbed look in her
face evinced that she felt as if she had been exposed as a crook in the middle
of the crowd. After a couple of such experiences, I never did that again. The
game of invisibility is played by two: the Oromo do as if the Mao did not
exist, and the Mao strive to become invisible by all means.
We could still ask ourselves why is it precisely in those places where the
Mao are, in fact, less visible, such as Qondala or Anfillo, that the Oromo
marginalize them more and seem to feel the necessity to deny them. I would
say that it has to do with the phantasmatic nature of the vanishing Mao. Noth-
ing inspires more fear than a ghost, because the things that cannot be seen
are the most difficult to fight. I find Žižek’s ideas on the phantasmatic useful
here. Following the philosopher (Žižek, 1989, also 1994), I would describe
the Mao (or any other non-assimilated group for that matter) as the traumatic
kernel of Oromo society, that is, as a symptom of the Real. “The Real,” writes
Žižek (2008: 319), “is not the transcendent substantial reality which from
outside disturbs the Symbolic balance, but the immanent obstacle, stumbling
block, of the Symbolic order itself.” The Mao are the obstacle that continu-
ously unbalance the perfect symbolic order of the Oromo: a democratic, flex-
ible society, always ready to assimilate otherness. Whatever is foreclosed
from the Symbolic, reminds Žižek (1989: 73), returns in the Real of the
symptom: the symbolic order of the Oromo from which the Mao have been
evicted is continuously thwarted by the Mao as a symptom. The philosopher
would agree that the Oromo tale is simply too good: it forgets that “society
is always traversed by an antagonistic split which cannot be integrated into
symbolic order” (Žižek 1989: 126). The more ideal a society looks, the more
the original split is negated and will return as a haunt (Žižek, 1994: 24–25).

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 Of Mimicry and Mao 265

The more the Oromo try to make the Mao invisible, the more their spectral
presence casts a menacing shadow on the dominant society. This would
explain the attitudes of the Oromo officers in Qondala and Mugi. Where the
Mao presence simply cannot be negated, because it is too prevalent (as in
Sith Shwala territory), the relations are understandably easier. I would say,
following Homi Bhabha (1994) that the power of haunting of the invisible
Mao is subversively played out as mimicry, for example in dress (to which
I will refer in the next section), but also through ambiguous techniques and
artifacts, such as hunting and spears (see section 5.4).

Hybrid Technologies
When one takes a glance at the map of the northern Mao area (see figure 5.2),
the cultural mosaic that exists in the region immediately becomes apparent.
While the Gumuz occupy an immense area for the most part inhabited by
them alone and the same occurs with the lowland Bertha, the Mao live side
by side with many other communities: the Seze, for instance, have Hozo, Sith
Shwala, Bertha, Oromo, Gwama, and Komo in their immediate surround-
ings. The boundaries of the diverse groups are rarely clear-cut. The villages
of one group and the other are interspersed. Furthermore, most villages are
multi-ethnic (see table 5.1). Only in the margins can we find villages that

Table 5.1. Mao villages.

Name of village Municipality/Region Ethnicities
Mus’a Mado Bambasi, BS-G Oromo, Mao (Bambasi), Bertha
Ishgogo Gedashola Tongo, Oromia Mao (Sith Shwala), Oromo, Bertha
Banga Dergo Tongo, Oromia Mao (Sith Shwala), Bertha
Rubo Begi, Oromia Oromo, Mao (Seze)
K’wak’eb Tongo, BS-G Mao (Sith Shwala), Oromo, Bertha
Egogirmos Begi, Oromia Mao (Seze), Oromo
Arabi Begi, Oromia Mao (Seze), Oromo
Lop’i Begi, Oromia Mao (Seze), Oromo
Dumme Qondala, Oromia Mao (Seze), Oromo
Koli Ch’erpa Qondala, Oromia Mao (Seze), Oromo
Dengi/Shura Maramo Qondala, Oromia Mao (Seze, Hozo, Sith Shwala), Oromo
Ch’elek’a Qondala, Oromia Mao (Hozo), Oromo
Boni Bekere Begi, Oromia Mao (Seze), Oromo
Tulu Bundara Begi, Oromia Mao (?), Oromo
T’enze Begi, Oromia Oromo, Bertha, formerly Mao (Sith
Shwala)

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 266 Chapter 5

are mono-ethnic. In fact, only three had exclusively Mao inhabitants at the
time of carrying out this study: Boshuma and Karkege (Sith Shwala), and
K’uchi (Hozo). We could add Banga Dergo (Sith Shwala), where the Bertha
compounds are distant enough to be considered a different village. Although
the ethnic mixture has grown ostensibly during the past century, the truth is
that the Mao have been accustomed to living with other people for centuries
if not millennia. It is not surprising, therefore, that their culture is essentially
hybrid.
We could speak of a palimpsest or a stratigraphy and therefore of an archae-
ology of being Mao: if we excavate these different layers we will find in them
a variety of technologies (social, religious, historical, and material) coming
from the Koman, Gonga, and Oromo backgrounds. There is first a strong Ko-
man background on top of which layers of other traditions have settled and
mixed through time. For example, all groups used to practice sister-exchange
marriage. Apparently, only the Sith Shwala preserve it in remote places like
Boshuma, Karkege, and Banga Dergo. Collective hunting and related rituals,
which are part of the Koman “archive” (James, 1988), are also present across
all groups. A third Koman element is collective beer drinking using large,
communal pots and drinking straws. Again, this is only regularly practiced
among the Sith Shwala (straws have mostly disappeared, though), albeit all
Seze, Hozo, and Bambasi remember collective beer feasts in the recent past
(and perhaps still celebrate them). It is worth noting that these three Koman
elements (sister exchange, collective hunts, and beer drinking) are in essence
social technologies to produce the community of equals.
The sphere of religious beliefs—or religious technology, which produces
relations between the Mao and the supernatural world—is also permeated
by the Koman background. This is particularly visible in the role of ritual
specialists and their techniques. As in other Koman groups, there are diviners
and rainmakers, who resort to oneiromancy, incense burning, rain stones, and
other ritual techniques present among many indigenous groups of the border-
land. The Koman background is also strong in material culture. Ancient Ko-
man materialities permeate the techniques of the body, domestic space, and
pottery, all of which I will refer to in following sections.
The Gonga imprint is clearly seen in religious beliefs and practices: there is
a belief in a paramount divinity or spirit, called Yere, which was brought by
the Busase. Yere or Yero is the name for the God of the Sky among all Gonga
societies (Huntingford, 1955: 132; Tesemma Ta’a, 2006: 34). It is in itself a
hybrid deity, related to the Zar spirit, known among Beta Israel, Agäw, and
Amhara (Levine, 2000 [1974]: 48). Interestingly, many Seze to whom I spoke
referred to the sky with unease (even when I was just asking the name in Seze
language), probably because their belief in the God of the Sky collided with

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 Of Mimicry and Mao 267

their new Islamic faith. The Hozo talk about the sky as Yerach’i Ubbi, the
“stomach (i.e., home) of god,” and a Seze told me that they raise their hands
to the sky while praying, because Yere is there.20 It is possible that the har-
vest ritual dedicated to Yere in November, which is very popular among the
northern Mao, has a Gonga origin, too, as it is attested to among the people
of Anfillo (Tesemma Ta’a, 2006: 34). Interestingly, what was a god of the
rulers has become a god of resistance, when the dominant society switched
to universal religions and abandoned the Gonga religion.
Regarding ritual practices, the Seze and Hozo Mao also have a dance,
called goke, in which men perform with a piece of wood resembling a phal-
lus that is tied around the waist and hangs from the crotch. The phallus is a
prominent symbol among the Gonga, which unites killing and procreation
(Haberland, 1986: 38). Whereas the Mao are not interested in the former,
they are obsessed with the latter. Besides, the dance is accompanied by mu-
sic played by side-blown trumpets, an Omotic invention according to Eike
Haberland (1986: 39). It might well be, as the neighboring Gumuz and Bertha
use mostly end-blown trumpets instead. Of Gonga provenance is probably the
ritual hut, as a separate building, to which I will refer later (see section 5.4),
as well as the very idea of praying: the prayers of propiation to Yero (see
Lange, 1982: 283) strikingly resemble those that I had the chance to record
among the Sith Shwala.
Perhaps the most remarkable of the Gonga imports among the Mao is his-
tory. This is surprising yet understandable. History as a technology (to pro-
duce knowledge to understand and legitimate one’s origins) is typical of hi-
erarchical groups, and not only in Africa (Scott, 2009: 275). Most egalitarian
indigenous groups of the Sudanese-Ethiopian borderland have a very short
historical memory, going back not much further than a century: history soon
relapses into mythical time. This is comprehensible: for peoples who tend to
deny change, having history would be the same as admitting that in the past
things were different. A short collective memory is matched by genealogical
amnesia: it was very hard to find anybody able to remember the name of his
or her great-grandparents. The reverse situation is found among the people
with a state tradition: the Boro and Busase elders whom I had the opportunity
to ask rarely remembered fewer than seven generations of ancestors. This
family memory was coupled to an equally long collective memory, which in
all cases recorded events dated to the late sixteenth century and (in the case
of the Boro) even before (see also Lange, 1982). I could find some Seze who
had a long genealogical memory (nine generations), obviously due to Busase
influence, but this is very unusual.21
Strangely enough, I had no problem in meeting Mao who told me about
their remote history. The same tale was recounted by the Seze and the Sith

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 268 Chapter 5

Shwala.22 All insisted that they used to live along the Gibe River and were
expelled from there by the Oromo migrations. These, as we have seen,
took place in several waves starting around 1560. The Oromo, according
to the Mao, kept chasing them until they arrived to the escarpment and had
nowhere else to go: at that point, they consented to the occupation of their
lands. The story is interesting for several reasons, the first of which is that
it is hardly true. It is absolutely not true for the Sith Shwala, whose ances-
tors (the Gwama) were living in the Sudanese-Ethiopian borderland well
before the Oromo ever started their expansion. It is probably not true in the
case of the Seze, either, who were already inhabiting the Dabus Valley five
centuries ago, as we have seen. Whose story is this then? It is no doubt the
Gonga story, kept and transmitted by the Busase, who actually used to live
in the Gibe Valley around the mid-sixteenth century and were expelled by
the Oromo invasions. Why would the Mao appropriate the Busase history?
On the one hand, because the Busase, as we have seen, were accompanied
by other Mao in their migration, who did share both their history and their
fate. On the other hand, and most importantly, because the story rings a bell
with the historical experience of expulsion and dispossession by the Oromo
endured by the Seze, Sith Shwala, and Hozo: a story of the past, but also of
the present, as the Mao continue to see their lands invaded (peacefully this
time) by the expanding Oromo. In addition, the borrowed history also helps
to create solidarities between the diverse Mao groups. This does not mean
that some Mao do not remember other histories that are factually accurate:
some Sith Shwala still recall the expulsion from their original homeland by
the Bertha (a fact that occurred around 1700, as we have seen; see section
4.1), but this story is not regarded as incompatible with the Gibe tale. On the
contrary: it buttresses the idea that the Mao have always been expelled by
more powerful groups. Bulgu Masad, a Sith Shwala, combines both stories
meaningfully: “When the Oromo expelled us from Gibe, we settled in Menge
and Asosa, but we were expelled from there also. The Bertha had guns and
we spears, so we had to flee.”23
The most recent (and hegemonic) layer is Oromo. The Oromo presence
among the northern Mao goes along with Islam. As in the Bertha case, Is-
lam is here one of the greatest cultural levelers. I mentioned in the previous
section how the Mao linked most of their changes in their cultural behavior
as a response to the teachings of Islam. This does not mean that Islam is a
mere stripping of the past, as V. S. Naipaul (1998: 72) puts it. To a certain
extent it is: there is an obvious ongoing erasure of cultural memory among
the Islamized Mao. Yet there is always debris of the past that cannot be fully
eliminated—not, at least, in the medium term. The Mao have managed to mix
Islam and traditional practices in many ways. One of the most interesting is

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 Of Mimicry and Mao 269

the combination of the Islamic and Mao ritual calendars. Whenever I asked,
the Mao always told me that their most important festival was the Day of
Arafa, which usually falls between late October and December. This is quite
convenient, as it coincides with the harvest season, and the most important
“pagan” festival for the Mao has always been the harvest festival. Therefore,
they can celebrate Arafa as much as they want without being considered un-
orthodox. They sing and dance as other Muslims do, but they sing and dance
the Mao goke. They pray, although not necessarily to Allah, but Yere.
Although I have emphasized the marginalization to which the Oromo sub-
ject the Mao, the situation is not black and white. Oromo and Mao live side
by side in many places, they talk to each other, feast together, and participate
in each other’s work parties. The word that the Mao always used for “work
party,” in fact, was the Oromo one (debo) or a derivative (däwi). In some
places, they also attend the same mosques. It is on these occasions when
hybridity is worked out. It is on these occasions, also, when Oromo language
spreads and becomes hegemonic. So far, I have referred to technologies
geared toward the production of social relations, relations with the supernatu-
ral, and relations with the past. Materiality is involved at different stages in
these technologies. In the next two sections, I will focus on two technologies
that are specifically material: bodily techniques and pottery.

Camouflage Dress
Passing unnoticed is one of the main concerns for most Mao—quite dif-
ferent from the Gumuz. Yet “the art of invisibleness” can also be an art of
resistance, which allows the Mao to “remain to watch and to haunt.” There
are several tactics deployed by the Mao in this way, which could be called
“techniques of camouflage” in Bhabha’s terms (1994: 89). The first and most
basic mode of camouflage has to do with personal appearance: dress and the
body. Whereas Gumuz women make their half-nude bodies into emblems
of resistance to the hegemonic order, the Mao cover them in layers of cloth.
Apparently, the way women (and men) dress is very similar to that of the
Oromo: the influence of the dominant society is strong. However, as Bhabha
(1994: 122) would put it, it is “almost the same but not quite.” This “almost”
makes a difference, because it allows the Mao to display a distinct identity
while at the same time showing compliance with the dominant order.
As we have seen, the Oromo that presently occupy the lands of the north-
ern Mao are overwhelmingly Muslim in the countryside. The great majority
of Mao declare themselves Muslim, even if most of them seldom visit the
mosque, eat pork (warthog) whenever they can, and rarely, if ever, observe
prayer times. However, many Mao men wear the taqiyah, the Muslim prayer

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 270 Chapter 5

hat, on all occasions. In Boshuma and Ishgogo, for instance, most men can
be seen wearing the prayer hat, despite the fact that these are places where
traditional religion is more entrenched (see figure 5.3). It is actually easier to
see Mao with the taqiyah than Oromo, who often wear a turban or nothing at
all. It is quite clear that the taqiyah and similar headdresses are a symbol that
identifies a Mao as such. Yet at the same time they are perfectly orthodox
objects in the Muslim environment where they live: a technique of camou-
flage. Interestingly, among the photographs taken by Grottanelli in the 1930s,
there are already some northern Mao wearing taqiyah (Grottanelli, 1940:
279, figure 56). According to the people I spoke to, the process of Islamiza-
tion did not begin before Haile Selassie’s time (i.e., the 1940s onward), and
Islamic customs did not become prevalent until the last generation or so. This
is confirmed by Grottanelli’s observations, which depict Mao religious be-
liefs as largely unaffected by Islam (Grottanelli, 1940: 311–15). The present
widespread use of the taqiyah, then, has not much to do with an increasing
profession of Islamic faith among the Mao, but with a subtle attempt at as-
serting difference. But why the cap? The Italian traveler Pellegrino Matteucci
who visited the area in the 1870s reported that the Mao “wear on their heads
a triangular hat made with monkey’s fur” (Matteucci, 1879: 264). A decade
later, Juan Maria Schuver noted that the Mao wear “peaked caps of hyena- or

Figure 5.3. A Mao family in Ishgogo Gedashola. All adult men wear a taqiyah (prayer
cap).

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 Of Mimicry and Mao 271

leopard-skin” (James et al., 1996: 48). He also says that the chief of the Mao
in Begi has as insignia of his office “a peaked cap of otterhide” (James et al.,
1996: 50). The use of headdress is very unusual among the peoples of the Su-
danese-Ethiopian borderland, so this might have been something that singled
out the Mao. Its origin is perhaps Gonga, as hats have been traditionally worn
by these peoples and the most elaborate have become royal emblems.
The ambivalence of dress as an element of inclusion and exclusion, of
sameness and difference, is clearer among women. Before the pressures of
Islam and the Oromo, most Mao women used to go naked from the waist
up, their breasts only covered with many amber necklaces, and wore a white
cotton skirt, fixed with a piece of cloth around the waist (see figures 5.5 and
5.12). The set was completed with a shawl or blanket to carry babies on the
back (Grottanelli, 1940: figure 15). Only in the peripheral areas of the Mao
land, in settlements inhabited only or predominantly by Mao, such as Banga
Dergo and Boshuma in Sith Shwala territory, is it still possible to see bare-
breasted women, but the Mao no longer follow the tradition in those settle-
ments where they have to share space with other ethnic groups. Today, Mao
women wear dresses, girdles, necklaces, and veils similar to those worn by
Oromo women, but always with a twist. One of these modifications is the
blanket that they wear around their waist, a peculiar Mao element that is
used to carry babies on the back. When it is not used as such, it is tied to the
neck as a tunic. It was already worn in the way it is today back in the 1930s
(Grottanelli, 1940: figure 15). Sometimes, in addition to the blanket, women
carry a wooden board or a basket made with strips of wood. This is a Koman
artifact that can be found among the Uduk, Gwama, Komo, and Ganza. Other
Koman elements have already disappeared, such as the garment made with
fiber in the shape of a horse tail (koshi) that women used to cover their rear
(Grottanelli, 1940: 126; 1947: 73–74). It is my impression, however, that the
horse tail has not totally disappeared, but just evolved: I would argue that the
emphasis that the Mao women put on the blanket that they tie around their
waist can be explained because it is a replacement of the traditional loincloth
(godda) and horse tail (koshi). The bundle of cloth with which many women
cover their rear (and that is never found among Oromo) certainly resembles
the old garments.
Something that is remarkable in the Mao attire is its uniformity and ortho-
doxy: women never fail to wear any piece of cloth in public: girdle, veil, and
one-piece dress. This is the way Oromo women dress, but the latter’s attire is
more heterogeneous; there is a lesser degree of anxiety with uniformity. By
complying with zeal with the idea of wearing clothes, the Mao are able to
maintain their particularity even when adopting other’s robes. Yet the Mao
emphasis on uniformity is not an issue of mere cultural identity: it is political

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 272 Chapter 5

as well. Uniformity in attire underscores a collective and egalitarian ethos.

Thus, it is hard to see women better dressed than others among the Mao and,
even less, women that have expensive adornments.
All groups, irrespective of ethnicity, purchase their rings and bracelets from
the same smiths (a situation diametrically opposed to what we found among
the Gumuz). I had the chance to speak to them: they are a couple of Oromo
cousins who work in the outskirts of Qondala and cater to most of the northern
Mao land. I had already perceived the typological differences in the bracelets
and rings of Oromo and Mao and wanted to confirm that with their makers.
However, what they told me did not have to do with typology, but with the
metal: “Oromo buy silver and Mao buy aluminium.”24 In fact, Oromo buy
adornments in gold, silver, brass, and aluminum or nickel, depending on their
means, while the Mao only acquire objects of non-precious metals. A silver
ring is 7.5 times more expensive than a brass one, and a gold ring is 250 times
more costly. The moral economy of the Mao prevents the accumulation of
wealth necessary to acquire gold or silver. Yet, paradoxically, it is the Mao
who pan the gold in places like Boshuma, that is later sold to Oromo smiths:
this shows that it is not just a lack of means, but also a rejection of precious
metals as a symbol of distinction. It is precisely in adornments (but not just in
the metal employed) where the difference between Oromo and Mao is more
evident: Mao women wear larger and thicker earrings and more bracelets and
of bigger sizes. The bracelets have the shape of a flat and wide strip of metal,
which is usually decorated with incised horizontal and vertical lines, dots,
and, more interestingly, crosses, which are the same that used to decorate their
cheeks and arms (see figure 5.4). As in the Gumuz case (see section 3.4), it
seems that the repression of the body has been circumvented through the deco-
ration of other surfaces. In fact, the same crosses can be found on throwing
sticks and baby bags. The Mao also have more necklaces than the Oromo, and
these are almost invariably made of thick yellow plastic beads (a reasonable
substitute for the old amber beads) (see figure 5.5). In my last visits to the
northern Mao, I discovered that Islamic prayer beads (misbaha) had become
extremely popular in town shops. This was, of course, not for a new religious
fervor, but for their yellow beads.
The relevance of beads has to be related to the Koman background: the
Komo and Gwama who live in the lowlands today can wear an extraordinary
amount of necklaces and it is still today the “more primitive” Mao, as they
are commonly regarded, who have the greatest amount of beads (see figure
5.6). The Mao themselves are aware of that. When asking about the different
Mao groups who lived in Qondala and Begi and their differences, I was told
that the Hozo, who live far away, were the ones who had more necklaces and
bracelets.

Book 1.indb 272 2/25/14 6:21 AM

 Figure 5.4. Hozo women in Dengi (Shura Maramo) with typical nickel bracelets.

Figure 5.5. A Mao woman with yellow beads, surrounded by

Oromo, in the market of Tongo.

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 274 Chapter 5

Figure 5.6. A Gwama woman in Keser heavily adorned with necklaces,

bracelets, and anklets. Courtesy of Álvaro Falquina.

The informant was right. The Mao may have renounced nudity, but not
their body decorations, because they are crucial in their constitution as per-
sons: necklaces are worn from a very early age and, as it happens with other
groups, they are only taken away in traumatic occasions, such as severe
illnesses or during mourning. The importance of beads in defining people
among the Mao can be glimpsed in an object kept in the museum located in

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 Of Mimicry and Mao 275

Asosa: a stick used by a ritual specialist (probably a sith bish) for healing
people. The stick represents a human being, with the head carefully carved in
a very realistic way. There is no other element that proves the humanness of
the representation, except one: a necklace of miniature yellow beads. It is as
if this detail could metonymically compound what is to be human in a way
that no other object or even body part could.
Another element of bodily display that evinces a twist in orthodoxy is
hairstyle. In Grottanelli’s photographs, Mao women have a hairstyle that
closely resembles that of the Majangir people (Stauder, 1972). They used
to shave their hair except for the upper part of the head, which was cropped
in the shape of an inverted bowl, anointed with butter, castor oil, and ochre,
and woven in tiny braids (three to four centimeters long) (Grottanelli, 1940:
108, 114, figure 20A/B). This hairstyle is no longer found, except among
children. To start with, many Mao women now cover their head with a scarf
(at least in public), whereas in Grottanelli’s photographs all go bareheaded.
In addition, they no longer shave their hair as they used to, but leave it long.
Their braids are also longer and more elaborate. However, this half-visible
hairstyle still acts as a sign of difference and creates links with other subaltern
communities, such as the Gwama and the lowland Bertha (see section 4.4),
who were already using this style in the 1860s (Marno, 1874: taff. 6). Oromo
women have long hair and wear many thin, highly elaborate braids that are
stuck to the head. These braids follow two orientations: those that are closer
to the forehead frame the face, whereas the rest are set in horizontal parallel
rows following the axis of the skull. The Mao braids, instead, are thicker and
fall loosely in vertical parallel rows from the middle of the head. They can be
better described as dreadlocks rather than braids and, in that, they resemble
the traditional Mao hairstyle. Regarding relations, the Oromo style is part of
the highland tradition, which can be seen, with a higher degree of elaboration,
among the peoples of northern Ethiopia. Despite important changes from the
1930s, the Mao hairstyle is still an expression of a subaltern identity. While
the Mao could have chosen the hegemonic hairstyle in their quest for invis-
ibility, they decided to adopt one that is close enough to it, but different, and
that connects them with other neighboring peoples who share a similar posi-
tion of subalternity.

Pots
The northern Mao lands are the archaeologist’s nightmare. There are seven
ceramic traditions that coincide in the same territory, influence each other
(or not), overlap, complement, collaborate, and compete: Amhara, Oromo,
Bertha, Sith Shwala Mao, Komo, Gwama, and Ganza. Material hybridity

Book 1.indb 275 2/25/14 6:21 AM

 276 Chapter 5

sometimes escapes the power asymmetries that regulate the lives of the bor-
derland peoples, and sometimes does not. Regarding the negative situation,
a glimpse at the map (see figure 5.7) makes clear that Oromo potters have
been pushing other potters out of the market. There are no more Seze or
Hozo potters: they buy all their pots from Oromo in Qondala. In the village
of T’enze, we were told that the Mao artisans (Sith Shwala) had gone out of
business and left after Bertha and Oromo settled in the area, who took over
the market. In Tulu Bundara, many Sith Shwala have emigrated and Oromo
potters are now increasing. The Seze and Hozo’s forgetting of the craft is not
mere anecdote: it is part of the process of cultural erasure to which Oromo
hegemony is subjecting them.
At the same time, however, Oromo tradition has proved permeable to the
styles it has encountered during its expansion: the potters have adopted shapes
(such as globular pots) and techniques (such as the substance for coating) from
other groups. More importantly, they seem to have assimilated the social status
of local potters: whereas in most Oromo communities artisans are marginal-
ized (potters, smiths, tanners), this does not happen among any of the indig-
enous groups of the borderland (Temesgen Burka, 2009). Likewise, the potters
from the Begi and Qondala area are not marginalized either. The oral tradi-
tions of the Sayo Oromo, who conquered the Kingdom of Anfillo, report that
their women learned to make pots from the Komo and Kwegu, expelled from
their lands by the Oromo, but whom they considered expert potters (Negasso
Gidada, 2001: 86). A similar phenomenon may have existed with the northern
Mao, especially the Seze and Hozo. Thus, although the Oromo make some
vessels that are characteristically from the highlands (the amphoroid water
jar or okote and the coffee pot), the kitchen ware (t’uwe, difti, and wach’it’i)
all evince local influence, in that they have globular or simple forms and no
careens, plastic decoration (lugs), or even knobs, which are commonly found
in other Oromo peripheral areas (Bula Sirika Wayessa, 2011).
The truth is that, despite the diverse traditions that coincide in the northern
Mao area, the panorama is considerably homogeneous. While in Metekel, it
was exceedingly easy to distinguish a Gumuz pot from a highland one; the
same does not occur in the area under study. One might be able to identify
a Mao pot at the market, but once it has been used, it is a challenge to guess
its ethnicity. We could speak of camouflage here, too, as with dress: an art of
passing unnoticed. It is not surprising that a people that is essentially hybrid,
whose identity has been shaped by historical processes of mixture with sub-
altern and dominant communities, has an equally hybrid pottery.
It is possible to assess the changes undergone by Mao (Sith Shwala) pot-
tery, because we can, in a sense, see the before and the after. The before is the
pottery that is still made by their living forebears, the Gwama (that is, the Sith

Book 1.indb 276 2/25/14 6:21 AM

 Figure 5.7. Markets and pottery-making villages in the northern Mao area.

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 278 Chapter 5

Shwala who decided to escape from the Oromo). The after is the pottery that
the Sith Shwala communities (Boshuma/Karkege and Banga Dergo) produce
today. We drew several hundred pots made by Gwama and Ganza, whose
tradition is almost indistinguishable from the Gwama, in Zebsher, Benshuba,
and Keser, and by Sith Shwala, in Banga Dergo and Boshuma. The shapes
have not changed: they are basically globular and hemispheric pots with
simple profiles in both the Gwama and the Mao styles. Yet the Mao pots
have lost the decoration that is present in the Gwama assemblage. Gwama
and Ganza potters decorate their vessels with circle impressions made with a
thick hollow reed along the rim in one or two parallel rows (see figure 5.8).
This is linked to the tradition of collective beer drinking that is so central to
all Koman societies, as the straw that is used for decoration is the same used
for drinking (p’enze in Gwama). The disappearance of decoration among the
Mao can be related to the process of invisibilization or camouflage. Deco-
rated pots are linked to the “Komo” (actually Gwama), the wild pair of the
Mao-Komo group. It is easier to sell pots that are not ethnically marked and,
in fact, many Oromo and Bertha homesteads have undecorated Mao pots.
This does not mean that the Oromo refuse to purchase decorated pots: in the
village of K’wak’eb, the local Sith Shwala decorate their pots, which are
sometimes bought by Oromo (see figure 5.9).
The persistence of decoration here has to do with the fact that they had been
Gwama until very recently and still live very close to a Gwama village (Zeb-
sher). Apart from the disappearance of decoration, the other important change
has to do with the introduction of post-firing treatment: they sprinkle a liquid
made with crushed tree bark, as do the Bertha and some Oromo (Bula Sirika
Wayesa, 2011)—albeit the use of coating among the latter is very unusual in
the northern Mao territory. We have already seen how popular this practice
has become among the Bertha and how it helped them make their pots more
appealing and compete more successfully with the highland potters. Prob-
ably the same principles are at work here. The Mao, with their simple but big
and sturdy cooking pots have found a niche in the region. There seems to be
some specialization by ethnicity: the Bertha have focused on the production
of shallow open platters (ele) for baking bread, Oromo produce water jars
(okote) and coffee pots (jebena), and the Mao craft cooking pots of different
sizes (called generically phala in Sith Shwala and kawe in Seze and Bambasi
Mao). These are also produced by the Oromo and, to a much less extent, by
the Bertha, but Mao vessels are competitive enough as to be acquired not
only by other Mao (who prefer to buy from other Mao), but also by Oromo.
In fact, some Mao potters have become quite adept at surviving in this
competitive multi-ethnic milieu. The potters of Boshuma, for instance, not

Book 1.indb 278 2/25/14 6:21 AM

 Figure 5.8. Above: Two Gwama pots from Zebsher with decorated rims. Below: A Mao
woman from K’wak’eb decorates a pot with stamped circles.

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 280 Chapter 5

Figure 5.9. An Oromo woman buys a decorated Mao pot (Gwama tradition) at the
market of Zebsher.

only sell to other Sith Shwala and Oromo communities in the vicinity, they
have also reached the Bambasi Mao and their Oromo neighbors. The case
of the Bambasi Mao is particularly interesting. It seems that they are recon-
necting, through pottery, with their Koman background: whenever I asked
people to identify the origin of the pottery (they had Mao, Oromo, Bertha, and
Amhara pots in their houses), they systematically identified the vessels from
Boshuma, which they prefer, as “Komo.” For the Bambasi Mao, who live in
the midst of the Oromo, the relatively distant people of Boshuma are closer
to the wilder “Komo” than to themselves. Yet at the same time, they consider
themselves related to the Boshuma folk. Some Bambasi Mao even told me
that they speak the same language (they are not even similar: one is Nilo-
Saharan, the other Omotic). The pots from Boshuma are used for making
porridge and beer, the traditional food and drink of both Mao and “Komo.”
They create a sense of community.
It is precisely in consumption, rather than production, where differences
between the Mao and the other groups are more apparent. This is consistent
with the Mao strategies of resilience: production is visible, consumption

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 Of Mimicry and Mao 281

(inside homes) is less so. It is difficult to identify at a glance a sooted Mao

cooking pot from an Oromo one, although there are some elements that al-
low to distinguish them: Oromo cooking pots almost always have knobs that
are used as handles (close to 100 percent); Mao pots have knobs much less
frequently (35 percent in a sample of eighty-five items). Koman pottery lacks
knobs, and the Mao have adopted these from either the Bertha or the Oromo,
but they are still far from being a prevalent trait. Another distinguishing ele-
ment is that Oromo pots tend to have edged rims, whereas the Mao prefer
simple inverted rims (see figure 5.10).
These details, in any case, are less conspicuous than the strong differences
that can be found among Gumuz and highland pottery. When it is easy to
distinguish Oromo from Mao is when we deal with complete domestic sets,
even if both groups had purchased the containers in the same markets and

Figure 5.10. Subtle differences: Typology of Gwama, Mao, and Oromo boiling pots.
Courtesy of Álvaro Falquina

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 282 Chapter 5

from the same potters. Mao households have more hemispheric bowls and
fewer platters and girdles (ele or met’ad) than the Oromo, a fact related
to differing cooking and eating practices: the Mao still cling to porridge
(Seze: kal; Sith Shwala: pwash), whereas the staple food among the Oromo
is the flat fermented pancake typical of the Ethiopian highlands (biddena in
Oromo). Besides, the Mao need large open pots for beer (Sith Shwala: shul;
Seze/Hozo: pwe), because they drink collectively, each one introducing his or
her half calabash as a cup in the communal pot. The Oromo do not officially
drink alcohol in the area, because they are Muslim; when they do, they store
beer in large jars (gani). Therefore, both ethnic difference and cultural values
are still reproduced indoors: change is arrested inside the house.
We can find notable differences between the Mao groups. The Sith Shwala,
as in most other aspects, are more likely to distinguish themselves from the
Oromo than the other Mao. They purchase more Mao or Gwama pottery than
the Seze and Hozo, especially those who live closer to the Oromo. Thus, of
fifty-one cooking pots inventoried in nine Seze Mao compounds of Arabi and
Egogirmos, only seven were reported to have been made by Mao potters (that
is, less than 14 percent). The rest were defined as Oromo. The Sith Shwala
from Rubo, instead, who purchase pots from the same markets as the resi-
dents of Arabi and Egogirmos, declared forty-three Mao cooking pots and ten
Oromo out of a total of sixty-three items from eight compounds; the rest (ten)
were not identified by them, but were clearly Bertha. This means that they
consume (or say they consume) 69 percent of Mao pottery. The difference
with the Seze could not be more evident. The Bambasi Mao, as I have already
noted, are also more willing to acquire Mao pottery than any other kind:
around 80 percent of all the cooking pots present in five typical households
of Bambasi Mao from Mus’a Mado had been produced by other Mao (see fig-
ure 5.11). In sum, pots express the complex relations between different Mao
groups and between these and the dominant Oromo. They materialize more or
less conscious desires for cultural belonging to a wider subaltern community
(Bambasi), autonomy and resistance to the hegemonic society (Sith Shwala),
or compliance with the dominant regime (Seze).

5.3. THE GENDER OF RESISTANCE

As with other indigenous groups of the Sudanese-Ethiopian borderland, it

would be difficult to understand resistance without taking gender into ac-
count. Like their Bertha and Gumuz counterparts, Mao women are also in
a subaltern position with regard to men, whose equality is partly achieved
through asymmetrical relations with women. Nevertheless, female status is

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 Of Mimicry and Mao 283

Figure 5.11. Consumption of Mao pots among three different Mao groups.

still higher than among the patriarchal Oromo and Busase. The patriarchal
order of the Oromo is understandable in a hierarchical society where some
people have more power and wealth than others. Resisting Oromo ideology,
then, should also mean resisting the most overt forms of patriarchy.
The higher status of Mao women can be seen in daily practice. Like the
Gumuz, Mao women can participate in rituals of conflict resolution. We had
the chance to attend one of these rituals in the neighborhood of Karkege
(Boshuma), which had been motivated by a case of adultery. Unlike the Gu-
muz, women and men did not mix. They sat down under the shadow of mango
trees in two separate groups: men to one side, women to the other. Weapons
(spears and guns) were deposited in the middle. In another neighborhood of
Boshuma, I witnessed an interesting act of female self-assertion that would
be unthinkable among highlanders. When I ended an interview with an old
man, I gave him some money for spending his time with us. He refused to
accept it, because he considered that it was too little—something that had oc-
curred very seldom to me. After some negotiations, I decided to go. At that
point, the man’s wife appeared and started scolding her husband. The man
left and the woman came to me, said that he was accepting the money, and
apologized for her husband’s attitude. It reminded me of another episode, this
time with the Fa-Kuŋkuŋ Bertha: we tried to purchase some pots in a remote

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 284 Chapter 5

village near the Dabus in order to display them in the museum at Asosa.
Although we were offering a sum that was higher than the market price, the
women were clearly reluctant to let the pots go. The men, instead, insisted
that we could take them. A quarrel between men and women ensued, in which
the women were clearly ringing the tune. The men eventually had to accept
their defeat, and we left without the pots. Similar cases of women refusing
to accept men’s decisions are quite unlikely among highlanders, although
gender relations seem less asymmetrical among the Oromo. An indication
of the relatively better status of women among the Mao is their performance
of ritual roles. Women can be sith mumuŋ, which is roughly the same as sith
bish or bishmai (diviner). The former are common among the Gwama and
the latter among the Mao. I did meet a sith mumuŋ in Banga Dergo, Kallitu
Sälase. She was widely respected for her skills in curing diseases caused by
evil spirits (annuŋ) through oneiromancy (animuŋ).25 Women, however, can-
not bring or stop rain, and entrance to the ritual houses is banned for them,
except when they are old.
Overall, the Mao are conscious of the better status of women among them
as compared to the highlanders. Like the Gumuz, Mao women totally refuse
marriage with highlanders, whereas some Mao men do marry Oromo women.
The latter situation is quite widespread in multi-ethnic villages of Benis-
hangul-Gumuz. We found several couples of Sith Shwala men and Oromo
women (the situation is less common among other Mao groups). Their chil-
dren, as it might be expected in a patrilineal society, are considered fully
Mao. In relation to interethnic marriages, I witnessed an interesting exchange
between a Hozo elder, Wallagga Faranji, and the culture officer of Qondala,
the Oromo nationalist to whom I have already referred. Wallagga asserted
that Mao men marry Oromo women. This was sharply denied by the Oromo
inspector, who said that this might happen in places like Benishangul, but not
in Oromia, where the interview was taking place. Wallegga, thus, qualified
his assertion and explained that “black Oromo” do marry Mao men. To this,
another Oromo man, our guide, added that in some places, like Bambasi (in
Benishangul), poor Oromo marry Mao, to which the inspector replied: “they
are not pure Oromo, they are mixed, like the people of Tongo [Benishan-
gul].”26 Thus, only poor, half-caste, or black Oromo women are willing to
marry Mao men. There is a grain of truth in this. The men from Boshuma
say that they cannot marry women from the dominant group: “It is difficult
to marry Oromo women, they want jewels, gold, necklaces. Only rich people
marry them.”27 Living in an antimarket economy, they cannot expect to match
the Oromo’s bridewealth.
This, however, is not always the case. In the village of Rubo (Oromia), or
Shigogo (Benishangul), fair-skinned Oromo women were married to dark-

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 Of Mimicry and Mao 285

skinned Mao men. They were often second wives, a fact that proves that
while the women might have been poor, their husbands certainly were not
poorer than the average Oromo peasant. Ironically, the truth is that it is Mao
who refuse to marry Oromo, and not the other way around, and they are very
aware of the reasons for the refusal. A group of Seze were adamant saying
that, “Mao women do not want to be married to an Oromo, because they
think that an Oromo only wants a slave,”28 and a Hozo man argued that the
Oromo would not consider their Mao wives as such, but as servants.29 This is
perceived in almost the same way by the Gumuz, as we have seen.
How is this better status played out in materiality? First, there is the bodily
hexis. The situation is similar to the Gumuz (see section 3.4), so I will not
elaborate much. Mao women adopt an upright position in almost everything
they do, which is in stark contrast to the bent position of the Oromo. Like
the Amhara, Oromo women carry very heavy loads on their backs from a
very early age. We saw that Gumuz women (and other groups) avoided this
by means of the carrying stick, which forced them to adopt an erect posi-
tion. Mao women do not use a carrying stick, but they manage to stand up,
even while carrying heavy loads, by transporting things on top of their heads
(see figure 5.12). For that, the Mao use a ring made of vegetable fiber called
k’andil in the language of the Sith Shwala. They put it on their heads to ac-
commodate all kinds of loads (pots, calabashes, or wood). The k’andil is also
used to keep pots upright on the floor inside houses: a homology is thus sug-
gested between the erect woman body and the standing pot. The same artifact
guarantees the verticality of people and things.
More exceptional in terms of gender relations and material culture is the
participation of men in the production of pottery. The fabrication by men of
wheel-turned pots or high-quality market-oriented pieces (such as the jebena
and al-briq of the Bertha) is very common (Balfet, 1965), but not handmade,
domestic kitchenware. The mere idea of men making pots for cooking elicits
laughs among all other Ethiopian peoples I have worked with. There is hardly
anything that is considered less manly (except for cooking, and most men
would rather cook than make pots). Oromo potters tell their sons that shaping
pottery makes them sexually sterile (Bula Sirika Wayessa, 2011: 308). This is
in no way a usual custom even among the Mao. Only the people of Boshuma
make pots. It is difficult to know what happened in other Mao communities
that have now given up pottery. In Boshuma, I was told that it was traditional
and, in fact, they put it at the same level with ritual houses (swal kwama). For
both things, they insisted that “it is our culture” (in Amharic, bahïlen näw). In
one of the cases I documented, it was an entire family that worked together
making pots: a woman, a man, and their son, although it was the man who
made pots more often. He was also the one in charge of fetching the clay,

Book 1.indb 285 2/25/14 6:21 AM

 Figure 5.12. Mao woman, probably Sith Shwala, carrying a pot on her head using
the k’andil. Courtesy of the Bureau of Information, Culture, Tourism and Social Affairs
Benishangul-Gumuz Regional State

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 Of Mimicry and Mao 287

Figure 5.13. “Queer technology”: Abdulahi S’umbu and his wife making pots.

but both the woman and the man went to the markets to sell the vessels. In
total, I was told that there were around seven male potters living in the area
of Boshuma. I interviewed one of them, Abdulahi S’umbu30 (see figure 5.13).
Abdulahi told me that he learned the handicraft from his father. His wife
helps him to mold the lump of clay over the grinding stone, but he does most
of the work himself: he goes to the foothills near Boshuma to gather the
clay, makes the coils, and assembles the pot. The chaîne operatoire is indis-
tinguishable to that employed by Mao women potters elsewhere. Abdulahi
told me that he makes pots mostly when he needs money (“when there is no
food”). However, I saw him making pots during the harvest season, when the
granaries were full. Interestingly, he makes and stores pots inside a traditional
house (swal kwama).
The relevance of men making pots, in terms of gender equality, should
not be underestimated. I would call pottery making a “queer technology”
because it subverts hegemonic gender roles (accepted among both lowland
and highland peoples) and situates women and men on an equal level. It is
not strange that it is precisely in Boshuma where traditional gender roles are
subverted, as it is also there where many other hegemonic values are openly
challenged. It is in Boshuma where higher ritual specialists (kukullu) live,
where people are less compliant with Islam (if at all), where women are more
likely to go bare-breasted, where cattle and intensive plow agriculture have

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 288 Chapter 5

not yet penetrated, and so on. Yet there is more to it. Making pots involves a
particular set of bodily gestures that explains, among other things, its refusal
by men. When I saw Abdulahi modeling a pot, I realized how feminine his
movements were. I had never seen a man bending, crouching, and moving
his hands in the way he did. These are gestures that imply slowness, care, and
humility, gestures I had learned to associate with women: the same gestures
that they reproduce when they grind, cook, pick up grains from the sieve, or
play with their children.

5.4. A SPACE FOR RESISTANCE

Being Mao means, perhaps more than anything else, belonging to a commu-
nity of equals, in which socioeconomic differences are minimal, especially if
compared to the Oromo. Both the production of equality and the reproduction
of cultural values can be observed particularly well in domestic space. The or-
ganization of settlements seeks at the same time the maintenance of equality
and the reinforcement of intra-ethnic solidarities, whereas the structuration of
houses enable the Mao to reproduce traditional cultural practices safe from
the gaze of the dominant society. In the following sections, I will examine
two issues: domestic space (villages and houses) and ritual structures.

The Moral Economy of Space

The organization of settlement space varies markedly depending on whether
the Mao or other groups are predominant. Where the Mao live alone or with
other subaltern communities (such as the Bertha), the spatial arrangement is
typical of the lowlanders, like the Gumuz or Komo, that is, scattered com-
pounds covering wide areas and therefore difficult to police and to define.
When the Mao live in multi-ethnic villages where the dominant society (that
is, the Oromo) are in the majority, they tend to cluster together in rather com-
pact neighborhoods. In these cases, it is not unusual to find fences made of
wood or bushes, an innovation taken from the Oromo that serves to separate
compounds and neighborhoods. Good examples of Mao villages of the scat-
tered type are Boshuma and Kuch’i, which are the only two mono-ethnic vil-
lages of which I am aware in Mao territory. In other scattered villages, such as
Banga Dergo (again within the limits of Mao territory), the indigenous group
is predominant by far. In fact, Mount Banga is considered a Gwama (Kwama)
area in all earlier accounts; the Maoization of its inhabitants must be very
recent, perhaps in the last three decades or so. A small community of Bertha
lives in the outskirts of the village, which is highly dispersed: some clusters
of compounds are located over a kilometer away from their closest neighbors.

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 Of Mimicry and Mao 289

In those areas where the Oromo are dominant and the Mao, therefore, a
marginal minority, they tend to occupy peripheral areas of the village, where
their houses crowd in a rather compact way. The pattern resembles those of
marginalized groups in other parts of Ethiopia, such as the Fuga or Mawo
(Pankhurst and Freeman, 2001). Good examples of marginal Mao neighbor-
hoods in Oromo villages are Arabi, Lop’i, Egogirmos, and Rubo (see figure
5.14). Arabi is the name of the Mao (Seze) quarter in an area mostly settled
by Oromo. The Mao have around twenty compounds, which are clustered in
two small groups of houses. The limited surface and marginal space that they
occupy is an eloquent metaphor of the Mao’s place in the dominant order. In
Lop’i, the Mao (Seze) also reside in their own quarter (Tobbe), where they
live more or less scattered, often in ephemeral houses made of sorghum stems
and straw. The Seze Mao of Boni Bekere also reside in the outskirts of the
main Oromo settlement, although separated from their neighbors by more
than a kilometer. In Egogirmos, instead, the small Seze Mao community
clusters together at the entrance of the settlement in the Kombolcha neigh-
borhood, side by side to the Oromo. They reside in irregularly shaped com-
pounds, packed with round, thatched houses. Finally, Rubo is a Sith Shwala
neighborhood in the village of Shera K’ama. It is one of the few Sith Shwala
groups to live adjacent to the Oromo.
The options for the Mao, today like four hundred years ago, is still to
survive as a subaltern group amid the dominant society or to emigrate to the
lowlands and join the ranks of the wild “Komo.” It might be argued that, in
this case, to resist is indeed to surrender (Žižek, 2007). Yet the Mao are not
surrendering, or not completely. To surrender would be to accept inequality,
which is not the case. Domestic space among the Mao is enmeshed in the
production of the moral economy that regulates the community. It can be
considered an anti-hierarchical mechanism. This becomes clear when one
compares Mao and Oromo domestic compounds. Mao compounds have in-
variably the same size and number of structures (both domestic and related to
agriculture and livestock): a main house (two if there is an extra wife), maybe
a khalwa for guests or younsters, a granary, and a drying platform. Granaries
are even absent in some areas, because the subsistence crops of the Mao can
be kept in bags inside the main house. The Mao quarter of Arabi is an excel-
lent example of this homogeneous pattern. In contrast, one can find in Oromo
neighborhoods households that are as small and poor as the Mao and others
that manifest great wealth in people, cattle, and lands.
In Mus’a Mado, a few Oromo compounds boast a large number of grana-
ries, pens, and stockyards, an unmistakable indication that they are producing
surplus for the market (see figure 5.15). Related to this is the variety of crops,
including cash crops, that are found in Oromo households and that are absent

Book 1.indb 289 2/25/14 6:21 AM

Book 1.indb 290
Figure 5.14. A. Isolated
Mao quarter of Arabi. B. Mao
neighborhood attached to an
Oromo quarter in Kombolcha,
Egogirmos. Courtesy of Xurxo
Ayán

2/25/14 6:21 AM
 Figure 5.15. Egalitarian and nonegalitarian spaces in Mus’a Mado. A. Mao compounds.
B. Rich Oromo compound. C. Oromo compound of a poor family. Courtesy of Álvaro
Falquina

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 292 Chapter 5

in their Mao counterparts. This market-oriented farming generates revenues

that are later invested, among other things, in larger and more luxurious
houses, with rectangular shapes, wooden windows and doors, and tin roofs.
The Mao do not produce for the market. They gather for the market, as we will
see (see section 5.5). Their limited food production is for self-sustenance only.
Highlanders, the state, and some non-governmental organizations consider
the Mao “poverty” materialized in their compounds as a failure: a lack of en-
trepreneurial spirit, lack of technical skills, laziness, and the like. Yet the Mao
compound can also be regarded as a success: a homeostatic mechanism that
prevents both unregulated change and social inequalities. As it happens with
the Gumuz (see section 3.3), though some Mao have incorporated the plow,
most do not use it. I have found several elders who consciously inserted the
absence of the plow in a discourse of resistance: Bulgu Masad, in his defini-
tion of the Oromo and Mao identities, mentioned that the Oromo “plow by
ox; we haven’t plow, we dig by hoe.”31 The hoe, for Bulgu, is related to a pe-
culiar relationship with the forest and to a specific economy, which involves
the rational exploitation of forest resources as much as agriculture. Another
Sith Shwala, Afandi Jimma, who lives in the Seze village of Lop’i, also sees
the connection between the Oromo, deforestation, and plows: “We don’t use
plow. We work the land by hoe. We don’t like to live with the Leqa [Oromo].
The Mao live alone.”32
The differences between Mao and Oromo domestic spaces are indeed
perceived by both groups. One of our Oromo guides, when asked about
what made the Mao different in his opinion, spontaneously talked about
their houses.33 In his view, the Mao tend to change houses frequently, unlike
the Oromo, who consider their houses as permanent. This is quite true and
explains the expediency with which Mao houses are constructed (with canes
or sorghum reeds). This is particularly true of the Hozo and Seze, to which
the guide was referring. It is the logic of the mobile, slash-and-burn agricul-
turalist. Afandi Jimma, the Sith Shwala from Lop’i, agreed with the Oromo
informant: “Historically, the Mao move from place to place. They don’t have
a fixed residence. The Mao try to find forests to exploit new land. When the
soil is exhausted, they move and the Oromo take the lands that they leave
behind.” However, many Mao (especially the Seze) have been forcibly sed-
entarized, as the possibilities of expansion have vanished with the expanding
Oromo demography. Even if they do not burn and move as they used to, their
houses materialize the time of shifting cultivation. In fact, the more expedi-
ent huts resemble the domestic structures of the Sabu and Majangir (Stauder,
1972: 79–81), who are still full slash-and-burn cultivators and very mobile.
Internal mobility (within villages) of the Mao is both a material memory
practice and a form of avoiding policing by the authorities: their continu-

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 Of Mimicry and Mao 293

ously changing compounds make them difficult to control and to map. Not
surprisingly, the state encourages the well-ordered and pre-planned layouts of
resettlement schemes (see the epilogue).
I have said that domestic space is a homeostatic mechanism that not only
prevents social inequalities, but unregulated change as well. Many houses still
cling to traditional building techniques: unlike the Oromo, the great majority
of the Mao still resort to thatched roofs. They are the product of communal
labor and cooperation, whereas tin roofs correspond with family strategies of
surplus generation and social differentiation. The Mao also prefer to stick to
the round plan, which is dramatically disappearing among Oromo farmers.
The Oromo give precedence to square layouts—a fact related to the spread of
tin sheet for roofing. The beehive-shaped hut that was typically Mao is disap-
pearing or has disappeared already from many places (see next section), but
the Mao houses that have a cylindrical wall and conical roof still have a very
distinct look. The bulky and disheveled roofs, low entrances, and bamboo
or reed walls are very similar to those found in Koman houses. Neverthe-
less, differences in the way Mao and Oromo build houses are becoming less
obvious than they used to be. Some Mao are now making square homes for
themselves and introducing partition walls, which are common for organizing
space indoors among the Oromo: as a divided, hierarchical group, the logic
of their domestic space is likewise divided and hierarchical. But differences
inside the house do exist. The same Oromo guide that noticed the differences
between Oromo and Mao houses also saw differences indoors. He said that
Mao houses are smaller and more disordered: for the Oromo, the kitchen, the
bedrooms, and the cowsheds are fixed spaces, whereas for the Mao, they are
not. “Activities are ill organized among them,” he concluded. If we examine
the plans of Mao houses, we will understand the Oromo point of view. In fig-
ure 5.16, we can see Oromo and Mao (Sith Shwala) houses from the village
of Rubo (A and B) and a Mao (Sith Shwala) house from Ishgogo (C).
At first sight, the Mao home from Rubo evinces a strong influence from the
Oromo, with its square layout and partitions. If we look closer, however, we
will see that despite the plan, the Mao house follows the traditional Koman
structuration into two halves—the same that we have already seen among the
Bertha Fa-Kuŋkuŋ and that we notice in the Mao house from Ishgogo. The
front part is devoted to guests, animals, and store space. The rear part is for
sleeping, cooking, and brewing beer. If we compare again Oromo and Mao
houses, it is easy to understand why the Oromo informant saw Mao space
as untidy and chaotic. It is a flexible space, packed with things, often lying
on the floor (the Oromo usually hang things from the walls or store them);
it is a space where activities are divided not in three or four discrete spaces,
as among the Oromo, but in just two, which, in addition, mix apparently

Book 1.indb 293 2/25/14 6:21 AM

 Figure 5.16. A. Oromo house (Rubo). B. Sith Shwala house
(Rubo). C. Sith Shwala house (Ishgogo Gedashola). Courtesy of
the author and Álvaro Falquina

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 Of Mimicry and Mao 295

unmixable activities. An Oromo would rather not sleep in the same place
where she cooks. A further detail is worth noting: although the house is
square in plan, the roof is conical. From the outside, the real layout of the
house is not immediately obvious.
Difference, in sum, is still reproduced in houses, especially indoors. It is
a difference that speaks of diverging rationalities and notions of order and
therefore of the persistence of Mao traditions. As Paul Connerton (2009:
20) argues, “the house furnishing also remind us of the shared history of the
house and the body. In the interior of houses artefacts are collected which
give access to previous experience.” Nowhere is this clearer than in the spe-
cific kind of house that we will now see.

House of Resistance
Although it was considered on the brink of extinction in the 1930s (Grotta-
nelli, 1940), I discovered that the traditional house of the Mao still exists and
plays a pivotal role in their society. In fact, it has become a crucial element
for the cultural survival of the Mao as a people. Today, the traditional house
works as a device that is capable of abolishing time and relating the Mao
to a period in which they were not subjected to more powerful groups. At
the same time, it can be argued that this structure is a materialized fantasy,
through which an ideal image of society is performed that is less and less in
consonance with the Mao’s current predicament. I refer the interested reader
to González-Ruibal (2013b), on which this section is based, for a more de-
tailed account of this kind of house.

From the House to Our House

The houses of the Mao were first reported by Grottanelli (1940). He called
them capanne alveare, “beehive-shaped huts” for their peculiar appearance,
which was very different from the predominant cylindrical houses with
conical roof of the region. Due to their archaic look, he considered them the
original house type of the area: a dwelling of hunter-gatherers, which had pro-
gressively vanished under the pressure of more complex house types. With
a typical evolutionist perspective, he argued that these buildings, of which
he saw only a few examples, were condemned to disappear rapidly. Dur-
ing my first travels to the region, I could not spot a single capanna alveare
and thought that the colonial anthropologist was right. In December 2007,
however, I saw my first beehive hut, a small structure employed by a ritual
specialist in the village of Ishgogo Gedashola. This could be the exception
that confirmed the rule, but during 2009 and 2010, I had the occasion to visit

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 296 Chapter 5

four more villages with capanne alveare (Kuch’i, Folfoli, and Boshuma) be-
longing to two different Mao groups: the Nilo-Saharan-speaking Sith Shwala
and the Omotic-speaking Hozo (see figures 5.17 and 5.18). This proved that
beehive huts were, or had been, a pan-Mao phenomenon. More importantly,
in one of the villages, Boshuma, there were dozens of beehive huts in use.
They did not look like the remnants of a fading tradition at all. On the con-
trary, I found out that this peculiar architecture plays a pivotal role among
peripheral Mao communities.
Not surprisingly, the Mao beehive hut has a biography that is as complex
and hybrid as the Mao themselves. It could not be otherwise. Disentangling
the precise history of this structure is probably impossible, but we can at least
identify the different traditions and practices that have contributed to it. The
origin of the hut is not clear: in Sudan and Ethiopia cylindrical structures with
conical roofs are by far the most abundant house type. Beehive structures,
however, do exist among a few communities. Better parallels can be found
among the Nilo-Saharan groups of the Sudanese-Ethiopian border zone. There
are at least four Nilo-Saharan communities that use beehive structures: the
Toposa of Sudan, near the southern Ethiopian frontier (Bodøgaard, 1998); the
Kunama and Nera, living predominantly in Eritrea (Grottanelli and Masari,

Figure 5.17. A Hozo beehive hut (amo kera), with the granary made of bundles of
grass that is typical of this people.

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 Of Mimicry and Mao 297

Figure 5.18. Interviewing the kukullu Harun Rusk’alla (left in the foreground) in front
of his ritual hut in the Sith Shwala village of Boshuma. Courtesy of Álvaro Falquina

1943: 353–66; Puccioni and Grottanelli, 1953: figure 152); and the Gwama,
who live mostly in Ethiopia, but very close to Sudan (Grottanelli, 1948: 298).
The Gwama, as we know, are directly related to the Sith Shwala Mao.
The materiality of the Mao house is not trivial. As we will see, the Mao
are as aware of the unique physicality of the house as they are of their own
racial distinctiveness (as “black people”). The social meaning of these struc-
tures has, of course, an enormous relevance. In the entire region occupied by
the Mao and the “Komo,” it is common to find ritual structures beside the
main house of each domestic compound. Externally, they are very similar
to ordinary houses, except that they are smaller. These ritual structures are
found both among Omotic and Nilo-Saharan speakers: they are called swal
shwombo by the Sith Shwala Mao, swe shwomo by the Gwama, and doe ke-
cho by the southern (Anfillo) Mao (Grottanelli, 1940: 321–22). The transla-
tion is the same: “house (swal) of the ancestral spirits (shwombo).” The use of
the hut is very similar also: family and neighbors meet inside to celebrate har-
vest rituals in which they pray to their god (Yere), drink beer or honey wine,
and eat together. Indoors, one always finds large pots used to brew the ritual

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 298 Chapter 5

honey wine that is collectively drunk in the ceremonies. In the case of the
Gwama and Sith Shwala, there is also hunting paraphernalia and first fruits
(corn or sorghum) hanging from the roof to be blessed by the ancestral spirits
that inhabit the house. Similar houses of spirits are used by ritual specialists,
where they pray and perform their divination and healing rites.
There are two kinds of religious specialists: although their skills are simi-
lar, one of them is more concerned with propitiating fertility, of the fields
and of the people (called kukullu, kugul, or kuguló), and the other with curing
diseases and foreseeing the future (sith bish in Sith Shwala, biash mai and bi-
ash mo in Seze and Hozo respectively; literally, “the man who sees”).34 While
only men can be kukullu, both women and men can be sith bish. It is likely
that the division between ritual and ordinary houses has been a later histori-
cal development and that originally the religious functions were incorporated
into ordinary houses, except for the huts of ritual specialists. This lack of divi-
sion between sacred/profane space happens among other neighboring groups,
such as the Komo (Theis, 1995: 91) and the Gumuz (see section 3.5), and I
have visited two Sith Shwala houses in Boshuma where ritual and profane
functions (sleeping, cooking) cohabited under the same roof. Meaningfully,
they were homes of older people. It is tempting to think that the idea of a
separate ritual structure came to the area with the Busase. To corroborate this
point, it can be mentioned that in other Gonga kingdoms, such as Kafa, there
are special buildings, called bare k’eto, for conducting religious ceremonies
(Huntingford, 1955: 131). In all likelihood, though, the present division of
functions (house/ritual house) has been influenced by the buildings for pray-
ing of the hegemonic religions (Islam and Christianity). The Mao themselves,
as we will see, draw the comparison between their ritual huts and the mosques
and churches of other peoples.
Neither Busase nor southern Mao had beehive huts in the Kingdom of
Anfillo: therefore, both their ritual and ordinary houses had cylindrical walls
and conical roofs (Grottanelli, 1940: 322). Among the northern Mao, instead,
both ritual (swal shwombo) and ordinary houses (swal) were originally bee-
hive-shaped. The main house, however, has been gradually losing the original
shape and adopting the dominant style in the region. Thus, a large part of the
remaining beehive huts today are houses of spirits. In Boshuma, for instance,
the majority of people had a large house with conical roof and cylindrical
wall for living and a small beehive hut for conducting rituals. In this process,
the materiality of the house has stopped being perceived as something taken
for granted and has become a privileged vehicle of communication with the
spirits and with the past. This also explains why many “progressive” Mao
who convert to Islam, at least nominally, abandon their beehive huts and
build square or cylindrical houses. They do not even want to talk about their

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 Of Mimicry and Mao 299

old homes in front of strangers. The old house form has become too strongly
associated with unorthodox practices and beliefs.
That the Mao have come to realize that they possess a very particular kind
of dwelling is proved by the local denomination for the huts. When I asked
them about the name of the constructions that adopted the beehive shape,
the answer was revealing: amo kera (“house of the Amo”) or swal kwama
(“house of the Kwama”), depending on the particular Mao group to which
one asked, the Hozo (Amo is their self-denomination) or the Sith Shwala.
The second case is striking, because Kwama is not their self-denomination:
as we have seen, the Kwama are the ancestors of the Sith Shwala. For them,
“Kwama” refers either to their forebears or a contemporary group that re-
sides far away in Sudan and with which they are related (Gwama). Bulgu
Masad told me that originally Kwama and Mao were the sons of the same
father: Bota Kwasa. When Kwama, the younger son, reached adulthood, he
decided to move away toward Sudan to marry, whereas Mao decided to re-
main where descendants still live today.35 The original ethnic denomination
of the Mao, therefore, has become fossilized in the description of a peculiar
type of dwelling.
The denomination of the beehive hut reveals that it has become linked to
the very existence of the Mao as a people. This strong relationship between
the people and the hut was eloquently expressed by one of the elders that I
interviewed in the village of Boshuma. When I asked about the swal kwama,
Harun Rusk’alla told me:

The swal kwama and the Mao cannot be separated. They are the same. It is like
the mosque for the Muslims and the church for the Christians. We pray there to
our god. The swal kwama has to be perpetuated through generations. The mo-
ment the swal kwama ceases to exist, there will be no more Mao.36

This is an impressive statement on the ontological relevance of material

culture. What is more surprising, though, is perhaps not that the swal kwama
plays such an outstanding role, but that the Mao themselves are aware of
it, because technologies of the self and core objects, as we have seen (see
section 1.5), are seldom conscious. What makes the Mao different? I would
argue that it is their long historical experience of contact with other peoples in
which they have played a subaltern role. The Mao have become acutely aware
of their own cultural practices and the importance that they have in their
survival as a distinct people through several centuries of unequal interaction
with dominant societies. In this process, the Mao have discovered a vehicle
for their self-preservation in the beehive hut. This has changed from being
an unconscious space for reproducing the collective to becoming a conscious
space of cultural resistance, which is a change from unreflective doxa to

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 300 Chapter 5

conscious orthodoxy (Bourdieu, 1977: 159–71). It is also a transformation

of the house into what we may well call heritage: from mere house (swal) to
“our house” or, rather, “the house of our ancestors” (swal kwama).

House of Resistance, House of the Past

The Mao have found in the beehive hut, and more particularly in the house
of ancestral spirits (swal shwombo), a mechanism to deny change and to per-
form an ideal image of Mao society that is rooted in an unmovable past. This
capacity for freezing time is perfectly expressed in the name of the building
itself, swal kwama: a reference to an ancient ethnic identity. The ideal im-
age of society that the beehive hut reproduces is predicated upon three op-
positions: life in the forest versus the peasant life of the hegemonic Oromo
society, “pagan” fertility rites versus the world religion of hegemonic society,
and a memory of open resistance versus the peaceful present, when armed
rebellion is no longer an option.37
Regarding life in the forest, the material look of the structure resembles the
small shelters that the Mao and other borderland groups still make when they
go hunting in the forest for several days. The beehive hut is a hunter’s house
or, more generally, the house of a forest people for other reasons. Indoors, on
the wall opposite to the entrance, hunters hang the bones, jawbones, horns,
and skins of the hunted animals (see figure 5.19), as an offering to the spirits
and in order to propitiate future hunts—also among the Komo (Theis, 1995:
91). Before a hunting trip, the hunters go to the beehive hut of the ritual spe-
cialist (sith bish or kukullu) to receive his blessing and when they return, they
go again to the ritual house and give the sith bish part of the game. The people
also go to the forest to gather honey, one of the main riches of the Mao, as we
will see. Inside the swal kwama, one always finds old beehives, rings used in
the making of beehives, gourds of honey, and old pots (koŋo) where honey
wine is brewed and collectively drunk.
The second concept to which the house of the spirits is associated is the
idea of fertility and the propitiation of life. The most important celebrations
are related to the agricultural cycle. During the sowing festival, the ritual
specialist (kukullu in this case) slaughters a hen over the grains and mixes the
blood with the grains. These are then distributed among the attendants to the
ceremony to sow. After that, they pray for a good rainy season and plentiful
crops. Sith bish and kukullu can also perform rituals to bring the rain inside
the ritual hut. During the harvest time, they have thanksgiving ceremonies. In
addition, the ritual specialist blesses the beehives, whose honey is crucial in
Mao exchanges with other groups (see section 5.5) and with the gods (honey
wine is used in libations). After collecting them, every family gives the first

Book 1.indb 300 2/25/14 6:21 AM

 Figure 5.19. Swal shwombo, house of the spirits of a sith bish (Negura Ginze) with
beehives, honey wine pots, spears, and drums of the ancestors. Ishgogo Gedahsola.
Courtesy of the author and Álvaro Falquina

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 302 Chapter 5

one to the ritual specialist. He keeps the beehives that are given to him inside
the swal kwama, as well as the ropes that are used to hang them (see figure
5.19). The beehives are blessed and stones are put on top of the ropes, so that
the beehives are as heavy as stones with honey the following season.38 The
beehives are returned to the owners when the time for “planting” comes. With
the first honey of the season, the ritual specialist brews the honey wine that is
later used in his healing, divination, or fertility rituals.
The kukullu also blesses people inside the swal kwama, so that they have
children and they grow strong and healthy. One month after a child is born, the
parents take the baby to the swal kwama to be blessed by the ritual specialist
and they sacrifice a goat, sheep, or chicken, and eat and drink together. In ad-
dition, when a woman cannot bear children, she goes to visit the diviner (sith
bish) in his or her swal kwama. The fertility ritual for people involves similar
prayers, ritual spitting, and drinking of honey wine as the agricultural rituals.
Apart from helping the multiplication of crops and people, the sith bish also
has healing powers. The diviner cures people by finding out the nature of the
illness through dreams or by throwing cowries (payak) to the ground and see-
ing how they are arranged when they fall. In sum, the swal kwama is strongly
related to all rituals in Mao society that guarantee the healthy reproduction
of the group: the harvest festivals (subsistence), the honey rituals (exchange
with the gods and with foreigners), and the fertility rituals (children). It is not
surprising, then, that the old kukullu Harun Rusk’alla told me that there can
be no future for his people without swal kwama.
When Harun links the swal kwama with the fate of the Mao in general, he
is not exaggerating. Kukullu only exist in Boshuma, but their influence is not
restricted to that village. The kukullu’s power is recognized throughout all the
northern Mao territory. “The kuguló have strong qallu,” a Sith Shwala liv-
ing in Lop’i (fifty kilometers to the south of Boshuma as the crow flies) told
me.39 Qallu is the name of ritual specialists among the Oromo. According to
this informant, all Mao go to Boshuma, especially during the time of sow-
ing (April/May). They give the kukullu some sorghum or maize, part of it is
blessed and, in this way, it becomes indestructible and produces much grain.
Another man, a Seze from Boni Bekere, also identified the kukullu as qallu
and said that the “kukullu fell from the sky, as prophets.” He coincided with
the other informant in that all Mao went to Boshuma for having their seeds
blessed, but warned that one had to be careful in their dealings with them:
“when somebody has trouble with the kukullu, the whole village of the of-
fender is in trouble, because he has the power to bring ice and to destroy the
crops. He has the power to bring and stop rain. Because of that, we respect the
kukullu.”40 This is an important statement. Whereas diviners and healers (sith
bish or biash mai) are sometimes despised by the Mao, at least officially, and

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 Of Mimicry and Mao 303

their work is considered evil, the equally heathen kukullu are still generally
respected. Even the Seze of Arabi and Egogirmos, who were reluctant to talk
about traditional practices, knew and valued the power of the kukullu. The
ritual huts of Boshuma, then, are truly like mosques or churches, open to all
believers—and a place of pilgrimage, as well.
Finally, another key element to which the ritual house is associated is a
memory of war. The Mao are very aware of their subaltern situation vis-à-vis
the Oromo and the Busase and their historical roots. The founding event of
Mao cultural memory is the first escape from the advancing Oromo. As we
have seen, all the Mao—irrespective of the group to which they belong—
claim to have their origins in the Gibe basin. Yet the history of conflict that
the Mao really share is a more recent one: during the nineteenth century, they
had to fight Oromo encroachment from the south and east and the Bertha
from the west, as well as the slave traders coming from Sudan. The Mao
achieved fame during that time as a redoubtable people who managed to keep
in check both slave raiders and expansive chiefs (see section 5.5). This story
stands in stark contrast with the present pacifist attitude of the Mao. Not only
do they not fight anymore, but they also stress the need for solving conflicts
peacefully: “The Mao do not fight with other people, they just emigrate to
empty land not occupied by others,” asserted Bulgu Masad.41 He insisted that
“we do not want to fight other peoples. We see them as brothers and sisters.”
Other neighbors expressed themselves in similar terms. Actually, no ethnic
fighting has been reported between Mao and other groups for a very long
time, in contrast with other communities of the Sudanese-Ethiopian border-
land (see Markakis, 2011).
However, memory is not only transmitted orally, it is also present in
things inside the swal kwama and things speak of a time when the Mao did
not simply escape from their enemies, but fought back. The Mao have kept
the precious memories of that period in the form of heirlooms, displayed
inside the swal kwama: the spears (shin) with which their ancestors killed
their enemies, the throwing sticks (baŋa) with which they performed the war
dances and also fought, and the elaborate shields (kep) made with buffalo
leather with which they defended themselves (see figure 5.20). They argue
that some of the spears and shields belong to the earliest wars, when Oromo
broke into the Gibe Valley (during the mid-sixteenth century). They are more
likely from the late nineteenth century, the period in which the Mao fought
against slave traders and invaders of different kinds. But the historicist narra-
tive is not important for the Mao, whose temporality is based on the repeated
phenomena of aggression and dispossession by other societies. In a sense, the
tools of war kept inside the swal kwama give the lie to the pacifist discourse
of their owners.

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 304 Chapter 5

Figure 5.20. The kukullu Bulgu Masad holds the shield of the ancestors. Boshuma.

Not just the weapons are from the past. All the artifacts that are displayed
inside the swal shwombo constitute a sort of “wild museography” (Menard,
2011: 47), as every item belongs to the ancestral spirits: either because it is
dedicated to them (phwashuŋ shwombo: the maize of the ancestors) or be-
cause it has been transmitted from generation to generation: dul shwombo
(a stick used in ritual dances), koŋo shwombo (the pot used for brewing beer
and honey wine), gen gjandal shwombo (the rings employed in the making
of beehives), pamba shwombo (drum), and k’anze shwombo (the calabash
used to drink beer). They are collectively called gwama swal shwombo: “the
things of the house of the ancestral spirits.” The gwama shwombo, like the
objects exhibited in a museum, make the past present. However, the things
of the ritual house are not selected for reasons of aesthetics or age in the way
they are in Western museums. The things that are selected are those that
resonate with the present concerns of the Mao: people from the dominant so-
cieties keep encroaching into Mao territory, felling their forests, killing their
wild animals, and making the livelihood of the Mao unfeasible. The gwama
shwombo are those things that relate the Mao to their historical experience as
a free people of the forest.

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 Of Mimicry and Mao 305

The Phantasmatic House

The beehive-shaped hut, the swal kwama, has become so entangled with
being Mao, that some people cannot conceive of their independent existence
without it. The most important transformations undergone by the beehive
hut are the virtual disappearance of its profane functions and its acquisition
of a strongly mnemonic role. This function has only emerged through gen-
erations of contact with expansive groups and with the increasing external
threats to Mao society. However, to say that the beehive hut now serves
primarily a memory purpose would be an understatement. What this kind of
building does is make history slow. The Mao have discovered long ago what
philosopher Michel Serres (1995: 87) argues: that the object “stabilizes our
relationships, it slows down the time of our revolutions. . . . The object, for
us, makes our history slow.” This is particularly true for those small-scale
egalitarian peoples for whom keeping history slow—or cold, as Lévi-Strauss
(1966) would put it—is fundamental for their survival in the face of more
aggressive groups. Lévi-Strauss (1966: 234) said that cold societies “want to
deny [change] and try, with a dexterity we underestimate, to make the states
of their development which they consider ‘prior’ as permanent as possible.”
This is clearly the case with the Mao. And what better way of making that
“prior” permanent than by curating the artifacts of the past in a museum?
However, to say that the Mao house makes history slow or cold is not enough
either. The work of the Mao house is more radical, because it actually abol-
ishes the distinction between past and present. It allows the Mao to live in
their own time, which neither fits a Western concept of the present or of the
past, but includes both past and present in the same existential sphere.
The beehive hut, however, is also a phantom dwelling, the materialization of
a collective fantasy. That it is called “house of the Kwama” instead of “house
of the Sith Shwala” or “house of the Mao” eloquently speaks of the denial of
change. Although its very existence is based on the historical experience of the
Mao as a subaltern people, it is also a disavowal of the negative circumstances
that make them into a subaltern people today. In the same way that the Oromo
had an idealized image of themselves, as a flexible group capable of assimilat-
ing and neutralizing difference, the Mao have an ideal image of themselves as
an independent people of the forest. This is hardly tenable today, as it happens
with many other peoples of the forest or the bush (James, 1988: 27–28). It prob-
ably never was as they imagine it, but now less so than ever. For this reason,
they look after those fragile things that are gradually vanishing from their lives,
with utmost care. The concern for a world that is falling apart is very present in
the interviews that I had with the Mao elders: “We need to protect our culture,
we need to preserve it,” insisted Bulgu Masad.42 Like other borderland groups,
they are being engulfed by the dominant Ethiopian societies and successfully

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 306 Chapter 5

encompassed by the state. Unlike their ancestors, they have nowhere to go, no
forest to which they can retreat.

5.5. REMEMBERING THE FOREST

The swal kwama proves that cultural memory is a strong mechanism of re-
sistance and ontological security for the Mao. It is a material memory that
underscores the identity of the Mao as forest dwellers. The oral tradition of
the Mao also emphasizes the historical links between the Mao and the forest.
A typical northern Mao narration goes like this: “The Mao live in the forest
and their life is attached to it. The Oromo needed grazing land and felled the
trees. The Mao took refuge in the forest. We kept going further and further
into the woods while the Oromo advanced, until they came here.”43 I have
recorded this basic story from many Mao, mainly Sith Shwala, but also Seze.
The Mao are people of the forest: the forest guarantees their survival, but the
Oromo do not appreciate that. Bulgu Masad complained that “the Oromo
don’t like the forest. They deforestate. They don’t need hunting. . . . We live
near the forest for honey and for hunting. If there is a shortage of food, we
get koram [a wild root] there. We also eat bamboo sprouts.”44

Still Hunter-Gatherers
The memory of the forest as it is transmitted is, in the last instance, a product
of the encounter between Mao and Oromo/Busase. It is the encounter with
the dominant societies and the ensuing crises and conflicts that has produced
this consciousness. The Oromo and the Busase are peasants par excellence,
people who fell trees, cultivate every inch of the land with plows, rear cattle,
and establish permanent villages. As opposed to the peasant culture of the for-
eigners, the Mao are (or used to be) slash-and-burn agriculturalists who move
about the wild and tap its resources. In fact, they are not completely people of
the wild (and they know it), but rather a category in between: the true forest
dwellers are the Komo and Gwama who escaped to the lowlands, or the Ma-
jangir and Sabu, who live in the humid forests of southwestern Ethiopia. The
division is triple, then: there are those who live in the forest (“Komo”), those
who inhabit the deforested land (Oromo), and those who eke out a living in
between both worlds (Mao). Irrespective of their real importance, hunting,
gathering, fishing, and honey harvesting still play an important role in the
economy and social imaginary of the Mao.
Fishing is practiced in large rivers, specially the Dabus and its main tribu-
taries. The fish are captured using traps made of vegetable fibers and bark.

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 Of Mimicry and Mao 307

The Hozo are among the few Mao who still make traditional traps for fishing,
which they do in the Baro swamps. They make funnel-like baskets with reeds
(shinkish), which have not changed since Grottanelli’s time (1940: 211–12,
figure 43). The biggest fish of the Dabus, according to Grottanelli (1940:
212), are captured with spears. I have seen Gumuz and Bertha, but not the
Hozo kill large catfish with spears. Once the fish is captured, it is taken to a
house, where it is smoked indoors over a wooden grill. When it is ready, it
will be sold in the market. The Komo also sell dried fish in markets in places
like Mugi (Anfillo). Hunting is practiced with relish by the Mao, although
many areas are now bereft of game due to deforestation and intensive cultiva-
tion. In peripheral areas, such as Boshuma, wild animals are still plentiful—
even too plentiful, and warthogs and antelopes destroy the crops. Unlike fish,
game is not sold in markets, partly because it is considered an illicit activity
by the state. The Mao, however, keep hunting, either collectively, as we will
see in the next section, alone, in small hunting parties, or with traps. The pre-
ferred mode of hunting is with spears and dogs. In addition to warthogs and
different kinds of antelopes (bushbuck, duiker, etc.), they also hunt buffaloes
and leopards, the latter for protection, and in the near past also hippopotami
and, more rarely, giraffes and elephants. The latter were hunted with large
traps dug in the ground, where the animal was later speared to death. Game
complemented the scarce meat that could be obtained from small goatherds
and, in the past, pigs.
Gathering of wild plants is more than a marginal activity. Bulgu Masad em-
phasized the relevance of wild roots and bamboo sprouts in times of scarcity,
but forest resources are not only for self-consumption or mere survival. They
are also sold in the market. Wood for fuel or construction, swamp grasses, and
bamboo are the main products for sale. They are gathered and transported to
the market by women. Bamboo is half processed before being sold: men cut
long strips and flatten them; these strips will later be used for building house
walls (see figure 5.21). Some Mao also sell manufactured products made
with forest materials, such as bamboo baskets. The bamboo forests, however,
are receding quickly because they are being felled by highland farmers. The
largest reserves lie in the margins where the Mao live and especially around
Boshuma, where bamboo thicket forms a sort of insulating wall.
Honey collecting is perhaps the most important activity of all related to
the forest. In that, the Mao resemble other peripheral peoples, such as the
Sabu and the Majangir. The Majangir believe that honey is what the divin-
ity (Wakayo) gave them to make them rich and distinguish them from other
groups (Tippet, 1970: 46). Interestingly, they equate the role of honey in their
culture with cattle for the Nuer and beads for the Añuak, a fact that reveals its
role as a core object. It is undoubtedly a core object among the Mao, too. In

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 308 Chapter 5

Figure 5.21. Mao women selling bamboo strips in Kobor market.

part, this is the case because of its economic value: it is the main commodity
sold by the Mao to outsiders, as it happens with the Majangir (Stauder, 1972:
18–23), and therefore, their main form of access to external goods, such as
iron implements, bracelets, salt, and cloth. Honey is an activity in between,
neither wild nor domestic and, from this point of view, it is not strange that for
the Mao it epitomizes their form of existence. Although in the deep past the
Mao only gathered wild honey, climbing on trees and using torches and axes,
they have been making beehives for quite a while, for which they use bamboo,
tree bark, straw, and mud or dung. The beehive might have been introduced
through Gonga influence (probably with the Busase), as the name used by the
Mao (gjandal) echoes the Gonga one (Kafa: gendo; Grottanelli, 1940: 216).
They can spend quite a lot of time gathering the materials for the beehives and
making them (see figure 5.22). The hives have to be hung on trees, which are
sparse in areas of Oromo settlement but very abundant around Mao hamlets.
Besides, bees thrive in wooded environments, rather than in cultivated lands.
We have seen that the relevance of honey among the Mao is manifested in
harvest festivals, similar to those celebrated for sorghum or maize.
It is only logical that around honey has developed an interesting material
culture, which includes calabashes for transporting and storing honey, bee-
hives, and pots for preparing and drinking honey wine. We have seen that

Book 1.indb 308 2/25/14 6:21 AM

 Figure 5.22. Covering the inside of beehives in mud and dung. Boshuma.

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 310 Chapter 5

the Gumuz had a higher number of gourds than their highland neighbors, and
the proposed explanation was that gourds were in keeping with their autarkic
aspirations. The same can be said for the Mao, who cultivate gourds in their
small gardens (and often sell them in markets). However, to the desire for
autarky, we have to add here the strong link that exists between honey and
calabashes. Large gourds are used for storing and transporting honey (called
ugu tam in Sith Shwala). There is no house that has not a few ugu tam, which
are wrapped in cord for hanging and for transportation, and a typical sight is
a Mao walking through the countryside with a honey calabash hanging from
his shoulder and a spear in his hand (see figure 5.23).
Besides, calabashes are put to many other uses, some of them socially
relevant: they can be used as a feeding bottle, for keeping salt, storing milk,
making butter, drinking beer (k’anza), storing honey wine, drinking honey
wine (k’ongozo), storing water (ugía), serving food (kongos’), and preserving
seeds for sowing (shukal). Of particular interest is the tash, a filter for beer
made with a perforated gourd. All other indigenous groups in the borderland
use filters made of vegetable fiber: only the Mao have calabash filters. Bottle-
shaped gourds are also employed by the Gwama in collective beer drinking:
they insert straws into the mouth of the gourd for drinking. Some Mao houses
have dozens of calabashes: in Banga Dergo, Ishgogo, and Mus’a Mado, at
least half a dozen homesteads had between thirty and forty gourd containers.
In general, it is clear that the material culture related to fishing (traps),
gathering (digging sticks), hunting (spears), and honey collecting (beehives,
gourds) has proven more resilient to disappearance and more rooted in the
past than artifacts related to other activities, such as cooking or cultivating.
Wendy James (1988) has talked of the Koman tradition as the “archive of a
hunting people.” An archive is a place where documents are kept: James starts
her chapter with a quote of Foucault’s concept of the archive as “the general
system of the formation and transformation of statements.” But the Koman
peoples or the Mao are not concerned with statements only, nor can their
cultural and historical experience be reduced to a set of discourses or enun-
ciations. For me, the trope that better captures their curatorial activities—as
we have seen with the ritual house—is the museum: the place for things, not
words. It is material objects that are on display or stored, not discourses—
although these guide the display and the collecting practices. The Mao’s mu-
seum is subjected to a regime of wild museography, where the exhibits are
both artifacts of memory and living things.

The Hunter’s Threat

With honey, hunting is mentioned by the Mao in the first place when defining
themselves as a group. Although carried out in different ways among the dif-

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 Of Mimicry and Mao 311

ferent groups, its symbolic and social role is unquestionably everywhere. The
prowess of the Mao as hunters is documented since at least the late nineteenth
century. Juan Maria Schuver, who visited them in 1880–1881 commented
that the Oromo, as hunters, “are much less successful than the blacks [Mao],
who know no other weapons than their lances” (James et al., 1996: 103).
Collective hunting, called henna in Seze, is practiced predominantly by the
Seze Mao, with participation of Hozo people, but similar expeditions are also
known among the Bambasi Mao and the Sith Shwala. It seems that among the
Seze it has a greater relevance today than among the other groups, probably
because they face stronger pressures from the Oromo than others and the hunt
is an opportunity, as we will see, to reinforce their social cohesion. I could
not witness personally any episode of collective hunting. I was very close to
participating in a hunt, but the operation was thwarted in the last minute by
the Oromo culture officer in the episode mentioned above (see section 5.2). I
will come to this later. However, I was able to obtain very good accounts of
how the collective hunt works in two different Seze villages with some Hozo
population: Dumme and Dochi.45
The hunt (henna) is coordinated by a hunting leader, called henmai (“man
of the hunt”) in Seze, who is usually a person invested with spiritual power,
often a bishmai. This position is inherited from father to son, but the inheri-
tor has to prove his value as leader to be worthy of the title. The henmai calls
people in the market and villages on Wednesday and Sunday and tells them
the time and place of the meeting. The hunt itself takes place on Tuesday
and Thursday. Collective hunting is only carried out during the dry season:
it begins just after the harvest is finished, when the grass has been burnt and
one can walk about the forest easily (early January). It ends when sorghum
or maize are sown (late April or May).46 They start in the morning, at around
nine, so that people from far away villages have time to join the party. The
henmai uses a trumpet, made of antelope horn (pinó or paphini), to call the
people and to guide them during the hunt. The pinó or paphini was used in
war, according to one of our informants,47 and is still employed today in
the traditional dances (goke). We have documented this instrument among
the Seze, the Sith Shwala, and the Bambasi Mao, a fact that proves that
the instrument and the uses associated with it are very widespread among
the different Mao groups. Interestingly, the name of the instrument or the
music it produces is the same, with slight dialectical variations, throughout
the Mao region, despite linguistic differences.48 Like the ritual hut, this is a
pan-Mao object. Incidentally, the Uduk people used to also have a “master
of the horn” or hunting leader, who was in charge of organizing collective
hunts (James, 1988: 44–49), a fact that hints at the likely Koman background
of this tradition.

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 312 Chapter 5

According to our Seze informants, the number of participants in the hunt

is uncountable: they come by the hundreds from all Mao clans in the region.
The henmai Al-Mahdi Kamisa told us that he was in charge of coordinat-
ing up to 2,500 hunters from eight kebeles (neighborhoods): Kerma Gunfi,
Gemmi Geba, Gabeche Dumme, Shura Maramo, K’oli Cherpa, Shonge,
Shura Likiti, and Gumma Gara Arba. These kebeles occupy around two
hundred square kilometers in total. Although the hunting is orchestrated by a
leader, his role is ritual rather than political, and it is dependent on charisma
and skill. As a matter of fact, more relevant than the figure of the leader is that
of the whole community, a society of equals coming together. My informants
agree in the importance of prayers before going hunting. In Dumme, they said
that before leaving for the hunt, people gather and put their spears together
in one place. They sit under a tree, stick their spears near its base, and the
hunting leader prays and asks for a good hunt. Among the Sith Swhala, this
role is performed not by a hunting leader, but by a ritual specialist (sith bish,
the same as the Seze bishmai), often in his ritual hut (swal shwombo), with
whom they promise to share the game.49 The Mao of Bambasi also have the
custom of meeting in a hut (not necessarily a house of the spirits) to pray
before hunting.50 In the case of the Sith Shwala, the hunters have to return to
the ritual hut (swal kwama) after the expedition and share the meat with the
sith bish: the prey is quartered and divided inside the ritual hut. Among the
Seze, it is also compulsory to share part of the meat with the henmai, even if
he does not kill or participate in the killing of any animal. Al-Mahdi Kamisa,
henmai of the Seze, claims that half of the first animal killed belongs to him
as hunting leader.
The participants in the collective hunt can only use spears (twansi). They
divide themselves into two groups: one group stays in a higher position, in
an open area, and the other group enters the forest to frighten off the ani-
mals. When the animals run away from the wooded area, they fall into the
first group, who spear them. When one spears an animal, he shouts “Tafe!”
and the name of his clan to claim it. The one who first hits the animal takes
the skin, the head, the right leg, and every part he wants except the left legs.
The second takes the left foreleg, the third the left hind leg. Among the Sith
Shwala, the sharing seems to be different, although the division between left
and right parts also prevails: the main hunter keeps the left front legs, the sith
bish the rear front leg, and the rest is shared or eaten inside the ritual hut.51
Parts of the animals are hung inside the hunting leader’s hut (among the Seze
and Hozo) or in the ritual hut or swal shwombo, as we have seen, among the
Sith Shwala. The parts that are preserved for display include horns, skulls,
and skins. The horns are used for making trumpets and drumsticks. Those of
the hunting party who were not able to spear the animal can take the stomach.

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 Of Mimicry and Mao 313

Bad hunters are punished by the henmai. If somebody fails while trying to
spear an animal, the chief makes a lace (called kambeni: “yoke” in Oromo)
and the failed hunter has to pass through it, while other people beat him with
sticks, to encourage him to perform better on the next occasion. If somebody
refuses to pass, he is expelled forever from the collective hunt. The hunters
do not eat anything in the forest, they take their prey in full to the village to
be eaten. They gather in the village from which they departed (a different
one each time), and drink beer and eat porridge that women have prepared
in their absence.
Usually, the hunt does not yield great results. With the increasing demo-
graphic pressure and deforestation, most of the time hunters have to content
themselves with a warthog (Phacochoerus africanus and Phacochoerous ae-
thiopicus52) or duiker (Sylvicapra grimmia). A larger antelope that is plentiful
in the area is the bushbuck or kudu (Tragelaphus sp.), from which they obtain
the horns for making the pinó trumpets. Buffaloes (Syncerus caffer) are also
not difficult to find: it is possible to see the traditional trophies of buffalo
horns and skins (fach’a) in front of Oromo homesteads—a custom that some
Mao have adopted.
Given the meager yields of hunting expeditions and the large number of
people involved, it seems obvious that there is more at stake than just obtain-
ing some extra protein: it seems that what is important is less the hunt itself
than the fact that all the Mao, from different clans, come together around a
tangible symbol of their traditional culture. This is perhaps not a recent de-
velopment. Although game was obviously more abundant in the past, hunting
expeditions likely already had a symbolic value. Traveling through Mao land
in 1881, Juan Maria Schuver came across a band of “Amam [Mao] hunters,
carrying as the single prize of three tiring days the remains of a young ante-
lope” (James et al., 1996: 146). In fact, the Mao do not only hunt in large par-
ties, they also hunt in couples or small groups when they want to kill animals
that are destroying their crops or when they simply want meat. They use both
spears and traps for this kind of hunt and, unlike the rowdy collective hunt,
this one is characterized by stealth. In the more remote places of the northern
Mao territory, such as the Sith Shwala villages of Boshuma and Banga Dergo,
this is actually the prevalent mode of hunting. In Boshuma, I was told that
they used to call each other with trumpets for the collective hunt, but they do
not do it anymore. The information that I gathered about this practice is more
fragmentary. They do have a hunting leader, but when asked about the hunt,
they tend to refer to the one carried out by small groups.53
It is possible to infer, then, that as the Mao become more and more frag-
mented due to the encroachment of the Oromo and lose elements of cultural
distinctiveness with schooling and the spread of Islam, collective hunting

Book 1.indb 313 2/25/14 6:21 AM

 314 Chapter 5

becomes an activity of particular importance to buttress their concept of

themselves as an autonomous people of the forest. This explains the preva-
lence of collective hunting among the Seze, who live in the heart of Oromo-
occupied territory, and also that the village from which the hunters leave
and where the hunt is celebrated after returning from the forest rotates every
time.
Although I have not witnessed any actual episode of collective hunting,
I got a glimpse of what it looks like among the Bambasi Mao in November
2007. A group of fifty-two men from the village of Mus’a Mado and seven-
teen women gathered together to go to the wereda administration to protest
the disappearance of a two-year-old child. The performance was quite im-
pressive: around 9:30 in the morning men started arriving in the street where
the administration of Bambasi is located. The men came walking in two par-
allel lines. A third, shorter, row of women arrived slightly later. The men had
a serious, even solemn, demeanor and stood upright. They made an entrance
playing calabash trumpets (welé) and horns (fafené). When they reached the
wereda premises, they stopped and waited in silence, strictly maintaining the
rows. When the administrator allowed them to come inside the compound,
they gathered around a tree, sat down, and started to present their com-
plaints—as they do in their rituals of conflict resolution. We were then asked
to leave the scene, but found the party again in Mus’a Mado, when they were
returning from Bambasi, scattered in no order, but still playing their trumpets.
The Mao men crowded under a large sycamore, brandishing their spears, and
waving their throwing sticks. The group of women, including the mother of
the missing child, stood silently under a smaller tree. After a while, people
dispersed and went home.
The men went to the wereda fully equipped as if for a hunt in the for-
est, with spears, throwing sticks, knives, calabash trumpets, and horns—the
equipment of warriors and hunters. The songs, music, dances, and gestures
were also those of the hunting expeditions. The performance transmitted a
powerful image of a closed community of (male) equals. We have been see-
ing in this chapter that materiality and the past are crucial for being Mao. The
fact that the Mao are mobilizing spears and trumpets (and not just discourses
and complaints) to present themselves to the administrators, proves the on-
tological relevance of the objects, and hunting objects in particular: to be a
true Mao and to show it to the rest, one needs things. And not any thing, but
things from the past.
The people of Mus’a Mado were not simply complaining, they were com-
plaining as Mao. And the things that they needed for that were those that root
them to the past: to the history of hunting and warring. They chose archaic
artifacts to display their being: as in the collective hunting of the Seze Mao,

Book 1.indb 314 2/25/14 6:21 AM

 Of Mimicry and Mao 315

we saw no rifle or machete in the performance. The past, for the Mao, is
important, among other reasons because it is part of the present: in a sense,
the past is more contemporary than many present things. It is, of course, also
a fantasy: a fantasy of social, undivided power (Clastres, 2001) that tries to
transcend their current subaltern situation and (in the case of the Mao from
Oromia) their political disenfranchisement.
Brandishing a spear is making a past time present. A time when they were
fierce, respected, and independent; when they truly hunted and made war to
defend themselves against invaders and slave traders. In the past, this was
not mere fantasy: there are many sources that show the relevance of armed
defense for the survival of the Mao. Matteucci (1879: 62) described the Mao
in quite exaggerated terms as the most ferocious tribe of Africa. Schuver de-
rides the Italian’s fantastic descriptions, but writes that if the Mao have such a
bad press as a violent people, this is because in the 1850s “both Bashi-bazuks
and Arab slave-hunters, after subjugating and devastating the Bertas, tried
to invade the Amam [Mao] country, but were beaten back on each occasion
with loss of men and guns. Up to the present moment every ‘Turk’ from the
Hukumdar of Khartoum to the common soldier has a wholesome fear of the
dreaded Amam. The very word alone makes them shudder” (James et al.,
1996: 50). Later in the same text, Schuver reports about a “fierce tribe of
Ma’o negroes” he has been told about, who reside in “the Melasan mountains
on the Yabus [Dabus]” and are “the terror of the Bertas as much as of the
Ganti and Shibu Galla” (James et al., 1996: 94). This image of the Mao as
a warlike people in the past is not the preserve of foreigners. When I asked
about the whereabouts of the Hozo in a Seze village near Begi, I was told that
they used to be (note the past tense) “great warriors.”54
Although the collective hunt and similar ceremonies only take place in spe-
cific moments, the spirit of the hunt is present every day through its related
artifacts, especially the spears. The spear is for the Mao men like the bow for
the Gumuz or the throwing stick for the Bertha. Many Mao never go around
without their spear, especially when they visit another village or their fields
(see figure 5.23). This is the case even with old people, who do not move
much outside their villages, but who still like to lean on their weapon. Some
Mao keep several spears inside their house, even if they seldom use them or
if they are not in a usable condition anymore. In one of the houses that we
saw in the Bambasi Mao village of Mus’a Mado, there were four large spears
(nsile), which contrasted with the small and humble compound where they
were stored. Men sometimes go hunting with two spears: a larger one and a
lighter one (more like a kind of javelin).
Some of the examples that we saw were decorated. We were told that this
is done in order to identify them: when people participate in a collective hunt,

Book 1.indb 315 2/25/14 6:21 AM

 Figure 5.23. Two Sith Shwala Mao posing armed with spears. They were in a honey
gathering expedition (thus the axes and honey gourds). They carry blankets because
they will probably spend several days in the forest.

Book 1.indb 316 2/25/14 6:21 AM

 Of Mimicry and Mao 317

a ritual of conflict resolution, or any other gathering, the spears, as I have

pointed out, are put together in large bundles—incidentally, the same thing
is done with automatic weapons now. Differences in shape and decoration
allow the owner to recognize them and they are considered a token of the
specific person.55 The individualization of material culture in this way can be
diagnostic of a technology of the self (González-Ruibal et al., 2011: 14). Mao
spears, as with Bertha throwing sticks and Gumuz bows and arrows, seem to
be working in this way. However, they are, at the same time, a symbol of the
undivided community (sensu Clastres, 2001). This is why they are present
in collective ceremonies and assembled together as the assembly of people.
Like the ritual hut, the Mao spear is a heterotemporal object that brings
together past and present. Apart from decoration, shape, and size, an element
allows Mao people to identify their weapons: a metallic spiral (or several of
them) that fastens the spear’s shaft (see Grottanelli, 1940: figure 26). One
is usually located under the blade, whereas another is located near the tip or
digging stick that ends the spear. The Mao say that, like other diacritical ele-
ments, spirals are used to decorate and identify the arm, but also to prevent the
shaft from breaking when fissured. The interesting thing about this decoration
is the other peoples among whom it is most often found: the Gonga. Shaft
spirals are not used by the Oromo or other neighboring groups. The Oromo
only use a spiral ferrule, which was already depicted by Ernst Marno in the
nineteenth century (1874: taf. 11). On the contrary, metallic spirals for the
shaft are very frequent among many Gonga and Omotic societies of southern
Ethiopia (see Straube, 1963: 37). And not only in southern Ethiopia: we have
recorded very similar spears to those used by the Mao among the Boro who
live north of the Blue Nile (see figure 5.24). One of the Boro elders whom I
interviewed elaborated on the peculiarities of the Boro lance.56 He seemed to
distinguish very clearly between their spears and those of the Oromo: accord-
ing to him, the Boro shaft has spirals (giné), the blade is short, and the spear
ends in a digging stick; the Oromo spear has a long broad blade and ferrule.
When it comes to the spiral’s use, the informant argued like the Mao: it is
for decoration. But he added, “It is bad to pray to Ik’o [God] without spirals in
the spear.” Spears are always used in religious ceremonies among the Boro.
In the so-called mirao prayer, men stand in front of their houses—spear in
hand, facing east—and pray to Ik’o. It is not strange that Boro and Mao share
the same kind of spear, despite being separated for more than four hundred
years and hundreds of kilometers. After all, probably until the sixteenth cen-
tury they were living together or close to each other. That their spears are
still very similar proves that these tools have not changed much for the last
five centuries. This lack of change shows the relevance of this male artifact
in both societies, which is made patent by its use in rituals (collective hunting

Book 1.indb 317 2/25/14 6:21 AM

Book 1.indb 318
Figure 5.24. 1–2. Mao spears.
3–4. Boro spear. 5. Oromo spear.
Courtesy of the author and Álvaro
Falquina

2/25/14 6:21 AM
 Of Mimicry and Mao 319

among the Mao; prayer and rituals of conflict resolution among the Boro: see
figure 3.2) and its personal, inalienable attachment to individuals. However,
perhaps the most important function of the spear is to arrest time. This func-
tion of the weapon as a “cold institution” is perhaps nowhere clearer than in
the “spears of the ancestors” (shin shwombo) that the Sith Shwala have in the
ritual houses. The spears (and shields) act to freeze time, to make the time
of epic Mao resistance always present in a very material, tangible manner.
They become, in this way, devices that blur the distinction between past and
present.
By gathering together with spears and trumpets for a collective hunt or for
a ritual of conflict resolution and by carrying around a spear, the Mao are
not just consciously displaying a Mao identity and unconsciously performing
their being. These acts are also subtle threats. Elias Canetti’s discussion of the
pack (Canetti, 2010: 178–81) is pertinent here. He describes different kinds
of gangs and points to the similarities between the hunting pack and the war
pack. He considers that the latter is an evolution of the former. The relation-
ship is manifested in the ancient French term for pack or gang: meute, which
means both “hunting party” and “insurrection, rebellion.” As in contexts of
capitalist chattel slavery, the Mao have little chance if they revolt, especially
in the most heavily Oromized land, but like slaves, they can engage in acts
of defiance that expose the instability of Oromo social fantasy and hint at the
possibility of real violence (Hall, 2000: 137). It is not strange, then, that the
Oromo administrator who came with us felt so uneasy among the Mao: he
was clearly perceiving the ambivalence of the Mao meute.
The dozens of contradictory reasons that he offered to prevent us from
participating in the collective hunt were a reaction to this form of resistance.
To fight against this tradition, one of the mechanisms deployed by Oromo
authorities is to argue that the Mao kill domestic animals (which are mostly
owned by the Oromo) and that the collective hunt is an alibi for stealing
cattle. This is a complaint that goes deep in time: the same accusation against
the Mao was raised in the 1910s by the first Oromo that settled the Mao lands
around Begi (Triulzi, 1980: 189). During the interview I had with the henmai
Al-Mahdi Kamisa, the interviewee felt compelled to explain that the Mao are
not rustlers and that they even return stray animals to their rightful owners
when they find them in the forest. However, the most widespread justification
for prohibiting collective hunting, and the one to which the culture officer
finally clung, is that it is a threat to wildlife. This is clearly not the case, be-
cause the hunt is carried out with traditional weapons and only in a particular
time of the year. The expansive Oromo agriculture and deforestation is a
much greater menace to the environment. In line with this conservationist ide-
ology, some of the Mao we interviewed argued that they do not hunt anymore

Book 1.indb 319 2/25/14 6:21 AM

 320 Chapter 5

because it has been prohibited by the government. This, of course, is not ex-
actly true: they keep hunting, but denial is the public transcript (Scott, 1990)
that they offer when they are asked. The ban on hunting, like the prohibition
of burning the grass during the dry season, has to be interpreted as an attempt
by the state to control what is perceived as a primitive, unregulated practice.
In the case of the collective hunt, we have to add the uncanny threat of an
entire people in arms. Interestingly, our informants translated henmai, the
leader of the hunt, as abba dula in the Oromo language, which can be trans-
lated as “war leader,” literally “father of war.” The resemblance between the
abba dula and the henmai is actually quite remarkable. According to Hassen
(1994: 102), “Abba Dula had been an elected officer who led voluntary war-
riors against an enemy only when the chafe assembly declared war. The Abba
Dula exercised effective authority only during the course of a campaign.
Once hostilities ceased, he was merely one among equals” (my emphasis).
Mutatis mutandis (i.e., hunt in place of war), can also be said of the henmai
among the Seze. In fact, the henmai could have been a war leader in the past.
According to Matteucci, who traveled through Mao land in the 1870s, “only
when [the Mao] make war against a large tribe, [do] they appoint a Sheik
that has to conduct them to the fight” (Matteucci, 1879: 264). The translation
of henmai as abba dula is doubly relevant: on the one hand it proves that
instead of open confrontation, as in the case of the Gumuz, the Mao prefer
to resort again to more subliminal tactics: in this case, the symbolization of
war as hunting, a symbolization that deactivates the dangerous potential of
armed conflict, while keeping the warning. It is for this reason that they went
to the administration of Bambasi with spears and throwing sticks, not with
guns. Yet every time they gather to hunt, they are showing their power: every
act of communal hunting is a camouflaged threat of war. We are, thus, again
in front of an act of mimicry (henmai as abba dula), with all its menacing,
uncontrollable ambiguity.
The Mao do not fight domination openly like the Gumuz do. Yet the main
difference between the Gumuz and the Mao is perhaps not one of aggression
versus non-aggression. It is in the last instance an issue of temporality: while
the Gumuz often resort to violent struggle in the present, the Mao displace
violence to the past—as materialized memories in the shape of spears and
ritual huts—and to the future—as the uncanny threat of the collective hunt.

NOTES

1. One of our Busase informants, Kebbede Waga, who was already interviewed
by Wendy James in the 1970s, asserted that the Busase came from Kafa, “around the
town of Jimma” (interviewed October 29, 2009, in Mugi, Anfillo wereda).

Book 1.indb 320 2/25/14 6:21 AM

 Of Mimicry and Mao 321

2. Interview with Itafa Fido, an eighty-five- to ninety-year-old Busase from Begi

(Western Oromia). March 18, 2010.
3. This interpretation was confirmed by our informants, during a collective inter-
view conducted in Dumme (Qondala wereda). November 3, 2009. Main informants:
Osman K’ano (Oromo) and Ahmed Asino (Mao).
4. Information provided by a Mao man (Seze) from Andi (Qondala wereda, W.
Oromia). November 2, 2009.
5. Interview with Itafa Fido, Begi (Western Oromia). March 18, 2010. The
places settled by the Busase in the north, according to Itafa, are K’abeche, Qondala,
Karma Shoro, Karma Babani, Shura Maramo, Shonge (Qondala), Ofa Kobere, K’ama
Chandi (Begi), and Dalech’a (Gidami).
6. A gold ring or bracelet was the symbol of kingship among the Busase (Cerulli,
1933: 90), a custom whose origin can be traced back to Kafa. The king of Kafa had an
armlet, a ring, and other objects made of gold as symbols of kingship (Huntingford,
1955: 118).
7. Interview with Mikael Kadida, Begi (Western Oromia). March 18, 2010.
8. Interview with Kebbede Wagga, Mugi (Mihrab Wellega, Western Oromia).
October 29, 2009.
9. See note 2.
10. Interview with Bulgu Tarso, Mao (Hozo) from Shura Maramo (Qondala
wereda, Western Oromia). March 16, 2010.
11. See note 7.
12. For example, interview with Mahmudi Masale, a Sith Shwala man in his thir-
ties, Rubo (Shera Kama, Begi, Western Oromia). February 2009. Mahmudi, a man
in his thirties, said that the Oromo enslaved the Mao in time of his great-grandfather
(early twentieth century). At that time, the Sith Shwala were probably not considered
Mao yet, but “Komo” (i.e., Gwama).
13. See note 7. I would like to thank Worku Derara for correcting the transcription.
14. The mother of my informant Mikael Kadida was an Oromo from the clan of
chief Jote Tulu (Wannaga), while his father was a Busase.
15. See note 12.
16. Interview with Osman K’ano (Oromo) and Ahmed Asino (Mao), in Dumme
(Qondala, W. Oromia). November 3, 2009.
17. Ahmed Asino, a young Seze man from Dumme (Qondala, W. Oromia). No-
vember 3, 2009.
18. Interview with Bulgu and Merdassa Kore, Seze men in their sixties (Boni
Bekere, Begi wereda, W. Oromia). March 20, 2010.
19. See note 12.
20. Interviews with Bulgu Kore, Seze (Boni Bekere, Begi wereda, W. Oromia),
March 20, 2010, and Mahmadi Karo, Hozo (Kuch’i, Qondala wereda, W. Oromia),
March 18, 2010.
21. Interview with Bulgu Kore, Seze (Boni Bekere, Begi wereda, W. Oromia).
March 20, 2010.
22. Sith Shwala who reported the origin in the Gibe for the Mao are Mahmudi
Masale (a man in his thirties), Rubo (Shera Kama, Benishangul-Gumuz), February

Book 1.indb 321 2/25/14 6:21 AM

 322 Chapter 5

2009; Awsholi Hamis (seventy to eighty years old), Boshuma (Bambasi wereda,
Benishangul-Gumuz), November 7, 2009; Bulgu Masad (fifty to sixty years old),
Boshuma (id.), November 8, 2009. Seze who reported the origin in the Gibe for the
Mao is Mustafa Ayano (seventy years old), Egogirmos (Begi wereda, W. Oromia),
February 9, 2009. A Gibe origin was also reported by Afandi Jimma, a Sith Shwala
who lived in a Seze village (Lop’i, Begi wereda, W. Oromia). March 19, 2010.
23. Interview with Bulgu Masad, a man in his fifties, in Boshuma (Bambasi
wereda, Benishangul-Gumuz). November 8, 2009.
24. Interview with Sadeta Hundesa, smith, in Karma Shoro (Qondala, W. Oromia).
November 2, 2009.
25. Interviewed in Banga Dergo (Mao-Komo Special Wereda, Benishangul-
Gumuz). December 21, 2007.
26. Interview with Wallagga Faranji, a Hozo man, in Folfoli (Qondala, W. Oro-
mia). March 17, 2010.
27. Interview with Awsholi Hamis (70–80 years old). Boshuma (Bambasi wereda,
Benishangul-Gumuz), November 7, 2009.
28. See note 3.
29. Interview with Mahmadi Karo, Hozo (Kuch’i, Gumma Gara Arba, Qondala
wereda, Western Oromia). March 17, 2010.
30. Interview with Abdulahi S’umbu, Sith Shwala, around fifty years old.
Boshuma (Bambasi wereda, Benishangul-Gumuz). November 8, 2009.
31. See note 10.
32. Interview with Afandi Jimma, a Sith Shwala in his fifties who lives in a Seze
village (Lop’i, Begi wereda, W. Oromia). March 19, 2010.
33. Interviewed in Boji Gara Arba (Qondala, W. Oromia). March 17, 2010.
34. The Sith bish is present among other Mao groups such as the Hozo (biash
mo) and the Seze (biash mai). It might be influenced by the Bertha ŋeri, as among
other neighboring groups (see James, 1988). The kukullu only exists among the Sith
Shwala.
35. See note 10.
36. Interview with Harun Rusk’alla, Karkege (Boshuma, Bambasi wereda, Benis-
hangul-Gumuz). November 7, 2009.
37. Except otherwise noted, the following discussion refers to the main users of
beehive huts, the Sith Shwala Mao. Data comes from interviews with a sith bish
from Ishgogo Gedashola, Nekura Ginze (December 26, 2007) and three kukullu from
Boshuma: Harun Rusk’alla, Bulgu Masad, and Adam Yeme, conducted during three
days (November 7–9, 2009). The youngest of the three, Adam, is a man in his thirties.
38. There are two honey harvest seasons a year: shulu (December/January) and
tam bosho (May/June).
39. See note 32.
40. See note 18.
41. See note 23.
42. See note 23.
43. See note 15.
44. See note 23.

Book 1.indb 322 2/25/14 6:21 AM

 Of Mimicry and Mao 323

45. Dumme (Qondala wereda): Osman K’ano (Oromo) and Ahmed Asino (Mao),
November 3, 2009. Dochi (Qondala wereda): Al-Mahdi Kamis, March 16, 2010.
46. Interview with Al Mahdi Kamisa, Hozo (Koli Cherpa, Qondala wereda, W.
Oromia). March 16, 2010.
47. Yasin Ibrahim, Mao of Bambasi, Mus’a Mado. December 7, 2007.
48. The Mao of Bambasi call it fafené, the Sith Shwala papini.
49. Interview with Nekura Ginze (Sith Shwala) in Shigogo Gedashola (Mao-
Komo Special Wereda, Benishangul-Gumuz. December 26, 2007.
50. Interviews held among different Bambasi Mao of Mus’a Mado (Bambasi
wereda, Benishangul-Gumuz). February 28, 2002.
51. See note 49.
52. The informants used the Oromo words: boye and karkarro.
53. See note 27.
54. Ego Girmos (Begi wereda, W. Oromia). February 9, 2009.
55. Interview with Sabid Shwaŋa, Mus’a Mado (Bambasi wereda, Benishangul-
Gumuz). December 13, 2007.
56. Interview with Ebba Dikia, an eighty-year-old Boro living in the town of
Wämbära (Metekel Zone, Benishangul-Gumuz). November 16, 2009.

Book 1.indb 323 2/25/14 6:21 AM

Book 1.indb 324 2/25/14 6:21 AM
 Epilogue
Becoming Citizens

The peoples that have been described in this book have been in contact with
the state for a long time. External powers have interfered with their lives
for several generations, even if they have managed to maintain their values,
economic practices, material cultures, and identities. They have developed
tactics of resistance in accordance with their experience of domination. The
peoples that will be addressed in this epilogue have been incorporated into the
state in very recent times. In fact, the most ambitious and effective state in-
tervention was set in place only a few years ago, and some communities have
still escaped the grip of the state or para-state organizations. They belong
to the Koman cluster: Gwama, Komo, and Opuuo, to which we have to add
the Mao-speaking Ganza. In 2004 and 2005, the Gwama, Ganza, and Komo
were subjected to a policy of resettlement, which also affected, as we have
seen, the Bertha and Gumuz living in remote areas. The scheme included
the construction of new roads to reach the remotest places in the borderland.
From that moment on, those who had not been touched by resettlement and
roads would fall beyond the side of humanity. As a wereda officer put it to us,
referring to non-resettled Gwama: “There is no road, there is no government.
They live like animals.”1
The permanent dilemma—whether to resist or to comply, to settle or to
move—has reappeared among the last free communities of the borderland.
Facing this profound question, people, once again, react in different ways.
It is the same situation that was presented to the Komo in the late sixteenth
century, when the Busase conquered their lands; the same that troubled the
Gwama in the late nineteenth century, with the Oromo invasions. As we have
seen, some Komo and Gwama decided to stay and became Mao, others de-
cided to flee and remained Komo and Gwama—until today. The multicultural

325

Book 1.indb 325 2/25/14 6:21 AM

 326 Epilogue

state justifies the final conquest of the borderland as a benefit for the last
“wild” people, so that they can enjoy the advantages of civilization (school-
ing, improved agriculture, health care, clean water, roads). Some, of course,
do not buy it. Some buy it only in part. The old rift between the Mao and
the Komo is repeated now between the Gwama, Ganza, and Komo who have
decided to resettle and those who still wander along the border. But there are
also tensions between those who have been resettled. Not all are ready to ac-
cept the state discourse of the wild and the civilized.
The Ganza families of Benshuba, for instance, are readier to resist the state
than most of their Gwama neighbors, with whom they share the same settle-
ment. Only this attitude of resilience explains that when Kwa Diŋ—a Ganza
man—was informed that I wanted to ask him about his culture, he asserted,
before I had even had the time to formulate any question: “We believe in
wizards and witchcraft and whether this kills us or heals us, we believe in it.”2
Which is the same as saying: we are still people of the wild. Of course, the
reply was not for me, or only partially. It was actually a powerful statement
on being Ganza directed to the official chief of the kebele, a Gwama, who was
very much into the ideology of the state. Kwa Diŋ later complained of having
lost their mobility. They used to move every year and cross the frontier back
and forth. During the time of the war in the Sudan, they fought both with the
Sudan People’s Liberation Army and the Sudan government, “with the one
who was winning,” but when things got worse, they decided to flee. They
arrived in the land of the Gwama (up the Yabus river). When the Gwama
were resettled by the Ethiopian state, some Ganza families decided to go with
them. It seems that the Ganza were not sure about what this move implied.
Kwa Diŋ is not happy with sedentarism: “After cultivating a place it’s soon
invaded by grass, so it’s difficult to prepare the land again. It’s easier to find
new land and clear it anew.” The government now forces them to settle in
the same place and cultivate the same land over and over again, which means
investing more and more time in preparing the plots. They are not allowed to
move freely as before. Agricultural work is harder.
The chief of the kebele seems happy with the new situation of his people,
but he knows that there are differences between them. He knows that people
like Kwa Diŋ are still wild: “The Gwama,” he says, “don’t want to walk around
naked. We do it if we don’t have an alternative. The Ganza prefer to go naked,
even if they have clothes.” As if to prove him right, Kwa Diŋ sits beside us, na-
ked from the waist up and showing his beautiful scarifications around the navel.
Gwama women, though, are not willing to prove the chief right. When we meet
them at the pump, they all go bare breasted and seem to be very comfortable
like that: they chat loudly and laugh at us. We help them fill their jerry cans.

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 Becoming Citizens 327

Word gets around and suddenly there are tens of women, young and old, ask-
ing us to fill their plastic containers and gourds. The state does not want them
naked, because it is primitive, but they do not comply—so far. The state does
not want to hear about witchcraft and evil eye, either. The chief of the kebele
certainly knows that and so does his wife. When I ask her if she prays, as other
potters do, to prevent their pots from breaking, she says: “I don’t pray because
I don’t believe in witchcraft.”3 Most of the resettled people from the neighbor-
ing village of Keser declare to have abandoned the practices that are considered
harmful by the state. The category of “harmful tradition” is ample enough to
include pretty much everything that the state does not like: scarifications, sister-
exchange marriage, shifting agriculture, traditional religion, hunting. A Gwama
elder explains (unconvincingly) that they used to have sister-exchange mar-
riage, but then “the government began to teach us about it and we don’t have it
anymore.” The people from Keser 2 tell me that they used to have a ritual house
(gubi gana in Komo and swe baya in Gwama), but they do not use it anymore,
because it has been classified as a “harmful tradition.” They do not have ritual
specialists anymore either: “We are Muslims. We have a mosque.”4 Note that
the building is important to prove their point, to underscore their change of be-
ing. It comes to mind what the old Harun Rusk’alla from Boshuma said: “Swal
Kwama and Mao are the same, they cannot be separated, it is like the mosque
of the Muslims.” The resettled people are no longer wild, because they have a
mosque. That is an ontological change.
In Keser 1, I met a man in his fifties, Tesfaye Gidemariam, who has a
rare consciousness of culture change and what it implies. He compressed in
a lucid, albeit idealized, statement what it is to be a Gwama before and after
the state:

In olden times, we the Gwama lived together in peace, had cattle, sheep and
goats, lots of them, worked together, tilled the land, the land gave fruit; we
celebrated together, we killed goats for the celebration, and never sold them. We
drank together, ate the goats and celebrated together. Now we have currency and
we sell. If there is money, it’s good, if there isn’t, no problem. In olden times,
we didn’t have money. We expressed our generosity by giving gifts of cattle
and goats. It is good to have money, but it has altered our culture. We now
exchange and buy. Before, you went to help your brother and you could spend
three months helping him. You didn’t calculate in terms of money.5

Tesfaye is describing the end of a moral economy, the economy of a deep

rural community. It is striking that what epitomizes for him the establishment
of the state in the frontier is the appearance of money. They never sold goats
before, but now they do and this is changing them: it is introducing the idea

Book 1.indb 327 2/25/14 6:21 AM

 328 Epilogue

of cold calculation that did not exist before. Generalized reciprocity is reced-
ing. This brings to mind David Graeber’s theories on the transformation of a
human economy into a commercial one—the economy of the state (Graeber,
2011). It is important to take into account that Tesfaye makes his statement
in the context of a beer party (swe gi) that he is sponsoring. The neighbors
of Keser have helped him to build a new hut and they are now drinking beer
together. It is the collective spirit—the togetherness that he emphasizes so
much in his discourse—that characterized traditional relations among the
Gwama. There is a typical ambivalence in his statement, however, that al-
ready resembles the Mao way of resistance. Never confrontational. When
asked about sister exchange, Tesfaye says that he likes both systems: if you
have a sister to exchange, sister exchange is good, but if you do not, then it
is good to know that you can use money to acquire a wife. It is a discourse of
adaptation, never conflictual, always in between. Besides, Tesfaye does not
know about my allegiances. I look like a state agent: asking questions, taking
notes, drawing maps. As it happens, there is another person in Keser doing
similar work: it is an agricultural technician from the regional government.
He inquires about types of crops, ways of tilling the land, how much they
produce, what they do with the surplus, if they have any. And he takes notes.
The misgivings of my informants probably explain their answers. They are
ready to show compliance and to locate in the past all traditional practices.
Of course, discourse and practice do not necessarily fit, but state ideology
works slowly.
Within the Gwama and Komo from Keser there are rifts, too. Some of them
resettled for a time and then left. They did not like it there, “because it is cold
and there is the mujele bug [sandfly].” Some people say that those who left or
who did not come in the first place preferred to go to Sudan to live as refugees
and receive free blankets and jerry cans from the United Nations. It might be
true, or partially true, but it might also be a way of defaming those who have
decided not to comply—to remain wild. Others who reside in the resettled
villages (Keser and Benshuba) go away whenever they want. Some go to
fetch honey in the forest and spend there five days or a week. An evangelical
non-governmental organization (World Vision) has given the people from
Keser dozens of bright yellow industrial beehives—probably the thing they
need the least. It is a way of preventing people from going to the forest (and
maybe having sinful thoughts or doing sinful things: in the forest, you never
know). It is a technology of sedentarization: a state technology provided by a
non-state agency. It allows taxation and control. Evangelical beehives are still
not working much, because people keep going to the bush, but they may work
in the near future. People not only leave the resettlement area for gathering
honey; some of them still cling to the tradition of moving seasonally: during

Book 1.indb 328 2/25/14 6:21 AM

 Becoming Citizens 329

the dry season, they disappear from the village and go to the lowlands, to
cultivate near the alluvial plains. This hampers the schooling program.
Michel Foucault (1986: 22) argued that “it is not possible to disregard
the fatal intersection of time with space.” Yet he considers that the anxiety
of the modern world “has to do fundamentally with space, no doubt a great
deal more than with time” (Ibid.: 23). While this might be true in the West,
it is not necessarily so in other locations, where the struggles of time—the
tensions of a double temporality—are unavoidable and lead to all sorts of
anxieties—political, cultural, ontological. If heterotopias of deviation are the
“other spaces” par excellence of late modernity in the West, I would consider
that the space of deviation of non-Western nation-states are heterochronias.
Heterotopias lie at the intersection of space and time, but space has a more
prominent role. In heterochronias, it is the reverse: it is the “other times”
that prevail. In resettlement schemes, space is obviously important, as they
enforce a thorough rearticulation of location and spatial practices (seden-
tarization, centralization), but resettlements are not separated from the rest
of ordinary places. Quite the opposite: the idea is to make those who were
separated part of the whole, to compel them to join the national community,
also in spatial terms. In fact, the gist of these projects is to abolish spatial
difference and to establish a monotopia—a single place for the nation. How-
ever, this invariably leads to a heterochronic situation: resettlement villages
are places of time friction, where the time of the state and the time of the
subaltern collide. If heterotopias are capable of juxtaposing in a single real
place several places that are in themselves incompatible (Foucault, 1986: 25),
heterochronias do the same with time: the time of the hunter or the honey
collector is incompatible with the rhythms of the state, but both are brought
together in the resettlement area. As opposed to the annual cycles of sowing
and harvesting, burning and hunting, the state offers the unilineal trajectory
of the school program. The seasonal rhythms of a mobile people cohabit
uneasily in the same space with the disciplined times of the tax collector, the
visiting nurse, the agricultural technician, the schoolteacher. The time of the
subaltern is a time of dispersal, a decentered, undivided time. In the context
of the resettlement, the honey collector who disappears into the forest for a
week is an interruption in the hegemonic time of the state. The heterochronia
of the resettled village is intended to be transitory: the future has to be for the
state and for the empty time of history.

CONCLUSIONS: EQUALITY AND RESISTANCE

In this book, I have explored the strategies of resilience, resistance, and re-
bellion undertaken by three societies of the western Ethiopian borderland:

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 330 Epilogue

the Gumuz, Bertha, and Mao. They have followed different paths: at one
extreme, the Gumuz have opted for open resistance and frequent armed rebel-
lion; at the other extreme, the Mao have resorted to mimicry, but often in a
subversive way that makes the powerful uncomfortable. The Bertha, in turn,
present a more complex situation, which is in part derived from their split
identity, between Islam and tradition.
How to resist depends on the culture and political ethos of the people in
question, but also on its historical experience of the state. Here there are two
things to be taken into account: the character of the state they face and the
time. Regarding time, it is necessary to distinguish an old state frontier and a
new one (Donham, 1986). The old frontier is located north of the Blue Nile.
It is the frontier that separates the state traditions of Sudan and Ethiopia,
but also of the early Ethiopian kingdoms and their tribal peripheries. The
peoples who live in those peripheries have experienced the state for almost
three thousand years. They had grown accustomed to it. They have adapted
to ecological niches where the state representatives cannot reach or do not
want to reach. They have learned how to resist centralized power: often with
violence. This is the case of the Gumuz. The new frontier extends south of
the Blue Nile. Hierarchical forms of political organization and echoes of the
state arrived here during the late sixteenth century, but the state proper did
not appear until the nineteenth century. The other element is the nature of the
state. This is no better seen than among the Gumuz. They had to face two
different forms of domination: the Amhara/Agäw rule north of the Blue Nile
and the Oromo south of that river. While they have resorted in both cases to
open rebellion, the truth is that there is more permeability and hybridity in the
south than we can find in the north. The Oromo have shown a certain degree
of flexibility that the Gumuz could not find among the Amhara. More impor-
tantly, the Oromo do not have the entrenched class system of the Amhara:
their ancient egalitarian values still play a role in their society. Every society,
though, has its fantasy, and Oromo society is based on an idea of tolerance
and democracy that does not work in reality. The Mao know that well: turned
into a marginalized community, the assimilationist ethos of Oromo political
thought has not worked for them—because they are black. Race is another
leitmotif of the relations between powerful and subaltern communities in
the borderland, one that determines strategies of resilience, resistance, and
rebellion.
This book is intended as an archaeology of resistance. An archaeology
in some Foucaldian sense, but overall, in a purely archaeological way. An
archaeology of the present, like any other archaeology, has to explore the
many relations of time and materiality. I have argued here that they are fun-

Book 1.indb 330 2/25/14 6:21 AM

 Becoming Citizens 331

damental for understanding the tactics of resistance deployed by the peoples

of the Sudanese-Ethiopian borderland. In different ways, they want to live in
the past: the time of Funj or the Sudan for the Mayu Bertha, the time of the
forest for the Mao. At times, they are forced to live it, even if they do not
want to: this is the case with the time of slavery that weighs unbearably over
the Gumuz’s shoulders, a traumatic time that poisons the present, because the
present, with its abuses and dispossessions, is still too much like the past. The
Mao, Bertha, and Gumuz resort to materiality to arrest time and live, not in
the past, but in their own time, which is not the ever-changing and fast time
of the West. The Mayu Bertha wear jallābiyya and ride donkeys to live in the
time of the jallāba, the petty merchants who are at the origin of the Mayu as
a people. The Mao have their ritual houses that anchor them in the wild time
of the forest. The Gumuz have bows and arrows, archaic weapons that have
guaranteed their autonomy since the Middle Ages. I have portrayed these ar-
chaic artifacts not as failures, but as successes. Whenever they have managed
to keep them, they have not just maintained a form of cultural heritage, but a
tool for producing equality.
Throughout this book, I have tried to offer a constructive critique to two
of the problems that, in my opinion, plague resistance studies: an ambigu-
ous political stance and an excessive focus on subaltern consciousness, itself
related to the postcolonial fixation with discourse. On the one hand, the post-
modern emphasis on almost invisible and quite harmless everyday acts of
resistance has left subalterns with a form of resistance that is a surrender, as
Žižek (2007) has denounced. I have suggested that it is resilience, rather than
resistance, that actually is a surrender, and yet I have tried to make justice
to all forms of saying “no” to power: resilience, resistance, and rebellion. I
intended to show that there is a political stance behind each of these attitudes.
I hope that it is clear by now what it is that the indigenous peoples of
western Ethiopia are resisting when they resist. It is not only, or not primar-
ily, their cultural identity, their religious beliefs, their genetic integrity, that
they are trying to defend. Most of them are flexible enough to appropriate
objects, rituals, stories (even people!) from neighbors, even the dominant
ones. What they resist in manifold ways, even when they do not fight for their
culture anymore, is inequality. This is what makes the Mao live as squatters
among the Oromo, rather than take on economic practices that may be more
productive and successful but would break up their community. They may
look poor, but they are equal: there are no rich Mao, no powerful Mao. This
is what makes the Gwama and Komo live scattered in remote places, what
explains the Gumuz rejection of the plow and the Sabu decision never to
work in coffee plantations. This is the reason Mao women refuse to marry

Book 1.indb 331 2/25/14 6:21 AM

 332 Epilogue

Oromo men at all costs and Gumuz women transport wood in a carrying
stick and not on their backs. This is also why Gumuz love weapons—old
and new, bows and arrows, spears, and assault rifles. It is not (or not only)
because they want to continue doing things the way they have always done. It
is because they want to remain equal. It has not been my intention to idealize
the peoples that I have studied. It is worth reminding, once again, how much
of the equality between men is gained at the expense of women, how much
violence is required for the undivided society of the Gumuz to exist. But even
the androcentric regime of the indigenous peoples of the Sudanese-Ethiopian
borderland is more lenient than the strong patriarchy that rules in the high-
lands. And the feuds in the borderland are incomparably less bloody than the
endless state wars in the Horn.
My second critique has to do with the emphasis on consciousness and dis-
course of much anthropology and cultural studies, but also archaeology. This
emphasis has left aside an important fact: equality is not necessarily thought
and spoken about, but lived. Jacques Rancière (1995: 85–89) talks about
the “presupposition of equality.” The community of equals is not a goal, he
argues, but “a supposition to be posited from the outset and endlessly repos-
ited.” It has to be taken for granted. For me, that means that the community
of equals exists before and beyond discourse: a constituting equality, a form
of being. It is inequality that needs the logos more desperately, because it is
inequality that needs explanation (Rancière, 1995: 82–83). Lived equality is
ontological and thus unconscious. It can be expressed consciously, and we
have seen many instances of it: Gumuz rebelling, Mao asserting the need for
preserving their culture. But conscious expressions are an effect of a supposi-
tion of equality that is always already at work—in bodies, pots, and houses.
The postcolonial and postmodern emphasis on discourse has left subalterns
with words, often hollow or borrowed words. Yet only speaks truly that
which is mute, writes Rancière (1992: 119). The archaeology of the present
offered in this book is also intended to be a tribute to all those peoples who
do not need words to manifest, in an effective way, their need for liberty and
equality.

NOTES

1. Referring to the villages of Tasho and S’oru, southwest of Tongo. Tongo

wereda (Mao-Komo special wereda, Benishangul-Gumuz). November 12, 2009.
2. Interview with Kwa Diŋ, from Benshuba (Mao-Komo special wereda, Benis-
hangul-Gumuz). February 12, 2009.
3. Interview with Seriya Bona, Benshuba (Mao-Komo special wereda, Benishan-
gul-Gumuz). February 13, 2009.

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 Becoming Citizens 333

4. Interview with Maekol Gidemariam (a man in his thirties), Keser 2 (Mao-Komo

special wereda, Benishangul-Gumuz). February 11, 2009.
5. Interview with Tesfaye Gidemariam, Keser 1 (Mao-Komo special wereda,
Benishangul-Gumuz). February 11, 2009. The interviewee spoke in Amharic.

Book 1.indb 333 2/25/14 6:21 AM

Book 1.indb 334 2/25/14 6:21 AM
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Book 1.indb 362 2/25/14 6:21 AM

abba dula, 320
abba qoro, 95
abeto, 249
Abu Shok, Hamdan, 95, 197
Adal sultanate, 247
Addis Ababa, 49, 54, 62, 63, 67, 108
adornments, 29, 141, 144, 129–31, 138,
154, 225, 228, 272
adultery, 98, 101, 103, 144, 146–48, 283
Afar, 103
Agamben, Giorgio, 109
Agäw, exchanges with Gumuz, 119–20,
122; history, 54, 62, 82, 87, 94, 95,
101, 104, 330; living with Gumuz,
99, 103, 104, 113, 116, 123, 164–65,
166; people, 5, 49, 80, 82, 89 n1, 99,
130, 131, 134, 146 163, 218, 257,
266; raiding the Gumuz, 62, 94, 95,
162. See also K’ämant; K’unfel
Agäwmïdïr, 94
agency: human xvi, 7, 26, 35–39, 134;
material 36, 47, 135, 285, 314
agribusiness companies, 50, 60, 66, 70,
154, 259
agriculture: intensive: 21, 52, 56, 58,
66, 71, 79, 81, 116, 117, 123, 243,
287, 307; slash-and-burn 20, 52, 58,
363
Book 1.indb 363
Index
71, 99, 100, 103, 169, 243, 245, 254,
292, 306
agur (ritual specialist/chief), 69, 177,
181, 184
Ahmed Grañ, 170, 247
aimma, 221
Akobo (river), 51
Al-Faki Ahmad Ummar, 48, 86
Allah, 201, 223, 269
allochronism, 17, 29
Alodia/Alodian Kingdom, 54, 57, 176
altar, 154, 156
Amam (Mao), 256
Amhara, 5, 80–82, 104, 142, 146,
165, 218, 266, 330; conflicts with
Gumuz, 94, economic relations with
the Gumuz, 104, 116, 119; in origin
myths of the Gumuz, 107–109;
pottery, 120, 209, 215, 275, 280;
resettled, 62, 64–65, 80, 96, 99, 256;
status of women, 131, 132, 133, 134,
285; and the state, 80, 81, 257, 330
amulets, 129, 154, 201, 202, 203
anarchism, 11, 25, 69, 103, 176, 245
ancestors, 23, 29, 107, 110, 154, 156
Anfillo: kingdom, 57, 248–50, 252,
253, 276; language, 82; people, 82,
2/25/14 6:21 AM
 364
258, 267, 297, 298; region, 51, 58,
249–254, 258, 261, 262, 264, 307,
320n1; antelope, 169, 181, 233, 238,
307, 311, 313
Anfillo Forest, 50, 252
anthropology, xiv, xv, 3, 4, 12–33,
68, 332;culture-historical, 12, 26,
29, 30; historical, 18–20, 30–31;
postmodern, 22; of resistance, 11,
14; of technology, xv. See also
ethnography
anti-market mechanisms. See autonomy,
economic
Añwaa, 64, 67, 161, 206
Arab (Sudanese), 69, 183, 187, 189,
193–95, 216
Arabi, 171n20, 261, 262, 282, 289, 290,
303
Arabic (language), 5, 74, 183, 184, 190,
192, 211, 235
Arafa (festival), 235–237, 269
aräk’i (liquor), 103, 119–20, 122, 123,
153
archaeological ethnography, 1–6
archaeology, historical, 6–8, 12–13; of
the present xv, 16, 331–332; Roman,
7–8, 13
archaic (concept), 16, 17, 20–33
architecture. See domestic space; house;
organization of space
Argobba, 257
armlet, 128, 129, 321n6. See also
bracelet
arrows, 31–32, 37, 40, 72, 100, 120,
122, 140, 143, 166, 167–70, 168,
228, 317, 331, 332
Asosa, 61, 64, 177, 178, 182, 184, 186,
187, 192, 194, 195, 198, 203, 211,
215–16, 220, 221, 226, 228, 236,
237, 238, 268, 274, 284
Ate Meti, 129, 137, 140, 154, 156,
171n41
autonomy: economic (autarky), 68, 120,
122, 211, 284, 310; political, 14, 15,
57, 64, 65, 71, 101, 103, 104, 148,
Book 1.indb 364
Index
157–58, 162, 194, 247, 255, 258,
282, 314, 331. See also freedom
Awá, 31–32
Axum/Axumite Kingdom, 53, 54, 56,
57, 59, 60, 79, 88, 93, 154
baby bag, 123–24, 126, 128, 129, 131,
168, 225, 271, 272
Baggara, 161
Bagirmi, 179
Bakuji, 119, 262
Bale Mountains, 247
Bambasi, Mao group, 5, 62, 76, 220,
242, 251, 254, 266, 278, 280, 282,
284, 312, 314–315, 320, 323n50;
town/wereda, 64, 175, 194, 195, 251,
265, 311
bamboo: as forest product, 306, 307,
308; forests of, 47, 50, 51, 307; for
making artifacts, 147, 167, 228, 230,
231, 233, 238n8, 308; for making
structures, 52, 122, 136, 137, 158,
160, 161, 163, 218, 293
baŋ. See throwing stick
banditry/bandits, xvi, 12, 83–85
Banga Dergo, 189, 196, 213, 220, 221,
238 n4, 262, 263, 265, 266, 271, 278,
284, 310, 313, 322n25
basket/basketwork, xi, 39, 52, 117, 120,
136, 137, 154, 263, 271, 307
Baria. See Nera
beehive, 40, 182, 221, 262, 300–302,
304, 308–10, 329
beehive hut, 263, 293, 295–306
beer: brewing, 115, 118–19, 144, 205,
280, 293, 297, 300, 302; drinking
(collective), 74, 78, 103, 113, 119,
145, 153, 181–82, 207, 235, 263,
266, 278, 297, 310, 313, 328; filter,
114, 115, 117, 137; pot, 37, 113,
114, 115, 117–20, 206, 207,
215–16, 266, 280, 282, 304, 310;
ritual offering, 74, 153–154, 297,
302
Bega, 93, 124
2/25/14 6:21 AM
 Index
Begi, 75, 76, 213, 248–54, 257, 260,
261, 263, 265, 271, 272, 276, 315,
319, 321n2, 321n5, 321n7
Bela Shangul, 176–77, 194
Bel ash-Sharifu, 201
Belaya Mountain, 98, 166
Bel Bembishi, 48, 201, 203, 236
Beles (river), 49
Beltrame, Giovanni, 89, 176, 186, 200
Bender, M. Lionel, 78, 193
Benishangul, x, 48, 51, 62, 72, 77, 85,
86, 87, 89, 125, 175, 176, 180, 181,
183, 184, 186, 191, 192, 193, 194,
195, 198, 199, 203, 204, 211, 213,
216, 218, 220, 223, 233, 236, 284,
302.
Benshuba, 278, 326, 328, 333n2, 333n3
Berta. See Bertha
Bertha: double identity, 188–90; as
hegemonic culture, 173, 189–90,
197, 199, 215, 216, 225, 262;
history, 174–88; people, 74–75;
relations with Amhara, 209, 211,
215; relations with Gumuz, 193, 225.
See also Mao, relations with Bertha
Beta Israel, 142, 147–48, 257, 266
Bhabha, Homi, xvii, 13, 26, 61, 241,
242, 265, 269,
Bizamo Kingdom, 246, 247
black. See race
blacksmith. See smithing
blood, 137, 147, 153, 154, 231, 300
Blue Nile: area, 86, 89, 98; region
(north), 58, 70, 75, 83, 84, 86, 88,
92, 93, 99, 107, 317, 330; region
(south), 74, 89, 95, 98, 101, 108,
110, 115, 116, 245, 253, 330; river,
49, 51, 56, 99, 157, 158, 193, 243,
247, 248; in Sudan 68, 85, 117, 175,
176, 183, 190, 216; valley, 49, 95,
97, 99, 138, 157, 163
body, 28, 36, 40, 74, 115, 151, 152,
162, 221–30; decoration, 74, 123–35,
125, 128, 223, 225, 272, 274;
gesture, 124, 134–35, 183, 199, 225,
Book 1.indb 365
365
228, 266, 285; hexis, 40, 131, 132,
228, 285. See also nudity
Boka, 155, 157
Boni Bekere, 249, 265, 289, 302,
318n18, 318n20, 321n21
borderlands: anthropology of, 14–16;
archaeology of, 12–14; as refuge/
sanctuary, 12, 48, 48, 50, 74, 86,
176, 192, 196, 255. See also frontier
society
Bornu, 86, 170
Boro (people), 5, 48, 83, 104, 106, 163–
64, 165, 166, 317, 318, 319; history,
48, 57, 58, 95, 99, 247, 253, 267;
language, 58, 66, 80, 248; origin
myth, 109–10, 171n35; relations with
Gumuz, 50, 92, 100, 105–6, 119,
146, 152–54, 262; religion, 152–54,
317
Bosha Kingdom, 57, 246, 247
Boshuma, pottery from, 278, 280, 285,
287; ritual houses, 296, 298, 299,
302, 303, 304; village, 53, 86, 196,
213, 262, 263, 266, 270, 271, 272,
283, 284, 288, 307, 309, 313, 327
Bottego, Vittorio, 63, 89
Bourdieu, Pierre, 37, 38, 124, 132, 135
bow, 31–32, 36, 37, 40, 72, 100, 120,
122, 165–70, 228, 315, 317, 331,
332. See also arrows
Bowla Dibatsa, 104–5, 118, 134, 140,
145, 150, 162, 164
bracelet, 128, 129, 130, 225, 226, 272,
273, 274, 308, 321n6. See also
armlet
brigandage. See banditry/bandits
Bruce of Kinnaird, James, 83–85, 87,
88, 91, 93, 94, 104, 167, 169, 177
buffalo, 169, 181, 303, 307, 313
Bulen, 98, 119, 171 n18
burial, 60, 148, 150, 245. See also tomb
Burun, 61, 71, 72, 117, 175, 198, 216,
225
Busase: as frontier society, 33; history,
243, 248–49, 251–56, 268; language,
2/25/14 6:21 AM
 366 Index
76, 82; people, 5, 50, 77, 80, 82, 248,
250, 251, 283, 320n1, 326; relations
with Mao, 242, 249, 253–56, 257,
259, 303, 306, 308; relations with
Oromo, 58, 83, 250, 252–53, 260;
religion, 48, 266–68, 298
Butana (Sudan), 223
Caillaud, René 68, 89, 193
calabash: and autarky, 120, 171n32,
310; as containers 105, 129, 132,
140, 144, 198, 211, 233, 264, 285,
304; for drinking beer 282, 304, 310;
for honey, 40, 300, 308, 310, 316;
for musical instruments, 230, 231,
233, 314; and ritual, 137, 153, 198
capitalism, 1, 7, 8, 11, 18, 19, 24, 26,
27, 53, 59, 98, 318
carrying stick, 131, 135, 167, 168, 225,
228, 285, 332
cash crops, 68, 289
castor, 53, 126, 198, 275
cattle, 47, 161, 162, 163, 251, 289, 307,
327, 328; paid as compensation, 105;
and plows, 115–116, 287, 306; theft
of, 84, 85, 94, 256, 319
Cerulli, Enrico, 173, 182, 248
chaîne operatoire, 34, 115, 118, 205,
209, 210, 213, 287
Chakrabarty, Dipesh, 19, 25, 27, 28
change: concept of, xv, 16–31; denial
of, 124, 292, 295, 300, 305,
Ch’ara, 87
Cheeseman, Robert E., 49
chief, 313, 326, 327; of the kebele,
326–27; paramount, 58, 62, 87, 166,
179, 183, 174, 195, 246, 249, 252,
303; petty/local, 57–59, 62, 69, 95,
176, 177, 181, 187, 196, 201, 236,
249, 255, 256, 271
chiefdom, 53–45, 57–59, 87, 243, 245,
246, 252, 255
chicken, 74, 119, 145, 152, 154, 164,
302
Christianity: Catholicism, 63, 88;
Ethiopian Orthodox, 80–83, 87, 109,
Book 1.indb 366
111, 129, 147, 153, 169, 173, 190,
197, 215, 245–247; Protestantism,
82, 87–88, 141, 235
circumcision, 59, 70
clan: Bertha, 180, 181, 192, 193, 195,
228, Busase, 248, 249, 253; Gumuz,
95, 100, 101, 103–5, 136, 146–47;
Mao, 76, 254, 312, 313; Oromo, 58,
82, 259, 260, 321n14
Clastres, Pierre, 10, 11, 17, 21, 22, 34,
91, 101, 103, 104, 158
Coffee, 120, 218, 249, drinking, 113,
145, 165, 215–216, 217, 235;
plantations, 50, 70, 92, 259, 260,
332; pots, 113, 211–17, 212, 214,
217, 276, 278
colonialism: ancient, 6–8, 54–57; and
anthropology, 17–18, 28, 41, 295;
colonial state, 47, 52, 59, 61–63,
84, 89, 96, 119, 156, 177; and
photography, 96, 231, 233; resistance
to, 85
Comaroff, Jean, 19–21, 67
Comaroff, John, 19–21, 67
commemorative ceremony, 182, 188
communism. See Därg
community of equals, 112–18, 155–56,
235, 266, 288, 317, 332
conflict, 83, 98, 170, 303; ethnic, 16,
64, 92, 96, 98–101, 180, 252, 253,
306; internecine, 101–6, 147, 162,
180, 181, 194, 252; and resistance,
8–9, 320; state, 16, 60, 67, 162, 166,
180, 246–247. See also ritual, of
conflict resolution
Connerton, Paul, 38, 124, 135, 295
consciousness, 10, 23, 38, 40, 64,
100, 111, 193, 243, 306; double
consciousness, xvii, 188, 204, 236,
327, 331–32
Consolata Mission, 63; consumption, 7,
10, 107, 112–13, 280; and material
culture studies, 8, 33, 35, 36
core object, 37, 130, 141, 167–69, 228,
299, 307
Corfield, Frank, 78, 89, 156
2/25/14 6:21 AM
 Index
corn, 52, 72, 120, 145, 151, 153, 158,
201, 298
Cosmas Indicopleustes, 88, 93
cowrie shells, 73, 129, 198, 302
crocodile, 51, 124
curse of Canaan, 109–12
Cushitic, 70, 74, 80, 81–83, 153
culture circles, 29–30
Dabus (river), 49, 51, 62, 243, 251,
315; Bertha homeland, 192, 233,
235, 284; fishing and hunting in,
306–7; Mao homeland, 76, 254, 261,
262, 268
Däbrä Zäyit, 100
däga, 49
Daga (valley), 77
Damot Kingdom, 152, 243, 246–248
dance, 67, 124, 179, 188, 230, 236–38,
263, 267, 303, 304, 305; and
resistance, 154–56, 230–35, 269
Dangur, 88, 100, 129, 140, 247
Darfur, 179
Därg (communist regime), 63–66, 80,
96, 190
Dar Funj, 177. See also Southern Funj
deep rural, xvi, 67–74, 122, 328
deforestation, 50, 64, 66, 96, 169, 262,
292, 313, 319
Deguba Bedisa, 90n7, 152, 182, 183
Dengi, 263, 264, 265, 273
dervishes, 84, 87, 231, 236. See also
Mahdiyyah
desert, 48, 49, 108, 223
development projects, xvii, 63, 64, 66,
96
Didessa (river), 62, 75, 76, 98, 125, 169,
243, 254
digging stick, 29, 71, 108, 115, 116,
144, 310, 317
dimba. See baby bag
Dimtu, 134, 171n37
dïmusa (ritual specialist), 118, 135,
151–52
Dinder (river), 96
Book 1.indb 367
367
Dinka, 67, 69, 144
discourse: lack of, 39, 138, 310, 314,
overmphasis on, xiv, 3, 331, 332;
of power, 26, 40, 59, 138, 241,
263, 326; of resistance, 17, 24, 292,
328; resistance beyond, 9, 12, 310,
332
disease, 49, 79, 137, 143, 151–54, 199,
200, 284, 298
divination, 73, 176, 177, 197–98, 266,
284, 298, 302
Dochi, 311
domestic space, 1, 134, 266, 288–89,
292, 293. See also house;
organization of space
domination, xvii, 7, 9–11, 173, 184,
190, 220, 241, 255, 320, 325, 330;
male, 38, 132
Dor, 153, 170n1, 172n55
doxa, 37, 38, 299
dreams, 71, 73, 118, 152, 241, 241,
302
dress: highland, 123, 124, 130, 131,
134; Islamic, 186, 202, 222, 223,
225; and mimicry, 269–76, 270, 273,
276; traditional, 102, 124, 130, 204,
225, 226, 228, 270, 271, 273, 274,
286. See also nudity
drinking (social). See aräk’i; beer
drum, 179, 235–37, 301, 304,
kettledrum, 126, 137, 236
drying platform. See storing platform
dual social organization, 58, 245, 249
Dul, 203
Dumme, 262, 263, 265, 311, 312
egalitarian societies, xiii, 11, 40, 243
egalitarianism, 11, 69, 70, 112, 165,
256. See also equality
Egogirmos, 262, 263, 265, 282, 289,
290, 303
Egypt, 54, 56, 93, 125. See also Turco-
Egyptians
ele (pot), 209, 278, 282
elephant, 51, 169, 177, 307
2/25/14 6:21 AM
 368
empire, 12, 14, 15; Ethiopian, 58, 60,
85, 89, 247; Roman, 7, 13. See also
imperialism
English, George, 56
equality, 6, 14, 109, 115, 124, 135, 151,
181, 182, 184, 282, 287–88, 330–32.
See also community of equals;
egalitarianism
escarpment, 47–48, 50, 99, 131, 247,
248, 251, 268
Ethiopia: development of the state,
53–56, 55, 60–67; kingdom/empire,
53, 56, 79, 82, 85, 87, 89, 93, 111,
169, 236, 245, 247, 257, 330
ethnic denominations, 75, 76, 77, 93,
180, 189, 190, 193, 195, 201, 242,
246, 251, 299
ethnic identity, 35, 58, 104, 173, 174,
180, 182, 193, 195, 196, 228, 257,
260–62, 269, 300, 319; interethnic
solidarity, 242, 275, 280, 282; multi-
ethnic contexts, 46, 124, 193, 195,
209, 213, 220, 265, 278, 284, 288.
See also conflict, ethnic
ethnicity, 13, 46, 66, 67, 230, 257, 260,
272, 276, 278
ethnoarchaeology, x, 1–3, 6, 34, 42
ethnographic archaeology. See
archaeological ethnography
ethnography, xv, 1, 1–6, 33, 34, 41, 42,
74, 75, 77, 78
etho, 181
ette (ritual specialist), 118, 151–52
evangelization, 63, 87, 140, 141,
243
Evans-Pritchard, E. E., 39, 89
evil eye, 71, 101, 143, 164, 201, 327
exchange (interethnic), 93, 105, 116,
199–23, 242, 249, 300, 302, 328
exogamy, 103
explorers. See travelers
Faranj(ï), 108–10, 112
Fadasi: language, 75, 195; people,
180, 189, 191, 194, 195–96, 213,
Book 1.indb 368
Index
215, 216, 218, 220, 221. See also
Bambasi
Fa-Kuŋkuŋ (Bertha group): body, 201,
224–226, 226, 227, 228; ethnic
identity, 189, 190, 192–95, 196,
201, 203; houses, 216, 220, 221,
222, 293; pottery, 205–6, 208, 213,
215–16, 283
Falasha. See Beta Israel
faqih. See feki
Fasilädäs, Emperor, 170
Fazogli, 175–77, 180, 196, 220, 233
feda, 181–82
federal state, 52, 53, 64–66, 70, 96–97,
101, 194, 258, 259, 261
feki, 86, 197, 200–3
fences, 40, 52, 143, 156–64, 159, 160,
288
Ferguson, Brian R., 14, 100–1
fertility, 126, 135–37, 140, 152, 176,
298, 300, 302
festival, 104, 182, 245, 269, 300, 302,
308. See also Arafa; Mawlid; work
party
feud, 98, 99, 101, 103–6, 162, 164, 332
firearms, 94, 95, 99, 105, 164–68, 268,
283, 315, 320
fishing, 50, 65, 78; among Gumuz, 107,
108, 120, 148, 167; among Mao,
263, 306–7, 310; nets, 120, 148;
selling fish, 249, 307; traps, 263,
306–7, 310
Fleming, Harold, 75, 254
flutes: Bertha, 147, 233; Gumuz, 230–
33, 238n8, 239n9
food prohibitions. See ritual,
prohibitions
Foucault, Michel, 59, 241, 310, 329,
forest, xvi, 47, 49–51, 52, 67, 78, 84,
96, 223, 234; and Bertha, 181, 182,
and Gumuz, 100, 107, 110, 116, 142,
163, 169, 181; and Koman peoples,
167, 182, 329–31; and Mao, xvii,
242, 243, 249, 252, 259, 263, 292,
300, 304–7, 311–14, 316, 331
2/25/14 6:21 AM
 Index
Frazer, James, 175, 176
freedom, vi, 11, 50, 158, 245, 255, 304,
326, 327
Froelich, Jean-Claude, 30
frontier society, 14–16, 180, 245, 253
Fudindu, 192, 203,
Fulani, 86
Fulederu, 192, 210, 233
Funj: chiefs, 57, 157, 175–76, 177, 179,
196; mystique, 57, 95, 174–179, 183,
190, 206, 220, 224, 331; people, 84,
180, 187, 189, 196; period, 56, 206,
207; sultanate, 57, 60, 69, 70, 89,
101, 174–80, 183, 206, 220, 224,
231, 233, 236; symbols, 126, 137,
203, 224, 231, 236. See also Dar
Funj; Southern Funj
gafea (ritual specialist), 71, 118, 134,
147, 151–52
Gallabat, 62, 86, 96
Gambela, x, 43n1, 47, 49, 51, 62, 64,
66, 72, 77, 79, 88, 164
Gamila/Gamili (Bertha group), 75, 128,
191, 192, 193, 194, 224, 225, 246.
See also Fa-Kuŋkuŋ
Ganza, 6, 78, 128, 213, 251, 271, 275,
278, 325–27
Gara Arba, 51, 76, 251, 261, 262, 312
gathering (wild plants), 52, 59, 100,
116, 183, 242, 243, 257, 260, 263,
306–8, 310
gender, 35, 69, 70, 79, 101; and material
culture, 117, 123–42, 167, 205–16,
225, 285, 287; and resistance, 134–
35, 211, 282, 283–84; violence, 134,
141–42
genealogy (as a technology of power),
58, 243, 244, 252, 260, 267. See also
history
Genji, 99
Gessi, Romolo, 89
Gezira (Sudan), 93
Gibe (river), 243, 246, 247, 248, 253,
268, 303, 322n22
Book 1.indb 369
369
Gidami, 63, 77, 251–53, 257, 321n4
Gilroy, Paul, 142, 188
Gizen, 192
glasses, 187–88
Glassie, Henry, 34, 38
goat, 52, 94, 119, 129, 147, 161–63,
164, 307, 327, 328; and sacrifice,
105, 145, 154, 302
Gojjam, 116
gola (ritual specialist), 118, 151
gold, 54, 56, 60, 63, 86, 89, 93, 183,
184, 195, 196, 245; as symbol of
power/status, 251, 272, 284, 321n6
Gondar, 95
Gonga: kingdoms/chiefdoms, 53, 57–58,
245–49, 252–55, 298; languages
(Gonga-Kefoid), 82, 83, 243, 245,
248
González Núñez, Juan, x, 52, 73, 97,
141, 167
gourd. See calabash
Gozálbez, Juan, 97
Graeber, David, 11, 101, 328
granary, 113, 136–38, 162, 163, 184,
185, 198, 216, 218, 220, 289, 296;
decoration of, 127, 136, 139, 140–42
grinding, 115, 259; ochre, 127, 128;
platform, 133, 135; stone, 43, 127,
132, 148, 287
Grottanelli, Vinigi L., 63, 69, 70, 72, 74,
75, 82, 243, 248–50, 258, 263, 270,
295–96, 307
Guba, 48, 86, 88, 95, 127, 138, 140,
146, 157, 163, 175
Gule: language, 176; people, 71, 77,
117, 176, 177. See also Jebel Gule
Gulmao/Gumnao, 248–249
Gumuz: history, 92–98; people, 75. See
also Agäw; Amhara; Boro
guns. See firearms; weapons, automatic
gwahea. See gafea
Gwama, xvii, 107, 255, 265, 274,
275, 297; domestic space, 157,
218, 221; indigenous inhabitants of
Benishangul, 77, 179–80, 225; and
2/25/14 6:21 AM
 370 Index
Koman culture, 70–77, 128, 152,
213, 218, 230, 271, 272, 306, 310,
325, 332; language, 5, 6, 77–78, 249,
pottery, 113, 115, 211, 275–76, 278–
82, 279, 280, 281, 284; relations with
Bertha, 181, 189, 190, 221, relations
with Sith Shwala, 255, 268, 288,
297, 298, 299, 321n12; resettled,
326–328; scarifications, 225, 228
Hadiya, 5, 96, 148
Haile Selassie, Emperor, 96, 108, 109,
111, 166, 270
Hall, Martin, 8
Hamej, 96, 131, 176, 180
hairstyle, 9, 54, 275
harmful traditions, 70, 124, 129, 327
hat, 222, 269–270,
hegemony, xvii, 7, 26, 169, 173, 190,
241, Bertha culture and, 197, 198,
215, 216, 262; and the body, 40;
and Islam, 188, 230, 235, 298; and
morality, 40, 124, 131, 225, 287;
Oromo culture and, 243, 262, 263,
268, 269, 275, 276, 282, 300. See
also time, hegemonic
henmai, 311–13, 319–20
heterotopia, 329
highlands, 87, 92, 100, 101, 109,
112, 113, 122, 179, 186, 197, 209,
246, 251, 276, 282, 332; cultural
geography of, 60, 68, 70, 79–81;
physical geography of, 47–49, 51, 53
Hill Burun. See Burun
Hinnario (kingdom), 57, 246
hippopotamus, 51, 307
historicism, xiv, 16, 17, 20, 28–31, 303
history (as a technology of power),
267–68. See also genealogy
Hodder, Ian, 2, 35, 39, 151
hoe, 71, 79, 107, 108, 112, 115–17, 120,
292
holymen, xvi, 45, 48, 86, 192, 197, 236
honey, 78, 182, 308; gathering, 50, 52,
79, 260, 300, 306, 307, 310, 316,
Book 1.indb 370
322n38, 329–30; rituals related to
honey, 301–2, 304, 307; selling
honey, 78, 249, 300; wine, 263,
297–98, 300, 301, 308, 310. See also
beehive; calabash
horn (musical instrument), 181, 230,
231, 233, 238, 311–314
house: Bertha, 216–20; Gumuz, 137,
138, 144, 145, 148, 152–53, 158,
163–64; Mao, 293–306. See also
domestic space; organization of
space
Hozo (Mao group): and collective
hunting, 311–12; language, 76, 251,
255; material culture, 263, 272, 273,
276, 292, 296, 307; people, 5, 76,
256, 261–66, 268, 282, 284, 285,
299, 315; rituals, 48, 237, 267, 298
hunting: collective hunt, 52, 169,
181–82, 238, 261, 263, 266, 311–15,
319, 320; and culture, 31–32, 72,
182, 256, 266, 306; as an economic
activity, 52, 59, 79, 100, 116, 242,
243, 246, 257, 306, 307; leader, 182,
311–313; rituals, 118, 147, 167, 169,
181–182, 266, 298, 300, and the
state, 319–20, 327, 329; and war, 72,
169, 238, 314–15, 319–320
hybridity, 7, 13–16, 77, 123, 188, 256,
262, 265–66, 269, 276, 296, 330
identity, 7–9, 13, 23–24, 241, 258;
double, 188–90. See also ethnic
identity; ethnicity
Ik’o (God), 153, 317
imperialism, 7, 13–14, 22, 63, 87–88,
89
incense, 50, 56, 73, 97, 152, 215, 236,
266; burner, 154, 156, 211
incorporating practices, 12, 38
inequality, xiv, 18, 108, 112, 211, 289,
332
Ingessana, 71, 85, 113, 163, 179, 180,
196, 238n8; collective hunt, 72, 182,
238; material culture, 72, 117, 131,
2/25/14 6:21 AM
 Index
159, 161, 177, 224, 225, 238; rituals,
48, 74, 143–44, 147, 152, 176, 177
Ingold, Tim, 51
ïnjära (flat bread), 72, 80, 107, 108,
112, 115, 120, 209
intermarriage. See marriage, interethnic
Ishgogo, 220, 293, 310
Ishgogo Gedashola, 265, 270, 294, 295,
301, 322n37
Islam: conversion to, 70, 73, 74, 82,
233, 263, 267, 270, 313; and cultural
change, 126, 128, 133, 140, 188–90;
and cultural memory, 173–74, 183–
88, 268; expansion of, 56, 86–87,
187–89, 243, 246; and hegemony,
xvii, 190, 196, 221, 223, 230, 238,
263, 268, 287, 298, 330; and material
culture, 86, 129, 186, 187 140, 201,
202, 211–16, 218, 235–36, 270, 272;
and religious syncretism, 48, 129,
142, 197–204, 236, 267, 269; and
state, 173, 174, 218, 231, 236, 247.
See also Arafa; holymen; Mawlid
Italian: anthropologists, 75,
missionaries, 87, 176, 200;
occupation, 53, 62–63, 84, 85,
95, 101, 165, 184, 195, 249, 259;
travelers, 89, 175, 176, 200, 270,
315. See also colonialism
ivory, 54, 56, 60, 183
Iyäsu the Great, King, 94
jallāba (merchants), 174, 183, 186–89,
200, 213, 331
jallābiyya, 186, 186, 187, 187, 188, 190,
221–25, 228, 233
James, Wendy, 30, 70, 110, 111, 154,
233, 242, 243, 260, 310, 320n1
Jarenja, 127, 159
Jebel Agaró, 196
Jebelawin (Bertha group), 68, 175, 183,
189, 191, 196
Jebel Gerri, 175
Jebel Gule, 176. See also Gule
Jebel Keili, 175, 177, 238n8
Book 1.indb 371
371
Jebel Sillok. See Sillok
Jebel Tornasi, 175
Jebel Ulu, 175
jebena. See coffee, pots
Jedrej, Charles, xvi, 68, 161
jerry can, 120, 132, 327, 328
Jote Tullu, 61, 184, 321n14
Jum Jum, 61, 166
Kamashi: region, 88, 98, 105, 109, 115,
116, 118, 129, 130, 138, 140, 141,
152, 164, 165, 167, 258; relations
between Gumuz and Oromo in, 95,
99, 108, 110, 123, 134, 166
Kambata, 5, 96, 120
Kafa (kingdom), 57, 152, 245–47, 255,
298, 308, 320n1, 321n6,
Kafficho, 65
K’ämant, 82, 87, 142, 147–48, 197, 263,
285
Kar Range, 98, 131
Karkege, 263, 266, 278, 283, 322n36
kedderaso, 249
keffiyeh, 221
Kenya, 247
Kerma (kingdom), 54, 56
Keser, 274, 278, 327–29
khalwa/kalwa, 86, 161, 215, 289,
Khartoum, 169, 315
Khojele, Sheikh, 61, 62, 85, 184, 189,
190, 194, 195, 203, 228, 256
Khomosha, 187, 192, 194, 203, 213,
232, 235
king killing, 27, 69, 175–77
knowledge and power, 63, 107–12, 118,
129, 152, 267
Kobor, 199, 213, 214, 308
K’oli Cherpa, 265, 323n46
Koma. See Komo
Koman: culture, 193, 225, 254, 266,
272, 278, 280, 310, 311; languages,
75–78, 176, 251, 255, 293; material
culture, 125–26, 153, 180, 254, 271,
272, 281; peoples, xvii, 15, 70, 75–
78, 82, 103, 181, 225, 254, 310, 325
2/25/14 6:21 AM
 372
Komo: adornments, 128, 130, 225,
272, domestic space, 148, 149, 151,
156–157, 161, 218, 221, 288, 298;
ethnic name (generic), 77, 78, 179,
189, 193, 255, 256–57, 278, 280,
306, 321n12; people, xvii, 5, 63,
64, 66, 67, 70, 72, 76–79, 81, 117,
128, 173, 174, 182, 198, 230, 243,
248, 257, 265, 271, 306, 307, 332;
pottery, 113, 115, 210, 211, 213,
275–76; rituals, 73, 198, 230, 298,
300; and resettlement, 71, 325–28;
and slavery, 58, 61, 156, 190, 196,
255,
Konch (kingdom), 246, 247
Kopytoff, Igor, 14–15
Kuch’i, 48, 263, 288, 296
kukullu (ritual specialist), 287, 297–98,
300, 302–4, 322n34, 322n37
kulbeda. See throwing knife
Kulturkreis, 12. See also culture circles
Kunama, 91, 93, 131, 135, 168, 296
K’unfel, 87, 153
Kurmuk, 192, 199, 200,
K’wak’eb, 220, 263, 265, 279
Kwama. See Gwama; Sith Shwala
Kwegu, 65, 248, 276
K’wolla, 48
Lambie, Thomas, 49–50
Lalibela, 54
land grab. See agribusiness companies
Latour, Bruno, 34, 135
legibility, 71, 88, 97
Lemonnier, Pierre, 34, 161
Le Roux, Hughes, 98
Lévi-Strauss, Claude, 17, 21, 22, 27,
80, 305
Lightfoot, Kent, 13
lineage 249; matrilineage, 70–71, 126,
183; patrilineage, 104, 284
liquor. See aräk’i
lion, 51, 180
Lop’i, 265, 289, 292, 302, 322n22,
322n32
Book 1.indb 372
Index
Lotuko, 198
lowlands, 62, 80, 82, 94, 99, 100,
106, 108, 156, 184, 251; cultural
geography of, 67, 74–79, 92, 93, 152,
193–94, 272; physical geography of,
47–52; as space of predation, 16, 49,
56, 58, 61, 88, 91–95, 98, 163, 170;
as space of resistance, xvii, 48,
170, 192, 221, 225, 255–56, 306,
329
Lugo, 99, 101, 116, 118, 141, 166
Maataba, 117, 171n20
Maaban, 117, 166
magic, 20; and Boro (Shinasha), 152;
and Islam, 199–201; as technology,
118
Mahdiyyah, 53, 60–61, 86, 87, 180. See
also dervishes
Majangir, 5, 71, 76, 78–79, 113, 248,
275, 292, 306–8
makk, 69, 77, 176, 177, 184
Mandura, 88, 95, 98, 103, 109, 131,
142, 155, 159, 166, 167
mangëma. See ritual, of conflict
resolution
manjil, 57, 69, 95, 175, 176
Manjo, 246, 255
Mao: concept of, 75, 242; history,
242–256; invisibilization of, 241–42,
257–65, 269, 278; relations with
Bertha, 256, 262, 266, 268, 275, 276,
278, 281, 282, 288, 303; relations
with Busase, 248–256; relations
with Komo, 248–249, 255–256, 265,
278, 280, 289, 297, 298, 300, 306;
relations with Oromo, 255–256, 262–
265, 269, 280–285, 289–292, 290,
291, 306, 319–20. See also Amam;
Bambasi; Hozo (Mao group); Seze
(Mao group); Sith Shwala
marginalization, xvii, 16, 32, 33, 59,
65, 80, 110, 190, 242, 257, 263, 269,
331; of craft workers, 70, 205, 276,
289
2/25/14 6:21 AM
 Index
Markakis, John, 65, 80
market, 93, 177, 192, 197, 289, 310,
311; absence of, 120; and forest
products, 249, 292, 307, 308; and
industrial products, 120, 129; and
liquor, 119–20; and pottery, 120,
205, 210, 211, 213–216, 214, 276,
277, 280, 281, 282, 287; as space
for interethnic encounters, 120, 124,
126, 132, 140, 141, 195, 222, 264,
273; and traditional medicines, 199,
200. See also slavery, market
Marno, Ernst, 89, 126, 178, 179, 196,
218, 219, 233, 317
maroon communities, 9–10
marriage, 69, 144, 146, 147; among
cousins, 70; by bridewealth, 70, 134,
135, 166, 284; ceremony, 116, 124,
127, 147, 186–88, 230–33, 232;
interethnic, 58, 68, 76, 78, 82, 120,
134, 183, 220, 256, 284; by sister
exchange, 67, 70, 78, 101, 103, 104,
132, 134, 136, 142, 147, 263, 266,
327–28
Mätahara, 62, 76
Mätämma, 91, 96, 98
material culture studies, 4, 36–37, 259
materiality, 33–43, 51, 52, 161, 182,
269, 285, 298, 314, and archaeology,
xiii, xiv, xv, 3, 4, 11, 35, 38, 331,
and the body, 123–124, double,
204–230; of nonmodern societies, 2,
32, 34, 41–42, and resistance, 11, 16,
28, 33, 115, 305, 331
Matteucci, Pellegrino, vi, 89, 175, 180,
196, 270, 315, 320
matrifocality, 70–71, 126
Mawlid (festival), 223, 228, 235,
236
Mawo, 246, 248, 289
Mbembe, Achille, 59
McCann, James, 79
Meban. See Maaban
Medhicha. See ritual, of adoption/
assimilation
Book 1.indb 373
373
medicine (traditional): Bertha, 52, 197–
200, 202, 203, 221; Gumuz, 52, 74,
118, 143, 152, 167, 169
memory: and the body, 225–28,
collective/cultural, x, 15, 85, 174,
180, 256, 262, 263, 268, 300, 303,
306; of the forest, 182, 256, 305–6,
314; and houses, 163–64, 206,
220, 303–4; and hunting, 181–82,
material, 135, 174–88, 206, 220, 262,
292, 306, 310; traumatic, 162–64,
170, 256. See also Funj, mystique;
incorporating practices
Mendi, 76, 213, 251
Menge, 177, 192, 194, 203, 209, 236,
268
menstruation, 127, 138, 143–45, 147,
148, 151, 162
–
merchant. See jalla ba; trade
Meroe (kingdom), 53–54, 56, 93, 206,
207
met’ad (pot), 120, 282,
Metekel, 50, 63, 70, 82, 87, 93, 107,
109, 111, 113, 119, 162, 169;
conflicts in, 98, 99, 103–105; Gumuz
material culture in, 113, 115, 124,
126, 127, 129, 138–41, 157, 158,
165; raids in, 49, 94; resettlement
and development plans in, 64, 96,
97, 151
michu. See ritual, of friendship
Millenium Dam, 97
Miller, Daniel, 7–8
millet, 72, 103, 119, 136, 153
mimicry, xvii, 241, 265, 320, 330
Mïnïlïk, Emperor, 61, 62, 84, 95, 98,
100, 184
minorities, 65, 71, 111, 257
Mis’a. See Mus’a
misbaha (prayer beads), 272
missionaries, 11, 19, 21, 48, 89, 97, 123,
242; American, 49, 84, 87; Catholic,
75, 88, 167; Ethiopian, 87, 246;
Italian, 63, 176, 186, 200; Muslim,
86–87; Protestant, 77, 87–88, 97.
2/25/14 6:21 AM
 374 Index
See also Christianity; evangelization;
Islam
mobility: anthropological concept of,
23–24; traditional, 50, 71, 81, 100,
163, 292, 326, 329
modernity, 7, 37, 91, 101, 188, 190,
329; and anthropology, 19–22, 31;
and history, 19, 25–26
Mohammed Hassen, 257, 320
montagnard paléonigritiques, 148
moral economy, 68, 116, 120, 272, 288,
289, 328
Moses, 142, 172n43
Mugi, 258–61, 265, 307
Murle, 67
Mus’a (spirits), 73, 142, 143, 145, 152–
54; Mus’a Mets’a, 138, 153
Mus’a Mado, 213, 219, 220, 265, 282,
289, 291, 310, 314–15
music, 154, 184, 187, 230–38, 263, 267,
311, 314
näft’äñña, 62, 81, 256
Napata (kingdom), 54
Nech’i Taro, 251–52
Negasso Gidada, 252
Nekemt, 63, 87, 254
Nera (people), 131, 296
ŋeri (ritual specialist), 197–99, 200,
201, 202, 203, 231, 239n9, 322n34
Nile, 56. See also Blue Nile
non-governmental organization, 59, 292,
329
Nilo-Saharan languages, 65, 69, 74–76,
78–79, 245, 249, 251, 255, 280, 297
Nilotes, 69, 70
Nuba, 39, 48, 148, 151, 198,
Nubia/Nubians, 54, 56, 125
nudity: in Bertha culture, 196, 233,
238n8; in Gumuz culture, 110, 124,
127, 131; in Mao culture, 271, 287;
and resistance, 40, 124, 327; and the
state, 64, 67, 123, 124, 140, 327. See
also body, decoration
Nuer, 5, 39, 67, 69, 72, 78, 206, 307
Book 1.indb 374
Obora, 203, 204, 223, 228, 230, 231,
236; pottery, 205, 209, 210
ochre, 54, 123, 126, 127, 128, 275
Ometo languages, 243
Omo (river), 62, 67, 103, 243
Omotic languages, 65, 74–76, 78, 80,
82, 83, 243, 245, 251, 280, 296, 297.
See also Gonga, languages
Ondonok, 192, 194, 195, 208, 215–16,
233–35, 234
oneiromancy. See dreams
ontology: and epistemology, 109; and
materiality, xv–xvi, 32, 35–37, 40,
138, 141, 220, 228, 229, 314, 327;
political ontology of resistance, 10,
40, 332; security, 23, 37, 306; of self
and material culture, 31–32, 36, 107,
141, 151, 170, 216, 228–30, 317,
329; and the unconscious, 37, 332
Opuuo, xvii, 5, 72, 77–78, 113, 218,
325
organization of space: in houses, 144,
152–53, 155, 163–64, 165, 216–21,
219, 222, 293–95, 294, 298; in
villages, 154–64, 157, 159, 160,
288–92, 290, 291
origin myth: Bertha, 176–77, 180;
Busase and Gonga, 58, 249, 251–53;
Gumuz, 72, 106–12, 115, 118, 167;
Mao, 267–68, 303, 322n22
Oromo: Afre, 24; dealing with
otherness, 58, 95, 104, 122–23, 247,
257, 261–65; expansion, 247–48,
253; as hegemonic culture, 241, 263,
268–69, 276, 300; houses, 293–95,
294; Leqa, 292; Liberation Front,
261; Macha, 247; nationalism, 65,
81, 261; pottery, 209, 260, 276,
278, 280, 281, 282, 285; Sadacha,
247; Sayo, 63, 252, 276; Sibu, 315;
spears, 317, 318
Ottoman. See Turco-Egyptians
outpost, 57, 87
ox, 49, 52, 79, 108, 116, 146, 256,
292
2/25/14 6:21 AM
 Index
patriarchy, 282–83
Pawe, 64, 88, 98, 103, 127
peasant: communities of Ethiopia, xvi,
60, 68, 79–83; communities living in
the Sudanese-Ethiopian borderland,
84, 96, 99, 165, 183, 256;
perceptions and use of landscape,
100, 300, 306
phallic symbols, 153, 237, 245
piercing, 126, 128, 225, 226
plow, 48, 52, 71, 79–80, 81, 107–8, 112,
115–16, 287, 292, 306, 332
pole (central), 137, 144, 152, 153, 154,
155,
pollution, 133, 134, 143, 144, 146, 147,
148, 151, 164
porridge, 72, 107–108, 112, 115, 119,
137, 145, 151, 153, 218, 280, 282,
313
postcolonialism, xv, 2, 3, 12–15, 27, 34,
123, 332
postmodernism, 3, 8, 20, 22, 24, 30, 38,
331–32
potter: female, 117–20, 201, 205–6,
209–10, 276, 278, 282, 327; male,
211–16, 285, 287
pottery: consumption of, 120, 121, 211,
215, 280–83; cooking, 120, 121,
151, 209, 213, 215, 278, 281, 282;
decoration of, 113, 136, 137, 278,
279, 280; and ethnic identity, 120,
121, 280–83; making, 144, 148, 209–
213, 277–80, 279, 285, 287; selling,
209, 211, 213, 214, 215; typology
of, 115, 207, 209, 281; surface
treatment, 209–13, 210, 276, 278
praying, 73, 144, 152–154; Christian,
141; Islamic, 48, 86, 196, 201, 204,
215, 236, 269, 272; traditional,
152–54, 267, 269, 297–300, 312,
317, 319, 327
Pre-Nilotes, 29, 69, 72
predation. See state, predatory
protection: against disease, 151, 200;
against pollution and spirits, 147,
Book 1.indb 375
375
151, 153, 176, 200, 201; against
tangible enemies, 158–63, 180, 218,
307
psychoanalysis, x, xiv, xv, xvi, 30–31,
38–40
Pueblo Revolt, 8–10
Quran, 184, 198–203, 263
Quranic school, 86, 203
race, 47, 74, 92, 188, 194, 196, 331;
black Bertha, 128, 183, 189, 193,
194, 231; black Gumuz, 54, 75, 87,
92–93, 100, 107–10, 125, 127; black
Mao, 253, 259, 262, 269, 284, 297,
331; red, 74, 87, 92, 107, 134, 164,
194
rainmaker/rainmaking, 73, 154, 176,
198, 266,
rebellion, 8–10, 68, 80, 86, 87, 99, 100,
249, 253, 256, 300, 319, 330, 331,
332
red. See race
Red Sea, 54, 56
religion: and syncretism, 142, 157, 196,
198–204, 268, 269; traditional, 69,
73, 83, 118, 215, 245, 267, 270, 327;
universalist, 58, 68, 71, 80–82, 85–
86, 97, 148, 157, 174, 197, 199, 215,
267, 298, 300. See also Christianity;
Islam
resettlement: of highlanders, 52, 62,
64–65, 67, 80–81, 96–99, 103, 108,
111, 128, 131, 151, 169, 190, 211,;
of lowlanders, 76, 78, 135, 158, 164,
165, 166, 195, 235, 293, 325–30
resilience, 9–10, 98, 135, 189, 280, 310,
326, 330, 331
resistance: escape as, 9–10, 20, 30,
68, 83, 91, 94, 248, 255, 256, 278,
306, 325–26; forms of, xiii, 8–11;
political ontology of, 10, 40; as
surrender, 289, 331; violent, 92–103,
98, 256, 303, 315. See also rebellion;
resilience
2/25/14 6:21 AM
 376 Index
revolt. See rebellion
ritual: of adoption/assimilation, 58, 104,
247, 257; cleansing, 74, 143–44,
151, of conflict resolution, 71,
99–100, 103–5, 106, 110 134, 146,
283, 314, 317, 319; of friendship, 95,
104; house, 295–305; prohibitions,
72, 138, 144, 147, 167, 196,
specialist, 78, 118, 134–35, 142,
143, 151–52, 154, 167, 169, 197,
198, 163, 266, 298, 300, 302, 327.
See also commemorative ceremony;
divination; gafea; gola; king killing;
kukullu; ŋeri; sith bish
rock art, 48, 125, 126, 201, 223, 225, 236
rocky outcrop, 47–48, 94, 181
rooster, 137, 153, 231
Roseires (Sudan), 62, 95, 175, 176
Rubin, Jeffrey W., 10
Rubo, 263, 265, 282, 284, 289, 293, 294
Russegger, Joseph, 89
Sabu. See Shabo
sacred stones, 175–77, 179
sacrifice, 39, 74, 91, 105, 116, 137, 145,
154, 158, 175, 300, 302
Sahlins, Marshall, 18–19
salt, 93, 119, 153, 308, 310
Salt, Henry, vi, 88, 112, 146, 169
Särs’ä Dïngïl, King, 49, 127
Sasu, 93
scarifications: Bertha, 223, 225, 227,
228; as element of identity among
lowlanders, 39, 40, 70, 74, 263;
Gumuz, 124, 125, 126–27, 130, 136,
137, 138, 140; and material culture,
136, 137, 138, 140, prohibition of
practicing, 124, 126, 327
schooling, 61, 66, 108–9, 132, 138, 141,
154, 243, 313, 326, 329–30
Scott, James C., 8, 9, 12, 20, 23, 25, 30,
31, 45, 85
Schuver, Juan Maria, vi, 51, 86–89,
127–29, 146, 196, 197, 216, 218,
253, 270, 311, 313, 315
Book 1.indb 376
seasons: dry, 51–52, 93, 113, 158,
160, 180, 223, 311, 320, 329; rainy,
51–52, 53, 252, 261, 300
Second World War. See war, World
War II
Sensahalu, 217
servants, 32, 110, 116, 245, 249, 252,
255, 256, 285
sesame, 116, 126, 162
settlement. See organization of space, in
villages
Seze (Mao group): and collective
hunting, 261, 311–15, 320; language,
75–76, 251, 255–56, 261; and
material culture, 276, 278, 282;
people, 5, 75–76, 242, 262–68, 285,
289, 292, 306; rituals, 230, 237, 266,
267, 268, 298, 302–3
Shabo, 78
Shank’ïlla, 88, 92–94, 98, 109, 169,
170
sheep, 147, 154, 302, 327
Shekka (kingdom), 57
Shekkacho, 5, 78
sheki, 197, 203, 204
Shera K’ama, 289
shetab. See storing platform
shïfta. See banditry/bandits
Shinasha. See Boro
shrine, 48, 176–177
Shukriyya, 96, 223
Shangalla. See Shank’ïlla
Sherkole, 217
Shita. See Opuuo
Shura Maramo, 252, 253, 265, 273, 312
Shwa, 92, 107, 109, 112, 118, 146, 167
Sillok, 175, 176, 177
Sinnār, 54, 56–57, 60, 89, 93, 126, 174,
175, 177, 183, 231, 236. See also
Funj, sultanate
Sirba Abay, 87, 157
Sirionó, 31–32
sith bish (ritual specialist), 275, 284,
298, 300–2, 301, 312, 322n34,
322n37
2/25/14 6:21 AM
 Index
Sith Shwala (Mao group): and hunting,
307, 311–12, 313; language, 76, 251;
marrying Oromo, 284–85; material
culture, 262, 285, 286, 293–95, 294,
310, 316; people, 76, 265–66, 289,
292, 306; pottery, 275–82, 277, 281,
283; relation to Kwama/Gwama, 78,
255, 262, 268, 297; and resistance,
193, 242, 262–63, 271, 287; ritual
house, 296–99, 302, 305; rituals,
267, 296–99, 319
slavery: raids, 48, 54, 56, 58, 62, 94–95,
98, 108, 136, 148, 156, 163–64, 218,
247; market, 92, 95, 96; memory of,
xvi, 135, 163–64, 189–90; rejection
of, 70, 116, 135; trade, 11, 45, 48,
56, 61, 62, 95, 148, 180, 189, 228,
255–56, 303, 315
smithing, 117, 118, 129, 144, 146, 177,
246, 272, 276
Soba. See sacred stones
Somalia, 93, 103
sorghum: for beer, 103, 113, 115, 206,
263, cultivation of, 72, 131, 158,
162, 184, 311; for making huts, 289,
292; for porridge, 115; in a ritual
context, 142, 143, 298, 302, 308
Southern Funj, 61, 161, 177, 179, 182
South Sudan, 53, 67, 206
space. See domestic space
Spaulding, Jay, 60
spear, xiv, xvii, 32, 33, 39, 40, 144, 167,
332; Bertha, 178, 179, 181–82; Boro,
317, 318; Gumuz, 166, 168; Mao,
265, 268, 283, 301, 303, 307, 310,
312–20, 316, 318; Oromo, 317, 318
spirits, evil, 48, 73, 142–43, 147, 151,
154, 197, 198, 284; good, 73, 118,
142, 201, 297, 298, 300, 304, 312
state: ancient city-states; 54–56; colonial,
61–63; federal, 63–64; predatory, 59–
61, 94, 98, 151, 162; relations with
egalitarian peoples, 67–68, 79–80,
326–30; totalitarian, 64–67; types of,
53. See also chiefdom; colonialism;
Därg; war
Book 1.indb 377
377
sticks. See carrying stick; digging stick;
throwing stick
storing platform, 154, 181, 182, 218,
289
Suakin, 56
subalternity, xvii, 3, 9, 16, 19, 25–28,
33, 74, 111, 173, 189, 220, 233, 246,
248, 269, 275, 329–30
Sudan: in Bertha memory, 174–88, 206,
215; development of the state in,
53–57, 55, 60–61
Suge, 99
Susïnyos, Emperor, 85, 94, 174, 180, 236
swal kwama. See beehive hut
swal shwombo. See beehive hut
T’ana, Lake, 84, 92, 94, 147, 192
Takruri. See Fulani
Tangaitae, 93
tanning, 59, 209, 210, 246, 257, 276
Taqiyah, 222, 269, 270,
taro, 245–46, 249, 251–53
tax. See tribute
technological change, 206, 211, 265
technology, xiv, 1, 71, 82, 122, 123, of
equality, 107, 117–18, 206, 266, 267,
269, 287; of inequality, 14, 32–33,
61, 164, 329; of the self, 36–37,
130, 168–69, 299, 317. See also
chaîne operatoire; anthropology, of
technology
Teff, 53, 72
temporality: double, 25–27, 32, 188–90,
329; historicist, xiv, 16, 17, 20,
28–31, 33, 303; multiple, 4, 25,
205–206, 266. See also time
T’enze, 195, 265, 276
terra nullius, 64, 96, 98
Tewodros II, Emperor, 84
theft, 83, 94, 98, 162, 319
throwing knife, 72, 177, 179
throwing stick, 32, 72, 126, 167, 177,
195, 272, 303, 314, 320; as core
object, 168, 228–31, 229, 315, 317;
used in dances, 179, 187, 231, 237,
310, 314
2/25/14 6:21 AM
 378
Tilley, Christopher, 35
time: hegemonic, 25–27, 32, 197, 204,
215, 330; subaltern/of tradition, 16,
22, 23, 25–28, 32, 33, 115, 197, 204,
206, 215, 236, 305, 319, 329, 330
tomb, 86, 103, 161, 203, 204, 236, 252
tobe, 222, 223, 224, 225, 228
trade: and Islam, 86, 88, 174, 183, 188,
192, 195; and the state, 56, 59, 93.
See also slavery, trade
trauma, xiv, xvi, 135, 163–64, 184, 189,
220, 242, 264, 274, 331
travelers, 40, 42, 47, 49, 63, 85, 88, 89,
98, 168, 169, 197, 216, 242
tribute, 10, 15–16, 57, 59–60, 62, 67,
74, 79–80, 82, 94–95, 99, 148, 162,
183–84, 252, 329
Triulzi, Alessandro, 56, 57, 174, 182
trypanosomiasis, 49, 79
Tulu Bundara, 265, 276
Tulu Welel. See Welel, Mount
Tupi-Guarani, 31–32, 107
Turco-Egyptians, 52, 60–61, 86, 89,
119, 180, 184, 196, 256, 315
Turks. See Turco-Egyptians
Turner, Victor, 235
Uduk: culture, 70–72, 77, 238, 311;
history, 61, 189; material culture, 72,
128, 130, 156, 167, 237, 271; and
resistance, 107, 110, 111; rituals,
73–74, 126, 152, 196–98, 235
the unconscious, 37–40; and materiality,
xvi, 38–39, 164, 299; and resistance,
9, 12, 40, 319, 332
Undulu, 189, 192–95
Ura, 203, 205
veil, 140, 222, 225, 228, 236, 237, 271
village. See organization of space, in
villages
villagization. See resettlement
violence: gender, 141–42; and
resistance, 10, 85, 91, 98–101, 103,
Book 1.indb 378
Index
319–320, 330; social, 42, 92,
98–101, 103, 106, 180–81, 332;
state, xvi, 6, 14, 16, 26, 59, 60, 63,
92, 97, 101, 103
Viveiros de Castro, Eduardo, 107
Wadai, 179
wage labor, 70, 116, 260, 332
Wällägga, 87, 98, 284
Wämbära, 50, 58, 83–84, 99, 100, 109,
152, 153, 166, 170, 247
war, 130, 136, 152, 167, 169, 179, 218,
236, 245, 315, 319; anticolonial,
63; chief, 256, 320; civil, 10, 20,
64, 67, 99, 326; dances, 238, 303,
311; ethnic, 64, 67, 98; holy, 67,
247; memory of, 303, 304; and
resistance, 91, 101, 158, 169; in state
borderlands, 14, 87, 100; World War
II, 101, 108
warlord, 11, 60, 83–84
warthog, 72, 169, 269, 307, 313
wasa (music), 187, 230–33, 232, 235,
236, 237, 238
Watawit (Bertha group), 60, 183–184,
189, 194, 196
Wäyna Däga, 49
weapons: automatic, 67, 99, 100,
102, 154, 164, 166, 283, 317, 332;
and cultural memory, 169–70,
177–79, 182, 230, 304, 317, 319;
of resistance, xiv, xvii, 111, 124; as
technology of the self, 102, 168–69,
177–79, 181, 315; traditional, 32, 67,
72, 144, 154, 164–70, 181–82, 201,
245, 283, 311, 331, 332. See also
arrows; bow; firearms; spear
weather, 51–53
wedding ceremony. See marriage
Weld Blundell, Herbert, 49
Welel, Mount, 48, 252
wereda (municipality), x, 194, 196,
258–60, 264, 314,
Whitehead, Neil, 14, 100–1
2/25/14 6:21 AM
 Index 379

Wolde-Selassie Abbute, 94, 147, 151, Yamba (God), 71, 73, 108
Wolf, Eric, 18–19, 22, 25, Yengu, 149
Wollo, 64, 131 Yere/Yero (God), 73, 266, 267, 269,
Wonchi, Lake, 243 297
work party, 113, 115, 206, 216, 235, 269 Yetti, 259
World Vision (NGO), 329 Yïshak, King, 93
writing, and art, 138, 140, 212; and
magic, 200–1; and the state, 6, 20, Žižek, Slavoj, 11, 264, 331
57, 81, 97 Zäläk’ä Lïk’u, 62, 95
zumbara (music), 187, 231, 233, 235–
Yabus (river), 61, 77, 78, 251, 255, 315, 36, 237
326

Book 1.indb 379 2/25/14 6:21 AM

Book 1.indb 380 2/25/14 6:21 AM
 About the Author

Alfredo González-Ruibal is an archaeologist with the Institute of Heritage

Sciences–Spanish National Research Council (Incipit-CSIC). His work fo-
cuses on the archaeology of the present and the recent past. He has conducted
fieldwork in Ethiopia, Equatorial Guinea, Brazil, and Spain. He has recently
edited Reclaiming Archaeology: Beyond the Tropes of Modernity (2013).

381

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Book 1.indb 382 2/25/14 6:21 AM