Borana Oromo people

The Borana people, also called the Boran or Boran Diree, together with Gabra People, share common forefather known as Diree Irir. Boran is a tribe of the Oromo ethnic group. They live in the former Sidamo Region Borena Zone of Ethiopia and the former Northern Frontier District (now northern Kenya) together with their Somali Cousins.[2][6] They speak Afaan Boran language. Which is a dialect of Afaan Oromo. The Oromo language. [6] The Borana people are notable for practicing Gadaa system without interruption.[7] Borana people don't name their children for up to three years.[8]

Borana

Borana women
Regions with significant populations
874,000 Ethiopia 276,236 Kenya[1] 10,000 Somalia
Languages
Afaan Boraan[2]
Religion
Islam, predominately Sunni Muslim.[3][4]
Related ethnic groups
Other Cushite peoples[5] and Somalis

Demography and language

Borana girls in Ethiopia

The Borana people, empowered by their Gadda political and military organization expanded in the other directions, regions now called western Shawa, Welega, Illubabor, Kaffa, Gamu Goffa, Sidamo and thereafter into what is now northern Kenya regions. The Borana further subdivided into various subgroups such as Macha, Tulama, Sadacha and others.[9]

The Borana speak Borana (or afaan Booranaa),which is part of the Cushites branch of the Afro-Asiatic family of languages. In the border regions of Ethiopia-Kenya and southwestern Somalia, one estimate places about 1,094,000 people as Boranas.[10] Another estimate in 2019 suggests 874,000 Boranas in Ethiopia, 210,000 in Kenya and 10,000 in Somalia.[6] The Borana are the Cushites south west Horners of the Horn of Africa the Somali peninsula.[11]

History

The Borana, Gabbra they share a common forefather known as Diree Irrir together with Sakuye peoples are ethnic groups of its own, and share culture with Somalis,Oromo and other Cushite groups from the Horn of Africa from southern Ethiopia entered northern Kenya during the 16th century. They then differentiated into the cattle-keeping Borana, while the Gabbra and Sakuye specialized in camel-keeping. They lived together, each with different pastoral focus. As competition for grazing lands and resources increased, conflicts emerged.[12]

Society

Gadaa

The Borana people were traditionally a culturally homogeneous society with genealogical ties.[13] The Borana[6] communities governed themselves in accordance with gadaa (literally "era"), a limited democratic socio-political system long before the 16th century, when major three party wars commenced between them and the Christian kingdom to their north and Islamic sultanates to their east and south. The Gadaa system elected males from five Borana miseensa (groups), for a period of eight years, for various judicial, political, ritual and religious roles. Retirement was compulsory after the eight year term, and each major clan followed the same gadaa system.[13] Women and people belonging to the lower Borana castes were excluded.[14] Male born in the upper Borana society went through five stages of eight years, where his life established his role and status for consideration to a gadaa office.[13]

Under gadaa, every eight years, the Boran would choose by consensus an Abbaa Bokkuu responsible for justice, peace, judicial and ritual processes, an Abbaa Duulaa responsible as the war leader, an Abbaa Sa'aa responsible as the leader for cows, and other positions.[15]

Social stratification

Like other ethnic groups in the Horn of Africa and East Africa, Borana people regionally developed social stratification consisting of four hierarchical strata. The highest strata were the nobles called the Borana, below them were the Gabbaro (some 17th to 19th century Ethiopian texts refer them as the dhalatta). Below these two upper castes were the despised castes of artisans, and at the lowest level were the slaves.[16][17]

See also

• Cushites
• Somali

Notes

1. "2019 Kenya Population and Housing Census Volume IV: Distribution of Population by Socio-Economic Characteristics". Kenya National Bureau of Statistics. Retrieved 24 March 2020.
2. Oromo, Borana-Arsi-Guji (Ethnologue)
3. Aguilar, Mario (1996). "The Eagle as Messenger, Pilgrim and Voice: Divinatory Processes among the Waso Boorana of Kenya". Journal of Religion in Africa. 26 (Fasc. 1): 56–72. doi:10.1163/157006696X00352. JSTOR 1581894.
4. The Oromo of East Africa, Southwestern Journal of Anthropology, Vol. 12, No. 2 (Summer, 1956), pages 171-190
5. Sarah Tishkoff; et al. (2009). "The Genetic Structure and History of Africans and African Americans" (PDF). Science. 324 (5930): 1035–44. Bibcode:2009Sci...324.1035T. doi:10.1126/science.1172257. PMC 2947357. PMID 19407144. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2017-08-08. Retrieved 2017-12-07.
6. Steven L. Danver (2015). Native Peoples of the World: An Encyclopedia of Groups, Cultures and Contemporary Issues. Routledge. pp. 24–25. ISBN 978-1-317-46400-6.
7. "Borana in Ethiopa".
8. "Why Borana people don't name their children for up to three years".
9. Asafa Jalata (2010), Borana Peoplehood: Historical and Cultural Overview, Sociology, University of Tennessee Press, pages 5, 11-12
10. Appiah & Gates 2010, p. 196.
11. Cossins, Noel J., and Martin Upton. "The Borana pastoral system of southern Ethiopia." Agricultural Systems 25.3 (1987): 199-218.
12. Elliot Fratkin; Eric Abella Roth (2006). As Pastoralists Settle: Social, Health, and Economic Consequences of the Pastoral Sedentarization in Marsabit District, Kenya. Springer. pp. 38–39. ISBN 978-0-306-48595-4.
13. Tesema Ta'a (2006). The Political Economy of an African Society in Transformation: the Case of Macca Oromo (Ethiopia). Otto Harrassowitz Verlag. pp. 24–25. ISBN 978-3-447-05419-5.
14. Paul Trevor William Baxter; Jan Hultin; Alessandro Triulzi (1996). Being and Becoming Oromo: Historical and Anthropological Enquiries. Nordic Africa Institute. pp. 252–253. ISBN 978-91-7106-379-3., Quote: "gadaa government was a preclass institution based on democratic principles even though it did exclude caste groups such as smiths and tanners, and women (...)".
15. Tesema Ta'a (2006). The Political Economy of an African Society in Transformation: the Case of Macca Oromo (Ethiopia). Otto Harrassowitz Verlag. pp. 26–27. ISBN 978-3-447-05419-5.
16. J. Abbink (1985), Review: Oromo Religion. Myths and Rites of the Western Oromo of Ethiopia by Lambert Bartels, Journal: Anthropos, Bd. 80, H. 1./3. (1985), pages 285-287
17. Paul Trevor William Baxter; Jan Hultin; Alessandro Triulzi (1996). Being and Becoming Oromo: Historical and Anthropological Enquiries. Nordic Africa Institute. pp. 254–256. ISBN 978-91-7106-379-3.

References

• Appiah, Kwame Anthony; Gates, Henry Louis, Jr., eds. (2010), Encyclopedia of Africa, Oxford University Press, ISBN 978-0-19-533770-9

Further reading

• Asmarom Legesse. Gada Three Approaches to the Study of African Society. The Free Press A Division of McMillan Co. Inc, 1973
• Beckingham and G.W.B. Huntingford, Some records of Ethiopia Hakluyt Society, 1954
• Bassi Marco, Decisions in the Shade. Political and juridical processes among the Oromo-Borana Red Sea Press, 2005
• Clifford H F Plowman CMG OBE, Notes On The Gedamoch Ceremonies Among The Boran, Journal of the Royal African Society, Vol. 18, No. 70 (Jan 1919), pp. 114-121