Gurage people

Gurage

Total population
1,867,377 (2007 census)[1]
Regions with significant populations
Languages
Gurage languages, Amharic
Religion
Islam, Christianity
Related ethnic groups
Amhara • Oromo • Somali • Tigray • Tigre

The Gurage people are an ethnic group in Ethiopia. According to the 2007 national census, its population is 1,867,377 people (or 2.53% of the total population of Ethiopia), of whom 792,659 are urban dwellers. This is 2.53% of the total population of Ethiopia, or 7.52% of the Southern Nations, Nationalities, and People's Region (SNNPR).^[1] The Gurage people inhabit a fertile, semi-mountainous region in southwest Ethiopia, about 150 miles southwest of Addis Ababa, bordering the Awash River in the north, the Gibe River (a tributary of the Omo) to the southwest, and Lake Zway in the east.

The languages spoken by the Gurage are known as the Gurage languages. The variations among these languages are used to group the Gurage people into three dialectically varied subgroups, Northern, Eastern and Western. However, the largest group within the Eastern subgroup, known as the Silt'e, identify foremost as Muslims.^[2] In 2000, the Silt'e, refusing to identify as Gurage, voted overwhelmingly for the establishment of a separate special administrative unit within SNNPR by the EPRDF government.^[2]

Description

According to the historian Paul B. Henze, their origins are explained by traditions of a military expedition to the south during the last years of the Aksumite Empire, which left military colonies that eventually became isolated from both northern Ethiopia and each other.^[3]

The majority of the inhabitants of the Gurage Zone were reported as Muslim, with 51.02% of the population reporting that belief, while 41.91% practiced Ethiopian Orthodox Christianity, 5.79% were Protestants, and 1.12% Catholic.^[4] According to the 1994 Ethiopian census, self-identifying Gurage comprise about 4.3% of Ethiopia's population, or about 3 million people.^[5]

The Gurage live a sedentary life based on agriculture, involving a complex system of crop rotation and transplanting. Ensete is their main staple crop, but other cash crops are grown, which include coffee and chat. Animal husbandry is practiced, but mainly for milk supply and dung. Other foods consumed include green cabbage, cheese, butter, and roasted grains, with meat consumption being very limited (also used in rituals or ceremonies).

The Gurage, the writer Nega Mezlekia notes, "have earned a reputation as skilled traders".^[6] One example of an enterprising Gurage is one Tekke, whom Nathaniel T. Kenney described as "an Ethiopian Horatio Alger, Jr.":

He began his career selling old bottles and tin cans; the Emperor [Haile Selassie] recently rewarded his achievement in creating his plantation by calling him to Addis Ababa and decorating him.^[7]

Agriculture and ensete

"Ensete is totally involved in every aspect of the daily social and ritual life of the Gurage, who, with several others tribes in Southwest Ethiopia, form what has been termed the Ensete Culture Complex area... the life of the Gurage is enmeshed with various uses of ensete, not the least of which is nutritional."^[8]

The principal crop of the Gurage is ensete (also enset, ensete edulis, äsät or "false banana plant"). This has a massive stem that grows underground and is involved in every aspect of Gurage life. It has a place in everyday interactions among community members as well as specific roles in rituals. For example: the ritual uses of Ensete include wrapping a corpse after death with the fronds and tying off the umbilical cord after birth with an ensete fiber; the practical uses include wrapping goods and fireproofing thatch.^[8] Ensete is also exchanged as part of a variety of social interactions, and used as a recompense for services rendered.^[9]

In addition to this plant, a few cash crops are maintained (notably coffee and qat) and livestock is raised (mainly for milk and fertilizer). Ensete can be prepared in a variety of ways. A normal Gurage diet consists primarily of kocho, a thick bread made from ensete, and is supplemented by cabbage, cheese, butter and grains. Meat is not consumed on a regular basis, but usually eaten when an animal is sacrificed during a ritual or ceremonial event.^[8] The Gurage pound the root of the Ensete to extract the edible substance, then place it in deep pits between the rows of ensete plants in the field. It ferments in the pit, which makes it more palatable. It can be stored for up to several years in this fashion, and the Gurage typically retain large surpluses of ensete as a protection against famine.^[9] The resulting paste is used to make porridge and bread. The only way to eat ensete is to make into a paste.^{[citation needed]}

The Gurage raise Zebu cattle. These cattle give very little milk, which is seldom drunk. Instead, it is churned into butter, and a typical Gurage household has a large quantity of spiced butter aging in clay pots hung from the walls of their huts. Butter is believed to be medicinal, and the Gurage often take it internally or use it a lotion or poultice. A Gurage proverb states that "A sickness that has the upperhand over butter is destined for death." Different species of ensete are also eaten to alleviate illness. ^[10]

The Gurage regard overeating as coarse and vulgar, and regard it as poor etiquette to eat all of the ensete that a host passes around to guests. It is considered polite to leave at least some ensete bread even after a very small portion is passed around. ^[11]

It is typically expected that a Gurange will extend hospitality to their neighbors and kinfolk in dispensing ensete freely to them. However, Gurage often hoard extra food and eat it secretly to avoid having to share it. ^[12]

'Kocho

'Kocho is made by shaping the Ensete paste to a thick circle and wrapping it in a thin layer of ensete leaves. Its baked in a small pit with coals. Sometimes the paste is just cooked over a griddle. In episode 8 in bizarre foods, Andrew Zimmern tasted the 'Kocho and said it tasted like nothing and it made his mouth dry.^{[citation needed]}

Spirit possession

The Gurage sometimes experience spirit possession. William A. Shack postulated that spirit possession is caused by Gurange cultural attitudes about food and hunger, because while they have a plentiful food supply, cultural pressures that force the Gurange to either share it to meet social obligations, or hoard it and eat it secretly cause them anxiety. Distinctions are drawn between spirits that only possess men, spirits that only possess women, and spirits that possess victims of either sex. A ritual illness that only affects men believed to because by a spirit called awre. This affliction presents itself by loss of appetite, nausea, and attacks from severe stomach pains. If it persists the victim may enter a trancelike stupor, in which he sometimes regains consciousness long enough to take food and water. Breathing is often labored. Seizures and trembling overcome the patient, and in extreme cases, even partial paralysis of the extremities. ^[13]

If the victim does not recover naturally, a traditional healer, or sagwara, is summoned. Once the sagwara has determined the spirit's name through the use of divinitation, he prescribes a routine formula to exorcise the spirit. This is not a permanent cure, however, it is believed to allow the victim to form a relationship with the spirit. Nevertheless, the victim is subject to chronic repossession, which is treated by repeating the formula. This formula involves the preparation and consumption of a dish of ensente, butter, and red pepper. During this ritual, the victim's head is covered with a drape, and he eats the ensente ravenously while other ritual participants chant. The ritual ends when the possessing spirit announces that it is satisfied. Shack notes that the victims are overwhelmingly poor men, and that women are not as food-deprived as men are due to ritual activities that involve food redistribution and consumption. Shack postulates that the awre serves to bring the possessed man to the center of social attention, and to relieve his anxieties over his inability to gain prestige from redistributing food, which is the primary way in which Gurange men gain status in their society. ^[14]

Notable Gurage

• Imam Baqsa and Imam Hassen Injamo, from Cheha and Kebena, respectively, were two leaders of Gurage resistance movement that began in 1875 against Menelik's campaigns to annex Gurage to his shewa kingdom. In 1878 or earlier, young Habte-Giorgis, presumed to be one of the Gurage resistance fighters of Imam Bqsa and Hassen Injamo, was captured in a battle by Menelik's neftenyas, the armed foot soldiers and paraded in Ankobere. He later successfully integrated himself into the enemy army and became one of its zealots. A firm believer in conquest and plunder, he grew to be a Minister of War and Fitawrari (literally, a battle front leader) in Menelik's expanding feudal kingdom.^[15][16]
• Fitawrari Habte Giyorgis(Aba Mela), Ethiopian Minister of War, during the reigns of Menelik II, Iyasu V, Zauditu and Haile Selassie.
• Abba (Father) François Markos, Catholic priest, social worker, and educator^[17]
• Aster awake(singer)
• Mahmoud Ahmed, singer^[18]

See also

• Soddo language
• Sebat Bet Gurage language

Notes

References

• Shack, William, 1966: The Gurage. A People of the Ensete Culture, London – New York – Nairobi: Oxford University Press.
• Shack, William,1997: "Hunger, Anxiety, and Ritual: Deprivation and Spirit Possession among the Gurage of Ethiopia" in Food and Culture: A Reader (pp. 125–137). Ed. Carole Counihan and Penny van Esterik. New York: Routledge.
• Worku Nida 2005: "Gurage ethno-historical survey". In: Siegbert Uhlig (ed.): Encyclopaedia Aethiopica. Vol. 2: D-Ha. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz. pp. 929–935.

External links

• Gurage Research blog
• Gurage and Silte Research Group
• The Gurage People – Carolyn Ford with SIM in Ethiopia
• Facts about Gurage
• GeoHive
• Google map of Gurage