Nilo-Ethiopian Studies No.22 (2017)

ERl HASHIMOTO

• Profecy and Experience: The Dynamics ofNuer Religious Thought in Post-Independence South Sudan

This article examines how the Nuer people in post-independence South Sudan reinterpret their experiences through past prophecies or kuɔth (divinity), which supports the power of prophecies. The Nuer prophecies, which have been handed down through the generations, are deeply related to the ways that Nuer people cope with new situations such as civil war, development assistance, and national independence. Although most Nuer, including elders, do not know all prophecies, they are told among people based on their personal interests. By referring to two anthropologists, Evans-Pritchard and Lienhardt, this paper explores how the Nuer find their own experiences in the prophecies, focusing on three types of case studies: narratives of prophecy fulfillment; practices where a “church” worships a prophet; and a new prophet that emerged during the 2011 conflicts. These cases show that prophecies which come true and prophets are always judged by people finding an “active subject” (such as kuɔth, Deng, or their ancestors) around themselves or in specific events. Moreover, people who discuss the prophecies by scrutinizing their experiences in relation to active subjects and configurations of experiences start to realize a new realm of being, which can provide them with a way of shaping their own reality.

Keywords: prophecy, experience, kuɔth, Nuer, South Sudan

GEN TAGAWA

• The Logic ofa Generation-Set System and Age-Set System: Reconsidering the Structural Problem ofthe Gadaa System ofthe Borana-Oromo

This article reconsiders the “structural problem” or “demographic contradiction” of the gadaa system of the Borana based on prior research. The Borana are Oromo-speaking pastoralists in southern Ethiopia and northern Kenya. They have two age systems: one is a generation-set system with grades called gadaa, and the other an age-set system called hariya. The gadaa is well known as one of the most complicated age systems in Ethiopian studies and social anthropology. The generation-set continues to recruit members after initiation so that the age gap between members expands over time. Previous studies claim that the age gap makes the age system mal- function, because of the inefficiency to mobilize members. Therefore, previous studies regard the age gap as a structural problem of the gadaa system. In this article, I focus on narratives of the age gap that the Borana express, which prior research has ignored. I conclude that the age gap is indispensable for the gadaa system and is not a structural problem.

Key words: gadaa system, generation-set, age-set, age gap, Borana-Oromo

TOSHIO MEGURO

• Gaps between the lnnovativeness of the Maasai Olympics and the Positionings of Maasai Warriors

Today, the governance and representation of local communities is one of the point at issue in the realm of wildlife conservation, but the relationships between local agencies and external initiatives have so far not been well studied. This article examines the details and outcomes of ‘the Maasai Olympics’, a recently initiated community-based conservation (CBC) programme in southern Kenya. It is an athletic competition for Maasai warriors, intended to provide an alternative to their lion hunting tradition. The Maasai Olympics are said to be ‘an innovative conservation strategy’. On the one hand, this event is similar to other CBC projects that provide local people with economic benefits and environmental education, while emphasizing respect for local traditions, but on the other hand, it is different and ‘innovative’ in that it mentions an unpleasant local custom and tries to change it. Maasai warriors pretend that they are traditional animal lovers and that they approve of the idea of the Maasai Olympics. This reactive behaviour of the Maasai warriors is their ‘positionings’, and corresponds to the ‘African potential’. However, as their positionings are based on the ‘function of interface’ but without de-romanticization, it results in the reinforcement of outsiders’ stereotypical views and values, leaving the local people’s biggest problem unpublicized and unsolved.

Key words: Maasai, Maasai Olympics, conservation, positionings, African potential, Kenya

OSAMU HIEDA

• Dental-alveolar Consonants and [ATR] Vowel Distinction in Western Nilotic

Some predecessors reconstructed the Proto Western Nilotic (PWN) or Proto Nilotic (PN) consonant system with stops based on the phonemic contrasts at five points of articulation. They assumed that the contrastive opposition between dental and alveolar stops had existed in PWN, without submitting evidence to support their reconstruction. In fact, the distinction between dental and alveolar plosives did not exist in PWN. The reconstructed dental-alveolar phonemes {such as a voiceless and voiced plosive, and a nasal) had been pronounced phonetically as a dental before a [-ATR] vowel and as an alveolar before a [+ATR] vowel in PWN. The reconstructed dental-alveolar phonemes split into independent dental and alveolar phonemes in the course of the development of modern languages. PN did not have the contrastive opposition between dental and alveolar consonants, either.

Key words: historical linguistics, phonemic split, dental-alveolar consonants, [ATR], Western Nilotic

NAOAKI IZUMI

• Agro-Pastoral Large-Scale Farmers in East Africa: A Case Study ofMigration and Economic Changes ofthe Sukuma in Tanzania

The Sukuma live mainly in northwestern Tanzania and engage in both farming and livestock rearing. In the 1970s, some ofthem began to migrate southwards in search ofgrazing land. This paper examines characteristics of the economic activity of the Sukuma, who have settled on the shore ofLake Rukwa, in southwestern Tanzania. Their economic activity has features in common with other East Mrican peasant economies, in that it aims to achieve stable self-sustenance, relying primarily on family labor, and in that people started to commercialize their farming and also venture into non-agricultural activities. However, the Sukuma’s activity was also unique in several respects. First, they migrated into a vast, swampy land, which had not before been uti- lized, and they engage in large-scale farming there. Their livestock enabled them to both migrate and farm, as they needed. Second, the basic unit of their large-scale production efforts was the household, a feature that has been formed by characteristics of the pastoral society. The larger these households were, the more labor they were able to employ, and therefore the higher their production. Consequently, it was possible for a household to invest a relatively large amount into non-agricultural activities. They also faced difficulties maintaining traditional cattle rearing practices, which translated into economic problems.

Keywords: livestock, large-scale household, rice farming, non-agricultural business, Lake Rukwa

 

• Book Reviews

 

Reviewer, Toru Sagawa

The Aged in Africa: Ethnography on the Institutions and Powers of Aging (Africa no Rojin: Oi no Seido to Chikara o meguru Minzokushi). Gen Tagawa, Katsuhiko Keida and Keiya Hanabuchi (eds.), Fukuoka: Kyusyu Daigaku Shuppankai, 2016, pp. 246 (in Japanese).

Reviewer, Gaku Moriguchi
Citizenship for Migrants and Refugees: A Comparative Study of lnstitutions and Practics of Inclusion and Exclusion from Nation-States (Imin/Nanmin no Shitizunshippu). Aiko Nishikida (ed.), Tokyo: Research Institute for Language and Cultures of Asia and Mrica (Tokyo Gaikokugo Daigaku Ajia Afurika Gengo Bunka Kenkyojo), 2016, pp. 258 +vi (in Japanese).

Reviewer, Isao Murahashi
African Practices for Avoiding Conflict: Relationships between Eco-Resources and Peoples (1/.jurika Senzairyoku Siriizu: Arasowanai tameno Seigyojissen: Seitaishigen to Hitohito tono Kakawari). Masayoshi Shigeta & Juichi ltani (eds.), Kyoto: Kyoto University Press, 2016, pp. 360 (in Japanese).

Nilo-Ethiopian Studies No.21 (2016)

HARUKAARII

• How Women Choose Their Schooling in Their Life Course: The Case of Maale, Southwestern Ethiopia

Discussions of female education in Sub-Saharan countries often focus on ways to improve conditions and to achieve gender parity. However, a few studies have also examined the conditions under which individual women choose to go to school. The discussion of dropping out among female students has been focused on prevention and allowing more females to attend school, whereas there has been little discussion about education after dropping out or about those who did not enter school at customary age. This study used the community of Maale in southwestern Ethiopia as an example to investigate the process of female schooling with regard to how individual women decided to enter or return to school. To this end, I interviewed three women who entered or returned to school despite older than the usual school age. I identified two factors that enabled these women to enter or return to school: (1) the presence of a formal educational system and a community consensus in support of allowing females to make their own decisions about their education, (2) the relationships between the student and the people to whom she was close. Sustainable female education requires respect for the diversity of the decision-making processes by which individuals make choices. Keywords: school, life course, educational development, women, southwestern Ethiopia

MIHO SATO, BELKIS WOLDE GIORGIS, GABRIELLE O’MALLEY

• Barriers to and Factors Facilitating Adherence to Antiretroviral Therapy from the Perspectives of Patients in Mäqälaä City, Tigray Region, Ethiopia

The decentralization and free provision of life-saving antiretroviral therapy (ART) to health centers in Ethiopia began in 2006. In the Tigray Region, the number of people who began ART increased almost tenfold between 2006 and 2010, yet treatment retention among these patients has been challenging. This qualitative analysis explores the experiences of patients who either continued or interrupted adherence to ART. Conducted at three health facilities in Mäqälä City from August to October 2009, the aim of this study was to document the facilitating factors and barriers to ART adherence from patients’ perspectives. For both continued and interrupted adherence, the most common facilitating factors are a belief in the efficacy of the medication, trust in the health-care providers, low level of side effects, positive treatment results, and having an HIV-positive friend. Each restarter had distinctive reasons for interrupting the ART. Major contributing factors to ART interruption were the side effects and fear of stigma or discrimination. In urban neighborhoods with a high volume of rural migration, where people lived far from their extended families, ART patients were more dependent on health workers for adherence support.

Keywords: HIV, antiretroviral therapy, adherence, lost to follow up, Tigray, Ethiopia

SAYURI YOSHIDA

• [Research Report] The Life and Collection of Friedrich Julius Bieber: An Archival Study of Kafa at the Beginning of the 20th Century

This report introduces the life and collection of Friedrich Julius Bieber. He visited Ethiopia several times, especially Kafa, at the beginning of the twentieth century and is recognized as the foremost authority on ethnological research focused on Kafa. Bieber left a great deal of property and written documents concerning both Ethiopia and his daily life. This collection included ethnological objects from Ethiopia, instruments used during his journeys to Ethiopia, photographs, books, and unpublished written documents, such as diaries, drafts, memoranda, letters, and postcards to his family and friends. Today, these items are housed in three places: the Ethnology Museum, the Austrian National Library and the District Museum of Hietzing in Vienna, Austria. They can help deepen our understanding of Kafa, both historically and in its current state, and of Ethiopia as a whole, providing insights that would be impossible to uncover by present-day fieldwork. However, we can gain significant knowledge from these items only if we construct a proper basis for the use of these valuable collections.

Key words: Friedrich Julius Bieber, Kafa, Austria, collection, archive

 

• Book Reviews

 

Reviewer, Nobuko Nishizaki
Maasai and “Coexistence” at Large: From the Field of Wildlife Conservation in Kenya (Samayoeru Kyouzon to Massai: Kenya no Yaseidoubutsuhozen no Genbakara). Toshio Meguro, Tokyo: Shinsensha, 2014, pp. 456 (in Japanese)

Reviewer, Kiyoshi Umeya
Improvised ‘Stage Performance’: Social Relationships among Young People in Contemporary Africa (Sho Pafomansu ga Tachiagaru: Gendai Afurika no Waluzmonotachi ga musubu Syaluzillankei). Midori Daimon, Yokohama: Shumpusha, 2015, pp.
380 + iv (in Japanese).

Reviewer, Hruka Arii
Analysis of the Relationships Between Local Development NGOs and the Communities in Ethiopia: The Case of the Basic Education Subsector. Yoshiko Tonegawa, Osaka: Union Press, 2014, pp. 174.

Reviewer, Soichiro Shiraishi
Embedded Mutualism for Co-Living in African Pastoralism: Ethnographic Studies of the Karimojong and Dodoth in Northeastern Uganda (Bokuchiku Sekai no Kyosei Riron: Karimojong to Dodoth no Minzokushi). ltsuhiro Hazama, Kyoto: Kyoto University Press, 2015, pp. 312 (in Japanese).

HARUKA ARII

• [News and Notes] The 19th International Conference of Ethiopian Studies