Daasanach people

Daasanach

A Daasanach woman
Total population
Ethiopia 48,067 (2007 census)[1]  Kenya 19,337 (2019 Census) [2]
Regions with significant populations
Ethiopia, Kenya
Languages
Daasanach Amharic (second language)
Religion
Traditional African religions and Christianity
Related ethnic groups
Nilotic peoples,[3][a] Aroid (South Omotic) peoples such as the Karo,[3] and Cushitic peoples (primarily of the Western Omo–Tana branch)[4]

The Daasanach (also known as the Marille or Geleba) are an ethnic group inhabiting parts of

History

The Daasanach are also called Marille especially by their neighbours, the

, which has increased with forest and woodland development there), however, making this solution to their economic plight difficult. Like many pastoral peoples throughout this region of Africa, the Daasanach are a highly egalitarian society, with a social system involving age sets and clan lineages - both of which involve strong reciprocity relations.

Language

The Daasanach today speak the

family. The language is notable for its large number of noun classes, irregular verb system, and implosive consonants. For instance, the initial D in Daasanach is implosive, sometimes written as <'D> or <Dh>.

Genetics

Population genetic analyses of the Daasanach indicate that they are more closely related to Nilo-Saharan populations than they are to most Cushitic and Semitic Afro-Asiatic-speaking populations of Ethiopia. This suggests that the Daasanach were originally Nilo-Saharan speakers, sharing common origins with the Pokot. In the 19th century, the Nilotic ancestors of these two populations are believed to have begun separate migrations, with one group heading southwards into the African Great Lakes region and the other group settling in southern Ethiopia. There, the early Daasanach Nilotes would have come into contact with a Cushitic-speaking population, and eventually adopted this group's Afro-Asiatic language.^[4]

A 2021 study comparing a variety of Ethiopian populations discovered that the Daasanach people cluster closer to the Nilotic Nyangatom and the Aroid (South Omotic) Karo peoples than they do to most other Cushitic populations of Ethiopia.^[3]

Daily life

The Daasanach are a primarily agropastoral people; they grow sorghum, maize, pumpkins and beans when the Omo river and its delta floods. Otherwise the Daasanach rely on their goats and cattle which give them milk, and are slaughtered in the dry season for meat and hides. Sorghum is cooked with water into a porridge eaten with a stew. Corn is usually roasted, and sorghum is fermented into beer. The Daasanach who herd cattle live in dome-shaped houses made from a frame of branches, covered with hides and woven boxes (which are used to carry possessions on donkeys when the Daasanach migrate). The huts have a hearth, with mats covering the floor used for sleeping. The Dies, or lower class, are people who have lost their cattle and their way of living. They live on the shores of Lake Turkana hunting crocodiles and fishing. Although their status is low because of their lack of cattle, the Dies help the herders with

and fish in return for meat.

Women are

. Men wear only a checkered cloth around their waist.

Media coverage

There are a number of variant spellings of Daasanach, including Dasenach and Dassanech (the latter used in an episode about them in the TV series

See also

• El Molo people
• Arbore people
• Western Omo–Tana languages

Notes

Further reading

• Uri Almagor, "Institutionalizing a fringe periphery: Dassanetch-Amhara relations", pp. 96–115 in The Southern Marches of Imperial Ethiopia (ed. Donald L. Donham and Wendy James), Oxford: James Currey, 2002.
• Claudia J. Carr, Pastoralism in Crisis: the Dassanetch of Southwest Ethiopia. University of Chicago. 1977.

References