Kwama people
The Kwama (also called Gwama and Komo), are a
Customs
The Kwama are swidden cultivators. Their staple food is sorghum, with which they make beer (called shwe or shul depending on the dialect) and porridge (pwash or fash). They also hunt (mostly duiker and warthog), fish, and gather honey. They drink sorghum beer communally with drinking straws from a large pot. Marriage was traditionally by sister exchange, although this custom is now receding.[1] The Kwama are divided into clans, some of which are also divided into sub-clans. It is not allowed to marry a woman or a man from one's own clan. Polygyny is widespread. They have ritual specialists and rainmakers (sid mumun and sid bish), who perform divination and healing ceremonies in huts called swal shwomo. These often have a characteristic bee-hive shape, which is very typical of this ethnic group. For that reason, the Kwama refer to their traditional houses as swal kwama, "swal" meaning "house". Vinigi Grotanelli describes some of them in his study of the Mao (Grottanelli 1940).
The Kwama mainly adhere to Islam and animist traditional beliefs.[2][3]
See also
Notes
- ^ James, W. (1975). Sister-Exchange Marriage. Scientific American, 233(6), 84–94. https://doi.org/10.1038/scientificamerican1275-84
- ISBN 978-0-8108-7457-2.
- ISBN 978-1-4422-3091-0.
Bibliography
- Corfield, F.D. (1938): The Koma. Sudan Notes and Records 21: 123-165.
- Grottanelli, V.L. (1940): I Mao. Missione etnografica nel Uollega occidentale. Rome: Reale Accademia d'Italia.
- Grottanelli, V.L. (1947): Burial among the Koma of Western Abyssinia. Primitive Man 20(4): 71-84
- ISBN 3-923804-52-0