Nilo-Ethiopian Studies No.20 (2015)

CHIHARU KAMIMURA

• Milk Teeth Extraction and Behavior Changes in Rural Amhara, Northwest Ethiopia

This study examines behavior changes pertaining to traditional medical practices as a result of health intervention and knowledge transmission by community health promoters in rural Amhara, with a specific focus on changes in people’s treatment-seeking behavior for the traditional folk illness known as “milk teeth diarrhea.” The extraction of milk teeth is a traditional treatment for this condition, and is considered in several publications to be one of numerous “harmful traditional practices (HTPs).” Interviews with people in villages and in the medical sector reveal that changes in treatment-seeking behavior for folk illness, ranging from consultations with traditional healers to treatment in modern medical facilities, are not necessarily led by changes in the folk classification of the illness. In the current cultural context, in which the Ethiopian government is promoting the abolishment of HTPs, the main drivers of change in health-seeking behaviors can be described in terms of the recommendation of modern medical treatments and the negation of traditional customs, two different processes that act simultaneously but are not always linked to each other. Thus, health-promotion programs should be sensitive to local, cultural, and actual circumstances when providing training to community health promoters in transitional periods from traditional to modern medicine.

Key words: folk illness, harmful traditional practices (HTPs), Amhara, health promotion, milk teeth diarrhea

YUTAKA FURUKAWA-YOSHIDA

• Reconsidering Linguistic Ideology: A Case Study of Communication among Deaf Children in Kenya

In Europe, the US, and Japan, language is regarded as both a way of communication and a symbol of people’s solidarity. Recent conceptualizations of a deaf identity are based on the notion that people who are deaf are a linguistic minority who share one sign language as a common language. This contention, which is consistent with ideological multilingualism or multiculturalism, is important when reconsidering “hearing-impaired” or “deaf-and-dumb” frameworks from medical and social welfare perspectives. However, the idea of deaf people as a linguistic minority is not consensually accepted. This article explores the limitations of this idea, discussing cases of deaf children and hearing people in Kenya that involve mixed communication modes.

Keywords: communication, multilingualism, deaf children, sign language, Kenya

MORIE KANEKO

• [Research report] Collections and Archives on Ethiopian Studies in the Frobenius Institute

This report introduces archives and collections from six expeditions to Ethiopia between 1950 and 1971 at the Frobenius Institute, Germany. All of these expeditions focused mainly on southern Ethiopia. More than 90,000 pictures are available on the Frobenius Institute website. Most photographs and rock paintings were digitized from 2006 to 2009 with the financial support of the German Research Partnership (DFG). The majority are available for anyone to view and download at low resolution. The high-resolution images are also available upon request by email (detailed information on the five items required in the request is provided in this report). Despite the fact that the 16 mm film materials and Dr. Haberland’s legacy materials from his five expenditures to Ethiopia have not been released on the website, this report introduces a list of these items. A total of 1,171 objects from the Ethiopia expeditions are housed at the Institute, and 900 objects from two Ethiopia expeditions, in 1934-35 and 1954, at the World Cultures Museum (Weltkulturen Museum) in Frankfurt am Main. If you have the opportunity to visit Germany and wish to learn more about Ethiopia during the past century, please contact the researchers at the Frobenius Institute; you will be rewarded with a uniquely rich collection of materials.

Keywords: The Frobenius Institute, Leo Frobenius, Eike Haberland, South Ethiopia, Image archives

 

• Book Reviews

 

Reviewer, Shigeo Kikuchi
Rivalry between Religions and the State: Conflicts and Symbiosis of Religions in Ethiopia (Semegiau Sy1iky6 to Kokka: Ethiopia Kamigami no Sokoku to Kyosei). Minako Ishihara (ed.), Tokyo: Fukyosha Publishing Inc., 2014, pp. 436 (in Japanese).

Reviewer, Yukio Miyawaki
Modes of Construction and Preservation of History an1ong People without Writing Traditions: The Oral Chronicles of the Boorana, Southern Ethiopia (Mumoji Sbakai ni Okem Rekishi no Seisei to Kioku no Gibou: Koutou Nendaishi wo Keishou suru Etiop ia Nanbu Borana Sbakai). Chikagc Oba, pp. 463, Tokyo: Shimizukobundoshobo (in Japanese, English translation for thcoming in 2015).

Reviewer, Yoshimasa Ito
Million Ficldworker’s Series, Vol. 1: Entering the Field (100man-nin no f uirudo wahkah siriiz u: Fuirudo ni hairu). Wakana Shiino & Soichiro Shiraishi (eds.), Tokyo: Kokon-Shoin Publisher, 2014, pp. 242 (in Japanese).

Reviewer, Kyoko Nakamura
Anthropology of Nomadic Pastoralism and Sedentarization (Yuboku to Teiju no j inruigaku). Sun Xiaogang, Kyoto: Showado, 2012, pp. 196+viii (in Japanese).

Reviewer, Minako Ishihara
The Reality ofDiscrimination: Ethnography of the Kafa and the Manjo in Ethiopia (Dare ga Sahetsu wo Tsukunmoka: Ethiopia ni Ikiru Kaja to Manjo no Kankeishi). Sayuri Yoshida, Yokohama: Shunpudo, 2014, pp. 372 + xl (in Japanese)

Nilo-Ethiopian Studies No.19 (2014)

KAORI MIYACHI

• Cultural Transformation: Sociocultural Aspects of Female Circumcision among the Gusii People in Kenya

Although several aspects of female circumcision (FC), a well-known type of female genital surgery, have been discussed by scholars in various fields of study, several anthropologists have argued that FC has not been sufficienty examined (Shell-Duncan & Hernlund 2000). FC, which carries different labels in different contexts, including female genital mutilation (FGM), female genital cutting (FGC), and FC, became an international concern in the early 1920s and 1930s, when Western campaigns against this practice focused on infibulations and its consequences for childbirth. By the 1970s, emphasis had shifted to clitoridectomy and its consequences for sexual fulfilment (Hernlund & Shell-Duncan 2007). Since the 1970s, international organizations, such as the World Health Organization (WHO), have condemned FGM/FGC/FC because it violates human (children’s) rights and negatively affects women’s reproductive health/rights. Despite these international movements and changes in associated rituals and procedures, this practice remains culturally significant in certain areas, including the Sudan, according to Boddy (2007) and other researchers. This paper does not aim to contribute to these types of discussions about FGMIFGCIFC; instead, as Shell-Duncan suggested (2000), it examines a specific case. Specifically, I describe the case of the Gusii people living in the western part of Kenya, the area with the highest prevalence of FC in this country.

Keywords: Female circumcision (FC), Gusii, rite of passage, seclusion, life stage, medicalization

MAMO HEBO & MASAYOSHI SHIGETA

• Continuity and Change in the Rights of Arsii Oromo Women to Property in West Arsii, Ethiopia

Arsii Oromo men in Ethiopia traditionally dominate decision-making regarding major resources such as land and livestock, whereas the role of women has been limited primarily to domestic affairs. However, women have begun to challenge this custom-based dominance of men. Women now openly speak of this power imbalance and of their desire for it to change. Indeed, such change is emerging in the context of newly evolving laws and policies at national, regional, and local levels. Drawing primarily on the results of diachronic qualitative studies in the Kokossa and Kofale Districts of the Arsii Oromo highlands, this article examines areas of continuity and change in women’s rights to property and in local discourse on the power relations between the genders in the context oflegal and institutional pluralism. The results suggest relative improvement in women’s rights in general and in their right to participate in decisions regarding land and livestock transfer in particular. We also found that men and women were generally very aware of the laws and policies regarding gender equality, which serve as the context in which these changes are evolving. Yet, the extent of the improvement in women’s rights did not seem to match the degree to which participants were aware of gender equality. At the local level, traditional norms, values, and elements of the social structure appear to have constrained the application of laws and state administrative provisions designed to promote gender equality.

Keywords: Change and Continuity, Gender relations, Land and livestock, Legal pluralism, Ethiopia

MOTOMICHI WAKASA

• A Sketch Grammar of Wolaytta

Wolaytta is an Omotic language of the Mroasiatic family (or phylum) spoken in southwestern Ethiopia. The aim of this paper was to create a grammatical sketch of the language. After offering basic background information on Wolaytta, I report that the language has 29 consonant phonemes and 5 vowel phonemes, the latter of which can be combined to form a long vowel or diphthong. I also briefly describe the notation employed by natives and an accentual system of Wolaytta. Most words in Wolaytta consist of a lexical stem and a grammatical ending. This paper lists the endings of each word class and mentions their uses. Suffixes that are used in word formation are also discussed. As for syntax, Wolaytta is a typical OV language, although its appositive construction may obscure the fact that modifiers precede their modified heads. The agreement between the subject and the predicate verb is generally determined by the form, not by the meaning, although there are some exceptions. Wolaytta prefers quotations in which direct and indirect speech is mixed. A nominalizer can be the head of a relative clause in which the substituted noun occurs. Finally, this paper touches on honorifics, rhymes, and oral literature in Wolaytta.

Keywords: Wolaytta language, phonology, morphology, syntax, rhyme

 

• Book Reviews

 

Reviewer, Nobuko Nishizaki
Ethnoecology of the Coffee Forest: Human- Nature Relationships in the Montane Forest of Southwestern Ethiopia (Kohi no Mori no Minzokushi: Ethiopia Nanseibu Kochi Sinriniki ni okeru Hito to Shizen no Kankei). Yoshimasa Ito, Kyoto: The Center for African Area Studies, Kyoto University, 2012, pp. 129 (in Japanese).

Reviewer, Naoaki Izumi
Nomads of Siberia and Africa: Livelihoods with Domestic Animals in the Arctic and Desert (Shiheria trJ Afurilul no Yubokumin: Kjokuhoku trJ Sabaku de Kachiku trJ Tomoni Kurasu). Hiroki Takakura and Toru Soga, Sendai: Tohoku University Press, 2011, pp. 205+xv (in Japanese).

Reviewer, Itsuhiro Hazama
Anus of Feces: Social Change and Illness among the Turkana in Kenya (Kusokomon: Kenia Turukana no Syakaihendo to Byoki). Shinsuke Sakumichi, Tokyo: Kouseisha-kouseikaku, 2012, pp. 230+x (in Japanese).

Reviewer, Hiroaki Ishikawa
The Fascist War: Italian Invasion to Ethiopia in the Context ofWorld Politics (Fashisuto no Sensa: Sekaishiteki Bunmyaku de Yomu Echiopia Sensa). Ken Ishida, Tokyo: Chikura Shobo, 2011, pp. 270 (in Japanese).