The Principles of Alliance Formation Between Konso Towns
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 2569999 |
|---|---|
| Authors | C R Hallpike (corresponding author) |
| Year | 1970 |
| Volume | 5 |
| Issue | 2 |
| Pages | 258 |
| Publication date | 1970-06-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Man (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0025-1496 • E-ISSN: 2397-2548 |
| Publisher | JSTOR (PUBLISHER) |
| DOI | 10.2307/2799652 |
| OpenAlex | W2222424896 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 5 |
| References cited | 3 |
The Konso are a Cushitic-speaking people of south-west Ethiopia, practising a highly sophisticated terrace and manure agriculture, their staple crop being millet. Traditionally they are organised into a number of autonomous walled towns, with an average population of about I,500. There is very little population mobility among men; about 40 per cent. of women however marry men of friendly towns in the immediate vicinity. Towns are governed by elected councils of elders, but traditionally there is no authority which can impose its will on the towns collectively and, as we shall see, fighting was endemic among them. Law and order have only prevailed since the Amhara conquest of I897. The Konso have a generation-grading system of the gadal type, of which there are three different varieties in the northern, eastern and western regions, but these systems are essentially ritual and moral, and produce no effective cross-cutting ties to mitigate the rivalries between the towns. They are irrelevant to our understanding of Konso political relations. There are three regional priests who, besides officiating at the periodic generation-grading ceremonies, act as mediators and peace-makers between the towns in the event of a battle. Their authority however is mystical only, and it is clear that their efforts have often been wholly ineffectual, and that at best they can only provide an honourable pretext for both sides to withdraw
Alliance · Archaeology · Geography · Political science · African history and culture analysis · Land Rights and Reforms · Rangeland Management and Livestock Ecology
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| Unique citing works | 5 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 0,11 |
| Citation span | 1979 - 2004 (26) |
| Citation velocity | historical |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 5 |