Kwama people
The Kwama, also called Gwama, Komo or coma, life in the border region of Sudan, here in the state of An- Nil al - azraq ( Blue Nile ), and Ethiopia, and here mainly in the woredas and Mao Komo Special Wereda.
Your language can be assigned to the Nilo-Saharan languages. Culturally and linguistically they belong to the Komuz and Komo, which also includes the neighboring communities of Gumuz, Uduk, coma and Opuuo.
History
Although they traditionally inhabited a large area, they were forced back by the Oromo from the 18th century in the hinterland. Today, however, there are a few isolated villages where Kwama, Oromo and Berta live together. Other peoples, especially the Oromo, the Kwama often refer to as Mao. People who live in southern Ethiopia, near the Sudanese border, often call themselves Gwama and use the term Kwama for their compatriots who live in the north and far away from the border.
Since the 1980s, the Kama and her neighbors were drawn into the struggle between the pro-independence people of Southern Sudan and the Sudanese central government. The settlement area of the Kama has not been assigned to the territory of the Independent since July 2011 South Sudan. Negotiations on the future of the region to follow.
In recent years, the Ethiopian state has many people of this group relocated so that they can easily reach to schools and hospitals.
Manners
The Kwama live mainly from cereal crops. New fields are exposed by slash and burn. Their main food is sorghum, from which they beer ( shwe or shul depending on the dialect, nationally known in Sudan Merisa ) brew and millet ( PWASH or fash ) manufacture. Furthermore, they go on the hunt, to fish and collect honey. The sorghum beer is drunk in the group, if it has been clarified from a large pot using straws.
Be married the sisters of each other's family ( Kreuzkusinenheirat ), but this tradition is in decline. The Kwama are organized into clans, which are in turn divided into sub-clans. Kwama exogamous marrying only outside one's own clan. Polygyny is widespread. Ritual experts ( sidimumun or isbish ) predict the future or perform healings in Swa Kwama - huts ( "House of Kwama " ) by.
Bibliography
- F. D. Corfield: The coma. In: Sudan Notes and Records 21, 1938, ISSN 0375-2984, pp. 123-165.
- VL Grottanelli: Burial among the coma of Western Abyssinia. In: Primitive Man 20, 1947, 4, ISSN 0887-3925, pp. 71-84.
- Joachim Theis: After the raid. Ethnography and history of the coma. Trickster, Munich 1995, ISBN 3-923804-52-0, ( Sudanese marginalia 3), ( at the same time. Berlin, Free Univ, Diss, 1991: Destruction and restoration of a people, history and ethnography of the coma ( Gokwom ) in sudan äthiopschen - border area).