Daasanach people

History

The Daasanach are also called Marille, especially by their neighbours, the Turkana of Kenya. The Daasanach are traditionally pastoralists, but in recent years have become primarily agropastoral. Having lost the majority of their lands over the past fifty years or so, primarily as a result from being excluded from their traditional Kenyan lands, including on both sides of Lake Turkana, and the 'Ilemi Triangle' of South Sudan, they have suffered a massive decrease in the numbers of cattle, goats and sheep. As a result, large numbers of them have moved to areas closer to the Omo River, where they attempt to grow enough crops to survive. There is much disease along the river (including tsetse, 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 Daasanach language. It belongs to the Cushitic branch of the Afro-Asiatic 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 or .

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.

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.

Daily life

Women are circumcised by removing the clitoris. Women who are not circumcised are called animals or boys and cannot get married or wear clothes. Women wear a pleated cowskin skirt and necklaces and bracelets. Women often marry in their late teens and men in their early twenties. Boys are circumcised. A man's wealth is determined by the size of his herd. Men with large herds often take multiple wives.

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 Tribe). Daasanach is the primary name given in the Ethnologue language entry.

Notes

References

References

1. [http://www.csa.gov.et/pdf/Cen2007_firstdraft.pdf "Census 2007"] {{webarchive. link. (February 14, 2012 , first draft, Table 5. A further 1,469 are recorded as being "Murle".)
2. "2019 Kenya Population and Housing Census Volume IV: Distribution of Population by Socio-Economic Characteristics".
3. (2021-06-11). "Evidence of the interplay of genetics and culture in Ethiopia". Nature Communications.
4. (November 2009). "Genetic Evidence for Complexity in Ethnic Differentiation and History in East Africa". Annals of Human Genetics.
5. Raymond G. Gordon Jr., ed. 2005. ''Ethnologue: Languages of the World''. 15th edition. Dallas: Summer Institute of Linguistics. [http://www.ethnologue.com/show_language.asp?code=dsh Ethnologue entry for Daasanach]