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The fertile past: the Gabra concept of oral tradition

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 December 2011

Aneesa Kassam
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Extract

This study on the concept of oral tradition is based on three years of fieldwork, between 1980 and 1983, amongst the Gabra of northern Kenya, an Eastern-Cushitic (Oromo) speaking people who originated in southern Ethiopia and who live today on both sides of the Kenya–Ethiopia border. According to the 1978 national census figures, there are about 30,553 Gabra living on the Kenyan side of the border, mainly in the arid waste of the Eastern Province. In this hostile landscape, in the volcanic, boulder-strewn country on the edge of the Chalbi Desert east of Lake Turkana, the Gabra roam with their herds of cattle, camels, sheep and goats in constant search of pasture for their animals.

Résumé

Le passé fertile: le context gabra de la tradition orale

Cet article, inspireé des travaux de G. Calame-Griaule, étudie le concept gabra de la tradition orale. Les Gabra sont un peuple nomade qui habitent en lisière du desert Chalbi dans le nord du Kenya. Ils parlent un dialect de l'Oromo. Ils conceptualisent les traditions orales sous la forme imagée de la fécondité (finn), une idée complexe qui englobe tous les genres oraux et qui est étroitement liée au cycle de la reproduction (de l'homme, des animaux et du monde végétal) ainsi qu'à la représentation cosmologique de la paix.

Type
Kenyans on Kenya
Information
Africa , Volume 56 , Issue 2 , April 1986 , pp. 193 - 209
Copyright
Copyright © International African Institute 1986

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References

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