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Periodical article | Leiden University catalogue | WorldCat |
Title: | Inculcation of Ideology among the Sidama of Ethiopia |
Author: | Hamer, John H. |
Year: | 1996 |
Periodical: | Africa: Journal of the International African Institute |
Volume: | 66 |
Issue: | 4 |
Pages: | 526-551 |
Language: | English |
Geographic term: | Ethiopia |
Subjects: | ideologies Sidamo generations Peoples of Africa (Ethnic Groups) |
External link: | https://www.jstor.org/stable/1160935 |
Abstract: | This article shows how moral order is inculcated as ideology through a series of life cycle rituals for men among the Sid¯ama of southern Ethiopia. The elders constitute a gerontocracy in control of 'hal¯alu', the moral code, enabling them to link household and community in perpetuating a system of subsistence production which generates sufficient surplus to support rituals and symbols that maintain the ideology. They encourage oscillation of males between household and community until death, when the authority of the code becomes transcendent. The author compares the Sid¯ama gerontocracy with the 'gada' age grade system of the Oromo-speaking peoples to the south of Sid¯amoland, especially the Borana, arguing that there are similarities as well as differences. Bibliogr., notes, ref., sum. in English and French. |