- A. Social Life and Oromo Values
The Oromo people have a rich culture and common values. Before colonization they have developed various kinds of skills such as wood and metal works, weaving, pottery and tannery. Oromo have an extraordinarily rich heritage of proverbs, stories, songs and riddles. The various customs pertaining to marriage, paternity, dress, etc. have elaborate descriptions. The Oromo society as a nation is united through various shared values. Among others Gada democracy, egalitarianism, respect for the liberty and dignity of the individuals, commitment to the rule of law are the most important features of Oromo society. The men and women descended from a common ancestor constitute a corporate group, in that they share many collective heritage, values, rights and obligations. The society has considerable influence on the life and behavior of the individual members. Individual privileges, rights, obligations/duties/ and social identity are all imbedded in the society.
B. Language
The Oromo language (afaanOromoo) belongs to the Eastern Cushitic group of languages. Taking into consideration the number of speakers and the geographic area it covers, Afaan Oromoo, rates second among the African indigenous languages next the Hausa group of Nigeria. It is the third most widely spoken language in Africa, after Arabic and Hausa. Now days it is the mother tongue of about 40 million Oromo people living in the Ethiopian empire and neighboring countries such as Kenya and Somalia. Perhaps more than three million people bordering Oromia speak Afaan Oromo as a second language. In fact Afaan Oromo is said to have been a lingua franca in the Ethiopian Empire. It is a language spoken in common by several members of many of the nationalities, who are neighbors of Oromia. Besides, there are approximately three million non-Oromo, mostly individuals from Amhara origin who live in Oromia and speak Afaan Oromo.
Afaan Oromo has been not only completely neglected under the Abyssinian rule but ruthlessly suppressed for almost a century and half with a determined effort to destroy and replace it with the Amharic language. However, it has been mostly ineffectual. Thus, the Amharization and the destruction of the Oromo national identity have partially failed.
A number of Oromo scholars in the past attempted to discover scripts suitable for writing Afaan Oromo. Several Oromo political, cultural groups and linguists have strongly advocated the use of the Roman script with the necessary modifications. The Roman script is relatively best suited for transcription of Afaan Oromoo. It has thus been adopted by the Oromo Liberation Front close to 40 years ago. Today Afan Oromo is a written and spoken language of millions of people.
C. Oromo Calendar
The Oromo conception of time and history is rich. The Oromo schedule their lives, their rituals, their political ceremonies or transitions, etc to a very high degree. Oromo calendar is a well developed system of time reckoning or precise calendar. Oromo calendar is not simple solar calendar but has lunar-stellar foundation. The Oromo type of astronomic calendar has only been recorded in three cultures in the history of mankind. These are the Chinese, Hindu and Mayan calendars.
The Oromo astronomic calendar is a permutation calendar based on observations of the moon in conjunction with a group of seven stars or constellations. This is called Urji Dhaa (guided by stars). The lunar month is about 29.5 days long. The “ year’ consists of twelve such months or 354 days, eleven days shorter than the solar year. The Oromo do not add intercalary month to make the year a solar year.
The twelve lunar months have the following names Amajjii, Gurandhaala, Bitootessa, Caamsaa, Ebla, Waxabajjii, Adoolessa, Hagayya, Fulbaana, Onkoloolessa, Sadaasa, Mudde. There are no weeks instead each day of the month has a name. The Oromo traditionally had no use for names of the days of a week. Perhaps it is because of this that today in different parts of Oromia different names are in use for the days of a week. However, there are only 27 names of days for the 29.5 days of lunar month. The days are called Ayyaanas (Legesse, 1973 and Bassi, 1988). The following are the names of the ayyanas; Innika, Lumaasa, Gidaadaa, Ruudaa, Areri, Areri Lammaffaa, Aduula, Aduula Lammaffaa, Garbaa, Garba Deettii, Bitaa, Sorsa, Algajima, Arba, Walla, Basaa dura, Basaa Lammaafaa, Carawaa, Dureettii, Salbaan, Salban Deettii, Dullatti, Gardaaduma, Buusaa, Bal’oo, Qaraa fi Rurruma. These 27 days of the month go through the twelve months of the year and complete the cycle of 29.5 in one lunar year. The beginning of each month successively precedes by approximately 2.5 days, the difference between the 29.5 day month(lunar) and the 27-day(categorical), (Legesse, 1973). The first day of a month is the day the new moon appears.
The Oromo time reckoning experts are called Ayyantu. Each of the 27 days (ayyaana) give special meaning and connotation to these Oromo time-keeping experts. The Ayyaantu can tell the day, the month, the year, time of political ritual events from their memory. If their memory fail, they examine the relative position of the moon and the stars to determine the day month astronomically (Leggese 1973).
The seven stars or constellations the Ayantus use are: Lami (beta Triangulium), Busan (Pleiads) Bakkalcha (Aldebaran), Algajima (Bllatrix), Arba-gadu (Central cluster of Orion) Urji-walla (Sirius). These seven stars are roughly lined up along a diagonal of Orion tirapezoid. The Ayyantu on the basis of astronomical observations, do make an adjustment in the day name every two or three months.
The Archeo-Astronomic Discoveries at archeological site in northeastern Kenya called Namoratunga, by the researchers, Lynch and Robbins in 1978 has also suggested that the Oromo had invented astronomic calendar before 300 BC. According to Lynch and Robbins, Namoratunga, a megalithic site in northeastern Kenya has an alignment of 19 basalt pillars that are directed toward certain stars and constellation which the Eastern Cushitic people used to calculate an accurate calendar. The pillars have been suggested to represent a site used to develop the Oromo astronomic calendar.
The Oromo have also used Gada Chronology for time reckoning. The Oromo are skillful and logically coherent in their oral history. They calculate how and when the Gada classes succeed each other. They follow the strategy of counting the succession of Gadaa classes horizontally for cross tabulation of the last Gada class. And they use vertical reckoning strategy to indicate the link to one’s descendant. This strategy or rule suggests that one ancestor Gada class returns to the same given name after 36 Gada periods (8×36) or seven generations (7×40) or on the beginning of eighth generation. Remember that one generation according to the Gada system of the Oromo is forty years which is divided by eight years and segmented into five. There is a formula called “Dachi” that defines the method in which one historical event are said to repeat itself. It may be transmitted from genealogical ancestors to the descendants. For the Oromo history is defined not as a stream of events but as the cyclic relationship between events, the relevant historic presidents. That is – they deal with the active part of the Gada chronology.
Religion
The Oromos, have a strong and well-defined system of belief or worldview characterized by its respect of all virtues (such as kindness, honesty, integrity, truth, equality, brotherhood, peace and justice) as opposed to all vices. Monotheistic in nature, the belief is known for its glorification of God or Waqa Who is considered as immortal, everlasting and the sole and ultimate creator of man and the entire universe. The religion preaches that all men are created equal and that they deserve equal treatment in many aspects of life and in the protection of basic human rights. It gives special importance to social harmony and peaceful coexistence. The Oromo believe in only one Waqa (God). They did worship false gods or carved statues as substitutes. The Oromo Waqa is one and the same for all. He is the creator of everything, source of all life, omnipresent, infinite, and incomprehensible, he can do and undo anything; he is pure, intolerant of injustice, crime, sin and all falsehood.
In traditional Oromo religion there is a religious institution called a Qallu. Qallu is also the name given to the spiritual leader of the institution. He is like a Bishop in the Christian world and an Imam in the Muslim world. A Qallu is the most senior person of the society. The Oromo describe the Qallu as Makkala, means messengers of God. As opposed to the egalitarian democratic system of the Oromo society the authority of the Qallu is divine origin, and hereditary.
In Oromo religion is distinctly separated from politics. The domain of Qallu is purely the domain of sacred and peaceful. Whereas the Gada leaders are charged with legal and political activities the Qallu are charged only with ritual and spiritual affairs. There is a clear functional differentiation between the sacred and the profane. The Qallu institution and traditional Oromo religion were weakened with the advent of colonialism and outside religions.The Abyssinian conquerors interfered in the religious affairs of the Oromo and weakened it. They adopted policies to discourage and destroy Oromo cultural institutions and values.
The Oromo have a number of religious holidays such as Irreecha (thanksgiving festival) which takes place once in a year in river meadows.
In its later history, the Oromo people have been in constant contact with other religions like Islam and Christianity for the last 1000 years or so. For instance, the Islamic religion was reported to have been in eastern Shawa about 900 A.D. and Christianity even before that.
Today the majority of the Oromo people are followers of Islam and Christianity, while the remaining are still followers of the traditional religion, Waqeffannaa. The Oromo who are followers of Islam or Christianity yet still practice the mode of experiences of their traditional religion. Bartels (1983) expressed this reality as follows: ‘Whether they (Oromo) became Christians or Muslims, the Oromo’s traditional modes of experiencing the divine have continued almost unaffected, in spite of the fact that several rituals and social institutions in which it was expressed, have been very diminished or apparently submerged in new ritual”. In fact adherence to traditional practices and rituals is still common among many Oromo people regardless of their different religious background.
There has not been threat of religious fanaticism or fundamentalism in Oromo population. The cultural affinity and ethnic identity among the Oromo did not allow such development. Thus there is a great deal of tolerance among the different religions in the Oromo society. It was the Oromo who stopped the protracted wars between the Abyssinian Christian kingdom of the north and Muslim kingdoms of the Somali and Afar from the south that went on for centuries during Medieval Abyssinia. The Oromo created a buffer zone between the two in the 16th century, and stopped the religious wars once and for all.
