The Dassanech

 

The Dassanech are a agropastoral people living in the very south of Ethiopia, near Lake Turkana. They grow sorghum, maize, pumpkins and beans when the Omo river and its delta floods. Otherwise the Dassanech rely on their goats and cattle which give them milk, and are slaughtered in the dry season for meat and hides. Sorghum is cooked with water into a porridge eaten with a stew. Corn is usually roasted, and sorghum is fermented into beer.

 

The Dassanech live in dome-shaped houses made from a frame of branches, covered with hides and woven boxes (which are used to carry possessions on donkeys when the Dassanech migrate). The huts have a hearth, with mats covering the floor used for sleeping.

The women build and take down the huts during migrations. They are semi-circular constructions with no interior divisions, made up of sticks, thatch, river reed and branches. Women claim the right-hand side of the hut (and of the porch outside) as their own.

 

The Dies, or lower class, are people who have lost their cattle and their way of living. They live on the shores of Lake Turkana hunting crocodiles and fishing. Although their status is low because of their lack of cattle, the Dies help the herders with crocodile meat and fish in return for meat.

 

Girls are circumcised at around the age of 10 or 12 years. Until then, as a tease, girls are called ‘wild animals’ or ‘boys’, since they can not act like women (i.e. wear clothes, get married etc.) before they are circumcised. Several girls always undergo the ritual together. When completed, the girls are given sour milk to drink and a necklace by their mothers.

A Dassanech man blesses his daughter's fertility and future marriage by celebrating the Dimi.  During the Dimi 10 to 30 cattle are slaughtered.  Both men and women wear fur capes while they feast and dance.  A Dimi ceremony will most likely take place in the dry season.

 

Most of the Dassanech are Muslim by name, although they have also been influenced by evangelist missionaries. Traditional Animism is also still practised. The tribes now share a mixture of monotheistic and traditional animist beliefs, resulting in what is actually polytheism. In accordance with animist traditions, people believe that all natural objects, such as rocks and trees, have spirits.