Kaffa

By TEFERI ABATE ADEM

Kafecho or Kaficho (preferred self name); Gamero (used by the neighboring Gimira people); Hinnaro, Bosa (also called Garo), and Gonga (historically important subgroups or “clan” names)

The Kaffa live in sSouth-western Ethiopia in a mountainous region with stretches of forest and many rivers. Their traditional homeland historically extended from the Gojeb River in the east to the borders of Gimira and Majangir peoples in the west, and from the Omo River in the south to the borders of the former Gera Kindom in the north. The region is a rich source of coffee, musk, honey and a wide variety of agricultural and forest products.

There are no reliable population figures. Bieber in 1905 estimated the total population of Kaffa at 300,000. By 2007, according to the 2007 Ethiopian Populations and Housing census conducted that year, the number had increased to 870,213.

The Kaffa speak Kaffi-noono, meaning “mouth of the Kafecho, which belongs to the Omotic language family of Afro-Asiatic. It is closely related to the languages of the neighboring Goffa, Mao, and Gimira peoples.

Following the conquest, Kaffa was ruled first as “feudatory” of Walda Giyorgis, the leader of the conquering forces, and later on as a sub-province (awraja) within a larger province ruled from Jimma by a centrally appointed governor. During the military regime (1974-1991), Kaffa was reorganized as part of a new “regional administration” unit that also included the homelands of the Bench and Sheka peoples. Under the new Transitional Government that came to power in 1991, Kaffa was once again reorganized as an ethnically-based self-governing zone within the Southern Region. Subsequently enshrined in the new Regional Constitution in 2000, Kaffa remains a self-governed ethnic homeland within a federally structured Ethiopian state.

Prior to their forced incorporation into the Ethiopian empire in 1897, the Kaffa had their own kingdom with a monarchy and councilors of state. The origin of the kingdom goes back to the last decade of the 14th century when the founder of the minjo clan organized several previously isolated groups into a single polity. Descendants of this king ruled for centuries and expanded the kingdom by annexing new territories and incorporating immigrants from neighboring peoples.

Christianity was introduced to Kaffa during the reign of emperor Serse Dengel of Ethiopia (r.1563-1595), but the Ethiopians were not able to subdue the kingdom. During this time, the Kaffa also successfully defended their kingdom from attacks by expanding Oromo groups.

By 1700, the Kaffa, under king Gali Ginco, begun expanding their empire against the smaller states of Gimira, Sheka, Bench, and Majingir. Later on under king Shagi Sherocho (r. 1775-1795), the kingdom extended to the Omo in the south-east and established tributary rights over neighboring the Konta, Kullo, Tambaro, and Gamo peoples.

The last king of Kaffa, Gaki Sherocho (r. 1890-1897) successfully resisted a series of attacks by heavily armed Ethiopian expeditionary forces. He finally lost the battle and was taken prisoner on September 11, 1897.

The Kaffa live in dispersed homesteads, each surrounded by farmland. The dwellings of a homestead are grouped into rectangular compounds. Houses are round with walls of bamboo or wattle plastered with mud and conical roofs thatched with millet straw or grass. The houses of some nobles are elongated into an ellipse shape.

The Kaffa were (and still are) primarily agricultural people, cultivating with ox-drawn plow. They use animal manure for fertilizer, but no irrigation. Grain crops include wheat, barley, sorghum, maize, andteff. Root crops include ensete or false bananas, taro, potatoes, onions, etc. They also cultivate legumes, vegetables, fruit trees, and a wide variety of spices and condiments including black cumin or caraway, cardamom, ginger, garlic, paprika, poppies, and sugarcane. Other crops include gourds, tobacco, flax, coffee, and cotton.

Animal husbandry is of great subsidiary importance. Cattle, sheep, goats, donkeys, dogs, chickens, bees, and civet cats (tamed) are kept, but no pigs. Cows are milked, and butter made. Women may not eat chicken. There is considerable gathering of forest products, and hunting is important, especially for ivory and civet (for perfume). The Kaffa do not fish, though the hunting caste (manjo) do.

Traditional Kaffa society consisted of submerged occupational castes engaged in ironwork, wood curving, leather work, pottery, weaving, and gold and silver melting. Most of these artisanal craft worker were historically marginalized with a degree of severity that varied by occupation and through time.

Trade was an important economic activity since Kaffa was the richest kingdom in the south-western Ethiopia. In addition to direct exchange relations with the neighboring Kullo, Konta, and Walayta peoples, Kaffa had considerable foreign trade connections with the Somali coast, Zeyla, Massawa, Suakin, and Gallabat. Major exports included coffee, cardamom, civet, ivory, gold, hides, honey, cotton, and historically, slaves. The list of imported goods included cotton clothing, silk, European perfumery, beads, needles, clasp-knives, cups, glasses, bar soaps, copper, and rifles and cartridges. There were many trading centers and weekly markets where people from different communities sold products and bought imported goods.

Women of the leatherworker caste (manno) make pottery. Herding is done by men and boys. Both sexes cultivate and milk.

Traditionally, the Kaffa king owned all the land. The king then rewarded or punished his people by the giving or taking of land use rights to members of a particular clan. Land owning clans enjoyed high status, while most of the landless clans suffered from severe marginalization as low status occupational castes. Following Kaffa’s forced incorporation to the Ethiopian empire, administrative rights over all land were given to Ras Wolde Giyorgis, the conqueror of the region. The Ras in turn rewarded his officers with rights to demand tributes from residents of various clan lands (Orent 1969). Members of the traditional nobility class continued to hold their previous land rights and privileges in the post-conquest times too.

Descent is patrilineal. During the 19th century, Kaffa society consisted of three hierarchically organized clans. At the apex of the hierarchy was the minjo (royal) clan. Successive kings that ruled the region over centuries came from this clan. Next to them in status were other higher clans, locally known as ogge-ashi-yaro, whose members enjoyed prescriptive rights to particular officers as provincial nobles, councilors (mikrecho), court officials, war leaders, and local headmen. At the bottom of the hierarchy stood lower clans (sharrare-yaro) consisting of submerged castes of hunters (manjo), leatherworkers (manno), potters (women of the manno caste), and smiths (qemmo).

Kaffa kinship terminologies are descriptive phrases that differentiate among a person’s relatives based on gender and generational distance.

Marriage is forbidden with primary and secondary relatives and with any first cousin. In the past, boys usually married at the age of 18 to 20 years, and girls at the age of 12 to 15. Premarital chastity in girls was insisted on. Marriage involves a very large bride-price, ranging from several hundred cattle for rich men to just some money (or bars of salt in the past) to a poor man. A bride, unless poor, is expected to bring a dowry in cattle (and formerly slaves) to the marriage.

Both polygyny and monogamy prevailed. Many men had also recognized concubines, nameche, with women of low social background such as descendants of former slaves. In polygynous households, the first wife was recognized as the chief wife. Each wife occupied a separate room in the house. All widows were inherited by the eldest son.

The commonest domestic group in the past was a polygynous family, plus slaves. The wives, their daughters, and small children, lived in special rooms in the house into which strangers were not admitted.

The ownership of house and land, or rather the right to use land as member of a clan, was indivisible and inherited entirely by the eldest son. The eldest son also inherited his father’s political position and wives. Other siblings inherited nothing but received a plot of land and some livestock from their father upon marriage. Women couldn’t inherit or own land and houses, but their personal possessions went to their children.

The father was responsible for the upbringing of his children, and it was he who rewarded and punished them. Both parents thought the children, each teaching the duties appropriate to their sex.

Traditional Kaffa society was divided into five major social classes, namely the royal class, the nobility, commoners, occupational castes, and slaves. Relations between these classes varied in rigidity through time, but each class was traditionally associated with a particular clan. The royal class was associated with the minjo clan which provided successive kings to Kaffa. The nobility included members of clans which had prescriptive rights to certain political positions as councilors, court officials, and provincial administrators. The commoners represented the demographic majority engaged in farming and herding. Members of this class were subjected to heavy taxes and labor obligations to the nobility and the king. Castes included hunters (manjo), leatherworkers (manno), potters (women of the manno caste), and smiths (qemmo). The slaves acquired their status mostly through capture in war and enslavement for crimes or debt.

At its political height during the reign of King Kaye Sherocho (1854-1870), Kaffa was administratively divided into 18 regions, each with its own governor called Worafe Rasho. Each region was in turn divided into districts called gude which were further sub-divided into tatekisho, and finally into local government units called tugo.

The Kaffa king (tato) enjoyed a semi-divine status as he was believed to be the incarnation of the spirit of the sky god Yero. The king was seen only by high officers, eunuchs, and his wives, and spoke only to or through these people. He did not also touch food himself. In running the affairs of the state, however, the king was rarely despotic. To this effect, he could make no decision without the concurrence of the council, mikrecho, consisting of several nobles.

The position of councilors was hereditary, being supported by tribute from a particular region. Members of the council also held specific titles that entailed a set of duties and privileges. The most important of these included the following: 1) Katama Rasho - head of the administrative system over provincial governors, districts chiefs, and local headmen; military commander-in-chief; administrator of the capital city and royal residence; 2) Gudji Rasho - supervisor of the king’s slaves and servants, and of labor on the royal domains; 3) Awa Rasho - king’s speaker; master of ceremonies; minister of foreign relations; 4) Ade Rasho - minister of public works (roads and bridges); commandant of the king’s bodyguard and palace guards; 5) Arche Rasho - king’s architect and supervisor of buildings; 6) Shode Rasho - administrator of the royal estates, warehouses, and herds.

There were also two additional officials directly appointed by the king and responsible to him alone. These were Negado Rasho or superintendant of trade and Gane Rasho or royal treasurer. There were also tax collectors and district judges, together with 18 provincial governors (Worabi Rasho), who levied taxes, judged disputes, and supplied troops in war. Taxes were paid in cattle, slaves, cloth, and ivory, not in agricultural products. Conquered countries were ruled directly through their subject kings, who resided in Kaffa and had honor but no power. There was a system of royal or military roads connecting towns, markets and rest houses. Roads and public structures were built and maintained by corvees. Rapid communication, to mobilize an army or the like, was achieved through slit gongs.

Crimes and offenses were dealt with swiftly by compensation or punishment. Compensation was paid in cattle, money, or slaves. Punishments varied by the nature of the crime but they tended to be severe. They consisted of chaining, in which both hands, or a hand and a foot were chained together, flogging, slavery, mutilation (loss of a hand, finger, or toe), torture, and execution by beheading, hanging, and in the case of women, exposure, or being pegged down on the ground.

Prior to Kaffa’s incorporation into the Ethiopian empire in 1897, warfare was frequent. It was conducted for slaves, for cattle and other booty, and for territorial aggrandizement. There was no standing army, though the king, councilors, and governors kept small bodies of armed retainers. Everyone except the members of the higher clans was liable for military service in time of war. The genitals of dead enemies were taken as trophies. The kingdom was surrounded by a ditch and palisade, with armed guards.

The Kaffa sacrificed to Yero, the supreme sky-God whom, following contact with Christianity in the 16th century, they also equated with the Christian God. They also recognize a category of spirits, eqqo, believed to live in trees, bushes, and rivers. Other important beings in Kaffa religion include the fertility goddess that appears to be similar both the Oromo Atete and the Virgin Mary.

Important religious practitioners include sprit mediums believed to cause the spirits, eqqo, to speak through the mouths of their human hosts in answer to prayers, and in making general prophetic utterances. The mediums do this by conducting special rites in a special hut,qeto, house of rituals. After contact with Christianity, this term has been applied to the Christian churches as well. This suggests that most Kaffa may also identify Christian priests with traditional spirit mediums.

Major annual celebrations include the New Year’s Day and the feast of the cross (mashkaro) which is observed in September. An important aspect of the mashkaro festival involves a long procession, accompanied by drums and singers, around a bonfire lit for this purpose.

The Kaffa have a rich tradition of performance arts including wandering minstrels and dancers who go about entertaining people on several occasions. Major musical instruments include a six-stringed bowl-lyre, dimbo, and a drum of a hollowed log. They also have horns, shammeto, used by provincial governors on public occasions, and pipes played by children. Other art forms impressive hair-styles, cloth decorations, beads and other ornaments, etc.

Death is attributed to sickness, though sometimes to witchcraft. After death, the body is stripped, washed, and wrapped in one of the dead person’s cloaks. Surrounded by mourners, the body is then carried for burial to a grave dug either near the homestead or the local church. Graves are often marked by stones and hedge plants. If the dead were an important noble man, a small hut would be erected over his grave. The dead are honored with commemorative feasts and prayers.

Bieber, F.J., 1920-1923 Kaffa: Ein Altkusschitisches Volkstum in Inner-Africka. 2 Vols. Munster.

Huntingford, G.W.B., 1955. The Galla of Ethiopia: The Kingdoms of Kafa and Janjero. London, International African Institute.

Onneken, D.A. Die Konigskultur Kaffas und der verwandten Konigreiche. Frankfurt am Main, 1956.

Ornet, Amnon, 1970. “Dual Organizations in Southern Ethiopia: Anthropological Imagination or Ethnographic Fact”. In Ethnology, Vol. 9, No. 3 (Jul., 1970), Pp. 228-233.