Mao

expand_more Description

Mao is a collective identity referring to the Omotic-speaking Anfillo and the ethnically-related but Nilotic-speaking Hozo, Sezo, Ganza and Bambasi communities living in scattered, multiethnic villages in Ethiopia’s western borderlands with Sudan and South Sudan. The traditional economy relied on cultivating millet and other staples on periodically-fallowed plots; hunting and gathering were important secondary activities. Political leadership ranged from village councils of elders to chiefdoms encompassing a number of villages. With increasing contact with settled Oromo farmers, some Mao communities adapted plow-based agriculture and aspects of the national political structure, including a land-based governance system of farmers’ associations with elected leadership.

Identifier

Region

• Africa

Subregion

• Eastern Africa

Subsistence Type

• horticulturalists

Samples

• EA
• SCCS

Countries

• Ethiopia