The Majang people, or ''Majangir'', live in southwestern
Ethiopia
Ethiopia, , om, Itiyoophiyaa, so, Itoobiya, ti, ኢትዮጵያ, Ítiyop'iya, aa, Itiyoppiya officially the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia, is a landlocked country in the Horn of Africa. It shares borders with Eritrea to the ...
and speak
a Nilo-Saharan language of the
Surmic
The Surmic languages are a branch of the Eastern Sudanic language family.
Today, the various peoples who speak Surmic languages make their living in a variety of ways, including nomadic herders, settled farmers, and slash and burn farmers. Th ...
cluster. The 1998 census gave the total of the Majangir population as 15,341, but since they live scattered in the hills in dispersed settlements (Stauder 1971), their actual total number is undoubtedly much higher. They live around cities of
Tepi, Mett'i, and scattered southwest of
Mizan Teferi
Mizan Tefere (also called simply Mizan) is the largest town in South West Ethiopia Peoples' Region and one of four Capital cities of the region. Mizan is also the administrative centre, of the Bench Sheko Zone in the South West Ethiopia Peoples ...
and towards
Gambela.
Culture
They traditionally lived in small groups, farming for three to five years, then moving on as the fertility of the soil diminished (Stauder 1971). They were active
bee keepers, collecting honey from hives consisting of hollowed logs placed in trees. They did some hunting and snaring of game and trapping of fish. They raised the bulk of their own food by farming, animals providing only a small part of their diet.
Food production has changed since Stauder's time. The single most obvious change is that people are now living in permanent settlements. Livestock was not traditionally raised, but many Majangir have begun small scale livestock raising since about 1980. In addition, they have begun planting fruit and
coffee
Coffee is a drink prepared from roasted coffee beans. Darkly colored, bitter, and slightly acidic, coffee has a stimulant, stimulating effect on humans, primarily due to its caffeine content. It is the most popular hot drink in the world.
S ...
trees, plants that take a number of years to produce a crop.
The Majangir traditionally had a very egalitarian society, with no standing political leaders (Stauder 1971, 1972). The only people in official positions were people in the role of "tapad" (final implosive d), who served as ritual leaders. These were from the Meelanir clan, a group has links with similar-named privileged clans in other Surmic groups (Unseth and Abbink 1998).
In case of a serious disagreement, one party would simply move away. There was no standard social reconciliation mechanism as is found in highland Ethiopian cultures.
The Majangir have over 70 clans, with clan identity passed down through the male line. A person cannot marry a person from the same clan (
exogamy
Exogamy is the social norm of marrying outside one's social group. The group defines the scope and extent of exogamy, and the rules and enforcement mechanisms that ensure its continuity. One form of exogamy is dual exogamy, in which two groups c ...
), nor should they marry a person from their mother's clan (Stauder 1971, Unseth 1998a).
![Majang NT title page](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/82/Majang_NT_title_page.png)
The Majangir traditionally made two kinds of alcoholic drink: one from grain "tááján" (cf.
tella
''Tella'' or ''talla'' ( Amharic ጠላ; om, farsoo, ti, siwa) is a traditional beer from Ethiopia. It is brewed from various grains, typically teff and sorghum. Depending on region, barley, wheat, or maize may be used; spices can also be ad ...
) and one from honey "ògòòl" (cf.
tej
Tej (from pronounced ; ; ) is a honey wine, like mead, that is brewed and consumed in Ethiopia and Eritrea. It has an alcohol content generally ranging from 7 to 11%. It is often home processed and consists of three main ingredients; honey, wa ...
; Teramoto et al., 2005).
The Majangir have traditionally used a number of musical instruments, sometimes to accompany singing and sometimes played without. Their instruments include a five-string
lyre
The lyre () is a stringed musical instrument that is classified by Hornbostel–Sachs as a member of the lute-family of instruments. In organology, a lyre is considered a yoke lute, since it is a lute in which the strings are attached to a yoke ...
,
thumb piano
Mbira ( ) are a family of musical instruments, traditional to the Shona people of Zimbabwe. They consist of a wooden board (often fitted with a resonator) with attached staggered metal tines, played by holding the instrument in the hands and pl ...
, drum, rattles,
panflute
A pan flute (also known as panpipes or syrinx) is a musical instrument based on the principle of the closed tube, consisting of multiple pipes of gradually increasing length (and occasionally girth). Multiple varieties of pan flutes have been ...
. In addition, they play a vertically suspended marimba with as few as three wooden bars, but this is seen as a way of passing time, especially when guarding fields, rather than an instrument for music.
Their vocal music includes singing of both harmonies and antiphonal parts. Often, this results in two parts being sung by women and two parts by men.
Changes are happening rapidly to their traditional way of life. Since about 1971, many Majangir have become Christians (Hoekstra 2003 and Sato 2002). Further, since the end of the
Ethiopian Civil War
The Ethiopian Civil War was a civil war in Ethiopia and present-day Eritrea, fought between the Ethiopian military junta known as the Derg and Ethiopian-Eritrean anti-government rebels from 12 September 1974 to 28 May 1991.
The Derg overthre ...
in 1991, with its subsequent remapping of Ethiopia by ethnic lines, the Majangir have felt very marginalized politically, their territory now divided among three
''kalil'' or administrative Regions (Sato 2000 and 2002). This frustration has led to some armed fighting with the government (Vaughan 2003:268).
Currently, many outsiders are buying or leasing land from the Majang area. "This has led to the pauperization of the Majang and the looming environmental disaster of the massive deforestation of the Majang forest, part of south-west Ethiopia’s dwindling tropical rain-forest."
[p. 49. Ficquet, Éloi, and Dereje Feyissa. 2015. Ethiopians in the twenty-first century: the structure and transformation of the population. ''Understanding Contemporary Ethiopia Monarchy, Revolution and the Legacy of Meles Zenawi.'', pp. 15-62. Hurst Publications.]
Language
The
Majangir language is part of the
Surmic
The Surmic languages are a branch of the Eastern Sudanic language family.
Today, the various peoples who speak Surmic languages make their living in a variety of ways, including nomadic herders, settled farmers, and slash and burn farmers. Th ...
cluster, however it is the most isolated language in that cluster (
Harold C. Fleming
Harold Crane Fleming (December 23, 1922 – April 29, 2015) was an anthropologist and historical linguist specializing in the cultures and languages of the Horn of Africa. As an adherent of the Four Field School of American anthropology, he ...
1983). A
language survey A language survey is conducted around the world for a variety of reasons.
*measuring people's ability to speak and understand another language (usually community based, not school based) (multilingualism)
*studying people's attitudes about differen ...
has shown that dialect variation from north to south is minor and does not seriously impede communication
The language has
implosive consonant
Implosive consonants are a group of stop consonants (and possibly also some affricates) with a mixed glottalic ingressive and pulmonic egressive airstream mechanism.''Phonetics for communication disorders.'' Martin J. Ball and Nicole Müller. R ...
s (bilabial and retroflex), but no
ejective consonant
In phonetics, ejective consonants are usually voiceless consonants that are pronounced with a glottalic egressive airstream. In the phonology of a particular language, ejectives may contrast with aspirated, voiced and tenuis consonants. Some l ...
s (Bender 1983). There are seven vowels, and length of duration of the vowel is also distinctive, such as ''goopan'' 'punishment' and ''gopan'' 'road'. In addition, two tones also distinguish meaning, on both the word level and the grammatical level: ''táŋ'' (higher tone) 'cow', ''tàŋ'' (lower tone) 'abscess'.
References
External links
Map showing approximate Majangir locations(Ethnologue)
Traditional Majang trickster storyTraditional Majang story on origin of fire
Bibliography
* Bender, M. Lionel, 1983. "Majang Phonology and Morphology," in M.
Lionel Bender
Marvin Lionel Bender (August 18, 1934 – February 19, 2008) was an American linguist.
Life
Bender was born August 18, 1934, in Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania. He travelled throughout the world, particularly in Northeast Africa, and was an accompli ...
, (ed.), ''Nilo-Saharan Language Studies'', pp. 114–47. East Lansing, MI: Michigan State University, African Studies Center.
* Fleming, Harold, 1983. "Surmic etymologies" in ''Nilotic Studies: Proceedings of the International Symposium on Languages and History of the Nilotic Peoples'', Rainer Vossen and Marianne Bechhaus-Gerst, 524–555. Berlin: Dietrich Reimer.
* Hoekstra, Harvey. 2003. From "knotted strings" to talking Bibles. Pasadena: William Carey Library.
* Sato, Ren'ya. 1995. "Seasonal Labor Allocation and Diversification Strategy of Sweden Agricultural System: A Report from the Majangir, Southwest Ethiopia," ''Human Geography'' 47: 541–561.
* Sato, Ren'ya, 1997a. "Christianization through Villagization: Experiences of Social Change among the Majangir," ''Ethiopia in Broader Perspective: Papers of 13th International Ethiopian Studies'', vol.2.
* Sato, Ren'ya, 1997b. "Formation of Historical Consciousness among the Majangir : A Preliminary View with an Analysis of a narrative on the Majangir History," ''Swahili & African Studies''.
* Sato, Ren'ya. 2000. "Ethiopian Decentralization and a Peripheral People : A Dispute Over Regional Borders and the Disruption of a Certain Development Project," ''Africa Report'' 30 12-15
* Sato, Ren'ya. 2002. "Evangelical Christianity and ethnic consciousness in Majangir." ''Remapping Ethiopia Socialism and After'', edited by Wendy James, Donald L. Donham, Eisei Kurimoto, and Allesandro Triulzi, pp. 185–197. Oxford: James Currey Ltd.
* Sato, Ren'ya. 2003. Settlement dynamics of shifting cultivators, with special references to social factors of settlement abandonment. In H. Ishihara, ed., ''Studies of Agricultural Space'' (''Noson Kukan no Kenyu) 1, 346–363. Tokyo: Taimedo.
n Japanese
N, or n, is the fourteenth letter in the Latin alphabet, used in the modern English alphabet, the alphabets of other western European languages and others worldwide. Its name in English is ''en'' (pronounced ), plural ''ens''.
History
...
* Sato, Ren'ya. 2007. Dynamics of subsistence and reproduction among the Majangir. 16th International Conference of Ethiopian Studies. Trondheim, Norway
draft paper* Stauder, Jack. 1971. ''The Majangir: Ecology and Society of a Southwest Ethiopian People''. London: Cambridge University Press.
* Stauder, Jack. 1972. "Anarchy and Ecology: Political Society among the Majangir". ''Southwestern Journal of Anthropology'' 28.2, pp. 153–168.
* Tasew, Bayleyegn. "The Mythically Modelled Human–Environment Tradition of the Maǧaŋgir Society, South-Western Ethiopia." In ''Oral Traditions in Ethiopian Studies'': Edited by Alexander Meckelburg, Sophia Dege-Müller, and Dirk Bustorf, 307–26. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz Verlag, 2018. http://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctvcm4fb5.17.
* Teramoto Y., Sato R., and Ueda S. 2005. "Characteristics of fermentation yeast isolated from traditional Ethiopian honey wine, ogol." ''African Journal of Biotechnology'', 4 (2), pp. 160–163.
* Tuno, Nobuko. 2001. Mushroom utilization by the Majangir, an Ethiopian tribe. ''Mycologist'' 15(2):78-79.
* Unseth, Peter. 1988. "Majang Nominal Plurals: With Comparative Notes," ''Studies in African Linguistics'' 19.1:75-91.
* Unseth, Peter. 1989. "Sketch of Majang Syntax," ''Topics in Nilo-Saharan Linguistics'', M. Lionel Bender, ed., pp. 97–127. (Nilo-Saharan: Linguistic Analyses and Documentation, vol. 3. Series editor Franz Rottland.) Hamburg: Helmut Buske Verlag.
* Unseth, Peter. 1998a. "Notes on Clan, Kinship, and Marriage Patterns Among the Majangir," in ''Surmic Languages and Cultures'', ed. by Gerrit Dimmendaal, pp. 145–178. Köln: Köppe.
* Unseth, Peter. 1998b. "Two Old Causative Affixes in Surmic," ''Surmic Languages and Cultures'', ed. by Gerrit Dimmendaal, pp. 113–126. Köln: Köppe.
* Unseth, Peter. 2007. "Majangir ethnography". ''Encyclopaedia Aethiopica'', edited by Siegbert Uhlig, vol. 3, p. 629. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz.
* Unseth, Peter and Jon Abbink. 1998. "Cross-ethnic Clan Identities Among Surmic Groups: The Case of the Mela," in ''Surmic Languages and Cultures'', ed. by Gerrit Dimmendaal, pp. 103–112. Köln: Köppe.
* Vaughan, Sarah. 2003.
Ethnicity and Power in Ethiopia. Doctoral dissertation, University of Edinburgh.
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Ethnic groups in Ethiopia