Basically, the hunter-gatherers of East Africa have been subject to two radically different models of analysis. The first, which one could call “the view from above”, considers them as relics – i.e., as the last remnants of a pristine way of life of hunting and gathering, submerged elsewhere by pastoralism and agriculture. This approach is all the more strengthened when the group in question is not only ecologically, economically and culturally deviant from the mainstream of the surrounding populations, but also linguistically apart. In this view, hunters and gatherers are supposed to be “cultural survivors” precisely because they are, or are considered to be, “linguistic survivors”. A second approach – “the view from below” – has the hunters and gatherers as marginal groups, and often as former pastoralists who were forced to adopt a despised way of subsistence after having lost their cattle as a result of war or an epidemics. Such a view receives further support by the observation that the marginal, outcaste groups of East Africa are constantly renewed and enriched through the influx of genetic (and very possibly linguistic) material coming from neighboring peoples: individuals, either men, women or children, may and often are cast off of their group for a number of reasons, mainly having to do with the infringement of group solidarity and codes.

Hunters and Gatherers in East Africa and the Case of Ongota (Southwest Ethiopia)

Graziano Savà;Mauro Tosco
2020-01-01

Abstract

Basically, the hunter-gatherers of East Africa have been subject to two radically different models of analysis. The first, which one could call “the view from above”, considers them as relics – i.e., as the last remnants of a pristine way of life of hunting and gathering, submerged elsewhere by pastoralism and agriculture. This approach is all the more strengthened when the group in question is not only ecologically, economically and culturally deviant from the mainstream of the surrounding populations, but also linguistically apart. In this view, hunters and gatherers are supposed to be “cultural survivors” precisely because they are, or are considered to be, “linguistic survivors”. A second approach – “the view from below” – has the hunters and gatherers as marginal groups, and often as former pastoralists who were forced to adopt a despised way of subsistence after having lost their cattle as a result of war or an epidemics. Such a view receives further support by the observation that the marginal, outcaste groups of East Africa are constantly renewed and enriched through the influx of genetic (and very possibly linguistic) material coming from neighboring peoples: individuals, either men, women or children, may and often are cast off of their group for a number of reasons, mainly having to do with the infringement of group solidarity and codes.
2020
The Language of Hunter-Gatherers
Cambridge University Press
91
113
9781139026208
https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/language-of-huntergatherers/B40D443BF69BB2164696FD6D662204C9
hunter-gatherers Ongota South-West Ethiopia language classification Afroasiatic
Graziano Savà, Mauro Tosco
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Utilizza questo identificativo per citare o creare un link a questo documento: https://hdl.handle.net/2318/1743487
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