Songs of the Baka and Other Discoveries

by Dennis James

  The sun sets on the barren but beautiful Sinai landscape. Norm points and says to me, “That’s your birthday card.”

  Finally, the buses stop in front of the Pension Roma, where it all began. We are incredibly tired but indelibly changed, and irrevocably committed.

  Epilogue

  At the request of Israel, Egypt has closed the Rafah border crossing to anyone sympathetic to the Palestinian cause.

  On June 8, 2014, the IDF launched Operation Protective Edge. The damage to Palestinian life and property was even greater than that inflicted during Operation Cast Lead. Israel’s blockade of Gaza remains in effect.

  Although many American politicians have visited Israel, no one, including Obama, has gone to Gaza.

  Back in Brooklyn, we host two events in our apartment to publicize the plight of Gaza’s population: one to provide an informational session and one to raise funds. People are sympathetic—they pay attention and give money—but then go on with their lives. We attend marches and rallies, some in front of the Israeli Consulate in New York, to protest the blockade and also Benjamin Netanyahu’s policy of displacing Palestinians to build settlements for Israelis. Netanyahu just builds more settlements.

  We protest the firing or demotions of academics who criticize Israeli policies toward the Palestinians. Some professors are reinstated, others receive settlements, and the rest move on. We participate in a movement to boycott Israeli products at our Food Co-op in Brooklyn, an attempt that triggers hysterical and hostile reactions from the opposition. Two thousand people assemble to vote for or against conducting a referendum on the boycott, standing room only in the largest high school auditorium in Brooklyn. The pro-referendum position gets forty percent of the total, a showing that would have been unheard of five years earlier.

  We are not discouraged. All of these actions have educated the American public about a situation that is not given much attention in the mainstream media. And young people, on college campuses and everywhere else, including in the Park Slope Food Co-op, are actively supporting the Palestinian cause.

  There is hope for the future.

  Ethiopia:

  THE OMO RIVER VALLEY

  Hamer Bull-Jumping Ceremony

  We stand in the glare of the south Ethiopian sun. A cloud of ochre dust leaves a fine powder that turns dark red in the rivulets of our sweat. Our water bottles are almost empty, and the remaining liquid is dishpan warm. We accept this discomfort for the chance to witness the bull-jumping ceremony of a traditional Hamer village in the Lower Omo River Valley.

  As part of their initiation into manhood, young Hamer men, aged fourteen to eighteen years old, are required to jump on and run across the backs of a line of bulls, making this traverse several times without falling. Much celebration precedes the initiate’s athletic feat, and, if he is successful, his village feasts for two days. If not, he is shamed until his next try.

  The event takes place on the Ethiopian savanna in an unnamed village near the town of Turmi, where we had spent the night. To reach the village, our Toyota 4x4 rumbles over dubious roads for two hours, slewing and swerving up a dry riverbed filled with sand until it can go no further. Then our guide, G. Hiwot Chemdessa (“call me G”), spends half an hour negotiating an “entry” fee with the village chief, a stubborn old man with a fixed scowl.

  Money paid, we hike through sand piles toward a cacophony of sound: drums beating; horns blowing; rattles shaking; and singing, chanting, shouting, and ululating. The noise is coming from a large clearing bordered by acacia trees and thorn bushes. A phalanx of women, teens to crones, is doing a shuffling, arm-waving, hip-shaking slow march around the field, raising dust as they go. Every few minutes, they stop and jump up and down in unison, alternating high and low jumps, shouting as they do. They then resume their rhythmic progress.

  The women combine complex hair weaves with decorative head shaving and a binding mix of ochre and water to achieve shiny copper braids, each displaying her own unique hairstyle. They wear animal skins decorated with intricate beadwork; cowrie shell necklaces; silver rattles on their ankles; scrap wire wound decoratively around their wrists, upper arms, and necks; and beaded headbands secured with white feathers. Their faces are painted, mostly with slashes of red and yellow. The men dress in a similar, but more restrained, fashion.

  The Hamer are high on homemade beer. Some sleep in the scant shade of an acacia, using small carved wooden saddle-shaped headrests that also function as stools. Others, sitting or standing, lean against the skinny tree trunks and shout comments to their friends or to the dancers.

  Strange and disturbing enactments occur in the brush bordering the field. To show their love for the initiate, his close female relatives and friends challenge men of the village to hit them across their bare lower backs with switches. The logic of this painful display escapes us, but the passion of the participants does not. I watch two young women fight over a switch to determine whom will be hit first. The blows must be sharp enough to draw blood, or the man wielding the switch is loudly taunted by the women, who bear thick scars from prior ceremonies.

  Another dust cloud blooms in the distance. Men are driving bulls toward the ceremonial field. The dancers are nearing ecstasy, jumping higher and shouting louder. Two hundred Hamer and a scattering of tourists gather around the bulls as they arrive. Tribal elders wade into the herd to pick candidates for the lineup.

  The initiate appears. But for a small skin vest, he is naked. He is tall, over six feet, wiry, dust-covered, and shaved bald except for the back of his head where his hair grows in frizzy profusion. He looks a little long in the tooth to be under eighteen. He is calm and focused, his brow furrowed. He, too, wades into the herd. He is allowed to pick out one of the bulls for the jump. We speculate it is not his first try. This village is taking no chances; nobody wants an otherwise healthy bachelor hanging around his parents’ hut and eating their provender indefinitely.

  The chanting and shouting suddenly stops. The chosen bulls, bawling and eyes rolling in fear, are lined up, side by side, and held in place, each by one man holding its upper jaw and another holding its tail. There are two small bulls on the outside and three large bulls in the center.

  The youth takes a short run-up, jumps on the back of one of the small bulls, steps up and onto the three big bulls, jumps down to the other small bull, and then down to the ground. He turns and does the same thing five more times, without a stumble, slip, or hesitation. He has been practicing.

  Strangely enough, there is no cheering, noisemaking, or rush to congratulate him or his family. The Hamer, tired and relieved, straggle off to their huts to begin two days of serious partying. The initiate will receive a small starter herd from the village, enabling him to begin his adult life as putative husband, herdsman, and warrior.

  Bull jumper, Hamer village

  Bull-jumping celebrant, Hamer village

  I think about the meaning of this ritual. The Hamer are subsistence agro-pastoralists. While they grow crops, their significant possession is the cattle herd, whose size determines the prestige of the owner. This ceremony symbolizes the intimate relationship between the Hamer and their cattle and their benign but firm control over the herd.

  We are in the center of the Omo River Valley in southern Ethiopia, an area that is a crazy quilt of tribes with different cultures living in close, though not always peaceful, contact with one another. Most are pastoral, engaging, if at all, in minimal subsistence farming. Ownership of cattle is the measure of wealth. There occur, therefore, frequent clashes between the tribes over allegations of cattle rustling, leading to armed combat and some fatalities.

  There is also a problem with banditry in the Valley involving attacks on passing vehicles. The Ethiopian government requires that an armed escort accompany tourists. For much of our three-week stay, Barbara and I are crammed into a Toyota Land Cruiser with our guide, our driver, and an armed uniformed militiaman.

  Hair, Termites, and Bananas

  Ha
ir is very important throughout the Omo Valley. Men and women spend hours grooming their own and each other’s hair, plaiting, twisting, cornrowing, or coloring and sometimes all four at once. Or the hair is shaved into intricate designs on the scalp, or the front of the hairline is trimmed back, displaying a large forehead. We brought straight razors as gifts to be used for that purpose, and they were much appreciated.

  Each tribe has its own unique style. Within that parameter, individuals create their own approach. In some areas, certain styles and colors are relegated to unmarried women, making it easy for the men to decide with whom to flirt. By adding beads to hair as well as putting on different bracelets, anklets, necklaces, and clothes, the possibilities are endless.

  A much less attractive feature of Omo Valley life are the termites, with whom the villagers live side by side. The termites flourish, creating hundreds of rust-colored towers, some over twelve feet tall. The towers are impermeable, protected by a hard crust, standing straight up from the dry savannah like so many stupas in the Burmese plain. Although purportedly beneficial to agriculture because of the fertile soil they create out of woody fiber, they are mostly destructive, decimating houses and crops.

  The Dorze tribe has found a way to live with them. They build conical houses, at least twenty feet tall, with a high entrance opening and vestibule, although the people are of average height. At first, we wonder why they went to so much trouble to build such towering structures, graceful as they appear—the reason is that the termites eat the wooden base from the bottom, slowly shortening the house to a “normal” size. The houses are also built to be portable, allowing the Dorze to move them off the damaged foundation. By planning ahead, they can live in the same house for at least one or two generations.

  Dorze house

  Bananas also loom large in Ethiopian economy and culture. There are, of course, the plain-eating, true bananas, which are grown for home use, local markets, and export. Ethiopia grows a variety of bananas for consumption, including tiny three-to-four-inch ones that are especially big on flavor.

  More important to the community is the false banana, a plant that looks very similar to a young true banana tree but bears no edible fruit. Its leaves are used as roof shingles throughout the country. It also serves as animal fodder and, with effort, can be made edible for humans, providing a substitute for injira, the ubiquitous Ethiopian flatbread. The false banana is indigenous to Ethiopia, where it is cultivated in addition to being gathered in the wild.

  And then there is “banana art,” invented by a Rastafarian named Bandi who operates the Banana Art Gallery in a large Rastafarian community near Addis Ababa. He is very handsome, with gray hair in Rasta braids, a mustache, and a short beard on an unlined face. Originally from Saint Vincent, he explains what he does in his musical Caribbean English and shows us his press clippings and his degree from the Royal Academy of Art in London. Bandi creates collages made up of material from dried true and false banana plants. His work depicts scenes from village life and ranges from large, framed pieces to greeting cards. We purchase some cards before we leave.

  Thousands of Rastafarians from the Caribbean now live in Ethiopia because they worship Haile Selassie, who ruled Ethiopia as Emperor from 1930 to 1974. On two different occasions, major droughts ended immediately after Selassie visited Jamaica, and he is now revered as the Messiah.

  The Surmi

  The towns in the deep south near the Kenyan border bristle with automatic weapons. Kibbish is in the middle of the area occupied by the Surmi, a tall, slender, handsome people. They walk slowly along the roads with long, loping strides. Both men and women wear a large piece of woven green fabric over one shoulder, covering their torso down to midcalf. Almost all the men carry an AK-47. The Surmi herd cattle and do a little farming.

  The Surmi women are known for the holes in their lower lips into which they insert objects the size of small plates. They start with a small pierced hole and place successively larger discs in the space, gradually stretching the skin. They follow the same procedure in their earlobes. A few of the men have stretched earlobes, and even fewer have an expanded lower lip. It appears grotesque to us, but what is important is that it is a standard of beauty for the Surmi. They have altered their faces and ears in this way for centuries. Now, physical alterations based on tradition have turned into a money-making venture, attracting tourists who pay for photo opportunities.

  G says the men go into town and get drunk every night. In the late afternoon, it is the women’s turn. Sitting at a small café on a dusty side street in Kibbish, we observe Surmi women crowding into a tiny bar. Loud fights break out and spill onto the street. Eventually, the barkeep comes outside to restrain the combatants, and all is calm until the next dispute.

  The next morning, we go to a Surmi village. The faces of the women and children are painted with circles and dots, white against their dark skin. Each design is unique. One man has decorated half of his face with white paint and wears curved animal horns above his ears. The villagers dance and sing, and it’s obvious that they have already dipped into their homemade beer.

  G, a Hamer, says that the Surmi are not trusted by other tribes, that they are cattle thieves, and that they don’t even trust one another, concealing their cattle from other tribal members. I wonder what the Surmi have to say about the Hamer, but we don’t know for sure. Everywhere else we went, we were welcomed with coffee, tea, or homemade brew, even when we dropped in unannounced. Not so with the Surmi.

  The Burji of the Dizi

  The Dizi people live in the hill country in close proximity to the Surmi. The Chief, or Burji, oversees several villages within his jurisdiction. He has two personal compounds—one in the valley and one on a hilltop—and four wives, thirty-four children, countless grandchildren, hundreds of cattle, and one hand. He lost the other hand in a fight with Surmi cattle thieves.

  We sit on the front porch of his hilltop house. It is a nontraditional rectangular affair, constructed of cement block, set on an acre of land and surrounded by a seven-foot-high bamboo fence. Little children scamper in and out of the house, sometimes stopping to receive his caresses or standing behind him to peek at us. Chickens nod and peck in the front yard. The Burji, barefoot, wearing a baseball cap, shorts, and an unbuttoned short-sleeve shirt, sits on the porch stoop. He looks to be in his late fifties or early sixties and is strong and fit. He insists that we, as his guests, occupy a bench, the only furniture available. He smiles a lot and laughs easily. Encouraged by G, he relates some of his history.

  His father was killed before his eyes for refusing to cooperate with agents of the Derg, the military cabal that ran Ethiopia from 1974 to 1991. On the pretense of carrying out land redistribution, Derg officials confiscated land to enrich themselves. The Burji was arrested and tortured for trying to defend his father and refusing to sign over half of his family estate. After his release, he killed a Derg general and burned down a barracks. He fled and lived in exile in Sudan until the Derg was overthrown. He returned home a hero and the people chose him as Burji, rejecting his older brother who had not put up any resistance to the Derg.

  The Burji thinks of himself not as a chief but as a farmer. He has won several awards from the government as an agronomist and shows us the certificates. The villagers have adopted his farming techniques, including terracing, much to their benefit. He has jurisdiction to adjudge minor domestic, property, and criminal disputes. When we ask how he resolves conflicts between his constituents, he says that there are none because he knows everybody, visits all the villages monthly, and heads off any trouble he thinks is brewing.

  The Burji asks if we would like a drink of homemade liquor. Then, he comments that he would like to have a foreign wife and offers one hundred cattle for Barbara. Startled, we laugh, and he doesn’t press the matter. I tell him, “Be careful what you wish for.” He laughs, disappears into the house and emerges with a bottle and some shot glasses. The liquor has a nice vodka taste, but it goes down like liquid
fire.

  He takes us on a tour along a path that skirts fields of corn and makes its way along a fence line downhill into the valley of a stream. The air is cooler and there is shade from various fruit trees. We come to a compound of several traditional round, thatched mud huts, each about six meters in diameter, occupied by his wives, children, and grandchildren. They emerge, smiling, to welcome him. Other relatives drift into the compound. Soon there are thirty adults and many children milling about, gossiping, greeting us, posing for Barbara’s camera, and laughing at the results. With the assistance of wife number one, everyone is herded into a group, and Barbara takes the family picture.

  The Burji of the Dizi and one of his wives, Ethiopia

  We set up our tents in the front yard of an abandoned school down the road from the Burji’s hilltop compound. Up to this point, I haven’t seen any weapons, but that night the Burji posts two armed guards at the entrance to the schoolyard.

  Early in the morning, we are ready to move on but do not want to leave without saying good-bye. The Burji’s grandchildren run to get him from the fields, where he is working, and he arrives, sweating, machete under his arm, very pleased that we waited for him to say farewell.

  The Abageda

  We visit a village of the Boreno people, a large tribe of mostly Muslims scattered in a thousand small villages near the Kenyan and Sudanese borders. The village is surrounded by termite towers taller than their huts. By chance, a postmeeting party of local chiefs is taking place in one of the huts, and we are invited in to meet them. A dozen men, along with the woman whose hut they are occupying, relax with a few beers. They have just met with the Abageda (or chief of chiefs) to discuss agricultural issues and relations between the Boreno and Kenya and Sudan.