Purity and Heterogeneity: Warfare, Ethnic Identity, and Resistance against the State among the Hor of Southwestern Ethiopia

抄録

The war discourse of the Hor, comprised of idioms that provide them with meanings related to waging war, diverges considerably from the Hor’s present interethnic relationships with their neighbors. Since the end of the 19^th century, the Hor have lived under Ethiopian state rule but have tried to maintain their cultural and political autonomy by constructing and upholding a patriarchal “tradition” (aada). This “tradition” includes sets of discourses and rituals, among which the war discourse is one of the most important. This paper analyzes the war discourse and demonstrates how it functions to consolidate the Hor’s patriarchal tradition. As interethnic relationships have changed, new idioms have been added, even though the discourse appears authentic and unchanging. While deterioration of the Hor’s relationship with the neighboring Borana animated the war discourse in the 1990s, changes to the discourse also reflect challenges to Hor tradition from within.