The Gumuz (also spelled Gumaz and Gumz) are an ethnic group speaking a Nilo-Saharan language inhabiting the

Benishangul-Gumuz Region Benishangul-Gumuz () is a regional state in northwestern Ethiopia Ethiopia, officially the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia, is a landlocked country located in the Horn of Africa region of East Africa. It shares borders with Er ...

in western

Ethiopia Ethiopia, officially the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia, is a landlocked country located in the Horn of Africa region of East Africa. It shares borders with Eritrea to the north, Djibouti to the northeast, Somalia to the east, Ken ...

, as well as the Fazogli region in

Sudan Sudan, officially the Republic of the Sudan, is a country in Northeast Africa. It borders the Central African Republic to the southwest, Chad to the west, Libya to the northwest, Egypt to the north, the Red Sea to the east, Eritrea and Ethiopi ...

. They speak the Gumuz language, which belongs to the

Nilo-Saharan The Nilo-Saharan languages are a proposed family of around 210 African languages spoken by somewhere around 70 million speakers, mainly in the upper parts of the Chari and Nile rivers, including historic Nubia, north of where the two tributari ...

family. The Gumuz number around 250,000 individuals.

History

The Gumuz have traditionally been grouped with other Nilotic peoples living along the Sudanese-Ethiopian border under the collective name Shanqella (Pankhurst 1977). As "Shanquella", they are already mentioned by Scottish explorer

James Bruce James Bruce of Kinnaird (14 December 1730 – 27 April 1794) was a Scottish traveller and travel writer who physically confirmed the source of the Blue Nile. He spent more than a dozen years in North and East Africa and in 1770 became the fir ...

in his ''Travels to Discover the Source of the Nile'', published in 1790. He notes that they hunted with bows and arrows, a custom that survives today. Most Gumuz members live in a bush-savanna lowland environment. According to their traditions, in earlier times they inhabited the western parts of the province of Gojjam, but were progressively banished to the inhospitable area of the

Blue Nile The Blue Nile is a river originating at Lake Tana in Ethiopia. It travels for approximately through Ethiopia and Sudan. Along with the White Nile, it is one of the two major Tributary, tributaries of the Nile and supplies about 85.6% of the wa ...

and its tributaries by their more powerful Afroasiatic-speaking neighbors, the Amhara and Agaw, who also enslaved them (Wolde-Selassie Abbute 2004).

Slavery Slavery is the ownership of a person as property, especially in regards to their labour. Slavery typically involves compulsory work, with the slave's location of work and residence dictated by the party that holds them in bondage. Enslavemen ...

did not disappear in

until the 1940s. Descendants of Gumuz people taken as slaves to the area just south of Welkite were found to still be speaking the language in 1984 (Unseth 1985).

Language

The Gumuz speak the Gumuz language, which belongs to the

family (Bender 1979). It is subdivided in several dialects (Ahland 2004, Unseth 1985).

Demographics

As of 2024, there were around 159,418 Gumuz people in Ethiopia. Around 88,000 Gumuz people also lived in Sudan. Total population is around 250,000.

Culture

The Gumuz practice shifting cultivation and their staple food is

sorghum ''Sorghum bicolor'', commonly called sorghum () and also known as great millet, broomcorn, guinea corn, durra, imphee, jowar, or milo, is a species in the Poaceae, grass genus ''Sorghum (genus), Sorghum'' cultivated for its grain. The grain i ...

(Wallmark 1981). Cereal crops are kept in granaries decorated with clay lumps imitating female

breast The breasts are two prominences located on the upper ventral region of the torso among humans and other primates. Both sexes develop breasts from the same embryology, embryological tissues. The relative size and development of the breasts is ...

s. Sorghum is used for cooking

porridge Porridge is a food made by heating, soaking or boiling ground, crushed or chopped starchy plants, typically grain, in milk or water. It is often cooked or served with added flavourings such as sugar, honey, fruit, or syrup to make a sweet cereal ...

(''nga'') and brewing

beer Beer is an alcoholic beverage produced by the brewing and fermentation of starches from cereal grain—most commonly malted barley, although wheat, maize (corn), rice, and oats are also used. The grain is mashed to convert starch in the ...

(''kea''). All the cooking and brewing is carried out in earthen pots, which are made by women. The Gumuz also hunt wild animals, such as

duiker A duiker is a small to medium-sized brown antelope native to sub-Saharan Africa, found in heavily wooded areas. The 22 extant species, including three sometimes considered to be subspecies of the other species, form the subfamily Cephalophinae ...

s and warthogs, and gather

honey Honey is a sweet and viscous substance made by several species of bees, the best-known of which are honey bees. Honey is made and stored to nourish bee colonies. Bees produce honey by gathering and then refining the sugary secretions of pl ...

, wild fruits, roots and seeds. Those living near the Sudanese borderland converted to

Islam Islam is an Abrahamic religions, Abrahamic monotheistic religion based on the Quran, and the teachings of Muhammad. Adherents of Islam are called Muslims, who are estimated to number Islam by country, 2 billion worldwide and are the world ...

and a few are Christians, but most Gumuz still maintain traditional religious practices. Spirits are called ''mus'a '' and are thought to dwell in houses, granaries, fields, trees and mountains. They have ritual specialists called ''gafea''. Originally, all Gumuz adorned their bodies with

scarification Scarification involves scratching, etching, burning/ branding, or superficially cutting designs, pictures, or words into the skin as a permanent body modification or body art. The body modification can take roughly 6–12 months to heal. In t ...

s, but this custom is disappearing through government pressure and education. All Gumuz are organized in

clan A clan is a group of people united by actual or perceived kinship and descent. Even if lineage details are unknown, a clan may claim descent from a founding member or apical ancestor who serves as a symbol of the clan's unity. Many societie ...

s. Feuds between clans are common and they are usually solved by means of an institution of conflict resolution, called ''mangema'' or ''michu'' depending on the region. As it used to be among the Sudanese Uduk, marriage is through sister exchange.

Conflict with highland settlers

Many changes occurred for the Gumuz people from the 1980s through to the 2010s. There was resettlement of highlanders to their area, particularly linked to the availability of land and water. An example is that settlers were attracted to a large irrigation project along the Kusa. Often the Gumuz' lands were allocated to transnational or domestic investors. In several parts of the Gumuz area, the settlers' economy dominated by 2018. Many Gumuz became sedentary while continuing their agricultural system. Though a transit road has been built and commercial farms established in the lower basin the Gumuz people were seen in 2018 as politically "peripheral" in regard to the Ethiopian highlands that hold the power in the country. In the Metekel conflict, starting in 2019, Gumuz militia were allegedly involved in attacks against Amhara, Agaw, Oromo and Shinasha civilians.

References

Bibliography

* Abbute, Wolde-Selassie. 2004. ''Gumuz and Highland resettlers. Differing strategies of livelihood and ethnic relations in Metekel, Northwestern Ethiopia''. Münster: Lit. * Ahland, Colleen Anne. 2004. ''Linguistic variation within Gumuz: a study of the relationship between historical change and intelligibility.'' M.A. thesis. University of Texas at Arlington. * Ahmad, Abdussamad H. 1995. The Gumuz of the Lowlands of Western Gojjam: The frontier in History 1900-1935. ''Africa'' 50(1): 53-67. * Ahmad, Abdussamad H. 1999. Trading in slaves in Bela-Shangul and Gumuz, Ethiopia: border enclaves in history, 1897-1938. ''Journal of African History'' 40(3): 433-446. * Bender, M. Lionel. 1979. Gumuz: a sketch of grammar and lexicon. ''Afrika und Übersee'' 62: 38-69. * Bender, M. Lionel. 1994. Comparative Komuz grammar. ''Afrika und Übersee'' 77: 31-54. * Grottanelli, Vinigi, L. 1948. I Preniloti: un’arcaica provincia culturale in Africa. ''Annali Lateranensi'' 12: 280-326. * Haberland, Eike. 1953. Über einen unbekannten Gunza-stamm in Wallegga. ''Rassegna di Studi Etiopici'' 12: 139-148. * James, Wendy. 1975. Sister exchange marriage. ''Scientific American'' 233(6): 84-94. * James, Wendy. 1980. “From aboriginal to frontier society in western Ethiopia. In ''Working papers on society and history in Imperial Ethiopia: The southern periphery from 1880 to 1974'', edited by Donald L. Donham and Wendy James. Cambridge: African Studies Center, Cambridge University Press. * James, Wendy. 1986. “Lifelines: exchange marriage among the Gumuz”. In ''The southern marches of Imperial Ethiopia. Essays in history and social anthropology'', edited by D.L. Donham and W. James. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press: 119-147. * Klausberger, Friedrich. 1975. Bashanga, das Strafrecht der Baga-Gumuz. ''Ethnologische Zeitschrift'' (Zürich) 1: 109-126. * Pankhurst, Richard. 1977. The history of Bareya, Sanquella and other Ethiopian slaves from the borderlands of the Sudan. ''Sudan Notes and Records'' 58: 1-43. * Simmoons, Frederick. 1958. The agricultural implements and cutting tools of Begemder and Semyen, Ethiopia. ''South West Journal of Anthropology'' 14: 386-406. * Unseth, Peter. 1985. Gumuz: a dialect survey report. ''Journal of Ethiopian Studies'' 18: 91-114. * Unseth, Peter. 1989. Selected aspects of Gumuz phonology. ''Proceedings of the 8th International Conference on Ethiopian Studies'', Addis Ababa, 1984: 617-32. * Uzar, Henning. 1993. “Studies in Gumuz: Sese phonology and TMA system”. In ''Topics in Nilo-Saharan linguistics'', edited by M.L. Bender. Hamburg: Helmut Buske: 347-383. * Wallmark, Peter. 1981. “The Bega (Gumuz) of Wellega: Agriculture and subsistence”. In ''Peoples and cultures of the Ethio-Sudan borderlands'', edited by M.L. Bender. East Lansing: Michigan State University, African Studies Centre: 79-116. * Zanni, Leone. 1939-40. La Tribù dei Gumus. Note Etnografiche. ''La Nigrizia''. Verona.

External links

Field recordings from 1980 of traditional music
of the Gumuz ethnic group in Sudan’s Blue Nile State {{authority control Ethnic groups in Ethiopia Ethnic groups in Sudan