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The Cultural Landscape of Konso

The Konso are ethnically related to their faraway neighbors, the Borana nomads, who straddle the Ethiopia-Kenya border. However, in contrast to their relatives, the Konso are settled farmers.
The ancient people of Konso have a relatively sophisticated culture by the standards of the region, although one could say that they live in the Stone Age: the use of stone in and around Konso villages is just amazing.
Terraces made with huge rocks, built against the steep slopes of the hill, prevent erosion of the fertile soil. Small channels set with smaller stones line the fields to drain superfluous rainwater. Down in the valley this water is collected in larger channels with stones walls as high as eight feet. As another sophistication, farmers have made life easier for themselves by building stone steps alongside their steep fields.
Konso villages are surrounded by high stone walls, built to protect them from invaders. Inside, other stone walls divide the villages into several parts to prevent the possibility of a fire destroying the whole settlement. Surprisingly, the konso houses are not built of stone but from ordinary mud bricks and wood, topped by roofs of thatched grass. Solidly built, these high, conical dwellings seem to come straight out of the Asterix and Obelix storybooks. Led by the chief of the tribe –Kalla, the Konso people are famous for their Calvinistic morals, where working and saving money for buying more land have a higher value than killing enemies, the paramount good of their nomadic neighbors. Another outstanding feature is the Konso people’s collective system of labor, whereby farmers help neighbors to work their land until it is their own turn to be assisted.
In the Konso culture, when any important man, or local hero, dies, small wooden ‘waqa’ statues are carved in his honor and placed around the fields or in the bush. The ‘hero’ is depicted in the middle of his waqa group, flanked by his wives. Besides the women, the deceased’s slain enemies are sometimes depicted, and wild animals such as lions, leopards or crocodiles that were killed lie carved in wood at the hero’s feet.
Konso’s green and densely farmed mountains with their orderly villages and neat, round houses, give way to a land that grows ever more wild and savage as one travels down southwest to the Lower Omo Valley. The land slopes steeply down from 4,200 ft to 1,900 ft above sea level, with a corresponding change in the flora and fauna. The savannah land, interspersed with patches of dense bush, provides a marked contrast to the neat, terraced fields of the Konso. (From 7 to 12 days tour in the southern Omo Valley)