Documentary Ethiopia: Afar people (English)

[ENG] Afar means “the best“ or “the first“, making it a name that honours the extremely proud nature of this people. They live in a vast rocky, dry and desert-like land. This forces them to move about constantly, like the wind, in search of an element that is essential but very rare in the region where they live: water. Culema and Ali Mohamed are Afar that, like many others, live from the extraction and sale of salt from the Danakil vale -the second deepest in the planet and one of the hottest areas too. Sono and Momima are an Afar married couple that live in the Awash park. Sono learned to drive tractors and now works for an agricultural firm. The Afar traditions include conversion to Islam from the 7th century onwards. For example, genealogies trace lineages back to ancestors from Arabian Peninsula. Mixtures and circulations between the two shores of the Red Sea and inside the Horn are certain even if we are not able to specify them. According to linguistic analyzes, the Afars and the Saho are the first peoples published in this horn of Africa. Bones and traces of prehistoric peoples can be found in the Afar Region. Their language forms a distinct whole within the Cushitic languages which then split. The Afars are described by Herodotus as being Ethiopian troglodytes living along the Red Sea that the Garamantes hunted. The troglodytes live in caves, the word “Afar“ undoubtedly has a Berber origin, because this word means “inhabitant of caves“ which translates well the troglodyte habitat that Herodotus attributes to them. This word is not attested in the Afar language (referred to as “Adal“) according to some theories on the etymology of this word. This name may have been given by the Garamante Berbers who named them so because of their troglodyte habitat. The earliest surviving written mention of the Afar is from the 13th-century Andalusian writer Ibn Sa’id, who reported that they inhabited the area around the port of Suakin, as far south as Mandeb, near Zeila.[5] They are mentioned intermittently in Ethiopian records, first as helping Emperor Amda Seyon in a campaign beyond the Awash River, then over a century later when they assisted Emperor Baeda Maryam when he campaigned against their neighbors the Dobe’a. Along with the closely related Somali and other adjacent Afro-Asiatic-speaking Muslim peoples, the Afar are also associated with the medieval Adal Sultanate that controlled large parts of the northern Horn of Africa. After the death of the Adal leader Ahmad ibn Ibrahim al-Ghazi, Afar settlements were overtaken in Hararghe by the result of the Oromo migrations. The Issa Somali also took advantage of the crippled Afar and occupied large swaths of their territory in the north west of East Africa. Socially, they are organized into clan families led by elders and two main classes: the asaimara (’reds’) who are the dominant class politically, and the adoimara (’whites’) who are a working class and are found in the Mabla Mountains] Clans can be fluid and even include outsiders like the (Issa clan). In addition, the Afar are reputed for their martial prowess. Men traditionally sport the jile, a famous curved knife. They also have an extensive repertoire of battle songs. The Afar are mainly livestock holders. They mostly raise camels but also tend to goats, sheep, and cattle. However, shrinking pastures for their livestock and environmental degradation have made some Afar instead turn to cultivation, migrant labor, and trade. The Ethiopian Afar have traditionally engaged in salt trading but recently Tigrayans have taken much of this occupation.