Pastoral Livelihoods in Danger: Cattle disease, drought, and wildlife conservation in Mursiland,...

8/7/2019 Pastoral Livelihoods in Danger: Cattle disease, drought, and wildlife conservation in Mursiland, south-western Ethio

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Pastoral Livelihoodsin Danger

Cattle Disease, Drought, andWildlife Conservation in Mursiland,South-Western Ethiopia

David Turton

An Oxfam W orking P aper


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Published by Oxfem (UK and Ireland)First published 1995

Oxfam (UK and Ireland) 1995A catalogue recor d for this publication is available from the B ritish Library .

ISBN 0 85598 333 7

All rights reserved. Reproduction, copy, transmission, or translation of any part of this publicationmay be made only u nd er the following conditions: with the prior writ ten permission of the publisher with a licence from t he Copyright Licensing Agency Ltd., 90 To ttenh am Co urt Road, Lon don

W1 P 9 HE ,UK for quotation in a review of the work und er the term s set out below.This publication is copyright, but may be reproduced by any method without fee for teachingpurposes, but not for resale. Because Oxfam wants to know how widely its materials aredisseminated, formal permission is required for all such uses, but will be granted immediately. Forcopying in any other circumstances, or for re-use in other publications, or for translation oradaptation, prio r written perm ission m ust be obtained from the publisher, a nd a fee m ay be payable.Available in Ireland from Oxfam in Ireland, 19 Clanwilliam Te rra ce, Dublin 2 (tel. 01 6 61 85.44).Published by Oxfam (UK and Ireland), 274 Banbury Road, Oxford OX 2 7DZ, UKDesigned by Oxfem Design D epartme ntTypeset in 10 pt. BaskervillePrinted by Oxfam Print U nitOxfam is regis tered as a charity, no. 202918.

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ContentsList of figures and tables 4Acknowledgements 4Introduction 5WhytheMurs i? 5Why pastoralism? 5Metho d and tim ing of the study 6Structure of the paper 6Part I: Background 8Population 8Local groups 8Topography 0Rainfall 5Vegetation 11Subsistence 11Dr oug ht, warfare, and ecological change 13Part II : Herd structure anddynamics: a case study 15Location 15Herd-owners of Settlement 1 1 5H er d size and composition 17Milk yield 18Herd dynamics 19Part III: Constraints on pastoralproduction 22Disease 22Mursi classification of cattle diseases 22Incidence 23Treatment 24Access to govern me nt veterinary services 25The SIM animal-health programme 26Drought 28'Track ing' a variable environment 28A growing water shortage 28Conflicts over land-rights 31Common property 31

National Park development 32The Southern Ethiopia Wildlife ConservationProject 35

Part IV: Conclusions andrecommendations 37Veterinary services 37Water 39Wildlife conse rvation 42Summ ary of conclusions andrecommendations 44Notes 45References 45Appendix: A meeting to discussdisease and drought 48


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List of figures and tablesFigures Tables1 .The Mursi and their neighbours 72. Distribution of territorial gro ups (buranyoga)along the Om o 83.Topography and drainage of the lower Omovalley 104. Th e study area 165.The upper Elma valley 296.The Mago and Om o National Parks 33

l.M ursilan d: . local grou ps and estimatedmaximum population 92. Seasonal events and subsistence activities 123. Classification of catde into four catego ries 174. Settlement 1: Herd composition and cattleper capita 185. Milk available for human consumption,Ulichagi's her d 196. Settlement 1: Offspring of cows currendy inthe herd 197.Setdem ent 1: Animal losses in each categoryand cause of dea th overall, 1993-94 208.Setdement 1: Estimated decline in herds dueto death, 1993-94 219.SetUement 1: Breakd own of animal losses bydisease, 1993-94 24

AcknowledgementsThis study would not have been possiblewithout the interest, encouragement, andpractical help of Chris Mason, CountryRepresentative for Oxfam (UK and Ireland) inEdiiopia. Fr Martin Kelly and Ato AlemayehuAgonafir.of d ie Catholic Ch urch in Arba Minchand Jinka respectively, provided warm hospit-ality an d vital he lp widi tran sp ort . Th e staff ofdie Catholic Church in Jinka were as u nsdn dngin dieir help as I have com e to expect over m anyyears. Dr Jonatfian Geddes of the Society ofInternational Missionaries (SIM) took me toHana and Makki, put at my disposal hisveterinary knowledge and experience oftreadng Mursi catde over the past year, sharedhis ideas about appropriate developmentintervendons and, with his wife Barbara andcolleagues Mr and Mrs Gerald Carlson,provided a very warm welcome at Makki. I also

benefited gready from conversadons with MrAtdlio Ascani, Dr Richard Hogg, Dr AlulaPankhurst, and Dr Christie Peacock in AddisAbaba and widi Dr Roy Beh nke in L ondo n.My greatest debts are to my son Danny, for hishelp and support in die field; to die herd-owners of the Welya setdements for theirpatient and good-h umo ured response to a dailybarrage of questions about dieir catde; and toUlitherali Jordomo and Ulikoro Bedameri, asalways, for their wise counsel, cheerfulcompany, and tireless efforts to help meunderstand.David TurtonDepartment of Social AnthropologyUniversity of Manchester


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Introduction

This paper is the outcome of a short field studywhich I carried out in northern Mursiland inSepte mb er 1994 on behalf of vOxfam (UK an dIre lan d). Th e original objective was to focus onthe problem of catde disease and to examine thescope for improving the access of Mursipastoralists to veterinary services, especiallythrough the training of 'paravets'. Soon afterbeginning the field-work, however, it becameclear that this particular constraint on pastoralproduction could not sensibly be consideredwithout reference to another, namely thegrowing shortage of water in dry-seasongrazing areas, which was forcing herd-ow nersto subject their cattle to debilitating daily treksthrough tsetse-infested bush to drink in theOmo, Mago, and Sala Rivers. A third (andpotentially the most serious) threat to Mursilivelihoods comes from the 'Southern Ethiop ianWildlife Conservation Project', which began inJune 1995. Funded by the European Union,this is the most expensive wildlife project everundertaken in Ethiopia. Its preliminary phasebegan in June 1995. It covers three nationalparks , two of which (the Omo and MagoNatio nal Parks) contain between them th e mainagricultural and pastoral resources of theMursi. Despite this, the Mursi were neitherconsulted nor informed about the projectduring its planning phase, and they stand tocarry the main burden of its costs. Thedocum ents setting out the aims and m ethods ofthe project eipitomise the increasinglydiscredited 'preservationist' approach toconservation in Africa, according to which localpeople are the enemies of conservation andshould, as far as possible, be excluded from'protected' areas. In this paper I describe thesecurrent and potential constraints on Mursipastoral production and suggest ways ofreducing their impact.

W hy the Mursi?The Mursi are one of several small groups ofagro-pastoralists who live in the Lower Omovalley of south-western Ethiopia. The ir historyover the past twenty years has been one ofalmost continuous crisis, involving drought,famine, war, migration, and epidemic disease.In coping with and adapting to theseconditions, they have had little or no systematichelp from governmental or non-governmentalagencies, certainly less than th eir agro-pastoralneighbours, the Bodi, Nyangatom, and Ham ar(Figure 1). This is largely because of theinaccessibility of their territory and the absenceof any permanent settlements where health,veterinary, and educational services could beprovided. Any long-term plans and proposalsfor economic development in the area such asthe encouragement of tourism and theconstruction of dams on the O mo for electricitygeneration and irrigated agriculture arelikely to put even more pressure on vitalsubsistence resources for the M ursi.

W hy pastoralism?Because of th e low and er ratic local rainfall, thelower Omo basin is a highly marginal area forrain-fed agriculture. Flood-retreat cultivationalong the banks of the Omo ismore reliable, butthe cu ltivable area varies significantly from yearto year with the height of the flood. Crop pestsand birds are a further and frequent cause ofpoor harvests. But die wooded grasslandswhich make up most of Mursi territory are, inprinciple, ideally suited to pastoralism, a modeof subsistence to which they have anoverwhelming cultural comm itment. This is notsimply a ma tter of sentiment: pastoral p roductsma ke a vital contribution to their diet, while theexch ang e of cattle for grain in highland mark etsis the ultimate stand-by in times of extremehunger. There could be no more effective, nor


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, Pastoral Livelihoods in Danger

culturally acceptable, way to increase the foodsecurity of the Mursi than by helping them toimprove the productivity of their herds.Method and timing of the studyThe information I was seeking fell into fourmain categories:a. h erd structure and dynamics;b. an overall assessment of the recent historyand current state of pastoral production inthe area , with partic ular reference to diseaseand (increasingly as the study proceeded)water resources;c. an assessment of th e cu rre nt level ofveterinary services available to the Mursi;andd. the views of local herd-owners on how thepastoral economy might be strengthenedwith the help of exter nal in tervention .

Information in the first two categoriesobviously overlaps and was collectedsimultaneously during the field-work, but thefirst category was the mo st fundam ental, in thesense that it was through asking individualsabout the composition of their herds, theprogeny history of individual animals, andrecent losses that information falling into thesecond category was most effectively andreliably obtained. I th erefore spent a large partof my time asking individuals to go throu gh allthe animals of their current herd, describinghow they had acquired them, listing theoffspring, if any, of female animals, includingthose which had died or been otherwisedisposed of, and listing all those animals whichhad died over the past year. Information on thepresent level of veterinary services was obtainedfrom the Mursi them selves, from th e Ministry ofAgriculture's Animal Health Assistant at Hana,and from Dr Jo na th an Ged des, a missionaryveterinarian, w ho has been tr eatin g Mursi cattlesince Jan uar y 1994. In or de r both to gatheropinions and seek a consensus on what might bedone by an outside organisation to help tosustain the pastoral economy, I propo sed to thelocal herd-owners that they hold a publicmeeting to discuss this topic. Th e m eeting tookplace on 6 Septem ber 1994 and was in the formof a 'deba te' in which any ind ividual who wishedcould make a speech. The eight speakersincluded some of the most respected andinfluential men from the surrounding area.

Excerpts from three of the speeches arepresented in the Appendix.We (I was accompanied by my 19 year-oldson) were dro ppe d in n orthe rn Mursiland by avehicle from the Jinka Catholic Church on 30August. We set up camp close to a duster ofthree settlements, near die motor track, andwere join ed the next day by two of the localherd-owners whom I have found in the past tobe knowledgeable, patient, and articulateinformants. They stayed with us for theremain der of the trip. On 16 September all fourof us were transpo rted by Jonat han Geddes toMakki, where I spent diree days transcribingand translating the speeches which I hadrecorded on 6 September, and in conversationwidi Geddes and our two Mursi companionsabout options for pastoral development am ongthe Mursi. On 20 September a vehicle from theCatholic Church in Jinka came to Makki^byarrangem ent, to take us back to Jinka.

Structure of the paperThis paper is divided into four par ts. Part I is anoudine description of Mursi economy andsociety, based upon ethnographic researchwhich I have carried out am ong them over diepast 25 years. The aim here is to provide dieminimum of background informationnecessary to enable die r eade r to make sense oflater sections. Part II is an account of herdstructure and dynamics, based upon a singlesetdement of three herd-owners surveyed inSeptember 1994. In Part III I focus on the twomajor current constraints on Mursi pastoralproduction, disease and drought, and on thepotential threat posed by National Parkdevelopment to dieir best dry-season grazingareas. In Part IV I consider how theseconstraints might be reduced by means ofveterinary assistance and water developmentand by putting pressure on die wildlifeauthorities to change the ir existing approac h tohuman activity in and around the Mago andOmo National Parks.

Figure 1: The Mursi and their neighbours(opposite)


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Introduction

TISHANA

0 20I 1 1 1 1

CHAI

Berka Mago Settlement


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Part 1: Background

PopulationIn 1970, at th e e nd of two years' field-workamon g the M ursi, I estimated their numbers tobe between four and five thousand. In July1990, during a m eningitis epidemic, a little overfour thousand Mursi were vaccinated in aMinistry of Hea lth campaign, operating both innort hern and central Mursiland. Although it isunlikely that this campaign reached the wholepopulation, it is also unlikely that it fell morethan 20 per cent short. The Mursi themselvessay that their nu m be rs h ave increased in the lasttwenty years, although not by leaps and bound s.My conclusion is that the present populationfigure lies somewhere between five and sixthousand.

Local groupsTh e Mursi live in an oblon g-shaped territory ofabout 2,000 km 2, boun ded to the west and southby the River Om o, to th e east by the River Mago,and to the north by the River Mara, a seasonaltributary of the Om o (Figure 1). Thepopulation is divided into three major localgroups, or buranyoga (sing, buran), a term whichrefers to a gr ou p of co-resident people, ratherthan to the locality in which they reside. Thus,while it is possible to draw a territorial bou ndaryarou nd the M ursi on a m ap and call the area sodemarcated 'Mursiland', it would be verydifficult to draw similar internal boundaries.Wh at gives these subdivisions of the M ursi theirlocal definition is not that their members livewithin clearly bo un de d te rritoria l units, but thatthey make regular use of certain fixedresources, especially flood land at the Omo, butalso land for rain-fed cultivation and wateringpoints for cattle in dry-season grazing areas.They have, in other words, territorial foci,rather than territorial boundaries.

Figure 2: Distribution of territorial groups(buranyoga) along the OmoThe three major buranyoga are named, fromnorth to south, Dola, Ariholi, and Gongulobibi.Dola, which is by far the largest, is furtherdivided into three buranyoga named, from northto south, Baruba (formerly known as Mara),Mugjo (formerly known as Mako), andBiogolokare (Figure 2). This is a segmentary or'chinese box' territorial system, in that smallerdivisions, down to the residents of a singlesettlement (also known as a buran), areconsidered miniature replicas and potentialequivalents of larg er on es, up to the level of theentire Mursi population. Thus Baruba, Mugjo,

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Background

and Biogolokare are to Dola what Dola, Ariholi,and Gongulobibi are to the Mursi buran as awhole. Th e th ree constituent buranyoga of Dolaare said to be of roug hly equal size, Gongulobibito be sm aller th an any of them , and Ariholi to besmaller still (Table 1).Table 1: Mursiland: local groups andestimated maximum populationBuran Omo cultivation Max.(north to south) pop'nDolaBa rub a Kudu ma , Alakfa, Makaro 1,500Mugjo Ken nokora 1,500Bio golo kare Ilithey , Gowa 1,500Ariholi KurumGongulobibi BongoTotal

5001,0006,000

In 1979, a group of Dola (mainly Baruba)people migrated eastwards to a previouslyunin hab ited pa rt of the valley of the River Mago(called Mako by the Mursi, but not to beconfused with another River Mako, ahead strea m of the M oizoi (Figure 3) after whichthe Mugjo buran was formerly named), wherethere were better prospects for cultivation(Turton and Turton, 1984). Most of the onethousand or so original migrants have sinceretu rne d to Mursiland proper (mainly becausethe Mago Valley is infested with tsetse flies,making it impossible to keep cattle there); butthe re rem ains a small agricultural settlement ofaround 200 Mursi in the Mago Valley (Figure3). In 1988 the Society of InternationalMissionaries (SIM) established a mission stationat the same place, which they call Makki, afterthe nam e given to th e M ago by the Ari, who livein the nearby highlands.

TopographyMursiland consists essentially of a volcanicupland, rising steadily from less than 500mabove sea level at the Om o to over 1,000m alongthe Dara range, which forms the watershedbetween the Omo and its tributary, the Mago.Apart from the higher slopes of this range, thewhole of the territor y occupied by the Mursi liesbelow the 1,000m contour. All drainageeventuallyflows nto the Om o, but there are twodistinct tributary systems, which may be

separated by a line drawn from Shangoro in thesouth-west to Mt Smith in the north-east (Figure3). West of this line are a large number oftribut aries which flow directly into the Omo, butall of which ar e dr y for most of the y ear. (This isnot necessarily true of the Gura and, still less,Hana rivers, in Bodiland, whose catchmentareas extend into the foothills of the Mt Smithrange, or Dime Mountains.) East of theShangoro-M t Sm ith line, the drainage flowsnorthwards, via the River Elma (which is alsodry for most of the year), into the Sala and thensouthwards via the Mago into the Omo. Boththe Sala and Mago are permanent rivers. Thewatershed between the two drain age systems isformed by a level ridge and, farther south, by alow ran ge of hills called Arichukgiron g.

RainfallThere are two rainfall maxima, one inMarch/April, the prima ry m aximum, and one inOctober/November. Th e period spanning thesetwo maxima may be regard ed as the 'wet' season(oiyoi). Mean annual rainfall in Mursiland canonly be estimated on the basis of recordsavailable from sur ro un di ng areas. Karl Butzer'scollation of such records suggests a mean ofaround 480mm for the 'upland plains of theLower Omo Basin' (1971, p. 26). He notes,however, that 'year-to-year variability is verygreat' and that rainfall 'seems to increaserapidly between 800 and 1,200 metres eleva-tion'. The annual mean at the Omo NationalPark Headquarters, on the River Mui, whichmay be the best available pointer to rainfallconditions in northern Mursiland, is approx-imately 650.' The minimum rainfall necessaryto support a purely agricultural way of life byrain-fed cultivation is usually estimated to be700mm. More important than the annualmean, however, is the probability of enough(but not too m uch) ra in falling, at the right timeand in the right place, to make regular andreliable cropping possible. Rainfall in Mursi-land is highly unreliable in quantity, timing, andlocation, and this makes it impossible todescribe a 'normal' rainfall pattern, except inthe very broa d term s just indicated. Th e riseand fall of the Omo, on the other hand, isaffected more by the heavy rain that falls overthe Ethiopian Highlands between March andSep tem ber tha n it is by the errat ic rain that fallsover its lower basin. The river reaches itsmaximum level in August, when it floods and


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Pastoral Livelihoods in Danger

Km

Figure 3: Topography and drainage of the lower Onto valley

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Pastoral livelihoods in D anger

Table 2: Seasonal events and subsistence activitiesBerguinterval12

3

456789101112

English month

August/SeptemberSeptember/October

October/NovemberNovember/DecemberDecember/JanuaryJanuary/FebruaryFebruary/MarchMarch/AprilApril/MayMay/JuneJune/JulyJuly/August

Mursi season

TelegaiLoruwhey

LoruSuSuSuSuOiyoiOiyoiOiyoiOiyoiTelegai

Activities

Omo reaches maximum level;storage of rain-fed harvestOmo level recedes; prep arati on of plotsfor flood cultivation; bur ni ng ofgrass in Elma valleySmall rains; planting at O m o;cattle to ElmaWeeding at Om oBird-scaring at Om o; burn ing ofrain-fed cultivation areasHarvest at Omo; bu rni ng of rain-fed cultivation areasStorage of flood cro p; w ome nmove to raiu-fed cultivation are asPlanting of rain-fed c rop ; me nmove cattle back from ElmaWeedingBird-scaringHarvestingDrying and threshi ng of rain-fedharvest

entirely on pastoral products, cattle areconsidered the last defence against starvation.Not only do they provide something to fallbackon in the event of a poor harvest but, in extremeconditions, they can be exchanged for grainwithin Mursiland itself or in the neighbouringhighlands.Du ring the dry season, from about Septemberto February, the population is divided, ongender and age lines, between the Omo and theeastern grazing areas. Wom en, girls, and youngchildren live at the Omo, where flood-retreatcultivation is in progre ss, and me n and boys livein rudimentary cattle camps in the Elma valley.By the time of the first heavy rain, in March orApril, the Om o harvest has been stored and thewomen have moved back from the river andstarted preparations for rain-fed cultivationalong the Omo's westward-flowing tributaries.Meanwhile the men and boys have moved thecattle west of the Elma to settlem ents within oneor two hours' walk of the bushbelt cultivation

areas. The population then becomes relativelyconcentrated, although women, girls, andyoung children continue to live and sleep in th ecultivation areas until after th e har vest in July orAugust. They may then spend a mo nth or two inthe cattle settlements. Th is is a period of height-ened social activity, enlivened by such publicevents as weddings and duelling contests. As theOmo flood recedes in September and October,women and girls start moving back to th e O moto begin preparations for flood cultivation, andmen and boys take the catde eastward s, into th eElma Valley. He re th e long g rass will have beenburnt off in readiness for the arrival of the lorurains, which then bring on a carpet of youngshoots. There is no shortage of grazing in theElma Valley and it is relatively free of tsetseduring the dry season. The problem is agrowing shortage of water, which normallymakes it necessary to take cattle to the tsetse-infested Omo or Sala Rivers to find adequatewater in December and Jan uar y.

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Background

Drought, warfare and ecologicalchangeOver the past 23 years the Mursi haveexperienced a 'permanent emergency', theimm ediate causes of which have been droug htand military conflict, and the chief result ofwhich has been grow ing economic vulnerabilityfor households and for the community.Between 1971 and 1973 the rains foiled forthree years in succession, resulting in a famineof such severity that p eop le were acknowledgedto have died of starvation for the first time inliving mem ory ( Tur ton, 1977). The problem ofdrought was greatly exacerbated by anintensification of armed conflict which affectedall the herding peoples of the Lower Omoduring these years, disrupting both subsistenceactivities and economic exchange. The mostserious conflict for the Mursi was with theirnor ther n neighb ours, the Bodi, with whom theyhad been on term s of peaceful coexistence sincea previou s conflict in th e 1950s. (Th e Mursi andBodi speak different, th oug h related, languagesand do not intermarry.) After some improve-me nt in both food security and military security(the war with the B odi came to an end in 1975),the rains were again poor in 1977 anddisastrously so in the two following years, whenflood levels were also low. Droug ht retu rned inthe mid-1980s and was accompanied by a newthreat: the spread of automatic weapons intothe Lower Omo Valley from southern Sudan,whe re 'tribal m ilitias' were being created by theKhartoum government as part of its fightagainst the Sudan People's Liberation Army.The first of the neighbours of the Mursi toacquire these weapons in large numbers werethe Nyangatom, who, in February 1987, killedat least 200 an d possibly as many as 500 Mursi,mainly women a nd children, in a single attack atthe Om o (Tu rton, 1988,1989;Alvarsson, 1989).Immediately after the attack, the Mursi evac-uated the southern part of their territory anddid no t use it again for t hre e years.

In 1992 they began acquiring automaticweapon s of their ow n from the Chai (as they callthemselves and ar e called by the M ursi) or Suri,who live west of the O mo and south of Maji. Th eChai and the Mursi are culturally and linguist-ically the same peo ple , and th ere is much inter-marriage between them. The Chai have beeneven hard er hit by dro ugh t and famine over thepast twenty years than the Mursi, with whommany have taken up permanent residence.

They were also subjected, between 1984 and1986, to fierce attacks from the heavily armedNyangatom, who drove them from their bestgrazing areas round Mt Naita on to the lowerslopes of the Maji plateau (Abbink, 1993, pp.220-21). As Abbink recou nts, however, the Chaimanag ed to arm themselves in a few years withautomatics, which they bought from theAnnuak, on the Ethiopia-Sudan border, whohad in turn obtained them from the Sudanesearmy. The main medium of exchange used inthese transactions was gold, which the Chaiobtained by panning in the Akobo River.2 By1991, 'almost every adult male' amo ng the Chai'carried an automatic rifle' (Abbink, 1993, p.221). It was at the end of that year that the Chaibegan selling automatics to the M ursi, bringingthem to the Omo, where the Mursi paid therelatively high pric e of 12 hea d of cattle for eachrifle. T he p rice has since fallen steadily and nowstands at four he ad of cattle. Th e ne ed to re-a rmin the face of the Nyangatom threat hasundoubtedly been a very heavy drain on thecattle wealth of the Mu rsi.

Although dr oug ht an d warfare have been themost obvious and imm ediate causes of disasterfor the Mursi duri ng the se years, the re have alsobeen long-term ecological processes at workwhich can be traced back at least to the end ofthe last century and of which the exten ded crisisof the past twenty years has merely been theculmination. Ecological changes in the LowerOmo Valley during this century have all beenrelated to a lowering in the level of LakeTurkana, due to reduced discharge from theOm o and thus to red uce d rainfall over the O mobasin. According to Karl B utzer (op.cit., p. 123),the lake level fell 20m between 1896 and 1955and then rose 4 or 5m during the early 1960s.Drawing on field-work conducted between1967 and 1969, he concluded that 'contemp-orary trends ... appear to be positive' (p. 124),but he was writing before the drought years ofthe 1970s and 1980s, which have presumablyresulted in a renewal of 'negative trends' up tothe present. In any event, the drastic and rapiddrop in the level of Lake Turkana during thefirst half of the twentieth century resulted notonly in a reduction of land liable to floodingalong the banks of the O mo b ut also, because ofthe falling water table and improved drainage,in the drying out of its westward-flowingtributaries in M ursiland and a grow th of woodyvegetation in the vicinity of the river (Carr,1977, p. 65). It was probably this vegetational

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change, aided perhaps by cultivation andgrazing pressu re,3 which allowed tsetse, alread ypresent in the riverine forest, to penetrate thewooded grassland east of the 500m c ontour ,4 aprocess which is reported by people today intheirfiftiesand sixties to have increased steadilyduring their lifetimes.With the progressive deterioration of theirflood-retreat harvests and the inroads madeinto their herds by epidemic diseases andtrypanosomiasis, the Mursi were becomingincreasingly dependent, long before the crisisevents of the past 20 years, on their mostunreliable means of subsistence: rain-fedcultivation. The consequent need to find new

areas of untouched woodland that could becleared for cultivation led them to pushnorthwards into an unoccupied buffer zonewhich had separated them from the Bodi eversince they crossed to the east bank of the Omo,in the south of their present terr itory, some timeduring the nineteenth century. By the late1930s they had reached their present northernboundary, the River Mara, and furthermovement northwards was blocked by the Bodi.Forty years later, with crop yields falling rapidlydue to a shortage of new land for rain-fedcultivation, the stage was set for the continuingcrisis of the last twenty years, involving dro ug ht,famine, war, and migration (T urto n, 1988).

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Part II: Herd structure and dynam ics: a case study

LocationWe camped near three Baruba settlements(numbered 1,2 and 3 on Figure 4) , overlookingthe valley of the River Welya, a headstream ofthe Mara, in northern Mursiland. They werewithin a few minutes' walk of each other, justwest of the motor-track that runs from Jinka tothe Omo and jus t past the poin t where the trackdivides, one branch going north to Hana andthe other continuing to the Omo. With onlythree weeks to spen d in the field, and no vehicle,it was not possible to contem plate a survey of awider area, nor did it seem sensible to take uptwo or thr ee valuable days by searching, on foot,for another site farther from the motor track.Several of the herd- ow ners of these settlements,moreover, were men with whom I had built upa relationship of confidence and trust goingback over twenty years. This was important,because I would be relying on th em to give meaccurate information on a subject about whichpastoralists ar e notor iously sensitive: their cattlewealth. We first camped close to Settlement 3but moved on 3 September to slightly highergro und , with better sha de, about 200 yards eastof the motor track and about two miles west ofthe Elma. We stayed at this site, called Warano,until moving to Makki on 16 Septem ber.

Because the cattle of a settlement form asingle herding unit, it was important to get themost complete information possible for at leastone settlement. I chose Settlement 1 for thispurpose because, with only three herd-owners,it was of a man ageab le size. I also collected dataon herd composition and mortality for threeother herd-owners, one each from Settlements2 and 3, and one from a settlement a fewkilometres away, at Goroburai. My reason forfocusing on a single settlement was not toextrapolate t he characteristics of its hu m an andanimal population to the M ursi as a whole, butto understand the rigours and uncertainties ofthe pastoral en terpr ise from, as far as possible,

the point of view of the individual herd-ow ner.By 'herd-owner' I refer to a married man whohas ultimate rights of disposal over a householdher d, althou gh m ost of the female cattle of sucha her d will be allocated to the herd- own er's wife(o r wives), to support herself and her children.I interviewed only herd-own ers;firstly,becauseit is they who make decisions about herdmanagement on a daily basis throughout theyear; and, secondly, because the Welya settle-ments were occupied at the time of the study(i.e. before the rain-fed crop had been stored)only by me n, as described in the next section.The herd-ow ners of Settlement 1and their h ouseh oldsUlichagi5He occupies the central position in the settle-men t, both physically, because his compo und isbetween the other two, and socially, becauseUlitulla and Ulikoro are related to each otherthrough him. Ulitulla is his first cousin, andUlikoro is his brother-in-law. All three areapproximate age m ates, in their late thirties, butUlichagi's family is at a m ore advanced stage inits developmental cycle. He has four childrenbetween the ages of 1 and 12, and recentlyma rried a second wife, by whom he has not yethad any children. H e shares his compoun d withan unmarried full brother, in his mid-twenties.His mother, and an illegitimate daughter of hisfather's broth er, a m emb er of Settlement 2, arealso part of his household. At the time of thestudy, his two eldest sons were living with him atthe settlement and acting as herd boys. Hissenior wife and her two youngest children, hisjunior wife, his mother, and his father'sbrother's daughter were at the bush cultivationareas in the De holo valley, abo ut an h our 's walkaway, where the storage of the rain-fed crop wasin progress. So of a total of ten householdmembers,fivewere resident at the setdement.

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! i 1

moora(ao

cvoo

Wyhdw

waenpn"L_

eeneobh

aaoagme

o5mco

r\

\

fc


18/52

Herd structure an d dynamics

UlikoroHe has one wife and thr ee children between theages of 1 an d 5. At the tim e of the study, his wifeand two youngest children were sleeping at thecultivation areas. With no son old enou gh to actas a herd boy, he had living with him in hiscompound the 12 year-old son of a first cousin(his mother 's sister's son) whose settlement wasnearb y (and who is also the father of Ulichagi'ssecond wife). Of a total of six householdmembers (including his cousin's son), threewere resident at the settlement.UlitullaHe has one wife an d a todd ler son. Also part ofhis household were the four orph aned childrenof one of his mother's brothers (and diereforefirst cousins of Ulichagi). The two oldest ofthese , a girl of abo ut 15 and a boy of about 12,were resident at th e settlement, th e latter actingas he rd boy. His wife and son and t he twootherchildren of his mo ther's b roth er w ere sleepingat the cultivation areas. Of a total of sevenhousehold mem bers, three were resident at thesettlement.

He rd size and com positionThe Mursi classify cattle into four categories onthe basis of sex and age (Table 3). I shall usethese categories in the account which follows,because they do not have exact Englishequivalents. In particular, the Mursi language

does not make a terminological distinctionbetween female calves (up to one year) andheifers (1-3 years), nor between bull calves, bullsup to the age of 3, and bullocks.The distribution of cattle among these fourcategories for each herd of the settlement andthe ratio of cattle to household members areshown in Table 4. The average number ofhousehold members is 8, and the averagenum ber of animals in the househ old her d is 30.It is no surprise, given the concentration of thepastoral enterprise on milk production, to findthat females, of all ages, account for well overhalf (62 per cent) of the settlement herd; northat adult cows make up the single largestcategory (34 per cent). Ulitulla, who has thelargest herd and a ratio of six animals to eachfamily member, is regarded as wealthy, bycomparison not only with the two othermembers of the settlement but also withneighbouring herd-owners. His own commenton the size of his herd was that he wasattempting to collect enough animals to makethe bridewealth payment for a second wife inthe near future. Th is would also help to explainwhy he owns nearly half the total number ofmale animals in the settlement herd. Ulichagi,on the other han d, who has recently m arried fora second time and is therefore in the process ofrebuilding his herd , owns exactly half the totalnumber of adult cows in the settlement herd.This will give his herd a higher rate of(theoretical) natural increase th an either of theother two. Ulikoro's relative poverty is

Table 3: Classification of cattle into four categories by sex and ageSex Age Mursi term English equivalent

Females: 1. u p to 3 yrs(not given birth)2. 3yrs +(given birth)

Males: 3. U p to 3 yrs;3 yrs+ if castrated4. 3 y r s + ,not castrated

Morr (sing)Morra (plur)Bi jon e* (sing.)Biojuge (plur.)Bungai (sing.)Bungen (plur)UIi(sing.)Ulinya (plu r.)

Calf/HeiferCow

Bull calf/BullBullock/Steer/OxBull

Bi/Bio is the equivalen t of the English, 'cattle'; jon e = 'mo ther'

17


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Pastoral Livelihoods in Danger ^V

illustrated by the fact that the only cow of hisherd that was in milk at the time of the study h adbeen given to him by his father-in-law, amember of Settlement 2, 'so that his daughter[Ulikoro's wife] should not go hungry'. Eventhough the settlement includes, by Mursistandards, one wealthy and one moderatelywealthy herd-ow ner, th e overall rati o of cattle tohousehold members for the settlement as awhole is well below the minimum needed for apurely pastoral existence in East Africanconditions. This is estimated by Dahl an d Hjort(1976) to be arou nd 10 cattle per person ; theirstudy of this subject remains the mostexhaustive.

Milk yieldCalculations of the minimum viable herd sizefor a pastoral population depe nd, of course, onthe seasonal milk yield and on the number ofcows that can be expected to be in milk at anyone time. Out of the 30 adult cows in thesettlement her d, only 10 were in milk at the timeof the study. This is rather low, com pared withestimates that have been m ade for othe r g roups,according to which 40-50 per cent of adultfemales will 'normally' be in milk at any onetime. Thi s in tur n suggests a low averag e calvingrate (th e percentage of cows giving birth in oneyear out of the total numbe r of adult cows in theherd ) of around 50 per cent for th e cows of thissettlement (Dahl and Hjort, op.cit., pp . 35,149).Cows were being milked (by the herd boys)twice a day at the time of the study, at a ro un d 6in the morning and imm ediately after the herdsreturned from grazing at around 7 in theevening. (At wetter times of the year th ere may,

in addition, be a milking in the mid-to-lateafternoon and in the early hours of themorning.) Using a 2-litre measuring jug, wemeasured the amount of milk available forhu m an consumption from each lactating cow ofthe settlement (i.e., after its calf had taken itsshare) at one m orning an d one evening milking.For Ulichagi's herd we took both m easurem entson t he same day, 10 September, and the resultsare shown in Table 5. The average total yieldpe r cow was 1.3 litres. Given that this was a drytime of year there was virtually no rain in thestudy area throughout our stay this isconsistent with figures available for othergro up s of subsistence herd ers in east Africa (forexample Dyson-Hudson, 1970, pp.95-7; Dahland Hjort, op.cit., pp. 143-8). No figure isrecorded for the evening milking of cow 4,because the h er d boys had allowed its milk to betaken by its calf while the herd was out grazing(the calf was old eno ugh to accompany th e her d,rather than rgmain close to the settlement).Cows 5 and 6 were tulchans (tukanya); that is,their calves having died, surrogates mad e fromthe skin of the dead animals had to be used topersuade them to let down their milk. On theassumption that 'nomadic' (as opposed toEur opean ) milk gives arou nd 700 kcal per litre(Dahl and H jort, op. tit, p . 154), the total milkyield for human consumption from Ulichagi'sherd on this day (8.3 litres) would haveprovided 5,810 kcal. According to Brown's(1971) estimate of the daily calorificrequirements of a 'standard' adult malepastoralist (2,300 kcal.), this would have beenenou gh to supply two adult males and per hap sa 12 year-old herd boy. Ulichagi's herd, then,was not providing enough milk to support, at

Table 4: Settlement 1: Herd composition and cattle per capita, September 1994Stock categoryHerd-owner

UlichagiUlikoroUlitulla

Total

1

6(19)3(19)16(38)

25(28)

2

15(48)5(31)10(24)

30(34)

3

7(23)7(44)13(31)

27(30)

4

3(10)1(6)3(7)

7(8)

Totalherd

311642

89

H'holdsize

1067

23

Cattleper capita

3. 12.66. 0

3.86Note: Figures in brackets = percentage of total herd

18


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Herd structure and dynamics

Table 5: Milk available for humanconsumption, Ulichagi's herd, 10/9/94Milk in litre sCows Morning Evening Total

123456

Total

0.81.01.20.50.40.54.4

0.71.01.2

0.40.63.9

1.52.02.40.50.81.18.3

this probably rath er mod est level, even the fivemem bers of his family w ho were slee ping in hiscompound at the settlement.Only one of Ulikoro's five cows was in milk. Atthe evening m ilking on 12 September it provided1.4 litres for human consumption and; on thefollowing mo rning, 1.3 litres. Trea ting this as aday's supply, the cow provid ed 2.7 litres, or 1,890kcal., not enou gh for U likoro, his 5 year-old sonand 12 year-old herd boy, let alone the threeother members of the household who wereresident at the cultivation areas. Three ofUlitulla's 10 cows were in milk. At the eveningmilking on 9 September they provided, together,2.1 litres for human consumption and, the nextmorning, 2.2 litres. As a day's supply, this was 4.3litres, or 3,010 kcal., which was, again,insufficient to provide the daily calorificrequirements of the three people (Ulitullahimself, his herd boy and the latter's older sister)who were sleeping in Ulitulla's com pou nd.

Herd dynam icsIt is obviously important to know how thepastoral enterprise of Settlement 1 is behavingover time and, in particular, to know whetherthe settlement herd is growing, declining, orremaining stable. This is not possible on thebasis of the 'snapshot' information I haveprovided so far. Ideally, one would be able tocompare this with equivalent informationcollected from the same herd-owners at severalearlier and/or later points in time. I did,however, ask each herd-ow ner to describe whathad become of all the offspring of the cowscurrently in his herd, and to list all his animalswhich had died over the past year. Table 6shows a roughly comparable death rate ofoffspring for each herd in the settlement and aroughly comparable number of offspring percow. Ulichagi's herd contains noticeably fewerof the offspring born into it than the othe r two.This is not due to the marginally higher deathrate in his herd, but to the relatively largeproportion of animals over a quarter of alloffspring which he has sold, given away, andpaid in bridewealth. Overall, exactly half theoffspring of cows currently in the settlementhe rd rem ain in the her d, 35 per cent have died,and 15 pe r cent have been sold, given away, orpaid in bridewealth.Table 7 shows drastic losses over the past year.Comparison with Table 4 shows that Ulichagihad lost the equivalent of 65 per cent of hispresent herd, Ulikoro 81 pe r cent, and Ulitulla24 per cent; and that deaths in tne settlementher d as a whole reached nearly half its presentnum bers. This was indeed rega rded both as anexceptionally high an nua l loss and on e that wasfully in line with the experience of neigh-bouring herd-owners. When asked for the

Table 6: Settlement 1: O ffspring of cows currently in the herdOffspring

Herd-ownerU'chagiU'koroU'tullaTotal

Cows155 .1030

Stillin herd1281636

Died135725

Sold2

2

Gift21

3

Bride-wealth51

6

Total34152372

Offspringper cow2.23.02.32.4

19


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Table 7: Settlement 1: Animal losses in each category and cause of death overall, 1993-94Anim al category Cause of death

Total4 losse s Disease Drought Other

Herd-ownerUlichagiUlikoroUlitulla

1674

2535

3931

Total

201310

14118

61 1

217 13 13 43 33

cause of death, the herd-owners' most frequentanswer was to name a disease or describe asymptom (which, as will be explained in PartIII, amounts to much the same thing). In thecase of the five animals for which I haverecorded 'drought' as the cause of death, thereply was 'It was hit by the sun' (daksusso), or 'Itwas hit by thirst' (dak hvin). Of the three animalsin the 'other' category, one died a few hoursafter birth and two were calves which died forlack of milk, following the death of theirmothers .Although only Ulichagi had a significantnumber o f losses which he attributed directly todrought, the men of this settlement and theirneighbours were in no doubt that the maincause of the very high mortality of the previousyear, especially among calves, had been anexceptionally severe dry season. Lackingsufficient water for their animals in the ElmaValley, otherwise their best dry-season grazingarea, many Baruba people had moved theircattle northw ards, in December and January, toth e tsetse-infested Sala River. They had to build

their settlements three or four miles from theriver, to minimise th e tsetse dang er. Mem bers ofth e B iogolokare section were to be found at thattime camped on top of the steep escarpmentoverlook ing t he Mago Valley, roughly where itis crossed by the Omo-Jinka motor track. Thiswas the nearest they dared build theirsettlements to the tsetse-infested Mago bush,through which the herds were taken downevery day to drink from the river, with littleoppo rtunity for grazing on the way. Apart fromexposing them to tsetse flies, this lengthy andarduous daily trip to and from water, at theheight of the dry season, must have put

considerable stress even on adult animals,making them more susceptible to trypano-somiasis and other diseases, and reducingcalving rates and milk yields. (For the effect ofthe energy dem ands of travel on milk yields, seeHomewood and Rogers (1984), according towhom the "The maximum radius normallycovered by pastoralist cattle in their daily tr ek is8 km' (pp. 11, 14-21)). Sick animals and veryyoung calves, furthermore, were not able tomake the journey at all, so that w ater ha d to becarried back to the settlements for them fromthe river. This raised the serious and ofteninsuperable problem of how to carry enoughwater, given a general lack of suitablecontainers. Many animals died as a resu lt.

Because cattle herds are subject to naturalincrease, thefiguresshown in Table 7 do no t tellus by how much, if at all, the herds of thissettlement declined over the year. For this weneed to make a number of assumptions, fromwhich the figures presented in Table 8 arederived. If we first assume that the number ofcows (i.e. breeding females) in the initial herdwas equal to the number in the present herd,plus those which died over the year, we cancalculate the calving rate which would havebeen necessary for natural increase to havebalanced the recorded mortality. Take, forexamp le, Ulichagi's herd. He has 15 cows in hispresent herd andfivedied over the past year. Ifhe therefore began the year with 20 cows (Table8, Column A), their calving rate would h ave h adto be 100 per cent in order for the number ofanimals born into the herd during the year tohave made up for the number lost throughdeath (Column C). This is well above the highestaverage calving rates recorded for other

20


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Herd structure and dynamics

groups, and 40 per cent higher than the ratewhich Dahl and Hjort take as their 'norm al' casefor East African herds when, as here, old andbarren animals are not excluded from thecalculation (op. tit., pp. 35-7, 64). If we makethe safer (but still optimistic) assum ption of a 60per cent calving rate, no more than 12 animalswould have been born in to Ulichagi's herd overthe year (Column B), eight fewer than thenum ber which died. Assuming further that anyanimals he bo ugh t or received as gifts over theyear were balanced by others he sold or gaveaway, his initial herd (Column E) would haveconsisted of 39 animals: f.e. it would haveequalled the number in his present herd (whichwe know), plus the number of deaths over theyear (which we also know), minus the num ber of

births, estimated o n the assumption of a 60 percent calving rate. On these assumptions,Ulichagi's he rd declined o ver the year by jus tover 20 per cent, whereas it would haveincreased by 30 p er cent if no animals had died.If such a rate of decline were to continue, itwould take only thr ee years for his herd to reachhalf its present size. If the same calculation isapplied to Ulikoro's and Ulitulla's herds, theestimated decline over the year in thesettlement herd as a whole comes downsomewhat to the still considerable figure of 16per cent, thanks to the very small decline inUlitulla's herd . B ut it would still have needed acalving rate of 100 per cent for births to havekept pace with deaths in the settlement herddurin g the year.

Table 8: Settlement 1: Estimated decline in herds due to death, 1993-94A B C D E F "Cows Births Deaths Present Initial Dec lineherd herd (%)

UlichagiUlikoroUlitullaTotal

2081543

125926

20131043

31164289

392443106

2033216

Notes to Table 8Column A: Estimated number of cows in theinitial herd (= those in the present herd plusthose which died over th e year).Column B: Estimated number of calves bornover the year, on t he assum ption of a 60 per centcalving rate.

Column C: Number of deaths in the herddurin g the year.Column D: Size of the her d in Septem ber 1994.Column E: Estimated size of the herd inSeptember 1993 (C + D B).Column F: E D as a percentage of E.

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Part III: Constraints on pastoral production

DiseaseMursi classification ofcattle diseases andailmentsThe following information was collected ingeneral conversation and by asking differentm en, o n different occasions, to list and describeas many cattle diseases as they could think of.Alth ough I believe the list contains all the majordiseases and ailments of cattle recognised by theMursi, it is far from exhaustive in the inform-ation it gives about local knowledge of thediseases listed. Th er e is much mo re informationto be collected ab out, for exam ple, the develop-me nt of symptoms over time and th e conditionsof the in ternal org ans after dea th. It is partly forthis reason that I have not m ade a great effort tomatch up the Mursi classification with one basedon veterinary science. As with most 'ethno-medical systems', furthermore, the Mursiclassify cattle diseases by naming and describingtheir most salient symptom s. It follows that theymay classify diseases with the same aetiology asdifferent, and vice versa (McCorkle and Mathias-Munday, 1992, p. 60). I have, however,recorded the 'probable' scientific names whichwere suggested for several of these diseases by ateam from the Soddo Regional VeterinaryLaboratory (SRVL) of the Ministry of Agric-ulture, which, at the instigation of and with thesup por t of Oxfam (UK and Irela nd), carried outa veterinary health survey in northern andcentral Mursiland in May 1993 (Kassaye andMohamed, 1993, pp. 8-9).1. Achnk-a-bilecho ('yellow meat'): Mainsymptom: diarrhoea. Meat has yellowishappearance. Affects only calves. Occurs all theyear round.2. Baga: Lameness due to sores/ulcers on feet.Occurs all the year round. (SRVL: Foot andmo uth disease).

3. Dugi: Animal becomes very thin, suffersfrom diarrhoea, and loses hair from the end ofits tail. The meat is watery. Caused by bite oftsetse fly. Occurs all the year round. (SRVL:Chronic trypanosomiasis).4. Gauwello ('shoulder'): Shoulders becomestiff and painful. Animal unable to walk.Condition deteriorates rapidly after drinking.Can die within 12 hours. Occurs only in wetseason, aroun d the time of the flowering of t hebukwe tree (Terminalia brownii Fresen).5. Gunchi: Main symptom is diarr hoe a. Highlycontagious: meat not eaten by people living atcattle camps, but sent to those living at the O m o,for fear of passing infection on t o oth er anim als.Not known in Mursiland for several years, dueto Government vaccination pro gra mm e, bu t anoutbreak reported among the Chai (Surma) inthe 1993-94 dry season. (Rinderp est?)6. Hohu ('lung'): Main symptom cough. Pink-coloured saliva. Sores on lungs. Comessporadically (i.e. not every year) at any time ofyear. When an outbreak occurs, it can last 6-7months and cause many deaths. (SRVL:Pneumonia)7. Hereto ('diarrhoea'): Bloody diarrhoea.Symptoms similar to those of dysentery inhumans. Occurs all the year ro un d.8. Kaukau: Skin swells and gives off a noisedescribed as 'kash, kash', when pressed. Meatsmells rotten. Some animals die within threedays; others recover after six. Occurssporadically, usually around M arch, but us ed tobe more regular. No outbreak in 1994 up toSeptember.9. Ke-a-sabai ('thing of the head'): Circlingbehaviour. Animal will run off into the bush ifnot tied up. Contagious. Occurs all the year

22


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Constraints on pastoral production

rou nd . Has become widespread in recent yearsdue, it is said, to the acquisition by Bodi ofinfected animals in the highlands. (Heartwater?Leptospirosis?)10. Kuruti: Swelling un de r the neck. Animal willnot graze. If bled, inadvertently, from theju gu lar vein, swelling develops at the place fromwhich blood is taken and the anim al is likely todie quickly. Adu lt anim als likely to recover afterlengthy illness. Oc curs sporadically at any timeof the year. Occurred annually in the past.(SRVL: Pasteurellosis)11. Kinyinya: Small biting flies which attackyoung calves and infest the shelters in whichthey sleep at the settlement. Most prevalent inAugust/September.\2.Lungidai: Smelly discharge from ear. Loss ofappetite. If bled, animal will become thin anddie. Otherwise likely to recover. Occurs everyyear. M ost likely to occur in August/September,but improves after the grass is burnt (i.e.November/December). Cured by trypamidiuminjection. (SRVL: Acute trypanosamiasis)13. Momu: Retained afterbirth.l4.Nyambarr: Swelling of body with sores onshoulders, back, and neck. Death most likelywithin five days, but recovery possible.Conta gious. Carcass should be bur nt, because itcan infect humans if handled or eaten. Occurssporadically, between August and December.Last remembered occurrence: 1990-91.(Anthrax?)15. Orana: Abortion/still birth.16.Rokono: Rapid breaths, especially when inthe sun. Sores on feet, as in baga. Coat hairstands up. Does not give milk. Contagious butnot necessarily fatal. O ccurs sporadically in thedry season. Last remembered occurrence:1989-90.ll.Tara ('liver'): Liver becomes very large.Animal drinks little. Diarrhoea and salivation.Death within six days. Trypamidium injectioncan cure it, but otherwise fatal. Occurs at anytime Of the y ear. (SRVL: Babesiosis)18. Thida: Tick infestation.August/September. Worst in

19. Ulino: Sores cover the animal's skin,spreading from the stomach. Loss of coat hair.Running eyes. Caused by eating a certain typeof caterpillar h arbo ured by long grass. Sporad icand affects only a few cattle at a tim e.IncidenceSome of the diseases listed above have a higherincidence than others. Gunchi has not occurredfor several years, while kuruti and kaukau occurless frequently than in the past. Nyambarr is alsorelatively rare. The Mursi say that dugi hasbecome progressively more widespread overthe past 20 years, as the tsetse fly has spread intothe wooded grassland above the 500m contourand even into the Elma Valley. They undoubt-edly see thefly as the main thre at to the health oftheir cattle, presumably because of its inexor-able advance over these years. In Table 9 ,1 havebroken down by disease, for each her d-ow ner ofSettlement 1, the losses they sustained over thepast year and^which they did not attribute todrought (see also Table 7). It is immediatelynoticeable that only two of these deaths wereattributed to dugi, while 26 (nearly 80 p er cent)were attributed to three other diseases: hereto,ke-a-sabai, and tara. On e reason for this could bethat hereto, being a symptom which canaccompany or co-occur with severalscientifically distinct diseases, was used todescribe th e con dition of animals w hich werealso suffering from trypanosomiasis (i.e. dugi).The same symptom may also have 'masked'cases which could as easily, and moreappropriately, have been attributed to drou ght.Another, obvious reason for t he limited num berof deaths attributed to dugi in this settlement isthat in Januar y 1994 Dr Jon ath an Geddes, theSIM veterinarian from Makki, began makingregular visits to the Mursi to treat their cattle,mainly with trypamidium. Although he did notlimit his coverage to settlements situated alongthe motor track, it was undoubtedly the herd-owners of these settlements who were able totake most advantage of his help. This is onereason, if no oth er were n eed ed, w hy the figurespresented in Table 9 cannot be taken asrepresentative of the cur ren t incidence of cattlediseases in Mursiland as a whole. The data Icollected from other herd-owners during thestudy, however, suggest that the figures forSettlement 1 are repr esentativ e of the healthproblems currently facing herders in thisnorthern part of Mursiland.

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Table 9: Settlement 1: Break down of animal losses by disease, 1993-94Disease/symptomHerd-owner Dugi Hoh u Her eto Ke-a-sabai Orana Tara Other Total

U'chagi 1 4U'koro 2 4U'tulla 2

23

1

713

1*2**

14118

Total 10 11 33* Th e only symptom described was sores over the anim al's back.** Th e only symptom described was a high tem per atu re (barbarito).

TreatmentTh e standard treatm ent for any sick animal is tokeep it tied up in the shade at or near thesettlement d urin g the day. If it is able to walk, itwill be taken to water in the late afternoon andallowed to graze. Otherwise water will bebroug ht to the setdement for it. Those sufferingfrom baga or rokono, recovery from which is alengthy process, may have to be aband one d ifsudden flight is necessary as a r esult of an attackby a neighbouring group. In the case ofgauwello, the animal is not allowed to drink forfive days. On the sixth day it is given a smallamount of hot water and on the seventh it istaken to the water and allowed to drink, butonly moderately. On th e eighth day it can d rinknormally. Blood letting, from the jug ula r vein,is also considered beneficial in the tr eat m ent ofa variety of diseases (although not includingkuruti and lungidai), a scientific explanation ofthis bein g tha t it causes 'localised stimulation ofthe haematogenic and immunogenic systems'(McCorkle and Mathias-Munday, op. cit:, p.65).

Only three references were made by myinformants to the use of medicinal plants in thetreatment of cattle diseases. One man said hehad used an ointment made from the fruit of thelomai t r e e (Ximenia americana L. Olacaeae)6 totreat th e feet of an animal with baga. Th is is alsoa common treatment for wounds and ulcers inhumans. Another human treatment is used inthe case of retained afterbirth: the root of aplant (the nam e of which is known only to a few

experts) is crushe d, m ixed in water, and givento the animal so drin k. T he b itter leaves of a lowshrub, called ragai (probably ConvulvulaceaeSeddera bagshauri)1 are crushed and used to killmaggots which hatch out from eggs laid in th ewounds of animals. (Ragai is also the vernacularname of the tree Tamarindus indica L. , the leavesof which are very similar in appe arance to thoseof the shrub.) My failure to find more examp lesof such treatments may have been due toinsufficient time spent in seeking them outand/or to the reluctance of people to mentiontraditional remedies, in order to emphasisetheir need for outside help. But, although thereis certainly m ore to be discovered on this topic,my impression is that the Mursi have relativelyfew herbal cures and remedies for animal (orindeed hum an) diseases and ailments. If so, thiswould be consistent with what has beenreported for several other East African pastoralsocieties (O hta, 1984, p. 84).

Diseases which affect, or threaten to affect,large numbers of animals and thereforeconstitute a threat to the well-being of thecommunity as a whole may be combatted onbehalf of the community by its hereditaryreligious leader, or priest (komoru). Th e priest isan intermediary between the community andtumwi, a distant and impersonal force which canneverthele ss visit various misfortunes such asdrought, war, and human and animalepidemics on human beings as a result oftheir failure to live up to traditional values andnorm s of behaviour. Every year the priest holdsa ceremony, called bio lama, which is specifically

24


26/52


intended to ensure the health and fertihty ofcattle. All the herds of die area are brought tothe ceremony to be sprinkled by th e priest witha mixture of water, clay, and the blood of asacrificial goat. He may also be called upon toperform a similar ritual at other times if aparticular disease appears to be reachingepidemic proportions. The following diseaseswere mentioned as ones for which the priestwould be expected to perform such a ritual:dugi, hohu, kaukau, ke-a-sabai and kuruti.

As will be explained in the next section, theMursi have virtually no access to the govern-ment veterinary service, but they have been ableto obtain trypanocidal drugs on the blackmarket for m any years. The y call th e drug s ma-biony ('cattle water'), and distinguish betweenma-goloiny ('red water') and ma-hora ('blackwater'). I take the former to be ethediumbrom ide or novidium , which comes in the formof a red tablet, and the latter to be tr ypam idium ,which comes in the form of a purple-colouredpowder. In 19831 was told that it was possible t obuy a tablet of ethedium in Berka for ETB 2;8although intended as a single dose, this wouldbe used to treat at least four an ima ls. If only oneanimal was to be treated, a small piece of thetablet would be broken off and dissolved inwater. (Only sick animals were treated.) Also in1983 it was possible to buy a sachet of trypam-idium (which was regarded as much moreeffective d ian ethed ium ) in Ha na for ETB 10. Asyringe cost arou nd ETB 9 in Jinka and a needleETB 3. The Ministry of Agriculture veterin-arian at Hana was then charging ETB 0.80 totreat an animal with trypam idium , bu t it was to ofar for the M ursi to take their anima ls. In 19921was told by Dr M oham ed Aliye, then leader ofdie Animal and Fisheries Resources Team inJinka, that the black-market price for eth ediumin Jink a was ETB 5-7 per tablet, whereas theMinistry of Agriculture was charging ETB 0.90or 0.95 and ETB 1.00 for a trypamidiuminjection. Since then, the black-market price ofethedium paid by the Mursi in Berka and Tolta(a highland village north of Berka) has reachedETB 10, and o ne tablet may be used to treat asmany as ten animals. The Mursi find it moredifficult, if not impossible, to obtain black-market supplies of trypamidium.Access to government veterinary servicesMursiland is part of the Sala-Mago (formerlyMursi-Bodi) wareda, which is administered fromHana, in northern Bodiland (Figure 3). Until

1991 the wareda was part of die Hamar-Baco-Geleb Awraja (administered from Jinka) ofGamo Gofa Province (administered from ArbaMinch). With die re-draw ing of administrativeboundaries after die fall of the Mengistugovernment in 1991, it is now par t of the SouthOrao Zone, also adm inistered from Jinka, of dieSouthern Peoples' Adm inistrative Region. TheMursi are divided by die administration intodiree local groups: Hailu Wuha (the Amharicnam e for die River Mara) in the north , and Daraand Bongoso in die soudi. Hailu Wu ha coversthe Baruba and Mugjo buranyoga, Dara dieBiogolokare and Ariholi buranyoga, an dBongoso (die locative form of Bongo, an Omocultivation site south of die Dara range) dieGongulobibi buran.

Ha na is 112 km by road from Jinka and 42 kmfrom die Omo/Hana fork (Figure 4). The roadfrom Jinka, although recendy improved, is stilldifficult, even for four-wheel drive vehicles, andis quickly made impassable by rain over dieMago Valley. Pardy for diis reason, Hana hasalways been considered a 'remote' posting bygovernment staff in Jinka. Even though it issituated well inside Bodi te rrito ry, it tends to beidentified widi die Mursi in die minds of diosein Jinka who have never been there. If, forexample, an official says he is going to, or hascome from, 'Mursi', he often m eans Hana. Thisis presumably because die former name of diewareda was 'Mursi-Bodi' rather than 'Bodi-M ursi', and diis in tur n was presumab ly becausethe Mursi are more numerous than die Bodiand better known in Jinka . It would have mademore sense, administratively, to have locatedthe wareda capital on die River Mara, whichforms die Mursi-Bodi boundary, but die Hanaprovided a more plentiful and reliable watersupply.The Ministry of Agriculture has an Animal

and Fisheries Resources Team of four at Hana,led by an animal-health assistant, Ato TekleBaharu, whom I visited on 16 September. Achart on his office wall listed, in descendingorder of seriousness, die main diseases andconditions affecting livestock in die wareda: Trypanosomiasis Ectoparasites Retained afterbirth Cowdriosis (Heartwater) Leptospirosis Contagious bovine pleuro -pneu mo nia Streptrotricosis

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Pastoral Livelihoods in Danger De rm ato mycosis (ring worm) Contagious caprine pleuro-pneumonia IndoparasitesBecause of transport difficulties (at the time ofou r visit ther e was not a single working vehicle atHana), no veterinary service is provided for theMursi, and all the dru gs allocated to the wareda bythe Ministry of Agriculture are used for Bodicattle only. Mursi cattle had, however, beeninocu lated a gainst rinderpest w ithin the last year,as part of die national rinderpest-eradicationcampaign, funded by the European Union. (Thismust have been a second or repeat vaccination,because Dr M ohamed Aliye had told m e in 1992that Mursi catde, apart from those in the south ofthe country which were inaccessible because oftransport difficulties, had already received oneanti-rinderpest vaccination.) Kassaye andMohamed also report that 'no vaccination ortreatment services were given [to Mursi cattle]during the last five years except vaccinationsagainst rinderpest' (op. cit., p. 11).

There is a weekly market at Hana, to whichtraders from Maji bring supplies of ethediumand samarin (the British equivalent oftrypamidium, which is a French drug), whiletrypamidium itself is available in Tolta, ahighland village to the north of Berka. AtoTekle said that the people in the Hana areawould use one tablet of ethedium to treatbetween five and ten animals and that theywould even wash out an empty trypamidiumsachet and use the water to inject an animal. T h eveterinar y service charged ETB 3.60 for a 10 mldose of trypamidium.On 21 September I met the ChiefVeterinarian in Jinka. He told me that he hadno ve terinary d rug s at all and that the reason forthis was that his office now came under theCoffee and Tea Development Board, not theMinistry of Agriculture. This appeared to bepeculiar to the South Omo Zone. The veterin-arians at Hana, Weyto, and Kuras (on the Omojust north of Lake Turkana) came under theMinistry of Agricu lture and therefore had somesupplies of drugs. Because of this new admin-istrative arrangement, there is little if anycontact and collaboration between the veterin-arians in Jinka, the zonal capital, and thosewo rking in such outlying areas as Hana.The SIM animal health programmeIn 1989 the Society of InternationalMissionaries (SIM) signed an agreement with

the Ethiopian Government which allowed themto establish a base at Makki from which toprovide medical, agricultural, and educationalhelp for the Mursi. Gerald Carlson, anagriculturalist, an d his wife Maija, a nu rse , wer ethe SIM pioneers at Makki. Having m ade a road(a 20 km spur leaving the Jink a-O mo readjustbefore it reaches the Mago Bridge) and built ahouse and store, they started a daily clinic an d ademonstration plot for various fruit and foddertrees, crops, and vegetables. The Mursi putgreat pressure on the Carlsons to help themsolve the tsetse problem at Makki, which wasmaking it impossible for them to keep cattlethere. SIM accordingly instigated a survey ofthe Upper Mago Valley by the National Tsetseand Trypanosomiasis Investigation andControl Centre for Ethiopia, which reportedthat the challenge was too high to make controlmeasures practical or desirable.

In 1992 the Carlsons were joi ned at M akki byJonathan and Barbara Geddes and their twochildren. By this time the Mursi had given upthe attempt to keep cattle in the Mago Valley,and the population at Makki had dropped toabout 150. Having trained as a vet in his nativeAustralia, Geddes was keen to get involved inanimal health and pastoral development activi-ties with the Mursi. In January 1994, with theapproval of the local office of the Ministry ofAgriculture in Hana, he began treating cattle innorthern Mursiland, mainly with trypa midiu minjections. He also treated some animals forinternal parasites, although liver flukes, beingassociated with marshy ground, proved not tobe a serious problem for Mursi cattle. Geddestook this action directly in respo nse to rene we dand insistent demands for help from Mursi w howere having to water their animals in the Salaand Mago rivers because of the severe sho rtag eof water that year in the Elma Valley. BySeptember 1994 he had treated 1,814 animalsfor trypanosomiasis and another 440 forinternal parasites.Geddes visited the Welya settlements twiceduring our stay. On 9 September he arrived atabout 10 am, with two helpers (one a youngMursi man from Makki) and camped outsideSettlement 2. Although most of the catde hadbeen taken out to graze by then, he treated 60animals widi a 1 per cent solution of trypam id-ium, each 1 g sachet being dissolved in 100 ml ofboiled water. The correct dosage varied, ofcourse, widi die weight of the animal, and toesdmate this he used a knotted girth rope.

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Constraints on pastoral productionOw ners were charged at the rate of ETB 0.30 permillilitre, corresponding to ETB 30 per sachet,the price Geddes was the n paying for trypamid-ium in Addis Ababa. Th e ch arge for an average-size anim al was ET B 3 (i.e. a 10ml dose) and ETB4 for a large ox. (On his next visit he had toincrease the price for a large animal to ETB 5,because of an increase in th e price charged by hissupplier.) In the afternoon he moved toDirikoro, about 20km to the south-west, andtreated a further 30 catde diere. He slept atDirikoro and return ed to Makki the next day. On14 Septem ber h e arrived at Welya after d ark andthro ugh out die next day treated catde from thethre e Welya setdements and from die surround-ing area. He treated m ore catde on die morningof die 16di, ma king a total for diis visit of 216.

Obse rving diese two visits of Gedd es left onein no doubt of die very high level of demandamong Mursi herd-owners for die service hewas provid ing. O n each occasion, his arrival wasa major and eagerly awaited event. One man,who h app ene d to be at Welya on die evening of14 September, set off for his setdement (atHudungul, about 5km to die west) as soon asGeddes arrived and brought his enure herdback, overnight. O dier cattle began arriving atfirst light and some waited all day widioutreceiving treatment. Although there wouldpresum ably have been even more dem and if thetreatment had been free, diere was clearly noshortage of owners who were prepared to paythe amount being charged. This is wordinoting, because die SRVL team had reported,less tha n 18 mo nths earlier, diat die M ursi werevery reluctant to pay anything for treatment(Kassayeand M ohamed, op. cit., pp. 11-12). Iti spossible diat diis change has been broughtabo ut by G eddes's visits. It is also possible dia tresidents at the various Baruba setdementssitua ted alo ng, or close to, dieJinka-Om o motortrack are better supplied widi cash dian thoseliving farther south, because they come intofairly regular contact widi tourists visiting theMago and Omo National Parks. One of diemain objectives of die tourists is to takephotographs of Mursi, especially women andgirls wearin g lip plates. Th e to urists can usuallybe persuaded to pay a few Birr for the right totake diese photographs, although they oftenseem to resent being asked. (Not long beforeou r visit, a film crew from a Jap ane se televisioncomp any had paid one resident at Setdement 3ETB 50 for die right to film a cow being milkedwidi th e aid of a tulchan.)

The Mursi (especially those in die northernpart of the country) would have lost many m orecatde over die past year had it not been for diehelp given by Geddes. Several people rem ark eddiat, but for 'Yonatan', dieir herds would havebeen 'finished' during die 1993-94 dry season.It was obvious, too, that diey re spo nd ed well toGeddes on a person al level, not least becaus e h ehas acquired a good working kno wledg e of thelanguage. They were not, however, withoutsome criticisms. They co mplained di at th ey didnot know when he would be arriving, that hisvisits were too brief, and diat he did not bringenough trypamidium. Because diey did notknow exactly when he would next app ear , her d-owners were not able to plan in advan ce to havetheir animals available for treatment. Andbecause he normally stayed only one night,many found it impossible, after rece iving wor dof his arrival, to get dieir animals to dietreatment point before he had returned toMakki. It was also said diat he often ha d to tur naway animals diat were brought for treatment,even though dieir owners ha d the m one y to payfor it, because he had ru n o ut of try pam idiu m.

I discussed diese criticisms widi G edd es, whopointed out (a) diat SIM did not have, an d w ouldnever have, die resources needed to provide acomprehensive veterinary service for th e M ursi;and (b) diat, even if it did, diis would no t be dieright way to proceed. His hope was diat dieveterinarians at Hana would be given diesupport diey needed improved roads, morevehicles, money to establish one or moreveterinary posts to prov ide a basic service todie Mursi, while he gave back-up clinical supportwhere necessary and odierwise adopted aneducational and research role. He was alsoworried about theriskof resistance dev elop ing totrypamidium, as it has elsewhere in Ethiopia, andit was for diis reason diat h e deliberately limiteddie amount of die dr ug he took widi him o n eachtrip. He and his family w ere du e to go on a year'shome leave in December 1994; aldi oug h effortswere being mad e by SIM to find a veterinarian toreplace him, it was not at all certain diat diesewould succeed. Now that die high level ofdemand among die Mursi for veterinarytreat me nt and dieir willingness to pay for it had been established, diis would be di e idea l timefor die Haria veterinarians to extend the ir serviceto Mursiland, if a way could be found to solvedieir transport problems.

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DroughtTracking'a variable environmentEarlier, I described the annual transhumancemovements which the Mursi have adopted inorder to combine two types of cultivation withcattle herding. In the case of cultivation, thesemovem ents are fairly predictable from one yearto the next, in terms of both timing and direction.As the Omo flood recedes in September andOctober, people must return to the same river-bank sites to plant their flood cro p and they mustremain there, protecting the growing sorghumfrom animals and birds, and harvesting andstoring the crop, until January and February.They must prepare their rain-fed cultivationareas along die Omo's westward-flowing tribu-taries in February and March, to be ready toplant as soon as the g rou nd has been sufficientlymoistened by the March/April rain, and theymust w atch over the crop until they have harvest-ed and stored it in August or September. Cattlemovements, on the other hand, are far lesspredictable. The main factor which determinesthem (because it governs th e availability of wa terand grazing) is rainfall, which is highly variable asto timing and location. Herd-owners thereforehave to be alert to changing conditions in therange land on a daily basis and b e ready to m ovetheir animals at fairly short notice in order tomatch the available water and grazing to animalnum bers in a particular place. In the jarg on ofthe so-called 'new thinking' among rangeecologists, this is the 'tracking', or 'opportunisticmanagement strategy', which is required in a'dynamic' or 'non-equilibrial' ecosystemo ne inwhich a population is not in long-term balancewith other components of the system (Behnkeand Scoones, 1993; Scoones, 1994, p.9; Ellis,1994, p . 38). It follows that my earl ier o utline ofcattle movements was highly simplified andschematic. Although accurate at a very generallevel, it masks the unpredictability and un-certainties of real life.

At th e imeof the study, the p eople a nd cattle ofthe Welya settlements were drinking from anatural 'tank' in part of the former bed of theElma, about two miles' walk to the south-east(Figure 4). Th e cattle would leave the settlementsbetween eight and nine every morning, headingeast, and reach the water about three hours later.After drinking, they would spend the rest of theday grazing west of the Elma, returning to thesettlement between six and seven in th e evening.They were not being taken east of the Elma,

because the grass there (particularly a speciescalled tawali in Mursi (Panicum maximum Jacq.),which can grow to a heigh t of six or seven feet) h adgrown very tall over the wet season and was bothunpalatable and difficult to graze. (Later on thiswould be burnt and then, with the arrival of theloru rains in October and November, new shootswould grow up to provide ideal grazing.) Tow ardsthe end of our stay (during which there wasvirtually no rain), the herd-owners of the threeWelya settlements were beginning to expressconcern that the watering point would soon beinadequate for the number ofcattle using it. Somemen went to look for alternative water points upand down the Elma, but with little success. Oneman reported on 14 September, for example, thatther e was standing water in the bed of the Tuli, atributary of the Elma, but only enough for three orfour days' supply for a herd of aroun d 30.A growing w ater shortageFrom the first .day of the study, it was obviousthat d rou ght was seen by the local herd-ow nersas no less pressing a problem than disease. Thiswas part ly, of cou rse, because they had sufferedso many losses over the past dry season, as aresult of having to take their cattle to the Salaand Mago rivers to find water. But it was alsobecause the y saw this as an extre me symptom ofa long-term process. They told me that, whereas20 years ago there were several places in theElma valley where water could be obtainedthroughout the year, today there are only two:in the Shangaro river, which drains the north-western slopes of Mt Dara, and in the bed of th eLethathioi, which joins the Elma fartherdownstream (Figures 4 and 5). In neither placeis the supp ly sufficient to supp ort m ore than ahandful of cattle at the height of the dry season.The explanation given for this was reducedrainfall, an observation which is in line with th efindings of meteorologists that there has been asignificant reduction in rainfall over the'Suda no S ahelian' belt durin g the past 30 years(Hulme, 1992, cited in Benson and Clay, 1994,p. 24; Scoones, o p. cit., p. 12).

A reduction in local rainfall, however, is notthe only factor that needs to be taken intoaccount in order to explain increasingly dryconditions in M ursiland over the past 20 years.Another, and presumably more important,factor must have been the continuing fall in thelevel of Lake Tu rka na , and thus in the gr oun d-water level throughout the Omo Basin, causedby a reduction in rainfall over the highland

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KilometresDara (1,611m)

Figure 5: The upper Elma valley

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catchment area of the River Omo. This dryingout has been going on for several thousandyears. Acco rding to Butzer (op. cit., p. 15) andNyam weru (1989), aro un d 10,000 years ago thelake stood at 80m. above its present level andthe re was overflow from the Turk ana Basin intothe N ile basin. Ar oun d 7,500 years ago the lakehad shrun k to roughly its present size, but therewere subsequent rises and falls. As recently as1,500 BC it stood at over 70m above its presentlevel, so tha t its sho re m ust have been roughly inline with the 500m contour (Figure 3). Butzergives the pr esen t level as 375m an d Nyamweruuses the sam e figure, with the'qualification 'as ofthe mid-1970s' (p. 179). Over the past 3,000years, th en , the lake has been 'drop ping rapidly,in successive stages, below the thresho ld of theprobable Nile overflow. Concomitantly, thelower Om o River cut down its bed by as much as52 meters before it could begin to aggrade itsmodern flood plain and delta' (Butzer, op. cit.,p . 15). Considering this timescale, one realisesthe ex tent of the d rying o ut that has taken place,and has continued to take place up to thepresent, in the lower Omo Basin. There isevide nce tha t it was possible to sustain a sedent-ary agricultural lifestyle in the Elma Valley asrecently as 200 years ago. On the lower,northern slopes of the Arichukgirong Hillsthere are the remains of the bases of severalcircular stone houses. The Mursi say that thiswas a settlement of agriculturalists and that itwas abandoned following their own arrival inthe ar ea, w hich was not before 200 years ago.

According to the Mursi, the trend towardsdrie r condition s has continued over the past 20years. T he peopl e I spoke to in September 1994were also clear that there had been a dramaticgrowth in cattle num ber s over the same period,and that this had put increased pressure on thewater supplies that were available. They attrib-uted this growth to a lowering in the incidenceof epi dem ic diseases an d to a significant, thou ghless dramatic, increase in the human popul-ation. (It was taken for granted that increasedcattle num ber s w ere the result and n ot the causeof increased human numbers.) In 1970 Iestimated that the Mursi had around 5,000cattle, or one p er he ad of huma n population. In1992 the Hana veterinary office's figure forMursi cattle numbers, based on rinderpestvaccinations carried out that year, was 12,000,divided between 8,000 in the north (HailuW uha) an d 4,000 in th e south (Dara/Bongoso).9That was probably an underestimate, since the

campaign did not reach all Mursi cattle. Thefigure given to me by Ato Tekle on 16Septem ber, based on the most recen t rinderpestvaccinations, was 20,500, divided between11,000 for Hailu Wuha and 9,500 forDara/Bongoso. If this figure and my estimatefor 1970 are both co rrect, the cattle po pula tionhas quadrupled over the past 20 years. This isdifficult to believe, since it would ha ve req ui redan average annual growth rate of 10 per cent,which is the m aximum theoretically possible, onthe assumption that there are no sterile cowsand that all cows produce one calf per year(Dahl and Hjort, 1976, p. 61). A much morebelievable growth rate is 5 per cent, whichwould have resulted in a doubling of nu mb ersin 20 years. Although the figures returned bythe rinderpest campaign team may not havebeen entirely accu rate, it is very likely that my1970 estimate was much too low.

Because of reduced rainfall, a lowered watertable, and increased cattle numbers, the ElmaValley, once die dry-season grazing area pa rexcellence of die Mursi, can no longer sup port themajority of their cattle at the driest time of theyear. During December and January, someBaruba cattle will be watered in the bed of theLethathioi river, and a few from the Mugjo,Biogolokare, Ariholi, and Gongulobibi buranyogawill be watered in the Shangaro Valley. MostBaruba cattle, however, will drink from die Salariver, where there is grazing, but a high tsetsechallenge. During d ie 1993-94 dry season so mepeople built their settlements in the Elma Valley,but took dieir cattle to Sala to drink. Because ofthe distance and the heat, they would graze thecatde at night, reaching die Sala in die earlymo rning. After spend ing much of die day u nd ershade trees at Sala, die catde would r etur n to th eElma in die late afternoon. Some Baruba catdewill be watered at die height of the dry seasonfrom water holes dug in die bed of die Mara(Figure 4). Some will go to the Omo, where d iereis both a high tsetse challenge and virtually nograzing. During die 1993-94 dry season, catdewere taken to die east bank of the Omo to findgrazing. Some Biogolokare catde will drink atIlidiey and Dulu on die Omo (south of dieDungwi River, Figure 3), and it was Biogolokarecatde w hich v.r.re taken, in extremis, to drink fromthe Mago River during die last dry season.Ariholi catde also use die Omo during the dryseason, drinking at Kurum and grazing on thesoudi-western slopes of the Dara ra nge .

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Constraints on pastoral product

Pastoral Livelihoods in Danger: Cattle disease, drought, and wildlife conservation in Mursiland,...

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