By OES

Orma is a close relative of the name Oromo and an important ethnological term in its own right. However, like so many others of the kind, it has been a subject of some misconception. There are two misconceptions in the case of orma. One of them is the view according to which orma is a reference to non-Borana Oromo. This view belongs to Professor Asmerom Legesse, Anthropologist and noted Oromo studies scholar, who put it forward in his book entitled Oromo Democracy (2000). The truth is that orma applies to the Borana as well as to any other group within the Oromo population of Ethiopia (and Kenya).

Professor Asmerom describes his encounter with what he calls “an ethnological conundrum” along with his solution to it as follows:

“I asked the Borana what the word Orma meant to them; they said 'stranger.' When I asked them if they consider themselves to be Orma, they said, “How could we be Orma, we are here, aren’t we?” When they said that, some 37 years ago, it made no sense at all. It was an irritant that I had put out of my mind: the people I had selected to serve as the epitome of Oromoness were telling me they were not Oromo. It is now becoming progressively clear that the term “Orma” is a Diaspora term that developed as people began to leave the cradle-land, not necessarily during the great migration, but in many little migrations that preceded it in the 14th and 15th centuries and on a grand scale when the great migration was in progress. With that understanding the enigma acquires an entirely different meaning: the Borana are not “strangers,” because they fathered the “strangers,” the Orma, the Ilma Orma, the Oromo. They are not “strangers” because they never left the homelands. They stayed home when their more adventurous brothers went away to many strange lands” (emphasis added).

Professor Asmerom is mistaken. Orma can take several specific meanin... [Read More]