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 meanings depending on context, which is true in Borana as well as, if not more so than, anywhere else. Two specific meanings appear in the case at hand, but “Diaspora Oromo” is not one of them. “Diaspora Oromo” is not at all part of the whole range of meanings that orma could take.

Orma in some contexts translates as “stranger,” as Professor Asmerom also reports here. But “stranger” does not mean “those who had left” or those who had moved away (although, idiomatically, Borana parents might say of their schooled or urbanized sons inni orme, to mean “he has acquired new ways”). “Stranger” can be a casual passerby, a non-relation, one who is not particularly known, or one who is “not from around here.” This is the context in which orma takes more or less the same meaning as the word “stranger” itself. The Borana folks in the interview gave this meaning upon direct inquiry at first, but a subtle shift of meaning occurred as the conversation went on. Professor Asmerom did not notice the shift and thus lost the train of thought.

Orma can mean “anonymous members of the public” or the general public as such. This was the meaning that those folks had in mind when they said: “we are here, aren’t we?” They were saying to Professor Asmerom: “you are talking to us face to face, and you even know our names; call us orma and you would be speaking as if you are not in our presence or as if you do not know us personally.” They were not distinguishing between the Borana who had “never left the homelands” and the ones that had gone “away to many strange lands.” Instead, they were making a distinction between “the individuals present at the interview” and “the unspecified souls out there.” This is the second specific meaning of orma that the conversation moved on to in the conversation. It also happens to be the more important of the two meanings involved here.

Context is very important in understanding the significance of orma (or any other word, for that matter) in folk usage. Professor Asmerom misread the context and as a result drew the wrong conclusion. The group in the interview was not speaking for the Borana; it was speaking for itself. They were Boranas; they were not “the Borana.” They did not suggest that orma meant non-Borana; they were thinking in terms of the general public (or members thereof). They were not denying they were Oromo; they were not thinking about being or not being Oromo at all. They were not denying they were orma either; they were actually implying that he could have referred to them as orma if he was talking to somebody else about them. As far as recent historical and contemporary usage is concerned, one can be properly called orma, regardless of whether one is a Borana or not, so long as one is an Oromo. In short, there is no conundrum in what Professor Asmerom reported, but there is one in what will be considered in another article.

© Dabala Olana