The Afar people are one of the nine officially recognised ethnic groups of Ethiopia, although there are numbers of Afar in the Ste of Eritrea and the Republic of Djibouti in the Horn of Africa. There are an estimated 1.5 million Afar in these regions, and have played an important part in the territorial politics of the Horn of Africa.
‘Afar’ is the name the peoples in this article give themselves, rather than ‘Danakil’ or ‘Adal’ by which their traditional adversaries know them. Danakil is used specifically for the northern Afar while Adal (or Adel) is used for the southern Afar. Although a number of this ethnic group have migrated to the cities, the majority have remained true to their nomadic pastoralist roots.
One of the Afar’s claims to fame is due to an anthropological find in the Afar Depression. In 1974, anthropologists discovered a ‘new species’ of man at Hadar in the Awash Valley in Ethiopia. This new species was termed Australopithecus afarensis (“afar ape-man”), and is believed to have walked around Eastern Africa between 2.9 to 3.8 million years ago. The body was found to be female and named Lucy. Lucy was able to walk upright on a human-like body but still retained a small ape-like head and primitive teeth.
Despite their decentralized political structure, the Afar have remained cohesive in their culture. One important aspect of such unity has been the custom of cross-cousin marriage, with a son being required to marry a maternal uncle’s daughter as his first wife (Harbeson, p.483). Both boys and girls are required to undergo circumcision.
Written by Lysianassa
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