SOUTH ETHIOPIA

KONSO>>Chief Walda Dawit Kalla

Isolated on a hill and surrounded by juniper forest, the compound of Chief Walda Dawit Kalla lies some 7km from Karat-Konso off the road towards Mecheke. It's a fascinating and atmospheric place, cluttered with venerable chiefly artefacts ranging from beer vats to furniture, and the chief himself is a gracious and welcoming host . In the forest outside the compound stand several waga statues, marking the graves of earlier chiefs and their wives.

Chief Dawit is the paramount leader of the Kertita clan. The clan is an important patrilineal unit of Konso society - members of the same clan, for instance, are forbidden from marrying - and each of the nine clans is represented by an elected local headman in every Konso village. The paramount chief of any given clan acts as a spiritual guru as well as in a judicial role; he and his immediate family live in total isolation, in order that he has no involvement in the day to day life of a community. The idea is that this will ensure his impartiality when settling intra-clan disputes and crimes, which are still often dealt with by the chief rather than national government.

The title of clan chief is strictly hereditary, and Dawit is 19th in a line that has lived in the same compound for about 500 years. Sadly, the Kertita lineage is one of only three of the original nine clan chieftaincies to survive into the present day - with six adult sons to Chief Dawit's name, however, it is presumably not in any immediate danger of extinction.

It is customary in Konso for the death of a paramount clan chief to be denied after the event. Instead, the chief is tended (for which read mummified) by an official embalmer, and word is given out that he is very ill. Only after nine years and nine months is it finally announced that the chief is dead, with full blame falling on the embalmer, who - poor sod - is heavily fined for his predetermined failure.

How and why this unusual custom arose is unknown. It has been suggested that a delayed announcement will allow time for a relative of the chief to remedy the problem should he have died without male issue. A more plausible explanation, given that it is tacitly realised that any chief being attended by an embalmer is unlikely to make a full recovery, is that the charade softens the blow of the departure of a popular and respected leader.

This custom was followed in 1990, when Kalla Koyote, Dawit's father and predecessor as chief, died at an age of more than 100 years. The chief was duly embalmed, and confined to his compound with influenza. This, however, was a difficult time in Konso, due to a severe local drought and the ongoing civil war, and it was felt that a living chief was better equipped to navigate any crises than a terminally ill one. Kalla's death was announced seven months after he had died, his embalmed body was buried in a ceremony that lasted for eight days, and Dawit was installed.