The Setting
over 90 ° F. 011 the high plateat1 tl1ere is frost on cold Dece1 n ber nigl1ts, a11d even at noonday tl1e wiI1d carries a chill. Dega Dan1ot district straddles tl1is ce11tral mountai11 pla teau and extends into the plains 011 both sides. Its altitude ranges from ut1der 6,000 to over 12,000 feet above sea level. Its area is approxi1 nately 700 sqt1are miles a11d it has an es ti111 ated population of betwee1 1 50,000 and 60,000. The over all population density is tl1t1s around 80 people per square n1ile, but there is co11siderable local variatio11; i11 so1ne densely settled a11d inte11sely farn1ed localities it was fou11d to be over 130 per square n 1ile. 1 With very few exceptions all tl1e i1 1l1abitants of the district s1Jeak only A111 I1aric, are strict adherents of tl1e Etl1 iopic Cl1ristian church and consider the11 1selves to be 1ne111bers of tl1e A111l1 ara etl11 1ic grot1p. At tl1e prese11t ti1 11e ( 1970) Dega Dan1ot is one of six ad111inistrative districts that 111ake up Qolla-Dega Da 1 11ot st1b JJrovince of Gojja1 11 province. It is divided into four st1bdis tricts: Feres Bet, Berqefi, Arefa, and I11amora. Eacl1 of these subdistricts, in turn, is divided for ad1ninistrative IJt1rposes into fron1 t,venty to forty "neighborl1oods'' ( a(lbya, sing.). Neigl1borhoods are ct1rrently the mini111al territorial u11its of govern1 11ental adn1i11istration. They are ordinarily fro1n two to tl1ree sqt1are miles in area, and t1st1ally have a popt1lation of fro1 11 150 to 250 people. Neigl1borhoods were given tl1eir present na111es a1 1d administrative statt1ses i1 1 1947 by a cen tral govern1 nent proclamation establishing a nationwide sys tem of neighborhood cot1rts.2 In Dega Datnot, l1owever, 11 eighborhoods correspo11d exactly to tl1e estates of gwilt la1 1d formerly held as fiefs or be11 efices by 111e1 nbers of tl1 e ruling n1ilitary elite and monasteries. Approxi 1nately one-third of the neigl1borhoods of Dega Da1not are coextensive witl1 a parisl1 , the minin1 al territorial unit of ecclesiastic adn1i11istra tion. Most of the others consist of sorne JJart of a lJarish, 1. There has been no census in Dega Damot, nor has its land been measured. The figures I have used here are based on projections of data I gathered, made with the aid of aerial photographs. The figures are thus only crude approxin1ations useful in that they indicate an order of magni tude. 2. Proclamation 90 of 1947.
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