Guji-Oromo Lyric Folk Poems in the Changing Social Climate
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Date
2009-06
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Addis Ababa University
Abstract
The primary purpose of this thesis is to analyze major transformation features of the Guji
Oromo folk poetry (weedduu, qeexala and geerarsa) i.e. investigating how the folk poems
respond to the various social factors which have left their imprints in one way or another.
The contextual study approach is employed to undertake the investigation. This approach
focuses on looking at the folk poems through the glass of the dynamic socio-cultural and
historical realities which are the fertile grounds for the mushrooming of the folk poems.
Through it the researcher attempted to explore the change and continuity in the main
.. concerns and the performance contexts of the oral poems. To this end, intensive collection of
the poems together with their contextual explanations has been undertaken through field
work. Intensive recordings of the poems, informal interview and focus group discussions
were used as the main tools to collect the data from the Guji informants in Abbayyaa woreda.
The data was transcribed, translated into English and finally analyzed qualitatively. The
descriptive analysis of the folk poems: weedduu, qeexala and geerarsa, is presented in the
third chapter and the major transformation features of these genres are presented in the fourth
chapter.
The thesis provides the thematic variations observed in the folk poems across the history of
the Guji, the change and continuities in the context of their performance and the main
inducing social factors for the changes. The field work coupled with the library research has
helped the researcher to arrive at some conclusions regarding the three genres. The lyric folk
poems of the Guji, particularly, the geerarsa, qeexala and weedduu have undergone a
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. significant transformation in content and context of performance. The three genres portray
the life experiences of the society at different points in time. The investigation indicates that
some of the major factors which have led to such transformation include the conquest of the
Guji by forces of Mer.elik coupled with the declining of the gadaa system, the introduction
and spread of Christianity, and the forces of modernity which is championed by the youth
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Keywords
Changing Social Climate