A socio-cultural history of saden soddo Oromo (1941-2010)

Abstract

The thesis, attempts to investigate the Sociaal and Cultural History of Saden Sooddoo Oromo of South West Shoa Zone of Oromia Regional state from 1941 to 2010. Until they were conqured by the shoans, in the last quarter of the 19thcentury, no new order was imposed on the sociocultural lives of the peopes except for the emergence of monarchial chiefs whose powers had weakened the Gadaa system.Therfore the people of Saden Soddo, who had different clans, subclans and lineages had lived by practicing their indigenous religions and other socio-cultural practice. Throughout the period under the study, different historical developemments had been experienced and transformed the socio-culture of the people under the study. Among these, the newly designed administration system that weekend the power of gadaa system following shawan conquest and impact of the newly introduced religions are the major one. The legacies and the consequences of conquest accompanied by these two historical developments as well as other changes and continuities brought the socio-cultural transformation among the inhabitants of the area. Among the newly introduced religions, Orthodox Christianity and Protestantism brought remarkable Socio-cultural transformations. As people adopted and added the ideologies of the new religions to their own, many of them modified their social lives, food and food habits, marriage practices, funeral system and their attitudes towards different rituals to the extent that the ideologies of the two religions of the people had already been internalized. Therefore, the newly designed administration system and the newly introduced religion faced hardship in snatching the principle of indigenous culture. Therefore, the people retained some aspects of their value system and indigenous religion