Social Memory on a Historical Scale: Configuring Cyclic Disasters, 1500–the 1900s

This study combines the use of environmental proxy indicators and social memory (Social memory may be defined as life experiences of present and past populations passed on orally from one generation to another.) to reconstruct event history calendars (EHC) of specific disasters and events included in the Borana event history calendar, using varieties of institutions (such as generation classes) and time (measuring times—days, week counts, and years). The methods for building social memory include oral poetry, folklore, and the geographical spaces surrounding historical events. Socio-political institutions also serve as a repository for social memory and are essential in passing knowledge from one generation to another and using the Borana case. The survival of the Borana people is guided by strong institutions—such as the gada—which managed the periods of collapse and the restoration of the pastoral economy, thus reorganizing the society and resource allocations to repair the damage that had been suffered. We used the Borana Gada timeline to construct a traditional event history calendar (EHC) to recount past disasters that contributed to the collapse of pastoralism in that society. The Gada infrastructure consists of five generation classes (gogessa), each of which assumes power for eight years; thus, each generation class returns to pull in a cycle of 40 years. This format uses the seven processes of naming the generation classes (maqbas). Thus, a particular disaster type would return in 280 years (7 × 40 years). With the help of oral historians and time experts, we investigated how the crises associated with certain disasters transformed human adaptations over five centuries. Post-disaster periods were times of reconstituting socio-political institutions and rebuilding the pastoral economy.