Basketo people

The Basketo are an Omotic-speaking ethnic group living in the North Omo Zone in the former Ethiopian province of Gamo Gofa.

The Basketo cultivate ensete and, additionally, tuber roots, maize, millet and vegetables. They also keep domestic animal in small numbers.

Traditionally, the Basketo were organized as a segmentary clan society headed by a divine king, the kati. The ethnic religion of the Basketo knew a duality of the sky-god Tsosii and the earth-mother Qacharunde. Under Ethiopian rule they mostly adopted Ethiopian Orthodoc Christianity.

The Basketo were conquered for the Ethiopian empire by Ras Welde Giyorgis in 1893.

Sources Azeb Amha and Dirk Bustorf: Basketo. In: Encyclopaedia Aethiopica, vol. 1, Wiesbaden 2003. pp. 499f. Eike Haberland: Die Basketto und verwandte Stämme". In: Altvölker Süd-Äthiopiens. Stuttgart 1959. pp. 189-226.