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Land
All land is owned by the state, but Konso still maintain their traditional systems, whereby land is primarily owned and inherited through the male line. Multiple realities exist in space and time due to traditional and modern land tenure.
Traditional land tenure is that land is privately owned and can be bought, sold and mortgaged. This privatisation is due to intensive land use and a high investment in landscape capital.
Ownership of land is claimed by clearing land through cutting or firing previously uncultivated land. Nearly every piece of land now has an owner. Subsequent ownership is through inheritance or buying. In the lowlands uncut or unfired land is important for communal grazing, firewood and hunting.
Technically women might be able to own land by cutting or firing it but this is not known. In Konso there is no full primogeniture, although the inheritance system is heavily weighted towards the elder brother.
No permission is needed to sell owned land but it is disapproved of as land is the main source of livelihood and wealth and is only resorted to as a last option.
Each village has boundaries and land within belongs to the village. However, individual plots may be owned by those from outside that particular village.
In the past, at harvest time, a village would tax outside owners by cutting and taking seven bundles of sorghum (MAALA). This used to cause resentment as people took larger and larger bundles and the practice has been stopped since the 1930s.
Boundaries are now mostly symbolic
KOTAYADA is land that is an unconditional gift from the Poqalla to a KUSSITA (younger brother or to a distant favoured relative) or an ORRHAYTA (adopted son).
PIYOLADA is land that is borrowed from Poqalla by Kussitas or people in need such as divorced women, in return they provide labour for the Poqalla’s land
The idea is that the land is used until enough capital is gained to buy their own land and the borrowed land is returned. In practice the land might be kept for the whole life and passed on to their children but ownership is still attributed to the Poqalla.
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