Konso Cultural Landscape

The Konso have terraced these dry hills in stone for around four hundred years, and the landscape is the result: slopes stepped from valley to ridge, holding soil and water in a marginal environment, with villages built on the hilltops behind concentric dry-stone walls and entered through narrow gates. Inside each village are ceremonial squares, communal houses called mora where unmarried men sleep and act as a night watch, and generation poles marking the passing of eighteen-year cycles. Waga, carved wooden figures, were raised over the graves of notable men, though many have been stolen and the survivors are largely kept under cover now. Nearby is Gesergiyo, an eroded sandstone gully of pinnacles known locally as New York. UNESCO inscribed the landscape in 2011.

History

Konso oral tradition says the people came to the region roughly 400 years ago, which fits the 21 generations counted since the first ritual chief, and in 1897 the forces of Menelik II took over the area. Father Azaïs described the carved waga grave figures in 1931, and later scholars studied the megaliths and the labour-intensive terrace farming; the landscape was put on the World Heritage Tentative List on 30 September 1997 and inscribed in 2011, the first place in Ethiopia recognised as a cultural landscape (Wikipedia, Karati).

Highlights

• Stone terracing - four centuries of hand-built slope agriculture.
• Walled villages - hilltop settlements behind concentric stone walls.
• Mora houses and generation poles - the communal buildings and time markers.
• Waga grave figures - carved wooden markers, mostly now protected indoors.

When to go

October to March for the roads and walking. The area is hot and dry, and midday walking on the terraces is hard. New Year and generation ceremonies fall at intervals and are not annual.

Before you go

Community guides are compulsory and fees are charged per village, which adds up across several. Many waga figures have been stolen and what remains is often in a small museum rather than in place. Walking the terraces is hot and steep. Facilities in Karat-Konso are basic.

Nearby

Arba Minch lies northeast; the lower Omo is west.