Gumuz people
 |
|
| Total population | |
|---|---|
| 218,000 | |
| Regions with significant populations | |
 Ethiopia
|
159,418 |
 Sudan
|
67,000 |
| Languages | |
|
Dialects Disoha (Desua), Dakunza (Degoja, Dukunza, Gunza, Ganza, Dukuna, Dugunza), Sai, Sese (Saysay), Dekoka, Dewiya, Kukwaya, Gombo, Jemhwa, Modea: 151,000 |
|
| Religion | |
| Predominately traditional faith; minority Christianity, Islam | |
| Related ethnic groups | |
| Gule, Kwama, Shita, Uduk, Komo | |
The Gumuz (also spelled Gumaz and Gumz) are a Nilotic ethnic group inhabiting the Benishangul-Gumuz Region and the Qwara woreda in western Ethiopia, as well as the Fazogli region in Sudan. They speak the Gumuz language, which belongs to the Nilo-Saharan family. The Gumuz number around 200,000 individuals.
The Gumuz have traditionally been grouped with other Nilotic peoples living along the Sudanese-Ethiopian border under the collective name Shanqella (Pankhurst 1977). As "Shanquella", they are already mentioned by Scottish explorer James Bruce in his Travels to Discover the Source of the Nile, published in 1790. He notes that they hunted with bows and arrows, a custom that survives today.
Most Gumuz members live in a bush-savanna lowland environment. According to their traditions, in earlier times they inhabited the western parts of the province of Gojjam, but were progressively banished to the inhospitable area of the Blue Nile and its tributaries by their more powerful Afroasiatic-speaking neighbors, the Amhara and Agaw, who also enslaved them (Wolde-Selassie Abbute 2004). Slavery did not disappear in Ethiopia until the 1940s. Descendants of Gumuz people taken as slaves to the area just south of Welkite were found to still be speaking the language in 1984 (Unseth 1985).
The Gumuz speak the Gumuz language, which belongs to the Nilo-Saharan family (Bender 1979). It is subdivided in several dialects (Ahland 2004, Unseth 1985).
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