ARTICLE

leveled

ARTICLE

leveled

Bush RSS Feed

Bush RSS Feed

In the Afar Badlands, Paul Salopek's guide Alema and Afar herders use dagu as a way to share vital news along the trail.

Grades

5 - 12

Subjects

English Language Arts, Social Studies, Geography, Anthropology, Storytelling

















NGS Resource Carousel Loading Logo
Loading ...
Selected text level

In celebration of the ten-year anniversary of Paul Salopek's first steps on his Out of Eden Walk journey, this dispatch is now available for educational use in fifth- and eighth-grade reading levels. The original text is available as the default reading level, as well as on the Out of Eden Walk website.

This article is part of a collection called Out of Eden 10th Anniversary: Culture. It is also included in the idea set, Exploring Culture With the Out of Eden Walk.

By Paul Salopek

AFAR TRIANGLE, ETHIOPIA (2/3/2013)

The concept of the Web arrived long ago in the nomad strongholds of Africa. Fast, reliable information is a survival tool—not a luxury—when it comes to locating scarce water holes or avoiding roving cattle raiders.

In the pale thorn country of Ethiopia, the Afar herders have formalized a system of news-sharing called dagu. Anyone walking through the landscape can be stopped and buttonholed for information in a ritualized verbal exchange. Participation is obligatory. Phrases such as, “how is it?” (wagari) and “it is clear” (sahali), are repeated in long cycles between more substantive questions, until the participants squeeze each other dry of details. The word me’enahai signals the end of transmission. To outside ears, it can sound like two computers “talking” in binary code.

“It’s more accurate than our Internet,” said Kassa Negussie Getachew, an Ethiopian anthropologist who’s written a book on Afar culture. “You have to tell things exactly in a dagu. Whether a man has a scar on the left side of his forehead, for example. This will be passed precisely through many people. Even your walk will be part of the dagu exchanges all the way to Djibouti.”

View the original dispatch on the OOEW site to hear an Afar dagu exchange.

Media Credits

The audio, illustrations, photos, and videos are credited beneath the media asset, except for promotional images, which generally link to another page that contains the media credit. The Rights Holder for media is the person or group credited.

Editor
Oliver Payne
Text Levels
Web Producer
Bayan Atari, National Geographic Society
Instructional Designer
Dan Byerly, National Geographic Society
With help froms
Claudia Hernandez-Halper
Kate Gallery, National Geographic Society
Clint Parks
Last Updated

January 22, 2024

For information on user permissions, please read our Terms of Service. If you have questions about how to cite anything on our website in your project or classroom presentation, please contact your teacher. They will best know the preferred format. When you reach out to them, you will need the page title, URL, and the date you accessed the resource.

Media

If a media asset is downloadable, a download button appears in the corner of the media viewer. If no button appears, you cannot download or save the media.

Text

Text on this page is printable and can be used according to our Terms of Service.

Interactives

Any interactives on this page can only be played while you are visiting our website. You cannot download interactives.

Related Resources