Review on the Historical Prospective of Siiqqee: The Ancient African Indigenous Institution for Empowering Women

Abstract

The major purpose of this review is to reconstruct a Historical Prospective of Siiqqee, the ancient Oromo Women Indigenous Institution. The implication of this review is to present the summary of existing scholarly works on the role of Siiqqee Institution to empower women. Additionally, this paper explores the potential role of women in Siiqqee institution and analyses the position of women in the traditional Oromo cultural practices. Despite all Oromo women had an influential position in the past; now it is being declining by following the degeneration in the people’s indigenous cultural practices. So, the purpose of this paper is to carry out an in-depth investigation about the status of Oromo women in traditional Siiqqee institution. Even though various studies in the past assessed the situation of Siiqqee institution and status of Oromo women in some aspects, it is important to examine, update, and document the situation whenever or wherever recent data are available to identify changes and continuities. Information has been drawn from the works of several authors and oral traditions. The data in this study consisted of the primary and secondary sources. Secondary data sources were collected by assessing published and unpublished materials. The available oral traditions were used as sources of data. Finally, these data were described, expressed and articulated qualitatively. All the data were analyzed and interpreted carefully in accordance with the standardized rules of the social science disciplines.

Keywords: Siiqqee, Indigenous Institution, Oromo,   Gadaa, Empowering Women,  Ateetee