ABSTRACT
The most extensive flooding occurs on the inner bends of meanders, but the Omo is relatively straight for most of its course in Mursiland, only beginning to meander markedly after it has turned eastwards, round the southern end of the Dar a range. When the Mursi speak of the population movements that brought them into their present territory, they describe themselves as ‘looking for a cool place’. The Mursi number about 5000 and live in the Lower Omo Valley of south-western Ethiopia, about 100 km north of Lake Turkana. The 1971–75 war with the Bodi, although sparked by drought and famine, was the fourth and final stage in Mursi consolidation of their hold over Mara. The Mago migration, even more clearly than the war of the early seventies, was a response to a particularly severe ecological crisis. When looked at in the context of Mursi history it was far from unexpected or arbitrary.
