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This article investigates the contesting views on the causes and prevention of the coronavirus pandemic (COVID-19) in Guji society. The study opted for a qualitative approach, descriptive research design, and data collection methods such as interviews (both in-depth and key informant interviews), focus group discussions, and observation. The findings show that local views take violations of social standards, the myth of the plague pit, and the omen of the ruling Gadaa party (Luba) as the main causes that contradict medical science's etiological notions. Similarly, with their complete focus on rituals, the prevention mechanisms widely used in society compete with the medical science prevention system. Despite the fact that local perspectives on medical etiology are contested, Gadaa leaders and community elders have collaborated with local health professionals and stakeholders in a public awareness program to enhance the medically supported prevention system for better life. As a result, even though local community views disagree with medical etiological notions, the collaboration of Gadaa leaders and community elders with healthcare professionals in preventing and controlling the virus is an exemplary mutual approach that should be strengthened in the future to maintain people's better lives.

This article aims at investigating origin of tree symbolism and the cultural events embedded within this symbolism among the Guji Oromo. The study has opted qualitative approach, descriptive research design, and method of data production like interview, focus group discussion and transect walk. The finding shows that culture of tree symbolism in the area has been originated and developed from the long existing notion that trees are perceived as sacred gift of God to Earth and humankind. Particularly, some of native trees such as Cordia Africana, Euclea divinorum and Maesa lanceolata are symbolically connected to a variety of indigenous practices and events like ritual of avoiding inauspicious omen, ritual of idiotism, homicide case resolution, and mythical power expression. This allegorical link between indigenous practices and native trees has made the strong affinity between local practices and native trees in the manner that underpins conservation of native trees in spite of some anthropogenic menaces. Generally, culture of tree symbolism is indispensable to understand a long century's environmentally friendly life of the people and to conserve native trees. Thus, this culture of tree symbolism has to be preserved by all concerned stakeholders to sustain environmentally benign practices among the people.

Sacred natural sites are culturally and environmentally significant areas to be researched in different cultural contexts. Hence, this research was conducted to investigate the indigenous mechanisms of preserving sacred natural sites in Guji Oromo, southern Ethiopia. Particularly, the study was conducted in Guji zone, Adoolaa Reeddee and Annaa Sorraa districts. Data were produced by interview (in-depth and key informants' interview), focus group discussion and transect walk. The data analysis was made qualitatively. The findings of the study demonstrate customary laws and oral declaration, taboos, customary punishment and social banishment are used as indigenous mechanisms used to preserve sacred natural sites in the study area.

This article deals with continuities and changes in the conceptualization of womanhood among the Guji-Oromo of Ethiopia. Drawing on adults' and children's interpretation of gendered folk narratives, the article discusses the traditional conceptualization of womanhood and the emerging voices that disapprove of it. It argues that adults and children construct contesting images of womanhood through interpreting gendered folk narratives. In explicating the interplay between gender, folk narratives, and intergenerational difference, it looks into the dynamics driving the conceptualization of womanhood in Ethiopia. It shows how individuals' and groups' socio-cultural orientation plays a crucial role in the understanding of gender to which children are introducing new perspectives. It also argues that the role of cultural expression is not only to validate customary perceptions but also reflects the present and emerging changes in the construction of gender. This scenario echoes an emerging resistance that the present generation of children has imposed on the established gender stereotypical views of adults. The article is based on data collected through ethnographic fieldworks done among the Guji-Oromo for ten months in 2015.

African societies attach great value to folksongs but the literature on African verbal arts has so far paid little attention to the role of children in performance oral arts. Similarly, the existing body of literature on Oromo folksongs places its empirical focus and analytical emphasis on the role of adults, neglecting the role of children in the performance and utilization of folksongs. In this article, based on empirical data from the Guji-Oromo of Ethiopia, I argue that children are capable actors in performance of folksongs and construing their social world through it. I analyse the way the children of the Guji-Oromo perform a type of folksong known as 'cattle songs' (locally called as wedduu loonii) and document its connection to the everyday life and culture of their society. Through demonstrating the capacity of children to use songs as a way of understanding their environment and performing their cultural roles, I argue that cattle songs are a cultural exercise that reflects as well as shapes the bond between human beings and their environment. Data discussed in this article was gathered through 10 months of ethnographic fieldwork among the Guji-Oromo in the years 2013 and 2014.

Folktale performance is a popular cultural activity among the Guji-Oromo, an ethnic group in southern Ethiopia. While Guji-Oromo children gain pleasure from hearing and telling folktales, they also learn cultural practices and values as a result of tale performance. Parents tell folktales to their children in order to teach survival skills and cultural norms, but children also share folktales among themselves. This article analyzes how children produce meanings from the folktales they hear and tell. Using data from ethnographic fieldwork, I suggest that children are actors in their own socialization. As they tell and talk about stories, they reflect on the morals of former generations while also critiquing the social complexities of their immediate environments. While the children are eager to engage with modernity, their interpretations also bolster existing cultural norms.

\"How do the Kara, a small population residing on the eastern bank of the Omo River in southern Ethiopia, manage to be neither annexed nor exterminated by any of the larger groups that surround them? Through the theoretical lens of rhetoric, this book offers an interactionalist analysis of how the Kara negotiate ethnic and non-ethnic differences among themselves, the relations with their various neighbors, and eventually their integration in the Ethiopian state. The model of the \"Wheel of Autonomy\" captures the interplay of distinction, agency and autonomy that drives these dynamics and offers an innovative perspective on social relations.\"--Publisher's summary.

In this article, how the tradition of intergenerational storytelling provides parents with contexts for the socialization of children is discussed, drawing on the author's observations of family storytelling events and interviews with parents and children among the Guji-Oromo in southern Ethiopia. This ethnographic analysis shows that, among the Guji-Oromo, storytelling provides for positive communication between parents and children, which in turn are effective in the process of socialization. It was found that parents seek to achieve three socialization outcomes through storytelling: cautioning children, motivating children to learn from adults, and heightening children's respect for the value of adult supervision. These practices empower children to fit their actions to accepted norms and values. Parents among the Guji-Oromo perform and interpret folktales with the purpose of entertaining and educating children through a child-friendly process of socialization.