The Oromo, the largest single ethnic group in Ethiopia consisting of about 22 million people or roughly one third of the country's total population, are found mainly in southern and central Ethiopia. In spite of their large numbers they have never been dominant in Ethiopian society, mainly because of their internal diversity and geographical spread. In the Amhara language they are called the Galla. The Oromo were less united both religiously and socially than the Amhara and Tigrayans. Historically, they have never formed one Oromo state, but were organized into smaller units of clans or villages. The Oromo consisted of four main groups and one of them are the Borana.
Oromos have a well-described view on our world, in which the highest force, called "Waaka", rules the kosmos. The creative power of Waaka is to be found in each living entity, be it human, animal, or plant. Nature and animals are treated gently and with respect, in order to establish the balance between the needs of all living species and the omnipresent difficult ecological conditions. He who uses his Waaka powers well and lives in peace with his environment will be rewarded with just the amount of rain he needs.
The traditional political system was based on "gada", a system of five age classes (so-called "luba"). All men wento through this cycle and were allowed some amount of decision power. A person would shift to the next luba every eight years. This system's main advantage was that personal ambitions were suppressed in favor of the people as a whole: political power was distributed among generations, not among individuals. Nowadays the gada still exists, but not to its original extent. In the beginning of the nineteenth century local clan leaders rapidly gained military power and control over trade routes; this fact gradually lead to a separate administrative and judicial system, which conflicted with gada and infected it. In the 1980s the remains of gada were directly attacked by the communists: the extent of the damage to the system is not entirely clear yet.