In the last two chapters we have caught a glimpse of how agricultural production was organised in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries and we have seen the lengths that some people went to in order to produce huge amounts of surplus crops. This rather leads us to ask, what exactly did people do with this surplus? The short answer is that they used it to buy status by getting initiated.

Initiates in Doko

There are currently three types of initiates in Doko, known as halak'a, hudhugha and dana. Initiation to any of these positions requires the sponsorship of huge feasts and participation in a series of rituals that can span between two months and two years. The main difference between the three positions is one of scale. Small deres such as Masho or Kale initiate halak'as and require the sponsorship of large feasts. Medium-sized deres such as Doko Masho and Doko Gembela initiate hudhughas and require the sponsorship of much greater feasts, while the large dere of Doko initiates danas and requires that the initiate sponsor feasts of almost potlatch proportions. The status that one gains by taking these titles is correspondingly ranked, so that danas command far more respect than mere halak'as.

By the 1990s the cost of being initiated to the positions of hudhugha or dana in Doko had become almost prohibitively expensive. In Doko Masho there were fewer than twenty men alive who had become hudhugha, less that 1 per cent of all household heads.