‘The land is our father, the enemy our brother,’ (Tig. ‘Meretna Abona Eya Eti Tselaei dima Hawna’) was the expression used by an elderly Tigrayan peasant to explain to me the convoluted reasons for the Eritrean-Ethiopian war (1998–2000). This expression captures the essence of what constitutes social order in Tigray and the ancient highlands of Abyssinia – individuals' relationships to land and kin, and the conflicts surrounding these relationships. Land is a symbol of fertility and provides a person with a place of belonging and of resources, facilities which it is also the responsibility of a father to provide. The Tigrayans will defend their land as they will defend their own father. The enemy is cast as a ‘brother’ chiefly because most conflicts over land are between relatives wrangling over family land. Moreover, since Tigrayans share cultural, linguistic and religious attributes with the highland people of Eritrea, the kinship terminology is apt to describe their relations to the Eritrean adversary. To the elderly peasant, the expression ‘the land is our father, the enemy our brother’ summarises the two crucial aspects of the war; that they are fighting for their inalienable land rights against their own kin. As such, the expression, like the Eritrean-Ethiopian war in itself, signifies historical trajectories of conflicts and enemy images in Tigray.