Oromo, the largest ethnolinguistic group of Ethiopia, constituting more than one-third of the population and speaking a language of the Cushitic branch of the Afro-Asiatic family. Originally confined to the southeast of the country, the Oromo migrated in waves of invasions in the 16th century ce. They occupied all of southern Ethiopia, with some settling along the Tana River in Kenya; most of the central and western Ethiopian provinces, including the southern parts of the Amhara region; and, farther north, the Welo and Tigre regions near Eritrea. Wherever the Oromo settled in those physically disparate areas, they assimilated local customs and intermarried to such an extent that much of their original cultural cohesiveness was lost. They were eventually subjugated by the Amhara, the next largest ethnolinguistic group in Ethiopia.
The Oromo pursued pastoralism before the great migration, and that way of life still prevails for the great numbers of people in the southern provinces. In the east and north, however, long mingling and intermarrying with the Sidamo and Amhara resulted in the adoption of a sedentary agriculture.
The southern groups, such as the Arusi and Boran (Borana) Oromo, have remained pagan, believing in a sky god. They have retained virtually intact the gada, or highly formalized age-set system (a system in which all members of society are included in separate age groups for life). Those traditions have been diluted in the north, where the Oromo are either Muslim or members of the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church and where many Oromo have, through acculturation, become social equals to the dominant Amhara.