History of Ethiopia and the Horn (Hist102)

Instructor: Natnael Kebede

UNIT ONE

INTRODUCTION
1.1The Nature and Uses of History

A. Nature of History

What is history?

 The term history derived from the Greek word Istoria.

This means an inquiry or an account of ones inquiries.
 Is the branch of social science that deals with what human beings did in the past.
 History is the study of change over time and it covers all aspects of human society,
political, social, economic, scientific, technological, medical, cultural, intellectual,
religious and military developments are all parts of history.
 History helps us to know about the past to understand the present and for the prediction
of future developments.
 The term history for the first time used by famous Greek historian Herodotus’ (484-
425B.C).
 Who is often held to be the father of history.
 History means all things that have happened in human past.
 Academically history can be defined as an organized and systematic study of the past.
 The study involves the discovery, collection, organization and presentation of
information about past events.
 History is conventionally divided in to ancient, medieval, and modern history. This is
what we call periodization (the act or process of dividing history into periods) in history

B. Uses of history
 History helps for better understanding of the present

History is the only significant storehouse of information available for the examination and
analysis of how people behaved acted in the past.

 History provides a sense of identity

It is only through sense of history that communities define their identity orient them and
understand their relationships with the past and with other society.
  History provides the basic background for other discipline

Historical knowledge is extremely valuable in the pursuit of other disciplines such as literature,
art, philosophy, religion, sociology, political science, anthropology economics etc.

 History teaches critical skills

 History helps to develop tolerance and open mindedness

1.2 Sources and Methods of Historical Study

 Historians are not creative writers like novelists.

 Therefore, the work of historians must be supported by evidences arising from
sources
 Where there are no sources there is no history. Sources are vital for the study and
writing of history.
 Historical sources are broadly classified into
1. Primary Sources
2. Secondary Sources
 Primary Sources
 They are original or first hand in their proximity to the event both in time and in space.
 Examples of primary source are manuscripts, diaries, letters, minuets, court records and
administrative files, travel documents, direct witness, photographs, monuments, maps,
video, and artefacts such as coins, fossils, weapons, utensils and buildings.
 Primary sources are more reliable than secondary sources.

Secondary Sources

 Do not have direct relations to the events they describe.

 Are second hand published accounts about the past events
 They are written long after the event has occurred.
 Providing an interpretation of what happened, why it happened and how it happened
based on primary source.
 Examples of secondary sources are articles, books, textbooks, biographies, and
published stories or movies about historical events.

Oral Data

 Are information transmitted by word of mouth from generation to generation.

 It could be taken as both primary and secondary sources.
 Constitute the other categories of historical events.
 Oral sources are especially valuable to study the history of non- literate
society.
  In many society people transmit information from one generation to another for
example through folk songs and folk saying. These types of oral data are called
oral tradition.
 For the history of Ethiopia and the horn, historians use a combination of the sources
described above.
 However, whatever the source of information primary or secondary, written or oral the
data should be subjected to critical evaluation before used as evidence.

1.3 Historiography of Ethiopia and the horn

Historiography is:-

 The history of historical writing, studying how knowledge of the past either distant or
recent is obtained and by whom the history of others written.
 The organized study and narration of the past was introduced by ancient Greek historians
notably Herodutous and Thucydides (c.455-400B.C)
 The earliest known references that have on history of Ethiopia and the horn is the
periplus of the Erythrean Sea.
 Written in the first century AD by an anonymous author.
 Another document describing Aksum’s trade and the then Aksumite king’s campaigns on
both sides of the sea is the Christian Topography composed by Cosmos
Indicopleustes, a Greek Sailor, in the six century A.D.
 The largest groups of sources available for medieval Ethiopian history are hagiographies
originating from Ethiopian Orthodox Church.
 Ethiopia had also an indigenous tradition of history writing called chronicles (is a
historical account of facts and events arranged in chronological order).
 The earliest and the last of such surviving documents are the glorious victories of Made-
Tsion and the chronicles of Abeto Iyasu and Empress Zewditu respectively.
 Chronicles incorporate both legends and facts-past and contemporary about the
monarch’s genealogy, up bringing military exploits, piety and statesmanship.
 The contribution of European missionaries and travelers to the development of Ethiopian
historiography is also significant.
 Despite such early historiographical tradition history emerged as an academic
discipline in the second half of the nineteenth century first in Europe and
subsequently in other parts of the world including the US.
 Foreign writers also developed interest in Ethiopian studies. One of these figure
was German, Hiob ludolf (1624-1704)
 Ludolf was the founder of Ethiopian studies in Europe in the seventeenth century.
 He wrote Historia Aethiopica translated into English as A New History of
Ethiopia.
  Ludolf never visited Ethiopia, he wrote the country’s history largely based on
information be collected from an Ethiopian priest named Abba Gorgorios who
was an European at that time.
 The first modern Ethiopian history is written by German historians Job Ludolf in
1684.His sources were Abba Gorgis, an Ethiopian monk who was in German by
the time.
 In fact at the return of the 19thc. Ethiopian writers like Aleqa Taye Gebre Mariam, Aleqa
Atsem Georgis and Afeworq Gebreyesus attempted to write on Ethiopian history, without
basic training. They also known as the traditional or church historians.
 In 1960s Institute of Ethiopian study (IES) established in the Haile Selassie I
University College to study Ethiopian history in organized manner.
 The pursuit of historical studies as a full-time occupation began with the opening of the
department of history in 1963 at Haile Selassie I University (HSIU).

Problems of Studying Ethiopian History

 An imbalance sources
 Lack of comprehensiveness. It only focused on politics.
 Lack of objectivity, it biased towards kings.

1.4 The Geographical Context

 The term Ethiopia and the horn refers to parts of the northeast Africa, which consists
countries of Djibouti, Eritrea, Ethiopia, and Somalia.
 The regions topography is dominated by mountains, rift valley, plateaus, highlands,
lowlands. The diversity of the terrain led to regional variations in climate, natural
vegetation, soil composition and settlement patterns.
 As with the physical features, people across the region are remarkably diverse: they speak
different languages, profess to many distinct religions and engaged in a wide ranges of
economic activities.
 The peoples of the region had strong social, cultural, economic ties.
 Despite the varied physical environments discussed above the countries of the horn of
Africa are for the most part, linguistically and ethnically linked together.
 UNIT TWO

PEOPLES AND CULTURES IN ETHIOPIA AND THE HORN

The Regions of Ethiopia and the Horn is referred to as the cradele of human kind. It is also a
region where early civilizations including food production, making tools, economic formation,
and socio-cultural and political settings took place.

.1. Human Evolution

There are two theories about the origin of human beings. These are

1. Creationist theory
 According to creationist view, human beings were created by God.
2. The Scientific(Evolutionary) Theory
 Explains that human beings developed from lower beings through as low and
natural process of changes. This is called the theory of evolution.
 The theory of evolution was described by the English scientist, Charles Dar
win(1809-1882)
 Archaeological evidences suggested that East Africa Rift alley is cradle of humanity.
 As evidences indicated both biological and cultural evolution discovered in lower awash
by Ethiopian and Foreigners. A fossil named Chororapithecus dated 10 million B. P. was
unearthed in Anchar (in West Hararghe) in 2007.
 Ardipithicus ramidus kadabba (dated 5.8-5.2 million years BP) was discovered in Middle
Awash.
 Ardipithicus ramidus (dated 4. 2 million B.P.) was discovered at Aramis in Afar in 1994.
 Other Australopithecines were uncovered at Belohdelie (dated back 3.6 million years B.
P.) in Middle Awash.
 A three years old child fossil termed as Australopithecus afarnasis , Selam, dated to 3.3
million years, discovered at Dikika , Mille, Afar in 2000.
 Another Australopithecus afarnesis( Lucy/Dinkenesh), dated, 3.18 million years, with
40% complete body parts, weight 30kg height 1.o7m female was discovered at Hadar in
Afar in 1974 A.D.
The three species that belongs to geneus Homo were

1. Homo habilis “Handy Man”

 A partial skull of a fossil termed as Homo habilis, which is derived
from Latin terms "Homo" (human being) and "Habilis" (skillful
use of hands), dated 1.9 million years B. P. has been found in the
Lower Omo.
 It was the oldest type of human being lived in Eastern and
Southern Africa bout 2 million years ago.
 It was discovered by Louis and Mary Leakey. They named “man
of skill.
 Made tools made of lava rock used to cut and open bones.
2. Homo Erectus “upright Man”
 A fossil named Homo erectus (walking upright, dated 1. 6 million
years B. P.) was discovered at Melka Kunture, Konso Gardula and
Gadeb.
 Homo erectus seems to have originated in Africa and then spread
out to the rest of the world.
 Was a more intelligent and adoptable species than Homo habilis.
 These hominids gradually become skilful hunters and invented
more sophisticated tools for digging, scraping, and cutting.
 They also eventually become the first to move or migrate out of
Africa.
 According to Anthropologist Homo erectus was the first to use
fire. And used the fire to warm cold climate, to Cooke food and to
frighten away attacking animals.
3. Homo sapiens “ Wise Man”
 Skeleton of Archaic Homo sapiens (knowledgeable human being,
dated 400, 000 years B.P.) named Bodo with brain size of 1300-
1400cc was discovered in Middle Awash.
 Fossils of Homo sapiens sapiens (100, 000 years B.P.) were
discovered at Porc Epic near Dire Dawa, and Kibish around Lower
Omo (in 1967).
 The species name for modern humans, while they physically
resembled homo erectus, homo sapiens had much larger brains. It
was very similar to modern human being.
 These early men were hunters and gatherers. They created stone
tools bone needles, and bone fish. They sewed clothes from animal
skin with thread made from other parts of the animal. They made
warm boots.
 Cultural evolution is related to technological changes that brought
socio-economic transformation on human life. It can be
conventionally grouped in to Stone Age, Bronze Age and Iron
Age.
 Stone tools had been the first technologies to be developed by
human beings.
 Artefact findings suggest that Olduwan tools made and used by
Homo habilis were discovered near Gona (dated 2.52 million years
B.P. in 1992) and at Shungura in Afar.
 Homo erectus produced Acheulean tools dated back to 1.7.million
years B.P.
 Homo sapiens produced Sangoon tools that trace back up to
300,000 years B. P.
 The period of usage of stone tools is divided into sub-periods.
 The first, the Paleolithic (Old Stone Age, from 3.4 million to 11,
000 years B. P.) was the period when human being developed
language with shelter in cave using stone, bone, wood, furs, and
skin materials to prepare food and clothing.
 There was sex-age labor division with able-bodied males as
hunters of fauna, and children and females as gatherers of flora.
 Mesolithic (Middle Stone Age /11, 000-10,000 B. P.) was
transition between Palaeolithic and Neolithic (New Stone Age /10,
000-6, 000 B.P).
2.2. Neolithic Revolution
 During Neolithic period human beings transformed from mobile to
sedentary way of life.
 And changed from hunting and gathering to domestication of plants and
animals.
 In Ethiopia and the Horn chiefly in the more elevated and wetter-parts,
people cultivated plants including Teff (Eragrotis teff), dagussa
(Eleusine coracana), nug (Guzotia abyssinica), enset (Ensete
ventricosum) etc.

 The domestication of enset plant (Enseteedule) reduced shifting

cultivation (continuous clearing of new plots), slowing down soil
exhaustion.

2.3. The Peopling of the Region

2.3.1. Language and Linguistic Processes
 Ethiopia and the Horn generally marked by ethnic and linguistic
diversity. There are about 90 languages with 200 dialects in Ethiopia and
the horn.
 Linguistics’ classify Languages of Ethiopia and the horn into two major
language super families. These are Afro-Asiatic and Nilo-Sahara.
A. Afro-Asiatic:-This super family is sub divided into the following
families.
 Cushitic – it includes the languae of oromo, saho, sidama,
Somali, Gedeo Darashe, Hadiya etc.
 Semitic- it includes Geez,Tigre, Amharic, Argoba, Harari,
Silte, Gurage.
 Omotic – it includes Basketo, Bench, Shinasha, Keficho,
Konta, Sheko, Wolayta.
B. Nili-Saharan:- includes anyway, Berta, Gumuz, Kunama, Nuer Mursi,
Nyangatom, Shabo, Suri and Uduk.
 Language classification did not remain static,
 Factors like population movement, warfare, trade, religious and territorial
expansion affects.
 In this process some languages died out or have been in danger of extinction.
2.3.2. Settlement Patterns
 A settlement pattern is the distribution of people across the landscape. It
is the result of long historical process in northeast Africa.
 In some areas settlements are dense and in another it is sparse.
 Some people inhabited extensive highlands and others the lowlands.
 Based on historical linguistic and history of inter-peoples relations,
studies indicate that environmental, socio-economic, and political
processes significantly shaped and reshaped the spatial distribution of
peoples in the region.

2.3.3. Economic Formations

 The domestication of plant and animal gave humanity two independent
mode of life: agriculture and pastoralism.
 However, In Ethiopia and the horn these economic activities largely
influenced by topography and climatic conditions.
 A predominantly, pastoral economy has characterized the eastern
lowland regions sine early periods.
 Pastoral economy namely the production of camel, goat, and cattle has
been the most common economic practice among the Afar, Saho and
Somali as well as Karayu and Borana Oromo.
 The plateaus have sustained plough agriculture for thousands of years
supporting sizable populations.
 Majority of the populations were engaged in mixed farming.

2.4. Religion and religious processes

2.4.1. Indigenous Religion
 This includes varieties of religious beliefs and practice, which are native to the region and
have been followed by the local people since ancient times.
 A distinctive mark of indigenous religion is belief in one Supreme Being.
The followings are some major religious group
 Waqqeffanna of the oromo is based on the existence of one supreme being called
waqa. Waqa’s power is manifested through the sprits called Ayyana.
 In the autumn and spring seasons every year at the edge of ever-flowing river and
top of mountain respectively, there is thanks giving festival called Irrecha besides
New Year (Birbo)
  Qallu (male) and Qallitti (female) have maintained link between the Ayyana and
the believers. Qallu ritual house is called Galma located on hilltop.
 On Wednesday and Friday nights, there is Dalaga/ecstasy at which Qallu or
Qallitti is possessed by Ayyana so that s/he can interpret mysteries.
 Among the Hadiya the Supreme Being is known as Waa.
 The kambata have Negitaor Aricho Magano/sky God and religious officials
known as Magnancho.
 The Gedeo called the Supreme Being, Mageno and had thanks giving ceremony
called Deraro.
 The Gojjam Agaw used to call the Supreme Being Diban (Sky God).
 The Walayta called God Tosaand sprit ayyana including Tawa –Awa.
 The Keficho called Supreme Being as Yero; spirit as Eqo and a person who hosts
Eqo is known as Alamo or eke-nayo.

2.4.2. Judaism
 Judaism is considered as the expression of the covenant that Yahweh/Jehova
(God) established with the ancient Jewih (Hebrew).
 Source indicate that Judaism has been followed in Ethiopia and the horn by
peoples since 4th C.A.D. by the bte Israel people who refused to converted to
Christianity.
 Other Bete-Israel take as their basis the account of return to Ethiopia of
Menilek I, who is believed to be the son of King Solomon (r. 974-932 B.C.) of
ancient Israel and Makeda, ancient Queen of Saba (Sheba), and considered to
be the first Solomonic Emperor of Ethiopia.
 Another group of Jews is said to have been arrived in Ethiopia led by Azonos
and Phinhas in 6th century A.D.
 The jewish developed and lived for centuries in northern and north-western
Ethiopia.
2.4.3. Christianity
 Christianity becomes state religion in 334A.D. during the reign of King Ezana
(r. 320-360).
 Who dropped pre-Christian gods like Ares, Bahir (sea god) and Midir (earth
god).
 Christianity was further expanded to the mass of the society in later part of
fifth century, during the reign of Ella Amida (478-86) by Nine Saints.
 The saints also translated Bible and other religious books into Geez.
 The expansion of Christianity continued in the Zagwe period(1150-1270)
when many churches and monasteries were constructed.
 These include Rock hewen churches of Lalibela, Debra Bizan, of Hamasen in
Eritrea: Debre Hayiq in Wollo, Debre-Dima and Debre-werq in Gojjam,
 Debre-Libanos in shewa, Biribir Mariam in Gamo and Dabre-Asabot on the
way to Harar.
2.4.4. Islam
 Islam in Ethiopia dates back to the founding of the religion in 615, when a group of
Muslims were counselled by Muhammad to escape persecution in Mecca and travel to
Ethiopia in present day Eritrea.
 Under this circumstance, the prophet sent some of his early followers including his
daughter Rukiya to Aksum.
 The then king Armah Ella Seham gave them asylim from 615-28.
 Subsequently, Islam spread to the horn of Africa not through Jihad, but through peaceful
ways including trade.
 Islam was well established in Dhalak Island on the Red sea by the beginning of eight
century.