HISTORY OF ETHIOPIA

AND THE HORN,

(HiEH, 1012)

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 CHAPTER ONE : INTRODUCTION
1.1.NATURE OF HISTORY
 The term history derived from the Greek word Istoria,
means “inquiry” or “an account of one’s inquiries.”
 The first use of the term is attributed to one of the

ancient Greek historians, Herodotus (c.484–425 B.C),

who is often held to be the “father of history”.
 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

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 ….NATURE OF HISTORY
 In this regard, the major concern of history is the study
of human society and its interaction with the natural
environment, which is also the subject of study by
many other disciplines.
 What differentiates history from other disciplines is

that while the latter study the interaction between

humans and their environment in the present state,
history studies the interaction between the two in the
past within the framework of the continuous process
of change taking place in time.

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 1.2.USES OF STUDYING HISTORY
 The following are some uses of studying
history.
1. History Helps Better Understand the Present.
2. History Provides a Sense of Identity.
3. History Helps Develop Tolerance and Open-
Mindedness
4. History Supplies Endless Source of Fascination
5. History Provides basic background for other
disciplines. e.g:- literature, art, philosophy, religion sociology,
Anthropology, political science, e.t.c.

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 …Uses of studying History
6. History Teaches Critical Skills
Studying history helps students to develop key research skills.
These include how to find and evaluate sources; how to make
coherent arguments based on various kinds of evidence and present
clearly in writing. These analytical and communication skills are
highly usable in other academic pursuits. Gaining skills in sorting
through diverse interpretations is also essential to make informed
decisions in our day-to-day life.

Generally studying history is essential to the individuals

and the societies.

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1.3.Sources and Methods of Historical Studies
 Historical sources are broadly classified into two types:
theses are;- Primary and Secondary sources of History
1. Primary sources
 are surviving traces of the past available to us in the present.
 They are original or first hand in their proximity to the event

both in time and in space.

Examples: manuscripts (handwritten materials), diaries,
letters, minutes, court records and administrative files, travel
documents, photographs, maps, video and audiovisual
materials, and artifacts such as coins, fossils, weapons,
utensils, and buildings.

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2. Secondary sources,
 are second-hand published accounts about past events.
 They are written long after the event has occurred, providing

an interpretation of what happened, why it happened, and

how it happened, often based on primary sources.
Example: articles, books, textbooks, biographies, and
published stories or movies about historical events.
 Secondary materials give us what appear to be finished

accounts of certain historical periods and phenomena.

 Nevertheless, no history work can be taken as final, as new

sources keep coming to light.

 New sources make possible new historical interpretations or

entirely new historical reconstructions.

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 1.4. Critical Analysis of Sources
 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 an evidence.
 Primary sources have to be verified for their originality and authenticity
because sometimes primary sources like letters may be forged.
 Secondary sources have to be examined for the reliability of their
reconstructions.
 Oral data may lose its originality and authenticity due to distortion
through time.
 Therefore, it should be crosschecked with other sources such as written
documents to determine its veracity or authenticity. In short, historians
(unlike novelists) must find evidence about the past, ask questions of
that evidence, and come up with explanations that make sense of what
the evidence says about the people, events, places and time periods they
study about.
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1.5.Historiography of Ethiopia and the Horn
 Historiography can be defined as the history of
historical writing, studying how knowledge of the past,
either recent or distant, is obtained and transmitted.
 The organized study and narration of the past was

introduced by ancient Greek historians notably

Herodotus and Thucydides (c.455-400 B.C).
 The other major tradition of thinking and writing about

the past is the Chinese. The most important early figure

in Chinese historical thought and writing was the Han
dynasty figure Sima Qian (145–86 B.C).

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 History emerged as an academic discipline in the 2nd
half of the 19th Century first in Europe and subsequently
in other parts of the world including the U.S.A
 The German historian, Leopold Von Ranke (1795–

1886), and his colleagues established history as an

independent discipline in Berlin with its own set of
methods and concepts by which historians collect
evidence of past events, evaluate that evidence, and
present a meaningful discussion of the subject. Ranke’s
greatest contribution to the scientific study of the past is
such that he is considered as the “Father of Modern
Historiography.”

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 …Historiography of Ethiopia and the Horn
 The earliest known reference that we have on
history of Ethiopia and the Horn is the Periplus
of the Erythrean Sea, written in the 1st
century A.D 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 Cosmas Indicopleustes, a Greek
sailor, in the 6th Century A.D.

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1.6. Sources On Ethiopian History
 Inscriptions aside, the earliest written Ethiopian material dates
from the 7th Century A.D. The document was found in Abba
Gerima monastery in Yeha. This was followed by a
 manuscript discovered in Haiq Istifanos monastery of present
day Wollo in the 13th Century A.D. The value of manuscripts is
essentially religious. Yet, for historians, they have the benefit of
providing insights into the country’s past.
For example, the manuscript cited above contains the list of medieval
kings and their history in brief.
 The largest groups of sources available for medieval Ethiopian

history are hagiographies originating from Ethiopian Orthodox

Church. Invariably written in Ge’ez, an important function of
hagiographies is enhancing the prestige of saints.
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 1.6.1.HAGIOGRAPHIES AND KITABS
 A parallel hagiographical tradition existed among
Muslim communities of the country. One such
account offers tremendous insight into the life of a
Muslim saint, Shaykh Ja’far Bukko of Gattira, in
present day Wollo, in the late 19th Century.
 Besides the saint’s life, the development of

indigenous Islam and contacts between the region’s

Muslim community and the outside world are some
of the issues discussed in this document.

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 ….chronicles
 Ethiopia had also an indigenous tradition of history writing called
chronicles. Chronicles in the ancient Ethiopian Ge’ez tongue first appeared
in the 14th Century and continue (sometimes in Amharic) into the early 20 th.
Kings or their successors entrusted the writing of chronicles to court scribes
or clergymen of recognized clerical training and calligraphic skills.
 The earliest and the last of such surviving documents are the Glorious
Victories of Made - Tsion and the Chronicle of Abeto Iyasu and Empress
Zewditu respectively.
 Chronicles incorporate both legends and facts-past and contemporary about
the monarch’s genealogy, upbringing military exploits, piety and
statesmanship.
 Chronicles are known for their factual detail and strong chronological
framework, even if it would require considerable labor to convert their
relative chronology to an absolute one. It is also averse to quantification,
have a limitation (Bias and Chronology).

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 1.6.2. Arabic Documents

 For example, al-Masudi and Ibn Battuta described the

culture, language and import-export trade in the main
central region of the east African coast in the 10th and in
the 14th Centuries respectively.
 For the 16th and 17th Centuries we have two documents
composed by Yemen writers who were eyewitnesses to
the events they described. The first document titled
Futuh al Habesha was composed by Shihab al-Din,
who recorded the conflict between the Christian kingdom
and the Muslim principalities in the 16th Century.
 The other first-hand account was left to us by Al-Haymi,
who led a Yemen delegation in 1647 to the court of
Fasiledas (r. 1632-67).
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 1.6.3.Travel Accounts
 The contribution of European missionaries and travelers to the
development of Ethiopian historiography is also significant. From
the early 16th until the late 19th Centuries, missionaries (Catholics
and Protestants) came to the country with the intention of staying,
and who, nevertheless, maintained intimate links with Europe.
 Thus, the missionaries’ sources provide us with valuable
information covering a considerable period. Some of the major
topics covered by these sources include religious and political
developments within Ethiopia, and the country’s foreign relations.
An example of such account is The Prester John of the Indies,
composed by a Portuguese priest, Francisco Alvarez who
accompanied the Portuguese mission to the court of Lebne-
Dengel in 1520.

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…Travel Accounts
 Inaddition to the missionary sources, travel
documents had important contribution to the
development of Ethiopian historiography. One
example of travel documents is James
Bruce’s Travels to Discover the Source of the
Nile. Like other sources, however, both the
missionaries and travelers’ materials can only
be used with considerable reservations and
with care for they are socially and politically
biased.

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1.7.The professionalization of history in other
parts of the Horn
 The professionalization of history in other parts of the Horn is a
post-colonial phenomenon. With the establishment of
independent nations, a deeper interest in exploring their own
past quickly emerged among African populations, perhaps
stimulated by reactions to decades of education in an alien
imperial historiography.
 With this came an urgent need to recast the historical record
and to recover evidence of many lost pre-colonial civilizations.
The decolonization of African historiography required new
methodological approach (tools of investigation) to the study of
the past that involved a critical use of oral data and tapping the
percepts of ancillary disciplines like archeology, anthropology
and linguistics.
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 1.8. Geographical Context
 The term “Ethiopia and the Horn” refers to that part of Northeast
Africa, which now contains the countries of Djibouti, Eritrea,
Ethiopia, and Somalia. The region consists chiefly of mountains
uplifted through the formation of the Great Rift Valley.
 The major physiographic features of the region are a massive
highland complex of mountains and plateaus divided by the Great
Rift Valley and surrounded by lowlands, semi-desert, deserts and
tropical forests along the periphery. 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 a vast number of different languages, profess to many
distinct religions, live in a variety types of dwellings, and engage
in a wide range of economic activities.
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… Geographical Context
 The history of Ethiopia and the Horn has been shaped by
contacts with others through commerce, migrations, wars,
slavery, colonialism, and the waxing and waning of state
systems. Yet, the evolution of human history owed much to
geographical factors notably location, landforms, resource
endowment, climate and drainage systems which continue to
impact, as incentives and deterrents, the movement of people and
goods in the region.
 Another element of geography factor that had profound impact
on human history is drainage system. Ethiopia and the Horn has
five principal drainage systems. These are the Nile River,
Gibe/Omo–Gojeb, Genale/Jubba-Shebele, the Awash River, and
the Ethiopian Rift Valley Lake systems. Ethiopia and the Horn
can be divided into three major distinct environmental zones
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