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Born in Geza Kenisha in Asmara, the same area where Onesimos Nesib (former name Hika) sought refuge and translated the Holy Bible into Afan Oromo more than a century ago, the anthropologist Asmerom, (Ph.D. Harvard Emeritus Professor) is well known for the relentless efforts he has done to introduce Gadaa system to the world.
Two years ago, Professor Asmerom saw the fruits of his 50 years hard work when the UNESCO adopted Gadaa, the five-century-old constitution of the Oromo of Ethiopia, as one of the world intangible heritages.
The respected professor wrote one of the most quintessential books on the Gadaa system. Read: OROMO DEMOCRACY: An Indigenous African Political System.
WHAT IS GADAA?
Gadaa is a political, economic and social system which the Oromo people have been following in governing themselves. Although the Gadaa system is no longer widely practised, it remains influential in Oromo society at large.
Amazingly, the Gadaa system is a democratic system of governance in which the community as a whole has the opportunities to participate on an equal basis.
Under the Gadaa system, the Oromo people are organized or structured into five grades or strata and assume power in rounds which last for eight years each.
Among the Borana, Gada is graded into Mogiissa, Sabaka, Darara, Fullasa, and Makula. On the other hand, among the Karayu Oromo, the strata are referred to as: Robale , Melba, Birmaji, Michille, and Halchisa. Among the Macha and Tulama, these strata are known as: Horata, Michille, Dulo, Robale and Birmaji.
His visit will be a blessing as he has been to the Oromo nation, whose cultural treasure he helped not stay buried and neglected with no chance to enjoy the recognition and scrutiny it truly deserved.
This article draws attention to the Borana Oromo gadaa system as an Indigenous federation. Gadaa is an Indigenous democratic political system used by the Oromo in which leaders are elected and their term in office is strictly fixed. Data for this research were generated through interviews, observations, and focus group discussions. The findings of this research indicate that the Borana have three gadaa councils at two levels: one at the center for the entire Borana and two named after two Borana clans. The later have relative autonomy under the cardinal law of the Borana gadaa. This structure has been serving as a means of managing conflict, maintaining internal unity, and ensuring better governance and power devolution. Finally, suggestions are made on how to support Indigenous governance systems, which in this case includes acknowledging the values and principles of the gadaa system, as well as designing a legal framework that retains and protects the integrity and legitimacy of the system.
Acknowledgments
I would like to acknowledge several individuals and institutes for they contributed to the success of this work. The Volkswagen Foundation sponsored my PhD study through the project entitled “Traveling Models of Conflict Management.” I was able to generate part of the data for this article during my stay in the field as part of my dissertation. Being sponsored by Jimma University, I was also able to attend the 40th Gumii Gaayoo in the summer 2012. Furthermore, Jimma University sponsored a research project entitled “Borana’s Response to Local and Global Changes: Amending Gadaa Law” in 2013/14, which enabled me to collect enriching data on the issue under discussion. I must express my deepest thanks to the Borana Elders and ritual leaders who assisted me accessing important information on Borana gadaa federation. Click here to read the full article: Indigenous Federation: The Case of Borana Oromo, in International Indigenous Policy Journal
Oromo visual artist and activist Yaddi Bojia talks to Jackson Muneza M’vunganyi on using his art as a platform to speak on issues related to Oromo Culture,Social issues,Black Lives Movement etc.’Artists often see their place to provoke, to voice, to enlighten.’
Gada is the traditional governance system of Oromos in Ethiopia and Northern Kenya. Photo: gadasunlightours.comEthiopia’s Oromo people made headlines around the world when peaceful protests turned violent against government land use changes, prompting a state of emergency.
Now Oromo voices are being heard thanks to an entity more often associated with boosting tourism than governance — UNESCO.
Ethiopians rejoiced when the traditional Oromo governance system, known as Gada, was inscribed on UNESCO’s list of intangible cultural heritage of humanity. The announcement was made during the 11th session of UNESCO’s Intergovernmental Committee for the Safeguarding of Intangible Cultural Heritage, held in Ethiopia.
UNESCO, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation, is a special agency of the U.N. created to build the defenses of peace in the minds of men.
Built over generations, the traditional Oromo Gada governance system contains regulatory measures for conflict resolution, questions of religion and women’s rights.
“In contrast to the modus operandi employed by the current, authoritarian government, the Gada form of governance contains provisions guaranteeing an effective system of ‘checks and balances,’ the separation of powers and an institutionalized opposition – all of which provides safeguards against totalitarianism and a governmental abuse of power,” according to the U.N.
When UNESCO announced it was listing the Gada system as an intangible cultural heritage, Ethiopians rejoiced, the Ethiopian Herald reported. Sara Dubee, head of the West Arsi Culture and Tourism Office, said the Oromo people have been subjected to marginalization and subjugation during the former regimes. “The day is special to me and the people of Oromo. The day is a most awaited one in the history of Oromo. Oromo people have paid all the sacrifice to see the day.”
Gada has some features that differ from western democracies, according to Waltainfo. One is the distribution of power. Researchers say western democracies are deficient in distributing power. Those in power control most of the authority and wealth of the country. The young, poor and the elders are politically and economically marginalized in Western democracies.
The Oromo make up about 35 percent of Ethiopia’s population, which now exceeds 102 million, according to Worldometers.
Ethiopia already has eight cultural and one natural site designated as UNESCO World Heritage Sites — the most of any African country. Morocco has the second highest.
The Gada system developed from knowledge gained by community experience over generations, UNESCO wrote on its website, according to Waltoinfo.com. Gada is practiced in Northern Kenya as well as Ethiopia.
The system serves as a mechanism for enforcing moral conduct, building social cohesion, and expressing forms of community culture.
In addition to distribution of power, another distinctive Gada feature that sets it apart from Western democracy is a testing period for elected leaders. Researchers say Gada believes in rigorous practical testing of candidates before they assume office, unlike western democracy, which relies almost exclusively on election.
Even though the Gada system is considered an intangible heritage, Ethiopians say the UNESCO designation will stimulate tourism.
“The Oromo people have sustained their authenticity for so long. We believe the values attached to the Gada system deserve to be safeguarded, nurtured, shared and spread across the world,” said Hirut Woldemariam, culture and tourism minster, Ethiopian Herald reported.
People can learn from the system, said Lemma Megerssa, Oromia state chief. “The adoption would increase our responsibility of safeguarding and promoting the convention, the system would be a center of tourist attraction.”
Oromo artist Mohammed Tawil said, “Our forefathers should be honored for their priceless endeavors in handing over the culture and identity of the system.”
“The Gada System is the true manifestation of the identity of the Oromo people,” Oromo artist Tadele Gemechu told the Ethioian Herald. “We should preserve it. UNESCO’s inscription could overturn the business-as-usual way of handing the values of the heritage. The government and research institutions should look ways how to bolster and promote the assets of (gada) system.”
The Oromo people have suffered a lot, said Atsede Kadire. “The Oromos have original and unique heritages that could take into account the whole form of life. The Gada system is one of the heritages that binds all. Gada system could be one of the bases for modern democracy.”
The UNESCO designation is a milestone and “a huge step to beef up our tourism industry because the world will come to learn about the Gada system from the community,” Kadire told Ethiopian Herald.
Ethiopia’s UNESCO World Heritage Sites and dates of designation include the following:
Aksum (1980)
Fasil Ghebbi, Gondar Region (1979)
Harar Jugol, the Fortified Historic Town (2006
Konso Cultural Landscape (2011)
Lower Valley of the Awash (1980)
Lower Valley of the Omo (1980)
Rock-Hewn Churches, Lalibela (1978)
Tiya (1980)
Simien National Park (1978)
Here’s what UNESCO had to say about the Gada system, according to Waltoinfo.com:
Gada is organized into five classes with one of these functioning as the ruling class consisting of a chairperson, officials and an assembly. Each class progresses through a series of grades before it can function in authority with the leadership changing on a rotational basis every eight years.
Class membership is open to men, whose fathers are already members, while women are consulted for decision-making on protecting women’s rights. The classes are taught by oral historians covering history, laws, rituals, time reckoning, cosmology, myths, rules of conduct, and the function of the Gada system.
Meetings and ceremonies take place under a sycamore tree (considered the Gada symbol) while major clans have established Gada centers and ceremonial spaces according to territory. Knowledge about the Gada system is transmitted to children in the home and at school.
Various sources indicated that the Gada system has the principles of checks and balances (through periodic succession of every eight years), and division of power (among executive, legislative, and judicial branches), balanced opposition (among five parties), and power sharing between higher and lower administrative organs to prevent power from falling into the hands of despots. Other principles of the system include balanced representation of all clans, lineages, regions and confederacies, accountability of leaders, the settlement of disputes through reconciliation, and the respect for basic rights and liberties.
UNESCO: Gadaa system, an indigenous democratic socio-political system of the OromoInscribed in 2016 ( at Eleventh session of the Committee) on the Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity.
UNESCO has inscribed Gadaa System of the Oromo nation as Intangible World Heritage at its eleventh session of the Intergovernmental Committee for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage held in Finfinee, Oromia, at the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa Conference Centre. The Gadaa System is an indigenous and democratic Oromo (Ancient Africa’s) governance institution and social civilization.
‘UNESCO has recognized the ancient Gadaa system that is a democratic system practiced by the Oromo nation. The Gadaa system classifies the Oromo society according to age. During each age classification certain skills are taught in order to gain experience and prepare for leadership of the Oromo society. UNESCO has acknowledged that the Gadaa system is one of the foundations of international democracy.’ OMN ENGLISH NEWS (November 30, 2016).
‘On November 30, 2016, UNESCO announced that the Oromo civilization known as the Gadaa System (which is the overall Oromo’s interconnected institutions of nationhood, including its Gadaa governing institution, the Siiqqee institution of women’s equality, and the Irreecha Oromo festival of cultural and religious significance, among other components of the Gadaa System) was inscribed on the Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity.’http://finfinnetribune.com/Gadaa/2016/12/oromos-gadaa-siiqqee-irreecha-recognized-by-unesco-as-intangible-heritage/
Badii fi seera malee namoonni keenya mana hidhaatti guuraman yeroo dhihootti akka gadi lakkifaman sagalee tokkoon gaafanna.
Namoonni dhiiga Oromoo taatanii lammii keessan ajjeestanii fi ajjeesaa turtan, waan hamaaf dabarsitanii kennitan sobaaf raga baatan, guyyaa har’aatii kaasee yaa’ii tokkummaa abbootii gadaa oromoo kun maqaa uummata oromoo kabajamaa fi guddaatiin badii darbeef dhiifama gaafattanii,dhugaa lammii keessaniitiif akka dhaabbatan isinii dhaamaa, kanarra kan darbe kana booda gocha kana irra deebitanii yoo raawwattan lafee fi dhiigni ilmaan oromoo, akka safuu fi safeeffannaa Sirna Gadaatiin kan isin gaafatu taha.
Ilmaan Oromoo naannawaa Finfinnee lafarraa buqqaa’an akka deebi’anii manni jirenyaa kennamuuf ni gaafanna.
Irreechi hora Finfinnee akka nuuf deebi’uuf fulbaana 24/2009 ummatni Oromoo fi Abbootiin Gadaa achirratti argamuun akka kabajannu beeksisaa akka nuuf mirkanaa’u ni gaafanna.
Qotee bulaan sababa baballina masterpilaanii magaalaatiinii fi investimentiitiin uummata keenya lafarraa buqqisaa jiraachuun akka nurraa dhaabbatu ni gaafanna.
Hojii dhabdummaa Naannoo Oromiyaatti babal’ataa jiruufi naannoowwan magaalotaa fi Finfinnee jirurratti dargaggoota yuniversitii fi koollejii irraa eebbifamaniif rakkoo hojiidhabdummaatiin dararaman haalli mijachuun deeggersi barbaachisaa tahe akka
godhamuuf ni gaafanna.
Nuti uummatni Oromoo sabaa fi sablammiiwwan jiran waliin nagaan jiraachuu barbaadna. Sababa daangaan keenya sharafamaa jiruuf uummatni keenya sabaa fi sablammiiwwan ollaa jiruun walitti bu’aa jira. Kanaafuu ,mootummaaan kara lachanuu ilaaluun furmaata akka kennuuf ni gaafanna.
Sirni Gadaa Oromoo safuu fi safeeffannaa isaa ganamaa eegee caasaa qabuun akka ijaaramuu fi kan ijaaramee jiru jabinaan akka itti fufu imaanaa guddaa saba keenyaaf kallattii hundaan cimsinee haa hojjennu.
Sirni Gadaa Oromoo Sirna Bulchiinsa Oromoo karaa nagaa fi tasgabbii qabuun rakkoowwa hawaasaa hiikuun aadaa fi duudhaa hawasaa babl’isuun abbaa qabeenyummaa dinagdee hawaasichaa kan mirkaneessudha waan taheef sirni kun jabeeffamuu kan qabuu fi kan ittiin bullu tahuu uumata keenyaaf dhaamsa dabarsiina.
Sirni Gadaa Oromoo faajjii mataa isaa:- Gurraacha, Diimaa Fi Adii kan qabu dha.kanaafuu ummatni Oromoo fi ummatni Ayyaana Irreechaa fuuldura keenyaa kamirratuu kabajamu irratti Faajjii kanaan ala alaabaa dhaaba siyaasaa kamiyyuu qabatee akka hin dhufne ni akeekkachiisna.
Afaan Oromoo afaan hojii federaalaa akka tahu ni gaafanna.
Statement by the Union of Oromo Gadaa Councils on Current Affairs in Oromia
Statement by the Union of Oromo Gadaa Councils on Current Affairs in Oromia
Issued following the conclusion of a three day extraordinary assembly held from 30 August- 1st September 2016 by Abba Gaddas representing all Oromia provinces
Place: Sodere Resort Hotel
We, Oromo Gadaa elders, have been working with the government and the community to solve the societal, economic and political predicaments facing the Oromo nation. Yet, none of the recommendations we presented to the government – particularly on issues that have caused lack of stability in the country- has been implemented. The government’s decision to violently suppress legitimate questions raised in peaceful rallies instead of dealing with them calmly and in accordance with the law has failed to solve the problem. Persecutions, killings and imprisonments as a result of this are worsening, even on mere suspects whose involvements in protest activities have not been established. In the light of this, and while having regard to our earlier recommendations, we have issued the following 13-point resolution.
The people of Oromia- regardless of zones, districts or localities we hail from or our religious & political differences- will stand in unity under the umbrella of The Gadaa and uphold our customs, values and traditions.
The national defense army that should be guarding the outside borders of the country has, in clear contravention of the constitution, entered into the territory of our regional state and stationed in different parts of Oromia. The army’s inability to communicate in the local vernacular and lack of awareness of the customs, culture and traditions has created a huge problem for the people. We would like to state our position that we should be able to resolve any problems within Oromia in line with the principles and structures of the Gadaa constituting the Abbaa Duulaa (a military commander with the highest authority), Kuusaa, dabballe and foollee. We would also like to call on the federal government to withdraw its army from the territory of Oromia.
We demand that the government immediately release innocent people unlawfully held in prisons
To Oromo agents of the government who collaborate/collaborated in killings, betray/betrayed and bore/bear false witness on your own people, we plead with you in the name of the noble people of Oromia to turn from your immoral ways, to plead for forgiveness and to stand with our people from now onwards. If you refuse and continue to stand on the wrong side of history, you will be held responsible for infringement of the moral and ethical order laid down in the Gadaa rules of governance.
We request that the government return the Oromo who have been displaced from areas surrounding Finfinnee back to their land and dwellings.
We demand for the ban on Lake Finfinne as a gathering point for Irreecha (thanksgiving) celebrations to be lifted and for our right to celebrate at this location be respected. We would also like to inform the authorities of the intentions of the Gadaa elders and people of Oromia to celebrate the upcoming Irreecha on the 24th of September 2016 at Lake Finfinne and request for this to be confirmed by the government.
We request that the evictions of our farmers from their ancestral lands with the pretext of investments and city master plans be ceased.
To keep rising levels of unemployment in Oromia, regional towns and Finfinnee in check, we request that the government provide the necessary support to college & university graduates struggling to make a living and create better opportunities for them.
We –the people of Oromia- would like to live in harmony with other nations and nationalities in the country. However, encroachments on our borders are giving rise to skirmishes between our people and other nations and nationalities. We, therefore, call on the government to look into this matter and rectify the problems.
We urge members of the Oromo public to strengthen and take a keen interest in the Gadaa system of governance, which plays a crucial role in terms of dealing with societal challenges in a peaceful and orderly manner, preserving and helping flourish the cultures and values of the Oromo as well as ensuring the society’s resource ownership.
The Gadaa system has its own unique badge: Black, Red and White. We urge the people of Oromia and other Irreecha festival participants not to bring flags representing any political organization in future celebrations other than the Black, Red and White badge.
We request that Afaan Oromo become a federal working language.
(All Africa): Gadaa is a highly independent democratic and egalitarian political system that has guided the religious, social, political and economic affairs of the Oromo people of the Horn of Africa for many centuries. Sources indicate it is a system that organizes the Oromo society into groups or sets (about 7-11 ) that assume different responsibilities in the society every eight years.
Under Gadaa system the power to administer the affairs of the nation and the power to make laws belong to the people. Every male member of the society who is of age and of Gadaa grade has full rights to elect and to be elected. All the people have the right to air their views in any public gathering without any fear.
Last week is a very unique week for Guji Oromo’s who have finalized preparations for inaugurating their new leader (Aba Gadaa).The new leader will serve an eight year term in a system that rotates power between the tribe’s top clans.
Me’ee Bokkoo located in Guji Zone of Sora Woreda is among the most sacred places in which the Gadaa ritual traditions and ceremonies are conducted. The place is special for various reasons including its a sacred place where law is drafted, ratified amended and officially indoctrinated to the community.
Power transfer in Gadaa system is not like a power transfer in Monarchy. People raise fund to campaign for their sons based on their family legacy. In such campaign, the individual capacity of the son is also seriously scrutinized.
According to sources, Gada system is not a system where authority is simply passed from fathers to sons. Of course, the legacy of one’s family and the past accomplishments of a clan councilor has a great influence in the decision that is made to nominate the would be Aba Gadaa and councilors. They must pass through a rigorous training for years about the laws and the customs and the wisdom of leading a society before they take the position of authority in Gadaa.
According to Guji tradition, celebration begins a week before the actual day of power transfer through conducting different activities. The elders at different hierarchy of the system gathered and dressed in beautiful cultural costume to perform dances and musics. The youths have also a unique fashion of dancing style. During the week, communal issues like protection of the environment, wildlife, laws that have to be amended and if there are new laws to be adopted and similar things will be discussed and pass decision accordingly.
For instance, there was a debate by the Gumii, Gumii is the legislative branch of the Gadaa system, about marriage offer the groom has to bring for the bride family. Accordingly, the Gumii passed a new law that will reduce the amount of the offer to be given for the bride family. Aba Gada Bagaja Ganale said that the offer has become an issue of concern because it has been creating trouble among the youth. “The youth of this generation cannot afford to provide that much offer and they demanded change and we were obliged to amend the law, “he added.
Adola Woreda Culture and Tourism Bereau Deputy Head Mohamed Hesa on his part said that Guji Zone is well known for its immense and beautiful cultural heritages. The Zone has finalized preparations to colorfully celebrate the Gadaa power transfer anniversary. The primay aim is to uphold the Gadaa culture not only for the Oromo’s but for the whole of Ethiopia and efforts are underway to register the Gadaa system in UNESCO, he said.
It was learnt that the 74th power transfer ceremony of Guji Oromo Gadaa system will be held today in the presence of senior government officials, Gadaa leaders and other invited guests.
It is doubtful if all those who exalt democracy understand it in the same way. For this reason, let us see if we can find a common ground for Oromo activists. As the son of the last Gadaa practiced in his birthplace, no one, this writer believes, will contest his Gadaademocratic heritage. But so what? What matters is only if he practices and defends it. The word democracy (demockratia), they say, came from two Greek word “demos” for people, and “kratia” for government. The words of Abraham Lincoln in modern times expresses better the Western concept of democracy, which is “a government of the people by the people for the people …” This is notwithstanding the framework in which it is practiced in different countries. From what we observe, genuine democracy is a difficult dream to be realized. Even Gadaa or Oromo democracy, which was more inclusive, was not perfect. Evaluating democracy has to start from structure and function of an organization. An organization is its setup, its kaayyoo and its members who have pledged to struggle for a common cause respecting its laws and regulations; any democratic member or leader is judged by one’s integrity, one’s commitment to the organization, priority one gives for comrades’ concerns, and respect for organizational laws and procedure, and how much one understands national and international human and technological developments.
For this writer, democracy is a way of life where all people are seen as equals irrespective of social position, education, skill, race, ethnicity, etc. All genuine democrats accept the rule of law, encourage participation of members in decision making, and do not try to silence dissenting voices. That distinguishes them from autocrats, oligarchs and totalitarians. Leadership in democracy is based on election with time limit. In certain cases, elected leaders could turn autocratic or oligarchic abandoning organizational rules and objectives that demand all-inclusive teamwork. Autocracy is a rule by an individual. Oligarchy, on the other hand, is a rule by an elite group or clique. In both systems, there are some who initially come through election, but ignoring rules and regulations that had brought them to power, they start to rule by whim. Such usurpation of power cannot be enduring, but the devastation it could cause may be realized later. That is how Hitler came to power, and we know what happened to Germany and the world; Wayyaanee is on the same course and is on its way out. Therefore, there is a lot to worry when someone starts to stray from lawful practices. He or she may get away with it once, but that does no good for the struggle and future member relations unless corrected.
The first schism in OLF was between young brothers who claimed of being more Oromo than the other instead of showing patriotism commensurate with their kaayyoo. The unexpected is, all that came later in senior years who wanted to prove who could faster find out a way to win aliens favor irrespective of own political loss. That is how diaspora Ethiopianists became vocal and daring in a never-seen way. The struggle against oppression is not advancing; individual activists leading it are not materially benefiting yet – and are not searching for a way out. If errors are pointed out, every one is fast to take a position for self-defense and viewing comrades as adversary. What is going on is difficult for a quick analysis. At present, one can smell prolusion in the activist ranks. All the agitation for liberation, all the condemnations of treachery are now forgotten with temptations from colonial masters, even to a great surprise of former pariahs.
All the spilt blood of sisters, brothers and comrades are erased from memory. Some of them are suffering from the struggle’s fatigue; there seems no stamina or honor left in them. It reminds one the two Wayyaanee men and musicians who surrendered and started to give out secrets they held to the Darg during its waning days in return for some protection and comfort. But the fanfare did not last long, the defectors and Darg had to run for their lives. Numbed Oromo politicians are also hurrying to the same end. They will surrender to leaders of the empire and their running dogs to flee again soon, now with their hosts. No one can stay mentally healthy and in peace betraying the Oromo legitimate cause.
Elections usually create bodies that are individually and collectively responsible to the electorate. For that purpose, there is a division of labor and accountability governed by rules and regulations among them. But leaders who have autocratic tendencies break those rules of procedure deceptively and take the law to their hands. In most cases, organizations have executives and a policy-making council or Parliament, which has a supreme power. All power that is not clearly mandated belongs to this council. For autocrats, this mandate is time-wasting and unnecessary. Such autocrats are prone to a third-party influence. Third parties pursuing their own interests prefer partners whose hands are not tied by democratic procedures and accountability. That is how the objective principles of democratic organizations are derailed and distorted by self-seeking individuals in cahoots with sinister interests. For example, that is how Wayyaanee ended up serving individual leaders and foreign interests instead of peoples who elected it.
Legal procedures are laid down so that each division of an entity plays as a check-and-balance on each other. The executive is mandated to implement policies based on guidelines policymakers lay down for it. Chairperson’s duty is to coordinate the work of members of the executive and act as the public face for the organization and do other duties clearly mandated to them by the higher body. That does not mean they cannot suggest new ideas, but it needs approval of their comrades. Members and other functionaries can be asked for their opinions or be informed on the state of their organization, but cannot vote on policy issues outside their competence. Such practice existed only in direct democracy, not representative one.
In representative democracies, leaders may take to the mass members or to those the issue on hand concerns to put pressure on the policymakers though they have no legal significance and do not justify circumventing legally established procedures. However noble the reason for circumventing might be it cannot outweigh abiding by the law in the long run. For instance, in OLF, a body that represents the National Kora as the supreme policymaker is the National Council. If the executive take action on matters that are under council’s jurisdiction without its authorization that does not worth a penny, and is not binding on anyone, but only holds the perpetrator accountable. All deliberations require quorum to be valid. The chairman is a member of the executive committee. Relevant decisions are made through the committee. Such is how decisions are supposed to be made by this organization that has sacrificed so much for democratic rights.
By their oath of office, elected members have committed themselves to be answerable to their constituency individually and severally. And they cannot remain neutral when organizational laws and regulations are transgressed. They ought to struggle for rectification and a redress mechanism when wrongs are done. Disloyalty to the organization and its instruments show contempt for principles it is based on and the goals it aimed at. By doing so, they are making the force behind the organization’s creation irrelevant. That would seem as if they have found a new function and a new loyalty for it. Procedures are laid down to curb authoritarian tendencies which are common to human nature and protect the organization from turning against itself. But that could remain a wish when members are not politically conscious enough, and mobs are turned against to harass them. In Gadaa tradition, elected leaders can be recalled for slight deviations. Not now. The enemy and its agents want Oromo activists to get engaged in internal bickering and schisms, as to make them not bother with the status quo in the empire. This has to be avoided and focus must be on implementation of organizational program in any way possible. The imperial status quo has to crumble whether they like it or not.
If not led by those committed to the cause, it will be naiveté to expect a strong and democratic organization. Without strong organization it will be difficult to win a war or to deliver what one promises. The major causes for weaknesses and dissensions in OLF so far, despite the great potential it could mobilize, are leaders not adhering to organizational objectives, rules and procedures and lacking dedication for the cause. Weak leaders of organizations sometimes seek for strength from external sources rather than internally. That is sure to adulterate all aspects of the organization and its struggle. OLF has a declared anti-colonial agenda. All its relations must be based on this agenda, not on refurbishing the empire state. To remain OLF, understanding current world situation, current Oromo youth demands and maintain independence of the organization is needed.
Unfortunately, devotion to the cause or original kaayyoo, consistency of outlook, unwavering commitment to Oromummaa, determination to sacrifice and valor are becoming rare commodities for many. When OLF shows some hopeful trends, there were those who stampede each other for favors; and when things are not favorable, there are those highly flexible whose conscience doesn’t scratch them a little bit, but hide under faith and region – and try to throw stone at it. On the other hand, Oromiyaa has produced some leaders who are allergic to criticisms – who give ears for alien propaganda, but deaf to members’ comments contrary to theirGadaa heritage. They generally fail to realize that dodging the truth will have always far-reaching consequences for the struggle. For this, no one has more experienced than the OLF. As a remedy, those engaged in the struggle must believe that OLF is greater than anyone of its members and no individual whim can replace it; no one has the right to silence member’s voice from expressing one’s opinion and no one should be hindered from exercising one’s rights and duties. If this is done, there could be internal harmony and there is no reason for the organization not to be strong. Strong organization can approach the world in unison and in one voice, and form alliances in accordance with its political program. But who wants a strong OLF?
A weak organization becomes only an embarrassment for the nation. As a nation with Gadaa heritage, Oromo takes democracy as a way of life where dialog is practiced rather than dictation. Inequality, discrimination, favoritism marginalization, deceit and partiality have no place in democracy. It is a system where the law is supreme over individual’s idiosyncrasies. Leaders and members must reflect democratic Gadaa values at all times in private and official lives. They have to show commitment and dedication for fulfillment of the national Kaayyoo. For a national organization, the motto should always be “Nation’s Interest First.”
The first known democratic system of the world which gave the concept for the government of the people was for equals or free men. Women, slaves and foreigners were not included. It had stayed so for centuries. Voting rights for women did not yet become universal. There is also no perfect model for democracy where people live in harmony with each other and natural environment, enjoying fruits of liberty. Unless the attitudes towards women are changed, it will be like working with one hand amputated. Women are the most important members of human society, and no less productive and resourceful than men. Denying them equal rights with men is probably the most absurd thing that humans have done.
Gadaa system may have no rival – concerning the paying attention to the marginalized, including women in relative terms. That this truth is not mentioned by historians of the world makes history of democracy incomplete. The Oromo do not fit into their classification of society as savage or barbarian. They are shy to call them not civilized like some ignoramus, because in their hearts they know that Oromo civilization precedes theirs. Gadaa is a democratic system ala Oromo that existed from time immemorial.
Oromo society is divided into five Gadaa parties and periods. Each citizen belonged to a Gadaa to which his father belonged. They are those five Gadaa that take responsibility of ruling the nation in turns. Each Gadaa stays in power only for eight years. A Gadaa grade prepares itself from childhood until the stage of Raabaa-Doorii – where it will be ready to take power from the ruling Gadaa orgogeessa Luba before it. Therefore, there is no chance for aGadaa to stay in power a day over eight years without jeopardizing the working of the system. Electing their leaders is the duty and responsibility of each Gadaa.
All male members of the Oromo society are divided into age groups or hiriyaa (peer) separated by eight years. Each hiriyaa group has a social, economic, and political role to play for eight years in aGadaa tier. Grooming for leadership starts at early age and goes own until the time of taking over political responsibility. Thus, all male members are involved in all affairs of their society from birth to death. That is what we call Gadaa democracy. Hiriyaa above 8 years of age are given the roles in aiding adults, serving as scouts, military training and fighting, and ruler ship and administration of justice. Relevant formal and informal education is given at every tear. Thus, an Oromo adult was a well versed person in all aspect of societal knowledge and duties. Now since collective formal and informal education has ceased, one has to use those who got chance to go to modern educational institutions; just like the ancients used the highly enlightened Raagaa.
Women had legal and ritual roles to play in their own right though governing is men’s duty. The Siiqqee institution depicts these roles of women in Gadaa democracy. There are political and social rituals which cannot be completed without their involvement. The Siiqqeeis a sacred stick, symbol of women power through which they find their ways through social webs, and get their human rights respected. Let alone in the ancients, even in modern Western world, women got voting rights relatively very recently. The UN adopted, “Convention of the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women” in 1979. Even today, these rights are not recognized by all or are recognized with restrictions. Compared to those, ancient Oromo women were in a better position than them with their Siiqqee prerogatives.
For governance, there were elected legislative and executive bodies. Their functions include also the administration of justice under Gaaddisa (Shade). Though the administration of justice is not separately organized like in modern Western systems, it is said to be the most impartial and well thought. Qaalluu, which was hereditary institution, had also significant role in society. The first two are elected and filled with Luba hiriyaa group. Justice, in most cases, is said not to be left to one Gadaa generation, but mostly entrusted to the hayyuu or jaarsa, wise men of society. Every member of society is bound by law, rules and regulations of finnaa, or state. Oromo had also ethical and moral rules known as safuu. Breaking rules of safuu amounts to renouncing Oromummaa. There are few that tarnish the good Oromo tradition and defame even outstanding Oromo patriots in the name of supporting a group or an outlook. Such groups or individuals in whose name the law ofsafuu is broken by social scums have the moral obligation to officially distance themselves from such acts if they themselves believe in decency. In Gadaa, no individual or group is above the law. Breaking the law, in particular by high level leaders, could lead to uprooting. That was the way of Oromo forefathers. Thus, adherence to democracy, and respecting and causing rules ofsafuu to be respected are marks of Oromummaa.
Oromo lost such marvelous political culture and forced to live under the mercy of an alien colonial rule for more than a century. Those who were mentally liberated organized themselves into a movement defying alien domination and rejecting its laws. But the model under which they were brought up is still haunting some of them. Instead of reverting to Gadaa democratic principles, those found it easy to imitate their masters and mentors. For this reason, consensus on the national kaayyoo is affected. As a result, they are wavering between the independence courses and reducing the struggle to individual rights. That means accepting people’s rights not being more than group rights such as of clubs, associations, etc. in tune with the enemy. The enemy propagates this to oppose decolonization and the right to freedom of Oromiyaa, Southern and Nilotic peoples.
Oromo are being harassed not as individuals alone, but more so as a group for mere reason of being Oromo. That is why they see at both rights in their right perspective. Both individual rights and peoples’ rights are inseparable human rights. No one of them can be fulfilled if the other is denied. The right of Oromo as a nation is denied as not to accept their separate identity from Ethiopia. That the Oromo have different culture, language and history is difficult to be denied by anyone. Therefore, it must be understood that just having more fire power does not give anyone the right to erase the identity of the other to stick one’s own in its place. Oromo identity has survived for more than a century under dire situation, and it will survive for many more.
Peoples right, individual right, democracy and self-determination are all universally recognized (UN Charter of 26 June 1945 – Article 1.2.) – not only a plea of the colonized. See the following:
1. The subjection of peoples to alien subjugation, domination and exploitation constitutes a denial of fundamental human rights, is contrary to the Charter of the United Nations and is an impediment to the promotion of world peace and co-operation.
2. All peoples have the right to self-determination; by virtue of that right they freely determine their political status and freely pursue their economic, social and cultural development. (UN Resolution 1514 (XV) 14 December 1960, (Article 1.1, The International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, 1966))
The General Assembly, … Affirms the legitimacy of the struggle of peoples under colonial and alien domination recognized as being entitled to the right of self-determination to restore to themselves that right by any means at their disposal; (UN Resolution 2649, 30 November 1970)
The General Assembly reaffirms that the universal realization of the right of all peoples, including those under colonial, foreign and alien domination, to self-determination is a fundamental condition for the effective guarantee and observance of human rights and for the preservation and promotion of such rights; (UN Resolution 43/105 December 8, 1988)
It has taken the Habashaa over half a century to recognize rights of the oppressed colonial peoples by Article 39 of their constitution. They did that not because they believed in it, but to cool down Oromo furry in demanding for independence after a century of dependence. Otherwise, they had never practiced freedom and democracy even for their own people. Tigray, Tigriny and Amaaraa elites still maintain that. But they better focus on their own affairs if they want to avoid what their kin and kith say “Stretching to take down what is on the raft, she dropped what was in her armpit.”Habashaa elites are divided in opinion on how to govern the empire. The two schools are that of the Wayyaanee and that of those the Wayyaanee defeated in the battlefields. The Wayyaaneechose to declare Ethiopians and non-Ethiopian subjects of the empire as separate entities that deserve the rights to national self-determination contrary to remnants of the fallen Nafxanyaa and the Eritrean leader. They do not understand that the myth of their colonial empire is ending. Henceforth, they may reorganizeHabashaa Ethiopia, and start negotiating for good neighborliness with Oromiyaa and other colonies. Waaq willing, that will be the last stage of Habashaa Colonialism before the master distorters are all gone.
Gadaa system is among the advanced democracies of the world. Genuine democracy is a difficult dream to be realized. Even Oromo democracy which was more inclusive was not perfect. Human beings are all born equal. Differences after birth, concerning character, class, education, position, skill and other capabilities should not allow anyone to justify being more equality than the other. Thus, democracy is a way of life where all people are seen as equals. Accepting the rule of law distinguishes democrats from autocrats, oligarchs and totalitarians. True Oromo liberation movement is not breeding ground for undemocratic elements. But sometimes, there could be a glitch due to human frailty; if that happens, it should be nipped in the bud. It is only unity of the people and strong independent organization that can lead the struggle to victory and make it a reliable ally for anyone. Over and above their ritual role, it remains for Oromo women to claim full democratic rights. Together Oromo women and men shall throw away shackles of colonialism and finish modernizing the Gadaademocratic process disrupted by the enemy long ago by establishing democratic People’s Republic Oromiyaa. Oromo youth will not abandon Oromo revolution started by their elders. Independent Oromiyaa shall be realized! Gadaa democracy shall revive! Down with reactionary elements in the Oromo struggle!
Kanneen demokraasii ol kaasanii ilaalanhundi, akka tokkott qayyabachuun saanii mamsiisaa dha. Kanaaf mee qabsaawota Oromoof yoo ilaalcha waloo ni arginaaf tahe haa ilaaluu. Akka ilma Gadaa naannaa saatt yeroo dhumaaf shakalameett dhaalmaa demokraasii Gadaa qabaachuu saa, barreessaa kun kan ittiin mormu jiraataa itt hin fakkaatuu. Yoo tahewoo? Kan dhimma baasu yoo ofii shakalee fi utubeen qofa. Qooqi demokraasii (demokratia) qooqota Greekii lama “demos” ummata fi “kratia” mootummaa, irraa dhufe jedhama. Jechi Abraham Lincoln “Mootummaan ummataa ummataaf ummataan …” jedhu bara si’anaa rimsama demokraasii sirriitt ifsa. Kun biyya biyyatt mikkillee inni keessatt shakaIamu utuu hin dagatinii. Waan hubannu irraa demokraasiin dhugaa abju dhugoomuun saa rakkisaa tahe. Demokraasiin Oromoo yk Gadaa kan hunda haammatullee muda hin qabnee mitii. Demokraasii madaluun kan eegalamuu qabu, dhaaba, caasaa fi jiruu jarmaa saa irratii. Jaarmaan dhaaba, miseensota kaasaa waloof qabsaawan, kaayyoo, seeraa fi dambiilee saa kabajuuf kakaa seenan dabalataa. Miseensi yk hogganni demokratawaan kan madaalamu qulqullooma keessa ofii, dudhama dhaabicha qabu, durfannoo dhimmama jaalaa kennuu, seeraa fi tartiiba dhaabaaf ulfina kennuu fi hagam guddina ilmaan namaa fi teknolojii sabaawaa fi sabgiddu akka hubateenii. Leadership in democracy is based on election with time limit. In certain cases elected leaders could turn autocratic or oligarchic abandoning organizational rules and objectives that demands all-inclusive team work.
Barreessaa kanaaf demokraasiin akkaataa jireenya hundi adda addummmaa barumsaan, ogummaa fi dandeettii biraa haa qabaatan malee, walqixummaan walliin jiraatanii. Demokraatoti dhugaa hundi seeraan bulmaata ni fudhatuu, murtii dabarsuu keessatt qooda fudhannaa miseensotaa ni jajjabeessu; akkasumas sagalee mormii ukkaamsuu hin yaalanii. Kanatu ofaangessaa, bulchiyaroo fi halleto’ataan adda isaan godha. Demokraasii keessatt hoggansii kennata yeroo murtaawee irratt hundaawaa. Alii ali hogganooti filaman dambilee fi tartiiba dhaabaa, kan hojii garee hunda hammataa gaafatu lakkisanii ofaangessaa yk bulchiyaroott of jijjiiruu dandahu. Ofaangessaan olhantummaa nama tokkotii. Gara biraan bulchiyaroon murna gurguddoo yk sadootaan gaggeeffama. Sirna lamaanuu keessatt tokko tokko jalqaba kennataan aangott dhufanuu seeraa fi qajeelfama angoott isaan fide lagatanii fedha ofiin bulchuu eegalu. Taahitaa finqilchaan dhufe akkasii hin waaruu. Badiisi sanaan gahus booda hubatama. Hitiler akka sanatt aangoo qabatee, Jarmanii fi addunyaa irraan maal akka gahe argineera; Wayyaaneenis karaa sanan walfakkii irra bu’ee sussukaa jiraa. Kanaaf nammi tokko shaakala seerawaa irraa yoo cehu kan nama yaaddesssu hedduu dha. Al tokko daguun ni dandahama, garuu qabsichaa fi hariiroo miseensaa egereef sirratu malee bayeessa hin tahu.
ABO keessatt baqaqi jalqabaa, jaalbiyyumaa kaayyoo saaniin walgituun utuu hin tahin, obbolaa safila, anatu si calaa Oromoo dha waliin jedhan gidduutt gahe. Kan hin yaadamin kanneen sana booda bara manguddummaa dhufan hedduun, kisaaraa malbulchaa ofii utuu hin hedin, eenyutu shafffisaan karaa leelloon halagaa itt argamutt baha kan jedhan tahani. Akkasittii, si’ana Badii keessatt Itophistooti haala kanaan dura hin beekamnett sagaalee olkaasanii dubbachuu fi ugga agarsiisutt kan kahani. Qabsoon cunqursaa irratt tolfamu achi hin siqne; Qabsaawoti sna gaggeessan mata mataatt bu’aa waatatta argachaa hin jirani garuu karaa keessaa bahanis yoo soqan hin mullatu. Yoo dogoggoratt qubi qabames hundi ofirraa faccisuuf ariitiin bakka qabatee, jaala hunda akka hamajaajiitt laaluutt ka’a. Waanti deemaa jiru xiinxala shaffisaaf nama rakkisa. Si’ana qondaalota qabsoo keessatt fooliin falama ciinca’aa jira. Bilisummaaf dammaqsi tahe hundi, balaaleffannaan gana irratt gaggeeffamaa ture, suduudaan yk harka lafa jalaan kolomsiisa gooftolii koloneeffatoon sadarkaa kanneen dur balaaleffatamaa turan malalchiisutt dagatamaniiru.
Dhiigi obbolaa fi jaallewwan dhagala’an rakkoo malee qaabannoo keessaa haqamaniiru. Kaan kaan bututaa qabsoon dhibamaniiruu; annisaa haatahu ulfinni keessatt hafe kan hin jirre fakkaata . Sun bara Dargii gara dhumaa namoota lamaa fi ogneesitoota harka kennatanii iccitii qaban eegumsaa fi bahsananaa tokko tokkoof dabarsanii kennan nama yaadachiisa. Garuu dhiichisi hedduu hin turree miliqoo fi Dargiin lubbuu ofiif baqa eegalanii. Malbulchesitooti Oromoo hadoodan dhuma walfakkiitt arreedaa jiru. Ammas isaanuma waliin utuu hin turiin baqatt ka’uuf hoggana empayeraa fi kittillayyoo saaniitt harka kennachuuf waga jiru. Kaasaa Oromoo seerawaa tahe ganee eenyuu fayyaa fi nagaa sammuun hin jiraatu.
Kennati yeroo hedduu qaamota abba abbaa fi waloon kan kennateef itt gaafatama qaban uuma. Sanaaf hirmaanni hojii fi itt gaafatammi seeraa fi dambileen bulan jiru. Garuu hogganootii gara abbaa humnummaatt duufan dambiilee tartiibaa sana dagaan cabsanii seera harkatt galfatu. Gara caaluu jaarmoti hojii raawwachiiftuu fi gumii aangoon hunda caaluu imaammata baasu yk Caffee qabu. Angoon taliilaan hin kennamne hundi kan gumii kanaati. abootii humnaaf kenni kun yeroo balleessaa fi hin barbaachifnee dha. Abbaa humnooti akkasii dhiibaa qaama sadaffaaf banamoo dha. Qaammi sadaffaan fedha ofii qofa hordofan miltolii harki saanii tartiiba demokraasii fi itt gaafataman hin hidhamne filatu. Akkasitti kan kan kaayyoon dhaabota demokraatawoo namoota ofjaallatoon fedhoota hamoo waliin tahaniin mucuceeffamanii fi roga dhabsiifamani. Fakkeenyaaf, akkasitt Wayyaaneen namoota isaan filan dhiisanii hogganoota abba tokkee fi fedha halagaa tajaajiluun kan raawwate. Tartiibi seerawaan kan diriirfaman murnaasi addaanjiraato tokkoo akka to’ataa fi madaalaa walgidduutt uumuufii. Humnii Shanee Hoji Raawwachiiftuuf (HR) kenname qajeelfama imaammata kan baasaniin akka sararaa masaka kennameett hojiirra olchuu dha. Dirqammi abbaadha barcumaa jiruu HR qindeessuu, akka fuula dhaabichaatt tajaajiluu fi jiruu qaama olhaanuun ifatt kennamuuf hojjechuu dha. Sana jechuun yaada haaraa hin dhihessu hin dandahu jechuuf mitii garuu walii galte jaallewwan saa gaafta jechuuf dha. Miseensoti yk qondaaloti biraa haala dhaabi isaanii irra jiru iyya’amuufii ni dandaha, garuu qabattee imaammataa dandeettii saanii ala tahett irba hin kennan. Shaakalli akkasii demokraasii suduudaa keessatt malee kan bakka bu’ootaa keessatt hin baramne.
Demokrasii bakka buhootaa keesssatt hogganootii miseensa ballaatt yk kanneen qabateen harka jiru dhimma saanii tahett kanneen imaammata baasan irratt akka dhiibbaa tolchan dhiheessuu ni dandahu taha. Garuu sun seeraan aangoo hin qabatuu yk tartiiba seeraan diriirfame irra cehuuf sababa tahuu hin dandahu. Dhimmisaa hagam barbaachisaa yoo tahellee tartiiba seera finqilchuun wanti gahuu jiraachuu hin qabu. Fakkeenyaaf ABO keessatt Kora Sabaa kan bakka bu’ee shaakalu Gumii Sabaatii. Hayyama malee hojii raawwachistuun aangoo gumii kan taheen tarkaanfii yoo fudhate gatii hin qabu, eenyuu sarmuuf dirqama hin qabu. Garuu kan sana godhetu itt gaafatama. Murtiin marii hunda aangoo qabaachuuf mijuu gaafata. Dura taa’aan/teessuun miseensa HRtii. Murtiin barbaachusu shanicha keessaan darba. Dhaaba mirgoota demokraasiif aarsaa guddaa baase kana keessatt, murtiin akkasitt fudhatamuutu hedama.
Kakaa waajjiraa fudhataniin miseensoti kennataman waliinjiroo saaniif abba abbaa fi waloon gaafataamoo akka tahan of dudhaniiru. Kanaaf yeroo seeraa fi danbileen dhaabaa irra cehaman callisanii ilaaluu hin qabanii. Daba qajeelchuu fi mala hamaan itt sirraawu argamsiisuuf qabsaawuutu irraa eegama. Dhaabaa fi dhooftuu saaf amanamummaa dhabuun tuffii akeekota inni irratt hundaawee fi itt gala inni agammateef qaban agarsiisa. Kanaan humna dhaabicha uumuu duuba turan gatii hin qabnee godhu. Sana gochuun waan jiruu fi amanamummaa haaraa arganiif fakkeessisu. Tartiibi kan diriiraniif abbaa hirrummaa fedha uumaa namaa keessa jiru hankaaksuu fi dhaabichi akka ofitt gara hin galle gochuufii. Garuu sun bakka miseensoti gahaatt ofbara malbulchaa hin qabnett tuutii itti kakaafamanii sodaachisuu waan dandahaniif hawwa duwwaa tahee hafaa. Dudhaa Gadaatt, hogganooti kennataman karaa irra mucucaacha xinnoon deebi’anii waamamuu dandahu. Amma garuu mitii. Diinnii fi keettoliin saa qabsaawoti Oromoo akka qoccolloo fi babbaqaqa keessaatt qabamanii haala empayeraa keessa jiruuf dhimma hin qabanne gochuu fedhu. Kun dhaabbatee, jaallatanis jibbanis karaa dandahamu hundaan xiyyeeffannoon sagantaa dhaabaa irratt tahuu qaba.
Yoo namoota kaasichaaf dudhaa qabaniin hin hogganamne, dhaaba jabaa fi demokraatawaa eeguun gowwummaa dha. Dhaaba jabaa malee waraana injifachuun haa tahu kan irbuu seenaniif dhiheessuun salphaa hin tahu. Hamma yoonaa, humna riphaa guddaa hiriirsu qabatuyyuu, kaasaan dadhabinaa fi gargar ta’inaa ABO keessaa, hogganooti kaayyoo, dambilee fi tartiibota dhaabaatt cichuu fi kaasichaa fi of kenna dhabuu dha. Hoogganooti dhaabaa dadhaboo tahan alii al of keessa dhiisanii jabina madda alaa irraa soqa dhaqu. Sun gara halleen dhaabichaa fi qabsoosaa xureessuu hin oolee. ABOn bu’uura farra kolonii labsate qaba. Hariiroon saa hundi bu’uura kana irratt malee empayera suphuu irratt hundaawuu hin qabu. ABO tahee hafuuf haala addunyaa si’anaa, gaafii dargaggoo Oromo qayyabachuu fi walabummaa dhaabichaa eeguu barbaachisa.
Akka carraa tahe kaasichaa yk kaayyo ganamaaf of kennuun, kan qabanitt cichuu, Oromummaaf dudhama hin daddaaqne, wareegamuuf murteeffachuu fi jannummaan, kaan kaaniif meeshaa hin argamne tahaa jiru. Yero ABOn faara abdachiisaa tokko tokko agarsiisu leelloo argachuuf kan walcaccabsan, yeroo faarri itt badu amantee fi ganda jala dhokatanii kan dhagaa itt guuruu yaalan, seexaan saanii xinnoollee isaan hin quuqne dhommoqina guddaa agarsiisan hedduu dha. Karaa biraammoo Oromiyaan hogganoota qeeqii rifachiisaa taheef; kanneen faallaa dhaalmaa Gadaa saanii alatt, halagaatt gurra yoo qeensan yaada miseensotaaf duuchatan hortee jirtii. Dhugaa jalaa miliquun yeroo hundaa hamaa hin yaadamne guddaa dhaqabsiisuu akka dandahu hubachuu dadhabu. Kana kan ilaalutt ABO caalaa muxannoo kan qabu hin jiru. Akka falaatt kanneen qabsoo keessatt qooda fudhatan ABOn miseensota saa kamuu caalaa guddaa akka tahee fi fedha abba tokkee kamu akka isa bakka buhuu hin dandeenye amanuu qabu. Eenyuu sagalee miseensotaa akka of hin ibsinett ukkaamsu akka hin qabnee fi eenyuu mirgaa fi dirqama saa akka hin shaakalle godhamuun irra hin jiru. Yoo kun tahe atommi keessaa waan jiraatuuf dhaabichi jabaa taha. Dhaabi jabaan tokkummaan addunyaatt bahe dubbachuu fi akka sagantaa dhaabatt kan fedheen walii tumsuu dandaha. Eenyutu ABO jabaa fedha?
Dhaabi dadhabaan saba ofiitii waan qaanii taha. Akka sabaa dhaalmaa Gadaa qabuutt Oromoon demokrasii akka akkaataa jireenyaa, ajaja irra, ilaa fi ilaameen dhimma itt bahamutt fudhata. Wal caalmaa, faanfana, leellifachummaa, moggeessa, sobaa fi loogiin demokraasii keessatt bakka hin qabani. Demokraasiin sirna miira abba abbaa caalaa seerri Olaanaa itt tahe. Hogganootii fi miseensonni yeroo hundaa, dhuunis qondaalamanis seexaa demokraasii Gadaa calaqisuu qabu. Fiixaan baha kaayyoo sabichaaf of kennaa fi dudhama agarsiisuu qabu. Dhaaba sabaawaa fi dhaadannoon saa “Fedhii sabaa haa dursu” kan jedhu tahuu qaba.
Sirni demokraasii addunyaa beekaman dura kan rimsammi “mootummaa ummataa” irraa madde dhiirota walqxootaa fi birmaduufii. Dubartii, garbootaa fi halagaa hin dabalatu ture. Jaarroleef akkasumatt jiraate. Irbi dubaroof ammayyuu gumeessawaa hin taane. Fakmishoon demokraasii mudaa hin qabnee kan namooti atoomaan walii fi naannaa uumaa waliin firii bilisummaan basha’anii jiraatan ammallee hin jiru. Firoomsaan kan itt gaalchan akka jara Lixaa faa jiru. Ilaalchi dubartiif jiru hin jijjiiramu taanaan akka kaan cite harka tokko qofaan hojjechuu taha. Dubaroon miseensota hawaasa ilmoo namaa keessaa hedduu barbaachisoo fi homishaawummaa fi waa maddisiisuuf dhiiraa gad hin taanee. Mirga walqxxummaa isaan dhowwachuun waan ilmaan namaa godhan keessaa kan maljecha hin qabne.
Sirni gadaa firomsaan kanneen moggeeffamaniif dubartoota dabalatee dhimmama agarsiisuutt kan ittiin dorgomu hin jiru taha. Dhugaan kun argaa dhageett addunyaan bira dabamuun seenaa demokraasii haanquu godha. Oromoon hirmaata isaan hawaasaaf akka namdiidaa fi buubaatt ilaalan keesaatt bakka itt sutan dhabu. Akka daallota tokko tokkoo qarooma hin qaban jechuufis garaa saaniitt qaroommi Oromoo kan isaaniin duraa tahuu waan beekaniinf ni qaqana’uu. Gadaan akaakuu demokraasii Oromoo bara hin qaabatamnee kaasee jiru.
Physics and Astronomy Department, University of California, Santa Cruz,at NASA Ames Research Center, Space Sciences Division, M.S. 245-7,
Moffett Field, Calif. 94035, U.S. 20 XII 85
The announcement of a possible first archaeoastronomical site (called Namoratunga II) in sub-Saharan Africa by Lynch and Robbins (1978) and its subsequent reappraisal by Soper (1982) have renewed interest in an East African calendrical system, the Borana calendar, first outlined in detail by Legesse (1973:180-88). I shall here reinterpret the calendar as Legesse describes it in the light of astronomical constraints. The Borana calendar is a lunar-stellar calendrical system, relying on astronomical observations of the moon in conjunction with seven particular stars (or star groups). At no time (except indirectly by way of lunar phase) does it rely upon solar observations. The Borana year is twelve lunar synodic months (each 29.5 days long), 354 days. While it will not correspond to the seasons, this may not be of primary importance for people this close to the equator. There are twenty-seven day names (no weeks), and since each month is either 29 or 30 days long, the first two (or three) day names are used twice in the same month starts on a new day name. The day names are listed in Table 1, the month names in Table 2. The first six months can be identified at the beginning of the month with a particular astronomical observation, whereas the last six months can be so identified only around the middle of the month. The first six months begin with the observation of the new-phase moon in conjunction with six positions in the sky marked by seven particular stars or star groups. Thus the phase of the moon is held constant while its position varies. The last six months are identified by a particular-phase moon seen in conjunction with the first star position. Thus, here, the lunar phase changes and the position is held constant. The seven stars or star groups in order are Triangulum (which I take to mean Beta Trianguli), Pleiades, Aldebarran, Belletrix, central Orion (around the sword), Saiph, and Sirius. They are given in Table 2 next to the months they define.
The New Year starts with the observation of the new moon in conjunction with Beta Trianguli. (The term “new moon” here will be taken to be within two days of zero phase, although the Borana allow up to three “leap” days’ leeway, the astronomical observation determining the correct day to start on. This is indicated in the day nomenclature by the assignment of like prefixes to two or three day names before the approximate time an important astronomical observation is to take place.) Since the new moon can be seen only just before sunrise or just after sunset, twilight makes the observation of Beta Trianguli (a third-magnitude star) in conjunction with a new moon impossible with the naked eye.
Assuming that such an observation, however, was possible, would the next new moon be in conjunction with the next star group. Pleiades? (Conjunction here is taken to mean “rising with” or “setting with,” having the same right ascension. Legesse says (p. 182), “Let us assume that a new moon was sighted last night and that is appeared side by side with the star Sirius, which the Borana call Basa.”) Since the sidereal period of the moon is 27.3 days long, it will arrive back at the Triangulum position more than two days before completing its synodic month. At the sidereal rate of 13.2° per day, the moon will be within 3° of Pleiades when it rises in the new phase again. However, by the time of the third month it rises, not with Aldebarran, the next star, but a little past Belletrix, the fourth star, which is supposed to start the fourth month. By the fourth month the new moon is rising past Sirius, the sixth start, and the calendar is clearly not working as described. It should be added that the right-ascension positions of the stars in the area from Beta Trianguli to Sirius change with time, at the rate of roughly 15° every thousand years. However, the stars stay in approximately the same configuration, and arguments based on their present right-ascension relationships will hold over the past several thousand years as well.
What happens if we take the term “conjunction,” or “side by side,” as Legesse has it, to mean not “rising with” but “rising single-file,” that is, at the same horizon position (in other words, having the same declination)? Examining the idea that it is not the proximity of the moon to the star that is important but its horizon rising (or setting) position with respect to that star’s horizon rising (or setting) position, we immediately find that the first necessary observation, the new moon rising at the horizon position of Beta Trianguli, is not currently possible. Beta Trianguli rises (at the equator) about 35° north of the east point (0° declination), while the moon (on the northernmost average) rises at 23.5° north of east, never rising farther north than 28.5° from the East Point. The earth’s rotation axis is known to precess over the centuries, and while this does not change the lunar orbital positions significantly, it does change the apparent position of the stars. We can calculate the positions of the seven Borana stars at a time when Beta Trianguli was well within the moon’s declination limits to see if the calendar would have worked then. In 300 BC, Beta Trianguli was rising at a declination of +23° north of east. The right-ascension positions at the time still do not allow a “rising with” interpretation of the calendrical system. We can begin by defining the start of the Borana year as the new moon rising at the rising position of 300 BC Beta Trianguli. (The date of 300 BC was strongly suggested by the preliminary dating of Namoratunga II, but it was chosen because +23°, Beta Trianguli’s declination at the time, is the northern average of the moon’s monthly motion. I will take the moon’s motion, for the example here, from theNautical Almanacs for 1983 and 1984.) The next new moon rises at 14° north of east, which corresponds precisely to the 300 BC horizon rising position of Pleiades, the next Borana star. The next four new moons (starting the next four Borana months) rise at +9 degrees, +1 degree, –11 degrees, and –17 degrees declination. These positions correspond to the 300 BC horizon rising positions of the Borana stars Aldebarran. Belletrix, central Orion—Saiph (taken together), and Sirius, respectively (Table 3).
The seventh month should be identifiable 14 or 15 days from its automatic start (about 29 days after the start of the sixth month) by a full moon rising at the Beta Trianguli position, and this is indeed the case. Each subsequent moon rises at this horizon position 27.3 days later (sidereal month) in a phase (synodic month) about two days less waxes (since it is on its way to the full phase again) each time. (Legesse has a waning moon, but this must mean waning with respect to each subsequent monthly observation, not with respect to the Phase State for that month.) On the thirteenth or first month, the moon is seen rising in the new phase again (“new” meaning within a couple of days of zero phase), and another year begins. Tracing the moon’s motion as it arrives at these positions in the sky (which are, however, no longer directly marked by the seven stars), we can derive the calendar (see Table 4). This outline is still general with respect to what is sometimes called the lunar excursion (regression of the line of nodes of the lunar orbit). The three “leap” days the Borana calendar allows for the starting of some of the months just before an important astronomical observation could account for this declination excursion of the moon (± ca. 5° from 23.5° declination on an 18.6-year basis), but this would certainly require confirmation in the field.
The Borana calendrical system as described by Legesse is, therefore, a valid timekeeping system, subject to the astronomical constraints outlined here, and the pillars found in northwestern Kenya by Lynch and Robbins and preliminary dates at 300 BC could, as they suggest, represent a site used to derive that calendar. The calendar does not work in right-ascension sense, but it does work if taken as based on declination. It might have been invented around 300 BC, when the declinations of the seven stars corresponded to lunar motion as the calendar indicates, and the star names would therefore apply to the horizon positions as well. Because the horizon rising positions constitute the important observations (over half of which must be made at twilight), some sort of horizon-marking device would seem to be necessary. Since the calendar is still in use, and the horizon-making pillars can no longer be set up by aligning them with the horizon rising positions of these stars, it would seem that the Borana may be using ancient (or replicas of ancient) horizon markers and this possibility should be investigated. I look forward with great interest to a test of these hypotheses.
Table 1
Borana Day names (Legesse 1973)
Bita Kara
Gardaduma
Bita Lama
Sonsa
Sorsa
Rurruma
Algajima
Lumasa
Arb
Gidada
Walla
Ruda
Basa Dura
Areri Dura
Basa Ballo
Areri Ballo
Carra
Adula Dura
Maganatti Jarra
Adula Ballo
Maganatti Britti
Garba Dura
Salban Dura
Garba Balla
Salban Balla
Garda Dullacha
Salban Dullacha
Table 2
Borana Months and Stars/Lunar Phases That Define Them
(Legesse 1973)
Month
Star/Lunar Phase
Bittottessa
Triangulum
Camsa
Pleiades
Bufa
Aldebarran
Wacabajjii
Belletrix
Obora Gudda
Central Orion-Saiph
Obora Dikka
Sirius
Birra
full moon
Cikawa
gibbous moon
Sadasaa
quarter moon
Abrasa
large crescent
Ammaji
medium crescent
Gurrandala
small crescent
Table 3
Declinations (Degrees) of Borana Stars, 300 BC and Present
Star
Declination
300 BC
Present
Beta Trianguli
+23
+35
Pleiades
+14
+23
Aldebarran
+9
+16
Belletrix
+1
+6
Central Orion
–10
–6
Saiph
–13
–10
Sirius
–17
–17
Table 4
Astronomical Borana-Cushitic Calendar (1983-84)
Borana-Cushitic Day/Month
Gregorian Date
Description
Bita Kara/
Bittottessa
August 7, 1983
New moon rises at Triangulum horizon position
Algajima/
Camsa
September 6, 1983
New moon rises at Pleiades horizon position
Walla/
Bufa
October 5, 1983
New moon rises at Aldebarran horizon position
Basa Dura/
Wacabajjii
November 2, 1983
New moon rises at Belletrix horizon position
Maganatti Jarra/
Obora Gudda
December 2, 1983
New moon rises at central Orion-Saiph horizon position
Salban Dura/
Obora Dikka
December 30, 1983
New moon rises at Sirius horizon position
Gardaduma/
Birra
January 29, 1984
Full moon sets at Triangulum on February 15
Rurruma/Cikawa
February 28, 1984
Gibbous moon sets at Triangulum on March 14
Gidada/
Sadasaa
March 28, 1984
Quarter moon sets at Triangulum on April 10
Areri Dura/
Abrasa
April 26, 1984
Large crescent sets at Triangulum on May 7
Adula Dura/
Ammaji
May 25, 1984
Medium crescent sets at Triangulum on June 3
Garba Dura/
Gurrandala
June 23, 1984
Small crescent sets at Triangulum on June 30
Bita Kara/
Bittottessa
July 28, 1984
“New” moon rises at Triangulum position again, new year starts
References Cited
Legesse, A. 1973. Gada: Three approaches to the study of African Society. New York: Free Press.
Lynch, B. M., and L. H. Robbins. 1978. Namoratunga: The first archaeoastronomical evidence in sub-Saharan Africa. Science 200:766-68.
Soper, R. 1982. Archaeo-astronomical Cushites: Some comments. Azania 17:145-62
ASTRONOMY IN EAST AFRICA
The Borana-Cushitic Calendar and Namoratunga
Laurance Reeve Doyle
Space Sciences Division, N.A.S.A.
Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, California
“While Western thought has always prided itself on scientific objectivity, it has often been found unprepared for such surprises as an intellectually advanced yet seemingly illiterate society. In the face of apparent primitiveness, the possibility of significant intellectual development may not be fully investigated.
This was certainly the case when, in the early 1970’s, Dr. A. Legesse first found that the Borana people of southern Ethiopia were indeed using a sophisticated calendrical system based on the conjunction of seven stars with certain lunar phases. Previous calendrical investigations into the area up to this time had superficially stated that the Borana “attach magical significance to the stars and constellations,” incorrectly concluding that their calendar was based, as ours is, on solar motion.
What Dr. Legesse found was an amazing cyclical calendar similar to those of the Mayans, Chinese, and Hindu, but unique in that it seemed to ignore the sun completely (except indirectly by way of the phases of the moon). The workings were described to him by the Borana ayyantu (timekeepers) as follows.
There are twelve months to a year, each month being identifiable with a unique (once a year) astronomical observation. The length of each month is either 29 or 30 days – that is, the time it takes the moon to go through all its phases. (This time is actually 291/2 days and is called a synodic month, but the Borana only keep track of whole days). Instead of weeks, there are 27 day names. Since each month is 29 or 30 days long we will run out of day names about two or three days early in the same month. The day names can therefore be recycled and for day 28 we use the first day name again, the second day name for day 29, and start the next month using the third day name. Thus each month will start on a different day name. Whether the particular month is to be 29 or 30 days long would depend on the astronomical observations, which are quite ingeniously defined.
The seven stars (or star groups) used to derive the calendar are, from northernmost to southernmost, 1) Beta Triangulum – a fairly faint navigation star in the constellation of the Triangle, 2) Pleiades – a beautiful, blue star cluster in the constellation of Taurus the Bull, and sometimes referred to as the seven sisters, 3) Aldebarran – a bright, red star that represents the eye of Taurus, 4) Belletrix – a fairly bright star that represents the right shoulder of the constellation Orion the Hunter, 5)Central Orion – the region around Orion’s sword where the Great Orion Nebula may be found, 6) Saiph – the star representing the right knee of Orion, and finally 7) Sirius – the brightest star in the night sky and the head of the constellation Canis Majoris, the Great Dog.
The New Year begins with the most important astronomical observation of the year – a new moon in conjunction with Beta Triangulum. (this day is called Bitotesa, and the next month is called Bitokara). The next month starts when the new moon is found in conjunction with the Pleiades. The third month starts with the new moon being observed in conjunction with the star Aldebarran, the next with Belletrix, then the area in between Central Orion and Saiph, and finally with the star Sirius. So the first six months of the calendar are started by the astronomical observations of the new phase moon found in conjunction with six specific locations in the sky marked by seven stars of star groups.
The method is now switched and the final six months are identified by six different phases of the moon (from full to crescent) being found in conjunction with only one position in the sky – the one marked by Beta Triangulum. Thus the whole Borana year is identified astronomically and when the new phase moon is again finally seen in conjunction with Beta Triangulum the New Year will start again. Since there are 12 such synodic months of 29 ½ days each, the Borana year is only 354 days long.
Now, in the latter part of the 1970’s another interesting development was to take place regarding the astronomy of this region. In 1977 Drs. B.M. Lynch and L.H. Robbins, who were working in the Lake Turkana area of northwestern Kenya, came upon what they believed was the first archaeoastronomical site ever found in sub-Saharan Africa. At Namoratunga, it consisted of 19 stone pillars, apparently man-made, that seemed to align toward the rising positions of the seven Borana calendar stars as they had appeared quite some time ago. (their suggested date from the various archaeological considerations, which still requires corroboration, was about 300 BC). Due to precession (the slow, wobbling of the pointing direction of the rotation axis of the Earth), the stars will seem to move from their positions over the centuries, although the moon’s position would not vary on this time scale. (Such an example is the alignment of certain features of the Egyptian pyramids with the star Thuban in the constellation Draco the Dragon, which was the north polar star about 5000 year ago; today it is Polaris and in several thousand years it will be Vega). If the date that Drs. Lynch and Robbins suggested was correct, the site would then correspond to the time of the extensive kingdom of Cush, referred to as Ethiopia in the Bible but actually centered about present day Sudan. One would then conclude that the Borana calendrical system was old indeed, having been developed by the Cushitic peoples in this area about 1800 years before the development of our present day Western Gregorian calendrical system.
In 1982, a number of significant questions arose concerning the site, the calendar, and archaeoastronomy of East Africa in general. The pillars were remeasured by an anthropologist in Kenya (Mr. Robert Soper) and found to be magnetic in nature. The original measurements had to be modified but, again, alignments with the seven Borana stars were found. However, this brought up the question of whether pillar alignments are significant at all, since the Borana ayyantu certainly can recognize the phases of the moon and when it is in conjunction with the appropriate seven stars. It was time to approach the question astronomically, and ask the moon and the stars how the calendar worked.
First, we could take the New Year’s observations, a new moon in conjunction with the faint star Beta Triangulum. What is meant by the term “conjunction” which is astronomically defined as the closest approach between two celestial objects? A new moon means that the moon is very close to the sun, being at best only a very small crescent, and therefore can only be seen just before sunrise or just after sunset. Interestingly enough, it turns out that during this twilight time the sky is too bright to be able to see the star Beta Triangulum so that seeing the new moon next to Beta Triangulum, the most important observation of the Borana calendar, was impossible!
In addition, assuming that the new moon and Beta Triangulum could be somehow seen rising together, the next month’s new moon rises significantly behind Pleiades, the newt conjunction star group. The third new moon rises with Belletrix, having skipped the third star, Aldebarran, completely. This is certainly not how the Borana described their calendar. If we were to continue to try to work the calendar in this way, by the start of the sixth month the new moon would be rising almost four hours after Sirius.
How could the calendar work then? Suppose (as we did), that one takes the term “conjunction” to mean “rising at the same horizon position” instead of “rising horizontally next to at the same time.” Thus one could mark the horizon rising position of Beta Triangulum, with pillars for instance, and once a year a new moon will rise at that position on the horizon. Let us suppose that this astronomical event marks the start of the New Year. We must add that we are taking the horizon rising position of these seven stars as they were in or around 300 BC, since present day Beta Triangulum has precessed too far to the north over the centuries and the moon will never rise there. However, the position of 300 BC Beta Triangulum, as well as the other Borana stars, was quite within the realm of the moon’s orbit.
Now where will the next new moon rise? It turns out to rise at precisely the rising position of Pleiades! The next new moon, marking the start of the third month, rises at the Aldebarran horizon position, the next at Belletrix, the next in between Central Orion and Saiph, and finally the sixth new moon rises at the horizon position that Sirius rose at during the night. During the next six months one can tell what month it is only in the middle of the month, since one has to wait to see what phase the moon is in when it appears at the Beta Triangulum horizon position. During the seventh month, as described, a full moon will be observed at the Beta Triangulum position. The next month a gibbous waxing moon, then a quarter moon, and successively smaller crescents will be seen there until, at the time when the 13th or first month should start the new year again (exactly 354 days later), a new moon is again seen rising at the Beta Triangulum position on the horizon.
It is interesting that one can draw some significant anthropological results from the astronomical derivation of this calendrical system. It would appear that the calendar would have had to have been invented (to use the stars correctly) sometime within a few hundred years of 300 BC, a time when the Cushitic peoples were dominant in this part of the world. Hence we would call it the Borana-Cushitic calendar. In addition, although the seven Borana-Cushitic stars no longer rise in the correct horizon positions to be correctly marked by pillars for observing the monthly rising position of the new moon, the present day Borana people nevertheless use this system of timekeeping. The implication is that the Borana require ancient horizon markers in their present derivation of the calendar.
Concerning the site at Namoratunga, and considering that the use of pillars is apparently necessary to the derivation of the calendar, such horizon markers as are found there may, indeed, have been an ancient observatory. Petroglyphs on the pillars at Namoratunga may also hold the possibility of being ancient and, if Cushitic, may represent the alignment stars or moon. Cushitic script has never been deciphered and any hints as to the meaning of tits symbols could be significant clues with very exciting prospects indeed!
Thus, archaeoastronomy in East Africa is still quite new and many discoveries await. From coming to understand, even in a small way, the calendrical reckoning and observational abilities of the ancient and modern astronomer-timekeepers of this region, Western thought should certainly not again underestimate the ingenuity and intellect present there. As for this Western thinker, this study continues to be a welcome lesson in perspective and humility, taught to him by his astronomical colleagues of long ago.”
This is a summary of a talk delivered at Caltech for Ned Munger’s African Studies class.
The 2015 Commemoration of Odaa-Bultum (One of the Major Oromo Gadaa System’s Administrative Centers)
Finfinne Tribune | Gadaa.com
Oromos from all corners of Oromiyaa have converged at the once-banned Odaa-Bultum, one of the major Oromo Gadaa System’s administrative centers and located in Eastern Oromiyaa, to celebrate Odaa-Bultum and witness the peaceful power-transfer to the newAbbaa-Gadaa; the celebration will last for eight days, starting on January 28, 2015. According to sources, the new Abbaa-Gadaa of Odaa-Bultum will be inaugurated at this week-long celebration.
Odaa-Bultum, together with the other Odaa’s across Oromiyaa, was banned by the invading Habesha army at the end of the 19-century. Though the banning was meant to destroy and erase people’s memory of the Oromo Gadaa heritage, the strong collective societal memory of the Gadaa System continues to propel the ongoing Renaissance of the Gadaa System across Oromiyaa.
In the case of its broad associative definition, government normally consists of legislators, administrators, andarbitrators. Government is the means by which state policy is enforced, as well as the mechanism for determining thepolicy of the state. A form of government, or form of state governance, refers to the set of political systems and institutions that make up the organisation of a specific government.
On the surface, identifying a form of government appears to be easy, as all governments have an official form. The United States is a federal republic, while the former Soviet Union was a socialist republic. However self-identification is not objective, and as Kopstein and Lichbach argue, defining regimes can be tricky.[7] For example, elections are a defining characteristic of a democracy,[citation needed] but in practice elections in the former Soviet Union were not “free and fair” and took place in a single party state. Thus in many practical classifications it would not be considered democratic.
Identifying a form of government is also complicated because a large number of political systems originate as socio-economic movements and are then carried into governments by specific parties naming themselves after those movements; all with competing political-ideologies. Experience with those movements in power, and the strong ties they may have to particular forms of government, can cause them to be considered as forms of government in themselves. Read more at:
Philosopher and Social Anthropologist Prof. Gammachu Magarsaa has so far periodized 9 Gadaa Oromo Governance cycles for the time since 1249BC in which one cycle takes 360 years. We can see as follows:
The intricately curved stones of Xayyaa (Tiya) are the marks of the Gadaa governance of 1249BC – 889BC Xayyaa era, and the Maddillee governance also marked by stone graves in the region. At present, as the Ethiopian regime engaged in denying and erasing Oromo cultural and historical heritages, redistricted this part of central Oromia to neighboring zone.
So, in reading the following article we must refer to the above study.
The Intricately Carved Tiya Megaliths of Ethiopia
January 13, 2015 (Ancient Origins) — The Tiya stones are part of an archaeological site located in central Ethiopia, in an area known as the Gurage Zone. The 46 large, decorated Tiya megaliths have been declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Although the construction of such megaliths is an ancient tradition in Ethiopia, the Tiya stones are fairly ‘recent’, dating to sometime between the 10th and 15th centuries. Remarkably little is known about the Tiya stelae, beyond descriptions of their physical appearance. These large monuments likely had some cultural significance when erected, but their meaning remains unclear and very few efforts have been made towards understanding these magnificent monoliths.
The town of Tiya is found in central Ethiopia, located in the Soddo Region, in an area known as the Gurage Zone. Over 100 stelae can be found scattered across nine distinct megalithic pillar sites within the zone, 46 of which can be found at Tiya.
The pillar sites contain large stelae (monuments) of three types – anthropomorphic, phallic, and non-anthropomorphic/non-phallic. Anthropomorphic stelae are those which are given a human form. Phallic stelae are tall, thin shafts. The final stelae are flat monuments that take on neither an anthropomorphic nor phallic form, yet still take on the same basic form as the other megaliths. Each of these types of stelae are prominent within the nine sites of the Gurage Zone. Additionally, most of the stelae in the Gurage Zone contain elaborate decorations, including symbols that resemble plants, swords, and human figures, standing “akimbo,” with their hands on their hips and elbows turned out.
The monoliths at Tiya are taller than the stelae found elsewhere in the zone, with the tallest reaching over 16 feet (5 meters) high. Thirty two of the Tiya stelae bear decorative symbols.
In April 1935, one of the Tiya stones, engraved with a sword symbol, was discovered during a German expedition. Local residents refer to the stelae as Yegran Dingay, or Gran’s Stone. This is in reference to the ruler of the Adal Sultanate, Imam Ahmad ibn Ibrahim al-Ghazi. In addition to the stelae at Tiya, there have been other finds of archaeological significance. During excavations, several tombs have been found. In the area, researchers have also discovered tools form the Middle Stone Age. Several sets of remains have been found in the area, with the bodies dating to sometime between the 12th and 14th centuries. Upon examination, it appeared that the remains belonged to individuals who were killed in battle. This may be fitting, as some say that the Tiya stones appear to be laid out like a row of headstones. There has been speculation that these are, perhaps, the site of a mass burial for those killed in battle.
The Tiya stelae are similar to stelae found in other areas, such as those that can be found en route between Djibouti City and Loyada. The stelae near Djibouti City include anthropomorphic and phallic stelae, and some of those near Loyada contain a T-shaped symbol. Some of these stelae also contain the symbols found on the Tiya stelae.
The Tiya stones were declared to be a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1980. A UNESCO World Heritage Site is a place that is considered to be of special cultural or physical significance. These worldwide sites are protected in hopes of preserving any cultural significance they may hold. The site of the Tiya stones joins many other UNESCO World Heritage Sites in Ethiopia, including: Axum, Lalibela, Semien Mountains National Park, Fasiledes Castle, the lower Valley of the Awash River, the lower Valley of the Omo, Muslim Holy City Harar, and the Konso Landscape. Altogether, these sites are the important remains of ancient Ethiopian culture, although it has been said that there has not been enough effort towards understanding the archaeology of Ethiopia.
Fully understanding the purpose and function of the Tiya stones is difficult because of the small amount of research that has been done in the area. Identification as a UNESCO World Heritage Site should be helpful towards learning more about the stelae, but surprisingly little has been done in the past 35 years since that occurred.
Sites such as the Tiya stones should be protected to ensure that any cultural secrets they hold will remain preserved, and perhaps someday be discovered. As a site created by the ancestors of those who live in Tiya and nearby areas, any significance of the megaliths may still apply to those who live there today. By protecting the site, UNESCO and other interested groups can ensure that the stones are preserved for future generations. There is the hope that more research will be undertaken in order to learn more about the amazing megaliths at Tiya, including who constructed them, why they did so, and what significance the monuments hold.
The Oromo Gadaa System Lecture Tour: By Abbaa Gadaa Bayyanaa Sanbatoo of Caffee Tulama at the OSA Workshop on “Gadaa Research and Renaissance”
Reported Fulbaana/September 4, 2014 By Finfinne Tribune | Gadaa.com
The following is a statement from the President of the Oromo Studies Association (OSA), Ob. Jawar Mohammed. ———————————————————————– SUBJECT: Abbaa Gadaa Bayyanaa Sanbatoo’s Visit to North America You might recall that Abbaa Gadaa Bayyanaa Sanbatoo, due to issues related to his visa, was unable to arrive on time to speak and participate as a distinguished guest at OSA’s 28th Annual Conference that took place at Howard University in Washington, DC on August 2-3, 2014, with the theme, “Gadaa and Oromo Democracy: Celebrating Forty Years of Research and Renaissance.” We are pleased to inform you that he was finally able come to the United States. OSA has extended its theme focusing on the Gadaa democracy through the end of the year, and Abbaa Gadaa Bayyanaa will speak at a series of OSA-organized workshops in various cities in the United States from September 6-27, 2014 – focusing on the ongoing work of reviving the Gadaa system.
He will also participate as a Guest of Honor at several Irreecha celebrations organized by the Oromo in the Diaspora.We invite all who are interested in the Gadaa democratic system, and Oromo culture in general, to attend these workshops and participate in the spectacular Irreecha celebrations to be held throughout September and October 2014.We would like to extend our appreciation to local individuals and institutions – who participated in preparing these events. We are also grateful to the United States Consular Service for the assistance they provided in issuing Abbaa Gadaa Bayyanaa’s travel documents.The attached flyer contains general information about dates and cities where Abbaa GadaaBayyanaa will be speaking.Jawar Mohammed President, Oromo Studies Association
Annual Oromo Sports Event in UK, 23rd August 2014 held in Leeds, England.
Little Oromia (aka Minnesota) Agust 2014:The Year’s Biggest Diaspora Festival of Oromummaa
http://www.osfna.org/ The Oromo Gadaa Democracy meets the American Congress Democracy. Abbaa Gadaa (Rt.) Aagaa Xanxanoo and Abbaa Gadaa (Rt.) Moonaa Godaanaa meet Senator Al Franken (from the State of Minnesota). (July 20, 2014 (Gadaa) — Minnesota’s Twin Cities, also known as “Little Oromia” for being the home of the largest Oromo population outside of the Horn of Africa, will be the venue for the 2014 OSFNA Sports Tournaments. Less than two weeks are left before this year’s 19th Annual OSFNA Soccer Tournament kickoff on August 2, 2014. First started in 1996, the OSFNA (Oromo Sports Federation of North America) organizes an annual soccer tournament among teams drawn from majorNorth American cities with sizable Oromo expat populations, and the venue for each year’s tournament has been rotating among the participating cities over the last 19 years. Unlike previous years, the 2014 OSFNA Sports Tournaments will include basketball, women’s volleyball and the Abebe Bikila Legacy Two-Mile Race in addition to the soccer tournament, according to information posted on OSFNA.org. What’s more, this year’s Soccer Tournament will also include gameparticipants from Australia. OMN (Oromia Media Network) has also partnered with OSFNA to broadcast the 2014 OSFNA Soccer Tournaments live.
Lasting for a week (August 2, 2014 to August 9, 2014) known as the OROMO WEEK, sports is only one of the activities in Little Oromia. The OROMO WEEK is also a time of heritage (Oromummaa) celebration for the Oromo expats in Little Oromia and those visiting Little Oromia from all over the world. A number of music concerts with Oromo recording artists, the Bakakkaa Oromo
Music Awards (debuting this year), the Mr. and Miss Oromo North America Pageant Show, and community and civic conferences are among the non-sports activities during this year’s OROMO WEEK. In addition, heritage products (such as music CD’s, drama/music DVD’s, drama/music VCD’s, cultural clothes, food, etc.) will be available for purchase at stalls located at/near the event arenas. The following is a mini-schedule of the activities during the 2014 OROMO WEEK in Little Oromia; this section will be updated regularly as new information becomes available.August 2, 2014 – August 9, 2014: OSFNA Sports Tournaments For full content, visit Gadaahttp://ayyaantuu.com/horn-of-africa-news/oromia/little-oromia-aka-minnesota-gears-up-for-the-years-biggest-diaspora-festival-of-oromummaa/
OSA2014: Remarks by Former Abbaa Gadaa Aagaa Xanxano, and Gadaa Scholar Prof. Asmarom Legesse
The Oromo Studies Association’s 2014 Annual Conference theme: “Gadaa and Oromo Democracy: Celebrating 40 Years of Research and Oromo Renaissance.” Oromo Gadaa leaders as they taking part in the 28th OSA Conference at Howard University in Washington DC, 2nd August 2014. Jemjem Udessa, Lagassa Dhaba, Dirribi Demissie speaking about Gadaa System. Standing ovation for Prof. Asmerom Leggese as he receives a collection of books from the Guji Oromo Gadaa delegation (see pictures below): Prof. Asmerom Leggese, Lecturing Gadaa System
July 14, 2014 (ONLF Press Release)The Ethiopian security has assassinated three Kenyan civilians and gravely wounded another one in Garissa, Kenya during the last week of June and the first week of July. The latest victim, Mr. Asad Yusuf was shot and killed in the evening of July 9, 2014. He was a Kenyan Somali civilian and was killed because he was assisting refugee from the Ogaden. He was a businessman and had a large family. A week ago another young man was also killed for the same reason and two weeks ago one man was killed and another wounded. Assassin Abdirahman Hajir who was a member of the Liyu Police, the killing squads in the Ogaden, funded and trained by the Ethiopian regime, was apprehended and has confessed that he carried out the last two killings. He also confessed that the Ethiopian security has trained and sent him and a team of 19 assassins and support staff to create chaos in Kenya. They were assembled in Addis Ababa and came through Moyale town. Furthermore, he stated “others were also dispatched to Somali and the Neighbouring countries to assassinate opponents to the regime, including Somali officers in Somalia and Ethiopian opposition figures”. The Ethiopian regime has taken a policy of coercion, extermination and mass execution against the Ogaden People in Ethiopia, so they fled to the neighbouring countries. Many of these refugee sought asylum in Kenya which has been a safe haven for the refugees in the Horn and central Africa, because of their hospitality and for their respect of International and African laws of Refugees. Therefore, since 2009, the Ethiopian government decided to routinely abduct and commit extrajudicial executions, including politically motivated killings in Kenya and so far the action taken by the Kenyan government to protect the refugees it gave asylum was not enough to stop such criminal acts. After failing to deter Somalis from Ogaden to keep seeking refugee in Kenya, despite all these inhumane acts, the Ethiopian regime has now decided to punish the local Somali Kenyans for supporting the refugees and in order to create Chaos and destabilize the North-East Provence of Kenya. Furthermore, the Ethiopian regime is getting bolder in flaunting International law and human rights laws by extending its criminal acts against its victims across international borders and is violating the Human Rights of those who seek asylum from its heinous acts in Ethiopia. The policy of the Ethiopian regime is to create chaos and endanger the stability of the Horn of Africa. If this continues unchecked it will lead to dangerous consequences for all concerned. ONLF condemns the Ethiopian regime and call upon the UNHCR and the Kenyan government to take seriously their responsibility to protect its civilians and the refugees that are under its care. (ONLF)
The following is a press release from the Australian Oromo Community in Victoria, Australia. Ebla/April 22, 2014Australian Oromo Community Association in Victoria Inc. A.B.N. 52 554 165204Press ReleaseSUBJECT: Safeguarding the Rights of Oromo Refugees and Asylum SeekersThe Australian Oromo Community in Victoria Australia (AOCAV), a non- profitable organisation established in 1984 to facilitate community development, preservation of Oromo culture, and promoting cross cultural awareness and harmony between the Australian-Oromo and mainstream Australians, and to serve as voice of the Oromo people, is concerned about the ongoing swoops targeting refugees and asylum seekers in various urban centres in Kenya.Reports from different media indicate that over 6000 refugees and asylum seekers have been arrested in these crackdowns. According to AOCAV’s informant, more than two thousand asylum seekers and refugees have been detained in the Kasarani Stadium in the Capital, as a temporary police station, while some are being held at the Pangani, Kasarani and other police stations. More than 400 Oromos and other Ethiopian immigrants have been arrested in these crackdowns.AOCAV applauds the Government of Kenya for hosting nearly 400,000 refugees from nine African countries, which is an enormous task. We also appreciate the continuing efforts to strengthen security for all persons living in Kenya. While we appreciate these efforts, our concern is that innocent Oromo refugees and asylum seekers have been arrested during the security operation. AOCAV does not support refugees and asylum seekers who engage in criminal activities, but maintains that any such persons should be subjected to proper judicial procedures by the government with due respect to their vulnerability and human rights.We understand that the government’s duty to maintain national security cannot be disputed, however, it is imperative for the State to guarantee the safety and protection of all registered refugees and asylum seekers residing in Kenya. According to the Refugees Act of 2006, the government of Kenya has an obligation to protect the rights of refugees and asylum seekers – which includes the right to seek asylum. Kenya is party to various international and regional conventions governing protection of refugees and asylum seekers, and therefore, it has a duty to protect such persons.AOCAV urges the government to uphold and safeguard the rights of Oromo refugees and asylum seekers in Kenya even as it continues its security operations. It is our stand that recent government’s actions should not negate the gains made by the state towards the protection of refugees and asylum seekers in Kenya. We call upon the leaders of the government of Kenya to guard against making remarks and actions which may jeopardize the protection of Oromo refugees and asylum seekers. AOCAV also requests the governments of the Western countries as well as international organizations to continue interfering in this matter so that the safety and security of the arrested Oromo refugees and asylum seekers in Kenya could be ensured.Sincerely,Yadata SabaPresident, Australian Oromo Community in Victoria Australia120 Race course Rd Flemington, VIC 3031P.O.BOX 2123 Footscray VIC 3011Tel + 61 412 795 909 Tel +61 422 869 709Email: ocaustralia@gmail.com Website: www.oromocommunity.org.au
Gadaa.com: Oromo & Oromia » Safeguarding the Rights of Oromo Refugees and Asylum Seekers in Kenya
Panel discussion: on the Integrated Regional Development Plan
Panellists Temam Batee Head of Foreign Affairs for the Oromo Liberation Front (OLF), Kumsa Burayou (the former Editor-In-Chief of Madda Walabu magazine) and Tsegaye Regassa (the former Senior Lecturer at Addis Ababa University and PhD Candidate at University of Melbourne Law School), talk about the university students protest against the “Integrated Regional Development Plan” (AKA Addis Ababa Master Plan) in Ethiopia. http://www.pressgazette.co.uk/ethiopian-journalist-branded-terrorist-and-locked-18-years-wins-2014-golden-pen-freedom
Sof Umar Wall, Bale Oromia (Ancient and magnificent past and present)
Parts of ancient kemetic (Kushitic), Egyptian, material culture (fashion accessories), courtesy of British Museum sources
Traditionally, Oromo women wear necklaces with telsum amulets, triangular and crescent shaped pendants protect from the evil eye and attract the power of the moon or to improve fertility.
Oromia: The continuity of farming in Oromo society from ancient Kemetic (Kushitic) to present Oromia
Ancient Oromo culture, Irreechaa from the time before the Pyramid
As some indeed suspect, that the science which we see at the dawn of recorded history, was not science at its dawn, but represents the remnants of the science of some great and as yet untraced civilisation. Where, however, is the seat of that civilisation to be located? (J. W. S. Sewell, 1942)
Conquest and dominations are social phenomenon as are dying elsewhere will die in Oromia (Author’s Remark).
JEL: O5, D2
Oromia: Untwist the Twisted History
The topic is about Oromia’s location in space and allocation in humanity and society. It is concerned with Oromia’s physical position in terms of geography and relational to issues of economic conditions, social justices, cultural values, political history and destiny. Civilisation, Colonisation and Underdevelopment are presented in historical and geo-political perspectives. They capture both the space and time perceptions. They are also representing the economic and social conditions and positions. The portrayal we procure the present of the Oromo nation, the core of the Cush (Cushite/ Kemet)/Ham (Hamite), the children of Noah, in North & East Africa in past age from the phantom of the Solomonic dynasty, the history thought in Abyssinian high schools, their text books and elsewhere in the invaders’ literature, abusive literary and oral discourses is that they were savages and that, though Abyssinians and Europeans overrun their lands and have made mere subjects of them, they have been in a way, bestowing a great favour on them, since they have brought to them the benisons of Christian Enlightenment. With objective analysis, however, this paper obliterates and unmakes that inaccurate illustration, wanton falsifications, immorality, intellectual swindle, sham, mischievous tales, the bent and the parable of human reductionism. Hence, it is the step to delineate an authentic portrait of a human heritage, which is infinitely rich, beautiful, colourful, and varied in the retrograde of orthodox misconceptions. The paper is not only a disinclination itself but also a call for and a provocation of the new generation of historians to critically scrutinise and reinvestigate the orthodox approaches to the Oromo history and then to expose a large number of abusive scholarship authorities on the Oromo and Cushitic studies and it detects that they do not really know the intensity and profoundness of the history of these black African people and nations and the performance these Africans registered in the process of creating, making and shaping the prime civilisations of human societies. The study acknowledges and advances a strict contest to an orthodox scholarship’s rendition of Egypt as a white civilisation, which arose during the nineteenth century to fortify and intensify European imperialism and racism. Depending on massive evidences from concerned intellectual works from linguistic to archaeology, from history to philosophy, the study authenticates that Egypt was a Cushitic civilisation and that Cushite civilisation was the authentic offspring of the splendid Upper Nile/ Oromian legacy. The Greek civilisation, which has been long unveiled as the birthplace of Western philosophy and thought, owes its roots to the Cushites thoughts and achievements. The original works of Asfaw Beyene (1992) and F. Demie (inOromia Quarterly, 1998 & 2000) are giving motivations and also greatly acknowledged. The study also expresses that radical thinkers and multi-genius African historians such as Diop (1991) have not given due attention to the epic centre of Cushitic civilisation, Oromia, the land after and Eastern and South Eastern to Nubia, pre-Aksum central Cush, Aksumite Cush and Cushites civilisation southern to Aksum, etc. The method of enquiry is qualitative and the eclectics of formal and the informal sources, rigorous, casual and careful scholarship argument. Oral history and written documents on history, economy, sociology, archaeology, geography, cosmology and anthropology are based on as references. The paper studies the Oromo history and civilisation in horizontal approach and challenges the reductionist and Ethiopianist (colonialist, racist) vertical approach (topsy-turvy, cookkoo). It goes beyond the Oromo Oral sources (burqaa mit-katabbii) and Africanist recorded studies and western civilisational studies. The approach is to magnify, illuminate and clarify the originality of humanity and civilisation to this magnificent Cushitic (African) beauty. The Origin of Humanity When and where did human life first surface on our cosmos? Who contrived the original and prime human culture and civilisation? Ancient Egyptians contended that it was in their homeland, the oldest in the world, the God modelled the first of all human beings out of a handful of ooze soddened by the vivacity of the life giving sanctified and blessed water, the Nile (see, Jackson, 1995). “The ancient Egyptians called the river Ar or Aur (Coptic: Iaro), “Black,” in allusion to the colour of the sediments carried by the river when it is in flood. Nile mud is black enough to have given the land itself its oldest name, Kem or Kemi, which also means “black” and signifies darkness. In The Odyssey, the epic poem written by the Greek poet Homer (7th century bce), Aigyptos is the name of the Nile (masculine) as well as the country of Egypt (feminine) through which it flows. The Nile in Egypt and Sudan is now called Al-Nīl, Al-Baḥr, and Baḥr Al-Nīl or Nahr Al-Nīl.”http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/415347/Nile-RiverAr or Aur (Coptic: Iaro) is Booruu in modern Afaan Oromo which means turbid in English translations. Lagdi Nayili jedhamee amma waamamu maqaan kun kan akkanatti moggaasameefi, bowwaa jechuudha. Warri kushii, warri biyyaa, waarri durii laga isaanii Aur (Ooruu) jedhanii waamu. Afaan Oromoo amma uni dubbannuutti booruu jechuudha. Booruu (turbid) jechuuni gurri’aacha (Kami) jechuu miti. Booruu (Ooruu, Aur) jechuun kan taliila hin taane kan hin calaliini jechuudha. Dameen laga kanaa kan Moromor (dhidheessa) irraa maddu galaana biroo itti burqan dabalatee biyyoo loolan haramaniin waan booraweef. kaartumitti yoo damee isa (isa taliila) garba Viktooriyaati karaa Ugaanda dhufutti makamu kanasi booressee misiriitti godaana. Dameen Garba Viktooriyaati dhufu iyyuu adii (white) jedhamee mogga’uuni irra hin turre. Bishaani adiini hin jiru. Bishaani hin boora’iini bishaan taliila. Bishaani taliilatu bishaan guri’aacha. Inni ‘Blue’ jedhanisi ‘Blue’ mitti. Bishaan taliilatu, gurri’aacha ‘Blue’ dha. ‘Blue Nile’ jechuu irra ‘Brown’ Nile (Mormor Booruu, Ar, Aur) yoo jedhani ille itti dhiyaata.
The word (Africa) Afrika itself derived from kemetic (Oromo) language. In Oromo, one of the ancient black people (kemet), Afur means four. Ka (Qa, Waqa) means god. Afrika Means the four children of god. It describes the four sub groups of kemet people. Such type of naming system is very common in Oromo even today such as Afran Qallo, Shanan Gibee, Salgan Boorana, Macca Shan, Jimma Afur, Sadan Soddoo, etc. For other theories in this topic please refer to http://atlantablackstar.com/2014/09/23/9-theories-africa-got-name/
One of the oldest Cushites histories to account for the origin and early development of man and his culture survives in a Greek version of the thesis advanced by the ancient Cushites, Oromians and the rest. This marvellous people paraded in golden times in the region called Kush (Punt) in the Hebrew Scriptures and stamped on the present-day upper Nile Oromia (see, Jackson, 1995). Diodorus Siculus, wrote that the Cushites were of the opinion that their country was not only the birthplace of human race and the cradle land of the world’s earliest civilisation, but, indeed, the primal Eden where living things first appeared on Earth, as reported by the Scriptures. Thus, Diodorus was the first European to focus attention on the Cushites asseveration that Upper Nile (Oromia) is the cradle land of world’s earliest civilisation, the original Eden of the human race. Whether by almighty (God) or nature/ evolution (Darwin’s natural selection and survival of the fittest), Oromia was not only the birth place of man himself (e.g., Lucy) but also for many hundred years thereafter is in the vanguard of all world progress (see Diop, 1991 in his African Civilisation; Martin Bernal, 1987). These are also authenticated by the present archaeological inferences in Oromo tropical fields and rivers valleys. The original natives of Egypt, both in old and in the latter ages of development, were Cushite and there is every raison d’être for the discourse that the earliest settlers came from upper Nile Oromia. The original homeland of the Oromians and other Cushites including Chadic, Berber, Egyptian, Beja, Central Cushitic, East Cushitic, South Cushitic, Omotic and Nilotic was the present day upper Nile Oromia. It was from the original Oromo (Madda Walaabu) that the rest of humanity descended diffused to other parts of the world. This can be understood in the analogue of the diffusion of two Oromo families (Borana and Barentuma). While those who expanded to other regions latter taken new family names like Macha, Tulama, Karayyu, etc and those who stayed in original place kept the original name such as Borana. In terms of linguistic, like most scholars, we believe that it is impossible to judge between the theories of monogenesis and polygenesis for human, though the inclination is towards the former. On the other hand, recent work by a small but increasing number of scholars has convinced us that there is a genetic relationship between European, Asian, and African and Cushite languages. A language family originates from a single dialect, proto Cushitic/ Oromo. From such language and culture that must have broken up into Africa, Asiatic, and European and within them a very long time a go. Professor Bernal (1987, in Black Athena, p. 11) confirmed that the unchallenged originality of Oromians and other Cushites nativity to the region and put forward that the latest possibility for initial language break up would be the Mousterian period, 50- 30,000 years Before the Present (BP), however, it may well have much earlier. He further observed that the expansion and proliferation of Cushitic and other Afroasiatic as the promulgation of a culture long pioneered in the East African Rift valley (South Eastern Oromian) at the end of the last Ice Age in the 10th and 9th millennia BC. According to Bernal (1987, p.11) the polar ice caps caged the water within itself, which was during the Ice ages, thus water was significantly less than it is nowadays. He reports that the Sahara and Arabian deserts were even bigger and more inhospitable then than they are presently. In the centuries that ensued, with the rise of heat and increase in the rainfall, greatly the regions became savannah, into which adjoining peoples voyaged. The most successful of these were, the speakers of Proto-Afroasiatic from upper Nile Oromia. Bernal further confirmed that these people not only possessed flourishing and effective skills and techniques of hippopotamus hunting with harpoons but also had domesticated cattle and food crops. The following is quoted from Black Athena: ‘Going through the savannah, the Chadic speakers renched lake Chad, the Berbers, the Maghreb, and the Proto-Egyptians, upper Egypt…. With long-term desiccation of the Sahara during the 7th and 6th millennia BC, there were movements into the Egyptian Nile Valley from the west and east as well as from the Sudan. … A similar migration took place from the Arabian savannah into lower Mesopotamia ‘(Bernal, pp.11-12).
The Origin of Civilisation
There are many things in the manners and customs and religions of the historic Egyptians that suggest that the original home of their human ancestors was in the Upper Nile region and the biblical land of Punt/ Kush (Cush) Or Oromia which include the present day of Cushitic North and East of Africa. Hence, historical records showed that the antiquity of upper Nile Cushitic Oromian civilisation had a direct link with the civilisation of ancient Egypt, Babylonian and Greece. Hence, the Egyptian and Babylonian civilisations are part and parcel of the entire Cushite civilisation. As it is described above, there is wide understanding that Cushites = Egyptians + Babylon + Oromo+ Agau + Somalis + Afars + Sidama + Neolithic Cush + other Cush. There is also an understanding that all the Cushites are branched out (descended) from their original father Oromo which can be described as Oromo = Noah=Ham= Cush= Egyptian + Bablyon+ Agau + Somali + Afar + Sidama + Neolithic Cush + other Cush. Boran and Barentuma, the two senior children and brothers were not the only children of the Oromo. Sidama, Somali, Agau, Afar and the others were children of the big family. Wolayita and the Nilotics were among the extended family and generations of the Cushite. As a hydro-tower of Africa, the present Oromia is naturally gifted and the source of Great African rivers and hosts the bank and valleys of the greatest and oldest civilisations such as Nile (Abbaya), Baro (Sobat), Gibe, Wabe, Dhidhesa, Ganale, Wabi-shebele, Omo, and Awash among others. Oromian tropical land, equatorial forest and Savannah have been the most hospitable ecology on the earth and conducive environment to life and all forms of human economic and social practices. According to Clarke (1995), many of the leading antiquarians of the time, based largely on the strength of what the classical authors, particularly Diodorus Siculus and Stephanus of Nabatea (Byzantium after Roman colonisation and Christianisation), had to say on the matter, were exponents of the vista that the Cushite, the ancient race in Africa, the Near East and the Middle East, or at any rate, the black people of remote antiquity were the earliest of all civilised peoples and that the first civilised inhabitants of ancient Egypt were members of what is referred to as the black, Cushite race who had entered the land as they expanded in their geographical space from the their birthplace in upper Nile Oromia, the surrounding Cushite river valleys and tropical fields. It was among these ancient people of Africa and Asia that classical technology advanced, old world science and cosmology originated, international trade and commerce was first developed, which was the by-product of international contacts, exchange of ideas and cultural practices that laid the foundations of the prime civilisations of the ancient world. Cushite Africa and also of the Middle East and West Asia was the key and most responsible to ancient civilisations and African history. It must also be known that there were no such geographical names, demarcations and continental classification at that time. As a whole, Cushite occupied this region; there was the kernel and the centre of the globe, the planet earth, and the universe. African history is out of stratum until ancient Cushites looked up on as a distinct African/ Asian nations. The Nile river, it tributes, Awash, Baro and Shebele or Juba, etc., played a major role in the relationship of Cushite to the nations in North, South and East Africa. The outer land Savannah, Nile, other Oromian rivers with it Adenian ecology were great cultural highways on which elements of civilisation came into and out of inner North East Africa. After expansions, there was also an offshoot, a graft, differentiation, branching out, internal separation, semi-independence and again interactions, interdependence and co-existence of the common folks. Cushites from the original home made their relationships with the people of their descendants in the South, the North, East and the West, which was as both good, and bad, depending on the period and the regime in power they formed and put in place in the autonomous regions. Cushite Egypt first became an organised autonomous nation in about 6000 B.C. In the Third Dynasty (5345-5307 B.C.) when Egypt had an earnest pharaoh named Zoser and Zoser, in turn, had for his chief counsellor and minister, an effulgent grand named Imhotep (whose name means ‘he who cometh in peace”). Imhotep constructed the famous step pyramid of Sakkarah near Memphis. The building techniques used in the facilitation of this pyramid revolutionised the architecture of the ancient world (Clarke, 1995). Of course, Independent Egypt was not the original home of these ancient technology. However, it was an extension, expansion, advancement and the technological cycle of the Upper Nile Oromia, Nubia, Beja, Agau and other Cushites. Ideas, systems, technologies and products were invented, tested and proved in upper Nile then expanded and adopted elsewhere in the entire Cush regions and beyond. . Bernal (1987, pp. 14-15) has identified strict cultural and linguistic similarities among all the people around the Mediterranean. He further attests that it was south of the Mediterranean and west to the Red Sea’s classical civilisation that give way to the respective north and east. Cushite African agriculture of the upper Nile expanded in the 9th and 8th century millennia BC and pioneering the 8th and 7th of the Indo-Hittite. Egyptian civilisation is Cushite and is clearly based on the rich pre-dynastic cultures of Upper Egypt, Nubia and upper Nile, whose Cushite African and Oromian origin is uncontested and obvious. Of course, Cushite Egypt gave the world some of the greatest personalities in the history of mankind. In this regard, Imhotep was extraordinary discernible. In ancient history of Egypt, no individual left a downright and deeper indentation than Imhotep. He was possibly the world’s first mult-genuis. He was the real originator of new medicine at the time. He revolutionised an architect of the stone building, after which the Pyramids were modelled. He became a deity and later a universal God of Medicine, whose images charmed the Temple of Imhotep, humanity’s earliest hospital. To it came sufferers from the entire world for prayer, peace, and restorative. Imhotep lived and established his eminence as a curative at the court of King Zoser of the Third Dynasty about 5345-5307 B.C. (Duncan, 1932). When the Cushite civilisation through Egypt afar crossed the Mediterranean to become the foundation of what we think of as Greek culture, the teachings of Imhotep were absorbed along with the axioms of other great Cushite African teachers. When Greek civilisation became consequential in the Mediterranean area, the Greeks coveted the world to ponder they were the originators of everything in its totality. They terminated to acknowledge their liability to Imhotep and other great Cushites. Imhotep was forgotten for thousands of years, and Hippocrates, a mythical posture of two thousand years latter, became known as the father of medicine. Regarding to Imhotep’s influence in Rome, Gerald Massey, noted poet, archaeologist, and philologist, says that the early Christians cherished him as one with Christ (Massey, 1907). It should be understood that, while the achievements of Cushite Egypt were one of the best, these are not the only achievements that Cushite Africans can claim. The Nubians, upper Nile, central and eastern Cushites (the Oromo, Agau, Somalia, Afar, etc) were continue to develop many aspects of civilisation independent of Cushite Egyptian interactions. These nations and states gave as much to Egypt as Egypt give to them in terms of trade, ideas and technology as well. There was also a considerable Cushite dominion on what later became Europe in the period preceding Christian era. Cushites played a major role in formative development of both Christianity and Islam. Both the Holly Bible and the Holly Quran moral texts are originated from the Oromo and other Cushite oral and moral principles, beliefs, creeds and teachings. There is a common believe and understanding that Abraham, a seminal prophet, believer and recipient of a single and eternal God was from Central Cush of present Upper Nile Oromia. The Oromos believed in a single and eternal God, Black God (Waaqa Guri’acha) also Blue God according to some scholars who translated the oral history. Waaqa also Ka. While the Oromian faith, social structure and policies were the prime and the origins of all, Judaism, Christianity, and Islam were all the derivatives and originated from the Black God. Waaqayyoo in Oromo is the original, the single, the omnipotent, the prime and the greatest of all the great religions. All aspects of the present day Christian churches were developed in Cushites. One of the more notable of Cushite contributions to the early church was monasticism. Monasticism, in essence, is organised life in common, especially for religious purposes. The home of a monastic society is called a monastery or a convent. Christian monasticism probably began with the hermits of Cushite Egypt and Palestine about the time when Christianity was established as a licit religion (Clarke, 1995). Oral tradition and Arabian records confirm that Bilal, a tall, gaunt, black, bushy-haired, Oromo, was the first High Priest and treasurer of the Mohammedan empire. After Mohamet himself, the great religion, which today numbers upwards of half a billion souls, may be said to have began with Bilal. He was honoured to be the Prophet’s first neophyte. Bilal was one of the many Cushites who concurred in the founding of Islam and later made proud names for themselves in the Islamic nations and expansions. Europe was sluggishing in her Dark Ages at a time when Cushite Africa and Asia were relishing a Golden Age. In this non-European world of Africa and Asian, Cushites built and enjoyed an age of advancement in technology before a period of internal withdrawal and isolation that favoured the Europeans to move a head of them. For more than a thousand years the Cushites were in the ‘Age of Grandeur’ but the second rise of Europe, internal strife, slave trade and colonialism brought the age of catastrophic tragedy, abase and declivity. The early Cushites made spears to hunt with, stone knives to cut with, the bola, with which to catch birds and animals, the blow-gun, the hammer, the stone axe, canoes and paddles, bags and buckets, poles for carrying things, bows and arrows. The bola, stone knives, paddles, spears, harpoons, bows and arrows, bow-guns, the hammer and the axe- all of them invented first by Cushites – were the start of man’s use of power. The present’s cannon, long-range missiles, ship propellers, automatic hammers, gas engines, and even meat cleavers and upholstery tack hammers have the roots of their development in the early Cushite use of (Clarke, 1995). Cushite offered humans the earliest machine. It was the fire stick. With it, man could have fire any time. With it, a campfire could be set up almost any place. With it, the early Africans could roast food. Every time we light a match, every time we take a bath in water heated by gas, every time we cook a meal in a gas-heated oven, our use of fire simply continues a process started by early Cushites: the control of fire. Of course, those early Cushite was the first to invent how to make a thatched hut. They had to be the first because for hundreds of thousand of years they were the only people on earth. They discovered coarse basket making and weaving and how to make a watertight pot of clay hardened in a fire. In the cold weather, they found that the skins of beasts they had killed would keep them warm. They even skin covers for their feet. It was from their first effort much later clothing and shoes developed. Humanity owes the early Cushites much and even much more (Clarke, 1995). The Cushites dociled animals. They used digging sticks to obtain plant roots that could be consumed. They discovered grain as a food, how to store it and prepare it. They learnt about the fermentation of certain foods and liquids left in containers. Thus, all mankind owes to Cushites including the dog that gives companionship and protection, the cereals we eat at break-fast-time, the fermented liquids that many people drink, the woven articles of clothing we wear and the blankets that keep us warm at night, the pottery in which we bake or boil food, and even the very process (now so simple) of boiling water- a process we use every time we boil an egg, or make spaghetti, or cook corned beef. Canoes made it possible for man to travel further and farther from his early home. Over many centuries, canoes went down Baro, the Nile and the Congo and up many smaller rivers and streams. It was in this pattern that the early Cushite civilisation was advanced. From the blowgun of antiquated Cushite, there come next, in later ages, many gadget based on its standard. Some of these are: the bellows, bamboo air pumps, the rifle, the pistol, the revolver, the automatic, the machine gun- and even those industrial guns that puff grains. Modern Scientists certain that by about 3000 B.C., the Cushite farmers in the Nile Valley were growing wheat and barely, cultivating millet, sorghum, and yams. Around 1500 B.C. new crops farming were developed: – banana, sugar cane, and coconut trees and later coffee. The cultivation of bananas and coffees in particular spread rapidly which are suited to tropical forest conditions. Cushites had also domesticated pigs, donkeys, horses, chickens, ducks, and geese, etc. (Greenblatt, 1992). The agricultural revolution brought about a gradual increase in population. Then another development helped expand population still more. The technique of smelting iron innovated by Cushites. Iron working start and then advanced in the Nile valley and then started to spread to other parts of Africa and from who, by way of Egypt and Asian Minor, this art made its way into Europe and the rest of Old World. Iron greatly improved the efficiency of tools and weapons. Iron tools and weapons are much stronger and last longer than those made of stone or wood. Iron axes made it easier to chop tropical trees and clear land for farming. Iron sickles made harvest easier. Iron hoes and other farm tools helped farmers cultivate land more easily. Iron-tipped spears meant more meat. The new technologies boosted the Cushite economy; they increased food production that enabled more people to survive. In addition, iron objects became valuable items in Cushite trade and commercial activities. With his simple bellows and a charcoal fire the Cushite blacksmith reduced the ore that is found in many parts of the region and forged implements of great usefulness and beauty. In general, the Iron technology was instrumental in auguring the rise and expansion of Cushite civilisation (Greenblatt, 1992). Cushite hunters many times cut up game. There still exists for evidences, drawings of animal bones, hearts and other organs. Those early drawings as a part of man’s early beginnings in the field of Anatomy. The family, the clan, the tribe, the nation, the kingdom, the state, humanity and charity all developed first in this region of the cradle of mankind. The family relationships, which we have today, were fully developed and understood then. The clan and the tribe gave group unity and strength. The nation, the common whole was first developed here. It was by this people that early religious life, beliefs, and the belief in one God, the almighty started and expanded. The first formal education of arts, science, astronomy, times and numbers (mathematics) were visual, oral and spoken tradition given in the family, during social and religious ceremonies. Parents, Medicine men, religious leaders, etc were the education heads. Ceremonial Cushite ritual dances laid the basis for many later forms of the dance. Music existed in early Cushite Among instruments used were: reed pipes, single-stringed instruments, drum, goured rattles, blocks of wood and hollow logs. Many very good Cushite artists brought paintings and sculpture into the common culture. The early Cushites made a careful study of animal life and plant life. From knowledge of animals, mankind was able to take a long step forward to cattle rising. From the knowledge of plants and how they propagate, it was possible to take a still longer step forward to agriculture. Today, science has ways of dating events of long a go. The new methods indicate that mankind has lived in Cushite Africa over two million years. In that long, long time, Cushites and people of their descent settled in other parts of Africa and the rest. Direct descents of early Cushites went Asia Minor, Arabia, India, China, Japan and East Indies. Cushites and people of Cushite descents went to Turkey, Palestine, Greece and other countries in Europe. From Gibraltar, they went into Spain, Portugal, France, England, Wales and Ireland (Clarke, 1995). Considering this information, the pre-Colombian presence of Cushite African mariners and merchants in the New World is highly conceivable and somewhat sounds. In this context, the first Africans to be brought to the New World were not in servitude and slavery, which contrary to popular creed. Tormenting references in the Spanish chronicles and other growing body of historical studies advocate that Cushites were the founders, the pioneers and first permanent settlers of America. Commanding authentication as in Bennett (1993, p. 85) cited by Leo Veiner in his work Africa and the discovery of America suggests that African traders founded Mexico long before Columbus. Hence, the Africans influences were extended from Canada in the North to the Maya, Aztec, and Inca civilisation in the South America. The Cushite civilisation is therefore the basis of Indian civilisation. Unlike the western Sudan and in Egypt, the people and nations of upper Nile had lost written records of their ancient times and medieval history. These were destroyed and burned during war of conquests. The early travellers to these areas are also mostly not yet known. Notable kingdoms, republics and states did rise in this part of Africa and did achieve a high degree of civilisation of their time. Scholarly undertakings show that Cushite Africans such as Oromos were the first in human history to invent and implement democratic institutions (e.g. Gada system or Gadaa system), democratic forms of government, elections and unwritten constitution. Democracy was first invented in upper Nile Oromia then to Athens, Greek and to the rest. It was not the other way round. Gada, an accomplishment of Oromian social genius in socio-political organisation is one of the most complex, the world wonder and by far superior to so far other humanity’s social and political imagination and civilisation. Gada in its vector of values constitutes, political institution, the power structure, governing constitution, the ideology, the religion, the moral authority, the economic and the whole way of life of the public, the collective, the social and the private individual. Gada is the social civilization of the Oromo in the Nile civilization. Gada is an atonishing and complex social evolution in human social transformation and an Oromo social perfection. In old Egyptian (Cushite, oromo) dialect it means Ka Adaa. Ka means God. Adaa (law). It means the law of God, the law of waaqa (God). It also symbolizes the dawn of not only civilization but also human freedom as civilazation. ‘Gadaa bilisummaa saaqaa.’ Orthodox historians and some archaeologists believe that the civilisation of Egypt is the oldest in the world, while others give that priority to western Asia or India. It has also been suggested that, since all these cultures possess certain points of similarity, all of them may evolve from an older common civilisation. Men of eminent scholarship have acknowledged this possibility. In this regard, Sir E.A. Wallis Budge (1934) indicated: “It would be wrong to say that the Egyptians borrowed from the Sumerians or Sumerians from Egyptians, but it may be submitted that the literati of both peoples borrowed their theological systems from common but exceedingly ancient source… This similarity between the two companies of gods is too close to being accidental.” A pioneer American Egyptologist, Breasted (1936) advanced the following views: “In both Babylonian and Egypt the convenient and basic number (360), of fundamental importance in the division of the circle, and therefore in geography, astronomy and time-measurement, had its origin in the number of days in the year in the earliest known form of the calendar. While its use seems to be older in Egypt than in Babylonian, there is no way to determine with certainty that we owe it exclusively to either of these two countries. A common origin older than either of is possible.” Sewell (1942) said that the science, which we see at the dawn of recorded history, was not science at its dawn, but represents the remnants of the science of some great and as yet untraced civilisation. Where, however, is the seat of that civilisation to be located?” A number of scholars, both ancient and modern, have come to the conclusion that the world’s first civilisation was created by the people known as Cushite (Oromian) and also known by Greeks as Punt (Burnt Faces). The Greeks argued that these people developed their dark colouration since they were adjacent to the sun than were the fairer natives of Europe. In terms of the sources of well-informed modern authority, Herodotus describes the Cushites as in Lugard (1964) as: “ The tallest, most beautiful and long-lived of the human races,’ and before Herodotus, Homer, in even more flattering language, described them as ‘ the most just of men; the favourites of gods.’ The annals of all the great early nations of Asia Minor are full of them. The Mosaic records allude to them frequently; but while they are described as the most powerful, the most just, and the most beautiful of the human race, they are constantly spoken of as black, and there seems to be no other conclusion to be drawn, than that remote period of history the leading race of the western world was the black race.” Alexander Bulatovich (2000, p.53) of Russia in his 1896-1898 travels in Oromia described the Oromo, which is akin to Herodotus’s description as fallows: “The [Oromo] physical type is very beautiful. The men are very tall, with statuesque, lean, with oblong face and a somewhat flattened skull. The features of the face are regular and beautiful…. The mouth is moderate. The lips are not thick. They have excellent even teeth; large and in some cases oblong eyes and curly hair. Their arm bones are of moderate length, shorter than the bones of Europeans, but longer than among the Amhara tribes. The feet are moderate and not turned in. The women are shorter than the men and very beautifully built. In general, they are stouter than the men, and not as lean as they. Among them one sometimes encounters very beautiful women. And their beauty does not fade as among the Abyssinians. The skin color of both men and women ranges from dark to light brown. I did not see any completely black [Oromo].” According to Homer and Herodotus, the Cushites were inhabited in the Sudan, Egypt, Arabia, Palestine, present Ethiopia, Western Asia and India. In his essay of historical analysis of ancient East Africa and ancient Middle East, roughly in the years between 500BC and 500AD. Jesse Benjamin (2001), brought to our attention that the importance of research focus on global formations, multi- and bi-directional and cultural relations, geopolitical associations, archaeology, linguistics, sociology, cosmology, production, commerce and consumption patterns of these regions. Benjamin (2001) indicates that historiographers have acknowledged and documented that the adored spices, cinnamon (qarafaa in modern Afaan Oromo) and cassia of the Mediterranean sphere produced and come from ‘Cinnamon land.’ The latter is also known in different names as ‘ The other Barbaria,’‘Trogodytica,’Cush, Kush,Upper Nile. or ‘Punt’ but persistently representing the whole environs identified nowadays as the ‘Horn of African’ or that part of Oromia. These show the presence of production, consumption and commercial interactions in the regions. In line with Miller (1969), Wilding (1988), Benjamin (2001) included the Oromian pastoralism, pottery, cosmology and culture in the antiquity and old world civilisation. The identification of the Cushite Oromian civilisation with the present Abyssinia Amhara-Tigre under the name of Ethiopia made by the post civilisation Abyssinian priests translators of the Abyssinian version of the Bible in the 5th and 6th century or some other time, has been a cheating and misrepresentation of true human history. Those Abyssinians who were stealing the history were relatively recent migrant (conquerors) of the region. They occupied the present day Northern Ethiopia (central Cushitic of Agau and Oromo) long after the first human civilisation already originated and advanced in the area and spread to the rest of the world including to Arabia and Mediterranean Europe. The native residents of the region are the Cushite African people (Oromo, Agau, Somali, Sidama, Afar, Beja, Saho, etc). Ethiopian Jews (Falashas) are also Cushite Oromo and Agau who accepted Jews religion. Abyssinian tribes have fabricated their own myth and false history to claim legitimacy to the region and then established a regime truth through continuos fable story, phantom, indoctrination and falsification of the real Cushite history. Semitic immigrants did not found Aksum but the Abyssinians resettled among the Cushites cities and commercial centres in which Aksum was one and latter dominated the ruling power in this very centre of the civilisation of the central Cush. Ge’ez was invented as a language of the centre and latter used as the official language of the church and the colonising Abyssinian ruling class. Ge’ez was initially developed from the mixture of Cushitic and Greek elements that was facilitated by the Cushite trade links to the Greek world. There was also Greek resettlement in Aksum and the surrounding central Cush commercial towns with primary contacts with endogenous Cushite. The earlier rulers of Aksum and Christian converts including Ezana were Cushites. Though Ezana was the first convert from the above (the ruling class) to Christianity, he did not give up his belief in one God (Waqa) (Cushite/ black God). He was also not the first Cushite to be a Christian. In their linkages with a wider world, it is also highly likely and very logical and possible that there were Christians among the civilian Cushite trading communities who had already disseminated their new faith, as so many Oromo merchants were to do latter in the expansion of Islam. The splendid Stella, towers of solid masonry, with non-functional doors and windows at Aksum was not the earliest materialisation but it was the continuity in the manifestation of major indigenous Cushite tradition of monumental architecture in stone, which also later found expression in the rock-hewn churches of the Cushite Agau kings (see also Isichei, 1997 for some of the opinions). Abyssinians were the rulers. They were not the engineers and the builders of the stone monuments. It was the original product and brainchild of Cushite technologist. Of course, their advancement was thwarted with the unfortunate coming of the Abyssinians. Almost all of the original studies of the origin of Cushite civilisation could not penetrate far deep into regions south east to Nubia (Mereo) and could not dig out the other side of the twin, the close link and vast primary sources in present day Oromia. Though the British Museum has collected vast sources on Nubian, it has not kept on or linked any to the sister and more or less identical to the civilisation of the Oromo. For me, as native Oromo with knowledge of oral history and culture, as I observed the Nubian collection in British Museum, what they say Nubian collection is almost identical to Oromia, but in a less variety and quantity. I can say that Nubian and other Cushite civilisations were extensions (grafts) of the vast products of Oromo. I may also be enthused to the inference that the people whose manners and customs have been so thoroughly capitulated by Herodotus, Diodorus, Strabo Pliny and other were not Abyssinians and other Black people at all, but the natives of Upper Nile, Oromos, Agau, Somalis, Afar and the rest of Cushitic people of the present Horn of Africa. Sir Henry Rawlinson in his essay on the early History of Babylonian describes Oromos as the purest modern specimens of the Kushite. Thus, Oromo is Kush and Kush is Oromo. Seignobos (1910), in his scholarly works on the history of Ancient Civilisation reasoned that the first civilised natives of the Nile and Tigiris-Euphrates Valleys were a dark skinned people with short hair and prominent lips, they were called Cushites by some scholars and Hamites by others. So Cushite (Hamite) is generally recognised as the original home of human civilisation and culture both beyond and across the Red Sea. They are the original source of both the African and Asiatic (Cushitic Arabian) civilisation. Higgins in 1965 scholarly undertaking discusses: “I shall, in the course of this work, produce a number of extraordinary facts, which will be quite sufficient to prove, that a black race, in a very early times, had more influence of the affairs of the world than has been lately suspected; and I think I shall show, by some very striking circumstances yet existing, that the effects of this influence have not entirely passed away.” Baldwin in his 1869 study of Arab history expressed in his own words the following: “At the present time Arabia is inhabited by two distinct races, namely descendants of the old Adite, Kushite, …known under various appellations, and dwelling chiefly at the south, the east, and in the central parts of the country, but formerly supreme throughout the whole peninsula, and the Semitic Arabians- Mahomete’s race- found chiefly in the Hejaz and at the north. In some districts of the country these races are more or less mixed, and since the rise of Mahometanism the language of Semites, known as to us Arabic, has almost wholly suppressed the old … Kushite tongue; but the two races are very unlike in many respects, and the distinction has always been recognised by writers on Arabian ethnology. To the Kushite race belongs the purest Arabian blood, and also that great and very ancient civilisation whose ruins abound in almost every district of the country.” Poole (in Haddon, 1934) says, “Assyrians themselves are shown to have been of a very pure type of Semites, but in the Babylonians there is a sign of Kushite blood. … There is one portrait of an Elmite king on a vase found at Susa; he is painted black and thus belongs to the Kushite race.” The myths, legends, and traditions of the Sumerians point to the African Cushite as the original home of these people (see. Perry, 1923, pp. 60-61). They were also the makers of the first great civilisation in the Indus valley. Hincks, Oppert, unearthed the first Sumerian remains and Rawlinson called these people Kushites. Rawlinson in his essay on the early history of Babylonian presents that without pretending to trace up these early Babylonians to their original ethnic sources, there are certainly strong reasons for supposing them to have passed from Cushite Africa to the valley of the Euphrates shortly before the opening of the historic period: He is based on the following strong points: The system of writing, which they brought up with them, has the closest semblance with that of Egypt; in many cases in deed the two alphabets are absolutely identical. In the Biblical genealogies, while Kush and Mizrain (Egypt) are brothers, from Kush Nimrod (Babylonian) sprang. With respect to the language of ancient Babylonians, the vocabulary is absolutely Kushite, belonging to that stock of tongues, which in postscript were everywhere more or less, mixed up with Semitic languages, but of which we have with doubtless the purest existing specimens in the Mahra of Southern Arabia and the Oromo.
The Greek alphabet, the script of English today, is based on the Kemetic alphabet of Ancient Egypt/Kemet and the Upper Nile Valley of Ancient Africa. Ancient Egyptians called their words MDW NTR, or ‘Metu Neter,” which means divine speech. The Greeks called it, ‘hieroglyphics”- a Greek word. The etymology of hieroglyphics is sacred (hieros) carvings (glyph). The Oromos (the Kemet of modern age) called it Qubee.
“Chaltu as Helen”, which is based on a novelized story of Chaltu Midhaksa, a young Oromo girl from Ada’aa Barga district, also in central Oromia.
Born to a farming family in Koftu, a small village south of Addis Ababa near Akaki, Chaltu led an exuberant childhood. Raised by her grandmother’s sister Gode, a traditional storyteller who lived over 100 years, the impressionable Chaltu mastered the history and tradition of Tulama Oromos at a very young age.
Chaltu’s captivating and fairytale like story, as retold by Tesfaye, begins when she was awarded a horse named Gurraacha as a prize for winning a Tulama history contest. Though she maybe the first and only female contestant, Chaltu won the competition by resoundingly answering eleven of the twelve questions she was asked.
Guraacha, her pride and constant companion, became Chaltu’s best friend and she took a good care of him. Gurraacha was a strong horse; his jumps were high, and Chaltu understood his pace and style.
A masterful rider and an envy to even her male contemporaries, Chaltu soon distinguished herself as bold, confident, outspoken, assertive, and courageous. For this, she quickly became a household name among the Oromo from Wajitu to Walmara, Sera to Dawara, Bacho to Cuqala, and Dire to Gimbichu, according to Tesfaye.
Chaltu traces her lineage to the Galan, one of the six clans of Tulama Oromo tribe. At the height of her fame, admirers – young and old – addressed her out of respect as “Caaltuu Warra Galaan!” – Chaltu of the Galan, and “Caaltuu Haadha Gurraacha!” – Chaltu the mother of Gurraacha.
Chaltu’s disarming beauty, elegance, charisma, and intelligence coupled with her witty personality added to her popularity. Chaltu’s tattoos from her chin to her chest, easily noticeable from her light skin, made her look like of a “Red Indian descent” (Tesfaye’s words).
As per Tesfaye’s account, there wasn’t a parent among the well-to-do Oromos of the area who did not wish Chaltu betrothed to their son. At 14, Chaltu escaped a bride-kidnapping attempt by outracing her abductors.
Chaltu’s grandfather Banti Daamo, a well-known warrior and respected elder, had a big family. Growing up in Koftu, Chaltu enjoyed being surrounded by a large network of extended family, although she was the only child for her parents.
Recognizing Chaltu’s potential, her relatives suggested that she goes to school, which was not available in the area at the time. However, fearing that she would be abducted, Chaltu’s father arranged her marriage to a man of Ada’aa family from Dire when she turned 15.
Locals likened Chaltu’s mannerism to her grandfather Banti Daamo, earning her yet another nickname as “Caaltuu warra Bantii Daamo” – Chaltu of Banti Daamo. She embraced the namesake because many saw her as an heir to Banti Daamo’s legacy, a role usually preserved for the oldest male in the family. Well-wishers blessed her: prosper like your grandparents. She embraced and proudly boasted about continuing her grandfather’s heritage calling herself Chaltu Banti Daamo.
Others began to call her Akkoo [sic] Xinnoo, drawing a comparison between Chaltu and a legendary Karrayu Oromo woman leader after whom Ankobar was named.
Chaltu’s eccentric life took on a different trajectory soon after her marriage. She could not be a good wife as the local tradition and custom demanded; she could not get along with an alcoholic husband who came home drunk and abused her.
When Chaltu threatened to dissolve the marriage, as per Oromo culture, elders intervened and advised her to tolerate and reconcile with her husband. Rebellious and nonconformist by nature, Chaltu, who’s known for challenging old biases and practices, protested “an alcoholic cannot be a husband for Banti Daamo’s daughter!”
Soon she left her husband and moved to Addis Ababa, Ethiopia’s capital, to attend formal education and start a new chapter in life.
Trouble ensues.
In Addis Ababa, her aunt Mulumebet’s family welcomed Chaltu. Like Chaltu, Mulumebet grew up in Koftu but later moved to Addis Ababa, and changed her given name from Gadise in order to ‘fit’ into the city life.
Subsequently, Mulumebet sat down with Chaltu to provide guidance and advice on urban [Amhara] ways.
“Learning the Amharic language is mandatory for your future life,” Mulumebet told Chaltu. “If you want to go to school, first you have to speak the language; in order to learn Amharic, you must stop speaking Afaan Oromo immediately; besides, your name Chaltu Midhaksa doesn’t match your beauty and elegance.”
“I wish they did not mess you up with these tattoos,” Mulumebet continued, “but there is nothing I could do about that…however, we have to give you a new name.”
Just like that, on her second day in Addis, Caaltuu warra Galaan became Helen Getachew.
Chaltu understood little of the dramatic twists in her life. She wished the conversation with her aunt were a dream. First, her name Chaltu means the better one, her tattoos beauty marks.
She quietly wondered, “what is wrong with my name and my tattoos? How can I be better off with a new name that I don’t even know what it means?”
Of course she had no answers for these perennial questions. Most of all, her new last name Getachew discomforted her. But she was given no option.
The indomitable Chaltu had a lot to learn.
A new name, new language, new family, and a whole new way of life, the way of civilized Amhara people. Chaltu mastered Amharic in a matter of weeks. Learning math was no problem either, because Chaltu grew up solving math problems through oral Oromo folktale and children’s games like Takkeen Takkitumaa.
Chaltu’s quick mastery amazed Dr. Getachew, Mulumebet’s husband. This also made her aunt proud and she decided to enroll Chaltu in an evening school. The school matched Chaltu, who’s never set foot in school, for fourth grade. In a year, she skipped a grade and was placed in sixth grade. That year Chaltu passed the national exit exam, given to all sixth graders in the country, with distinction.
But her achievements in school were clouded by a life filled with disappointments, questions, and loss of identity. Much of her troubles came from Mulumebet packaged as life advice.
“Helen darling, all our neighbors love and admire you a lot,” Mulumebet told Chaltu one Sunday morning as they made their way into the local Orthodox Church. “There is not a single person on this block who is not mesmerized by your beauty…you have a bright future ahead of you as long as you work on your Amharic and get rid of your Oromo accent…once you do that, we will find you a rich and educated husband.”
Chaltu knew Mulumebet had her best interest at heart. And as a result never questioned her counsel. But her unsolicited advises centered mostly on erasing Chaltu’s fond childhood memories and making her lose touch with Oromummaa – and essentially become an Amhara.
Chaltu spent most of her free time babysitting Mulumebet’s children, aged 6 and 8. She took care of them and the kids loved her. One day, while the parents were away, lost in her own thoughts, Chaltu repeatedly sang her favorite Atetee – Oromo women’s song of fertility – in front of the kids.
That night, to Chaltu’s wild surprise, the boys performed the song for their parents at the dinner table. Stunned by the revelation, Mulumebet went ballistic and shouted, “Are you teaching my children witchcraft?”
Mulumebet continued, “Don’t you ever dare do such a thing in this house again. I told you to forget everything you do not need. Helen, let me tell you for the last time, everything you knew from Koftu is now erased…forget it all! No Irreechaa, no Waaree, no Okolee, no Ibsaa, No Atetee, and no Wadaajaa.”
Amused by his wife’s dramatic reaction, Getachew inquired, “what does the song mean, Helen?” Chaltu told him she could not explain it in Amharic. He added, “If it is indeed about witchcraft, we do not need a devil in this house…Helen, praise Jesus and his mother, Mary, from now on.”
“Wait,” Getachew continued, “did you ever go to church when you were in Koftu? What do they teach you there?”
Chaltu acknowledged that she’s been to a church but never understood the sermons, conducted in Amharic, a language foreign to her until now. “Getachew couldn’t believe his ears,” writes Tesfaye. But Getachew maintained his cool and assured Chaltu that her mistake would be forgiven.
Chaltu knew Atetee was not a witchcraft but a women’s spiritual song of fertility and safety. All Oromo women had their own Atetee.
Now in her third year since moving to Addis, Chaltu spoke fluent Amharic. But at school, in the market, and around the neighborhood, children bullied her daily. It was as if they were all given the same course on how to disgrace, intimidate, and humiliate her.
“You would have been beautiful if your name was not Chaltu,” strangers and classmates, even those who knew her only as Helen, would tell her. Others would say to Chaltu, as if in compliment, “if you were not Geja (an Amharic for uncivilized), you would actually win a beauty pageant…they messed you up with these tattoos, damn Gallas!”
Her adopted name and mastery of Amharic did not save Chaltu from discrimination, blatant racism, hate speech, and ethnic slurs. As if the loss of self was not enough, seventh grade was painfully challenging for Chaltu. One day when the students returned from recess to their assigned classes, to her classmate’s collective amusement, there was a drawing of a girl with long tattooed neck on the blackboard with a caption: Helen Nikise Gala – Helen, the tattooed Gala. Gala is a disparaging term akin to a Nigger used in reference to Oromos. As Chaltu sobbed quietly, their English teacher Tsige walked in and the students’ laughter came to a sudden halt. Tsige asked the classroom monitor to identity the insulting graffiti’s artist. No one answered. He turned to Chaltu and asked, “Helen, tell me who drew this picture?”
She replied, “I don’t know teacher, but Samson always called me Nikise Gala.”
Tsige was furious. Samson initially denied but eventually admitted fearing corporal punishment. Tsige gave Samson a lesson of a lifetime: “Helen speaks two language: her native Afaan Oromo and your language Amharic, and of course she is learning the third one. She is one of the top three students in the class. You speak one language and you ranked 41 out of 53 students. I have to speak to your parents tomorrow.”
Athletic and well-mannered, Chaltu was one of the best students in the entire school. But she could not fathom why people gossiped about her and hurled insults at her.
Banned from speaking Afaan Oromo, Chaltu could not fully express feelings like sorrow, regrets, fear and happiness in Amharic. To the extent that Mulumebet wished Chaltu would stop thinking in Oromo, in one instance, she asked Chaltu to go into her bedroom to lament the death of a relative by singing honorific praise as per Oromo custom. Chaltu’s break came one afternoon when the sport teacher began speaking to her in Afaan Oromo, for the first time in three years. She sobbed from a deep sense of loss as she uttered the words: “I am from Koftu, the daughter of Banti Daamo.” Saying those words alone, which were once a source of her pride, filled Chaltu with joy, even if for that moment.
Chaltu anxiously looked forward to her summer vacation and a much-needed visit to Koftu. But before she left, Mulumebet warned Chaltu not to speak Afaan Oromo during her stay in Koftu. Mulumebet told Chaltu, “Tell them that you forgot how to speak Afaan Oromo. If they talk to you in Oromo, respond only in Amharic. Also, tell them that you are no longer Chaltu. Your name is Helen.”
Getachew disagreed with his wife. But Chaltu knew she has to oblige. On her way to Koftu, Chaltu thought about her once golden life; the time she won Gurracha in what was only a boys’ competition, and how the entire village of Koftu sang her praises.
Her short stay in Koftu was dismal. Gurraacha was sold for 700 birr and she did not get to see him again. Chaltu’s parents were dismayed that her name was changed and that she no longer spoke their language.
A disgruntled and traumatized Chaltu returns to Addis Ababa and enrolls in 9th grade. She then marries a government official and move away from her aunt’s protective shield. The marriage ends shortly thereafter when Chaltu’s husband got caught up in a political crosshair following Derg’s downfall in 1991. Chaltu was in financial crisis. She refused an advice from acquintances to work as a prostitute.
At 24, the once vibrant Chaltu looked frail and exhausted. The regime change brought some welcome news. Chaltu was fascinated and surprised to watch TV programs in Afaan Oromo or hear concepts like “Oromo people’s liberation, the right to speak one’s own language, and that Amharas were feudalists.”
Chaltu did not fully grasp the systematic violence for which was very much a victim. She detested how she lost her values and ways. She despised Helen and what it was meant to represent. But it was also too late to get back to being Chaltu. She felt empty. She was neither Helen nor Chaltu.
She eventually left Addis for Koftu and asked her parents for forgiveness. She lived a few months hiding in her parent’s home. She avoided going to the market and public squares.
In a rare sign of recovery from her trauma, Chaltu briefly dated a college student who was in Koftu for a winter vacation. When he left, Chaltu lapsed back into her self-imposed loneliness and state of depression. She barely ate and refused interacting with or talking to anyone except her mother.
One afternoon, the once celebrated Chaltu warra Galaan took a nap after a coffee break and never woke up. She was 25.
The bottom line: Fictionalized or not, Chaltu’s is a truly Oromo story. Chaltu is a single character in Tesfaye’s book but lest we forget, in imperial Ethiopia, generations of Chaltu’s had to change their names and identity in order to fit in and be “genuine Ethiopians.” Until recently, one has to wear an Amhara mask in order to be beautiful, or gain access to educational and employment opportunities.
Likewise, in the Ethiopia of today’s “freedom of expression advocates” – who allegedly sought to censor Tesfaye – it appears that a story, even a work of fiction, is fit to print only when it conforms to the much-romanticized Ethiopianist storyline.
So much has changed since Chaltu’s tragic death a little over a decade ago, yet, clearly, much remains the same in Ethiopia. Honor and glory to Oromo martyrs, whose selfless sacrifices had allowed for me to transcribe this story, the Oromo today – a whole generation of Caaltuus – are ready to own, reclaim, and tell their stories.
Try, as they might, the ever-vibrant Qubee generation will never be silenced, again.
Origins of the Afro Comb: 6,000 years of culture, politics and identity
Even today, a significant number of mainstream Egyptologists, anthropologists, historians and Hollywood moviemakers continue to deny African people’s role in humankind’s first and greatest civilization in ancient Egypt. This whitewashing of history negatively impacts Black people and our image in the world. There remains a vital need to correct the misinformation of our achievements in antiquity.
Senegalese scholar Dr. Cheikh Anta Diop (1923-1986) dedicated his life to scientifically challenging Eurocentric and Arab-centric views of precolonial African culture, specifically those that suggested the ancient civilization of Egypt did not have its origins in Black Africa.
Since some people continue to ignore the overwhelming evidence that indicates ancient Egypt was built, ruled, and populated by dark-skinned African people, Atlanta Blackstar will highlight 10 of the ways Diop proved the ancient Egyptians were Black.
Physical Anthropology Evidence
Based on his review of scientific literature, Diop concluded that most of the skeletons and skulls of the ancient Egyptians clearly indicate they were Negroid people with features very similar to those of modern Black Nubians and other people of the Upper Nile and East Africa. He called attention to studies that included examinations of skulls from the predynastic period (6000 B.C.) that showed a greater percentage of Black characteristics than any other type.
From this information, Diop reasoned that a Black race existed in Egypt at that time and did not migrate at a later stage as some previous theories had suggested.
This paper deals, among others, with the development of Meroitic studies, the Meroitic civilization, the destruction of the city of Meroe, the dispersal of the Meroitic people after the collapse of their state, the Christianization of the post Meroitic states in Ethiopia (i.e. Northern Sudan / it is to be reminded that the modern state of Abyssinia is fallaciously, illegally and criminally rebaptized ‘Ethioipia’), the migration of the remnants of the Meroitic people in the direction of the Blue Nile, and their possible relation of ancestry with the modern Cushitic language speaking Oromo nation. It must be stated clearly at the outset that the issue of Meroitic ancestry of the Oromo nation has not yet been considered, much less published in an academic journal or scholarly books. The paper was first presented in an academic conference organized by the Oromo Studies Association. Footnotes have been added in view of the aforementioned publication (see Pdf).
1. The Development of the Meroitic Studies, the History of Kush and Meroe, and the Efforts to Decipher the Meroitic Writing
Interest in what was Ethiopia for the Ancient Greeks and Romans, i.e. the Northern territory of present day Sudan from Khartoum to the Egyptian border *1, led to the gradual development of the modern discipline of the Humanities that long stood in the shadow of Egyptology: the Meroitic Studies.
Considerable advances had been made in academic research and knowledge as the result of the exploratory trips of the Prussian pioneering Egyptologist Richard Lepsius *2 (1842 – 1844) that bestowed upon modern scholarship the voluminous ‘Denkmaeler aus Aegypten und Aethiopien’ (Monuments from Egypt and Ethiopia), and as the direct consequence of the series of excavations undertaken by E. A. Wallis Budge *3 and John Garstang *4 at Meroe (modern Bagrawiyah) in the first years of the twentieth century, by Francis Llewellyn Griffith *5 at Kawa (ancient Gematon, near modern Dongola, 1929 – 1931), by Fritz Hintze *6 at Musawwarat es Sufra, by Jean Leclant *7 at Sulb (Soleb), Sadinga (Sedeinga), and Djebel Barkal (ancient Napata, modern Karima) in the 1950s and the 1960s, by D. Wildung *8 at Naqah, and by Charles Bonnet at Kerma. The pertinent explorations and contributions of scholars like A. J. Arkell *9, P. L. Shinnie *10, and Laszlo Torok *11 that cover a span of 80 years reconstituted a large part of the greatness and splendor of this four millennia long African civilization.
Yet, due to the lack of direct access to original sources and genuine understanding of the ancient history of Sudan, the legendary and historical Ethiopia of the Greeks and Romans, which corresponds to what was ‘Kush’ for the Hebrews (mentioned many times in the Bible) and ultimately ‘Kas’ for the ancient Egyptians *12 (mentioned in thousands of hieroglyphic, hieratic and demotic texts), we face a serious problem of terminology when it comes to Ancient Sudan’s earlier historical periods.
We are confined to such terms as Period (or Group) A (3100 – 2700 BCE), *13 Period B *14 (2700 – 2300 BCE that starts with Pharaoh Snefru’s expedition, *15 which marks indeed the beginning of the time-honored and multi-faceted relationship between Kemet-Egypt and Kush), and Period C *16 (2300 – 2100 BCE), for one millennium of Ancient Sudanese (Ethiopian or Kushitic) History. For the said period, thanks to Ancient Egyptian texts, we have a plethora of ethnic names and state names referring to populations living in North Sudan’s territory (notably Wawat, Irtet, Setjiu,Yam, Zetjau, and Medjay *17); but we fail to correctly establish to whom these names exactly refer as ethno-linguistic groups (Kushitic? Nilo-Saharan? Western Hamitic?).
Subsequent periods of Ancient Sudanese History are also denoted in conventional manner, as this is highlighted by the term Period of Kerma *18 (2100 – 1500 BCE); this period is named after the modern city and archeological site, 500 km in the south of the present Sudanese – Egyptian border.
What we know for sure is that, when the first Pharaohs of the New Empire invaded and colonized the entire area down to Kurgus *19 (more than 1000 km alongside the Nile, south of the present Sudanese – Egyptian border), they established two top Egyptian administrative positions, namely “Viceroy of Wawat” and “Viceroy of Kush/Kas”. Wawat is the area between Aswan and Abu Simbel or properly speaking, the area between the first and the second cataracts, whereas Kas is all the land that lies beyond. With the collapse of the Kerma culture, comes to end a first high-level culture and powerful state in the area of Kush.
We employ the term ‘Kushitic Period’ *20 to refer to the subsequent periods:
a) the Egyptian annexation (1500 – 950 BCE), which involved a permanent effort to egyptianize Kush that triggered in turn ceaseless Kushitic revolutions against the Pharaohs,
b) the Kushitic independence (950 – 800 BCE), when a separate state was formed around Napata *21, present day Karima, 750 km south of the Sudanese – Egyptian border,
c) the Kushitic expansion and involvement in Egypt (800 – 670 BCE, which corresponds mostly to the XXVth – ‘Ethiopian’ (meaning literally Sudanese) according to Manetho *22 – dynasty of Egypt, when the Theban clergy of Amun made an alliance with the Kushitic ‘Qore’, i.e. the Kings of Napata, who ruled Kush and Upper Egypt based on their two capitals, Napata and Thebes *23, (the alliance was directed against the pact that the Heliopolitan clergy of Ra had made with the Libyan princes who thus strengthened the separate state of Lower Egypt),
d) the Kushitic expulsion from Egypt, following the three successive invasions of Egypt by Emperors Assarhaddon *24 (in 671 BCE) and Assurbanipal *25 (in 669 BCE and 666 BCE) of Assyria, who made an alliance with the Heliopolitan *26 priesthood and the Libyan princes against the Theban clergy and the Kushitic kings, and
e) the subsequent Kushitic state’s decline – period during which took place the successive invasions led by Psamtik/Psammetichus II of Egypt *27 (in 591 BCE) and by the Achaemenid *28 Persian Shah Kambudjiyah / Cambyses *29 (in 525 BCE).
The entire Kushitic period is considered as terminated with the completion of the transfer of the capital city at a much safer (and more distant from Egypt) location far in the south, namely at Meroe, in the area of present day Bagrawiyah beyond the point whereby Atbarah river unites with the Greater Nile. This event occurred at the end of the reign of Qore (King) Nastasen *30 between 335 and 315 BCE.
We call ‘Meroitic’ the entire period that covers almost 700 years beginning around 260 BCE with the reign of the successors of Nastasen, notably Arkamaniqo / Ergamenes *31 (the most illustrious among the earliest ones and the first to be buried at Meroe / Bagrawiyah), and ending with the end of Meroe and the destruction of the Meroitic royal cities by the Axumite Abyssinian Negus Ezana *32 (ca. 370 CE). It is easily understood that the ‘Kushitic’ period antedates ‘Meroitic’ period, but both appellations are quite conventional.
The ancient people of Kush (or Ethiopia) entered into a period of cultural, intellectual, and scriptorial radiation and authenticity relatively late, around the third century BCE, which means that the development took place when Meroe replaced Napata as capital of the Kushites / Meroites. Before that moment, the ancient people of Kush (or Ethiopia) used Egyptian hieroglyphic writing for all their scriptorial purposes, be they administrative, economic, religious and/or monumental – royal. The introduction of the Meroitic alphabetic hieroglyphic writing spearheaded the development of a Meroitic cursive alphabetic scripture that was used for less magnificent purposes than palatial and sacred relief inscriptions. The first person to publish copies of Meroitic inscriptions (then unidentified) was the French architect Gau *33, who visited Northern Sudan as early as 1819. Quite unfortunately, almost two centuries after the discovery of the first Meroitic inscriptions, we are left in mysteries with regard to the greatest part of the contents of the epigraphic evidence collected in both scriptural systems.
The earliest dated Meroitic hieroglyphic inscriptions belong to the reign of the ruling queen Shanakdakheto *34 (about 177-155 BCE), but archaeologists believe that this scripture represents the later phase of a language spoken by Kushites / Meroites at least as far back as 750 BCE and possibly many centuries or even millennia before that (hinting therefore at a Kushitic / Ethiopian continuity from the earliest Kerma days at the end of the 3rd millennium BCE). The earliest examples of Meroitic cursive inscriptions, recently found by Charles Bonnet in Dukki Gel (REM 1377-78) *35, can also be dated in the early 2nd century BCE. The latest text is still probably the famous inscription from Kalabsha (Ancient Egyptian Talmis) mentioning King Kharamadoye (REM 0094) *36, which dates back to the beginning of the fifth century CE, although some funeral texts from Ballana *37 could be contemporary or even posterior.
Despite the fact that F. L. Griffith identified the twenty three (23) Meroitic alphabetic writing signs already in 1909, not much progress has been made towards the ultimate decipherment of the Meroitic *38. Scarcity of epigraphic evidence plays a certain role in this regard, since as late as the year 2000 we were not able to accumulate more than 1278 texts in all types of Meroitic writing. If we now add to this fact the lack of lengthy texts, the lack of any bilingual text (not necessarily Egyptian /Meroitic, it could also be Ancient Greek / Meroitic, if we take into consideration that Arkamaniqo / Ergamenes *39 was personally well versed in Greek), and a certain lack of academic vision, we understand why the state of our knowledge about the history of the Ancient Meroites is still so limited.
Linguistics and parallels from other languages have been repeatedly set in motion in order to help the academic research. Griffith and Haycock *40 tried to read Meroitic, through use of (modern) Nubian – quite unsuccessfully. K.H. Priese *41 tried to read the Meroitic texts, using Eastern Sudanese (Beja *42 or Hadendawa *43) languages – also unsuccessfully. On the other hand, F. Hintze *44, attempted to compare Meroitic with the Ural-Altaic group (Turko-Mongolian languages) to no avail. More recently, Siegbert Hummel *45, compared the “known” Meroitic words to words attested in languages of the Altaic family which he believed was a substrate language of Meroitic; as this hypothesis is totally wrong, no result came out of this effort. At times, scholars (like Clyde Winters *46) were driven to farfetched interpretations, attempting to equate Meroitic with Tokharian, after assuming a possible relationship between the names Kush and Kushan *47, the latter being the appellation of a sizeable Eastern Iranian state of the late Arsacid *48 (250 BCE – 224 CE) and early Sassanid *49 (224 – 651 CE) times. However, one has to conclude that the bulk of the researchers working on the Meroitic language never believed that the language of the Ancient Sudanese (Ethiopians) could ever be a member of the so-called Afro-Asiatic group of languages (the term itself being very wrong and quite fraudulent).
So far, the only Meroitic words for which a solid translation had been given by Griffith and his successors are the following: man, woman, meat, bread, water, give, big, abundant, good, sister, brother, wife, mother, child, begotten, born, feet. The eventual equivalence between Egyptian and Meroitic texts was a strong motivation for any interpretational approach, recent or not. More recent, but still dubious, suggestions are the following: arohe- ‘protect’, hr- ‘eat’, pwrite ‘life’, yer ‘milk’, ar ‘boy’, are- or dm- ‘take, receive’, dime ‘cow’, hlbi ‘bull’, ns(e) ‘sacrifice’, sdk ‘journey’, tke- ‘love, revere’, we ‘dog’. It is clear that vocalization remains a real problem *50.
Through the aforementioned we realize why collective works, like Fontes Historiae Nubiorum. Textual Sources for the History of the Middle Nile Region (vols. I – IV, edited by T. Eide, T. Haegg, R.H. Pierce, and L. Torok, University of Bergen, Bergen 1994, 1996. 1998 and 2000), are still seminal for our – unfortunately indirect, as based on Ancient Egyptian, Greek, Latin and Coptic texts – knowledge of Ancient Meroe.
2. The End of Meroe
Amidst numerous unclear points of the Kushitic / Meroitic (Ancient Sudanese / Ethiopian) History, the end of Meroe and the consequences under which it happened still remain a most controversial point among scholars. Quite indicatively, we may mention here the main efforts of historical reconstitution.
A. Arkell, Sayce and others asserted that Meroe was captured and destroyed, following one military expedition led by Ezana of Axum.
B. Reisner insisted that, after Ezana’s invasion and victory, Meroe remained a state under another dynasty tributary to Axum.
C. Monneret de Villard and Hintze affirmed that Meroe was totally destroyed already before Ezana’s invasion, due to another, earlier Axumite Abyssinian raid.
D. Torok, Shinnie, Kirwan, Haegg and others concluded that Meroe was defeated by a predecessor of Ezana, and continued existing as a vassal state.
E. Bechhaus-Gerst specified that Meroe was invaded prior to Ezana’s raid, and that the Axumite invasion did not reach further lands north of Meroe *51.
With two fragmentary inscriptions from Meroe, one from Axum, two graffitos from Kawa and Meroe, and one coin being all the evidence we have so far, we have little to properly reconstruct the details that led to the collapse of Meroe. One relevant source, the Inscription of Ezana (DAE 11, the ‘monotheistic’ inscription in vocalized Ge’ez), *52 remains a somewhat controversial historical source to be useful in this regard. The legendary Monumentum Adulitanum *53, lost but copied in a confused way by Cosmas Indicopleustes *54, may not shed light at all on this event. One point is sure, however: there was never a generalized massacre of the Meroitic inhabitants of the lands conquered by Ezana. The aforementioned DAE 11 inscription mentions just 758 Meroites killed by the Axumite forces.
What is even more difficult to comprehend is the reason behind the scarcity of population attested on Meroitic lands in the aftermath of Ezana’s raid. The post-Meroitic and pre-Christian, transitional, phase of Sudan’s history is called X-Group *55 or Period, and also Ballana Period; this atypical appellation underscores the lack to historical insight that happens once more in the History of Ancient Sudan (Ethiopia).
During the Ballana Period (X-Group) and contrarily to what happened for many centuries of Meroitic History, when the Meroitic South (the area between today’s Shendi *56 and Atbarah *57 in modern Sudan with the entire hinterland of Butana that was called Insula Meroe / Nesos Meroe, i.e. Island Meroe in the Antiquity) was overpopulated comparatively with the Meroitic North {the area between Napata / Karima and Abu Simbel *58 or further in the North, Aswan *59 (the area between Aswan and Abu Simbel was then called Triakontaschoinos *60 and politically, it was divided between Meroe and the Roman Empire)}, the previously under-populated area (i.e. the Meroitic North) gives us the impression of a more densely peopled region, if compared to the previous center of Meroitic power and population density (the Meroitic South). The new situation contradicts therefore the earlier descriptions and narrations by Dio Cassius *61 and Strabo *62.
Furthermore, the name ‘Ballana period’ is quite indicative in this regard, because Ballana is located on Egyptian soil, whereas not far, south of the present Sudanese – Egyptian border, lies Karanog with its famous tumuli that bear evidence of Nubian (not Kushitic / Meroitic) upper hand in terms of social anthropology. The southernmost counterpart of Karanog culture can be found in Tangassi (nearby Karima, which represented the ‘North’ for what was the center of the earlier Meroitic power). This means that for the period immediately after the destruction of Meroe (ca. 370 CE), the Meroitic North offers the archaeological evidence that serves to name the entire period (Ballana Period), whereas the Meroitic South seems to have been totally uninhabited.
In addition, in terms of culture, X-Group heralds a total break with the Meroitic tradition, with the Nubians and the Blemmyes/Beja outnumbering the Meroitic remnants and imposing a completely different cultural and socio-anthropological milieu out of which would later emanate the first and single Nubian state in the World History: Nobatia.
Much confusion characterized modern scholars when referring to Kush or Meroe by using the modern term ‘Nubia’. By now, it is clear that the Nubians lived since times immemorial in both Egypt and the Sudan, being part of the history of these two lands. However, the Nubians are a Nilo-Saharan ethno-linguistic group different from the Hamitic Kushites / Meroites. At the times of X-Group and during the long centuries of Christian Sudan, we have the opportunity to attest the differences and the divergence between the Nubians and the Meroitic remnants.
Following the collapse of the Meroitic state, the epicenter of the Nubian land, i.e. the area between the first (Aswan) and the third (Kerma) cataracts, rose to independence and prominence first, with capital at Faras, nearby the present day Sudanese – Egyptian border, around 450 CE. Nobatia institutionalized Coptic as religious (Christian) and administrative language, and Nubian language remained an oral only means of communication. The Nobatian control in the areas south of the third cataract was vague, nominal and precarious. Nobatia was linked with the Coptic (‘Monophysitic’) Patriarchate of Alexandria.
This means something very important for the Christian History of Sudan (Ethiopia); Christianization did not come from Abyssinia, and there was no cultural or religious impact exercised by Axum on (Ethiopia) Sudan. As in pre-Christian times, Ethiopia remained the absolute opposite of Abyssinia. In the true, historical Ethiopia (Sudan), Christianization came from the North (Egypt). Abyssinia (which cannot be called ‘Ethiopia’ and which has absolutely no right to the name of Ethiopia) was a marginal and isolated, tiny and mountainous state that basically controlled the land between Axum and Adulis (on the Red Sea shore). And King Ezana’s invasion and destruction of Meroe was an occasional and inconsequential event that did not bring forth any immediate major result.
The Meroitic remnants underscored their difference from the Nubians / Nobatians, and the depopulated central part of the defunct state of Meroe rose to independence only later, in the first decades of the sixth century. Its name, Makuria, is in this regard a linguistic reminiscence of the name ‘Meroe’, but we cannot know its real origin and meaning. The remnant of the Meroitic populations inhabited the northern circumference of Makuria more densely, and the gravitation center revolved around Old Dongola (580 km south of Wadi Halfa), capital of this Christian Orthodox state that extended from Kerma to Shendi (the area of the sixth cataract), so for more than 1000 km alongside the Nile. But beyond the area of Karima (750 km in the south of Wadi Halfa) and the nearby famous Makurian monastery at Al Ghazali we have very scarce evidence of Christian antiquities. The old African metropolis of Meroe remained at the periphery of both, the Kushitic Ethiopian states of Makuria and Alodia and the Semitic Abyssinian state of Axum.
Makurians highlighted their ideological – religious divergence from the Nubians, by adopting Greek, not Coptic, as religious language. They even introduced a new scripture for their Makurian language that seems to have been a later phase of Meroitic. Makurian was written in alphabetic Greek signs. Risen at a time of Christological disputes and theological conflicts that brought about a forceful polarization between the Greek Orthodox and the Coptic ‘Monophysitic’ Patriarchates of Alexandria, the state and the Christian church of Makuria sided with the Greek Patriarchate of Alexandria, in striking opposition to the Nobatian state and church that allied themselves with the Coptic Patriarchate of Alexandria.
Further in the South, Alodia has long been called by modern scholars as the ‘third Christian state’ of Sudan, but recent discoveries in Soba, its capital (15 km at the east of Khartoum), suggest that Alodia rose first to independence (around 500 CE) and later adhered to Christianity (around 580 – 600 CE), following evangelization efforts deployed by missionary Nobatian priests (possibly in a sort of anti-Makurian religious diplomacy). In general, we know little about Alodia (or Aluwah or Alwa), and we actually don’t know whether they used a particular Alodian writing system.
The later phases of the History of Christian Ethiopia (Sudan) encompass the Nobatian – Makkurian merge (around 1000 CE), which was necessary for the two Christian states to defend themselves against the Islamic pressure coming manly from the North (Egypt), the islamization of Makkuria in 1317, and finally, the late collapse of Christian Alodia in 1505.
The question remains unanswered until today:
– What happened to the bulk of the Meroitic population, i.e. the inhabitants of the Insula Meroe, the present day Butana? What occurred to the Meroites living between the fourth and the sixth cataracts after the presumably brief raid of Ezana of Axum, and the subsequent destruction of Meroe, Mussawarat es Sufra, Naqah, Wad ben Naqah, Basa and all the other important cities of the Meroitic heartland?
3. Reconstruction of the Post-Meroitic History of the Kushitic Oromo Nation
Certainly, the motives of Ezana’s raid have not yet been properly studied and assessed by modern scholarship. The reasons for the raid may vary from a simple nationalistic usurpation of the name of ‘Ethiopia’ (Kush), which would give a certain Christian eschatological legitimacy to the Axumite Abyssinian kingdom, to the needs of international politics (at the end of 4th c. CE) and the eventuality of an Iranian – Yemenite (Himyaritic) – Meroitic alliance at the times of Shapur II (310 – 379), aimed at outweighing the Eastern Roman – Abyssinian bond.
Yet, this Iranian – Sudanese political alliance may have been only the later phase of a time-honored Iranian infiltration that could have taken the form of an (easily assessable by both civilizations and nations, the Meroites and the Iranians) heliocentric theology and imperial ideology. No less than 300-350 years before Ezana’s raid and destruction of Meroe, the famous Jebel Qeili reliefs of Shorakaror mark an impressive penetration of Mithraic artistic and religious concepts and forms.
Whatever the reasons of Ezana’s raid may have been, we can be quite sure, when it comes to the destruction of Meroe, about two determinant points that impose a fresh approach and interpretation of the historical development:
a) the absence of any large-scale massacre is evident, and
b) the impressive scarcity of population in the old, central Meroitic provinces is a fact for the period that follows Ezana’s raid and the destruction of Meroe.
The only plausible explanation is that the scarcity of population in the Meroitic mainland after Meroe’s destruction must be due to a large scale migration to safer areas far from the reach of the king of Axum.
The only explanation to match the historical facts and the archeological evidence is that, following Ezana’s raid, the Meroites in their outright majority (at least for the inhabitants of Meroe’s southern provinces) fled and migrated to areas where they would stay independent from the Semitic Abyssinian kingdom of Christian Axum. This explanation hinges on the best utilization and interpretation of the already existing historical – archaeological data.
From archeological evidence, it becomes clear that during X-Group phase and throughout the Makurian period (so for many long centuries) the former heartland of Meroe remained mostly uninhabited. The end of Meroe is definitely very abrupt, and this makes obvious that Meroe’s driving force had gone elsewhere. The correct question would then be ‘where to’?
There is no evidence of Meroites sailing the Nile downwards to the area of the 4th (Karima) and the 3rd (Kerma) cataracts, which was earlier the northern circumference of Meroe and remained totally untouched by Ezana. There is no textual evidence in Greek, Latin and/or Coptic to testify to such a migratory movement toward the North. Christian Roman Egypt would certainly be an incredible direction, but if this had been the case, the migration would have been recorded in some texts and monuments due to its importance. To the above, we have to add the impossibility of marching to the heartland of Abyssinia, because this must have been for the migrating Meroites the only direction to avoid, and again if it had occurred, it would have been mentioned in some historical sources, Ge’ez, Coptic, Syriac, Greek or Latin.
Having therefore excluded all the migration alternatives as per above, we can examine the remaining possibilities. The migrating Meroites could therefore have a) gone either to the vast areas of the Eastern and the Western deserts , b) entered the African jungle or c) ultimately searched for a possibly free land that, being arable and good for pasture, would keep them far from the sphere of the Christian Axumites.
It would be very erroneous and highly unlikely to expect settled people to move to the desert. Such an eventuality would be a unique oxymoron in the History of the Mankind. Nomadic peoples move from the steppes, the savannas and the deserts to other parts of the steppes, the savannas and the deserts or preferably to fertile lands and settle there, at times crossing really long distances. However, settled people, if under pressure, move to other fertile lands that offer them the possibility of cultivation and pasture. When dispersed by the invading Sea Peoples, the Hittites moved from Anatolia to Northwestern Mesopotamia, crossing long distances; they did not cross shorter distance to settle in the small part of Central Anatolia that happened to be desert. The few scholars, who may think that Meroitic continuity can be found among the present day Beja and Hadendawa, are oblivious to the aforementioned reality that was never contravened throughout World History. In addition, the Blemmyes had never been friendly to the Meroites. Every now and then, they had attacked parts of the Nile valley and the Meroites had had to repulse them thence. It would rather be inconceivable for the Meroitic population, after seeing Meroe sacked by Ezana, to move to a land where life would be far more difficult and, in addition, enemies would wait them!
At this point, we should briefly examine Meroe’s surrounding environment, how it is today, and how it was before 1650 years, at the times of king Ezana’s raid. Modern technologies help historians and archeologists better reconstruct the ancient world; paleo-botanists, geologists, geo-chemists, paleo-entomologists, and other specialized natural scientists are of great help in this regard. It is essential to stress here that the entire environmental milieu of Sudan was very different during the times of the Late Antiquity that we examine in our approach. Butana may look like a wasteland nowadays, and the Pyramids of Bagrawiyah may be sunk in the sand, whereas Mussawarat es Sufra and Naqah truly demand a real effort in crossing the desert. However, in the first centuries of Christian era, the entire landscape was dramatically different.
During the Meroitic and Christian times, the entire Butana region, delineated by the rivers Atbarah in the northeast, United Nile in the north-northwest, and Blue Nile in southwest, was not a desert, but a very fertile and extensively cultivated land. We have actually found remains of reservoirs, aqueducts, various hydraulic installations, irrigation systems, and canals in Meroe and elsewhere. Not far from Mussawarat es Sufra there must have been an enclosure where captive elephants were trained before being transported to Ptolemais Theron (present day Suakin, 50 km south of Port Sudan) and then further on to Alexandria. Desert was in the vicinity, certainly, but not that close.
We should not imagine that Ezana crossed desert areas, moving from the vicinities of Agordat, Tesseney (both cities being located in Eritrea), and Kessala (in Sudan) to Atbarah and Bagrawiyah, as we would do today. These lands were either forested or cultivated and used as pasturelands. For what the Meroitic Ethiopian state was in the middle – second half of the 4th c. CE, its capital was located quite close to the Abyssinian borders in the mountains beyond the modern Sudanese city of Kessala; the distance between the two capitals, Meroe and Axum, was much smaller than the distance between Meroe and its northern borders with the Christian Eastern Roman Empire.
In fact, the end of the Meroitic state is a historical irony; it was established with the transfer of capital from Napata to Meroe, ca. 750 years earlier, an act which was due to defense reasons and imposed only after the 6th c. BCE attacks that originated from the North (Egypt). By transferring their capital far to the southeast, the Ancient Kushites / Meroites of Ethiopia (Sudan) made it impregnable from the North; but by so doing, they exposed their capital to an attack from the southeast. However, one has to admit that, at the times of the Ethiopian – Kushitic capital transfer to the southeast (5th – 4th c. BCE), the presence of the Yemenite tribe of Habashat in the African coast land of Eritrea was insignificant and Axum did not exist.
Further expanding on the natural environment of the Ancient Meroites, we have to add that it would be highly unlikely for anyone to attempt to cross at that time the lands south of present day Khartoum, alongside the White Nile. In ancient times, impenetrable jungle started immediately in the south of Khartoum, and cities like El Obeid, Kosti, Sinnar, and Jabalayn are today located on deforested soil.
Contrarily to the aforementioned improbabilities (desert, jungle), the southernmost confines of the Meroitic state offered a certain possibility for migration, since pasturelands and arable land could be found alongside the Blue Nile Valley. Reaching that area, they would achieve safety from Axumite Abyssinia due to the greater distance.
Jungle signified death in the Antiquity, and even armies feared to cross forests and be forced to stay overnight there. We therefore have good reason to believe that, following Ezana’s raid, the Meroites, rejecting the perspective of forced christening, moved first southwestwards up to Khartoum. From there, they proceeded southeastwards alongside the Blue Nile in a direction that would keep them always safe and far from the Axumite Abyssinians whose state did not expand at those days as far in the south as Gondar and Tana Lake. Proceeding in this way and crossing successively areas of modern cities like Wad Madani, Sennar, Damazin, and Asosa, and from there on, they expanded in later times over the various parts of Biyya Oromo.
We do not imply that the migration was completed in the span of one lifetime; quite contrarily, we have reasons to believe that the establishment of Alodia (or Alwa) is rather due to the progressive waves of Meroitic migrants who settled first in the area of Khartoum that was out of the southwestern confines of the Meroitic state. Only when Christianization became a matter of concern for the evangelizing Nobatians, and the two Christian Sudanese states of Nobatia and Makuria were already strong, the chances of preserving the pre-Christian Meroitic cultural heritage in the area around Soba (capital of Alodia) became truly poor. Then, perhaps more than 100 years after the first migration, another wave of migration took place with the early Alodian Meroites proceeding as far in the southeast as Damazin and Asosa, areas that remained always beyond the southern border of Alodia (presumably between Khartoum and Wad Madani). Like this, the second migratory Meroitic Alodian) wave may have entered around 600 CE in the area where the Oromos, descendents of the migrated Meroites, still live today.
A great number of changes at the cultural – intellectual – behavioral levels are to be expected, when a settled people migrates to faraway lands. The Phoenicians had kings in Tyre, Byblos and their other cities – states in today’s Lebanese and Syrian coast lands, but they introduced a democratic system when they sailed faraway and colonized various parts of the Mediterranean. In their colonies, there were no more kings.
Ezana’s raid ended up with the extermination of some garrison and the Meroitic royal family. The collapse of the Meroitic royalty was an unprecedented event and a greater shock for the Nile valley. The Christian kingdoms of Nobatia, Makuria and Alodia were all ruled by kings whose power was to great extent conditioned and counterbalanced by that of the Christian clergy.
With the Meroitic royal family decimated by Ezana, it is quite possible that high priests of Apedemak and Amani (Amun) took much of the administrative responsibility in their hands, inciting people to migrate and establishing a form of collective and representative authority among the Meroitic – Alodian Elders who thus retained the sacerdotal heritage without a royal – palatial contextualization. They may even have preserved the royal title of Qore within completely different socio-anthropological context and thus made it known to the ancestors of today’s Somalis when the next waves of migration brought the two Kushitic nations close to one another; and the Somalis preserved the term a Boqor within their language until our times.
4. Call for Comparative Meroitic-Oromo Studies
How can this approach, interpretation, and conclusion be corroborated up to the point of becoming a generally accepted historical reconstitution at the academic level? On what axes should one group of researchers work to collect detailed documentation in support of the Meroitic ancestry of the Oromos?
Quite strangely, I would not give priority to the linguistic approach. The continuity of a language can prove many things, and at the same time, it can prove nothing. Today’s Bulgarians are of Uralo-Altaic Turco-Mongolian origin, but, after they settled in Eastern Balkans, they were linguistically slavicized. Most of the Greeks are Albanians, Slavs, and Vlachians, who were greecized linguistically. Most of the Turks in Turkey are Greeks and Anatolians, who were turkicized linguistically.
People can preserve their own language in various degrees and forms. For the case of languages preserved throughout millennia, we notice tremendous changes and differences. Within the context of Ancient Greece, Plato who lived in the 5th – 4th c. BCE could never understand the Achaean Greek dialect which was spoken 800 years earlier at Myceanae and written by means of what we call today ‘Linear B’ (a syllabic, not alphabetic, writing system).
Egyptian hieroglyphics as a Holy Language (the Ancient Egyptian name of this writing system was ‘medu netsher’ which meant ‘the words of the God’) and as a sacerdotal scripture favored a certain archaism and a constant linguistic purification. However, we can be sure that for later Pharaohs, like Taharqa the Kushite (the most illustrious ruler of the Kushitic – Sudanese / Ethiopian dynasty), Psamtik and Nechao (the rulers of the ‘Libyan’ dynasty), and Ptolemy II and Cleopatra VII (of the Macedonian Ptolemaic dynasty), a Pyramid text (that antedated them by 1700 to 2300 years) would almost be incomprehensible.
A. National diachronic continuity is better attested and more markedly noticed in terms of Culture, Religion and Philosophical – Behavioral system. The first circle of comparative research should encompass the world of the Kushitic / Meroitic and Oromo concepts, anything that relates to the Weltanschauung of the two cultural units/groups under study; this should involve a religious-historical comparison between the Ancient Kushitic / Meroitic religion and Waaqeffannaa. A common view of basic themes of life and a common perception of the world, same virtues and values, shared concepts and principles would bring a significant corroboration of the Meroitic ancestry of the Oromos. So, first it is a matter of history of religions, African philosophy, social anthropology, ethnography and culture history.
B. Archeological research can help tremendously too. At this point, one has to state that the critical area for the reconstruction of the suggested Meroitic migration did not attract the interest of Egyptologists, and of archaeologists specializing in Meroitic and Sudanese Antiquities. The area was indeed marginal to both civilizations, and to some extent it is normal that it did not attract scholars who could easily unearth other monumental sites elsewhere and have more spectacular results. The Blue Nile valley in Sudan and Abyssinia was never the subject of an archeological survey, and the same concerns the Oromo highlands. Certainly modern archeologists prefer something concrete that would lead them fast to a great discovery, being therefore very different from the pioneering 19th c. archeologists. An archeological surface survey would therefore be necessary in the Blue Nile valley and in the Oromo highlands in the years to come.
C. A linguistic – epigraphic approach may bring forth even more spectacular results. It could eventually end up with a complete decipherment of the Meroitic, and of the Makurian. An effort must be made to read the Meroitic texts, hieroglyphic and cursive, with the help of Oromo language. Meroitic personal names and toponymics must be studied in the light of a potential Oromo interpretation. Comparative linguistics may unveil affinities that will lead to reconsideration of the work done so far in the Meroitic decipherment.
D. Last but not least, another dimension would be added to the project with the initiation of comparative anthropological studies. Data extracted from findings in the Meroitic cemeteries must be compared with data provided by the anthropological study of present day Oromos. The research must encompass pictorial documentation from the various Meroitic temples’ bas-reliefs.
To all these I would add a better reassessment of the existing historical sources, but this is not a critical dimension of this research project.
I believe my call for Comparative Meroitic – Oromo Studies reached the correct audience that can truly evaluate the significance of the ultimate corroboration of the Meroitic Ancestry of the Oromos, as well as the magnificent consequences that such a corroboration would have in view of
a) the forthcoming Kushitic Palingenesia – or Renaissance if you want – across Africa,
b) the establishment of a Post -Colonial African Historiography, and – last but not least –
c) the Liberation of Oromia and the Representation of the Ancient Kushitic Nation in the United Nations.
Notes
1. To those having the slightest doubt, trying for purely political reasons and evil speculation to include territories of the modern state of Abyssinia into what the Ancient Greeks and Romans called ‘Aethiopia’, the academically authoritative entry Aethiopia in Pauly-Wissowa, Realenzyklopadie der klassischen Altertumwissenschaft consists in the best and irrevocable answer.
4. Mythical figure of the British Orientalism, Garstang excavated in England, Turkey, Syria, Palestine, Egypt and the Sudan; Albright, William Foxwell: “John Garstang in Memoriam”, Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research, No. 144. (Dec., 1956), pp. 7-8; Garstang’s major articles on his Meroe excavations are the following: ‘Preliminary Note on an Expedition to Meroe in Ethiopia’, Annals of Archaeology and Anthropology 3 (1911 – a), ‘Second Interim Report on the Excavations at Meroe in Ethiopia, I. Excavations’, Annals of Archaeology and Anthropology 4 (1911 – b), ‘Third Interim Report on the Excavations at Meroe in Ethiopia’, Annals of Archaeology and Anthropology 5 (1912), ‘Forth Interim Report on the Excavations at Meroe in Ethiopia’, Annals of Archaeology and Anthropology 6 (1913), and ‘Fifth Interim Report on the Excavations at Meroe in Ethiopia’, Annals of Archaeology and Anthropology 7 (1914). His major contribution was published in the same year under the title ‘Meroe, the City of Ethiopians’ (Oxford). A leading Meroitologist, Laszlo Torok wrote an entire volume on Garstang’s excavations at Meroe: Meroe City, an Ancient African Capital: John Garstang’s Excavations in the Sudan.
5. Griffith was the epigraphist of Grastand and had already published the epigraphic evidence unearthed at Meroe in the chapter entitled ‘the Inscriptions from Meroe’ in Garstang’s ‘Meroe, the City of Ethiopians’. After many pioneering researches and excavations in various parts of Egypt and Northern Sudan, Faras, Karanog, Napata and Philae to name but a few, Griffith concentrated on Kerma: ‘Excavations at Kawa’, Sudan Notes and Records 14.
6. Basically: http://www.sag-online.de/pdf/mittsag9.5.pdf; among other contributions: Die Inschriften des Loewentempels von Musawwarat es Sufra, Berlin (1962); Vorbericht ueber die Ausgrabungen des Instituts fuer Aegyptologie der Humboldt-Universitaet zu Berlin in Musawwarat es Sufra, 1960-1961 (1962); ‘Musawwarat es Sufra – Preliminary Report on the Excavations of the Institute of Egyptology, Humboldt University, Berlin, 1961-1962 (Third Season)’, Kush 11 (1963); ‘Preliminary Note on the Epigraphic Expedition to Sudanese Nubia, 1962′, Kush 11 (1963); ‘Preliminary note on the Epigraphic Expedition to Sudanese Nubia, 1963′, Kush 13 (1965)
7. As regards my French professor’s publications about his excavations at Sudan: Soleb and Sedeinga in Lexikon der Aegyptologie 5, Wiesbaden 1984 (entries contributed by J. Leclant himself); also J. Leclant, Les reconnaissances archéologiques au Soudan, in: Etudes nubiennes I, 57-60.
8. His recent volume Sudan: Ancient Kingdoms of the Nile, Paris/New York (1997) contains earlier bibliography.
9. Some of his most authoritative publications: ‘A History of the Sudan from the Earliest Times to 1821′, 1961 (2nd Ed.), London; ”The Valley of the Nile’, in: The Dawn of African History, R. Oliver (ed.), London. Arkell is mostly renowned for his monumental ‘The Royal Cemeteries of Kush’ in many volumes.
24. Basics: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assarhaddon; the edition of the Assyrian emperor’s annals by R. Borger (Die Inschriften Assarhaddons, Koenigs von Assyrien, AfO 9, Graz, 1956) remain our basic reference to formal sources. More recently, F. Reynolds shed light on private sources, publishing ‘The Babylonian correspondence of Esarhaddon, and letters to Assurbanipal and Sin-Sarru-Iskun from Northern and Central Babylonia’ (SAA 18, 2004).
25. For the Greater Emperor of the Oriental Antiquity:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ashurbanipal; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shamash-shum-ukin;http://web.utk.edu/~djones39/Assurbanipal.html; until today we have to rely mostly on the voluminous edition of Assurbanipal’s Annals by Maximilian Streck (Assurbanipal und die letzten assyrischen Koenige bis zum Untergang Niniveh, Leipzig,1916); see also M. W. Waters’ Te’umman in the neo-Assyrian correspondence (Journal of the American Oriental Society, 1999, vol. 119, no3, pp. 473-477)
26. Heliopolis (Iwnw in Egyptian Hieroglyphic, literally the place of the pillars; On in Hebrew and in Septuagint Greek) was the center of Egyptian monotheism, the holiest religious center throughout Ancient Egypt; it is from Heliopolis that emanated the two foremost Ancient Egyptian theological systems, namely the Isiac ideology and the Atum Ennead. Basic readings: the entry Heliopolis in Realenzyklopaedie and in Lexikon der Aegyptologie; more recently:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heliopolis_%28ancient%29.
28. Hakhamaneshian is the first Persian dynasty; it got momentum when Cyrus II invaded successively Media and Babylon. Readings: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Achaemenid_dynasty(with selected bibliography); the 2nd volume of the Cambridge History of Iran is dedicated to Achaemenid history (contents: http://www.cambridge.org/uk/catalogue/c … 0521200911.
29. Readings: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cambyses_II_of_Persia (with bibliography and sources). Cambyses invaded Kush and destroyed Napata at the times of Amani-natake-lebte, but his embattled army was decimated according to the famous narratives of Herodotus that still need to be corroborated. What seems more plausible is that, having reached in an unfriendly milieu of the Saharan desert where they had no earlier experience, the Persians soldiers, at a distance of no less than 4000 km from their capital, faced guerilla undertaken by the Kushitic army remnants and their nomadic allies.
30. Nastasen was the last to be buried in Nuri, in the whereabouts of Napata. Contemporary with Alexander the Great, Nastasen fought against an invader originating from Egypt whose name was recorded as Kambasawden. This led many to confuse the invader with Cambyses, who ruled 200 years earlier (!). The small inscription on the Letti stela does not allow great speculation; was it an attempt of Alexander the Great to proceed to the south of which we never heard anything? Impossible to conclude; for photographical documentation:http://www.dignubia.org/bookshelf/ruler … 00017&ord=. Another interpretation:http://www.nubia2006.uw.edu.pl/nubia/ab … 94e6349d8b.
32. For Abyssinia’s conversion to Christianity: http://www.spiritualite2000.com/page.php?idpage=555, and http://www.rjliban.com/Saint-Frumentius.doc. The Wikipedia entry (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ezana_of_Axum) is written by ignorant and chauvinist people, and is full of mistakes, ascribing provocatively and irrelevantly to Ezana’s state the following territories (using modern names): ‘present-day Eritrea, northern Ethiopia, Yemen, southern Saudi Arabia, northern Somalia, Djibouti, northern Sudan, and southern Egypt’. This is just rubbish. All this shows how misleading this irrelevant ‘encyclopedia’ can at times be. Neither southern Egypt, nor northern Sudan, nor northern Somalia, nor Djibouti, nor Yemen, nor southern Saudi Arabia ever belonged to Ezana’s small kingdom that extended from Adulis to Axum. It is only after that king’s victory over Meroe that his kingdom included also a tiny portion of modern Sudan’s territories, namely the region between Kessala, Atbara and Bagrawiyah where the site of Ancient Meroe is located. But this was quite precarious and soon the Abyssinian control over that part of Ethiopia (: Sudan) ended.
33. Richard A. Lobban, ‘The Nubian Dynasty of Kush and Egypt: Continuing Research on Dynasty XXV’: http://209.85.129.104/search?q=cache:4F … clnk&cd=2; these inscriptions were published as early as 1821: E. F. Gau, Nubische Denkmaeler (Stuttgart). Other early publications on Meroitic antiquities: E. Riippell, Reisen in Nubien, Kordofan, & c. (Frankfort a. M., 1829); F. Caillaud, Voyage a Meroe (Paris, 1826); J. L. Burckhardt, Travels in Nubia, e5fc. (London, 1819); G. Waddington and B. Hanbury, Journal of a Visit to some parts of Ethiopia (London, 1822); L. Reinisch, Die Nuba-Sprache (Vienna, 1879); Memoirs of the Societe khediviale de Geographic, Cairo.
34. Readings: http://www.homestead.com/wysinger/candace.html;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shanakdakhete; more analytically:http://www.arkamani.org/arkamani-librar … graphy.htm. The only inscription giving her name comes from Temple F in Naga (REM 0039A-B). The name appears in Meroitic hieroglyphics in the middle of an Egyptian text. See also: Laszlo Torok, in: Fontes Historiae Nubiorum, Vol. II, Bergen 1996, 660-662. The first attempts to render full Meroitic phrases into hieroglyphs (not only personal names, as it was common earlier) can be dated from the turn of the 3rd / 2nd century BCE, but they reflect the earlier stage of the development.
35. C. Rilly, ‘Les graffiti archaiques de Doukki Gel et l’apparition de l’ ecriture meroitique’. Meroitic Newsletter, 2003, No 30: 41-55, pl. IX-XIII (fig. 41-48).
38. His publications encompass the following: ‘Karanog: the Meroitic Inscriptions of Karanog and Shablul’, (The Eckley B. Coxe Junior Expedition to Nubia VI), Philadelphia, 1911; ‘Meroitic Inscriptions, I, Soba to Dangul, Oxford, 1911; ‘Meroitic Inscriptions part II, Napata to Philae and Miscellaneous’, Egypt Exploration Society, Archaeological Survey of Egypt, Memoirs, London, 1912; ‘Meroitic Studies II’, in: Journal of Egyptian Archaeology, vol. 3 (1916).
40. B. G. Haycock, ‘The Problem of the Meroitic Language’, Occasional Papers in Linguistics and Language Learning, no.5 (1978), p. 50-81; see also: http://www.arkamani.org/arkamani-librar … nology.htm. Another significant contribution: B. G. Haycock, ‘Towards a Data for King Ergamenes’, Kush 13 (1965)
41. See: K. H. Priese, ‘Die Statue des napatanischen Koenigs Aramatelqo (Amtelqa) Berlin, Aegyptisches Museum Inv.-Nr. 2249 in: Festschrift zum 150 jaehrigen Bestehen des Berliner Aegyptischen Museums, Berlin; of the same author, ‘Matrilineare Erbfolge im Reich von Napata’, Zeitschrift fuer Aegyptische Sprache und Altertumskunde, 108 (1981).
43. Basic reading: Egeimi, Omer Abdalla, ‘From Adaptation to Marginalization: The Political Ecology of Subsistence Crisis among the Hadendawa Pastoralists of Sudan’, in: Managing Scarcity: Human Adaptation in East African Drylands, edited by Abdel Ghaffar M. Ahmed and Hassan Abdel Ati, 30-49. Proceedings of a regional workshop, Addis Ababa, 24-26 August 1995. Addis Ababa: OSSREA, 1996 (http://www.africa.upenn.edu/ossrea/ossreabiblio.html).
45. In various publications; see indicatively: ‘Die meroitische Sprache und das protoaltaische Sprachsubstrat als Medium zu ihrer Deutung (I): Mit aequivalenten von grammatikalischen Partikeln und Wortgleichungen’, Ulm/Donau (1992).
61. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dio_Cassius; see details of the early Roman rule over Egypt here: Timo Stickler, ‘Cornelius Gallus and the Beginnings of the Augustan Rule in Egypt’
In most of Africa, indigenous African religions have been pushed to the margin because of a number of factors. The implied and open relegation of indigenous African religions to the levels of inferiority and inconsequentiality in world affairs by colonial powers and post-colonial contemporary African states not only undermines and stereotypes the examination of the unique contributions of these religions to peacemaking, but also discards with them unique mythologies, values, laws, cultures and meaning-making systems. I argue that applying North American conflict resolution models, without considering African religious values that existed for many millennia before the arrival of world religions, will be an enormous hindrance to building lasting peace from the bottom-up in the vastly rural and agrarian Africa that is still steeped in traditions and rituals.
Contributing to a range of negative stereotypes about African religions (example, uncivilized, barbaric and conflict-generating) is the fact that many of them have been orally transmitted from generation to generation and lack written major holy books unlike the world religions. The purpose of this paper is to shift attention from common misconceptions about African religions to a productive examination of the constructive roles they can be made to play.
I will focus on the case of Waaqeffannaa, an Oromo indigenous religion of East Africa, and its core values and laws. It will be significant to examine Waaqeffannaa’s complex concepts, such as concept and view of Waaqaa (God), Eebba (prayers and blessings), safuu (the place of all things and beings in the cosmic and social order), issues related to cubbuu (sin) and other religious and ritual practices. Although there is no holy book forWaaqeffannaa thus far, I will obtain my data from published ethnographic books, journal articles, periodicals, relevant reports and press releases. The interactions between Waaqeffannaa and other organized religions, such as Christianity and Islam, will be examined in context.
The paper will seek answers to three related questions:
What are the contributions or lack thereof orally transmitted values and laws of Waaqeffannaa to peacemaking and relationship-building? If there are any contributions, how can they be compared to other forms of conflict resolution? What will be the role of Waaqeffannaa in peacemaking in the ever changing global and local contexts of religious diversity and difference?
The Concept of God in Waaqeffannaa’s Monotheistic System
In order to examine the hermeneutic advantages and disadvantages of Waaqeffannaa and compare it to modern or Western conflict resolution methods, it is essential to examine the concept of God (Waaqaa) in the religion in its own right. There is a consensus among researchers and observers of Waaqeffannaa—the most prominent of whom are pre-colonial European missionaries, explorers and anthropologists and local religious leaders and scholars—that Waaqeffannaa is one of the ancient indigenous African monotheistic religions.[1] The Oromo, the Cushitic African people of Ethiopia, among whom this religion emerged and developed, call their one God Waaqaa or more intimately and endearingly Waaqayyoo (good God). It is difficult to capture with one definition the complexity of the ways in which the followers of this religion (Waaqeffataas) relate to God and make sense of God (not gendered) is hard to capture just with one definition. The question of ways of understanding and relating to God is a question of Waaqeffannaa’s worldview that is indigenous and unique, in some ways, and thus, different from ways in which followers of major world religions understand and relate to God.
While monotheism is a key similarity it shares with Judaism, Christianity and Islam, Waaqeffannaa has the following worldview of its own:
We believe in God who created us. We believe in Him (sic) in a natural way … We believe in God because we can see what God has done and what he does: he makes rains and the rains grow greenery, and crops that we consume. He lets the sun shine. So believing in him is instinctive and inbuilt. It is as natural as the desire we have for food and drink, and as natural as the reproduction of living things. We go to the nature, the nature that He created: mountains and rivers to praise and appreciate Him impressed by His works … [2]
This contemporary declaration of the faith centers on nature and creation that can be pragmatically seen and experienced in daily life. There is no mention of “heaven” and “hell” here. Concerning the followers’ perceptions of the residence of God, Bartels writes, “They do not visualize Waaqaa(sic) existing outside this world in time or space … In this sense Waaqaa is as much of this world as the vault of the sky.”[3] Bokku concurs with Bartels findings that God exists among people on earth, but Bokku makes a radically different claim as follows: “Waaqeffataas don’t [sic] believe in after life. They don’t believe that God would come in the future to judge people and send the righteous to heaven and the sinful to hell. God is with us always.”[4] Bokku’s claims can be controversial because in much of the literature I reviewed, I found that the question of “after life” is either overlooked or ambiguously treated, except in the work of Father De Salviac whose much older field research (1901) explicitly states the existence of the belief in life after death among Waaqeffataas in eastern Oromia as follows:
They acknowledge three places destined to receive the souls after death. The paradise, which they call: the ‘Happiness of God’,Ayyaana Waaqaa; or the: ‘Response of God’, Bayanacha Waaqaa; or even Jenneta Waaqaa; ‘Paradise of God’, is reserved for the just who go there to enjoy the company and infinite blessings of the Lord … they say of death ‘That he passed on to Waaqaa;’ – ‘That he entered into Waaqaa,’ – ‘That he went to his eternal house with Waaqaa’.[5]
Reference to life after death, punishments and rewards in hell and heaven respectively are very rare features of the religion. Nonetheless, the argument that De Salviac makes about the existence of the belief in life after death in Oromo society is enough to make Bokku and other writers’ denial of the existence of “life after death” contested and curious. The issue of justice and how people relate to each other may hold for every writer. The question of relationships between peoples, and nature and justice will be treated in later sections for safuu.
Waaqeffataas generally view and worship Waaqaa based on their amazement with the ingenious works of Waaqaa’s hands that they experience and find them overwhelming to comprehend and explain. Even family prayers around the hearth contains many such instances: “UNIQUE AND SO GREAT GOD SUPPORT WITHOUT PILLAR THE DOME OF THE BLUE SKY.”[6]
Waaqeffataas view the earth as one of the major ingenious works of God. The earth is viewed inseparably from God. The image that followers of this religion have of the relationship between Waaqaa and the Earth “comes close to that of a human couple”[7]: ‘the earth is Waaqaa’s wife—Lafa niti Waaqaa,’[8] According to Bartels, there are four manifestations of the close connection between Waaqaa and the earth in four spheres of theWaaqeffannaa religious life:[9]
Blessings
May the Waaqaa and the earth help you.
May Waaqaa and the earth cause you to grow up (a blessing for children.) …
Curses
Be not blessed either by Waaqaa or the earth.
May Waaqaa and the earth burn [make dry] your kidneys and your womb (the curse is addressed to a woman).
Oaths
The man who takes the oath breaks a dry stick, saying:
‘May the earth on which I walk and Waaqaa beneath whom I walk do the same to me, if I have done such and such a thing.’
Rituals
There are rituals of slaughtering a bull or sheep for Waaqaa and making libation (dhibayyuu) under a tree for the earth.[10]
Waaqeffannaa rituals honor both God and the earth. Followers of the religion seem to take cue from God Himself, who created the earth, to inform their ways of relating to Waaqaa and earth (lafa). Evidence that suggests a relationship based on fears, intimidations or punishment between God and persons is less prevalent than those that are mostly based on respect for God, one another and for the earth. Waaqeffataas embrace and celebrate the egalitarian view of God and the diversity of names people call God. Despite some differences among people, research points to followers’ similar attitudes towards God. “… it has become clear that their attitude towards him [sic] is not only inspired by awe but also marked by familiarity and even, from time to time, by lack of respect. In his despair, a man may claim: ‘Waaqaa does not exist!’”[11] This just showsWaaqeffataas have a more liberal relationship with God. It does not mean that they are less pious as there is enough evidence to suggest many magnificent examples of humility, piety and obedience.
The question of Waaqeffataas’ acknowledgement of the oneness of God and the multiple names various religions call Him does not only show the openness of the concept of God to various interpretations, but it also shows the religion’s acceptance of religious diversity. It is easier to engage in interfaith or other conflict resolution activities when such an acknowledgement is extant than when religions claim “my way or the highway.” The ways some prayers are rendered testify to this progressive values of Waaqeffannaa: “O Black God who created the dark sky and the clean waters, who is one but called by multitudes of names, who has no competitor, the omniscient, the omnipotent, the omnipresent, who is eternal and ever powerful, whose power can never decline.”[12] Because of the view of God described here, Waaqeffataas believe that God is patient and that it is not in His nature to become angry if people believe in other things abandoning Him. Bokku holds the Waaqeffannaa God is too self-confident to be angered into punishing people who do not obey or defect to other religions.[13]
Prayers and Blessings
Boran society sometimes appears to float on a river of prayers and blessings…
Common to private, collective and family prayers is the focus of Oromo/Waaqeffataas’ prayers on the material conditions and well-beings of the self, the family and the group. Prayers mediate conditions of people to God so he can intervene and alter their current conditions.[15] The faithful pray for peace, health, deliverance from wrongdoing and harmful sprits and things, human and livestock fertility, growth of babies (little ones), long life for adults, for the goodness of the inside and the outside, rain, harvest and development, inter alia.
The Waaqeffannaa prayer is barely about inheriting the kingdom of heaven nor is it about seeking the help of God in a battle against Satan and sin. Evidence suggests that the concept of Devil/Satan does not exist in Waaqeffannaa while spirits that cause all kinds of suffering and misfortune or harm (ayyaana hamaa) are believed to exist.[16] Instances of talk about Devils by Waaqeffataas are generally understood as the borrowing of a religious vocabulary from the adjacent/co-existing major faiths, such as Christianity and Islam. For instance, Waaqeffataa pray to God to prevent them from wrongdoing and errors committed in ignorance. The religion has no room for addressing anxieties and fears arising from the imaginary realm of the devil/evil. For instance, words used in prayers include, “Prevent us from wrongdoing …” (dogogora nu oolchi). In terms of how people experience and understand misfortunes and fortunes (good things) Oromo proverbs capture the peoples’ dependence on Waaqaa. Indeed, the proverbs below indicate how Waaqaa is perceived as the source of good and bad things that happen in real life:[17]
A house that is built by Waaqaa will be completed.
It is Waaqaa who brings hunger;
It is Waaqaa who brings a full stomach.
The one Waaqaa clothes will not go naked.
Who trusts on Waaqaa will not lack anything.
Man wishes, Waaqaa fulfills.
Waaqaa is there [therefore] the sun rises.
It is Waaqaa who makes a person sick;
It is Waaqaa who restores him to health.
Waaqaa is never in a hurry;
But he is always there at the proper time.
There are standard prayers that have been codified in oral tradition and bequeathed down to generations. The codification of prayers, rituals and ceremonies in oral traditions serve the purpose of making Oromo worships definite and unarbitrary. The question of precise transmissions of spoken messages are always up for debates as there are obviously some room for improvisation and modification as the word of mouth (message) travels through time and space. I believe that the improvisation aspect of oral narratives will add an interesting dimension of dynamism to the hermeneutics of Waaqeffannaa.
De Salviac praises the endurance of Waaqeffannaa for many millennia in spite of the oral mode of transmission. De Salviac aptly critiques the West for generally believing that the sole sources of “valid” or “authentic” knowledge are written texts (books) as follows: “We, accustomed to the cycle of knowledge by turning pale over the books, our careless memory resting on the permanence of typography, we hardly take into account the power of tradition, which sufficed, for centuries, for the civilization of many peoples. With the Oromo, religious and secular traditions are formulated in thousands of short sentences …”[18]
What I understand from De Salviac is that Western or modern industrialized societies privilege written knowledge. His critique is on tangent because preference for written and formal communication in the West will certainly shape intervention policy-making, official diplomacy and the attitudes of interveners towards indigenous cultures. Third party interveners with fixed or rigid approaches are not only likely to disrespect and shun local knowledge systems, but they are also likely to impose rigid and unproductive conflict resolution processes developed in the context of limited civilizations.
One can only anticipate the stiff resistance that locals are likely to put up against Western models in today’s Africa where there is an increasing awareness about the importance of self-reliance and going back to the roots in order to solve indigenous problems. The true superficiality of strict Western models of dialogue, mediation, problem-solving workshop can be revealed by observing how in most of Africa’s peripheries cut of modern laws, bureaucracies and infrastructures, people thrive on the strong indigenous knowledge systems. This is how most conflicts are resolved and how people do communal work in either irrigating the land or protecting the environment. In the contexts of corrupt and partisan politics, these efforts by local people to overcome the daily challenges must be given credit because some of them are providing themselves important social services that that their governments have failed to provide them. In any effort of conflict resolution or peacemaking in such dire circumstances, it is imperative to bring local knowers (the wise men and women) into the sphere of diplomacy and peacemaking.
Prayers, sometimes synonymously called blessings or benedictions, in the form of litany and chants are integral parts of indigenous communities. Every communal activity whether it is weddings, funerals or dances and music begins with blessings or prayers. Eebba is aimed moderating the way people relate to each other at certain venues and beyond. They are about building constructive relationships even in times of wars. Here are some examples of Oromo prayers/blessings of different periods and crowds’ responses.
Gadaa (social system) is the system of rain and peace!
The year is the year of abundance/development and full stomach.
These contemporary prayers cited from the Waaqeffannaa magazine are powerful. They are usually used in order to open any public/communal gatherings secular and spiritual. This is how things are called to order. The religious prayers give authority or credibility to whatever event that is to take place. At the center of this messaging is reaching the hearts and minds of parties to an event by cleansing the air of any hard feelings and ensuring that the heart and minds are softened and ready for the secular or non secular events and exchanges that will proceed from that.
Historically, Oromos made ecumenical pilgrimages to holy sites of Abbaa Muudaa, Spiritual Father,[22]in order to receive blessings for them and to bring back blessings into their communities with them. Blessings are still considered serious religious activities that serve as glues of social life. Spiritual Fathers can give blessings to people on a range of personal and communal matters: such as long life, being alive, more property and wealth, peace in the household, on productions (calves, children, crops).
I have not come across modern mediation, negotiation or other third party intervention processes that start with prayers. Obviously, if blessings are not built into the processes, an attempt at conflict resolution in African societies, such as the Oromo, will be in vain. In the first place, people will not recognize what is not authorized and endorsed by their own knowledge system. Most importantly, empowering and funding Abbaa Mudaas or elders to engage in conflict resolution is likely to be accepted and bear fruit because of the tremendous reputations these people wield in society. They are highly regarded in society and leaving them out of official processes simply works against peace.
In Waaqeffannaa, one sees from the content of the payers and blessings above that most of them take on the nature of what Gopin succinctly characterizes as “Premordial prosocial moral/spiritual values.”[23] Although many of the conflicts in Ethiopia (Africa) are not religiously driven, the application of religious values will have a huge impact on conflicts driven by ethnicity, nationalisms and competition over resources and power. People listen when one reaches out and talks to them at their own level. Gopin provides a detailed critique of why current modern conflict resolution approaches fail to understand the importance of using prosocial religious values in the context of the Arab/Israel conflict in the Middle East, but his appraisal also holds true for the Horn of Africa region, where the volatility and intractability of conflicts are comparable to the ones in the Middle East. Among the important reasons Gopin cites are the West’s refusal to recognize non-Western models and knowledge systems. Gopin articulates the consequences of modern cultures failure to reckon with indigenous religious and cultural systems as follows:
As religion becomes more important in the lives of hundreds of millions of people, the political power generated by this commitment will either lead to a more peaceful world or to a more violent world, depending on how that power is utilized … Methods of peacemaking that continue to focus only on political and intellectual elites or that fail to address the broadest possible range of religious believers are leading to systematic and potentially catastrophic diplomatic failures in key areas of the world … [24]
Survival through Religious Diversification and Rituals
It is accurate that Waaqeffannaa and similar Africa indigenous religions are being reincarnated and are slowly starting to become explicitly important in the lives of so many people. Religious traditions, including those from indigenous religions, form the bedrock of the values of those Africans who converted to Christianity and Islam. Often these values moderate the foreign values associated with the cultures from which these major religions originated. It is not just the Waaqeffataas who only follow the indigenous religion, but a swathe peoples seem to have accepted double or triple religious lives. They shuttle between various religious and cultural values in their daily decision-makings so as to adapt to changing socio-economic circumstances. Pointing to the loose nature of individual’s and group’s negotiations between multiple religious identities, Aguilar[25] presents a case of the importance of “religious diversification for survival” among the Kenyan Boran/Oromo in northern Kenya. Aguilar provides the best illustration for survival and adaptation by accepting diverse religious values. He cites how Muslim and Waaqeffaannaa parents send their children to Catholic schools in northern Kenya and that the children do perfectly well shuttling between religious worldviews without facing physical dangers.[26] The same religious rituals performed by followers of Waaqeffannaa form the cores of the rituals and daily cultural practices of the followers of Islam and Christianity, as a mechanism of preserving and transmitting their identity. For instance, some of the religious traditions and rituals kept by Oromo communities who converted to major religions in north Kenya include similar types of blessings, prayers, and peacemaking through rituals of coffee beans-slaughtering and symbolic prayers.[27] These subtle practices of syncretism not only form the core identity of Oromo in north Kenya and connect them to the mainland (Oromia-Ethiopia), but they also play stabilizing roles in a families and communities there.[28]
The phenomenon of syncretism/ “religious diversification” serves as a survival strategy where minority communities cut off into another country from the mainstream because of colonial map-making try to cope with the alien majority they are swallowed up by. The case of Kenyan Oromos imitating the Waaqeffannaa values of the mainland is an example of such an essential survival strategy. Aguilar puts this as, “It is clear that the strategy of diversification provides the household (and a manyatta [place of settlement]) with security should something happen to either of the herds.”[29]
It is no accident that somebody whom an outsider may perceive as a follower of one religion is actually found at the crossroads of multiple religious values. It takes a deeper look to discern such subtle and significant dynamics. For an intervener who has no interest or who is not patient to take time and learn, the subtlety of the power of tradition will ever remain inaccessible. Because one has no access to the right cultural tools, the very people he/she trying to reach and help will become inaccessible and unresponsive, especially if one attempts to impose some ivory-tower (imported) conflict resolution framework or process on local situations. People have been handling their affairs everyday for centuries independently of outsiders. To assume that they somehow do not or their methods are not in par with modern approaches will defeat the purpose of thinking to help others in the first place.
Safuu in Peacemaking and Social Harmony
This section analyzes the role of Safuu as one of the key elements of Waaqeffannaa. Safuu is a prosocial variable that needs a deeper analysis to see its roles in indigenous peacebuilding. Safuu is a broad concept that governs relationship in and between families, communities, national groups and relationship between people and nature and things.
Bartels provides a nuanced anthropological definition of the term Safuu:[30]
Saffu is a fundamental and all-pervading concept in the Matcha’s [Oromo] life. It implies that all things have a place of their own in the cosmic and social order, and that they should keep this place. Their place is conditioned by the specific ayana [good spirit] each of them has received from Waaqaa. Every creature, and especially man, has to act according to its own ayana and to respect the others’ ayana. Saffu implies both rights and duties. In the people’s eyes wisdom is ‘knowing saffu and abide [sic] by it.’
Gemetchu Megerssa, a leading Oromo anthropologist and former research assistant to Lambert Bartels, probably influenced by Bartels himself, states that safuu is one of the key founding concepts in Oromo culture and Waaqeffannaa tradition.[31] Bartels’ definition is more encapsulating, while it shares one central common feature with Megerssa’s definition, “… the concept of saffu(mutual relationship between elements of the social and cosmic orders) which maintains practice obligatory [sic] through ethical conduct.” They both agree that safuu governs relationships between people and people, and people and nature, but Megersa introduces a newer and more specific idea of safuu as “an ethical conduct.”
Another leading expert on Waaqeffannaa, Bokku quotes Bartels directly and extends the concept of Safuu to broad areas of “morality”, “norm” and “laws” that govern social and ecological order.[32] Bokku states his extended definition building on Bartels: “Safuu is the understanding of differences and appreciation of differences for the peaceful coexistence of all natural things.” For Bokkuu, as opposed to man-made laws “safuu is not subject to change.” He concludes that safuu as laws of nature is necessary for the “smooth operation of life”, which is harmony. Everyone invokes the notions that Safuu owes its authority over social relationship because it derives from the will or the spirit of God (ayyaanaa). Thus, experts agree that Safuuis one of the fundamental principles of Oromo culture that governs relationships and keeps society together.
In Waaqeffannaa in particular and Oromo culture in general, it is believed that “breaking safuu would cause some sort of trouble.”[33] Breaking safuulaws is seen as committing sin. The consequences of breaking various categories of safuu are understood as generating unhappy reactions from God. In Waaqeffannaa when someone sins, God turns His back on him/her. The meaning behind this is that if one misses the face of God, it means that one lacks ayyana (a guardian, blessings or will of God). This core law encourages people to maintain friendly relationships between themselves and with nature. Safuu is a law of rights and obligations. Since Safuu is not something in people, but something between them, it is assumed to promote collective harmony. Paying attention to the concept of “sin” in the meaning system of Waaqeffannaa is important because it comes from the Oromo word, “‘balleessuu’, which actually means ‘to destroy, to damage, to spoil’”[34]
When one engages in destructive activities one is considered to be destroying, damaging, and spoiling relationships between at least three parties: God, creation (nature) and other human beings. In Oromo life, not damaging relationship between oneself and creations is given more importance than not damaging relationship between human and God.[35]
The Dynamisms of the Indigenous Faith System
It is hard to understand how one can be effective in conflict resolution in Africa without having at least the working knowledge of important key principles governing all-rounded relationships, such as safuu. Religious values of Waaqeffannaa may not require so much hermeneutic transformation because they already exist in pro-social form. Keeping natural and social orders is already a stringent requirement on top of acceptance for differences of any sort.
In Waaqeffannaa, destroying (for example killing humans in conflict) is prohibited by the religion’s laws. Those who violate traditional laws and destroy anything will face alienation and banning from God as well as from fellows humans. They are denied opportunities to sit and eat at a table with family members and others; they become social outcasts. My evidence does not suggest any anti-social principles/laws in the Waaqeffannaaworldview so far. Even some of the curses that are put on people have the goal of ensuring social harmony and can be viewed positively. If I had come across anything that says, “if you kill your enemy or someone, God will reward you with heaven or sainthood or some other rewards,” I would have paused and thought, this is a justification for war and destruction that needs to be hermetically transformed. Transformation may be due if violence is made into something sacred. In my opinion the values of this religion particularly those about safuu are poised to play important peacebuilding and relationship-building roles at least in Ethiopia and the Horn of Africa.
One can think of the lack of written scriptures (there are oral ‘scriptures’) for African religion as both advantages and disadvantages. In terms of the creativity and improvisation of transmissions of oral values/laws, the lack of written scriptures is an advantage because followers or leaders of indigenous religions will have the ability to interpret the concepts in ways that meet the physical and spiritual needs of their time. But that can also be a disadvantage since some lament that African could not have converted to Christianity and Islam if they had written scriptures and transformed their religions into organized faith systems.[36]
The question of whether Africans had concepts of God or not or whether they were ‘pagan hordes’ as the colonialists viewed them is now an outdated and irrelevant question because a number of scholars have produced research revealing that indeed Africans had believed in one God even before the advent of Middle Eastern religions.[37] Mbiti’s findings are credible because he stayed in Africa for 15 years and conducted studies on about 300 African communities and their belief systems.
Because indigenous African religions, including Waaqeffannaa, lack written scriptures, culturally biased scholars who judge everything according to Western standards may think religions, such as Waaqeffannaa, are inferior, static and things of the past. In rebuttal, one can respond to that arguing that oral mode of transmission makes African religions dynamic, ever-changing and ever-adapting to social changes even after some converted to other faiths. This happens because African religions do not punish defections and because their religious leaders are less likely to make claims to the permanence of specific oral texts or think of the values/traditions of their religion as the only “Truth” to die for.
About the locus of the existence of African religions, Mbiti writes, “Religion in African societies is written not on paper but in people’s heart, minds, oral history, rituals, and religious personages like the priests, rainmakers, official elders … African religions have neither founders nor reformers.”[38]Mbiti’s notion of the lack of founders and reformers can be contested because it could be that founders and reformers might have existed millennia ago and simply no written records were kept about them. The key point here is that words of mouth are dynamic. The best way to reach the hearts and minds of the vast peoples of rural Africa should be through oral traditions and spoken language. The prevalent practice by third party interveners shows an opposite tendency of bureaucratizing everything and transmitting messages via the written medium (forms and documents) through the agency of “rational professionals”.
Authors caution against viewing Waaqeffannaa religious traditions as part of a static tradition of the past[39], and encourage us to view them as dynamic traditions that are continually changing based on wider experiences that are part of their present. Aguilar is succinct about the advantages of the dynamism of Waaqeffannaa’s hermeneutics: “… traditions are transmitted, never as static forms but as changeable manifestations of an Oromo religion [Waaqeffannaa] that interacts [sic] with other traditions and other ethnic groups, and therefore becomes capable of reshaping society itself.”[40]
Lessons for Conflict Resolution
The values and laws of Waaqeffannaa identified and analyzed in this research suggest the importance of recognizing African indigenous religious systems and the prosocial contributions of their values and laws to conflict resolution.
I deliberately tried not to impose a theoretical framework over my analysis although my approach was influenced by hermeneutics.[41] Engaging in peacemaking in indigenous African communities requires the use of what Gopin, drawing on Lederach, calls “elicitive and cross-cultural methods.”[42] Concepts such as safuu, the Waaqeffannaa worldview, prayers, blessings, harmony are predominantly about building relationships between people and people, and them and nature. The most effective way of arriving at these principles and using them in interventions is to do one’s best to involve indigenous peoples, religious leaders, elders and parties to conflict and to elicit from them the best practices they have evolved over centuries in peacemaking.
Indigenous African religions are caught up in multipronged challenges, such as lack of recognition from interveners, states and richer and more organized religions despite their prevalence and appeal to many African communities. Established conflict resolution methods, such as mediation, negotiation, facilitation, problem-solving workshop and dialogue, are often too Western, rationalistic, elitist and foreign to accommodate other grassroots approaches to peacemaking, such as obeying safuu. If we look at official mediation, for instance, we find the reliance on rigid processes and professionals as its main features. Such formal stages may include collecting data, building hypothesis about a conflict, searching for theories, selecting theory, making intervention, and verifying and nullifying hypothesis.[43] It is not necessarily bad to prepare for mediation in stages, but when everything is prefigured, there is a danger of learning very little on the field while doing the intervention itself. In most rationalistic conflict resolution methods listed above, the immediate settlement of conflict is desired. This may turn out to be a shortcoming because long-term relationship-building and peacemaking, which is the hallmark of indigenous systems, are and sidelined.
Limitation of the Indigenous Religion
The most important limitation of many African indigenous religious values and traditions, including Waaqeffannaa, is that the practice of peacemaking is inbound to groups in which these traditions originated. There are also perceptions and tendencies to associate the good prosocial aspects of religious principles this religion with ethno-nationalist competitions of the day, and therefore, to readily dismiss them as unrepresentative of the whole. A much productive approach, however, is to see the commonalities of multiple African religious traditions and to take key principles from each of them and combine them in order to make everyone feel good about their faiths. There is so much to learn from this culture if one is willing to follow the elicitive path to conflict resolution.
The second obvious limitation is the lack of written scriptures and the challenges of accessing oral scriptures for outsiders due to language barriers, but which can still be overcome with translators and interpreters.
Thirdly, African indigenous religions have not been given the places they deserve in some continental interfaith organizations whose member religions tend to be organized and rich major religions. For instances, the United Religious Initiative (URI) Africa chapter, an international faith network that operates in 25 African countries, professes that it aims to look for solutions to Africa’s challenges at community levels in the areas of corruption, human rights violation, poverty and HIV/AIDs[44], but unfortunately no indigenous African religious tradition from any community is represented by such an important organization. The network carries it activities in Africa through major faiths, such as Christianity and Islam. Another domestic (Ethiopian) interfaith network, Interfaith Peace-building Initiative (IPI), a member of the URI, has no indigenous Ethiopian religions (Waaqeffannaaincluded) as its members.
The problem with URI and IPI is not only a simplistic and envious question of who is represented or who is not, but it appears that the mentioned interfaith networks have been systematically coopted and used to advance the interests of the Ethiopian state since Ambassador Mussie Hailu is serving simultaneously as the Regional Director of URI and the Board Chair of IPI.[45] The more intractable and absurd aspect of IPI is that it is an interfaith organization as far as the major religions are concerned, but the founders and its leaders are members of a single ethno-national group who are publicly known to lean toward the ruling party from the same group. This is a clear negative messaging to others in Ethiopia where the issues of ethnicity are sensitive. To be sure, it is possible to have an interfaith organization with wonderful goals like IPI, but with ethno-nationalist ideological agenda at same time. That will do more to keep peoples apart than bring them together.
Despite its growing popularity in Oromiya regional state, the most populous in Ethiopia, Waaqeffannaa’s attempts to transform itself into an organized religion have failed many times so far because the Ethiopian state has first denied and then revoked the license of the group citing that its leaders sympathize with the Oromo Liberation Front[46], a secular rebel group in conflict with the government on the question of autonomy and self- determination for Oromiya.
Conclusion
Waaqeffannaa’s pro-social principles, laws and values did and will contribute to building constructive relationships between communities. In addition to improving human relations, laws, such as safuu, that emphasize the need to maintain good relationship with nature, can be extended and used in areas of environmental conflict resolution, specially where climate change is threatening pastoralist and agrarian communities in many observable ways today.
I explored and discussed the ways in which the egalitarian but respectful views of God by Waaqeffataas can be helpful in curbing extremist tendencies. Neither oral scriptures of the religion nor its leaders condone acts of violence as something leading to rewards or sainthood. Prayers and blessings function as authoritative moderators and they can be used in opening and closing any intervention efforts. Waaqeffannaa is a very pragmatic religion whose most themes are linked to and earthbound to the material conditions of people. Therefore, people in conflict may have the same questions they want answered through prayers to be answered through interventions.
The potential and capacity of the religion in national or regional peacemaking is promising if it be recognized and the multi-pronged obstacles in its way are removed.
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References
Abu-Nimer, Mohammed. Nonviolence and Peace Building in Islam: Theory and Practice. Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 2003.
Aguilar, Mario I. The Politics of God in East Africa: Oromo Ritual and Religion. Trenton, N.J.: The Red Sea Press, 2009.
Appleby, Scott R. “Retrieving the Missing Dimension of Statecraft: Religious Faith in the Service of Peacebuilding.” In Faith-Based Diplomacy: Trumping Realpolitik, ed. Douglas Johnston, 2003. Oxford: OUP.
____ The Ambivalence of the Sacred: Religion, Violence and Reconciliation. Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2000.
Bartels, Lambert. Oromo Religion: Myths and Rites of the Western Oromo of Ethiopia-An Attempt to Understand. Berlin: Dietrich Reamer Verlag, 1983.
Bokku, Dirribi Demissie. Oromo Wisdom in Black Civilization. Finfinne, Ethiopia: Finfinne Printing & Publishing S.C., 2011.
De Salviac, Martial. An Ancient People: Great African Nation: the Oromo. Translation from the 1901 original French edition by Ayalew Kanno. Paris, the French Academy, 2005.
Gopin, Marc. Between Eden and Armageddon: The Future of World Religions, Violence and Peacemaking. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000.
____ Holy War, Holy Peace: How Religion Can Bring Peace to the Middle East. New York: Oxford University Press, 2002.
Megerssa, Gemetchu. “Oromumma: Tradition, Consciousness and Identity.” In Being and Becoming Oromo: Historical and Anthropological Enquiries, Edited by P.T.W. Baxter, Jan Hultin and Alessandro Triulzi. Lawrenceville, N.J.: The Red Sea Press, 1996.
Montville, Joseph V. “Psychoanalytic Enlightenment and the Greening of Diplomacy.” In The Psychodynamics of International Relationships, Eds. Vamik D. Volkan, Demetrios A. Julius, and Joseph V. Montville. Lexington Mass.: Lexington Books (1990-1991): 177-192.
Moore, Christopher W. The Mediation Process: Practical Strategies for Resolving Conflict. 3rd Ed. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2003.
MTA. Waaqeffannaa: Ayyaana Irreechaa Birraa, 2010.Vol. V. No. 1. Finfinnee: MTA, 2010. (trans. Waaqeffannaa: Thanksgiving Holiday of Fall 2010.)
Sandole, Dennis J.D. “Paradigm, Theories, and Metaphors in Conflict and Conflict Resolution: Coherence or Confusion?” In Conflict Resolution Theory and Practice, Ed., Dennis Sandole. Manchester and New York: Manchester University Press, (1993): 3-24.
Stenger, Mary Ann. “Gadamer’s Hermeneutics as a Model for Cross-Cultural Understanding and Truth in Religion.” In Religious Pluralism and Truth: Essays on Cross-Cultural Philosophy of Religion, Ed., Thomas Dean. New York: State University of New York Press, (1995): 151-168.
Volkan, Vamik D. “Psychological Processes in Unofficial Diplomacy Meetings.” In The Psychodynamics of International Relationships, Eds. Vamik D. Volkan, Demetrios A. Julius, and Joseph V. Montville. Lexington Mass.: Lexington Books (1990-1991): 207-219.
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Footnotes
[1] De Salviac, 1901:43; Bartels, 1983:89; Bokku, 2011: 54). The two previous books on Oromo religion (now named Waaqeffannaa) by European missionaries are widely regarded as authoritative secular scholarly sources closest to the source ever to be published on an indigenous African religion of antiquity. Bokku adds his own recent perspectives on the religion and revises his predecessors’ perspectives without altering the essence of their work.
[12] Bokku, 2011: 66. The quote was an English translation the author provides from the Afaan Oromoo (Oromo language) version, which runs:“Gurraacha garaa garbaa, leemmoo garaa taliilaa, tokkicha maqaa dhibbaa, guddicha hiriyaa hinqabne, kan waan hundaa beeku, kan waan hundaa gochuu danda’u, kan bakka maraa jiru, kan hinkufine, kan hinduuneefi kan hincabne.”
[20] Translated by me from Afaan Oromoo into English from the Waaqeffannaa magazine, p i.
[21] Haroo Walaabuu is considered the origin of Oromo community and the source of all walking humans on earth. It plays an important symbolic/mythic role in standard prayers. Water bodies are considered sources of life.
Hararqee, the vast land in Eastern Ethiopia, is where over 50% of Ethiopia’s (possibly including Horn of Africa)
rock paintings are found (Bravo 2007:137). Among these is the famous Laga Oda Site “dating to at least 16,000
BP” (Shaw and Jameson 1999:349) and comprising depictions of bovines and many different types of animals. This vast land of Hararqee is settled by the Oromo, the largest tribe of the Cushitic stock, and hence it is part of the Oromia National State. The Oromo people, one of the richest in ancient (oral) cosmogonal- social history , literature and especial owners of the unique socio-philosophico-political institution known as Gada or Gada System, consistently insist that theirs as well as human being’s origin is in the Horn of Africa specifically a place known as Horra βalabu/Ŵolabu ‘the Place of Spring-Water of Genesis of Humanity’ (Dahl and Megerssa 1990).
This and a plethora of Oromo social epistemology has been studied by the plausible Oromo historians (Gidada 2006, Hassen 1990, to mention a few) and non-biased European theologico-ethnologists (Krapf 1842; De Abbadie 1880; De Salviac 1980, Bartels 1983, to mention a few). Similarly, social semiosis is not new to the Oromo. Although Eurocentric archaeologists rarely acknowledge, “the identification of cultural themes and symbolic interpretation has revealed affinities between contemporary Oromo practices and those of other East African culture groups, both ancient and modern (Grant 2000: np.).In like manner, the Classical Greek philosophers wrote that the Ancient Ethiopians were “inventors of worship, of festivals, of solemn assemblies, of sacrifice, and of every religious practice” (Bekerie, 2004:114). The oral history of the Oromo states that it was Makko Billii, whom Antonio De Abbadie, one of the early European scholars who studied and lived with the Oromo, described as “African Lycurgus” (Werner 1914b: 263; Triulzi and Triulzi 1990:319; De Abbadie 1880) and son of the primogenitor of the Oromo nation (Raya or Raâ), who hammered out the antique, generation-based social philosophy known as Gada System (Legesse 1973, 2006; Bartels 1983; Gidada 2006). A key ingredient in Gada system is the For Oromo, the first Qaallu “Hereditary ritual officiant” and “high priest” was of “divine origin” and, as the myth tells us, “‘fell from the sky itself’…with the first black cow” and he was the “‘eldest son of Ilma Orma’” (Hassen 1990:6; Baxter, Hultin and Triulzi 1996:6). In its “dual[ity] nature”, Waaqa, the black Sky-God “controlled fertility, peace, and lifegiving rains… [hence] prayers for peace, fertility, and rain” are the core recursive themes in Oromo religion (Hassen 1990:7). Hence, the concept/word Qaallu refers at large to “Divinity’s fount of blessings in the world” (Baxter, Hultin and Triulzi 1996: 1996: 21). As De Salviac (2005 [1901]: 285) explicated “The Oromo are not fetishists. They believe in Waaqa took, a unique universal creator and master. They see His manifestations in great forces of nature, without mistaking for Him.” As a result of this ‘pre-historic’, Spinozaean like social epistemology, but unlike Martin Heideggerean “ancients” who never dared questioning or confronting ontology but endorsed only veneering it, for the Oromo social semiosis has never been new since time immemorial. Despite all these antique history and tradition, it is unfortunatel, the so-far few studies made on the Ethiopian ancient rock paintings and rock arts never consider—sometimes apparently deliberately isolate–the social history, tradition, culture or language of the Oromo people as a possible explanatory device. What the available few studies usually do is only positivist description of the paintings (types, size and/or number of the signs) rather than inquiry into and explanation of the social origin and the underlying social meaning, praxis or worldview. Partly, the reason is the studies are totally dominated by Eurocentric paradigms that de-Africanize and extrude the native people and their language, religion, social structure, material cultures and, in general, their interpretive worldview. Besides, some of the native researchers are no different since they have unconditionally accepted this Eurocentric, hegemonic epistemology (Bekerie 1997; Smith 1997; Gusarova 2009; Vaughan 2003). As a result, we can neither understand the social origin of these amazing ‘texts’ nor can we explain the underlying social semiosis.. Equally, under this kind of mystification or possible distortion of human (past) knowledge, we miss the golden opportunities that these ancient documents offer for evolutionary, comparative and interdisciplinary social science research and knowledge. Above all, the old Eurocentric view narrowed down the sphere of semiotics (archaeological, social) to only ‘the sign’, extruding the human agents or agency and the social context.
The aim of this paper is to use the ancient Qaallu Institution of Oromo as analytical ‘devices’ in order to understand and explain the underlying social epistemological, semiotical and rhetorical structures, i.e., expressed in all forms of linguistic and non-linguistic structures. In sharp contrast to the aforementioned positivist, narrow, colonial semiotics, in this analysis,
Theo van Leeuwen’s postmodern and advanced approach to social semiotics is adopted. Primarily, Van Leeuwen (2005: 3) expands “semiotic resource” as involving “the actions and artefacts we use to communicate, whether they are produced physiologically – with our vocal apparatus…muscles…facial expressions and gestures, etc. – or by means of technologies – with pen, ink and paper…computer hardware and software…with fabrics, scissors and sewing machines.”
Van Leeuven (2005: xi) introduces the changing semiosphere of social semiotics:
Just as in linguistics the focus changed from the ‘sentence’ to the ‘text’ and its ‘context’, and from
‘grammar’ to ‘discourse’, so in social semiotics the focus changed from the ‘sign’ to the way people use semiotic
‘resources’ both to produce communicative artefacts and events and to interpret them;
Rather than constructing separate accounts of the various semiotic modes – the ‘semiotics of the image’, the ‘semiotics of music’, and so on – social semiotics compares and contrasts semiotic modes, exploring what they have in common as well as how they differ, and investigating how they can be integrated in multimodal artefacts and events.
Indeed, the Classical Western dualism which separates the linguistic from the non-linguistic, the literary from the
non-literary, the painting from the engraved, the notional from the artefactual must be eschewed, especially when
we build evolutionary perspective to analyzing pre-historic arts.
CLEARING SOME CONFUSIONS
Scholars have already explicated and explained away the old de-Ethiopianization historiographies in social sciences
(Bekerie 1997; Smith 1997; Gusarova 2009; Vaughan 2003), humanities (Ehret 1979) and archaeology
(Finneran 2007). Therefore, there is no need to repeat this here. But, it is necessary to briefly show disclose some
veils pertaining to Hararqee pre-historic paintings. As usual, the ‘social’ origin of ‘pre-historic’, Classical or Medieval era Hararqee rock paintings is either mystified or hailed as agentry “Harla” or “Arla” (Cervicek and Braukämper 1975:49), an imaginary community:
According to popular beliefs Harla generally refers to a mysterious, wealthy and mighty people, (frequently even
imagined as giants!), who had once occupied large stretches of the Harar Province before they were destroyed by the supernatural powers through natural catastrophies as punishment for their inordinate pride. This occurred prior to the Galla (Oromo) incursions into these areas during the 16th and 17th centuries” (Cervicek and Braukämper 1975: 49; emphasis added).
In footnote, Cervicek and Braukämper (1975:49) quote Huntingford (1965:74) to on the identity of the Harla: “The
name “Harla” is first mentioned, as far as we know, in the chronicle of the Ethiopian Emperor ‘Amda Seyon in the
14th century (Huntingford 1965:74).” It is clear that this mystification prefigures in the usual gesture of de-Africanizing civilization of Black Africans to justify the so-called Hamitic myths, as explained well in the works of the aforementioned post-modern scholars. Thanks to Professor Claude Sumner (Sumner 1996: 26), today we know the fact of the matter, that it was not Huntingford who composed about the imaginary “Harla”. It was the French Catholic missionaries by the name
François Azais and Roger Chambard who reconstructed to fit it to their interest the imaginary ‘Harla’ (spelling it
rather as “Arla”) from an oral history told to them by an Oromo old man from Alla clan of Barentuu.The story itself
is about a “wealthy” Oromo man called “Barento” who was “very rich but very proud farmer” (Sumner 1996: 26).
For it is both vital and complex (in its ironic message, which cannot however be analyzed here) we have to
quote it in full:
There was in the Guirri country, at Tchenassen [Č’enāssan], an Oromo, a very rich but very proud farmer called Barento. A cloth merchant, an Arab who was also very rich, lived a short distance from there at Derbiga. The merchant’s daughter went one day to see the farmer and told him: “I would like to marry your son.”—“Very well, I shall give him to you,” he answered. The merchant in turn, gave his daughter and made under her daughter’s steps a road of cloth, from Derbiga to Tchenassen, residence of the rich farmer. The tailor replied to this act by making a road of dourah and maize under his son’s steps, from Tchenassen to Derbiga. But God was incensed by this double pride and to punish him, shaked Tchenassen Mountain and brought down a rain of stones which destroyed men and houses; it was then that the race of Arla [Alla] was destroyed (Sumner 1996: 26). Confirming the antiquity and unity of this story and the Oromo, similar story is found in Western Oromo as far closer to the Southern Sudan: “in interpreting certain of their [Oromo] myths about the beginning of things, it was because of man’s taking cultivation and pro-creation toomuch into his own hands, that Waqa[Waaqa] withdrew from him–a withdrawal resulting in a diminution of life on earth in all its forms” (Bartels 1975:512). As a part of the general social semiotics adopted in this study, onomasiology (the scientific analysis of toponyms, anthroponyms,ethnonyms as well as of semiotic metalanguages) is considered as important component for evolutionary social semiosis, particularly for any researcher on Oromo since these are coded or they code social epestemes, are cyclical, based on the principles of Gada System’s name-giving tradition, and, hence, are resistant to change (for detail on this see Legesse 1973). For instance, Cervicek and Braukamper (1965:74) described the Laga Gafra area and its population as: “The area of the site is part of the Gafra Golla Ḍofa village, and the indigenous Ala [Oromo] call it Gada Ba’la (“large shelter”)”, but appropriately, Baalli Gada. Here, let us only remember that Alla and Itťu clans are two of the Hararqee Oromo self-identificating by Afran Qalloo
(literally the Quadruplets, from ancient sub-moiety) who “provide[d] a basis for…construct[ing] models for
prehistoric land and resource use” (Clark and Williams:
Social semiosis, language and reality in the ancient ‘texts’ Social semiosis might be considered as old as homo
sapiens sapiens. But, for our analytical purpose, it is logical to begin from the Ancient Black Africans that some
19th century European missionaries and researchers referred to as ‘Ancient Egyptians’ (although still others
refer to them by Ancient Cushites, Ancient Ethiopians, Ancient Nubians or Meroes), who are the originators of
the first writing systems known as ‘hieroglyphics’. Chiekh Anta Diop (Diop 2000), Geral Massey (Massey 1907)
and other scholars have illuminated to us a lot about hieroglyphics. Initially, hieroglyphics was pictogram or semagram. That is, pictures of real world were ‘painted’ to communicate a sememe or motif, the smallest meaningful structure or concept, for instance, a picture of sitting man for their word equivalent to the English ‘sit’; a picture of man stretching his/her arms to the sky for ‘pray’; a lion for ‘great man’, etc., all or some of which is determined by
the lexical structures (phonological, syllabic, semantic, imagery they arise, etc) of their respective words. Based
on their social philosophy/paradigm, literary/figurative symbolism, and/or their word’s/language’s phonology/syntax, for instance, equivalent to the English ‘woman’, they might have also depicted a picture of a pigeon, or an owl or a cow. This zoomorphic mode of representation as the ‘Sign-Language of Totemism and Mythology’ was the first and early writing system in human history. The Ancient Egyptians used the principles of, among others, sound-meaning association, semantic and ontologic (what something/somebody can cause) similarization, physical resemblance, grouping (duplication or triplication of the same pictograms to represent meaning), aggregation (pictograms are combined in or around a spot or a pictogram is duplicated as many as necessary and congregated in or around a spot), sequencing vertically or horizontally (representing lexico-grammatic, syntactic, semotactic or stylistic structure) and so forth.
Some of these or similar principles or ‘stylistic features’ are observed, particularly, in the Laga Oda painting styles. Cervicek (1971:132-133 122-123), for instance, observed in Laga Oda paintings such stylized ‘discourse’ as ‘group of horseshoe-like headless bovine motifs’, ‘paired ‘soles of feet’ from Bake Khallo [Bakkee Qaallu ‘Sacred Place for Qaallu Ritual]’, ‘oval symbo accompanied as a rule by a stroke on their left side’, sun-like symbol, in the centre with animal and anthropomorphic representations grouped around it’, paired ‘soles of feet’, carefully profiled styles (overhead, side, back point-of-view of bovines), zooming (large versus small size of bovine motifs), headless versus headed bovines, H-shaped anthropomorphic
representations with raised hands’, superimposition and so forth. Any interpretation that renders these as isolated
case, arbitrary or pointless marks can be rejected outright. Some of these ‘early spelling’ are found not only across the whole Horn of Africa but also in Ancient Meroitic-Egyptian rock paintings, hieroglyphics and, generally, organized social semiosis.By the same token, Oromo social semiotical ‘texts’, like any ancient texts, textures “intimate link…between form,
content and concrete situation in life” (Sumner 1996:17-18). Professor Claude Sumner, who produced three volume analysis of Oromo wisdom literature (Sumner 1995, 1996, 1997), sees that like any “ancient texts”, in Oromo wisdom literature, “a same unit of formal characters, namely of expressions, of syntactic forms, of vocabulary, of metaphors, etc., which recur over and over again, and finally a vital situation…that is a same original function in the life of [the people]” (Sumner 1996:19). An elderly Oromo skilled in Oromo wisdom speaks, to use the appropriate Marxian term, ‘historical materialism’, or he speaks “in ritual language, as it was used in old times at the proclamation of the law” (Bartels 1983:309).
Moreover, he speaks in rhythmatic verses, full of “sound parallelism” (Cerulli 1922), “parallelism of sounds” or
“image” or “vocalic harmony” (Bartels 1975: 898ff). Even Gada Laws used to be “issued in verse” (Cotter 1990:
70), in “the long string of rhyme, which consists of repeating the same verse at the end of each couplet” or “series of short sententious phrases” that are “disposed to help memory” (De Salviac 2005 [1901]: 285). The highly experienced researchers on the ancient Oromo system of thought, which is now kept intact mainly by the Booran Gada System, emphasize that “‘the philosophical concepts that underlie the gadaa system’…utilize a symbolic code much of which is common to all Oromo” (Baxter, Hultin and Triulzi 1996: 21). Long ago, one scholar emphatically stated, this is a feature “surely has developed within the [Oromo] language” and “is also only imaginable in a sonorous language such as Oromo” which “as a prerequisite, [has] a formally highly developed poetical technique” (Littmann 1925:25 cited in Bartels 1975:899).
Claude Sumner formulates a “double analogy” tactic as prototypical feature of Oromo wisdom literature, i.e., “vertical” and “horizontal” parallelism style (Sumner 1996:25), known for the most part to linguists, respectively, as ‘paradigmatic’ (‘content’ or ‘material’) and ‘syntagmatic’ (‘form’ or ‘substance’) relations or in both literature and linguistics, as contextual-diachronic and textual-synchronic, relations. Oromo social epistemological concepts/words/signs offers important data for historical and evolutionary social sciences for they recycle and, consequently, are resistant to change both in form and meaning (Legesse 1973). In the same way, in this analysis of the ancient rock paintings of Hararqee, an evolutionary and multidisciplinary analysis of the interrelationship among the traditional ‘semiotic triangle’—the sign (sound or phonon, word or lexon, symbol or image), the signified (the social meaning, ‘semon’, episteme or theme) and the referent (cultural-historical objects and ritual-symbolic actions)——and among the metonymic complex (referring here to layers and clusters of semiotic triangles in their social-natural contexts) is assumed as vital meta-theoretical framework.
METHODS AND THE SEMIOTIC RESOURCES
For this analysis, both archival and field data or semiotic resources are collected. In 2012 visits were made to the
some of the popular (in literature) ancient rock painting sites in Hararqee (Laga Oda, Goda Agawa, Ganda Biiftu,
etc.; comprehensive list of Ethiopian rock painting sites is presented by Bravo 2007). Also, field visits were made to
less known (in literature) ancient to medieval era painting sites were made in the same year (e.g., Goda Rorris,
Huursoo, Goda K’arree Ǧalɖeessa, Goda Ummataa, Goda Daassa, etc). Huge audiovisual data (still and
motion) of both paintings and engravings were collected, only very few of which are used in this paper. On the one
hand, the previously captured data (as photos, sketches or traces) from some of the popular sites, for instance
Laga Oda and Laga Gafra (as in Cervicek 1971; Cervicek and Braukamper 1975), are sometimes found to be
preferably clearer due to wear-off or other factors. On the other hand, from the same sites, some previously
unrevealed or undetected motifs (painted or engraved) were collected. Therefore, both field and archival data are
equally important for this analysis. However, since the Qaallu Institution , and its sub-themes, is used as sensitizing device or a means rather than end— hence is capitalization upon social semiotic and linguistic aspects–there is an inevitable risk of undermining these complex philosophical notions. Yet, for the pertinent (to Qaallu Institution) anthropological-ethnological archivals used as additional secondary data or, to use Theo van Leeuwen’s term, as “semiotic resource”, original and influential references are indicated for further reading. More importantly, two old men skilled in Oromo social epistemology, customarily referred to as ‘walking libraries’, are used as informants. Taaddasaa Birbirsoo Mootii, 87, from Wallagga, Western Oromia (Ethiopia) and Said Soddom Muummee, 85, from Hararqee Eastern Oromia (Ethiopia). Mootii, Addoo Catholic Church Priest (‘Catechist’ is the word they use), was one of the infor- mants and personal colleagues of Father Lambert Bartels, who studied in-depth and wrote widely on Oromo religion, rituals and social philosophy. His scholarly and
comparative (with Biblical) analysis of Oromo religion and world view, child birth custom, praise song for the cow,
Qaallu Institution, Gada system geneaological-social hierarchy are among his seminal works. Although Bartels
only indicated Mootii as “one priest”, he and his colleague Shagirdi Boko (one of the Jaarsa Mana Sagadaa ‘Old
Men of Church’) were among his informant colleagues. Muummee, is not only well seasoned wiseman, but he
still celebrates and identify himself as Waaqeeffata—believer, observer and practitioner of the pre-Christian
Oromo religion founded on Waaqa, the Black Sky-God.
ANALYSIS AND DISCUSSION
Qaallu Institution and the praise to the cattle Above, under Introduction section, we briefly touched upon the mythical-social origin of the Qaallu Institution and its relation with genesis and cow-milk. Qaallu comes from the gerundive qull (qul’qullu, intensive) ‘pure, holy, sacred, blameless; being black, pretty, neat’, pointing to the color and quality of Waaqa (see Bartels 1983; Hassen 1990 for detail).. The “ancient” Qaallu Institution of Oromo (Baxter 1987: 168 quoted and elaborated in Gidada 2005: 146-147) had been widely practiced in Eastern, Hararqee Oromo until the first half of the 20th century. It is as much cosmogonal, cosmological and ideological (identificational) as it is theo-political to the Oromo nation, in particular, and, at large, the pre-colonial (pre-Christian, pre-Islam) Cushite who uniformly believed in Water, as a source of life and on which life is unilaterally dependent, and in Waaqa–a concept/word that means, on the one hand, the abstract ‘Supreme Being, God, Devine, Heave’ and, on the other, the ‘concrete’ ‘Sky, Divinely Water (rain)’. For Oromo, the first Qaallu “a high priest”, the “spiritual leader” was of “divine origin”, as the myth tells us, “ ‘fell from the sky itself’…with the first black cow” and he was the “‘eldest son of Ilma Orma’” and in its “dual nature”, Waaqa, the black Sky-God “controlled fertility, peace, and lifegiving rains…[hence] prayers for peace, fertility, and rain” are the core recursive themes in Oromo religion (Hassen 1990: 6-7). For more on Oromo genealogical tree and history, see Gidada (2006), Bartels (1983), BATO (1998), to mention a few.
The Booran Oromo, who still retains the Qaallu Institution ‘unspoiled’:
The Booran view of cosmology, ecology and ontology is one of a flow of life emanating from God. For them, the benignancy of divinity is expressed in rain and other conditions necessary for pastoralism. The stream of life flows through the sprouting grass and the mineral waters [hoora] of the wells, into the fecund wombs and generous udders of the cows [ɢurrʔ
ú]. The milk from the latter then promotes human satisfaction and fertility (Dahl and Megerssa 1990: 26).
In this worldview, the giant bull (hanɡafa, hancaffa) is a symbol of angaftitti “seniority of moieties: stratification
and imbalance” (Legesse 2000: 134). Hence, the separation of the most senior or ancient moieties or the cradle land imitates hariera ‘lumbar and sacral vertebrae’ (other meaning ‘queue, line, suture’) or horroo ‘cervical vertebrae’ of the bull.
The primogenitors (horroo) of the Oromo nations (mainly known as Horroo, Raya, Booro) set the first ßala ‘moiety, split (from baɮ ‘to flame, impel, fly; to split, have bilateral symmetry’) or Ẃalaßu ‘freedom, bailing, springing’. The formation of moieties, sub-sub-moieties grew into baɭbaɭa‘sub-sub-sub-etc…lineages’ (also means ‘door, gate’; the reduplication showing repetitiveness). Jan Hultin, an influential anthropologist and writer on Oromo, states “Among the Oromo, descent is a cultural construct by which people conceive of their relations to each other and to livestock and land; it is an
ideology for representing property relations” (Hultin 1995: 168-169). The left hand and right hand of the bovine always represent, in rituals, the “sub-sections of the phratry” (Kassam 2005:105). That is, as the tradition sustains,
when the ancient matrilineal-patrilineal moieties sowed, dissevered (fač’á) from the original East (Boora), the
Booreettúma (designating matrilineality, feminine soul) took or went towards the left hand side, while the Hoorroo
(also for unclear reason βooroo, designating patrilineality, masculine soul) took the right hand side. Both correspond, respectively, to the directions of sunrise and sunset, which configure in the way house is constructed: Baa, Bor ‘the front door’ (literally ‘Origin, Beam, morning twilight’) always faces east, while the back wall (Hooroo) towards west (also Hooroo means ‘Horus, evening twilight’). This still governs the praxis that the backwall “is the place of the marriage negotiations and of the first sexual intercourse of sons and their bride [i.e., behind the stage]” (Bartels 1983: 296). For this reason, Qaallu Institution has had a special Law of the Bovine as well as Holiday of the Cattle/Bovine, Ǧaarrii Looni (Legesse 1973:96; Dahl and Megerssa 1990). On Ǧaarrii Loonii, cattle pen are renovated and embellished, and festivities and dances with praise songs to cattle was chanted (for more, Bartels 1975; Wako 2011; Kassam 2005). An excerpt from the praise song ‘talks’ about them with admiration (See also Bartels 1975: 911):
Chorus: Ahee-ee
Soloist: Sawa, sawilee koo–Cows, o my cows,
Bira watilee koo–and also you, my calves.
Ǧeɗ’e malee maali–Could I say otherwise?
Yá saa, yá saa—o cattle, o cattle!
saa Humbikooti–cattle of my Humbiland,
Saa eessa ǧibbu?–What part of cattle is useless?
Saa qeensa qičču–Our cattle with soft hoofs,
koṱṱeen šínii ta’e—from their hoofs, we make coffee-cups
gogaan wallu ta’e—from their skins, we make wallu
[leather cloth]
gaafi wanč’a ta’ee, — from their horns, we make wáɳč’a
[large beer cup]
faɭ
ʔ
anas ta’a!—as well as spoons! [See Fig.1A, B, C, D,
E]
Chorus: Ahee-ee
Lambert Bartels, a Catholic Father and scholar lived with the Oromo, writes “When they bless, they say: ɡurrači
ɡaraa ǧ’abbii siif ha kenu ‘May the dark one [God] with hail under his abdomen give you all (good things)’
(Bartels 1983:90-91). Cervicek (1971:124 Fig.10) wonders about the unexplained but recurrent “oval
representations… painted black [and] white-dotted” and consistently painted “below” the cow udder (see Fig.2B).
This can be compared with wáɳč’a ‘drinking horn-cup’ or č’óč’oo, č’iič’oo ‘milking (horn-)cup’ (see Fig.1D). On
Irreečča ritual of Thanking Waaqa the Black Sky-God, a line of the doxology mentions, among others, “Waaqa
č’iič’oo gurraattii” ‘God of the dark č’iič’oo milking-cup’ (Sabaa 2006:312). The deadjectival č’óč’orree means ‘white dotted (black background); turkey or similar white dotted bird’, while Waaɳč’ee is a proper name for white-dotted cow.
Qaallu as ecotheological concept
Qaallu is also an ontological concept referring to the spirit that resides in sacred realities, the mountain hills, seas, river
beds, pasture land, etc. As an important place for ritual place for immortalizing (primogenitors, ancestors), blessing
(children, the young), initiations (to Gada classes, power take-over), praying (for fertility, abundance, fortune, rain),
and praising (God, nature, cattle), the sacred land of spirituality must be mountain foot (goda) where there must
be, naturally, laga ‘lagoon, river’, č’affee ‘marshy area with green grasses’ (symbol of the parliamentary assembly),
χaɭoo ‘pasture land’, and the evergreen oɖaa fig sycamores. Oɖaa serves not only as “a depiction of a political power”,
but “is also a centre of social and economic activities” and “symbolizes the entire corpus of their activities, history,
culture and tradition” (Gutamaa 1997:14). Five Qaallu centres are known in Booran sub-moiety: (1) Qaallu Odiituu, (2) Qaallu Karrayyuu, (3) Qaallu Matťarii, (4) Qaallu Karaar, (5) Qaallu Kuukuu, (10) Qaallu Arsii (Nicolas 2010). These centers are like cities of (con-)federal states and simultaneously are (sub-)clan names. These names are codes and decoders of not only genealogical and landscapes, but also of ancient (sub)-moieties and settlement patterns. Since they are cyclical, based on the principles of Gada System’s name-giving principle, they are widespread across Oromia and resistant to change. Werner (1915:2) observed that in Booran Oromo, “every clan has its own mark for cattle, usually a brand (ɢuʋa [ɡuƀá ], which is the name of the instrument used, is an iron spike fixed into a wooden handle)”, a fact which is
significated in other parts of Oromia with different signifiers, for instance, pattern of settlement, which is determined by a
korma karbaʑaa ‘bull that bulldozes jungles’ or korma qallaččaa ‘kindling bull’ (Gidada 2006: 99-100) or bull’s
anatomy (BATO 1998). For instance, quoting Makko Billii, the ancient Gada System law maker, the Wallaga Oromo
recite their settlement pattern in the anatomy of Korma the virile ‘buffalo-bull’ or ‘macho man’: Sibuun garaača. Haruu č’inaacha, Leeqaan dirra sangaati, ‘The Sibuu [Sabboo] clan is the abdomen, the Haruu [Hooroo] is the ribs, and Leeqaa is the chuck of the bull’ (BATO 1998:164).
Qallačča bull as a kindler is related defined qallačča “a white patch between the horns of a cow running back down the
two sides of the neck; a charm” (Foot 1913:33). See Fig.2 A, B, C and D . It is the symbol of a Qaallu’s qallačča, here
meaning, an inherited, from ancestors, spiritual and intellectual grace or sublimity. This is quite related to of
book’a ‘a black cow or bull or ram that has a white mark upon the forehead’ (Tutschek 1844:135-136), a natural
phenomenon considered as a good omen. Adda isá book’aa qaba ‘his forehead has a blaze’ is an idiom appropriately
meaning the person has the natural capacity, inherited from ancestors, to prophesize, foreknow. For this reason, “white-headedness” or wearing white turban is a symbol of (passage to) seniority or superordinate moiety (Kassam 1999). As usual, there is “intimate link…between form, content and concrete situation in life” (Sumner 1996:17-18).
Qallačča as a mysterious metal
Qallačča is a key concept in Qaallu Institution. One instantiation of this complex concept is that it is a mysterious
sacred material culture (Fig.3). Informants tell us that true. qallačča worn on the forehead by the Qaallu was made of
iron that fell from sky as qorsa (comet, metorite); it was only recovered after pouring milk of a black cow on the specific
spot it dropped. For some ethnologists/anthropologists, it is a “white metal horn which is worn on the forehead” and is
“horn-symbolism” for “every man is a bull”, a symbol of virility (Bartels 1983: 146). For others it is just a ‘white
metal horn’ which is a symbol of fertility or just is “phallic ornament” (Haberland 1963:51 quoted in Bartels
1983:146). These argumentations share the root qaɾa ‘horn (sharp and tall), acute; graining fruit, granulate,
shoot’ and the inavariable qaɾ-ɳî ‘sex (characteristics)’. The very Oromo word for ‘sex (intercourse)’, namely
saala, also designates ‘horn, oryx, penis; awe, honor, esteem; shame, shameful’. But, these notions are only
part of the polysemantic and complex concept of qallačča. Amborn (2009: 401) might be wrong when he completely
rejects the “phallisphication” of qallačča by “some anthropologists”. He is right that qallačča is also a symbol
of “socio-religious mediator which is able to bundle positive and negative “cosmic” (for want of a better word)
energies” and rather “symbolizes a link between the human and the supernatural world; its function is to open
up this connection between different spheres.” Knutsson (1967:88-90 quoted in Bartels 1983:145) describes
qallačča as “a conically formed ‘lump’ of black iron…brought from the heaven by the lightening.” Plowman (1918:114), who took a sketch of qallačča (Fig.3 D), described it as “emblem” of the Qaallu “Chief Priest” or of the retired Abba Gadaa ‘the president’. Plowman fleshes out the components of qallačča: (1) “seven bosses superimposed on a raised rim running
round the emblem”; (2) “upright portion made of polished lead”; (3) “circular base of white polished shell-like substance resembling ivory”; (4) “leather straps for fastening emblem to forehead of weaver” (Plowman 1918:114). This mysterious cultural object has multifunction. Taaddasa Birbirsso Mootii, who is not only an informant, but, in the expression of the locals, ‘a man who has sipped mouthful’ (of Oromo traditional wisdom) explains the social epistemological structure underlying qallačča: During the time of Gada System, government by the people’s justice, the Waaqeeffataa used to pour out milk of black cow on Dibayyuu ritual and discover/see their qallačča [truth and abundance]. For it is a sacred object,
qallačča never moved [transported, communicated] withoutsacrificial blood of bulls. It must be smeared on
the forehead [See Fig.3A and P7B on the forehead]. How can urine/semen without water, child without blood, milk
without udder/teats be discovered [gotten]? In the aftermath of lengthy drought, too, they used to take
qallačča to depression/ford and hill-top to pray with one stomach [unanimously] to God with Qaallu the Spiritual
Father. Immediately, qallačča [God’s riposte] reconciled streaming milk from the sky [rains]. Hence, qallačča was
used for collective welfare. Qallačča is God’s qali ‘alethic truth, promise’. Note that from Laga Oda Cave, archaeologists (Brandt 1984:177) have found “‘sickle sheen’ gloss and polish”, which helped archaeologists to recover “possible
indications of intensive harvesting of wild grasses as early as 15, 000 B. P.”; “one awl”, “one endscraper” and
“one curved-backed flake” all “dated 1560 B.C.”; and, “a few microliths that show evidence of mastic adhering
close to the backed edges” which “strongly suggests” that by “1560 B.C…stone tools were being used (probably as components of knives and sickles).”
Qallačča and Gadaa—the generation-age-based sociopolitical system
Baxter (1979:73, 80) calls it “phallic” or “ritual paraphernalia”, which is worn on the head “by men at crucial stage in the gaada [gadaa] cycle of rituals”. Informants make distinction between two types of qallačča: qallačča laafa (of the soft, acuminous), which is worn by the Qaallu or Abba Gadaa; and qallačča korma (of the virile man or bull, macho). Viterbo (1892) defines “kallaéccia”, qallačča as ‘disciple, pupil’, which cuts para-llel with the anthropologist Baxter (1979: 82-84) who
states that, in Oromo Gada System, a young man’s grown tuft (ɡuuɗuu; see Fig.3D; we shall come back to Fig.3A in the final part of the discussion) is “associated symbolically with an erect penis” and discourses that he is “guutu diira”, which means a “successful warrior”, the one who has reached a class of “member of political adulthood”, for he has “become responsible for the nation”. At this age, Baxter adds, “each of its members puts up a phallic Kalaacha”, a “symbol of firm but
responsible manliness.” The feminine counterpart to ɡuuɗuu hairstyle is “ɡuɖeya” (Werner 1914a: 141), guʈʈiya (literally go-away bird or its tonsure) or qarré ‘tonsure’ (literally, ‘kite’ or similar bird of prey) (Bartels 1983:262), while of the masculine qallačča head-gear is the feminine qárma (literally ‘sharpened, civilized’). In Gada System, this age-class is called Gaammee Gúɖ’ɡuɖá (reduplication ɡuɖá ‘big’) ‘Senior Gamme III’, the age of at which the boys elect their six leaders to
practice political leadership (Legesse 2006:124-125).
Bokkuu: Insignia of power, balance and light of freedom
Hassen (1990:15) discusses that bokkuu has “two meanings”. One is “the wooden scepter kept by the Abba
Gada in his belt during all the assembly meetings”, an “emblem of authority…the independence of a tribe,
and…a symbol of unity, common law and common government” (Fig.4). De Salviac describes it “has the
shape of a voluminous aspergillum (a container with a handle that is used for sprinkling holy water) or of a mace
of gold of the speaker of the English parliament, but in iron and at the early beginning in hard wood” (De Salviac
2005 [1901]: 216). Legesse (2006: 104) describes it as “a specially curved baton”, which shows that there are two
types in use. The second meaning of bokkuu is, “it refers to the keeper of the bokkuu—Abba Bokkuu” (Hassen
1990:15), or in plural Warra Bokku “people of the scepter” (Legesse 2006: 104). Hence, after serving for full eight year, Abba Bokkuu must celebrate Bokkuu Walira Fuud’a (literally to exchange the scepter bokkuu), a Gada system concept
that refers to two socio-political “events as a single act of “exchange”” (Legesse 1973:81): (1) the event of power
“take over ceremony”, i.e., the symbolic act of “the incoming class” and (2) the event of power “handover
ceremony”, i.e., the symbolic act of “the outgoing class”. This power-exchange ceremony is also called Baalli
Walira Fud’a “Power Exchange” or “transfer of ostrich feathers” (Legesse 1973: 81-82; 2006: 125). Here, baalli
refers not only ‘power, authority, responsibility’ (Stegman 2011: 5, 68), but also ‘ostrich feather’ and ‘twig
(leaved)’, both of which are used as symbolic object on the Baalli power transfer ceremony. De Salviac (2005 [1901]: 216) witnessed “the power is transferred to the successor by remittance of the scepter or bokkuu.” After power exchange ceremony, the ‘neophyte’ Abba Bokkuu: “falls in his knees and raising in his hands the scepter towards the sky, he exclaims, with a majestic and soft voice: Yaa Waaq, Yaa Waaq [Behold! O, God!] Be on my side…make me rule over the
Doorii…over the Qaallu…make me form the morals of the youth!!!…” (De Salviac 2005 [1901]: 213). See Fig.4B.
Then, the new Abba Bokkuu takes possession of the seat and “immolates a sacrifice and recites prayers to obtain
the assistance of On-High in the government of his people….The entire tribe assembled there, out of breath
from emotion and from faith” (De Salviac 2005 [1901]: 212). Above we raised that two symmetrical acts/concepts are
enfolded “as a single act [or word] of “exchange”” is performed by exchanging the Bokkuu scepter during
Baalli ceremony (Legesse 1973:81). That is, when the scepter is the one with bokkuu ‘knobs’ on each edge, it
suffices to enfold it ‘Bokkuu Baalli’ since the symmetricality principle of the act of reciprocal remittance
or power exchange is as adequately abstracted in the phrase as in the iconicity of the balanced bokkuu. Besides, the horooroo stick with a knob (bokkuu) on one side and a v-/y-shape (baalli) on the other side is a semagram and semotactic for the same concept of symmetricality principle, i.e., Bokkuu Baalli.
Ateetee in Qaallu Institution: Fertility symbolism
Cerulli (1922:15, 126-127) “Atētê …the goddess of fecundity, worshipped by the Oromo” and adds that “the
greatest holiday of the [Oromo] pagans is the feast of Atetê”; she is “venerated” by “even the Mussulmen”; she
is referred to “in the songs ayô, ‘the mother,’ often with the diminutive ayoliê, ‘the little mother’”. Women sing
“songs asking the goddess to grant them fecundity and lamenting the woes which are caused by sterility.” Long
before Cerulli, Harris (1844:50) wrote as follow: “when sacrificing to Ateti, the goddess of fecundity, exclaiming
frequently, “Lady, we commit ourselves unto thee; stay thou with us always”.”
The symbolic material cultures pertaining to Aɖeetee are important for our purpose in this paper. Bompiani
(1891:78) saw the Oromo on their “long journeys to visit Abba Múdā” who, “as a sign of peace they make a sheep
go before them on entering the village… and instead of a lance carry a stick, upon the top of which is fixed the horn
of an antelope” (this is well known Ancient Egyptian hieroglyph). Indeed, sheep (ḫooɭaa), common in ancient
rock paintings of Hararqee, is also the favorite for sacrificial animal for Qaallu institution of “peacemaking
and reconciliation”, particularly black sheep, “a sheep of peace” (hoolaa araaraa)” (Gidada 2001: 103). In fact, the
word ḫooɭaa for ‘sheep’ and rêeé, re’ee for ‘goat’ (re’oṱa, rooɖa, plural) have meronymic relationship. The semantic
structure underlying both is ‘high fertility rate’ (arareessá, from ɾaɾí ‘ball, matrix; pool, rivulet’). The “antelope” that Bompaini names is in fact the beautifully speckled ʂiiqqee ‘klipspringer’ (Stegman 2011:45, 35), common in Laga Oda and other paintings along with ‘fat-tailed’ sheep. At the same time, ʂiiqqee (literally, ‘splendid, lustrous, graceful’) is, according to the
Aṱeetee Institution, a sacred, usually tall and speckled, “stick signifying the honor of Oromo women…a blessing… a ceremonial marriage stick given to a girl…a religious stick Oromo women used for prayer” (Kumsaa 1997:118). Kumsa observed that “the very old, the very young and all women, in the Gadaa system, are considered innocent and peace-loving” and quoted the renowned anthropologist Gemetchu Megerssa who expressed that in Oromo Gada tradition women “were also regarded as muka laaftuu (soft wood–a depiction of their liminality) and the law for those categorized as such
protected them” (Kumsa 1997:119). Concentric or circular or ‘sun-burst’ geometric motifs are as abundant as ‘udder chaos’ in the Hararqee and Horn of African ancient rock paintings (Fig.5C from Qunnii or Goda Ummataa; A and B Goda Roorris traditionally known as ‘Errer Kimiet’; G from Goda K’arree Ğaldeesaa or Weybar in Č’elenqoo; E Laga Oda from Cervicek
1971). Bartels (1983) studied well about another symbolic object in Aɖeetee Institution, namely ɡuɳɖo, a grass-plate, made from highly propagative grasses, plaited in a series of concentric-circles (see Fig.5D). It is used to keep bîddeena ‘pizza-like circular bread’ and fruits. Bartels (1983: 261) documented that, on her wedding day: [T]he girl has with her a grass-plate (gundo), which she made herself. This gundo is a symbol of her womb [ɡaɖāmeʑa]. Since…she is expected to be a virgin
[ɡuɳɖúɖa], nothing should have been put in in this grass plate beforehand. Gundo are plaited [with an awl] from
outside inwards, leaving a little hole in the centre [ɡuɖé, qaa]…this little hole is not filled in by the girls themselves,
but they ask a mother of a child to do it for them. If they do it themselves, they fear they will close their womb to
child-bearing (Square brackets added).While, ɡuɳɖó stands for a woman’s gadameʑa ‘womb’ (from gadá ‘temple; generation, time-in-flow), the concentricity of the plaits (marsaa, massaraa, metathesis) is a symbol of the ‘recyclers’ of generations, namely mûssirró ‘the bride-woman’ and marii ‘bride-man’ (marii also means ‘cycle, inwrap, plait’). A bigger
cylindrical ɡuɳɖó with cover called suuba is particularly given as hooda ‘a regard’ to the couples (on their good
ethos, virginity) and is a symbol of súboo ‘the newly married gentlemen, the prudential gentlemen’. Father Lambert Bartels (Bartels 1983: 268) wrote that a buffalo-killer would bring a special gift for his mother or wife from the wilderness: namely, elellee (elellaan, plural) from his buffalo skin” Elellee and č’aačč’u refer to a string of cowries (of snail shells, obsidian rocks or fruits of certain plant called illilii) and festooned to a sinew cut from a sacrificial animal (Fig.5F). They are worn only by
women on the breastplate or forehead or worn to č’ooč’oo, č’iič’oo milk-pots, symbol of “a woman’s sexual and reproductive organ” (Østebø 2009: 1053). See also Fig.5F and G.
We need to add here a praise song to a beauty of woman, which symbolizes her by élé ‘circular cooking pot or oven made of clay’ and bede smaller than élé (Sumner 1996: 68): Admiration is for you, o <ele>… <But> I take out of <bede>…
Admiration is for you, moon shaped beauty. Rightly, Sumner (1996:68) states élé symbolizes “the mother, of woman” while bedé symbolizes “daughters” or the “moon [báṱí] shaped beauty”, i.e., her virginity (ɡuɳɖuɖa), uncorruptedness (baʤí) combined with ethos of chastity (aɖeetee). Woman is expressed arkiftu idda mačč’araa literally ‘puller of the root of one-body/-person’,a paraonomastic way to say circulator, recycler or propagator of the genealogy of Oromo moieties, namely
Mačč’a and Raya/Raã. Here, it is fascinating to observe the unique social semiosis at work—selecting and stitching (qora) the language and world according to the semblance and image the reality (world) offers as a cognitive possibility to operate upon. cowries of “giant snail shells…kept with a string made.
Spear piercing coffee bean
According to the Aṱeetee tradition, on her wedding ritual, the bride “hands her gundo to her mother-in-law who puts
some sprouting barley-grains in it. They are (a symbol of) the children Waqa will give her if he will’’ (Bartels 1983:
261). The mother-in-law will, according to the long tradition, adds some coffee-beans (coffee-beans and
cowries are look-alike, Fig.5 F from Cervicek 1971 and H); “coffee-beans are a symbol of the vagina,
representing the girl to be a potential mother. The beans are children in the shell at this moment, protected and
inaccessible as a virgin’s vagina” (Bartels 1983:261). Later on during the ritual, the elderly bless her: “May
Waqa cause the womb [gundo] sprouts children [grains]! Let it sprout girls and boys!” Amid the ceremony, the
bride “gives the gundo to her groom’s mother. She herself now takes his [bridegroom’s] spear and his stool.
She carries the stool with her left hand, holding it against her breast. In her right hand she grasps the spear….”
The spear, a representation of the male organ, is expressed in the Girl’s Song:
O sheath [qollaa] of a spear,
Handsome daughter,
Sister of the qaɽɽee [us colleagues of marriage-age]
Let us weep for your sake
The buna qalaa ‘slaughtering of coffee fruit’, which reflexes, in direct translation, the ‘slaughtering’ (qaɭa) the
virgin is “a symbol of procreation” (Bartels 1975: 901). The bride “puts the coffee-fruits from the gundo in butter
together with others and put them over the fire” (Bartels 1983: 263). Butter (ɗ’aɗ’á) is a symbol of fecundity
(ṯaɗ’āma) while the floor of the fire, or hearth (baɗ’ā) is a symbol of the nuclear family that is taking shape
(Legesse 1973:39). While, all this was captured by Bartels in the late 20th century in Wallagga, Werner (1914
b: 282) captured similar events a thousand or so kilometers away at Northern Kenya with the Booran:
On the wedding morning, a woman (some friend of the bride’s mother) hangs a chicho [č’iič’oo, č’ooč’oo] full of
milk over the girl’s shoulder….The bridegroom, carrying his spear and wearing a new cloth and a red turban, goes
in at the western gate of the cattle-kraal and out at the eastern, and then walks in a slow and stately way to the
hut of his mother-in-law, where the bride is waiting for him. They sit down side by side just within the door; after
a time they proceed to the cattle-kraal, where his friends are seated. She hands him the chicho and he drinks
some milk, and then passes it on to his friends, who all drink in turn.
In general, matrix-shape, milk-pots, sprouting beans all symbolizes feminineness quality, the natural power to
‘reproductive faculty’ (ʂaɲɲí), a capacity to generate many that, yet, keep alikeness or identity (ʂaɲɲí).
Woman and a cow and infant and a calf
Cows are “a symbolic representation of women” (Sumner 1997: 193; Bartels 1975: 912) because both are equally
haaɗ’a manaa ‘the flex of the home/house’:
Sawayi, ya sawayi—o my cow, o my cow [too high
hypocorism]
ʼnīṱī abbaan gorsatu–a wise man’s wife/a wife of wisest
counselor husband
amali inmulattu–her virtues are hidden;/is virtuous and
has integrity;
saa abbaan tiqsatu–o careful owner’s cow/ similarly, cow
that the owner himself
shepherds/feeds
č’inaači inmuľaṱu–her ribs are hidden/her hook bone is
invisible (full and swollen).
Saa, saa, ya saa–cattle, cattle, o cow,
ya saa marī koo–o cow, my advisor/darling
ţiqē marartu koo–good in the eyes of your herdsman/am
overseeing you spitefully.
(Bartels, 1975: 912)
Likewise, an infant and a young calf are not only congruous, but also sung a lullaby to comfort them:
Sleep, sleep!
My little man slobbers over his breast.
The skin clothes are short.
The groin is dirty
The waist is like the waist of a young wasp
The shepherd with the stick!
Sleep, sleep!
He who milks with the ropes!
Sleep, sleep!
He who takes the milk with the pot!
Sleep, sleep!
The cows of Abba Bone,
The cows of Dad’i Golge:
They’ve gone out and made the grass crack;
They’ve [come home] again and made the pot.
(Sumner 1997: 181)
Basically, there is no difference between a newborn calf and an infant; no need of separate lexisboth is élmee—
diminutive-denominative from elma ‘to milk’. Young calves or children are worn kolliʥa ‘collar’, ǧallattii
‘diadem, crown, tiara’ or č’allee ‘jewelry’ wrapping around their necks, all of whose semiotic significance is to
express ǧalla, ǧallačča ‘love’ and protection from ɡaaɖiɗú ‘evil spirit’ that bewitches not only infants and young of
animals, etc (Bartels 1983: 284-285, 196-197). The first meaning of ɡaaɖiɗú, gádíṱú is ‘silhouette’ or ‘human
shadow’ (see also Tutschek 1844: 54), but, in this context it refers to an evil spirit that accompanies or inhabits a
person. The evil spirit comes in a form of shadow and watches with evil-eye, hence it is also called, in some areas, ɮaltu, ilaltu ‘watcher (wicked)’. All these concepts are common motifs in Hararqee rock paintings (Cervicek 197). See
Fig.6 especially the silhouette-like background and in C an evil-eye motif is seen watching from above.
In accordance with the Qaallu Institution, the Qaallu (or Qaalličča, particulative) receives and embraces new
born children, giving them blessings, buttering their heads and ɡubbisaa ‘giving them names’, literally,
‘incubating’ from ɡubba ‘to be above, over’ or ɡuƀa ‘to brand, heat’ (Knustsson 1967). Women call this process of entrusting children to the Qallu ‘aɖɖaraa ol kaa’, literally ‘Putting/Lifting up oath/children to the topmost (related to the prayer epithet Áɖɖaraa ‘Pray! I beseech you!’). Or, they call it Ők’ubaa ɢalča, literally ‘entering/submitting the Őq’ubaa’, which refers to “the act of kneeling down and raising one’s hands with open fingers towards the sky (Waaqa) and thus submitting oneself to Waaqa” (Gidada 2006:163), from the prayer epithet: Őq’uba ‘Pray!, Prayer!’, literally,
‘Take my fingers!’ A “perfect attitude at prayers in the Oromo’s eyes is to lift the hands towards heaven”
(Bartels 1983: 350). An unfortunate Oromo father/mother has to but say élmee koo ana ǧalaa du’e, literally ‘my offspring/child died from under/underside me’ while an unfortunate child would say abbo/ayyo koo ana’irraa du’e ‘my dear dad/mum died from above/over me’. Some lines from a song for a hero illustrate caressing and kissing the belly of his mother (Cerulli 1922: 48):
The belly which has brought you forth,
How much gold has it brought forth?
Who is the mother who has given birth to you?
If I had seen her with my eyes,
I would have kissed her navel.
These symbolic-actional rhetorical organizations are most probably the underlying ‘grammar’ of the recurrent
anthropomorphic signs, along with a newborn calves, ‘embracing’ the belly, navel of a cow (Fig.6CandD from
Cervicek 1971). Culturally, cows are given as an invaluable gift to an adoptee child, so that she/he never
sleeps a night without a cup of milk. The gift-cow is addressed by hypocoristic aɳɖ’úree ‘navel, umbilical cord’
(aɖɖ’oolee, plural, by play on word ‘good parous ones, the gray/old ones’), which means ‘dear foster-mama’
symbolizing cordiality, wish to long-life and strong bond, protection of the child (see also Hassen 1990: 21).
Earlier in this paper, we saw how matrilineal-patrilineal and moiety phratry are represented partly by bovine
anatomy. As recorded by the Catholic Father Lambert Bartels and others, Waaqa ‘Devine, God, Sky’
symbolizes Abbá, Patriarchic-side of the cosmos or Father or Husband “who goes away” while, Daččee
‘Earth’ symbolizes, the Matriarchic-side, Mother or Wife who “is always with us” (Bartels 1983: 108-111) and
“originally, Heaven and Earth were standing one next to the other on equal terms” (Haberland 1963: 563 quoted in
Bartels 1983: 111). As we observe the Laga Odaa pictures (see Fig.5A), we consistently also find another
interesting analogy–bulls are consistently drawn above the cows. In Oromo worldview, a bull represent ßoo
‘sacred domain of the male’ (vocative form of bâ ‘man, subject, being, masculine 4th person pronoun’), while a
cow (saa, sa’a) represent çâé, îssi ‘sacred domain of the female’ (also ‘feminine 4th person pronoun’) (Kassam
1999:494). From this worldview comes Oromo concept of Ḿootumma ‘rule, government, state, kingdom’:[Ḿootumma comes] from moo’a, autobenefactive: moo’ď/ʈ, is a cattle image. For example, Kormi sun him moo’a, “that bull is in heat” and sa’a sun iti moo’a ‘he is mounting that cow’. With reference to human beings, the implication is not necessarily sexual, but can denote superiority or dominance in general. An moo’a, an mooti is a formula of self praise by a new Abba Gada during his inauguration (Shongolo 1996: 273).
Qallačča and Qaallu: A jigsaw motif
In this last section of this analysis, we must consider the symbolic significance of what an old man skilled in
Oromo oral history says is tremendously important: The Qaallu did this. For the daughter/girl of Ǧillee
[eponymous clan name] he took a heifer; for the daughter/girl of Elellee [eponymous clan name] he also
took a heifer. Then, for the Elellee girl he erected the heifer of Elellee in such a way that her (the heifer’s) head
is faced upwards. For the Ǧillee girl, he erected the heifer of Ǧillee in such a way that her (the heifer’s) is faced
downwards. The girl of Ǧillee too siiqqee stick and hit the Mormor River; then, the Mormor River split into two
(BATO 1998:75; My translation).
This story offers us a tremendously important insight.It corresponds with the amazing critical observation and re-interpretation of my informant Muummee. Muummee rotated 90oCW Cervicek’s (1971) Laga Oda Figure 47 (=
Fig.7 A) and got Fig.7B after rotating. In this motif, the Qaallu , with his qallačča headgear, is at the centre. We
can observe one heifer above the Qaallu (perhaps Ǧillee heifer) her head inverted, serving as qallačča headgear,
and behind him to the right handside, two heifers (cattle, one headless), both of whose heads are facing
downwards but in between them and the qallačča cattle is one anthropomorphic motif, unlike on the lefthand
where there are many, possibly a chorus in praise of the sublime black cow and of the reverenced Qaallu. We also
observe, a heifer (cow?) whose head is faced upwards (possibly Elellee heifer).
As usual, it is likely also that this style is as much for associal-epistemological as is it for grammatical- semotactical reason. The downward-faced heifer or Ǧillee (hypocoristic-diminutive from ǧiɭa ‘ritual ceremony, pilgrimage’), which is equivalent to qallačča headgear of the Qaallu anthropomorphic, is a signification of the semantic of ɡaɮa ‘to safely travel away and come home (or ɢaɮma ‘the Sacred Temple of Qaallu’)’ by the help of the Qallačča the providence of God. Thus, the collocation
forming gaɮa-gaɮča gives the polysemous metonymic senses: (1) to invert, make upside down, (2) one who causes safe home-come i.e., Qallačča. The same ‘play on word’ is true of Elellee: (1) reduplication (emphasis) of ēɮ, éla ‘spring up; well (water)’, and (2) őɮ literally ‘go up; upwards; spare the day peacefully, prevail’. “Őɮa!” is a farewell formula for ‘Good day!’ (literally ‘Be upward! Be above! Prevail!’).Yet, the most interesting aspect lies beyond the lexico-syntactic or semotactic motives. If we look carefully at this motif, the head of the Qaallu and the foreparts of the downwards (ɡaɗi) Ǧillee heifer merge, which makes the latter headless (ɡaɗooma). The Elellee heifer apparently with only one horn but full nape (bok’uu)
appears to be another jigsaw making a thorax (ɡûɗeɫča) of the Qaallu, possibly because in the “Barietuma” Gada
System, the Qaallu are “central”, i.e., “occupy a special position, and their members act as “witnesses” (Galech)
on the occasion of weddings or other important transaction” (Werner 1915:17, 1914a: 140; See also Legesse 2006: 104, 182, for “Gada Triumvirate System”). This is not arbitrary, but is stylized so that the notions of seniority are textured simultaneously, in caput mortuum. Pertaining to the “seven bosses” of the qallačča (Plowman 1918:114) ) is possibly equivalent to Cervicek’s (1971:192) description of this same motif: “Seven animal representations, painting of a symbol ((cen-tre) and pictures of H-shaped anthropomorphic figures…Painted in graphite grey, the big cattle picture a
little darker, the smaller one beneath it in caput mortuum red.” While we can consider, following Dr. Gemetchu Megerssa, anthropology professor, that the seven bosses might stand for the seven holes of human body (above the neck) which still stand for some mythical concepts we cannot discuss here, it is also possible to consider the (related) socio-political structure of the democratic Gada System. They must stand for what Legesse (1973: 82, 107) calls “torban baalli” “the seven
assistants” of Abba Gada in “power” (his in-powerness is makes him Abba Bokkuu, ‘Proprietor/Holder of the
Scepter’). Long before Legesse’s critical and erudite study of Gada System, Phillipson (1916) wrote:
The petty chiefs act in conjunction with the king. These are, however, appointed by election of officers called Toib
[Tor b] or Toibi (= seven councilors or ministers). These are men of standing and character…. They are governed
by, and work in unison with, the head. These officers are appointed by the king, and each of the seven has an
alternative, so that the number is unbroken. Their office is to sit in council with the king, hear cases, administer
justice, and in the king’s absence they can pass sentence in minor cases; but all they do is done by his authority.
For all that, this may act as a check if the king inclines to despotism. There is no such thing as favoritism; the Toibi
stands in the order elected: 1, 2, and c (Phillipson 1916:180). These seven high ranking officials (aɡaoɗa) are
purposely represented by forepart of bovine body (agooda), because this is the strongest and most
powerful part. Ól, literally ‘up, upwards, upper’ is a metaphoric expression for those “On-High in the
government of his [Abba Bokkuu] people” (De Salviac 2005 [1901]: 212). Cervicek (1971:130) is accurate when he theorized “anthropomorphic representations do not seem to have been painted for their own sake but in connection with the cattle and symbolic representations only.” Despite the guttural sounds dissimilarization, as in the expression
ɢaɮčaan naaf ɡalé ‘I understood it by profiling. i.e., symbolically (i.e., from the gerundive ɢaɮču, kalču ‘profiling, aligning, allying’, or kaɬaṯṯi ‘perspective, façade’, or the base kala, χala ‘to construct, design’; see Stegman
2011:2, 17), the very word qallača itself is a metasemiotic language, meaning ‘symbolic interpretation’.
*Dereje Tadesse Birbirso (PhD) is Assistant Professor, School of Foreign Language, College of Social Science and Humanities, Haramaya University
Waaqeffannaa (Amantii Oromoo), the traditional faith system of the Oromo people, is one version of the monotheistic African Traditional Religion (ATR), where the followers of this faith system do believe in only one Supreme Being. African traditional religion is a term referring to a variety of religious practices of the only ONE African religion, which Oromo believers call Waaqeffannaa (believe in Waaqa, the supreme Being), an indigenous faith system to the continent of Africa. Even though there are different ways of practicing this religion with varieties of rituals, in truth, the different versions of the African religion have got the following commonalities:
– Believe in and celebrate a Supreme Being, or a Creator, which is referred to by a myriad of names in various languages as Waaqeffataa Oromo do often say: Waaqa maqaa dhibbaa = God with hundreds of names and Waaqa Afaan dhibbaa = God with hundreds of languages; thus in Afaan Oromoo (in Oromo language) the name of God is Waaqa/Rabbii or Waaqa tokkicha (one god) or Waaqa guraachaa (black God, where black is the symbol for holiness and for the unknown) = the holy God = the black universe (the unknown), whom we should celebrate and love with all our concentration and energy
– No written scripture (ATR’s holy texts are mostly oral), but now some people are trying to compose the written scripture based on the Africans’ oral literature.
– Living according to the will of the Supreme Being and love also those who do have their own way of surviving by following other belief systems, which are different from that of the Waaqeffannaa. It includes keeping both safuu (virtues) and laguu (vices); i.e. to love safuu as well as to hate and abhor cubbuu (sin).
– Correspondence with the Supreme Being in times of a great need (i.e. in times of natural calamities, unexplained deaths) and try to walk always on the karaa nagaa (on the way of peace = on the way of righteousness, on the road of truth).
– Having a devout connection with ancestors; in case of Oromo, the ancestors are all ways blessed and celebrated for the good inheritance we got from them, but not worshiped as some people want to mis understand.
The word “culture” is most commonly defined as the set of shared attitudes, values, goals, and practices that characterizes an institution, organization or group; different cultures are the distinct ways that classified people living in different parts of the world, that represented their experiences and acted creatively. African peoples have got our own culture, which distinguish us from other parts of the world, of course also having our own sub-cultures among ourselves. Aadaa Oromoo (Oromo culture) being one part of the Cush culture is one of the sub-cultures within the common African culture, which consists also the faith system of Waaqeffannaa as part and parcel of the Oromo/African culture.
Waaqeffannaa’s interaction with other religions
According to the expert opinions written up to now, the concept of monotheism is the whole mark of African Traditional Religion including the faith system of the Cush nations. It seems that this concept of monotheism have moved from Cushitic black Africans (including the Oromo) first to ancient Egypt, secondly, further to Israel of the Bible and lastly to the Arab world of Koran. The experts tell us that Moses was not the first monotheist, but Akhenaten was the first revolutionary monotheist; they even claim that Moses might have been black. It is also argued that Moses was an Egyptian Pharaoh known as Akhenaten before the exodus. Additionally, they do argue that Akhenaten’s monotheism revolution in Egypt was not inspired from inside, but induced from outside by the Cushites, i.e. Akhenaten might have derived his monotheism concept from Africa’s/Oromo’s concept of Waaqa tokkicha in a form of “Waaq humna malee bifa hin qabu (God has no physical form, but power).” This concept may have been misinterpreted so that the other religions later started to talk about God with a physical form.
It is also interesting to observe many similarities between some old Egyptian words and Afaan Oromo words; for instance, the similarities of the ancient Egyptian words “Anii and Matii” with the Oromo words of “Ana (Ani) and Maatii.” Anii of Egyptians, which means I (I am who I am), that is equivalent to God is similar to the Oromo word Ani, which also means I and refers to the first person singular (the actor = the main character of GOD). Matii being the designation of God’s congregation and the Oromo word Maatii for the family which is the “congregation” of ani (first person = God) are surprisingly the same. This is only one of many similarities between Oromo and Egypt registered by experts till now. It is not my intention to talk about this historical relationship here, but just to show the relation between Oromo’s traditional religion and the three Abraham religions, even though Judaism is not part of the current religions practiced by the Oromo. It means the new acceptance of both Christianity and Islam by Africans is the coming back of the same belief in Waaqa tokkicha to Africa in different forms.
This historical relation between Amantii Oromoo and the two big religions of the world suggests that Waaqeffannaa is the older version of monotheism and humanism. Waaqeffannaa as a faith system and Irreechaa as a major national celebration were part and parcel of Oromo public life. Now, some Oromo nationals prefer the name Amantii Oromo/Amantii Africa to Waaqeffannaa. It is important if we all can agree to call the Oromo traditional religion as Amantii Oromo/Amantii Africa, just like we agreed on calling our language Afaan Oromo and our country Biyya Oromo. So in short, we can say: Our land is Biyya Oromo, our language is Afaan Oromo and our religion is Amantii Oromo. It is known that some people may argue by saying “how can we call it Amantii Oromo, when we do see that more than half of the Oromo nowadays have Christianity and Islam as their religion?” Are Oromo with other first language rather than Afaan Oromo not Oromo, despite their lost Afaan Oromo? Should we say just because of these Oromo, who nowadays speak only English, German, Amharic, etc., that Oromo language is not Afaan Oromo? The same way, it is not logical not to call Oromo religion as Amantii Oromo because of the Oromo who overtook other religions. Actually, the designation Waaqqeffannaa (believing in and living with Waaqa) can also be applied to Christian Oromo and Islam Oromo even though most of the Islam Oromo prefer the name Rabbii to the name Waaqa. They all are believers in Waaqa = God = Allah = Rabbii. Amantii Oromo differs only because of its specificity for it is the older Oromo faith embedded in only Oromo/African culture without any influence from alien culture.
The fact to be accepted here is that God is universal even though we call HIM Waaqa, Rabbii or Allah. But, Amantii Oromo is the way how our forefathers believed in this universal Waaqa of humankind. We don’t have God or Waaqa, who is specific only to Oromo/Africa and doesn’t care for other nations. Waaqa is the God of nations. But, we Oromo do have a specific way and culture regarding how we do practice our belief in Waaqa. This way of practicing our faith is what we call Amantii Oromo. Amantii Oromo is simply the Oromo way of practicing the faith in the universal Waaqa. It is part of the Oromo way of dealing with the problems of life (it is part of Aadaa Oromo). Accordingly, aadaa (culture) can also be defined as the way, in which a certain collective or group of people deals with its own life problem.
The difference between this Amantii Oromo and the other two big religions practiced by Oromo is that the other two got not only the faith in one God, but also the elements of cultures from the people in which they first emerged. We can see here the Arabs accepted the concept of Waaqa tokkicha while still keeping pre-Mohammad Arab culture in Islam, which is far different from Oromo/from African culture, but Islam practiced by Oromo in Oromia is colored by Arab culture for it is adopted from there. Interestingly, this is the difference between Islam Arab and Islam Oromo; Islam Arabs adopted only the concept of Waaqa tokkicha from Cush of Africa/Egypt/Israel, but don’t seem to exercise alien culture from these areas, whereas Islam Oromo tend to adopt both the faith and the culture from Arabs. Egyptians and Israelis, who accepted the concept of the same Waaqa tokkicha, also do practice their faith being colored by their own previous culture; they don’t seem to practice Cush culture; but again Christianity practiced in Oromia is mostly colored by the culture of the Israelis, the Habeshas as well as by that of the Western world for Christian Oromo tend to adopt not only the faith, but also the alien culture.
That is why it is not actually bad that some Oromo nationals accept and believe in the two monotheist religions (Christianity and Islam) per se, but not good is giving more value to the culture of the nations from which the religions come to us, at the cost of the very valuable Aadaa Oromo. Of course, good elements of foreign cultures can be accommodated without damaging the good elements of our own. For instance, the similarity between dibbee Qaallu (Qaallu’s drum) and the beat of Tigrinya music shows how Tegarus have inherited and kept some elements of Oromo’s culture. This can verify that the suggestion of Donald Levine, who in his book called Greater Ethiopia wrote that “Tegarus are part of the Cushites of the Old Testament who denied their identity”, may be true. After all, why do they call their mother Aadde? Where does the name Barentu in Eritrea come from? Are they only inheritance of names or were they part of the lost Oromo/Cush? Anyways, it is good to follow the advice given once by Luba Shamsadin. He said (paraphrased here), when we try to accept religions from other nations, we have to identify and separate “the bone of the fish from the meat”; i.e. we need to identify and leave the unnecessary cultural elements of other nations, which are usually mixed with their religions we Oromo do tend to accept and adopt.
So as it is put here in short,
Waaqeffannaa (believe in one Waaqa of the universe) is practiced not only among the Cush nations, but also among almost all African nations. This faith system of Africans including Waaqeffannaa has been devalued as something “paganism, barbarism, religionlessness, uncivilization, Godlessness, animism, primitivism, etc”. The black color, which is the symbol of holiness in Waaqeffannaa was/is demonized as a symbol for Satan. All the blessing ceremonies of Waaqeffannaa and the utensil used for the blessings are condemned as a service, an instrument and worshiping of demons/Satan. Despite this denigration, the current revival of Waaqeffannaa and the celebration of Irreechaa in Oromia can be a good example-setting for the other African nations to revive their hitherto devalued and almost lost culture and religion.
To serve this purpose of revival, the right way of Waaqeffannaa (believing in, celebrating of and living with Waaqa) must be cleaned from alien non-constructive elements as well as from non-productive practices and rituals like that of “qaalichaa” (infiltrating idolatry), which are not serving the purpose of Waaqa in our personal or national life. That means, we have to differentiate Waaqeffachuu (realizing God’s purpose in our life) from waaqessuu (serving alien gods). Waaqeffachuu is applying Waaqa’s goodwill in our practical life, whereas waaqessuu is making someone or something be our Waaqa, i.e. practicing idolatry. The Oromo people in general have never had an idol to worship, but always had only one Waaqa to believe in and to celebrate. Of course, there are very few Oromo individuals nowadays tending to practice waaqessuu. Such purification of the African faith system from unimportant and useless elements must be done in all versions of the practices and rituals among all African nations.
Concept of God in Waaqeffannaa
To make Waaqeffannaa a little bit clear, here is a short narration about this faith system in practice. Oromo nationals practicing this faith do talk about Waaqa tokkicha, which is one of the evidences for the faith to be monotheism, just as the Christianity and Islam are. The concept of God among these believers is summarized by their usual saying: “Waaq humna malee bifa hin qabu.” These believers do not misinterpret Waaqa tokkicha as an expression of physical form for even the whole nature as a physical form is also an expression of his power. The believers and the Qaalluu or Qaallitti (local spiritual leader) are usually very lovely; specially the leaders are simply like a love in person. All their followers are selfless people full of good deeds and love; they do talk about Waaqa, calling him as abbaa koo (my father), and they usually do pray for children saying: “akka ijoollee keenyaa eebbisuuf abba keenya gaafanna (let’s ask our father to bless our children),” they usually don’t say “abba keenya kadhanna (let’s beg our father).”
Whenever they are challenged by life problems, they do assert by saying: “Waaq abbaan keenya eessa dhaqeetu (our God is not far away)”, denoting that Waaqa is always ready to help his children. They some times also talk as prophets in a way: “Abbaan keenya akkas jedha, ani sin wajjin jira, ani nan sin gargaara (our father says, I am with you and I will help you)”. According to them, the spiritual father is Waaqa garaa gurraachaa, i.e. Waaqa with holy heart, symbolized with black color, most of whose holiness is unknown to humans. Knowledgeable believers do tell that the concept “Waaqa gurracha garaa garba (black God with heart like ocean)” actually refers to the unknown future. What Waaqa may bring in the future is unknown, and that is signified by black color. Here, garaa garba is also about the unknown. One couldn’t know what is inside the body of water from afar. This point of view seems to be the reason for the color black in the Oromo tricolor to signify the unknown future.
In some regions of Oromia, there are a lot of congregations visited by Oromo at some big houses called gimbi (galma) which have got different names: gimbii diloo, maram, abbaa jama, hiike, etc; the spiritual practices done there include the following: dalaguu (dancing), irreenssa kennu (green leaf as a gift), wareeguu (offerings), hammachiisaa (blessing babies), gashaa (delicious food brought to gimbi), etc. Actually, people go to such gimbi regularly carrying green leaves of Irreensaa. In this culture, green grass or green leaf is a powerful symbol for life and prosperity, and it is an element present in all public rituals of Waaqeffataa Oromo, including funerals and prayers of remembrance, during which grass is spread on the ground or grave. The above listed different names of gimbi are Oromo spiritual holy places and palaces, which are equivalent to temple, church and mosque. In all the places mentioned, everyone prays to Waaqa. The practices mentioned above are just variations of spiritual practice to Waaqa.
It is also to be observed among the practicing Waaqeffattaa how balanced is their way of discussion and relationship. During sorts of discussions, they often discuss very wisely. For example, when they give comments, here is a sample of how they do: “Ilaa, kanaa fi sana waan gaarii jette. Haa ta’u malee, kunimmoo otoo akkana ta’e wayya (here and there you said good, but it is better if this one be so and so)”. They do not denigrate the opinion of the other side, but tell the better alternative to the opinion they do disagree with. They do tolerate the mistake of others and just tell the consequence of the mistake. As far as they are concerned, there is always cubbuu (sin) in their consciousness, but no concept for hell or condemnation after death. This simply implies that we all do experience the consequence of our trespasses regarding the safuu (virtues) and laguu (vices) expected from us during our life time.
Not to suffer such consequences of cubbuu, Waaqeffattaa Oromo have got a lot of very well said prayers in their practical life activities. The following are very few of the impressive prayers in the day to day life of the Oromo, which need to be presented here as examples. They are usually heard from the believers of Amantii Oromo, and they are almost similar to what the believers in Christianity and Islam do pray, let alone the similarity of the greatly formulated prayers we do hear during Irreechaa celebration with what the Christian Qesis and the Islam Sheiks usually do pray:
– Yaa Waaq kan dubbatee nu dubbachiisu fi kan hamaa nutti yaadu nurraa qabbi (God keep us from those who speak evil and make us speak the same).
– Yaa Waaq mirga nu oolch (help us to walk on the right way); hamaa nurraa qabi (protect us from evil).
– Yaa Rabbii, ilmi ga’e haa fuudhu (Oh God, let the young man be married), dubarri geesse haa heerumtu (let the young woman be married), this prayer shows howimportant family building for human blessing is.
– Yaa Waaq, ani galee, kan galee hin rafne narraa qabi; ani rafee kan rafee hin bulle narra qabi (I am now at home to sleep, save me from the evil ones who didn’t yet be at their home and didn’t sleep).
– Yaa Waaq galgala koo hin balleessiin (let my old age not be cursed), this is related with the conse -quence of cubbuu. The believers are asking Waaqa to help them stay away from cubbuu so that their “galgala (late age)” will not be bad/painful. Here we see something similar with the native American’s culture. They say: “when you came to this world, you cried and everybody else laughed; live your life so that when you leave this world, you laugh and everyone else cries”; i.e. to say live your life free from cubbuu and its conse -quence (suffering), the life style which leads you to the blessing in your old age.
This prayers indicate the fact on the ground how Oromo look at Waaqa and at the human-being. Waaqa is conceived as a holy father with whom we can correspond during our day to day life problems or when ever we face calamities or difficulties for his will is always good, whereas human-beings can be with either bad or good intention in relation to each other. Both Gadaa and Qaalluu institutions look at all individuals as human with equal rights in front of Waaqa; that is why there is no a “respect form” of addressing human-being or God in Afaan Oromo, just as there is non in English language. After losing our sovereignty, the Oromo people had to learn how to “respect” authority figures. For there is no such option in Afaan Oromo, we had to use plural verbs to address the authority figures. Even Abbaa Gadaa (chief of the government) and Abbaa Mudaa (the spiritual leader) were addressed as “ati = you in a singular form,” not as “isin = you in a plural form.” Today, we have to address our fellow human being with certain authority as “isin” to show “respect.” It is not bad if such addressing would have been mutual/symmetrical as for instance it is in German language. But such “respect,” which we are now applying is asymmetrical (only the authority figure is addressed with the “respect” form, whereas the authority figure can address the other person without using the “respect” form. Where it is the reality that we don’t use the “respect” form during addressing our Waaqa, as seen in the above prayers, why should we bother to use it in addressing our fellow human being? It would be better if we leave this culture, which we adopted from others with authoritarian culture in contrast to our own egalitarian one. Our concept of Waaqa doesn’t allow us to behave so submissively to any human being, who is equal to us.
Virtues and Vices of Waaqeffannaa
Here in short, safuu (virtue) can be defined as the “to do list” in order to serve Waaqa and to achieve his kaayyoo/goal in our personal and national earthly life; whereas laguu (vice) is the “not to do list” or the taboo, so that we can refrain from doing such activities diverting us from the kaayyoo Waaqa for our life. Cubbuu (sin) then in short includes both not doing the safuu and doing the laguu. Just as an example, if we take bilisummaa (national freedom) as Waaqa’s kaayyoo for the Oromo nation, what are the safuu and the laguu to be respected? If the kaayyoo of Waaqeffannaa is individual healing from any sort of illness, what are the safuu and the laguu, which both the healer and the sick person should respect?
In order to look at the virtues and vices of the traditional Oromo/African belief system for our earthly life, let us now try to describe Waaqeffannaa as we experienced it and knew it. Note that all the descriptions and notions we try to put here on paper are based on our own argaa-dhageetti (based on our own perception), which may differ from that of the other Oromo nationals. For instance, we could observe that Oromo is a nation filled with celebrations of eebba (blessing), who do have different celebrations for almost everything and everybody related to our life. For instance, taaboree as a blessing ceremony for young boys; ingiccaa for blessing young girls; ayyaana abbaa for blessing the ancestors for the good inheritance we got from them; ateetee for blessing our women; borantichaa for blessing adult men; jaarii looni for blessing our useful animals; jaarii qe’e or jaarii kosii for blessing our residence area; jaarii midhaani to bless our farms; garanfasa mucucoo as a celebration of the rainy season and, of course, gubaa and irreechaa for celebration of the coming birraa (the coming spring season) etc. We hope that Oromo students of anthropology, sociology and theology will make a scientific research on these blessing ceremonies and tell us the constructive and non-constructive elements of the activities in them.
But, let us mention few of the virtues (positive aspects) of Waaqeffannaa in our earthly life time. Here the reference point to judge certain elements as negative or positive is the position of the purpose, which Waaqa do have for our personal and national life, i.e. based on the kaayyoo (goal) our Waaqayyoo do have for us. To elaborate this relationship between kaayyoo and Waaqayyoo, we can ask: is Waaq-aayyoo our ka-ayyoo / is our ka-ayyoo the Waaq-ayyoo? It is about knowing what purpose we do serve in our daily life both cognitively and behaviorally, as individuals or as a nation. Be it that we do think and walk at political, religious or private level, we do try to serve certain purpose in life. In order to identify that purpose, we only need to be conscious about it, reflect on it and ask our selves: whom do we privately or collectively serve in our endeavors? Do we serve Waaqa’s purpose for us or that of the others’? Simply put, which purpose should we serve? Fortunately the hitherto cumulative knowledge and wisdom of different societies in general and that of the Oromo society in particular tell us what we ought to serve: i.e. to serve Waaqa’s purpose which is good for us as an individual and as a collective. This good purpose is given a sacred name and it seems to be what people call the will of Waaqa.
As a support for this assertion, we can look at an example written in the Bible of Christians, that states : “God is my objective”. Is this to be understood also as: “my objective is God”? Can we say that our good personal or political purpose is the will of Waaqa, whom we ought to serve? To comprehend this, it is no where clearly written other than in Afaan Oromo. Surprisingly the words kaayyoo and Waaqayyoo in our language do indicate to have the same source. As we know, the short word KA is the name given by our Cushitic ancestors to God and the word aayyoo is, of course, the name given to a mother, who does wish all good things for her children and does plan and try to fulfill it. So KA can be defined as the Supreme Being, which has good purpose for ayyoo’s children. This purpose is the “Goodness” for her children. So KA-ayyoo is God’s will (his good objective to her beloved children). The term Waaqayyo is the short form of waan-KA-ayyoo (what is planned from KA for aayyoo and for her children). So we can see that the good end, we have to serve, can be called kaayyoo from Waaqa. So the will of Waaqa is simply to be defined as the good end we should choose to serve as part of the balanced universe created by HIM.
To fulfill this service to the good end, fortunately the best thing we do observe among Waaqeffataa Oromo is the work-ethics they do have to achieve the purpose of Waaqa in their earthly life, specially in the life areas of career and family. They do love to be the best in both life areas; they love their family and most of them are very enthusiastic to be successful in their profession. They usually say “Waaq taa’i taa’i namaan hin jedhin (let HE not make us idle);” simply put, diligence is part of safuu and to be idle and lazy is part of laguu. We know that there are certain contamination from other cultures to be practiced as rituals contradicting this virtue and which are not serving the purpose of Waaqa for us. That is why we do recommend not only the revival of this marvelous belief system, which was the creation of our forefathers, but also we do suggest a necessary reformation to make the faith system to be fit, so that it can help us to cope with the 21st century challenge and situation. Waaqa’s creation and his keeping the balance of the universe is still going on, so that HE demands also a dynamic creative work from his creature, from the human being. Another impressive virtue of Waaqeffannaa necessary to be mentioned is its relation with nature and its persuasion to help us keep the environment healthy; it is the faith system which is simply through and through green.
Waaqeffannaa’s position on the life after death
According to this belief system, we all will live further after death as ekeraa (in a form of soul/spirit) with our father, with Waaqa, without any possibility of punishment in hell. We recently read Martial De Salviac’s translated book, in which he wrote “Oromo invariably believe that they will go to heaven.” So, the consequence of our cubbuu is not losing eternal life, but suffering in our earthly life. To Waaqeffataa Oromo, Waaqa is the one who wants us not to do a collective cubbuu, but expects us to protect the balanced nature, in which HIS power is manifested. The wisdom that guides Waaqeffataa Oromo in fulfilling this mission seems to be our arga-dhagetti (believe and act on a principle of reality, i.e. based on what we see and hear).
According to argaa-dhageetti, the concepts like “cubbuun ni qabdi (sin has got consequence), cubbuun ni sirriqxi (the consequence of sin can be inherited), cubbu abbaatu eeggata or cubbuu irra abbaatu uf eega (everyone should keep him-/herself from committing sin and everybody is responsible for the consequences of the sin he/she commit)” are nice and practical. What we liked most from the principles of Waaqeffannaa is this concept of cubbuu. The consequences of cubbuu are only to be seen here on this earth, not in the coming life after death. There is no hell that Waaqayyoo has prepared to punish the people with cuubbu. This is hilarious and very healing for those who always have to live with the fear of hell or punishment after death.
Another interesting aspect of Waaqeffannaa is that we never heard from the practicing believers that they are believing in the presence of an evil spiritual power in the form of Satan, which acts and lives against the almighty power of Waaqa. Accordingly, there is only one sovereign power doing and undoing all things in a universe, that is Waaqa. Unfortunately, the concept Satan is now already spread among the whole Oromo population as a contamination taken from other religions. Waaqeffataa Oromo do believe that the evil things we do experience in life are due to the imbalance of nature as a result of the unwise or wicked deeds of humans as collective, i.e. it is a human cubbuu with its consequences on the earth. That is why they usually ask their Waaqa for wisdom to keep the balance of nature and that HE lead them to only those with good intention and protect them from those with bad intention, for example, in a prayer like: “yaa Waaq tolaa nutti qabi, hamaa irraa nu eegi (God lead who is good to us and keep away who is evil from us). Here it seems that good is someone, who works to keep the balance of nature; and evil is the contrary.
According to the faith system of Waaqeffannaa, there is nothing we have to do now to earn eternal life after death; life after death is simply a free gift we got from our father, Waaqayyoo, whom we just need to celebrate and thank as we do daily and during the yearly celebrations like Irreechaa. We also don’t need a savior, who has to suffer and die for us, so that we can get life after death. The only area where we have to work on is trying to live the quality life (the character of the eternal life) according to the will of Waaqa here on earth. To live this quality life, we need to activate our potentials given to us from Waaqa and then walk on the karaa nagaa towards the kaayyoo Waaqa for our life, being free from cubbuu by keeping both safuu and laguu.
Further recommendation
The very important aspect of Waaqeffannaa as part of Oromo/African culture is its principle of argaa-dhaggeetti (it is relatively an evidence based faith system, possibly trying to be free from superstition). This principle is about reading the real situations at hand and finding the appropriate solutions for the situations. Waaqeffannaa teaches that only Waaqa is not prone to change for HE is perfect, but all his creature and all the situations are changing with time; that is why his creative action is still going on and that we also need to be in a position to find new solutions for the changed situations. In short, we need to be situation oriented, time oriented and live accordingly. That means, it is good to know the past version of aadaa and Amantii Oromo/Africa; but better is to live and practice the present version of aadaa and Amantii Oromo; of course the best is to create the most beneficial version of aadaa and Amantii Oromo as well as to inherit it to our coming generation. So let’s learn from the past version, live the present version and love to create the future verion of aadaa Oromo in general, and Amantii Oromo in particular.
This article is of course coloured by subjective perceptions, so that Oromo nationals are welcome to complement or contradict it. All the sub-titles given in this article need a further meticulous research and study. Through scientific studies, it can be possible to cleanse Waaqeffa -nnaa from certain meaningless rituals adopted from the other sub-cultures, e.g rituals like that of “qaalichaa” (idolatry), xinqolaa (sorcery), etc, where the practitioners are actually making business in the name of the religion. Waaqeffannaa needs not only revival, but also reformation as part and parcel of the ongoing liberation from such sensless practices. Elements, which are against the will of Waaqa for all human-being in general and for African nations in particular must be removed, so that we can say Waaqa bless Oromia/Africa and then live accordingly. Adopting good elements, which serve the will of Waaqa for us, from other cultures and faiths is not bad as it is usually said: “waan gaariin bade hundi kan Oromo ti” (every good thing lost belongs to Oromo). Again, good and bad is defined from the position of the will of Waaqa for our life, i.e. from the position of his kaayyoo in our life, which is always a good purpose.
So, only celebrating the holidays and reviving the religion are not enough, if we want to be fit for the present 21st century situation and for the situation in which our future generation will live. Our forefathers created a faith system as part of the solution to their situation; we also need to do the same. So let’s not try to use the same key used by our forefathers in the past to open doors with totally different keyholes at the present and the future or we don’t need to ride a donkey at this age of driving a limousine; in short we need a right solution for the present and the future situations. Our next generation need to inherit from us the latest and modern model/edition/version of our faith system, Waaqeffannaa, which they also can reform, edit and secure for their children and grand children, so that we human-being continue to be as creative as our father, Waaqa.
Let’s give a simple suggestion as an example in the required reforming: why can’t we use bundle of flowers for Irreechaa, instead of only grass used by our forefathers? Why don’t we use water or oil, instead of butter to anoint others during the blessing ceremonies just for the sake of hygiene? Why don’t we use candle light or the modern beautifully colored electric light decorations instead of bonfire during wa-maraa (demera)? etc. Now it is a time to have Waaqeffannaa free from non-productive and untimely elements, so that it will be a faith system, which will be accepted and believed by the enlightened and informed Oromo in particular as well as by Africans in general (so that it will be a faith system serving the will of Waaqa for Oromia in particular, and for Africa in general).
Last but not least, Waaqeffataa Oromo need to be creative in realizing the will of Waaqa in our life, which is the only way to “evangelize” and convert others to the “karaa nagaa (to the right way) HE wants us to walk. We need to learn from the past (the known part of life, which is symbolized by white color), live the present (the challenging part of life symblized by red color) and love to know the future (the unknown part of life symbolized by black color). The karaa nagaa at this particular era/time includes the virtue of a passinate struggle in life both individually and collectively, not an attitude of the pacifistic stoicism. Waaqeffannaa doesn’t persuade us to do things to secure life after death, but it tells us that our effort and enthusiasm are part of the safuu we have to keep and implement in order to make our life here on earth the excellent success story.
Meroe, Oromo and Old Nubian: Solving the Mystery of Meroitic Language
By Dereje Tadesse Birbirso (PhD), College of Social Science and HumanitiesHaramaya University, Ethiopia
Abstract
Meroitic language is one of the most controversial ancient languages but one of the few having advanced writing systems. Some classify it Asian, European, non-African, Semitic,or ‘unclassified’. This paper contends Meroe, similar to their Cushitic friends, are left victims of preconceived ideas based on an entirely argument from silence, an hegemonic epistemology that elevates a single perspective and silences other(s). This paper, thus,comparatively analyzes Meroitic and Old Nubian lexical and grammatical items with corresponding Oromo, a Cushitic family which,
a Cushitic family which,vocabulary possibly the Ancientlanguage of the Nile Valley and/or Horn of Africa. Meroitic and Old Nubian lexical, grammatical and epigraphic data were collected from secondary sources by Meroitic researchers. Oromo corpora are obtained both from classical and modern descriptions and native-speakers. Results indicate Oromo lexemes show significant level of cognates with not only Meroitic and Old Nubian, but also with the Ancient Egyptian to their northern part.
Keywords: Oromo, Meroe, Nubian, Ancient Egyptian, Cushitic, Chiekh Anta Diop
The Meroitic Ethiopian Origins of the Modern Oromo NationBy Prof. Dr. Muhammad Shamsaddin Megalommatis
This paper deals, among others, with the development of Meroitic studies, the Meroitic civilization, the destruction of the city of Meroe, the dispersal of the Meroitic people after the collapse of their state, the Christianization of the post Meroitic states, the migration of the remnants of the Meroitic people in the direction of the Blue Nile and their possible relation of ancestry with the modern Cushitic language speaking Oromo nation. It must be stated clearly at the outset that the issue of Meroitic ancestry of the Oromo nation has not been considered, much less published in an academic journal or scholarly books. The paper was first presented in an academic conference organized by the Oromo Studies Association. Footnotes have been added recently.
1. The Development of the Meroitic Studies, the History of Kush and Meroe, and the Efforts to Decipher the Meroitic Scripture
Interest in what was Ethiopia for the Ancient Greeks and Romans, i.e. the Northern territory of present day Sudan from Khartoum to the Egyptian border1, led to the gradual development of the modern discipline of the Humanities that long stood in the shadow of
Egyptology: the Meroitic Studies.
Considerable advances had been made in academic research and knowledge as the result of the exploratory trips of the Prussian pioneering Egyptologist Richard Lepsius2 (1842 – 1844) that bestowed upon modern scholarship the voluminous ‘Denkmäler aus Aegypten und Aethiopien’ (Monuments from Egypt and Ethiopia), and the series of excavations by E. A. Wallis Budge3 and John Garstang4 at Meroe (modern Bagrawiyah) in the first years of the twentieth century, Francis Llewellyn Griffith5 at Kawa (ancient Gematon, near modern Dongola, 1929 – 1931), Fritz Hintze6 at Musawwarat es Sufra, Jean Leclant7 at Sulb (Soleb), Sadinga (Sedeinga), and Djebel Barkal (ancient Napata, modern Karima) in the 1950s and the 1960s, D. Wildung8 at Naqah, and Charles Bonnet at Kerma. . The pertinent explorations and contributions of scholars like A. J. Arkell9, P. L. Shinnie10 and Laszlo Torok11 that cover a span of 80 years reconstituted a large part of the greatness and splendor of this four-millennia long African civilization.
Yet, due to the lack of direct access to original sources and genuine understanding of the ancient history of Sudan, the legendary Ethiopia of the Greeks and Romans, which also corresponds to what was ‘Kush’ of the Hebrews Bible and ultimately ‘Kas’ of the ancient Egyptians12, we face a serious problem of terminology. We are confined to such terms as Period (or Group) A (3100 – 2700 BCE),13 Period B14 (2700 – 2300 BCE that starts with Pharaoh Snefru’s expedition,15 and the beginning of time-honored enmity between Egypt and Kush), Period C16 (2300 – 2100 BCE, when we have no idea to what specific ethnic or state structures the various Egyptian names Wawat, Irtet, Setjiu,Yam, Zetjau, and Medjay refer)17, Period Kerma18 (2100 – 1500 BCE, named after the modern city and archeological site, 500 km in the south of the present Sudanese – Egyptian border). What we know for sure is that, when the first Pharaohs of the New Empire invaded and colonized the entire area down to Kurgus19 (more than 1000 km alongside the Nile in the south of the present Sudanese – Egyptian border), they established two top Egyptian administrative positions, namely ‘Viceroy of Wawat’ and ‘Viceroy of Kush/Kas’. Wawat is the area between Aswan and Abu Simbel or properly speaking, the area between the first and the second cataracts whereas Kas is all the land that lies beyond. With the collapse of the Kerma culture comes to end a first high-level culture and state in the area of Kush.
We employ the term ‘Kushitic Period’20 to refer to the subsequent period: a) the Egyptian annexation (1500 – 950 BCE) that was followed by a permanent effort to egyptianize Kush and the ceaseless Kushitic revolutions against the Pharaohs;
b) the Kushitic independence (950 – 800 BCE, when a state is formed around Napata21, present day Karima, 750 km in the south of the Sudanese – Egyptian border);
c) the Kushitic expansion and involvement in Egypt (800 – 670 BCE, which corresponds mostly to the XXVth – ‘Ethiopian’ according to Manetho22 – dynasty of Egypt, when the Theban clergy of Amun made an alliance with the Kushitic ‘Qore’ – Kings of Napata, who had two capitals, Napata and Thebes);23 and d) the Kushitic expulsion from Egypt (following the three successive invasions of Egypt by Emperors Assarhaddon24 in 671 BCE, and Assurbanipal25in 669 and 666 BCE, and of Assyria, who made an alliance with the Heliopolitan26 priesthood and Libyan princes against the Theban clergy and the Kushitic kings), and gradual decline (following the invasions by Psamtik/Psammetichus II27 in 591 BCE, and the Achaemedian28 Persian Shah Kambudjiyah/Cambyses29 in 525 BCE) until the transfer of the capital far in the south at Meroe, at the area of present day Bagrawiyah (at the end of the reign of Qore Nastasen30between335 and 315 BCE).
We call ‘Meroitic’ the entire period that covers almost 700 years beginning around 260 BCE with the reign of the successors of Nastasen (Arkamaniqo / Ergamenes31 (the most illustrious among the earliest ones and the first to be buried at Meroe / Bagrawiyah), down to the end of Meroe and the destruction of the Meroitic royal cities by the Axumite Abyssinian Negus Ezana32 (370 CE). It is easily understood that ‘Kushitic’ antedates ‘Meroitic’, but the appellations are quite conventional.
The Ancient people of Kush (or Ethiopia) entered into a period of cultural and scriptural radiation and authenticity relatively late, around the third century BCE, which means that the development took place when Meroe replaced Napata as capital of the Kushites / Meroites. Before that moment, they used Egyptian Hieroglyphic scripture for all purposes of writing, administrative, economic, religious and/or royal. The introduction of the Meroitic alphabetic hieroglyphic writing spearheaded the development of a Meroitic cursive alphabetic scripture that was used for less magnificent purposes than palatial and sacred relief inscriptions. The first person to publish Meroitic inscriptions was the French architect Gau33, who visited Northern Sudan in 1819. Quite unfortunately, almost two centuries after the discovery, we risk being left in mysteries with regard to the contents of the epigraphic evidence collected in both scriptural systems.
The earliest dated Meroitic hieroglyphic inscriptions belong to the reign of the ruling queen Shanakdakheto34 (about 177-155 BCE), but archaeologists believe that this scripture represents the later phase of a language spoken by Kushites / Meroites at least as far back as 750 BCE and possibly many centuries before that (hinting at a Kushitic continuity from the earliest Kerma days). The earliest examples of Meroitic cursive inscriptions, recently found by Charles Bonnet in Dukki Gel (REM 1377-78)35, can be dated from the early second century BCE. The latest text is still probably the famous inscription from Kalabsha mentioning King Kharamadoye (REM 0094)36 and dated from the beginning of the fifth century AD, although some funeral texts from Ballana37 could be contemporary if not posterior.
Despite the fact that F. L. Griffith has identified the 23 Meroitic alphabetic scripture’s signs already in 1909, not much progress has been made towards an ultimate decipherment of the Meroitic38. Scarcity of epigraphic evidence plays a certain role in this regard, since as late as the year 2000 we were not able to accumulate more than 1278 texts. If we now add to that the lack of lengthy texts, the lack of any bilingual text (not necessarily Egyptian /Meroitic, it could be Ancient Greek / Meroitic, if we take into consideration that Arkamaniqo / Ergamenes39 was well versed in Greek), and a certain lack of academic vision, we understand why the state of our knowledge about the history of the Meroites is still so limited.
Linguistics and parallels from other languages have been repeatedly set in motion in order to help the academic research. Griffith and Haycock40 tried to read Meroitic using (modern) Nubian. K.H. Priese41 tried to read the Meroitic text using Eastern Sudanese (Beja42 or Hadendawa43); and F. Hintze44, attempted to compare Meroitic with the Ural-Altaic group. Recently Siegbert Hummel45, compared the “known” Meroitic words to words in the Altaic family which he believed was a substrate language of Meroitic. At times, scholars (like Clyde Winters46) were driven to farfetched interpretations, attempting to equate Meroitic with Tokharian, after assuming a possible relationship between the name Kush and the name Kushan47 of an Eastern Iranian state (of the late Arsacid48, 250 BCE – 224 CE, and early Sassanid49, 224 – 651 CE, times)! However, one must state that the bulk of the researchers working on the Meroitic language do not believe that it was a member of the Afro-Asiatic group.
So far, the only Meroitic words for which a solid translation had been given by Griffith and his successors are the following: man, woman, meat, bread, water, give, big, abundant, good, sister, brother, wife, mother, child, begotten, born, feet. The eventual equivalence between Egyptian and Meroitic texts was a strong motivation for any interpretational approach, recent or not. More recent, but still dubious, suggestions are the following: arohe- «protect», hr- «eat», pwrite «life», yer «milk», ar «boy», are- or dm- «take, receive», dime «cow», hlbi «bull», ns(e) «sacrifice, sdk «journey», tke- «love, revere», we «dog». It is clear that vocalization remains a real problem50.
Through the aforementioned we realize why collective works, like Fontes Historiae Nubiorum. Textual Sources for the History of the Middle Nile Region (vols. I – IV, edited by T. Eide, T. Hägg, R.H. Pierce, and L. Török, University of Bergen, Bergen 1994, 1996. 1998 and 2000), are still seminal for our – unfortunately indirect, as based on Ancient Egyptian, Greek, Latin and Coptic texts – knowledge of Meroe.
2. The End of Meroe
Amidst numerous unclear points of the Kushitic / Meroitic history, the end of Meroe, and the consequences of this event remain a most controversial point among scholars. Quite indicatively, we may mention here the main efforts of historical reconstitution.
A. Arkell, Sayce and others asserted that Meroe was captured and destroyed, following one military expedition led by Ezana of Axum.
B. Reisner insisted that, after Ezana’s invasion and victory, Meroe remained a state with another dynasty tributary to Axum.
C. Monneret de Villard and Hintze affirmed that Meroe was totally destroyed before Ezana’s invasion, due to an earlier Axumite Abyssinian raid.
D. Torok, Shinnie, Kirwan, Haegg and others concluded that Meroe was defeated by a predecessor of Ezana, and continued existing as a vassal state.
E. Bechhaus- Gerst specified that Meroe was invaded prior to Ezana’s raid, and that the Axumite invasion did not reach lands further in the north of Meroe51
With two fragmentary inscriptions from Meroe, one from Axum, two graffitos from Kawa and Meroe, and one coin being all the evidence we have so far, , we have little to reconstruct the details that led to the collapse of Meroe. One relevant source, the Inscription of Ezana (DAE 11, the ‘monotheistic’ inscription in vocalized Ge’eze),52 remains a somewhat controversial historical source to be useful in this regard. The legendary Monumentum Adulitanum53, lost but copied in a confused way by Cosmas Indicopleustes54, may not shed light at all on this event. One point is sure, however: there was never a generalized massacre of the Meroitic inhabitants of the lands conquered by Ezana. The aforementioned DAE 11 inscription mentions just 758 Meroites killed by the Axumite forces.
What is even more difficult to comprehend is the reason behind the scarcity of population attested on Meroitic lands in the aftermath of Ezana’s raid. The post-Meroitic and pre-Christian, transitional phase of Sudan’s history is called X-Group55 or period, or Ballana Period and this is again due to lack to historical insight. Contrary to what happened for many centuries of Meroitic history, when the Meroitic South (the area between Shendi56 and Atbara57 in modern Sudan with the entire hinterland of Butana that was called Insula Meroe / Nesos Meroe, i.e. Island Meroe in the Antiquity) was overpopulated, compared to the Meroitic North (from Napata / Karima to the area between Aswan58 and Abu Simbel59, which was called Triakontaschoinos60 and was divided between Meroe and the Roman Empire), during the X-Group times, the previously under-populated area gives us the impression of a more densely peopled region, if compared to the previous center of Meroitic power and population density. The new situation contradicts earlier descriptions and narrations by Dio Cassius 61 and Strabo.62
Furthermore, the name ‘Ballana period’ is quite indicative in this regard, Ballana being on Egyptian soil, whereas not far in the south of the present Sudanese – Egyptian border lies Karanog with its famous tumuli that bear evidence of Nubian upper hand in terms of social anthropology. The southernmost counterpart of Karanog culture can be found in Tangassi (nearby Karima, which represented the ‘North’ for what was the center of earlier Meroitic power gravitation)
In addition, in terms of culture, X-Group heralds a total break with the Meroitic tradition, with the Nubians and the Blemmyes/Beja outnumbering the Meroitic remnants and imposing a completely different cultural and socio-anthropological milieu out of which would later emanate the first and single Nubian state in the World History: Nobatia.
Much confusion characterized modern scholars when referring to Kush or Meroe by using the modern term ‘Nubia’. By now it is clear that the Nubians lived since times immemorial in both Egypt and the Sudan, being part of the history of these two lands. But Nubians are a Nilo-Saharan ethnic / linguistic group different from the Khammitic Kushites / Meroites. At the times of X-Group and during the long centuries of Christian Sudan, we have the opportunity to attest the differences and divergence between the Nubians and the Meroitic remnants. The epicenter of Nubian center, the area between the first (Aswan) and the third (Kerma) cataracts, rose to independence and prominence first, with capital at Faras, nearby the present day Sudanese – Egyptian border, around 450 CE. Nobatia institutionalized Coptic as religious (Christian) and administrative language, and Nubian language remained an oral only vehicle of communication. The Nobatian control in the south of the third cataract was vague, nominal and precarious. Nobatia was linked with the Coptic – Monophysitic Patriarchate of Alexandria.
The Meroitic remnants underscored their difference from the Nubians / Nobatians, and the depopulated central part of the defunct state of Meroe rose to independence in the first decades of the sixth century. Its name, Makkuria, is in this regard a linguistic resemblance of the name ‘Meroe’ but we know nothing more. The Meroitic remnants inhabited the northern circumference of Makkuria more densely, and the gravitation center turned around Old Dongola (580 km in the south of Wadi Halfa), capital of this Christian Orthodox state that extended from Kerma to Shendi (the area of the sixth cataract), so for more than 1000 km alongside the Nile. But beyond the area of Karima (750 km in the south of Wadi Halfa) and the nearby famous Al Ghazali monastery we have very scarce evidence of Christian antiquities. The old African metropolis Meroe remained at the periphery of Makkuria, Alodia and Axumite Abyssinia.
Makkurians highlighted their ideological – religious divergence from the Nubians, by adopting Greek as religious language. They even introduced a new scripture for their Makkurian language that seems to be a later phase of Meroitic. Makkurian was written in alphabetic Greek signs, and the Makkurians preferred to attach themselves to Christian Orthodoxy, and more particularly to the Greek Patriarchate of Alexandria.
Alodia has long been called the ‘third Christian state’ in Sudan, but recent discoveries in Soba, its capital (15 km at the east of Khartoum), suggest that Alodia rose first to independence (around 500 CE) and later adhered to Christianity (around 580 – 600 CE) following evangelization efforts deployed by missionary Nobatian priests (possibly in a sort of anti-Makkurian religious diplomacy). We know nothing of an Alodian scripture so far.
The later phases of the Christian history of Sudan encompass the Nobatian – Makkurian merge (around 1000 CE), the islamization of Makkuria in 1317, and finally the late collapse of Christian Alodia in 1505. The question remains unanswered until today:
What happened to the bulk of the Meroitic population, i.e. the inhabitants of the Insula Meroe, the present day Butana? What occurred to the Meroites living between the fourth and the sixth cataracts after the presumably brief raid of Ezana of Axum, and the subsequent destruction of Meroe, Mussawarat es Sufra, Naqah, Wad ben Naqah and Basa?
3. Reconstruction of the Post-Meroitic History of the Kushitic Oromo Nation
Certainly, the motives of Ezana’s raid have not yet been properly studied and assessed by modern scholarship. The reasons for the raid may vary from a simple nationalistic usurpation of the name of ‘Ethiopia’ (Kush), which would give Christian eschatological legitimacy to the Axumite Abyssinian kingdom, to the needs of international politics (at the end of 4th century) and the eventuality of an Iranian – Meroitic alliance at the times of Shapur II (310 – 379), aimed at outweighing the Roman – Abyssinian bond. Yet, this alliance could have been the later phase of a time honored Meroitic diplomatic tradition (diffusion of Mithraism as attested on the Jebel Qeili reliefs of Shorakaror). What we can be sure of are the absence of a large-scale massacre, and the characteristic scarcity of population in the central Meroitic provinces during the period that follows Ezana’s raid and the destruction of Meroe.
The only plausible explanation is that the scarcity of population in Meroe mainland after Meroe’s destruction was due to the fact that the Meroites in their outright majority (at least for the inhabitants of Meroe’s southern provinces) fled and migrated to areas where they would stay independent from the Semitic Christian kingdom of Axumite Abyssinia. This explanation may sound quite fresh in approach, but it actually is not, since it constitutes the best utilization of the already existing historical data.
From archeological evidence, it becomes clear that during X-Group phase and throughout the Makkurian period the former heartland of Meroe remained mostly uninhabited. The end of Meroe is definitely abrupt, and it is obvious that Meroe’s driving force had gone elsewhere. The correct question would be “where to?â€
There is no evidence of Meroites sailing the Nile downwards to the area of the 4th (Karima) and the 3rd (Kerma) cataracts, which was earlier the northern circumference of Meroe and remained untouched by Ezana. There is no textual evidence in Greek, Latin and/or Coptic to testify to such a migratory movement or to hint at an even more incredible direction, i.e. Christian Roman Egypt. If we add to this the impossibility of marching to the heartland of the invading Axumites (an act that would mean a new war), we reduce the options to relatively few.
The migrating Meroites could go either to the vast areas of the Eastern and the Western deserts or enter the African jungle or ultimately search a possibly free land that, being arable and good for pasture, would keep them far from the sphere of the Christian Axumites. It would be very erroneous to expect settled people to move to the desert. Such an eventuality would be a unique oxymoron in the history of the mankind. Nomadic peoples move from the steppes, the savannas and the deserts to fertile lands, and they settle there, or cross long distances through steppes and deserts. However, settled people, if under pressure, move to other fertile lands that offer them the possibility of cultivation and pasture. When dispersed by the invading Sea Peoples, the Hittites moved from Anatolia to Northwestern Mesopotamia; they did not cross and stay in the small part of Anatolia that is desert. The few scholars who think that Meroitic continuity could be found among the present day Beja and Hadendawa are oblivious to the aforementioned reality of the world history that was never contravened. In addition, the Blemmyes were never friendly to the Meroites. Every now and then, they had attacked parts of the Nile valley and the Meroites had had to repulse them thence. It would rather be inconceivable for the Meroitic population, after seeing Meroe sacked by Ezana, to move to a land where life would be difficult and enemies would wait them!
Modern technologies help historians and archeologists reconstruct better the ancient world; paleo-botanists, geologists, geo-chemists, paleoentomologists, and other specialized natural scientists are of great help in this regard. It is essential to stress here that the entire environmental milieu of Sudan was very different during the times of the Late Antiquity we examine in our approach. Butana may look like a wasteland nowadays, and the Pyramids of Bagrawiyah may be sunk in the sand, whereas Mussawarat es Sufra and Naqah demand a real effort in crossing the desert. But in the first centuries of Christian era, the entire landscape was dramatically different.
The Butana was not a desert but a fertile cultivated land; we have actually found remains of reservoirs, aqueducts, various hydraulic installations, irrigation systems and canals in Meroe and elsewhere. Not far from Mussawarat es Sufra there must have been an enclosure where captive elephants were trained before being transported to Ptolemais Theron (present day Suakin, 50 km in the south of Port Sudan) and then further on to Alexandria. Desert was in the vicinity, certainly, but not that close.
We should not imagine that Ezana crossed desert areas, moving from the whereabouts (vicinities?) of Agordat, Tesseney and Kessala to Atbarah and Bagrawiyah, as we would do today. And we should not imagine the lands in the south of present day Khartoum, alongside the White Nile, were easy to cross in the antiquity. In ancient times, impenetrable jungle started immediately in the south of Khartoum, and cities like Kosti and Jabalayn lie today on deforested soil. At the southernmost confines of the Meroitic state, pasturelands and arable land could be found alongside the Blue Nile Valley.
Since jungle signified death in the antiquity, and even armies feared to stay overnight in a forest or even more so in the thick African forest, we have good reason to believe that, following the Ezana’s raid, the Meroites, rejecting the perspective of forced christening, migrated southwestwards up to Khartoum. From there, they proceeded southeastwards alongside the Blue Nile in a direction that would keep them safe and far from the Axumite Abyssinians whose state did not expand as far in the south as Gondar and Tana lake. Proceeding in this way and crossing successively areas of modern cities, such as Wad Madani, Sennar, Damazin, and Asosa, and from there on, they expanded in later times over the various parts of Biyya Oromo.
We do not imply that the migration was completed in the span of one lifetime; quite contrarily, we have reasons to believe that the establishment of Alodia (or Alwa) is due to the progressive waves of Meroitic migrants who settled first in the area of Khartoum that was out of the westernmost confines of the Meroitic state. Only when Christianization became a matter of concern for the evangelizing Nobatians, and the two Christian Sudanese states were already strong, the chances of preserving the pre-Christian Meroitic cultural heritage in the area around Soba (capital of Alodia) were truly poor; then another wave of migrations took place, with early Alodian Meroites proceeding as far in the south as Damazin and Asosa, areas that remained always beyond the southern border of Alodia (presumably around Sennar). Like this, the second migratory Meroitic (Makkurian) wave may have entered around 600 CE in the area where the Oromos, descendents of the migrated Meroites, still live today.
A great number of changes at the cultural – behavioral levels are to be expected, when a settled people migrates to faraway lands. The Phoenicians had kings in Tyre, Byblos and their other cities – states, but introduced a democratic system when they sailed faraway and colonized various parts of the Mediterranean. The collapse of the Meroitic royalty was a shock for the Nile valley; the Christian kingdoms of Nobatia, Makkuria and Alodia were ruled by kings whose power was to great extent counterbalanced by that of the Christian clergy. With the Meroitic royal family decimated by Ezana, it is quite possible that high priests of Apedemak and Amani (Amun) took much of the administrative responsibility in their hands, inciting people to migrate and establishing a form of collective and representative authority among the Meroitic Elders. They may even have preserved the royal title of Qore within completely different socio-anthropological context.
4. Call for Comparative Meroitic-Oromo Studies
How can this approach, interpretation, and conclusion be corroborated up to the point of becoming a generally accepted historical reconstitution at the academic level? On what axes should one group of researchers work to collect detailed documentation in support of the Meroitic ancestry of the Oromos?
Quite strangely, I would not give priority to the linguistic approach. The continuity of a language can prove many things and can prove nothing. The Bulgarians are of Uralo-Altaic Turco-Mongolian origin, but, after they settled in Eastern Balkans, they were linguistically slavicized. Most of the Greeks are Albanians, Slavs, and Vlachians, who were hellenized linguistically. Most of the Turks in Turkey are Greeks and Anatolians, who were turkicized linguistically. A people can preserve its own language in various degrees and forms. For the case of languages preserved throughout millennia, we notice tremendous changes and differences. If you had picked up Plato and ‘transferred’ him at the times of Linear B (that was written in Mycenae 800 years before the Greek philosopher lived), you should be sure that Plato would not have understood the language of his ancestors with the exception of some words. Egyptian hieroglyphics was a scripture that favored archaism and linguistic puritanism. But we can be sure that for later Pharaohs, like Taharqa the Kushite (the most illustrious ruler of the ‘Ethiopian’ dynasty), Psamtik, Nechao, Ptolemy II and Cleopatra VII, a Pyramid text (that antedated them by 1700 to 2300 years) would almost be incomprehensible.
A. National diachronic continuity is better attested and more markedly noticed in terms of Culture, Religion and Philosophical – Behavioral system. The first circle of comparative research would encompass the world of the Kushitic – Meroitic and Oromo concepts, anything that relates to the Weltanschauung of the two cultural units/groups under study. A common view of basic themes of life and a common perception of the world would bring a significant corroboration of the Meroitic ancestry of the Oromos. So, first it is a matter of history of religions, African philosophy, social anthropology, ethnography and culture history.
B. Archeological research can help tremendously too. At this point one has to stress the reality that the critical area for the reconstruction suggested has been totally indifferent for Egyptologists, Meroitic and Axumite archeologists so far. The Blue Nile valley in Sudan and Abyssinia was never the subject of an archeological survey, and the same concerns the Oromo highlands. Certainly modern archeologists prefer something concrete that would lead them to a great discovery, being therefore very different from the pioneering nineteenth century archeologists. An archeological study would be necessary in the Blue Nile valley and the Oromo highlands in the years to come.
C. A linguistic – epigraphic approach may bring forth even more spectacular results. It could eventually end up with a complete decipherment of the Meroitic and the Makkurian. An effort must be made to read the Meroitic texts, hieroglyphic and cursive, with the help of Oromo language. Meroitic personal names and toponymics must be studied in the light of a potential Oromo interpretation. Comparative linguistics may unveil affinities that will lead to reconsideration of the work done so far in the Meroitic decipherment.
D. Last but not least, another dimension would be added to the project with the initiation of comparative anthropological studies. Data extracted from findings in the Meroitic cemeteries must be compared with data provided by the anthropological study of present day Oromos. The research must encompass pictorial documentation from the various Meroitic temples’ bas-reliefs.
To all these I would add a better reassessment of the existing historical sources, but this is not a critical dimension of this research project.
I believe my call for Comparative Meroitic – Oromo Studies reached the correct audience that can truly evaluate the significance of the ultimate corroboration of the Meroitic Ancestry of the Oromos, as well as the magnificent consequences such corroboration would have in view of
a) the forthcoming Kushitic Palingenesia – Renaissance if you want – in Africa,
b) the establishment of a Post – Colonial African Historiography, and – last but not least –
c) the Question of the Most Genuine and Authoritative Representation of Africa in the United Nations Security Council.
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NOTES
1. To those having the slightest doubt, trying purely for political reasons and speculation to include territories of the modern state of Abyssinia into what they Ancient Greeks and Romans called “Aethiopiaâ€, the entry Aethiopia in Pauly-Wissowa, Realenzyklopadie der klassischen Altertumwissenschaft consists in the best and irrevocable answer.
4. Mythical figure of the British Orientalism, Garstang excavated in England, Turkey, Syria, Palestine, Egypt and the Sudan; Albright, William Foxwell: “John Garstang in Memoriam”, Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research, No. 144. (Dec., 1956), pp. 7–8. Garstang’s major articles on his Meroe excavations are the following: ‘Preliminary Note on an Expedition to Meroë in Ethiopia’, Annals of Archaeology and Anthropology 3 (1911 – a), ‘Second Interim Report on the Excavations at Meroë in Ethiopia, I. Excavations’, Annals of Archaeology and Anthropology 4 (1911 – b), ‘Third Interim Report on the Excavations at Meroë in Ethiopia’, Annals of Archaeology and Anthropology 5 (1912), ‘Forth Interim Report on the Excavations at Meroë in Ethiopia’, Annals of Archaeology and Anthropology 6 (1913), and ‘Fifth Interim Report on the Excavations at Meroë in Ethiopia’, Annals of Archaeology and Anthropology 7 (1914). His major contribution was published in the same year under the title ‘Meroë, the City of Ethiopians’ (Oxford). A leading Meroitologist, Laszlo Torok wrote an entire volume on Garstang’s excavations at Meroe: Meroe City, an Ancient African Capital: John Garstang’s Excavations in the Sudan.
5. Griffith was the epigraphist of Grastand and had already published the epigraphic evidence unearthed at Meroe in the chapter entitled ‘the Inscriptions from Meroë’ in Garstang’s ‘Meroë, the City of Ethiopians’. After many pioneering researches and excavations in various parts of Egypt and Northern Sudan, Faras, Karanog, Napata and Philae to name a few, he concentrated on Kerma: ‘Excavations at Kawa’, Sudan Notes and Records 14.
6. Basically: www.sag-online.de/pdf/mittsag9.5.pdf; among other contributions: Die Inschriften des Löwentempels von Musawwarat es Sufra, Berlin (1962); Vorbericht über die Ausgrabungen des Instituts für Ägyptologie der Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin in Musawwarat es Sufra, 1960-1961 (1962); ‘Musawwarat es Sufra. Preliminary Report on the Excavations of the Institute of Egyptology, Humboldt University, Berlin, 1961-1962(Third Season)’, Kush 11 (1963); ‘Preliminary Note on the Epigraphic Expedition to Sudanese Nubia, 1962’, Kush 11 (1963); ‘Preliminary note on the Epigraphic Expedition to Sudanese Nubia, 1963’, Kush 13 (1965).
8. His recent volume Sudan: Ancient Kingdoms of the Nile, Paris/New York (1997) contains earlier bibliography.
9. Some of his most authoritative publications: ‘A History of the Sudan from the Earliest Times to 1821’, 1961 (2nd Ed.), London; ‘’The Valley of the Nile’, in: The Dawn of African History, R. Oliver (ed.), London. Arkell is mostly renowned for his monumental ‘The Royal Cemeteries of Kush’ in many volumes.
More particularly on Qustul, and the local Group A Cemetery that was discovered in the 60s by Dr. Keith Seele:http://www.homestead.com/wysinger/qustul.html (by Bruce Beyer Williams). Quite interesting approach by Clyde Winters as regards an eventual use of Egyptian Hieroglyphics in Group A Nubia, 200 years before the system was introduced in… Egypt:http://www.geocities.com/Tokyo/Bay/7051/anwrite.htm.
24. Basics: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assarhaddon; the edition of the Assyrian emperor’s annals by R. Borger (Die Inschriften Assarhaddons, Königs von Assyrien, AfO 9, Graz, 1956) remain our basic reference to formal sources. More recently, F. Reynolds shed light on private sources, publishing ‘The Babylonian correspondence of Esarhaddon, and letters to Assurbanipal and Sin-Sarru-Iskun from Northern and Central Babylonia’ (SAA 18, 2004).
26. Heliopolis (Iwnw in Egyptian Hieroglyphic – literally the place of the pillars –, On in Hebrew and in Septuaginta Greek) was the center of Egyptian monotheism, the holiest religious center throughout Ancient Egypt; it is from Heliopolis that emanated the Isiac ideology and the Atum Ennead. Basic readings: the entry Heliopolis in Realenzyklopaedie and in Lexikon der Aegyptologie; more recently:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heliopolis_%28ancient%29.
29. Readings: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cambyses_II_of_Persia (with bibliographya nd sources). Cambyses invaded Kush and destroyed Napata at the times of Amani-natake-lebte, and his embattled army was decimated according to the famous narratives of Herodotus that still need to be corroborated. What seems more plausible is that, having reached in an unfriendly milieu of the Saharan desert where they had no earlier experience, the Persians soldiers, at a distance of no less than 4000 km from their capital, faced guerilla undertaken by the Kushitic army remnants and their nomadic allies.
30. Nastasen was the last to be buried in Nuri, in the whereabouts of Napata. Contemporary with Alexander the Great, Nastasen fought against an invader originating from Egypt whose name was recorded as Kambasawden. This led many to confuse the invader with Cambyses, who ruled 200 years earlier (!). The small inscription on the Letti stela does not allow great speculation; was it an attempt of Alexander the Great to proceed to the south of which we never heard anything? Impossible to conclude. For photographical documentation:http://www.dignubia.org/bookshelf/ruler … 00017&ord=. Another interpretation: http://www.nubia2006.uw.edu.pl/nubia/ab … 94e6349d8b.
32. For Abyssinia’s conversion to Christianity: http://www.spiritualite2000.com/page.php?idpage=555, and http://www.rjliban.com/Saint-Frumentius.doc. The Wikipedia entry (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ezana_of_Axum) is written by ignorant and chauvinist people, and is full of mistakes, ascribing provocatively and irrelevantly to Ezanas following territories (using modern names): “present-day Eritrea, northern Ethiopia, Yemen, southern Saudi Arabia, northern Somalia, Djibouti, northern Sudan, and southern Egyptâ€. All this shows how misleading this encyclopedia can be. Neither southern Egypt, northern Sudan, northern Somalia and Djibouti nor Yemen and southern Saudi Arabia ever belonged to Ezana’s small kingdom that extended from Adulis to Axum, and following the king’s victory over Meroe, it included modern Sudan’s territories between Kessala and Atbara. Nothing more!
33. Richard A. Lobban, ‘The Nubian Dynasty of Kush and Egypt: Continuing Research on Dynasty XXV’: http://209.85.129.104/search?q=cache:4F … clnk&cd=2; these inscriptions were published as early as 1821: E. F. Gau, Nubische Denkmaeler (Stuttgart). Other early publications on Meroitic antiquities: E. Riippell, Reisen in Nubien, Kordofan, &c. (Frankfort a. M., 1829); F. Caillaud, Voyage a Me’roe (Paris, 1826); J. L. Burckhardt, Travels in Nubia, e5fc. (London, 1819); G. Waddington and B. Hanbury, Journal of a Visit to some ‘parts of Ethiopia (London, 1822); L. Reinisch, Die Nuba-Sprache (Vienna, 1879); Memoirs of the Societe khediviale de Geographic, Cairo.
34. Readings: http://www.homestead.com/wysinger/candace.html;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shanakdakhete; more analytically:http://www.arkamani.org/arkamani-librar … graphy.htm. The only inscription giving her name comes from Temple F in Naga (REM 0039A-B). The name appears in Meroitic hieroglyphics in the middle of an Egyptian text. See also: Laszlo Török, in: Fontes Historiae Nubiorum, Vol. II, Bergen 1996, 660-662. The first attempts to render full Meroitic phrases into hieroglyphs (not only personal names, as it was common earlier) can be dated from the turn of the 3rd / 2nd century BCE, but they reflect the earlier stage of the development.
‘Karanog: the Meroitic Inscriptions of Karanog and Shablul’, (The Eckley B. Coxe Junior Expedition to Nubia VI), Philadelphia, 1911; ‘Meroitic Inscriptions, I, Sôbâ Dangûl’, Oxford, 1911; ‘Meroitic Inscriptions part II, Napata to Philae and Miscellaneous’, Egypt Exploration Society, Archaeological Survey of Egypt, Memoirs, London, 1912; ‘Meroitic Studies II’, in: Journal of Egyptian Archaeology, vol. 3 (1916).
40. B. G. Haycock, ‘The Problem of the Meroitic Language’, Occasional Papers in Linguistics and Language Learning, no.5 (1978), p. 50-81; see also: http://www.arkamani.org/arkamani-librar … nology.htm. Another significant contribution by B.G.Haycock, ‘Towards a Data for King Ergamenes’, Kush 13 (1965).41. See: K.H.Priese, ‘Die Statue des napatanischen Königs Aramatelqo (Amtelqa) Berlin, Ägyptisches Museum Inv.-Nr. 2249’ in: Festschrift zum 150 jährigen Bestehen des Berliner Ägyptischen Museums, Berlin; of the same author, ’Matrilineare Erbfolge im Reich von Napata’, Zeitschrift für ägyptische Sprache und Altertumskunde, 108 (1981).
43. Basic reading: Egeimi, Omer Abdalla, ‘From Adaptation to Marginalization: The Political Ecology of Subsistence Crisis among the Hadendawa Pastoralists of Sudan’, in: Managing Scarcity: Human Adaptation in East African Drylands, edited by Abdel Ghaffar M. Ahmed and Hassan Abdel Ati, 30-49. Proceedings of a regional workshop, Addis Ababa, 24-26 August 1995. Addis Ababa: OSSREA, 1996 (http://www.africa.upenn.edu/ossrea/ossreabiblio.html).
44. F. Hintze, ‘Some problems of Meroitic philology”, in: Studies in
45. In various publications; see indicatively: ‘Die meroitische Sprache und das protoaltaische Sprachsubstrat als Medium zu ihrer Deutung (I): Mit _quivalenten von grammatikalischen Partikeln und Wortgleichungen’, Ulm/Donau (1992).
61. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dio_Cassius; see details of the early Roman rule over Egypt here: Timo Stickler, ‘Cornelius Gallus and the Beginnings of the Augustan Rule in Egypt’,
In 1941 Selassie passed a decree to ban the Oromo language, [Afan Oromoo]. His bias against the Oromo became readily apparent when he went so far as to forbid them from speaking their own language. The emperor followed this in 1944 with Decree Number 3, which required all missionaries to teach in Amharic, despite the fact that the majority of the Oromo and other ethnic minorities did not speak the language. According to the decree, The general language of instruction throughout Ethiopia shall be the Amharic Language, which language all missionaries will be expected to learn. Selassieís government entrenched the Abyssinian culture further by making Amharic the national language of Ethiopia in 1955. During the early 1970 the regime recognized and used four other languages (Tigrinya, Tigre, Somali, and Afar) but not Oromoo afan, thereby demonstrating the leaderís level of disdain for the Oromo.
The concept of Oromo peace also influenced their beliefs regarding the social development of humanity (finna), which they believed passed through five stages to reach the nagaa oromoo. They called the first stage the gabbina, where humanity learned from their past mistakes to create the gada system. After this stage they progressed to the ballina, which involved greater cooperation between them and increased wealth. The badhaadha marked the third stage, where unity and tranquility persisted among the Oromo, which pleased Waqa. After humanity had made peace with itself, it next made peace with nature, represented by the hoormaata stage. Finally, the daaga was the level on which humans integrated all lessons learned from previous stages in order to live in perfect harmony.
Haile Selassie and American Missionaries: Inadvertent Agents of Oromo Identity in Ethiopia (Thesis)
By Horace Eric Gilchrist
The thesis analyzes the dynamics among the Ethiopian government under Emperor Haile Selassie, American Protestant missionaries, and the Oromo during the period of 1960-1975. The thesis argues that Selassie and the missionaries had different agendas for helping the Oromo and shows how this resulted in political and social outcomes which neither the missionaries nor emperor intended to create. One such consequence was the
evolution and entrenchment of the Oromo sense of identity. Using the unpublished records of the Christian Missionary Fellowship (CMF) the thesis examines the efforts of this particular mission and that of its counterpart, the Sudan Interior Mission (SIM) of which more is known. The speeches and decrees of Haile Selassie and other government officials have also been helpful in this study, and for the Oromo particular, the thesis has had to rely
on published works by the Oromo themselves.
The government of Haile Selassie and the CMF had different views on the proper role of missionary work in Ethiopia. Selassie saw the missionariesí role as being utilitarian, aiding his overall objective of the unification of Ethiopia. However, the CMF saw their primary goal as spiritual, saving the Oromo from a life of sin through the acceptance of Christianity. Neither agenda had as its primary goal elevating the depressed sociopolitical and economic levels of the Oromo society. The question arises regarding the success of the CMF in evangelizing to the Oromo and the extent to which the Oromo benefited from CMF efforts. Related to this is the manner in which the Amhara-dominated government and Ethiopian Orthodox Church responded to the success of the CMF.
Findings of the Thesis
‘No unified Ethiopian society existed prior to the late nineteenth century and that the Oromo and Abyssinians had separate and distinct societies during this period. Abyssinians developed a unique sociopolitical culture which differed fundamentally from those of most Africans. Cushitic-speaking humans occupied the area of modern Ethiopia for thousands of years. The Abyssinians traced their heritage back before the time of ancient Egyptians, with roots outside of Africa. Around 1,000 BC Arabic-speaking people, the Sabeans, invaded Ethiopia.’
‘The governing system of the Oromo reflected the society’s openness and flexibility, which contrasted with the Abyssiniansí rigid and autocratic government system. The Oromo clearly placed a value on individual liberty and freedom, which was reflected in their political organizations and social customs. Their acceptance and incorporation of other ethnicities reflected the societyís mutability; they also saw themselves not as a unified nation but as individual federations with a common culture.’
‘The Oromo held religious beliefs as complex as the Abyssinians’ beliefs. Contrary to traditional scholarship, the Oromo practiced a monotheistic religion distinct from Christianity and Islam long before they came into contact with Abyssinians and Westerners. The Oromo believed in a sky god, Waqa, whom they believed created the universe and, like many pre-Christian societies, the Oromo held a pantheistic belief that Waqa resided in all living things yet remained a distinct entity. The Oromo also had Jesus and Abraham figures, known as Orma: a demigod and son of Waqa, whom the Oromo saw as their progenitor. Orma set down Waqaís law to the abbaa muudaa (father anointed), who acted as the chief priest of the religion. The similarities with Christianityshould be noted: first, Waqa functioning as God the father, Orma as the Son, and finally a figure similar Abraham in the form of the abbaa muudaa. The complexity of the Oromo religion went beyond monotheism. The Oromo also believed in a complex theological system, with many similarities to Christianity. According to their tradition, their god created spirits, known as ayaana, who could be evil or good. However, they did not have the concept of a devil (setana) until the advent of Christianity. Some scholars might describe the Oromo concept of ayaana as a simple pagan belief, yet they resembled Christianity’s angels and functioned in a similar intercessory role for the Oromo as did angels with the Christian god.The Oromo also believed in a divine moral code (saffu), created by Waqa, which guided all things in nature (uuma), and the saffu served to achieve and maintain earthly peace called nagaa oromoo. This moral concept of nagaa oromoo carried over into the Oromo belief in cooperation with each other so that they never formed alliances with non-Oromo against other Oromo groups.’
‘The concept of Oromo peace also influenced their beliefs regarding the social development of humanity (finna), which they believed passed through five stages to reach the nagaa oromoo. They called the first stage the gabbina, where humanity learned from their past mistakes to create the gada system. After this stage they progressed to the ballina, which involved greater cooperation between them and increased wealth. The badhaadha marked the third stage, where unity and tranquility persisted among the Oromo, which pleased Waqa. After humanity had made peace with itself, it next made peace with nature, represented by the hoormaata stage. Finally, the daaga was the level on which humans integrated all lessons learned from previous stages in order to live in perfect harmony.’
‘The Oromo developed a religious class as complex and distinct as Orthodox Christian priests. Oromo called their priests qaallu, and choose them at birth, the position passing from father to son. These priests acted as intercessors for the Oromo with the ayaana and Waqa much like Orthodox priest did for the Abyssinians. Unlike the Orthodox priests, the Oromo priests did not live apart from the people. They also had prophets, called ragas, who foretold the future. Religious historians called ayaantus committed to memory all significant religious and social events in Oromo society.53 Finally, the abbaa muuda acted as the patriarch or pontifical figure in the Oromo qaallu system. The Oromo believed that he obtained his powers directly from Orma. Certain Oromo subgroups such as the Matcha Oromo made yearly pilgrimages to the abbaa muuda to seek blessings.’
‘Several important factors characterized Oromo political, social, and religious life. First, the Oromo clearly valued societal openness and flexibility over a rigid hierarchical society like that of the Abyssinians, and their willingness to incorporate other ethnicities into their groups is one proof of this. Likewise, the Oromo felt closely connected to nature with their religious beliefs and practices. Unlike Orthodox Christianity, which had an elaborate system focused on clergy, the Oromo religion centered on the individual. These religious beliefs easily meshed with their democratic practices, similar to Protestant Christianityís closeness to liberal democracy in the United States and other Western nations. This contrasted sharply with Orthodox Christianity, which matched more with the Abyssinian feudalistic governing system.’
‘The Oromo and Abyssinians possessed distinct cultures with different religious practices prior to the late nineteenth century. No unified Ethiopian nation existed during this period, except as represented by Abyssinian culture. Hierarchical political and religious structures characterized the Abyssinian culture, while democratic political and religious structures marked the Oromo culture.’
‘Abyssinians commenced the political unification of Ethiopia in the middle of the nineteenth century by destroying the sociopolitical and religious institutions of the Oromo. In 1852 the Amhara, under Dejazmatch Kassa (who later became Emperor Tewodros), defeated the most powerful Oromo city-state controlled by Ras Ali.
Within three years Dejazmatch Kassa conquered all of his Tigrean and Amhara rival leaders and assumed the title of Emperor of Ethiopia. Once the Abyssinians had unified the country, they initiated political and religious procedures to pacify other ethnic groups, including the Oromo. Emperor Menelik II (1885-1913) destroyed the Oromo gada system, replacing it with the military feudal structure known as nafxanya. Abyssinian soldiers confiscated the Oromo land and turned the Oromo into gabbars (peasants), who began to pay a feudal homage to their new conquerors by contributing one third of their crops and paying a monetary tax.’
‘The Orthodox Church played a key role in the pacification of the Oromo in the twentieth century. Emperor Menelik II initiated this campaign through a mass Christianization process in Oromo areas. He used his soldiers to conquer the Oromo, made them all Orthodox Christians by imperial decree, and then sent Orthodox priests to pacify his newly conquered subjects with religion. He also supported the construction of Orthodox churches throughout the conquered Oromo territory; he accomplished this by granting bala gults (feudal grants) to the Orthodox priests with Oromo peasants on the land. Meanwhile, all Oromo had to attend Orthodox services conducted entirely in Geíez, the ancient Abyssinian language that most Amhara and Tigreans did not understand. Like most imperial powers, the Abyssinian rulers naturally sought to make their language and religion the dominating one. Although to date the governmentís efforts at colonization had been more haphazard than coordinated, they achieved results. By the beginning of the twentieth century the Abyssinians had made significant inroads into destroying Oromo culture and creating in them a new Ethiopian identity.’
‘Haile Selassie’s ascendancy to the throne marked the beginning of perfected efforts by the Abyssinian government to pacify the Oromo. Selassie wanted to create a unified Ethiopian state under his control and devised several means to accomplish this goal.Through a project called Teklay Gizat (pulling together) he attempted to manufacture an Ethiopian identity with a campaign of uniting all disparate peoples. Selassie’s effort to centralize his power and create a new national identity manifested in many forms. In his philosophical outlook the Abyssinian culture, particularly that of the Amhara and Orthodox Christianity, represented his concept of Ethiopia and, under him, being Ethiopian became synonymous with accepting his view of Abyssinian culture. The emperor expressed this sentiment in public speeches throughout his reign. In a 1959 college speech Selassie clearly expressed this sentiment: The Amhara race must know that it has an obligation on its part to work in the technical field no matter at what level. To preserve the heritage of one’s honor and culture. This statement indicates that, for Selassie, being Ethiopian meant being Amhara. The emperor continued to express the belief that being an Amhara Orthodox Christian represented the qualities of Ethiopians when he stated on 15 January 1965, Ethiopia, an island of Christianity, has made her own distinctive contribution to the Christian faith; forever since her conversion to Christianity she has remained faithful, her age-old ties with the apostolic church uninterrupted. This shows that Selassie believed that Orthodox Christianity represented all of Ethiopia’s peoples and their non-Christian religions. In his Ethiopia, no room existed for people who did not assimilate to the Abyssinian culture and religion.
‘Selassieís attempt to create a national Ethiopian identity appeared harmless on the surface but, in fact, he took the nafxanya system to its logical conclusion by destroying the traditional Oromo provinces and creating new ones controlled by military governors. He employed a technique that communist governments would later use to pacify ethnically diverse populations: He forcibly split up the Oromo and other ethnic groups.Selassie also continued Menelikís policies of church building and forced conversions in conquered Oromo areas.These policies helped to weaken substantially the political cohesiveness of Oromo communities.’
‘The Ethiopian government enacted legislative policies to weaken the Oromo politically as well. In 1941 Selassie passed a decree to ban the Oromo language, Oromoo afan. His bias against the Oromo became readily apparent when he went so far as to forbid them from speaking their own language. The emperor followed this in 1944 with Decree Number 3, which required all missionaries to teach in Amharic, despite the fact that the majority of the Oromo and other ethnic minorities did not speak the language. According to the decree, ìThe general language of instruction throughout Ethiopia shall be the Amharic Language, which language all missionaries will be expected to learn.î15 Selassieís government entrenched the Abyssinian culture further by making Amharic the national language of Ethiopia in 1955. During the early 1970 the regime recognized and used four other languages (Tigrinya, Tigre, Somali, and Afar) but not Oromoo afan, thereby demonstrating the leaderís level of disdain for the Oromo.’
‘In its continued effort to unify Ethiopia, Selassie’s government actively limited the political activities of the Oromo. The regime provided the Oromo only limited participation in the government. The Oromo officials selected by Selassie to work in the public service were those who had completely abandoned their culture and adopted that of the Amhara. One such person was Major General Mulugeta Bulli, an Oromo balabat, who became Minister of National Community Development. Selassie was an autocratic constitutional monarch who tolerated no political opposition, not least from the Oromo. After several coup attempts in the 1960s, primarily by Amhara officials and some Oromo, Selassie further restrained the advancement of the Oromo even the assimilated ones. In 1966 he banned the Oromo political party, Macha Tulama Association, and harassed its leaders with imprisonments and executions. In one episode the government jailed one hundred party members and executed two of them (General Taddesse Birru and Lieutenant Mamno Mazamir) on grounds of subversion in spite of the fact that, earlier that year, they had helped to put down an actual coup attempt by Amharic officials. The regime also executed leading Oromo intellectuals and human rights advocates, including Marno Mazamir, the author of an Oromo book; also executed was Haile Mariam Gamada, a famous lawyer.’
‘Imperial authorities also used social neglect to subjugate the Oromo. The government failed to provide adequate educational facilities for the Oromo, while encouraging them and other minorities to help themselves. In a speech on education in 1962 Selassie stated, ìAnd similarly if you [Ethiopia’s non-Amhara ethnic groups] continue to consult one another and strive to get rid of the other handicaps, say problems of obtaining clean water, better roads, and sanitation for your community, you will find that the accomplishment within your capacity. This indicates that Selassie did not feel personally responsible for providing even basic social services to the Oromo in the manner that most governments provide for their citizens. The regime required all teachers to instruct students only in Amharic, ensuring that Amhara teachers made no effort to be culturally sensitive or accommodating to Oromo children. Statistical data from the Selassie era show the harmful effect that the policy of social neglect had on the Oromo, educational reforms benefiting the Abyssinian elite only. For example, sometime in 1947 Selassie created an education tax via Proclamation 94, and the Abyssinian elite managed to ensure that Oromo peasants paid most of it. This policy resulted in Oromo peasants paying for Abyssinian childrenís education to the detriment of their own. Nearly 88% of Oromo school children between the ages of seven and twelve years did not attend school, as well as 97% of those in the age range of thirteen to eighteen years. In the 1960s the majority (83%) of Oromo children who attended school dropped out by sixth grade.The result of all this was that the Oromo had limited opportunities for basic employment and for secondary and college education. By 1974 0nly 10% college age Oromo students were enrolled in Ethiopia’s universities.’
‘The government of Haile Selassie also failed to provide economic opportunities to the Oromo. Subsistence feudal agriculture formed the basis of the Ethiopian economy from its earliest history through the 1960s, with Amhara aristocrats benefiting from the labor performed by peasants on their land. The Selassie administration consisted primarily of nobles who came from this feudal tradition and had no incentive to alter the system. By the late 1960s 60% of Oromo farmers remained in a feudal system of land tenure because Selassie failed to dismantle it, contributing to the economic disparity endured by the Oromo by allowing Abyssinian nobles to avoid government taxes, while the peasants paid them.Earlier, in 1942, he had issued Proclamation 8, which established land taxes that were paid primarily by the Oromo peasants.Proclamation 60 of 1944 set out details of an income tax but, when the Abyssinian nobles refused to pay, the emperor substituted it with a regressive tax on labor and rented land that, once again, placed the onus on Oromo peasants.All major industrial projects were in areas dominated primarily by the Amhara.’
‘ Haile Selassie bore a great deal of responsibility for the poor conditions of the Oromo people, even if he was not directly involved with all of the policies. Although he ascended to power as a modernizer, he readily sacrificed true reforms for political convenience. For example, in 1924 he attempted to abolish the slave trade by making it a capital crime, but he did not enforce this law, and he allowed the problem to continue well into the late 1960s. The emperor also demonstrated his exclusive commitment to himself by his failure to enforce his own tax codes on the Abyssinian nobles, and he personally oversaw most of his governmental initiatives through the 1960s. For example, he reportedly used merit to appoint all government ministers, and he personally chose 1,000 them.’
‘The successive policies of the Abyssinian governments through the 1960s require some comment. The evidence presented thus far shows that Abyssinian rulers were determined to form a unified state under their domination and used Orthodox Christianity as one means to subjugate non-Semitic speakers such as the Oromo. Haile Selassie perfected the system of colonization through the use of legal measures, political repression, and socioeconomic neglect to subdue such peoples, and he supported and established the notion of accepting Orthodox Christianity and the Abyssinian culture of the Amhara as the prerequisite for being Ethiopian. His governmentís actions allowed no room for groups such as the Oromo to retain their cultural identity and still be Ethiopian. One would expect the oppressed people to respond to this assault on their culture in a negative manner, and there is no doubt that the Oromo viewed the Orthodox Church as a tool of their subjugation. Indeed, they did respond in a negative way to this onslaught of Abyssinian culture.’
‘During the 1900s to the 1940s the Oromo reacted to Abyssinian imperialism by applying their traditional societal flexibility, which allowed them to adapt easily to new situations. Most non-Muslim Oromo accepted the mass conversion to Orthodox Christianity and wore circles around their neck to symbolize their acquiescence.
However, American Protestant missionaries witnessed many Oromo, including those of Wollega, practicing their traditional religion in secret. Christian missionaries in the 1960s testified that ìwhile most Oromo feigned adherence to the Orthodox religion, they secretly worshiped other spirits. Some Oromo attempted genuinely to accept Christianity on their own terms. Among such converts was the religious scholar Onesimos, who translated the Bible into Oromoo. The Oromo elite also responded to the political domination by taking Amharic names and cooperating with the local Abyssinian officials. However, as before, the Abyssinian rulers responded negatively by limiting the advancement of Oromo officials because of the fear that this would help to promote a sense of a national identity. Had the Amhara-dominated government approached the Oromo in a different manner, taking into account the Oromo traditional societal flexibility, the outcome might have been different. The Selassie governmentís negative response to the attempts of the Oromo to adapt their system subtly, while retaining some cultural independence, caused them to become more militant in their actions. Their dissatisfaction with Selassieís regime manifested in the form of several peasants revolts.’
‘The Raya Oromo initially revolted in 1935 in response to the brutal tactics of Selassie’s military governor, Ras Mulugeta, as he attempted to force them into the national army.With the initiation of the Italian Invasion in 1936, another group of Oromo, who described themselves as the Western Oromo Confederation, declared their independence from the Ethiopian government. Eventually, Selassie defeated the two groups, but the fact that the Oromo had rebelled at all indicated their level of frustration with the government. Many Oromo cooperated with the Italians during their occupation because the Italians reorganized Ethiopiaís provinces along linguistic lines and constructed mosques for Oromo Muslims.The negative feelings and actions of the Oromo toward the Abyssinian government intensified as the twentieth century progressed; by the 1960s, peasants became increasingly belligerent toward the Selassie regime. The Oromo peasant populace became enraged by the blatant disparity between themselves and the Amhara elites, including the heavy taxes that they paid without tangible socioeconomic benefits.Oromo simply had no land on which to live or farm because of the pro-Amhara policies of Haile Selassie. In a series of revolts starting in 1963 in the province of Bale, Oromo peasants unleashed their anger on the central government over its increased property taxes and favoritism toward Amhara Christians. The assimilated Oromo elite responded to the tactics of the imperial authorities by developing sociopolitical organizations that instilled a sense of a national Oromo identity that transcended their traditional divisions. The small number of Oromo who managed to achieve positions in government organizations, such as the civil and military services, felt disenfranchised by the Ethiopian government. Oromo civil servants and military officers could expect to achieve only nominal advancement in the imperial government, from which they obviously felt a certain amount of alienation. The disgruntled assimilated Oromo started to form self-help groups to provide political expression and to help their communities to advance. Activists formed organizations such as Arfannn Qallo, Biftu Ganamo, and the Macha Tulama Self Help Association, which sought to improve Oromo communities. The Macha Tulama became the most important and influential of the self-help organizations in expressing the political angst of the Oromo elite. On 24 January 1963 the Macha Tulama organization emerged from three older groups with the goal of creating educational, medical, and religious facilities for the Oromo.’
‘Ethiopia experienced a colonial period that mirrored the rest of Africa in terms of duration and tactics. The major difference was that the Ethiopian colonial system originated with Africans (the Abyssinians) colonizing other Africans (the Oromo). The issues of ethnic and national identity that plagued colonial Africa with the creation of artificial nations that had no historical basis also plagued Ethiopia and continue to plague it…..The study demonstrates that Ethiopian historiography should be reexamined to understand the true dynamics that led to the creation of this state. The traditional scholarly approach of regarding Ethiopia as a monolithic culture centered on Abyssinian society has proven inadequate to understand the sociopolitical conflicts that trouble modern Ethiopia. Only through examining all of Ethiopiaís ethnic groups and their interactions with one another can Ethiopian historiography be advanced.’
The classical definition of knowledge was given by Plato as “justified true belief.” There are many philosophical theories to explain knowledge. The online Oxford dictionaries define knowledge as a theoretical or practical understanding of a subject [online]. The same source explain knowledge that can be implicit (as with practical skill or expertise) or explicit (as with the theoretical understanding of a subject); it can be more or less formal or systematic. According to Stanley Cavell, “Knowing and Acknowledging” the “knowledge acquisition involves complex cognitive processes: perception, communication, association and reasoning; while knowledge is also said to be related to the capacity of acknowledgment in human beings.” I am not here to write the theory of knowledge, but trying to bring the human society acknowledgement and recognition for the Oromoo nation’s indigenous knowledge.
The Oromoo Gadaa System (OGS) is an indigenous knowledge reserve institution of the Oromoo nation. It is an organic system, which is self-refining every eight years (in two four-year terms) to meet the needs of the society. The OGS is a well-structured and organized indigenous knowledge reserve that encompasses social, political, economic and military institutions that operate mainly based on self-reliance principles while Oromummaa is an act of embracing these institutions and applying the indigenous knowledge to manifest an authentic Oromoo’s cultural and national identity.
The essence of scientific education is to understand Mother Nature, daachee haadha marggoo, and human experience in relation to Mother Nature. Through scientific education we can ask questions and try to investigate or do research to find out the facts and report the new knowledge about the subject. For example, who is responsible for the creation of human being, other living and non-living things as a part of the whole nature? What if I told you that the answer to the question is Mother Nature? I guess, you would not be satisfied with the answer because it leads to another subsequent philosophical questions such as who is responsible for the creation of the Mother Nature. Again, what if I told you the answer is a God? This time, probably you would be settled and agree with me. But how do you know for sure that it is a God who is responsible for the creation of nature?
I have thought deeply about these questions and tried to find the best possible answers. I would like to share the final answer with you later on if you continue the journey with me through reading and thinking about the perplexities of human life experience.
The purpose of this paper is to share my points of view with you and highlight that the Oromoo Gadaa System is the prima source of Oromo indigenous knowledge reserve that every Oromoo person should safeguard it and reclaim it as a shared-value that can be manifested through applied Oromoo knowledge and life experience, which is often called Oromummaa. Hence, the Oromoo Qubee generation are highly encouraged to embark their scientific studies and discoveries on our forefathers’ indigenous knowledge and bring it to light to show the world that our forefathers had made significant contribution to human society and civilization by creating and developing a comprehensive and complex democratic system: the Oromoo Gadaa System and its Institutions. For the qubee Oromoo generation, I would say they have a gold mining opportunity on their own backyards and they have to go for it.
Oromoo’s Indigenous Knowledge
Indigenous knowledge is local by nature. It is primarily based on social skills and production techniques. Both social skills and production techniques employ indigenous knowledge that in turn involves the process of life-long learning and teaching. The Oromoo Gadaa System provides such indigenous knowledge reserve so as to enable the new generation to learn from and teach the generations to come. For example, Oromummaa is a social skill. The Oromoo children learn social skills: respect, love, sympathy, empathy, ethics (Safuu), sharing, helping others, communications, etc from their parents and through well-organized Gadaa institutions such as the Age group (Hiriyyaa) and Qalluu.
Like every society, the Oromoo Gadaa Society had engaged in production of goods and services for long time or millenniums. They have millennium years of farming and animal husbandry experience and knowledge. The Oromoo farmers were the first people who domesticated barley as cereal crop in the region and a coffee plant and used the coffee beans in the world. This means the Oromoo farmers had possessed a primary indigenous knowledge about these crops. This indigenous knowledge reserve, however, needs a substantial effort in the field of scientific research and documentation for learning and teaching purposes by present and future Oromoo generations.
The lack of self-ruling political right in Ethiopian Empire and the decline of the Oromoo Gadaa System of Self-governance lead to the deterioration of the Indigenous knowledge and Institutions. In addition, the absence of curiosities from the Oromoo educated class for long time and self-inflicted prejudices against Oromoo indigenous knowledge had played a significant role on its underdevelopment. The educated class is the first social group who run away from their villages and turn their back to their culture and traditional ways of life. Consequently they find themselves in the garrison cities where almost everything is imitation of modernity that has no root in the local culture or traditions. Moreover, the educated elites had been played an agent role to introduce exogenous values including foreign religion, culture of conspicuous consumption and other copy-cut life styles from the West, and Middle-East world.
As I mentioned above, because of the lack of basic human right the Oromoo as a nation has no formal indigenous institutions yet. Instead, the institutions are maintained by the Oromoo Gadaa fathers and mothers who have been serving as Oromo indigenous knowledge reserve as institution. . This means the Qubee generation scientific research and discoveries are highly dependent on the existence of Gadaa Oromoo fathers and mothers (abbootii Gadaa Oromoo) and time because if they die the institutions and knowledge will die with them. For many of them, a biological time is about running out now. One day they will leave us for good. So it is responsibilities and sacred duties of this generation to secure and backup these precious indigenous “documents” that had been inherited form the previous generations.
As JF Kennedy said, the purpose of education is to advance human knowledge and dissemination of truth. However, contrary he said, the education system in Ethiopia has been harboring ignorance, distortion and denial of the truth that effectively disabled the process of learning, thinking and bringing positive changes to our society. So I suggest to the new generation regardless of their ethnic and cultural background to use the best three doses of pills/prescription for ignorance, distortion and denial of history. They are: genuine education, genuine education, and genuine education (3-GE). Through genuine education one can learn the true essence of love (jaalala), which is unselfishness, the creator, and creatures, uumaa fi uumammaa.
Generally, indigenous knowledge (IK) are the outcome of true and genuine collective human experience. It could be knowledge about culture, tradition, history, philosophy, belief system, art, farming, biodiversity, medicine, family, economic distribution, etc. The Oromoo Gadaa System is one of such collective human experience that need to be learned as universal value to human society and pass down to the next generations.
The Predicaments of Indigenous Knowledge in Ethiopia Politically speaking, Ethiopia as a nation had never been colonized and maintained its independence while all African countries had been colonized by European states. To some extent, this is true. Practically, however, the Ethiopian Empire State had been constructed and maintained by European states and continued to operate under indirect-colonialism of Anglo-American and European States. Like all African Republics or States, the Ethiopia’s government structure, military structure, religious institutions, political and social, educational, and legal systems are highly influenced mainly by Anglo-American and European institutions including British, France, Italian, Germany, American, Japan, China, etc. Consequently, indigenous knowledge had been systematically marginalized and ignored, unfairly criticized as primitive, static and simple idea by semi-literate domestic elites or agents of exogenous institutions.
These exogenous institutions such as the Orthodox Coptic Church officials (clergy/priests) and collusion of feudal neftenyaa and self-serving local balabats in Ethiopia, for instance, had played a key role in dismantling indigenous institutions, discrediting and condemning indigenous knowledge and even blessing Menelik’s genocidal and unjust war against our people and indigenous people of the south. Here one must note that the local Oromoo balabats had played a primary role in sponsoring, defending and assigning a commanding site Oromoland to the Orthodox Churches in Oromiyaa today. In addition to the neftenyaa system, these social class is accountable historically for the decline of the Oromoo Gadaa System and underdevelopment of its Institutions. Beside this, at present the decedent of these social class still maintained their loyalty to the Orthodox Church and Ethiopia’s empire state. Some individuals even have been involving in the Oromoo liberation struggle by dressing a sheep skin to saboteur the genuine aspiration of Oromians for freedom and independence. This author suspect that this very social class had contributed to the weakness of Oromia liberation camp.
The Impacts of Church Education on Indigenous knowledge
The Orthodox Coptic church jealously dominated the education system in Ethiopia. The Orthodox Coptic Church in Ethiopia had provided training in reading and writing in Ge’ez and Amarigna (Amharic) at primary school level to limited areas and people of the country. To summarize the church education in Ethiopia: elementary pupils had to learn to read, write, and recite the Dawit Medgem (Psalms of David). There are 15 sections, called negus (kings), which normally took two years to master. Next they learned to sing kum zema (church hymns), which took four years, and msaewait zema (advanced singing), which took an additional year to learn. Liturgical dancing and systrum holding required three years. Qine (poetry) and law required five years to learn. The interpretation of the Old and New Testaments, as well as the Apostles’ Creed, took four years on average, while the interpretation of the works of learned monks and priests took three years. When a student knew the psalms by heart, he had mastered the “house of reading” and was now considered an elementary school graduate. As one can see there is no a single grain of indigenous knowledge or belief system had been taught by the Orthodox Church.
The Orthodox Coptic Tewahido Church is considered by government as indigenous institution, when it is imported and imposed on native culture. Both religions Christian and Islam were imported and imposed on native population, such as the early Christianized ethnic Tigray and Amhara and then ethnic Oromoo, Sidama, and other people of the south, by few clergies and foreign religious crusaders. These institutions had replaced the indigenous belief system, institutions and knowledge over time. As a result, the majority, if not the entire population, ethnic Tigray and Amhara believe that Bible is the source of their history and culture. As one can easily understand, the people of Tigray and Amhara have lived far more years than the bible does, which is two thousand years. As people who residing in East Africa, the Tigray and Amhara people must have had indigenous culture and knowledge. What are they?
Despite the claim of three thousand years history of civilization, Ethiopians exposed to non-church education or modern education in 1920s. The ministry of education established in 1930s. Secondary schools established in 1940s, and higher education, Addis Ababa University, established in 1960s. In similar way, the modern education system had also failed in teaching and conducting research on indigenous knowledge so as to integrate it into the modern education. As a result, creativity, inventions and innovations have seen as odd culture to our society. On the contrary, receiving aid, economic migration, conspicuous consumption of imported goods including education and dependency on Western advanced societies or institutions have become a culture.
Therefore, it is up to the Habesha (Tigre and Amhara), the Oromoo and other ethnic groups of the new generation to dig deep down to find out their respective indigenous knowledge that deep rooted in their culture and traditions and pass down from one generation to other generations by their native ancestors if any and re-evaluate the existing very controversial written history, which is biased and by large based on fiction history. The cycle of self-discrimination must end by the new generation. By doing this they can find shared human values that would allow them to live in peace without disrespecting one another as good neighbors and citizens of their respective nation. So one must understand that no one would agree on imported history that was written by the followers and supporters of Christianity crusaders, war lords, kings, dictators and agents of the Western discriminatory and racist institutions of the time as shared human value and history of our respective people in our time. The time and world have changed forever.
The present suspicion, political conflicts and all forms of problems in our region will not be solved without recognizing and applying indigenous knowledge. The lasting resolutions for the problems can be achieved if every member of our society or nation adults learn and teach their younger generation good social skills, which are critical to successfully functioning society. Basic social skills enable adults and children to know what to say, how to make good choices, and how to behave in adverse situations. The extent to which young people possess good social skills can influence their adult behavior in decision making, conflict management and problem solving. Social skills are also linked to the quality of the school environment. The Church and modern education in Ethiopia, unfortunately, had been denying members of our society these good basic skills such as respect, appreciation, empathy, apology, truthfulness, positive attitude about others, etc. Instead, the system allowed social ignorance such disrespect, occupational despise, ethnic chauvinism, fear, the divine right of the kings and honor for ruling class. As a result, the Ethiopian empire has produced highly educated class like Dr. Getachew Haile without basic and good social skills; it seems that he passed through poor socialization as one can understand the meaning of his name, ‘lord of …power’, which is false-self has given to him by his parents
and trying his best to make them proud by being discourteous and rude to the Oromoo people. Dr. Getachew Haile, be nice!
The black people or African descents are subject to institutional discrimination and racism more than any other races in the world including the holy land- Israel and Saud Arabia. Do you know why? The reasons can be many, but one of the reasons is imitation of ideas. The black people are the most imitating of other societies’ idea. They did not protect and develop their own indigenous institutions (political, religious, cultural and socio-economic institutions) to shape their lifestyle and influence others. No other nations are imitating Africans’ culture, religion, lifestyles but the Africans tend to imitate others about everything that life needs. Some African or extremists trying to be more imitator and more knowledgeable about the culture, religion and ideology than the original inventor or creator of the idea. It is understandable that human being has ability to imitate and all cultures imitate ideas from original culture. The question I would like ask the readers is why the changes are in one direction only. Why African descents imitate ideas of the other culture when the other culture do not imitate the African idea or world view?
For example, black Africans including Ethiopians has been pretending as if they have better known about the Jesus of Nazareth more than the Israelis and Prophet Muhammad more than the Arabs; Marxism and Leninism or communism more than Russians; democracy more than Americans and Western societies. These blind optimists about other’s idea are cynical at the same time about their own indigenous knowledge; they are willing to abuse, jail, torture and murder their own innocent people for the authenticity of imported ideas, religious and political ideology. In the case of Ethiopia, the king Menelik II and Yohanness II – holy war and wildish conquests were a case in point. They had imitated from the history of European middle-age idea of religious crusaders and empire builders. The Abyssinian kings had been acted as proxy war lords of European colonial powers and committed incalculable atrocity against the Oromo people and other black people in East Africa. In addition, these Abyssinian kingdom were one of the worst Africa’s kingdoms who sold Africans, their own race, to British, Arabs and other European white race for the exchange of European firearms to conquer the land of other nations and subjugate the people and build the empirical institutions based on European ideas and political model. What most disgracing is when people like Dr. Getachew Haile and his like trying to keep the truth elusive and misrepresent the history of the black people and glorifying the history of the White colonial proxy war lords like Menelik II as great black king, who was cowardly cut women’s breast, mutilate men’s hand and embarrassingly sold his own black race to the European white race.
In conclusion, the quest for truth shall continue by present and future Oromo generations. The root cause for conflicts in Africa is an imported knowledge and imitation of ideas. In many cases, imitation represent a false-self or an act to hiding a true-self. Discriminatory and racist attitude against black people had been partly brought up by European’s colonial power proxy war lords in Africa such as Menelik II of Abyssinia/Ethiopia kingdom. Although most black people tend to cherish and assimilate their cultural identity into the Middle-Eastern and Western cultural identity and ways of life, the very culture of the societies they imitating have been reciprocating or holding discrimination against them based on race, stereotypes and historical disadvantages. Institutional racism still exist and there are also significant number of individuals who think that Africans have not yet acquired culture and civilization. The imitation of others’ ideas, belief system and political institutions by Africans including my fellow Oromoo has kept the racist believes alive. It is suffice to mention the 2013 incidents against African immigrants in Saud Arabia and recently in Israel. The majority of Africans believed that embracing Christianity and Islam would lead to heaven via holy land. Unfortunately, it turned out differently; they end up in hell in the holy land. So, the lasting solution would be revitalizing indigenous knowledge and institutions that demands for real efforts, courage and sacrifices. As to the Oromo’s quest for indigenous knowledge and institutions, revitalization of the Gadaa Republic of Oromia and its institutions would be the lasting solution for century old colonial extraction, subjugation and embarrassment.
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* About the author: Iddoosaa Ejjetaa, Ph.D., native to Oromiyaa, Ethiopia. Independent and Naturalist Thinker; An activist and advocator for the revitalization of Authentic Oromummaa, Oromoo Indigenous knowledge and institutions, and for the formation of Biyyaa Abbaa Gadaa,Oromiyaa-The Gadaa Republic of Oromia.
‘Our knowledge of the nature of identity relations in pre-colonial Africa is less than complete. However, there is little doubt that many parts of the continent were torn apart by various wars, during that era. Many of the pre-colonial wars revolved around state formation, empire building, slave raids, and control over resources and trade routs. The slave raiding and looting empires and kingdoms, including those of the 19th century, left behind complex scars in inter-identity relations. It is beyond the scope of this paper to discuss in detail the nature of pre-colonial empires in Africa. The examples of the Abyssinian Empire and the Mahdiyya state in Sudan provide a glimpse of the impacts of pre-colonial empires on the prevailing problems in inter-identity relations. The Abyssinian Empire, for example, is credited for creating the modern Ethiopian state during the second half of the 19th century and defending it from European colonialism. However, it also left behind a deeply divided country where the populations in the newly incorporated southern parts of the country were ravaged by slave raids and lootings and, in many cases, reduced into landless tenants, who tilled the land for northern landlords (Pankhurst, 1968). The Empire also established a hierarchy of cultures where the non-Abyssinian cultures in the newly incorporated territories were placed in a subordinate position. There are claims, for instance, that it was not permissible to publish, preach, teach or broadcast in Oromiya [Afaan Oromo] (language of the Oromo people) in Ethiopia until the end of the reign of Emperor Haile Selassie (Baxter, 1978, 228). It requires a great deal of sensitivity to teach Ethiopian history in the country’s schools, since the empire-builders of the 19th century are heroes to some identities while they are viewed as villains who brought destruction and oppression by others. Similarly, Sudan’s Mahdiyya state, which professed Arab identity and was supported by slave raiding communities, left behind complex scars in inter-identity relations, which still plague the country (Francis Deng, 2010).’ pp 10-12
Diversity Management in Africa: Findings from the African Peer Review Mechanism
and a Framework for Analysis and Policy-Making , 2011.
No Oromo has constitutional or legal protection from the cruelty of the TPLF/EPRDF regime.
A country is not about its leaders but of its people. It goes without saying that the people are the symbolic mirror of their nation. That is exactly why foreigners particularly the development partners assess and evaluate a nation through its people. In other words, a happy people are citizen of not only a peaceful and happy nation but one which accepts the principles of democracy, rule of law and human and people’s right. On the contrast, heartbroken, timid and unhappy people are subjects of dictatorial, callous and brutal regimes. Such people are robbed of their humanity and identity through systematic harassment, intimidation, unlawful detention, extra judicial killing and disappearances by the leaders who transformed themselves into creators of human life or lords. The largest oromo nation in Ethiopia through the 22years of TPLF/EPRDF repressive leadership has turned into a nation sobbing in the dark. One does not need to be a rocket scientist to figure this out. All it takes is a closer look at any Oromos in the face. The story is the same on all the faces: fear, uncertainty, and an unquenchable thirst for freedom. The disturbing melody of the sobs in the dark echo the rhythmic desire to break free from TPLF dictatorial shackles.
The Horn African region of the Ethiopia is home to just 90 million people, it is also home to one of the world’s most ruthless, and eccentric, tyrannical regime .TPLF/EPRDF is ruling the nation particularly the Oromos with an iron fist for the past two decades and yet moving on. Today dissents in Oromia are frequently harassed, arrested, tortured, murdered and put through sham trials, while the people are kept in a constant state of terror through tight media control, as repeatedly reported by several human rights groups. It has been long time since the Woyane government bans most foreign journalists and human rights organizations and NGOs from operating in the country for the aim of hiding its brutal governance from the world. While the people in Ethiopia are being in terrorized by TPLF gangs, the western powers are yet looking at the country as a very strategic place to fight the so called terrorism in horn African region. But In today’s Ethiopia; as an Oromo, No one can speak out against the dictatorship in that country. You can be killed. You can be arrested. You can be kept in prison for a long time. Or you can disappear in thin air. Nobody will help. Intimidations, looting Oromo resources and evicting Oromos from their farm lands have become the order of the day everywhere across Oromia.
No Oromo has constitutional or legal protection from the killing machinery of the TPLF securities. The recent murdering of Tesfahun Chemeda in kallitti prison is a case book of the current Circumstance.
The So called EPRDF constitution, as all Ethiopian constitutions had always been under the previous Ethiopian regimes, is prepared not to give legal protections to the Oromo people, but to be used against the Oromo people. Prisons in the Ethiopia have become the last home to Oromo nationalists, human right activists or political opponent of the regime. Yet the international community is either not interested or have ignored the numerous Human Right abuses in Ethiopia simply because, they think there is stability in the country. Is there no stability in North Korea? I don’t understand why the international community playing double standard with dining and wining with Ethiopian brutal dictators while trying to internationally isolate other dictators. For crying out loud, all dictators are dangerous to humanity and shaking their hands is even taboo much more doing business with them.
Without the support of the USA and EU, major pillars of the regime would have collapsed. Because one reason why TPLF is sustaining in power is through the budgetary support and development funding of the EU, the United States and offered diplomatic validation by the corrupted African Union. Foremost, the US and EU as the largest partners are responsible for funding the regime’s sustainability and its senseless brutality against ordinary citizens. They would have the capacity to disrupt the economic might of this regime without negatively impacting ordinary citizens, and their failure to do so is directly responsible for the loss of many innocent lives, the torture of many and other grievous human rights abuses. Helping dictators while they butcher our people is what I cannot understand. What I want to notify here is, on the way of struggling for freedom it is very essential to call on the western powers to stop the support they are rendering to dictators in the name of fighting the so called terrorism in Horn Africa, otherwise it will remain an obstacle for the struggle.
Holding elections alone does not make a country democratic. Where there is no an independent media, an independent judiciary (for the rule of law), an independent central bank, an independent electoral commission (for a free and fair vote); neutral and professional security forces; and an autonomous (not a rubber stamp) parliament, no one should expect that the pseudo election will remove TPLF from power. The so-called “Ethiopian constitution” is a façade that is not worth the paper which it is written on. It does not impose the rule of law; and does not effectively limit governmental power. No form of dissent is tolerated in the country.
As my understanding and as we have observed for more than two decades, it is unthinkable to remove TPLF regime without a military struggle or without popular Uprisings. They are staying, staying, and staying in power – 10, 20, 22 and may be 30 or 40 years. They have developed the mentality of staying on power as their own family and ethnic property. So that they are grooming their clans, their wives, sons, cats, dogs and even goats to succeed them. They are simply the worst mafia regime and the most politically intolerant in the Africa. It is impossible to remove them electorally because we have been witnessing that the electoral system is fundamentally flawed and indomitably skewed in favor them. Every gesture and every words coming from TPLF gangs in the last several years have confirmed that to remove them by election is nothing but like to dream in daylight.
The late dictator “Meles Zenawi” had once said that TPLF “shall rule for a thousand years”, asserting that elections SHALL NOT remove his government. He also said: “the group who want the power must go the forest and fight to achieve power”. Therefore, taking part in Pseudo election will have no impact on reducing the pain of the oppressed people. Evidently, the opposition and civil societies have been rendered severely impotent, as any form of dissent attracts the ultimate penalty in Ethiopia. Furthermore, we are watching that this regime is intensifying its repression of democracy each day, and ruling strictly through the instrument of paralyzing fear and the practice of brutality against ordinary citizens.
As we are learning from history, Dictators are not in a business of allowing election that could remove them from their thrones. The only way to remove this TPLF dictatorship is through a military force, popular uprising, or a rebel insurgency: Egypt (2011), Ivory Coast (2011), Tunisia (2011), Libya (2011), Rwanda (1994), Somalia (1991), Liberia (1999), etc. A high time to fire up resistance to the TPLF killings and resource plundering in Oromia, is now. To overthrow this brutal TPLF dictatorship and to end the 22 years of our pain, it is a must to begin the resistance with a nationwide show of defiance including distributing postures of resistance against their brutality across Oromia and the country. Once a national campaign of defiance begins, it will be easy to see how the TPLF regime will crumble like a sand castle. Besides, we the Oromo Diaspora need to work on strengthening the struggle by any means we can. It is the responsibility of the Diaspora to advance the Oromo cause, and at the same time to determine how our efforts can be aided by the international community. As well, it is a time for every freedom thirsty Oromo to take part in supporting our organization Oromo liberation Front by any means we can.
These days, TPLF regime is standing on one foot and removing it is easier than it appears. Let all oppressed nations organize for the final push to liberty. The biggest fear of Woyane regime is people being organized and armed with weapons of unity, knowledge, courage, vigilance, and justice. What is needed is a unified, dedicated struggle for justice and sincerity. Oromo’s are tired of the dying, the arrests, the detentions, the torture, the brutality and the forced disappearances. This should come to an end! DEATH FOR TPLF LEADERES ,.long live FOR OROMIYA
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The author, ROBA PAWELOS, can be reached by bora1273@yahoo.com
‘Briefcase bandits’
Africa’s spin doctors (mostly American and European) deliberately choose to represent what the Free Africa Foundation’s George Ayittey so refreshingly describes as “Swiss-bank socialists”, “crocodile liberators”, “quack revolutionaries”, and “briefcase bandits”. Mr Ayittey – a former political prisoner from Ghana – pulls us a lot closer to the truth.
If the mainstream media adopts Mr Ayittey’s language, the free governments of the world would be forced to face the truth and take necessary steps to tie their aid and trade deals to democratic reform for the benefit of Africa’s population. Sunlight is the best disinfectant, and we must combat the work of firms that provide “reputation management” to oppressive states by exposing their role in abetting injustice.
Those firms may want to consider atoning by volunteering for the civil society groups, human rights’ defenders and economic opportunity organisations working to make Africa free and prosperous.’…………………………………………………
A number of African governments accused of human rights abuses have turned to public relations companies to salvage the image of their countries.
The BBC’s Focus on Africa magazine asked two experts whether “reputation management” is mostly a cover-up for bad governance.
NO: Thor Halvorssen is president of the New York-based Human Rights Foundation and founder of the Oslo Freedom Forum.
Thor Halvorssen has published extensively on the subject of lobbying
For Public Relations (PR) companies and their government clients, “reputation management” can be a euphemism of the worst sort. In many cases across Africa, it often means whitewashing the human rights violations of despotic regimes with fluff journalism and, just as easily, serving as personal PR agents for rulers and their corrupt family members.
But they also help governments drown out criticism, often branding dissidents, democratic opponents and critics as criminals, terrorists or extremists.
Today, with the preponderance of social media, anyone with an opinion, a smart phone and a Facebook account can present their views to an audience potentially as large as any major political campaign can attract.
This has raised citizen journalism to a level of influence unknown previously. Yet, this communication revolution has also resulted in despotic governments smearing not just human rights advocates, but individuals with blogs as well as Twitter, YouTube and Facebook accounts. This undermines the power and integrity of social media.
And as PR firms help regimes “astroturf” with fake social media accounts, they do more damage than just muddling legitimate criticism with false comments and tweets linking back to positive content – they also make the general public sceptical about social media.
It is no surprise that ruthless governments that deny their citizens basic freedoms would wish to whitewash their reputations. But PR professionals who spin for them should be exposed as amoral.
It is no surprise that ruthless governments that deny their citizens basic freedoms would wish to whitewash their reputations”
For instance, Qorvis Communications, a PR and lobbying firm in the United States, represents Equatorial Guinea – among other allegedly repressive governments – for a reported $55,000 a month. The firm is said to have amassed more than $100 million by helping their clients with “reputation management”.
By burying opposing public opinions or spinning false, positive stories of stability and economic growth on behalf of President Teodoro Obiang Nguema’s brutal regime, the firm is seriously hampering the progress of human rights in the country.
In response, Qorvis says that customers with troublesome human rights records are a very small part of its client base, and that these governments are using Qorvis as a means to be heard in the “court of public opinion”.
Washington Media Group, another American PR firm, was hired in 2010 by the Tunisian government. The autocracy was subsequently described in various media outlets as a “stable democracy” and a “peaceful, Islamic country with a terrific story to share with the world”. Only after the regime’s snipers began picking off protesters did Washington Media Group end its $420,000 contract.
‘Limited engagement’
When a PR firm spins a dictator’s story, it does not just present a different viewpoint, as the firm might want you to believe; rather, it undermines the resources from which people can draw opinions. If a website or magazine commends the government, how is an average citizen to know for certain if the information is accurate or true?
President Teodoro Obiang Nguema
Teodoro Obiang Nguema is accused of leading a brutal regime in Equatorial Guinea
Many firms that operate, or have done, on behalf of kleptocracies in Africa are based not only in the US but also in the United Kingdom. They include Bell Pottinger (Hosni Mubarak’s Egypt), Brown Lloyd James (Muammar Gaddafi’s Libya) and Hill & Knowlton (Yoweri Museveni’s Uganda).
There are likely many more that continue to do this work under the cover of corporate secrecy. When firms get caught or criticised for their activities many say it is “limited engagement” for only a few months or that the task only involved “tourism” or “economic progress”.
If, for instance, a firm served the questionable government in the Democratic Republic of the Congo they would probably insist they are “consultants” helping to create “economic opportunity” and, no doubt, providing a “guiding hand” to the current president as he improves the lot of the Congolese poor.
Yet the spin doctors most probably ignore the fact that President Joseph Kabila’s security forces killed Floribert Chebeya, arguably the DR Congo’s leading human rights defender, and likely “disappeared” his driver (he is still missing). Only after an international uproar were the policemen directly responsible for the killing brought to justice.
Meanwhile, political opponents routinely disappear, journalists are arrested for criticising the government and any comprehensive human rights report contains appalling anecdotes and painful analysis about a country with little judicial independence and respect for the rule of law.
PR agents do not create “economic opportunities” – they alter reality so that certain deals and foreign aid can flow faster and in larger quantities – all the while being rewarded handsomely.
‘Briefcase bandits’
Africa’s spin doctors (mostly American and European) deliberately choose to represent what the Free Africa Foundation’s George Ayittey so refreshingly describes as “Swiss-bank socialists”, “crocodile liberators”, “quack revolutionaries”, and “briefcase bandits”.
Mr Ayittey – a former political prisoner from Ghana – pulls us a lot closer to the truth.
If the mainstream media adopts Mr Ayittey’s language, the free governments of the world would be forced to face the truth and take necessary steps to tie their aid and trade deals to democratic reform for the benefit of Africa’s population.
Sunlight is the best disinfectant, and we must combat the work of firms that provide “reputation management” to oppressive states by exposing their role in abetting injustice.
Those firms may want to consider atoning by volunteering for the civil society groups, human rights’ defenders and economic opportunity organisations working to make Africa free and prosperous.
“Democracies are on average richer than non-democracies, are less likely to go to war and have a better record of fighting corruption. More fundamentally, democracy lets people speak their minds and shape their own and their children’s futures. That so many people in so many different parts of the world are prepared to risk so much for this idea is testimony to its enduring appeal.” Ethiopia: in 1972 not free, in 1991 partly free and in 2013 not free.
See chart by the Economist through the link and read the analysis@ http://www.economist.com/news/essays/21596796-democracy-was-most-successful-political-idea-20th-century-why-has-it-run-trouble-and-what-can-be-do
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The protesters who have overturned the politics of Ukraine have many aspirations for their country. Their placards called for closer relations with the European Union (EU), an end to Russian intervention in Ukraine’s politics and the establishment of a clean government to replace the kleptocracy of President Viktor Yanukovych. But their fundamental demand is one that has motivated people over many decades to take a stand against corrupt, abusive and autocratic governments. They want a rules-based democracy.
It is easy to understand why. Democracies are on average richer than non-democracies, are less likely to go to war and have a better record of fighting corruption. More fundamentally, democracy lets people speak their minds and shape their own and their children’s futures. That so many people in so many different parts of the world are prepared to risk so much for this idea is testimony to its enduring appeal.
Yet these days the exhilaration generated by events like those in Kiev is mixed with anxiety, for a troubling pattern has repeated itself in capital after capital. The people mass in the main square. Regime-sanctioned thugs try to fight back but lose their nerve in the face of popular intransigence and global news coverage. The world applauds the collapse of the regime and offers to help build a democracy. But turfing out an autocrat turns out to be much easier than setting up a viable democratic government. The new regime stumbles, the economy flounders and the country finds itself in a state at least as bad as it was before. This is what happened in much of the Arab spring, and also in Ukraine’s Orange revolution a decade ago. In 2004 Mr Yanukovych was ousted from office by vast street protests, only to be re-elected to the presidency (with the help of huge amounts of Russian money) in 2010, after the opposition politicians who replaced him turned out to be just as hopeless.
Between 1980 and 2000 democracy experienced a few setbacks, but since 2000 there have been many
Democracy is going through a difficult time. Where autocrats have been driven out of office, their opponents have mostly failed to create viable democratic regimes. Even in established democracies, flaws in the system have become worryingly visible and disillusion with politics is rife. Yet just a few years ago democracy looked as though it would dominate the world.
In the second half of the 20th century, democracies had taken root in the most difficult circumstances possible—in Germany, which had been traumatised by Nazism, in India, which had the world’s largest population of poor people, and, in the 1990s, in South Africa, which had been disfigured by apartheid. Decolonialisation created a host of new democracies in Africa and Asia, and autocratic regimes gave way to democracy in Greece (1974), Spain (1975), Argentina (1983), Brazil (1985) and Chile (1989). The collapse of the Soviet Union created many fledgling democracies in central Europe. By 2000 Freedom House, an American think-tank, classified 120 countries, or 63% of the world total, as democracies.
Representatives of more than 100 countries gathered at the World Forum on Democracy in Warsaw that year to proclaim that “the will of the people” was “the basis of the authority of government”. A report issued by America’s State Department declared that having seen off “failed experiments” with authoritarian and totalitarian forms of government, “it seems that now, at long last, democracy is triumphant.”
Such hubris was surely understandable after such a run of successes. But stand farther back and the triumph of democracy looks rather less inevitable. After the fall of Athens, where it was first developed, the political model had lain dormant until the Enlightenment more than 2,000 years later. In the 18th century only the American revolution produced a sustainable democracy. During the 19th century monarchists fought a prolonged rearguard action against democratic forces. In the first half of the 20th century nascent democracies collapsed in Germany, Spain and Italy. By 1941 there were only 11 democracies left, and Franklin Roosevelt worried that it might not be possible to shield “the great flame of democracy from the blackout of barbarism”. Read further @ http://www.economist.com/news/essays/21596796-democracy-was-most-successful-political-idea-20th-century-why-has-it-run-trouble-and-what-can-be-do
“Compare that with the mean wealth of a South African at $11,310, Libyan ($11,040) and Namibian ($10,500). While the average Ethiopian has his asset base standing at a mere $260 despite years of economic growth and foreign investment – wealth has not filtered through to the people. With this kind of glaring inequality between and within countries, the “Africa Rising” narrative risks masking the realities of millions of Africans struggling to get by in continent said to be on the move.” http://www.africareview.com//Blogs/Africa-is-rising-but-not-everywhere/-/979192/2219854/-/12at0a8/-/index.html?relative=true
“Africa Rising” is now a very popular story – a near-universal belief that the continent is the next investment frontier after more than a decade of sustained high growth rates and increased foreign direct investment.
We even now have memes for this new narrative.
But some people have their doubts about this whole “Afro-optimism” talk – they say Africa isn’t really rising.
They argue that Africa’s low levels of manufacturing and industrialisation discredit the continent’s “growth miracle”. Its share of world trade is remains very small compared to Asia.
Well, Africa cannot be reduced to a single narrative. We have been victims of this before – for hundreds of years the continent has always been seen in a kind of Hobbesian way – where life is poor, nasty, brutish and short.
Now, there is a minority global elite working round the clock trying to turn this long-held view of a continent.
While I do not begrudge them for their PR efforts – we cannot mask the glaring inequality in Africa by developing a new optimist narrative about the continent.
There are many stories about Africa. Not just one.
Genocide
While the sun shines bright in Namibia, not the same can be said of Malawi where the government is bankrupt or the Central African Republic (CAR) where sectarian violence is increasingly becoming genocidal.
Pretty much everyone else in the world seems accustomed to the living hell that is Somalia.
But we have also come to a consensus that Botswana and Ghana are the model countries in Africa.
South Africa is a member of the BRICS. While the petro-dollars are changing the fortunes of Angola – it has grown its wealth per capita by 527 per cent since the end of the civil war in 2002.
Not much can be said of South Sudan. Oil has not done anything despite pronouncements by the liberation leaders that independence holds much promise for the young nation’s prosperity.
The country imploded barely three years into into its independence.
This is the problem of a single narrative – it is indifferent to the growing and glaring inequality in Africa and its various political contexts.
Many Africans still have no access to the basic necessities of life. Millions go to bed without food and die from preventable diseases.
Others live in war-ravaged countries in constant fear for their lives. You can bet the last thing on their mind is not a blanket “rising” narrative about Africa and the promise it holds. That is not their Africa, its someone else’s.
Yes. “Africa Rising” may be real. But only to a small minority.
Wealth distribution
A report by New World Wealth highlights the variations in wealth distribution across the continent’s 19 wealthiest countries.
Africa’s total wealth stood at $2.7 trillion last year down from $3 trillion in 2007 after taking a hit from the global financial crisis.
These 19 countries control 76 per cent while the remaining 35 scrape over $648 billion. And most of this wealth is concentrated in northern and southern Africa.
The western, central and eastern regions have some of the poorest individuals on the continent with the highest per capita wealth from this group – with the exception of Angola – coming from Nigeria at $1,350.
Compare that with the mean wealth of a South African at $11,310, Libyan ($11,040) and Namibian ($10,500).
While the average Ethiopian has his asset base standing at a mere $260 despite years of economic growth and foreign investment – wealth has not filtered through to the people.
With this kind of glaring inequality between and within countries, the “Africa Rising” narrative risks masking the realities of millions of Africans struggling to get by in continent said to be on the move.
The sun may be shining bright in Africa – but only in favoured parts of it.
AFAAN Publication: Commemorating UNESCO’s International Mother Language Day on Feb. 21, 2014; Highlighting Past Achievements; and Laying out Plans for 2014
February 21 is UNESCO’s International Mother Language Day. AFAAN Publications’ successful campaign to raise funds to produce children books in Afaan Oromo is the highlight of 2013. The Oromo language, Afaan Oromo, is Africa’s 4th most widelyspoken language, which was banned for 100 years until 1991. AFAAN Publications is based in Melbourne.
AFAAN Publication recounts the 2013 successfulfundraising campaign by recognizing some of the international cities which supported the Melbourne’s drive to create children’s books in Afaan Oromo, and AFAAN Publications was also featured last week on 774 Radio ABC Melbourne.
The communications team is available for comments and interview via telephone. Enquiries can be made via email on connect@afaan.com.au
AFAAN Publication: Commemorating UNESCO’s International Mother Language Day on Feb. 21, 2014; Highlighting Past Achievements; and Laying out Plans for 2014.
‘Much of the “Africa Rising” narrative is based on the cyclical growth in income revenues from commodities. But who knows how long this will last? Dr Moghalu wants African governments to grasp hold of their future by creating industrial manufacturing so that Africans can consume what they produce. If that could be achieved, the continent will have moved away from being an import-driven consumer-driven economy. It is only then, he argues, that we can say Africa has truly risen.’
The term “Africa Rising” is on the lips of many these days particularly as seven of the world’s fastest growing economies are believed to be African. But can this current wave of Afro-optimism bring genuine prosperity to the African continent? Dr Kingsley Chiedu Moghalu, the Deputy Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria thinks not.
“Hope is good,” he says. “But hope must be based on concrete substantive strategy going forward, so I pour a little bit of cold water of the Africa Rising phenomenon. I think it could lead to illusionary thinking. I recall that when African countries became independent that there was a huge sense of euphoria around the continent that independence guaranteed economic growth, political development and stability. But this did not happen in the following 30 to 40 years.”
In his latest book, Emerging Africa: How the Global Economy’s ‘Last Frontier’ can prosper and matter, Dr Moghalu presents his own ideas on how Africa can become truly prosperous. He describes it as “a vision for Africa’s future based on a fundamental analysis of why Africa has fallen behind in the world economy”.
In doing so, the LSE alumnus discusses some fundamental misunderstandings about which African states need to revise their assumptions.
The first is the idea that globalisation is automatically good. Rather, Dr Moghalu describes it as a huge and influential reality which Africans must engage with a sense of sophistication and self-interest. It is important to find a way to break that stranglehold because globalisation is neither benign in its intention nor agnostic in its belief. It is driven by an agenda and there are people who drive it.
Economist Dambisa Moyo caused controversy with her first book, Dead Aid: Why foreign aid isn’t working and how there is another way for Africa. Dr Moghalu echoes some of her arguments describing foreign aid as one of the leading reasons why Africa is impoverished. “It has removed the incentive of many African nations to seek solutions for their economic challenges and create wealth for their citizens,” he argues. “Instead it has perpetuated poverty because they are simply content to survive from one day to the next.”
Foreign aid does have its place, Dr Moghalu admits, but “it should always be within a limited time frame and it should focus on economic wealth creation activities rather than just helping people survive”. On the day we meet, the UK Secretary of State for International Development Justine Greening is in the news revealing that there will be a radical shift in future UK aid into economic development, concentrating on economic growth and jobs. Dr Moghalu expressed great pleasure at this announcement remarking that “it is very interesting that British policy is catching up with the recommendations in my book”.
Another fundamental understanding that the central banker develops in his book is the importance of understanding the four different kinds of capitalism and the implications they have for Africa’s growth. The first is state capitalism which is not very common, although it is practised by China. It is, in fact, an oxymoron. Many African states do not have the capacity to run state capitalism because you need an all-knowing state with a huge reserve of strategic thinking capacity to be able to direct wealth creation for the purposes defined by the state. There is also oligarchic or crony capitalism in Russia and some African states. This can be turned into strategic activity if cronyism is not rampant. South Korea did that by creating the Chaebols, the family-held businesses which today dominate the South Korea economy. Welfare capitalism is the norm is Europe. Some African states have practised welfare capitalism without generating the type of revenue that will sustain it into the future. Now it is out of favour. Entrepreneurial capitalism is what made America wealthy and this is what Dr Moghalu recommends for most African economies because it suits the African culture. Along with a certain amount of oligarchic and welfare capitalism, it would do Africa a world of good, he adds.
Much of the “Africa Rising” narrative is based on the cyclical growth in income revenues from commodities. But who knows how long this will last? Dr Moghalu wants African governments to grasp hold of their future by creating industrial manufacturing so that Africans can consume what they produce. If that could be achieved, the continent will have moved away from being an import-driven consumer-driven economy. It is only then, he argues, that we can say Africa has truly risen. http://blogs.lse.ac.uk/africaatlse/2014/02/12/afro-optimism-will-not-transform-africa/
It is to be recalled that Finfinnee (Addis Ababa) was founded as the present capital city the so called Ethiopian in 1886 by a man called Minilik II. During this time, the area was inhabited by the Oromo people and the area was almost covered with natural forest. Initially the Shawa government made it seat at Ankober. Hence, before the founding of Finfinee as a political and economic capital of the king, all the areas within the present Finfinnee and the surround areas was free like any other Oromia lands. However, after 1886 the Semitic people from the northern segments and others had taken the land and the Oromo people who were used to live in these areas were forced lost their land through time.
For example, according to Central Statistics Agency of Ethiopia (2007) Out of the 2,738,248 100% total population living in Finfinnee, the total number of the Oromo people living in the city was only 534,255 (19.51%). Since its founding as a capital, Finfinnee remained the capital city for the successive Ethiopian regimes (Menilik II, Lij Eyassu, Zawuditu, Hailesillasse I, Mengistu, Melles and HaileMariam). Through time, the number of inhabitants increased and urbanization expanded greatly. The deliberate and implicitly planned mission and decision of the Semitic people to erase any sign of Oromo history from Finfinnee was started during the forcefully integration of Oromo people into Ethiopia as second-class citizens and the process has continued in the present government.
Different people mostly from the northern part of the so called Ethiopia have come from the various ethnic groups come and settled in the capital owing to its supper suitable agro-climatic and exploit the natural within the outside today’s Finfinne from the near distance in the name of work and investment. Where did those Oromo farmers go when Finfinnee became the property of new invaders? Be in mind that the Oromo’s are pushed to the peripheral areas of the capital and the number of Oromo people inhabitants decreased from time to time, as the above data depicts. The indigenous people of the land were pushed out one after the other and were replaced by the invaders from the north. What is happening to the Oromo people living on the outskirt of Finfinne today? It is simply the continuation of a process, which had resulted in a massive displacement of an indigenous Oromo people.
B. The New Master Plan of Fifinnee and Areas to be Incorporated
For the last 100 or so years the Master Plan of Finfinnee city was revised several times. The recent proposal of preparing new Master Plan for City administration that planned to incorporates all the towns and districts lying within the range of 1 hour commuting distance from the Finfinnee, justifies the blatant violation of the constitution and their voracious appetite to systematically replacing resource and land deficient people to these fertile lands owned by the Oromo people. According to the proposed plan of established the “Integrated Regional Development Plan”, an additional 36 towns and 17 districts currently administered by the Oromia regional State will be merged with Finfinnee so that the right of the land use will be determined by the central mayor .
The new Master Plan was intended to incorporate Oromia’s land locating in 100kms around the Finfinnee city. According to Ethiopia Government preparation, the following 36 Towns and 17 Districts are included in the newly planned Master plan. (See the figure 1.)
Some of the Towns are: Adama, Sodere, Mojo, Wenji Adama, Ejere, Alem Tena, Koka, Adulala, Bushoftu, Dukem, Gelen, Akaki Beseka, Godino, Chefe Donsa, Sebeta , Sendafa, Milkewa, Wendoda, Sirti, Duber,Gorfo, Chancho, Mulo, Debra,Muger , Ulo, Adis Alem, Holota, Burayu,Debre Genet, Illu Teji, Tefki, Sebeta, Boneya, Melka Kunture and etc.
Some of the Districts areas are: Adama, Dodota, Bora, Lome, Liben chukala, Adea (around Bushoftu), Akaki, Gimbichu, Bereh(around Sebeta), Aleltu, Jida, Sulultu, Ejere, Welmera, Illu, Sebeta Hawas and etc.
Today, when the world is concerned about preserving ecology and wild life in their natural habitat, it is an Ethiopian Government that is clearing an indigenous Oromo people from their home Land in the name of inequitable Economic Development. Hence, who should stand and speak for these innocent people and argue to preserve the right of the extremely vulnerable Oromo people living in the proposed territories and to preserve the indigenous Oromo people, culture, Languages and etc. Otherwise sooner than latter these great people will be marginalized and lost their identities.
Figure 1: The newly Developed and proposed Master Plan of the tomorrow’s Finfinne over the coming 25 years
C. The Agenda behind the “Integrated Regional Development Plan (IRDP)”
An office called “Addis Ababa and the surrounding Oromia Integrated Development Plan” prepared an International and National Conference on June 2013 at Adama Town, Galma Abba Gadaa. The Objective of organizing the conference of the top ranking government cadres (mostly OPDO’s) was to work on the manifesting of the proposed Integrated Regional Development Plan (IRDP) and prepare the cadre’s to work on the people.
On the Conference, it was stated that, the Purposes of the “IRDP” are:
Instrumental to unleashing Regional Development Potentials
Enables localities addressing their mutual development challenges
Enables localities addressing their mutual development challenges
Strengthens complementarities and interconnection of localities
These purposes can be the explicit or clear objectives of the plan. However, the plan have hidden or implicit agenda. Systematically bringing the land under their custody so that, it will sooner or later scramble among their impoverished people in their region. For example, the Finfinnee City Administration and Finfinnee Special Zone can address their mutual development challenges without being incorporated into one master plan. However, the Master plan is not prepared on mutual benefit as the plan is solely prepared by Finfinnee City Administration, despite the name of the office. Hence, though development is boldly emphasized, the main purpose seems to clear the Oromo farmers from their lands in the name of unfair Economic Development.
It was also stated that the Pillars of the Integrated Regional Development Plan are:
Regional Infrastructure Networks
Natural Resource and Environment Stewardship
Cross – Boundary Investments/ e.g FDI)
Joint Regional Projects
However, there seem hidden agenda behind these pillars. For example, in the name of cross-Boundary Investments, local Oromo farmers are going to lose their land for the so-called “investors” and under the pretext of promoting national economy through FDI initiatives In addition, if the plan is going to be realized natural and environmental degradation is inevitable.
In addition, the Basic Principles of the Integrated Regional Development Plan are:
Ensuring Mutual Benefits
A joint development Framework – not a substitute for local plans
An Integrated Regional Plan voluntarily accepted by participating partners
Differences resolved through negotiation and under in-win scenario
Nevertheless, the plan will not ensure a mutual benefit at it is largely intended to displace Oromo farmers from their land. In additions, the populations of the two areas are not homogenous. Hence, they have no common interest. Even though it is said the “IRDP’ will be voluntarily accepted by participating partners, the top cadres in Oromia themselves have strongly opposed the plan on the conference. Beside, the implicit objective of the plan is to remove/avoid the differences in language and culture there by to plant “Ethiopianism or Tigreans” on Oromo land. The plan is intended to say good bye to Oromo Culture and language. The other thing is that the differences between Oromo and others cannot be resolved as it is intended to eradicate Oromo identity, culture and language. As we know from history, Oromo’s never compromised on these issues. Hence, if the plan is to be implemented, peaceful co-existence may not be there.
D. Problems that may come because of the Integrated Regional Development Plan
As different sources shown, many Oromo’s living in Special Zone has already lost their land in the name of foreign direct investment and land grasping. This is because of several fa3ctories are constructed in the special zone by taking the Lands from local Oromo farmers. It is not new to see Oromo labor workers or guards in their own land. Family members are highly displaced by this measure. Many went to street. Not only the displaced Oromos damaged by this. It is said chemical coming out of the factories are also hurting the health of the remaining Oromos. It is said that “In Central Oromia, thousands of people and their livestock died due to the industrial pollution directly released to rivers and lakes.”
Taking the above as an experience, there also different reasons why the newly Master plan of Finfinne should not be implemented on Oromo people. Some of the reasons are:
1. It will bring Extreme Poverty: It is inevitable that the local Oromo farmers lost their land in the name of investment and urbanization. This means that the Oromos are systematically cleaned from their own land, as they were cleaned from Finfinnee in earlier days. Hence, the local farmers lose their land which is part of their permanent asset. After the lose their land, the farmers will going to work for 300 birrr in the factory or serve as house servant or home guard, which is already started. By doing so, the farmers face extreme poverty. In addition, the gap between rich and poor will very high. For example, one writer described the impact of “investment” saying:
“The current regime has sold out more than 3 million hectares of fertile land to the foreigner investors after forcefully displacing Oromo farmers from their ancestral land. The grabbing of land ended the indigenous people without shelter and foods. This displacement of the Oromo people accompanied by limitless human rights violations set the Oromo to be the vast number of immigrants in the Horn of Africa.”
2. Family displacement and disintegration: Members of a family will be displaced and disintegrated as a result of loosing their land. In addition, the workers of Finfinnee special zone will be displaced as they are working in Afan Oromo.
3. Abuse of constitutional rights: After long year of struggle and sacrifice of thousands of Life, Afan Oromo given constitution right to be used in administration, school and other sectors in Oromia region. This is one of the basic objectives that Oromos has been struggling. However, if the master plan is going to be implemented, working language of Finfinnee City, Amharic, is going to be used in the areas. By doing so, the local people will be forced to learn new language to use it for different purpose. The measure will take back Oromo to the “Atse” region. The Federal Constitution states “Every people, nation and nationality have the right to speak, to write and to develop their own language, as well as to express, to develop and to promote their culture and history.Article 39” will be clearly violated. The Oromo living in Finfinnee Special Zone will lose the rights that the FDRE constitution guarantees them.
4. Academic and psychological impacts on Oromo students: If the newly proposed master plan of Finfinnee City is going to be implemented, Oromo students living in the surrounding area will attend their education in Amharic, which is second language to the students. It is strongly argued that using the native languages of students as a medium of instruction is a decisive factor for effective learning However, this situation, failure to give a role to native languages and largely depending on second/foreign language instruction, brought various difficulties to students. The students are expected to entangle not only with learning the subject matters but also the language itself. It also creates difficulty to students in expressing themselves and as a result it limits their classroom participation as there is fear of making mistakes. In addition, it is a barrier to smooth classroom communication. It is also argued that use of a second/foreign language in education negatively affects the ability and the ease with which knowledge is acquired by students. It also affects the performance of students and creates difficulties in developing their cognitive skills. Moreover, giving low status to native languages of students in educational setting leads to marginalization of majority of the citizens from active engagement in the development arena. In general, the master plan will have negative impacts on Oromo students in various academic aspects.
5. Impact on Identity and Culture of Local Oromo People: The new plan will make Oromos to lose their identity and culture, like the previous regimes did. This is because people having different identity and culture are going to settle on Oromo land. The settlers will push out the Oromo identity and replace by their own. The Oromo’s will have very limited opportunity to exercise their cultural value and linguistic form. The language and cultural development will be also hampered by the new plan.
6. Economic impact: If the master plan is going to be realized, the Finfinnee City Adminstration will control all economic aspects of the areas. The income that is collected from different factories will be taken. The Oromiya government will loose great income to Finfinnee city administration.
7. Impact on Natural Resource and Environment: As the result of the plan, there will be overspread ground and surface water pollution. In addition, there will be severe deforestation and natural resource depletion.
8. Cutting Oromia into East and West Regions: The new Master Plan of Finfinne city will cut the current Oromia into two parts i.e. Eastern and Western. This is because the Central and great part of Oromia is proposed to be taken and incorporated into Finfinnee. Hence, the Central part that joins East and West will be taken.
D. What Should be done to Save the Oromo People around Finfinnee
As shown above, the master plan is so disadvantage for Oromia. In general, if we see the plan, it will affect local Oromo people in various aspects. However, the government who is supposed to represent the Oromo people is unable to see the danger. So we kindly ask the Oromos at home and Diaspora and other concerned bodies to forward ways and mechanisms to stop the intended plan. We ask the Oromo people and international communities, who will stand for the Oromo’s living around Finfinnee??
If we read an honest history of the present and past Governments of Ethiopia, we would conclude that the present Government is truly facing a difficult dilemma. At the dawn of the 21st century, we can neither run away from ourselves nor hide our realities. We have to face our generation and the historical realities of our time. It is undeniable that today, people demand respect for their human and national rights. Above all, people will not rest until their identity and their sovereignty over what is theirs is ensured. These are the peoples’ most burning issues. They realize that they have to make utmost effort of their own. It is within the context of the above-mentioned framework that the Oromo people resolutely demand their rights and freedom. It is to those who want to deny the rights and freedoms of the people that we are most bitterly opposed. It is a crime to deny the national identity and sovereignty of a people no matter how sophisticated the tactics used to do so. It is equally wrong to see the national desire of a people from a selfish perspective. It is based on the above concepts and precepts that the Oromo people continue their unceasing and bitter struggle against being treated as second class citizens. We know that our struggle is just for it is motivated by our desire to preserve our dignity and identity as a people.
We, the sons and daughters of the Oromo people, strenuously oppose the implementation of new Master Plan for Finfinne administration because we fully understand the historical development of the desire of other people to displace the Oromo people in order to benefit the non-Oromo new comers and their lackeys in this country. This highly orchestrated conspiracy, the present Oromo generation shall not tolerate at any cost. It will steadfastly and resolutely resist the conspiracy.
We also request international communities to put pressure on FDRE/TPLF Government and Finfinnee City Administration to stop the proposed Master Plan, which directly or indirectly harm the Oromo people.
We call on the Federal Government of Ethiopia, House of Peoples’ Representatives, the Federation Council, the Oromia Council to stop clearing Oromo people from their home Land in the name of inequitable Development and replacing others on their land.
Please generate comments as many as possible on what should be done about the plan.
May Waaq Gurraacha help us!
From: Sabbontoota Oromoo, Oromia.
We are always Oromo First!!!!
Sabbontoota Oromo can be reached at sabboontotaaoromo@yahoo.in
by Teumay Debesay | February 13, 2014 Raya refers a tract of land stretching from Ala wuha in the south to Alaje in the north. That is bigger than Adwa and Axum awrajas combined. Historically, this is where the Weyane rebellion started in 1928 as a spontaneous reaction to a repressive system of the time. Originating in their present day Kobo wereda, the revolt would quickly spread to cover the entire Raya and Wejerat provinces. Later, the inhabitants of Enderta joined the revolt and a sort of quasi-organized alliance was formed after a decade of Raya and Wejerat rebellion. This alliance, Weyane, would emerge so potent that by its heyday it practically liberated the provinces of Raya, Wejerat and Enderta. The imperial government with the support of British Air force resorted to aerial bombardment of the rebel held areas which caused a wide-spread damage, including complete erasure of villages. However, the most detrimental factor that actually caused the demise of Weyane was to come from none other than Adwa people. In 1943, Dejazmach Gebrehiwot Meshesha along with a dozen of Adwans exploited the trust vested on them to assassinate the leaders of the Weyane movement. This is significant for in the Ethiopian tradition, at least until then, if one manages to kill the leader one will win the battle. Meshesha and co. breach of the traditional trust and value was so venomous that even to this date mistrust and resentment runs high in Raya. It is to be noted that if not for Meshesha of Adwa, the people were in a very strong bargaining position and if one has to look how similar revolts in Bale and other regions were resolved, the rebels demand for better governance was within reach. As a thank you for their contribution, Meshesha and his fellow Adwans were rewarded heavily by Haileselasse while a series of punitive attacks continued on the ‘originators’ of Weyane and ultimately Raya was divided between Wollo and Tigray.
When the TPLF started the armed insurrection in Ethiopia, it took little time to transform itself as an Adwa-only club by the same inherited act of treachery. The legacy of resentment that Meshesha and co. left means TPLF-Adwa had hard time to set foot in Raya. Hence, they needed to come up with a trick and did it so by cosmetically inserting the word Weyane in the Tigrigna version of its name. Taken with the harsher realities under DERG, Rayans reluctantly sided with TPLF on the principle of the lesser devil. Soon, tens of thousands of Raya youth joined the TPLF, including forming the majority and the backbone of Hadush “Hayelom” Ariaya’s fighting force that brought the little known“Hayelom” into prominence. However, if the experience of my village is anything, it is fair to conclude that almost all the Raya recruits ended up as cannon fodders. Those who survived, especially the independent and rational ones, would have never escaped the Meles-Sebhat death squad. In Raya, for example, it is not uncommon to talk to your relative TPLF fighter over the phone in the morning only to be notified of his death of “natural” consequences on the same day. I will say more on the motives next time. But for now, I want to draw your attention to the following Table, which is taken from the 1994 and 2007 population census of Ethiopia. I think this illustrates how the Raya and Adwa are faring under the TPLF-Adwa administration.
Clearly, 7 towns (Robit, Gobiye, Waja, Mersa, Korem, Wedisemro, Chelena) of Raya from the total 11, i.e., 64% of the town that existed in the 1994 Census Ethiopia have died or are dying. Well, with Adwa awraja towns the figures show a hard-to-believe growth registering as ridiculous as 1033% for Gerhusenay, Idegaarbi(377%), Nebelet(266%); even noticeable is the emergence of a novel city (Diobdibo) in the 2007 census, attesting to the developmental and modernization campaigns in Adwa rural areas as well. The bar graph of the rate at which towns are expanding (Adwa) or shrinking (Raya) shown below can only be a proof that in the so-called Tigray “killil” both, depending on the area, de-constructive and constructive policies are in operation. To the unsuspecting, it may occur that this might have to do with the pre-1991 TPLF bandit caused civil war. However, it is not quite so for, for instance, there was no single bomb that was dropped on Adwa towns nor was a confrontation in populated areas in the entire Adwa awraja. There was insignificant causality as far as the civilian population of Adwa is concerned for the TPLF military engagement tactic in Adwa/Axum area was totally different from the rest awrajas. For example, Korem town alone might have received far more arial bombardment than the entire Adwa awraja. From SehulMikael (the Godfather of Ethiopia’s disintegration), to Meshesha-Sebhat-Meles-Sebhat(again), there exist very little dissimilarity.Right now, Alamata, the only remaining city not to die fast enough as Adwans would have liked to see, is under open destruction. The residents never complained on the absence of developmental activity but never expected that the Adwa administration of the city will come-up with a destruction agenda. Surprised by the revelation, the unsuspecting residents went to Mekelle to air their grievances in the hope that the big men there might be rational and take proper action. However, Abay Woldu’s administration did not give it a second to listen; just ordered more Bulldozers, armored tanks and a battalion to effectively carry out the planned destruction. Worse, those who complained the demolishing of their belonging are rounded-up and now languish in Adwa operated secret Tigrayan jails Reference:
Central Statistical Authority Ethiopia: The 1994 populaion and Housing Census of Ethiopia. Results for Tigray region, Volume 1, Statistical report.Table 2.2, Page 11
Central Statistical Authority Ethiopia: The 1994 populaion and Housing Census of Ethiopia. Results for Amhara Region, Volume 1, Statistical report.Table 2.2, Page 13
The 2007 Population and Housing Census of Ethiopia: Statistical Report for Tigray Region, Table 2.1, page 7
The 2007 Population and Housing Census of Ethiopia: Statistical Report for Amhara Region, Table 2.2, page 11
‘It is quite long overdue to register Gadaa as a world heritage… ‘If it is inscribed as UNESCO’s world heritage it will be the source of historical pride not only for the Oromo people but also for all peoples of Ethiopia, Africa and the whole world at large. It will also be a center of attraction to the world tourists who would come to see and enjoy the Gadaa system’s tangible and intangible values. Tangible heritages are the age old Gadaa centers like; Hora Arsadi, Oda Nabe, Oda Bulluqi, Oda Bultum, Oda Makoo Billi, Gumii Gayyoo in Borana and many others in western, central, eastern and southern #Oromia. It also includes reverences and ornaments of rituals, the Bokku, the Caaccu and Kalacha. Intangible heritages are ideas, thoughts and the worldview of Abba Gadaa elders, women, men and the youth as members of the Gadaa system.’ Read @http://allafrica.com/stories/201209210569.html?page=3
Sites such as the Tiya stones should be protected to ensure that any cultural secrets they hold will remain preserved, and perhaps someday be discovered. As a site created by the ancestors of those who live in Tiya and nearby areas, any significance of the megaliths may still apply to those who live there today. By protecting the site, UNESCO and other interested groups can ensure that the stones are preserved for future generations. There is the hope that more research will be undertaken in order to learn more about the amazing megaliths at Tiya, including who constructed them, why they did so, and what significance the monuments hold.
He will also participate as a Guest of Honor at several Irreecha celebrations organized by the Oromo in the Diaspora.We invite all who are interested in the Gadaa democratic system, and Oromo culture in general, to attend these workshops and participate in the spectacular Irreecha celebrations to be held throughout September and October 2014.We would like to extend our appreciation to local individuals and institutions – who participated in preparing these events. We are also grateful to the United States Consular Service for the assistance they provided in issuing Abbaa Gadaa Bayyanaa’s travel documents.The attached flyer contains general information about dates and cities where Abbaa GadaaBayyanaa will be speaking.Jawar Mohammed President, Oromo Studies Association
Annual Oromo Sports Event in UK, 23rd August 2014 held in Leeds, England. 
The Oromo Gadaa Democracy meets the American Congress Democracy. Abbaa Gadaa (Rt.) Aagaa Xanxanoo and Abbaa Gadaa (Rt.) Moonaa Godaanaa meet Senator Al Franken (from the State of Minnesota). 
(July 20, 2014 (Gadaa) — Minnesota’s Twin Cities, also known as “Little Oromia” for being the home of the largest Oromo population outside of the Horn of Africa, will be the venue for the 2014 
Prof. Asmerom Leggese, Lecturing Gadaa System 
Below is Bakkalcha TV’s 2-part interview with Oromo recording artist Lencho Abdishakur. Also, check out Lencho Abdishakur’s new album, titled 
Oromian Economist 
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