A History of Modern Ethiopia, 1855–1991. Bahru Zewde
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rainfall pattern has had a direct bearing on the vegetation scene. The heavy and almost year-round rains in the south-west have given rise to a dense concentration of tropical broad-leaf forests, particularly in the administrative regions of Illubabor and Kafa. Although deforestation has reduced the wooded area to about a tenth of its original size, the south-west still accounts for some 65% of the country’s total forest resources. It is this region which has traditionally been the source of most of the natural products of commerce, ranging from elephant tusks to coffee. The northern and central parts of the country were initially covered with coniferous forests and temperate grasslands; currently, less than 1% of the original forests remain, the result of intense human activity attended by an even more disastrous rate of deforestation than in the south-west. We can say that, over the years, the country’s vegetation has generally been characterized by a decrease in the forest area and an increase in the area covered with grass and scrub. Of late, the even faster degradation of land has brought about the recurrent droughts which have made the country so notorious.
Keramt is the main growing season in Ethiopia, although the balg rains are also crucial for some parts of the country. The temperate conditions of the northern and central highlands have permitted the growing of a wide variety of food crops. Of these, the most important is tef (Eragrostis tef) a small cereal indigenous and peculiar to the country; it is processed into the distinctive bread, enjara, the staple diet of a large proportion of the country’s population. Tef’s equivalent in the southern parts of the country is the root-crop ensat (Ensete ventricosum). The country’s abundant grasslands have also supported a large livestock population, reputedly the largest in Africa. The possession of livestock is not confined to the lowland pastoralists. Highland farmers also keep a fair proportion of livestock for their food value, as transport animals and, in the case of oxen, as draught-animals to pull the plough.
Like many other African societies, Ethiopia presents a mosaic of nationalities speaking a multiplicity of languages. Linguists have divided these languages into four groups, three of them tracing a common ancestry to a parent language called proto-Afroasiatic. From this parent language sprang not only the languages spoken in Ethiopia but also a number of languages spoken in the northern half of Africa and in south-western Asia. The three language groups of the proto-Afroasiatic family spoken in Ethiopia are known as Cushitic, Omotic and Semitic. Cushitic and Omotic are the most ancient in the Ethiopian region; the Semitic languages are the most recent. A fourth group of languages belong to an independent family known as Nilo-Saharan.
The Nilo-Saharans are situated in a more or less continuous line along the western fringes of the country. The Kunama in southwestern Eritrea form the northernmost group. Further south, in Matakkal in western Gojjam, are to be found the Gumuz. They spill over into the adjoining region of Wallaga, home of the Barta and the Koma. The southern end of the Nilo-Saharan corridor is composed of the Majangir, on the escarpment leading from the Oromo-inhabited highlands to the Baro plains, and the Anuak and Nuer, who dwell in the plains; some sections of the Anuak and even larger sections of the Nuer are to be found on the Sudanese side of the boundary.
Of the Cushitic-speaking peoples of Ethiopia, historically the most important in ancient times were the Agaw and the Beja. The Agaw have now been largely assimilated into the dominant Semitic culture, with a pocket waging what looks like a rearguard fight for survival in the Gojjam administrative region. An Agaw pocket, the Belen or Bilen, is also found in the Karan district in Eritrea. The Beja are now to be found largely in Sudan. The Oromo now constitute the largest single nationality in Ethiopia; they began to migrate from the south in the sixteenth century, and later settled over large parts of the country. Linguistically closest to the Oromo are the Somali, a predominantly pastoralist people now found scattered in Ethiopia, Djibouti, Somalia and Kenya. Other Cushitic-speaking peoples are the Afar, inhabiting the hostile environment at the north-eastern end of the Rift, the Saho on the escarpment to the north, the Hadiya and Kambata in Shawa administrative region and the Gedeo (Darasa) and Konso further to the south.
2. Linguistic map of Ethiopia, showing the distribution by the nineteenth century
The Omotic-speaking peoples derive their name from their location on both sides of the Omo river. Situated exclusively in south-western Ethiopia, they have been distinguished by two important features: the large-scale cultivation of ensat and the evolution of highly organized polities. The Dorze, Janjaro, Kafa and Walayta were of particular significance in the latter regard. Showing comparative levels of complexity were the Dizi (Gimira) and Maji, found in the extreme south-west.
The Semites have played the most dominant role in the country’s history. The kingdoms and empires that successively emerged in the region have invariably been under their control, particularly that of the Tegregna- and Amharic-speaking peoples of northern and central Ethiopia. The oldest of the Semitic languages, Ge’ez, now confined to ecclesiastical use, has served as a sort of lingua franca of the Semitic-speaking peoples. The most akin to Ge’ez is Tegra, spoken by the inhabitants of northern and eastern Eritrea. The Tegregna-speakers are found in highland Eritrea and in Tegray. Amharic, which is the official language of the country, is the native tongue of most of the inhabitants of the north-central and central highlands. Two Semitic language pockets in a predominantly Cushitic environment are Gurage in south-central Ethiopia and Harari in the east.
Conventionally, Ethiopian history began with the visit of the Queen of Sheba, allegedly from Ethiopia, to Solomon, King of Israel, in the tenth century BC: hence the reference to Ethiopia’s ‘three thousand years of history’ that we hear and read so often. Aside from the fact that this association has scarcely any scientific basis, it represents too short a view of the Ethiopian past. Archaeological and linguistic research in recent years has made possible and necessary the adoption of a longer and more scientific perspective. On this basis, the beginnings of the Ethiopian past are to be sought not in the historical but in the prehistoric period.
Archaeological discoveries of the late 1960s and early 1970s have lent this past more than national significance. The discovery in 1974 of the earliest hominid in Hadar, in the Afar desert, has focused international palaeontological research on the country. Named ‘Lucy’ by foreigners, and ‘Denqenash’ (‘You are Marvellous’) by Ethiopians, this female ancestor of the human race was dated to three and a half million years ago. In the Omo valley in the south-west, too, human fossils dating from one to two and a half million years ago have been found. Much nearer in time, there are other manifestations of prehistoric culture: the neolithic site of Malka Qunture, some 31 miles (50 km) to the south-west of Addis Ababa, and the cave paintings found in Eritrea in the north, Sidamo in the south and Harar in the east. An important facet of this prehistoric culture was the domestication of plants and animals, believed to have started some six thousand years ago. Ensat was cultivated in the Omotic south-west and tef and dagusa (Eleusine corocana, finger millet) in the northern and eastern highlands. Barley and wheat were subsequently introduced into the region. The emergence of the ox-drawn plough signalled a revolution in agricultural production, and at the same time gave the country one of its distinctive marks over the centuries.
The developments described above constituted the basis for the emergence of states in the Ethiopian region. Not much is known about the predecessors of the Aksumite kingdom, which has been the focus of much of the historiographical attention. But such centres as Yeha, to the north of Aksum, attest to the flourishing of a rich civilization which appears to have been an amalgam of the indigenous culture and external influences, notably from South Arabia. Aksum flourished from the first to the seventh century AD. Its elaborately carved stelae and the ruins of palaces and other edifices attest to high attainments in building technology. Its towns included the eponymous capital and Adulis, a Red Sea port of international repute. Aksum was above all sustained by trade, both inland and maritime. The latter not only made it an integral part of Mediterranean commerce and culture but also brought it into contact with India and the Far East. Military expansion, as so often, followed trade. At the height of its power, the Aksumite state controlled large parts of northern Ethiopia and the Arabian coastline across the Red Sea. The conversion of the Aksumite