The question of Damot and Wälamo

Author(s): TSEHAI BRHANE SELASSIE

Source: Journal of Ethiopian Studies , JANUARY 1975, Vol. 13, No. 1 (JANUARY 1975),
pp. 37-46
Published by: Institute of Ethiopian Studies

Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/41965880

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 The question of Damof and Walamo
by TSEHAI BRHANE SELASSIE

In 1894, Menilek led an expedition south-west from Addis Abäba

to invade the kingdom of Wälamo between the Bilaté river and the
Omo (Gibé) and annex it to his empire. Except for its neighbour, the
kingdom of Käfa, directly west of the Omo, Wälamo was completely
surrounded by peoples already tributary to Menilek. The emperor's
chronicler, Gâbrâ-Sellasé, was anxious to depict the brutal campaign
as a crusade to restore Christianity in a land where Säwa's most
famous saint, Täklä-Haymanot, himself had evangelized. It is clear that
Menilek had other economic and political reasons for the campaign
including the fact that the king, Kawo Tona, had refused to pay the
voluntary tribute his predecessor had sent and was trying to incite
the subject peoples of Kullo, Konta and Borodda to the south to rebel
against Menilek's governors.1
The official account given by Gâbrâ-Sellasé claims for the Wälamo,
or their ancestors, connection with documented events of the thirteenth
century, a period for which their history is otherwise blank. Similarly,
the descendants of the Christian settlers, who came after the conquest
and whom the Wälamo indiscrimately call Amhara, popularly link the
lands taken from Tona with the history of their own kings. Despite the
propagandistic motives of the author of the chronicle of Menilek and,
probably, of local 'Amhara' in passing down their folklore, such hints
about the remote past of Wälamo are too tempting, given the paucity
of evidence for its early history, to be dismissed. Unfortunately close
examination has not yet established any confirmation for the assertions
of the conqueror. The more nearly contemporary writings from Christian
sources give an account of the peoples south of the Abbay since the
13th century which can not be related to Wälamo oral traditions despite
post-conquest assertions of a common history. Until much more work
is done, especially on the archaeology of southern Ethiopia, the hints
tempt but cannot convince.
The chronicler, Gâbrâ-Sellasé, cites the hagiography of Täklä-
Haymanot as his source when writing that:2
i

4 'The land known as Wälamo was once ruled by a pagan called

Motâlamé. During an expedition he captured the mother of
Abunä Täklä-Haymanot and wanted to marry her. For that he
prepared a big banquet in his city, Wälamo-Damot. Having

1. See my "Menelik II, Conquest and Consolidation of the Southern Provinces,"

senior essay. History Dept., HSIU, June 1968, p. 32.
2. Gâbrâ-Sellasé (M. de Coppet, ed.), Chronique du Règne de Ménélik II, Roi
des Rois ď Ethiopie (Paris, 1930-31), pp. 360-61. An Amharic text, TarikäZä -
män Zä-Dagmawi Menilek was published, Addis Abäba, 1959 E. C.; all re-
ferences here are to the earlier French translation.

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 passed the day drinking and eating with his chiefs, he ordere d
that the woman be brought to him. But St. Mika'él brought her
on his wings to Däbrä Selaleš [in Bulga] where she found her
husband

was born

baptized Motâlamé after which he

Later Gran came and the land be

Ten kilometres from Soddo, the pr

popularly believed to be the site o
other supposed church ruins in Wä
Zär'a-Ya'eqob, 1434-68.) The 'Amhar
St. Täklä-Haymanot did indeed reach
the hill, in Boloso district, there is a waterfall known as Tosa Afo
(God's precipice). The descendants of those Menilek settled in Wälamo
say that this is the very precipice called Tomā Gerar in the hagio-
graphy and from which the saint's pagan opponents condemned him
to be hurled.3

The local place name, Damot, the identification of the waterfall

with Tomā Gerar, and the existence of ruins popularly believed to be
pre-conquest churches argue in favour of the early evangelization of
what was to become Wälamo as claimed by Gâbrâ-Sellasé. And the
Wälamo themselves do mention a Motâlamé, whom they call Motolomi
in their traditions. However, they associate neither him nor the hill
of Damot with St. Täklä-Haymanot. And Gädlä Täklä-Haymanot in
its published versions recounts the saint's evangelical accomplishments
at the court of a Motâlamé of Damot without mentioning a Wälamo-
Damot, as in Gâbrâ-Sellassé, or Wälamo at all.4 Moreover, there is
no reason to suppose that the historical Damot was so far south as
the hill of the same name in Wälamo.

Mention of a Damot is fairly common in the early literature of

the Christian empire.5 In addition to the Gädlä Täklä-Haymanot ,
it appears in the Chronicle of Amdä-Seyon (1312-34) where the king
boasts that he fought against this kingdom and conquered it. A
soldiers' song of his reign refers to the king of Damot as Motâlamé.6
(Also written Motä Lamé or Lami, this may be partly a title like
the much later Oromo, Moti.) The chronicle of Zär' a - Ya'eqob records

3. Oral informants quoted in this paper: Balambaras Kušé, aged 91, Ato Eneja
Lamaro, aged 72, Ato Gärmamu Baša, aged 80, Ato Gâbrâ-Çadiq Bäyänä,
aged 68. All interviewed in November, 1972 at Wälamo.
4. E. A. Wallis Budge (ed. and tr.), The Life and Miracles of Takla Haymânôt
(London, 1906), p. 355; this is the Däbrä Libanos version. Cf., the Waldeb-
ba version; French trans, in J. Duchesne Fournet, Mission en Ethiopie (1901-
1903) (Paris, 1908-1909), p. 388. See also, theAmharic translation by Mäkon-
nen Bäyu (Addis Abäba, 1937 E. C.) p. 126.
5. For the earliest mentions of Damot see: J. Spencer Trimingham, Islam in
Ethiopia (reprint: London, 1965), p. 52; Aläqa Täklä-Iyasus, IES MS. no. 254,
ff. 17-18. Sergew Hable-Sellassie, Ancient and Medieval Ethiopian History to
1270 (Addis Abäba, 1972), p. 218. Also Taddesse Tamrat cited infra notes 11
and 12.
6. G. W. B. Huntingford (tr.), The Glorious Victories of 'Amda §eyon (Oxford,
1965), pp. 19, 69, 129.

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his complaints that while the people of Damot were his subjects, pagan
practices flourished there.7
More detailed information comes from the accounts of the Portu-
guese. Alvarez, who visited the court of Lebnä-Dengel from 1520-25,
heard that Damot was just within the empire's western frontier along
the upper Gibé. To the south-west of Damot, he placed Guragé, Wäj
and Fätägar; to the south, Hadeya; and to the north, Gafat which
bordered directly on the southern bank of the Abbay. The north-east
of Damot, Alvarez claimed, was bounded by Gänz which in turn
bordered on the Jämma river.8

All the territories south of the Abbay listed by Alvarez were

overrun by Gran shortly after he left Ethiopia. Following that upheaval,
the empire was partially restored. The Emperor Särsä-Dengel (d. 1597)
campaigned in 1586 south to Damot. After baptizing the neighbouring
king of Enarya west of the Gibé, he is supposed to have acknowledged
this king's rights to Damot, viz . to lands east of the river, perhaps
indicating that Damot was much disrupted still.9 Soon after Särsä-
Dengel's expedition, the Oromo swept through Damot from Šāwa. The
monk, Bahrey, who lived far south of the line of Oromo expansion,
described their migration, specifically mentioning Damot. Similarly,
the Jesuits who won favour at the court of Emperor Susneyos (1607-
1632), refer to Damot when recording what they had heard of the
coming of the Oromo. Neither Bahrey nor the Jesuits mention Wälamo
although the Jesuits knew of so remote a place as the kingdom of
Janjäro within one of the curves of the upper Gibé.10 Presumably
Tona's predecessors were of scant importance.
The arrival of the Oromo between the upper Gibé and the Abbay
probably pushed the people of Gafat and Damot north into Gojjam.
(Here the latter have given their name to the region of present-üay
Däbrä Marqos.) While Ludolph and his Ethiopian informant in the
17th century still gave the name Damot on their map to the lands
which were nearly those described by Alvarez, Bruce did not mark
any territories south of the Abbay as Damot.
From the writings of the Christian empire, it is clear that before
the Oromo migrations, Damot was situated in what is now the awraja
of Jebat & Mé$$a, though its western and southern boundaries are
uncertain.11 It was well know to the Christian rulers as a powerful
neighbour and at one time, perhaps in the 13th century, it was their
rival for control of the Säwan plateau.12 It must also have exerted

7. Jules Perruchon (ed. and tr.), Les Chroniques de Zar" a Ya'eqob et de Bď

eda Maryam (Paris, 1893), pp. 14-15.
8 . Francisco Alvarez (C. F. Beckingham and G. W. B. Huntingford, trans.), The
Prester John of the Indies (Cambridge, 1961), pp. 454-55.
9. C. F. Beckingham and G.W.B. Huntingford (eds. and trans.), Some Records
of Ethiopia, 1593-1646 (London, 1954), p. Ixi.
10. Ibid. pp. 120-21 for a trans, of Bahrey; p. 135, from Almeida.
11. Taddesse Tamrat, Church and State in Ethiopia 1270-1527 (Oxford, 1972), pp.
120-24, also pp. 65, 84, 91.
12. Ibid., pp. 65, 122; Sergew Hable-Sellassie, loc . cit.

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considerable influence over its neighbours to the south including the
ancestors of the Wälamo. Conti Rossini has suggested that the terri-
tories which Tona ruled in 1894 may once have been part of Damot.13
But Christian Ethiopian sources would seem to give no proof for this
supposition. Hence it is still not clear if the chronicler, Gâbrâ-Sellasé,
had good reason-other than the need to justify the campaign of 1894 -
for linking Täklä-Haymanot's mission to the Motâlamé of Damot with
Wälamo. One must look elsewhere than to pre- 19th century Christian
literature for the history of Wälamo.
The first modern travellers to learn anything about Wälamo were
European missionaries, adventurers and explorers who came to Gojjam
andSäwa in the 1830's and 1840's.14 A half century later, fuller, first-
hand accounts by Europeans had been published about the Oromo
south of the Abbay and about Käfa. These accounts include some
reliable information on Wälamo reported at second-hand.15 The first
European to visit Wälamo was the journalist, Vanderheym, who
accompanied Menilek's expedition in 1894. The carnage of that campaign
is well described. But there is little in his account about the country's
history. Moreover, he relied on one of Menilek's interpreters for
much of his information. It is not surprising then that both Vander-
heym and Gâbrâ-Sellasé should assert that the ruins found on Damot
hill were those of an ancient church made by Täklä-Haymanot.16
Both also mention the founding, near Tona's residence, of a new capital,
Soddo. Only in 1931, however, when two Frenchmen had visited Wälamo
as part of an archaeological survey, was the claim published that
Menilek had built this town on the ruins of an ancient city taking
the name, Soddo, from a group of phallic stones near by.17 European
accounts of Wälamo are meagre compared with what was being
written down about the neighbouring Oromo and Käfa and their
traditions.18 Among the fragments there is no reference to St. Täklä-
Haymanot or historic Damot being associated with it.
. Another historian at the court of Menilek, the Catholic convert,
A§mä-Giyorgis, seems to base his history of the Oromo and their
neighbours partly at least on traditions. In speaking of pre-conquest
Wälamo he says that it was one of the states whose kings had for-
merly sent ambassadors to Enarya to get the blessing of that king.19

13. Taddesse Tamrat, op. cit., p. 121, note 1.

14. Inter alia: J. L. Krapf and C. W. Isenberg, Journals (reprint: London, 1968),
p. 257; W. C. Harris, The Highlands of Ethiopia (London, 1846), Vol. I, p.
76.

15. Paul Soleillet, Voyages en Ethiopie (Janvier ÌSS2-Octobre 1884) (Rouen, 1886), p. 188
(Wälamo was not among the tributaries of Käfa which he visited briefly);
Jules Borelli, Ethiopie Méridionale. Journal de mon voyage aux Amhara, Or-
omo et Sidama, septembre 1885 à novembre 1888 (Paris, 1890), pp. 360-61,
16. J. G. Vanderheym, Une expédition avec le negous Menelik: vingt mois en Abys-
sinie (Paris, 1896), p. 163. Gâbrâ-Sellasé, op. cit., p. 363.
17. R. P. Azaîs and R. Chambard, Cinq années de recherches archéologiques en
Ethiopie (Paris, 1931), p. 273.
18. See citations to M. Abir, Ethiopia: The Era of the Princes (London, 1968),
Chap. IV, "The emergence of the Galla of the south-west," pp. 73. if.
19. Açmâ-Giyorgis, "Yä-Galla Tank," IES Amharic MS no. 380, f. 15.

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In his account, the two were separate kingdoms with the king of
Enarya exercising some sort of spiritual primacy. It is not clear if
this was the Enarya which Sär§ä-Dengel had forced to accept Christian-
ity and enlarged with the remnants of Damot. The Oromo migrations
had a disintegrating effect on the Sidama states. New and smaller
ones arose out of the ruins preserving the earlier names at times.
Hence the Limmu Oromo refounded the kingdom of Enarya in the
old centre west of the Gibé after supplanting the original population
(some of which fled to Käfa below the Gojéb).20 The beginnings of
Wälamo as a kingdom in the middle of the seventeenth century can
probably be attributed to this process. Whether it was also one of
the successor states of Damot remains to be proved.
Wälamo oral tradition today recalls Motâlamé as a king of a
dynasty called Wälaytamala. This line of kings, unlike their successors,
are said to have been local people and to have ruled from Kendo
hill. This hill is much to the south of Jebat & Méçça awraja which
seems to have been the heartland of historic Damot. The Wälamo say
that in the time of the Wälaytamala their kingdom was known as
Arujé (a name later adopted also by people who disliked being called
Wälamo). For the moment this name cannot be identified in the written
sources of the Christian empire. Wälamo informants could not list
the Wälaytamala kings or the genealogy for names, such as Sada
Motolomi, which they can recall. The names of the parents of the
Motâlamé mentioned in the Gädlä Täklä-Haymanot are not known.
The only link with that story is the name (or, title) Motâlamé itself.

Motâlamé was overthrown, according to Wälamo tradition, by a

son-in-law, Mika'él, who thus became the founder of the so-called Tegré
dynasty. The usurper is supposed to have been an immigrant from
QuÇa, north-west of Kendo. The Wälamo insist that his ancestors had
come from Tâmbén in Tegré and that QuÇa was merely the base from
which he acted. The claim that the 'Tegré' dynasty really were of
Tegrean descent existed before Menelik's conquest.21 Modern scholars
suggest that they were descended from northern settlers in Guragé.22
A colony of Christians is said to have come with the usurper. Today
the Qésiga clan are said to be the descendants of these immigrants.

The Tegré line of kings is well remembered. A king list was set
down by a European traveller as early as 1888.23 The first rulers of
the dynasty, however, are not entitled Kawo (king), evidence perhaps
that they were tributary to the Christian empire or to some closer
neighbour. The literature on the Christian empire, however, gives no
hint which might aid in dating this period of Wälamo history. The
founder of the ť Tegré' dynasty may have been a renegade leader of an
isolated group of Christian settlers cut off by the collapse of the

20. Abir, op, cit., pp. 77-8; Trimingham, op. cit., p. 109 and note 3.
21. Borelli, op. cit., entry for 1 March 1888.
22. Beckingham and Huntingford, Some Records, p. lxv; why they have divided the Wä-
lamo kings into three instead of the commonly remembered two dynasties is
unclear. For the 'Tegré' list, see p. lxvi.
23 . Borelli, loc. cit.

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empire in the south. But the name, Damot, was given to that hill,
according to some oral tradition, only under Kawo Damo té who would
have ruled in the early 19th century. This further disassociates the
Wälamo and their rulers from the Motâlamé known to the Christian
writers.

Wälamo tradition and some written sources suggest that the

authority of the Wälaytamala dynasty ruling from Kendo was strongest
in the west towards QuÇa, Borodda, Kullo and Konta. These areas
later broke away. The Gamu to the south seem also to have been
independent at times and at others to have been tributary to the
Wälaytamala. The lands east of Kendo which are now settled by Wälamo
were formerly inhabited by the Alaba, the ļembaro, the Hadeya, the
Kämbata (called Maräqo by the Wälamo) and by the Arussi Oromo.
Memories of the Wälaytamala are so faint that this remote time almost
escapes reconstruction. With the coming of the Oromo the tributary
peoples would seem to have broken away from the kingdom of Arujé.
In any case, the authority of the first rulers of the 'Tegré' line was
limited at first to Kendo itself. However, the kingdom was to flourish
under this dynasty.

A fuller history of Wälamo is possible to reconstruct only under

its 'Tegré' kings because they are so well remembered in Wälamo
tradition.24 The first ruler of the dynasty who is remembered to have
had the royal title, kawo, was the fifth, Koté. It was then that Wälamo
gained importance. He and his successors much expanded their king-
dom until it had reached the extent Vanderheym described in 1894.
The first three 'Tegré' rulers had been busy consolidating their hold on
Kendo. Tradition claims that they came to power with the help of
mercenaries recruited from Quia, Borodda and Gämu. These soldiers
from neighbouring peoples who had once been tributary and the
Christian migrants who also helped the usurping family were settled
on the best lands. Both were given privileges. The ancestors of the
Christian settlers, like those of the dynasty itself, are said to have
been from Tâmbén. Their descendants, the Qésiga clan, are also known
today as Boyna Tegré , meaning farmer or second-class Tegré to distin-
guish them from the royal clan. Like all other groups they were
considered to be slaves of families of the royal clan but were privi-
leged compared with the descendants of the indigenous Wälamo.
Kawo Koté and his two successors, Libana and Tubbé, all died in
exile, after having been deposed by their sons. Sanna, the fourth
Kawo y is supposed to have rebelled against his father because he
heard his father's prophecy that one of his sons would overthrow him
and rule a larger kingdom. He took the throne by force and is
remembered as the first to fight the Kämbata. In his will, he ordered
his successors to continue to expand the kingdom at the expense of
these neighbours to the east and all warriors were enjoined to call

24. Traditions regarding the accomplishments of these kings are summarized in

Amharic by a Wälamo, Bogalä Walalu, Yä- Wälamo Hezb Tarikena Barenätem
Endet Endätäwägädä (Addis Abäba, 1956 E. C.), pp. 22-32 ("A history of
the Wälamo and how slavery was abolished.")

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out his name whenever they fought. Sanna's son, Oggäto (c. 1759-99)
also encroached on the lands of the Hadeya, adding to Wälamo the
present subdistrict of Humbo. His son, Amado (1800-1835), incor-
porated the present subdistricts of Afo and Bolosso at the expense of
the QuÇa, Dawro, Maräqo (viz., Kämbata) and the Arussi. During
Amado's reign, Wälamo also gained some influence over theBorodda
and Gämu. They helped him in his wars and paid a considerable
tribute. Amado is in some respects the refounder of the kingdom in
so far as he added much new territory, and it was he who divided it
into the provinces, daña , which it retained until the conquest.
Amado's successor, Damoté (1836-45), further expanded the king-
dom. He annexed the lands up to the borders of Bodditti thereby
bringing into the kingdom the hill he is supposed to have named
Damot after himself. He made his residence at Wofana on the slopes
of this hill. (The name is attested by contemporary travellers inSäwa.25)
But Gämu and Borodda were lost to the king of Käfa. With Gämu
a tributary of Käfa, Wälamo ceased to have any influence over the
peoples of Gofa. The penultimate king of Wälamo, Gobbé (1885-1890?),
brought the kingdom to the wide limits it enjoyed when Menilek in-
vaded. He conquered territories beyond the Bilaté and recovered
control over Gämu and Koyra to the south.
Gobbé is said to have corresponded with Menilek through the
king of Jimma, Abba Jifar II. And it is he who supposedly agreed
to pay tribute to the Säwan king whose armies had reached the Gibé
and the Gojéb to the west and were overcoming the resistance of the
Arussi and Guragé to the east and north-east of Wälamo. Gobbé is
also remembered for having created the hospun daña (the eight daña)
into which the Wälamo are still administratively divided (the present
eight wäräda ) . But like several of his predecessors he had to confronta
rebellious son. This son, Gagga, raided Gofa causing the people there
to refuse to pay tribute to his father. His exploits also provoked the
king of Käfa. Thus Wälamo again lost its influence in the south.
Moreover, Gagga appears to have been very popular. The people are
said to have demanded that Gobbé abdicate in favour of his son.
Though more a diplomat than a soldier, Gobbé refused. Later, he wa
succeeded by Tona, Gagga's son.
At Tona' s accession, Wälamo was surrounded by tributaries of
Menilek's much enlarged state, by those of Käfa, which after a brief
period following the invasion of 1882 had refused tribute to Menilek,
and by small, but still independent peoples. Faced with pressure from
Menilek's advancing armies, the petty kingdoms of Kullo and Kont
south of Wälamo wavered between submitting to Käfa and to Wälamo.26
Wälamo, like other states in the Gibé basin, was divided from its
neighbours by strips of uncleared forest known as mogga . Only outlaws
and wild beasts lived there. The cutting of trees since the conquest has
wiped out most of these frontiers. However, the kings of Wälamo also
built trenches and walls to defend their boundaries and these artificial
frontiers are still visible in places.

25. lsenberg and Krapf, op. cit., p. 257; Harris, op. cit., Vol. Ill, p. 76.
26. See my senior essay cited note 1 supra, p. 32.

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 Oggäto, the aggressive, late eighteenth century Kawo, dug a defen-
sive ditch after he had initiated the dynasty's wars on its neighbours
to the east: the Kämbata, Gudéla and Arussi. This ditch ran far
west at Abbalé and bordered the sub-districts on the west of Damot
Galé and Damot Waydé. At present it is overgrown with bushes and
trees but is still some three metres wide and two deep.
Damoté was the most famous builder of ditches and walls. He
concentrated his efforts against the Kämbata. He even tried to force
their submission by diverting the waters of a little stream, the Sumano
or Sapa. He dug a canal to the Omo. This passes along the border
between Kambäta and Wälamo. To keep the Arussi and Kämbata out
of the territories he had conquered from them, he built a ditch which
was wider and longer than the canal. This defense was very deep also
and was interrupted at intervals by solid places where guards were
stationed to keep watch on the enemy. Work on this ditch employed
his mercenaries and much of the population for many years. In oral
tradition the inordinate length of time required of the labourers is
expressed by informants saying that a man who left his wife pregnant
to go and dig would return to find his son already grown up. Damoté
also built stone walls against the Arussi and the Sidamo. One such
wall is to be found north of Lake Abaya. In the late 1920's it was
still two metres high and one kilometre long.27
The digging of Damoté's great ditch led to rebellion. A man
brought from Borodda among the workers denounced the king in
front of the other diggers as a selfish dictator who inflicted mental
suffering on them by keeping them away from their homes. Damoté is
supposed to have died in prison as a result of this mutiny. His son,
Gobbé, built no new ditches or walls. But when Menilek invaded the
kingdom, he found the Wälamo still knew how to construct static
defenses. Tona had pits dug to slow down the advance of the cavalry
and a whole day was lost filling them in.28
The defenses so painfully constructed are good indications of the
frontiers of Wälamo. Within the kingdom, however, there were no
artificial boundaries to mark off one daña from another. Mountains,
rivers or trees were the only way of showing the divisions between the
eight districts. Today there are no ethnic differences among the people
living in these districts where everyone speaks Wälamo except the
descendants of post-conquest settlers. The separate origins of the
Boyna Tegré , the Wälaytamala, and the mercenary soldiers introduced
by various kings from Qu£a, Borodda, Kullo, Konta and Gämu are
known only by tradition. Thus it is not easy to reconstruct the
sequence of territorial aggrandizement. The kings of the ť Tegré' dynasty
seem to have recreated the kingdom which came to be known as
Wälamo out of the ruins of earlier states centred in the Koyša sub-
district at Kendo. From here they expanded eastwards to the Bilaté
river.

27. Azais and Chambard, op. cit., p. 272.

28. Gâbrâ-Sellasé, op. cit., p. 362; Vanderheym, op. cit., pp. 158-59. See also, M .
Wellby, ' Twixt Sirdar and Menelik (London, 1901), p. 14.

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 Cut off by the Oromo from the Christian empire and from those
European travellers who visited it during the two centuries after the
migrations, the history of the peoples between the Omo (Gibé) and the
Bilaté went unrecorded except in oral tradition. The process by which
the Wälamo kingdom emerged from the débris of earlier states or groups,
therefore, has been obscured. Similarly, the apparent insignificance of
the predecessors of the 'Tegré' dynasty deprives us of documentary
evidence from Christian sources for the period from the later 12th to
the 16th centuries when the emperors often campaigned south of the
Abbay. The southern borderlands of the kingdom of Damot cannot
even be fixed. The fragments of evidence to link Wälamo with historic
Damot, St. Täklä-Haymanot, Zär'a-Ya'eqob and Enarya provide us
only the makings of a legendary past. Archaeology and the more
intensive study of the traditions of local peoples may yet transform
parts of this legend into fact.

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 45 -

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