UNIT ONE

Introduction

 In this unit we will see about the nature of history and

historiography, the interactions between societies throughout
Ethiopia and the Horn which have shaped human history.
 The difference between History and Historiography.
 History is a systematic study and organized knowledge of the past
while,
 Historiography, is refers to the history of History(writing of
History); it explores changes in historical interpretations through
time.

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 Cont.…

 The purpose of historical study is not simply to produce a mere list

of chronological events about the past but to find patterns, establish
meaning and interpretation of surviving records.
 Difference b/n popular and academic conceptions of history,
 How of studying history and trends in historical writing in Ethiopia
and the Horn.
 Finally, the unit discusses the role of geography in the region’s
human history.
 Therefore, diverse environments, peoples of Ethiopia and the Horn
were never isolated but they interacted throughout history. As a
result, the social, economic, cultural and political history of Ethiopia
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 1.1.The Nature and Uses of History
A. Nature of History

 The term history derived from the Greek word Istoria, meaning
“inquiry” or “an account of one’s inquiries.”
 The first use of the term is attributed to one of the ancient Greek
historians, Herodotus(c.484–425 B.C.), “father of history.”
 In ordinary usage, history means all the things that have
happened in the human past. The past signifies events, which have
taken place and the facts of the past, which are kept in writing by
Historians.
 Historians are expertise to surviving records and write history in
the form of accounts of the past.
 Academically, history can be defined as an organized and
systematic study of the past. The study involves the discovery,
collection, organization, and presentation of information about
past events. 3
 Cont.….
 History helps us:

 to learn about what people did in the past.

By learning about their deeds we try to avoid past mistake
not repeat it.
 Historians select topics and problems they wish to study. In this
regard, history is the study of human society and its interaction
with the natural environment

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 Cont.………..
 However, other disciplines study the interaction between humans
and their environment in the present state,
 History studies the interaction of past in the framework of the
continuous process and change taking place in time.
 The longevity of time, historians organize and divide the human
past into separate periods after identifying significant
developments in politics, society, economy, culture, environment
etc. It is repaired as Periodization.
 Periodization in Ethiopia history is conventionally divided into;-

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 Cont.…
 Ancient History:1000 B.C-1270 A.D
 Medieval History:1270 A.D-1855 A.D and
 Modern history: 1855 A.D-to present.
 All aspects of human life that is, social, cultural, economic, and political in the
past have been changing from time to time.
 For example, we continue to speak the languages of our ancestors; their beliefs
and religious practices; wearing; continue to practice their agricultural or pastoral
ways of life; maintain the fundamental components of their social organization.
 The basic fabric of society in Ethiopia and the Horn remains similar and
continues to have special characteristics.

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 THE USES OF HISTORY
 The uses of history in the context of the relationship between the
past and the present.
 Helps Better Understand the Present (It needs knowledge
of relevant historical background is essential for a balanced
and in-depth understanding of many current world
situations).
 Provides a Sense of Identity (Knowledge of history is
essential to understand who we are and where we fit in the
world.
 History is Mirror to the society
 History assisted the society as to understand 7
  their identity
 adjust themselves
 and their relationships with the past and with other
societies).
 Provides the Basic Background for Other Disciplines (Historical
knowledge is very valuable in the pursuit of other disciplines such as
literature, art, philosophy, religion, sociology, political science,
anthropology, economics, etc.).
 History Teaches Critical Skills (history helps students to develop
key research skills, evaluate sources; make coherent arguments
based on various kinds of evidence and present clearly in writing
skills and analyzing situation and sources. 8
 History Helps Develop Tolerance and Open-Mindedness(To
understanding a tendency of our own cultural practices, styles,
and values as right and proper and Study of different societies
out of their own country, which contributes to free ourselves from
some of our inherent cultural provincialism.
 History Supplies Endless Source of Fascination(Exploring the
living situation of society, a sense of beauty and excitement, and
understand elements of a society such as Aesthetic and
humanistic goals that inspire people to study the past, far
removed from present-day utility.

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 1.2. Sources and Methods of Historical Study
 Historians are not creative writers like novelists.
 The work of historians must be supported by evidence arising from
sources.
 Sources are instruments for past “where there are no sources, there
is no history”.
 Therefore, Sources are key to the study and writing of history.
 Historical sources are broadly classified into two types:
 Primary and
 Secondary sources

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 Primary sources;- Are sources that have direct relation to the
event they describe.
 They are first hand in their nearness to the time and
place of event.
 Examples of primary sources are manuscripts,
diaries, letters, notes, court records and administrative
files, travel documents, photographs, maps, video and
audiovisual materials, and artifacts such as coins,
fossils, weapons, utensils, and buildings.
 They are more reliable than the secondary sources.

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 Secondary sources;-
 Are second-hand published accounts about past events.
 They do not have direct relation or nearness's to the event
they describe.
 The occurrence, providing an interpretation of what
happened, why it happened, based on primary sources.
 Examples of secondary sources are articles, books, textbooks,
biographies, and published stories or movies about historical
events.
 Secondary materials give us what appear to be finished
accounts of certain historical periods and phenomena.
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  Nevertheless, no history work can be taken as final, as new
sources keep coming to light.
 New sources make possible new historical interpretations or
entirely new historical reconstructions.
 Oral data constitute the other category of historical sources.
 Oral sources are valuable to study the history of non-literate
societies.
 In many societies, people transmit information from one generation
to another, through folk songs and folk sayings. This type of oral
data is called oral tradition.
 oral history is people can also provide oral testimonies or personal
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recollections of lived experience.
 For the history of Ethiopia and the Horn, historians use d/t sources.
 However, the source of information-primary or secondary, written
or oral- the data should be subjected to critical evaluation before it
is used as evidence.
 it should be crosschecked with other sources such as written
documents to determine its accuracy or authenticity.
 In short, historians (unlike novelists) must find evidence about the
past, ask questions of that evidence, and come up with explanations
that make sense of what the evidence says about the people, events,
places and time periods they study about.
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 1.3. Historiography of Ethiopia and the Horn

 Historiography can be defined as the history of historical writing.

Yet historiography as an deliberate attempt to understand and
represent descriptions of past events in writing throughout the
world.
 The organized study and narration of the past was introduced by
ancient Greek historians notably Herodotus (c. 484–425 B.C.E.)
and Thucydides (c.455-400 B.C.E.)
 The most important early figure in Chinese historical thought and
writing was the Han dynasty figure Sima Qian (145–86 B.C.E.).
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 Early historiographical traditions, history emerged as an academic
discipline in the second half of the 19th century in Europe and other
parts of the world including the US.
 The German historian, Leopold Von Ranke (1795–1886), and his
colleagues wrote history as an independent discipline in Berlin
with its own set of methods and concepts by which historians
collect evidence of past events, evaluate that evidence, and present
a meaningful of the subject.
 Ranke’s play greatest contribution to the scientific study of the
past and he is considered as the “father of modern historiography.”

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 Historiography of Ethiopia and the Horn has changed extremely
during the past hundred years in ways that merit fuller treatment
that can be afforded here.
 The 20th century historiography of the region, it is first necessary to
examine earlier forms of historiography (historical writing).
 The known reference that we have on history of Ethiopia and the Horn is:-
 The Periplus of the Erythrean Sea, written in the 1st century A.D by
an unknown author(It describing aksumite trade and aksumite kings
campaigns along sea).
 Christian Topography composed by Cosmas Indicopleustes, a Greek
sailor, in the 6th century A.D.

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  written material dates from the 7th century A.D, found in
Abba Gerima monastery in Yeha.
 Another manuscript discovered in Haiq Istifanos
monastery of present day Wollo in the 13th century A.D.
 The value of manuscripts is essentially for religious
purpose.
 Hagiographies originating from Ethiopian Orthodox Church
and Ge’ez language, an important function of hagiographies is
enhancing the prestige of saints.
 Hagiographical tradition of Muslim communities and the life of
a Muslim saint, Shaykh Ja’far Bukko of Gattira, in present day
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Wollo, in the late 19th century.
 Chronicles in the ancient Ethiopian written by Ge’ez tongue in
the 14th century and continue (sometimes in Amharic) into the
early 20th century. The surviving documents are the Glorious
Victories of Amde-Tsion and the Chronicle of Abeto Iyasu and
Empress Zewditu respectively.
 Travel accounts by foreign observers, Missionaries and Visitors‘.
 Written accounts of Arabic-speaking visitors to the east African
coast in the 10th and in the 14th centuries particularly, al-Masudi
and Ibn Battuta.

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 The eyewitnesses Accounts of Yemeni writers( The document
titled Futuh al Habesha and Shihab ad-Din, who recorded the
conflict between the Christian kingdom and the Muslim
principalities in the 16th century.
 operation of the war of Imam Ahmed ibn Ibrahim al-Ghazi,
including the conquest of northern, central and southeastern part
of Ethiopia in 1535.
 The other first-hand account was left to us by Al-Haymi, who led a
Yemeni delegation in 1647 to the court of Fasiledes (r. 1632-67).
 The 16th century Abba Bahrey’s Geez script on the Oromo written
in 1593.
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 It provides the Oromo population movement including the Gadaa
System.
 From the early 16th until the late 19th centuries, missionaries
(Catholics and Protestants) and travels came to the country with the
intention of staying, and maintained intimate links with Europe.
 The religious and political developments within Ethiopia, and the
country’s foreign relations.
 A such account is Prester John of the Indies, and Francisco
Alvarez who accompanied the Portuguese mission to the court of
Lebne-Dengel in 1520.
 travel documents is James Bruce’s Travels to Discover the
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Source of the Nile.
 Job Ludolf (1624-1704) was the founder of Ethiopian studies
in Europe in the 17th century.
 He wrote Historia Aethiopica (translated into English as A
New History of Ethiopia).
 He never visited Ethiopia;
 he wrote the country’s history largely based on information
he collected from an Ethiopian priest named Abba
Gorgorios (Abba Gregory) who was in Europe at that time.

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August Dillman published two studies on ancient Ethiopian history in
19th century. Compared to Ludolf, Dillman demonstrated all markers
of objectivity in his historical research endeavors.
 Early 20th century is the emergence of traditional Ethiopian
writers who made conscious efforts to distance themselves from
chroniclers and they criticized for adulatory tone writing about
monarchs.
 The earliest group of these writers include Aleqa Taye Gebre-
Mariam, Aleqa Asme Giorgis and Debtera Fisseha-Giorgis
Abyegzi. Later, Negadrases Afework Gebre-Iyesus and Gebre-Hiwot
Baykedagn joined them.
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Unlike chroniclers, these writers dealt with a range of topics
from social justice, administrative reform and economic
analysis to history
 Taye and Fisseha-Giorgis wrote books on the history of
Ethiopia,
 Asme wrote history of Oromo people.
 Afework wrote the first Amharic novel, Tobiya, in
Ethiopian history
 Gebre-Hiwot has Atse Menilekna Ityopia (Emperor
Menilek and Ethiopia) and Mengistna Yehizb Astedader
(Government and Public Administration).
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 The most prolific writer of the early twentieth century Ethiopia
was, Blatten Geta Hiruy Wolde-Selassie.
He published four major works namely Ethiopiana Metema
Wazema (Eve of Ethiopia and Metema), Yehiwot Tarik (A
Biographical Dictionary) and Yeityopia Tarik (A History of
Ethiopia).
 Gebre-Hiwot and Hiruy exhibited relative objectivity and
methodological sophistication in their works.
 Tekle-Tsadik Mekuria formed a bridge between writers in pre-
1935 and Ethiopia professional historians. He has published about
eight historical works and he made better evaluation of his
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 than his predecessors.
 Yilma Deressa’s who wrote about “Ye Ityopiya Tarik Be asira
Sidistegnaw Kifle Zemen”(A History of Ethiopia in the Sixteenth
Century). The book addresses the Oromo population movement and
the wars between the Christian kingdom and the Muslim sultanates as
its main subjects.
 Blatten Geta Mahteme-Selassie Wolde-Meskel ; wrote Zikre
Neger is a comprehensive account of Ethiopia’s pre-war land tenure
systems and taxation.
 Gebre-Wold Engidawork:- wrote about land tenure system .
 Dejazmach Kebede Tesema:-wrote his memoir of the imperial
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 period, published as Yetarik Mastawesha in 1962 E.C.
 The 1960s was a crucial decade in the development of Ethiopian
historiography b/c In this period history emerged as an academic
discipline.
 The opening of the Department of History in 1963 at the Haile
Selassie I University (HSIU).
 The Institute of Ethiopian Studies (IES) is the other institutional
home of professional historiography of Ethiopia Was founded in
1963.
 Since its foundation, the IES has been publishing the Journal of
Ethiopian Studies for the dissemination of historical research.
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 The professionalization of history in other parts of the
Horn is a post-colonial phenomenon. The need to recast
the historical record and to recover evidence of many
lost pre-colonial civilizations.
 It has been as influential as Anglophones.
 African universities have, despite the instabilities of politics and
civil war in many areas, trained their own scholars and sent many
others overseas for training on different aspects of the region’s
history.

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 methodological approach (tools of investigation), a critical
use of oral data and tapping of ancillary disciplines like
archeology, anthropology and linguistics.
 European intellectuals’ own discomfort with the Euro-centrism
to provided for the intensive academic study of African history
and that had spread to North America by the 1960s.
 Foundational Research on the School of Oriental and African
Studies (SOAS) in London and the Department of History at the
University of Wisconsin-Madison. Francophone scholars have

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 1.4. The Geographical Context
 The term “Ethiopia and the Horn” refers to that part of Northeast
Africa, which contains the countries of (Djibouti, Eritrea,
Ethiopia, and Somalia).
 The region consists of mountains, Rift Valley, massive highlands,
plateaus lowlands, semi-desert, deserts and tropical forests along the
periphery.
 The region have variety of climate, natural vegetation, soil
composition, and settlement patterns.
 People of Ethiopia and Horn speak different languages, many
distinct religions, live in various types of dwellings, and engage in a
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wide range of economic activities.
Cont…

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 People of the region was never isolated but they interacted each
others.
 The history of Ethiopia and the Horn has been shaped by contacts
with others through commerce, migrations, wars, slavery,
colonialism, and the waxing and waning of state system
 Geographical factors for the impact of human history was location,
landforms, resource endowment, climate and drainage systems
which continue to impact, as incentives and deterrents, the
movement of people and goods in the region.
 Ethiopia and the Horn lies between the Red Sea, Gulf of Aden and
Indian Ocean on the one hand, and the present-day eastern
frontiers of Sudan and Kenya on the other.
 Since early times, the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden linked
Northeast Africa to the Eastern Mediterranean, the Near and
Middle East, India, and the Far East. Likewise, the Indian Ocean
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has linked
 East Africa to the near and Middle East, India and the Far East.
 Another element of geographical factor for impact on human history
is drainage system. Ethiopia and the Horn has five principal
drainage systems.
 These are the Nile River, Gibe(Omo),Gojeb,
Genale(Jubba),Shebele, the Awash River, and the Ethiopian Rift
Valley Lake systems.
 The Awash River System is entirely confined to Ethiopia and links
the cool rich highlands of Central Ethiopia with the hot, dry
lowlands of the Danakil Depression.
 The decolonization of African historiography required new
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The Ethiopian Rift Valley Lakes System is a self-contained drainage
basin, and includes a string of lakes stretching from:-
 Lake Ziway in the north to Lake Turkana (Rudolf) on
the Ethio-Kenyan border.
 The Gibe(Omo), Gojeb River System links southern
Ethiopia to the semi-desert lowlands of northern Kenya.
 The Shebele and Genale rivers originate in the Eastern
highlands and flow southeast toward Somalia and the
Indian Ocean.
 Only the Genale (known as the Jubba in Somalia) makes it
to the Indian Ocean; the Shebelle disappears in sand just
inside the coastline.

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 drainage systems facilitated the movement of peoples and goods
across diverse environments, resulting in the exchange of ideas,
technology, knowledge, cultural expressions, and beliefs.
 Ethiopia and the Horn can be divided into three major distinct
environmental zones.
(1).The vast Eastern lowland covers coastal strip of northeastern
Eritrea, lowland Eritrea, the Sahel, the Danakil Depression, the lower
Awash valley, and northeast of the Republic of Djibouti, Ogaden, the
lower parts of Hararghe, Bale, Borana, Sidamo and the whole
territory of the Republic of Somalia.

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(2).Hot and dry conditions with periodic monsoon winds and irregular
(little) rainfall except in limited areas along the rivers Awash, Wabe-
Shebele and Genale/Jubba that traverse the region and a few offshore
islands in the Red Sea, Gulf of Aden and Indian Ocean.
(3).The eastern extension of the highland massif consists of Arsi, Bale
and Hararghe plateau.
The major parts of the western and eastern zone is the Rift Valley.
The major physiographic features of the zone are complex of
mountains, deep valleys, and extensive plateaus.

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 Therefore, Horn of Africa the most part, linguistically and
ethnically linked together as far back as recorded history goes.
Population movements had caused a continuous process of
interaction, creating avery complex picture of settlement patterns.
The high degree of interaction and the long common history of
population had weakened ethnic dividing lines in large parts of the
region.

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