Exploring the Socio-historical divide: Semitic Amharas and Kushitic Oromos

Exploring the Socio-historical divide: Semitic Amharas and Kushitic Oromos

By Prof. Dr. Muhammad Shamsaddin Megalommatis

In an effort to better set up post-colonial historiography models, modern scholarship has to search out genuine identities, and then to retrace changes and transformations that occurred throughout millennia. The socio-historical divide between the Semitic Amhara – Tigray Abyssinians and the Kushitic Oromos, whose past goes back to Ancient Meroe –Ethiopia, reveals the enormous gap that separates today the totalitarian Amhara and Tigray rulers of Addis Abeba and the Oromo oppressed people.

Oromos, Amharas, and Western Missionaries and Scholars
Christian Missionaries had always a difficult time among the Amharas and the Tigrays of Abyssinia, whereas the Oromo attitude towards them was far more tolerant. Catholic missionaries and travelers faced unprecedented fanaticism in medieval Abyssinia, and even met massacre at the hands of the Amhara Abyssinians. This happened to Dominicans who traveled to Abyssinia even before the Crusades, since for several centuries Rome was completely cut off from Abyssinia, after the early explosion of Islam. The same happened later when Basilides mounted to the throne in 1632. Opposing the practices of the earlier king Socinios, who had rejected Monophysitism and sought rapprochement with Rome, Basilides closed the country to all missionaries, after he killed all those whom he found present there. This policy continued through Theodoros and Johannes IV.

It is true that Western Missionaries did not face so hard times among the Oromo people. The example of Father William Massaia, an Italian Capuchin, formerly tutor to King Umberto is quite indicative. He was lucky enough to be assigned to the Oromo land and to awful Gondar, where in the middle of the 18th century – at the times of Montesquieu, Voltaire, Diderot, Rousseau and the Encyclopedists – three missionaries were stoned to death in a public square!

Mgr. Massaia landed at Massawa in the disguise of a merchant, and was constantly under the espionage of the mercenaries of the Abouna-Salama and Theodoros, and was at times attacked by a frenzied crowd, but he contrived to escape. He left Abyssinia, arrived in Europe, visited France and England, where he met with Napoleon III and Queen Victoria. Having received from them important help in his work, he returned to his mission, in September 1853. On his arrival, he compiled an early Oromo dictionary, translated the Bible, converted a prince of Lagamara, vaccinated a hundred people daily during smallpox epidemic, and finally achieved a great work leaving 10,000 Catholic Christians in the country.

It has been noted that Oromos exposed to missionaries lost in originality; this is due to the fact that neither Christianity nor Islam represent the original Weltanshauung of the Oromo. Cultural westernization came along with the missionaries as well; of course, this does not necessarily imply extreme modernization, but already many Europeans and Americans would reject today several ‘acquisitions’ of the modern western world.

A misleading polarization about the longest presence in Eastern Africa
Highly ideologized versions of African History that have been regularly written for the needs of African totalitarian regimes – puppets of Western Colonial powers testify to an erroneous and anti-academic antagonism about the longest presence of a people in Eastern Africa. It is certainly a wrong debate that leads to nowhere.

For the poorly educated and totally misguided local classes of historians deliberately engulfed within preconceived colonial schemes, it seems that the major issue cannot be other than the question of "who was there first?". In this case the location ("there") is arbitrarily delineated according to modern – colonial – borders, which makes the entire approach look even more puerile and meaningless. What if one people arrived ‘later’ to this location but had had a longer and more illustrious past elsewhere?

For the level of our knowledge about Eastern African Antiquity, such a question is not going to be answered convincingly and decisively – if we ever assume it is an important point to deal with. Furthermore, one should stress the point that presence does not imply contribution to shaping History; more recently arrived peoples, who achieved more significant accomplishments, are certainly more important than ‘older and less active’ ones!

The Kushitic Afar people (living today in three states, namely Eritrea, Djibouti and Abyssinia) are the true top longevity candidates as far as the territory of modern Abyssinia is concerned. Based on this, and extrapolating Kushitic affinities, other African and colonial intellectuals attempted to make of Ancient Yemen (the country of origin of the Amhara and the Tigray Abyssinians) a … Kushitic realm, which is an aberration, since the original inhabitants of Yemen, the Ancient Yemenites, whose presence in Yemen has been attested since the 2nd half of the 2nd millennium BCE, were of Semitic origin. There was not a single Kushite in Yemen before the appearance of the Semitic Yemenites.

To speak comparatively, the Afar people seem to have been longer in the area of present day Abyssinia but the Abyssinian ancestors of Amhara and Tigray (who arrived in gradual successive waves during the 1st millennium BCE) seem to have developed a higher level of culture and civilization.

Oromos seem to have come on this very soil long after the Abyssinians arrived and settled around Axum and Yeha. But again, in their turn, the Oromos had an even greater and longer past elsewhere, in their ancestors’ fatherland, the area of Meroitic Ethiopia, at the north of present day Sudan. This is not a unique case, it happens very often in the World History. An impartial historian’s comment would be ‘sic transit gloria mundi’.

Diachronic socio-historical traits: the Kushitic peoples were never great seafarers, contrarily to either Semites or Indo-Europeans.
As far as the area of Yemen is concerned, we have vast archeological evidence from there dating back to the middle of the 2nd millennium BCE. Nothing, absolutely nothing that would indicate presence of Kushitic peoples! When it comes to basic socio-historical characteristics of the Khammitic and the Kushitic peoples, we are today fully aware that these peoples did not show a strong inclination to seafaring, contrarily to both, Semites and Indo-Europeans. This only is enough in advising us against a Kushitic navigation at the Bab el Mandeb straits and in the Horn of Africa area.

Another good example is offered to modern scholarship, when we focus on the Northwestern confines of the African continent where the indigenous Khammitic Berbers lived for millennia among the seafaring Carthaginians and Phoencians, who settled in the coast. The Berberic populations of the Atlas were not involved in the Carthaginian thalassocracy.

A good deal of understanding would come from a comparison between the Semitic Akkadians, Assyrians and Babylonians and the basically Khammitic Egyptians with regard to seafaring. We now know that Assyrians and Babylonians reached the Eastern coast of Africa even before the Egyptians! Sargon of Assyria invaded Cyprus long before the Ptolemies annexed that island, and in the case of Ptolemies we have certainly an Egyptian dynasty of Macedonian origin (not a traditional Egyptian one) that had to be involved in the Aegean and the Mediterranean worlds! Assyrians controlled Dilmun, the island of Bahrein, Meluhha and Makkan, the eastern coast of the Arabic peninsula. Contrarily to the Semitic thalassocracy, the Egyptians at the times of Nechao II (600 BCE) had to hire Phoenicians, Semites, to circumnavigate the African continent!

One cannot compare the involvement of Meroe and of Axum into the Red Sea commerce and navigation! Kushitic Meroe was focusing on the Nile, the desert, and the savannah! Ptolemais Theron (present day Suakin, 50 km at the south of Port Sudan) was founded and then controlled by first the Ptolemies of Egypt, and then the Romans! Contrarily, further to the south of Meroe and Ptolemais Theron, Adulis did not escape from the control of Axum! The famous and very rich in information text of the ‘Periplus of the Red Sea’ that dates back to the years of Nero (around 70 – 75 CE) is very clear and explicit on these issues. Meroe did not control the coast, whereas Axum did.

Even more so, Sabaean and Himyarite Yemenites were controlling all the eastern coast of present day Somalia, as well as the coast of Kenya and Tanzania down to Dar es Salam (Rhapta according to the text of the Periplus of the Red Sea)! Hadramawt Yemenites were controlling Soqotra island (‘Dioscouridou nesos’ in Greek) and were very active in the navigation and the trade throughout the Indian Ocean and the western coast of India. Of course, Yemenites and Axumite Abyssinians are Semites, whereas Meroites are Kushites.

Kushitic peoples live in East Africa region stretching from Kenya to Egypt, and from Egypt to Mauritania. As continental African peoples, the Khammitic peoples of Northern, Northwestern, and Eastern Africa had no vocation for seafaring. Consequently, the inland attracted them more. They may reach near the coast, but what matters to them is the inland, the vast continental landmass of fertile valleys, mountains, deserts, savannas, rivers, lakes, and plateaus.

This is not strange, and it is certainly not unique! Take ancient Phoenicia, present day Syrian and Lebanese coasts, in the 1st half of the 1st millennium BCE. In the coast, you had Semitic Phoenicians, who were attracted by affairs and milieus, spectra and marvels thousands of miles away! Their thought was in the Aegean Sea, in Libya, in Spain, in the Atlantic. And 40 km inland, you had the Semitic Aramaeans, whose concern were their cultivations, their pastures, their trade, Euphrates river and the rest of the Syrian – Mesopotamian world!

The first person known by his name in History to have sailed from the area of the ‘known world’ (the Mediterranean) down to present day Sierra Leone African coast is Hanno the King of Carthaginians, whose forefathers originated from the famous Phoenician city of Tyre.

And the first person known by his name in History to have voyaged from the area of the ‘known world’ (the Mediterranean) up to China is Maes Tatianus, a Syrian Aramaean of the Roman imperial times. His origin may have been just a few kilometers from the Mediterranean coasts! But his orientation (and vocation) was very different!

Among Indo-Europeans, we have similar cases. Could we compare Russians to British? The issue is very old whatsoever! Within the context of Ancient Greece, one could not compare the ‘continental’ Spartans and Thebans to the ‘maritime’ Corinthians and Athenians.

Khammites and Kushites seem to have been of limited maritime experience, interest, and aspiration since times immemorial. Wherever you find references to Khammitic and Kushitic peoples living on African coasts, you find either very limited maritime exploits or foreign leadership.

More precisely, one should focus on Azania, based on the Periplus of the Red Sea, in order to get a correct and pertinent vision of the historical developments. When the text refers to the entire area going from the Cape Guardafui (the Horn of Africa) to the southernmost East African coastal confines known, the author names Tabai, Opone, Apocopa, Aigialos, Sarapion pastureland, Nicon pastureland, the Pyralaon Islands and Dioryhos (‘straits’), Menouthias, and finally Rhapta, the furthermost port of call in the south, the last place known, which is identified with the Dar es Salam area.

Political geography was among the author’s top qualifications. After his references to Roman Egypt, Meroe and Axumite Abyssinia, the author, proceeding to the south, names seventeen toponyms but only two political entities. From the point where the control of the Axumite Abyssinian king Zoscales ends (Avalites harbour at the area of present day Eritrean port of Assab) starts ‘the Other Berberia’, which corresponds to the Northern Somalia up to the Horn of Africa.

In this regard, it is useful to bear in mind that ‘Berberia’ is called by the author of the ‘Periplus of the Red Sea’ the area in the south of Berenice (end of the Egyptian Red Sea coast), and in the north of Adulis (beginning of the Axumitic Red Sea coast), which corresponds to the area around Ptolemais Theron, today’s Sudanese Red Sea coast.

All toponyms from Malao to Cape Aromaton (Cape of Perfumes), as the author calls the Horn of Africa, belong to ‘the Other Berberia’. One should also stress in this regard that Berberia as toponym should not be confused with the adjective ‘barbaric’. No major navigational exploits are ascribed to the inhabitants of the Other Berberia. Ships sailing there had been built in Yemen.

Beyond Akroterion Aromaton (Horn of Africa), from Tabai and Opone down to Rhapta, the entire land is called ‘Azania’. The appellation encompasses today’s eastern coast of Somalia, as well as the coast of Kenya and Tanzania. Azania is the oldest name used collectively for this entire area (approx. 3000 km long!) and the only collective appellation throughout history for this part of the world. Of course, one may refer to the Ancient Egyptian term ‘Punt’, target-area of the homonymous pharaonic expedition undertaken by Nehesi, the admiral to Pharaoh Hatshepsout. But that term signified a small kingdom the extent of which we cannot perceive accurately through the hieroglyphic text of the Deir al Bahari mortuary temple of Hatshepsout (Thebes – West, Luqsor). The term Punt, however, presents similarities to the later Ancient Greek term ‘Opone’, which was also mentioned in the ‘Periplus of the Red Sea’, since –t and –e are respectively Egyptian and Greek endings of feminine names and/or toponyms. And Opone was just a port of call!

What makes a striking impression is the explicit reference of the author of the Periplus of the Red Sea to the fact that the entire vast area of Azania, according to an ancient law, belonged to the (Yemenite) ruler (‘tyrannos’) of Mofar, and that the earliest state formation that was developed here was due to Yemenites of the Mofar and Muza regions. Because of this, the text of the Periplus states the rights accorded to the merchants of Muza by the Yemenite king (‘Basileus’).

More than just political control and commercial presence, the text (precisely in paragraph 16) testifies to high level Yemenite colonial practices: "Furthermore, they (Yemenites from Muza and Mofar) send here (Azania, East Africa coast) merchant fleet manned by Yemenite captains and sailors, who thanks to their mixed marriages with indigenous women, as well as to their familiarization with the entire area, know very well the local dialect and the traditions". In addition, the text offers valuable information about the trade exchanged between Yemen and its African colony, Azania. Yemenites were exporting military artifacts and other crafts to the African coast of Azania, and they were also sending wheat and wine as gifts to the local tribal leaders (paragraph 17) in a diplomatic effort to keep their colonial rule stabilized and unchallenged.

We truly do not know whether the Azanians were Kushitic or Bantu people; we rather tend to consider them as Kushitic. But the reference is clear; they were colonized by the skilful Yemenite navigators.