Journal articles on the topic 'Ethiopian poetry'

This essay offers the first English-language translations of Amharic poetry written by Ethiopian immigrants to the United States. Following an introduction to the Amharic language and the central place of poetry in Ethiopian literature and cultural life, the author discusses the work of four poets. The poems of Tewodros Abebe, Amha Asfaw, Alemayehu Gebrehiwot, and Alemtsehay Wedajo make creative use of Ethiopian verbal constructions reminiscent of traditional war songs and verbal interrogations used in legal contexts. Many of the poems speak eloquently of the personal losses Ethiopians have suffered as a result of their departure from their homeland. The essay includes biographical and ethnographic details about the individual poets and various influences on their compositions. (April 2009)

Of all the musical traditions in the world among which fruitful comparisons with medieval European chant might be made, the chant tradition of the Ethiopian Orthodox Church promises to be especially informative. In Ethiopia one can actually witness many of the same processes of oral and written transmission as were or may have been active in medieval Europe. Music and literacy are taught in a single curriculum in ecclesiastical schools. Future singers begin to acquire the repertory by memorising chants that serve both as models for whole melodies and as the sources of the melodic phrases linked to individual notational signs. At a later stage of training each one copies out a complete notated manuscript on parchment using medieval scribal techniques. But these manuscripts are used primarily for study purposes; during liturgical celebrations the chants are performed from memory without books, as seems originally to have been the case also with Gregorian and Byzantine chant. Finally, singers learn to improvise sung liturgical poetry according to a structured system of rules. If one desired to imitate the example of Parry and Lord, who investigated the modern South Slavic epic for possible clues to Homeric poetry, it would be difficult to find a modern culture more similar to the one that spawned Gregorian chant.

The publication of the first volume of a new critical edition of the Ethnica of Stephanos of Byzantium gives occasion to enumerate the eleven toponyms on the Ethiopian side of the Erythraean Sea which are mentioned in this geographical lexicon. Furthermore an attempt is made to localize the Abasenoi, a tribe in Arabia, which are identical with the Ḥabašat, taking in account the agricultural products of their country. Concerning the harbour of Adulis, which is the origin of the ʿadawlī-ships in early Arabic poetry, further testimonies of this town in literary sources are adduced and a plausible South-Arabian etymology of the name Adulis is proposed.

The wax and gold tradition is mainly known as an Ethiopian literary system that plays with layers of meanings. It has also established itself as a system of knowledge and/or belief production and validation. However, its social ramifications have presented scholars with conundrums that divide their views. For some, it is an Ethiopian traditional society’s crowning achievement of erudition—a poetic form that infiltrated communication, psychology, and social interaction. For others, it is a breeding ground for social vices, i.e., mutual suspicion, deception, duplicity, etc., because its autochthonous nature means it is inept in terms of modernizing and unifying the society. In this essay, I aim to argue that there is one critical historical element that holds the key to the conflicting social ramifications of the wax and gold system and, yet, is neglected by both sides of the debate: the original doxastic space of qine (poetry) and sem ena werq (wax and gold system)—a hermeneutic tool that deciphers the meaning of poems. This literary system was born in the space of worship and liturgy. I will contend, therefore, that a shift of doxastic space from sacred to saeculum (the world) is the reason not only for the behavior of doxastic agents but also for the social outcome of the knowledge they create.

This paper presents oral narratives told about Abuna Gärima, one of the so called Nine Saints, and his evangelical mission in northern Ethiopia. The narratives presented in the paper discuss different issues: where and how did he write his Gospel, which is believed to be the first Ethiopic Gospel, and the oldest known manuscript in the literary culture of the country; the different miracles the Saint performed during his years of service at the monas­tery; and how he is commemorated in the people’s popular songs and qǝne, a unique style of Gǝʿǝz poetry. These narratives were collected through oral interviews made with individuals who relate themselves to the monastery which is believed to have been founded by the Saint.

Amharic, the native language of a large group of the population of central Ethiopia, also functions as a lingua franca among the neighbouring peoples, and has done so for a long time. The language is usually associated with the culture of the politically dominant part of the population, the Christian culture. But it is certain that from the mid-nineteenth century onwards, and probably even before that time, Amharic was used also for Islamic religious texts: poetry composed to spread the basic religious concepts of Islam and songs to be chanted in religious meetings. The first foreign scholar to become aware of this was Enrico Cerulli, who published some examples of Islamic songs in Amharic in 1926. Much more has since been published by Ethiopians. In the 1960s I obtained a small collection of such texts which are discussed in this article.

This article discusses about the role of Oromo oral poetry in helping girls[1] and women[2]to express their idea in their social life. It also aims to illustrate the talent of girls and women in creating and poeticizing oral poetry to display their opinion on social occurrences such as marriage ceremony, birth rite and at work place. During data collection, ethnographic methods such as observation, focus group discussions and semi-structured interview were employed. I interpreted data collected from the field through these methods. The analyzed data shows that oral poetry has a crucial role to help girls and women to express their idea in pre and post marriage respectively. Before marriage, it helps girls to display their feeling, thought and emotion concerning their future life and their friend’s social life. By using oral poetry, they advise their friends and show their devotion for each other. In post marriage, through oral poetry, women pray Waaqaa (Oromo God) for a woman who unable to bear child. The paper concludes that, oral poetry helps girls and women to express their opinion in every aspect of their life such as marriage, spiritual, and reproduction issues. Therefore, it helps them to make their voice heard in the community and enhances their creativity.[1] Is durba in Oromo and are unmarried virgin girl.[2] Is dubartii in Oromo and are married women.

The objective of this article is to describe the thematic images of Amhara women in oral poetry. The study is based on field research conducted in rural areas of Western Gojjam and Awi Zone. The data was collected by observation, interview, and focus group discussion. For documentary evidence, twelve informants were selected with the use of a purposive sampling technique. The research method employed was ethnographic qualitative description. The result revealed that the images reflected through oral poems address women mainly as wives, their particular aspects refer to love, woman’s attitude towards marriage issues, divorce, and include general knowledge, understanding of the life and personages within women’s worldview. By the same token, oral poetry portrayed those women as inferior to men. Finally, the study recommended a further research on oral literature of Amhara region of Ethiopia.

Let us begin with an unfortunate fact: Adébáyọ̀ Fálétí is one major writer that is hardly anthologized. The problem could not have been that he wrote in Yorùbá because Fágúnwà is far more anthologized than he is. Simon Gikandi’s edited Encyclopedia of African Literature (2003) has an entry and other multiple references to Fágúnwà. There is only one reference to Fálétí which is found in the index without any accompanying instance in the work. In Irele and Gikandi’s edited volumes, The Cambridge History of African and Caribbean Literature (2004), Fálétí only managed an appearance in the bibliography that featured four of his works—Wọn Rò Pé Wèrè Ni ́ (1965), Ọmọ Olókùn Ẹṣin (1969), Baṣòrun Gáà (1972) and Ìdààmú Páàdì Mínkáílù (1974). In the preface, Irele and Gikandi write: The scholarly interest in African orality also drew attention to the considerable body of literature in the African languages that had come into existence as a consequence of the reduction of these languages to writing, one of the enduring effects of Christian evangelization. The ancient tradition of Ethiopian literature in Ge’ez, and modern works like Thomas Mofolo’s Shaka in the Sotho language, and the series of Yorùbá novels by D. O. Fágúnwà, were thus able finally to receive the consideration they deserved. African-language literatures came to be regarded as a distinct province of the general landscape of imaginative life and literary activity on the African continent (2004, xiii). Essays 60 Adeshina Afolayan In fact, the publication of Fágúnwà’s Ògbójù Ọdẹ Nínú Igbó Ìrúnmalẹ (The ̀ Intrepid Hunter in the Forest of Spirits, 1938) made the chronology of literary events in Africa, and it misses out Fálétí’s 1965 work. In her “Literature in Yorùbá: poetry and prose; traveling theater and modern drama,” in the same volume, Karin Barber seems to redress this imbalance when she gives a place to Fálétí in her discussion of post-Fágúnwà writers. According to her, In the late 1960s and throughout the 1970s there was an explosion of literary creativity, with many new authors emerging and pioneering new styles and themes. Among the most prominent were Adébáyọ Fálétí whose ̀ Ọmọ Olókùn Ẹṣin (1969) is a historical novel dealing with a revolt against the overlordship of Ọyọ, and Ọládèjọ Òkédìjí, author of two brilliantly innovative crime thrillers (Àjà ló lẹrù, 1969, and Àgbàlagbà Akàn, 1971), as well as a more somber tragic novel of the destruction of a young boy who is relentlessly drawn into a life of crime in the underworld of Ifẹ (Atótó Arére, 1981). Notable also are Akínwùnmí Ìsòlá, whose university campus novel Ó le kú (1974) broke new ground in social setting and ambience; Afọlábí Ọlábímtán, author of several novels, including Kékeré Ẹkùn (1967), which deals with the conflicts arising from early Christian conversion in a small village, and Baba Rere! (1978), a contemporary satire on a corrupt big man; and Kólá Akínlàdé, prolific author of well-crafted detective stories such as Ta ló pa Ọmọ Ọba? (Who Killed the Prince’s Child?). These authors were all verbal stylists of a high order; they transformed the literary language, moving away from Fágúnwà’s rolling cadences to a more demotic, supple prose that successfully caught the accents of everyday life (2004, 368). While it may be misplaced to draw a comparison between Fágúnwà and Fálétí, there is a sense in which Fálétí’s demonstrates a more robust literary sensibility that goes beyond the allegorical into a realistic assessment of human relationship and sociality within the context of the Yorùbá cultural template. While Fágúnwà could not resist the influence of Christianity, and especially the allegorical motif of the journey in which humans encounter spiritual challenges (which John Bunyan’s Pilgrim Progress made popular), Fálétí is fundamentally a cultural connoisseur; a writer with a most intimate and dynamic understanding of the Yorùbá condition, especially in its conjunction with the political and sociocultural contexts of contemporary Nigeria. And we have Ọlátúndé Ọlátúnjí to thank for the deep exploration and interrogation of the fundamental poetic and literary nuances that Fálétí has left for us. In this essay, I will attempt to unearth the philosophical sensibility that undergirds Fálétí’s literary prowess, especially as demonstrated by his poems. Fálétí’s Philosophical Sensibility 61 Both the poets and the philosophers have always had one thing in common— the exploration of the possibilities that ideas and visions yield: As theoretical disciplines concerned with raising social consciousness, philosophy and literature engage in similar speculation about the good society and what is good for humanity. They influence thoughts about political currents and conditions. They can, for instance, lead the reader to critical reflections on the type of leaders suitable for a given society and on the degree of civic consciousness exercised by the people in protecting their rights. Philosophy and literature, equally, offer critical evaluation of existing and possible forms of political arrangements, beliefs and practices. In addition, they provide insights into political concepts and justification for normative judgements about politics and society. They also create awareness of possibilities for change (Okolo 2007, 1). Compared to Ọlátúnjí’s exploratory unraveling of Fálétí’s poetry, my objective is to enlist Fálétí as a poet that has not been given his due as one who is sensitive to the requirements of political philosophy and its objective of ensuring the imagination of a society that is properly ordered according to the imperatives of justice.

AbstractThis article presents a publication and translation (with linguistic and philological commentaries) of a recently discovered piece of Old Amharic poetry, possibly dating to the first half/middle of the seventeenth century. The published text bears the title Märgämä kəbr (“Condemnation of glory”), but its content differs from that of several other Old Amharic poems (not entirely independent from each other) known under the same title. It is only the general idea and the main topics that are shared by all Märgämä kəbr poems: transience of the earthly world, the inevitability of death and of God's judgement, and the necessity of leading a virtuous life. One can thus speak of Märgämä kəbr as a special genre of early Amharic literature, probably originally belonging to the domain of oral literature and used to address the Christian community with the aim of religious education and admonition of laymen.

In the preceding discussion, an attempt was made to provide a classification of Amharic oral poems and songs into several themes and genres. Accordingly, such major genres as work songs, children’s poems, war chants and boasting recitals were identified and a description and analysis of selected poems and their role, particularly in local politics and administration, were provided. In their poems and songs, the peasants of East Gojjam critically express their views, attitudes and feelings either in the form of support or protest, towards the various state policies and local directives.Indeed, the Amharic oral poems and songs from the two peasant communities illustrate topics associated with the change of government, land redistribution, local authorities and their administration, as well as a variety of other contemporary issues affecting the rural society. The poems also throw some light on the understanding of the peasants’ consciousness and observations comparing past and present regimes of Ethiopia, besides their power of aesthetics and creative capabilities of the peasants’ poetic tradition.In fact, this can be seen from a wider perspective, considering the function and role of oral literature in an agrarian and traditional society such as the two peasant communities mentioned in this paper. The peasants’ response in poetry to the diverse contemporary politics and local administration need to be studied carefully and considered appropriately in the state’s future rural policies and development projects if it is intended to bring about a democratic system that leads towards a peaceful coexistence among the rural peasantry.

This article examines Nancy Cunard's later writing on Spain as a direct legacy of her previous projects as a modernist poet, publisher and black rights activist. Cunard was a rare analyst of the links between total war, colonial counter-insurgency, and cultural destruction. Noting the desire of both the air power theorist and art collector to stereotype peoples, from Morocco to Ethiopia to Spain, as ‘primitive’, the article brings original archival materials from Cunard's notes into dialogue with her journalism, and published and unpublished poetry, to examine how she reclaimed and repurposed primitivism. Her poems devise a metonymic and palimpsestic literary geopolitics, juxtaposing fragments from ancient cultures atop one another to argue, simultaneously, for Spain's essential dignity as both a primitive and a civilised nation. Cunard reconciles Spain's liminal status, between Africa and Europe, to argue for Spain's art, and people, as part of a syncretic, universal human cultural heritage, anticipating the art humanitarianism of organisations such as UNESCO.

The paper deals with passages from Theocritus (7.113–114), Callimachus (H. 4.206–208), Nicander (Ther. 174–176), and Oppian (Hal. 1.620), united by the joint mention of the Nile and the Ethiopians. The appearance of these two details within the same verse/sentence can be interpreted as an allusion to one of the debatable questions of ancient geography — the location of the sources of the Nile. It is likely that here we are dealing with a special type of allusion: each of the poets in question refers not to a specific place or text, but to a scientific problem, awareness of which he wants to demonstrate. The author concludes that such geographical allusions can be regarded as an implicit commentary and are similar to the poetic technique of so-called interpretatio Homerica (the use of a Homeric hapax, in which the context itself contains the author’s opinion on the correct interpretation of a particular rare word). In connection with the passages from Theocritus and Oppian, the problem of “double” Ethiopians — western and eastern — is also relevant. The article pays attention to the origins of this (Hom. Od. 1.23–24) and also considers interpretations of this Homeric place in Herodotus’ Histories, Aeschylus’ Prometheus Bound and Pliny’s Natural History.

In Ethiopia, the period from the late 16th and 17th Centuries has caused a controversy because some consider this period as Ethiopia’s recovery from religious, civil conflicts as well as sectarian discord, while others including Kofi Darkwah (1975), define it as a continued descent prosses for the empire. In line with this disagreement, factual information can speak for itself in the course of this study. Emperor Susenyos (1572-1632 CE) was a strong supporter of Catholicism, yet his son, Fasilidas (1603-1667 CE) as his successor, reinstated Ethiopian miaphysite Orthodoxy. The establishment of Gondar as the permanent capital in 1636, is an event heralded by Henze (2000) as the onset of an Ethiopian Renaissance, particularly in artistic, architectural, and musical domains. After Fasilidas’s demise, his son, Yohannes I reigned from 1632-67 CE. Yet, it was Fasilidas’s grandson, Iyasu I the Great (r. 1682-1706 CE), who distinguished himself through extensive architectural projects, notably transforming Gondar into a captivating city. Iyasu I’s assassination caused significant turmoil in Gondar, subsequently resulting in a gradual loss of political power. When Iyasu I’s son, Bakaffa (r. 1721-1730 CE) ascended to the imperial throne, the arts - namely, chant (zema), poetry (qene), interpretation (tergum) and refinement of the court minstrels’ music had already been supported and vigorously promoted. However, it was Bakaffa’s wife and later widow, Mentewab (1706-1773 CE), who emerged as the pivotal figure in this Ethiopian “Renaissance”. Additionally, the diverse styles of Ethiopian iconography sponsored by Mentewab, some adorned with elements reminiscent of the decorative style of the Rococo period, illustrate the queen’s remarkable aesthetic standards. The research on Mentewab, also known as Welete Giyorgis, has been guided by portrayals in iconographies, chronicles, paintings, testimonials from church builders and castles, and indirectly by information provided in texts such as Kebre Negast, and Fetha Nagast. To this end, special attention has been drawn on Mentewab’s legacy as the founder, protector, and patron of the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church Narga Selassie, renowned for its resplendent Qwara style that fused European, Islamic, and Indian elements while retaining strong Ethiopian traits. With special attention to the iconographic representations of Queen Mentewab as the ktetor of Narga Selassie Church, the study explores symbolic significances embedded within relevant creations and artistic styles. By contextualising them within their historical framework, this analysis explores Mentewab’s influence on her contemporary politics, religion, art, and literature in Ethiopia.

IntroductionThere are two types of Africa. The first is a place where people and cultures live. The second is the image of Africa that has been invented through colonial knowledge and power. The colonial image of Africa, as the Other of Europe, a land “enveloped in the dark mantle of night” was supported by western states as it justified their colonial practices (Hegel 91). Any evidence that challenged the myth of the Dark Continent was destroyed, removed or ignored. While the looting of African natural resources has been studied, the looting of African knowledges hasn’t received as much attention, partly based on the assumption that Africans did not produce knowledge that could be stolen. This article invalidates this myth by examining the legacy of Ethiopia’s indigenous Ge’ez literature, and its looting and abduction by powerful western agents. The article argues that this has resulted in epistemic violence, where students of the Ethiopian indigenous education system do not have access to their books, while European orientalists use them to interpret Ethiopian history and philosophy using a foreign lens. The analysis is based on interviews with teachers and students of ten Ge’ez schools in Ethiopia, and trips to the Ethiopian manuscript collections in The British Library, The Princeton Library, the Institute of Ethiopian Studies and The National Archives in Addis Ababa.The Context of Ethiopian Indigenous KnowledgesGe’ez is one of the ancient languages of Africa. According to Professor Ephraim Isaac, “about 10,000 years ago, one single nation or community of a single linguistic group existed in Ethiopia, Eritrea, and the Horn of Africa” (The Habesha). The language of this group is known as Proto-Afroasiatic or Afrasian languages. It is the ancestor of the Semitic, Cushitic, Nilotic, Omotic and other languages that are currently spoken in Ethiopia by its 80 ethnic groups, and the neighbouring countries (Diakonoff). Ethiopians developed the Ge’ez language as their lingua franca with its own writing system some 2000 years ago. Currently, Ge’ez is the language of academic scholarship, studied through the traditional education system (Isaac, The Ethiopian). Since the fourth century, an estimated 1 million Ge’ez manuscripts have been written, covering religious, historical, mathematical, medicinal, and philosophical texts.One of the most famous Ge’ez manuscripts is the Kebra Nagast, a foundational text that embodied the indigenous conception of nationhood in Ethiopia. The philosophical, political and religious themes in this book, which craft Ethiopia as God’s country and the home of the Ark of the Covenant, contributed to the country’s success in defending itself from European colonialism. The production of books like the Kebra Nagast went hand in hand with a robust indigenous education system that trained poets, scribes, judges, artists, administrators and priests. Achieving the highest stages of learning requires about 30 years after which the scholar would be given the rare title Arat-Ayina, which means “four eyed”, a person with the ability to see the past as well as the future. Today, there are around 50,000 Ge’ez schools across the country, most of which are in rural villages and churches.Ge’ez manuscripts are important textbooks and reference materials for students. They are carefully prepared from vellum “to make them last forever” (interview, 3 Oct. 2019). Some of the religious books are regarded as “holy persons who breathe wisdom that gives light and food to the human soul”. Other manuscripts, often prepared as scrolls are used for medicinal purposes. Each manuscript is uniquely prepared reflecting inherited wisdom on contemporary lives using the method called Tirguamme, the act of giving meaning to sacred texts. Preparation of books is costly. Smaller manuscript require the skins of 50-70 goats/sheep and large manuscript needed 100-120 goats/sheep (Tefera).The Loss of Ethiopian ManuscriptsSince the 18th century, a large quantity of these manuscripts have been stolen, looted, or smuggled out of the country by travellers who came to the country as explorers, diplomats and scientists. The total number of Ethiopian manuscripts taken is still unknown. Amsalu Tefera counted 6928 Ethiopian manuscripts currently held in foreign libraries and museums. This figure does not include privately held or unofficial collections (41).Looting and smuggling were sponsored by western governments, institutions, and notable individuals. For example, in 1868, The British Museum Acting Director Richard Holms joined the British army which was sent to ‘rescue’ British hostages at Maqdala, the capital of Emperor Tewodros. Holms’ mission was to bring treasures for the Museum. Before the battle, Tewodros had established the Medhanialem library with more than 1000 manuscripts as part of Ethiopia’s “industrial revolution”. When Tewodros lost the war and committed suicide, British soldiers looted the capital, including the treasury and the library. They needed 200 mules and 15 elephants to transport the loot and “set fire to all buildings so that no trace was left of the edifices which once housed the manuscripts” (Rita Pankhurst 224). Richard Holmes collected 356 manuscripts for the Museum. A wealthy British woman called Lady Meux acquired some of the most illuminated manuscripts. In her will, she bequeathed them to be returned to Ethiopia. However, her will was reversed by court due to a campaign from the British press (Richard Pankhurst). In 2018, the V&A Museum in London displayed some of the treasures by incorporating Maqdala into the imperial narrative of Britain (Woldeyes, Reflections).Britain is by no means the only country to seek Ethiopian manuscripts for their collections. Smuggling occurred in the name of science, an act of collecting manuscripts for study. Looting involved local collaborators and powerful foreign sponsors from places like France, Germany and the Vatican. Like Maqdala, this was often sponsored by governments or powerful financers. For example, the French government sponsored the Dakar-Djibouti Mission led by Marcel Griaule, which “brought back about 350 manuscripts and scrolls from Gondar” (Wion 2). It was often claimed that these manuscripts were purchased, rather than looted. Johannes Flemming of Germany was said to have purchased 70 manuscripts and ten scrolls for the Royal Library of Berlin in 1905. However, there was no local market for buying manuscripts. Ge’ez manuscripts were, and still are, written to serve spiritual and secular life in Ethiopia, not for buying and selling. There are countless other examples, but space limits how many can be provided in this article. What is important to note is that museums and libraries have accrued impressive collections without emphasising how those collections were first obtained. The loss of the intellectual heritage of Ethiopians to western collectors has had an enormous impact on the country.Knowledge Grabbing: The Denial of Access to KnowledgeWith so many manuscripts lost, European collectors became the narrators of Ethiopian knowledge and history. Edward Ullendorff, a known orientalist in Ethiopian studies, refers to James Bruce as “the explorer of Abyssinia” (114). Ullendorff commented on the significance of Bruce’s travel to Ethiopia asperhaps the most important aspect of Bruce’s travels was the collection of Ethiopic manuscripts… . They opened up entirely new vistas for the study of Ethiopian languages and placed this branch of Oriental scholarship on a much more secure basis. It is not known how many MSS. reached Europe through his endeavours, but the present writer is aware of at least twenty-seven, all of which are exquisite examples of Ethiopian manuscript art. (133)This quote encompasses three major ways in which epistemic violence occurs: denial of access to knowledge, Eurocentric interpretation of Ethiopian manuscripts, and the handling of Ge’ez manuscripts as artefacts from the past. These will be discussed below.Western ‘travellers’, such as Bruce, did not fully disclose how many manuscripts they took or how they acquired them. The abundance of Ethiopian manuscripts in western institutions can be compared to the scarcity of such materials among traditional schools in Ethiopia. In this research, I have visited ten indigenous schools in Wollo (Lalibela, Neakutoleab, Asheten, Wadla), in Gondar (Bahita, Kuskwam, Menbere Mengist), and Gojam (Bahirdar, Selam Argiew Maryam, Giorgis). In all of the schools, there is lack of Ge’ez manuscripts. Students often come from rural villages and do not receive any government support. The scarcity of Ge’ez manuscripts, and the lack of funding which might allow for the purchasing of books, means the students depend mainly on memorising Ge’ez texts told to them from the mouth of their teacher. Although this method of learning is not new, it currently is the only way for passing indigenous knowledges across generations.The absence of manuscripts is most strongly felt in the advanced schools. For instance, in the school of Qene, poetic literature is created through an in-depth study of the vocabulary and grammar of Ge’ez. A Qene student is required to develop a deep knowledge of Ge’ez in order to understand ancient and medieval Ge’ez texts which are used to produce poetry with multiple meanings. Without Ge’ez manuscripts, students cannot draw their creative works from the broad intellectual tradition of their ancestors. When asked how students gain access to textbooks, one student commented:we don’t have access to Birana books (Ge’ez manuscripts written on vellum). We cannot learn the ancient wisdom of painting, writing, and computing developed by our ancestors. We simply buy paper books such as Dawit (Psalms), Sewasew (grammar) or Degwa (book of songs with notations) and depend on our teachers to teach us the rest. We also lend these books to each other as many students cannot afford to buy them. Without textbooks, we expect to spend double the amount of time it would take if we had textbooks. (Interview, 3 Sep. 2019)Many students interrupt their studies and work as labourers to save up and buy paper textbooks, but they still don’t have access to the finest works taken to Europe. Most Ge’ez manuscripts remaining in Ethiopia are locked away in monasteries, church stores or other places to prevent further looting. The manuscripts in Addis Ababa University and the National Archives are available for researchers but not to the students of the indigenous system, creating a condition of internal knowledge grabbing.While the absence of Ge’ez manuscripts denied, and continues to deny, Ethiopians the chance to enrich their indigenous education, it benefited western orientalists to garner intellectual authority on the field of Ethiopian studies. In 1981, British Museum Director John Wilson said, “our Abyssinian holdings are more important than our Indian collection” (Bell 231). In reaction, Richard Pankhurst, the Director of Ethiopian Studies in Addis Ababa, responded that the collection was acquired through plunder. Defending the retaining of Maqdala manuscripts in Europe, Ullendorff wrote:neither Dr. Pankhurst nor the Ethiopian and western scholars who have worked on this collection (and indeed on others in Europe) could have contributed so significantly to the elucidation of Ethiopian history without the rich resources available in this country. Had they remained insitu, none of this would have been possible. (Qtd. in Bell 234)The manuscripts are therefore valued based on their contribution to western scholarship only. This is a continuation of epistemic violence whereby local knowledges are used as raw materials to produce Eurocentric knowledge, which in turn is used to teach Africans as though they had no prior knowledge. Scholars are defined as those western educated persons who can speak European languages and can travel to modern institutions to access the manuscripts. Knowledge grabbing regards previous owners as inexistent or irrelevant for the use of the grabbed knowledges.Knowledge grabbing also means indigenous scholars are deprived of critical resources to produce new knowledge based on their intellectual heritage. A Qene teacher commented: our students could not devote their time and energy to produce new knowledges in the same way our ancestors did. We have the tradition of Madeladel, Kimera, Kuteta, Mielad, Qene and tirguamme where students develop their own system of remembering, reinterpreting, practicing, and rewriting previous manuscripts and current ones. Without access to older manuscripts, we increasingly depend on preserving what is being taught orally by elders. (Interview, 4 Sep. 2019)This point is important as it relates to the common myth that indigenous knowledges are artefacts belonging to the past, not the present. There are millions of people who still use these knowledges, but the conditions necessary for their reproduction and improvement is denied through knowledge grabbing. The view of Ge’ez manuscripts as artefacts dismisses the Ethiopian view that Birana manuscripts are living persons. As a scholar told me in Gondar, “they are creations of Egziabher (God), like all of us. Keeping them in institutions is like keeping living bodies in graveyards” (interview, 5 Oct. 2019).Recently, the collection of Ethiopian manuscripts by western institutions has also been conducted digitally. Thousands of manuscripts have been microfilmed or digitised. For example, the EU funded Ethio-SPaRe project resulted in the digital collection of 2000 Ethiopian manuscripts (Nosnitsin). While digitisation promises better access for people who may not be able to visit institutions to see physical copies, online manuscripts are not accessible to indigenous school students in Ethiopia. They simply do not have computer or internet access and the manuscripts are catalogued in European languages. Both physical and digital knowledge grabbing results in the robbing of Ethiopian intellectual heritage, and denies the possibility of such manuscripts being used to inform local scholarship. Epistemic Violence: The European as ExpertWhen considered in relation to stolen or appropriated manuscripts, epistemic violence is the way in which local knowledge is interpreted using a foreign epistemology and gained dominance over indigenous worldviews. European scholars have monopolised the field of Ethiopian Studies by producing books, encyclopaedias and digital archives based on Ethiopian manuscripts, almost exclusively in European languages. The contributions of their work for western scholarship is undeniable. However, Kebede argues that one of the detrimental effects of this orientalist literature is the thesis of Semiticisation, the designation of the origin of Ethiopian civilisation to the arrival of Middle Eastern colonisers rather than indigenous sources.The thesis is invented to make the history of Ethiopia consistent with the Hegelian western view that Africa is a Dark Continent devoid of a civilisation of its own. “In light of the dominant belief that black peoples are incapable of great achievements, the existence of an early and highly advanced civilization constitutes a serious anomaly in the Eurocentric construction of the world” (Kebede 4). To address this anomaly, orientalists like Ludolph attributed the origin of Ethiopia’s writing system, agriculture, literature, and civilisation to the arrival of South Arabian settlers. For example, in his translation of the Kebra Nagast, Budge wrote: “the SEMITES found them [indigenous Ethiopians] negro savages, and taught them civilization and culture and the whole scriptures on which their whole literature is based” (x).In line with the above thesis, Dillman wrote that “the Abyssinians borrowed their Numerical Signs from the Greeks” (33). The views of these orientalist scholars have been challenged. For instance, leading scholar of Semitic languages Professor Ephraim Isaac considers the thesis of the Arabian origin of Ethiopian civilization “a Hegelian Eurocentric philosophical perspective of history” (2). Isaac shows that there is historical, archaeological, and linguistic evidence that suggest Ethiopia to be more advanced than South Arabia from pre-historic times. Various Ethiopian sources including the Kebra Nagast, the works of historian Asres Yenesew, and Ethiopian linguist Girma Demeke provide evidence for the indigenous origin of Ethiopian civilisation and languages.The epistemic violence of the Semeticisation thesis lies in how this Eurocentric ideological construction is the dominant narrative in the field of Ethiopian history and the education system. Unlike the indigenous view, the orientalist view is backed by strong institutional power both in Ethiopia and abroad. The orientalists control the field of Ethiopian studies and have access to Ge’ez manuscripts. Their publications are the only references for Ethiopian students. Due to Native Colonialism, a system of power run by native elites through the use of colonial ideas and practices (Woldeyes), the education system is the imitation of western curricula, including English as a medium of instruction from high school onwards. Students study the west more than Ethiopia. Indigenous sources are generally excluded as unscientific. Only the Eurocentric interpretation of Ethiopian manuscripts is regarded as scientific and objective.ConclusionEthiopia is the only African country never to be colonised. In its history it produced a large quantity of manuscripts in the Ge’ez language through an indigenous education system that involves the study of these manuscripts. Since the 19th century, there has been an ongoing loss of these manuscripts. European travellers who came to Ethiopia as discoverers, missionaries and scholars took a large number of manuscripts. The Battle of Maqdala involved the looting of the intellectual products of Ethiopia that were collected at the capital. With the introduction of western education and use of English as a medium of instruction, the state disregarded indigenous schools whose students have little access to the manuscripts. This article brings the issue of knowledge grapping, a situation whereby European institutions and scholars accumulate Ethiopia manuscripts without providing the students in Ethiopia to have access to those collections.Items such as manuscripts that are held in western institutions are not dead artefacts of the past to be preserved for prosperity. They are living sources of knowledge that should be put to use in their intended contexts. Local Ethiopian scholars cannot study ancient and medieval Ethiopia without travelling and gaining access to western institutions. This lack of access and resources has made European Ethiopianists almost the sole producers of knowledge about Ethiopian history and culture. For example, indigenous sources and critical research that challenge the Semeticisation thesis are rarely available to Ethiopian students. Here we see epistemic violence in action. Western control over knowledge production has the detrimental effect of inventing new identities, subjectivities and histories that translate into material effects in the lives of African people. In this way, Ethiopians and people all over Africa internalise western understandings of themselves and their history as primitive and in need of development or outside intervention. African’s intellectual and cultural heritage, these living bodies locked away in graveyards, must be put back into the hands of Africans.AcknowledgementThe author acknowledges the support of the Australian Academy of the Humanities' 2019 Humanities Travelling Fellowship Award in conducting this research.ReferencesBell, Stephen. “Cultural Treasures Looted from Maqdala: A Summary of Correspondence in British National Newspapers since 1981.” Kasa and Kasa. Eds. Tadesse Beyene, Richard Pankhurst, and Shifereraw Bekele. Addis Ababa: Ababa University Book Centre, 1990. 231-246.Budge, Wallis. A History of Ethiopia, Nubia and Abyssinia. London: Methuen and Co, 1982.Demeke, Girma Awgichew. The Origin of Amharic. Trenton: Red Sea Press, 2013.Diakonoff, Igor M. Afrasian Languages. Moscow: Nauka, 1988.Dillmann, August. Ethiopic Grammar. Eugene: Wipf & Stock, 2005.Hegel, Georg W.F. The Philosophy of History. New York: Dover, 1956.Isaac, Ephraim. The Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahido Church. New Jersey: Red Sea Press, 2013.———. “An Open Letter to an Inquisitive Ethiopian Sister.” The Habesha, 2013. 1 Feb. 2020 <http://www.zehabesha.com/an-open-letter-to-an-inquisitive-young-ethiopian-sister-ethiopian-history-is-not-three-thousand-years/>.Kebra Nagast. "The Queen of Sheba and Her Only Son Menyelik I." Trans. Wallis Budge. London: Oxford UP, 1932.Pankhurst, Richard. "The Napier Expedition and the Loot Form Maqdala." Presence Africaine 133-4 (1985): 233-40.Pankhurst, Rita. "The Maqdala Library of Tewodros." Kasa and Kasa. Eds. Tadesse Beyene, Richard Pankhurst, and Shifereraw Bekele. Addis Ababa: Ababa University Book Centre, 1990. 223-230.Tefera, Amsalu. ነቅዐ መጻህፍት ከ መቶ በላይ በግዕዝ የተጻፉ የእኢትዮጵያ መጻህፍት ዝርዝር ከማብራሪያ ጋር።. Addis Ababa: Jajaw, 2019.Nosnitsin, Denis. "Ethio-Spare Cultural Heritage of Christian Ethiopia: Salvation, Preservation and Research." 2010. 5 Jan. 2019 <https://www.aai.uni-hamburg.de/en/ethiostudies/research/ethiospare/missions/pdf/report2010-1.pdf>. Ullendorff, Edward. "James Bruce of Kinnaird." The Scottish Historical Review 32.114, part 2 (1953): 128-43.Wion, Anaïs. "Collecting Manuscripts and Scrolls in Ethiopia: The Missions of Johannes Flemming (1905) and Enno Littmann (1906)." 2012. 5 Jan. 2019 <https://halshs.archives-ouvertes.fr/halshs-00524382/document>. Woldeyes, Yirga Gelaw. Native Colonialism: Education and the Economy of Violence against Traditions in Ethiopia. Trenton: Red Sea Press, 2017.———. “Reflections on Ethiopia’s Stolen Treasures on Display in a London Museum.” The Conversation. 2018. 5 June 2018 <https://theconversation.com/reflections-on-ethiopias-stolen-treasures-on-display-in-a-london-museum-97346>.Yenesew, Asres. ትቤ፡አክሱም፡መኑ፡ አንተ? Addis Ababa: Nigid Printing House, 1959 [1951 EC].

Ethiopian Qene (traditional and living oral poetry) intertwines biblical interpretation with the observation of nature and critique of current events. It is always delivered as improvisation. It is performed in traditional schools, as well as at liturgical and social events. It contains metaphors, rhymes, and rhythm. It includes important values and is useful for theological studies and biblical hermeneutics.

This contribution discusses Ralph Lee’s volume Symbolic Interpretations in Ethiopic and Early Syriac Literature, in particular his proposal about what were the channels of cultural transmission between Syriac and Ethiopic Christian literatures which could justify the consistent number of parallels found in the two poetical and liturgical traditions. Lee’s model used to explain these parallels is proved questionable, and an alternative hypothesis is offered: Ephrems’ poetry influenced later Syriac writers and liturgical traditions, which, in turn, experienced a long season of translation from Syriac to Arabic in a broad geographical area. As a consequence of this process, several streams of Ephremian tradition were transferred from the Arabic Christian literatures to the Ethiopic world after the twelfth century.

Riassunto: In questo studio si prenderanno in esame alcuni esempi provenienti dall’Etiopia Sud Occidentale, tutt’ora inediti. Composti da Sufi locali fra la fine del XIX secolo e l’inizio del XX, questi testi mostrano un profondo legame con la pratica del mawlid come festività popolare. Allo stesso tempo i versi racchiudono alcuni insegnamenti metafisici di scuola akbariana. Abstract: Sufi poetry is widespread, in Arabic and local languages, throughout the Islamic world. In this study, some examples from Southwestern Ethiopia, still unpublished, will be examined. Composed by local Sufis between the end of the nineteenth century and the be-ginning of the twentieth, these texts show a profound link with the practice of the mawlid as a popular festival. At the same time the verses contain some metaphysical teachings of the Akbarian school.

Resume :Lorsqu’il part pour l’Afrique en 1931, Michel Leiris quitte très explicitement le surréalisme pour l’ethnologie : c’est un adieu à la poésie. A son retour en 1933, déçu par une discipline qui n’a pas tenu ses promesses de renouvellement, il revient à la création littéraire et entre dans une oscillation qui perdurera toute sa vie : les écrits professionnels et savants d’un côté, la littérature de l’autre. Du moins, c’est ainsi que rétrospectivement il présente sa propre trajectoire. Mais ce récit, qui oppose ethnologie et littérature comme deux « carrières » et deux modes d’écriture, est sans doute un peu trop simple, car ce n’est pas la même littérature que Leiris quitte et qu’il retrouve : il abandonne la poésie surréaliste pour, deux ans plus tard, se lancer dans une vaste entreprise autobiographique qui l’occupera quarante ans. Et surtout en 1958, il revient à la poésie après une longue éclipse, en même temps qu’il fait paraître La Possession et ses Aspects théâtraux chez les Éthiopiens de Gondar à partir de notes de terrain vieilles de vingt‑cinq ans — comme si de part et d’autre et simultanément, un blocage avait été levé. Peut‑on établir un lien entre ces deux événements ? Et si oui lequel ? Quelle articulation réelle, véritable y a‑t‑il entre le travail de Leiris sur la transe et son retour au poème à partir de la fin des années 1950 ?When Leiris leaves Paris for Africa in 1931, he is also leaving surrealism for anthropology: it is an explicit farewell to poetry. He then returns home, disillusioned by a discipline which did not hold its promises of renewal, and comes back to literary creation, entering an oscillation which will last his whole life: professional and scholarly writings on the one hand, literature on the other. At least, this is how he describes his own trajectory. However, this narrative, opposing anthropology and literature as two careers and two modes of writing, is probably slightly oversimplifying, since it is not the same literature that Leiris forsakes and goes back to: he leaves surrealist poetry and, two years later, starts an ambitious and four-decade long autobiography. Above all, in 1958, he comes back to poetry after a long eclipse, while at the same time he publishes La Possession et ses Aspects théâtraux chez les Éthiopiens de Gondar, a monograph based on old ethnographic notes dating back to his fieldwork in Ethiopia — as if, on both ends and simultaneously, a generic writing block had been overcome. Is there a connection between these two events? And if yes, what is it? What is the true articulation between Leiris’s anthropological work on possession trance and his return to poetry at the end of the 1950’s?

Abstract Background The engagement of schools in malaria control is an emerging strategy. Little is known about the involvement of students in the development of malaria messages. This study evaluated the message content of primary school students’ malaria poems. Methods A qualitative content analysis was conducted to explore malaria messages conveyed in poems produced by students. Twenty poems were purposively selected from twenty schools across rural villages in five districts of the Jimma Zone. Data were analyzed using Atlas.ti version 7.1.4 software. The message contents were quantified in terms of frequency, and including metaphors, presented using central themes, categories, and supportive quotations. Results A total of 602 malarial contents were generated, and organized into 21 categories under five central themes. 1) Malaria-related knowledge (causation and modes of transmission, mosquito breeding and biting behavior, signs and symptoms, care for insecticide-treated nets (ITNs), and prevention methods), 2) Perceived threats from malaria, 3)The effectiveness of prevention methods (i.e., related to the adaption of ITNs, environmental cleaning, indoor residual spray (IRS), treatment for fever, and drug adherence practices), 4) Misconceptions, beliefs, and malpractices regarding the cause of malaria and drug use) and 5) Direct calls to the adopt ITN, IRS, clean surroundings, treatment, and drug use. The most commonly conveyed message contents were about the severity of malaria, distinguishable signs and symptoms, calls for community participation for malaria elimination, knowledge of preventive methods, and effectiveness of ITN use. Metaphoric expressions (war and death) were used to convey messages about the severity and the need to manage the prognosis of malaria through the active ITN use, which itself was metaphorically represented as ‘a trap’ to mosquitoes. Conclusions The poetic analysis indicated that the students developed and disseminated rich malarial messages, especially on malarial knowledge, and perceptions, beliefs, norms and practices of the local community to prevent and control malaria. Therefore, primary school students can be a source of information and would effectively communicate knowledge, perceptions, and promote malaria related practices, particularly in rural settings.

Contents Is good governance a pre-requisite for Africa’s development? Jomo Kwame Sundaram & Anis Chowdhury .......................... 4 The Mad and Impossible Poetry of Lagos Sanya Osha .......................................... 7 Adwa: ‘A milestone in the creation of modern Ethiopia’ Bahru Zewde ..................................... 10 An Imaginative Biography of Samora Machel Elísio Macamo ................................... 12 Swimming against the Tide Bhekinkosi Moyo .............................. 13 A New Look at Aksum Kathryn A. Bard ............................... 14 Quel(s) rôle(s) pour la sociologie en Afrique ? Ahmed Yalaoui ................................ 15 Penser la Révolution en Tunisie et dans le Monde arabe : quel contenu pour un compromis historique ? Hassan Remaoun ............................ 17 Revisiter la production scientifique de langue arabe dans l’Afrique du Nord et Subsaharienne Bennaceur Benaouda .................... 20 La contribution de la femme musulmane à la culture de paix Abdelouahab Belgherras .............. 23 Confréries religieuses et processus de sécularisation au sein de la société sénégalaise Mohamed Brahim Salhi ..................24 Algérie : ce que citoyenneté veut dire Soraya Mouloudji-Garroudji .............. 25 Les voies et les voix africaines sur l’écran de la FOFA Mustapha Medjahdi & Souad Guerguabou ................. 27