Northeast African Studies

The HEBRAIC-BIBLICAL IMPACT ON ETHIOPIAN RELIGIONS REVISITED:

Steven Kaplan — 2025-02-12

The question of Hebraic-Biblical influences on Ethiopian religious culture has long been an important topic of discussion in the study of that country’s religious history. Nevertheless, it is certainly worthy of re-examination. In this essay, I argue that in contrast to the claims that these influences were early and, in some cases, pre-Christian (Ullendorff) and the counter claims that they date overwhelmingly to the Middle Ages, these influences can be shown to have arrived over many eras and periods as a long term process rather than an event. Moreover, I also demonstrate that in most cases these “Judaic” influences came, not directly from Jewish sources, but rather arrived through the mediation of Syriac and Arabic Christian sources. These points are illustrated through the examination of both Christian Orthodox sources as well as the literature of the Betä Ǝsra᾿el.

A Multi-Disciplinary Perspective on Enigmatic Ethiopian Processional Cross at the Bargello National Museum, Florence

Matteo Salvadore — 2025-02-12

This article brings a wide range of perspectives to bear on a fifteenth-century Ethiopian processional cross kept at the Bargello Museum in Florence, and to bridge the disciplinary divide between scientific, historical, philological and art historical approaches to this type of artefact. Despite being the subject of several papers, the Bargello cross remains an enigmatic artefact. It has a complex stratigraphy, and it conveys tantalizing if vague information about the patronage of the emperors of Ethiopia and the devotion of local Christian communities within the territories they sought to control though various means. In visual terms, the cross displays different formulas for representing the human figure that can be taken as evidence of the movement of objects and visual ideas between Ethiopia and Europe at the time of its making. As an artefact that certainly reached Europe before the colonial period, the cross turns our attention to those moments in history when the exchange or gifting of objects between these territories could occur on more equitable grounds. From a material perspective, the features of the cross manifest dynamics of continuity and discontinuity with previous practices. For these and other reasons, the cross continues to elicit interest and to elude interpretation.

The Ethiopian Revolution and Warfare in the Boräna Borderlands (Southern Ethiopia), 1974 to the Early 1980s

Belete Bizuneh — 2025-02-12

This article examines the nature and impacts of the 1974 Ethiopian revolution on pastoralists who live on Ethiopia’s southern periphery. By focusing on Boräna sub-province, the article discusses how the revolution reshaped the everyday life of the region’s predominantly pastoralist populations. I argue that although the dominance of the pastoralist economy in this region tempered the major socio-economic and political dislocation that unfolded in the agrarian parts of southern Ethiopia following the outbreak of the revolution, the revolution opened up space for local contradictions that had remained latent under the imperial regime to resurface with intensity. In particular, the weak political and military power of the early Därg government created a political vacuum that encouraged the outbreak of pastoralist violence which had devastating consequence for the life and livelihoods of the people of the region. Furthermore, inter-ethnic violence during the early days of Därg rule intersected with a pastoralist insurgency supported by neighboring Somalia. This rebellion would further disrupt the economy and life of the people and delay the implementation of the Därg’s encaderement project.

Insurgency and Counterinsurgency in East Gondar: The Case of EPRA, 1976 - 1980

Fantahun Ayele — 2025-02-12

Using hitherto unexploited archival documents kept in Gondar, this study attempts to investigate a history of the Ethiopian People Revolutionary Army (EPRA) and its insurgency in east Gondar and the counter insurgency campaigns of the military regime to wipe out the guerrillas. To substantiate the archival documents, attempts have been made to extract oral information through interviews from peasants in east Gondar who were involved in the EPRA’s insurgency. Among other things, the study shows that EPRP’s resort to urban terrorism led to the liquidation of the EPRP in the major towns and the incapacitation of the rural armed resistance in East Gondar. When the government militias launched counter-insurgency operations between 1978 and 1980, the EPRA guerrillas could not rally the rural population behind them and defend their base areas. Their failure to protect peasants from government punitive measures finally alienated the EPRA fighters from the rural population and that eventually led to their undoing.

Strong Reciprocity and Large-scale Cooperation in Traditional Somali Society

Jamal Abdi — 2025-02-12

Traditional Somali society is a large stateless society where social order is obtained in the absence of formal hierarchy and authority. Drawing on the concept of strong reciprocity, this paper unpacks the factors fostering cooperation in traditional Somali society. It argues that cooperation is best understood through the intersection of ubiquity of pro-sociality and the xeer-regime. The former is principally the result of socially rational behaviour. while the latter can be construed as both a shared normative order and a regime, governing socio-political relations. The xeer-regime conforms to the shared beliefs of a homogenous society and further derives its greater legitimacy from society’s external and internal ultimate source of authority. This allows the xeer-regime to exert moral constraint upon behaviour, enabling sustained voluntary cooperation without overt coercive political authority. The Somali case suggests that when a considerable proportion of people exhibit positive reciprocity, cooperation may be sustained with virtually no need for formal punishment.