Ethiopia (Oromo) vs. Abyssinia (Amhara). Unbridgeable Ethnic, Cultural Gap Revealed by Bulatovich
Dr. Muhammad Shamsaddin Megalommatis
July 20, 2010
In a second article titled "Russia, the Oromos, Egypt, Sudan, Abyssinia (Fake Ethiopia), Somalia, Islam & Orthodox Christianity" (http://www.americanchronicle.com/articles/view/169937), I republished other excerpts from Bulatovich´s book, and focused on the possible reasons for Russia´s failure as colonial power in the region. As reasons I identified an inherent Russian quantitative approach to the colonial process and an overall misperception of the past and the present of Asia and Africa, which is due to the Russian academic, intellectual and ideological acceptance of the Anglo-French Orientalism, a bunch of disciplines elaborated by the French and the English academia in order to mainly promote and diffuse an interpretation of data that would suit the interests of the Anglo-French Freemasonry, namely the driving force of the Paris and London regimes. I then indicated examples of Russian misperception of the East African History from Bulatovich´s excerpt that I republished. The excerpt demonstrated clearly that the Russian explorer was driven to many erroneous judgments and misperceptions because he had been theoretically based on Western European Orientalism, a definitely anti-Russian academic – theoretical – intellectual fabrication.
In a third article titled "Abyssinian Colonization of Oromia, Sidama and Kaffa in Bogus Ethiopia. An Early Witness from Russia" (http://www.americanchronicle.com/articles/view/169997), I republished another, longer, excerpt from Bulatovich´s ´From Entotto to the River Baro´ which bears witness to the evil Amhara and Tigray plans of illegal occupation of the annexed lands and of tyrannical consolidation of the Abyssinian colonialism by means of settlements peremptorily implemented among the subjugated nations.
In the present article, I republish two more excerpts that focus on the Oromo society, namely ´Galla Clothing´ and ´Galla Family Life´. One understands easily that Bulatovich came to get most of the details indirectly, and in this case his treatise is conditioned because of the evident lack of access to the original source of information. Sometimes, Bulatovich insists on a wrong term; although he knows that the correct name of the subjugated nation is Oromo, he keeps calling them Galla. Furthermore, Arsi becomes Arussi, and Waaqo turns out to be Wak.
Due to the historicity of the Report which was submitted to the highest authorities of Tsarist Russia, I preserve the terms employed by Bulatovich. I must admit that, despite the Abyssinian filter of misinformation, and in spite of his preconceived ideas, Bulatovich offers at times a very sympathetic presentation of the Oromos, stating the truth wherever he had – mostly by coincidence – access to it.
Ethiopia through Russian Eyes
An eye-witness account of the end of an era, 1896-98 consisting of two books by Alexander Bulatovich
From Entotto to the River Baro (1897)
With the Armies of Menelik II (1900)
Translated by Richard Seltzer (seltzer@samizdat.com, www.samizdat.com)
From Entotto to the River Baro
http://www.samizdat.com/entotto.html
An account of a trip to the southwestern regions of the Ethiopian Empire 1896-97 by Lieutenant of His Majesty's Life-Guard Hussar Regiment Alexander Bulatovich
Originally published in St. Petersburg, 1897, Printed by V. Kirshbaum, 204 pages
Reissued in 1971 as part of the volume With the Armies of Menelik II, edited by I. S. Katsnelson of the Institute of Oriental Studies of the Academy of Sciences of the U.S.S.R."Science" Publishing House Chief Editorial Staff of Oriental Literature Moscow 1971, entire book 352 pages, Entotto pp. 32-156
Translated by Richard Seltzer (from the 1971 edition)
Galla Clothing
The various tribes also do not dress all the same way, depending on the location of the settlement. Tribes which are closest to the Abyssinians wear the shamma 63, but they do not drape it as beautifully as the Abyssinians, tossing most of both ends on one shoulder and leaving the right arm and half the chest bare. In the southwestern regions, where cotton is scarce, instead of a shamma they wear lamb or goat skin. You only see trousers on rich Galla or those who live in border areas. They usually tie some kind of leather apron around their hips . Often you can see on their heads a pointed cap made of goat skin . (A piece of skin from a recently slaughtered goat is stretched on a sharp metal casting. When it dries, the ends are cut off and the hat is ready.) Women's clothing also changes depending on how close they are to the Abyssinians. In the border regions, they wear the long women's shirts of the Abyssinians. In places more distant from the border, they tie around their body a piece of material or treated oxhide, sewn with shells and beads, such that it looks something like a White Russian plakhta. Some women make themselves a kind of sarafan out of leather.
The men wear their hair shaved close to the skin or standing in a shock. The Galla who border on the Abyssinians adopted from them their manner of braiding hair in small plaits, lying close to the head and connected together at the back of the head. This is a sign of bravery. The right to wear such a hairstyle belongs to: he who has killed a man -- for one year; a lion -- for two years; and an elephant -- 40 years. Women usually wear their hair separated into small matted locks, each braided into a small plait and dangling in this manner on all sides. Some spread an abundance of butter on their hair; others, who in particular are encountered in Wollaga, spread on their hair a yellow clay taken from water and renew this layer of clay each two to three weeks.
Then, from a distance, they appear to be blond, and the color of their face takes on a special shade which can be compared with the color of cinnamon. In Leka, after treating hair this way, they gather it in a bun in the middle of the head. The ends of the braids stick out then above the head in all directions in the form of a hat. In general, such a hair style resembles sheaf of grain, planted down the head. Sometimes they arrange even more original hair styles, inserting long wooden needles in the hair.
Galla love all kinds of decoration: bracelets and rings are in wide use among them. These are made out of copper, lead,ivory and iron. They even wear rings on their toes. They put bracelets in bunches on their arms, on the arm above the elbow and on their feet. You sometimes come across such large and heavy bracelets that your are amazed at how they can work with them.
Children up to the age of ten to eleven do not wear any clothes. Usually their head is shaved and only in the middle to they leave a shock of hair. Mothers carry infants usually either from the side at the waist, or from behind. The mother ties the baby to her skirt and works with the baby on her.
Galla Family Life
The family life of the Gallas is just as simple as all the rest of their life. They do not build villages. Each family settles separately. Among them, polygamy is widespread. Each wife lies in a separate house since a separate household is established for each wife. The construction of their houses differs from that of the Abyssinians in that the roof rests not on a single post but on many. Inside, houses are divided into three parts by partitions. The first section from the entrance is intended as an enclosure for cattle at night, since houses are not protected by fences. In the middle part, the hearth burns and food is cooked. The part farthest from the entrance is covered with mats and serves as the bedroom. Strangers are not allowed there. The food of the Galla consists of cooked cabbage, or cooked roots of ensete and guder, cooked seeds of mashella, peas or shumbur, and lentils. They make of this something similar to our porridge [kasha], which they call gunfo and which they eat with spoons made of horn. They almost never use butter in their food, but rather use it exclusively for garnishing of hair. Instead of bread they make unleavened flat cakes -- kita. They also make a kind of bread. The leavened dough is spread out on an earthenware pan and from the top in the middle of a round loaf another smaller pan is squeezed. Fire is lighted under the large pan and on top of the small one. A somewhat heavy, but tasty bread results. They prefer to eat meat raw. They eat their food without flavoring, not adding either salt or pepper.
They love milk and meat. As for beverages, the most widespread is a beer, which they make from barley with the addition of finely minced leaves of the gesho plant, which substitutes for hops. Galla beer is thicker than Abyssinian. They don't know how to make mead, but they drink honey, diluted with water. They do not wash their hands before dinner, as the Abyssinians do. The wife first feeds her husband, and then eats with the children.
They buy themselves wives, paying the parents of the girl an amount that depends on the beauty of the bride and the wealth of the groom, up to 50 cows. In addition, they give the bride jewelry in the form of bracelets, rings or shells. On the day of the wedding, a feast is held at the house of the parents of the bride. After the feast, they take the bride to the house of the groom, where the feast continues, but without the parents of the bride. After the wedding, the husband cannot show himself to his father-in-law or mother-in-law until a child is born. In case of an accidental meeting, he must hide in the bushes. The number of wives is not limited and depends on one's prosperity. Each wife usually lives separately. The husband roams from one cabin to another. They sleep separately; to sleep together is considered indecent. Marriage takes place late: for men not earlier than 18 years, and for women not earlier than 16. When parents consider that their daughter has reached maturity, they perform an operation on her (removing the clitoris) and then give her in marriage. (I ascertained that this operation is performed by Galla of Wollaga, Leka, and Ilu-Babur). Once married, the wife becomes the slave of her husband, and there is no divorce under any circumstances. Conjugal infidelity is very rare. It is not considered infidelity if the younger brother of the husband has relations with the wife. In case of discovery of adultery, the husband can kill his wife on the spot; but for the most part, he exacts a fine from the culprit.
The birth of a child is not at all celebrated in the family, and no operation is performed on the new born. The mother gives him a name; but in the plateaux, the head of a family is always known by the name of his horse, for instance Aba Morke, Aba Jefar (the name of the king of Jimma).
Death is mourned by the whole family and all the neighbors of the deceased. They bury the dead in a deep grave, men to the right of the entrance to the house, and women to the left. First they lay brushwood on the body, and then pour earth. In eastern regions, they pile on a high stack of stones, and on top they lay reed stalks, coffee seeds, barley, and mashella. By the quantity and type of what is spread on it, one can determine the fortune of the person who is buried. In the city of Gunji, for instance, I saw an enormous grave with cruets spread out on stakes driven into the ground. In western regions they do not make such large graves, but in contrast to the eastern ones, they surround their graves with fences. The bury the deceased beside the house where he lived; and for twenty years after and sometimes for her whole life, the wife guards the grave of her husband. After twenty days, the wife can pass on to the brother of the deceased.
During the twenty days after the death, several times relatives and neighbors of the deceased gather and, sitting in a circle, weep and remember his brave deeds. In addition, they have one very original custom. While living, a Galla rarely boasts of his deeds, and it is considered improper if he himself begins to talk about how many enemies he killed (completely the opposite of Abyssinian behavior). After death, his brother or friend has the responsibility to recount where, when and in what circumstances the deceased distinguished himself. On the death of the father, all the property passes to the eldest son, to whom also passes the leadership of the tribe, if the father was its chief.
In the family, the authority of its head is recognized, but only to a certain degree. The Galla family is not comparable to our Northern Russian family, but rather is closer to the White Russian. The son, as soon as he marries, separates himself from his parents; and although he respects his father and older brother, he is, in actuality, quite independent.
Galla Culture For the most part, the Galla are a settled (rather than nomadic) people. But here one can distinguish three shades of their culture. There are settled Gallas who are almost exclusively satisfied with the products of their raising of livestock, who almost never work the land, and for vegetable food make use of the roots of banana ensete [or kogo]. But at the present time, losses of cattle and recent wars have almost deprived them of livestock. Others occupy themselves almost exclusively with tilling the soil and bee-keeping. A third category occupies itself now with the one and now with the other equally and also with domestic crafts. The entire center and the Javi and Gomo tribes belong to this last category. The inhabitants of the extreme western provinces are exclusively tillers of the soil.
The inhabitants of the plateaux and the eastern provinces are primarily breeders of livestock. These three shades correspond to the three transitional stages from a nomadic to a completely settled state. Related to this is the development of the idea of the right of land property separately from the right of ownership. In the first case, all the land and water is the general property of the tribe. In the second case, the individual has a right to land which he actively possesses. In the third case, we see an exact differentiation of lots of land, purchase, sale and obligation.
Where I was, I did not see nomadic Gallas, but they are still found in Arussi. In Ilu-Babur, in Sale and in Alga up until the conquest of those last provinces by the Abyssinians, inhabitants there were in a semi-nomadic state. Now, having lost their cattle, they have been forced to turn to tilling of the soil.
Since there is a lot of free land in these regions and it is all equally fertile and abundant in water, the inhabitants rarely stay long at the same place, but each three to four years select for themselves another; all the more so because they often build new huts, which termites usually destroy very fast.
Although those Gallas who till the soil dig in the ground less than Egyptian fellahs, they love their land and cultivate it comparatively well enough. A Galla farmstead makes a remarkably fine impression. Usually there is a small round hut for those who do not have livestock and a large one, surrounded by high banana trees (musa ensete) for those who do have cattle. The huge leaves of these trees completely hide the low pointed straw roof of the house. Several trees, from the nuts of which oil is squeezed, are planted at the entrance to the house and among them are woven root-crop plants which they call guder. Around the house there is a silky crop of tef (a kind of very small millet), a huge mashella (a Turkish millet), corn, a high cabbage which attains two arshins [56 inches] in height and does not have cabbage-heads, peas, and another plant like peas but not twisting, that is called shumbur, crops of tobacco, beans, lentils and pumpkins. On the plateaux there is wheat and barley.
From what has been enumerated, it is clear that there is quite a wealth of various kinds of crops that, with small changes, depending on the elevation of the place, you find almost everywhere.
The techniques for cultivation are the same in the various regions. There are two kinds: by oxen and by hand. They were forced to resort to cultivating by hand after the loss of livestock in Bune, Ale, and Ilu-Babur. The tool used for this is a small shovel or axe, sitting perpendicularly on a handle about 3/4 arshin [21 inches] long. They do not dig the earth with it, but rather chop. In those places where they cultivate with oxen, they use a tool which is like a wooden plough. A pole with an iron tip serves as a ploughshare. Into the ground that is ploughed or dug this way, they toss seed, and that's the end of all the effort of sowing. The fertile soil takes care of any defect in the cultivation. In Ilu-Babur I saw an even simpler technique. There the countryside is wooded, the climate is humid, the soil is soft, black earth, and the entire effort of cultivation is limited to just cutting out a clearing in the forest, and sowing right on top of the wood that was felled, not even taking away the felled trees. I saw a field which was sowed in this way with peas, and which produced an excellent harvest.
They reap with sickles with a toothed blade, and they bind in very small sheafs. In those places where livestock remain, they thresh the grain by driving oxen in a circle over ground which is covered with it. In the other places, they thresh with a long flexible stick. The soil throughout the whole extent is fertile to a high degree and, depending on irrigation, produces from two to four harvests a year.
The raising of livestock, which formerly was originally the main form of farming, has now fallen greatly and in some regions it is rare that you see a cow. But in the eastern plateaux cattle are still kept and without them no family at all would be thinkable there, since the countryside is completely deforested and the absence of firewood is made up for with pressed cow dung.
The Gallas love their livestock and look after them, and at night they drive them into their homes. They have a curious breed of horses. In all probability these horses are descended from the Arabian breed, but their type is very different from them. The head of the horses is larger. The cheek is short, narrow and low placed. The chest is narrow and the ribs are insufficiently long. Very often, the legs are wet. Key factors of the hind quarters leave much to be desired. The sacrum sags. (I enumerate their bad qualities in comparison with Arabian horses.)
In spite of all these deficiencies, this is a fast horse, with great endurance and a large heart. For their small stature(rarely larger than two arshins [56 inches]), they carry a comparatively heavy weight. Mares, mated with donkeys, produce excellent mules. These mules are not as tall as European ones but in endurance, strength, and speed of step they are indispensable on journeys. The donkeys are very small and not as hardy as the Egyptian ones. The hooves of horses, mules, and donkeys are of striking strength and grow very quickly. Neither the clearing nor the shoeing of hooves is known there, but nevertheless they carry out journeys of a thousand versts [700 miles] and even longer, along mountainous roads.
Cattle, bulls and cows are of the same kind as in Egypt, with humps. The cows produce very little milk: this is a more meat kind of cattle. The sheep are without tails. They have goats.
Of domestic birds, you only see chickens. Bee-keeping is an important branch of farming but it is not spread equally everywhere. Above all to the west of Didessa, where, as you go past houses, you see all the large mimosa trees surrounding them hung with beehives. In December and January, the bees swarm, and at this time the Gallas spread out their beehives. These hives are made either rolling up bark with wood and wrapping it in straw, or hollowing out a crude casting from the trunk of kolkual cactus trees. When the time comes to take out the honey, this is done in two ways -- either smoking out the bees with smoke of pressed cow dung, or cutting the rope which holds up the beehive. The hive then falls from a height to the ground, and the frightened bees fly away. Depending on the vegetation there are three kinds of honey: very black and bitter in the southwest in Ilu-Babur; quite white, aromatic and very sweet in Handek; and an average between these two in the other places.
Artisans such as blacksmiths and weavers are found among the Galla. Blacksmiths forge knives and spears from iron, which is mined in the country. The manufacture of steel is unknown to them. Weavers weave rough shammas from local cotton. The loomis set up very simply. The weaver sits in a hole and, pressing his feet on the treadle, in turn raises and lowers the the appropriate row of basic threads. With dextrous movement of hisarms, he passes the shuttle through, after which another horizontal bar, hanging above the cloth, adds the just thread that has just passed through to those already woven. In addition to this, there is also the production of earthenware from unbaked clay. They make large gombas, somewhat like large pitchers without handles, with a volume from half a vedro [ten and a half pints] to four vedros [84 pints], earthenware pans for baking bread and pots for cooking food. There are joiners who make saddle-trees and wooden supports for the head, which serve in place of pillows. You find the above mentioned handicrafts among all the Galla, but in addition at the courts of the rulers there are also goldsmiths, and in Leka and Jimma there are leather craftsmen, who make excellent Morocco; harness makers who make the most intricate riding gear; artisans who make shields; weavers of straw hats (all Galla know how to weave parasols and baskets); armorers who make steel sabers; weavers who weave delicate shammas, etc. Commerce among the Gallas is in a transitional state from barter to monetary.
The monetary units, the Abyssinian taler and salt are accepted by the Gallas, but talers are found in the country in relatively small quantities and are concentrated in the hands of merchants.
Three-pound bars of Abyssinian salt, which go for five to seven for the taler, are cut into four pieces by the Galla. These piece go for from 16 to 20 for the taler. Galla have great love for commerce and exchange. In each little area there is at least one marketplace, where they gather once a week, and there is hardly an area which is relatively larger and populated which does not have marketplaces strewn throughout. Usually the marketplace is a clearing near a big road in the center of Galla settlements. In the middle is an elevated place for the collector of taxes from those who have brought things for sale, on which sits the head of the market, an Abyssinian. Rarely does any Galla man or woman skip market day. They come, even with empty arms or with a handful of barley or peas, with a few coffee beans or little bundles of cotton, in order to chat, to hear news, to visit with neighbors and to smoke a pipe in their company. But besides this petty bargaining, the main commerce of the country is in the hands of the Galla, and they retain it despite the rivalry of the Abyssinians. Almost all the merchants are Mohammedan. They export coffee, gold, musk, ivory, and leather; and they import salt, paper materials, and small manufactured articles. They are very enterprising and have commercial relations with the Sudan, Kaffa, and the Negro tribes.
But they rarely take their wares to the sea, and prefer to sell them in Gojjam, Shoa or Aba Jefar's Jimma.
The customs, manners, religion and language of the Galla correspond to their state of culture. Industrial Jimma, the merchants and Galla who have distinguished themselves by their position have accepted Mohammedanism, but the remaining masses are still pagan. Their beliefs are not fixed, and are not put together in any system. There is some indeterminate expression of instinctive feeling of belief in a higher being, but they have no definite concept of God. Believing that God -- Wak -- is in heaven, that he is great and omnipotent, they do not try to explain him further to themselves and to represent him more definitely. In this way, they have avoided idolatry, to which inquisitive intellect inevitably led other nations. "Wak is there in heaven," says the Galla, pointing upward and lowering his eyes (in the Galla language the word "wak" also means heaven).
Note
Picture: Oromo dagger from Jimma
From: http://www.samizdat.com/bulatovichphotos/illustrations/Galla%20dagger%20from%20Jimma.jpg
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