Jigjiga University

College of Social Science and Humanities

By
Mohammed Hassen (MA)

January, 2023
Jigjiga, Ethiopia
 UNIT ONE

INTRODUCTION
 THE NATURE AND USES OF HISTORY
The term history derived from the Greek
word Istoria, which meant
“inquiry” or “an account of one’s
inquiries”
The first use of the term is
accredited/attributed to one of the ancient
Greek historians, Herodotus (c. 484–c. 420
B.C.E.), who is often held to be the “father
of written history.”
 Nature
In ordinary usage, history means all the
things that have happened in the human
past.
 Academically, it is an organized and
systematic study of the past.
The study involves the discovery, collection,
organization, and presentation of
information about past events.
 Uses
History Helps Us Better Understand the
Present
History Provides Us a Sense of Our Own
Identity
History Provides the Basic Background for
Many Other Disciplines
History Teaches Critical Skills
History Helps Develop Tolerance and Open-
Mindedness
History Supplies Endless Source of
Fascination
History helps us to do not repeat past mistakes
 Sources and Methods of Historical Study
 Sources are key to the study and writing of history.
 Historians are not creative writers like novelists.
 It is said that “where there are no sources, there is no history”.
 Historical sources are broadly classified into two types
1. Primary sources
 These are surviving traces of the past available to us in the
present.
 They are original or first hand
 Manuscripts, diaries, letters, minutes, court and administrative
files, travel documents, photographs, maps, video and
audiovisual materials and physical remains or relics/artifacts
such as coins, fossils, weapons, utensils, and buildings.
2. Secondary sources
They are second-hand published accounts
about past events.
They are written long after the event has
occurred, provide an interpretation of
what happened, why it happened, and
how it happened.
Example: articles, books, textbooks,
biographies, and published stories or
movies about historical events.
Oral sources
They are indispensable to study and document
the history of non-literate societies.
Oral History is non-literate societies oral
testimonies or personal recollections of lived
experience.
Oral information that passes from one
generation to another without being recorded
(folk songs and folk sayings) is known Oral
tradition.
Historians use a combination of the sources
described above.
 Historiography of Ethiopia and the
Horn
Historiography is the history of historical
accounts/writing.
It studies how knowledge of the past, either
recent or distant, is obtained and transmitted.
The organized study and narration of the
past was introduced by:
Herodotus (c. 484–c. 420 B.C.E.)
Thucydides (d. c. 401 B.C.E.)
Sima Qian (145– 86 B.C.E.)
 Despite such early historiographical traditions, history
emerged as an academic discipline in the second half of
the nineteenth century first in Europe and subsequently in
other parts of the world including the US.
 A German Leopold Von Ranke (1795–1886), and his colleagues
established history as an independent discipline in Berlin
(Bonn) with its own set of methods and concepts by which
historians:
 Collect evidence of past events, evaluate that evidence, and
present a meaningful discussion of the subject
 He is considered as the “father of modern
historiography” due to his greatest contribution to the
scientific study of the past.
Earlier Forms of Historiography (Historical Writing) in
Ethiopia & the Horn
 The earliest known reference to the history of Ethiopia
and the Horn:
The Periplus of the Erythrean Sea
It was written 1st century A.D by an
unknown/anonymous author.
Christian Topography
It describes Aksum’s trade and the then Aksumite
king’s campaigns on both sides of the sea.
It was composed by Cosmas Indicopleustes, a
Greek sailor, in the sixth century A.D.
 Inscriptions, Manuscript, Hagiographies, and
chronicles.
 Manuscript aside, the earliest written Ethiopian
material dates from the seventh century A.D.
 Abba Gerima monastery in Yeha.
 A Manuscript
It was found in Haiq Istifanos monastery of Wollo in
13th century A.D
Though their value is essentially religious, they have
the benefit of providing insights into the country’s
past and added value for historians.
They contain the list of medieval kings and their
history in brief.
 Hagiographies
 They are largest groups of sources available for medieval
Ethiopian history, originate from EOC; Invariably written
in Ge’ez; enhancing the prestige of saints.
 They discussed the development of the church and the
state including territorial conquests by reigning
monarchs.
 A parallel hagiographical tradition of Muslim saint also
existed.
 Shaykh Ja’far Bukko of Gattira in the late 19th century
Wollo.
 Besides the saint’s life, the document discussed:
the development of indigenous Islam and contacts
between the region’s Muslim community and the
outside world.
 Chronicles (indigenous tradition of history writing)
First appeared in the 14th century in ge’ez tongue
and continued in Amharic into the early 20th C.
Of such surviving documents, the earliest is the
Glorious Victories of Amde-Tsion and the last is the
Chronicle of Abeto Iyasu and Empress Zewditu.
Chronicles incorporate both legends and facts-past
and contemporary about the monarch’s genealogy,
upbringing military exploits, piety, and
statesmanship.
They are known for their factual detail and strong
chronological framework (require considerable
labor to convert their relative chronology to an
absolute one,
Chronicles explain historical events mainly in
religious terms; and offer little by way of social
and economic developments
However, in conjunction with other varieties of
written documents, such as hagiographies and
travel accounts by foreign observers, chronicles
provide us a glimpse into:
The character and lives of kings,
Their preoccupations, and relations with
subordinate officials and
The evolution of the Ethiopian state and
society (inadequately)
Written accounts of Arabic-speaking visitors to
the coast
Provide useful information on various aspects of the
region’s history
Al-Masudi and Ibn Battuta described the culture,
language, and import-export trade in the main central
region of the east African coast in the tenth and in the
fourteenth centuries respectively.
There are two documents composed by Yemeni
writers for the 16th and 17th c:
1. Futuh al Habesha
2. Un known
1. Futuh al-Habesha (The Conquest of Abyssinia)
An eye witness accounts in 16th century
It was composed by Shihab al-Din, recorded
the conflict between the Christian kingdom
and the Muslim principalities in the 16th c.
Besides the operation of the war including the
conquest of northern and central Ethiopia by
Imam Ahmed ibn Ibrahim al-Ghazi, the
document describes major towns and their
inhabitants in the southeastern part of
Ethiopia.
Its discussion shortly/abruptly ended in 1535.
2. Un known
 Produced by Al-Haymi
 An eye witness accounts in 17 th c
 led a Yemeni delegation in 1647 to the court of Fasiledes (r. 1632-
67)
 Aba Bahrey’s Geez script on the History of the Oromo
 It was written in the 1593.
 This document provides us firsthand information about the Oromo
population movement including the Gadaa System in the stated
period.
 European Missionaries and travelers they had a significant contribution
to the development of Ethiopian historiography.
 From the early 16th until the late 19th centuries, missionaries
(Catholics and Protestants) came to the country with the intention of
staying, but they maintained intimate links with Europe.
 Missionaries’ sources provide us with valuable information covering
 Some missionary sources covered religious and political
developments within Ethiopia, and the country’s foreign
relations.
 The Prester John of the Indies-composed by a Portuguese
priest, F. Alvarez
 One example of travel documents is James Bruce’s Travels to
Discover the Source of the Nile.
 Both the missionaries and travelers’ materials can only be used with
considerable reservations and with care for they are socially and
politically biased.
 Foreign writers: A German, Hiob Ludolf (l.1624-1704), were the
founder of Ethiopian studies in Europe in the seventeenth
century. He wrote Historia Aethiopica (A New History of
Ethiopia).
 Ludolf never visited Ethiopia; he wrote the country’s history largely
based on information he collected from an Ethiopian priest named
Abba Gorgorios (Aba Gregory) who was in Europe at that time.
 August Dillman published two studies on ancient
Ethiopian history in the 19th c, which demonstrated all
marks of objectivity.
 Historical writing made some departures from the
chronicle tradition in the early 20th c. traditional
Ethiopian writer were emerged and
 Traditional Ethiopian writers
They made conscious efforts to distance themselves
from chroniclers whom they criticized for adulatory
tone when writing about monarchs.
They discussed a range of topics from social justice,
administrative reform, and economic analysis to
history
 The earliest group of these writers includes:
Aleqa Taye Gebre-Mariam
 Yeityopia Hizb Tarik (The History of Ethiopian
People)
Aleqa Asme Giorgis
 Ye Oromo Tarik (The History of the Oromo)
Onesmus Nasib
 (Aba Gemechis translated the Bible into his native
tongue, Afan Oromo)
Debtera Fisseha-Giorgis Abyezgi-the history of
Ethiopia
Negadrases Afework Gebre-Iyesus: he wrote the first
Amharic novel, Tobiya
 Gebre-Hiwot Baykedagn
Atse Menilekna Ityopia (Emperor Menilek and
Ethiopia) and Mengistna Yehizb Astedader
(Government and Public Administration)
 Blatten Geta Hiruy Wolde-Selassie
The most prolific writer of the early 20th c Ethiopia
He published four major works namely Ethiopiana
ena Metema (Ethiopia and Metema), Wazema (Eve),
Yehiwot Tarik (A Biographical Dictionary), and
Yeityopia Tarik (The History of Ethiopia).
Gebre-Hiwot and Hiruy exhibited relative
objectivity and methodological sophistication.
Italian occupation- interrupted the early experiment
in modern history writing and publications.
Tekle-Tsadik Mekuria
 He formed a bridge between writers in pre-1935 and
Ethiopia professional historians who came after him.
 He has published some eight historical works
 He made a better evaluation of his sources than his
predecessors.
Yilma Deressa
 A History of Ethiopia in the 16th c
 His book addresses the Oromo population
movement and the wars between the Christian
Kingdom and the Muslim principalities as its main
subjects.
Blatten Geta Mahteme Selassie Wolde-Meskel
He wrote Zikre Neger (Things Remembered)
It is a comprehensive account of Ethiopia’s
prewar land tenure systems and taxation.
His work fails to capture localized
circumstances, responses, and conflicts and
silent on the actual impacts of government
legislation on regulating access to resource
control.
Gebre-Wold Engidawork- land tenure
Dejazmach Kebede Tesema- Yetarik
Mastawesha in 1962 E.C.
 The 1960s was a crucial decade in the development of
Ethiopian historiography for it was in this period that
history emerged as an academic discipline.
 The pursuit of historical studies as a full-time occupation
began with the opening of the Department of History at the
then Haile Selassie I University (HSIU) in 1963.
 The Institute of Ethiopian Studies (IES) is the other
institutional home of professional historiography in
Ethiopia.
 The IES library contains literary works of diverse
disciplines and has its fair share in the evolution and
development of professional historiography in Ethiopia.
 The professionalization of history in other
parts of the Horn is a post-colonial
phenomenon.
 With the establishment of independent nations,
a deeper interest in exploring their own past
quickly emerged among African populations,
 The decolonization of African historiography
required new methodological approach (tools
of investigation) to the study of the past that
involved a critical use of oral data and tapping
the percepts of supplementary disciplines like
archeology, anthropology and linguistics.
 Foundational research was done at the School of
Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) in
London and the Department of History at the
University of Wisconsin-Madison.
 Francophone scholars have been as influential as
Anglophones.
 Yet African historiography has not been the sole
creation of interested Europeans.
 African universities have, despite the instabilities
of politics and civil war in many areas, trained
their own scholars and sent many others overseas
for training who eventually published numerous
works on different aspects of the region’s history.
The End!