This article has two purposes: 1) to provide a first historical outline of the Tishana or Me'en, a small 'tribal' group living in southwestern Ethiopia, and 2) to illustrate the importance of a... Show moreThis article has two purposes: 1) to provide a first historical outline of the Tishana or Me'en, a small 'tribal' group living in southwestern Ethiopia, and 2) to illustrate the importance of a political economy approach for the explanation of such a process. Inspiration has been derived from the historical anthropological approach of E. Wolf (1982), which postulates the interdependence of political economic factors on the one hand, and social dynamics and cultural factors on the other. The vast majority of Me'en speakers now live in highland areas west of the Omo. However, some of the people who currently speak Me'en were pastoralists who lived in the lowlands bordering the southwestern Ethiopian highlands. The problem explained here is how and why a portion of these Me'en pastoralists left the lowlands and how they successfully adapted to highland areas where cattle keeping was notoriously difficult and where the invading northerners tried to prevent them from settling. A further issue is how they were able to absorb other groups and individuals from different ethnic origins. The author argues that the very expansion of the Me'en out of the Omo Valley into the highlands - that is the reshaping of their social reproductive system in a new ecoeconomic niche - was fuelled by Me'en ideology itself, and that this ideology was activated by the confrontation of the Me'en with the expanding frontier of the Abyssinian State. Their cultural ideology, bound up with cattle, entered into the adaptation process of the Me'en groups in a period of crisis. Bibliogr., notes, ref Show less
This study is a contribution to the analysis of the interplay of myth, legend, history and identity of the Beta Esra'el or Falasha of Ethiopia from a historical-anthropological perspective. The... Show moreThis study is a contribution to the analysis of the interplay of myth, legend, history and identity of the Beta Esra'el or Falasha of Ethiopia from a historical-anthropological perspective. The focus is on the issue of their ethnogenesis, or origin history, and its mythical reflection in the ideological domain. All known variations or genres of the stories presented by the Beta Esra'el to a variety of travellers, researchers and other visitors are presented, in conjunction with the relevant historical knowledge available to date. The theoretical question guiding this effort is how one might arrive at some historically plausible conclusions on the basis of a critical reflection on mythical traditions. The starting point is that Beta Esra'el stories can only be seen in their proper perspective when related ideologically to the mythical tradition of the Amhara-Tigray, who were for a long time the two politically and culturally dominant groups in the region, especially during the time of the centralizing 'Solomonic' empire (c. 1270-1975). The kind of myths considered consist of a kind of 'sacred narratives', which the author calls 'mytho-legends'. The initial hypothesis is that the Amhara-Tigray mytho-legends and the Beta Esra'el mytho-legends on their own origin and religious tradition form part of one domain of discourse. Bibliogr., notes, ref., sum. in French (p. 539) Show less
Comprehensive overview of publications on Ethiopia published between c. 1957 up to 1990. The 5433 entries are arranged according to the following broad subject areas: Bibliographies - History of... Show moreComprehensive overview of publications on Ethiopia published between c. 1957 up to 1990. The 5433 entries are arranged according to the following broad subject areas: Bibliographies - History of Ethiopianist studies - Studies on manuscripts, documents, archives and library resources - Travellers and foreigners - History - Cultural geography and demography - Politics and law before 1974 - Politics, law and revolutionary development after 1974 - Peasantry and the rural sector before 1974 - Peasantry and the rural sector after 1974 - The urban sector - Modernization, communications, industry and economic development - Social structure and social change - Drought and famine; refugees and resettlement - International relations - Ethnoregional conflicts - Education - Health and health care - Ethnomedicine, traditional healing, disease history - Folklore, magic, oral traditions - Music - Material culture, architecture, arts and crafts - Christian and hagiographical literature - Religion and missions - Ethnography and ethnology. An author index is included Show less
