Wolaitta Evangelists

A Study of Religious Innovation in Southern Ethiopia, 1937–1975

Balisky

• Publisher: Pickwick Publications
• Year: 2009
• eBook ISBN: 9781630879365
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Religion

This study presents the religious dynamics of the Wolaitta Kale Heywet Church in southern Ethiopia from 1937 to 1975. On the basis of detailed research from within southern Ethiopia, E. Paul Balisky demonstrates that the indigenous extension of the Wolaitta Christian movement into southern Ethiopia, through the instrumentality of her evangelists, helped Wolaitta regain her own religious center and subsequent identity after centuries of various forms of colonialism and imperialism.Wolaitta Evangelists broadens one's understanding of how an imported model of Christianity provided religious answers to the ideals of a particular Ethiopian society and continues to motivate her members to evangelize. The evangelists who went to people of similar culture and worldview were successful in effecting social change. To ethnic groups who had moved beyond their former primal religions, and to those of disparate culture, the evangelists were those who scattered the seed and impacted the religious, social, economic, and political life of southern Ethiopia. Wolaitta Evangelists tells the story of how missionary activity played a role in Wolaitta once again becoming a people.

1

Historical Background of Southern Ethiopia and the Emergence of the Wolaitta Kingdom

“The establishment of Christianity cannot be studied in isolation: it must be viewed in the whole context of events.”1

Introduction

This chapter will attempt to uncover the distant past of Wolaitta. In order to provide a historical background, first, there will be a brief account of the planting of Christianity in Aksum and the southward movement of Christianity to the present geographic position of Wolaitta. The rich hagiographical material describing the activities of Ethiopian Church evangelists of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries will be referred to. There are also the Ethiopian Royal Chronicles, which relate the story of the Solomonic kings and their military exploits in southern Ethiopia against the Muslim kingdoms that bordered on Wolaitta.

Second, there will be an exploration of the questions about northern Damot and southern Wolaitta that bear on this thesis. European historians, travelers, missionaries, and contemporary Ethiopian scholars have contributed useful written documents and maps that are helpful in the attempt to differentiate between the fourteenth century kingdom of Damot and the Wolaitta kingdom that began to structure itself in the middle of the seventeenth century.

Third, we will briefly survey the findings of several linguists with the intention of locating Wolaitta in a linguistic scheme for southern Ethiopia. And fourth, an outline sketching the rich oral tradition of the Wolaitta kings will enable us to gain an understanding of their historic past, mythology, and worldview. The chapter will conclude by identifying the many Wolaitta clans and their place of origin, the diversity of which may provide us with a further clue to understanding the Wolaitta past.

The Advance of Ethiopian Christianity into Southern Ethiopia

According to the report of Rufinus, Christianity was introduced into the northern city state of Aksum (spelled “Axon” on map 1.1) in the fourth century by two Syrian youths, Frumentius and Aedesius.2 It was through the evangelistic activities of the Syrian Church, specifically through the Nine Saints during the fifth and sixth centuries, that Christianity took root in the Aksumite kingdom.3 These Syrian evangelists made a significant contribution to Bible translation, to church government and forms of worship, and to the evangelistic expansion of the Aksumite church.4 One of the Nine Saints, Aregawi, preached in Debre Damo where a serpent was worshipped. Eventually a church was built on the site of the serpent shrine. As these sixth century evangelists moved into pagan territory, they encountered opposition, and some may have been martyred.5

In the tenth century the Christian kingdom of Abyssinia—roughly correlating to the present-day geographic area of Ethiopia—was besieged by a pagan queen from the South. An Arabic source records that shortly after 979 A.D. the king of Abyssinia wrote to the king of Nubia, George, asking for permission that his letter be sent on to the Coptic Patriarch Philotheos. The Abyssinian ruler was in dire straits because a queen of the Bani I-Hamuya was devastating his country, hunting him and his followers down like animals. The Christian population, including the clergy, were in danger of being wiped out.6

A contemporary Arabic writer of that time, Ibn Hawqal, also refers to a queen dominating sections of Abyssinia:

As regards Abyssinia, for many years it has had a woman as its ruler. It is she who killed the king of Abyssinia who was known under the title of hadani (Ethiopian hade), and she continues to this day to dominate her own country and the neighboring regions of the land of the hadani in the west of Abyssinia. It is a vast limitless country, rendered difficult of access by deserts and wastes.7

Taddesse Tamrat, following others, suggests that this pagan queen was probably of Damot (Sidama)8 origin.9 Taddesse continues the discussion of this above-mentioned queen elsewhere, stating:

The queen’s territories are specifically located “in the southern part of Habasha,” which fits in perfectly with the general pattern of development in the medieval history of Ethiopia.10

Francisco Alvarez, a Jesuit priest travelling through the northern (Amharic) kingdom of Shoa in the seventeenth century, recorded this rather fanciful account of a kingdom in the South once ruled and dominated by women.

They say that at the end of these kingdoms of Damute and Guorage, towards the south, is the kingdom of the Amazons. . . . They have not got a king, but have a Queen; she is not married, nor has she any particular husband, but still she does not stop having sons and daughters, and her daughter is the heir to her kingdom. They say they are [very strong] women of a very warlike disposition, and they fight on [very swift animals that resemble] cows, and are great archers, and when they are little they dry up the left breast in order not to hinder drawing the arrow. They also say that there is an infinite amount of gold in this kingdom of the Amazons, and that it comes from this country to the kingdom of Damute, and so it goes to many parts. They say that the husbands of these women are not warriors, and that their wives excuse them from it. They say that a big river has its source in the kingdom of Damute, opposite to the Nile, because each one goes to its own direction, the Nile to Egypt, and as for this other no one of the country knows where it ...

Table of contents

• Title Page
• Foreword
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction
• Abbreviations
• Orthography
• Chapter 1: Historical Background of Southern Ethiopia and the Emergence of the Wolaitta Kingdom
• Chapter 2: The Imperial Expansion of Menilek’s Army into Southern Ethiopia and the Effect on Wolaitta
• Chapter 3: Primal Religion of Southern Ethiopia
• Chapter 4: Catalysts for Religious Change in Wolaitta
• Chapter 5: The Evangelists’ Religious Community
• Chapter 6: The Wolaitta Evangelists’ Outreach to Gämo, Qucha, Gofa, and Kullo Konta (Dawro)
• Chapter 7: The Evangelists’ Outreach to Arsi, Sidama, Burji/Koyra, Aari, and Käfa
• Chapter 8: The Evangelists’ Outreach to Several Southern Ethiopia Urban Centers, the Maräqo and Janjäro Tribes, and to the Omo Nomadic People
• Conclusion
• Epilogue
• Appendix 1: Wolaitta Clans and Deities
• Appendix 2: Names of Wolaitta Evangelists, 1937–1975
• Appendix 3: Official Permission Letter for the Fellowship of Evangelical Believers’ Association
• Appendix 4: Wolaitta Mahibär Response to 1975 Land Reform Bill
• Appendix 5: Graph of Wolaitta Evangelists
• Glossary
• Bibliography