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Oral Traditions as Historical Sources in Ethiopia: The Case of the Beta Israel (Falasha)*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  13 May 2014

James Quirin*
Affiliation:
Fisk University

Extract

It is axiomatic that historians should use all available sources. African historiography has been on the cutting edge of methodological innovation for the last three decades, utilizing written sources, oral traditions, archeology, linguistics, ethnography, musicology, botany, and other techniques to bring respect and maturity to the field.

But the use of such a diverse methodology has brought controversy as well, particularly regarding oral traditions. Substantial criticisms have been raised concerning the problems of chronology and limited time depth, variations in different versions of the same events, and the problem of feedback between oral and written sources. A “structuralist” critique deriving from Claude Levi-Strauss's study of Amerindian mythology has provided a useful corrective to an overly-literal acceptance of oral traditions, but often went too far in throwing out the historical baby with the mythological bathwater, leading some historians to reject totally the use of oral data. A more balanced view has shown that a modified structural approach can be a useful tool in historical analysis. In Ethiopian historiography some preliminary speculations were made along structuralist lines,5 although in another sense such an approach was always implicit since the analysis of Ethiopie written hagiographies and royal chronicles required an awareness of the mythological or folk elements they contain.

Two more difficult problems to overcome have been the Ethiopie written documents' centrist and elitist focus on the royal monarchy and Orthodox church. The old Western view that “history” required the existence of written documents and a state led to the paradigm of Ethiopia as an “outpost of Semitic civilization” and its historical and historiographical separation from the rest of Africa. The comparatively plentiful corpus of written documentation for Ethiopian history allowed such an approach, and the thousands of manuscripts made available to scholars on microfilm in the last fifteen years have demonstrated the wealth still to be found in written sources. However, such sources, although a starting point for research on Ethiopian history, no longer seem adequate in themselves because they focus primarily on political-military and religious events concerning the monarchy and church.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © African Studies Association 1993

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Footnotes

*

Earlier, shorter versions of this paper were presented in the Fisk Faculty Lecture Series, Fisk University, 25 February 1985, and at the Tennessee Conference of Historians, Vanderbilt University, 22 March 1986. It is based on research, including field work in Ethiopia in 1975/76, that contributed to my forthcoming study, The Evolution of the Ethiopian Jews: A History of the Beta Israel (Falasha) to 1920 (Philadelphia, 1992). On terminology, see below and chapter 1. Grants from several organizations have supported aspects of this research over the years, including the Social Science Research Council, American Council of Learned Societies, National Endowment for the Humanities, United Negro College Fund, and Fisk University.

References

Notes

1. Recent mature statements include: Miller, Joseph C., “Introduction: Listening for the African Past” in Miller, Joseph C., ed., The African Past Speaks (Hamden, 1980), 159Google Scholar; Vansina, Jan, Oral Tradition as History (Madison, 1985)Google Scholar; special issue of Ethnohistory: Steinhart, Edward, “Introduction,” Ethnohistory 36(1989): 18Google Scholar, and Cohen, David William, “The Undefining of Oral Tradition,” Ethnohistory 36(1989): 918.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

2. Early criticism was raised by Henige, David, The Chronology of Oral Tradition (Oxford, 1974)Google Scholar; idem., “The Problem of Feedback in Oral Traditions: Four Examples from the Fante Coasflands,” JAH 14(1973): 223-35.

3. Levi-Strauss, Claude, Structural Anthropology (Garden City, 1967)Google Scholar; Leach, Edmund, ed., The Structural Study of Myth and Totemism (London, 1967)Google Scholar; idem., Claude Levi-Strauss (New York, 1970); Beidelman, T.O., “Myth, Legend and Oral History: A Kaguru Traditional Text,” Anthropos 65(1970): 7497Google Scholar; de Heusch, Luc, The Drunken King or the Origin of the State, trans. Willis, Roy (Bloomington, 1982)Google Scholar; idem., “What Shall We Do with the Drunken King?” Africa 45(1975): 363-72; Wrigley, Christopher C., “Myths of the Savanna,” JAH 15(1974): 131–35CrossRefGoogle Scholar; idem., “The River-God and the Historians: Myth in the shire Valley and Elsewhere,” JAH 29(1988): 367-83; Clarence-Smith, W.G., Slaves, Peasants and Capitalists in Southern Angola, 1840-1926 (Cambridge, 1979), viiiGoogle Scholar; idem., “For Braudel: A Note on the ‘Ecole des Annales’ and the Historiography of Africa,” HA 4(1977): 275-81.

4. Vansina, Jan, “Comment: Traditions of Genesis,” JAH 15(1974): 317–22CrossRefGoogle Scholar; idem., “Is Elegance Proof? Structuralism in African History,” HA 10(1983): 307-48; Reefe, Thomas Q., “Traditions of Genesis and the Luba Diaspora,” HA 4(1977): 183205Google Scholar; Schoffeleers, Matthew, “Myth and/or History: A Reply to Cliristopher Wrigley,” JAH 29(1988): 353–90CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Willis, Roy G., A State in the Making (Bloomington, 1981)Google Scholar; idem., “After the Drunken King: Structure and History in Central African Myth,” paper presented to the African Studies Association meeting, Bloomington, Indiana, 21-24 October 1981; Spear, Thomas, “Oral Traditions: Whose History?HA 8(1981): 165–81Google Scholar; Scheeler, Robert E., “A Propos the Drunken King: Cosmology and History” in Miller, , African Past Speaks, 108–25.Google Scholar

5. Spencer, Meredith, “Structural Analysis and the Queen of Sheba” in Hess, Robert L., ed., Proceedings of the Fifth International Conference on Ethiopian Studies, Session B, Chicago, 1978 (Chicago, 1979), 343–58.Google Scholar

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7. On various paradigms see Levine, Donald, Greater Ethiopia: The Evolution of a Multiethnic Society (Chicago, 1974), 1525Google Scholar, although he also builds his own distortions. See the critique by Fleming, Harold, “Sociology, Ethnology, and History in Ethiopia,” IJAHS 9(1976): 248–78.Google Scholar See also Ibrahim, Abdullahi Ali, “Sudanese Historiography and Oral Tradition,” HA 12(1985): 117–30.Google Scholar

8. European archives have provided a wealth of manuscripts for editing and translating by the leading Ethiopianists of the past such as Carlo Conti Rossini, Ignazio Guidi, René Basset, Enrico Cerulli, F.M. Esteves Pereira, and August Dillmann. That Ethiopie manuscripts are still an unexhausted source is evident from the more than 7000 manuscripts that have been microfilmed and deposited in Addis Ababa and Collegeville, Minnesota. See the Macomber, William and Haile, Getatchew, A Catalogue of Ethiopian Manuscripts Microfilmed for the Ethiopian Manuscript Microfilm Library, Addis Ababa and for the Hill Monastic Manuscript Library, Collegeville (9 vols.: Collegeville, Minnesota, 1975 to date).Google Scholar

9. Braukämper, Ulrich, Geschichte der Hadiya Sud-Athiopiens (Wiesbaden, 1980)Google Scholar; idem., “The Correlation of Oral Traditions and Historical Records in Southern Ethiopia: A Case Study of the Hadiya/Sidamo Past,” Journal of Ethiopian Studies 11/2 (1973): 29-50; Triulzi, Alessandro, Salt, Gold and Legitimacy: Prelude to the History of a No-Man's Land, Bela Shangul, Wallagga, Ethiopia (Naples, 1981)Google Scholar; McCann, James, From Poverty to Famine in Northeast Ethiopia: A Rural History, 1900-1935 (Philadelpliia, 1987)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Quirin, James, “The Process of Caste Formation in Ethiopia: A Study of the Beta Israel (Felasha), 1270-1868,” IJAHS 12(1979): 235–58Google Scholar; idem.; Donald Donham and Wendy James, eds., The Southern Marches of Imperial Ethiopia (Cambridge, 1986); Tamrat, Taddesse, “Processes of Ethnic Interaction and Integration in Ethiopian History: the Case of the Agaw,” JAH 29(1988): 518CrossRefGoogle Scholar; idem., “Ethnic Interaction and Integration in Ethiopian History: the Case of the Gafat,” Journal of Ethiopian Studies 21(1988): 121-54.

10. For a recent survey of the research see: Crummey, Donald, “Society, State and Nationality in the Recent Historiography of Ethiopia,” JAH 31(1990): 103–19.CrossRefGoogle Scholar For earlier surveys see Merid Wolde Aregay, “Research Developments in Ethiopian History: The Last Decade,” paper presented to the Seventh International Conference of Ethiopian Studies, Lund, Sweden, 26-29 April 1982. For comparable developments in anthropology see Shack, William A., “Social Science Research in Ethiopia: Retrospect and Prospect” in Rubenson, Sven, ed., Proceedings of the Seventh International Conference of Ethiopian Studies, University of Lund, Sweden, April 26-29, 1982 (Addis Ababa/Uppsala/East Lansing, 1984), 411–27.Google Scholar

11. Berry, LaVerle, “The Solomonic Monarchy at Gonder, 1630- 1755: An Institutional Analysis of Kingship in the Christian Kingdom of Ethiopia” (Ph.D., Boston University, 1976), xxxvxl.Google ScholarMarcus, Harold used oral reminiscences: “The Organization of Menilek H's Palace and Imperial Hospitality (after 1896),” Rural Africana 11 (1970): 5769Google Scholar; idem., The Life and Times of Menelik II: Ethiopia, 1844-1913 (London, 1975), Appendix.

12. They may be consulted in the Institute of Ethiopian Studies, Addis Ababa. See: Gassasa, Kabbada, Theses on Ethiopia by Ethiopians or Others Accepted by for B.A. or B. Sc. Degree by the Haile Selassie I University (Addis Ababa, 1973).Google Scholar

13. Alaqa Tayye, Ya-Iteyopeya Hezb Tarik [Amharic] [History of the Peoples of Ethiopia] (Addis Ababa, n.d.) (trans, by Grover Hudson and Tekeste Negash [Uppsala, 1987]); and the works of Takle Sadiq Makruria.

14. Ludolphus, Job, A New History of Ethiopia (London, 1682)Google Scholar; Haberland, Eike, “Hiob Ludolf, Father of Ethiopian Studies in Europe” in Proceedings of the Third International Conference of Ethiopian Studies, Addis Ababa, 1966 (3 vols.: Addis Ababa, 1969), 1:131–36.Google Scholar

15. Tamrat, , Church and State, 4.Google Scholar The late Richard Caulk pioneered the use of local written sources that often used information from oral sources in his many well-researched articles, as for example: Armies as Predators: Soldiers and Peasants in Ethiopia, c. 1850-1935,” IJAHS 11(1978): 457–93.Google Scholar

16. Crummey, Donald, “Gondarine rim Land Sales: An Introductory Description and Analysis” in Hess, , Proceedings of the Fifth International Conference 1978, 469–79Google Scholar; idem., “State and Society: 19th Century Ethiopia” in Donald Crummey and C.C. Stewart, eds., Modes of Production in Africa: The Precolonial Era (Beverly Hills, 1981), 227-49; idem., “Women and Landed Property in Gondarine Ethiopia,” IJAHS 14(1981): 444-65; idem., “Family and Property Amongst the Amhara Nobility,” JAH 24(1983): 207-20; Donald Crummey and Shumet Sishagne, “Land Tenure and the social Accumulation of Wealth in Eighteenth Century Ethiopia: Evidence from the Qwesquam Land Register,” presented to Symposium on Land in African Agrarian Systems, Urbana, April, 1988.

17. Quirin, James, “A Preliminary Analysis of New Archival Sources on Daily Life in Historical Highland Ethiopia,” in Rubenson, , Proceedings of the Seventh International Conference, 393410.Google Scholar

18. Leslau, Wolf, ed., “A Falasha Religious DisputeProceedings of the American Academy for Jewish Research 16(1947): 7195.CrossRefGoogle Scholar Although Carlo Conti Rossini noted that Antoine d'Abbadie had stated a written life of the most famous Beta Israel saint may exist, no such work has been found: Rossini, Conti, “Appunti di storia e letteratura Falascia,” Rivista degli Studi Orientait 7(1920): 579Google Scholar; d'Abbadie, “Journal et mélanges,” unpublished journal in the Bibliothèque Nationale, France Nouvelles Acquisitions, 213000, and on microfilm at the Institute of Ethiopian Studies, Addis Ababa, pp. 464, 473.

19. Quirin, , The Evolution of the Ethiopian Jews, 727.Google Scholar

20. EMML 7334, ff. 28a-28b. Apparently the same manuscript was cited by Taddesse Tamrat: “Tarika Negast,” paper MS, Dabra Sige in Church and State, 201. The word falasa was used in the Gadla Gabra Masih, a saint's life of the early sixteenth century: Kaplan, Steven, “The Falasha and the Stephanite: An Episode from Gadla Gabra Masih,” Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies 48(1985): 278–82.CrossRefGoogle Scholar The term appeared simultaneously in Arabic and Hebrew: Chihab Ed-Din Ahmed ben 'Abd el-Qader (Arab Faqih), Histoire de la conquête de l'Abyssinie (XVI siècle), ed., Basset, René (Paris, 18971901), 456–59Google Scholar; Abraham Levi (a sixteenth-century kabbalist) cited in, Neubauer, A., “Where are the Ten Tribes?Jewish Quarterly Review, 1(1889): 196–97.Google Scholar During the seventeenth century in the Gondar area the Agaw term kayla was added to the nomenclature and was used interchangeably with ayhud and falasha: Pereira, F.M. Esteves, ed., Chronica de Susneyos, Rei de Ethiopia (2 vols.: Lisbon, 18921900), 1 (text): 149-51, 154-56, 177, 189, 271, 278-80, 307.Google Scholar On kayla see also Guidi, Ignazio, ed., Annales Iohannis I, Iyasu I, Bakaffa. Corpus Scriptorum Christianorum Orientalium, ser. alt., Script. Aeth., 5 (1903): 8.Google Scholar The term beta esra'el was said by James Bruce to date back to the fourth century: Bruce, , Travels to Discover the Source of the Nile (2 vols.: Edinburgh, 1790), 1:485.Google Scholar

21. Quirin, James, “Ethnicity, Caste, Class, and State in Ethiopian History: The Case of the Beta Israel (Falasha)” in Young, Crawford, ed., The Rising Tide of Cultural Pluralism (Madison, 1993).Google Scholar On the concept of the “construction” of identities and traditions see Anderson, Benedict, Imagined Communities (London, 1983)Google Scholar; Bozzoli, Belinda, ed., Class, Community and Conflict: South African Perspectives (Johannesburg, 1987), 18Google Scholar; Ranger, Terence, “The Invention of Tradition in Colonial Africa” in Hobsbawm, Eric and Ranger, Terence, eds., The Invention of Tradition (Cambridge, 1983), 211–62Google Scholar; Vail, Leroy, ed., The Creation of Tribalism in Southern Africa (Berkeley, 1989).Google Scholar

22. EMML7334, ff. 28a-28b; Basset, René, ed., “Etudes sur l'histoire d'Ethiopie,” Journal asiatique, 7/17(1881): 325–26Google Scholar (text), 18(1881), 95 (translation).

23. Compare a case in which an increased amount of detail in oral traditions indicates a historical turning point as discussed by Ewald, Janet, “Experience and Speculation: History and Founding Stories in the Kingdom of Taqali, 1780-1935,” IJAHS 18(1985): 265–87.Google Scholar

24. Interview with Gete Asrass, 9 November 1975.

25. Interview with Berhan Beruk, 20 August 1975. “Gedewon” [Gideon] was such a common name for Beta Israel leaders that it may appear to have been a title rather than a personal name, except that there were leaders who were not named Gedewon, as seen especially in the chronicle of Sarsa Dengel. “Big Gedewon” seems to refer to the leader at the time of Yeshaq. I am currently preparing a more detailed analysis of the oral and written data concerning this war with Yeshaq.

26. Perruchon, J., ed., Les chroniques de Zar'a Ya'eqob et de Ba'eda Maryam (Paris, 1893).Google Scholar

27. The efforts of Zena Marqos among the ayhud of Shawa is contained in his hagiography: EMML 4741 and other manuscripts of which I am completing an edition with these passages. On Gabra Iyyasus see Rossini, C. Conti, “Note di agiografia etiopica (‘Abiya-Egzi, Arkaledes e Gabra Iyesus’),” Rivista degli Studi Orientait 17(1938): 439–52.Google Scholar The case of Qozmos is described in Wajnberg, I., “Das Leben des Hl. Jafqerana ‘Egzi’,” Orientalia Christiana Analecta 106(1936): 5059Google Scholar; Rossini, Carlo Conti, “Appunti di storia e letteratura Falascia,” Rivista degli Studi Orientait 7(1920): 567–77.Google Scholar An anonymous renegade is described by Haile, Getatchew, “The End of a Deserter of the Established Church of Ethiopia” in Goldenberg, Gideon, ed., Proceedings of the Sixth International Conference, Tel-Aviv, 1980 (Rotterdam, 1986), 193203.Google Scholar

28. Interviews with qes Yeshaq Iyyasu, 15 December 1975; with qes Yeheyyes Madhane and ato Yalaw Siyamer, 27 October 1975; and with qes Menase Zammaru, 13 Ocotber 1975.

29. Ibid. For the spelling of Sabra see my article cited in the following footnote.

30. For a translation of the texts of diese traditions see Quirin, James, “The Beta ‘Esra’el (Falasha) and ayhud in Fifteenth-century Ethiopia: Oral and Written Traditions,” Northeast African Studies 10(1988): 89104.Google Scholar

31. Leslau, Wolf, ed. “Taamrat Emmanuel's Notes of Falasha Monks and Holy Places” in Salo Wittmayer Barron Jubilee Volume, American Academy for Jewish Research (Jerusalem, 1975), 626-627, 630.Google Scholar

32. Antoine d'Abbadie, “Journal et mélanges,” 464, 473; idem., “Réponses des Falasha dits juifs d'Abyssinie aux questions faite par Luzzatto, M.,” Archives Israelites 12(1851): 180–81Google Scholar; idem., “Extrait d'une lettre de M. Antoine d'Abbadie sur les Falacha ou Juifs d'Abyssinie,” Bulletin de la société de géographie, 3/4(1845): 49.

33. Aescoly, A.Z., ed., Receuil de textes Falachas. Travaux et mémoires de l'institut d'Ethnologie, 55(Paris, 1951): 201Google Scholar; Halévy, J., “Nouvelles prières des Falachas,” Revue sémitique 19(1911): 99Google Scholar (text), 103 (text), 351 (translation), 356 (translation); idem., Te'ezaza Sanbat (Commandements du Sabbat) (Paris, 1902), 108 (text), 220 (trans.).

34. On literature see Ibid, and Wolf Leslau, Falasha Anthology (New Haven, 1952). On the liturgy and speculations on their origins see especially: Shelemay, Kay, Music, Ritual, and Falasha History (East Lansing, 1986)Google Scholar; idem., “A Comparative Study: Jewish Liturgical Forms in the Falasha Liturgy?” Yuval. Studies of the Jewish Music Research Centre 5(1986): 372-404; idem., “‘Historical Ethnomusicology’: Reconstructing Falasha Liturgical History,” Ethnomusicology 24(1980): 246-47. See also Krempel, Veronika, “Die soziale und wirtschaftliche Stellung der Falascha in der christlich-amharischen Gesellschaft von Nordwest-Athiopien” (PhD,, Free University of Berlin, 1972), 252–67Google Scholar; Taddesse Tamrat, “The Sheba Legend and the Falasha: Problems of Ethiopian Historiography,” lecture presented to African Studies Program, University of Illinois, 11 February 1986.

35. Wajnberg, “Leben,” 50-59; Conti Rossini, “Appunti,” 567-77.

36. Getatchew Haile, “End of a Deserter;” Quirin, “Beta ‘Esra’el”

37. Rossini, Conti, “Appunti,” 579.Google Scholar

38. A tradition may represent true historical processes, even if the specific events or individuals depicted cannot be otherwise verified: Packard, Randall, “The Study of Historical Process in African Traditions of Genesis: The Bashu Myth of Muhiyi,” in African Past Speaks, 167–74.Google Scholar

39. Pankhurst, Richard, “Notes for a History of Gondar,” Ethiopia Observer 12(1969): 177227Google Scholar; idem., History of Ethiopian Towns (Wiesbaden, 1982); Mellessa, Ghiorgis, “Gondar Yesterday and Today,” Ethiopia Observer 12(1969): 164–76Google Scholar; A recent study of the monuments is Anfray, Francis, “Les monuments Gondariens des XVIIe et XVIIIe siècles” in Beyene, Taddese, ed., Proceedings of the Eighth International Conference of Ethiopian Studies, Addis Ababa, 1984 (2 vols.: Addis Ababa, 1988), 1:945.Google Scholar See also my Evolution, chapter 3.

40. Rossini, Conti, “I Castelli di Gondar,” Bollettino della reale societa geografica Italiana 7/4 (1939): 165–68.Google Scholar

41. Interviews with Gete Asrass, 3 June 1975 and 9 November 1975; Berhan Beruk, 3 July 1975 and 14 August 1975; Menase Zammaru and Wande Iyyasu, 13 October 1975; Jammara Wande, 21 July 1975; Garima Taffara, 4 August 1975; and Mulunah Marsha, Tafari Neguse, and Qanu Ayyalew, 22 November 1975.

42. Interviews with Gete Asrass on 9 November 1975, Menase Zammaru and Wande Iyyasu on 13 October 1975.

43. Guidi, Ignazio, Annales Regum Iyasu II et Iyo'as. Corpus Scriptorum Christianorum Orientalium 66(1912): 98.Google Scholar

44. Rest rights are inherited land-use rights passed down within an ambilineal corporate structure: Hoben, Allan, Land Tenure among the Amhara of Ethiopia (Chicago, 1973).Google ScholarGult rights were granted to the local administration and entailed rights to collect tribute or exact labor from the resf-holders on the land, but were generally not inheritable. The answer may lie in a hybrid form known as rest-gult which seemed to involve the best of both worlds. In Begamder land of this type was said to have been granted to Beta Israel artisans during the reign of Menilek II, but probably the practice extended back to the Gondar era: Messing, Simon, “The Highland-Plateau Amhara of Ethiopia” (Ph.D., University of Pennsylvania, 1957), 248–52.Google Scholar Another possibility is that rim land granted to the Church was reallocated to those Beta Israel who helped construct or performed other services for the Church: Crummey, Donald, “Some Precursors of Addis Ababa: Towns in Christian Ethiopia in the Eighteendi and Nineteenth Centuries” in Zekaria, Ahmed, et al., eds., Proceedings of the International Symposium on the Centenary of Addis Ababa, 1986 (Addis Ababa, 1987), 24.Google Scholar

45. The principal missionary group was the London Society for Promoting Christianity Amongst the Jews. See the account in their publication: Flad, J.M., “Journal,” Jewish Records 28–29(1863): 1320.Google Scholar Another mission was Scottish; see Staiger, , “Journal,” The Home and Foreign Missionary Record of the Church of Scotland, n.s., 2 (1863): 8081.Google Scholar For the best brief analysis see Crummey, Donald, Priests and Politicians. Protestant and Catholic Missions in Orthodox Ethiopia, 1830-1868 (London, 1972), 130–31.Google Scholar

46. The unique Falasha written chronicle was based on oral traditions written down in the reign of Menilek II (1889-1913). It has been translated by Leslau, Wolf, “A Falasha Religious Dispute,” Proceedings of the American Academy for Jewish Research 16(1947): 7195.CrossRefGoogle Scholar For my description of this period see Quirin, , “The Process of Caste Formation in Ethiopia: A Study of the Beta Israel (Felasha), 1270-1868,” IJAHS 12(1979): 247–58.Google Scholar

47. Leslau, “Dispute,” 81. See also interviews with Berhan Beruk, 3 July 1975, and Ayyalegn Adgwachaw and Kebrate Samuel, 26 October 1975.

48. Interview with Menase Zammaru on 15 October 1975.

49. Ibid.; Leslau, “Dispute,” 81.

50. Flad, , “Journal,” 13Google Scholar; idem., “Twelve Years in Abyssinia,” Jewish Intelligence 9(1869): 244-45.

51. Interview with Gete Asrass, 11 June 1975.

52. Other versions of this tradition agree it had a positive ending for the Falasha: Interviews with Mammo Sagga Amlak, Ya'eqob Balay, and Mulu Mammo, 24 June 1975; Berhan Beruk, 3 July 1975; Ayyalegn Adgwachaw and Kebrate Samu'el, 26 October 1975; and Webe Akala, 27 December 1975.

53. Perruchon, Chronique

54. Conzelman, William E., Chronique de Galawdewos (Claudius), roi d'Ethiopie (Paris, 1895).Google Scholar See also the comments of McCann, James, “The Ethiopian Chronicles as Documentary Tradition: Description and Methodology” in Proceedings of the Fifth International Conference, 387–96Google Scholar; idem., “The Ethiopian Chronicles: An African Documentary Tradition,” Northeast African Studies, 1/2 (1979): 47-61.

55. Ahmed ben 'Abd el-Qader (Arab Faqih), Chihab Ed-Din, Histoire; de Castanhoso, Miguel, The Portuguese Expedition to Abyssinia, 1541-1543, trans, and ed. Whiteway, R.S. (London, 1902).Google Scholar

56. See the comments by Tamrat, Taddesse, Church and State, 14.Google Scholar

57. A useful, but by no means complete, list of hagiographies giving the various manuscripts known—and which sometimes contain important variations—is Zelleke, Kenefe-Rigb, “Bibliography of die Ethiopie Hagiographical Traditions,” Journal of Ethiopian Studies 13/2 (July 1975): 57102.Google Scholar

58. For example, the original Gadl of Zena Marqos, who lived in the fourteenth century was lost and was written down from memory more than two hundred years later by monks in the monastery he founded: Cerulli, Enrico, “Gli Atti di Zena Marqos, Monaco Ethiope del sec. XIV,” Studi e Testi 219(1962): 211–12.Google Scholar The two main versions of the life of Takla Haymanot, one of the great saints of thirteenth- and fourteenth-century Ethiopia, were written down only in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries: Huntingford, G.W.B., “The Lives of St. Takla Haymanot,” Journal of Ethiopian Studies, 4/2 (July 1966): 35.Google Scholar

59. See note 6 for references, especially to the work of Steven Kaplan.