Location: Ethiopia is located in east-central Africa, bordered on the west by the Sudan, the east by Somalia and Djibouti, the south by Kenya and the northeast by Eritrea.
History: Archaeologists have found the oldest known human ancestors in Ethiopia, including Ardipithecus ramiidus and Australopithecus afarensis. Originally called Abyssinia, Ethiopia is sub-Saharan Africa’s oldest state, and its Solomonic dynasty claims descent from King Menelik I, traditionally believed to have been the son of the queen of Sheba and King Solomon. The current nation is a consolidation of smaller kingdoms that owed feudal allegiance to the Ethiopian emperor.
Ethnicity and Language: Most speakers of Ethio-Semitic languages live in the highlands of the center and north areas of the country. Their most important language is Amharic which was the empire’s official language and is still widely used in the government in the capital despite the Mengistu regime’s changes in language policy. The Tigray, whose language is Tigrinya, is the second largest category of Ethio-Semitic speakers. They made up about 14 percent of the population in 1970. The Tigray are chiefly Ethiopian Orthodox Christians, and most are plow agriculturists.
East Culshitic languages are in the higlands and lowlands of center and southern Ethiopia, and other Cushitic speakers are in the Center and North. The Oromo, called Galla by the Amhara, constitute the largest and most ubiquitous of the East Cushitic-speaking peoples. Oromo live in many regions as a result of expansion from their homeland in the central southern highlands beginning in the sixteenth century. The Oromo provide an example of the difficulties of specifying the boundaries and nature of an ethnic group. Some Oromo groups, such as the Borana, remain pastoralists. Others, however, great majority of the people, have become plow cultivators or are engaed in mixed farming. A few groups, particularly the pastoralists, retain significant features of the traditional mode of social and political organization marked by generation. Other groups, particularly those in Shewa and Welega, have been influenced by Orthodox Christianity, and still others have been converted to Islam.
Omotic speakers live in the South. Between the lakes of southern Ethiopia’s Great Rift Valley and the Omo River live many groups that speak the omotic family languages. The diversity of their languages, and other linguistic considerations suggest that the ancestors of the speakers of Omotic languages have been in place for many millennia. Omotic speakers have been influenced linguistically and otherwise by Nilo-Saharan groups to the west and by East Cushitic groups surrounding them. As a result of the early formation of ancestral Omotic-speakers, external influences, and the demands of varied physical and social environments, the Omotic speaking groups have developed not only linguistic diversity but also substantial differences in other respects.
Religious Life: John Markakis has remarked of Ethiopia that “the dominat element in this culture and its major distinguishing feature is the Christian religion.” Yet almost all of the analysis of Orthodox Christianity as practiced by Ethiopians has focused on the Amhara and Tigaray. The meaning of that religion for the Oromo and othersis not is clear.
Islam is a system of religious beliefs and an allencompassing way of life. It is incombent on the individual to live in a manner prescribed by the revealed law and incumbent on the community to build the perfect human society according to holy injunctions. Islam came to Ethiopia by way of the Arabian Peninsula, where in A.D. 610, Muhammad began to preach the first of a series of revelations. The duties of Muslims form the five pillars of Islam, which set forth the acts necessary to demonstrate and reinforce the faith. These are the recitation of the shahada (there is no god but God [Allah], and Muhammad is his prophet.), salat (daily prayer), zakat (almsgiving), sawm (fasting), and haff (pilgrimage). The beliver is to pray in a prescribed manner after purification through ritual ablutions each day at dawn, midday, midafternoon, sunset, and nightfall. Other tenets of the Muslim faith include the jihad (holy war), and the requirement to do good works and to avoid all evil thoughts, words, and deeds.
Among indigenous religious system, the names of certain deities and spirits recur frequently, especially among groups speaking related languages. Certain features of these traditional belief systems are broadly similar. For instance, the existence of a supreme god identified with the sky and relatively remote from the everyday concerns of the people and addressed through spirits.
References:
http://archaeology.about.com/library/atlas/blethiopia.htm?once=true&terms=ethiopia
http://lcweb2.loc.gov/frd/cs/ettoc.html
http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0107505.html
Written by, Isao Ishihara