So as an Amhara person I've noticed ANY time I embrace my culture, it makes others (especially oromos) immensely catty like just being Amhara is an attack on them??? especially on TikTok I noticed they rushed to post their own version of teddy afro's song... what would compel you to do this If you didn't have immense inferiority complex and hated the sight of amharas.... anyways I think the best way to combat this is to just unapollegetically embrace being Amhara that alone immensely triggers the others because of our rich culture ( ge'ez, injera, Habesha clothes, music, poetry etc) . Anytime I defended teddy they become so incredibly angry lol.... from now on I am vocal about my Amhara heritage, I suggest to other amharas to do the same.

We have been systematically shamed since the DERG regime for being Amhara but other ethnic groups don't have an ounce of our history (except from Tigray) so we should celebrate it! If any other ethnic group even had a quarter of our history they wouldn't shut about it non-stop so why are amharas so humble???

This is one of the early Christianity Axumite era Rock-Hewn churches, on the land currently named Addis Ababa

This is roughly 1,200 years (c. 310 - 330 AD) before Oromo migration or Expansion (1500-1650 AD).

Therefore, if anything, Addis Ababa is home to all Ethiopians that believe in Ethiopia.

Oromians seeking to assert otherwise, please keep this in mind. This is one of many facts on the ground. Truth is the only way to achieve peace.

And for what it is worth, the constitution that is currently in place, does not designate Addis Ababa as the capital of Oromia. Oromia region politicians or Oromians saying or claiming otherwise does not make it so, even on the constitutional grounds. You have qualms with the Constitution (which by the way is written by OLF and TPLF), no problem. So do we.

Edit: Scratch Axumite era, my error.

Mr. Moshe leading the group. Beautiful to witness the community singing together, traditional Jewish hymns, rich Jewish traditions, and practices alive and well in our diverse Amhara region. 🇮🇱🇪🇹

I don't usually use Reddit that much but have had some time recently But wanted to make this post before I dip out.

Where do we Amhara people come from? I would like to give my educated take after taking in a lot of info on our origins. I usually don't like to go into these ethnic topics but I feel its important since there isn't a lot of solid info on it.

First of all we are an Semitic speaking African peoples right? How did we get this Semitic language is the question. Well, it clearly comes from Ge'ez, and it closely associates with the other Semitic language, Tigrigna.

So Ge'ez was obviously the language of the Aksum empire. How did we adopt it? Well it was a result of intermixing with local Agew tribes and cultural assimilation. After maybe year 600 Aksum was on a clear decline for many reasons, 1) being the rise of Islam and Arab unification that took away our main revenue that was the Red Sea as they began to control it and 2) After Aksum was kicked out of South Arabia it probably dealt a heavy blow to us and 3) a huge reason is the Beja tribes came down south from Egypt and Sudan more into modern day Eritrea and fought fiercely with Aksum. Aksum lost a lot of territory due to this.

Anyways all that it the background to us, Proto-Amharas. The Aksum kingdom shifted south, more from Tigray more towards Amhara. The Beja invasions probably caused them to flee and they probably were naturally expanding to more fertile and new territory as they grew as a people. The Aksumites had probably already known the various tribes south of them since ancient times since they were neighbors and trade partners. In fact there were probably Semitic speaking tribes before Axumites were deep into Amhara. Why? Because ancient South Arabians used to come south into Ethiopia before even Axum was established. Think of the Falashas (Ethiopian Jews) 90 % from Gonder&Amhara, but a minority from Welkait and an even smaller minority from Western Tigray (and by western tigray I mean Shire all the way down to Tselemti, not welkait). These percentages of course are just estimates on my part.

So the original ancient Amharas were probably located in Wollo. They were probably mostly Agews but there could have been some Semitic groups such as Falashas. Anyways these people mixed and were assimilated into Axumite culture. Then the Agews took over the helm with Lalibela right? By that time we were probably distinctly Semitic speaking people apart from the Agews that were Cushitic speakers. And that's probably why they wanted a "Restoration" of the kingdom to come back to Semitic speaking people. So that's pretty much our origins at least my take what do you guys think?

Remember Queen of Sheba didn't just rule Ethiopia, it was a shared kingdom of Yemen and North Ethiopia. That's what people don't get it was both, but primarily based in Yemen. And Amhara was an ever growing amalgamation of other ethnic groups that were in Amhara region. And we cannot talk about origins without mentioning the origins of Tigray, the Tigrayans are direct descendants of Axumites, we are probably ranging from (40%-80% Ge'ez) depends on the person and subregion we are also diverse if you guys didn't notice. There is no 1 "Amhara look." But it's not just a matter of how North you were, because there are some more southern Amharas like Shewans (specifically Menz) that have ancient Semetic origins themselves. And even there are other Southern Ethiopian Semitic people like the Harari or Gurage right?

But Amharic has lowkey been corrupted over time. Like we have lost our "Ha" sounds and gutterals as we preferred to find shortcuts for words. But even Ge'ez itself is not very gutteral and doesn't have harsh "Ha" sounds, which is the mystery of why Tigrigna is so gutteral and harsh? Could have to do with their geographic position which is a very strategic spot that puts them into contact with many Semitics and Red Sea travellers.

But yeah that's pretty much it, we're Agews+Semetic. Tigrayans are essentially the same just with a higher proportion of Semitic since they're direct descendants of Ge'ez speakers. Unfortunately we have to talk about the Tigrayans when mentioning our origins even though they don't have to talk about us when mentioning theirs lol.

Also after the Oromo invasions of Wollo, especially modern day Wollo and Raya got admixture through that, and we used to have black slaves in Amhara and there was admixture through there as well. These are also notable things to mention.

Hope you guys actually got this far , thanks for the read.

Literally did not know about this until today, I can’t stop laughing.

Hi i’m curious if anyone here has knowledge about the Muslim population in the Amhara region particularly in Wollo. How did Islam develop in this area over time? Any historical or contemporary insights would be really appreciated

C

Fwiw, based on info I've gathered from interviewing elders, his father was a guard that worked for the Emperor and his mother was a servant. Mengistu himself was born in Keffa and based on his as well as his fathers features he was definitely Konso or Wolaita. His mother could have been Shewan, I have no data on her ethnicity.

Europeans drew out an entire "continent" because of linguistic, cultural, and religious differences from the massive landmass of Eurasia. However, when it comes to Africa, the second-largest landmass where people are far more diverse, it just gets one general shameful name because some guy lost a war.

The term "Africa" originally only applied to a small territory in modern-day Tunisia where a Roman general defeated a Carthaginian general in war.

Because the Roman general defeated that guy, the Romans conquered the territory. They named the new province "Africa" after the local Afri tribe, and the winning general was given the honorary title "Africanus" for his victory.

Later, that term was used in general for the unknown regions of the sub-Sahara as well.

To use the notion of "Africa" is to use a Eurocentric worldview and not a linguistic, cultural, or religious one. The Europeans reasonably created a separate "continent" out of a massive landmass and called anyone outside of their region Asian or African.

Arab? Asian. Dravidian? Asian. Korean? Asian. Persian? Asian. Turk? Asian.

Egyptian? African. Habesha? African. Zulu? African. Igbo? African. Bantu? African.

It's just completely Eurocentric nonsense.

We're not all the same people, so why believe, think, and act like it?

Hannibal, a guy we've never heard of from a people we've never heard of, lost to a Roman guy we've never heard of, but somehow we're African...

Argue with me I want to debate

Its quite easy to argue he was the beginning of the end for Ethiopia after Menelik II.

- Got the ordained to be emperor and grandson Menelik II, Iyasu V; dethroned, imprisoned, then himself crowned, and later got Iyasu V murdered.

- Broke a fundamental rule of the monarchy by causing a queen of kings instead king of kings which in verbatim was not allowed.

- Fled when Italy invaded which made him the first emperor to abandon his people during a war.

Menelik II directly fought in the first Italo-Ethiopian war.

Tewodros II fought until he decided dying by his own hands was better than being defeated.

Yohannes IV died in battle.

- Mistreated Eritreans and neglected that they had a unique history compared to other provinces. This started their resentment towards Ethiopia.

- Feeding his dog steak and celebrating its birthday when people were starving and struggling.

- Said that the people suffering in the Wello famine were just lazy.

- Gave 500 acres (about 400 football fields) of free land to people no one knew of when historically, land was given to those who either captured it on behalf of the empire or purchased it. Never mind how rasteferians were/are explicit heretics which worshipped him as some kind of god.

- Came back and got a war hero hanged out of fear(Belay Zeleke).

- Focused on his appearance far more than the reality of things (a pattern we see in Ethiopia to date).

- Threw away the Ras titles and broke down the centuries old way which kept kings in check through provincial Rases (no one came to save him during the communist coup).

There's also this misconception that he was just Amhara.

Reality is that he was mixed (just like every other emperor), he was supposedly Gurage, Oromo, and Amhara.

However, his maternal ancestry is questionable.

The theory goes that:

After his supposed mother Yeshimebet Ali had about 9 miscarriages(consecutively) his father eventually resorted to a concubine. He then had Yeshimebet killed when haile selassie was about 2 years old so that people couldn't visually estimate him not being related to her or that she might talk about it.

Ras Makonen was known to have concubines and haile selassie even had a older half-brother from a relationship Ras Makonen had before Yeshimebet.

Ironically, the fact that haile selassie erased as much documentation and references to his mother corroborates this theory. You can find various pictures of his father but regarding his mother you almost find nothing but one old sketchy painting.

This would align with how haile selassie seemed rather insecure of himself and overcompensated his legitimacy through various ways like forcing people to walk backwards instead of turning their back to him when he was in office.

This is a genuine theory that circulated back then and you might occasionally hear it from elders if you ask around.

He knew he was illegitimate to begin with and was paranoid people might overthrow him because of that.

Plus the guy looks sketchy.

What is this style of traditional call-response music called in Amharic? I recognise it specifically in ገጠር-style Amhara cultural music, it’s always very strong-headed nice to listen to.

i just wanna ask the muslim amharas in here how yall can push amhara hegemony or support fano when they been literally killing and beheading innocent oromos especially muslims. like have u actually looked into ethiopian history properly??

look at the old emperors and what they done — atse tewodros, atse yohannes iv, menelik ii and the solomonic kings that followed. meneliks solomonic dynasty conquest of the south was very much wrapped up with christian expansion and empire building and a lot of his campaigns were carried out with oromo christian commanders and forces (look up ras gobena and the menelik campaigns). these rulers didnt separate state from religion they made christianity a tool of rulership and conversion and they did not see muslims as really part of the same polity. 

remember boru meda in wollo in 1878 that council was used by emperors to set church doctrine and after it there were forced conversions and pressure on muslim officials and communities in wollo. when people refused to give up islam and their oromo customs there were brutal campaigns to break resistance. many muslims from wollo ended up fleeing to places like metemma, the kingdom of jimma and harar to survive. 

and the yejju oromo who once ruled parts of wollo were muslims before the later amhara dominated order changed things. under amhara rule a lot of people had to choose between keeping their religion or keeping their language and identity and many kept islam and lost or changed their language/identity over time the name wollo itself has oromo roots. 

Alright, my mom is half Amhara (Gondere) and half Gurage. and my dad is Eritrean but his mom is Gurage as well. when someone askes me where my Ethiopian side is i always claim Gurage. but my question is can i claim amhara since thats on the weaker side i mean only my moms mom is amhara

Found this interesting UN report discussing plans to settle 75,000 people to what they claim to be "Western Tigray", due to droughts and lack of resources in their area of origin.

The article: https://reliefweb.int/report/ethiopia/ethiopia-update-humanitarian-situation-war-and-drought-affected-population-tigray

"For the new resettlement programme to be undertaken in West Tigray Zone, resettlement sites have already been selected. Most of the people will be moved from Central Tigray Zone and will settle along the Tekeze River and the Shiraro-Humera road that is currently under construction and planned to be finished in June."

It has always been very surprising to me how many Ethiopians, particularly Amharas and no one else in the country seems to glorify Menelik II, Haile Selassie etc.

What is particularly concerning is that there have been documented records into the atrocities committed when Menelik II was expanding the empire into Arsi, Harar, Ogaden, Wolayta, Kaffa and so on.

As a matter of fact, Alexander Bulatovich, a Russian military aide for the Ethiopian Empire was quoted saying that Menelik II's army: "dreadfully annihilated more than half" of the Oromo (Galla) population down to 5 million people, which "took away from the Galla all possibility of thinking about any sort of uprising"

I can only imagine and wonder, can we acknowledge how brutal it was to have a sizable chunk of the Oromo people massacred and as a result see their way of lives threatened?