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Periodical article | Leiden University catalogue | WorldCat |
Title: | A great African nation: the Oromo in some European accounts |
Author: | Etefa, Tsega |
Year: | 2010 |
Periodical: | The journal of Oromo studies |
Volume: | 17 |
Issue: | 1 |
Pages: | 87-110 |
Language: | English |
Geographic term: | Northeast Africa |
Subjects: | Oromo travel 1800-1899 images ethnic relations |
Abstract: | European travellers, diplomats and missionaries who lived among the inhabitants of the Horn of Africa in the nineteenth century published diaries, journals and books which are useful source materials, particularly for studying developments among the Oromo at the time. They reported on such things as the extent of Oromo territory, the hospitality of the people, the sophistication of their political institutions, and monotheistic religion. Based on the oral traditions they collected, they suggested that the Oromo were one of the earliest inhabitants of the region. Some scholars suggested that as one of the Afro-Asiatic speaking peoples, the Oromo formed part of the ancient Egyptian civilization. In addition, the nineteenth-century European accounts show that, contrary to the views enunciated by some Ethiopianst writers, the Oromo were a peaceful people who welcomed and assimilated strangers and lived with others in peace, harmony, order and justice. Ref. [ASC Leiden abstract] |