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On September 11, Ethiopians ushered in a new year, with banquets in many homes, despite the hardships caused by rising prices and the war and food crisis in the north.
Here are 5 surprising things about Ethiopia’s unique calendar and cultural heritage.
1- The year lasts 13 months
Not only that, the Ethiopian calendar is also seven years and eight months behind the Western calendar, which made last Saturday the early 2014.
This is because the year of birth of Jesus Christ is calculated differently.
When the Catholic Church changed his calculation in AD 500., the Ethiopian Orthodox Church did not.
Thus, the new year falls on September 11 in the Western calendar, or September 12 in leap years, in early spring.
During the Irreecha celebrations of the Oromo community, flowers and fresh cut grass are placed in the water to thank God for the onset of spring.
Unlike children growing up elsewhere, young Ethiopians have little need to learn nursery rhymes to remember how many days there are each month.
In Ethiopia it’s simple: 12 months have 30 days each and the 13th, the last of the year, has five or six days, depending on whether it is a leap year.
Time is also counted differently: the day is divided into two 12-hour time slots starting at 6 a.m., which makes noon and midnight are six o’clock in Ethiopian time.
So if you run into someone in the capital, Addis Ababa, at 10 a.m. for a cup of coffee (Ethiopia is the birthplace of the arabica bean after all), don’t be surprised if it rings at 4 p.m.
2- It is the only African country that has never been colonized
Italy attempted to invade Ethiopia, or Abyssinia as it was also called, in 1895, when European powers split the African continent, but suffered a humiliating defeat.
The European country had succeeded in colonizing neighboring Eritrea after an Italian shipping company bought the port of Assab on the Red Sea.
The unrest that followed the 1889 death of Ethiopian Emperor Yohannes IV allowed Italy to occupy the highlands along the coast.
But a few years later, when the Italians attempted to penetrate further into Ethiopia, was defeated at the Battle of Adwa.
Every year, a parade is organized to commemorate the battle of Adwa: last March, the 125th anniversary was commemorated.
Four brigades of Italian troops were exceeded in a few hours on March 1, 1896 by Ethiopians serving under Emperor Menelik II.
Italy was forced to sign a treaty that recognized Ethiopia’s independence, although decades later fascist leader Benito Mussolini violated it and occupied the country for five years.
One of Menelik’s successors, Emperor Haile Selassie, took advantage of his victory against the Italians to promote the creation of the Organization of African Unity (OAU), now african union, based in Addis Ababa, the Ethiopian capital.
“Our freedom only makes sense if all Africans are free“said Selassie at the launch of the OAU in 1963, at a time when much of the continent was still ruled by European powers.
The three main colors of the Ethiopian flag represent Pan-Africanism and several post-colonial states have adopted them.
Selassie called on those leading the fight against colonialism to receive training, including Nelson Mandela from South Africa, who obtained an Ethiopian passport, which allowed him to travel across Africa in 1962.
Mandela would later write how special he felt when visiting Ethiopia: “I felt like I was visiting my own genesis, digging up the roots of what made me African.
3- Rastafarian worships Selassie like a god
This stems from a 1920 quote from the influential black rights leader in Jamaica, Marcus Garvey, who was behind the Back to Africa movement.
“Look at Africa when a black king is crowned, for the day of liberation is near“he claimed.
A decade later, when Ras Tafari (or Chief Tafari), 38, was crowned Haile Selassie I of Ethiopia, many in Jamaica saw this as prophecy fulfilled, and the Rastafarian movement was born.
Haile Selassie (left) denied he was immortal.
Reggae legend Bob Marley was instrumental in spreading the Rastafarian message, and the lyrics to his song “War”, quote the Emperor’s speech to the United Nations General Assembly in 1963, in which he called for world peace.
“Until the philosophy that one race is superior and another inferior is finally and definitely discredited and abandoned … to this day, the African continent will not know peace“, Dijo Sélassié.
Title song from Marley’s album “Exodus”, named by Time magazine as the best of the 20th century, reflects Rastafarian desire to return to Africa, the place millions were forced to leave during the slave trade. transatlantic slaves.
To this day, a small Rastafarian community lives in the Ethiopian town of Shashamene, 225 kilometers south of Addis Ababa, on land granted by Selassie to blacks in the West who had supported him against Mussolini.
Selassie, an Orthodox Christian, may not have been a Rastafarian believer, insisting he was not immortal, but Rastafarians still revere him as the lion of Judah.
This is a reference to the so-called Selassie lineage, which Rastafarians and many Ethiopians believe to be dates back to the biblical king Solomon.
The Ethiopian emperor was greeted by tens of thousands of Rastafarians during his trip to Jamaica in 1966.
4- It is the house of the Ark of the Covenant
For many Ethiopians, the sacred chest containing the two tablets with the ten commandments that, according to the Bible, God gave to Moses is not lost: Indiana Jones of Hollywood should have sought him in the city of Aksum.
The Ethiopian Orthodox Church says the ark is under constant surveillance on the grounds of Our Lady of Sion Church in Aksum, where no one can see it.
Tradition says that the church possesses this precious relic thanks to the Queen of Sheba, whose existence is questioned by historians, but not by Ethiopians.
They believe he traveled from Aksum to Jerusalem to visit King Solomon and learn more about his supposed wisdom, around 950 BC.
The story of your trip and the seduction of solomon they are detailed in the epic Kebra Nagast (Glory of the Kings), an Ethiopian literary work written in the Ge’ez language in the 14th century.
Tell how Makeda (the queen of Sheba), gave birth to a son, Menelik (meaning son of the wise man), and how, years later, he went to Jerusalem to meet his father.
Solomon wanted him to stay and reign after his death, but he accepted the young man’s wish to return home and sent him away with a contingent of Israelites, one of whom stole the ark and replaced the original with a fake. .
When Menelik found out, he decided to keep it, believing that it was God’s will that he remain in Ethiopia, and for Orthodox Christians across the country, it is still sacred and something they are always ready to protect with their lives.
This was evident last year when, during the conflict that erupted in Ethiopia’s northern Tigray region, Eritrean soldiers reportedly attempted to loot the Church of Our Lady of Mary in Sion after a horrific massacre.
A city official told the BBC that young people rushed to the site to protect the ark: “All the men and women fought them. They shot and killed some, but we are happy not to stop protecting our treasures. ”
5- He welcomed the first Muslims outside Arabia
“If you go to Abyssinia, you will find a king who will not tolerate injustice”, they say the prophet Muhammad he advised his followers when they were first persecuted in Mecca – now Saudi Arabia – in the 7th century.
One of the mausoleums of the historic al-Negashi mosque was damaged during the current conflict in Tigray.
This happened when the Prophet began giving sermons, which were so popular that the city’s non-Muslim rulers saw him as a threat.
Following his advice, a small group gone to the kingdom of Axum, which covered much of present-day Ethiopia and Eritrea, where they were indeed welcomed and where the Christian monarch Armah (whose title was pre-proclaimed “negashi” in Arabic) allowed them to practice their religion.
The village of Negash, in which now it’s the tiger, is where these migrants would have settled and built what some consider the oldest mosque in Africa.
Last year, the al-Negashi mosque was bombed during the fighting in Tigray.
Local Muslims believe that 15 followers of the Prophet are also buried in Negash.
In Islamic history, this move to Aksum became known as the the first Hegira or migration.
Today, Muslims make up almost 34% of Ethiopia’s over 115 million people.
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