DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.49272#0228
212
HARVARD AFRICAN STUDIES
I think then that first of all, we may safely accept the fundamental thesis of Biasutti
that hunting, the occupation of the Wdtta, signifies here a cultural stage characteristic of
primitive peoples. Therefore, it appears to me that among the Wdtta may be found many
elements of the hunting races, that is, the peoples inhabiting the Ethiopic plateau before
the Kushites. When the Kushites penetrated Ethiopia, they had already passed from the
hunting to the pastoral stage; even the most primitive of the Kushites, if we so designate
the Baria and the Kunama, were never hunters, according to what we can deduce from
their present ethnographic character.
What non-Kushitic races, then, are represented today by the Wdtta? The evidence of
Bushmen in Ethiopia seems to me very vague. And even if there are found in the most
southern regions of the plateau a few groups who seem possibly allied with the Bushmen,
what arguments are there to support the hypothesis that they are the last remnant of a
race driven out of Ethiopia toward South Africa, rather than the opposite hypothesis
that they are the most remote groups of the races of South Africa who advanced in the
earliest times towards the north and were stopped in the declivities of the plateau by ob-
stacles natural or human met in this region ?
Little more certain are the traces of Negrillo (pygmy) groups. The low stature of which
Cecchi writes concerning the Wdtta in Gibra is corroborated by the following sources: for
the Midgan of Somaliland, Luigi Robecchi Bricchetti, Somalia e Benadir, Milano, 1899,
p. 216; for the Walangulo, Wakefield in Paulitizsche, Ethnographic Nordost Afrikas, op.
cit., p. 32; for the Dume, Donaldson Smith, Through unknown African countries, Lon-
don, 1897, p. 272; for the Wapare, Paul Reinecke, ‘ Beschreibung einiger Rassenskelette
aus Afrika,’ (Archiv f. Anthrop., Braunschweig, 1898, p. 185-231).
The chief evidences of negro origin are clear: “ large and protruding lips ” noted in
the central and southern groups, “ flat noses ” in the southern group, “ darker color ” in
the central and southern groups; also, the custom of hanging a weight in the lobule of the
ear indicates a relationship to Hamitic groups with negroid admixture. Therefore, it is
clear that the formation of the Wdtta is not the same in all three groups, and that this for-
mation rose from historical causes, from different environments, and from the different
peoples with whom each of the three groups came in close contact. Traces of the negro
and Negrillo are more evident in the southern than in the central group and almost no
evidence of them can be found at present in the northern group. I agree with Biasutti that
Kushitic pariahs were assimilated by these primitive groups. Naturally these Kushitic
pariahs, representing a stage of culture inferior to that of the Kushites, were confused with
he ordered that the Mussulmen living in Gondar be killed and their property confiscated, suspecting that they had
been allies of the enemy. It is said that in the Moslem quarter, an Arabic minstrel sang at this time:
yd ‘Aduwah ‘add Alldh
Gondar bilddd Alldh!
That is: “ O Adua, enemy of God! Gondar is the town of God!” punning on the two words of similar sound, Aduwah,
the town of Tigre (Johannes IV was born in Tigre) and ’adu, meaning “ enemy ” in Arabic.
HARVARD AFRICAN STUDIES
I think then that first of all, we may safely accept the fundamental thesis of Biasutti
that hunting, the occupation of the Wdtta, signifies here a cultural stage characteristic of
primitive peoples. Therefore, it appears to me that among the Wdtta may be found many
elements of the hunting races, that is, the peoples inhabiting the Ethiopic plateau before
the Kushites. When the Kushites penetrated Ethiopia, they had already passed from the
hunting to the pastoral stage; even the most primitive of the Kushites, if we so designate
the Baria and the Kunama, were never hunters, according to what we can deduce from
their present ethnographic character.
What non-Kushitic races, then, are represented today by the Wdtta? The evidence of
Bushmen in Ethiopia seems to me very vague. And even if there are found in the most
southern regions of the plateau a few groups who seem possibly allied with the Bushmen,
what arguments are there to support the hypothesis that they are the last remnant of a
race driven out of Ethiopia toward South Africa, rather than the opposite hypothesis
that they are the most remote groups of the races of South Africa who advanced in the
earliest times towards the north and were stopped in the declivities of the plateau by ob-
stacles natural or human met in this region ?
Little more certain are the traces of Negrillo (pygmy) groups. The low stature of which
Cecchi writes concerning the Wdtta in Gibra is corroborated by the following sources: for
the Midgan of Somaliland, Luigi Robecchi Bricchetti, Somalia e Benadir, Milano, 1899,
p. 216; for the Walangulo, Wakefield in Paulitizsche, Ethnographic Nordost Afrikas, op.
cit., p. 32; for the Dume, Donaldson Smith, Through unknown African countries, Lon-
don, 1897, p. 272; for the Wapare, Paul Reinecke, ‘ Beschreibung einiger Rassenskelette
aus Afrika,’ (Archiv f. Anthrop., Braunschweig, 1898, p. 185-231).
The chief evidences of negro origin are clear: “ large and protruding lips ” noted in
the central and southern groups, “ flat noses ” in the southern group, “ darker color ” in
the central and southern groups; also, the custom of hanging a weight in the lobule of the
ear indicates a relationship to Hamitic groups with negroid admixture. Therefore, it is
clear that the formation of the Wdtta is not the same in all three groups, and that this for-
mation rose from historical causes, from different environments, and from the different
peoples with whom each of the three groups came in close contact. Traces of the negro
and Negrillo are more evident in the southern than in the central group and almost no
evidence of them can be found at present in the northern group. I agree with Biasutti that
Kushitic pariahs were assimilated by these primitive groups. Naturally these Kushitic
pariahs, representing a stage of culture inferior to that of the Kushites, were confused with
he ordered that the Mussulmen living in Gondar be killed and their property confiscated, suspecting that they had
been allies of the enemy. It is said that in the Moslem quarter, an Arabic minstrel sang at this time:
yd ‘Aduwah ‘add Alldh
Gondar bilddd Alldh!
That is: “ O Adua, enemy of God! Gondar is the town of God!” punning on the two words of similar sound, Aduwah,
the town of Tigre (Johannes IV was born in Tigre) and ’adu, meaning “ enemy ” in Arabic.