Habesha
The term
Habesha (
Ge'ez ሐበሻ
ḥabaśā,
Amh. hābešā,
Tgn. ḥābešā; sometimes Amh.
Abesha, አበሻ
ābešā), while frequently used to refer to all
Ethiopians and
Eritreans, refers more specifically to the
Semitic-speaking peoples of those countries. It is sometimes used to refer to just the two politically dominant
Semitic-speaking Amhara and
Tigray-Tigrinya ethnic groups of Ethiopia and Eritrea. The Amhara and Tigray tribes combined make up about 36% of Ethiopia's population (ca. 23 million Amhara, 4.5 million Tigray) while Tigrinyas make up about half of Eritrea's population (ca. 2.25 of 4.5 million).
The ancient
Kingdom of Aksum subjugated and assimilated the non-Habesha Cushitic-speaking
Agaw and
Afar groups located in present-day Eritrea and Ethiopia, and today Cushitic groups like the
Oromo and Afar often feel marginalized in what they see as an Amhara- and Tigray-dominated Ethiopia. The term "Habesha" is often mistakenly
[Herausgegeben von Uhlig, Siegbert, Encyclopaedia Aethiopica: D-Ha. Wiesbaden:Harrassowitz Verlag, 2005. pp. 948.] thought to be of
Arabic descent (who used the word
Habash, also the name of an Ottoman province comprising parts of modern-day Eritrea), because the English name
Abyssinia comes from the Arabic form.
[Stuart Munro-Hay. Aksum: A Civilization of Late Antiquity. Edinburgh: University Press. 1991. pp. 19.] South Arabian expert Eduard Glaser claimed that the hieroglyphic
ḫbstjw, used in reference to "a foreign people from the incense-producing regions" (i.e.
Punt, probably located around southern
Eritrea, northern
Ethiopia, and the
Sudanese border) used by Queen
Hatshepsut ca. 1460 BC, was the first usage of the term or somehow connected, a claim repeated by others; however, this etymology is not at all certain, given the large time difference in the usage of the terms.
The modern term derives from the vocalized
Ge'ez ሐበሣ (
ḥabaśā), first written unvocalized as ሐበሠ (
ḥbśt, but probably pronounced
ḥbst) or the "pseudo-Sabaic
ḥbštm".
The earliest known use of the term dates to the
second or
third century AD
South Arabian inscription, recounting to the defeat of the
Aksumite king (
nəgus)
GDRT (vocalized
Gadarat or
Gedara) of
Aksum and HBSHT.
[Stuart Munro-Hay. Aksum: A Civilization of Late Antiquity. Edinburgh: University Press. 1991. pp. 39.] The term "Habashat" seems to refer to a group of peoples, however, rather than a specific tribe, as evidenced by an inscription by the Himyarite king Shamir Yuhahmid, an ally of Aksum under
`DBH in the first quarter of the 3rd century AD:
Shamir of Dhu-Raydan and Himyar had called in the help of the clans of Habashat for war against the kings of Saba; but Ilmuqah granted . . . the submission of Shamir of Dhu-Raydan and the clans of Habashat.[Stuart Munro-Hay. Aksum: A Civilization of Late Antiquity. Edinburgh: University Press. 1991. pp. 66.]
Later, in the reign of King
Ezana (ca. early 4th c. AD, the term is listed as one of the nine regions under his domain, translated in the
Greek version of his inscription as
Αἰθιοπία, the first known use of this term to specifically describe the region known today as Ethiopia (and not
Kush or the entire
black African and
Indian region).
The 6th c. author
Stephanus of Byzantium later used the term "Αβασηγοί" (i.e. Abas"noi) in reference to:
an Arabian people living next to the Sabaeans together with the Ḥaḍramites. The region of the Abas"noi produce[d] myrrh, incense and cotton and they cultivate[d] a plant qhich yields a purple dye (probably wars, i.e. Fleminga Grahamiana). It lies on a route which leads from Zabīd on the coastal plain to the Ḥimyarite capital 'afār.
The Abas"noi spoken of by Stephanus was located by Hermann von Wissman as a region in the Jabal Hubaysh (perhaps related in etymology with the ḥbš
root). Other places names in Yemen contain the ḥbš root, such as the Jabal Habashi (Ḥabaši), whose residents are still called al-Ahbuš (pl. of Ḥabaš).
[Herausgegeben von Uhlig, Siegbert, Encyclopaedia Aethiopica: D-Ha. Wiesbaden:Harrassowitz Verlag, 2005. pp. 949.] Traditional scholarship has assumed that the Habashat were a tribe from modern-day Yemen that migrated to Ethiopia. However, the
Sabaic inscriptions only use the term ḥbšt to the refer to the
Kingdom of Aksum and its inhabitants, especially during the 3rd c., when the ḥbšt (Aksumites) were often at war with the Sabaeans and Himyraites.
The location of the Abas"noi in Yemen may perhaps be explained by remnant Aksumite populations from the 520s conquest by
King Kaleb;
King Ezana's claims to Sahlen (Saba) and Dhu-Raydan (Himyar) during a time when such control was unlikely may indicate an Aksumite presence or coastal foothold.
[Stuart Munro-Hay. Aksum: A Civilization of Late Antiquity. Edinburgh: University Press. 1991. pp. 72.]The first recorded
kingdom in
Ethiopian history was the kingdom of D'MT (vocalized as
Da'amat,
Da'amot,
Di'amat, etc.), though little is known of this first millennium BC kingdom. The more well known
Kingdom of Aksum followed D'MT, possibly emerging around the 3rd century BC (or as late as 100 AD). It has commonly been thought to be founded by Semitic-speaking Sabaeans who crossed the Red Sea from South Arabia (modern Yemen), but some scholars contend that it was an indigenous successor of the older D'mt or Da'amot kingdom, pointing to evidence of a Semitic speaking presence at least as early as 2000 BC, as well as evidence suggesting that Sabaean immigrants remained in Ethiopia for only a few decades.
Habesha speak
Semitic languages, but they intermarried and absorbed the surrounding indigenous
Cushitic-speaking peoples to a great extent. While Habeshas are often though to be "Semitic," this term (as well as the term Cushitic) is merely a linguistic one, and has no bearing on ethnicity. However, according to some Ethiopian sources, the name "Habesha" is a synonym for
dibilliq ("mixed"), referring to the hybrid mixture of
Semites from
Yemen with the indigenous "
Hamitic" (ie, Cushitic) peoples, and is thus explained as
Ham "-be-" (with)
Shem.
Both the
Amharic and
Tigrinya languages are descended from the ancient
Ge'ez, still used in the
Ethiopian Orthodox Church. According to tradition, the Habesha people also trace their roots back to
Menelik I who was the son of the
Queen of Sheba and
King Solomon, whose lineage historically gave kings a
divine right to rule.
*Herausgegeben von Uhlig, Siegbert,
Encyclopaedia Aethiopica: D-Ha. "Ḥabašāt" by Walter W. Müller. Wiesbaden:Harrassowitz Verlag, 2005. pps. 948-9. ISBN 3-447-05238-4
*Stuart Munro-Hay,
Aksum: A Civilization of Late Antiquity. Edinburgh: University Press. 1991. ISBN 0748601066
