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They all generally leave their heads uncovered, using no veils or other head-dress at all. They make do with hairstyles that instead of being simply pulled back are intricately braided or laced and very tightly pulled against the scalp, transforming the hair into furrows or streets; or all pulled straight to the front or to the back in sections, as though made of ribbons or chains. For the same reason they dress their hair with their own butter, which they mix with a black root6 which thickens the hair and makes it sleek and smooth and shining. This is how the wife in the Songs must have dressed it for she vaunts herself on the beauty of her blackness7; and since her reference was not to her hair, because instead she praises her husband's as having a blackness and darkness like that of crows, by imitating them she must have worn hers that way. When the women of Ethiopia wear them that way, twisted into strands that fall down their backs, they sometimes adorn them all over with little round pendant balls of hair. There are many [ladies] among them who lift their hair into high topknots that are gracefully shaped like half-moons. And as their hair is curly or wavy, however high they make their coiffures they have no need for nets or other supports for them. Not even the ladies of Spain with all their artistry and knowledge can dress their hair with such perfection, even though they enrich them with pieces of gold and pearls which the Ethiopians do not possess.

On their faces they put no make-up at all, nor do they need any; only around the eyelids and lips do they use ocule8 from India, which terns them more blue than black.


Notes:

6. Various roots were traditionally used, largely to perfume the hair and counteract the smell of butter. One, reported by Asnaqetch Thomas, a modern Ethiopian haridresser, was Afar-Kocher or Hedychium specatum.

7. 'I am black and comely', Song of Solomon, I: 2.

8. Kwul, or antimony, widely used in Ethiopia to darken the eyelids. Ludolf half a century later wrote that the Ethiopians believe it to be a great preserver of the sight; nor do they less esteem it for Ornament and to beautify their faces with it: For being powder'd they mix it with Soot moisten'd and with a small Pencil... besmear their Eye-lids according to the frequent and ancient custom of the Orientals'. Ludolf, New history, p. 32.

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For the same purpose, so as not to take away from the honour and beauty of their hairdos, when they go to bed to sleep, so as not to crush them with the weight of their head, they make some objects of very well turned and worked wood with a half-moon shaped top and a rounded base, half a span high, which they place on the mattress, and they lay and relax their necks on the half-moon. In this way, with their heads encircled by a fleece of hair in the air looking like a wheel on its axis, they are able to sleep and to turn over. This pillow, which they call bercumâ,9 is also used by the women for the same reason, to protect their ornate hairdos, as we will discuss later.

Note:


9. Berchuma or berkuma, Amharic, a wooden head-rest. Guidi, Vocabolario, col. 325.

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Ethiopian headrest




AE headrest




There's more at the thread in my forum on general dress & hairstyles if it interests you.


Another may be the tradition of shaving all hair but a tuft when a youth, sometimes braided in Ethiopia tradition, always (?) so braided by Ancient Egyptians into a sidelock:

AE sidelock



Afar Ethiopian boy w/sidelock



Does anyone have any other info on common cultural traits?

Posts: 1024 | Registered: Jun 2006  |  IP: Logged | 

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CHAPTER XIV

CONCERNING MEN'S CLOTHING.


Although their everyday clothing is neither expensive nor elegant, they nevertheless pride themselves on dressing well, and better than the Portuguese whose dress does not please them. The noblemen and the wealthy wear shirts of white bofetâs 1 (I call them shirts because that is the name they give them, and also because they are an all-purpose garment, for under them they use no other shirt). They are always made with the same bofetâ as interfacing or lined with another fabric; the sleeves are very long, the ends reaching the tips of their feet where they meet the length of the shirt. They are so tight that they have to force them on, which makes them form many folds along the arms, like those of the Baneanes.2 The shirt collars are high, with much embroidery. If the buttons are not made of silver, as many men have, they are made of green and red silk, which are their favorite colours. The buttonholes are not cut into the cloth but made of string or braided loops of the same silks. These shirts are also made of ambâris3 or azuis[?] or other similar fabrics, but all are more or less of the same cut and style, tied at the waist with a silk sash, by those who have them, or one made out of linen. They do not use belts,4 except for some types which are worn girding their shoulders, though rarely. Normally the shirt reaches as far as the anklebone, the same length as the sleeves.

The trousers worn by the noblemen are of Moorish design, very tight and funnel-shaped, reaching to the anklebone. They are made of velvet, damask, satin or any other silk, but only from the knee down, because the top part is fashioned of a cloth that is as thick and white as sea salt, the same as their woven cloth or some similar native fabric. It would seem that they are determined not to be restrained in the amount of cloth used so that no one can call them stingy, nor vain enough to want to display their wealth in such minor matters, as was once the fashion in other finer and more prosperous places. this is not only the case for the noblemen, even the king himself hews to the line.

On top of the shirt, when they are not wearing cabayas, they wear fotetes or other white canequins5 cut in half and sewn along the edges with threads of red and green or yellow

1. 'A kind of calico'. Yule and Burnell, Hobson-Jobson. The word was of Per[ s ]ian origin, meaning 'woven' and was rendered in Amharic as bufeta. Beckingham and Huntingford, Some records, p. 60.

2. Indian Hindu traders, especially Gujaratis. The term was much used by Portuguese writers of this period, and adopted into Amharic as Banyan.

3. Ambari, Hindi, a coarse fibre and cloth made from Deccan hemp (Hibiscus cannabinus).

4. Long belts or cummerbands, as described by Mansfield Parkyns, Life, II, 7, were by the early nineteenth century common in northern Ethiopia.

5. Pieces of white cloth from India.


silk, if available, leaving a single garment like a sheet in which they wrap themselves. Or if they make these sheets of fotete, fine ones that are locally made because they make ones of excellent quality, or they use other sorts of sheets of the same quality, or those who have silk use that material. They cover their shoulders with these garments and lower them when they want to show respect to someone, or more or less according to a persons stature.6 The greatest respect noblemen can show toward the king, and ordinary men toward the noblemen, is to lower the cloth and cinch it around the waist. This garment is best called a sheet rather than a cape, because it is made like one and is of the same size. It is worn in place of a cape and used in the same way. They are quite right to make this kind of gesture of politeness and not another, because below the head, which is the main part of a man's body that shows, are the shoulders; and as they do not wear hats on their heads or caps, even though some do use hoods neither the Muslims nor the Turks nor the heathens would take them off, therefore, neither should they doff them (even though some of them have started to wear a type of cap made of various kinds of silk): by baring their shoulders they are baring the main part of the body they usually keep covered.


6. Arrangement of the shamma, or wrap, was an essential part of Ethiopian etiquette, and a way of showing respect and defining status. Walker, Abyssinian at home, pp. 14, 125, 167.

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Middle-class men, wherever they are, also wear shirts of the same style and material as desscribed earlier. Those whose position does not entitle them as much fashion them of cheaper cloth. Their pants are usually white, but those of the wealthy and those worn for festive occasions are always black. Their style is not Moorish and funnel-shaped but rather in the style of the old Portuguese drawers they seem to have imitated, with long, wide legs embroidered in white thread so as to stand out against the black. They are different from drawers in that the seat of these pants is very low, set close to the cuffs, and the body of the pants is very tight above and completely closed. Also they often wear something like the bajus10 from India in place of shirts, only with half sleeves, to their elbows; the neckline is long, reaching to the knee. They all adorn their heads in the same way.

The other common folk and peasants wear bulky breaches or local collelas. They do not wear trousers but wear and cover themselves with these clothes and so are decently clothed. However these do not do if one is in a hurry or in a fight, because then they necessarily must imitate the youth who in Christ's prison tore off his coverings and fled naked, for he probably wore what these men wear now. Once, when an attempt was made to persuade them to wear trousers, even men rich in land, owners of many cows, even those with mules to ride upon, answered that quite apart from its being a custom of their country [to go without trousers] hich they did not choose to abandon, they would not because they could not stand the fleas. It is true that some have already started wearing trousers and that those who live in the catamâs and courts all wear them, not so much from honesty as to vaunt themselves by so doing.


10. Baju, Marathi, a light jacket worn by women, or Baju'e, Arabic, a piece of clothing with short sleeves and belt.

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The Women are described as wearing the same type of cloths, I can PM or post the description of the style, though.


Another connection could be in whitewashing. This isn't usually done for houses in Ethiopia, but it's common for churches and monasteries, and is an Aksumite tradition.


Whitewashed churches & monasteries in Ethiopia:


Yemrehanna Kristos (12th c.):




Medhane Alem Kesho (ca. 10th c.):






Debre Selam in Atsbi (ca. 10th c.):




Petros wa Paulos entrance (ca. 10th c.):




Whitewashing is also common in the Muslim city of Harar in Eastern Ethiopia.

Posts: 1024 | Registered: Jun 2006  |  IP: Logged | 

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Originally posted by Yom:

^Circumcision was the next thing I was going to mention, both male and female, which seems to be an East African (Afro-Asiatic?) trait that spread to West Asia and West Africa.

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The Gabra are an Oromo subgroup who live in Southern Ethiopia near the Kenyan border, not in the highlands, but in rather low-lying pastoral areas, around 500-1000m in height, I think.

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As for clothes, I have another citation from the same source if it interests you. Ethiopian clothes are basically always white, with colors sometimes for the trim. Even the poor wear white, actually, a very rough white cloth.


Men (bolding mine):

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CHAPTER XIV

CONCERNING MEN'S CLOTHING.


Although their everyday clothing is neither expensive nor elegant, they nevertheless pride themselves on dressing well, and better than the Portuguese whose dress does not please them. The noblemen and the wealthy wear shirts of white bofetâs 1 (I call them shirts because that is the name they give them, and also because they are an all-purpose garment, for under them they use no other shirt). They are always made with the same bofetâ as interfacing or lined with another fabric; the sleeves are very long, the ends reaching the tips of their feet where they meet the length of the shirt. They are so tight that they have to force them on, which makes them form many folds along the arms, like those of the Baneanes.2 The shirt collars are high, with much embroidery. If the buttons are not made of silver, as many men have, they are made of green and red silk, which are their favorite colours. The buttonholes are not cut into the cloth but made of string or braided loops of the same silks. These shirts are also made of ambâris3 or azuis[?] or other similar fabrics, but all are more or less of the same cut and style, tied at the waist with a silk sash, by those who have them, or one made out of linen. They do not use belts,4 except for some types which are worn girding their shoulders, though rarely. Normally the shirt reaches as far as the anklebone, the same length as the sleeves.

The trousers worn by the noblemen are of Moorish design, very tight and funnel-shaped, reaching to the anklebone. They are made of velvet, damask, satin or any other silk, but only from the knee down, because the top part is fashioned of a cloth that is as thick and white as sea salt, the same as their woven cloth or some similar native fabric. It would seem that they are determined not to be restrained in the amount of cloth used so that no one can call them stingy, nor vain enough to want to display their wealth in such minor matters, as was once the fashion in other finer and more prosperous places. this is not only the case for the noblemen, even the king himself hews to the line.

On top of the shirt, when they are not wearing cabayas, they wear fotetes or other white canequins5 cut in half and sewn along the edges with threads of red and green or yellow

1. 'A kind of calico'. Yule and Burnell, Hobson-Jobson. The word was of Per[ s ]ian origin, meaning 'woven' and was rendered in Amharic as bufeta. Beckingham and Huntingford, Some records, p. 60.

2. Indian Hindu traders, especially Gujaratis. The term was much used by Portuguese writers of this period, and adopted into Amharic as Banyan.

3. Ambari, Hindi, a coarse fibre and cloth made from Deccan hemp (Hibiscus cannabinus).

4. Long belts or cummerbands, as described by Mansfield Parkyns, Life, II, 7, were by the early nineteenth century common in northern Ethiopia.

5. Pieces of white cloth from India.


silk, if available, leaving a single garment like a sheet in which they wrap themselves. Or if they make these sheets of fotete, fine ones that are locally made because they make ones of excellent quality, or they use other sorts of sheets of the same quality, or those who have silk use that material. They cover their shoulders with these garments and lower them when they want to show respect to someone, or more or less according to a persons stature.6 The greatest respect noblemen can show toward the king, and ordinary men toward the noblemen, is to lower the cloth and cinch it around the waist. This garment is best called a sheet rather than a cape, because it is made like one and is of the same size. It is worn in place of a cape and used in the same way. They are quite right to make this kind of gesture of politeness and not another, because below the head, which is the main part of a man's body that shows, are the shoulders; and as they do not wear hats on their heads or caps, even though some do use hoods neither the Muslims nor the Turks nor the heathens would take them off, therefore, neither should they doff them (even though some of them have started to wear a type of cap made of various kinds of silk): by baring their shoulders they are baring the main part of the body they usually keep covered.


6. Arrangement of the shamma, or wrap, was an essential part of Ethiopian etiquette, and a way of showing respect and defining status. Walker, Abyssinian at home, pp. 14, 125, 167.

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Middle-class men, wherever they are, also wear shirts of the same style and material as desscribed earlier. Those whose position does not entitle them as much fashion them of cheaper cloth. Their pants are usually white, but those of the wealthy and those worn for festive occasions are always black. Their style is not Moorish and funnel-shaped but rather in the style of the old Portuguese drawers they seem to have imitated, with long, wide legs embroidered in white thread so as to stand out against the black. They are different from drawers in that the seat of these pants is very low, set close to the cuffs, and the body of the pants is very tight above and completely closed. Also they often wear something like the bajus10 from India in place of shirts, only with half sleeves, to their elbows; the neckline is long, reaching to the knee. They all adorn their heads in the same way.

The other common folk and peasants wear bulky breaches or local collelas. They do not wear trousers but wear and cover themselves with these clothes and so are decently clothed. However these do not do if one is in a hurry or in a fight, because then they necessarily must imitate the youth who in Christ's prison tore off his coverings and fled naked, for he probably wore what these men wear now. Once, when an attempt was made to persuade them to wear trousers, even men rich in land, owners of many cows, even those with mules to ride upon, answered that quite apart from its being a custom of their country [to go without trousers] hich they did not choose to abandon, they would not because they could not stand the fleas. It is true that some have already started wearing trousers and that those who live in the catamâs and courts all wear them, not so much from honesty as to vaunt themselves by so doing.


10. Baju, Marathi, a light jacket worn by women, or Baju'e, Arabic, a piece of clothing with short sleeves and belt.

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The Women are described as wearing the same type of cloths, I can PM or post the description of the style, though.

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quote:

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Another connection could be in whitewashing. This isn't usually done for houses in Ethiopia, but it's common for churches and monasteries, and is an Aksumite tradition.


Whitewashed churches & monasteries in Ethiopia:


Yemrehanna Kristos (12th c.):




Medhane Alem Kesho (ca. 10th c.):






Debre Selam in Atsbi (ca. 10th c.):




Petros wa Paulos (ca. 10th c.):




Whitewashing is also common in the Muslim city of Harar in Eastern Ethiopia.

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Posts: 26295 | From: Atlanta, Georgia, USA | Registered: Feb 2005  |  IP: Logged | 

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Originally posted by Yom:

^Those are called tanqwa (t'anq'wa - both ejective) and are common only on the Blue Nile, starting around Bahir Dar. That area used to be inhabited by the Weyt'o people. They still exist, but are completely Amharic-speaking now, but they used to speak a non-Semitic and possibly non-Afro-Asiatic language. Their livelihood was dependent on water, unlike most Ethiopian and Eritrean peoples, and they were largely hunter-gatherers, hunting hippopotamuses, fishing, and collecting fruits, rather than farming or herding.

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^ Hunting hippos as well as fowling and fishing was a favorite past-time of the Egyptians whose roots go back to predynastic times.

Old Kingdom hippo hunt scene


Predynastic hippo hunt palette


According to Wally's research, the tradition of hippo hunting is associated with an ancestral group who came from the south called the Mesenitu who introduced copper particularly in the form of copper pointed spears.

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As for the sticks you speak of, they're pretty widespread in all Ethiopian cultures. Highland peasants have them mainly as walking sticks and to rest their arms on (hanging off them while it rests on their shoulders), and they're widely used by the clergy.

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As for the skirts/kilts, they aren't worn by any non-Muslim Amharas or Tigrayans today, but evidently they were worn in ancient times prior to trousers. It must have been a while ago that the switch occurred, though, since some of our images of Aksumites have them wearing trousers...

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Now, what evidence is there that circumcision is a general pan-African cultural inheritance?

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P.S. You know you're almost at 10,000 posts!

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Yes, almost!

Posts: 26295 | From: Atlanta, Georgia, USA | Registered: Feb 2005  |  IP: Logged | 

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Originally posted by Sundiata:

Great thread! I was also reading 'Punt and Aksum: Egypt and the Horn of Africa' by Jack Phillips recently where he noted the presence of an Ankh sign carved into a stela in Askum. The date of its creation is uncertain and there's a photo of it, but unfortunately I can't seem to extract it from the PDF. - Punt and Aksum: Egypt and the Horn of Africa

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Posts: 26295 | From: Atlanta, Georgia, USA | Registered: Feb 2005  |  IP: Logged | 

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Originally posted by Djehuti:
^ The first is ancient African nobleman overseeing a hippopotamus hunt, the second is a modern European colonial general leading his men to war.

I fail to see a related symbolism.

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Posts: 1554 | Registered: Jul 2006  |  IP: Logged | 

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Originally posted by Djehuti:

quote:

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Originally posted by Sundiata:

Great thread! I was also reading 'Punt and Aksum: Egypt and the Horn of Africa' by Jack Phillips recently where he noted the presence of an Ankh sign carved into a stela in Askum. The date of its creation is uncertain and there's a photo of it, but unfortunately I can't seem to extract it from the PDF. - Punt and Aksum: Egypt and the Horn of Africa

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Interssting source, Sundiata, though I believe it was posted on this board several times before. One thing I question is whether the ankh there is the result of influence from Egypt if not by Meroe or an indigenous icon the result of common (Afrasian?) origin with Egypt.

However, the source does bring up another interesting commonality that was stated before and that is the stela tradition. We have evidence of its presence in Ethiopia being contemporary to that in dynastic Egypt.

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I almost forgot about that.


Nabta Playa, Egypt - an early Neolithic Egyptian site:




Axum, Ethiopia:

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I already stated in my previous post that this is taken from the simple fact that the custom is practiced throughout the continent and in areas where no Afrasian speakers exist. The custom is practiced by speakers of all 4 phylums or more and does not seem to have connections to either one exclusively but is indeed associated with Africans in general. The only non-African peoples who have practiced it historically were Semitic speakers, and we know Semitic is an African derived language.

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I would imagine so that the sticks are common in Ethiopia. As for the ones you say the clergy use-- the ones that look like canes-- do you think they have an association with the Egyptian crook used by shepards?

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I was thinking indirectly, having been taken from the original use as a shepherd's cane.


Some of the images posted above aren't working. Care to upload it again, Djehuti?

Here's the 8th c. BC image of a man wearing a kilt again:

Posts: 1024 | Registered: Jun 2006  |  IP: Logged | 

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Originally posted by Yonis2:

quote:

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Originally posted by Djehuti:
^ The first is ancient African nobleman overseeing a hippopotamus hunt, the second is a modern European colonial general leading his men to war.

I fail to see a related symbolism.

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The message basically goes, "i need to connect everything european to "blacks" as much as possible

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Posts: 5555 | From: Tha 5th Dimension. | Registered: Apr 2006  |  IP: Logged | 

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Originally posted by Yonis2:

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Originally posted by Djehuti:
^ The first is ancient African nobleman overseeing a hippopotamus hunt, the second is a modern European colonial general leading his men to war.

I fail to see a related symbolism.

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The message basically goes, "i need to connect everything european to "blacks" as much as possible so i can feel atleast as human as those "why-men" who are so special and almost immortal".
Poor guy, everything he does is a direct reaction to whatever activity he sees going on among those who have mentally masterd him for atleast 400 years.

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Posts: 8897 | Registered: May 2005  |  IP: Logged | 

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Originally posted by Yom:
Add any that you know of. Linguistic connections are discouraged, since we know that AE and 99% of Ethiopian languages are Afro-Asiatic...

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Posts: 181 | Registered: Aug 2007  |  IP: Logged | 

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Originally posted by Yom:

I almost forgot about that.


Nabta Playa, Egypt - an early Neolithic Egyptian site:




Axum, Ethiopia:

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Perhaps a better comparison to the Ethiopian obelisk would be an actual Egyptian obelisk like this



The style of megaliths in Nabta Playa look more like those of Adrar Madet in Niger.

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But do groups like the San or Twa practice circumcision, for instance?

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I was thinking indirectly, having been taken from the original use as a shepherd's cane.

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Some of the images posted above aren't working. Care to upload it again, Djehuti?

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Here's the 8th c. BC image of a man wearing a kilt again:

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Posts: 26295 | From: Atlanta, Georgia, USA | Registered: Feb 2005  |  IP: Logged | 

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Originally posted by Djehuti:
Perhaps a better comparison to the Ethiopian obelisk would be an actual Egyptian obelisk like this



The style of megaliths in Nabta Playa look more like those of Adrar Madet in Niger.

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Where are these megaliths located?

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Which ones? The only image I
don't see working is the one of the palette.

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As I said, I have seen more recent pictures depicted by Europeans showing Ethiopian men in kilts so I am not at all surprised.

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Posts: 1024 | Registered: Jun 2006  |  IP: Logged | 

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Originally posted by Yom:
If you mean Ba`al, it means "lord" or "master" and was affixed to multiple Gods by Semitic-speakers, as well as representing a god in itself in some societies. The term still means a "holiday" (think of the original meaning of "holy day") or "feast" in Amharic, Tigrinya, and Ge'ez, while "bal" in Amharic (and "be`al" in Tigrinya and Tigre - the "a" sound, although short, is preserved because of the pharyngeal consonant) means a husband, as well as having the meaning of owner and being used in multiple titles (cf. Amharic balager, from bal + hager, "country" = "master of the country," meaning a "peasant."). I'm not sure if this is the root that you meant, but I don't know of any "baal" one without a middle pharyngeal root (at least originally).


As for the soul, yes it is connected to breath, and it is a proto-Afro-Asiatic connection, not just Semitic. The biliteral "n-f," which became "n-p" and then again "n-f" in some Semitic languages, is connected to breathing, life, the soul, etc.. Proto-Semitic *napsh is the word for soul. Let me give some examples in Amharic and Arabic.


Amharic: nefs ("soul"), nifas ("wind"), menfat, nefa ("to blow," from the root n-f-ḥ - first form is infinitive, second is 3rd s. past tense), nifṭ ("snot"), istinfas = ("breath"), tenefese ("to breathe"), menfes ("spirit," from Ge'ez, as in "the Holy Spirit," e.g., menfes qiddus), etc.

Arabic: nafs ("soul"), naffa ("to blow your nose"), tanafasa ("to breathe"), n-f-ḥ ("breeze," I'm not entirely sure about the vowels), nafaṯa ("to spit out"), nafṯ ("spittle"), nafaḫa ("to blow, pump up with air"), nafara ("to expell"), etc.

You could possibly connect P.S. *anp (anf) meaning "nose" to this as well, though it may be derived from P.S. "mouth" (*pay, *pVw, etc.).


Nafs also can be used to mean "self," esp. in Arabic.

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Posts: 181 | Registered: Aug 2007  |  IP: Logged | 

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Originally posted by COTONOU_BY_NIGHT:

Sorry to get into linguistics again, but do you know what does the *baal Proto-Semitic root, translated by Africanists as "soul" (don't remember about its Ethio-Semitic reflex) convey? Is it similar to the Egyptian b3 "double of the person which protects the dead body"?

I also would like to check Beninese Egyptologist Jean-Charles Jean-Charles Coovi Gomez claim about Semitic speakers conception of life being broadly associated with breath, unlike in Egypt where it was associated with light, as well as in non Semitic speaking Black Africa.

Thanks in advance.

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Yom already answered your query about 'Baal'. As for the Egyptian 'ba', I do know that the word remains in modern Somali as bah where it is associated with the spirit of courage. Hence, a Somali would say of a man 'his ba is great' meaning that he has both great spirit and bravery.

Interestingly enough. The Egyptians also associated the ba aspect with bravery which is why depictions of a person's ba (when not in the form of a bird with a person's head) would be the person as a warrior or guardian like Tut's guardian ba statue below:

Tut's ba armed with mace and staff


Somalis also have 'nidar' for Egyptian 'neter' etc. Mohamed Diriye Abdullahi, author of the book Culture and Customs of Somalia of the Culture and Customs of Africa book series, is also an accomplished linguist who has done extensive work in comparing the Somali language with Egyptian and other Afrasian languages.

If you're interested Cotonou and Yom, here's his homepage: http://www.geocities.com/mdiriye/diriye.html

Posts: 26295 | From: Atlanta, Georgia, USA | Registered: Feb 2005  |  IP: Logged | 

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Originally posted by Yom:

Those (the megaliths) are from Aksum as well, from the Gudit stelae field where middle class Aksumites erected stelae. I compared Nabta Playa rather than the obelisks due to difference in meaning. Obelisks were meant as monuments just of greatness, declaring the ruler's decrees and his/her conquests, more comparable to Aksumite square slabs of inscriptions detailing conquests. The stelae (note that an obelisk has to be square), however, although the larger ones probably represented more powerful/important personages like in Aksum, were meant as grave markers like in Aksum.

Each group of Nabta Playa stelae most likely symbolized the souls of the deceased from an individual herdsman clan, with the smaller clusters representing specific extended families, just like at the Gebel Ramlah cemeteries.

http://www.pan.pl/english/images/stories/pliki/publikacje/academia/2005/07/20-24%20kobusiewicz.pdf

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Another connection can be the underground burial chambers given to important people in Aksum and Egypt, in Ethiopia tied to the stelaes erected for them, in Egypt, sometimes tied to pyramids.

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That's the one. One or two others of mine weren't working at the time as well.

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Post them if you have them, then.

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Again, from this source: http://www.pan.pl/english/images/stories/pliki/publikacje/academia/2005/07/20-24%20kobusiewicz.pdf


I noticed another connection, the use of bracelets as popular adornment, although this is a rather common trait among humans:


17th c. description again (women):

All this class of women wear around their necks, where others would wear chains of gold, besides the chokers normally worn by all, strings of glass beads or finely twisted black string knots that look like beads. On their arms they wear bracelets of ivory, glass, brass, copper or other similar materials according to the possibilities of each, and on their fingers rings of the same type. However, some, instead of the chokers I mentioned, make and wear necklaces of small white seashells [cowrie shells - Yom], strung through the middle of the shell, which hang down in various strands from the neck.


Men:

Gold bracelets are worn on their arms on top of the shirt sleeves. They are usually given to them by the king when he is pleased to award them on some occasion, which is his way of giving them praise.14

...

The common people wear ivory bracelets instead of gold, or ones of brass, copper or even of beaten steel


Now, let's turn to earlier material:

Quotation about King of Aksum from Byzantine sources:

He wore a gold and linen head-dress, with fluttering golden streamers. His collar, armlets, and many bracelets and rings were of gold. The king's kilt was of gold on linen; his chest was covered with straps embroidered with pearls. He held a gilded shield and lances, while around him musicians played flutes and his nobles formed an armed guard.


Unfortunately I can't find any images ATM or quotations for the common people, but from what the head of the Aksum Museum told me, bronze and ivory bracelets were given to symbolize marriage (i.e. husband and wife would wear a matching pair), and I've read that they've been found in early settlements in the North and along the Eritreo-Sudanese borderland. Sorry for the lack of info/pictures.


Here's a BBC article that notes the presence in the 8th c. BC of bracelets at a site near modern Asmara:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/2000297.stm

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Very interesting. What about the collars? Have you seen anything in Ethiopia or in other Horn countries that are similar to Egyptian collars like the ones below?

usekh


wesekh


shebyu

Posts: 26295 | From: Atlanta, Georgia, USA | Registered: Feb 2005  |  IP: Logged | 

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Originally posted by Djehuti:

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Originally posted by COTONOU_BY_NIGHT:

Sorry to get into linguistics again, but do you know what does the *baal Proto-Semitic root, translated by Africanists as "soul" (don't remember about its Ethio-Semitic reflex) convey? Is it similar to the Egyptian b3 "double of the person which protects the dead body"?

I also would like to check Beninese Egyptologist Jean-Charles Jean-Charles Coovi Gomez claim about Semitic speakers conception of life being broadly associated with breath, unlike in Egypt where it was associated with light, as well as in non Semitic speaking Black Africa.

Thanks in advance.

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Yom already answered your query about 'Baal'. As for the Egyptian 'ba', I do know that the word remains in modern Somali as bah where it is associated with the spirit of courage. Hence, a Somali would say of a man 'his ba is great' meaning that he has both great spirit and bravery.

Interestingly enough. The Egyptians also associated the ba aspect with bravery which is why depictions of a person's ba (when not in the form of a bird with a person's head) would be the person as a warrior or guardian like Tut's guardian ba statue below:

Tut's ba armed with mace and staff


Somalis also have 'nidar' for Egyptian 'neter' etc. Mohamed Diriye Abdullahi, author of the book Culture and Customs of Somalia of the Culture and Customs of Africa book series, is also an accomplished linguist who has done extensive work in comparing the Somali language with Egyptian and other Afrasian languages.

If you're interested Cotonou and Yom, here's his homepage: http://www.geocities.com/mdiriye/diriye.html

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Wow, some interesting stuff mahne .

Posts: 447 | From: Somewhere son... | Registered: Sep 2006  |  IP: Logged | 

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Yom:
Likewise, Saar is a loanword from Ethiopian Zar (as in Zar spirits).

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Djehuti, I'll look into it, but Ethiopian necklaces generally aren't that thick and complicated. More commonly they're made of beads, precious stones, etc. or just a cross around the neck. Collars I don't know much about, so I'll search that, too, but I'm pretty sure the Portuguese quotation was about shirt collars, the one about the King of Aksum less likely so. Here's a depiction of their collars from their coins, though:

Endubis




Aphilas




Ousanas




Hataz

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Originally posted by Yonis2:

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Yom:
Likewise, Saar is a loanword from Ethiopian Zar (as in Zar spirits).

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What, since when did Zaar become Ethiopian??
And also somali language have loaned nothing from Ethiopian semetic if anything its the arabic semetic language that has incorporated words into the somali language.

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The ancient pagan god became in christianized Abyssinia a malevolent genius; and in this way the animistic practices, which in the paganism of the Kushites were directed only to the minor superhuman beings, passed into Abyssinian Christianity (and then into Islam) with the proper name of the God-Heaven who had been reduced to a minor rank.37

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Yom.
Why do you take it like it's something to be ashamed of or a bad thing? Aw is from Harari, there's no question about that. Zar, too, is probably a loanword. It's probably originally either Oromo or Agew, very possibly from (or rather the originally pronunciation of, given what we know of Amharic & Agew linguisticS) Jar, the old Agew word for the Cushitic sky-god Waaq.

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Originally posted by Yonis2:

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Yom.
Why do you take it like it's something to be ashamed of or a bad thing? Aw is from Harari, there's no question about that. Zar, too, is probably a loanword. It's probably originally either Oromo or Agew, very possibly from (or rather the originally pronunciation of, given what we know of Amharic & Agew linguisticS) Jar, the old Agew word for the Cushitic sky-god Waaq.

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No it's not a bad thing, i'm just sceptic by how you attribute everything you see in ethiopia and somalia as being of ethiopian origin. I've seen you do this before at RAS where you ask questions about somali words and compare it to amharic or harari and probably make your own conclusion that it's of ethiopian origin. And also if Zar comes from oromo or Agew as you say then it's a whole different thing since they speak cushitic languages, you do know somali is a cushitic language too? so why does it have to come from oromo or Agew and end up in somali through Amharic transitivity when somali is somehow related to these languages?
Harari is a language which is heavily influenced by cushitic, somalis and hararis have been intermarrying for centuries not to mention oromo, so you can't say "Aw is definetly harari" and passed on to any words that starts with "Aw" in somali, you don't know that you're just speculating and making your own conclusions.
Anyways i was told that Zaar spirit came from northern sudan and its practice was brought to the horn region when Egypt occupied berbera and harar in the 18th hundreds where it spread to rest of ethiopia through harar and southern somalia through Berbera where it's mostly practiced today especially by somali bantu.
The only word i know of in somali from Amharic is injeera other than that it's a pure cushitic language with some few arabic loan words.

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Yom:
Whatever, I don't care if you don't want to accept that these are loan-words, I've already given one citation, and here's another for Harari Aw, which is due to Sidamo influence in the weakening of b->w (not a feature in Somali):

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Yom:
and here's another for Harari Aw, which is due to Sidamo influence in the weakening of b->w (not a feature in Somali):

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So you mean words in Somali that starts with "Aw" is of "Ethio" semetic origin??
So I Guess words such as:

Awowe > Grandfather

Awadeed> For the sake of it

are derived from south arabian semetic?



Ps: Seriously next time you create a thread about Ethiopia please don't comment on Somalia or try to relate somalia to Ethiopia in any waYS you might find possible (especially as somekind of an offshot location of your Ethiopia), since these are two totally different countries which are completly distinct from each other, i hope you respect this, thank you.
Eritrea is more suitable since you both speak same kind of bastardized languages between cushitic and semetic.

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Yom:
Anyway, either way, "Ausar" and Somali "Aw" + "Saar" are in no way related

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Originally posted by Yonis2:

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Yom:
Whatever, I don't care if you don't want to accept that these are loan-words, I've already given one citation, and here's another for Harari Aw, which is due to Sidamo influence in the weakening of b->w (not a feature in Somali):

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I'm starting to get tired of your nonsense. I bet you think you're some sort of authority of everything that happends in that region of the world??
What the hell do you know about the Somali language other than the snippets, pieces and fragments you've catched on the net second handedly by western lingustics? Are you seriously trying to teach me about my own language??
If you want the truth, You speak an almost extinct semetic language heavily influnced by cushitc languages, while we speak a healthy *real* cushitic language slightly influenced by a living and healthy semetic language.
I don't care what the contemporary linguists say about Amhara or Tigrinya/Tigre the reality is that these languages are just cushitic languages that are overwhemingly influnced by south arabic semetic languages through centuries or millenias of dominance. You are actually the one who needs to "accept" certain things not me. Reality expresses itself quite freely with no need of audience or cheerleaders.

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Yom:
and here's another for Harari Aw, which is due to Sidamo influence in the weakening of b->w (not a feature in Somali):

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So you mean words in Somali that starts with "Aw" is of "Ethio" semetic origin??
So I Guess words such as:

Awowe > Grandfather

Awadeed> For the sake of it

are derived from south arabian semetic?

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Originally posted by Yonis2:

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Yom:
Anyway, either way, "Ausar" and Somali "Aw" + "Saar" are in no way related

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I'm sure you're correct in this manner, even though Egyptic and Cushitic are northeastern languages unlike Semetic.

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But do i or any somali care?
I have never and i will probably never find many who relate to ancient Egyptians.

We respect them however as a productive people who created superior societies relative to their neighbours, that's where it stops really. I see them more as cousins rather than as brothers.
On the other hand it's YOU who's the one who made a whole thread trying to relate to these ancient cousins to Ethiopians (as afrocentric style) , so please don't try to project by dwelling into Awsaar-(Ausar) posted by Djehuti.

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Also More words supposedly of "ethio-semetic" origin in Somali that starts with "AW" according to our resident Horner expert;
Aw= Cause
Aw= sir, mister
Aweyti= Curse
Awaji=Proclaim
Awaal=expect,Asume
Away=where is?
Awamir=instructions
Awdan=covered
Awd=shut,cover
Awal=formerly
Awood=potential, capacity
Awoodsi=ability to do something
Awr=burden camel
Awradhale=stud camel

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Ps: Seriously next time you create a thread about Ethiopia please don't comment on Somalia or try to relate somalia to Ethiopia in any waYS you might find possible (especially as somekind of an offshot location of your Ethiopia), since these are two totally different countries which are completly distinct from each other, i hope you respect this, thank you.
Eritrea is more suitable since you both speak same kind of bastardized languages between cushitic and semetic.

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Posts: 1024 | Registered: Jun 2006  |  IP: Logged | 

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Djehuti:
Originally posted by Djehuti:
Guys, PLEASE, PLEASE, let's not turn this into another Ethiopia vs. Somalia thread!!

I thought we have gotten over that petty political conflict months ago!

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Originally posted by Burhan:
Hello,

Taking the discourse of the word AW a little further.

Yom,
What about AW preceding just before a name. for instance, Aw-Ali, Aw-Barkhad, Aw-Burhaan and son and so forth. What does it mean- I am curious.

Also, Awal, as in the tribe of Aw-wal Bin Ishaq of the Isaaq tribe. keep in mind the era of Aw-wal was around 1oth century.

Regards

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Originally posted by COTONOU_BY_NIGHT:
Thanks for the answer.I think I have seen it in Takacs 1999, but I don't think the root I mentioned has something to do with the Gods Ba'al...

The life/nose/breath connection isn't limited to "Afro-Asiatic" either, the Wolof, Fulani and Yoruba examples coming to mind.

Do any of Semitic speakers consider Glorious Dead Ancestors as unperishable stars as many other people in Africa?

Are the 9 elements of the human body found among Semitic speakers too?
-"The name revealing the person",
-"the destructive/protective power",
-"seat of thoughts, conscience",
-"shining and immortal spirit of the dead person"
-"transcending and regenerating vital force"
-"flying soul, vital force protecting the corpse"
-"shadow emerging from the grave of the dead"
-"spiritual entity which surrounds the physical body"
-"putrescible body"

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Originally posted by Yom:
If you mean Ba`al, it means "lord" or "master" and was affixed to multiple Gods by Semitic-speakers, as well as representing a god in itself in some societies. The term still means a "holiday" (think of the original meaning of "holy day") or "feast" in Amharic, Tigrinya, and Ge'ez, while "bal" in Amharic (and "be`al" in Tigrinya and Tigre - the "a" sound, although short, is preserved because of the pharyngeal consonant) means a husband, as well as having the meaning of owner and being used in multiple titles (cf. Amharic balager, from bal + hager, "country" = "master of the country," meaning a "peasant."). I'm not sure if this is the root that you meant, but I don't know of any "baal" one without a middle pharyngeal root (at least originally).


As for the soul, yes it is connected to breath, and it is a proto-Afro-Asiatic connection, not just Semitic. The biliteral "n-f," which became "n-p" and then again "n-f" in some Semitic languages, is connected to breathing, life, the soul, etc.. Proto-Semitic *napsh is the word for soul. Let me give some examples in Amharic and Arabic.


Amharic: nefs ("soul"), nifas ("wind"), menfat, nefa ("to blow," from the root n-f-ḥ - first form is infinitive, second is 3rd s. past tense), nifṭ ("snot"), istinfas = ("breath"), tenefese ("to breathe"), menfes ("spirit," from Ge'ez, as in "the Holy Spirit," e.g., menfes qiddus), etc.

Arabic: nafs ("soul"), naffa ("to blow your nose"), tanafasa ("to breathe"), n-f-ḥ ("breeze," I'm not entirely sure about the vowels), nafaṯa ("to spit out"), nafṯ ("spittle"), nafaḫa ("to blow, pump up with air"), nafara ("to expell"), etc.

You could possibly connect P.S. *anp (anf) meaning "nose" to this as well, though it may be derived from P.S. "mouth" (*pay, *pVw, etc.).


Nafs also can be used to mean "self," esp. in Arabic.

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