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Habesha peoples (; ; ; commonly used exonym: Abyssinians) is an ethnic or Panethnicity identifier that has historically been applied to Semitic-speaking, mostly Oriental Orthodox Christian peoples native to the highlands of Ethiopia and Eritrea between Asmara and Addis Ababa (i.e. the predominantly Amharas and Tigray-Tigrinya population of historical Abyssinia) and this usage remains common today. The term is also used in varying degrees of inclusion and exclusion of other groups.
The first attestation of late Latin Abissensis is from the fifth century CE. The 6th-century author Stephanus of Byzantium later used the term "Αβασηνοί" (i.e. Abasēnoi) to refer to "an Arabian people living next to the Sabaeans together with the Hadhramaut." The region of the Abasēnoi produced myrrh, incense and cotton and they cultivated a plant which yields a purple dye (probably wars, i.e. Fleminga Grahamiana). It lay on a route which leads from Zabīd on the coastal plain to the Ḥimyarite capital Ẓafār. Abasēnoi was located by Hermann von Wissman as a region in the Jabal Ḥubaysh mountain in Ibb Governorate, perhaps related in etymology with the ḥbš Semitic root). Other place names in Yemen contain the ḥbš root, such as the Jabal Ḥabaši, whose residents are still called al-Aḥbuš (pl. of Ḥabaš).Uhlig, Siegbert, ed. Encyclopaedia Aethiopica, D–Ha. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz Verlag, 2005. p. 949 The location of the Abasēnoi 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.Munro-Hay. Aksum, p. 72. Traditional scholarship has assumed that the Habashat were a tribe from modern-day Yemen that migrated to Ethiopia and Eritrea. However, the Sabaic inscriptions only use the term ḥbšt to the refer to the Kingdom of Aksum and its inhabitants, especially during the 3rd century, when the ḥbšt (Aksumites) were often at war with the Sabaeans and Himyraites. Modern Western European languages, including English, appear to borrow this term from the post-classical form Abissini in the mid-sixteenth century. (English Abyssin is attested from 1576, and Abissinia and Abyssinia from the 1620s.)
According to Gerard Prunier, one very restrictive use of the term today by some Tigrayans refers exclusively to speakers of Tigrinya; however, Tigrayan oral traditions and linguistic evidence bear witness to ancient and constant relations with Amharas. (2025). 9781849042611, C. Hurst & Co.. ISBN 9781849042611 Some Gurage people societies, such as Orthodox Christian communities where Soddo language is spoken, identify as Habesha and have a strong sense of Ethiopian national identity, due in part to their ancient ties with the northern Habesha. (2025). 9781849042611, C. Hurst & Co.. ISBN 9781849042611
Muslim ethnic groups primarily located in the Eritrean Highlands, including the Tigre people, as well as those in the Ethiopian Highlands, have historically resisted the designation of Habesha. Instead, Eritrean and Ethiopian Muslims were commonly identified as the Jeberti people. Another term for Muslims from the Horn of Africa was '"Al-Zaylai"', this applied to even the empress Eleni of Ethiopia due to her ties to the state of Hadiya. At the turn of the 20th century, elites of the Solomonic dynasty employed the conversion of various ethnic groups to Orthodox Tewahedo Christianity and the imposition of the Amharic language to spread a common Habesha national identity.
Within Ethiopian and Eritrean diasporic populations, some second generation immigrants have adopted the term "Habesha" in a broader sense as a supra-national ethnic identifier inclusive of all Eritreans and Ethiopians. For those who employ the term, it serves as a useful counter to more exclusionary identities such as "Amhara" or "Tigrayan". However, this usage is not uncontested: On the one hand, those who grew up in Ethiopia or Eritrea may object to the obscuring of national specificity. On the other hand, groups that were subjugated in Ethiopia or Eritrea sometimes find the term offensive.
Scholars have determined that the ancient Semitic language of Ethiopia was not derived from the Sabaean language. Recent linguistic studies as to the origin of the Ethiosemitic languages seem to support the DNA findings of immigration from the Arabian Peninsula,David Reich (Harvard Medical School) (2025). 9780198821250, Oxford University Press. . ISBN 9780198821250 with a recent study using Bayesian computational phylogenetic techniques finding that contemporary Ethiosemitic languages of Africa reflect a single introduction of early Ethiosemitic from southern Arabia approximately 2,800 years ago, and that this single introduction of Ethiosemitic subsequently underwent quick diversification within Ethiopia and Eritrea. Bayesian phylogenetic analysis of Semitic languages identifies an Early Bronze Age origin of Semitic in the Near East.Uhlig, Siegbert, ed. Encyclopaedia Aethiopica, "Ge'ez" (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz Verlag, 2005), p. 732. There is also evidence of ancient Southern Arabian communities in modern-day Ethiopia and Eritrea in certain localities, attested by some archaeological artifacts and ancient Sabaean inscriptions in the old South Arabian alphabet. Joseph W. Michels noted based on his archeological surveying Aksumite sites that "there is abundant evidence of specific Sabean traits such as inscription style, religious ideology and symbolism, art style and architectural techniques." However, Stuart Munro-Hay points to the existence of an older D'MT kingdom, prior to any Sabaean migration c. 4th or 5th century BC, as well as evidence that Sabaean immigrants had resided in Ethiopia for little more than a few decades at the time of the inscriptions.Munro-Hay, Aksum, p. 57. Both the indigenous languages of Southern Arabia and the Amharic and Tigrinya languages of Ethiopia belong to the large branch of South Semitic languages which in turn is part of the Afro-Asiatic Language Family. Even though the Ethiosemitic languages are classified under the South Semitic languages branch with a Cushitic language substratum.
Munro-May and related scholars believe that Sabaean influence was minor, limited to a few localities, and disappearing after a few decades or a century. It may have represented a trading colony (trading post) or military installations in a symbiotic or military alliance between the Sabaeans and D`MT.
In the reign of King Ezana, c. early 4th century AD, the term "Ethiopia" is listed as one of the nine regions under his domain, translated in the Greek language version of his inscription as Αἰθιοπία Aithiopía. This is the first known use of this term to describe specifically the region known today as Ethiopia (and not Kush or the entire African and Indian region outside of Egypt).
There are many theories regarding the beginning of the Abyssinian civilization. One theory, which is more widely accepted today, locates its origins in the Horn region.Stuart Munro-Hay, Aksum: An African Civilisation of Late Antiquity. Edinburgh: University Press, 1991, pp. 57ff. At a later period, this culture was exposed to Judaic influence, of which the best-known examples are the Qemant and Ethiopian Jews (or Beta Israel) ethnic groups, but Judaic customs, terminology, and beliefs can be found amongst the dominant culture of the Amhara and Tigrinya.For an overview of this influence see Ullendorff, Ethiopia and the Bible, pp. 73ff. Some scholars have claimed that the Indian alphabets had been used to create the vowel system of the Ge'ez abugida, this claim has not yet been effectively proven.
Around the time that the Aksumite empire began to decline, the burgeoning religion of Islam made its first inroads in the Abyssinian highlands. During the first Hijrah, the companions of Muhammad were received in the Aksumite kingdom. The Sultanate of Shewa, established around 896, was one of the oldest local Muslim states. It was centered in the former Shewa province in central Ethiopia. The polity was succeeded by the Sultanate of Ifat around 1285. Ifat was governed from its capital at Zeila in northern Somalia.
The Kingdom of Aksum may have been founded as early as 300 BCE. Very little is known of the time period between the mid-1st millennium BCE to the beginning of Aksum's rise around the 1st century CE. It is thought to be a successor kingdom of Dʿmt, a kingdom in the early 1st millennium BC most likely centered at nearby Yeha.Munro-Hay, Aksum, p. 4
The Kingdom of Aksum was situated in northern Ethiopia and Eritrea, with its capital city in Northern Ethiopia. Axum remained its capital until the 7th century. The kingdom was favorably located near the Blue Nile basin and the Afar depression. The former is rich in gold and the latter in salt: both materials having a highly important use to the Aksumites. Aksum was accessible to the port of Adulis, Eritrea on the coast of the Red Sea. The kingdom traded with Egypt, India, Arabia and the Byzantine Empire. Aksum's "fertile" and "well-watered" location produced enough food for its population. Wild animals included elephants and rhinoceros.Pankhurst 1998, pp. 22–23
From its capital, Aksum commanded the trade of ivory. It also dominated the trade route in the Red Sea leading to the Gulf of Aden. Its success depended on resourceful techniques, production of coins, steady migrations of Greco-Roman merchants, and ships landing at Adulis. In exchange for Aksum's goods, traders bid many kinds of cloth, jewelry, metals and steel for weapons.
At its peak, Aksum controlled territories as far as southern Egypt, east to the Gulf of Aden, south to the Omo River, and west to the Nubian Kingdom of Meroë. The South Arabian kingdom of the Himyarites and also a portion of western Saudi Arabia was also under the power of Aksum. Their descendants include the present-day ethnic groups known as the Amhara, Tigrayans and Gurage peoples.
The Abyssinian Baptist Church was founded when visiting seamen and free African-American parishioners left the First Baptist Church in protest over being restricted to racially segregated seating. p.6 They named their new congregation the Ethiopia Baptist Church after the historic name of Ethiopia. The Manhattan African-American History & Culture Guide, Museum of the City of New York While originally used to refer specifically to Abyssinia, the term later became more broadly used to refer to Africans of any ethnicity. Similarly, this term for Siddis is held to be derived from the common name for the captains of the Ethiopian Empire ships that also first delivered Siddi slaves to the subcontinent. Historian Richard M. Eaton states Habshis were initially pagans sold by Ethiopian Christians to
/ref> Abyssinian Meeting House, is also historic church in Portland, Maine.
Coffee is a very important ceremonial drink. The "coffee ceremony" is common to the Ethiopians and Eritreans. Beans are roasted on the spot, ground, and brewed, served thick and rich in tiny ceramic cups with no handles. This amount of coffee can be finished in one gulp if drunk cold; but, traditionally it is drunk very slowly as conversation takes place. When the beans are roasted to smoking, they are passed around the table, where the smoke becomes a blessing on the diners. The traditional food served at these meals consists of injera, a spongy flat bread, served with wat, a spicy meat sauce.
Houses in rural areas are built mostly from rock and dirt, the most available resources, with structure provided by timber poles. The houses blend in easily with the natural surroundings. Many times the nearest water source is more than a kilometer away from the house. In addition, people must search for fuel for their fires throughout the surrounding area.
The Habesha people have a rich heritage of music and dance, using drums and stringed instruments tuned to a pentatonic scale. Arts and crafts and secular music are performed mostly by artisans, who are regarded with suspicion. Sacred music is performed and icons are painted only by men trained in monasteries.
Ge'ez literature is considered to begin with the adoption of Christianity in Ethiopia and Eritrea, as well as the civilization of Axum in the 4th century BCE during the reign of Ezana. While Ge'ez today is extinct and only used for liturgical purposes in the Eritrean Orthodox Tewahedo Church and Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church. Ge'ez language is ancestral to Tigre language and Tigrinya languages.
Some historians in the past have labelled the Ethiopian Semitic languages as the Abyssinian languages.*
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* They are mainly spoken by the Amhara people, the Tigrayans, the Tigre people, the Gurage people, the Argobba people and the Harari people people.Igorʹ Mikhaĭlovich Dʹi︠a︡konov Semito-Hamitic Languages: An Essay in Classification – Google Books": Nauka, Central Department of Oriental Literature, (1965) p. 12 In antiquity Ge'ez-speaking people inhabited the Aksumite Empire; the ancient Semitic-speaking Gafat language inhabited Eastern Damot (East Welega) and Western Shewa; the Galila clan of Aymallal (Soddo language) inhabited Southwest Shewa; the Zay people inhabited East Shewa; the Harla people who are the ancestors of Harari lived in Somalia; and the other ancient Argobba and Harari inhabited Shewa, Ifat, and Adal.Robert Hetzron Ethiopian Semitic: Studies in Classification - Internet Archive": Manchester University Press, 1972 p. 6.Nehemia Levtzion, Randall Pouwels The History of Islam in Africa – Google Books" Ohio University Press, 2000. p. 228.George Wynn Brereton Huntingford The Historical Geography of Ethiopia: From the First Century A.D. to 1704 – Google Books" British Academy, 1989. p. 78.
Habesha cuisine characteristically consists of vegetable and often very spicy meat dishes, usually in the form of wat (also w'et or wot), a thick stew, served atop injera, a large sourdough flatbread,Javins, Marie. "Eating and Drinking in Ethiopia." Gonomad.com . Accessed July 2011. which is about in diameter and made out of fermented teff flour. People of Ethiopia and Eritrea eat exclusively with their right hands, using pieces of injera to pick up bites of entrées and side dishes.
performing a folklore dance.]]Fit-fit, or fir-fir, is a common breakfast dish. It is made from shredded injera or kitcha stir-fried with spices or wat. Another popular breakfast food is fatira. The delicacy consists of a large fried pancake made with flour, often with a layer of egg, eaten with honey. Kitcha fit-fit (or kita firfir ) resembles a pancake covered with berbere and niter kibbeh , or spices, and may be eaten with a spoon. A porridge, genfo is another common breakfast dish. It is usually served in a large bowl with a dug-out made in the middle of the genfo and filled with spiced niter kibbeh''.
Wat begins with a large amount of chopped red onion, which is simmered or sauteed in a pot. Once the onions have softened, niter kebbeh (or, in the case of vegan dishes, vegetable oil) is added. Following this, berbere is added to make a spicy keiy wat or keyyih tsebhi. Turmeric is used instead of bebere for a milder alicha wat or both are omitted when making vegetable stews, atkilt wat. Meat such as beef (,Selam Soft, "ሥጋ" , Amharic-English Dictionary', 4/30/13 səga), chicken (,Selam Soft, "ዶሮ", Amharic-English Dictionary', 4/30/13 doro) or ), fish (,Selam Soft, "ዓሣ" , Amharic-English Dictionary', 4/30/13 asa), Goat meat or lamb (,Selam Soft, "'በግ , Amharic-English Dictionary', 4/30/13 beg or ) is also added. such as split peas (,Selam Soft, "ክክ" , Amharic-English Dictionary', 4/30/13 kək or ) or (,Selam Soft, "ምስር" , Amharic-English Dictionary', 4/30/13 məsər or birsin); or such as (,Selam Soft, "ድንች" , Amharic-English Dictionary', 4/30/13 Dənəch), and chard () are also used instead in vegan dishes.
Another distinctively Habesha dish is kitfo (frequently spelled ketfo). It consists of raw (or rare) beef mince marinated in mitmita (Amharic: ሚጥሚጣ mīṭmīṭā, a very spicy chili powder similar to the berbere) and niter kibbeh. Gored gored is very similar to kitfo, but uses cubed rather than ground beef. The Ethiopian Orthodox Church prescribes a number of fasting ( tsom , ṣōm) periods, including Wednesdays, Fridays, and the entire season; so Habesha cuisine contains many dishes that are Vegan cuisine.Paul B. Henze, Layers of Time: a history of Ethiopia (New York: Palgrave, 2000), p. 12 and note
According to Leo Africanus, a greater number of the Abyssinians historically wore sheep hides, with the more honourable wearing the hides of , and Leopard. Duarte Barbosa also attests that their clothes being of hides as the country was in wanting of clothes. Pedro Paez, a Spaniards Jesuits who resided in Ethiopia, described that the peasant women wore skins like their husbands and, in some areas, some woollen cloths five or six cubits long and three wide that they call " mahâc ", and they could quite fairly call it haircloth because it is much rougher than what Capuchin monks wear, as in Ethiopia they do not know how to make cloth, and the wool is not suitable for it as it is very coarse. They all go barefoot and often naked from the breasts up, with tiny glass beads of various colours strung so as to make a band two fingers in breadth around their necks.
The habesha kemis is the traditional attire of Habesha women. Travel & Leisure Volume 36 2006 "A woman with her hair in tight braids and wearing habesha kemis – a white ankle-length dress with intricate embroidery – came around to each of us with a silver kettle of warm water and a silver basin for washing our hands."Lisa L. Schoonover, 2012, The Indigo Butterfly, p. 114 The ankle length dress is usually worn by Ethiopian and Eritrean women at formal events. It is made of chiffon, and typically comes in white, grey or beige shades. Many women also wrap a shawl called a netela around the formal dress.
The netela or netsela is a handmade cloth many women use to cover their head and shoulders when they wear clothing made out of chiffon, especially when attending church. It is made up of two layers of fabric, unlike gabi, which is made out of four. Kuta is the male version.
An Ethiopian suit is the traditional formal wear of Habesha men.Janet Jaymes Dirty Laundry: a memoir. 2006, p. 89. It consists of a long sleeve, knee-length shirt, and matching pants. Most shirts are made with a Mandarin, band, or Nehru collar. The suit is made of chiffon, which is a sheer silk or rayon cloth. The netela shawl or a kuta is wrapped around the suit.
Ethiopia has often been mentioned in the Bible. A well-known example of this is the story of the Ethiopian eunuch as written in Acts (8: 27): "Then the angel of the Lord said to Philip, Start out and go south to the road that leads down from Jerusalem to Gaza. So he set out and was on his way when he caught sight of an Ethiopian. This man was a eunuch, a high official of the Kandake (Candace) Queen of Ethiopia in charge of all her treasure." The passage continues by describing how Philip helped the Ethiopian understand one passage of Isaiah that the Ethiopian was reading. After the Ethiopian received an explanation of the passage, he requested that Philip baptize him, which Philip obliged. Queen Gersamot Hendeke VII (very similar to Kandake) was the Queen of Ethiopia from the year 42 to 52. The Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church was founded in the 4th century by monks. Historically, the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church and Eritrean Orthodox Tewahedo Church have had strong ties with the Coptic Orthodox Church of Alexandria, the Coptic Orthodox Church of Alexandria appointing the archbishop for the Eritrean Orthodox Tewahedo Church. They gained independence from the Coptic Orthodox Church of Alexandria in the 1950s, although the Eritrean Orthodox Tewahedo Church has recently reforged the link. A number of unique beliefs and practices distinguish Ethiopian Orthodox Christianity from other Christian groups; for example, the Ark of the Covenant is very important. Every Ethiopian church has a replica of the Ark. Also, the Ethiopian Church has a larger biblical canon than other churches.
Church services are conducted in Ge´ez, the ancient language of Ethiopia and Eritrea. Ge´ez is no longer a living language, its use now confined to liturgical contexts, occupying a similar place in Eritrean and Ethiopian church life to Latin language in the Roman Catholic Church.
Other Ethiopian and Eritrean Orthodox practices include such things as fasting, prescribed prayers, and devotion to saints and angels. A child is never left alone until baptism and cleansing rituals are performed. Boys are baptized forty days after birth, whereas girls are baptized eighty days after birth.
Defrocked priests and deacons commonly function as diviners, who are the main healers. Spirit possession is common, affecting primarily women. Women are also the normal spirit mediums. A debtera is an itinerant lay priest figure trained by the Church as a scribe, cantor, and often as a folk healer, who may also function in roles comparable to a deacon or exorcist. Folklore and legends ascribe the role of magician to the debtera as well.
A small number of Abyssinian Christians adhere to various forms of Pentecostalism or Anabaptists, collectively known as P'ent'ay.
Most of Ethiopia and Eritrea's Muslims are Sunni Islam Muslims, much like the majority of the Muslim world, hence the beliefs and practices of the Muslims of Ethiopia and Eritrea are basically the same: embodied in the Qur'an and the Sunnah. There are also Sufism orders present in Ethiopia. According to the 1994 census of Ethiopia (with similar numbers for the 1984 census), about a third of its population is adherent of Islam and members of the Muslim community can be found throughout the country. Islam in Ethiopia is the predominant religion in the regions of Somali Region, Afar Region, Berta, and the section of Oromia Region east of the Great Rift Valley, as well as in Jimma Zone. Islam in Eritrea is the predominant religion of all the ethnic groups except for the Tigrinya people, the Bilen people, and the Kunama people.
The most important Islamic religious practices, such as the daily ritual prayers ( salat) and fasting ( sawm, Ethiopic ጾም, ṣom – used by local Christians as well) during the holy month of Ramadan, are observed both in urban centers as well as in rural areas, among both settled peoples and nomads. Numerous Ethiopian Muslims perform the pilgrimage to Mecca every year. Gurage people:
Celebrity singer Mahmoud Ahmed. ]]
The Jewish Pre-settlement Theory essentially states that starting around the 8th century BCE until about the 5th century BCE, there was an influx of Jewish settlers both from Egypt & Sudan in the north, and southern Arabia in the east.
The chief Semitic languages of Ethiopia also suggest an antiquity of Judaism in Ethiopia. "There still remains the curious circumstance that a number of Abyssinian words connected with religionHell, cult image, Easter, purification, of Hebrew origin. These words must have been derived directly from a Jewish source, for the Abyssinian Church knows the scriptures only in a Ge'ez version made from the Septuagint."
Beta Israel traditions claim that the Ethiopian Jews are descended from the lineage of Moses himself, some of whose children and relatives are said to have separated from the other Children of Israel after the Exodus and gone southwards, or, alternatively or together with this, that they are descended from the tribe of Dan, which fled southwards down the Arabian coastal lands from Judaea at the time of the breakup of the Kingdom of Israel into two kingdoms in the 10th century BCE. (precipitated by the oppressive demands of Rehoboam, King Solomon's heir), or at the time of the destruction of the northern kingdom of Israel in the 8th century BCE. Certainly there was trade as early as the time of King Solomon down along the Red Sea to the Yemen and even as far as India, according to the Bible, and there would, therefore, have been Jewish settlements at various points along the trade routes. There is definite archaeological evidence of Jewish settlements and of their cultural influence on both sides of the Red Sea well at least 2,500 years ago, both along the Arabian coast and in the Yemen, on the eastern side, and along the southern Egyptian and Sudanese coastal regions. Modern day Ethiopian Jews are adherents of Haymanot, a sect that is close to Karaite Judaism.
Some Ethiopian Jews, especially those living in Israel, follow Rabbinic Judaism, mainly due to the Israeli government making 'proper conversion' a prerequisite for being recognized as Jews.
The source texts, RIE 185 and 189, are unvocalized. These vocalizations are from Rainer Voigt and Francis Breyer.
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