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The Indian Door of Tāfāri Mākonnen's House at Harar (Ethiopia)

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 September 2009

Richard Pankhurst
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Extract

Indian commercial relations with the Red Sea area, and in particular with Ethiopia and the Horn of Africa, date back to the dawn of history. Craftsmen from the sub-continent were also active in the Ethiopian region for many centuries, most notably in the early 1620s when “a noble Indian” there is said, by the Jesuit Affonso Mendes, to have thrown white pebbles into the fire, as he had seen done in Cambay, and to have thereby produced “a very glutinous lime”. The then ruler of the country, Emperor Susenyos, was reported by another of the Jesuits, Manoel de Almeida, to have shortly afterwards given orders for the construction of a stone bridge which was erected by a craftsman from India. The latter, according to a contemporary Ethiopian chronicle, was a Banyan called Abdāl Kerim who was also responsible for building Susenyos a palace at his capital Dānqāz.

Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society , Volume 1 , Issue 3 , July 1991 , pp. 389 - 391
Copyright
Copyright © The Royal Asiatic Society 1991

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References

1 Wilford, F., “On Egypt and other countries adjacent to the Cali River, or Nile of Ethiopia, from the ancient books of the Hindus”, Asiatick Researches ii (1702). p. 302Google Scholar Bruce, J., Bruce, Travels to Discover the Source of the Nile (Edinburgh, 1790), i, p. 432;Google Scholar Chatterji, S. K., India and Ethiopia from the Seventh Century B.C. (Calcutta, 1967);Google Scholar Vincent, W., The Commerce and Navigation of the Ancients in the Indian Ocean (London, 1897), ii, pp. 45, 423;Google Scholar Muthanna, I. M., Indo-Ethiopian Relations for Centuries. (Addis Ababa, 1961)Google Scholar. On Indian traders in the region see Pankhurst, R., “The ‘Banyan’ or Indian presence at Massawa, the Dahlak islands and the Horn of Africa”, Mouvements de populations dans ľocéan indien (Paris, 1979), pp. 107–28.Google Scholar

2 Beccari, C., Rerum Aethiopicarum Scriptores Occidentales (Rome, 1903–1917), viii, p. IIIGoogle Scholar

3 Beckingham, C. F. and Huntingford, G. W. B., Some Records of Ethiopia 1593–1646 (London, 1954), pp. 26–7Google Scholar Pereira, F. M. Esteves, Chronica de Susenyos., Rei de Ethiopia (Lisbon, 1900), pp. 225, 290.Google Scholar

4 Van Donzel, E. J., A Yemenite Embassy to Ethiopia 1647–1648 (Wiesbaden, 1986), pp. 149–51.Google Scholar See furtherNazionale dei Lincei, R., Problemi Attuali di Scienza e di Cultura, CXCI (1974), pp. 281–2.Google Scholar

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7 Burton, R. F., First Footsteps in East Africa (London, 1894), ii, p. 29;Google Scholar Paulitschke, , Harar. Forschungsreise nach den Somal– und Galla Ländern Ost-Afrikas (Leipzig), p. 208.Google Scholar

8 Gleichen, , op. cit., p. 56.Google Scholar On the extent of Indian settlement in the city see also Pankhurst, R., History of Ethiopian Towns from the Mid-Nineteenth Century to 1935 (Stuttgart, 1985), pp. 267–8.Google Scholar

9 E. Ullendorff, The Autobiography of Emperor Haile Sellassie I. ‘My Life and Ethiopia's Progress’ 1892–1937 (London, 1976), pp. 31–41, and idem. The Ethiopians. An Introduction to Country and People (London, 1973), 3rd ed., pp. 91–2Google Scholar For a brief survey of the life of the late monarch see Selassie, Sergew Hable, “Haile Selassie’ in The Encyclopaedia Africana Dictionary of African Biography (New York, 1977), pp. 78–84.Google Scholar

10 For a convenient plan of the city see the Consociazione Turistica Italiana's Guida, Africa Orientate Italiana. (Milan, 1938), pp. 446–7.Google Scholar The house, however, is not indicated there, but is marked in a recent brochure Discovering Harar (n.d.) issued by the Catholic Church in the city (P.O.B. 177) to whose Père Emile the present writer is much indebted.

11 I am indebted to Dr Berhanou Abbebe, of Addis Ababa University, for help in deciphering the inscription, and for drawing my attention to this linguistic variation.

12 On his life seePierre Pétrides, S., Le Héros ďAdoua. Ras Makonnen, Prince ďEthopie (Paris, 1963Google Scholar