Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

Collaborative Mapping of Sacred Forests in Southern Ethiopia: Canopies Harboring Conflict Landscapes?

  • Original Article
  • Published:
African Archaeological Review Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

The Boreda elders of southern Ethiopia requested that we create maps highlighting the locations of their historic settlements and sacred groves. Community elders led us along winding footpaths that ascended to nine mountaintops that had been occupied since the early thirteenth century and were abandoned nearly 100 years ago. Surrounding these historic communities are Boreda sacred groves with springs, caves, and boulders that are physical evidence in their Indigenous religion of the animation of the non-human world. Yet, the tree canopies also harbor walls, berms, and trenches that suggest a history of conflict. Thematic maps of these places and their landscapes illustrate the strategic alignment of Boreda sacred-fortified forested monuments, which spatially correspond to their oral traditions and histories recounting their resistance against neighboring slave raiders and the Northern Ethiopian state. By integrating precise spatial relationships with community knowledge of places and histories, we demonstrate the power of this knowledge in documenting precolonial histories.

Résumé

Les doyens Boreda du sud de l’Éthiopie nous ont demandé de créer des cartes illustrant l’emplacement de leurs colonies historiques et de leurs bois sacrés. Les anciens de la communauté nous ont guidés le long des sentiers sinueux qui montaient vers neuf sommets de montagne occupés depuis le début du XIIIe siècle et qui avaient été abandonnés depuis il ya a près de 100 ans. Autour de ces communautés historiques, se trouvent des bois sacrés avec des sources, des grottes et des rochers qui constituent une preuve matérielle de l’animation du monde non humain dans leur religion autochtone. Cependant, les cimes des arbres abritent également des murs, des bermes et des tranchées qui suggèrent une histoire de conflit. Des cartes thématiques montrant les emplacements précis de ces lieux et de leurs paysages illustrent l’alignement stratégique de leurs monuments forestiers sacrés et militaires, qui correspondent spatialement à leurs traditions et histoires orales relatant leur résistance aux négriers voisins et à l’État éthiopien du nord. En intégrant des relations spatiales précises à la connaissance communautaire des lieux et des histoires, nous démontrons le pouvoir de ces connaissances dans la documentation des histoires précoloniales.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Log in via an institution

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Fig. 1
Fig. 2
Fig. 3
Fig. 4
Fig. 5
Fig. 6
Fig. 7
Fig. 8
Fig. 9
Fig. 10
Fig. 11
Fig. 12
Fig. 13
Fig. 14
Fig. 15
Fig. 16
Fig. 17
Fig. 18
Fig. 19

Similar content being viewed by others

References

  • Abélès, M. (1977). La guerre vue d’Ochollo. Revue Canadienne des Études Africaines, 11(3), 455–471.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Abélès, M. (1981). In search of the monarch: Introduction of the state among the Gamo of Ethiopia. In D. Crummey & C. Steward (Eds.), Modes of production in Africa: The precolonial era (pp. 35–67). Beverly Hills: Sage Publication.

    Google Scholar 

  • Abungu, G.H., & Githitho, A. (2012). Homeland of the Mijikenda people: Sacred Mijikenda Kaya forests, Kenya. In A. Galla (Ed.), World heritage: Benefits beyond borders (pp. 147–157). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  • Arthur, K. W. (2018). The lives of stone tools: Crafting the status, skill, and identity of flintknappers. Tucson: University of Arizona Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Arthur, K. W. (2019). Ethnoarchaeologies of listening: Learning technological ontologies bit by bit. In P. R. Schmidt & A. B. Kehoe (Eds.), Archaeologies of listening (pp. 25–46). Gainesville: University of Florida Press.

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  • Arthur, K. W. (2020). Wombs of the Earth: Preserving and reconstituting feminine prestige and dignity through heritage. In T. C. Cain & T. Raczek (Eds.), Engendering heritage: Contemporary approaches to archaeological and heritage practices. Washington D.C.: Archaeological Papers of the American Anthropological Association.

  • Arthur, K. W., Arthur, J. W., Curtis, M. C., Lakew, B., Lesur-Gebremariam, J., & Ethiopia, Y. (2009). Historical archaeology in the highlands of southern Ethiopia: Preliminary findings. Nyame Akuma, 72, 3–11.

  • Arthur, K. W., Arthur, J. W., Curtis, M. C., Lakew, B., Lesur-Gebremariam, J., & Ethiopia, Y. (2010). Fire on the mountain: Dignity and prestige in the history and archaeology of the Boreda Gamo highlands in southern Ethiopia. SAA Archaeological Record, 10(1), 17–21.

    Google Scholar 

  • Arthur, K. W., Tocha, Y. E., Curtis, M. C., Lakew, B., & Arthur, J. W. (2017). Seniority through ancestral landscapes: Community archaeology in the highlands of southern Ethiopia. Journal of Community Archaeology & Heritage, 3(2), 101–114.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Arthur, J. M., Curtis, C., Arthur, K. J. W., Coltorti, M., Pieruccini, P., Lesur, J., Fuller, D., Lucas, L., Conyers, L., Stock, J., Stretton, S., & Tykot, R. H. (2019). The transition from hunting-gathering to food production in the Gamo highlands of southern Ethiopia. African Archaeological Review, 36(1), 5–65.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Atalay, S. (2012). Community-based archaeology: Research with, by, and for Indigenous and local communities. Berkeley: University of California Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Bahrey, A. (1593 [Reprint 1954]). A history of the Galla. In C.F. Beckingham & G. W. B. Huntingford (Eds.), Some records of Ethiopia 1593-1646 (pp.109-132). London: Routledge.

  • Beckingham, C. F., & Huntingford, G. W. B. (Eds.). (2016 [1954]). Some records of Ethiopia, 1593-1646: Being extracts from the history of high Ethiopia or Abassia, by Manoel de Almeida, together with Bahrey's history of the Galla (No. 107). London: Hakluyt Society.

  • Berhane-Selassie, T. (2008). The Socio-politics of Ethiopian sacred groves. In M. J. Sheridan & C. Nyamweru (Eds.), African sacred groves: Ecological dynamics and social change (pp. 103–116). Oxford: James Currey.

    Google Scholar 

  • Bombe, B. (2013). Slavery in Gamo highlands, Ethiopia. Saarbrucken: LAP Lambert Verlag.

    Google Scholar 

  • Bouanga, A. (2017). Gold, slaves, and trading routes in southern Blue Nile (Abbay) societies, Ethiopia, 13th–16th centuries. Northeast African Studies, 17(2), 31–60.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Braukamper, U. (1992). Aspects of religious syncretism in southern Ethiopia. Journal of Religion in Africa, 22(3), 194–192.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Brockington, D. (2002). Fortress conservation: The preservation of the Mkomazi Game Reserve, Tanzania. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Bunge, W. (1971). Fitzgerald: The geography of a revolution. Cambridge: Schenkman Publishing.

    Google Scholar 

  • Bureau, J. (1979). Notes sur l’histoire contemporaine des Gamo d’Ethiopie Meridionale. Abbay, 10, 201–204.

    Google Scholar 

  • Chapin, M., Lamb, Z., & Threlkeld, B. (2005). Mapping indigenous lands. Annual Review of Anthropology, 34, 619–638.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Chapman, H. (2009). Landscape archaeology and GIS. Cheltenham: The History Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Chouin, G. (2008). Archaeological perspectives on sacred groves in Ghana. In M. J. Sheridan & C. Nyamweru (Eds.), African sacred groves: Ecological dynamics and social change (pp. 178–194). Oxford: James Currey.

    Google Scholar 

  • Colwell-Chanthaphonh, C., & Ferguson, T. J. (Eds.). (2007). Collaboration in archaeological practice: engaging descendant communities. Lanham: Rowman Altamira.

    Google Scholar 

  • Conolly, J. (2008). Geographical information systems and landscape archaeology. In B. David & J. Thomas (Eds.), Handbook of landscape archaeology (pp. 583–595). Walnut Creek: Left Coast Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Conolly, J., & Trent, M. (2006). Geographical Information Systems in archaeology. Cambridge: Cambridge Manuals in Archaeology, Cambridge University Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Cruz, D. (2013). The nature of culture: Sites, ancestors, and trees in the archaeology of southern Mozambique. In N. Ferris, R. Harrison, & M. V. Wilcox (Eds.), Rethinking colonial pasts through archaeology (pp. 123–149). Oxford: Oxford University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Derat, M. L. (2013). Chrétiens et musulmans d’Éthiopie face à la traite et à l’esclavage aux XVe et XVIe siècles. In H. Médard, M. L. Derat, T. Vernet, & M. P. Ballarin (Eds.), Traites et esclavages en Afrique orientale et dans l’océan Indien (pp. 121–148). Paris: Karthala.

    Google Scholar 

  • Donham, D., & James, W. (1986). The southern marches of imperial Ethiopia: Essays in history and social anthropology. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Dowie, M. (2009). Conservation refugees: The hundred-year conflict between global conservation and native peoples. Cambridge: Massachusetts Institute of Technology Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Fernyhough, T. (1994). Slavery and the slave trade in southern Ethiopia: A historical overview ca. 1800–1935. Slavery and Abolition: A Journal of Slave Post-Slave Studies, 9(3), 103–130.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Fletcher, R., Johnson, I., Bruce, E., & Khun-Neay, K. (2007). Living with heritage: Site monitoring and heritage values in greater Ankor and the Angkor World Heritage site, Cambodia. World Archaeology, 39(3), 385–405.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Flexner, J. L. (2014). Mapping local perspectives in the historical archaeology of Vanuatu mission landscapes. Asian Perspectives, 53(1), 2–28.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Freeman, D. (2002). Initiating change in highland Ethiopia: Causes and consequences of cultural transformation. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Fukui, K., & Markakis, J. (Eds.). (1994). Ethnicity and conflict in the Horn of Africa. London: James Currey.

    Google Scholar 

  • Gombya-Ssembajjwe, W. S. (1995). Sacred forests in modern Ganda society. The Uganda Journal, 42, 32–44.

    Google Scholar 

  • González-Ruibal, A. (2014). An archaeology of resistance: Materiality and time in an African borderland. Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield.

    Google Scholar 

  • Haberland, E. (1964). The influence of the Christian Ethiopian Empire on southern Ethiopia. Journal of Semitic Studies, 9(1), 235–238.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Haberland, E. (1978). Ethnogenesis and expansion in southwest Ethiopia. With special reference to the Omotic-speaking people. Abbay, 9, 141–143.

    Google Scholar 

  • Haberland, E. (1981). Notes on the history of Konta: A recent state foundation in southern Ethiopia. Publications de la Société française d'histoire des outre-mers, 5(2), 735–749.

    Google Scholar 

  • Haile, A. A. (2014). The Origin, significance and physical condition of the great Medieval defensive dry stone walls of Dawuro/Kati Halal Keela, southwestern Ethiopia. ERJSSH, 1(1), 17–39.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hassen, M. (1990). The Oromo of Ethiopia: a history, 1570-1860. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Heckenberger, M. J. (2009). Mapping indigenous histories: Collaboration, cultural heritage, and conservation in the Amazon. Collaborative Anthropologies, 2, 9–32.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Henze, P. B. (2004). Layers of time: A history of Ethiopia. New York: Palgrave Macmillian.

    Google Scholar 

  • Huntingford, G. W. B. (1955). The Gala of Ethiopia and the kingdoms of Kafa and Janjero. London: International African Institute.

    Google Scholar 

  • Huntingford, G. W. B. (1989). The historical geography of Ethiopia: From the first century AD to 1704 (Vol. 4). Oxford: Oxford University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Insoll, T. (2007). “Natural” or “human” spaces? Tallensi sacred groves and shrines and their potential implications for aspects of Northern European prehistory and phenomenological interpretation. Norwegian Archaeological Review, 40(2), 138–158.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Insoll, T. (2015). Material explorations in African archaeology. Oxford: OUP Oxford.

    Google Scholar 

  • Jones, E. E. (2006). Using viewshed analysis to explore settlement choice: A case study of the Onondaga Iroquois. American Antiquity, 71, 523–538.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Kopytoff, I. (1987). The internal African frontier: The making of African political culture. In I. Kopytoff (Ed.), The African Frontier (pp. 3–85). Bloomington: Indiana University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Kvamme, K. (1999). Recent directions and developments in Geographical Information Systems. Journal of Archaeological Research, 7(2), 153–201.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Lange, W. J. (1976). Dialectics of divine" kingship" in the Kafa highlands. Los Angles, CA: African Studies Center, University of California.

    Google Scholar 

  • Levine, D. (1974). Greater Ethiopia: The evolution of a multiethnic society. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Mather, C. (2003). Shrines and the domestication of landscape. Journal of Anthropological Research, 59(1), 23–45.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Mehrer, M. W., & Wescott, K. L. (2005). GIS and archaeological site location modeling. Boca Raton: CRC Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Molla, B. (1992). Traditional defense among the Konso of Ethiopia. Sociology Ethnology Bulletin, 1, 22–27.

    Google Scholar 

  • Mutoro, H. W. (1994). The Mijikenda Kaya as sacred site. In J. Hubert, D. Carmichael, B. Reeves, & A. Schanche (Eds.), Sacred sites, sacred places (pp. 132–139). London: Routledge.

    Google Scholar 

  • O’Rouke, M. J. E. (2018). The map is not the territory: Applying qualitative geographic information systems in the practice of activist archaeology. Journal of Social Archaeology, 18(2), 149–173.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Ogundiran, A. (2016). A multiplex landscape: Explorations of place and practice in Osun grove, Nigeria. In J. Beardsley (Ed.), Cultural landscape heritage in Sub-Saharan Africa (pp. 293–320). Washington D.C.: Dumbarton Oaks.

    Google Scholar 

  • Okoye, I. S. (2016). Good bush, bad bush: Representing our natures in historical southern Nigerian landscapes. In J. Beardsley (Ed.), Cultural landscape heritage in Sub-Saharan Africa (pp. 263–292). Washington D.C.: Dumbarton Oaks.

    Google Scholar 

  • Olmstead, J. (1975). Agricultural Land and Social Stratification in the Gamo Highlands of Southern Ethiopia. In H. G. Marcus (Ed.), Proceedings of the first U.S. conference on Ethiopian studies (pp. 223–234). East Lansing: African Studies Center, Michigan State University.

  • Olmstead, J. (1997). Woman between two worlds: portrait of an Ethiopian rural leader. Champaign: University of Illinois Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Pankhurst, R. (1997). The Ethiopian borderlands: Essays in regional history from ancient times to the end of the 18th century. Trenton, NJ: The Red Sea Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Reid, R. J. (2011). Frontiers of violence in North-East Africa: Genealogies of conflict since c. 1800. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Rundstrom, R. A. (1995). GIS, indigenous peoples, and epistemological diversity. Cartography and Geographic Information Systems, 22(1), 45–57.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Sakaguchi, T., Morin, J., & Dickie, R. (2010). Defensibility of large prehistoric sites in the Mid-Fraser region on the Canadian Plateau. Journal of Archaeological Science, 37, 1171–1185.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Savova, N. D. (2009). Heritage kinaesthetics: Local constructivism and UNESCO’s intangible-tangible politics at a “Favela” museum. Anthropology Quarterly, 82(2), 547–585.

  • Schmidt, P. R. (1994). Historical ecology and landscape transformation in eastern equatorial Africa. In C. Crumley (Ed.), Historical ecology (pp. 99–125). Santa Fe: SAR Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Schmidt, P. R., & Arthur, K. W. (2018). Community-based Approaches to African History. Oxford Research Encyclopedia of African History. https://doi.org/10.1093/acrefore/9780190277734.013.617.

  • Schmidt, P. R., & Mrozowski, S. A. (Eds.). (2013). The death of prehistory. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Selassie, T. B. (1975). The question of Damot and Wälamo. Journal of Ethiopian Studies, 13(1), 37–46.

    Google Scholar 

  • Sheridan, M. J. (2008). The dynamics of sacred groves: Ecological, social, & symbolic processes. In M. J. Sheridan & C. Nyamweru (Eds.), African sacred groves (pp. 9–41). Oxford: James Currey.

    Google Scholar 

  • Sheridan, M. J. (2009). The environmental and social history of African sacred groves: A Tanzanian case study. African Studies Review, 52(1), 73–98.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Sheridan, M. J. (2016). Cultural capital and structural power in African landscapes: The social dynamics of sacred groves. In J. Beardsley (Ed.), Cultural landscape heritage in Sub-Saharan Africa (pp. 237–262). Washington D.C: Dumbarton Oaks.

    Google Scholar 

  • Shetler, J. (2007). Imagining Serengeti: A history of landscape memory in Tanzania from earliest time to present. Athens: Ohio University Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Sivunnaidu, P., & Mikre, T. (2018). The secret behind survival: Indigenous defense systems of Kaffa, Ethiopia. International Journal of Multidisciplinary Educational Research, 7(5.4), 78–89.

    Google Scholar 

  • Sletto, B. I. (2005). “We drew what we imagined”: Participatory mapping, performance, and the arts of landscape making. Current Anthropology, 50(4), 443–476.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Smidt, W. (2010). The slavery question. In S. Uhlig (Ed.), Encyclopedia Aethopica (Vol. 4, pp. 680–681). Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz Verlag.

    Google Scholar 

  • Smith, L. T. (1999). Decolonizing methodologies: Research and Indigenous peoples. London: Zed Books.

    Google Scholar 

  • Smith, C., & Wobst, H. M. (2005). Indigenous archaeologies: Decolonizing theory and practice. London: Routledge.

    Google Scholar 

  • Smith, L., Morgan, A., & van der Meer, A. (2010). Community-driven research in cultural heritage management: The Waanyi women’s history project. International Journal of Heritage Studies, 9(1), 65–80.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Sorenson, J. (1993). Imagining Ethiopia: Struggles of history and identity in the Horn of Africa. New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Tamrat, T. (1972). Church and state in Ethiopia 1270-1527. Oxford: Clarendon Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Watkins, J. (2000). Indigenous archaeology: American Indian values and scientific practice. Walnut Creek: AltaMira.

    Google Scholar 

  • Wheatley, D., & Gillings, M. (2002). Spatial technology and archaeology: The archaeological applications of GIS. Abington: Taylor and Francis.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Wright, D. K., MacEachern, S., & Lee, J. (2014). Analysis of feature intervisibility and cumulative visibility using GIS, Bayesian and spatial statistics: A study from the Mandara Mountains, Northern Cameroon. PLoS One, 9(11), 1–15.

    Google Scholar 

  • Zelalem, Z. (2018). Heartwarming scenes in Arba Minch as Oromo traditional elders visit Gamo counterparts. OPride September 27, 2018 https://www.opride.com/2018/09/27/heartwarming-scenes-in-arba-minch-as-oromo-traditional-elders-visit-gamo-counterparts/

  • Zeleke, H. (2007). Some notes on the great walls of Wolayta and Dawro. Annales d’Ethiopie, 23, 399–412.

    Article  Google Scholar 

Download references

Acknowledgments

Heartfelt thanks go toward many Boreda who collaborated and shared their present and past lives with us, and we hope this work brings them pride, honor, and dignity. A special thanks goes to Yohannes Ethiopia Tocha, who helped with our research. We also to thank the program officers and reviewers at the National Science Foundation and National Endowment for the Humanities. We extend our deep gratitude for the assistance of the personnel of the offices at Ethiopia's Authority for Research and Conservation of Cultural Heritage, particularly our national and regional representatives Gezehegne Girma and Bizuayehu Lakew; the National Museum of Ethiopia; and the Southern Nations, Nationalities, and Peoples Region's Bureau of Culture and Information in Awassa, Arba Minch, and Zefine.

Funding

The research presented in this paper was funded by grants from the National Science Foundation (2006 BCS-0514055 and 2010-2013, BCS-1027607) and the National Endowment for the Humanities (2007–2008 # RZ-50575-06).

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. University of South Florida St. Petersburg, Saint Petersburg, FL, USA

    Kathryn Weedman Arthur

  2. University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Champaign, IL, USA

    Sean Stretton

  3. University of California, Los Angeles, CA, USA

    Matthew C. Curtis

  4. California State University at Channel Islands, Camarillo, CA, USA

    Matthew C. Curtis

Authors
  1. Kathryn Weedman Arthur
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Sean Stretton
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  3. Matthew C. Curtis
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Kathryn Weedman Arthur.

Ethics declarations

Conflict of Interest

The authors declare that we have no conflict of interest.

Additional information

Publisher’s Note

Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

Arthur, K.W., Stretton, S. & Curtis, M.C. Collaborative Mapping of Sacred Forests in Southern Ethiopia: Canopies Harboring Conflict Landscapes?. Afr Archaeol Rev 37, 143–168 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10437-019-09353-x

Download citation

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10437-019-09353-x

Keywords

Search

Navigation