The castration of Amara men by Oromo warriors in Ethiopia is strategic. If you castrate men, there will be no next generation and the absence of testosterone in castrated men, will make theses men less aggressive and can be easily used as slaves. However, castration of masses of men is technically impossible. But the idea may be used in the future to control population.
Amara men who invaded Oromo lands, amputated Breasts of Oromo women. This strategy is used to reduce the Oromo population by Menelik. If you amputated the breasts of girls, they will not able to feed their children. Thus the Oromo population automatically decreases. This strategy is weaker than the strategy of mass castration of Amara men. It was technically impossible to amputate all women of Oromo as the Oromo were fighting back. Oromo men were hiding their women.
The Oromo or Galla warrior tribes took the women and children and adopted them as their family, a very fruitful strategy. It is said that some Amara women killed their men to get accepted by Oromo tribes men.
In general both amputation of women by Amara and castartion of men by Oromo areprimitive strategies internalized in the Amara and Oromo tribes for millennia. Oromo and Amara are tribes from Bantu African groups. It is said Somalis and Afar tribes also castrate men, who do not belong to their tribes.
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EthioRedSea
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Noble Amhara
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Re: The Oromo castrated Amara men and Menelik(Amara men) amputated Oromo women in 19th Century Ethiopia!
kkkkkkkkkkkkk
First you tell us Meneliks Warriors were all Oromos then you tell us the next day his warriors were all Amharas.
The fact is Menelik was a Shewan Nationalist he saw no Oromo and no Amhara. He saw Arsi as Arsi in his time Arsi had its own Cheifdom ! get that through your thick head!
His Warriors were from across Shewa. These Included many Shewan Oromos/Tulamas who also were in Anoolee and fought there
the story of Women being attacked is fake! it is not Shewan Culture to Attack Women! Shewans are civilized Tulama/Gurage/Amhara Orthodox Christians.
In Battles people get killed. the Savage Arsis are the ones who have culture of cutting women boobs not Shewa.
I dare you to go to Arsi and go fight one of them! the Arsi will bring Mencha and try to cut you to pieces !
! so it is really Arsi Savages blaming their own Savages on Others Boi!
First you tell us Meneliks Warriors were all Oromos then you tell us the next day his warriors were all Amharas.
The fact is Menelik was a Shewan Nationalist he saw no Oromo and no Amhara. He saw Arsi as Arsi in his time Arsi had its own Cheifdom ! get that through your thick head!
His Warriors were from across Shewa. These Included many Shewan Oromos/Tulamas who also were in Anoolee and fought there
the story of Women being attacked is fake! it is not Shewan Culture to Attack Women! Shewans are civilized Tulama/Gurage/Amhara Orthodox Christians.
In Battles people get killed. the Savage Arsis are the ones who have culture of cutting women boobs not Shewa.
I dare you to go to Arsi and go fight one of them! the Arsi will bring Mencha and try to cut you to pieces !
! so it is really Arsi Savages blaming their own Savages on Others Boi!
Re: The Oromo castrated Amara men and Menelik(Amara men) amputated Oromo women in 19th Century Ethiopia!
What about the long standing gossip story being told to the effect that the tplf have been willingly sterilizing Amhara women as a scientific form of population control so that as time keeps marching ahead both the population of Amhara region and Tigray region may become more or less equal. Or should I ask from Obbo Thomas H, the sarcastic head guru?Noble Amhara wrote: ↑09 Feb 2022, 23:53kkkkkkkkkkkkk
First you tell us Meneliks Warriors were all Oromos then you tell us the next day his warriors were all Amharas.
The fact is Menelik was a Shewan Nationalist he saw no Oromo and no Amhara. He saw Arsi as Arsi in his time Arsi had its own Cheifdom ! get that through your thick head!
His Warriors were from across Shewa. These Included many Shewan Oromos/Tulamas who also were in Anoolee and fought there
the story of Women being attacked is fake! it is not Shewan Culture to Attack Women! Shewans are civilized Tulama/Gurage/Amhara Orthodox Christians.
In Battles people get killed. the Savage Arsis are the ones who have culture of cutting women boobs not Shewa.
I dare you to go to Arsi and go fight one of them! the Arsi will bring Mencha and try to cut you to pieces !
! so it is really Arsi Savages blaming their own Savages on Others Boi!
Last but NOT least, honestly speaking it is true that captives in Oromo hands live like kings and queens (just with the pinch of exaggeration) in good conditions much more better than in their own communities even during peace times.
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EthioRedSea
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Re: The Oromo castrated Amara men and Menelik(Amara men) amputated Oromo women in 19th Century Ethiopia!
Where is your evidence? We have European sources stating the Amara soldiers were amputating breasts of Oromo women. Oromo are not savages. Oromos or Galla people do castrate men, mainly Amara men taken captives or when they are a in a mood because it is their culture to castrate non-Oromos. This is savage but of immense strategic advantage for Oromo expansion in East Africa including Eritrea, Ethiopia and Kenya. Oromo do not amputate breasts of women. They rather take them for sex and for getting children. This is also one of the reasons why Oromo succeeded in controlling vast tracts of land in Ethiopia, Kenya, Tanzania, Sudan, Eritrea. Menelik's soldiers were rough and had killed many Oromos indiscriminately. Whereas the Oromos killed only men, which indicates that Oromo were more intelligent than the Amara. The same policy is followed by Amara elites in Tigray and the rest of Ethiopia. Genocide in Tigray was done to destroy anything Tigrayan. The Oromos would have killed only men and taken the women and children to adopt them in their communities. They would have given them equal rights with the rest of the Oromo population. The Amara elites kill Qimant people in Gonder indiscriminately as did Menelik kill Oromo farmers in 19th Century. This is strategically destructive. People who have lost their family and property will take up arms to defend themselves. Amara do not learn from history and will loose any war with Oromo, Qimanti, Tigray, Gambella or South Sudan/Sudan.Noble Amhara wrote: ↑09 Feb 2022, 23:53kkkkkkkkkkkkk
First you tell us Meneliks Warriors were all Oromos then you tell us the next day his warriors were all Amharas.
The fact is Menelik was a Shewan Nationalist he saw no Oromo and no Amhara. He saw Arsi as Arsi in his time Arsi had its own Cheifdom ! get that through your thick head!
His Warriors were from across Shewa. These Included many Shewan Oromos/Tulamas who also were in Anoolee and fought there
the story of Women being attacked is fake! it is not Shewan Culture to Attack Women! Shewans are civilized Tulama/Gurage/Amhara Orthodox Christians.
In Battles people get killed. the Savage Arsis are the ones who have culture of cutting women boobs not Shewa.
I dare you to go to Arsi and go fight one of them! the Arsi will bring Mencha and try to cut you to pieces !
! so it is really Arsi Savages blaming their own Savages on Others Boi!
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EthioRedSea
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Re: The Oromo castrated Amara men and Menelik(Amara men) amputated Oromo women in 19th Century Ethiopia!
Re-membering Dismemberment: Haunting Images of Amputation at Aanolee and Oromo Political Subjectivities in Ethiopia
Young Su Park, April 2021
Abstract
This ethnographic study examines how the late nineteenth century Aanolee massacre in Ethiopia is remembered by the Arsi Oromo in gestures of amputation and memorial monuments. Haunted by vivid images of the amputated body, descendants of those who experienced this collective historical trauma have recast the past with implications for Oromo subjectivities. During recent periods of political violence, the dismembered bodies of the past have become reference points for Arsi Oromo seeking to reconstitute their collective social body. They literally “re-member” their community by having larger families and meeting under Odaa trees that represent the traditional Oromo political system and social body. This research suggests that secondary hauntings constituted of memorializations of the violated body can remain so emotionally potent as to facilitate new political responses and imaginaries among peoples with historical trauma.
Young Su Park, April 2021
Abstract
This ethnographic study examines how the late nineteenth century Aanolee massacre in Ethiopia is remembered by the Arsi Oromo in gestures of amputation and memorial monuments. Haunted by vivid images of the amputated body, descendants of those who experienced this collective historical trauma have recast the past with implications for Oromo subjectivities. During recent periods of political violence, the dismembered bodies of the past have become reference points for Arsi Oromo seeking to reconstitute their collective social body. They literally “re-member” their community by having larger families and meeting under Odaa trees that represent the traditional Oromo political system and social body. This research suggests that secondary hauntings constituted of memorializations of the violated body can remain so emotionally potent as to facilitate new political responses and imaginaries among peoples with historical trauma.
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EthioRedSea
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Re: The Oromo castrated Amara men and Menelik(Amara men) amputated Oromo women in 19th Century Ethiopia!
Aanolee: ‘a tragedy on which Ethiopian sources are silent’
April 8, 2014 by Mohammed A
(OPride) – Hundreds of thousands gathered in Hetosa, Arsi zone of Oromia, the largest of Ethiopia’s nine federal states, for the unveiling of the Aanolee Cultural Center on April 6, 2014, local media reported.
The cultural center houses the Oromo Martyrs’ memorial monument, an ethnographic museum and a mural. Standing several inches on top of a tomb, the monument shows a severed hand stretched upward holding a women’s breast, also severed. It is erected as a tribute to the Arsi Oromo whose hands and breasts were mutilated by 19th century Ethiopian emperor Menelik II.
Located 150kms from the capital Addis Ababa, Aanolee is a site steeped in Oromo history. As Madda Walaabuu stood as the cradle and greatness of the Oromo, Aanolee came to represent its humiliation. For centuries, the Oromo were organized under an egalitarian Gadaa system. It was at Aanolee that power transfer took place among generations of Arsi Abba Gadaa leaders under Odaa Rooba, one of the five Gadaa Oromo assemblies.
In late 19th century, roughly at the same time as the scramble for Africa, emperor Menelik II set out to forcibly incorporate independent Oromo territories into his “nascent empire.” Having conquered the Wollo, Tulama and other Oromo tribes, Menelik faced a fierce resistance from the Arsi.
The Arsi were not new to their Amhara neighbors to the north. In their encounters in battle, the Arsi did not consider their future nemesis to be much of a contender. The Arsi had, as they still do, much respect, both in war and in peace, for their southern neighbors – particularly the Sidama who are known for their fiercely warrior tradition. Besides, the Amhara did not then know how to ride horses, and the Arsi did not see any reason to be worried about loosing in battle to them. When news came that an invading army was approaching, the Arsi simply asked, “Is this the Sidama?” When told it was not, the Arsi scoffed, lowering their guards.
When Menelik’s army of conquest, equipped with modern firearms acquired from western powers, arrived in early 1880s, the Arsi was in for a rude surprise. However, buoyed by a tradition that bestowed Wayyooma (an almost sacred high honor) accorded to those distinguished in war as in peace, the Arsi waged a valiant war of resistance. The Arsi repeatedly ambushed and kept Menelik’s forces at bay for six years between 1880-86 — winning all 38 running battles. In one instance, in 1885, after Arsi warriors wiped out his elite imperial guard in a nightly ambush at the battle of Doddota near Mount Albasso, Menelik was forced to flee for life, leaving behind his wife and Negarit (the imperial drum). Menelik’s remaining soldiers, awed by the bravery of their opponents, reportedly sung: Doddota ye wandoochu bootaa (Doddota land of the brave).
On Sep. 6, 1886, the ferocious Arsi fighters succumbed to Menelik’s state of the art of the arts armaments with their spears and shields outmatched. An armistice was declared after an estimated 12,000 Oromo fighters, who faced off against a superior force led by general Ras Darge, perished in a single day battle. The Arsi “suspended their struggle to save whatever could be saved,” according to Oromo historian Abbas H. Gnamo, author of a recently published book, “Conquest and Resistance in the Ethiopian Empire, 1880-1974 – The Case of the Arsi Oromo.”
But the suspension of open hostility did not end Menelik’s appetite to crush and humiliate the Arsi. In 1887, Menelik’s forces came back to avenge their repeated defeat at the hands of local Oromo fighters and to terrorize the remaining populace into total submission. Ahead of a scheduled [deleted] event, a power transfer ceremony under the Gadaa system, Ras Darge called for a meeting to “make peace” with the Arsi and “deliberate” on future administrative matters. Thousands gathered at Aanolee. Aanolee was strategically chosen because it was a symbolic site of Arsi power and what is reverently referred to as Arsooma, a custom by which the Arsi Oromo made laws, deliberated on war and peace, elected their leaders and settled their inter and intra clan disputes — the super glue that held the Arsi tightly together.
Menelik’s scheme was to divide the Arsi so as to dismantle their Gadaa government structure and communal unity. Along with other Oromo speakers who served the system, the emperor enlisted local elders such as Tuke Mama and Bitee Dilaato. Mama was installed as the interim governor of sort. But the Arsi refused, not least citing the fact that Mama had outlived his Gadaa and was by then a Gadamojji (way past the retirement age under the age-based Gadaa grades).
The debate then centered on “qubaan moo lubaan bulla” — whether to accept Menelik’s rule or maintain their Gadaa structures. The proud Arsi chose the latter. Menelik himself then arrived to deliver the ultimatum that they would be annihilated if they don’t accept his rule. The Arsi was not ready to do so even long after accepting inevitable military defeat. The Arsi insisted on maintaining their Gadaa while accepting, even if begrudgingly, Menelik as a king. “Nugusummaa fudhannee, seeraa keennan bula,” they proclaimed according to local elders.
n what was to go down in Oromo history as Harmaaf Harka Muraa Aannolee, Ras Darge and Menelik’s army ordered those in attendance at the “peace” gathering to enter a narrow pass one by one. “The right hands of all male that entered were cut off on orders of Ras Darge. The Shoans tied the hand they cut to the neck of the victim. In the same manner, the right breasts of the women were also cut and tied to their necks,” according Gnamo. “As a further form of humiliation, fear and terror, the mutilated breasts and hands were tied around the necks of the victims who were then sent back home.”
As a result, all the men and women who went to Aanolee, the estimates ranging from a low of a thousand to thousands more, returned short of their right hands and right breasts.
That was not all. The local Abbaa Gadaas, the highest-ranking Arsi officials, including those in line to take the reign of power, were castrated. Menelik’s soldiers cut the tongues of those who spoke out against Abyssinian invasion. They went door to door collecting cultural artifacts, including Boku, Caaccuu, waraana, wonte, Siinqee and other relics. In a bid meant to destroy and remove Oromo culture from the people’s psyche, the artifacts were torched. It burned for eight straight days, according to descendants of the survivors.
Arsi oral historiography is replete with the story of the tragedy of the cold-blooded massacre at Aanolee. Told and retold by grandmothers and grandfathers for generations since, Aanolee served to this day as a symbol of Oromo resistance against Abyssinian expansion and its continuing legacy of subjugation. The Arsi saga of the 1880s gave birth to two stories — that of Aanolee and Lenjisoo Diigaa. According to Gnamo, Leenjiso was instrumental in organizing the Arsi resistance against Menelik’s invading army.
Among the Arsi, mention the word Aanolee and the blood of the Arsi boils and its trauma curdles into a rock of determination to see to it that justice is restored. Talk about the bravery of Lenjisoo and the knowledge of the massacre of Aanolee becomes a clarion call for spirited action against injustice and the willingness to pay whatever cost is necessary to re-empower the Oromo and relive the glory of its past patriotism and bravery.
Lenjisoo’s bravery was so well known that one of his earliest Geerarsa’s became part of the Arsi folklore. Gnamo writes,
Koloobni gadi gatee
Abeetni guddifatee
Waan boru biyyaa tayuu
Waan boru Arsii tayuu
Leenjoon ardhumaa mul’dhifatee.
Which means:
Forsaken by the Kollobaa, reared by the Abeeta,
What he will do tomorrow for the country
What he will do for the Arsi
Leenjiso showed it all today.
The fall of the Arsi marked a turning point in Abyssinia’s southern conquest. Although Menelik’s imperial army faced furious resistance at Cali Calanqo, in Eastern Oromia, by that time, a vast swath of the Oromo country was already annexed.
The Aanolee memorial was constructed with a cost of 20 million birr, according to the Oroma Culture and Tourism Bureau. The monument stands erect as a reminder of the tragedy about which, in the words of Gnamo, “Ethiopian history was largely silent.” Even today, some right-wing Ethiopianists, akin to holocaust deniers, claim the incident was a fiction. Aanolee stubbornly stands to remind Ethiopia’s rulers, who refuse to deal with mounting Oromo grievances, that the Oromo issue remains an open wound, a latent volcano — with only the day and time of its eruption uncertain.
April 8, 2014 by Mohammed A
(OPride) – Hundreds of thousands gathered in Hetosa, Arsi zone of Oromia, the largest of Ethiopia’s nine federal states, for the unveiling of the Aanolee Cultural Center on April 6, 2014, local media reported.
The cultural center houses the Oromo Martyrs’ memorial monument, an ethnographic museum and a mural. Standing several inches on top of a tomb, the monument shows a severed hand stretched upward holding a women’s breast, also severed. It is erected as a tribute to the Arsi Oromo whose hands and breasts were mutilated by 19th century Ethiopian emperor Menelik II.
Located 150kms from the capital Addis Ababa, Aanolee is a site steeped in Oromo history. As Madda Walaabuu stood as the cradle and greatness of the Oromo, Aanolee came to represent its humiliation. For centuries, the Oromo were organized under an egalitarian Gadaa system. It was at Aanolee that power transfer took place among generations of Arsi Abba Gadaa leaders under Odaa Rooba, one of the five Gadaa Oromo assemblies.
In late 19th century, roughly at the same time as the scramble for Africa, emperor Menelik II set out to forcibly incorporate independent Oromo territories into his “nascent empire.” Having conquered the Wollo, Tulama and other Oromo tribes, Menelik faced a fierce resistance from the Arsi.
The Arsi were not new to their Amhara neighbors to the north. In their encounters in battle, the Arsi did not consider their future nemesis to be much of a contender. The Arsi had, as they still do, much respect, both in war and in peace, for their southern neighbors – particularly the Sidama who are known for their fiercely warrior tradition. Besides, the Amhara did not then know how to ride horses, and the Arsi did not see any reason to be worried about loosing in battle to them. When news came that an invading army was approaching, the Arsi simply asked, “Is this the Sidama?” When told it was not, the Arsi scoffed, lowering their guards.
When Menelik’s army of conquest, equipped with modern firearms acquired from western powers, arrived in early 1880s, the Arsi was in for a rude surprise. However, buoyed by a tradition that bestowed Wayyooma (an almost sacred high honor) accorded to those distinguished in war as in peace, the Arsi waged a valiant war of resistance. The Arsi repeatedly ambushed and kept Menelik’s forces at bay for six years between 1880-86 — winning all 38 running battles. In one instance, in 1885, after Arsi warriors wiped out his elite imperial guard in a nightly ambush at the battle of Doddota near Mount Albasso, Menelik was forced to flee for life, leaving behind his wife and Negarit (the imperial drum). Menelik’s remaining soldiers, awed by the bravery of their opponents, reportedly sung: Doddota ye wandoochu bootaa (Doddota land of the brave).
On Sep. 6, 1886, the ferocious Arsi fighters succumbed to Menelik’s state of the art of the arts armaments with their spears and shields outmatched. An armistice was declared after an estimated 12,000 Oromo fighters, who faced off against a superior force led by general Ras Darge, perished in a single day battle. The Arsi “suspended their struggle to save whatever could be saved,” according to Oromo historian Abbas H. Gnamo, author of a recently published book, “Conquest and Resistance in the Ethiopian Empire, 1880-1974 – The Case of the Arsi Oromo.”
But the suspension of open hostility did not end Menelik’s appetite to crush and humiliate the Arsi. In 1887, Menelik’s forces came back to avenge their repeated defeat at the hands of local Oromo fighters and to terrorize the remaining populace into total submission. Ahead of a scheduled [deleted] event, a power transfer ceremony under the Gadaa system, Ras Darge called for a meeting to “make peace” with the Arsi and “deliberate” on future administrative matters. Thousands gathered at Aanolee. Aanolee was strategically chosen because it was a symbolic site of Arsi power and what is reverently referred to as Arsooma, a custom by which the Arsi Oromo made laws, deliberated on war and peace, elected their leaders and settled their inter and intra clan disputes — the super glue that held the Arsi tightly together.
Menelik’s scheme was to divide the Arsi so as to dismantle their Gadaa government structure and communal unity. Along with other Oromo speakers who served the system, the emperor enlisted local elders such as Tuke Mama and Bitee Dilaato. Mama was installed as the interim governor of sort. But the Arsi refused, not least citing the fact that Mama had outlived his Gadaa and was by then a Gadamojji (way past the retirement age under the age-based Gadaa grades).
The debate then centered on “qubaan moo lubaan bulla” — whether to accept Menelik’s rule or maintain their Gadaa structures. The proud Arsi chose the latter. Menelik himself then arrived to deliver the ultimatum that they would be annihilated if they don’t accept his rule. The Arsi was not ready to do so even long after accepting inevitable military defeat. The Arsi insisted on maintaining their Gadaa while accepting, even if begrudgingly, Menelik as a king. “Nugusummaa fudhannee, seeraa keennan bula,” they proclaimed according to local elders.
n what was to go down in Oromo history as Harmaaf Harka Muraa Aannolee, Ras Darge and Menelik’s army ordered those in attendance at the “peace” gathering to enter a narrow pass one by one. “The right hands of all male that entered were cut off on orders of Ras Darge. The Shoans tied the hand they cut to the neck of the victim. In the same manner, the right breasts of the women were also cut and tied to their necks,” according Gnamo. “As a further form of humiliation, fear and terror, the mutilated breasts and hands were tied around the necks of the victims who were then sent back home.”
As a result, all the men and women who went to Aanolee, the estimates ranging from a low of a thousand to thousands more, returned short of their right hands and right breasts.
That was not all. The local Abbaa Gadaas, the highest-ranking Arsi officials, including those in line to take the reign of power, were castrated. Menelik’s soldiers cut the tongues of those who spoke out against Abyssinian invasion. They went door to door collecting cultural artifacts, including Boku, Caaccuu, waraana, wonte, Siinqee and other relics. In a bid meant to destroy and remove Oromo culture from the people’s psyche, the artifacts were torched. It burned for eight straight days, according to descendants of the survivors.
Arsi oral historiography is replete with the story of the tragedy of the cold-blooded massacre at Aanolee. Told and retold by grandmothers and grandfathers for generations since, Aanolee served to this day as a symbol of Oromo resistance against Abyssinian expansion and its continuing legacy of subjugation. The Arsi saga of the 1880s gave birth to two stories — that of Aanolee and Lenjisoo Diigaa. According to Gnamo, Leenjiso was instrumental in organizing the Arsi resistance against Menelik’s invading army.
Among the Arsi, mention the word Aanolee and the blood of the Arsi boils and its trauma curdles into a rock of determination to see to it that justice is restored. Talk about the bravery of Lenjisoo and the knowledge of the massacre of Aanolee becomes a clarion call for spirited action against injustice and the willingness to pay whatever cost is necessary to re-empower the Oromo and relive the glory of its past patriotism and bravery.
Lenjisoo’s bravery was so well known that one of his earliest Geerarsa’s became part of the Arsi folklore. Gnamo writes,
Koloobni gadi gatee
Abeetni guddifatee
Waan boru biyyaa tayuu
Waan boru Arsii tayuu
Leenjoon ardhumaa mul’dhifatee.
Which means:
Forsaken by the Kollobaa, reared by the Abeeta,
What he will do tomorrow for the country
What he will do for the Arsi
Leenjiso showed it all today.
The fall of the Arsi marked a turning point in Abyssinia’s southern conquest. Although Menelik’s imperial army faced furious resistance at Cali Calanqo, in Eastern Oromia, by that time, a vast swath of the Oromo country was already annexed.
The Aanolee memorial was constructed with a cost of 20 million birr, according to the Oroma Culture and Tourism Bureau. The monument stands erect as a reminder of the tragedy about which, in the words of Gnamo, “Ethiopian history was largely silent.” Even today, some right-wing Ethiopianists, akin to holocaust deniers, claim the incident was a fiction. Aanolee stubbornly stands to remind Ethiopia’s rulers, who refuse to deal with mounting Oromo grievances, that the Oromo issue remains an open wound, a latent volcano — with only the day and time of its eruption uncertain.