The Qabena and the Wolane: Two peoples of the Gurage region and their respective histories according to their own oral traditions
Joachim Crass Ronny MeyerCrass Joachim, Meyer Ronny. The Qabena and the Wolane: Two peoples of the Gurage region and their respective histories according to their own oral traditions. In: Annales d”Ethiopie. Volume 17, année 2001. pp. 175-182.DOI : https://doi.org/10.3406/ethio.2001.997www.phebinhvanhoc.com.vn/en/doc/ethio_0066-2127_2001_num_17_1_997175 Annales d”Ethiopie, 2001, vol. XVII: 173-180.The Qabena and the Wolane: Two peoples of the Gurage region and their respective histories according to their ownoral traditionsJoachim Crass & Ronny Meyer*
Introduction
Despite the fact that the Gurage region is easily accessible and not far away from Addis Ababa, relatively little is known about its peoples, their languages and the exact geographical boundaries of where they live1. This paper is a preliminary report on ongoing research concerning two peoples of this region and their languages2. These two peoples are the Qabena and the Wolane3 who today live in close proximity with♦ University of Mainz. 1 This research, conducted between December 2000 and June 2001, is part of a larger project affiliated to the University of Mainz/Germany. It is financed by the German Research Foundation (Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft) and deals with cultural and language contact in Northeast Africa and West Asia (Sonderforschungsbereich 295 Kulturelle und sprachliche Kontakte: Prozesse des Wandels in historischen SpannungsfeldernNordostafrikas/Westasiens). 2 Unfortunately, while writing this article the two huge monographs written by Ulrich Brankâmper (Braukâmper 1980, Braukâmper 1983) who deal with the history of the Hadiyya and Gurage peoples were not at our disposal. 3 Throughout the paper we use these spellings even if the respective words are pronounced slightly different.