THE WARRIOR QUEEN OF ETHIOPIA C. 980 – C. 1020
UNTOLD TRUTH ABOUT THE WARRIOR QUEEN OF ETHIOPIA.
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The uprising against the Axumite kingdom of Ethiopia, by the beautiful warrior Queen came as an attempt to resist domination by Semitic Christian forces of one nation. The Queen was the strongest and fearless in the history of ancient East African Queens.
During the Queen upsurge, the Axumite king at the time sent letter to the Patriarch of Alexandria, Egypt: pleading for him to send whatever forces were possible from the Christian world to aid against an unknown warrior queen who rode at the head of a horse-backed army that was systematically decimating his kingdom.
However, it was too late. Her military strategy was very powerful which easily destroyed the Axumite’s experienced army. Her amazing life has secured her place in history as a warrior, military strategist and powerful ruler. Her attack came so swift and efficiently, that the Axumite forces couldn’t handle this powerful army’s attack. She has such grace that made Aksumite army simply scattered in her army’s wake.
The history of Ethiopia where the official chronicles yet attempt to overlook her existence as an aberration, they named her as ESATO which means Fire in Amharic, as a prostitute who slept with priest and was exiled for having tempted him.
However, history is all around us: in ceremonies and songs, in the landscape, in buildings and roads, the clothes we wear. It’s part of family life: both in oral history handed down across the generations and events experienced firsthand by elders.
Neither was she married a Syrian Jew and became a Jewess herself. Rather she was a legitimate member of the indigenous people Ethiopia who follow indigenous African religion. The negative narrative view about the queen was only the result of a later hatred to deny accepting the idea of a woman on the Ethiopian throne.
In fact, she conquered Axum and end the domination for over 700 years by Alexandrian Alliance on the affairs of Ethiopians. She has done what no other kings and Queens have ever done for which she brought an end to that nation-state’s reign of power of one nation.
She burned Aksum, destroyed churches and restored peace and order. She ruled for at least 40 years, unchallenged. She expanded the border of Ethiopia west and South including the provinces of Gojjam , Begemder and up unto the Sidama provinces where she is known as Ga’Ewa where the Axum never reached. She ruled the country with authority and founded a new, strong Z’agewe dynasty which was to last for about 300+ years.
Despiste the negative view of Ethiopian history, many Historians attributed her as a warrior, a military strategist and powerful ruler. She’s from one of the Kushite line of Agaw people living in southern Wallo of Oromo region. Her name got the meaning of “The Greatest” in Oromo language. She is, Queen Gudditti (Akko Manoyyee). So the world knows her as Queen Gudit.
Every moment happens twice: inside and outside, and they are always two different histories. However, we are not makers of history we’re made by history.
By: Ayzak Mo
For more information see the following:
Budge, E.A. Walls, A History of Ethiopia, Vol. 1 (1928) pp. 213-15.
Finch, Charles S. and Larry Williams, “The Great Queens of Ethiopia” in
Black Women in Antiquity, ed. by Ivan Van Sertima (1990) p. 33.
Ragsdale, Phyllis W., ed., A Salute to Historica African Kings and
Queens (1993), p. 17.
Selassie, Sergew Hable, “The Problem of Gudit”, Journal of Ethiopian
Studies (Vol. 10 No. 1, January 1972) pp. 113-24.
