Simien Mountains National Park
Saturday, January 18, 2020
Simien Mountains National
Park
Today was an excursion an
hike in the mountains of northern Ethiopia.
It was spectacular. We left Gondar and began our drive up into the mountains
along a newly paved (Chinese) road. The
scenery was beautiful:
It was market day in the
town of Debark, and people were on their way.
Here you can see one mode of transportation, as well as a nice example
of an umbrella acacia tree:
Most people walked:
The town was busy; we
stopped to get our permits as the headquarters of the Simien Mountain National
Park (another UNESCO World Heritage Site) is here:
We drove up to the Simien
Lodge, which bills itself as the highest lodge in Africa (10,700 feet) and
began our hike from there. Joyce and
Carol chose to opt out of the hike. Here’s
what it looked like as we walked the edge of a giant escarpment. There’s a village below:
At the end of the hike,
our guide had arranged refreshments for us!
We went in search of
geladas, an animal which has been called a baboon for years, but has
genetically been shown to be a monkey, and not a baboon. It’s called the “Bleeding Heart Monkey” for
obvious reasons. It sure look like a
baboon:
These are, in fact,
grass-eating monkeys (see https://www.nationalgeographic.com/magazine/2017/04/gelada-monkeys-grass-eating-guassa-ethiopia-bleeding-heart/
). Here’s some video showing how they
eat the grass and roots:
Tomorrow we fly to
Lalibela where we’ll settle in for Timkat.
It will be something!!
Looks amazing! We’re with you...keep on blogging, brother! Hugs from Calabasas.
ReplyDeleteAmazing--I know nothing about different kinds of monkeys and gorillas. The bleeding-heart mark is certainly distinctive!
ReplyDeleteFascinating that there are visual remnants of the so-called "Black Jews" (who are actually Ethiopian Christians who decided several centuries ago to use only the Old Testament--though it's sure good that Israel whisked them away to safety!).
Update! I should have said that there are two main HYPOTHESES about the origins of the Beta Israel. One (the one that makes more sense to me, given the reading that I have done) is that they were a breakaway group of Ethiopian Christians (in the 14th-16th centuries), and have no Jewish origins going back earlier than that. This is the second hypothesis summarized below, in the Wikpedia article on the Beta Israel (Falashas):
ReplyDelete==
Recent views
By 1994, modern scholars of Ethiopian history and Ethiopian Jews generally supported one of two conflicting hypotheses for the origin of the Beta Israel, as outlined by Kaplan:[89][6][7][8]
An ancient Jewish origin, together with conservation of some ancient Jewish traditions by the Ethiopian Church. Kaplan identifies Simon D. Messing, David Shlush, Michael Corinaldi, Menachem Waldman, Menachem Elon and David Kessler as supporters of this hypothesis.[89]
A late ethnogenesis of the Beta Israel between the 14th to 16th centuries, from a sect of Ethiopian Christians who took on Biblical Old Testament practices, and came to identify as Jews. Steven Kaplan supports this hypothesis, and lists with him G. J. Abbink, Kay K. Shelemay, Taddesse Tamrat and James A. Quirin. Quirin differs from his fellow researchers in the weight he assigns to an ancient Jewish element which the Beta Israel have conserved.[89][6][7][8]
==
There seems to be a concerted effort on the part of Jewish organizations not to mention the "late ethnogenesis" explanation, perhaps because it could be seen as undermining the attempts at integrating the Beta Israel into Israeli society. For sure, the "late ethnogenesis" explanation needed to be kept to a whisper (i.e., buried in scholarly journals!) until all the Beta Israel were moved to Israel--for fear that they would not have been allowed to exit Ethiopia, or that they would not have been granted citizenship in Israel under the Law of Return.
I figure there is no reason any longer (decades after the fact) to leave these historical findings unmentioned. Except, as I said, because it might seem to allow/encourage anti-Beta Israel prejudice in Israel. That's always a question with historical findings--they can be misused/cherry-picked by people of ill will.
Anybody wanting to read further about this would get real insight (as well as some fascinating stories) in the memoir by one of the scholars named in the Wikipedia article, Kay Kaufman Shelemay: https://www.amazon.com/Song-Longing-ETHIOPIAN-JOURNEY/dp/0252064321. Or the writings of Steven Kaplan.
Great summary of divergent views, Ralph. I appreciate the clarity with which you make the argument that history is history, facts are facts, and selective cherry-picking needs to be called out. The integration of the Ethiopians in Israel has not gone smoothly, as you know.
Delete