ETHIOPIA: COMMENTS ON MYTHS

First of all, these myths help us appreciate our various cultures. They open our eyes to see the foundation on which our cultures were built. In order to maintain the heritage of culture, these myths cannot be overlooked in this era where youths are only interested in amusing stories such as those told in myths. If we are going to hand down our culture and way of life to generations after us, we will need to do it in a manner they will appreciate. In my opinion, the myths are tools imperative to passing on our history to the future. These myths also serve as a useful source of information. An example is the information we get about the location of the true Ark of the Covenant from the story about Solomon and the Queen of Sheba. The story also gives an explanation for the existence of the duplicate Ark.

The stories tell of a time when women were the rulers instead of men, as we know today. In all of the stories told about Ethiopia, we read about a female leader. There is also information that the women outnumbered the men and this was one of the reasons they were leaders. Before this, in the opening story about Solomon and the Queen of Sheba, the people were said to be under the harsh rule of a serpent. This is an indication that this was a time when men still had animals as rulers. Also, it is possible to make a conjecture about the time of occurrence of the story from the convergence of the Queen of Sheba and Solomon. The events must have occurred a number of years before Christ. To speculate about the geographical aspect of the region from the story, the population is something to talk about and as stated earlier, men were the majority of the population. As for the place, most of the stories are of the region of Ethiopia. The Darassa, Jam-Jamo and Guji were in the south-west.

I would say that our modern society lacks these myths. It is obvious in the fact that the myths we tell today are those of the past. The advancements in the technological field have taken the attention off such things as myths. As a result of these changes, people today even think very little of those of the past. Not only do I think that our modern society lacks such myths, they also do not exist in any other forms.

On a closer look, we will find that there are many similarities between the story of “Solomon and the Queen of Sheba” and many other myths. For example, in the case of the serpent ruler of the past Ethiopians, there are many stories in which the people were believed to have animal rulers. In many of these stories, the animals turned out to be offensive and sometime later, a savior also arose who defeated and killed the animal. Usually, in these stories, this savior takes the place of the animal as ruler. Just like the story about the separation of the Darassa and the Jam-Jamo, there are also a number of myths today that explain how the various clans of a particular region got separated as a result of dispute.

There are many things we can deduce from the myths about the structure of our society today. An example of such is the separation of tribes today. Cultural beliefs are also formed based on these myths and these, in turn, determine the ways of lives of people. This is a very important part that the myths play in our society today – they try to convey the values of the society and its people. I would say that the myths are only parables that have been formed to hand down these values from one generation to another. A number of values are represented in the Ethiopian myths. An example in the second story is that men should live in a manner not oppressive to their neighbors, and the final story about how rule passed from women to men discourages cruelty.