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THE ABBAY QUEST IN THE MEDIEVAL ETHIOPIC TEXTS: A FOCUS ON GƎʾƎZ HAGIOGRAPHIES [Abstract ID: 1211-09]
The Abbay wänz (known as the “Blue Nile” on the Ethiopian highlands) is the longest river in Africa that has long been enjoying nationwide popularity in Ethiopia for millennia. This popularity of the river is highly connected with the socio-cultural, economic and political aspects of the nation. It has captured Ethiopians’ imagination with different, often competing modes of memory, rituals, ceremonies and artistic expressions. They also produced and documented their understanding of the river through lore (legends, music, anonymous poems, proverbs, and anecdotes) and literature. The study is to identify, discuss and analyze Abbay related passages found in different medieval Ethiopian texts. Passages about the river to be explored in the study are strictly limited to the socio-cultural, spiritual, political, ideological, etc. explanations and interpretations of the river as a concrete physical phenomenon in the Christian highland of Ethiopia. Hagiographies, chronicles, exegetical and liturgical texts will be explored to collect adequate data which will be listed, organized thematically and thoroughly analyzed in the study.