FinFinne ፊኒፊኔ فينفين on Clubhouse

Description

The history of Finfinne (Addis Ababa) in a way reflects the way the Oromo people were conquered, robbed off their land and properties, reduced to serfs and slaves, and kept under inhuman subjugation. Prior to colonization of Oromia, the present day Addis Ababa had an Oromo name – Finfinne.

The name attests the abundance of hot springs (“hora” in Oromiffa) at the heart of the city, where cattle flourished. The area was solely inhabited by Oromo clans of Gulale, Eekka, Galan, Abbichu and was divided into 12 counties or districts: Each county was being administered by the local clan chiefs: like Tufa Muna and Dula Harra’and others. , Jima Jatani, Guto Wasarbi , Jima Tikse t, Abeebe Tufa, Waree Golole, Tufa Araddo and Mojo Boxora.
During the late 18th and early 19th Century, the neighbouring Amhara community were wedging incessant predatory raids and looting expeditions against these people. Some of these barbaric raids were documented by Major W. C. Harris a British diplomatic mission in his book “The Highlands of Aethiopia (1844)”. In one of his vivid description he wrote”…rolling on like the mighty waves of the ocean, down poured the Amhara host among the rich glades and rural hamlets, at the heels of the flying inhabitants—tramping under foot the fields of the ripening corn, and sweeping before them the vast herds of cattle which grazed untended in every direction. When far beyond the range of vision, their destructive progress was still marked by the red flames that burst forth in turn from the thatched roofs of each village… they poured impetuously down the steep side of the mountain, and swept across the level …the troops, animated by the presence of the monarch, now performed their bloody work with a sharp and unsparing knife—firing village after village until the air was dark with their smoke mingled with the dust raised by the impetuous rush of man and horse.”