Gudit ( gez, ጉዲት) is the
Classical Ethiopic name for a personage also known as Yodit in
Tigray, and
Amharic
Amharic ( or ; (Amharic: ), ', ) is an Ethiopian Semitic language, which is a subgrouping within the Semitic branch of the Afroasiatic languages. It is spoken as a first language by the Amharas, and also serves as a lingua franca for all oth ...
, but also Isato in Amharic and
Ga'wa in Ţilţal. The personage behind these various alternative names is portrayed as a powerful female ruler, probably identical to Māsobā Wārq, the daughter of the last
Aksumite king,
Dil Na'ad, mentioned in an early
Arabic source. She is said to have been responsible for
laying waste the
Kingdom of Aksum
The Kingdom of Aksum ( gez, መንግሥተ አክሱም, ), also known as the Kingdom of Axum or the Aksumite Empire, was a kingdom centered in Northeast Africa and South Arabia from Classical antiquity to the Middle Ages. Based primarily in w ...
and its countryside, and the destruction of its churches and monuments. If she is the same as the ''Tirda' Gābāz'' in other Ethiopian sources, she is also said to have attempted to exterminate the members of the ruling dynasty. The deeds attributed to her are recorded in oral tradition and in a variety of historical narratives.
Name
The name "Gudit" in the Ge'ez narrative associates her positively with the Biblical
Judith. It has been conjectured that the form Gudit is connected
etymologically with the Amharic word ''gud'' which connotes a range of meanings from "freak" and "monster" to "strange" and "wonderful". According to Caroline Levi, her alternative name "Isato", aside from meaning "fire", bears a similar set of meanings. The Ţilţal name for her, ''Ga'wa'' indicates she became to be associated with a 16th century Muslim queen of that name, something which suggests that the traditions concerning Gudit took centuries to achieve their final form. In one of the Ethiopian kinglists, mention is made of a certain ''Tirda' Gābāz'' as the last queen of Aksum. The tales told of her exploits are almost identical with those associated with Māsobā Wārq.
History and stories
Information about Gudit is contradictory and incomplete. Paul B. Henze wrote, "She is said to have killed the emperor, ascended the throne herself, and reigned for 40 years. Accounts of her violent misdeeds are still related among peasants in the north Ethiopian countryside." Henze continues in a footnote:
There is a tradition that Gudit sacked and burned
Debre Damo, an
''amba'' which at the time was a treasury and a prison for the male relatives of the king; this may be an echo of the later capture and sack of
Amba Geshen by
Ahmad ibn Ibrahim al-Ghazi
Ahmad ibn Ibrahim al-Ghazi ( so, Axmed Ibraahim al-Qaasi or Axmed Gurey, Harari: አሕመድ ኢብራሂም አል-ጋዚ, ar, أحمد بن إبراهيم الغازي ; 1506 – 21 February 1543) was an imam and general of the Adal Sulta ...
.
However,
James Bruce presented a tradition that Dil Na'ad was overthrown by Gudit, and that
Mara Takla Haymanot (whom Bruce calls "Takla Haymanot") was a cousin of Gudit who succeeded her after several of her own family.
In oral tradition, Gudit is sometimes conflated with the 16th-century Muslim queen
Ga'ewa of Tigray.
Ethnicity
Carlo Conti Rossini first proposed that the account of this warrior queen in the ''
History of the Patriarchs of Alexandria'', where she was described as ''Bani al-Hamwiyah'', ought to be read as ''Bani al-Damutah'', and argued that she was ruler of the once-powerful
Kingdom of Damot, and that she was related to one of the indigenous
Sidama people
The Sidama ( am, ሲዳማ) are an ethnic group traditionally inhabiting the Sidama Region, formerly part of the Southern Nations, Nationalities, and Peoples' Region of Ethiopia. On 23 November 2019, the Sidama Zone became the 10th regional s ...
of southern
Ethiopia
Ethiopia, , om, Itiyoophiyaa, so, Itoobiya, ti, ኢትዮጵያ, Ítiyop'iya, aa, Itiyoppiya officially the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia, is a landlocked country in the Horn of Africa. It shares borders with Eritrea to the ...
.
Modern historian
Enrico Cerulli discovered Arabic documents that mention a
Muslim
Muslims ( ar, المسلمون, , ) are people who adhere to Islam, a monotheistic religion belonging to the Abrahamic tradition. They consider the Quran, the foundational religious text of Islam, to be the verbatim word of the God of Abrah ...
queen named Badit daughter of Maya in the tenth century who reigned under the
Makhzumi dynasty. According to historian Tekeste Negash, Gudit was a Cushitic queen based at
Lake Hayq
Lake Hayq (Amharic: ሐይቅ ሐይቅ, ) is a freshwater lake of Ethiopia. It is located north of Dessie, in the Debub Wollo Zone of the Amhara Region. The town of Hayq is to the west of the lake.
Lake Hayq is 6.7 km long and 6 km ...
in
Wollo Province
Wollo (Amharic: ወሎ) was a historical province of northern Ethiopia that overlayed part of the present day Amhara, Afar, and Tigray regions. During the Middle Ages this region was known as Bete Amhara and had Amhara kings. Bete Amhara ha ...
of Ethiopia. He further explains that there may have been a regional power struggle between Aksum and this queen of Wollo whom had ties to Yemeni traders through the port of
Zeila
Zeila ( so, Saylac, ar, زيلع, Zayla), also known as Zaila or Zayla, is a historical port town in the western Awdal region of Somaliland.
In the Middle Ages, the Jewish traveller Benjamin of Tudela identified Zeila (or Hawilah) with the Bibl ...
.
Somali
Somali may refer to:
Horn of Africa
* Somalis, an inhabitant or ethnicity associated with Greater Somali Region
** Proto-Somali, the ancestors of modern Somalis
** Somali culture
** Somali cuisine
** Somali language, a Cushitic language
** Somali ...
folklore also mentions a
Harla
The Harla, also known as Harala, or Arla, are an extinct ethnic group that once inhabited Djibouti, Ethiopia and northern Somalia. They spoke the now-extinct Harla language, which belonged to either the Cushitic or Semitic branches of the Afroa ...
queen
Arawelo
Arawelo or Arraweelo or Moroombe ( so, Caraweelo) was a proto-Somali Queen in traditional folklore.
Biography
Arawelo is said to have been based in lands inhabited by the Habr Je'lo clan, specifically a place called Murihi in the Sanaag region. ...
, who governed from Zeila into much of the interior of the Eastern Africa.
In more recent perspectives on the issue of the ethnicity of Gudit, there has been less certainty on to her actual identity and yet more certainty on the unlikelihood of her being of Judaic belief or associated with the
Beta Israel
The Beta Israel ( he, בֵּיתֶא יִשְׂרָאֵל, ''Bēteʾ Yīsrāʾēl''; gez, ቤተ እስራኤል, , modern ''Bēte 'Isrā'ēl'', EAE: "Betä Ǝsraʾel", "House of Israel" or "Community of Israel"), also known as Ethiopian Jews ...
. According to Steven Kaplan:
Despite the Judith legend's popularity and its prominent position in the traditions of both Jews and Christians to this day, there appears to be several good reasons for rejecting the depiction of the tenth century queen of the Bani al-Hamwiyah as a Falasha. Although some Ethiopic sources do portray Yodit as a Jewess, these generally identify her as a convert rather than the product of a well entrenched indigenous religious community. The material recorded by Bruce, which contains the earliest complete account of the legend, must be considered suspect on several grounds...
The suggestion that the Falasha queen Yodit, putative conqueror of Aksum, is in fact the pagan queen of the Sidama, vanquisher of the haḍani is not as startling as it might appear at first glance. By transforming the queen from a pagan to a Jewess and her primary area of activity from the south of Aksum, Christian tradition neatly places her within the primary categories of Ethiopian political-religious discourse. On some levels, the Judith traditions can be said to mirror the themes of the Kebra Nagast. Both the Queen of Sheba and Judith are depicted as converts to Judaism.
Historical evidence
It was during the office of
Pope Philotheos of Alexandria
Pope Philotheos of Alexandria, was the 63rd Pope of Alexandria and Patriarch of the See of St. Mark.
It was during his office that a conflict between Alexandria and the King of Axum that began in the time of Cosmas III ended, helped by the ...
when Gudit started her revolt, near the end of the reign of the king who had deposed the
Abuna
Abuna (or Abune, which is the status constructus form used when a name follows: Ge'ez አቡነ ''abuna''/''abune'', 'our father'; Amharic and Tigrinya) is the honorific title used for any bishop of the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church as ...
Petros. According to Taddesse Tamrat, "his own death in the conflict, and the military reverses of the kingdom were taken as divine retribution for the sufferings of Abuna Petros."
This chronological synchronicity with the tenure of Patriarch Philotheos, and the intervention of king
Georgios II of Makuria, provides us a date of ca. 960 for Gudit. A contemporary Arab historian,
Ibn Hawqal
Muḥammad Abū’l-Qāsim Ibn Ḥawqal (), also known as Abū al-Qāsim b. ʻAlī Ibn Ḥawqal al-Naṣībī, born in Nisibis, Upper Mesopotamia; was a 10th-century Arab Muslim writer, geographer, and chronicler who travelled during the ye ...
, provides this account:
Another historian mentions that the king of
Yemen
Yemen (; ar, ٱلْيَمَن, al-Yaman), officially the Republic of Yemen,, ) is a country in Western Asia. It is situated on the southern end of the Arabian Peninsula, and borders Saudi Arabia to the north and Oman to the northeast and ...
sent a
zebra to the ruler of
Iraq
Iraq,; ku, عێراق, translit=Êraq officially the Republic of Iraq, '; ku, کۆماری عێراق, translit=Komarî Êraq is a country in Western Asia. It is bordered by Turkey to Iraq–Turkey border, the north, Iran to Iran–Iraq ...
in 969/970, which he had received as a gift from the Queen of al-Habasha.
In popular culture
Yodit features in the video game ''
Age of Empires II HD: The African Kingdoms''. The story is based on a Ge'ez tradition that she was a ruler who was exiled: With her Syrian husband Zānobis, she returns, and rallying people from her homeland in Hahayle, she destroys Aksum, and by decree declares that she had
become Jewish and would persecute the Levites.
See also
*
Furra
Furra or Fura was a medieval queen (''Nigist'') of the Sidama region in southern Ethiopia. According to oral tradition, she ruled for about seven years in the 14th or 15th century, encouraging the women and oppressing the men, especially the bald ...
, a queen of the
Sidama people
The Sidama ( am, ሲዳማ) are an ethnic group traditionally inhabiting the Sidama Region, formerly part of the Southern Nations, Nationalities, and Peoples' Region of Ethiopia. On 23 November 2019, the Sidama Zone became the 10th regional s ...
*
Kingdom of Simien
Notes
Citations
Sources
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
{{Refend
10th-century Jews
10th-century monarchs in Africa
10th-century women rulers
African women in war
Aksumite Empire people
Jewish monarchs
Jewish royalty
Jews and Judaism in Ethiopia
Legendary Ethiopian people
Legendary Jews
Legendary rulers
Rulers of Ethiopia
Women in 10th-century warfare
Women in medieval warfare
Women rulers in Africa