Machbuba
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Mahbuba (
Arabic Arabic (, , or , ) is a Central Semitic languages, Central Semitic language of the Afroasiatic languages, Afroasiatic language family spoken primarily in the Arab world. The International Organization for Standardization (ISO) assigns lang ...
: محبوبة / maḥbūba c. 1825 – 27 October 1840) was an Oromo girl from present-day
Ethiopia Ethiopia, officially the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia, is a landlocked country located in the Horn of Africa region of East Africa. It shares borders with Eritrea to the north, Djibouti to the northeast, Somalia to the east, Ken ...
who was taken to
Germany Germany, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It lies between the Baltic Sea and the North Sea to the north and the Alps to the south. Its sixteen States of Germany, constituent states have a total popu ...
as a slave. She is known to have helped lay the foundations for the
Oromo language Oromo, historically also called Galla, is an Afroasiatic language belonging to the Cushitic branch, primarily spoken by the Oromo people, native to the Ethiopian state of Oromia; and northern Kenya. It is used as a lingua franca in Oromia an ...
studies in Europe by reciting her oral traditions through songs.


Mahbuba, Ajiamé, Bilillee

The subject of this article is most often called ‘Mahbuba’ or ‘Machbuba’, which is an Arabic name that means ‘beloved’. She appears to have been given this name after being sold as a slave. Elsewhere she is called 'Ajiamé' or 'Agiamé', which is also derived from the Arabic term ʿaǧamī. But her birth name was ' Bilillee'.


Life

Some details of Bilillee's early life are unclear, but it appears that she was born in the Kingdom of Gumma, in present-day southwestern
Ethiopia Ethiopia, officially the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia, is a landlocked country located in the Horn of Africa region of East Africa. It shares borders with Eritrea to the north, Djibouti to the northeast, Somalia to the east, Ken ...
. She was captured with her sister during local fighting, and, while still a child, taken by slave traders to north
Gondar Gondar, also spelled Gonder (Amharic: ጎንደር, ''Gonder'' or ''Gondär''; formerly , ''Gʷandar'' or ''Gʷender''), is a city and woreda in Ethiopia. Located in the North Gondar Zone of the Amhara Region, Gondar is north of Lake Tana on ...
then to
Khartoum Khartoum or Khartum is the capital city of Sudan as well as Khartoum State. With an estimated population of 7.1 million people, Greater Khartoum is the largest urban area in Sudan. Khartoum is located at the confluence of the White Nile – flo ...
and finally to
Cairo Cairo ( ; , ) is the Capital city, capital and largest city of Egypt and the Cairo Governorate, being home to more than 10 million people. It is also part of the List of urban agglomerations in Africa, largest urban agglomeration in Africa, L ...
. It was there in 1837 that she was purchased by Prince Hermann Ludwig Heinrich von Pückler-Muskau. In a letter to his wife Lucie, Pückler-Muskau referred to Bilillee as his ‘mistress'. She was taken by him on his travels before returning to Germany with him in the Spring of 1840. She died in October that year, possibly from
tuberculosis Tuberculosis (TB), also known colloquially as the "white death", or historically as consumption, is a contagious disease usually caused by ''Mycobacterium tuberculosis'' (MTB) bacteria. Tuberculosis generally affects the lungs, but it can al ...
, at Muskau Castle in
Saxony Saxony, officially the Free State of Saxony, is a landlocked state of Germany, bordering the states of Brandenburg, Saxony-Anhalt, Thuringia, and Bavaria, as well as the countries of Poland and the Czech Republic. Its capital is Dresden, and ...
and buried in St. Jacobi Cemetery in the village of
Bad Muskau Bad Muskau (; formerly ''Muskau'', , , ) is a spa town in the historic Upper Lusatia region in eastern Germany, at the border with Poland. It is part of the Görlitz district in the State of Saxony. It is located on the banks of the Lusatian Ne ...
. Upon her death, Pückler-Muskau wrote to a friend that Bilillee was ''‘the being I loved most in all the world’''. A
death mask A death mask is a likeness (typically in wax or plaster cast) of a person's face after their death, usually made by taking a cast or impression from the corpse. Death masks may be mementos of the dead or be used for creation of portraits. The m ...
was taken as well as a posthumous
portrait A portrait is a painting, photograph, sculpture, or other artistic representation of a person, in which the face is always predominant. In arts, a portrait may be represented as half body and even full body. If the subject in full body better r ...
. The portrait depicts her dressed in a Mamluk costume and positioned in front of a desert landscape with pyramids'' nd''is less a realist representation of her than a visual manifestation of Orientalist fantasies.''' Her grave can still be visited today. In September 2017, the writer Asfa-Wossen Asserate visited the grave and unveiled an Ethiopian memorial cross.


Oral tradition

In 1838 Karl Tutschek was appointed tutor to several slaves who had arrived in Germany. They included an Oromo youth called Akafede Dalle and later Otshu Aga who in turn brought him into contact with Bilillee. Bilillee taught Aga several songs that were unfamiliar to her two compatriots. Bilillee then spent some of her last days before death reciting songs to Tutschek in 1840. Tutschek used the information collected from the three, and later a fourth Oromo informant called Aman Gonda, to begin work on the first Oromo dictionary, which was published after his death in 1844 as the ‘Dictionary of the Galla Language’ (Munich). Alongside his dictionary, Tutschek had transcribed 208 songs in Latin script and intended to translate them into German but died before this work could begin. It is believed these are almost all from Bilillee. The documents remained in his brother's possession before being rediscovered by Philipp Paulitschke in the 1890s while researching his
Ethnographie Nordost-Afrikas
'. Paulitschke himself died before he could translate them and they appeared without explanation. In 1997, over 150 years after her death, Bilillee's songs were translated into English by Gemetchu Megersa and published with further analysis by Claude Sumner. In his introduction to the book, Lensa Gudina wrote: ‘''She was a living library of Oromo songs'' nd through this book''Mahbuba still sings to us, as she did more than a century and a half ago to Karl Tutschek.''’ 163 of Bilillee's songs are included, such as this 'pastoral' song: Sumner explains that this would have been sung by a group of men in praise of family leaders, age grades, and bulls.


References


Further reading

* Pankhurst, Richard and Adi Huka (1975). "Early nineteenth century Oromo childhood reminiscences". ''Ethiopian Journal of Education'' 2: 39–47. * Pankhurst, Richard (1976). "The beginnings of Oromo Studies in Europe" ''Africa'' 31 (2): 171–206. * Pankhurst, Richard (1976). "Ethiopian slave reminiscences of the nineteenth century". ''Transafrican Journal of History'' 5 (1): 98–110. * Pankhurst, Richard (1979). “Mahbuba, the ‘Beloved’: The life and romance of an Ethiopian slave-girl in early nineteenth century Europe”. ''Journal of African Studies'' 6 (1): 47–56. * Pankhurst, Richard (1980). “Puekler and Mahbuba: The correspondence between a German prince and the Ethiopian slave-girl”. ''Quaderni di Studi Etiopici'' 1: 30–41. * Pankhurst, Richard (1981). “The tragic romance of Mahbuba the beloved”, ''Root'' (February): 56–8. * Pankhurst, Richard (1990). "The slave girl and the prince". ''Selamta'' 7 (2): 22–24. * Richter, Daniela (2013). "Inside the Oriental Spectacle
Hermann von Pückler-Muskau's Egyptian Travelogue
''Colloquia Germanica'' 46(3): 229–244 * Schmitt, Kathrin (1994)
Machbuba - An Oromo slave-girl who won the heart of a German prince
. ''The Oromo Commentary'' 4(2): 32–34 * Volker-Saad, Kerstin (2006). "Machbuba: ‘Die treueste Copie einer Venus von Tizian, nur in Schwarzer Manier’’, in: Kerstin Volker-Saad – Anna Greve (eds.): ''Äthiopien und'' ''Deutschland''. ''Sehnsucht nach der Ferne Ausstellung Grassi-Museum für'' ''Völkerkunde zu Leipzig, 28. April bis 16. Juli 2006'', München - Berlin: Deutscher Kunstverlag. {{Authority control Ethiopian poets Oral poets Ethiopian slaves 1820s births 1840 deaths 19th-century Ethiopian people 19th-century Ethiopian women People from Oromia 19th-century slaves 19th-century poets 19th-century women writers