A history of the mareko people (southern Ethiopia)1880s-1991

Abstract

Attempts have not been made to study the history of Mareko people. Even though the area which means the habitat of Mareko people, has been described by various Ethiopian and foreign travelers, historians, anthropologists, linguists and missionaries in their works, with the exception of few citations, a history of Mareko people either subsumed under linguistically similar ethnic groups of the area or have not received attention. Therefore, a history of Mareko people becomes among the least studied not only in the region but also in Ethiopia as a whole. This work, therefore, attempts to, explore and examine thoroughly to reconstruct a history of Mareko people from the1880s, particularly from their incorporation into modern Ethiopian Empire state upto the downfall of the military Regime (Derge) in 1991. Moreover, the interactions of the people under the study with the neighboring communities, with the Christian Highland rulers, and with Hadiya people will be explore and examine. The study conducts employing three methods of collecting and analyzing sources. The first is oral information. Collection of oral interview is the basic method employed to obtain data for this research. By interviewing the individuals mainly, who are contemporary with the period of Emperor Haile Selassie and the Derge (military) Regime, particularly, who had close relation with the historical events either through their political position or their social status in which they were bestowed traditional titles and participated in different political, religious and social events. Thus they could accumulate valuable information. The second categories of the sources employed are archival material. Considerable amount of valuable documents and archives on the Haile Selassie regime of Mareko wereda (district) at Butajira town destroyed during the transitional period in 1966. A few valuable archival materials fortunately were reserved and found outside the present Mareko wereda at Butajira town, the present administrative center of Meskan wereda (district). These materials are not properly stored and it has become tire some necessary materials since they left as meaningless remnants of the past regimes, particularly, after the split up of the former Meskanena Mareko wereda (Meskan and Mareko) wereda in 1993, when Mareko wereda left concerning materials at Butajira in one old and very small room. I extracted some valuable archival materials which dated back to the establishment of the Provincial Military Administrative Council (the PMAC). The third category of the source employed is secondary source, in which published and unpublished materials collected and analyzed. Published materials like articles, journals, book chapters, essays and books which have valuable information concerning Mareko people and their neighboring communities have been utilized for this research. Unpublished materials like BA, MA and Phd theses and, manuscripts having valuable information on Mareko people and their neighboring communities collected and analyzed. Shortage of archival materials and the dearth of written materials has been a challenge in the reconstruction of this thesis