Sacred Sites and Unbroken Values: Abyssinian Conquest, Religious Dislocation, and the Resilience of Oromo Worldview in and around Finfinnee

Introduction

It is widely acknowledged that historians are selective in their documentation of events, and Ethiopianist historiography adheres to this same pattern. In their documentation of the role of Ethiopian Orthodox Church (EOC) in Ethiopian history, Ethiopianist historians recorded St. George’s^[1] participation in the battle against Italian Invasion and Ethiopia’s victory at Adwa in 1896. Likewise, they also detail the history of the Medhane Alem Church (often referred to as Sidetegnaw Medhane Alem for its exile status), situated at Sidist Kilo. Originally established in Bath, UK, during Emperor Haile Selassie’s exile (1936–1941), the church was established using a Tabot (replica of the Ark of the Covenant) sent from the Ethiopian Monastery in Jerusalem. Following the liberation of Ethiopia from fascist Italian forces, Empress Menen returned to Addis Ababa in September 1941 alongside the sacred Tabot. Honoring the solace it provided his family during their grief, the Emperor conferred upon the church the title Meskaea-Hazunan (“Consoler of the Bereaved”).^[2]

However, while official historical accounts celebrate such comforting and patriotic roles, the role of the EOC in the conquest of the Oromo and other nations is conspicuously absent. To the contrary, EOC is depicted as a driver of civilization and the national museum. For instance, K. Merahi (2009, 6) writes “from the perspectives of history, Ethiopia cannot be seen in isolation from the EOC and vice versa. If you want to learn much about Ethiopia, the EOC holds the key to the main gate. Generally, the mother church is not an institute of religion but also a national museum”.

The fact of the matter, however, is Abyssinian kings invaded and eventually conquered the Oromo and other peoples of today’s greater south led by the Tabots of the Ethiopian Orthodox Christianity, the official state religion (Tamrat 1972; Ahmed 2006; Erlich 2007) from 4^th c. until the fall of Emperor Haile Selassie in 1974.^[3] William C. Harris documents how Sáhela Selássie raided Oromo villages in Finfinnee led by St. Michael Tabot: “Preceded by the holy ark of Saint Michael, veiled under its scarlet canopy, the king still led the van, closely attended by the father confessor, and by a band of priests, with whom having briefly conferred, he turned towards the expectant army, and pronounced the ominous words which were the well-known signal for carrying fire and sword through the land, 'May the God who is the God of my forefathers strengthen and absolve!” (Harris 1844, 177–8)

Such a practice could be characterized as what Mudimbe (1994 cited in Fraiture et al. 2025, 83) called a “joint effort on part of the crown and the cross” describing the structural alliance between European imperial power (“the crown”) and Catholic missionary order (the cross") during the colonization of Africa, specifically in the then Belgian Congo. Writing on what he called the Great Annual Foray, which the Shoan king Sáhela Selássie conducted every year on Oromo land, Harris observed:

Led on to victory by the holy ark of St. Michael…. Twenty thousand troops pursued the route of the Sertie Lake to the Metta [Oromo], occupying the plains immediately contiguous to the valley of Finfinni, and who were now the victims marked out for spoilation… Overwhelmed by torrent of desolation which had so suddenly burst in, four thousand five hundred Gentiles of all ages were butchered by the soldiers of Christ; and of these, the greater number were shot from the trees that they had ascended in the vain hope of eluding observation. Three hapless individuals were thus barbarously destroyed by the hands of Sáhela Selássie, who for the first time led his troops to the summit of the mountain Entotto (1844, 334) (Emphasis our own)

On the number of annual raids Sáhela Selássie (1813–48) conducted against the Oromo, Hassen (2021, 1) affirms Harris’s “probably more than once” assertion and writes: “The records show that on an annual basis throughout his reign, the king conducted three raids against Oromos, for the purpose of killing people, capturing slaves and cattle, and burning crops and houses”. The history of Abyssinian settler colonialism, especially under Tewodros II, Yohannes IV and Menelik II, was a history of conquest, annexation, incorporation, and subjugation of non-Abyssinian people and territories (Hassen 2021). In Serfs, Slaves, and Shifta: Modes of Production and Resistance in Pre-Revolutionary Ethiopia (2010), Timothy D. Fernyhough also argues that 19^th and 20^th century Ethiopian state expansion relied on coercive modes of production – namely serfdom (gebbar tenancy) and unfree slave labor – to extract rural wealth, control peripheral land, and enrich central and local elites. Regardless of origin or race, colonial expansion is fundamentally driven by the desire to exploit land, labor, and natural resources. Similarly, “[T]he Abyssinian colonialist specifically aimed to secure caravan routes, to expand the slave trade, to obtain an outlet to the sea, to acquire the rich and fertile land belonging to the Oromo people, and to exploit Oromia’s mineral resources by using slaves or other forced labor” (Birru 1980–1981, 93). The process of the colonial subjugation was brutal. Trimingham (1952, 10) writes: “Menelik’s object was the permanent occupation of the conquered territories - but when they [the Oromo people] opposed him, his policy was one of ruthless extermination, as many districts which had been amongst the most fertile and flourishing in all Ethiopia bear witness… Those who succeeded in escaping the slaughter were sold into slavery^[4] or reduced to the status of Gabar.”

The Oromo experienced depopulation under Abyssinian colonial project: The massacre and enslavement of the Oromo continued through various colonial means. The Ethiopian army reduced the Oromo population from about ten million to some five million between 1868 and 1900 (Melbaa 1980, 2; Bulatovich 2000, cited in A. Jalata 2025, 13). Tilahune (2016, 25) quotes Marcus and Markakis on the institutionalization of slavery under Menelik, who along with his wife "reportedly owned 70,000 slaves (Markakis 2011, 97). Marcus described Menelik as “Ethiopia’s greatest slave entrepreneur” (1994, 73) who used both goods from the south-west and slaves for exchange to garner modern weapons (ibid.). Another account, which specifically refers to Finfinnee, the focus of this article, provides a vivid description of unparalleled brutality and barbaric nature of the colonial foray.

A rapid détour to the westward […] disclosed the beautifully secluded valley of Finfinni [Finfinnee] […] which had long scaped the hand of wrath. This had been selected as the spot for the royal plunder and spoliation; and the troops […] performed their bloody work […] – firing village after village, until the air was dark with smoke….

The luckless inhabitants… had barely time to… fly for their lives to the fastness of Entotto… Women and girls were torn from their hiding to be hurried into hopeless captivity. Old men and young were indiscriminately slain and mutilated… Whole groups and families were surrounded and speared… Wretches who betook themselves to the open plain, were pursued and hunted down like wild beasts; and children… were included in the inexorable massacre, and pitilessly shot among the branches. (Harris 1844, 178)

Both the brutality of Abyssinian colonialism and the instrumental role played by the EOC have been systematically suppressed in Ethiopianist historiography. Historical facts such as those cited above, which question the dominant political and cultural narratives and religious values of the colonizers have been selectively silenced. Oromo scholars have been contesting such a partial rendering of history by exposing the hidden colonial experiences of the Oromo and other peoples; calling for the restoration of diluted or lost identities and the reclaiming of the cultural values and indigenous beliefs of colonized peoples.

Unfortunately, advocates of the imperial project dismiss such efforts of the colonized Ethiopians by labeling their work a ‘false narrative’, since it is not supported by colonial documents or records. In so doing, Ethiopianist writers strive to maintain the politics of cultural, and by consequence, political and religious, hegemony, hierarchies which have already been cemented in history, religion, education, and state symbols. As a result, we are now standing witness to what Sarat and Simon wrote of the American experience: “political [and religious] contests are increasingly fought over values and symbols, with different parties advancing competing cultural program” (2001, 4). In this regard, this article not only examines the processes and consequences of Oromo’s encounter with Abyssinian colonialism – such as the displacement of indigenous Oromo religion – but also the enduring resilience of the Oromo worldview despite the socio-cultural and religious assimilation policies of the modern Ethiopian state.

Methodology

This study used a qualitative, triangulated oral history design grounded in historiographical source criticism and purposive sampling. Epistemologically, it employed a bottom-up, counter-hegemonic approach designed to complement or challenge top-down official imperial narratives. This study synthesizes secondary historical literature, official archival documents, and primary oral testimony. Secondary sources encompass historical, anthropological, and literary works by both foreign and Ethiopian scholars, alongside broader African colonial and postcolonial literature. Primary data were gathered through semi-structured interviews and focus group discussions (FGDs)^[5] with Tuulama Oromo elders, local scholars, and long-term residents of the greater Finfinnee area.

Drawing on generational memory and lived experience, these oral accounts connect directly to the region’s historical transformation. Informants include individuals whose great-grandparents held clan territories that were subsequently absorbed into the political and religious centers of the empire, as well as those whose grandparents directly confronted imperial forces. The study also engaged direct descendants of key historical figures, such as an FGD participant at Laga-Xaafo who is the grandson of Abeebee Tufaa (and great-grandson of Tufaa Araddo). This participant authored Goota Hin Jilbiiffanne: Seena Fiittawarii Abeebee Tufaa (2025; “The Hero Who Never Knelt: The History of Fitawrari Abeebee Tufaa”, our translation), a historical biographical account documenting his grandfather’s patriotic legacy. Lineally linked to historical actors who either resisted Emperor Menelik’s expansion or navigated the complex socio-political interactions between the Oromo and Abyssinians during imperial conquest, these informants offer critical primary perspectives. To ensure analytical rigor and mitigate oral recall bias, local narratives of conquest, dispossession, resistance, and co-optation were systematically triangulated against established historical documentation and scholarly literature.

Conceptual and Analytical Framework

This work employs colonialism (the ‘colonization experience’ in particular) as an analytical framework for examining the encounters and interactions between the Abyssinian conquerors and the Oromo people. We understand the intents, manner and consequences of the imposition of the Ethiopian Orthodox Christianity on the Oromo (and their indigenous religion) in similar manner to how the encounter between Western Christianity and African indigenous religions have been understood in colonial (and postcolonial) literature.^[6] More specifically, within the critical theory framework “rooted in historicizing, critiquing, and exposing the relationships of domination and subordination as well as the contradictions in which humankind is entrenched” (Ryoo and McLaren 2010, 347)^[7], we follow arguments advanced in the context of colonization and imperial expansions on the one hand, and their encounter with indigenous peoples and religions on the other. The aim is to understand how colonizers deployed their religions to subdue the colonized people, and how indigenous religious systems were used to resist colonizers, appropriating the religion of the colonizers by infusing it with indigenous belief systems (e.g., see Trigger and Asche 2010). In this regard, a brief conceptualization of colonialism is in order.

Grounding this framework requires a critical conceptualization of colonialism and knowledge production. In her seminal work, Decolonizing Methodologies (1999), Linda Tuhiwai Smith, engages with Foucault’s concept of the ‘discipline’ viewing it not merely as a system for organizing knowledge, but as a mechanism for organizing people and bodies. Through “exclusion, marginalization and denial” – “supported by paternalistic and racist policies and legislation” – colonial institutions make silent (in some cases, permanently) or suppress the ways of knowing, and the languages for knowing, of many different indigenous peoples (p.69).

Colonialism does not have a universally accepted definition. Since our focus in this work is religion, we felt it fair to look at ‘colonialism’ from the root of the concept as it derives from the Latin word ‘colĕre, meaning to cultivate or to design’. Mudimbe (1988, 1) cautions against generalization, however, posits ‘colonialism and colonization basically mean organization, arrangement’. He suggests three keys to account for the modulations and methods representative of the colonial organization: ‘the procedures of acquiring, distributing and exploiting lands in colonies; the policies of domesticating natives; and the manner of managing ancient organizations and implementing new modes of production’ (Mudimbe 1988, 2). These are intertwined and complementary processes that feed into one another to produce what Mudimbe calls the ‘colonizing structure’^[8]. For the purpose of this work, we will focus only on the second key identified, i.e., reformation of natives’ minds through the degradation of indigenous religious identities and the imposition of new religions and Eurocentric narratives of civilizations.

Rather than viewing the Oromo as passive victims of the colonial project, we argue that they actively navigated their subjugation. To explain how they preserved their worldview under domination, we apply James C. Scott’s (1990) framework of the “hidden transcript” – the off-stage practices and critiques generated under oppression (p.27). Far from being a substitute for action, this hidden transcript serves as “a condition of practical resistance” (p.291) – the primary mechanism through which the subordinate groups sustain socio-cultural and political resilience, achieved and defended “in the teeth of power” (p.119). As our primary data demonstrate, the Oromo agency continuously manifests through active resistance (e.g., Holcomb and Ibssa 1990; Gnamo 2014; E. Gebissa 2014; Hassen 2014; A. Jalata 2024, 2025; Tolera 2025). Through this lens, we can better comprehend the dislocation and transformation of Oromo spiritual life as well as the enduring resilience and survival of the Oromo nation and worldview (e.g., culture, indigenous beliefs, rituals and related symbols).

Beyond Western Frameworks: Rethinking the Category of ‘Religion’

No doubt the concept of ‘religion’ is a western invention and has spread to the rest of the world through scholars and missionaries educated in the Judaeo-Christian tradition. Having subscribed to this tradition, we are often unprepared when it comes to explaining certain concepts of our culture to outsiders. Kapya John Kaoma (2016, 59–60), an African scholar, observes:

Once I was asked to explain how my people would respond to the question, ‘What is your religion’? Without thinking, I answered that they would claim to be Anglicans or Catholics, etc. Later on, I realized that in my culture, the word religion does not exist. To my people, religion is a Western denomination […]. They definitely believe in God, the spirits and the ancestors […]. This is why many Africans would go to Church and still come back and practice their traditional rituals and customs.

Despite its centrality in Western civilization, to date there is no single universality accepted definition of religion. In fact, the attempt to define religion has been abandoned, and scholars have recently proposed different dimensions (Smart 1996) from the vantage point of which religion might be better understood and explained. Probably what is useful in the context of this work is understanding religion in the sense W. R. Smith (1972, 29) describes the role of religion: as a “preservation and welfare of society, not for the saving of soul” (without delving into the legitimate criticism levelled at the structural functionalist theory^[9] of religion). For instance, "in colonial Africa, traditional religions united people to organize against, and in some cases, to violently rebel against colonial rule (Kaoma 2016, 63).

In addition, “religion is signally social and doesn’t exist without a community of adherents” (Kaoma 2016, 63). As Farganis (2000, 82) also argues, in sociological terms, “religious representations are collective representations which express collective realities; the rites are a manner of acting”. In the same vein, Malinowski, in one of his classic works: Magic, Science and Religion and Other Essays contends '[…]an intimate connection exists between the word, the mythos and the sacred tales of a tribe^[10], on the one hand, and their ritual acts, their moral deeds, their social organization and even their practical activities […] ([1948] 1992, 96). He further noted that several prominent sociologists and anthropologists understood the existence of ‘intimate association between myth and ritual, and between scared tradition and the norms of social structure’ ([1948] 1992, 98). Understanding of such connections is critical to locating the influence of religions in traditional societies. Since indigenous religions in Africa are communal and/or community centered in their expressions, they carry socio-political and economic overtones (Kaoma 2016, 63). It should be from this vantage point that we investigate religion in its broader and more flexible sense, and the impact of colonialism (and Orthodox Christianity as one tool of conquest) on the socio-political life of the Oromo and the dislocations they experienced as a result.

Oromo Religion: Beliefs, Rituals, and Core Values

These were among the recurring expressions made by a group of Tuulama Oromo elders from the Eekkaa clan^[11]. The statements were expressive of informants’ feelings and the nature of Oromo indigenous beliefs and rituals. The centrality of Waaqa is conspicuous in their belief. The value of lafa (earth) being at the centre of Oromo rituals is also apparent in these expressions. What was striking during our conversations with Tuulama elders, however, is not just the extent of dislocation of their beliefs and rituals but also resilience of the feelings and practices related to the Oromo indigenous beliefs and rituals. This was evident in their narratives, which expressed the Oromo belief system not merely as a historical fact - an “ethnographic present” - but as a living practice and everyday experience. This resilience has endured despite nearly a century and half of colonial efforts to suppress, erase, and supplant indigenous traditions with Orthodox Christianity and other imperial projects. This dynamic aligns closely with Scott’s (1990, 124) the “hidden transcript” framework, particularly his observation that “[t]he strongest evidence for the vital importance of autonomous social sites in generating a hidden transcript is the strenuous effort made by dominant groups to abolish or control such sites.” By safeguarding these sacred traditions against generational imperial pressure, Tuulama elders demonstrate how Oromo indigenous beliefs remain an active, unyielding source of cultural endurance and covert resistance.

Literature and oral sources concur that Oromo religious system is based on the concept of the profound unity of all created things (Kassam and Megerssa 1994, 88). The Oromo believe Waaqa (God) – is Umaa - 'the creator of everything and the source of all life; he is omnipresent and infinite. Almost all available literature on Oromo religion tend to equate the Oromo word Waaqa with Christian God or Allah of Islam and reduce the dense and complex Oromo belief systems as a monotheistic religion. As De Salviac ([1901] 2005, 143–5) observed “Practicing monotheism, the Oromo people, do not tolerate that one expresses the slight doubt regarding the orthodoxy of their faith in the unity of God. They very highly protest, in such case, that there is and there will always be but only one God: Waaqa tokotu. They… have never bent, all through the centuries, towards the folly of polytheism.” Waaqa is pure (qulqulluu), he owns (loves) truth/justice (dhugaa/haqa) and despises injustice and falsehoods (dhara).

Megerssa (1996, 100) also contends that the central component of “the Oromo religious consciousness or knowledge is found in the idea of a monotheistic God (Waaqa). Waaqa is the source of all knowledge, as He is the source of everything in the universe (cf. Bartels 1983)”. The Oromo believe all life belongs to Waaqa – humans are not free to dispose of it (Bulcha 2011, 260). This means, there is inherent relationship between societal laws that govern the Oromo and the laws of Waaqa as given in nature. Put differently, “Acceptance of the law that regulates the Oromo society implies acceptance of the Oromo creator” (Megerssa 1996, 100).

The monotheistic representation of Oromo beliefs and rituals, in our view, constitutes an oversimplification of the complex Oromo conception and experience of the divine. Such simplification appears to serve two purposes: (1) it positions the Oromo belief system on par with the essence of the monotheistic religions (e.g., Abrahamic religions) that the people have accepted – gaining psychological security by affirming similarity, equality, and acceptability, while denying the superiority of other religions and the inferiority of the Oromo belief system; and (2) it seeks legitimacy in the eyes of others, particularly followers of monotheistic religions like Christianity and Islam. It is also to be noted that, monotheism in Ethiopia is said to be an imperial project (Gomez 2013, 80). Notwithstanding the characterization of Oromo Waaqa as the creator of everything, the source of all life (Umaa); that He is omnipresent, to treat Waaqeffannaa as Monotheism is tantamount to succumbing to Euro-centric view of religion and the concept of God.

From our knowledge of Oromo belief systems and rituals as practiced throughout Oromo land, the concept of Waaqa is closer to what Bartels, cautiously though, writes on the Macca Oromo, where Waaqa as they understand it is more of a ‘Divinity’ that “can be used to convey to the mind at once a being, a kind of nature or existence, and a quality of that kind of being; it can be made to appear more substantive or qualitative, more personal or general, in connotation, according to the context” (Bartels 1994, 89).^[12]

The features of Oromo religion have more to do with the characterization of African religion than with Monotheism. In this regard, Gomez’s observation regarding African religion provides important insights: “[…] High gods and ultimate deities […] are […] far removed and quite distant from the affairs of human beings. Instead, appeals are made to deities of lesser rank and power […]. The sacrifice is central to such appeals, undertaken for purposes of intervening into matters of the quotidian […]. Such arrangements were more or less ubiquitous throughout the African continent….” (2013, 79)

The duality of Waaqa and Lafa (earth)^[13] is apparent in Oromo indigenous religion. Rituals, as fundamental lubricants of socio-cultural and spiritual life of the Oromo society, constitute major elements of Oromo religion. Various rituals (e.g., dhibaayyuu, ateetee, irreechaa, callee, qollee) have been carried out in order to maintain relations between the Oromo and Waaqa (and lafa as well), and to restore when such relations are believed to be strained. Some of these rituals are seasonal or cyclical. These rituals used to play integrative role in the society – they connected people with each other and with the supernatural (both in time and space). They also connected people with the land (e.g., ritual sites).

The Oromo believe ‘all things, whether animate or inanimate, animal or vegetal, share the same divine origin and are thus interconnected. For this reason, everything has its proper place in the world, and between all things there must exist an attitude compounded of both distance and respect’ (Kassam and Megerssa 1994, 88). There are two essential elements of the Oromo belief system as related to this attitude. One is the notion of c’eera fokkoo among the Booran Oromo, and safuu among the western, central, and south-eastern Oromo; and wayyuu among the Arsii Oromo. The other is the concept of ayyaana, which is commonly used throughout Oromo land.

Safuu – moral and ethical code – denotes “respectful” relations among humans, between humans and nature, and between humans and God, or “mutual relationship between elements of the social and the cosmic orders” (Megerssa 1996, 97). In practice, it means maintaining a certain moral and spatial distance to respect the boundary between all things (Kassam and Megerssa 1994). According to Haile et al. (2014, 28): “Safuu is a moral category based on Oromo notions of distance and respect for all things. The concept of Safuu is not merely an abstract category: It constitutes the ethical basis upon which all human action should be founded, it is that which directs one on the right path; it shows the way in which life can be best lived”. (Italics in the original) Bekele and Rajani (2018) assert safuu stands for the concept of virtue in Oromo religion. They contend that: “Safuu is the “to do list” to serve Waaqa achieve his kaayyoo (goal) and in our personal and earthly life while Laguu is “not to do list” or the taboo. So, we can refrain from doing such activities diverting us from kaayyoo Waaqa. Cubbuu (sin) is both not doing the safuu and doing the laguu” (2018: 569).

The Safuu moral codes of conduct have also relevance to natural “laws” linking humans to nature around them; or as Bartels (1983, 3, 39) articulated it, it denotes the Oromo view of the cosmic and social order as it was given by Waaqa from the beginning. Writing on the Gujii Oromo, Joseph Van de Loo (1991: 287 cited in Bulcha 2011, 264) says: “Safuu relates to the individual’s imaginative sense for well-tempered interrelations with fellows or with Waaqa-deity, with cattle or the environment. Mishandling animals and disturbing the ecological balance, with acts such as felling large trees without reason, are considered wrongs against safuu”.

What is even interesting is the observation of Aleksandr K. Bulatovich, who visited Oromo land at the end of the 19^th c. He says Oromo “loves nature, lives with her, and to him, it seems that she likewise is endowed with a soul” (2000, 61). This bears witness to the fact that the Oromo worldview does not put human beings above everything else unlike Judaeo-Christian religion.^[14]

Matcha see the world and, particularly their own society, as Waqa’s creation in which all things have been given a place of their own according to the specific ayana of each. All are unique and different from one another. As people put it themselves from their more pragmatic point of view: “They must keep distance from each other; each of them has to follow his own way; they must not overstep the boundaries put between them by Waqa; they must not get mixed up.” (Bartels 1983, 339)

The Oromo believe and are “deeply aware that their survival depends on respect to nature and see themselves as merely a peculiar node of beings, a living cell within it” (Bulcha 2011, 265). The Oromo respect for nature is anchored in the sense of harmony which is considered a prerequisite for the survival of humans, not from fear of the unknown such as the existence of heaven and hell^[15], or life after death. This means, the traditional Oromo society’s understanding of religious thoughts and rituals aim at the preservation of the welfare of society. Bulcha (2011, 265) writes: “Hence, as proposed by Gemetchu Megerssa (1996), understating the concepts of safuu – moral ethics, nagaa – peace and harmony, and araara – concord, is very important in understanding not only the evolution of Oromo religious thought and practice but also the evolution, development and continued existence of the Oromo society at large”.

In the Oromo worldview, nature (the outside) and culture (the inside) constitute one principle of balanced opposition, between which there is an invisible boundary that must be respected. Nature, the Oromo believe, is the creation of Waaqa, while culture is the creation of human beings to govern its relationship with nature through the concept of distance and respect. For the Oromo, “nature has its own laws but has no means of advocating them. It cannot raise its voice against those who misuse it. For this reason, man has himself created laws to protect nature and to be its spokesman through the law-making assemblies” (Kassam and Megerssa 1994, 89). This is concisely summarized in the words of a Booran elder, Abba Dabassa Guyyo^[16], “The law is the shepherd of the wild” (Kassam and Megerssa 1994, 89).

Like elsewhere in the world, trees and other vegetations play important roles in Oromo communal life, both in the practical economic sense and in the more spiritual one (Kassam and Megerssa 1994, 91). There are strict laws that limit their use, and also protect them from overexploitation. Apart from wild plants, trees and grasses that fulfil individual and communal economic needs, certain plant species are woven into the nonmaterial aspects of Oromo life. For instance, “fig tree in the highlands and acacia tree in the lowlands are highly condensed symbols of long historical and spiritual processes linking them to the beginning of time” (Kassam and Megerssa 1994, 91). This means, holy trees situated in high places of worship on mountains and hilltops, and the sites themselves are protected from desecration. It is forbidden to break branches and cut the leaves of these trees, and even to displace stones from such sites unless strictly for ritual purposes. Such trees are hundreds of years old and are “living ancestors, and it is in their shade that meetings are held and laws enacted” (Kassam and Megerssa 1994, 91).

Moreover, the Oromo believe whatever is provided in nature is not exclusively for human beings, including the crops they produce. Kassam and Megerssa write that among the Booran, “When the groundwater dries up in the dry season and water for stock must be drawn from the deep wells of Borana land, some water is always left in the watering trough at the end of the water schedule so that the wild animals might drink and quench their thirst” (Kassam and Megerssa 1994, 89). Bartels writes on the Macca Oromo in western Oromia, emphasizing the same principles guide their everyday lives. Despite the fact that certain animals, birds and insects constitute a permanent threat to the people’s domestic animals and their crops the “Matcha do not think of exterminating^[17] such harmful animals as in monkeys, porcupines, wild pigs, antelopes, wild cats, and the like, still less of killing birds, which are seen as messengers from Waqa” (Bartels 1983, 343). Bartels quotes a certain Mirresa: “People have a feeling that it is good when the monkeys eat from their maize. ‘What is left will be the better,’ they say” (Bartels 1983, 343). Bartels illustrates with examples: “You give to the birds and animals…. that they may bless you…. We believe that Waqa can make them satisfied with little. Didn’t Jesus do the same…? So it is that when a lion has taken a cow and roars, people say: There will be peace in the country: the ‘big father’ (the lion) has blessed us” (1983, 343–44).’

Not only that, they also make sure that some amount of their produce is left in the threshing floor (obddii) because they believe wild animals, including birds and insects, will have to have their share and it is safuu (immoral) to take all and leave the obddii empty. Concurring with the statements above, Alamayo (2020, 1266) asserts that, to honour Waaqa’s creation, farmers leave a share of their crops for animals since depriving creatures of their food source is seen as taking their lives – a severe violation of safuu. One of the authors of this paper who was born and raised in rural western Macca vividly remembers that his parents were emphasizing this safuu during the transportation of the yield/crops to the granary: 'obdii hin hariina. Safuudha. (Do not clean up [in the sense of sweeping and taking everything] the threshing floor. It’s safuu.)

The other essence of the Oromo belief system, closely related to the notion of safuu, is called ayyaana (divinities) – “the sacred time-forces that lie at the heart of all beings and things” (Megerssa and Kassam 2019, 111). According to Bekele and Rajani, "Ayyaana organizes the principle of Oromo cosmology. It is saint-like divinity which is seen as manifestation of Waaqa’’ (2018, 568). They also stated that “When a person possesses ayyaana it means the person has a guardian that protects him from bad fate” (Ibid). Similarly, Emana (2018, 168) portrays ayyaana as “[…] the guardian spirits which are believed to be endowed to human beings by Waaqa. They are taken as the intermediaries between Waaqa and human beings and believed to be useful to man in different ways.” It, however, can also be said that, ayyaana don’t simply serve as ‘guardian spirits’ to human beings; human beings do also have obligation to serve as ‘guardians’ of the ayyaana given to them, and to other living things by Waaqa. One way of doing this is by safeguarding safuu, ensuring the wishes and will of Waaqa are realized. Megersa’s (2005) conception of the ‘core’ meaning of ayyaana may reflect this understanding of the concept: “The core meaning of ayyaana refers to that by and through which God (Waaqa) creates anything and everything. Ayyaana is in fact both that which causes something to come into being and becomes that which it has caused. Ayyaana is, therefore, that which exists before and after, that which it causes to come into existence” (quoted in Bekele and Rajani 2018, 568).

Similar to the concepts of safuu that guides relations among human beings; between human beings and their creator, and with elements of nature; Waaqa endows human beings and other creatures with ayyaana and reciprocal relationships exist among them. According to Emana (2018, 169), “In Oromo religious philosophy, the ayyaanaa is said to have acted in the world of human beings including in people’s domiciles (clans, rivers, mountains, lakes, cattle and environment)”. Similarly, Bekele and Rajani assert that "Every living creature including the mountains, streams, living trees and others have their own ayyaanas’ (Bekele and Rajani 2018, 568).

Yet, as indicated earlier, human beings have to respect safuu and essential elements of the Oromo belief system (e.g., dhugaa, discussed below) in order to be able to keep ayyaana with them. As Emana (2018, 169) noted “Waaqa is believed to snatch ayyaanaa from people who harm the society, their traditions, undermine fellow human beings and their belongings.” Bekele and Rajani also indicate that ayyaana: “… may flee from a sinner… It flees away from a person who breaks the Safuu and Seera… The Ayyaana turns its back upon a person means that the person does not have a protector and as a result may easily be exposed to some problems and loose respect” (2018, 568).

In the Oromo belief system, dhugaa, which constitutes both Truth and Justice, is the core value the source of which is Waaqa. The Oromo say, ‘dhugaan ilmoo waaqati’ ('truth is the offspring of God). The fundamental belief among the Oromo is that – 'aadaa namatu tolche; dhugaa Waaqatu tolche (human beings created culture; God created Truth); and that is why they say 'aadan kan namaati, dhugaan kan waaqati’ (culture belongs to people; Truth belongs to God). Writing on the Macca Oromo, Bartels (1983) asserts that Waaqa is the source and guardian of dhugaa and “it is clearly indicated in their oaths and in their reaction to people who transgress his laws — laws connected with the social order of which He is the source. According to them, Waaqa withdraws from those who take a false oath and from other evil-doers.” (Bartels 1983, 102)

Another core, but related belief, of the Oromo is that dhugaa and nagaa (peace) are inseparable, where the latter symbolizes a balance in relations among humans, between humans and nature, and between humans and God. 'As a concept, nagaa denotes individual as well as collective wellbeing and security. It is synonymous with righteousness and a state of benign order (Bulcha 2011, 261). Nagaa includes all forms of God’s blessings resulting from it (Bartels 1994, 11). In the Oromo worldview, there is no nagaa where there is no dhugaa (lafa dhugaan hinjirre nagaan hinjiru). They speak truth/dhugaa in order for the peace and harmony of the community to which they are members at micro-level and of the society at macro-level be maintained. They fear transgression of any sort risks withdrawal of Waaqa, which will result in loss of nagaa, because the guardian of both dhugaa and nagaa has withdrawn. For the Oromo, "This withdrawal means already in itself that life is diminished in every form: good health, fertility, material well-being. This is the primary view they have of the matter. Another is that, as a result of Waaqa’s withdrawal, man is left a victim to minor evil powers. It is these minor powers, rather than Waaqa himself that strike man with misfortune: for example, sickness or craziness (Bartels 1983, 104).

That is why the Oromo restrain as much as humanly possible not to break safuu and avoid engaging in some mischievous behaviour and practice. When their innocence is questioned, they take oaths to clear their names saying 'Dhugaa Waaqa’ (God’s Truth). The value of speaking and defending truth is emphasized through linguistic expressions such as proverbs handed down from one generation to the other. For instance, Oromo’s unshakable faith in truth is expressed in: Dhugaan ganama badde, galgala galtti (Truth does not disappear but eventually conquers) (Cotter 1990, 298). The Oromo do not give-up on truth because it is likened to daylight as opposed to a lie which represents darkness: Kijibni akka dukkanati, dhugaan akka ifaati. The advice is always, Walk in the light of truth! (Cotter 1990, 335). The Oromo believe truth is one’s safe haven and is like a home to which one eventually returns irrespective of life conundrums one might have faced in life: Dhugaan warra, itti galani (Cotter 1990, 242). Even when there might be some temptation to transgress or conceal truth, people are always reminded of another proverb: Qullaa lafaa hindhoksani, dhugaa Waaqa hindhoksani (One’s private parts cannot be hidden from the ground [when defecating]); the Truth cannot be concealed from God) (Cotter 1990, 467). All of these are founded on the core belief of the Oromo that Dhugaan wa’ela Waaqati (Truth is the companion of God) (Cotter 1990, 211).

The Sacred Dimensions of Qe’ee: Land, Identity, and Colonial Dislocation

Like elsewhere in pre-colonial Africa, land holds special significance among the Oromo. Land symbolizes the continuity of the social group, and no individual claims total ownership of land. This is an exemplar of what Fanon writes – “For a colonized people the most essential value, because the most concrete, is first and foremost the land: the land which will bring them bread and, above all, dignity” (1963, 43) – and what Kaoma (2016, 59) later asserts – “African traditional religions operated in the social system in which the land was an ancestral commons, which defined people’s cultural identity”. Referring to the works of Henry Rowley ([1867] 1969, 222–23) and Rosman and Rubel (1985, 153), who both noted that land was a sacred commons, Kaoma (2016, 68–69) concludes: “Where land symbolizes the continuity of the social group… the land could not be sold for money without destroying the identity of the group itself”.

The African ‘cosmological dimension’, that is, the ‘worldview assumptions, attitudes to nature and society, and most especially their interrelationships’ (Eyerman and Jamison 1991, 70) has always been land-centered (Kaoma 2016, 69). In contexts such as this, displacement from their ancestral land means multidimensional dislocation – social, spiritual, economic, and political. That is the sense Ernesto Laclau (1990, 39) used to describe the effects of emerging capitalism on the lives of workers: “every identity is dislocated insofar as it depends on an outside” (emphasis ours).

For colonized people, dislocation from their land dislocates the essence of their indigenous belief system and the essence of their worldviews; it particularly upends their ‘locative cosmology’ or ‘place-based spirituality’. The experience of Australian Aborigines is one such instance. Trigger and Asche argue that “It was due to dislocation from their traditional lands that people of the southeast relocated the sacred away from earthly properties and newly into the domain of Christianity, cultural change and the negotiation of rights of all powerful sky-heroes”. (2010: 91-92)

The Oromo experience is no different. Colonialism, in effect, physically displaced the Oromo people. It also spiritually dislocated some of them using its religious arm, without necessarily physically removing them. As stated earlier, Abyssinian conquest of the Oromo was spearheaded by the Saints of EOC and the impact of the Church’s participation in the colonial project was substantial. As Harris stated, “When the rulers of Shoa began to extend their dominions, and to subdue the nearer tribes of [Oromo] invaders, Christianity was propagated by the sword” (1844, 317). Harris continues describing the merciless destruction Sáhele Selássie inflicted upon the Oromo: “The Abyssinians have fully adopted that spirit of merciless destruction which impelled the Israelites to destroy their enemies from the face of the earth… The foe is a Pagan, who does not fast, nor kiss the church, nor wear a máteb. All feelings of humanity are thrown to the winds… and the name of the Most High is wantonly employed to consecrate the ensuing scenes of savage atrocity”. (1844, 334)

From a socio-religious perspective, colonialism and Christianity caused major socio-political upsets and dislocations among Oromo society, as was the case elsewhere in Africa (see e.g., Iskarna 2018). But, as Laclau writes on dislocatory effects, they not only result in dislocation of existing/old identities, but they are also the foundation on which new identities constituted. In this regard, new identities constituted among the colonized people include, among others, “critical collective consciousness and questioning of the legitimacy of the colonial social order—vis-à-vis their ancestral lands” (Kaoma 2016, 69), and resistance against colonial rule. The adoption and practice of the religion of the colonial powers in tandem with one’s own indigenous religion is another angle from which we may analyse the dislocatory effects.

The dislocatory effects of colonial occupation and the imposition of colonial (and colonizing) religions had been particularly intense on a category of land called qe’ee. Qe’ee (lit. abode, homestead, and hamlet) is a foci for manifold connections: social, spiritual/ritual, property relations and livelihood. The Oromo feel a special connection to their qe’ee. It constitutes a cultural landscape of important symbolic significance where ‘intimate’ and incessant people-land, people-people, and people-spiritual sphere interactions are created and maintained.

As a physical landscape, qe’ee carries important economic and habitat significances. It constitutes the land around a residential area which has been improved and modified through continuous and conscious human activity. The fertility of the land is enhanced through selective land use patterns and application of organic fertilizers. The Oromo inhabiting different parts of Oromia describe this culturally induced quality of the qe’ee land using different but qualitatively similar terms: dhoqee (Tolera 1999), kosii (Hebo 2006), lafa xahoo qe`ee (Hundessa 2018). All these terms express human-induced fertility (e.g., through manuring) and the special connection consciously created between people and land. This category of land is used for the cultivation of crops of cultural and ritual significance, mainly meant for household consumption, and for grazing for livestock of cultural and ritual significances (e.g., calf, milking cow, oxen on plough) (e.g., Hundessa 2018).

As a socio-cultural landscape, qe’ee is highly connected to social organizational life of the Oromo. It is associated with important values such as social integration, lineage continuity and the succession of social and ritual positions (Hebo 2006). This is a ‘humanized’ or ‘socialized’ land so to speak, which connects generations who have contributed to its creation and maintenance. In line with the patrilocal settlement pattern and patrilineal inheritance norms of the Oromo, it serves both as center of ‘radiation’ and center of attraction thereby creating strong communal bonds among people, and between people and their natural environment. This is based on, according to Hundessa (2018), the cultural legitimation that the sons would sustain the name of their father in particular and the continuity of the family in general. Hundessa (2018) presents an interesting account from the Macca Oromo of West Shawa how people’s connection to qe’ee had been negotiated, defended, and maintained across political regimes; and how people used various strategies to make qe’ee invisible to administrators’ attempt to measure, tax or expropriate it. Some local administrators, who are aware of spiritual and socio-cultural values of qe’ee refrained from desecrating qe’ee.

The third dimension of qe’ee among the Oromo is its ritual aspect. This radiates out from the pillar (utubbaa) at the center of the house to the immediate vicinities of the house, extending up to the ancestral shrines built around lineage or sub-lineage graveyards. Hundessa (2018), in his study of the Macaa of Western Shawa, shows that the portion of the qe’ee with ritual significance is called boroo or man-dubee (backyard). A particular space in boroo for rituals and offerings performances is called qollee (land of libation). The same name, boroo is used among the Arsii Oromo to describe the ritually important backyard of the house. Another term dawoo, which suggests protection or cover is also used among the Arsii Oromo. In addition to ritual performances, this site also serves as a special setting for resolving family disputes in the presence of trusted mediators. It is a ritualized land sanctified and cleansed through everyday prayers and blessings, through the periodic performances of rituals. It is also believed to be inhabited by spirits, which lend protection and a sense of emotional security to the residents.

The Oromo are connected to land not only in life but also in death. Land is where one’s umbilical cord is buried (connecting oneself to the place) along with one’s ancestors (connecting generations to each other and to the land). Graveyards have strong spiritual and social meaning among the Oromo. The Lafa fi lafee (land-and-bone) idiom is an expression of the connection among the living and between the living and the dead (Hebo 2006). Awaala and Ujubaa usually sit in close proximity to the qe’ee, with a zone of transition between them. Awwaala literally translated is a graveyard while the Ujubaa or Hujubaa refers to a graveyard-turned-shrine, describing when the tree(s) planted in a graveyard grows and forms an expansive canopy over the site. These spaces are where dhibayyuu (libation) rituals are performed and are kept in close proximity to sites of abode, as the residing spirits are thought to ensure the protection and wellbeing of the living. As collective property, these sacred sites connect the living to one another and link the past generations to the present. Above all, they bind the community to their ancestral land – serving as visible landmarks and landscapes of profound socio-cultural and ritual significance. They stand as living witnesses to rightful ownership, heritage, and identity, providing essential foundation for emotional, social, material and spiritual well-being. Hebo writes:

In the Arsii Oromo custom, the grave (awwaala), the sooduu (grave stones/marks) and trees customarily planted on graves, constitute a coherent whole to convert burial grounds into hujubaa…a shrine where rituals in commemoration of the ancestors are performed. Such shrines not only serve as sites of rituals but also as vital symbols that put permanent mark on the land thereby connecting the living to the dead on the one hand, and the past and present generations on the other (2006, 37–38).

Geschiere and Nyamnjoh (2001, cited in Hebo 2006, 38) discuss the strong relationship between land and funeral practices: where someone is buried becomes a matter of autochthony, influencing a person’s sense of belonging, access to land, and even political participation in postcolonial Africa. Dislocation from these sites could have significant emotional and livelihood consequences. Loss of protection from ancestral spirits and feelings of uncertainty and insecurity often emerge. That is what we understood from our conversations with Tuulama elders. Even those Tuulama Oromo who did not face physical dislocation have been mentally, emotionally and spiritually dislocated, finding themselves in the middle of a contaminated, spiritually and ecologically degraded landscape. There was a loss of a sense of privacy, seclusion, of social and spiritual protection and security that the qe’ee traditionally offered.

Breaking Sacred Bonds: Spatial Erasure and Oromo Resilience

This section addresses the paper’s primary objective: illustrating how religious transformation unfolded through spatial re-inscription, ritual restructuring, social-realignment, and resilience of Oromo worldview under Ethiopian imperial rule. By examining the interplay between imperial assimilation attempts and local adaptation, it demonstrates how state-sponsored conversion altered sacred geographies, institutionalized new ritual frameworks, and reordered social networks. Crucially, however, these structural transformations did not result in total cultural or cosmological replacement. By highlighting the enduring resilience of the Oromo worldview, this section reveals how indigenous communities navigated imperial pressures – preserving core spiritual tenets and cosmological frameworks even as their sacred landscapes were forcefully reconfigured.

Understanding this dynamic requires examining what may be termed the “spiritual dimension of imperial conquest”. Across historical contexts, imperial and colonial powers have consistently targeted the underlying values and belief systems of the colonized peoples, attempting to systematically erase or supplant indigenous cosmologies with their own. A prominent case in point is the encounter between Native Americans and White Colonialist, in which missionaries and boarding schools served as key instruments of cultural assimilation – a project historically framed as the ‘Americanization of the American Indians’. One conspicuous expression that emerged out of such a process was: ‘Kill the Indian and Save the Man.’^[18] This idiom suggests that an Indian is ‘Indian’ (and a threat to the colonial power and a ‘liability’ to national integration) not because of his physical body; nor was it due to his bow-and-arrow; it rather was his culture, values and spiritual being (identity). The phrase, attributed to the U.S. Army Captain Richard Henry Pratt, was used as a guiding principle in the late 19^th and early 20^th centuries to promote the forced cultural assimilation of Indigenous children in North America. Similar principles were followed on many colonized people with slight variation in the methods whether the mode of colonial rule was extractive colonialism as in British India or European settler colonialism in Australia, Africa, New Zealand and Americas. Writing in the context of European colonialism in Africa, Mudimbe argues: “…if at the cultural and religious levels, through schools, churches, press, and audio-visual media the colonizing enterprise diffused new attitudes which were contradictory and richly complex models in terms of culture, spiritual values, and their transmissions, it also broke the culturally unified and religiously integrated schema of most African traditions” (1988, 4).

Thus, breaking the diverse bonds among the colonized people, and ensuring their complete submission, was at the center of both ‘hard’ and ‘soft’ strategies undertaken by colonizers. Some of these strategies, which have continued to this date, such as defining the ‘right’ form of belief and behavioral expectations of good ‘subjects’, and established systems of reward and values as embedded in the educational systems, all played a synchronized role towards colonial projects. On the one hand, these institutions alienated colonized populations, to varying degrees, from their own cultures; on the other, they expedited their submission to the hegemonic colonial order. Fanon writes: ‘[…] all these aesthetic expressions of respect for the established order serve to create around the exploited person an atmosphere of submission and of inhibition which lightens the task of policing considerably’ (1963, 38). Fanon further contends: “The customs of the colonized people, their traditions, their myths…. are the very sign of that poverty of spirit…. That is why we must put the DDT which destroys parasites…. on the same level as the Christian religion…. The Church in the colonies is the white people’s Church, the foreigner’s Church. She does not call the native to God’s ways but to the ways of the white man, of the master, of the oppressor”. (1963: 42(1963, 42), emphasis ours)

In Ethiopia, however, state ideology and Orthodox Christianity functioned as an internal template for imperial authority rather than a foreign imposition. In his influential chapter “Controlling Space in Ethiopia” published as the opening essay in Remapping Ethiopia: Socialism and After (2002), Christopher Clapham provides a framework for understanding how successive Ethiopian regimes have sought to assert state authority, manage center–periphery dynamics, and organize physical, political, and social space across the country. Clapham demonstrates that state ideology and Orthodox Christianity functioned as the original ideological template for spatial control in Ethiopia. He observed that: “The possession of a long-established and politically dominant state also promoted a set of attitudes and ideologies, compounded by Orthodox Christianity, a set of historical mythologies and a written language, which defined its members in their own eyes as being more civilized than their neighbours and in turn fostered a sense of manifest destiny in their claims to govern surrounding territories” (2002, 10). Similarly, in his seminal work, “Church and Nation: The Ethiopian Orthodox Täwahedo Church (from the Thirteenth to the Twentieth Century)” (2006), Donald Crummey - the late scholar of Ethiopian history – contends that the Ethiopian Orthodox Täwahedo Church functioned as the central institutional, cultural, and ideological pillar of Ethiopian nationhood from the 13^th to the 20^th century, providing historical continuity, legitimizing imperial political authority, and driving national integration across centuries of territorial and political evolution.

This sense of a civilizing mission directly shaped early 20^th century elite policy recommendations regarding state consolidation and spatial integration in Ethiopia. A prominent example is Tedla Haile, a Belgian-educated son of prominent Shäwan family and a grandson of Emperor Menelik’s Moja courtier Dajazmach Germame, who proposed in 1930 “that the government of Negus Tafari Makonnen (the future Emperor Haylä Sellasé, who ascended the imperial throne only four months later) should ‘practice a policy of assimilation’” (Pankhurst 1998, 86). While studying at the Colonial University of Antwerp (Université Coloniale d’Anvers) in Belgium, Haile’s deep reading into the French-language colonial literature and administrative theory shaped his approach to nation-building in Ethiopia.

Influenced by the French colonial doctrines of assimilation, he viewed the multi-ethnic and multi-linguistic nature of the new Empire as an obstacle to progress. He argued that if Ethiopia “wanted to modernize itself,” and thereby “occupy its place among the great powers” (Pankhurst 1998, 86), the state needed to adopt a deliberate policy of “Amharization” ­– imposing the Amharic language, customs, and administrative structures across non-Amhara peripheral regions. This policy, which primarily targeted the Oromo, will lead to change of identity in which the Oromo would become Amhara, rather than the other way round, because the Amharas alone possessed a written language, as well as what he termed “superior customs and religion” (Pankhurst 1998, 89).

The imperial state’s deep-seated apprehension toward Oromo belief systems, alongside its effort to consolidate rule by supplanting indigenous rituals with Orthodox Christianity, operated precisely within this assimilationist paradigm. With regards to the Oromo’s culture and their social and spiritual existences, these bonds are interrelated; we outlined them separately here mainly for analytical purpose. Breaking these bonds, simultaneously or one-after-the other, is meant to facilitate total and far-reaching (cultural, social, economic and spiritual) submission of the Oromo. Dismantling these interconnected bonds – separated here solely for analytical clarity – served to erode Oromo identity and enforce comprehensive imperial submission.

Regarding the spiritual dimension, Menelik attempted to legitimize and sanctify what he had largely achieved through violent conquest by establishing ritual and religious control over the victimized populations – a mechanism intended to pacify the conquered people and induce submission. According to Tuulama elders, Abeebee Tufaa was taken to Menelik’s court as a child, where he was baptized into Christianity with Menelik, the leader of violent war of conquest, serving as his godfather. Menelik prioritized the Christianization of Oromo notables, particularly the families and linages of important clan leaders, following territorial conquest with cultural and spiritual subjugation. By ‘occupying’ people’s mind, this policy effectively severed the Oromo people from both their ancestral land and religious heritage. This would have completed colonial occupation by crushing the colonized people’s resentment and spirit of resistance.

Conversation with Tuulama elders reveal that Emperor Menelik’s conquest operated as a tripartite strategy to dismantle Oromo social structure: war of conquest- baptism- the awarding of Tabots (replica of the Ark of the Covenant). Accordingly, first, some Oromo notables were baptized by the emperor himself, with his high-ranking dignitaries serving as godfathers. Menelik’s direct participation highlights the importance he attached to religious integration, as well as the political weight this ritual carried for the Oromo leaders and their constituencies – a dynamic confirmed by the baptism of Abeebee Tufaa. Likewise, other members of Tufa Araddo’s immediate family were baptized by Menelik’s senior associates^[19].

As part of the package, baptized Oromo notables were ‘awarded’ their guardian Tabots, which resulted in building churches on their lands and accommodating all the colonial projects associated with it. It, however, is paradoxical that the same Tabots that led Menelik’s colonial campaign, serving as guardian of the emperor and his colonial army, and blessings them to vanquish the Oromo, were later given to the Oromo as their guardians. What is interesting, and puzzling as well, is that the Ark of St. Michael - ‘a war hero’ for the colonizers - came out more often than other Tabots during our discussions with Tuulama elders:

Minilik Abeebee Tufaaf Taabota Mikaaelaa kenne

Menelik gave (awarded) the Ark of St. Michael to Abeebee Tufaa

Abbaan Gadaa Mikaaela baasa

Abaa Gada hosts Michael Ark (as his guardian)

Menelik gave St. Michael Tabot to Abeebee Tufaa, who later established Yeka Michael Church in the present day Yeka sub-city, then the land of his father, Tufaa Araddo of Eekkaa clan. It appears that this was the mode of operation to establish churches across the occupied territories. Following the establishment of Churches, bearing names of various saints, EOC priests had to take up the role of baptizing regular people, and instilling the values, symbols and rituals of the EOC. The actual process of severing the bond between the Oromo and their indigenous beliefs and rituals thus began. According to Tuulama elders, EOC priests actively demonized Oromo indigenous beliefs and rituals. They deplored those who practiced Oromo traditional rituals such as callee, and tried to persuade people to abandon them; replace them with rituals of Ethiopian Orthodox Christianity.

Ethiopian Orthodox Christianity was imposed on the majority of the Oromo through coercion and persuasion rather than genuine conviction. A notable example of resistance against Christianization was Tufaa Araddo, who rejected all conversion attempts—resisting initial force as well as subsequent negotiations—and died an adherent of Waaqeffanna (the traditional faith in Oromo Waaqa). Consequently, rather than being buried in a churchyard, he was laid to rest alongside his father, Araddoo Jaarra, and grandfather, Jaarra, at Xaafoo Eekkaa Daallee (now known as Dirree) (Maammoo 2025, 27), in Laga Xaafo Laga Daadhii sub-city of Shaggar city. His grave site, which has evolved into ujubaa, (an ancestral shrine), remains an important landmark for the Eekkaa clan of the Tuulama Oromo.

The establishment of churches among the Tuulama appears to have taken place with the participation of Oromo notables such as Gadaa leaders, clan leaders, and ritual leaders. The Oromo then started baptizing their children and participating in the ritual and festivals honouring the various saints. The Oromo attend EOC events to secure burial places for themselves and their loved ones, in place of the ones lost at family/lineage cemeteries. One informant said: ‘securing a burial place is a key reason to attach oneself to a certain church…’- a clear indication of Oromo pragmatism.

Yet, while these visible engagements might suggest a wholesale conversion to Ethiopian Orthodox Christianity, they, in fact, represented strategic adaptations in form rather than a fundamental shift in underlying cosmological content. For instance, while the Oromo’s enthusiastic participation in Ethiopian Orthodox rituals has often drawn cultural and political critique, field evidence reveals that communities pragmatically adapted institutions like the 'Tabot’ to function within the context of the framework of their own enduring worldview. Rather than accepting it as a force designed to control and subdue their everyday life - as the colonizers intended - they approached it as something to be acquired, ‘owned’ and practiced side-by-side with their traditional beliefs and rituals. The following, among others, are expressive of this point of view:^[20]

Oromoon ganama bataskaan dhungata; galgala callee facaafata.

Oromo salutes the Church in the morning; perform callee^[21] ritual in the evening.

Abbaan Gadaa Mikaeela baasa.

Gadaa head hosts Michael Tabot.

Abbaan Malkaa Taabota baasa

Ritual leader of Malkaa hosts Tabot.

Warrii Ayyaana Taabota baasa.

Oromo ritual/spiritual leaders host Tabot.

At times, Ethiopian Orthodox Christianity’s rituals have been rendered secondary to the Oromo indigenous rituals. Tuulama elders maintained that the hammachiisaa ritual, where the child is embraced and blessed by Oromo ritual/spiritual leader – Qaalluu or Warra Ayyaana – should precede a child’s baptism at the Orthodox Church. In this regard, even today, Tuulama families who moved to Arsii area – having been physically dislocated from their original qe-ee – visit the original clan land around Finfinnee where the Qaalluu resides to get the hammachiisaa ritual performed for their new born babies. Hammachiisaa literally means “making a baby to be embraced by a Qaalluu” (Gerba 2015; Yimam 1988). As a cultural practice, however, it involves taking a baby to a Qaalluu or Warra Ayyaana (a ritual/spiritual leader of Oromo indigenous religion) for the naming and blessing ritual. The Qaalluu or Warra Ayyaana embraces, blesses, and gives a name to the baby, and that name will continue as the person’s official name from that day on.

At other times, people perform the same ritual (e.g., damaraa - bonfire lighting ceremony) both at home (qe’ee) and at the gate of church compound; they also make annual offerings (e.g., tithe) from their produce both to warra ayyaana and to the church. Another indigenous ritual of the Oromo, the Callee ritual, against which the EOC priests waged an elimination campaign, continued to be practiced. Interestingly, to shield indigenous gatherings from harassment, practitioners adjusted the timing of Callee observances to align with Church ceremonies, such as the weeks preceding the beginning of the Ethiopian New Year and the Mesqel celebrations (both in September). These are clear cases of adaptation to and appropriation of the Church’s rituals.

The salient outcome of this process, however, appears to be the superimposition of Orthodox Christianity onto indigenous Oromo beliefs and rituals. People pragmatically appropriated Church symbols and rites to advance their own social and political goals – creating a public mask of acquiescence. Conversely, indigenous practices remain deeply intimate, both in interpersonal relationships and in devotion to local deities and spirits. Under this layered belief system, an individual can be simultaneously a Christian and a believer in Oromo indigenous religion. For instance, Caacuu^[22], Kalacha^[23] and Bokkuu^[24] are displayed side-by-side with the Cross and Tabots during assemblies to resolve conflict or prevent the escalation of one. Such a strategy didn’t result in the synchronization and blending of Orthodox Christianity with Oromo indigenous belief system to create religious syncretism. Nor did it result in the Orthodox Christianity’s belief and rituals supplanting Oromo indigenous beliefs and rituals.

Having examined how Oromo communities in the Finfinnee area navigated these local religious impositions, we now turn to colonial strategies aimed at breaking spiritual bonds among the Oromo with a particular focus on two Oromo ritual practices: Irreechaa and pilgrimage to Abbaa Muudaa.

The banishment of the Irreechaa ritual (Oromo thanksgiving) under colonial rule reflects the colonizers’ intent to erase Oromo religion and culture. Irreechaa ritual is carried out twice a year marking the transition from the rainy winter season to the bright and abundant harvest season and pray for good rains. The first cycle, Irreechaa Malkaa takes place along river banks or the shores of lakes; the second, on top of mountains (Haile 2014; Megerssa and Kassam 2019; Bulcha 2015). According to the Oromo, the rationale behind the selection of such ritual sites is the:

… belief that Waaqaa (God) invoked a spirit of dedication to rivers, lakes, springs, mountains, big trees, and forests, and as a result, such areas are highly sacred to the people and are therefore given special care by the community. Hence, in the context of uumamaan Uumaa kadhachuu ‘to pray [to] Waaqaa through His creation’, of the indigenous Oromo religion Waaqeeffannaa, the Oromo people care for uumamaa (the creation) including living beings and non-living beings based on the principle of safuu (moral and ethical code) (Wakewaya et al. 2023, 6).

These age-old eco-wisdoms are ingrained in the Oromo’s conception of Uumaa (lit. the Creator), Uumama (nature – including plants, animals, and humans), Ayyaana (Spirit), and Safuu (moral and ethical order), all anchored in the Waaqeffannaa religion (Wakewaya et al. 2023, 9). Until the conquest and subsequent outlawing of Oromo indigenous practices by Menelik II, these fundamental conceptions enabled the Oromo people to honor nature, not as something to be exploited but one to be cared for as an equal. Humans exist with and within nature in a symbiotic relationship.

Almost 150 years after the conquest and despite changes in the politico-cultural system (i.e., the provisions made in the constitution regarding the equality of all religions and citizens’ rights to freely exercise their faith), the descendants of Abyssinian colonizers still find it hard to accept Irreechaa rituals as the cultural heritage of Ethiopian society; in their view, it is ‘devil worship’ (Megerssa 1996). Each year, the airwaves are saturated with disparaging propaganda during the celebrations of Irreechaa Malkaa or Birra (Spring). While some propagate blasphemous narratives out of ignorance, others do it deliberately, threatened by how Irreechaa’s massive scale challenges dominant cultural, religious, and political narratives in the country. Irreechaa reinforces the bonds between people and the divine; deepens the relationship between people and nature; and unites the Oromo. Despite adopting Christianity or Islam, the Oromo maintain their belief in Waaqa as a unifying symbol of Oromummaa – a shared identity demonstrated by millions attending Irreechaa across religious and political lines (Bekele and Rajani 2018, 573).

The integrative role of rituals poses a direct threat to lingering colonial structures. While coordinated media campaigns attempt to marginalize and demonize these practices, this backlash has become a blessing in disguise – strengthening Oromo unity and accelerating the reclamation of sacred ritual sites once degraded by the politico-religious imperative of the modern Ethiopian state.

Prior to Abyssinian conquest, pilgrimage to the Abbaa Muudaa shrine was a vital pan-Oromo spiritual and social practice. Oromo religious institutions such as the Qaalluu^[25] (high ranking “priest” sometimes referred to as the guardian of the laws of Waaqa on earth) and Abbaa Muudaa (high priest of Oromo traditional religion) bound the Oromo people to one another and to their natural environment. De Salviac ([1901] 2005, 177) writes:

The effective center of religion, pole of Oromo soul, link of the whole race and rallying point of the scattered tribes, the Abba Muuda, or Spiritual Father, is not empowered with any civil or coercive authority, but, the eldest son of Orma, he is vested with formidable, uncontested superhuman prestige which, by virtue of the patriarchal rule, his right as the eldest son has conferred on him. In him, depository of the law and of the traditions; in the personification of the national trust in the service of Waaqa. From his hands benedictions and curses are discharged. He is to be simple, that is to preserve proper Oromo, true son of Orma.

Although pilgrimage to the Abbaa Muudaa shrine was a spiritual obligation for all Oromo, it was conducted through chosen delegates (Jila) who represented their clans and communities (Legesse 1973; Hassen 1990), and piety^[26] is a behaviour attached to the Jila^[27] Pilgrim.^[28] Successfully completing the long and arduous journey to the Abbaa Muudaa shrine requires of the Jila returnees’ certain observances. They “avoid contact with everything connected to weapons and warfare. They do not carry spears but only sticks; they take no part in expeditions [war]…they do not steal the cattle of others; they do not speak lies; they do not take part in councils which deal with evil things (war) but only those that deal with peaceful things” (Knutsson 1967, 149). De Salviac ([1901] 2005, 180) quotes an Oromo adage: “Jila or pilgrimages are liege men of Waaqa”. This commitment to moral purity and non-violence defined the Jila tradition – a core pillar of Oromo life that would soon face systemic dismantling.

Indeed, these foundational religious practices were severely eroded following the conquest and Menelik’s subsequent 1900 ban on pilgrimages to Abbaa Muudaa (Knutsson 1967, 147–155). Commenting on same, De Salviac ([1901] 2005, 182) writes: “Abyssinia, which lets subsist the religious, civil, domestic laws of the Oromo, hastens, in proportion to the conquest, to bar the road to Wallabu. The pilgrimage appeared to them the principal boulevard of the patriotic spirit, the sovereign activity of the Oromo life and ferment for eventual revolts.” It also negatively impacted Oromo solidarity as, Abbaa Muudaa shrines had long functioned as nodal points of convergence for the Oromo community. “Oromoland was crisscrossed by routes which were trodden by Jila (pilgrims), arising from the different regions and converging at the shrines in the southern highlands” (Bulcha 2011, 256). The prohibition of pilgrimage to Abbaa Muudaa was not merely an act of political containment; it laid the groundwork for a broader policy aimed at systematically dismantling, appropriating, and overwriting Oromo sacred geography. As access to sacred geography was severed, imperial rule shifted toward systematically dismantling the core religious values and worldviews that sustained Oromo identity.

Colonial Re-inscription of Oromo Sacred Sites

Abyssinian colonial rule targeted Oromo religious values, institutions and worldviews to ensure complete surrender of the Oromo as colonial subjects, akin to the 'Kill the Indian and Save the Man’ colonial settler modus operandi discussed above. Consequently, many Oromos have either abandoned indigenous Oromo religion lest they be branded backward devil worshippers, or adopted and adapted the values and worldviews of their colonizers and practiced them alongside their indigenous religion as pragmatic survival strategy.

This spiritual dislocation was engineered through a systematic effort to overwrite Oromo ideological and physical landscapes. First, like in any colonial structure that demonizes traditional belief systems, the colonizers “reduced the Oromo belief in Waaqa Guraacha to devil worship” (Megerssa 1996, 97). Second, they erected Ethiopian Orthodox churches on sacred mountains and hilltops, inscribing Judaeo-Christian and imperial identities onto landscapes deeply embedded in Oromo cosmology. Similarly, sacred water-bodies central to Irreechaa Malkaa were re-inscribed Timqete bahirs – hallowed sites designated for Ethiopian Orthodox baptismal rites during annual Epiphany celebrations in January. For instance, Tullu Cuqaala (Zequwala, as the Abyssinians call it) – a mountain featuring a sacred crater lake – served for centuries as a major spiritual center where the Liban clan of the Tuulama Oromo performed Irreechaa Tulluu rituals, before its appropriation and conversion into the Zequwala Abo Monastery and St. Mary Church.

Although colonization proceeds with the alienation of the natives’ connection to land in general, the system seems to have paid special attention to certain categories of land which carry cultural, social and spiritual significance. For the Oromo, Malkaa, Tulluu, and Qe’ee are not mere landforms. Instead, they constitute landscapes of vital socio-cultural meaning, ritualized and sanctified as part of Oromo belief practices within their wider worldview.

Malkaa is a relatively shallow and wider section of a river (including wider riverbank) that is used for human and livestock crossing. In the absence (distance) of bridges to cross a river, footpaths and livestock routes often converge on Malkaa of major rivers or streams particularly during rainy season. Malkaa connect market centres and different clans or people from diverse background. It is a site of ritual annual/seasonal performance either as thanks giving (irreecha/irreesa) for seeking Waaqa’s forgiveness, healing or restoration of wellbeing when people face a major man-made or natural challenge (Hebo 2006, 152).

In Oromo cosmology, Malkaa and Tulluu represent profound ritual spaces for peace, social cohesion, and communion with Waaqa. Symbolic expressions such as tulluun qananiidha (“a mountain is scared”); burqaan qananiidha (“a water spring is scared”) attest to the deep reverence the Oromo hold for these landmarks. This spiritual connection is expressed through the practice of Irreechaa (or Irreessaa) – where people offer coqorssa grass (Cynodon dactylon) when traversing high landscapes or natural spring. Consequently, colonial rule sought to dismantle this sacred geography by targeting these landmarks, displacing their indigenous functions, and imposing imperial symbols and institutions in their place.

In Finfinnee, Dhakaa Araaraa was physically and symbolically converted into Menelik’s Grand Palace, while Birbirssa Ya’ii Gooro transformed into the St. George church (Arada Giorgis). The construction of the St. George Church was commissioned by Emperor Menelik II following Ethiopia’s victory over Italy in March of 1896 on St. George’s day. Both Empress Zewditu and Emperor Haile Selassie I were coronated there. St. George was also the Patron Saint of the Empire and of the Armed Forces until the fall of the Imperial regime in 1974. Similarly, Tulluu Daalatti, a central site for Gadaa assemblies prior to the conquest, was converted into Qeraniyo Medhane Alem (Holy Saviour) church – likely the first EOC in Finfinnee.^[29] Reflecting this special overlay, most Ethiopian Orthodox churches carry the prefix Debra (“Hill”), denoting their placement directly atop the elevated sites traditionally venerated as sacred by the Oromo.

Mesqel Square^[30] (historically known as Abiyot Adebabay or Revolution Square) has hosted the EOC’s annual Mesqel bonfire^[31] since the reign of Haile Selassie I. Originally, it was the site of the Tuulama Oromo’s Hora Finfinnee Irreechaa festival until indigenous cultural practices were banned following the conquest. Since 2019, however, the festival has been revived less than 100 meters to the east of the Mesqel bonfire site. The EOTC continues to claim the area as its own, arguing it remains the Church’s rist land – a vestige of imperial land tenure that reflects the enduring hold of a colonial mindset.

Similarly, Jan Meda, which now hosts the largest annual Timqet (Epiphany) celebrations of EOTC in Finfinnee, was originally called Hurufa Boombii, an expansive pastureland used by the local Oromo for grazing livestock in the ancestral Eekkaa clan territory administered by Tufaa Araddo. Shortly after the conquest, a deadly feud, the reasons for which are still unknown, broke out between former friends Tufaa Araddo and Tufaa Munaa, leaders of major clans. Worried about the situation, Gullallee and Eekkaa clan elders (jaarssa biyya) met at Hurufa Boombii for several days and successfully negotiated a peace deal, which was witnessed by the concerned Emperor Menelik II and Empress Taitu. Jan Meda – derived from the Amharic Jan (short for Janhoy, meaning “His Majesty”) and Meda (“field”) – translates to "His Majesty’s field". According to some sources, the ground was commissioned by Emperor Menelik II to commemorate the 1896 victory at the Battle of Adwa, and is dedicated to St. George, who, as discussed previously in this paper, was believed to have aided Ethiopian forces against the Italian invasion. On their journey home, the Eekkaa elders watered their horses at a nearby river. Feeling relieved by the reconciliation, one Eekkaa elder man remarked in Afaan Oromo, “Yaa Waaq galatake, amma qabbanni bu’e” (“Thank God, now calm has reigned”). The river, now called Qebena, is believed to have earned its name from the symbolic significance of this peace deal. Qabbana (lit. cool/calm) in Afaan Oromo is figuratively used to express peace, reconciliation, and serenity.

Among the Oromo, like in most societies around the world, toponyms, which store knowledge about the place, are linguistic symbols that often refer to different Oromo groups’ ancestries. Since colonial conquest includes subjugation of the colonized people by erasing their historical connection to their land, Abyssinian conquest also included changing Oromo place names. As the focus of this article is on Finfinnee, we do not delve into Amharic and/or Judaeo-Christian baptismal names of Oromo place names elsewhere (e.g., Adama to Nazareth; Bishoftu to Debrezeit; Ambo to Agerehiwot; Woliso to Ghion; Ciro to Asebe-Teferi; etc.) in Oromia. In Finfinnee, many pre-conquest Oromo place names were changed, including Caffee Tumaa to Sidist Kilo; Hurufa Boombii to Jan Meda; Horaa Finfinnee^[32] to Filwoha; Caffee Muudaa to Lidata; Sulula Garbi to Tekla Haymanot; Waayyuu to Qechene Medhane Alem; and Adaami to Rufael (Wami [2006] 2013). The last four are religious Christian names and refer to the Ethiopian Orthodox Churches built on those sites.

The few remaining place names such as Gullallee, Eekkaa, Abbaadho, Xaafo, Laafto, and Koyyee are ancestors of different sub-clans of Tuulama Oromo of the area (Haile et al. 2006). For instance, Eekkaa, a notable ancestral figure and progenitor of the Eekkaa clan had seven children, collectively known as Toorbban Eekkaa (“the seven Eekkaas”): Anqorcaa, Abbaado (also recorded as Abbaa Haadhoo), Madaroo, Daallee, Obori, Gawwaasaa, and Xaafoo (Maammoo 2025, 71). All of these ancestral names survive today as contemporary toponyms across eastern Finfinnee and the Lagaa Xaafoo sub-city of Shaggaar city.

Zawuduu Maammoo - an Eekkaa clan member, grandson of Abeebeee Tufaa, and a great grandson of Tufaa Araddo – is the author of his grandfather’s historical biography, Goota Hin Jilbiiffanne: Seena Fiittawarii Abeebee Tufaa (“The Hero Who Never Knelt: The History of Fitawrari Abeebee Tufaa”, our translation). He explains that the name of modern-day Yeka sub-city is a corrupted form of the Tuulama Oromo’s Eekkaa clan name, noting the alteration distorted both its pronunciation and its meaning. While the original Oromo word Eekkaa translates to “Yes,” Yakka means “crime” in Afaan Oromo (Maammoo 2025, 71). Reinstating original place names, therefore, not only restores historical memory, but also eliminates the corrupted and meaningless names imposed on Oromo land following the conquest.

As outlined above, Oromo cultural and religious sites were systematically converted into symbolic institutions of the empire following the conquest. The following key sacred and ritual sites in Finfinnee were expropriated and re-inscribed with imperial politico-religious meaning:^[33]

• Birbirssa Ya’ii Gooro, where Arada St. George’s Cathedral is now located, was a sacred Oromo gathering ground dominated by ancient Birbirssa (Podocarpus) trees. It served as a local assembly site and ritual space associated with the Tuulama Oromo. The church later became a core religious symbol of state authority, serving as the venue where subsequent monarchs, including Empress Zewditu and Emperor Haile Selassie I were crowned. The surrounding square was politically anchored by a large equestrian monument of Menelik II.

• Hora Finfinnee (the natural thermal mineral springs) where currently the Filwoha Spring is located was a major sacred Hora utilized by Gullallee and Eekkaa clans for ritual purification, cattle-watering ceremonies (Hora obaasu), and seasonal Irreechaa Malkaa rituals.

• Dhakaa Araaraa: A historic site of assembly and conflict resolution, physically converted into Menelik’s Grand Palace (Gebbii).

• Tulluu Daalatti: A hilltop assembly ground for Gadaa councils, converted into Qeraniyo Medhanalem (Holy Saviour) Church.

• Mt. Entoto was a sacred high landscape and strategic highland for the Gullallee Oromo clan, associated with traditional mountain reverence (Tulluun qananiidha) and ritual offerings. Here Menelik II established his primary military stronghold and royal camp in the 1870s and 1880s, where he eventually constructed Entoto Maryam (St. Mary) and Entoto Raguel churches atop the ridge. Entoto Maryam served as the ceremonial site where Menelik II was crowned Negusa Nagast (“King of Kings”) in 1889, grounding his imperial legitimacy on the site.

Scholarly works across archaeology, anthropology, history, and cultural geography indicate that place names “reflect language-users’ perception of and relation with their environment. Place names are ‘cultural artifacts’ produced by complex interactions between mind, culture and environment” (Taylor 2016, 70). As Lauder and Lauder (2017, 25–1) emphasize in their work for the United Nations Group of Experts on Geographical Names (UNGEGN), place names fundamentally possess a historical dimension: “[T]hey were coined at some time in the past and reflect the geographical, cultural, cognitive and attitudinal aspects of human life at a former point of time.” Therefore, since place names are so deeply bound to indigenous memory and spatial perception, the act of forcibly altering them becomes a potent instrument of imperial control and cultural erasure. Consequently, in post-colonial contexts, “landscapes retain oppressive historical actions as place names reinforce claims to territory and, subsequently, weaken native claims to territory as traces of natives are removed from the landscape” (Falah 1996).

These examples show that it was not merely that names were changed; rather, their identities were erased and their physical and ritual connections with the Oromo were severed through what Krautwurst (2003, 67) calls the structural violence of ‘naming power’ because, as Fanon incisively argues, “colonialism is not a thinking machine, nor a body endowed with reasoning faculties. It is violence in its natural state” (1963: 61, emphasis ours).

Conclusion: Resilience in the Face of Colonial Structures

As argued above, Abyssinian colonialism over the Oromo and the other peoples of today’s greater southern Ethiopia is no different from colonial projects’ elsewhere. The shared key features include ‘acquiring, distributing and exploiting lands in colonies; the policies of domesticating natives; and the manner of managing ancient organizations and implementing new modes of production’ (Mudimbe 1988, 2). Dislocation from land – from the qe’ee and the ancestral shrines – had consequential effects for the Oromo; their identity, self-worth, and emotional, spiritual and physical security had been compromised, to say the least. Although attempts have been made to reconnect to their land and worldview, particularly following the 1974 revolution that overthrew the last monarch of the Ethiopian Empire, uncertainties linger as colonial structures persist despite changing regimes and their vastly different dogmas.

The colonizers perceived a threat in Oromo beliefs and their associated core values, such as dhugaa (truth and justice), nagaa (peace and harmony), which are inherently embedded in the Oromo moral worldview. By demonizing Oromo belief systems and supplanting sacred sites with imperial Ethiopia’s politico-religious symbols, colonizers sought to reshape native minds into subservient subjects through what Mudimbe calls the “colonizing structure.” Nevertheless, rather than abandoning their indigenous religion and its core values, the Oromo strategically superimposed Ethiopian Orthodox Christian traditions over their own - demonstrating unique resilience. Today, the resurgence of the Irreechaa ritual at reclaimed sacred sites (such as Hora Harsadii and Hora Finfinnee) and Malkaa (e.g., Malkaa Ateetee) demonstrates this remarkable resilience. It proves how strategically espoused temporary adaptation allowed the Oromo to preserve their worldview. Ultimately, the strategic value of superficially adopting an alien religion made it relatively easy to drop the façade and revert to sustained indigenous rituals, as opposed to rebuilding the practice from scratch.

As discussed previously, another interesting area where Orthodox Christian Oromo communities continued to perform indigenous religious practice side by side with the ritual of their newly adopted religion is hammachiisaa – the naming and blessing ritual. Among the Tuulama Oromo community covered in this study, the hammachiisa practice continued to date and, in fact, precedes the formal Ethiopian Orthodox Christian baptism requirement of the 40^th day for boys and 80^th for girls. This highlights how the Oromo strategically adopted their official new identity as Orthodox Christians while simultaneously maintaining their pre-conquest cultural identity and worldview.

While discussing resilience, we do not seek to diminish the profound damage inflicted upon Oromo identity and worldview. The Oromo experienced severe alienation from their ritual sites, their ancestral land, qe’ee in particular, and their sacred shrines (hujubaa). The banning of pilgrimages to Abbaa Muudaa shrines and Irreechaa celebrations, along the occupation of sacred spaces by Orthodox Christian institutions, caused deep socio-cultural and spiritual rupture – what Hassen (2021, 9) characterized as Menelik’s genocidal campaign. In unpacking the logic of Abyssinian colonialism – which Holcomb and Ibssa (1990) characterize as a “Dependent Colonial State” – A. Jalata (2025, 2–3) invokes Linda Tuhiwai Smith’s observation that colonizers systematically seek to destroy “every last remnant of alternative ways of knowing and living, to obliterate collective identities and memories and to impose a new order” (T. L. Smith 1999, 69). Yet, despite these persistent attempts at cultural erasure, Oromo cultural resilience remained remarkable, which illustrates Scott’s (1990, 132) insight regarding the protective function of cultural separation: “[t]he development of a thick and resilient hidden transcript is favored by the existence of social and cultural barriers between dominant elites and subordinates”.

Finally, for the Oromo, the conquest of their ancestral land by the Abyssinians, along with the dislocatory effects discussed in the foregoing sections, represented the ultimate denial of dhugaa (Truth and Justice). For far too long, this denial has disrupted the quotidian practice of nagaa (peace and harmony), not only within the Oromo society and between the Oromo and their natural environment, but across the wider Ethiopian society. Because dhugaa and nagaa are fundamentally inseparable, peace can reign in Oromia and Ethiopia only when dhugaa is restored. As the Oromo proverb reminds us, lafa dhugaan hinjirre nagaan hinjiru (“there is no peace and harmony where there is no truth and justice”). Through the intrinsic link between dhugaa and nagaa, the Oromo worldview understands historical recognition, justice^[34], peaceful coexistence, ecological balance, and spiritual wellbeing as fundamentally interconnected.