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210 Berichte und Kommentare 2003 Inclusion and Exclusion in Generational Class Systems The Origin of the Rhaetians among Cushitic Speaking Peoples in the Horn of Africa. Zeitschrift fur¨ Ethnologie 128: 195–212 2005 The Mother’s Brother. Kinship and Community among Alfred´ Toth´ the Sidama¯ of Northeast Africa. Anthropos 100: 560– 567. Hamer, John H., and Irene Hamer I dedicate this article to the blessed memory of 1966 Spirit Possession and Its Socio-Psychological Implica- my unforgettable teacher and best friend in this tions among the Sidamo of Southwest Ethiopia. Ethnol- world, Prof. Dr. Linus Brunner. ogy 5: 392–408. 1994 Impact of a Cash Economy on Complementary Gender Relations among the Sidama¯ of Ethiopia. Anthropolog- ical Quarterly 67: 187–202. 1 Towards a Relative Chronology of the Rhaetic Language Hotesso, Betana 1983 Sidama¯ People and Culture (in Amharinya). Addis The existence of the Rhaetians and their language, Ababa: Bole Printing Press. Rhaetic, although known since the first mentioning Knauft, Bruce M. of the Rhaetic wine in Cato (234–149 B.C.), de 2002 Trails of the Oxymodern. Public Practice at Nomad re rustica, fragm. 364 (Schonberger)¨ = fragm. 8 Station. In: B. M. Knauft (ed.), Critically Modern. (Jordan), and especially Pliny XVIII, 172 who tells Alternatives, Alterities, Anthropologies; pp. 105–143. us that the Rhaetic name for the plow with wheels Bloomington: Indiana University Press. was ploum, has not been deciphered correctly until Miller, Daniel 1982, when the Swiss linguist Prof. Linus Brunner 1995 Introduction. Anthropology, Modernity, and Consump- (1909–1987) published the first readings of the tion. In: D. Miller (ed.), Worlds Apart. Modernity Rhaetic inscriptions (Brunner 1981). In a long through the Prism of the Local; pp. 1–22. London: series of articles,1 Brunner proved that Rhaetic Routledge. was an Eastern Semitic language, most closely Office of the Population and Housing Census Commission related to Akkadian, but also showing roots and 1984 Ethiopia 1984. Population and Housing Census Prelim- grammatical features that are only known in West- inary Report. Addis Ababa: Government Printer. ern Semitic languages, mostly in Arabic and He- Olmstead, Judith brew. Brunner also found 1 Ugaritic, 1 Phoenician, 1974 The Versatile Ensete Plant. Its Use in the Gamu High- 1 Hittite, and a few other words of Indo-European land. Journal of Ethiopian Studies 12/2: 147–158. origin (Toth´ and Brunner 2007: 104 ff.). In Toth´ and Brunner (2007) and in a few recent works Searle, John R. (Toth´ 2007a–o), I have assembled the additional 2006 Social Ontology. Some Basic Principles. Anthropologi- cal Theory 6: 12–29. information we have gotten about Rhaetic and the origin of the Rhaetians in the past twenty years. I Smeds, Helmer will sum them up here briefly: 1955 The Ensete Planting Culture of Eastern Sidamo, Ethi- 1. Initial Akkadian w- that has disappeared opia. The Role of the Ensete-Plantations in the Local Economy and Their Significance in the Cultural Ge- at about the time of King Hammurabi (1792– ography of Ethiopia. Helsingfors: Societas geographica 1750) (cf. Brockelmann 1908: 139). But we find Fenniae. (Acta geographica, 13/4) it preserved in the Rhaetic inscription PNAKE VITAMU LAKHE “I have asked you for help, Strecker, Ivo Vitam(m)u)”2 in VITAMU, the name of an As- 1988 The Social Practice of Symbolization. An Anthropolog- ical Analysis. London: The Athlone Press. syrian death-ghost which appears in Akkadian as Etem(mu), Itammu. Since this Rhaetic inscription Turner, Terence was found on a granite boulder close to Vadena/ 1991 “We Are Parrots.”“Twins Are Birds.” Play of Tropes Pfatten in South Tyrol (Italy), this proves that as Operational Structure. In: J. W. Fernandez (ed.), Be- the Rhaetians must have left their Mesopotamian yond Metaphor. The Theory of Tropes in Anthropology; > pp. 121–158. Stanford: Stanford University Press. homeland before Akkadian w- ø-, i.e., before the end of the 18th century B.C. Turner, Victor 1967 The Forest of Symbols. Aspects of Ndembu Ritual. Ithaca: Cornell University Press. 1 Brunner1982a–d;1983a–d,1984,1985a–e,1986,1987a–d. Vecchiato, Norbert L. 2 PID 196; Brunner and Toth´ 1987: 61; Toth´ and Brunner 1993 Illness, Therapy, and Change in Ethiopian Possession 2007: 68. The numbers after “PID,”“Bravi,” and “Mancini” Cults. Africa 63: 176–196. refer to the numbers of the inscriptions and not to pages. Anthropos 103.2008 https://doi.org/10.5771/0257-9774-2008-1-210 Generiert durch IP '170.106.40.219', am 02.10.2021, 09:47:25. Das Erstellen und Weitergeben von Kopien dieses PDFs ist nicht zulässig. Berichte und Kommentare 211 2. Rhaetic must have been spoken in an area an has ceased to be a spoken language already where Sumerians lived. This is proved by a Sume- at the end of the 3rd millennium B.C. (Edzard rian word in the Rhaetic inscription KALIP IST 2003: 5). But acclaimed researchers like Lieber- AL[U] PHUPER SUKH “Goddess Estu, I have man (1977: 20) assume that is was still spoken in brought white clothes” (Mancini 17; Toth´ and Old Babylonian time, i.e., between 1728 and 1686 Brunner 2007: 89), where PHUPER < Sumerian B.C. Also the fact that we do not only find Sume- babbar (1109x: ED IIIb, Old Akkadian, Ur III, rian borrowings in Akkadian, but also Akkadi- Early Old Babylonian, Old Babylonian) wr. bab- an borrowings in Sumerian, supports Lieberman’s bar2 “(to be) white” (> Hungarian b´ıbor “purple, thesis, although also a language that is only used scarlet,” originally “shining”), and this can on- for writing can still adopt loanwords (cf. e.g., the ly have been in Babylonia, i.e., in the South of German loanwords in Medieval Latin). Mesopotamia. But already Hruskaˇ opposed against the idea 3. The about 200 Rhaetic inscriptions, only of the Semites as latecomers in Mesopotamia: a few dozens of them are readable and which “Das einfache und bereits verbreitete Bild der alt- have been found in Switzerland, Italy, Austria, and mesopotamischen Geschichte, nach dem zwischen Southern Germany, are written in a runic alphabet Euphrat und Tigris zuerst die Sumerer und spater¨ usually called “Northern Etruscan Alphabet” be- Semiten regierten, ist durch die neuen Ausgrabun- cause the Etruscans used the same runes (as the gen in Abu Salab¯ıkh und Tell Mard¯ıkh erheblich Venetians and a few other ancient Alpine people verandert¨ worden.¯ Die Semiten haben von An- did). But these runes show striking similarities fang an in der Kultur und im Staatswesen des to the Germanic runes on the one side and to alten Vorderasien entscheidend mitgewirkt” (1979: the Hungarian (Szekely)´ runes of Transylvania on 337 f.). It is thus not true, that “the Mesopotamian the other side. A few of these Szekely´ runes are plain was not conducive to a great variety of already present on some of the Tartarian Tablets languages, as against Iran, Anatolia, or the Cau- that were excavated in 1876 in today’s Rumania casus which, until our days, has been a veritable and later dated using C14 method from the middle language museum” (Edzard 2003: 4). It follows of the 6th millennium B.C. (Badiny 2001: 186). that the oldest testified Semites in Mesopotamia, Labat and Zakar (1976) proved that these ear- the Akkadians, may have been there already long ly Szekely´ runes were most probably the basis before the 26th century B.C. from which the cuneiform writing originated at Between 2500 and 2230 B.C., the Amorites, the beginning of the 4th millennium B.C. In 1963, after a long period of famine, emigrated from Vlassa proved that the motives showing up on the their native North African (Egyptian and Ara- Tartarian Tablets are identical with Sumerian mo- bic) homeland to Mesopotamia (Paton 1901: 25). tives from Uruku Warka IV (ca. 3500–3200 B.C.) Mesopotamia with its two big rivers Euphrates and and Jemdet-Nasr (ca. 3100–2900 B.C.) cultures. It Tigris is vast and rich in fertile land, so people thus seems that the Rhaetians took over their Runic who had to emigrate found there a new home- alphabet from the ancestors of the Szekelys,´ who land. It is thus only natural that such a prosperous must have emigrated to Mesopotamia in order to landscape had attracted people of many different form the Sumerian people some time between the tongues. The Amorites spoke Amoritic, a dialect 6th and the 4th millennium B.C. This points to a of Akkadian found on tablets dating from 1800– much closer relationship between the Sumerians 1750 B.C. showing many Northwest Semitic forms and the Rhaetians than between the Sumerians and constructions (cf. Streck 2000; Gelb 1980). and the Akkadians, since otherwise the Rhaetians The Amorites were seminomads first in the Middle would without doubt have adopted the cuneiform Euphrates area and gradually became sedentary. writing instead of the Runic alphabet. They then penetrated deep into Sumeria and were believed to be one of the causes of the downfall of the 3rd dynasty of Ur (ca. 2112–2004 B.C). 2 The Linguistic Landscape of Early During the Ur III period (2100–2000 B.C.), the Mesopotamia Amorites formed an identifiable ethnic component along with Sumerians and Akkadians. Between Officially, it is assumed that the Semitic influence about 2000 and 1800 B.C. they covered both Syr- in Mesopotamia did not start before the 26th cen- ia and Mesopotamia with a multitude of small tury B.C. (the oldest Akkadian texts are, however, principalities and cities. Almost all of the local only from the 24th century B.C. (cf. Ungnad and kings in Babylonia (such as the already mentioned Matousˇ 1969: 4).