Shanqella (Amharic: ሻንቅላšanqəlla sometimes spelledShankella,Shangella,Shánkala,Shankalla orShangalla) is anexonym for a number ofNilotic ethnic groups that lived in the westernmost part ofEthiopia (modernGambela andBenishangul-Gumuz regions), but are known to have also inhabited more northerly areas ofEritrea.[1] A pejorative, the term was traditionally used by the localAfro-Asiatic-speaking populations to refer in general terms to darker-skinned ethnic groups, particularly to those from communities speakingNilo-Saharan languages of Western Ethiopia. These were regarded as primitive people and slave reserves by theAbyssinians.[2][3]
The etymology of Shanqella is uncertain. It has been suggested that the appellation may stem from anAmharic epithet meaning "black" (or darker-skinned). However, it is likely that the term is instead of more ancient,Agaw derivation given the Agaw substratum in the Amharic language.[4]
According to the local traditions of some of theAgaw, the original inhabitants ofAgawmeder were the Shanqella (likely theGumuz people).[5]
The Shanqella first appear in a 15th-century praise-song for the EmperorYeshaq I. The Shanqella are listed at the very beginning of the song when the regions and tribes of the kingdom are evoked. They praise the ruler and refer to their richness in goats (this connotes that they were primarily pastoralists). Historiography reports of EmperorIyasu I leading campaigns against "the Shanqella" on the north-western borders of his kingdom (in this case, theKunama people). In the 1840s, NegusSahle Selassie included the Shanqella in his titulature. The southwards expansion of EmperorMenelik II, directed against Oromo and Kafa, and peoples further south, was also perceived as a campaign of submission of the Shanqella.[6]
Many Shanqella were recruited into service of Menelik II. At the Emperor's coronation in 1889 it was reported by the chronicler Gebre Selassie that the monarch was flanked to right and left by Shanqella dressed in gold-embroidered tunics and velvet cloaks, and holding spears with golden sheaths. Subsequently at theBattle of Adwa, the same chronicler reports the presence of a force of Shanqella at the battle. In 1906, a group of Shanqella soldiers were stationed atHarar where they were trained by a French officer, Captain de la Guibougere.[7]
They were regarded as mere savages, without any socio-political order, who were only good for economic and physical exploitation. Consequently, folk paintings show them with drastically exaggerated features as brutish blacks following unholy rituals. With the rise of theDerg in the 1970s, the establishment of new administrative structures inaugurated a second phase of forced cultural change, but also the final disappearance of the term "Shanqella" from Ethiopian discourse.[8]