Menz - Local Culture

Local Culture

Menz is first mentioned in the Glorious Victories of Amda Seyon (who ruled in the early 14th century), where it is called "Manzehel", and mentioned again in the Royal Chronicles of Baeda Maryam. This small province came to form the core of the autonomous Ethiopian state of Shewa. Negasi Krestos, a leading warlord of Menz, extended his power to the south by conquest, proclaimed himself ruler of Shewa, and defeated all of his rivals. Menz afterwards retained its identity as a subregion of Shewa. During the reign of Haile Selassie, Menz was incorporated into the province of Shewa, although it retained its conservative nature. Based on discussions with neighboring peoples, Johann Ludwig Krapf wrote that the people of Menz "have the character of being brave, quarrelsome, inhospitable, ignorant, and haughty." Krapf continues, observing

that as no strong royal hand is able to govern them, every trifle causes them to be at variance with each other. A little affront or a small matter that happens on account of the boundaries of their fields, raises such animosities between them, that they draw their swords and kill one another. These continual contests and their self-interestedness, prevent them from living together in one village. Each individual, or several families being the issue of a great man, build their houses, wherever they find convenient for the sake of their property, or for the purpose of more easily watching their fields. On this account therefore you do not see large villages in Mans . They do not fight against a common and general enemy, but only against each other; and therefore they say, "We will not fight against the Gallas, who do us no harm; but we fight among ourselves."

An example of Menz's conservatism is illustrated by the attempted revolt of Mesfin and Merid Biru, two brothers and the sons of one of Ethiopia's largest landowners. Following the Ethiopian Revolution, in January 1975 they slipped away from Addis Ababa to organize a rebellion among peasants in Menz. Although this was not the center of their family's vast landholdings, it was only in Menz that they could obtain peasant support. Because of the area's isolation they could sell to the peasants their own interpretation of the events. They told the peasants that the Derg government was dominated by Moslems who would destroy the Ethiopian Church and take away land from Christians. As proof, the brothers played tape recorded statements of alleged government declarations broadcast over Radio Ethiopia which stated as much. Despite that their effort was doomed, it wasn't until October 1975, that security forces were able to finally track down Mesfin and Merid and kill them.