Paper short abstract:

The Oromo are the single largest national group in Ethiopia and one of the major African peoples.And yet,there is a good deal of ignorance about the Oromo, their history, way of life,political and religious institutions and even about their name itself in Ethiopian historiography.

Paper long abstract:

As the result of the warfare between the Christians and the Oromo, the latter came to be known as the enemies of the Amhara. The enmity between the two communities, magnified by religious and cultural differences, created deeply seated spirit of animosity, which perpetuated the negative image , more to the point, demonization of the Oromo in Ethiopian historiography. European travelers and missionary accounts since the sixteenth century took on the perceptions of Ethiopian Christian chroniclers demonization of the Oromo and those perceptions were profoundly anti-Oromo. This paper will explore why the Oromo have been " the most misunderstood, and indeed most misrepresented" people in African history. The paper will also attempt to show that what was written about the Oromo was not only fragmentary but also biased. As a consequence the human qualities of the Oromo, their egalitarian culture, democratic political and religious institutions "were trapped" in the biased works of Christian chroniclers and Portuguese missionaries, European travelers accounts of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries and some scholarly works of the twentieth century.