To the people of Ethiopia, Abay (the Blue Nile) is the River of All Rivers. Abay is a friend, a stranger and an enemy. It is a healer, a unifier and a giver, as well as a destroyer, a scatterer and a taker. Much has been written and said about what Abay means to Ethiopians but nowhere else has this been better recorded than in the poems and songs that have been composed about the river.
Ethiopia is our country, Abay is our river. The women are fine spinners [and] the men are brave warriors. — Ethiopian song.
In this week’s episode of the Mythological Africans Podcast, we use songs and poems to probe at the relationship the Ethiopian people have with this great river.
NB: I present the Ethiopian Christian legend of the naming of Gish Abay as it is recorded. I do not spend any time establishing if the details align with historical fact.
References
Arsano, Yacob. Ethiopia and the Nile: Dilemmas of National and Regional Hydropolitics. Switzerland, ETH, 2007. p 69 - 80
Ayenalem, A. “The songs of the Nile: From A’bay to the GERD.” Bridging Humanities–Nile Pop. Leiden: Brill. Retrieved from https://nilepop. bridginghumanities. com.
Damtew, Ebrahim. “Friend, Stranger, Enemy Ethiopian Oral Traditions on the Abbay (Blue Nile) River.” Ethiopian Renaissance Journal of Social Sciences and the Humanities 3.2 (2016): 21-37.
Messing, Simon D. “Ethiopian Folktales Ascribed to the Late Nineteenth Century Amhara Wit, Aläqa Gäbre-Hanna.” The Journal of American Folklore, vol. 70, no. 275, 1957, pp. 69–72. JSTOR, https://doi.org/10.2307/536503. Accessed 21 June 2025.
Oestigaard, Terje, and A. F. Gedef. “Gish Abay: the source of the Blue Nile.” Water and society 153.27-38 (2011).
Van Wyk Smith, Malvern. “‘Waters Flowing From Darkness’ The Two Ethiopias in the Early European Image of Africa.” Theoria: A Journal of Social and Political Theory, no. 68, 1986, pp. 67–77. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/41801755.
Can’t Get Enough?
Meanwhile…
The Watkins Book of African Folklore (…or The Mythological Africans Book) is out!
The Watkins Book of African Folklore contains 50 stories, curated from North, South, East, West and Central Africa. The stories are grouped into three sections:
Creation myths and foundation legends
Stories about human relationships and the cultural institutions they created
Animal tales (with a twist…the folktales are about some of the most unlikely animals!)
I thoroughly enjoyed digging into the historical and cultural context out of which the stories, their themes, and protagonists emerge. There is something for everybody!
Share this post