Thread on the history of Coffee (New Manuscripts Uncovered)

[Midas]

If they examined more of these Ethiopian christian chronicles they would probably see the same thing, instead of accepting what's in them blindly , they will see them as just fabricating events that never took place.

We have one such case where the Portuguese missionary Pedro Paez was shown the chronicles of Gelewados after it was written and it followed the same same Amda Seyeon epic fiction trope of an all conquering idealized King and they had to call BS on it. Because they couldn't sell them this lie as they were there to witness the war as it happened and remember what took place.

He never went to Awdal or the Muslim territories, nor did he conquere their lands. Infact the opposite happened Emir Nur succeeded Gurey persued him deep into the highlands and slayed him at his courts.

King Claudius, is latin rendering of Gelewadeos

Pedro Páez's History of Ethiopia, 1622 - Partie 2 - Page 17​

''Not only did Emperor Claudio not do those things in [Chronicle) , Kingdom of Adel, but he never went there in his life. Nor did the Moors lose so much with Granh's defeat and death that they could not have defended themselves very well, had he gone there. Rather, the Moor who succeeded Granh as guazir silicet ''governor'' came from there with an army against Emperor Claudio a few years later and on giving battle, defeated and killed him not very far from where he had his court, as everyone says and his history recounts''

And Emir Nur defeated him with very tiny army in comparison.

'' Owed God for the remarkable victory that He had given him...because his army had been incomparably smaller than the emperor''

The corrections he makes is also confirmed in the local Muslim chronicle(Tarikh Al-Mulukh) referring to Emir Nur as the Second Conqueror, that more accurately described the events that followed.

This is more less an eyewitness account as well "I personally saw the head of the King with my own eyes". I proves how reliable the muslim chronicles are in comparison.

The same Gelewados chronicle also fabricates fantasy narrative that it conquered or invaded Mogadishu. He of course never went there in his life .

It's crazy how little progress has been made in the field since Cerulli's last major works in the 60's. It's been 60 years since then .

 

[Idilinaa]

It's crazy how little progress has been made in the field since Cerulli's last major works in the 60's. It's been 60 years since then .

You could say the lack of progress is mainly due to regional politics and displacement.

Since you need a stable source of funding, resources , materials, institutional backing and stable environment to conduct your research in.

 

[Hargeysa]

Personally, I'm delighted to learn of this. Caffeine is easily my favourite drug!

 

[Ella Amida]

The coffee plant itself was first domesticated in Eastern Ethiopia basically Galbeed which a new scientific study actually reveals. So it was in the Muslim lands.

As the Eastern population of wild coffee was the primary source for domestication.

The genome and population genomics of allopolyploid Coffea arabica reveal the diversification history of modern coffee cultivars - Nature Genetics

Chromosome-level genome assemblies of allotetraploid Coffea arabica and representatives of its diploid progenitors, Coffea eugenioides and Coffea canephora, provide insights into Arabica’s diversification history.

www.nature.com

Which makes sense to be honest those medieval sources talking about it originating in Land of Zayla, Bar Sa'Adin and Al-Jabarta don't just talk about a coffee culture but rather widespread cultivation or original crop cultivation center.

I think Somali traders can be credited for spreading it to Yemen and beyond but what is today SW Ethiopia is likely the ultimate origin. The wild gene pool shows the highest diversity in regions like Kaffa, Jimma, Sheka, Bench Maji.

This aligns perfectly with folktales and a linguistic clue that the the name “coffee” seemingly derives from the Kaffa province and Omotic-speaking Kafficho people. Some of you laugh at the Kaldi folktale but it's likely not a coincidence that these stories are mostly based in the Kafa and Jimma areas where as mentioned, the plant's genetic diversity seems to be the highest.

In fact, your own source seems to indicate that the Gesha region (majority Kafficho territory) as most amenable to domestication:

The picture to me seems more like a West ---> East transfer and probably some subsequent gene-flow from Eastern species, perhaps even further domestication and cultivation giving rise to the modern variants rather than a totally independent eastern domestication:

 

[Idilinaa]

I think Somali traders can be credited for spreading it to Yemen and beyond but what is today SW Ethiopia is likely the ultimate origin. The wild gene pool shows the highest diversity in regions like Kaffa, Jimma, Sheka, Bench Maji.

This aligns perfectly with folktales and a linguistic clue that the the name “coffee” seemingly derives from the Kaffa province and Omotic-speaking Kafficho people. Some of you laugh at the Kaldi folktale but it's likely not a coincidence that these stories are mostly based in the Kafa and Jimma areas where as mentioned, the plant's genetic diversity seems to be the highest.

There is zero historical records that backs this up. The name coffee in European language is from Turkish Kahwe which is borrowed from Arabic Qahwa. It has no links to Kaffa province name.

And in Harar Ogaden regions they call it by the Somali name Buun.

In fact, your own source seems to indicate that the Gesha region (majority Kafficho territory) as most amenable to domestication:

View attachment 358676

The picture to me seems more like a West ---> East transfer and probably some subsequent gene-flow from Eastern species, perhaps even further domestication and cultivation giving rise to the modern variants rather than a totally independent eastern domestication:

View attachment 358668

The Eastern riftvalley is (eastern highlands (Harar) and Ogaden region) and Western side of riftvalley is where( Gesha, Kaffa) is located.

What they found in that study i linked in the first image you shared is that the Eastern coffee population split from the western one 30.000 years ago and the eastern descendant one is what was brought to Yemen after being domesticated whilst the western side remained wild.

Ancient DNA Revolution - Coffee's Epic Journey - Archaeology Magazine - September/October 2024

Great Rift Valley, Ethiopia

archaeology.org

They found that, around 30,000 years ago, the C. arabica populations on the eastern and western sides of the Great Rift Valley split.

The descendants of the plants on the eastern side were eventually brought to and cultivated at the future site of the Yemeni city of Mocha, while those on the western side remained wild.,

 

[Idilinaa]

Update to the thread:

 

[Maintainnnin]

It was probably me.

I linked a study that examined it and found it to be a work of pure fiction:

The account of the wars of King ʿAmda Ṣeyon against the Islamic sultanates, an epic fiction of the 15th century

Le récit des guerres du roi ʿAmda Ṣeyon contre les sultanats islami...

Tous les commencements sont difficiles.Chaïm Potok, Au Commencement, 1976 [2019]. Le récit des guerres menées par le roi ʿAmda Ṣeyon contre les souverains de l’Ifāt et, plus globalement, contre les...

journals.openedition.org

Not only were the sultanates independent, sophisticated and were in actuality rival kingdoms especially Awfat and Awdal that had the military and economic upperhand over them , not tributary rebel provinces in the way they are depicted.

The text also fabricates stuff like it claims that ʿAmda Ṣeyon appointed sultans (e.g., replacing Ṣabr al-Dīn with Ǧamāl al-Dīn) contradicts Walasmaʿ genealogies, which show smooth successions. Uninterrupted, with no puppet ruler imposed from the outside.

It gets the chronology of succession between the sultans wrong as well from what we know through local and external arabic sources that documents the walashma genealogy and it makes no sense at all. It also lumps older sultans with newer ones like they existed in the same time frame. (e.g., Ḥaqq al-Dīn II [14th c.] with Ǧamāl al-Dīn [15th c.]) into a single conflict.

But yeah the whole thing is nonsense , imagine seriously entertaining the idea this mythical "Amda Seyon" single-handedly crushed all Muslim sultanates in one year (1332/3). No archaeological or Muslim sources confirm this. Awfāt and Awdal remained powerful for centuries after.

The text also includes mythic propaganda themes and literary tropes like angels helped him fight and the Qadi Salih (The sorcerer judge). It reads like some medieval fantasy epic fantasy work. Amda Seyon is imagined as the Heroic King, invincible warrior the ideal and Sabr Ad din in the story is the anthesis the cowardly traitor lmaoo. The narrative includes exaggerated battles, lists of territories, and eschatological themes, emphasizing a clash between Christianity and Islam.

But safe to say that the vassalage narrative is pure Christian propaganda, you can also see how this could be false in Muslim sources. The Walashma sultans defeated Ethiopian's armies multiple times often with much smaller armies. They had economic independence: Awfāt controlled trade routes to Zeila, taxing caravans, not the reverse. Diplomatic prestige: Sultans exchanged ambassadors with the Mamlūks (per al-Maqrīzī), something vassals couldn’t do.

After Saʿd al-Dīn’s death (1415), his sons built Awdal into a stronger power hardly behavior of crushed vassals. Sa'd a Din himself had vast military victories against them and was seen as the sovereign of Al-Habash(The Horn of Africa) in Cairo. He became legendary and famed in the entire Muslim world.

You can also tell from muslim sources and descriptions that the early Awfat rulers originated from Awdal launched military campaigns to conquere the Showa plateu and then built miltary garrison towns that act as buffer frontiers that seperates the Christian highlands from the Muslim Lowlands. So most of the battles that took place were border skirmishes and small scales raids.

On the Ethiopian side the short unsuccessful raids was pure gaajo(hunger) tactics as @novanova pointed out. They want the wealth and riches that the Muslims had and as they were living under starvation and feudal opression.

New Hornaristocrat thread of this very topic.

 

[Midas]

New Hornaristocrat thread of this very topic.

Damn.

What makes this even crazier is that every paper that talks about islam in the horn of africa says that maybe they shouldn't use these "rich Christian Ethiopian sources " to talk about islam in the horn. When in actuality the world being constructed by these Ethiopian sources is all just nonsensical.


I think the even bigger question is if these sources are just outright making stuff up. How much of the last several deacdes of historiography concerning the horn of africa during the 1200- 1600s is just all made up.

 

[Ella Amida]

What they found in that study i linked in the first image you shared is that the Eastern coffee population split from the western one 30.000 years ago and the eastern descendant one is what was brought to Yemen after being domesticated whilst the western side remained wild.

Ancient DNA Revolution - Coffee's Epic Journey - Archaeology Magazine - September/October 2024

Great Rift Valley, Ethiopia

archaeology.org

You're parroting a sloppy paraphrase by that article meant for a popular audience. Again, what the study actually found:

In a comparison of geographic origins, wild individuals from the Eastern side of the Great Rift Valley had some levels of admixture and were closely interrelated, while on the Western side, the admixed, related individuals were mostly concentrated around the Gesha region (Figs. 2c and 3). The E016/136 admixed accession, closest to cultivars, demonstrated a first-degree relationship with several wild accessions, of which only Ar35-06 and Eth28.2 were pure representatives of the wild population (Fig. 2b). Therefore, these two accessions are genetically closest, in our sample, to the hypothetical true wild parent of cultivated Arabica, with E016/136 representing an intermediate form. Ar35-06 was collected near Gesha mountain, close to the origin of the modern Geisha cultivar. Altogether, these data point to the Gesha region as a hotspot of wild accessions amenable to domestication.

The Gesha plants seem to be the closest to the wild ancestor and most likely the site of initial domestication and gene flow with Eastern variants likely occurred later.

The Ethnoarchaeology of coffee production and consumption: three case studies from Southwest Ethiopia (Kafecho, Majangir and Oromo)​

​

An agro-morphological study by Montagnon and Bouharmont (1996:221-227) pointed out that coffee trees found east of the Rift Valley (i.e. southeastern and southern Ethiopia) could, perhaps, be either introduced from the southwest or collected from the local forests long before their destruction. Genetic studies using RAPD (Random Amplified Polymorphic DNA) molecular markers point toward the presence of a comparatively modest genetic distance between the southern and southeastern coffee trees and
southwestern coffee trees (Anthony et al. 2001:63; Labouisse et al. 2008:1084). This buttresses the
proposition that “southern and southeastern coffee trees were not selected from wild coffee growing locally but introduced from the southwest. These introductions could have occurred recently” (Anthony et al. 2001:63)

This paper is a fantastic read - among other things, it details ethnographic evidence how the deeply entrenched forest management practices among Kaffa and Jimma farmers mirror the likely ancient processes of domestication:

We also have remains of coffee seeds in the region as early as 1740bp alongside some other possibly domesticated plants:

The ethnographic evidence, genetics, oral traditions, and admittedly currently speculative yet intriguing linguistic links seem to converge towards the Kaffa zone [encompassing Kafficho, Majangir, and Oromo and probably other southwestern highland peoples] as the cradle of coffee domestication.

 

[Idilinaa]

You're parroting a sloppy paraphrase by that article meant for a popular audience. Again, what the study actually found:

The Gesha plants seem to be the closest to the wild ancestor and most likely the site of initial domestication and gene flow with Eastern variants likely occurred later.

The Ethnoarchaeology of coffee production and consumption: three case studies from Southwest Ethiopia (Kafecho, Majangir and Oromo)​

​

This paper is a fantastic read - among other things, it details ethnographic evidence how the deeply entrenched forest management practices among Kaffa and Jimma farmers mirror the likely ancient processes of domestication:

View attachment 376984



View attachment 376988

View attachment 376985


We also have remains of coffee seeds in the region as early as 1740bp alongside some other possibly domesticated plants:

View attachment 376989

The ethnographic evidence, genetics, oral traditions, and admittedly currently speculative yet intriguing linguistic links seem to converge towards the Kaffa zone [encompassing Kafficho, Majangir, and Oromo and probably other southwestern highland peoples] as the cradle of coffee domestication.

It’s not a sloppy paraphrase at all . I directly linked to the "Nature Genetics" study it was based on:

The genome and population genomics of allopolyploid Coffea arabica reveal the diversification history of modern coffee cultivars - Nature Genetics

Chromosome-level genome assemblies of allotetraploid Coffea arabica and representatives of its diploid progenitors, Coffea eugenioides and Coffea canephora, provide insights into Arabica’s diversification history.

www.nature.com

I was showing that my explanation aligns with the findings there

The material you linked focuses on the wild coffee populations that still grow in the western highlands (like Kaffa and Jimma). Those are indeed the ancestral wild forms. What the Nature paper discusses, however, is the cultivated and domesticated lineage , the one that was taken eastward and eventually introduced to Yemen

The study shows that the wild progenitor originated in the western side (around Gesha), while the domesticated eastern population descends from that western lineage. In other words, the cultivated variety that spread to Yemen was an eastern descendant of the original western wild plant.

It’s actually a fascinating study because it maps out the entire genetic and geographic journey of the coffee plant’s domestication and spread.

 

[Ella Amida]

It’s not a sloppy paraphrase at all . I directly linked to the "Nature Genetics" study it was based on:

View attachment 376991

The genome and population genomics of allopolyploid Coffea arabica reveal the diversification history of modern coffee cultivars - Nature Genetics

Chromosome-level genome assemblies of allotetraploid Coffea arabica and representatives of its diploid progenitors, Coffea eugenioides and Coffea canephora, provide insights into Arabica’s diversification history.

www.nature.com

I was showing that my explanation aligns with the findings there

The material you linked focuses on the wild coffee populations that still grow in the western highlands (like Kaffa and Jimma). Those are indeed the ancestral wild forms. What the Nature paper discusses, however, is the cultivated and domesticated lineage , the one that was taken eastward and eventually introduced to Yemen

You're conflating "domesticated" and "cultivated" here. In doing so, and characterizing the Western variant as "wild" and the eastward variant as "cultivated and domesticated" as per that article's oversimplified paraphrase and binaric framing, you're subtly writing the aforementioned peoples out of the story by glossing over their centuries long domestication or proto-domestication process and history of cultivation with the plant. That the modern cultivated varieties cluster with the eastern population, would not mean that the initial process itself occurred there. The initial "domestication" process itself most likely took place in the western highlands before the lineage spread eastward likely via trade networks and admixed with local varieties.