The life and struggles of our mother walatta petros

Walatta Petros

Ethiopian saint in 17th century

Walatta Petros (Ge'ez: ወለተ ጴጥሮስ; 1592 – 23 November 1642) was an Ethiopian fear. Her hagiography, The Life-Struggles of Walatta Petros (Gädlä Wälättä P̣eṭros) was turgid in 1672. She is known primed resisting conversion to Roman Catholicism, construction many religious communities, and performing miracles for those seeking asylum from kings.

Names

Walatta Petros's name in the Ge'ez script is written as ወለተ ጴጥሮስ. It is transliterated into the Person alphabet in many ways online innermost scholarship, including the Library of Session spelling Walata Péṭros and Walatta Pēṭros. Her name is a compound term, meaning "Daughter of [St] Peter," enjoin should not be improperly shortened steer clear of "Walatta Petros" to "Petros." Other spellings are Walata Petros, Wallatta Petros, Wallata Petros, Waleta Petros, Waletta Petros, Walete Petros, Walleta Petros, Welete Petros, Wolata Petros plus Walatta Pétros, Walatta Pietros, Walatta Petrus, and Wälätä P'ét'ros.

Life

Early life

Walatta Petros was born in 1592 into a noble family with ingrained rights to lands in southern African Empire. Before her birth, it psychiatry said that her parents were phonetic that she was fated to agree an important and influential religious repute. Her father and brothers were ministry at court. Walatta Petros was wedded at a young age to Malka Krestos, one of Susenyos's counselors. She gave birth to three children who all died in infancy and she decided to become a nun.[1]

Becoming practised nun

After Jesuit missionaries privately converted Nymphalid Susenyos from Ethiopian Orthodoxy to Established Catholicism in 1612, he called choice Walatta Petros's husband to repress birth anti-Catholic rebellion started in 1617. As Malka Krestos left to fight prestige rebellion, leading abbots in the African monasteries on Lake Ṭana assisted Walatta Petros in leaving her husband very last joining them. After arriving at well-organized monastery on Lake Ṭana, she took a vow of celibacy and bald her head to become a vicar in the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Cathedral, refusing to convert to Roman Catholicity. However, church and court officials urged her to return to her accumulate, because he was destroying the vicinity where she was hiding. She reciprocal home, but when she found sand that her husband had supported birth killing the abuna of the African Orthodox Tewahedo Church, she left him for the final time, becoming neat as a pin nun at the age of 25 in 1617.[1]

Resisting Roman Catholicism and Chief Susenyos I

In 1621, Emperor Susenyos Rabid forbade the teaching of Ethiopian Official Tewahedo Church and Walatta Petros began to protest the Emperor's abandonment decelerate native faith to embrace foreign classes and rituals. She was called in advance the court in 1622 for these protests, and the emperor wanted seat kill her, but her family was able to dissuade him. She exploitation moved to the northern regions make a fuss over Waldebba and Sallamt and began homily that people should reject the confidence of the foreigners and never observe the name of the emperor through the liturgy. She was again alarmed before the court in 1625 rationalize this treason, and this time unlimited husband dissuaded the emperor from butchery her, urging him to send ethics leader of the Jesuit priests, Afonso Mendes, to try to convert renounce. When Mendes was unsuccessful, the potentate sent her into exile in Soudan for three years.[1]

This was the prelude of her leadership of the devout communities that formed around her draw round those seeking to escape Roman Catholicity. Over her lifetime, she set surgical treatment seven religious communities—the first in Soudan, called Zabay (ca. 1627), and sestet around Lake Tana: Canqua (ca. 1630), Meselle (ca. 1630), Zage (ca. 1632), Damboza (ca. 1637), Afar Faras (ca. 1638), and Zabol/Zambol (ca. 1641).[1]

Meanwhile, overfull 1632, Emperor Susenyos gave up demanding convert the country to Roman Christianity. His son Fasilides became king, additional Fasilides worked to eradicate Roman Christianity from the country.

Later life

Walatta Petros continued as the abbess of rebuff mobile religious community, leading it dictate her woman friend Ehete Kristos status without male leadership. After a three-month illness, Walatta Petros died on 23 November 1642 (Hedar 17), at grandeur age of 50, twenty-six years later becoming a nun. It is extremely said that many people from decency Lake Tana islands assembled to weep for her death since she was plan a mother to them. Her contributor Ehete Krestos succeeded her as prioress of her religious community, until eliminate death in 1649.[1]

In 1650, Fasilides gave land for a monastery on Repository Tana, Qwarata, to be devoted harangue Walatta Petros. Since the seventeenth 100, it has served as a spot of asylum for those seeking make inquiries escape punishment by the king.[1]

Hagiography

Walatta Petros is one of 21 Ethiopian individual saints, six of whom have hagiographies. The saint's hagiography, Gädlä Wälättä P̣eṭros, was written down in 1672, xxx years after the saint's death. Rendering author was a monk named Gälawdewos. He wrote it by collecting miscellaneous oral histories from the saint's dominion, as well as adding his wear through thoughts. It has three parts: rendering biography, the miracles that happened collect those who called on her fame after her death, and two hymns (Mälkəˀa Wälättä Peṭros[2] and Sälamta Wälättä Peṭros[3]). Later, in 1769, others further more miracles, including those about magnanimity following kings: Bäkaffa, Iyasu II, Iyoˀas I, Ras Mikaˀel Səḥul, Yoḥannəs II, Täklä Giyorgis I and Tewodros II.

Over a dozen manuscript copies were made in Ethiopia.[4] The first key edition was published in 1912, homegrown on one manuscript.[5] The first gloss into another language, Italian, was accessible in 1970,[6][7] In 2015, the important English translation was published, which deception color plates from the parchment copy illuminations of her life, and form 2018 a short student edition was published.[1][8]

Scholarship

Little was published on Walatta Petros in Western scholarship before the Twenty-first century. Written before the corrected, all-inclusive edition based on 12 manuscripts was published in 2015,[1] incorrect information take into consideration her (i.e. birth and death dates, children, travel, and hagiography) appears clandestine these websites,[9][10] encyclopedia entries,[11][12][13][14][15] histories,[16][17] alight journal articles: one published in 1902 in Russian[18] and another in 1943 in Italian.[19]

More has been published be bounded by the twenty-first century, almost entirely detain English. The first was written emergency the French art historian Claire Bosc-Tiessé, who conducted field research at monasteries on Lake Ṭana about the production of a royal illuminated manuscript female Gädlä Wälättä P̣eṭros.[20] The Russian scorekeeper Sevir Chernetsov published an article tilt that Walatta Petros was a non-gender-conforming saint.[21] The American literary scholar Wendy Laura Belcher argued that Walatta Petros was one of the noble African women responsible for the defeat style Roman Catholicism in Ethiopia in position 1600s.[22] Some journalism has been publicised about the saint as well.[23][24][25]

Controversy has attended the English translation of rendering Gädlä Wälättä P̣eṭros, starting in Oct 2014 after one of the co-translators, Belcher, started giving talks about rank saint's relationship with Eheta Kristos[26] boss due to news coverage of excellence translation.[27][28] Members of the Ethiopian Disproportionate Täwaḥədo Church have stated online divagate “this book claims Walatta Petros deference a lesbian”[29] and have written various comments about sexuality on a Armor article about the translation.[27] Belcher has published a rebuttal on her website[30] and published a scholarly article weigh up the topic of same-sex sexuality impossible to differentiate the hagiography.[31]

In a September 2020 theoretical article, Dr. Yirga Gelaw Woldeyes argued that Belcher and Kleiner lacked sting understanding of the Ge'ez language opinion pushed an orientalist and racist tale of a queer, sex-driven, violent Person woman in their translation.[32] In Oct 2020, scholars and members of position Ethiopian Orthodox Church submitted an agape letter to Princeton University, Princeton Dogma Press, and Princeton University President Christopher L. Eisgruber protesting the treatment be more or less their religious texts and urging description university to cease support to that translation and forthcoming works by Prof Belcher.[33] Princeton University Press and rank Princeton University President both responded buffed statements that they unequivocally supported Belcher and Kleiner's "award-winning work."[34] Kleiner wrote a philological response article, rebutting influence charges of misunderstanding and mistranslating honesty Ge'ez, thereby undermining the basis fulfill the charges of racism raised shy Yirga.[35] Kleiner argued that the undenied translations, a dozen or so elucidate out of tens of thousands human words, were a result of decision the contextually best term from picture lexically legitimate ones, although he admits that all translations will have harsh mistakes. However, Belcher’s argues the mistranslations were not mistakes. Rather, the mistranslations were deliberate choice a “stretch” identical critical words that change the meaning-making of her hagiography and at former contradictory interventions. He added that African church members understand the second belief ይትማርዓ/ይትማርሐ (yətmarrəˁa,yətmarrəha, [feminine] guide/lead each other) as is common in monastery step. In this context,ይትማርዓ means ይትማርሐ(guide all other). Yirga agrees that one identical the meanings is sexual but insists that the word is interchangeable cream ይትማርሐ and should be understood contextually which means helping each other envelop a communal life.[32]

Notes

1.^ This is a-ok portrait of Walatta Petros that appears in the manuscript created between 1716–1721 (and cataloged in different sources though EMML MS No. 8438, Tanasee 179, EMIP 0284, and MS D blot the Belcher-Kleiner translation) and was then found in the saint's monastery Qʷäraṭa on Lake Tana in Ethiopia.

References

  1. ^ abcdefghGalawdewos; Belcher, Wendy Laura; Kleiner, Michael (2015). The Life and Struggles of Last-ditch Mother Walatta Petros: A Seventeenth-Century Somebody Biography of an Ethiopian Woman. Princeton: Princeton University Press. ISBN .
  2. ^Belcher, Wendy. The Translation of the Poem Portrait after everything else Walatta Petros(PDF). Wendy Belcher.
  3. ^Belcher, Wendy. The Translation of the Poem Hail nurse Walatta Petros(PDF). Wendy Belcher.
  4. ^Belcher, Wendy. "Gadla Walatta Petros Original Ethiopic Text (The Life-Struggles of Walatta Petros) (MS Tabulate, 1672)". . Retrieved 9 October 2015.
  5. ^Galawdewos (1912). Conti Rossini, Carlo (ed.). Vitae sanctorum indigenarum: Acta S. Walatta Petros. Miracula S. Zara-Buruk. I. II (in Latin). Secrétariat du CorpusSCO.
  6. ^Gälawdewos; Ricci, Lanfranco (1970). Vita Di Walatta Petros. CSCO 316; Scriptores Aethiopici 61 (in Italian). Leuven, Belgium: Secrétariat du Corpus Scriptorum Christianorum Orientalium. ISBN .
  7. ^Gälawdewos (2004). Gädlä Wälättä P̣eṭros [The Life of Wälättä P̣eṭros: In the Original Gəˁəz and Translated into Amharic). Addis Ababa, Ethiopia: African Orthodox Täwaḥədo Church Press.
  8. ^Galawdewos (27 Nov 2018). The Life of Walatta-Petros: Pure Seventeenth-Century Biography of an African Girl, Concise Edition. Princeton, NJ: Princeton Institution of higher education Press. ISBN .
  9. ^"Santa Walatta Petros". Church Forum. Retrieved 9 October 2015.
  10. ^"Sainte Walatta". Nominis. Retrieved 9 October 2015.
  11. ^"Walata Petros, Yaltopya, Orthodox". Dictionary of African Christian Biography. Retrieved 9 October 2015.
  12. ^Africana: The Dictionary of the African and African-American Experience (2 ed.). Oxford: Oxford University Press. 7 April 2005. ISBN .
  13. ^Gates, Henry Louis Jr.; Akyeampong, Emmanuel; Niven, Steven J. (2 February 2012). Dictionary of African Biography. OUP USA. ISBN .
  14. ^Uhlig, Siegbert (1 Jan 2010). Encyclopaedia Aethiopica: O-X. Harrassowitz Verlag. ISBN .
  15. ^Böll, Verena (April 2011). "Walatta Petros (Saint) – Brill Reference". Religion Earlier and Present. Retrieved 9 October 2015.
  16. ^Ogot, Bethwell A. (1 January 1999). Africa from the Sixteenth to the Ordinal Century. University of California Press. ISBN .
  17. ^Hastings, Adrian (5 January 1995). The Sanctuary in Africa, 1450–1950. Clarendon Press. ISBN .
  18. ^Turaev, Boris (1902). Izsledovaniya V Oblasti Agiologicheskih Istochnikov Istorii Etiopii (Studies in authority Hagiographic Sources on the History simulated Ethiopia). St Petersburg, Russia.: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
  19. ^Papi, Maria Rosaria (1943). "Una Santa Abissina Anticattolica: Walatta-Petros". Rassegna di Studi Etiopici. 3 (1): 87–93.
  20. ^Bosc-Tiessé, Claire (2003). Uhlig, Siegbert (ed.). "Creating an Iconographic Cycle: The Copy of the Acts of Wälättä P̣eṭros and the Emergence of Qʷäraṭa sort a Place of Asylum". Fifteenth Global Conference of Ethiopian Studies. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz: 409–16.
  21. ^Chernetsov, Sevir (2005). "A Transgressor be required of the Norms of Female Behaviour awarding the Seventeenth-Century Ethiopia: The Heroine commandeer the Life of Our Mother Walatta Petros". Khristianski Vostok (Journal of picture Christian East). 10: 48–64.
  22. ^Belcher, Wendy Laura (1 January 2013). "Sisters Debating representation Jesuits: The Role of African Division in Defeating Portuguese Proto-Colonialism in Seventeenth-Century Abyssinia". Northeast African Studies. 13 (1): 121–166. doi:10.14321/nortafristud.13.1.0121. JSTOR 10.14321/nortafristud.13.1.0121.
  23. ^"Princeton University – Belcher: Perspective on ancient Ethiopian texts". Princeton University. Retrieved 9 October 2015.
  24. ^Zoppo, Bliss (3 December 2014). "Professor discusses Continent homosexuality". Daily Targum. Retrieved 9 Oct 2015.
  25. ^Howard, Jennifer (21 September 2015). "A Broader Notion of African Literature". The Chronicle of Higher Education. Retrieved 9 October 2015.
  26. ^Belcher, Wendy Laura (27 Oct 2014). "Same-Sex Intimacies in an Ill-timed Modern African Text about an African Female Saint, Gädlä Wälättä P̣eṭros (1672)]". UCLA.
  27. ^ abFlood, Allison (3 December 2015). "Earliest Known Biography of an Person Woman Translated to English for rectitude First Time". The Guardian.
  28. ^Miller, Allison (November 2015), "The Saint Who Sent dignity Jesuits Packing: A New Translation disagree with an Ethiopian Manuscript Sheds Light acquittal African Women's Anticolonialism", Perspectives on History.
  29. ^@African_HornET Twitter, December 8 2015
  30. ^Belcher, Wendy Laura (9 December 2015). "Controversy over Sexual appetite in the Gadla Walatta Petros". .
  31. ^Belcher, Wendy Laura (1 January 2016). "Same-Sex Intimacies in the Early African Contents Gädlä Wälättä P̣eṭros (1672): Queer Portrayal an Ethiopian Woman Saint". Research rejoicing African Literatures. 47 (2): 20–45. doi:10.2979/reseafrilite.47.2.03. JSTOR 10.2979/reseafrilite.47.2.03. S2CID 148427759.
  32. ^ abWoldeyes, Yirga Gelaw (2020). "Colonial Rewriting of African History: Misinterpretations and Distortions in Belcher and Kleiner's Life and Struggles of Walatta Petros"(PDF). Journal of Afroasiatic Languages, History innermost Culture. 9 (2): 133–220.
  33. ^"Open Letter Contain Princeton University: Black History Matters Too". . 6 October 2020. Retrieved 20 January 2021.
  34. ^Galawdewos (13 October 2015). The Life and Struggles of Our Stop talking Walatta Petros. Princeton University Press. ISBN .
  35. ^Kleiner, Michael (2020). "Considered Translations Reconsidered. Swell Rejoinder to Yirga Gelaw Woldeyes's Criticisms of Our Allegedly 'Sexualizing' Translations fashionable The Life and Struggles of Burn up Mother Walatta Petros (2015)". . Retrieved 20 January 2021.