Companion to Chapter 6

The Use of Songs in the Theological Contextualization of Biblical Truth in the Gedeo Church

by Haileyesus Desalegn

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Map

Adapted from a Facebook post by
Gedeo Midea Network (Dec. 26, 2018)

Audio Recordings

GOSPEL MUSIC
  • Words of Life audio tracts in Gedeo (copyright 1959)
    Includes some gospel songs as bridges
TRADITIONAL MUSIC

Vignettes

CHOIRS
SOLOISTS

Further Reading

Berhanu Tesfaye Aregaw. “Contested Land: Land and Tenancy Disputes in Gedeo, Southern Ethiopia (1941-1974).” Ph.D. dissertation. Department of History, School of Oriental and African Studies, Univ. of London, 2009. https://doi.org/10.25501/SOAS.00029292

Esayas Dejene. “The Effects of the Gospel upon the Traditional and Religious Aspects of the Gedeo people.” B.Th. thesis. Addis Ababa: Mekane Yesus Theological Seminary, 2005.

Getachew Senishaw. “The Nexus of Indigenous Ecological Knowledge, Livelihood Strategies and Social Institutions in Midland Gedeo Human-environment Relations.” Ph.D. dissertation. Addis Ababa Univ., 2014.

Jensen, Adolf Ellegard. The Gedeo. Edited by Sophia Thubauville (Southern Ethiopian Studies at the Frobenius Institute 1). Zürich: Lit, 2020.

  • Translated from unpublished German manuscripts written in the 1930s and 1950s; p. 69ff on religious and spiritual life; preface by Getachew Senishaw; Google Books

Girma Legesse and Tesema Ta’a. “Key Historical Events in Gedeo from the Italian Period to the Michelle Peasant Uprising (1935‒1960),” HISTORICAL: Journal of History and Social Sciences 4, No. 3 (2025): 362‒88. https://doi.org/10.58355/historical.v4i3.203

McClellan, Charles W. “Coffee in Centre-periphery Relations: Gedeo in the Early Twentieth Century,” in The Southern Marches of Imperial Ethiopia: Essays in History and Social Anthropology, edited by Donald Donham and Wendy James, pp. 175‒95. Cambridge, etc.: Cambridge Univ. Press, 1986. [Google Books]

Mintesinot Birru. “The impact of Charismatic Movement and its result among Evangelicals in Gedeo Area.” B.Th. thesis. Addis Ababa: Mekane Yesus Theological Seminary, 2002. [vii, 47, 3, pages]

Solomon Hailu Tilahun. A History of the Gedeo, 1941‒2000: A Historical Inquiry. Saarbrücken (Germany): VDM Verlag Dr. Müller, 2010. [= M.A. thesis, Addis Ababa Univ., 2009; amazon.com]

Tadesse Jaleta Jirata. “Orature Across Generations Among the Guji-Oromo of Ethiopia,” in Oral Literary Worlds: Location, Transmission and Circulation (World Oral Literature Series 12), edited by Sara Marzagora and Francesca Orsini, pp. 203–32. Cambridge (UK): Open Books Publisher, 2025. https://doi.org/10.11647/OBP.0405.07

Teffera Jisso. “Gedeogna Oral Poetry.” B.A. thesis (?). Addis Ababa Univ., 1984.

Tesfatsion Petros, Ongaye Oda, and Yetebarek Hizekeal. “The Pragmatics of Blessings in Gedeo (South Ethiopia),” Kervan [International Journal of Afro-Asiatic Studies] 26 (2022): 69‒98. https://doi.org/10.13135/1825-263X/7070

Tesfaye Gedecho Genalle and Catherine Ndinda. “Geechchumma, Faaci’e, and Gondooro: Tripartit Indigenous Peacebuilding Rituals of the Gede’o, South Ethiopia,” Social Sciences & Humanities Open 13 (2026) 102836. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ssaho.2026.102836

Wedekind, Klaus. “Gedeo Work Songs in the Context of the Ethiopian Revolution (with songs recorded by Eliyas Banaata, Kebbede Gaammo, and Peter Lohmann),” Ethnorêma 9, no. 3 (2013): 1-36 [paper written in 1977]. [Online version; listen to the recorded songs]

———. Generating Narratives: Interrelations of Knowledge, Text Variants, and Cushitic Focus Strategies. Berlin and New York: De Gruyter, 2011. [Mainly on Gedeo; Google Books]

Zekariyas Negash. “The Influence of Christianity on the Gedeo Indigeneous Ritual Practices, Southern Ethiopia.” M.A. thesis in Indigenous Studies. Dilla Univ., 2024. [Online version (given DOI mistaken)]