[work in progress]
Life and ministry
Haylu Wossen was born in Sakalta (Dembiya district) around 1856. As a child, he was taken away by marauding soldiers of Emperor Tewodros II. Around 1866, Haylu attended the Chrischona missionaries’ school in Gafat (near Debre Tabor).
When the missionaries had to leave the country after the fall of Maqdala in 1886, they took Haylu with them to Jerusalem. There, he attended Bishop Gobat’s school and was confirmed in the church in January 1871. In May 1871, Rappard, who had meanwhile been appointed Mission Inspector, took him and Gobaw Desta with him to St. Chrischona (Switzerland).
Haylu fell ill in the winter of 1871/72. He was transferred from St. Chrischona, which is situated on a mountain, to Rappard’s house in Riehen near Basel. Unfortunately, Haylu could not recover and died of tuberculosis on 19 July 1872.
According to Flad, Haylu was a “pious, very gifted expert of the classical old Ethiopian language, Ge’ez, who became ill with lung disease” (Flad, Michael Argawi, p. 15).
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Further reading
Sources
Haylu Wäsän [“Hailu Wosan”], CV (for admission at St. Chrischona), written in St. Chrischona, in: Wolbert G. C. Smidt, “Deutsche Briefe von Äthiopiern aus der Protestantischen Mission: Vom Fall des Téwodros bis zur Unterwerfung des Königs Minílik (1869 bis 1878)”, Orientalia Parthenopea 8 (2008), 9‒56. [p. 8 of 26 of the publication at Academia.edu]
Sterberegister der Kirchgemeinde Riehen. Staatsarchiv Basel-Stadt, Kirchenarchiv DD44 (?)
Mittheilungen aus der Korrespondenz der Pilgermission auf St. Chrischona bei Basel, Nr. 5, October 1872, p. 21.
Literature
Flad, Friedrich. Michael Argawi: Ein mutiger Kenner und Zeuge unter den Falaschas in Abessinien. Ed. W. Sidler. Basel: Brunnen, 1952.
Smidt, Wolbert. “Eine hebräische Eintragung im Riehener Kirchenbuch: Der Tod des Äthiopiers Hailu Wossen im Jahr 1872”, Regio-Familienforscher [Zeitschrift der Genealogisch-Heraldischen Gesellschaft der Regio Basel] 16, nr. 2 (2003): 84‒90. [View online]