BY STAFF REPORTER
Abay (Nile) is the longest river in the world. It flows about 1600 km from its source here in Ethiopia down to Sudan then crossing to Egypt and finally to its delta in the Mediterranean Sea. It is also second to River Congo in its water volume.
Hence, it is among the few very important water bodies of the world. But for centuries the source of the river sued to be a big issue. Emperors, historians, philosophers have been eager to know the source of the Nile.
Gish Abay is a town in west-central Ethiopia. Located in the Mirab (West) Gojjam Zone of the Amhara Region, it is the administrative centre of Sekela woreda. The town is named after the nearby Mount Gish and the Abay River (Blue Nile) whose source is in the foothills of the mountain. It is the administrative centre of Sekela woreda.
Based on figures from the Central Statistical Agency in 2005, Gish Abay has an estimated total population of 3,385 of whom 1,615 are men and 1,770 are women.[1] The 1994 census reported this town had a total population of 1,959 of whom 850 were men and 1,109 were women.
Gish Abay is best known as the source of the Abay, or the Blue Nile, also known as Felege Ghion in Ge’ez, the liturgical language of Ethiopia. Felege Ghion consists of three small springs found within a diameter of about 20 meters.
The secrets of the Nile sources and their mysteries have from the dawn of civilization attracted philosophers, emperors and explorers, and the search for the source of the Nile was a big quest in antiquity onwards to the nineteenth century.
However, despite the importance of the river Nile since antiquity, very little research has been conducted on the cultural and religious aspects of the Blue Nile in general and the source Gish Abay in particular.
The first Europeans visiting the source of the Blue Nile were probably the Portuguese who were sent to Ethiopia with Christopher de Gama in 1541. Exactly when they saw the source for the first time is uncertain since they did not document the event, but some of the Portuguese remained in Ethiopia and finally settled at Nanina, which is only some fifty kilometres from the source [9]. The Portuguese Jesuit priest Pedro Paez was the first European who described the source, the river and Lake Tana in his History of Ethiopia. He visited the source on 21 April 1618 (or 1613). In the Portuguese Jesuit Father Lobo’s book, the year 1613 is given, but James Bruce argues concerning the native Abyssinian chronicles that Paez’ visit probably was in 1615.
Finally, the Jesuit Athanasius Kircher, who published a Latin version of Paez’ account of his travels in 1652, give the date 21 April 1618. Lobo also visited the source in the years around 1629, and he described it as such: ‘This spring, or rather these two springs, are two holes, each about two feet in diameter, a stone’s cast 28 Water and Society distance from each other. The one is but about five feet and a half in-depth…Of the other, which is somewhat less…we could find no bottom, we were assured by the inhabitants that none ever had been found. It is believed here that these springs are the vents of a great subterranean lake’ [11]. Lobo’s manuscript was translated into English and published by the Jesuit Father F. Balthazar Telles in London in 1670.
James Bruce, who was born in 1730 at Kinnaird in Scotland, was an explorer who travelled from Cairo to the source of the Blue Nile (fig. 1). When Bruce finally came to Gish Abay on November 4, 1770, he believed – or at least claimed to the rest of the world when he published his accounts – that he was the first European who visited the spring. Bruce published 1790 his Travels to discover the source of the Nile: in the years 1768, 1769, 1770, 1771, 1772, and 1773, in five volumes [13]. Bruce claimed that Paez’ account of his visit to the source was a modern interpolation, and he uses several pages in volume three to argue that Paez never visited the source.
As mentioned earlier Abya is the longest as well as the voluminous river in the world and is important for the development activities that can be made on it. However, rivalry over the river has been mounting not only on the water but also on acknowledging the real source.
Indeed, in modern days the desire to use the water alone has led the lower riparian countries Sudan and Egypt to endorse various international; agreements that exclude Ethiopia from utilizing its resources. Apart from the agreements that exclude Ethiopia, they also tend to conceal the truth that the river originates from Ethiopia. For instance, many scholars mention that Children in Egypt are thought that Abay or Nile starts in Southern Egypt. This is part of the conspiracy to deprive Ethiopia of its right to use the river for which it contributes about 85 per cent of the water.
Recently the government of Ethiopia has launched a road construction project that connects the very source of the river to a trunk road. Connecting Gish Abay with a road has a lot of meanings for the specific area as well as the country in general.
In addition to being a source of Abay, Gish Abay is home to various historical and religious places. Therefore, the people around would benefit economically from the tourism that is likely to prosper.
Furthermore, people from home and abroad would access the place more frequently and suitably without the challenges faced by the ancient explorers and witness to the world that Ethiopia is the origin of this big river, but has not benefitted from it due to the conspiracies by the lower riparian states.
The Ethiopian Herald 4 April 2021
