The life of walatta petros sparknotes
Walatta Petros
Ethiopian saint in 17th century
Walatta Petros (Ge'ez: ወለተ ጴጥሮስ; 1592 – 23 November 1642) was an Ethiopian reverence. Her hagiography, The Life-Struggles of Walatta Petros (Gädlä Wälättä P̣eṭros) was foreordained in 1672. She is known collect 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 Standard alphabet in many ways online president scholarship, including the Library of Legislature spelling Walata Péṭros and Walatta Pēṭros. Her name is a compound reputation, meaning "Daughter of [St] Peter," standing should not be improperly shortened cheat "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 transmissible rights to lands in southern African Empire. Before her birth, it anticipation said that her parents were verbal that she was fated to convert an important and influential religious personage. Her father and brothers were officialdom at court. Walatta Petros was ringed 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 smart nun
After Jesuit missionaries privately converted Potentate Susenyos from Ethiopian Orthodoxy to Romish Catholicism in 1612, he called process Walatta Petros's husband to repress high-mindedness anti-Catholic rebellion started in 1617. What because Malka Krestos left to fight high-mindedness rebellion, leading abbots in the African monasteries on Lake Ṭana assisted Walatta Petros in leaving her husband direct joining them. After arriving at smart monastery on Lake Ṭana, she took a vow of celibacy and shiny on top her head to become a abstemious in the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Religion, refusing to convert to Roman Catholicity. However, church and court officials urged her to return to her deposit, because he was destroying the community where she was hiding. She common home, but when she found antiseptic that her husband had supported illustriousness killing the abuna of the African Orthodox Tewahedo Church, she left him for the final time, becoming nifty nun at the age of 25 in 1617.[1]
Resisting Roman Catholicism and Ruler Susenyos I
In 1621, Emperor Susenyos Frenzied forbade the teaching of Ethiopian Doctrinal Tewahedo Church and Walatta Petros began to protest the Emperor's abandonment past its best native faith to embrace foreign doctrine and rituals. She was called earlier the court in 1622 for these protests, and the emperor wanted hint at kill her, but her family was able to dissuade him. She proliferate moved to the northern regions rob Waldebba and Sallamt and began discourse that people should reject the certitude of the foreigners and never allude to the name of the emperor fabric the liturgy. She was again alarmed before the court in 1625 on the way to this treason, and this time rebuff husband dissuaded the emperor from sting her, urging him to send magnanimity leader of the Jesuit priests, Afonso Mendes, to try to convert bare. When Mendes was unsuccessful, the course of action sent her into exile in Soudan for three years.[1]
This was the commencement of her leadership of the transcendental green communities that formed around her trip those seeking to escape Roman Christianity. Over her lifetime, she set unguarded seven religious communities—the first in Soudan, called Zabay (ca. 1627), and shake up 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, take back 1632, Emperor Susenyos gave up demanding convert the country to Roman Catholicity. His son Fasilides became king, contemporary Fasilides worked to eradicate Roman Christianity from the country.
Later life
Walatta Petros continued as the abbess of grouping mobile religious community, leading it snatch her woman friend Ehete Kristos significant without male leadership. After a three-month illness, Walatta Petros died on 23 November 1642 (Hedar 17), at rectitude age of 50, twenty-six years rearguard becoming a nun. It is too said that many people from leadership Lake Tana islands assembled to grieve over her death since she was plan a mother to them. Her neighbour Ehete Krestos succeeded her as prioress of her religious community, until kill death in 1649.[1]
In 1650, Fasilides gave land for a monastery on Socket Tana, Qwarata, to be devoted squeeze Walatta Petros. Since the seventeenth c it has served as a receive of asylum for those seeking work to rule escape punishment by the king.[1]
Hagiography
Walatta Petros is one of 21 Ethiopian somebody saints, six of whom have hagiographies. The saint's hagiography, Gädlä Wälättä P̣eṭros, was written down in 1672, 30 years after the saint's death. Integrity author was a monk named Gälawdewos. He wrote it by collecting miscellaneous oral histories from the saint's grouping, as well as adding his sign thoughts. It has three parts: magnanimity biography, the miracles that happened tell the difference 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 additional more miracles, including those about description 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 rush edition was published in 1912, homespun on one manuscript.[5] The first transliteration into another language, Italian, was publicized in 1970,[6][7] In 2015, the gain victory English translation was published, which counted color plates from the parchment writing illuminations of her life, and essential 2018 a short student edition was published.[1][8]
Scholarship
Little was published on Walatta Petros in Western scholarship before the Xxi century. Written before the corrected, brimming edition based on 12 manuscripts was published in 2015,[1] incorrect information flick through her (i.e. birth and death dates, children, travel, and hagiography) appears fall these websites,[9][10] encyclopedia entries,[11][12][13][14][15] histories,[16][17] arena journal articles: one published in 1902 in Russian[18] and another in 1943 in Italian.[19]
More has been published hem in the twenty-first century, almost entirely pull off English. The first was written be oblivious to the French art historian Claire Bosc-Tiessé, who conducted field research at monasteries on Lake Ṭana about the control of a royal illuminated manuscript be in the region of Gädlä Wälättä P̣eṭros.[20] The Russian scorekeeper Sevir Chernetsov published an article friction 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 concede Roman Catholicism in Ethiopia in rendering 1600s.[22] Some journalism has been publicized about the saint as well.[23][24][25]
Controversy has attended the English translation of loftiness Gädlä Wälättä P̣eṭros, starting in Oct 2014 after one of the co-translators, Belcher, started giving talks about distinction saint's relationship with Eheta Kristos[26] service due to news coverage of description translation.[27][28] Members of the Ethiopian Conventional Täwaḥədo Church have stated online stray “this book claims Walatta Petros survey a lesbian”[29] and have written distinct comments about sexuality on a Archangel article about the translation.[27] Belcher has published a rebuttal on her website[30] and published a scholarly article defect the topic of same-sex sexuality get the hagiography.[31]
In a September 2020 lawful article, Dr. Yirga Gelaw Woldeyes argued that Belcher and Kleiner lacked high-rise understanding of the Ge'ez language captain pushed an orientalist and racist portrayal of a queer, sex-driven, violent Continent woman in their translation.[32] In Oct 2020, scholars and members of distinction Ethiopian Orthodox Church submitted an come apart letter to Princeton University, Princeton Order of the day Press, and Princeton University President Christopher L. Eisgruber protesting the treatment indifference their religious texts and urging significance university to cease support to that translation and forthcoming works by Academic Belcher.[33] Princeton University Press and goodness Princeton University President both responded touch statements that they unequivocally supported Belcher and Kleiner's "award-winning work."[34] Kleiner wrote a philological response article, rebutting authority charges of misunderstanding and mistranslating prestige Ge'ez, thereby undermining the basis cause the charges of racism raised brush aside Yirga.[35] Kleiner argued that the unrefuted translations, a dozen or so enlighten out of tens of thousands be the owner of words, were a result of preference the contextually best term from ethics lexically legitimate ones, although he admits that all translations will have squat mistakes. However, Belcher’s argues the mistranslations were not mistakes. Rather, the mistranslations were deliberate choice a “stretch” late critical words that change the meaning-making of her hagiography and at cycle contradictory interventions. He added that African church members understand the second occasion ይትማርዓ/ይትማርሐ (yətmarrəˁa,yətmarrəha, [feminine] guide/lead each other) as is common in monastery strength. In this context,ይትማርዓ means ይትማርሐ(guide talking to other). Yirga agrees that one reproach the meanings is sexual but insists that the word is interchangeable plonk ይትማርሐ and should be understood contextually which means helping each other affluent a communal life.[32]
Notes
- 1.^ This is expert portrait of Walatta Petros that appears in the manuscript created between 1716–1721 (and cataloged in different sources makeover EMML MS No. 8438, Tanasee 179, EMIP 0284, and MS D sound the Belcher-Kleiner translation) and was once found in the saint's monastery Qʷäraṭa on Lake Tana in Ethiopia.
References
- ^ abcdefghGalawdewos; Belcher, Wendy Laura; Kleiner, Michael (2015). The Life and Struggles of Go off Mother Walatta Petros: A Seventeenth-Century Mortal Biography of an Ethiopian Woman. Princeton: Princeton University Press. ISBN .
- ^Belcher, Wendy. The Translation of the Poem Portrait tip off Walatta Petros(PDF). Wendy Belcher.
- ^Belcher, Wendy. The Translation of the Poem Hail familiar with Walatta Petros(PDF). Wendy Belcher.
- ^Belcher, Wendy. "Gadla Walatta Petros Original Ethiopic Text (The Life-Struggles of Walatta Petros) (MS Particularize, 1672)". . Retrieved 9 October 2015.
- ^Galawdewos (1912). Conti Rossini, Carlo (ed.). Vitae sanctorum indigenarum: Acta S. Walatta Petros. Miracula S. Zara-Buruk. I. II (in Latin). Secrétariat du CorpusSCO.
- ^Gälawdewos; Ricci, Lanfranco (1970). Vita Di Walatta Petros. CSCO 316; Scriptores Aethiopici 61 (in Italian). Leuven, Belgium: Secrétariat du Corpus Scriptorum Christianorum Orientalium. ISBN .
- ^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.
- ^Galawdewos (27 Nov 2018). The Life of Walatta-Petros: Great Seventeenth-Century Biography of an African Female, Concise Edition. Princeton, NJ: Princeton College Press. ISBN .
- ^"Santa Walatta Petros". Church Forum. Retrieved 9 October 2015.
- ^"Sainte Walatta". Nominis. Retrieved 9 October 2015.
- ^"Walata Petros, Yaltopya, Orthodox". Dictionary of African Christian Biography. Retrieved 9 October 2015.
- ^Africana: The Wordbook of the African and African-American Experience (2 ed.). Oxford: Oxford University Press. 7 April 2005. ISBN .
- ^Gates, Henry Louis Jr.; Akyeampong, Emmanuel; Niven, Steven J. (2 February 2012). Dictionary of African Biography. OUP USA. ISBN .
- ^Uhlig, Siegbert (1 Jan 2010). Encyclopaedia Aethiopica: O-X. Harrassowitz Verlag. ISBN .
- ^Böll, Verena (April 2011). "Walatta Petros (Saint) – Brill Reference". Religion Antecedent and Present. Retrieved 9 October 2015.
- ^Ogot, Bethwell A. (1 January 1999). Africa from the Sixteenth to the 18th Century. University of California Press. ISBN .
- ^Hastings, Adrian (5 January 1995). The Faith in Africa, 1450–1950. Clarendon Press. ISBN .
- ^Turaev, Boris (1902). Izsledovaniya V Oblasti Agiologicheskih Istochnikov Istorii Etiopii (Studies in justness Hagiographic Sources on the History faultless Ethiopia). St Petersburg, Russia.: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
- ^Papi, Maria Rosaria (1943). "Una Santa Abissina Anticattolica: Walatta-Petros". Rassegna di Studi Etiopici. 3 (1): 87–93.
- ^Bosc-Tiessé, Claire (2003). Uhlig, Siegbert (ed.). "Creating an Iconographic Cycle: The Transcript of the Acts of Wälättä P̣eṭros and the Emergence of Qʷäraṭa likewise a Place of Asylum". Fifteenth Cosmopolitan Conference of Ethiopian Studies. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz: 409–16.
- ^Chernetsov, Sevir (2005). "A Transgressor symbolize the Norms of Female Behaviour observe the Seventeenth-Century Ethiopia: The Heroine see the Life of Our Mother Walatta Petros". Khristianski Vostok (Journal of influence Christian East). 10: 48–64.
- ^Belcher, Wendy Laura (1 January 2013). "Sisters Debating character Jesuits: The Role of African Squadron 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.
- ^"Princeton University – Belcher: Perspective on ancient Ethiopian texts". Princeton University. Retrieved 9 October 2015.
- ^Zoppo, Happy isles (3 December 2014). "Professor discusses Mortal homosexuality". Daily Targum. Retrieved 9 Oct 2015.
- ^Howard, Jennifer (21 September 2015). "A Broader Notion of African Literature". The Chronicle of Higher Education. Retrieved 9 October 2015.
- ^Belcher, Wendy Laura (27 Oct 2014). "Same-Sex Intimacies in an Inopportune Modern African Text about an African Female Saint, Gädlä Wälättä P̣eṭros (1672)]". UCLA.
- ^ abFlood, Allison (3 December 2015). "Earliest Known Biography of an Mortal Woman Translated to English for leadership First Time". The Guardian.
- ^Miller, Allison (November 2015), "The Saint Who Sent significance Jesuits Packing: A New Translation infer an Ethiopian Manuscript Sheds Light interruption African Women's Anticolonialism", Perspectives on History.
- ^@African_HornET Twitter, December 8 2015
- ^Belcher, Wendy Laura (9 December 2015). "Controversy over Ravenousness desire in the Gadla Walatta Petros". .
- ^Belcher, Wendy Laura (1 January 2016). "Same-Sex Intimacies in the Early African Paragraph Gädlä Wälättä P̣eṭros (1672): Queer Visualize an Ethiopian Woman Saint". Research make a purchase of African Literatures. 47 (2): 20–45. doi:10.2979/reseafrilite.47.2.03. JSTOR 10.2979/reseafrilite.47.2.03. S2CID 148427759.
- ^ 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 presentday Culture. 9 (2): 133–220.
- ^"Open Letter Appendix Princeton University: Black History Matters Too". . 6 October 2020. Retrieved 20 January 2021.
- ^Galawdewos (13 October 2015). The Life and Struggles of Our Spread Walatta Petros. Princeton University Press. ISBN .
- ^Kleiner, Michael (2020). "Considered Translations Reconsidered. Smart Rejoinder to Yirga Gelaw Woldeyes's Criticisms of Our Allegedly 'Sexualizing' Translations delight in The Life and Struggles of Travelling fair Mother Walatta Petros (2015)". . Retrieved 20 January 2021.