February 2, 2011 • 32 mins
Haile Selassie wasn't just the last emperor of Ethiopia -- he is also hailed as a messiah. In this episode, Deblina and Sarah explore the astonishing life of Haile Selassie. Tune in to learn more.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class from how
Stuff Works dot com. Hello, and welcome to the podcast.
I'm Sarah Dowdy and I'm doubling a chalk re Bardy.
And it seems like we're gradually stumbling upon kind of
a sub theme for the podcast here. It seems like
(00:23):
situations keep cropping up in history in which someone's remains
are discovered, uncovered, identified, and then buried elsewhere, like a
variation of our main exhimation theme almost exactly. For example,
take Ava Perrone. I think that before our time, Stephen
Umiston History Class did a podcast on Ava Parrone and
how it took more than twenty years to bury her
(00:46):
and it was for political reasons. Her body traveled kind
of all over the place Italy, Spain before finding its
final resting place in Buenos Aires. And that was a
little different because I think they kind of knew where
her body was the whole time. Yeah, they were always
afraid it was gonna get stolen. I think that was
always a concern, right. And then of course there was
our recent podcast about Henry the Fourth. We talked about
(01:06):
him to kick off our Bourbon series that has been ongoing,
and his head was recently identified and will be reinterred
this year with full state honors. So kind of along
the same lines, and with today's episode, we have a
similar sort of situation, though with a very different set
of circumstances. The subject of this episode is highly Selassie.
(01:28):
He was the last Emperor of Ethiopia, sometimes known to
his subjects as the King of Kings and the Lion
of Judah, and Time magazine once even made him their
Man of the Year. Members of the Rastafarian movement UM,
which is how a lot of people know them. They
even think of him as their messiah. Yet he didn't
receive a proper burial when he died in Yeah, it's
(01:48):
always surprising the people who don't get the proper burial UM.
So his remains were exhumed from a makeshift tomb in
nine Um, but his official funeral didn't take place until
the year two thousand, so a pretty long gap between
those two dates. And even then, when the funeral finally
(02:08):
did happen, it was pretty controversial. It was tough to
pull off. There was a lot of debate with the
current government of Ethiopia of how it should happen. Yeah,
so why did it take nearly thirty years to bury
a world renowned leader. That's just part of what we're
going to look at today, as well as the conflict
between Ethiopia and Italy that put highly Selassie on the
(02:30):
map in the first place, on the international stage out
there for everyone to know his name and see. Yeah.
But you know, of course, before we talk about what
put him on the map, we're going to talk about
how he got to be Emperor of Ethiopia in the
first place, because he was not heir to the throne.
It was not his destiny at least so it seemed.
He was born to five mcconan on July, and he
(02:55):
was the son of a Prince Ros. Mcconan Ros means
Prince Um, and his father was also a noted general
and the chief advisor to the emperor who was Emperor
Men of like the second Um in power at the
time that too far I was born Um, and he
was related to the emperor, but not that closely. He
(03:16):
was the Emperor's grand nephew, and there were kids and
grandkids who were in line to take the emperor's place,
so it didn't seem like this relatively distant Um Kien
would eventually rise to the throne. But little did they
know too. Far I was pretty intelligent and he impressed
the Emperor Menelik very early on, and so the Emperor
started appointing to Far to these provincial governorships at the
(03:39):
young age of fourteen, and he became governor first of
Sadamo and then of the Hare province. So he's governing
and his policies at the time were considered pretty progressive
compared to what was out there. He wanted to decrease
the power of the local nobility by pumping up the
power of the central government. So, for example, one of
(04:00):
the things that he did was develop a salaried civil service. Yeah,
we have our minds so much on Bourbons to this
kind of reminded us of Richelieu and Louis the fourteenth,
centralizing the government with the with the king, with the
emperor um. But meanwhile, while the young Tafari is working
on all this, the emperor dies in nineteen thirteen and
(04:22):
his grandson Li Jiahsu takes the throne um. But this
young man is not very popular and not popular right
from the start. Part of it was that he had
converted to Islam, and the majority of Ethiopians at this
time we're Christians, so his subjects weren't particularly happy with
that point. Tafari, on the other hand, who was a
(04:44):
devout Orthodox Christian, he comes to represent the Christian resistance
at this time, so the country's younger generation they support
him for this and also because they're becoming enamored by
his progressive tendencies. So with both of these things working
for him, he's able to depose le Jasu in nineteen sixteen,
(05:05):
and that makes mental like the seconds Daughter's AD two empress,
but there's a problem with that because at the time
it was considered unseemly for a woman to rule in
her own rights. So Rastafari is named regent and heir
apparent to the throne. Yeah, and it's interesting too because, um,
you normally think of a region and a ruler working
(05:28):
at least somewhat in tandem, especially if they're two adults,
but this was not the case. The rulers D two
is a pretty conservative empress compared to Rastafari, but he
seemed to be the one who was really pulling a
lot of the strings. He was the one moving his
more progressive agenda forward and it is pretty it is
(05:48):
pretty progressive. In ninety three, he gets Ethiopia admitted into
the League of Nations, the relatively new League of Nations
at that point. In nineteen twenty four, he becomes the
first Ethiopian ruler to ever go abroad. He visits Rome
and Paris and London, and by ninety eight he's sort
(06:08):
of elevated this regent position a little bit, and he
takes the title King of Ethiopia. A little funny to
have a king and an empress here um and it
sort of shows you where the true power all and
his power is elevated even more in nineteen thirty when
zud two dies, making Rastafari emperor. It's then that he
takes the name highly Selassie, which means might of the Trinity.
(06:33):
So now he's in truly in power. He's the emperor.
He is the emperor. But something else is happening at
the same time in a land far away in Jamaica,
about the last thing you could expect to happen. Yeah. Now,
of course a lot of us know the story, but
at the time it would have been maybe kind of
surprising to some people's ears. We think, so when Highly
(06:56):
Selassie became emperor. It fulfilled a prophecy, a prediction that
black leader and founder of the Back to Africa movement,
Marcus Garvey had made years before. What he had said
at that time was look to Africa for the crowning
of a black king. He shall be the redeemer. So
when this comes true, so to speak, in Highly Selassie,
(07:19):
Rastafarianism is born obvious now where that name comes from Rastafari.
So a couple of primary Rastafarian beliefs are that the
only true God is the late Ethiopian emperor Higley Selassie,
and that Ethiopius the true Zion, which was kind of
a paradise on Earth. And one of the key doctrines
is that they'll someday return to Africa from which their
(07:41):
ancestors were taken a slave. So those of you who
may be are fans of Bob Marley have heard some
of this before. Bob Marley is very famous for being Rastafarian.
So yeah, but there's a there's a weird element to
all of this, and that's the highly Selassie himself, who
is being revered as the Messiah or is um the
(08:01):
only true God by Rastafarians doesn't really go along with
it himself because he's a devout Christian, so he never
really accepts his status as a messiah, as a deliverer
um that these people sort of thrust upon him. I
think that's such a what a strange uh, what a
strange deal to have going on there. Yeah, And I
(08:24):
think when he was alive, people asked him about it,
you know, did you did you know about this? Did
you know that you're considered a messiah? And he was
just kind of like, yeah, I've heard that, but you know,
I don't think I'm just a man. Yeah, he just said,
I'm just a man. Well, and he also I mean
at the time, at least he had some major problems
to deal with that without thinking about how he was
(08:45):
considered a messiah by some Yep. Pretty much as soon
as he became emperor, he had some issues, primarily the
rising tensions with Italy. Here's just a little bit of
background on the situation between Italy and Ethiopia. Italy, which
had colonized most of the Red Sea coast in the
nineteenth century, had tried to invade Ethiopia before Menelik's army
(09:07):
had defeated the Italians back in eighteen ninety six the
Battle of Ottawa, and this was considered a big victory
for Ethiopians and for Africa at the time. I think
many sources have said that this was the first time
in African army had actually met and defeated a European
army in conventional battle. So big deal. Yeah, definitely a
big deal. So if we fast forward though too highly
(09:28):
Selassis reign, we have Benito Mussolanian power. He has by
this point become dictator of Italy in nineteen twenty two,
and initially it seems like he's not that interested in Africa.
In nineteen twenty eight, he even signed this Treaty of
Friendship with Ethiopia, which at the time was the last
(09:49):
African region that was free from some sort of European control.
So it seemed like Italy was backing off. Maybe Ethiopia
and Italy would be cool with each other. That was
not the case, though, and it wasn't long before Mussolini
started changing his his opinion about the country and his intentions. Uh.
And that may have happened for a few different reasons. Yeah.
(10:12):
For one thing, it's possible that he wanted to avenge
the eighteen ninety six defeat. Some people suggest that um
just conjecture at this point, but also Mussolini, as we
know it, was a fascist and part of the whole
fascist doctrine is that the state should try to expand
its sphere of power and influence. So that was one thing.
(10:33):
Another thing was he kind of just wanted to stick
it to the rest of Europe at that point. He
thought Italy had gotten a raw deal at the end
of World War One, Great Britain and France had both
increased their colonial holdings and Italy didn't really get a
share of the spoils from his point of view. Yeah,
so he was he was looking to make some gains. Um.
And the trouble officially started in December nineteen thirty four,
(10:58):
and that's when a Royal Ethiopian force drove out an
Italian sorry, and that's when a Royal Ethiopian force drove
out this Italian encampment that was stationed at wall Wall,
which was an oasis on the Ethiopian territory. Um, it
seemed maybe from the Ethiopian perspective, like the Italians were
(11:20):
a little too close. Maybe they shouldn't have been there. Uh,
they were certainly a threatening presence, but the Italians really
used it as an excuse to go after Ethiopia. Like, look,
they're not they're not treating this treaty in good faith,
they're not following it. This is not a treaty of
friendship if they're driving us away from this oasis. And
(11:42):
so they start to gather up their forces in East
Africa or the East African colonies to eventually mount an
attack on Ethiopia. Right, so highly Selassie SEUs this coming,
and he's pretty freaked out about it. He appeals to
the League of Nations at this point, but they really
don't take any serious steps to stop the Italians from
(12:04):
waging attack. They issue kind of slaps on the hands,
threats and promises. At one point they restrict trade with Italy,
but this doesn't really work either because countries involved, especially
Britain and France, won't really commit to it. And there's
a reason for that. There is it's mostly because members
of the League, particularly Great Britain and France, as I mentioned,
(12:28):
don't want to upset Mussolini too much. They wanted to
keep up an alliance against with Italy against Nazi Germany.
So they didn't even really consider taking military action to
defend Ethiopia at the time. You know, they don't want
to alienate Italy. Um and their own European concerns seemed
to trump those of Ethiopia. So on October three, nineteen
(12:49):
thirty five, Italian troops start making their way to Ethiopia
into Ethiopia, and the Ethiopian army faced them, but they
were just not prepared for modern European warfare at this point. Um.
The Italians used air power and this this kind of
sounds like it's right out of World War One combined
(13:10):
with World War Two almost but the Italians basically cropped
dusted the Ethiopian troops with mustard gas and um the
Ethiopians suffered three times as many casualties as the Italians.
A lot of the world, though, considers the stand made
by highly Selassian Ethiopian really brave and noble. Though it's
what makes highly Selassie Time Magazines Man of the Year
(13:33):
in nineteen thirty five. People are impressed that, uh, they're
they're mounting a fight against something so overpowering. Yeah, I
think they almost saw it as like him taking a
stand against the whole Nazi fascist power out there. Um.
By May of nineteen thirty six, though, the Italians made
(13:53):
their way into the Ethiopian capital and they proclaimed Ethiopia
part of the Italian Empire. So highly Selassie was forced
into exile. Yeah, and that June he goes back to
the League, and this time he's a little more ominous.
He says, quote, it is us today, it will be
you tomorrow, which is extremely prophetic coming in nineteen thirty
(14:17):
six on the eve of World War two. Um. So,
of course in exile he has to take refuge somewhere
outside of Ethiopia, so he goes to England for about
five years. But it's interesting Mussolini's own ambition to um
fulfill that fascist doctrine and acquire more territory is eventually
his undoing in Ethiopia, at least right in he sends
(14:41):
this enormous army to invade neighboring Somali land, which was
a British territory at the time, and the British, though
they had fewer troops, actually answered with a pretty well
organized and well played counter offensive. I think the Italians
lost something like two thousand soldiers through either being killed
captured or wounded, and this managed to drive the Italians
(15:04):
out of East Africa altogether, including Ethiopia. Yeah. So with
Britain triumphant, highly Selassie got to return home and he
was restored to the throne and proceeded to govern for
forty years, and he was welcomed home by Winston Churchill himself.
He sent a welcome home cable in which he said, quote,
(15:27):
your majesty, it was the first of the lawful sovereigns
to be driven from his throne in country by the
fascist Nazi criminals, and you're the first to return in triumph. Um.
So that would make a really nice end for a podcast,
would a nice positive note. Yeah, kind of a fairy
tale podcast. Um. But unfortunately it's it's gonna keep going
(15:50):
for better or worse. There are more twists and turns
to this story. Definitely, so highly Selassie as emperor does
a lot of good things in his time as ruler
of Ethiopia. He implemented some social, economic, and educational reforms.
For example, established sanitation programs, provincial schools, national universities, and
(16:11):
even encourage some students to study abroad and continue their
studies there. Intend to that's partly his undoing. Yes, it
is Um. And he also played a significant role in
the later years in establishing the organization of African Unity.
He established a constitutional government as well. But the constitution,
and this is part of the problem too, is that
it gave him most of the power. It's kind of
(16:34):
an outward constitutional government. UM. So you know, we've got
some reforms in there, some good things happening, some things
to give him credit for. But some people didn't like
the way he was running things. And part of that
was that the regional rulers, or at least a lot
of them, felt threatened by his centralization of government. He
(16:55):
felt like or they felt like Selassie was taking power
are away from them and giving it to the lawmakers
in Ethiopes capital Um and a lot of Ethiopians who
lived in developing areas, you know, lived outside of the cities,
thought that too many privileges were going to the nobility, which,
(17:15):
to make matters worse, a lot of these Um landlords,
these the nobility, the people who owned much of Ethiopia
and were largely absent, also happened to be related to
the emperor. So so nobody likes to see that no,
not at all. To add to this, there were some
people who thought that the strides that the government did
(17:37):
make were just too slow and unevenly distributed. Students in particular,
especially those students we mentioned who studied abroad. They complained
that ethiopia social political, and economic developments were way too slow.
They had studied marks and had all kinds of ideas
of their own about land reform and equality, but they
were the only ones. Workers, teachers, soldiers, They all want
(18:00):
Ethiopia to catch up to modern times too. So it's ironic,
we see sort of from the beginning too of our
podcast too. Now he seems to have come full circle.
At first he was thought of as the progressive leader,
modernizing the country, and now he's the exact opposite. Yeah,
everyone advanced beyond him, it seemed to to some people.
(18:21):
I guess that's what happens when you rule for forty
years or or more. Um So, there were a few
revolts and rebellions, of course, if you have these unhappy people.
But the most serious of these revolts occurred in nineteen
sixty up. The emperor was away visiting Brazil and his
imperial bodyguard staged a coup. A lot of university students
(18:44):
supported it, and they even managed to seize the Imperial Palace.
Fortunately for highly Selassie, the army in the Air force
remained loyal to him and they squashed the rebellion pretty quickly. Um,
but he knew that that things weren't stay able, that
his position was no longer stable to no. Even before this,
he tells an American committee in nineteen sixty and this
(19:07):
is a quote from him, the tide which is sweeping
Africa today cannot be stayed. No power on earth is
great enough to halt or reverse the trend. Its march
is as relentless and as inexorable as the passage of time. Yeah. So,
so he knows he's at risk, and Ethiopia is at risk.
And as the nineteen sixties were on, this resentment really
(19:29):
just continued to grow, and there were a few issues
added to that. One was Eritrea, which, even though it
was legally an independent country, it was absorbed by Ethiopia
in nineteen sixty two. And for Ethiopia this seemed like
a pretty good deal because it gave them access to
the sea, which everybody wants their country to have access to.
(19:50):
The sea how you can defend yourself better. Yeah, But
a lot of Eritreans opposed it from the start, and
they formed the Militant Eritrean Liberal Ration Front, which the
acronym for that is elf UM to to protests this
being absorbed into a country that they didn't want to
be part of. Right. And there was something else that
(20:12):
happened that kind of added to Highly Selassie's unpopularity at
that time. Mayorally added to it. There was a famine
caused by drought, which wasn't that unusual in Ethiopia, but
the famine that occurred between nineteen seventy two and nineteen
seventy four killed several hundred thousand Ethiopians, and many felt
that Highly Selassie just didn't really do enough to help people.
(20:34):
He They suggested also that the government had tried to
cover the whole situation up. Yeah, And so there were
protests and the situation became really desperate, I mean, starving people,
and potentially a government cover up is going to make
the populace really angry. And on September twelfth, nineteen seventy four,
(20:54):
the emperor was deposed finally successfully deposed in a revolution
and led by a Marxist colonel named Mingustu highly Mariam,
and some accounts say that highly Selassie was driven from
the Imperial Palace in the back of a Volkswagen with
people in the streets jeering at him. So really undignified
(21:16):
exit for this emperor of forty years. Yeah, and eleven
months later, Hiley Selassie was dead at the age of
eighty three. At the time, reports said that he died
of natural causes, but many actually suspect that he was
murdered in his Valets testified in court that when they
found his body, there was a strong smell of ether
in the room, which suggested to them that he had
(21:38):
been suffocated or perhaps strangled. Yeah, and Minge Stu does
give the emperor burial, so it's it's not as though
Hiley Selassie's body is destroyed or lost immediately. Um. But
he's said to have interred the body vertically head down
next to his office latrine and then covered it with
two feet of concrete. To quote Deter, a ghost who
(22:01):
has reason to be restless. And this is pretty unrelated,
but I couldn't help but think of Dante's Inferno. This
is the punishment for simony, which I guess if you
think about it long enough, with Messiah and Emperor staff
thrown in, you could you could work out some sort
of connection there. But Um clearly a very undignified burial.
(22:23):
No it wasn't, but he did get a more dignified
burial later on. His body was exhumed in after the
fall of Mangistu's government, and at that time he wasn't
buried right away, his body, his remains, I should say,
there wasn't a body at that point. His remains were
put into a small coffin that said do not open.
They put a sign that said do not open, because
(22:44):
they weren't quite sure what was going to happen. Really weird,
isn't it, I mean strange Um. And there are a
few attempts to bury him, you know, get this do
not open box in the ground somewhere. But things just
kept on getting in the way. There were argument It's
about how the funeral should be run, you know, whether
it should be this state funeral for a former emperor
(23:07):
or some sort of hush hush, private family affair. And
I think once when they tried to hold it, elections
got in the way. So things kind of kept putting
it off, but it finally happened in November of two
thousand and it was attended by one of his daughters
and many many grandkids, and Bob Marley's widow is even there.
There are a few Rostafarians there, although it's interesting to
(23:30):
note that most Rostafarians don't believe that Hile Selassia is dead.
Oh yeah, how about that, But Bob Marley's widow does.
If she was at the funeral, I would assume, well,
maybe she just came to pay her respects in general,
but in addition to them. I think there were somewhere
around ten thousand to fifteen thousand people as the total turnout,
(23:52):
So not nearly as large as you might think it
would be decent, I guess, but not a tiny family
funeral either, right. And there was this great uh two
thousand one story in the Canadian magazine Saturday Night, and
it follows one of highly Selassie's grandsons, Beta mcconan, who
was living in Canada at the time, through all the
events of the funeral, and he kind of recounts his
(24:13):
time growing up with the Emperor, and I just wanted
to mention it because I thought it was a really
cool story, and it really I think, shut a lot
of light on who highly Selassie was. I mean, we've
been recounting throughout this episode what he did, but what
kind of man was? What kind of man was he?
So just to end off the podcast, since it's been
(24:35):
kind of a sort of depressing end and decline, we
wanted to just say a few things about who this
guy was. Yeah, he was a workaholic. That's probably not
too surprising. Um, he was friendly with President Tito of Yugoslavia,
who would actually convince him to take vacation. So that's
it's pretty bad if you have, like a fellow president
having to tell you to to kick off at the
(24:56):
end of the day. Yeah, but he did do it.
He would go on vacation and take all his grandsons
and daughters with him. Are the ones that were around
at the time. And um, so he had a little
fun now and again I guess. He also was said
to have a gravitas that made even close members of
his family fall silent, so imposing present. He was also
(25:17):
very concerned about decorum. He didn't want you to interrupt
his morning exercises, for example, because he thought that no
one should see the emperor doing something so undignified. So
his grandson and this article relates like running in in
the morning to go visit him, and he said sometimes
it would be great and you'd run in there and
everything would be cool. But if you interrupted him during
his exercises, he would definitely get in trouble for that,
(25:39):
just imagining the barbells dropping or hollering. Um. But he
he did like his grandchildren. I mean that his priority
come across with these family visits and stuff. Um. He
spent a lot of time with the kids. And his
grandson said, quote, you could ask him about the most
serious aspect of politics when you were seven. He would
(26:01):
answer you as if you were his equal, and he'd
question you and challenge you so you could see the
other side. So um, I guess he does seem to
have an interest in youth and education. That's pretty consistent
throughout his reign. And um, that goes along with treating
a kid like somebody who can converse as an equal
with you, and a really caring side too. I think
(26:24):
I was telling Sarah earlier about the story and how
he mentions the emperor himself would pour the grandkids milk
in the evenings, so they would all kind of gather
and he would give them their evening milk himself and
the milk ceremony. Right, But the grandson mentioned that most
people had left by the time the revolt came around,
(26:44):
so you know, he he had thought he would leave too,
But then when he came down to get the milk
one night, there were only two of them, and Highly
Selassie said, two grandkids left, right, And Highly Selassie said,
is it just you two tonight? And he said the
grandson and the story Vieta. He he realized at that
point that he had to stay because there wasn't anyone else.
(27:06):
So very loyal grandson. And so just that's just to
kind of give you, I guess, show that there are
two sides to the story. Some people still disagree with
his policies during his reign, but there may have been
another side to him too. Yeah, so you can have
the family man, the popular ruler, the unpopular ruler, and
the messiah. A lot going on, Yeah, a lot going on.
(27:29):
A very complex man, but really interesting went to research.
But I think that's all for Holly Selassie today. Yeah,
and that's of course kicking off several episodes will be
doing throughout February and of course beyond on black history.
We thought it would be neat to start it with
Higla Selassie. He's he's well known, but maybe people don't
(27:49):
really actually know that much about him, right, Okay, So
this brings us to listener mail, and we wanted to
start out of addressing a kind of a concern from
a recent podcast. It's from our Heck, a podcast having
to do with New Zealand history, and we it was
brought to our attention many times by listeners that we
(28:12):
mispronounced the word Maori um. It's the name for the
people who are native to the area of New Zealand,
kind of the indigenous race there, and we pronounced it
Mayori throughout the podcast. So we have to apologize for
that and corrected its pronounced Maori, or at least that's
an acceptable pronunciation, I think for Yanks like us. But
I wanted to read just one letter. We got a
(28:32):
bunch of letters from New Zealand listeners in particular. It
was like a good test of our of our Facebook
and email address and Twitter message delivery system. We definitely
heard back from y'all. So here's just one from Sarah
and she says, Hi, Sarah and Dublina. I am a
(28:54):
Kansas native, but currently in New Zealand, permanent resident living
in the city of Dunedin on the South is end
of New Zealand. I just finished listening to your podcast
on Hanna heck A and was very excited to hear
a defining period in New Zealand's history explained to a
wider audience. However, I must admit that every time either
of you said the word maori, I cringed a bit.
(29:15):
It's a somewhat common mistake for non New Zealanders to
pronounce the word maori mayori. In fact, the most accurate
way to pronounce the word is a bit difficult, but
here goes and she goes on to explain it. She says,
the A is actually pronounced as in far and the
o is pronounced as an um, and you kind of
blend them together to make a smooth transition. But that
is rather difficult, So we went for the easier pronunciation
(29:37):
on that one, Sarah, but we appreciate you writing in um.
And she does say, if this is too difficult or
one is incapable of ruling one's rs, which is also
part of it. A lot of us get away by
saying maori, so I did, like all the different comparison
words people sent us to rhyme and matchup to try
to get it right, just so we wouldn't have to
go through the shame of mispronouncing it on our correction exactly.
(30:01):
So thank you very much everyone for writing in and
we will try not to do that again. Although I
can't promise that we won't mispronounce something else in the future.
I'm still in Sarah that if one good thing has
come out of this, it's that we have a lot
of cool New Zealand listeners and now we know them
passionate listeners. And our second message is from Kyle and
we're just including this one because it's about the last
(30:25):
African ruler who we talked about, Mantha Muza. He wrote
to say that my wife and I spent a week
camping in Tennessee in two thousand eight centered around going
to the National Storytelling Festival. If you've never been, I
way recommend it. In all came one of the storytellers
we saw told three tales of African legend in folklore,
(30:45):
including one about a giant child. This child grew and
grew to become the largest man in the village, but
never walked. He only crawled, and he never spoke. His
mother became distraught as other mothers in the village gosped
about her, and finally she's apt, yelling at the child,
now fully grown to walk and talk. At this point,
he stood up, walked over to the fruit tree, and
(31:07):
with a single shot, brought down the highest piece, which
he promptly swallowed. There was more to the story, and
what I've related I haven't done justice too, but the
end of the story was that the child became the
king of the largest and grandest empire Africa had ever known.
No locations or names were used, though, so imagine my
surprise when I heard the story retold just now very cool.
(31:30):
So I'm I'm glad Kyle that we helped you and
your wife source this uh Bookjale you had heard. I
enjoyed that story myself, and I kind of liked recounting
it as semi fact in the life of Mons and Lisa. Hey,
I like mythical origin me to keep sending them, keep
sending us um more emails comments, about podcasts, or just
(31:53):
cool stories that relate to the stuff that we've talked about,
or unrelated things that you want us to talk about.
You can get in too with us by email at
History podcast at how stuff works dot com, or you
can look us up on Twitter at myston history or
on Facebook. Or if you want to find out a
little bit more about some of the ideas we talked
about in today's episode, such as fascism, for instance, you
(32:15):
can find out more by visiting our homepage and typing
in fascism at www dot how stuff works dot com.
For more on this and thousands of other topics, visit
how stuff works dot com. To learn more about the podcast,
click on the podcast icon in the upper right corner
of our homepage. The how Stuff Works iPhone app has
(32:37):
a ride. Download it today on iTunes.
Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class from how
Stuff Works dot com. Hello, and welcome to the podcast.
I'm Sarah Dowdy and I'm doubling a chalk re Bardy.
And it seems like we're gradually stumbling upon kind of
a sub theme for the podcast here. It seems like
(00:23):
situations keep cropping up in history in which someone's remains
are discovered, uncovered, identified, and then buried elsewhere, like a
variation of our main exhimation theme almost exactly. For example,
take Ava Perrone. I think that before our time, Stephen
Umiston History Class did a podcast on Ava Parrone and
how it took more than twenty years to bury her
(00:46):
and it was for political reasons. Her body traveled kind
of all over the place Italy, Spain before finding its
final resting place in Buenos Aires. And that was a
little different because I think they kind of knew where
her body was the whole time. Yeah, they were always
afraid it was gonna get stolen. I think that was
always a concern, right. And then of course there was
our recent podcast about Henry the Fourth. We talked about
(01:06):
him to kick off our Bourbon series that has been ongoing,
and his head was recently identified and will be reinterred
this year with full state honors. So kind of along
the same lines, and with today's episode, we have a
similar sort of situation, though with a very different set
of circumstances. The subject of this episode is highly Selassie.
(01:28):
He was the last Emperor of Ethiopia, sometimes known to
his subjects as the King of Kings and the Lion
of Judah, and Time magazine once even made him their
Man of the Year. Members of the Rastafarian movement UM,
which is how a lot of people know them. They
even think of him as their messiah. Yet he didn't
receive a proper burial when he died in Yeah, it's
(01:48):
always surprising the people who don't get the proper burial UM.
So his remains were exhumed from a makeshift tomb in
nine Um, but his official funeral didn't take place until
the year two thousand, so a pretty long gap between
those two dates. And even then, when the funeral finally
(02:08):
did happen, it was pretty controversial. It was tough to
pull off. There was a lot of debate with the
current government of Ethiopia of how it should happen. Yeah,
so why did it take nearly thirty years to bury
a world renowned leader. That's just part of what we're
going to look at today, as well as the conflict
between Ethiopia and Italy that put highly Selassie on the
(02:30):
map in the first place, on the international stage out
there for everyone to know his name and see. Yeah.
But you know, of course, before we talk about what
put him on the map, we're going to talk about
how he got to be Emperor of Ethiopia in the
first place, because he was not heir to the throne.
It was not his destiny at least so it seemed.
He was born to five mcconan on July, and he
(02:55):
was the son of a Prince Ros. Mcconan Ros means
Prince Um, and his father was also a noted general
and the chief advisor to the emperor who was Emperor
Men of like the second Um in power at the
time that too far I was born Um, and he
was related to the emperor, but not that closely. He
(03:16):
was the Emperor's grand nephew, and there were kids and
grandkids who were in line to take the emperor's place,
so it didn't seem like this relatively distant Um Kien
would eventually rise to the throne. But little did they
know too. Far I was pretty intelligent and he impressed
the Emperor Menelik very early on, and so the Emperor
started appointing to Far to these provincial governorships at the
(03:39):
young age of fourteen, and he became governor first of
Sadamo and then of the Hare province. So he's governing
and his policies at the time were considered pretty progressive
compared to what was out there. He wanted to decrease
the power of the local nobility by pumping up the
power of the central government. So, for example, one of
(04:00):
the things that he did was develop a salaried civil service. Yeah,
we have our minds so much on Bourbons to this
kind of reminded us of Richelieu and Louis the fourteenth,
centralizing the government with the with the king, with the
emperor um. But meanwhile, while the young Tafari is working
on all this, the emperor dies in nineteen thirteen and
(04:22):
his grandson Li Jiahsu takes the throne um. But this
young man is not very popular and not popular right
from the start. Part of it was that he had
converted to Islam, and the majority of Ethiopians at this
time we're Christians, so his subjects weren't particularly happy with
that point. Tafari, on the other hand, who was a
(04:44):
devout Orthodox Christian, he comes to represent the Christian resistance
at this time, so the country's younger generation they support
him for this and also because they're becoming enamored by
his progressive tendencies. So with both of these things working
for him, he's able to depose le Jasu in nineteen sixteen,
(05:05):
and that makes mental like the seconds Daughter's AD two empress,
but there's a problem with that because at the time
it was considered unseemly for a woman to rule in
her own rights. So Rastafari is named regent and heir
apparent to the throne. Yeah, and it's interesting too because, um,
you normally think of a region and a ruler working
(05:28):
at least somewhat in tandem, especially if they're two adults,
but this was not the case. The rulers D two
is a pretty conservative empress compared to Rastafari, but he
seemed to be the one who was really pulling a
lot of the strings. He was the one moving his
more progressive agenda forward and it is pretty it is
(05:48):
pretty progressive. In ninety three, he gets Ethiopia admitted into
the League of Nations, the relatively new League of Nations
at that point. In nineteen twenty four, he becomes the
first Ethiopian ruler to ever go abroad. He visits Rome
and Paris and London, and by ninety eight he's sort
(06:08):
of elevated this regent position a little bit, and he
takes the title King of Ethiopia. A little funny to
have a king and an empress here um and it
sort of shows you where the true power all and
his power is elevated even more in nineteen thirty when
zud two dies, making Rastafari emperor. It's then that he
takes the name highly Selassie, which means might of the Trinity.
(06:33):
So now he's in truly in power. He's the emperor.
He is the emperor. But something else is happening at
the same time in a land far away in Jamaica,
about the last thing you could expect to happen. Yeah. Now,
of course a lot of us know the story, but
at the time it would have been maybe kind of
surprising to some people's ears. We think, so when Highly
(06:56):
Selassie became emperor. It fulfilled a prophecy, a prediction that
black leader and founder of the Back to Africa movement,
Marcus Garvey had made years before. What he had said
at that time was look to Africa for the crowning
of a black king. He shall be the redeemer. So
when this comes true, so to speak, in Highly Selassie,
(07:19):
Rastafarianism is born obvious now where that name comes from Rastafari.
So a couple of primary Rastafarian beliefs are that the
only true God is the late Ethiopian emperor Higley Selassie,
and that Ethiopius the true Zion, which was kind of
a paradise on Earth. And one of the key doctrines
is that they'll someday return to Africa from which their
(07:41):
ancestors were taken a slave. So those of you who
may be are fans of Bob Marley have heard some
of this before. Bob Marley is very famous for being Rastafarian.
So yeah, but there's a there's a weird element to
all of this, and that's the highly Selassie himself, who
is being revered as the Messiah or is um the
(08:01):
only true God by Rastafarians doesn't really go along with
it himself because he's a devout Christian, so he never
really accepts his status as a messiah, as a deliverer
um that these people sort of thrust upon him. I
think that's such a what a strange uh, what a
strange deal to have going on there. Yeah, And I
(08:24):
think when he was alive, people asked him about it,
you know, did you did you know about this? Did
you know that you're considered a messiah? And he was
just kind of like, yeah, I've heard that, but you know,
I don't think I'm just a man. Yeah, he just said,
I'm just a man. Well, and he also I mean
at the time, at least he had some major problems
to deal with that without thinking about how he was
(08:45):
considered a messiah by some Yep. Pretty much as soon
as he became emperor, he had some issues, primarily the
rising tensions with Italy. Here's just a little bit of
background on the situation between Italy and Ethiopia. Italy, which
had colonized most of the Red Sea coast in the
nineteenth century, had tried to invade Ethiopia before Menelik's army
(09:07):
had defeated the Italians back in eighteen ninety six the
Battle of Ottawa, and this was considered a big victory
for Ethiopians and for Africa at the time. I think
many sources have said that this was the first time
in African army had actually met and defeated a European
army in conventional battle. So big deal. Yeah, definitely a
big deal. So if we fast forward though too highly
(09:28):
Selassis reign, we have Benito Mussolanian power. He has by
this point become dictator of Italy in nineteen twenty two,
and initially it seems like he's not that interested in Africa.
In nineteen twenty eight, he even signed this Treaty of
Friendship with Ethiopia, which at the time was the last
(09:49):
African region that was free from some sort of European control.
So it seemed like Italy was backing off. Maybe Ethiopia
and Italy would be cool with each other. That was
not the case, though, and it wasn't long before Mussolini
started changing his his opinion about the country and his intentions. Uh.
And that may have happened for a few different reasons. Yeah.
(10:12):
For one thing, it's possible that he wanted to avenge
the eighteen ninety six defeat. Some people suggest that um
just conjecture at this point, but also Mussolini, as we
know it, was a fascist and part of the whole
fascist doctrine is that the state should try to expand
its sphere of power and influence. So that was one thing.
(10:33):
Another thing was he kind of just wanted to stick
it to the rest of Europe at that point. He
thought Italy had gotten a raw deal at the end
of World War One, Great Britain and France had both
increased their colonial holdings and Italy didn't really get a
share of the spoils from his point of view. Yeah,
so he was he was looking to make some gains. Um.
And the trouble officially started in December nineteen thirty four,
(10:58):
and that's when a Royal Ethiopian force drove out an
Italian sorry, and that's when a Royal Ethiopian force drove
out this Italian encampment that was stationed at wall Wall,
which was an oasis on the Ethiopian territory. Um, it
seemed maybe from the Ethiopian perspective, like the Italians were
(11:20):
a little too close. Maybe they shouldn't have been there. Uh,
they were certainly a threatening presence, but the Italians really
used it as an excuse to go after Ethiopia. Like, look,
they're not they're not treating this treaty in good faith,
they're not following it. This is not a treaty of
friendship if they're driving us away from this oasis. And
(11:42):
so they start to gather up their forces in East
Africa or the East African colonies to eventually mount an
attack on Ethiopia. Right, so highly Selassie SEUs this coming,
and he's pretty freaked out about it. He appeals to
the League of Nations at this point, but they really
don't take any serious steps to stop the Italians from
(12:04):
waging attack. They issue kind of slaps on the hands,
threats and promises. At one point they restrict trade with Italy,
but this doesn't really work either because countries involved, especially
Britain and France, won't really commit to it. And there's
a reason for that. There is it's mostly because members
of the League, particularly Great Britain and France, as I mentioned,
(12:28):
don't want to upset Mussolini too much. They wanted to
keep up an alliance against with Italy against Nazi Germany.
So they didn't even really consider taking military action to
defend Ethiopia at the time. You know, they don't want
to alienate Italy. Um and their own European concerns seemed
to trump those of Ethiopia. So on October three, nineteen
(12:49):
thirty five, Italian troops start making their way to Ethiopia
into Ethiopia, and the Ethiopian army faced them, but they
were just not prepared for modern European warfare at this point. Um.
The Italians used air power and this this kind of
sounds like it's right out of World War One combined
(13:10):
with World War Two almost but the Italians basically cropped
dusted the Ethiopian troops with mustard gas and um the
Ethiopians suffered three times as many casualties as the Italians.
A lot of the world, though, considers the stand made
by highly Selassian Ethiopian really brave and noble. Though it's
what makes highly Selassie Time Magazines Man of the Year
(13:33):
in nineteen thirty five. People are impressed that, uh, they're
they're mounting a fight against something so overpowering. Yeah, I
think they almost saw it as like him taking a
stand against the whole Nazi fascist power out there. Um.
By May of nineteen thirty six, though, the Italians made
(13:53):
their way into the Ethiopian capital and they proclaimed Ethiopia
part of the Italian Empire. So highly Selassie was forced
into exile. Yeah, and that June he goes back to
the League, and this time he's a little more ominous.
He says, quote, it is us today, it will be
you tomorrow, which is extremely prophetic coming in nineteen thirty
(14:17):
six on the eve of World War two. Um. So,
of course in exile he has to take refuge somewhere
outside of Ethiopia, so he goes to England for about
five years. But it's interesting Mussolini's own ambition to um
fulfill that fascist doctrine and acquire more territory is eventually
his undoing in Ethiopia, at least right in he sends
(14:41):
this enormous army to invade neighboring Somali land, which was
a British territory at the time, and the British, though
they had fewer troops, actually answered with a pretty well
organized and well played counter offensive. I think the Italians
lost something like two thousand soldiers through either being killed
captured or wounded, and this managed to drive the Italians
(15:04):
out of East Africa altogether, including Ethiopia. Yeah. So with
Britain triumphant, highly Selassie got to return home and he
was restored to the throne and proceeded to govern for
forty years, and he was welcomed home by Winston Churchill himself.
He sent a welcome home cable in which he said, quote,
(15:27):
your majesty, it was the first of the lawful sovereigns
to be driven from his throne in country by the
fascist Nazi criminals, and you're the first to return in triumph. Um.
So that would make a really nice end for a podcast,
would a nice positive note. Yeah, kind of a fairy
tale podcast. Um. But unfortunately it's it's gonna keep going
(15:50):
for better or worse. There are more twists and turns
to this story. Definitely, so highly Selassie as emperor does
a lot of good things in his time as ruler
of Ethiopia. He implemented some social, economic, and educational reforms.
For example, established sanitation programs, provincial schools, national universities, and
(16:11):
even encourage some students to study abroad and continue their
studies there. Intend to that's partly his undoing. Yes, it
is Um. And he also played a significant role in
the later years in establishing the organization of African Unity.
He established a constitutional government as well. But the constitution,
and this is part of the problem too, is that
it gave him most of the power. It's kind of
(16:34):
an outward constitutional government. UM. So you know, we've got
some reforms in there, some good things happening, some things
to give him credit for. But some people didn't like
the way he was running things. And part of that
was that the regional rulers, or at least a lot
of them, felt threatened by his centralization of government. He
(16:55):
felt like or they felt like Selassie was taking power
are away from them and giving it to the lawmakers
in Ethiopes capital Um and a lot of Ethiopians who
lived in developing areas, you know, lived outside of the cities,
thought that too many privileges were going to the nobility, which,
(17:15):
to make matters worse, a lot of these Um landlords,
these the nobility, the people who owned much of Ethiopia
and were largely absent, also happened to be related to
the emperor. So so nobody likes to see that no,
not at all. To add to this, there were some
people who thought that the strides that the government did
(17:37):
make were just too slow and unevenly distributed. Students in particular,
especially those students we mentioned who studied abroad. They complained
that ethiopia social political, and economic developments were way too slow.
They had studied marks and had all kinds of ideas
of their own about land reform and equality, but they
were the only ones. Workers, teachers, soldiers, They all want
(18:00):
Ethiopia to catch up to modern times too. So it's ironic,
we see sort of from the beginning too of our
podcast too. Now he seems to have come full circle.
At first he was thought of as the progressive leader,
modernizing the country, and now he's the exact opposite. Yeah,
everyone advanced beyond him, it seemed to to some people.
(18:21):
I guess that's what happens when you rule for forty
years or or more. Um So, there were a few
revolts and rebellions, of course, if you have these unhappy people.
But the most serious of these revolts occurred in nineteen
sixty up. The emperor was away visiting Brazil and his
imperial bodyguard staged a coup. A lot of university students
(18:44):
supported it, and they even managed to seize the Imperial Palace.
Fortunately for highly Selassie, the army in the Air force
remained loyal to him and they squashed the rebellion pretty quickly. Um,
but he knew that that things weren't stay able, that
his position was no longer stable to no. Even before this,
he tells an American committee in nineteen sixty and this
(19:07):
is a quote from him, the tide which is sweeping
Africa today cannot be stayed. No power on earth is
great enough to halt or reverse the trend. Its march
is as relentless and as inexorable as the passage of time. Yeah. So,
so he knows he's at risk, and Ethiopia is at risk.
And as the nineteen sixties were on, this resentment really
(19:29):
just continued to grow, and there were a few issues
added to that. One was Eritrea, which, even though it
was legally an independent country, it was absorbed by Ethiopia
in nineteen sixty two. And for Ethiopia this seemed like
a pretty good deal because it gave them access to
the sea, which everybody wants their country to have access to.
(19:50):
The sea how you can defend yourself better. Yeah, But
a lot of Eritreans opposed it from the start, and
they formed the Militant Eritrean Liberal Ration Front, which the
acronym for that is elf UM to to protests this
being absorbed into a country that they didn't want to
be part of. Right. And there was something else that
(20:12):
happened that kind of added to Highly Selassie's unpopularity at
that time. Mayorally added to it. There was a famine
caused by drought, which wasn't that unusual in Ethiopia, but
the famine that occurred between nineteen seventy two and nineteen
seventy four killed several hundred thousand Ethiopians, and many felt
that Highly Selassie just didn't really do enough to help people.
(20:34):
He They suggested also that the government had tried to
cover the whole situation up. Yeah, And so there were
protests and the situation became really desperate, I mean, starving people,
and potentially a government cover up is going to make
the populace really angry. And on September twelfth, nineteen seventy four,
(20:54):
the emperor was deposed finally successfully deposed in a revolution
and led by a Marxist colonel named Mingustu highly Mariam,
and some accounts say that highly Selassie was driven from
the Imperial Palace in the back of a Volkswagen with
people in the streets jeering at him. So really undignified
(21:16):
exit for this emperor of forty years. Yeah, and eleven
months later, Hiley Selassie was dead at the age of
eighty three. At the time, reports said that he died
of natural causes, but many actually suspect that he was
murdered in his Valets testified in court that when they
found his body, there was a strong smell of ether
in the room, which suggested to them that he had
(21:38):
been suffocated or perhaps strangled. Yeah, and Minge Stu does
give the emperor burial, so it's it's not as though
Hiley Selassie's body is destroyed or lost immediately. Um. But
he's said to have interred the body vertically head down
next to his office latrine and then covered it with
two feet of concrete. To quote Deter, a ghost who
(22:01):
has reason to be restless. And this is pretty unrelated,
but I couldn't help but think of Dante's Inferno. This
is the punishment for simony, which I guess if you
think about it long enough, with Messiah and Emperor staff
thrown in, you could you could work out some sort
of connection there. But Um clearly a very undignified burial.
(22:23):
No it wasn't, but he did get a more dignified
burial later on. His body was exhumed in after the
fall of Mangistu's government, and at that time he wasn't
buried right away, his body, his remains, I should say,
there wasn't a body at that point. His remains were
put into a small coffin that said do not open.
They put a sign that said do not open, because
(22:44):
they weren't quite sure what was going to happen. Really weird,
isn't it, I mean strange Um. And there are a
few attempts to bury him, you know, get this do
not open box in the ground somewhere. But things just
kept on getting in the way. There were argument It's
about how the funeral should be run, you know, whether
it should be this state funeral for a former emperor
(23:07):
or some sort of hush hush, private family affair. And
I think once when they tried to hold it, elections
got in the way. So things kind of kept putting
it off, but it finally happened in November of two
thousand and it was attended by one of his daughters
and many many grandkids, and Bob Marley's widow is even there.
There are a few Rostafarians there, although it's interesting to
(23:30):
note that most Rostafarians don't believe that Hile Selassia is dead.
Oh yeah, how about that, But Bob Marley's widow does.
If she was at the funeral, I would assume, well,
maybe she just came to pay her respects in general,
but in addition to them. I think there were somewhere
around ten thousand to fifteen thousand people as the total turnout,
(23:52):
So not nearly as large as you might think it
would be decent, I guess, but not a tiny family
funeral either, right. And there was this great uh two
thousand one story in the Canadian magazine Saturday Night, and
it follows one of highly Selassie's grandsons, Beta mcconan, who
was living in Canada at the time, through all the
events of the funeral, and he kind of recounts his
(24:13):
time growing up with the Emperor, and I just wanted
to mention it because I thought it was a really
cool story, and it really I think, shut a lot
of light on who highly Selassie was. I mean, we've
been recounting throughout this episode what he did, but what
kind of man was? What kind of man was he?
So just to end off the podcast, since it's been
(24:35):
kind of a sort of depressing end and decline, we
wanted to just say a few things about who this
guy was. Yeah, he was a workaholic. That's probably not
too surprising. Um, he was friendly with President Tito of Yugoslavia,
who would actually convince him to take vacation. So that's
it's pretty bad if you have, like a fellow president
having to tell you to to kick off at the
(24:56):
end of the day. Yeah, but he did do it.
He would go on vacation and take all his grandsons
and daughters with him. Are the ones that were around
at the time. And um, so he had a little
fun now and again I guess. He also was said
to have a gravitas that made even close members of
his family fall silent, so imposing present. He was also
(25:17):
very concerned about decorum. He didn't want you to interrupt
his morning exercises, for example, because he thought that no
one should see the emperor doing something so undignified. So
his grandson and this article relates like running in in
the morning to go visit him, and he said sometimes
it would be great and you'd run in there and
everything would be cool. But if you interrupted him during
his exercises, he would definitely get in trouble for that,
(25:39):
just imagining the barbells dropping or hollering. Um. But he
he did like his grandchildren. I mean that his priority
come across with these family visits and stuff. Um. He
spent a lot of time with the kids. And his
grandson said, quote, you could ask him about the most
serious aspect of politics when you were seven. He would
(26:01):
answer you as if you were his equal, and he'd
question you and challenge you so you could see the
other side. So um, I guess he does seem to
have an interest in youth and education. That's pretty consistent
throughout his reign. And um, that goes along with treating
a kid like somebody who can converse as an equal
with you, and a really caring side too. I think
(26:24):
I was telling Sarah earlier about the story and how
he mentions the emperor himself would pour the grandkids milk
in the evenings, so they would all kind of gather
and he would give them their evening milk himself and
the milk ceremony. Right, But the grandson mentioned that most
people had left by the time the revolt came around,
(26:44):
so you know, he he had thought he would leave too,
But then when he came down to get the milk
one night, there were only two of them, and Highly
Selassie said, two grandkids left, right, And Highly Selassie said,
is it just you two tonight? And he said the
grandson and the story Vieta. He he realized at that
point that he had to stay because there wasn't anyone else.
(27:06):
So very loyal grandson. And so just that's just to
kind of give you, I guess, show that there are
two sides to the story. Some people still disagree with
his policies during his reign, but there may have been
another side to him too. Yeah, so you can have
the family man, the popular ruler, the unpopular ruler, and
the messiah. A lot going on, Yeah, a lot going on.
(27:29):
A very complex man, but really interesting went to research.
But I think that's all for Holly Selassie today. Yeah,
and that's of course kicking off several episodes will be
doing throughout February and of course beyond on black history.
We thought it would be neat to start it with
Higla Selassie. He's he's well known, but maybe people don't
(27:49):
really actually know that much about him, right, Okay, So
this brings us to listener mail, and we wanted to
start out of addressing a kind of a concern from
a recent podcast. It's from our Heck, a podcast having
to do with New Zealand history, and we it was
brought to our attention many times by listeners that we
(28:12):
mispronounced the word Maori um. It's the name for the
people who are native to the area of New Zealand,
kind of the indigenous race there, and we pronounced it
Mayori throughout the podcast. So we have to apologize for
that and corrected its pronounced Maori, or at least that's
an acceptable pronunciation, I think for Yanks like us. But
I wanted to read just one letter. We got a
(28:32):
bunch of letters from New Zealand listeners in particular. It
was like a good test of our of our Facebook
and email address and Twitter message delivery system. We definitely
heard back from y'all. So here's just one from Sarah
and she says, Hi, Sarah and Dublina. I am a
(28:54):
Kansas native, but currently in New Zealand, permanent resident living
in the city of Dunedin on the South is end
of New Zealand. I just finished listening to your podcast
on Hanna heck A and was very excited to hear
a defining period in New Zealand's history explained to a
wider audience. However, I must admit that every time either
of you said the word maori, I cringed a bit.
(29:15):
It's a somewhat common mistake for non New Zealanders to
pronounce the word maori mayori. In fact, the most accurate
way to pronounce the word is a bit difficult, but
here goes and she goes on to explain it. She says,
the A is actually pronounced as in far and the
o is pronounced as an um, and you kind of
blend them together to make a smooth transition. But that
is rather difficult, So we went for the easier pronunciation
(29:37):
on that one, Sarah, but we appreciate you writing in um.
And she does say, if this is too difficult or
one is incapable of ruling one's rs, which is also
part of it. A lot of us get away by
saying maori, so I did, like all the different comparison
words people sent us to rhyme and matchup to try
to get it right, just so we wouldn't have to
go through the shame of mispronouncing it on our correction exactly.
(30:01):
So thank you very much everyone for writing in and
we will try not to do that again. Although I
can't promise that we won't mispronounce something else in the future.
I'm still in Sarah that if one good thing has
come out of this, it's that we have a lot
of cool New Zealand listeners and now we know them
passionate listeners. And our second message is from Kyle and
we're just including this one because it's about the last
(30:25):
African ruler who we talked about, Mantha Muza. He wrote
to say that my wife and I spent a week
camping in Tennessee in two thousand eight centered around going
to the National Storytelling Festival. If you've never been, I
way recommend it. In all came one of the storytellers
we saw told three tales of African legend in folklore,
(30:45):
including one about a giant child. This child grew and
grew to become the largest man in the village, but
never walked. He only crawled, and he never spoke. His
mother became distraught as other mothers in the village gosped
about her, and finally she's apt, yelling at the child,
now fully grown to walk and talk. At this point,
he stood up, walked over to the fruit tree, and
(31:07):
with a single shot, brought down the highest piece, which
he promptly swallowed. There was more to the story, and
what I've related I haven't done justice too, but the
end of the story was that the child became the
king of the largest and grandest empire Africa had ever known.
No locations or names were used, though, so imagine my
surprise when I heard the story retold just now very cool.
(31:30):
So I'm I'm glad Kyle that we helped you and
your wife source this uh Bookjale you had heard. I
enjoyed that story myself, and I kind of liked recounting
it as semi fact in the life of Mons and Lisa. Hey,
I like mythical origin me to keep sending them, keep
sending us um more emails comments, about podcasts, or just
(31:53):
cool stories that relate to the stuff that we've talked about,
or unrelated things that you want us to talk about.
You can get in too with us by email at
History podcast at how stuff works dot com, or you
can look us up on Twitter at myston history or
on Facebook. Or if you want to find out a
little bit more about some of the ideas we talked
about in today's episode, such as fascism, for instance, you
(32:15):
can find out more by visiting our homepage and typing
in fascism at www dot how stuff works dot com.
For more on this and thousands of other topics, visit
how stuff works dot com. To learn more about the podcast,
click on the podcast icon in the upper right corner
of our homepage. The how Stuff Works iPhone app has
(32:37):
a ride. Download it today on iTunes.
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