Ennarea

Ennarea
Hinnario
At least in the 13th century–c. 1710
Ennarea in around 1500
Capital		Not specified
Languages		Hinnario
Religion		Christianity, Paganism
Government		Monarchy
Hinnare-tato
•	c. 1450	Kaba Siyon
•	Early 1700s	Sisafočči
Historical era		Middle Ages
•	Established	At least in the 13th century
•	Disestablished	c. 1710
Succeeded by Kingdom of Limmu-Ennarea

Ennarea (Alternative: Enarea, E(n)narya, Innarya) was a kingdom in what is now the Jimma Zone in Ethiopia. It was recorded to be the most powerful Gonga kingdom until its decline in the 17th century, at all it lasted from at least the 13th century until c. 1710. It was surrounded by Damot and later the Ethiopian Empire in the north and north east, Janjero in the east, Bosha in the southeast, Kaffa in the south, Sheka in the southwest and the Anfillo kingdom in the west.

As the Hinnario people, how the indigenous Gonga of Ennarea refer to themselves, made no use of a script one have to reconstruct Ennarea's history with oral and foreign sources. The first (foreign) source mentioning Ennarea is an Aksumite document found in Debra Dimakir, which tells us that

“(the) legendary Aksumite king Digna-Jan led 150 priests carrying 60 consecrated tablets from Axum to Amhara and then accompanied 180,150 soldiers to Innarya”, which were said to have been a month’s journey from Amhara” .

Ennareas early history was probably closely linked with its northern neighbor, the kingdom of Damot: An early 19th-century document regarding the early history of Damot and Ennarea attests a political union of these two kingdoms under Moti Lami, the king of Damot.

It appears that since the late 14th century (around the same time when Kaffa was founded in the south) Ennarea gained nominal independence from its northern neighbor, although it remained in close contact with it. While Damot was soon annexed by the Ethiopian Empire Ennarea developed to the most important kingdom of the non-Muslim south, displacing Damot as one of the biggest gold and slave mines and degrading Kaffa and Bosa to tributaries. However, the Empire in the north became immense powerful too by defeating the Muslim sultanates of the southeast (Ifat) under king Yeshaq. In the praising song of Yeshaq we learn that even the powerful Ennarea had to pay a tribute to the Empire, mostly consisting of gold, slaves and cattle.