Note 69 — Chapter III · PASTORAL TRIBES.

Among the Bogos “patronage results from military subjection or from the helpless state of separate immigrants with regard to a strong and closely united nation. As the nobles carefully trace their pedigrees, it is easy to find out the Tigres. Tigre means a man of Ethiopian extraction, who speaks the Tigre language. Some Tigre families, subjected from time immemorial, have immigrated together with the family of Gebre Terke [the legendary ancestor of the Bogos]. Others already lived in the country, and unable to withstand the invasion, hastened to submit in order to be tolerated. The Bogos seem to have taken possession of the country in a very pacific and forbearing way, and unlike the Normans and other European invaders, do not interfere with the regulation of landed property, so that the ancient aborigines still own most of the land. The third class is composed of foreign families who, being for some reason unable to agree with their countrymen, settle in the country of the Bogos and place themselves under their protection, which still continually occurs. A member of the Boas family [i.e. of the Bogos nobility], however poor and weak, never becomes a Tigre; his origin is a guarantee of his independence. A Tigre, however mighty and rich, cannot become a Schmagilly [noble]; for the Tigres, who are a compound of various elements, cannot trace their origin so far back as the Schmagillies who pretend to spring all from the same ancestor. Moreover, the oppression is so slight, that a revolution is unimaginable”69.