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This is very interesting, because there are people of the Murenga lineage who trace their ancestry to that same spot near Lake Tana. They fled the region because of the instability caused by the Islamic onslaught. It is thought that they had Jewish influences- one of the main ancestral spirits in the ancestralist religion of Zimbabwe, Chaminuka, is known to be in turn the spirit medium of a Christian missionary from Israel, by the name of Ngauza. Historian Aenias Chigwedere, currently Minister of Education in Zimbabwe, has written about this. He has personal knowledge of the Murenga lineage, as he is of that same lineage! In a novelisation of this account, the Murenga family included a Jewish couple who had visited Ethiopia in search of the Solomonic dynasty.
Even today, the spirit mediums' dress has a star of David and Akenaton's disc. I have personally witnessed this. Many Zimbabweans practise ancestor veneration, but it is known in many families that this was not always so.
I have plans to visit Ethiopia, and would like to meet the Qemant. Very interesting, thanks.
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