Excerpts from the website of HIM great grand-daughter Princess Esther:

It was the night, not the morning... The eucalyptus leaves would tremble... Silver and silk, flesh of vegetation... The black dove flew from Harar to the Menelik palace in the capital, dark as night to confirm the news. Ras Makonnen with his army was one day away from Harar when they woke him up this night. It was a boy....

Ejarso Goro, land of majestic nativity

To the north of Harar is a terrible road that leads to the attractive and interesting birthplace of Haile Selassie. Given the subsequent illustriousness of the prominent son of Ejarso Goro village, the place itself remains very humble. I couldn't help but be struck by the neglect of the mud walled community by their Emperor.

The only exception is the church, which is quite large and elaborate but also very neglected. It was moved to this site by Haile Selassie in 1953 Ethiopian calendar (about 1960 European calendar) to put the place of his birth on holy ground. The head priest, Mamhere Mengiste Tagene, showed us the site. The church is fairly large and disconcertingly orange. There is a place on the front where the plaque commemorating the birth of Haile Selassie was unceremoniously ripped off by agents of the Dergue government.

Although the grounds are neglected and overgrown, the priests can show you the main points. A circle of rocks marks the place where Haile Selassie's father, Ras Makonnen, built his country house. He picked a nice spot. The hills rise steeply from Harare, which is already at a respectable altitude. One can see how Makonnen, as a Shoan highlander, would want to find the highest and coolest place available to escape his town house in Harare.

The other specialty of the grounds is a small tree stump which takes some effort to separate from the undergrowth. This, we are told, is a tree planted the day Haile Selassie was born, and which died the day he [ascended].

The church does not suffer from an excess of foreign visitors. In the previous year they had three. The year before that was big, they had five. Most of them were Jamaicans, presumably Rastafarians keen on the birthplace of the revered Haile Selassie. The small local Christian congregation of about 150 lacks the resources to maintain the church. The mosque across town is well tended by comparison. The Mamhere told us that a fund raising committee had been set up to sponsor repairs. We weren't able to see the inside of the church to assess the need ourselves. As sometimes happens in Ethiopia, the elusive fellow with the key was not to be found.

Birth of a new Ethiopia

HIM renamed His ancestors' empire from Abyssinia to Ethiopia, an act of Istoric significance giving birth to "modern ethiopianism", now known as Pan-Africanism. The word Ethiopia, meaning land of sun burnt faces, is the oldest known word to refer to all the black peoples of the world as one group. The birth of new Ethiopia coincides with Jan Hoi's campaign described as "life and death struggle with the white race, the consequences of which are incalculable. The targets are the colonial powers in Africa without exception.... characteristic of the mentality and attitude of the natives [Ethiopians] who imagine themselves to be infinitely superior to the white race.... The final aim of [Ethiopian] policy of antagonism to the white race... is nothing less than to act as the champions of all the colored peoples of Africa." ("Abyssinia, The Powder Barrell", Baron Roman Prochazka, 1935)

Following are some historical notes which indicate the roots in antiquity of Jan Hoi's vision of Ethiopia: encompassing all bloodlines and clans flowing from ancient Ethiopia, as it takes birth within the bloodline of Emperors David and Solomon and the monarchy founded by Samuel the Nazarene; the birth in ancient Ethiopia of the royal priestly order of governance, known to us as the order of Malikizadek or Nyahbinghi; the Ethiopian birth of the Egyptian order of Isis-Osiris from which is born the Coptic order of St. Mark of the See of Alexandria, to which doctrinal position the Ethiopian church has historically adhered, and was constitutionally bound by Jan Hoi in 1955.

"Where the south declines towards the setting sun lies the country called Ethiopia, the last inhabited land in that direction. There gold is obtained in great plenty, huge elephants abound, with wild trees of all sorts, and ebony; and the men are taller, handsomer, and longer lived than anywhere else. The Ethiopians were clothed in the skins of leopards and lions, and had long bows made of the stem of the palm-leaf, not less than four cubits in length. On these they laid short arrows made of reed, and armed at the tip, not with iron, but with a piece of stone, sharpened to a point, of the kind used in engraving seals. They carried likewise spears, the head of which was the sharpened horn of an antelope; and in addition they had knotted clubs. When they went into battle they painted their bodies, half with chalk, and half with vermilion. . ."

- Herodotus, The History, trans. George Rawlinson (New York: Dutton & Co., 1862)

"The Dodonaeans called the women doves because they were foreigners, and seemed to them to make a noise like birds. After a while the dove spoke with a human voice, because the woman, whose foreign talk had previously sounded to them like the chattering of a bird, acquired the power of speaking what they could understand. For how can it be conceived possible that a dove should really speak with the voice of a man? Lastly, by calling the dove black the Dodonaeans indicated that the woman was an Egyptian. And certainly the character of the oracles at Thebes and Dodona is very similar. Besides this form of divination, the Greeks learnt also divination by means of victims from the Egyptians."

- Herodotus: The Histories, c 430 BCE, Book 2, 57

"Ethiopia is older than pharaonic Egypt. We have some proofs for this. People working on Ethiopia did not find the language of ancient Egypt in Ethiopia. But in ancient Egyptian we found many words which are in Ethiopia, both in Amharic and even more in Oromiffa. So, the conclusion is that Ethiopia is the birthplace of ancient civilization which developed later in Egypt and much later on in Greece and other countries.

Formerly I was an Egyptologist with knowledge of the hieroglyphics system. But when I was in Ethiopia I found that there are the same names, the same appellations for so many things that appeared at the beginning of pharaonic language. For instance, there is a word "Oromo" in Ethiopia which appeared in ancient Egypt referring to the same subject, with consonants only, without using vowels. It would have been good for a person who is an Egyptologist to study Amharic and Oromiffa and try to list out words that were in use in both countries.

First we have proof that in Ethiopia there was a very very ancient civilization. In Aksum, the fallen obelisk is 37.5 meters high. It is extraordinary, it is taller than the greatest Egyptian obelisks. And we do not know from where they took this stone. It was not certainly from Aksum. They had to transport this monolithic obelisk. This is a task as important as the building of the Egyptian-pyramids. In Ethiopia we started studying archaeology only fifty years ago. In Ethiopia there were stone carvings that have helped the birth of ancient civilizations. This had developed later in Lalibela and many other places.

All of them [languages] are indigenous to Ethiopia. If you take the South and the East, it is the cradle of mankind. To this, one can attest the discovery of Lucy. It was an expansion of humanity, indeed. There has been a belief that it started from Yemen. But it is the reverse. The Sabeans in Yemen and Arabia were the extensions of the Sabeans in Ethiopia....[which] was a large country having international significance. Historians understand ancient Ethiopia as only having relations with countries on the Nile basin, the Red Sea and the Mediterranean world. In fact my belief is that Ethiopia had relations with the regions adjacent to the Indian Ocean, the remaining of Africa and up to China.

During the Axum time we have inscriptions describing that Ethiopia's territory was even wider than Ethiopia under Emperor Haile-Selassie and Emperor Menilik II. The problem is some people understand Ethiopia only in terms of Ethiopian Christianity limit. Muslim Ethiopia was highly related to Christian Ethiopia. There was a good relation between the Christian Ethiopia and Muslim Ethiopia which was in total called Ethiopia and was under the same rule. The Jews, the Muslims and other non-believers believe that they were Ethiopians. Then where is the limit of Ethiopia?"

- excerpts from Jean Doresse interview with Ato Akalu W. Mariam;
Historian J. Doresse served HIM Ministry of Information (1960-62), described it as "the happiest time of my life"

"2.Now the Ethiopians, as historians relate, were the first of all men and the proofs of this statement, they say, are manifest. For that they did not come into their land as immigrants from abroad but were natives of it and so justly bear the name of "autochthones" is, they maintain, conceded by practically all men; furthermore, that those who dwell beneath the noon-day sun were, in all likelihood, the first to be generated by the earth, is clear to all; since, inasmuch as it was the warmth of the sun which, at the generation of the universe, dried up the earth when it was still wet and impregnated it with life, it is reasonable to suppose that the region which was nearest the sun was the first to bring forth living creatures. And they say that they were the first to be taught to honour the gods and to hold sacrifices and processions and festivals and the other rites by which men honour the deity; and that in consequence their piety has been published abroad among all men, and it is generally held that the sacrifices practised among the Ethiopians are those which are the most pleasing to heaven. As witness to this they call upon the poet who is perhaps the oldest and certainly the most venerated among the Greeks; for in the Iliad he represents both Zeus and the rest of the gods with him as absent on a visit to Ethiopia to share in the sacrifices and the banquet which were given annually by the Ethiopians for all the gods together:

For Zeus had yesterday to Ocean's bounds Set forth to feast with Ethiop's faultless men, And he was followed there by all the gods. And they state that, by reason of their piety towards the deity, they manifestly enjoy the favour of the gods, inasmuch as they have never experienced the rule of an invader from abroad; for from all time they have enjoyed a state of freedom and of peace one with another, and although many and powerful rulers have made war upon them, not one of these has succeeded in his undertaking.

3.Cambyses, for instance, they say, who made war upon them with a great force, both lost all his army and was himself exposed to the greatest peril; Semiramis also, who through the magnitude of her undertakings and achievements has become renowned, after advancing a short distance into Ethiopia gave up her campaign against the whole nation; and Heracles and Dionysus, although they visited all the inhabited earth, failed to subdue the Ethiopians alone who dwell above Egypt, both because of the piety of these men and because of the insurmountable difficulties involved in the attempt.

They say also that the Egyptians are colonists sent out by the Ethiopians, Osiris having been the leader of the colony. For, speaking generally, what is now Egypt, they maintain, was not land but sea when in the beginning the universe was being formed; afterwards, however, as the Nile during the times of its inundation carried down the mud from Ethiopia, land was gradually built up from the deposit. Also the statement that all the land of the Egyptians is alluvial silt deposited by the river receives the clearest proof, in their opinion, from what takes place at the outlets of the Nile; for as each year new mud is continually gathered together at the mouths of the river, the sea is observed being thrust back by the deposited silt and the land receiving the increase. And the larger part of the customs of the Egyptians are, they hold, Ethiopian, the colonists still preserving their ancient manners. For instance, the belief that their kings are gods, the very special attention which they pay to their burials, and many other matters of a similar nature are Ethiopian practices, while the shapes of their statues and the forms of their letters are Ethiopian; for of the two kinds of writing which the Egyptians have, that which is known as "popular" (demotic) is learned by everyone, while that which is called "sacred" is understood only by the priests of the Egyptians, who learn it from their fathers as one of the things which are not divulged, but among the Ethiopians everyone uses these forms of letters....

4.We must now speak about the Ethiopian writing which is called hieroglyphic among the Egyptians, in order that we may omit nothing in our discussion of their antiquities....

5.As for the customs of the Ethiopians, not a few of them are thought to differ greatly from those of the rest of mankind, this being especially true of those which concern the selection of their kings. The priests, for instance, first choose out the noblest men from their own number, and whichever one from this group the god may select, as he is borne about in a procession in accordance with a certain practice of theirs, him the multitude take for their king; and straightway it both worships and honours him like a god, believing that the sovereignty has been entrusted to him by Divine Providence. And the king who has been thus chosen both follows a regimen which has been fixed in accordance with the laws and performs all his other deeds in accordance with the ancestral custom, according neither favour nor punishment to anyone contrary to the usage which has been approved among them from the beginning. It is also a custom of theirs that the king shall put no one of his subjects to death, not even if a man shall have been condemned to death and is considered deserving of punishment, but that he shall send to the transgressor one of his attendants bearing a token of death; and the guilty person, on seeing the warning, immediately retires to his home and removes himself from life. Moreover, for a man to flee from his own into a neighbouring country and thus by moving away from his native land to pay the penalty of his transgression, as is the custom among the Greeks, is permissible under no circumstances. Consequently, they say, when a man to whom the token of death had been sent by the king once undertook to flee from Ethiopia, and his mother, on learning of this, bound his neck about with her girdle, he dared not so much as raise his hands against her in any way but submitted to be strangled until he died, that he might not leave a greater disgrace to his kinsmen."

- Diodorus Siculus, The Library of History, Books II.35 - IV.58, Trans. C.H. Oldfather, Harvard, 2000

"However, Sesostris, the Egyptian, he adds, and Tearco [Tiharka] the Aethiopian advanced as far as Europe; and Nabocodrosor [Nebuchadnezzar], who enjoyed greater repute among the Chaldaeans than Heracles, led an army even as far as the Pillars.... but no one of these touched India.... The whole of India is traversed by rivers.... As for the people of India, those in the south are like the Aethiopians in colour, although they are like the rest in respect to countenance and hair (for on account of the humidity of the air their hair does not curl), whereas those in the north are like the Egyptians.... Now in this he is correct; but no longer so when he lays the black complexion and woolly hair of the Aethiopians on merely the waters and censures...."

- The Geography of Strabo - Book XV: 6, 13, 21

"The name of the second river is Gihon: the same is it that compasseth the land of Ethiopia" - Genesis 2:13
"For Moses had married an Ethiopian woman" - Numbers 12:3
"Princes shall come out of Egypt; Ethiopia shall soon stretch out her hands unto God" - Psalms 68:31
"Are ye not as children of the Ethiopians unto me, O children of Israel?" - Amos 9:7

- The Holy Bible, KJV

After a long period of drought, the birth of Tafari Makonnen, on July 23, 1892 signaled a great rain which replenished the earth.

"For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given; and the Government shall be upon his shoulders; and his name shall becalled Wonderful Counsellor, The Mighty God, The Everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace" - Isaiah, 9:6

Such were the travails of His mother, and such were the roman intentions upon InI infant king, as witnessed in the great victory at Adowa. To the remnant, beloved Ithiopians, who keep the holy testimonies InI savior has returned to rule the world. Blessed is His Ila name Qedamawi Haile Sellassie I, InI Father and King Almighty! He is humbler than a Lamb and mightier than a Lion! Black man, your king man has come! Hail Ras Tafari Almighty!!!

EMPEROR HAILE SELLASSIE I LIVES FOR EVER!

www.rastafarilive.com