Koba/False Banana – History Of The Enset Culture

Cultural and linguistic evidences concerning the origin and distribution of Enset culture seem to point generally in the same direction.

Enset was part of a widespread and ancient system of cultivation of vegetative crops formerly distributed much more widely through the Ethiopian highlands. The main cultivators of enset were Omotic-speakers, though it was probably adopted early by some groups of Cushitic-speakerts.

However, Ethio-Semites brought seed agriculture and the plough, Enset and other root crops such as Yams (Dioscorea spp.) and the Labiates (Coleus spp.) were pushed into residual cultivation, except where the terrain was so highly dissected that ploughing was effectively impossible.

In this situation, notably in the southwest, the Gurage Semitic-speakers adopted Enset and it became central to their production system, to their way of eating (Qocho & Bulla are processed from Enset, and are typical cuisines of the Gurage people) permitting the expansion of population to levels such that no other crop would support comparable densities in similar terrain.

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