The Siltʼe people are an ethnic group in southern Ethiopia. They inhabit the Siltʼe Zone which is part of the Southern Nations, Nationalities and Peoples Region. Silt'e people speak the Siltʼe language, a Semitic language, which is closely related to the Harari language.

History

Siltʼe denote their origin in Harar and claim to be progenitors of the Hadiya Sultanate. The country of the Silt'e first appears in fourteenth-century texts as Silt'e-Ge. Tradition states that some of Silt'e's forefathers were Harar resident Kabir Hamid and saint Aw Barkhadle. Other clans within Silt'e also claim descent from Hajji Aliye who accompanied Ahmed ibn Ibrahim al-Ghazi's troops during the Ethiopian-Adal war in the sixteenth century. The Silt'e are considered as once an extension of the ancient Harla people alongside Wolane and Harari people prior to the Oromo expansions of the sixteenth century. In the 1600s their leader Garad of Seba Hadiya Sidi Mohammed defeated the troops of Emperor Susenyos I at the Battle of Hadiya thus protecting their frontier from Abyssinian annexation for the next three hundred years. The last Garad of the Gan-Silte dynasty was Sediso K’albo before Menelik's forces invaded in the 1800s. Silte people were incorporated into Gurage region after their lands were annexed by Ethiopia following the defeat of the Hadiya leader Hassan Enjamo. The Abyssinian commander Gobana Dacche in the late 19th century is stated to have ravaged the lands of Silt'e during his invasion and divided Silt'e lands among the Neftenya. In the early 90s Silte obtained a separate zone following protests that the Gurage ethnic label was imposed on them.

Notable people