Agaw people
Sign in to saveAlso known as Agew, Agau, Awngi
ethnic group inhabiting Ethiopia and Eritrea
Key facts
- Ethiopia
- 899,416 (2007)
- Eritrea
- 100,000 (2012)
via Wikipedia infobox
Wikidata facts
- Instance of
- ethnic group
- Country
- Eritrea
- Image
- Agaw women of Ethiopia.jpg
Show 2 more facts
- Commons category
- Agaw people
- described by source
- Brockhaus and Efron Encyclopedic Dictionary
Sources (2)
via Wikidata · CC0
~5 min read
Encyclopedic overview
The Agaw or Agew (Ge'ez: አገው, romanized: Agäw, modern Agew) are a Cushitic ethnic group native to the northern highlands of Ethiopia and neighboring Eritrea. They speak the Agaw languages, also known as the Central Cushitic languages, which belong to the Cushitic branch of the Afroasiatic language family.
The Agaw peoples in general were historically noted by travelers and outside observers to have practiced what some described as a “Hebraic religion”, though some also practiced Ethiopian Orthodoxy, and many were Beta Israel Jews. Thousands of Agaw Beta Israel converted to Christianity in the 19th and early 20th century (both voluntarily and forcibly), becoming the Falash Mura.
Excerpted from Wikipedia’s “Agaw people” article, available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.