ERITREA. - Region of NE Africa that takes its name from the sea that bathes it (the Red Sea was called Erythraean in antiquity) and corresponds to the coastal strip between Ras Casar and Ras Dumeira, with the Danakil Depression and the northern edge (north of the Tacazzè and the Mareb) of the Ethiopian plateau; in all, 119,472 sq km.
Of the three zones, the first, for the most part low and sandy, is essentially a lean steppe, with an extreme, hot and dry climate; the second is a true desert, largely volcanic in nature; and only the third lends itself to human settlement, being generally elevated above 2,000 m, and therefore with a temperate and healthy climate and soil suited especially to extensive cultivation of cereals and to livestock raising. To the west the plateau slopes gently down toward another strip of lowlands (Gase valley) where the intense summer heat permits various tropical crops, and above all cotton, as soon as irrigation is possible there.
The principal resources of E. are the dum palm, cotton, coffee, cereals (dura), the products of fishing (pearls, mother-of-pearl, and also edible fish) and of livestock raising (hides, canned meats) and, to a lesser extent, gold and salt. Trade is modest in scale.
The population (600,000 inhabitants), indigenous, made up predominantly of Abyssinians (50%) and Tigrinyas (19%), Christians (of the Coptic rite), with Muslim minorities (Deul Amer, Habab, Saho) and pagan ones (Cunama), is relatively dense on the plateau, where the major inhabited centers stand, together with the capital Asmara (90,000 inhabitants, of whom 50,000 are Italians). On the coast is the port of Massawa (17,000 inhabitants, of whom 6,000 are Italians). Our compatriots, who numbered 72,500 in 1939, are now reduced to a little more than 25,000.
An Italian colony since 1882, annexed to our Italian East Africa in 1936, conquered by the Allied troops in 1941, its fate is still undecided.
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ECCLESIASTICAL ORGANIZATION
Before the Italian occupation, E. had no ecclesiastical organization of its own: it depended on the apostolic vicariate of Abyssinia entrusted to the French Lazarists. Only in 1894 (Sept. 13) did Leo XIII erect it into an independent apostolic prefecture, entrusting it to the Italian Capuchins. The work of the first apostolic prefect (Fr. Michele da Carbonara) among the tribes was interrupted by the war between Menelik and the Italian troops (1895-97). But immediately afterward it was resumed with greater vigor, and churches, workshops and schools were built. Nor was scientific activity neglected, to which the publication of grammars and vocabularies of native languages made a large contribution.
On Feb. 7, 1912, the prefecture was elevated to an apostolic vicariate. The modern Franciscan printing press of
Asmara, the Institute of St. Joseph for mixed-race children in the same
city, and the Seminary for the formation of the native clergy
at Cheren constitute a part of the apostolic activity
of the Capuchin Franciscans. Through the initiative of the first apostolic vicar (Msgr. C. Carrara), the Pontifical Ethiopian College was erected in Rome.
In 1931 the ordinariate was created for the clergy and for the
native Catholics of the Ethiopian rite (Alexandrian), governed by
Msgr. Chidané-Marvam Cassà. The jurisdiction of the
native Ordinary, after the Second World War,
was temporarily extended to all the faithful of the Ethiopian rite
of Abyssinia.
The greatest difficulty for the apostolate is constituted by the
opposition of the Monophysite clergy and of the Muslims. - See plate XXXVIII.
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Carlo Santi