[1] Aba Gwangul's descendants came to control Begemder and parts of Wollo, and his heirs were Enderases (Regents) of the Ethiopian Empire and rulers of the Zemene Mesafint.
[2] The Scottish explorer James Bruce met him in 1770, and recorded a vivid description of this man in his account of travels in Ethiopia: [3] He was a little, thin, cross-made man, of no apparent strength or swiftness, as far as could be conjectured; his legs and thighs being thin and small for his body, and his head large; he was of a yellow, unwholesome colour, not black nor brown; he had long hair plaited and interwoven with the bowels of oxen, and so knotted and twisted together as to render it impossible to distinguish the hair from the bowels, which hung down in long strings, part before his bread and part behind his shoulder, the most extraordinary ringlets I had ever seen.
He had likewise, a wreath of guts hung about his neck, and several rounds of the fame about his middle, which served as a girdle, below which was a short cotton cloth dipt in butter, and all his body was wet, and running down with the same; he seemed to be about fifty years of age, with a confident and insolent superiority painted in his face.
The king, when he perceived him coming, was so struck with the whole figure and appearance, that he could not contain himself from an immoderate fit of laughter, which finding it impossible to stifle, he rose from his chair, and ran as hard as he could into another apartment behind the throne.
The savage got off from his cow at the door of the tent with all his tripes about him; and, while we were admiring him as a monster, seeing the king's seat empty, he took it for his own, and down he sat upon the crimson silk cushion, with the butter running from every part of him.