Shanqella (Amharic: ሻንቅላ šanqəlla sometimes spelled Shankella, Shangella, Shánkala, Shankalla or Shangalla) is an exonym for a number of Nilotic ethnic groups that lived in the westernmost part of Ethiopia, but are known to have also inhabited more northerly areas until the late nineteenth century.
Historiography reports of ruler Iyasu I leading campaigns against "the Shanqella" on the north-western borders of his kingdom (in this case, the Kunama people).
The southwards expansion of ruler Menelik II, directed against Oromo and Kafa, and peoples further south, was also perceived as a campaign of submission of the Shanqella.
Consequently, folk paintings show them with drastically exaggerated features as brutish blacks following unholy rituals.
With the rise of the Derg in the 1970s, the establishment of new administrative structures inaugurated a second phase of forced cultural change, but also the final disappearance of the term "Shanqella" from Ethiopian discourse.