The virtue of patience
At three sharp, Richard and I kept our appointment with Shimelis Mazengia. The Politburo member first of all wanted to hear how our trips to Lake Tana and to Lake Zwai had gone. Had we been successful? Had we found anything out?
I replied that our discoveries on Tana Kirkos island – and the strange, archaic traditions that had been reported to us there – had had a profound effect on my thinking. I was now almost certain that this was the region to which the Ark of the Covenant had first been brought before being taken to Axum.
‘So you really believe that we have the Ark?’ Shimelis asked with a smile.
‘I’m increasingly confident of that. The evidence is building up …’ I hesitated, then turned his question back on him: ‘What do you think?’
‘I think there is something very special in the sanctuary at Axum. Not necessarily the Ark, mind you, but something very special. It is an ancient tradition. It cannot completely be ignored.’
I asked whether his government had ever made a determined effort to find out whether the sacred – and immensely valuable – relic was really there or not. The Workers’ Party of Ethiopia were Marxists, after all, and so presumably were not hampered by reactionary superstitions. It was only quite recently that they’d lost Axum to the TPLF. Prior to that, hadn’t they ever thought of taking a look?
‘We never for a moment considered it,’ Shimelis replied. ‘Never for a single moment … If we had tried to do something like that I think we would have had’ – he smiled ironically – ‘a revolution on our hands. Our people are very traditional, as you know, and there would have been an explosion if any government official had ever involved himself in such a matter.’
‘Do you think the TPLF have the same attitude?’ I asked. ‘Now that they control Axum, I mean.’
The Politburo member shrugged: ‘That is not for me to say. But they are not renowned for their religious sensitivities …’
I was a little hesitant about putting my next question, but did so anyway: ‘I’m sorry if this sounds impertinent,’ I said, ‘but I’ve got to ask. Is there any chance at all that your side is going to win the city back in the immediate future?’
‘Why do you ask?’
‘Because I’ve come to the conclusion that I’m going to have to go there myself. In fact I’d like to get there for the next Timkat celebrations.’
‘You mean this coming January?’
I nodded my head.
‘Impossible,’ said Shimelis flatly. ‘Besides, why be in such a hurry? If you are right, then the Ark has already been in our country for three millennia. In another year, two at the most, we will recapture Axum and when we do I think I can promise that you will be the first foreigner into the city. So be patient. You will get your chance.’
I had to admit that this was sound advice. In a country like Ethiopia patience was almost always a virtue. I was not prepared to wait two years, however. I therefore silently resolved to aim for Axum not in January 1990, but in January 1991. The confidence that Shimelis had shown had impressed me and I hoped very much that the sacred city would be back in government hands by then. Meanwhile, however – just as a precaution – I thought that I might also try to open up some dialogue with the TPLF. I had hitherto avoided the rebels but it now seemed to me that it might be in my interests to make some preliminary overtures in their direction.
I looked across the table at Shimelis. ‘You’re right of course,’ I said. ‘But would you mind if I asked you another favour?’
With an eloquent hand gesture, the Politburo member indicated that I should go ahead.
‘I’d still like to attend a Timkat ceremony,’ I continued, ‘and since Axum is obviously out of the question I was wondering whether I might be able to go to Gondar this January instead.’
Beside me Richard coughed politely. The city that I had just named was reportedly besieged by rebel forces and there had been rumours that it might fall any day.
‘Why Gondar?’ Shimelis asked.
‘Because it’s in the Lake Tana area – which, as I said, I’ve identified as being closely associated with the early history of the Ark in this country. And because I understand that many Falashas still live in and around Gondar. I remember passing through Jewish villages just north of the city way back in 1983, but I didn’t have a chance to carry out any proper interviews at that time. So what I’d like to do, if it’s OK with you, is kill two birds with one stone. I’d like to attend Timkat in Gondar. And while I’m there I’d like to carry out some research amongst the Falashas.’
‘It may be possible,’ replied Shimelis. ‘It depends on the military situation, but it may be possible. I shall look into it and let you know.’
Chapter 11
And David danced before the Ark …
On 18 and 19 January 1770 the Scottish adventurer James Bruce had quietly attended the Timkat ceremonials in Axum and, as outlined in Chapter 7, I believed that he had done so in order to get as close as possible to the Ark of the Covenant.
Exactly two hundred and twenty years later – on 18 and 19 January 1990 – I attended Timkat in the city of Gondar to the north of Lake Tana. Moreover, although I had not shared my true feelings with either Richard Pankhurst or with Shimelis Mazengia, I saw this trip as being of pivotal significance to my quest.
Immersed as I was in the great historical mystery that connected the Ark to Ethiopia, it had become clear to me that sooner or later, somehow or other, I was going to have to go back to Axum. I had resolved to try to make that hazardous visit in January 1991 – and to make it under the auspices of the rebels if necessary. I therefore saw Gondar as a crucial ‘dry run’: the closest point to Axum still in government hands, it was also, like Axum, a former capital of Ethiopia, an important historic site and a centre of religious learning. In such a setting, I reasoned, I might hope to prepare myself spiritually and psychologically for the real ordeal that lay ahead, to familiarize myself with aspects of the same arcane rituals that Bruce must have witnessed in 1770, to gather such intelligence as I could, and to quicken my commitment to the quest.
This, however, was not the only voice within me. Other, less steadfast thoughts also passed through my mind and I could see the possibility of a different outcome. If, for example, I were to discover anything at Gondar which cast serious doubt on the legitimacy of Ethiopia’s claim to be the last resting place of the Ark then might I not – with honour – abandon my plan to go to Axum in 1991?
This was a disturbing but oddly seductive notion to which I found myself increasingly attracted as the date of the Gondar trip approached. That trip itself was for a while in doubt – indeed it was not until 8 January 1990 that I finally received a telex from Shimelis confirming that the necessary permission had been obtained from the military authorities.
Riddles to solve
I knew that I could expect a central feature of the Timkat ceremonies to be the carrying in procession of the tabotat – the symbols or replicas of the Ark of the Covenant normally kept in the Holy of Holies of every Ethiopian church. Of course in Gondar I would not see the object which the Ethiopians claimed to be the Ark itself (since there was no suggestion that it had ever been lodged there). What I would see, however, was an event otherwise identical in character that was regarded as the supreme festival of the Ethiopian Orthodox calendar.
I had been aware for some time that Timkat meant ‘Epiphany’ – a holy day associated by the western church with the manifestation of Christ to the Gentiles.1 Epiphany, however, had an entirely different significance amongst eastern Christians, for whom it commemorated the Baptism of Christ.2 I had established that the Ethiopians were in complete agreement with the rest of the eastern church on this latter point, but that they diverged radically from the norm when it came to the specific rituals employed.3 In particular, their use of the tabot was unique to them, unparalleled in any other culture and unrecognized even by the Coptic Patriarchate in Alexandria4 (which had supplied Eth
iopia with all its archbishops from the date of the conversion of the Axumite kingdom in AD 331 until autocephaly was achieved in 19595).
Against this background I felt that close observation of the Timkat rituals and of the role of the tabotat within them might help me to fathom what I had long since come to regard as the central paradox of Ethiopian Christianity – namely its infiltration, indeed domination, by a pre-Christian relic: the Ark of the Covenant.
This, however, was not my sole purpose in making the trip to Gondar. While there I also intended to talk to Falashas living in the environs of the city.
I had already mentioned this to Shimelis and he had not objected – for the simple reason that much had changed since my previous visit to the area in 1983. Then, driving north from Gondar into the Simien mountains, official policy had made it almost impossible to do any serious work amongst the black Jews: their villages had been effectively out of bounds and there had been no opportunity to observe their customs or to carry out proper interviews.
This repressive state of affairs had been swept away in November 1989 when, after a sixteen-year break, Addis Ababa and Jerusalem had restored diplomatic relations. At the heart of this agreement was a commitment on Ethiopia’s part to allow the Falashas – all the Falashas – to emigrate to Israel. By then, anyway, there were few enough left – probably no more than 15,000.6 All the others had died during the famines of the mid-1980s or had already fled clandestinely to Israel via refugee camps in the Sudan (from which, during 1984/5 alone, the airlift known as ‘Operation Moses’ had taken more than 12,000 to safety7).
The net effect of all this, by January 1990, was that the number of Ethiopian Jews was dwindling fast. In the three months since the restoration of diplomatic relations some 3,000 of them had left the country. Many more had deserted their villages and flocked to Addis Ababa hoping for an early place on the planes out. Inexorable and unstoppable, this latter-day Exodus was gathering pace, and I could see that very soon not a single Falasha would be left in Ethiopia. Thereafter, of course, it would still be possible to interview them and research their folklore and traditions in the Promised Land. This, however, would almost certainly be the last year in which it would be possible to get any impression at all of their traditional life in its traditional surroundings.
I was determined not to miss this chance: the riddle of how there had ever come to be Jews – indigenous, black Jews – in the heart of Ethiopia was intimately connected to the enigma of the Holy Ark; solve one, I felt, and I would solve the other.
Neither were the Falashas the only ethnic group of interest to me in the Gondar area. In the week of research that I had done just prior to my departure from England I had turned up an intriguing reference to another people – a people known as the Qemant who were described as ‘Hebraeo-Pagans’ in the single anthropological paper written about them.8 Published in 1969 by an American scholar named Frederick Gamst, this obscure monograph observed that:
The Hebraism found among the Qemant is an ancient form unaffected by Hebraic religious change of the past two millennia. This Hebraism is dominant in the religion of the Falasha, neighbours of the Qemant … sometimes called ‘the black Jews of Ethiopia’.9
I had hitherto been completely unaware of the Qemant and was therefore intrigued by Gamst’s suggestion that their religion contained ancient ‘Hebraic’ elements. This, I felt, was a matter that obviously merited further investigation since it might help to shed light on the antiquity of Judaic influence in Ethiopia – and also on the pervasiveness of that influence.
The One God and the fetish tree
In his study of the Qemant Gamst had mentioned that he had been befriended by a religious leader who had helped him enormously with his field work in the 1960s. The name of this dignitary, I knew, was Muluna Marsha and his title was Wambar (a word meaning ‘High Priest’ in the Qemant language). In the short time available, it seemed to me that my best strategy would be to try to locate this man (whom Gamst had described as a mine of information) and to interview him about the religious beliefs of his people. I could not be sure, however, whether he would still be alive after so many years – or even whether I would be able to find any Qemant still adhering to the traditional Hebraeo-Pagan faith (since there had been less than five hundred of them in Gamst’s time10).
After my arrival in Gondar on Wednesday 17 January I discussed this worry with the officials who came to meet me at the airport and was told that there were a very few Qemant – now mostly elderly – who continued to adhere to the old religion. Feelers were then put out, radio messages were sent to Party cadres in remote areas, and, on Thursday the 18th, I got the good news that the Wambar was still alive. His home village, apparently, was inaccessible by road but it was thought possible that he might be persuaded to come to an intermediate point – Aykel, about two hours’ drive due west of Gondar. The journey, furthermore, would almost certainly be safe: in recent fighting the rebels had been pushed back and the western region into which we would be going was considered to be secure during daylight hours.
Timkat, which I shall describe later in this chapter, took up all of my attention for the rest of Thursday and all of Friday. Early in the afternoon of Saturday 20 January, however, I was finally able to set off for Aykel in the Toyota Landcruiser that the Party had put at my disposal. In addition to the driver, I was accompanied by Legesse Desta – the young and enthusiastic official who was acting as my interpreter – and by two dour soldiers armed with Kalashnikov assault rifles.
As we bumped along the rough, graded track through glowing fields and golden-brown hills I studied the Michelin map of the Horn of Africa that I now took everywhere with me. I was interested to note that our destination lay not far from the headwaters of the Atbara river which rose about fifty miles to the north-west of Lake Tana and flowed from there into the Sudan, where it was eventually joined by the Takazze before merging with the Nile just above the Fifth Cataract.
Because it passed so close to Tana Kirkos, and because it was specifically mentioned in the Kebra Nagast, the Takazze itself still looked to me like the strongest contender for the route of the Ark. Nevertheless it was clear from the map that travellers following the Atbara would also have arrived in this same general area. I considered the implications of this and then remarked in my journal:
The rivers are roads through the desert. In the case of Ethiopia all these ‘roads’ – whether the Takazze, the Atbara, or the Blue Nile – seem to lead to Lake Tana. The Falashas (and their relatives the ‘Hebraeo-Pagan’ Qemant) have always lived in precisely this area and are indigenous Ethiopians – natives of this country. Since their Judaism (or ‘Hebraism’ as Gamst prefers to call it) is a foreign element in their culture, it is logical to deduce that it must have been imported along the rivers.
As we drove into Aykel we were met by a group of local Party officials who told us that Wambar Muluna Marsha had arrived some time ago and was waiting for us. We were then taken to a large, circular hut with a high beehive-shaped roof and ushered into the cool semi-darkness within. Thin shafts of sunlight fell through gaps in the wattle-and-daub, highlighting motes of dust that hung suspended in the air. From the newly brushed earth floor there arose a loamy fragrance complicated by a faint note of sandalwood.
The Wambar, as I had expected, was an elderly man. He had evidently dressed up for this occasion since he was wearing a white turban, white ceremonial robes and a fine black cape. Seated on one of the several chairs that had been arranged inside the hut, he stood graciously as we came in and, after the necessary introductions had been made, shook my hand warmly.
Speaking through the interpreter he immediately asked: ‘Do you work with Mr Gamst?’
I had to admit that I did not. ‘But,’ I added, ‘I’ve read the book that he wrote about your people. That’s why I’m here. I’m very interested in learning about your religion.’
The Wambar smiled rather mournfully. As he did so I noticed that one tooth, disconcertingly
long, grew down from the left side of his upper jaw and protruded tusk-like over his lower lip. ‘Our religion’, he said, ‘has become a thing of the past. Almost nobody practises it today. The Qemant are now Christians.’
‘But you yourself are not a Christian …?’
‘No. I am the Wambar. I still follow the old ways.’
‘And are there others like you?’
‘A few remain.’ That smile again. Then, slyly and somewhat paradoxically: ‘Even those who say they are Christians have not entirely abandoned their former beliefs. The sacred groves are still tended … The sacrifices are still made.’ A pause for thought, a shake of the old, grizzled head, a sigh: ‘But things are changing … Always there is change …’
‘You said “sacred groves”. What did you mean by that?’
‘Our worship, if it is conducted as it should be, takes place in the open air. And we prefer to make our devotions amongst trees. For this purpose we have set aside special groves called degegna.’
I put several more questions on this subject and established that there were in fact two kinds of groves. Some – the degegna themselves – were used for annual ceremonies. They had first been planted in the distant past when the founder of the Qemant religion was shown the correct locations in his dreams. In addition there were other much smaller sacred sites – called qole – which often consisted of only a single tree where a particularly powerful spirit was believed to reside. These qole were normally situated in high places. As it happened there was one on the outskirts of Aykel which I could see if I liked.
The Sign and the Seal Page 27