Makeda searches for her Seminole Ancestors

From the outset it was a spiritual sojourn.  When I contemplated the gravitas of the event, the inauguration of Barrack Oboma as the 44^th President of the United States of America, a land that once enslaved people like him, I knew I had to be somewhere special to mark the occasion with symbolic significance.   For one thing was certain: There would never again be a day like this if I lived another hundred years! 

The fact that Frederick Douglass was easily as smart as Abraham Lincoln, and a far better speaker, yet he was also a slave, and even when he was no longer a slave he was in constant danger of being re-enslaved until the nation erupted in war, makes the election of Barack Hussien Obama even sweeter for African Americans.  The source of this satisfaction lay in the fact that we always knew we were qualified to do anything human beings do…in spite of how hard the white folks tried to convince us otherwise.  

It was obviously the biggest story I would ever come across in my writing life, and the most inspirational story a generation of American youths had seen, or were likely to see, and I wanted to try and help my progeny understand the full measure of the event that was unfolding.   Yet it soon became clear to me that while my younger daughter, Makeda, rejoiced at the election of our nation’s first African American President, and that the lovely brilliant Michele is now America’s First Lady, these events did not mean the same thing to her that they meant to me.  It was a generational thing.   

While Makeda and her twin brother Samori have a sense of history, and thus understand on the intellectual level the significance of President Obama’s ascension to the most powerful office in the world, they never doubted that he would win because he was so obviously the best qualified candidate.   People of my generation, white and black, were not persuaded by this fact, because we had seen too many highly qualified black people passed over in favor of whites with inferior credentials. This unbridled optimism expressed by my progeny is the result of them having attended school and competed with whites in the class room and the athletic fields and held their own. 

Furthermore, they had also gone to schools that emphasized academic achievement and were staffed by progressive teachers who were overwhelmingly white, yet they never experienced any racism from them.  In fact they were more often than not the teacher’s pets.    Makeda and Samori also got on fabulously with their multi-racial school mates, and white parents who wanted their children to have diverse friends often sought them out as the preferred playmates for their children because they were just the kind of well scrubbed, well behaved, bright black kids that white parents found ideal.  They both graduated from the prestigious Beacon School – the same high school that Governor Patterson proudly announced that his son had been admitted to in his inaugural address – both were two sport athletes and also graduated with honors in science and the humanities.   Furthermore Samori was voted captain of the fencing and baseball teams…and he was the only black kid on either team. 

While Samori opted  to attend a black college, Makeda attended a big white  private university where she was a Division I sprinter competing in the 100 and 200 meter races, a choreographer and principal dancer in a university dance company, plus a Science Merit Scholar and a Dean List student. Makeda got the loudest applause at graduation ceremonies when it was announced that she had been admitted to graduate school at the elite Columbia University; and the Dean of the School of Health Sciences personally told me and her mother what a wonderful student she had been.  

Hence Makeda has successfully competed against whites in a number of endeavors – among the best and the brightest too – and her identity as an African American woman is a source of pride.  Like the poet Langston Hughes, she gloried in her blackness.  And the fact that the actor Samuel L. Jackson, was once her baby sitter; Trumpet master Wynton Marsalis, writer/McArthur Fellow Stanley Crouch, and Harvard biologist S. Alan Counter were friends of her daddy’s, all contributed to the notion that anything was possible if you were talented and worked hard enough.   And the election of Barack adds an exclamation point!

 However as Makeda began to explore the dance traditions of the Spanish and French speaking African Diaspora in the Americas, and compared them to African traditions in dance and drumming, she discovered a much lager input from the cultural inventories of Native Americans than she had expected.   And as she performed more and more with dance companies that specialized in the dance traditions of the African Diaspora, the more her colleagues would inquire about her Native American ancestry -  which was obvious to Latin Americans from her facial features.  She heard this so often that she began to research her family for evidence of Amerindian ancestry. 

 Makeda and the Great Seminole War Chief Osceola

Members Of the Same Tribe?

 When her research revealed that she has a Native American great grandmother, a grandfather with a Seminole surname, and several other Native American ancestors,  it set her off on an intellectual  quest to uncover her Native American roots and honor them as distinguished ancestors  just as I she has honored her African ancestors.  However, Makeda is a serious intellectual with an encyclopedic approach to gathering data on  subjects of interest to her.  Her detective work in uncovering her Native American ancestry has led Makeda to interrogate her parents and other family members about our shadowy Native American kinsmen.

Makeda’s research into the genocide against Native Americans by the European invaders has left her contemptuous of white America’s claim to ownership of this bountiful land.  And the more she learns about the myriad ways in which Native Americans extended a helping hand to African slaves in the US, including intermarrying, the deeper her disdain for the indifference that Afro-Americans show to the present plight of Native Americans, as well as our Native American heritage, which she authoritatively points out is stronger in many black Americans than the African heritage  we celebrate.   This she can demonstrate from the perspectives of physical and cultural anthropology.

Her study of the dispossession of Native Americans led Makeda to argue in a graduate school paper, written in reply to a query about the disappearing family farm due to the onslaught of massive corporate farms associated with agri-business: “I have no sympathy for the white farmers who are being forced off their land by agri-business; now they have some small idea of what the native Americans suffered as a result of the wholesale theft of their lands, which, having no concept of private property, the willingly shared with the European settlers.  As a descendent of enslaved Africans and Native Americans who were the victims of genocide, I do not recognize the rights of whites to fertile American farm lands anymore than black South Africans recognize the claims of white farmers to their land, which they stole under the oppressive racist laws of apartheid and now wish to keep.”  

 Since St. Augustine Florida is the first European settlement in North America, there is a rich historical record of how the European invaders dealt with the Native Americans – whom they called “Indians.”  There are primary documents from the Spanish era in the city’s historical archives, and there is the massive Castillo de San Marcos which dominates the downtown skyline.  Ever since I was a boy I heard the apocryphal dramatic escape of Chief Osceola from a prison cell where he was imprisoned by white Americans.  The wily and fearless chief is said to have starved himself until he became thin enough to escape through a sky light  in the massive stone wall.   I was moved by the story when my grandfather first told it to me, and my daughter is just as fascinated with the tale today. 

When we visited the Castillo it was a moving experience; Makeda read every word posted about Native Americans, especially the Seminoles with whom she shares ancestry.   This was her spiritual journey, a foray back into the blood stained history that shaped the character of our nation.  Thus when she entered the prison cell of Osceola it was a metaphysical experience, and she offered a silent libation to his heroic resistance against the enslavers of Africans and slaughterers of Native Americans. 

Makeda in the prison of Osceola

 Standing silently under the portal where Grand Dad said Osceola escaped

The evidence of these massive crimes against humanity is everywhere here in St. Augustine, where the dispossession and genocide against the Native Americans began.  Just a few blocks from the Castilio stands the old slave market, where her African Ancestors were sold like live stock, and the evidence of genocide against the native peoples of this land is ubiquitous in street markers and exhibits.  She even taught me a thing or two about the relationships between Africans and Native Americans right here in St. Augustine, and I’m a former history professor.  For instance, due to her sharp powers of observation Makeda spotted the marker announcing that the African American community that I grew up in – which was originally known as “Little Africa” but was renamed “Lincolnville” after the Civil War in honor of the “Great Emancipator” – was originally a Native American community. 

This sign Speaks volumes

The Evidence of Things Unseen!

I had never known this bit of St. Augustine’s story, and to tell the truth, I had never thought about it; nor had I ever heard anybody else in the African American community talk about.  This is just the sort of silence and ignorance that so annoys Makeda: and justly so. However it was the exhibits at the Castilio and the primary documents from the era of Spanish rule in the historical archives of St. Augustine that interested Makeda the most.  Armed with and inspired by an unusual combination of intellectual interests and skills – dancer, scientist, athlete, writer – her main problem intellectually has been to find an area of study that can accommodate her diverse interests.  She seems to have found it in the field of Medical Anthropology, in which she is presently preparing to pursue a PhD program.  Her main interests is in the traditional healing practices of non-European peoples – the rest of the world – and what they can teach the conventionally trained western scientist about the healing arts.  

A voracious reader of scientific treatises, Makeda can rattle off a dizzying array of scientific studies extolling the wisdom of traditional cultures in the uses of medicinal plants and spiritual rituals in maintaining the physical and emotional health of the populace. And she convincingly argues that the decimation of the Native American population has as much to do with the spiritual death that occurred when their cultural rituals were suppressed and denied them – their music, dance and religious practices – as the physical slaughters that attended their relations with whites.  In the exhibits on display in the Castilio, Makeda found solid evidence for her hypothesis, especially the exhibit on the tribes from the western plains who were brought to the Castillo as prisoners of war.

A memorial to the plains tribesmen

Some of the prisoners who were once free men in the “Wild West”

 Faces of the Damned

 The texts that accompany the images above tell how the United States government systematically removed these “Braves” from their homelands because they led the resistance against the dispossession of their people by the European invaders.  The Native Americans never really had a chance because they were still in the Paleolithic period, where hunting and gathering cultures were the norm;  alas they were facing the onslaught of a culture that was already in the modern industrial age.  

 Furthermore, the US government had perfected the techniques of modern warfare – which they practically invented during the American Civil War that had only recently concluded.  Yet there was no way for these warriors of the Great Plains to know that the wagon trains bearing the murderous “palefaces” would not stop coming because they were only the advance guard of an expanding predatory civilization.  Hence in spite of their bravery, the Native Americans never had a chance.   That’s why we have records of the phenomenon of “ghost dancing” that was widely observed among the tribes of the Great Plains.  It was their attempt to communicate with the spirits of their slaughtered kinsmen.  In the exhibit at the Castillo there are drawings done by prisoners that are the counter-part of ghost dancing expressed as graphic art.   Both rituals represent a deep feeling of loss created by a people who had lost everything of value to them in the last days of the genocide.

The caption explaining the meaning of the drawings

Aftermath of the Genocide

The things that intrigued Makeda most was those texts that told of the intricate and far flung trade networks established by Native Americans, which showed them to be intelligent people who were capable of building a self-sustaining culture, and thus exposes the rationale for the European policy of dispossession and genocide  against them as nothing more than transparent racist apologia, what Fredrick Douglass eloquently labeled a thin veil of hypocrisy designed to camouflage “practices that would disgrace a nation of savages!”   Hence to Makeda’s mind it was the European invaders that were the real savages.  They were the one’s who destroyed the lives, homes and culture of a people who had received them as brothers and helped them survive in the wilderness of North America.  And everything she learned from her research in the ancient city supplied compelling evidence for her thesis.

 Rummaging through the archives

 In search the truth about her ancestors

 Since she was scheduled to perform with a Haitian dance troupe at the inaugural ball hosted by “Haitians for Oboma” in Washington, it was virtually impossible to get her out of the Castillio, as she tried to soak up all the knowledge she could in the short period of time, and since she is in great condition and full of energy – intellectual and physical, she nearly wore me out.  Given Makeda’s scholarly interests, she will pay many more visits too the Ancient city, where so much of her family history is rooted.

*****************

Text, Photos and videos by: Playthell Benjamin

St. Augustine Florida

January 2009

*Note: 2, 417 words

First of all, thank you all so much for your advice and input on self hosting.  I’m not sure yet what I’m going to do, but it will probably take me awhile to get it done since I want to do my research first.  NERD ALERT!

In other news, I went somewhere pretty incredible the other day that I really wanted to be able to share with all of you.  For months, my brother has been bugging us all to try Ethiopian food.  Being a fairly adventurous eater, I was definitely up for it, but I seemed to be the only one.  Solomon just didn’t want to, and when we were home with my parents, my father didn’t want to go anywhere where he had to eat with his hands!  Recently, my parents went with my brother and his girlfriend to an Ethiopian restaurant near Rutgers that they all loved (and yes, my dad ate with his hands!).  I was, of course, super jealous that they had all gone, and I didn’t get to try it!  So since I have been home, my mom and I decided to go for lunch this week.

The restaurant is called Makeda, which was the name for the Ethiopian Queen of Sheba.  The restaurant has a very urban feel, but still manages to feel traditional.  We chose to sit at a small, low table in the front.  Each one was different, and looked to be handmade.

Even though it was lunch, we decided to try some honey wine.  This was kind of thick, and very sweet!  I usually don’t like sweet wines, but this was different, since it paired so nicely with the food.  Surprisingly, one glass was really strong, and we were both feeling it by the end of lunch!

For lunch, we chose to do the lunch special, so we could sample several foods.  I went with the vegetarian option, and my mom chose the meat option.  She only chose one meat dish though, so I was able to try everything else.  Here is what we got:

Doro Tibs – Boneless spices of chicken sautéed with an Ethiopian herb sauce awaze sauce, hot peppers and onion

Atakilt Wat – Fresh green beans carrot potatoes green peppers cabbage and onions sautéed with garlic ginger and tomatoes

Makeda’s Ethiopian Tossed Salad – assortment of green salad tossed with special dressing.

Kik Alicha – Yellow Split peas cooked and flavored with green paper, onion and Ethiopian herb.

Mesir Wat - Lentils cooked with chopped onion, garlic, olive oil and mild berebere sauce.

FitFit – Finely chopped tomatoes, onion, and jalapeno peppers, combined with Ethiopian spices and then tossed with a bit of injera.

I was completely surprised to like everything!  I’m not usually a terribly picky eater, but I do have my moments, and I thought trying Ethiopian would be one of them.  My favorites were the Atakilt Aat and the FitFit.  The Atakilt Wat seemed to be a very fall dish, and was nice and hearty.  The FitFit was sweet, and so different from anything I have ever tasted.  It was very lemony, but not at all overpowering.

All of the food came served on one tray, on a GIANT piece of injera, which is an Ethiopian bread that is very pancake-like.  The meal also comes with sides of injera, for eating with.  All you do is take a piece, and use it to scoop up some of the food!  You can also rip it straight off of the plate, so you get a lot of flavor from whatever was sitting on top of the bread.  The bread was amazing, with a soft, doughy texture.  It freaked me out a little at first, since it looked like tripe, but once I got past that, I couldn’t get enough!

This was an amazing meal, and I can’t wait to have Ethiopian food again, and to drag Solomon to it, because I know he would really like it.  If you have ever had any interest in trying Ethiopian food, DO IT!  It’s so good!

Have you ever tried something you thought you wouldn’t like that you ended up loving?  What is your favorite kind of “ethnic” food?  I really enjoy Thai food, it seems to satisfy all of my cravings somehow!

P.S.  Here’s a preview of our entry for the Chocolate Adventure Contest

P.P.S. Don’t forget to enter Allison’s Vega giveaway!

Me he encontrado con varios ingenieros de sonido con una gran experiencia como ingenieros de sala de artistas reconocidos a nivel nacional e internacional, todos ellos concuerdan en que mezclar Reggae en vivo es una de las mejores escuelas para un ingeniero de sonido, ya que este es en genero que maneja dinámicas  complejas basadas en su sección rítmica y el bajo, ademas se manejan formatos grandes, con secciones de vientos, percusiones, coros, teclados, lo que hace a una mezcla mas extensa y en la que hay que darle espacio a cada instrumento en términos de ecualización y espacialidad. En mi experiencia particular como Ingeniero de Sala con bandas de reggae colombianas como Profetas, Makeda, Alto Grado Colombia, The Klaxon, entre otras, debo decir que ha sido la mejor escuela para mi en el sonido en vivo, cada día se aprenden cosas nuevas, y se mejoran otras, en un proceso que lleva pocos años pero que cada día se va alimentando de experiencias y enseñanzas buscando llegar a niveles muy profesionales.

Aquí les dejos unos muy buenos vídeos de bandas de reggae en vivo, con un muy buen sonido, particularmente me gusta mas una mezcla que las otras.. pero son muy buenos ejemplos.

]]> http://ayannanahmias.com/2009/09/22/tewdros-kasshun-teddy-afro/ Tue, 22 Sep 2009 08:03:31 +0000 Ayanna Nahmias http://ayannanahmias.com/2009/09/22/tewdros-kasshun-teddy-afro/ http://ayannanahmias.com/2009/09/11/ethiopian-new-year/ Fri, 11 Sep 2009 19:02:35 +0000 Ayanna Nahmias http://ayannanahmias.com/2009/09/11/ethiopian-new-year/ http://cnekez.wordpress.com/2009/07/19/makeda-les-nubians/ Sun, 19 Jul 2009 20:20:51 +0000 cnekez http://cnekez.wordpress.com/2009/07/19/makeda-les-nubians/

the eastern & oriental orthodox churches are on a different calendar, and therefore celebrate easter today.  this video is of an ethiopian orthodox tewahedo easter celebration.  you don’t need to understand what they’re saying, b/c the visual is so interesting.  the ethiopian church is incredibly interesting, a very unique form of christianity that is very rooted in the early centuries of the christian faith, and actually in the judaic tradition that preceded that due to the connection between the ethiopian people and king solomon (ethiopia is commonly referred to as kush and abyssinia in the bible).  solomon was married to makeda, the queen of sheba, and through their union came a lineage that went right up to emperor haile selassie I.  many ethiopians continue to practice their own unique brand of judaism today, known as beta israel or the falashas or habesha, and though israel tried to rescind their stance that all jewish people in the world can have citizenship in israel based on the fact that these were black africans, they have been granted the right and most live in israel today.  the majority of ethiopians accepted the christian faith, however, but kept the judaic roots.  in fact, it is believed that the ark of the covenant resides in ethiopia today.  the ethiopian bible also includes two books that are not in any other bible, the book of enoch and the book of jubilees.  it truly is an incredibly interesting form of christianity, one that bob marley acutally accepted prior to his death (arguments wage over whether or not this meant he rejected rastafarianism, but the fact that he had an ethiopian orthodox funeral means he was baptized into the church).  if i could speak the language, i’d join

in alto sculture yemenite III millennio a.C

Donna di leggendaria bellezza secondo la cultura araba preislamica.

La tradizione ebraico-cristiana la degradò a demone dal piede caprino.

di Simona Maggiorelli

Una lunghissima e feroce storia di alterazione dell’immagine perseguita la Regina di Saba: donna di leggendaria bellezza e sapienza secondo la cultura preislamica araba, che la tradizione ebraico-cristiana degradò a demone dal piede caprino. Mentre i Vangeli di Matteo e Luca ne fecero addirittura un’astratta allegoria della Chiesa in cerca di Cristo. Una storia feroce e millenaria, più subdola di una damnatio memorie. Tanto che se ne possono ancora cogliere segni nella mostra veneziana Nigra sum sed formosa che, presentando in Ca’ Foscari reperti archeologici e testi antichi provenienti dall’Etiopia, ascrive tout court la regina di Saba alla tradizione copta, facendone la “madre santa” della stirpe salomonide che sarebbe arrivata fino al Negus.
«Di lei non sappiamo con piena certezza né il nome né l’epoca in cui visse, anche se la comunità scientifica oggi è concorde nel dire che la leggendaria regina di Saba sia esistita davvero» scrive Daniela Magnetti nel volume La regina di Saba, arte e leggenda dallo Yemen (Electa). Conosciuta come Bilqis in Yemen, Makeda in Etiopia e Nikaulis in Palestina, gli storici collocano il regno della regina di Saba in quell’Arabia felix che i Romani tentarono invano di conquistare; e più precisamente in quella città di Marib, che nel Nord dello Yemen fu abbandonata intorno al 570 d. C, dopo il crollo della diga che la preservava dal deserto. Non a caso nelle storie della tradizione orale yemenita Bilqis è la regina adoratrice del Sole, signora di una terra fertile di giardini e fontane. E un autorevole studioso come Alessandro de Maigret oggi conferma: “In base alle campagne di scavo, condotte fin dal 1980 in Yemen, si può datare il regno di Saba al decimo secolo avanti Cristo”: la regina Bilqis, spiega l’archeologo italiano, probabilmente favorì la trasformazione dell’altopiano in terre fertili grazie a complessi sistemi di irrigazione.
Oggi dell’antichissima città di Marib dove sorgeva il palazzo reale dei sabei non restano che suggestivi ruderi. Una città fantasma alle soglie del deserto, terra di beduini ma anche, purtroppo, di sequestri di turisti. Per percorrere i 120 km che separano la capitale Sana’a da Marib serve la scorta di militari armati e un faticoso percorso a tappe fra i posti di blocco. Anche per questo, forse, vedere d’un tratto le svettanti colonne del tempio del Sole, su cui si arrampicano ragazzini che sembrano usciti dal nulla, è un’emozione che difficilmente si dimentica.

Ed è qui, in uno dei due templi della regina di Saba che Omar, un po’ guida un po’ cantastorie della tradizione yemenita, ci ha fatto conoscere la storia di Bilqis secondo una delle versioni islamiche più suggestive, quella di Ta’labi, commentatore del Corano, vissuto intorno al 1053. Come nelle storie tramandate oralmente dai beduini, la sua Bilqis nasce dalle nozze del re Hadhad con la figlia del re dei Jiinn, che nelle credenze arabe popolari erano creature dai poteri soprannaturali. Secondo questa versione l’incontro fra la regina e Salomone sarebbe stato un gioco di inviti attraverso un upupa messaggera e di seduzioni da parte della bella regina. Ma, diversamente da quanto racconta la Bibbia, per la tradizione araba, quello fra Bilqis e Salomone sarebbe stato un confronto alto fra due diverse identità e due diverse culture e sapienze. “Bilquis – racconta il nostro Omar sulla scorta di Ta’labi – sfidò la sapienza leggendaria di Salomone, il re di Gerusalemme,mettendosi in viaggio verso la sua reggia con una carovana di cammelli che portavano oro, pietre preziose e gioielli poi donati al re da ragazzi vestiti come fanciulle e viceversa. Ma – avverte Omar – c’era un enigma che, agli occhi di Bilqis, Salomone doveva sapere sciogliere: per raggiungere il suo cuore doveva distinguere le ancelle femmine dai maschi, forare una splendida perla e infilare un fio d’oro nella conchiglia». Una storia che avrebbe affascinato nei secoli poeti e artisti, non solo nei Paesi arabi. Anche in Occidente. Basta pensare ai ritratti della regina di Saba che ci hanno lasciato pittori come Piero della Francesca, Tintoretto e Moreau (nella foto in basso) . «Una vicenda affascinante- conclude de Maigret – anche se sul piano della storia quell’incontro probabilmente non avvenne mai dal momento che il regno del re di Gerusalemme fu tra 961 e il 922 a.C ,mentre quello della regina di Saba fu assai più antico».

da left-Avvenimenti del 3 aprile 2009

My friend is annoyed at me. I sent him a letter quite a while ago to his friend but he hasn’t got it yet, and neither has his friend. Has the World Food Crisis hit the posties? I thought postage was the last to go, you know.

And, there are too many flaming World Crisises at the moment. It angers me to the core and I’m sick of hearing of them. Can’t we have World Solutions? Actually we do, but we’re too damned lazy to use them!

Well, right at the minute I am just watching cartoons on YouTube to forget about it.

But one thing remains- I still like Ethiopia, Italy, New Zealand and any other place I find cool.

ITYOPYAWINET

Just to relax you after a hard day at work or lots of political thought.

Een team archeologen van de universiteit van Hamburg zeggen in Axum het paleis van de koningin van Sheba en een altaar te hebben ontdekt.

Bovenop de structuur van het paleis dat dateert van de 10^de eeuw v.Chr., zou later een nieuw paleis zijn gebouwd, zegt de universiteit in een verklaring. Het altaar zou mogelijks ooit de Ark des Verbonds – de grootste schat van het vroege Judaïsme – hebben geherbergd tot de bouw van de eerste tempel in Axum. Bovendien is het altaar georiënteerd naar de ster Sirius.

“De bijzondere betekenis van dit altaar moet over de eeuwen heen zijn overgeleverd,” zegt de verklaring, “te zien aan de vele offers die rond deze plek zijn gevonden.”

Volgens het Oude Testament droeg god Mozes op de Ark des Verbonds te maken, een doos van acaciahout, belegd met goud. De doos zou de tabletten met de Tien Geboden hebben bevat. De Ark werd nog volgens het Oude Testament eeuwenlang bewaard in Jeruzalem. Wat er gebeurde met de Ark toen Jeruzalem werd veroverd door de Babyloniërs in de 6^de eeuw v.Chr., is onbekend. De Ethiopische christenen beweren dat de Ark veel eerder Jeruzalem heeft verlaten, al gedurende de regering van koning Salomo (10^de eeuw v. Chr.) en naar Ethiopië werd gebracht, waar het reliek sindsdien wordt bewaard. Deze theorie werd onderzocht door de Britse auteur Graham Hancock in “The Sign and the Seal”.

Het Hamburgse onderzoeksteam onder leiding van Helmut Ziegert onderzoekt al negen jaar de oorsprong van de Ethiopische staat en de Ethiopische Koptische kerk. Het doel van het veldwerk was uit te vissen hoe het Judaïsme in de 10^de eeuw v.Chr. in Ethiopië voet aan de grond kreeg. De onderzoekers wilden bovendien aanwijzingen vinden voor de huidige locatie van de Ark des Verbonds.

Het paleis dat bovenop de woonst van de koningin van Sheba werd gebouwd is ook gericht naar de ster Sirius, zegt de verklaring. De onderzoekers vermoeden dat het tweede paleis gebouwd werd door Menelik, die volgens de legende de zoon was van de koningin van Sheba en koning Salomo. De resultaten van het Hamburgse team geven volgens de universiteit aan dat een cultus ter ere van de ster Sirius samen met het Judaïsme en de Ark des Verbonds naar Ethiopië kwam, een religie die zou zijn beoefend tot ongeveer 600 n.Chr.

© Bloomberg, Catherine Hickley, 08.05.08 (kdg)

Les Nubians – Makeda

Another group that sold like crazy when I was working at Kemp Mill Music.

Barbie verbleekt bij de gracieuze Makeda, een collectoritem op de markt gebracht door Ethidolls®. Het bedrijf maakt trouwens niet zomaar gewoon poppen, maar wil de kinderen ook nog iets bijbrengen over geschiedenis, tradities en culturele diversiteit. Makeda (bij ons beter bekend als de koningin van Sheba) is de eerste in de rij van poppen naar Afrikaanse koninklijke figuren.

EthiDolls® werd in 2003 opgericht in New York City en werkt momenteel aan een tweede pop die nog dit jaar op de markt komt. “We willen bijdragen tot de groeiende groep Afro-Amerikaanse families die op zoek gaat naar het [Afrikaanse] erfgoed en opnieuw aansluiting zoekt bij culturele tradities,” zegt Salome Yilma, algemeen directeur van EthiDolls®. Zij werkte samen met ondervoorzitter Yeworkwoha Ephrem aan het concept en het ontwerp van Makeda. Beide vrouwen zijn New Yorkse ondernemers van Ethiopische afkomst. Ze plannen nog een hele reeks belangrijke figuren uit de Afrikaanse geschiedenis en mythologie in popvorm uit te brengen. Het bedrijf wil kinderen laten kennis maken met de rijke historische culturele erfenis van Afrika en hoopt hiermee kinderen met Afrikaanse roots trots en zelfvertrouwen mee te geven.

De pop is – zoals een koningin past – rijkelijk versierd. Ze is gehuld in fijne stoffen, draagt vergulde juwelen en een tatoeage siert haar nek. Er komt heel wat handwerk kijken bij het vervaardigen van de Makeda-pop. De fijne stoffen van de traditioneel Ethiopische jurk worden vervaardigd in Ethiopië en een deel van de winst gaat naar liefdadigheidsorganisaties.

Goedkoop is ze niet. De pop kost $139 (± € 95) exclusief verzendingskosten. Maar voor die prijs krijgt de koper ook een boekje en een CD, waarin het verhaal van Makeda en haar legendarische bezoek aan koning Salomon uit de doeken wordt gedaan.

©EMM, Katrien De Graeve, 19.02.08

http://www.oneworldmagazine.org/focus/etiopia/women.html
by Rita Pankhurst
 

“Highly placed Ethiopian women, who combined worldliness, politics and religion are seen again and again in Ethiopian history. Rita Pankhurst recalls how women have been as important and influential as any man.”

Lucy, alias Dinknesh – literally “you are lovely” – is the first woman in Ethiopian history, indeed in the history of the world. She was a dainty little person, an intrepid walker who came down from the trees some three million years ago in the Afar region of eastern Ethiopia. An American – French team of physical anthropologists led by Donald C. Johanson found 40 per cent of her skeleton in 1974, and named her Lucy after the Beatles song – though her Ethiopian descendants prefer to call her Dinknesh. The extent of her influence or power will forever remain a mystery.Whereas Lucy’s fossilised bones are real nothing is known of her story. But when it comes to the Queen of Sheba there is a great story yet no concrete evidence to support it. Do not deny her existence in Ethiopia, however.

One eminent Ethiopian historian, who referred to her at a public lecture in Addis Ababa as a legendary figure, was soon in trouble with the indignant audience.

According to the Ethiopian national epic, Kabra Negast , compiled in the 14th century, Makeda, the Queen of Sheba, who visited King Solomon in the Old Testament times, came from Tigre in Northern Ethiopia. She made the arduous journey across the desert and the Red Sea with her retinue and rich gifts to learn wisdom from the great king. Later, he beguiled her into sleeping with him and on her return, she gave birth to a son, Menelik the First. According to legend he was the founder of the Ethiopian Solomonic dynasty, which supposedly ended only with the deposition of Emperor Haile Selassie in 1974.

In Ethiopia it was considered quite natural that a woman should have held supreme power. Here was a woman to whom courage and endurance were attributed, who had intellectual and spiritual interests, and was willing to endure hardship in search of knowledge.

Two thousand years later, probably in the 10th century AD another legendary queen took the stage in Ethiopia. Although something of the Aksumite Empire she overthrew is known, from the inscriptions and monuments left behind, and from observations of foreign traders, there little more authentic information about her than about Makeda. There is evidence only that a rebellious queen led the forces which destroyed the old Christian order. Variously referred to as Gudit, Gwedit, Yodit, Judith, and as “Isat” – Amharic for fire – she was believed to be the founder of the Zagwe dynasty which ruled for several hundred years.

Alleged by some to have followed an indigenous religion, and by others to have been of Jewish faith, she was, all agree, a fearsome warrior who led her troops to victory over the Christian Aksumites. Whether real or legendary, she remains an impressive example of a woman military leader who wielded power.

“In the later years of the Zagwe dynasty, towards the end of the twelfth and the beginning of the thirteenth century, when Ethiopian rulers were once again Christian, there lived a woman of a different disposition from Gudit, the devout and beloved wife of the venerable King Lalibela, who created the world-famous complex of rock-hewn churches that bear his name.”

Masqal-Kebra, literally “Glory of the Cross”, was a strong and influential consort who succeeded in persuading the head of the Ethiopian Church to ordain her brother as bishop – and is said to have persuaded the King to abdicate in favour of his nephew. But, when she discovered the nephew had mistreated a poor farmer, she advised her husband to take the throne back.Known for her piety she is said to have built the Abba Libanos Church at Lalibela, in honour of her husband. In Lasta, the country around Lalibela where she was born, and in Tigre, where a monastery is named after her she was indeed, deeply revered. Indeed, Masqal-Kebra is numbered among the Ethiopian saints and two unpublished manuscripts of her life are preserved, one at Gannata Maryam Church near Lalibela, the other at Aksum.

Masqal-Kebra was typical of highly-placed Ethiopian women, who combined worldliness and other-worldliness, politics and religion, in a mix which is seen again and again in Ethiopian history.

Some three centuries later a Muslim princess from Hadya, in south-western Ethiopia, was given in marriage to the future Emperor Baeda Maryam to cement an alliance with her motherland. However, she was far from being simply a chattel in a dynastic arrangement. During the ten years of her husband’s reign (1468-1478) Empress Eleni became well-versed in Christian theology.

She even wrote two religious works, one concerning the laws of God, and the other, the Holy Trinity and the purity of St. Mary.

In daily life she was pious and kind, and took an interest in the welfare of other people. Her character made her so widely respected that, far from retiring after her husband’s death, she continued to exert political influence during the following three reigns.

She played a decisive role in choosing her grandson, Lebna Dengel, as Emperor. As he was then a minor, she served as one of the regents till he came of age. During her regency many churches were repaired and many more built. She also sponsored the translation of Greek and Arabic religious texts in Ge’ez, the language of the Ethiopian Orthodox Church.

Because of her political experience and skill, Eleni became the most important of the regents. She foresaw the menace of Turkish aggression at the coast and the need for allies to fend off the growing power of the vassal Muslim states threatening the Christian Empire’s vital trade routes to the sea.

When Dom Manuel, King of Portugal, sent envoys seeking an alliance against Egypt and other Muslim powers in the Indian Ocean, Eleni welcomed these envoys, and sent an ambassador to Portugal with a letter suggesting joint action in defence of Christianity. Eventually however, when a second Portuguese mission landed in response to her overtures in 1520, Lebna Dengel had assumed the reins of power. Lacking the wisdom of his grandmother, he failed to grasp the importance of the alliance, a misjudgment which cost him dearly in later years. On the plus side, the chaplain to that mission, Francisco Alvares, left for posterity a detailed account of the Ethiopian court and the part of the country visited by the mission.

Eleni continued to exert a moderating influence on the impetuous young monarch until her death in 1522. The fact that Eleni was a woman was no bar to her exerting influence at court and wielding great power, in diplomatic as well as domestic affairs of state. Nor did it prevent her making a significant contribution to the Ethiopian Church.

” After Eleni’s death Emperor Lebna Dengel’s own wife, Sabla Wangel, began to assume as significant a role in Ethiopian history as Eleni’s had been. This was the time when Imam Ahmad ibn Ibrahim, nicknamed “Gragn” – the left-handed – led a revolt from his birthplace in the Emirates of Adal, in the lowlands towards the southern entrance to the Red Sea.”

At times with the help of Turkish musketeers, he conquered more and more of the Christian highland state, so that the royal family had constantly to be on the move. Sabla Wangel’s eldest son was killed in battle and her fourth son, Minas, was taken prisoner, saved from execution by Ahmed’s wife, Del Wambara. Sabla Wangel shared in her husband’s attempts to stem the Adal tide until he was forced to find refuge on the impregnable top of Mount Dabra Damo, where he died in 1540.Sable Wangel’s second son, Galawdewos, then came to the throne and the war continued. While he was fighting in the south of the country a year later, the long-promised help from Portugal arrived. From the mountain fortress in the north, where she had remained after husband’s death, the Empress negotiated with the Portuguese before descending to their camp. She was met by their commander, Christovao da Gama, the son of the explorer Vasco da Gama. Seated on a mule she reviewed the contingent of 400 Portuguese troops who paraded in front of her.

Sabla Wangel’s presence rallied support for the Portuguese whom she advised, encouraging local farmers to supply them with provisions. Many joined the Portuguese to drive out the invader, whose soldiers burnt many settlements and churches. She was present during a number of battles, tending the wounded, tearing her headgear and clothes to make bandages, and mourning the dead, among them the Portuguese commander himself. In 1543 the remnants of Christovao’s force helped Emperor Galawdewos defeat and kill Imam Ahmad. The latter’s wife, Bati Del Wambara, succeeded in escaping, but her son, Muhammad, was taken prisoner.

Sabla Wangel was then able to negotiate the exchange of her son Minas, for Ahmad’s son, plus a ransom in gold. Minas had been handed over to the Turkish Sultan, Suleiman the Magnificent, as a symbol of Adal vassalage. The exchange succeeded, despite doubts on both sides, thanks to the joint efforts of the two women, Sabla Wangel and Del Wambara.

Six years of continuous fighting later, Galawdewos was killed, after which his brother Minas came to the throne. During his four-year reign Sabla Wangel continued to be influential in court and religious affairs. In the controversy engendered by the Jesuits, who had entered the country during Galawdewos’s reign, and were aiming to bring Ethiopia into the Roman Catholic fold, she was a steadfast supporter of the traditionalists who wished Ethiopian Christians to remain Orthodox. But this did not prevent her from interceding on behalf of foreign Roman Catholics who had fallen foul of the Emperor. Her intervention saved from execution both the Portuguese adventurer Bermudes, who had angered Galawdewos, and the Spanish Jesuit Patriarch Oviedo, whom Minas had condemned. Her last achievement was to ensure that her grandson, Sartsa Dengel, one of several rival contendants, came to the throne. Her choice was a wise one as he succeeded in defending the integrity of the realm throughout his thirty-four year reign.

Sabla Wangel conformed to the model of wise Ethiopian queens who were deeply involved in affairs of state, while retaining the qualities of gentleness and mercy often attributed to women. It fell to her to live in dangerous times, which required not only diplomatic talents, but also courage and fortitude in battle and defeat. Many women refugees today would have particular sympathy for her sufferings and endurance.

Del Wanbara – literally “Victory is her seat” – held the title of Bati. A contemporary of Sabla Wangel’s, she was the daughter of Imam Mehefuz, governor of Zayla, a port on the Gulf of Aden close to what is now Djibouti. He was also the de facto ruler of the state of Adal. She married Imam Ahmad and, ignoring the protests of his soldiers, accompanied him on his expeditions of conquest in the Christian highlands. At times she had to be carried on their shoulders up and down steep and rocky mountain slopes, twice in a state of pregnancy. She gave birth to two sons – Muhammad in 1531 and Ahmad two years later – during campaigns in the mountains of Tigre.

After the defeat and death of her husband in 1543 and the capture of her young son Muhammad, she fled to the north-west of Lake Tana, and eventually succeeded in returning to Harar, then at the centre of Adal power. Her first task was to make arrangements for the exchange of her eldest son Muhammad for Emperor Galawdewo’s brother, Minas. She was in a good position to achieve this ambition because Minas’s life had been spared through her intervention. It was no easy task, however, as his captors feared, rightly as it turned out, that if released, he might come to the throne, and be a powerful enemy. Del Wanbara was determined to avenge her husband’s death and, nine years later, agreed to marry the Emir of Harar, Nur Ibn Mujahid, son of her first husband’s sister, seeing in him the best prospect of achieving her aim. Emir Nur began by rebuilding Harar, which had been sacked, and enclosed the town with a wall which can be seen to this day. Having reorganised his forces, he undertook a new conquest of the Christian highlands and, in 1559, killed Emperor Galawdewos in battle, thus fulfilling Del Wanbara’s wish to avenge the death of her first husband.

Del Wanbara and Sabla Wangel were in some ways mirror images of each other. Both were strong wives closely involved in their husbands’ battles: Sabla Wangel in defending the Christian highland state, Del Wanbara in supporting the attack on it by a Muslim army. Both lost their husbands in the struggle, and knew what it meant to be a fugitive. Both suffered the agony of seeing one of their sons taken into captivity. Both fought with all their might for their sons’ release, and had enough influence to achieve it. Thus both were examples of women of immense strength of character, able to fight for their own kin, but also women whose actions inspired their followers and helped change the course of history.

“By contrast, the great 18th-century Empress Berhan Mugasa, better known as Mentewab – literally “how beautiful you are” – lived in quieter times. According to legend, while wandering about his domain in the disguise of a poor man, as was his habit, Emperor Bakaffa fell ill of a fever in a poor village in the district of Quara, west of Lake Tana. “

A respectable old man, who lived on a hill above the unhealthy plain, took pity on the stranger and had him carried to his house. His beautiful daughter nursed the stranger gently back to health, with foreseeable consequences. Bakaffa fell in love and found that she was of noble family. She was brought to his palace at Gondar, the capital, where she bore him a son. To secure her position at court and ensure that her son succeeded to the throne, she adroitly gathered around her a devoted group of relatives so that, when her husband died in 1730, there was no difficulty in her young son being proclaimed Emperor Iyasu II, and herself being crowned Empress two months later. With the backing of her relations whom she had promoted to positions of power, she remained regent for more than 30 years.There was only one serious challenge to her rule during the quarter century of Iyassu’s reign. Two years after his accession a group of noblemen not from her clan conspired against her. They surrounded her and her son in their castle at Gondar, the capital, but Mentewab held out for two weeks until they were rescued. She arranged for her son to marry the daughter of an Oromo chief, and through his alliance many Oromos gradually gained influence at court.

Enlightened and liberal-minded, Mente-wab succeeded in reconciling the followers of the two major monastic orders, who had for centuries engaged in bitter disputes over church doctrine. She was also a great patron of the arts and literature, financing the building of many fine churches and stimulating the production of richly illuminated manuscripts and paintings.

Her little palace at Gondar was the most elegant of any within the enclosure of palaces at the capital, and she protected the Greek and Syrian artisans employed on palace building. After the death of her son in 1755, her grandson Iyoas came to the throne and she continued to serve as regent.

She later made her home at Qusquam, on the outskirts of the capital, where she had earlier built a splendidly decorated palace and richly endowed church.

The Scottish explorer, James Bruce, who was in Gondar in 1770 and 1771, considered – her his friend and benefactor, describing her as “bountiful and unfailing in good deeds, intensely kind and charitable, extremely devout”. He observed that, though she had never been there, she was “perfectly well acquainted” with Jerusalem, the Holy Sepulchre, Calvary, the City of David and the Mount of Olives.

In her last years Mentewab’s power waned, so that she could do little more than witness the disintegration of the empire and the decline in the fortunes of her family. However, she still retained some vestiges of her former status. Bruce noted that she was seated with her grandson at state banquets only two or three years before her death in 1773.

While carrying on the Ethiopian tradition of highly devout queens wielding great political power, Mentewab introduced a new element of elegance and artistic refinement which distinguished her from both her predecessors and her successors.

One of these successors, Taytu Betul, married King Menelik II and was crowned Queen of Shewa in 1883, little more than a century after Mentewab’s death.

Born near Gondar of a princely family partly of Oromo descent, she had already been married several times before the age of 30, but had no children. Enduring the ups and downs in the political fortunes which befell her previous husbands, she was already experienced in the workings of the Ethiopian power structure before she became Menelik’s wife. In 1889, two days after Menelik’s coronation as Emperor, Taytu, which in Amharic means “the Sun”, was crowned Empress. Thereafter, her official title became “Light of Ethiopia”, and these words appeared on her seal.

Taytu acquired the accomplishments that befitted her rank. But she was more educated than the average lady of her day and could read and write Amharic. As her stepfather had administered the monastery at Debre Mewi in Gojam, she had the opportunity to live near a religious community and it is no doubt there that she learned Ge’ez. She was conversant with Christian Orthodox doctrine, composed religious poetry in Ge’ez, could play the begena, a royal lyre supposedly descended from the biblical King David’s harp, and was adept at Ethiopian chess, a form of the game closely related to that played in the Middle East in medieval times. It was Taytu who encouraged the Emperor to move the capital from the storm-swept heights of Entoto to the lower altitude and more pleasant climate around the hot springs of Finfine.

A strong-minded woman, Taytu remained a close adviser to her husband throughout his reign. She provided a counter-balance to Menelik who, she considered, was too trusting of the various foreigners intriguing at his court, and too eager to accept the innovations they wished to introduce.

In 1890, in the era of colonialist expansion, there was a dispute between Italy and Ethiopia over the Treaty of Wechale between the two countries. The Amharic text stated that Menelik could avail himself of Italy’s good offices in dealing with European powers, whereas the Italian text made it mandatory for him to do so.

On the basis of the Italian text, Italy claimed to have established a protectorate over all Ethiopia. Menelik refused to accept this claim.

In Taytu’s presence, the Italian envoy, Count Antoneli, is quoted as having said to Menelik: “Italy cannot notify the other powers that she was mistaken . . . because she must maintain her dignity.”

At this point Taytu intervened, saying: “We also have our dignity to preserve. You wish Ethiopia to be represented before other powers as your protectorate, but this shall never be. “

In 1896, when it became clear that the Italians could not longer be kept at bay, and Menelik decided to confront them, Taytu was vindicated in her hostility to foreign powers. She took part in the war of 1895-96 against the Italians, and brought 3,000 of her own troops to Adwa, to join those of leaders from various parts of the Empire.

Internal rivalries were buried in a supreme effort to defend the country. The ensuing Ethiopian victory, exactly 100 years ago, was an event of major importance in African history, and brought about the downfall of the Italian Government.

Taytu was a great businesswoman, generous to her friends but ruthless to her enemies. She managed her vast estates with acumen and directed the huge organization required to feed and provide drink for thousands of soldiers and officers of state at the lavish banquets which Menelik gave several times a week in the great banqueting hall of the Addis Ababa palace.

Thousands worked daily to grind the grain into flour and prepare the honey wine, which was piped into barrels before being served in narrow-necked glass globes.

Among Taytu’s ventures was Addis Ababa’s first important hotel, which bore her title, Eteghe. Under the name of Taytu Hotel, it still stands today, a memorial to her enterprise and to the picturesque architecture which distinguished the Addis Ababa of her time.

During the last few years of Menelik’s reign, as his health gradually deteriorated, Taytu became in practice the ruler of Ethiopia. Having no children of her own, she attempted, in the traditional way, to build up an alternative power base by promoting her relatives and by dynastic marriages. In this she failed, and in 1910 the then newly established Council of Ministers banished her from their meetings to Menelik’s sickroom. From that moment her influence declined, and in 1913, as soon as he had died, she was escorted with a small retinue up the very hills of Entoto from which the capital had been moved at her bidding. There, dressed simply, she spent her last five years in prayer and fasting, as she was refused permission to return to her native Gondar.

Like earlier Ethiopian queens, Taytu was a prominent figure in the affairs of state of her time. She knew, as they did, the meaning and intoxication of power. She was not renowned for a sweet disposition, but there is no doubt that she added to the evidence that there have been women in Ethiopian history as important and influential as any man.