Cyber Ethiopia

This week, and next, we turn our attention to the role of craftsmen in Ethiopian history.

Negadras Mared

Today’s essay pays homage to Negadras Mared, a man of some distinction, who lived in the great northern Ethiopian city of Adwa, and he is remembered as the jeweller to Emperor Yohannes, or John, IV. A craftsman of considerable skill and refinement we know about him through the writings of the British traveller Augustus Blandy Wylde, who mentions him in his little-known work “‘83 to ‘87 in the Soudan”, which is a mine of information.

“The King’s Jeweller”

Mared, whom Wylde describes as “the King’s jeweller”, was an old friend of the Englishman, who reports that he used to visit him “very often”, and on such occasions would thankfully partake of his taj, or honey wine. Read the rest of this entry »

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One of the most interesting but rarely visited places in Ethiopia is the Afar Lowlands. This desert like area stretches through the northeast of the country north of Awash and Dire Dawa, and east of Wolo and Tigray.

This fierce land, which includes the Danakil Depression, one of the hottest spots on the planet, also has gentle oases, rivers and lakes. The Afar people also have a reputation for fierceness, which has kept intruders as well as visitors off their land, but also are well known for their gentleness and hospitality. Read the rest of this entry »

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Monsieur Jean Baraglion, a Frenchman, was a prominent gunsmith at Adwa, during the reign of Emperor Yohannes, or John IV.

He is also our subject for today.

Augustus B. Wylde

Our best portrait of Mussie Jean, as he was locally known, comes from the British traveller Augustus Blandy book “‘83 to ‘87 in the Soudan”, which we now quote.

Monopolist

There was “no doubt”, Wylde says, that Baraglion had “a monopoly of the gun-mending work in Adowa and the north part of the country”. He was “very short and very fat, and very good-humoured; he liked nothing better than to have a long chat with a visitor”. He had “been in the country fourteen years, and had only been home once, when he went away with sundry dollars [i.e. Maria Theresa dollars] to his home near Marseilles to give a portion to his son and daughter, who were both going to be married”. Read the rest of this entry »

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Rural Crafts

The Ethiopian people at an early date evolved handicraft production which met the everyday needs of the population.

They worked in iron, making knives, swords, spear-heads, ploughshares and other agricultural implements. They span and wove both cotton and wool, producing excellent and often beautiful clothing. They preserved and tanned ox hides, sheep and other skins successfully, and manufactured shields and scabbards, and book covers, as well as saddles, bridles and halters for mules and horses. They also produced good quality pots and jars, wove attractive wicker baskets, manufactured useful articles of horn, and fashioned exquisite gold, silver and bronze ornaments and crosses. Read the rest of this entry »

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Having looked, in the last few issues, at Ethiopian handicraft men and women of the past we turn now to traditional technology:

The old nineteenth and early twentieth century European travellers to Ethiopia - and residents in the country - present us with many a glimpse of her old-time handicrafts.

Let us today take Spinning, an activity in which many women, including even women of the aristocracy, participated.

The British surgeon, Charles Johnston, describing household production in Shawa in the 1840’s, provides us with one of the most detailed accounts of the classical Ethiopian mode of production. Read the rest of this entry »

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From Addis there are now direct flights to Zanzibar, the exotic island off the coast of Tanzania, or flights through Nairobi if you prefer. Zanzibar offers the distraction of the Indian Ocean, an Ocean I’ve become very fond of over the years.

The Spice Tour

‘The thing’ to do on Zanzibar, apart from lie on the beach and explore the history, is to go on the ‘spice tour’. Zanzibar is fantastically rich in spices. It would be nice to think that the wealth and history of Zanzibar was built on spices, but it was actually developed more on ivory and slaves. Spices came later and helped Zanzibar survive when the elephants were finished and slaving abolished. Read the rest of this entry »

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Continuing our examination of traditional Ethiopian handicraft technology, we turn this week to weaving:

Weaving, in traditional Ethiopia, was carried out with the aid of a simple but efficient loom, which we must now consider.

The Traditional Ethiopian Loom

Two stakes perhaps as high as a man would be struck in the ground a metre and a half or so apart and would be kept firm by the attachment of a third piece of wood or pole which would be tied to the top of the two vertical posts thus joining them together. Towards each end of the horizontal pole a string made of wool was lowered to subtend a thin piece of wood, perhaps a span long. which served as a kind of balance from each end of which other strings were lowered to hold a couple of weaver’s reeds or combs. These latter were made of a couple of long thin horizontal pieces of wood or cane joined together by innumerable strings between which the weft passed. Read the rest of this entry »

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Last week we went on the Spice Tour of Zanzibar. This week the tour of Zanzibar continues.

Stone Town

The old stone town of Zanzibar retains its Arab roots and buildings from the different stages of its chequered history. It is now a pleasant and increasingly prosperous looking place, unlike the ‘Stinkibar’ which David Living stone dubbed it in the 1870’s.

There were many earlier settlements where the early sultans of Zanzibar ruled from. The town of Zanzibar was effectively a Portuguese creation. The Portuguese arrived in 1498, then came to stay in 1504. They established their fort at Zanzibar, where the final version can still be seen. When the Portuguese were driven out by the sultans of Oman in the 1660’s, the new rulers adopted the town of Zanzibar as their capital, and built many of their fine palaces here. The British took over, using the sultans as local puppets, and added bits of their architecture to the town. Since independence from Britain, the stone town has been preserved, and can still be seen more or less in its untouched but living state. Read the rest of this entry »

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Last week, dear reader, we considered the technology of traditional Ethiopian weaving; and saw how the craft was threatened, in the Nineteenth Century, by increased competition from imported factory-produced cloth: globalisation if you like to call it that.

We cannot, however, leave the story quite there, for the threat to domestic production from foreign imports was felt only gradually, and not equally across the board.

It may be interesting to look at developments in this field a little closer - before considering two other important aspects of the production of Ethiopian clothing: embroidery and tailoring! Read the rest of this entry »

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In Part I and II we went on the Spice tour and through the slave markets of Zanzibar. Now the tour continues.

Sites in the Stone Town

Apart from being built on the slave trade and ivory, both of which were industries of death, Zanzibar has a nasty history of class domination and conflict. Up until the revolution of 1964, Stone Town was reserved for the Arab and Indian upper classes. Beginning with the Portuguese, each ruling class printed their mark on the city. The Portuguese are represented only by some ruins from their era of domination, which was begun in the 1560’s and helped maintain Portuguese control of Zanzibar until 1698, when the Omani Arabs tossed them out. Read the rest of this entry »

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