Cyber Ethiopia

We looked last week at traditional Ethiopian highland dress, as depicted by nineteenth and early twentieth century foreign travellers, and turn today to the "shamma", or toga, which many observers considered the most characteristic piece of the national clothing. Foreign Travellers' Accounts A good account of the traditional Ethiopian shamma, or toga, is given by Mansfield Parkyns, a mid-nineteenth century British traveller, and sometime resident in Adwa, who refers to it by its Tegrinya name as "quarry". "The 'quarry'", he writes, "is the principal article of Abyssinian dress: it is of cotton, and very fine and soft; those of the richer being finer but probably not so serviceable as those of the poorer class. It [the shamma] is made in three pieces; each piece is about three

feet broad by fifteen long. Near both ends of each piece is a red stripe, five or six inches broad. To sew the three pieces together, one is first taken and doubled carefully, so that the red stripes of each come exactly together. A second piece is then taken, and also folded, but inside out, and one half of it laid under and the other half over the first piece, so that the four red borders now come together. One edge of this quadruple cloth is then sewn from top to bottom, and the last-mentioned piece is turned back, so that the two together form one double cloth of two breadths. "The third piece", he adds, "is now added in a similar manner, and the whole forms a 'quarry' which, lest my reader should have got confused in the above description, is a white double cloth, with a red border near the bottom only; the breadth of the 'quarry' is nine feet by seven and a half long. An inferior quality of this cloth is made of much coarser material, and without a stripe... The lower class of servants and working people wear these inferior cloths stitched together on common occasions, and perhaps have for Sunday best a cheap 'quarry' with a blue stripe. But above all is the 'mergeif,' a sort of cloth made after the fashion of the first-mentioned one, but of such fineness that it requires to be of six pieces instead of three to give it sufficient body, and is worn quadruple instead of double. Its stripe or border is of red, yellow, and blue silk, neatly worked together instead of plain red cotton. Such an article of finery is, of course, worn only by ladies and some few great men." The German Felix Rosen, and the Georgian Dr Merab Further information on the traditional shamma is provided by later travellers. The German, Felix Rosen, writing in the first decade of the twentieth century, reports that some of the shammas worn by members of the Ethiopian aristocracy had a band of purple as much as a foot wide. The Georgian pharmacist Dr Paul Merab, long resident in Addis Ababa, reported a decade or so later that the most common borders in the Ethiopian capital were then of black, yellow, green or purple. A popular type of shamma, he adds, was the jano shamma, crossed at about the level of the thigh by a thick red band 20 to 30 centimetres wide woven into the material along its whole length. Charles Rey Another good description of the old-time shamma is provided by the Englishman Charles Rey. Describing the shammas seen in Addis Ababa shortly prior to the Italian Fascist invasion (and corroborating our earlier account of the continued survival of local spinning and weaving), he declares: Soldier's dress: 19th century "The more beautiful specimens of these [shammas] are hand-woven from native cotton, spun and prepared by the Abyssinian women. These are usually edged with red or mixed coloured silks, and those worn by the high priests, great chiefs and princes and princesses have a very handsome border varying from twelve to eighteen inches wide, carried out in silks of vivid colours woven into an artistic design. They are as fine as gossamer, though large and warm... "The more ordinary shammas are also woven by hand, but of imported cotton, and by comparison are of a much harder and coarser character, though still nice to look at. Natives who cannot afford the hand-woven shawl make use of a length of abougedid or cotton sheeting for the same purpose." A Matter of Class The type of shamma a man wore tended, as many observers emphasise, to demonstrate, his station in society. "The softness of the web and the depth of the red border round the bottom of this convenient garb," writes Henry Aaron Stern, a German Protestant missionary of the time of Emperor Tewodros, "indicate the social position of the wearer, and this is so minutely defined, that any one who should presume to ape his betters would, in all probability, obtain a lesson or two on dress from the imperial giraffe holder." (Stern was himself soon to incur the Emperor's displeasure, though not account of his dress!) Later observers also have something to say about who wore what. "Those who can afford one of the national red and white shammas," reports the British traveller Augustus B. Wylde, around 1900, "wear one on holidays." His compatriot Herbert Vivian, writing at about the same time, confirms that shammas varied greatly on the basis of status. The derib shamma, he says, was made of fine cotton, but had a band of check silk of various colours. This cloth was worn, he reports, by chiefs who had usually received it from the Emperor, i.e. Menilek, as a decoration or reward. The poor, by contrast, wore shammas of inferior material, which consisted in fact of no more than a simple sheet in which the owner would wrap himself by day and by night. Shamma: "Like A Coat" The significance of the shamma was also affirmed by Dr Merab, who states that it completed the costume, and in some ways played the role of a jacket in other countries, for no self-respecting Ethiopian would go out of doors without his shamma any more than a European without a jacket The Kabba, or Cloak Perhaps the most impressive item of traditional Ethiopian clothing was the kabba, or cloak, which was worn by chiefs of all degrees, as well as by young men of noble families. This item of dress was made of black silk or satin and went down as far as the knees. It was frequently adorned with gilt buttons round the neck, and in many cases had gold embroidery round the edge, which was also often fringed. Rank within the aristocracy was demonstrated by the character of the decoration. Go for example, dear reader, to the Ethnological Museum of the Institute of Ethiopian Studies (Yes, the museum at Addis Ababa's Siddist Kilo), and see its collection of kabbas. Those of lesser chiefs are decorated only with coloured silk thread, but, as you go up the hierarchy of state, silk is replaced by gold thread, in ever increasing quantities. The principle of hierarchy was so strong, in the past, that even princes and princesses, according to Dr Merab, were obliged to obtain permission from the sovereign before they could border their kabba with gold. After the Ethiopian Revolution of 1974 this was of course all changed and it became not uncommon to see minstrels for example wear kabbas on the stage! Status and Wealth But to return in conclusion to Ethiopian dress in relation to status and wealth. Traditional Ethiopian clothing, we may conclude, varied greatly according to its wearer's status and wealth. Mansfield Parkyns, in the middle of the nineteenth century, noted for example that the clothes of the soldier (before the days of uniforms!) could be distinguished from those of the peasant by their "rather more stylish cut" - in exactly the same way, he says, as in Europe "the citadini [or town-dwellers] are distinguishable from the 'contadini' [or country-people] by the cut of their cloth." The difference in the type of cloth worn by peasants and aristocrats has already been mentioned. It should be added, however, that with expanded foreign trade and contacts in the second half of the nineteenth century such variations in dress were accentuated by the limited advent of European and other foreign items of clothing. Wylde, who had an eye for such things, noted in the 1880's: "The men's dress consists of many sorts, according to whether they are rich or poor, or whether they have travelled, or have even made the trip to Massowah." Elaborating on this theme, he observed: "Some only wear the knee-breeches and the shamma; others make an addition of a waistcoat," while "the labourers in the fields wear nothing but knee breeches." "The better-to-do people [he adds] often put on a loose coat or waistcoat, either of silk or satin, the shirt of good material, fastened in front and at the wrists with silver buttons." The Slow Arrival of European Dress Traditional Ethiopian dress was so well established that clothing from Europe was slow to make any impact. The first signs of such dress were noted, in the 1880s, by Wylde. "Some few [Ethiopians]," he writes, "who have travelled wear European-made trousers, either of white or some coloured washing material, and a coat buttoned up to the neck, but never hardly without the shamma." Almost a generation later, after the establishment of the Italian colony of Eritrea and the foundation of Addis Ababa, the same observer reported: "The Abyssinian is beginning to take to European clothes on the upper part of his body, such as shirts, coats and waistcoats, but as yet has not adopted the lower garments and in the transition change he looks a curious and grotesque object. European hats are getting very common, and are genera of the bowler, wideawake or Terai patterns, and have nearly superseded the straw and grass made hats of nearly identical European shape." Notwithstanding this adoption of a few isolated items of foreign wear, few Ethiopians, prior to the Fascist invasion, completely abandoned their traditional costume. Despite the large quantity of imported textiles and the rapid introduction of the sewing machine, European dress was slow to win acceptance. Merab estimated that, excluding servants employed in European houses, there were by 1909 no more than 100 Ethiopians wearing European dress. Elsewhere he gives it as his opinion that there were in the capital only about 50 Ethiopians wearing European-type trousers, mostly of khaki. The apparent permanence of traditional dress prior to the Italian war is evident, for example, from a glance at any crowd photographs taken at the time. See Ludz Becker's remarkable film "Lion of Judah", available at the British Council!