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The immensity of the defeat is likewise admitted in the Chronicle of
Gojjam (see Getahun 1991:236-49). It tells of the Dervishes not only
burning down innumerable churches, but also capturing "droves" of
prisoners. From among the Christian women, the Muslim leader is said to
have "chosen the good-looking ones, and made them his concubines. He
slashed the cheeks of the rest ... and sold them off [as slaves]"
(ibid., 247-8). Those captured included the king's daughter, Mentewab,
who refused to eat Muslim food and in consequence died of starvation.
Though glossing over this debacle, the Harn Museum painting
is historically--and ethnologically--interesting, for it provides rare
and revealing glimpses of traditional Ethiopia. The March to War, Battle
and Personalities Depicted The central figure in the painting is, as we have seen, that of King Takla Haymanot. He is wearing a characteristic two-tiered Ethiopian
royal crown, adorned with three small crosses. A winged angel, upper
left, indicates that the monarch enjoys heavenly support. The king wears
a large blue cloak almost entirely covered by a rich red lamd, or
military cloak, profusely decorated with gold embroidery. In his right
hand he holds a straight sword, like those carried by the Sudanese--and
which may in fact have been captured then or earlier from them. It
presumably has been drawn from the straight, red-and-blue scabbard to
his right. In his left hand he holds his horse's reins which are clearly
depicted. He is bare-footed, like all Ethiopians of that time (as we
know from the reports of contemporary travellers), but wears decorated
leggings. The big toe of his right foot fits, in the traditional Ethiopian
manner, into a one-toe stirrup. His pale brown horse is finely
caparisoned and, like the others in the picture, has an unusually
prominent tail. The animal has a blue saddle-cloth and several gold plaques round its neck. Above the horse there is an inscription written in the Ethiopian
classical language Ge'ez. With little relationship to history, it
reads: "Peace be unto you, O honorable King. You are happy with the
power of God. You are the conqueror of the enemy ..." Takla
Haymanot is preceded by one of his principal chiefs. The latter, who is
approaching the field of battle, is captioned with his military
rank--Dajazmach--but without any name. He too is wearing a
gold-embroidered lamd, but of a somewhat darker hue. In his right hand
he holds a spear as if ready to hurl it, and in his left a
characteristic Ethiopian
shield covered in red silk decorated in gold. A slightly curved sword,
more typical of Ethiopia than that carried by his liege, is in its
scabbard, to the right, and an upright rifle can also be seen top left.
His well-caparisoned steed, which has a red, almost orange, saddle-cloth, is slightly darker than that of the king, but has an almost identical toe-stirrup.
A more important figure, captioned "Ras Bazabeh," is Takla Haymanot's
son, who is riding immediately behind his father. Wearing a blue cloak
embroidered with gold, he holds a rifle in his right hand and a
gold-embroidered red shield in his left. He also has a red-and-blue,
curved, Ethiopian-style
scabbard behind him to the right, which presumably holds a sword. He is
riding a white caparisoned charger, with a fine sloping tail, and has
one-toe stirrups like those of the other riders depicted. Beneath the feet of these three figures, we are introduced to the enemy, dead or dying. Seen in profile--the traditional Ethiopian
manner of depicting evil persons or enemies of the Christian
faith--they are wearing red caps like the rest of the Dervish army. Two
of them hold--or were holding--rifles. Two others, apparently still
alive, seem to be grasping swords which are, like those of the other
Dervishes, straight. One wounded man holds a curious triangular
umbrella, smaller and quite different from those of the Ethiopians.
Sprawling on the ground,
the enemy are being trampled by the horses of the supposedly victorious
Gojjamies. An emphatic caption in Ge'ez reads: "As the heathen were
exterminated." Ras Bazabeh is followed by the largest assemblage of soldiers in the whole painting. Their multitude is indicated in the usual manner of Ethiopian painting: row after row of overlapping heads. A few men on
the left wear red caps, but the rest are bare-headed. Most are dressed
in simple, scarcely adorned red or blue tunics. These are worn over
semi-transparent white shammas, or wraps, which reveal the shape of
their legs and extend almost as far as their feet. All the men are, as
usual, entirely bare-footed. Most are armed with rifles, mainly carried on
their shoulders, but at least one has a curved sword, as evident from
its scabbard. Several soldiers, right-back, are blowing malakat, or long
trumpets, while another, front-left, is beating a sizable nagarit, or
drum, carried on horseback. Both instruments are traditionally associated with Ethiopian
royalty. Three warriors, left and left-rear, hold staffs, to each of
which is attached three pennons, similar to those used in Ethiopia for a
short time near the end of the century, but lost currency, as we have
seen, by century's end. They are depicted in red, white, and blue, but
without any particular order. Painted for artistic effect, their
arrangement should not be interpreted as constituting a specific
national or even regional flag. Immediately behind this large
group of soldiers rides Abuna Luqas, the chief ecclesiastic of Gojjam. A
highly honored figure, he was one of four Egyptian Coptic prelates sent
from Alexandria in 1881 through the initiative of Emperor Yohannes IV
(c. 1831-1889). Luqas, who is the only bearded figure in the entire
picture, wears a flowing blue cloak and, in a style then not uncommon
among prelates, a shamma round and above his head. He rides a light
brown caparisoned horse with a red and particularly long ornate saddle-cloth
that covers almost his entire steed. He is flanked in front by a guard
holding a rifle, while an attendant behind him holds a decorated blue
umbrella above his head, and a paternissa, or pastoral staff. This
elaborately fashioned object, now largely forgotten in Ethiopia,
represents a two-headed snake winding itself around a rod. This recalls
Numbers 21:9, where Moses "made a serpent of brass and put it upon a
pole." Behind the prelate rides Takla Haymanot's consort, Queen
Laqach. She is captioned as "Negest Wayzaro Laqach," i.e. Negast, the
regal title of queen, followed by that of Wayzaro, a title then
generally applied to princesses and woman of high status. The use of
both terms is interesting in that it indicates the importance then
attached to the word wayzaro, which is today merely the equivalent of
"Mrs." Laqach has beautifully braided hair, with a decorative hair-pin,
and wears a wide, red-bordered shamma which, in a fashion common to many
Ethiopian women,
discretely muffles her face and neck. She has a blue cloak, like that of
the Abun, with a wide gold border. She rides bare-foot on
a dark brown caparisoned horse which has a highly decorated red saddle
not dissimilar from that of the Abun. Like that cleric, she has an
honorific umbrella, in her case red, held over her and is flanked by a
guard holding a rifle. Immediately behind the queen and near the left edge of the painting
rides a second noblewoman. She is almost certainly a princess, as
indicated by her ornate blue and gold cloak, which resembles that of the
queen, and honorific blue umbrella, virtually identical to that above
the Abun. A caption beside her is, however, indecipherable. She has
braided hair, like the queen, but her face is unmuffled. We therefore
see her entire face and most of her neck, which is decorated with a
necklace. She rides on a
white caparisoned horse and, like the Abun and the queen, is flanked a
little in front by a guard holding a rifle. Behind him, to the left and
at the very edge of the picture, is another group of followers, once
again indicated by overlapping heads, and above them a further umbrella.
The far right of the picture, devoted to Takla Haymanot's
conflict with the Dervishes--the culmination of the drama depicted in
the painting--constitutes a classical Ethiopian
battle scene. As in other such representations, notably those of the
Battle of Adwa, the two armies are seen facing each other, man against
man and rifle against rifle. The Ethiopians, as is traditional in this
genre, are placed on the
left and, like good people and followers of the faith in the country's
classical religious paintings, shown in full face. By contrast, the
Dervishes are painted in profile, with one eye, like evil people or
enemies of the faith, who are without exception painted in profile in
traditional Ethiopian painting. The Ethiopian
force, commanded from the rear by a chief captioned as "Dajazmach
Kidana Maryam," is considerable. The massed army is once again
indicated, top and center-right, by row after row of overlapping heads.
These men consist almost entirely of riflemen. They are for the most
part kneeling. Bare-headed and bare-footed, they wear a variety of red
or blue cloaks with white trousers. One man nearest the enemy holds a
shield, while the most visible soldiers--mostly those in the front--are
seen taking aim. The convention of depicting Ethiopian Christians only in full face, with two eyes, leads to some awkwardness in the artist's execution. Above the Ethiopian force is one of the most curious features of the painting: a framed rectangular device containing a representation of two cannons on
wheels. Weapons of this kind were then apparently in limited use. An
adjacent caption in Ge'ez reads, "As the soldiers of the king fought in
the city of Rome," an allusion which it has not been possible to
identify. On the right of
the battlefield we see the enemy--the Dervishes. They are also armed
mainly with rifles. Above them are two sets of three pennons, blue, red,
and white, and white, red, and blue. These are virtually identical to
those of the Ethiopians, and would not appear to be drawn from reality.
The Dervishes differ from the Ethiopians in that they are standing
rather than kneeling. Their dress is also quite different, for they all
wear red caps and their red or blue belted tunics are short. The greater
part of their legs is thus in most cases visible, revealing that they
are dressed in long white, red, or blue trousers. The leading Dervish,
brandishing a spear, is distinctive in that he is wearing yellow
slippers, the only shod figure in the entire painting.
Two of his comrades, dressed in blue, carry red leather scabbards,
which are entirely straight, and thus different from the curved swords
of the Ethiopians. In the middle of the battlefield, between the two armies--as in other Ethiopian paintings of battles--stands one lone Ethiopian
hero, whose presence adds an element of drama to the scene. Dressed in a
lamd and long, tightly fitting trousers, he brandishes a
characteristically curved sword in his right hand and in his left an Ethiopian-style
shield, with which he bravely staves off the spear wielded by the
leading Dervish. Beneath the hero lie the dead: four
Ethiopians--presumably symbolic of many more--depicted full-face, to the
left, and about as many Dervishes, in profile, to the right. The tragic outcome of the Dervish incursion is depicted on the far right of the painting. There, behind the enemy, we see a battlemented building, clearly intended to represent one of the Gondar castles, on
fire. Red flames belch forth from its roof and both its upper and lower
windows. A caption below the building, possibly alluding to 2
Chronicles 28 ("he ... burnt his children in the fire"), reads, "As he
was burnt with his children." Behind the burning castle, almost at the right-hand edge of the painting,
below an illegible caption, we see a further force of many Dervishes,
armed with rifles, watching the conflagration. One, front right, rides a
camel, which was symbolic as the principal means of transportation in
the Sudanese lowlands from which the Dervishes came. Such animals could
well have been taken to the battlefield. Behind it are depicted two
cannons, both on wheels, with yet another undecipherable caption. The painting,
though intended to glorify Takla Haymanot rather than to provide an
"authentic" picture of the conflict, thus illustrates many typical
aspects of Ethiopian life of the period--dress, horse decorations, weaponry--and presents a valuable artistic commentary on its time. I am greatly indebted to Dr. Rebecca Nagy, Director of the Harn Museum, for drawing my attention to the Ethiopian painting
in question, and to Harn Museum registrar Mary Margaret Carr,
registration assistant Jill Brougher, and graduate research intern Jaime
Baird, for providing me with photographs and measurements of it. Thanks
are also due to Professor Amsalu Aklilu, of Addis Ababa University, for
translating the Ge'ez passages, a few of which are unfortunately almost
indecipherable. [This article was accepted for publication in July 2005.] References cited Chojnacki, S. 1969, "A Second Note on the Ethiopian National Flag." In Proceedings of the Third International Conference of Ethiopian Studies. Addis Ababa: Institute of Ethiopian Studies. Gabre-Sellassie, Zewde. 1975. Yohannes IV of Ethiopia: A Political Biography. Oxford, Clarendon Press. Getahun, Girma Y. 1991. The Goggam Chronicle. D. Phil. thesis, Mansfield College, Oxford. Pankhurst, Richard. 1989. "The Battle of Adwa (1896) as Depicted by Traditional Ethiopian Artists." In Proceedings of the First International Conference on the History of Ethiopian Art, pp. 78-103. London: The Pindar Press. --. 2005. "Menilek's Court Artist; Alaqa Eleyas." In Ethiopian Art and Architecture, ed. Rita Pankhurst, pp. 237-42. Lawrenceville, NJ: Red Sea Press. Notes (1.) The overall dimensions of the painting are approximately 4' 2 1/2" (1.3m) in height by 25' (7.6m) in width. The work is painted on six pieces of plain white cloth,
four along the bottom and two along the top. The lower ones, from left
to right, measure respectively 118" by 23" (300cm x 58.4cm), 38" by 22
1/2" (96.5cm x 57cm), 149" by 26" (378.5cm x 26cm), and 7 1/2" by 25
3/4" (19cm x 65.4cm). The two upper pieces measure 138" by 23" (350.5cm x
58.4cm) and 163" by between 22 1/2" and 27" (414cm x 57-68.6cm).
Accurate measurement is difficult, for the various pieces of cloth
have irregular edges and overlap each other to varying degrees. The
total width of the canvas is approximately 312 1/2", or 26' 1/2" (7.9m),
at the bottom, and 301", or 25' 1" (7.7m), at the top...." |