Bastion
I wake up at the right moment only to I realize I'm late. My eyes, opening to the blazing light of the upper atmosphere, are reflexively driven down. Straightening up out of sleep, I wipe my eyes - and keep staring straight down. A groove snakes straight below, an uneven cut in the brownish green tarmac, too deep to see to the bottom. My watch and the direction of the sun convince me that this must be it. Awe dispels doubt as the plane glides over a dreamlike scene. It is too late to grab the camera and try for a shot. Instead this inscription from a mighty hand gets engraved in my mind. It is every bit as impressive that I have imagined. There are few things on earth as distinct from eleven kilometers up as the Blue Nile Gorge.
Although arriving by air to Ethiopia is infinitely easier than climbing by land to the highlands, the psychological effect is still like it used to be. You are entering a world apart from the rest, half way up to the heavens. A place far above the Sudanese desert wastes and the lush dullness of the south. A place surrounded by mountain ranges and strange peaks that resemble the ridges and spikes of a crown. It is a royal place inhabited by people who were already at the dawn of history called the ancient ones. It's a world of thin air and intense sun inhabited by people with an electric, nervous temper and darting quickness to point out that theirs was the Garden of Eden. It takes a while for a place like this to unfold.
Ethiopian history is shrouded in legend and mystery. Part of the reason for this is fairly easy to understand - the highland plateau as seen from Sudan is like the Great Wall of China to the power of ten. Since time immemorial the escarpment and the mountain ranges beyond have formed a insurmountable obstacle to exploration and conquest. Odd parties have penetrated it during the centuries only to bring back a haphazard body of observations. There have been Sudanese, Egyptians, Turks, British, Italians with their armies as well as African warriors from their kingdoms. Most of them have only been able to plunder the fringes until the Ethiopians, the geography and the elements have forced a retreat. As a singular example of the odds it is believed that nobody has ever been able to descend along the Blue Nile from its source at Lake Tana to the Sudanese desert.
On the eastern side of the highlands lies the Danakil depression. Throughout time its heat and Afar nomads - both equally merciless - have effectively cut most of Ethiopia from the Red Seal. When the first westerners, a British, L.M. Nesbitt and two Italians, crossed it in 1928 they told of daytime temperatures exceeding 75 degrees centigrade.
Yet experiencing the hardships and bringing back personal accounts from Ethiopia didn't always result in triumph at home. Descriptions of strange mountain top monasteries and immense monolithic cathedrals invoked disbelief from the outside world. Some Portuguese explorers saw and visited them in Tigre already in the Middle Ages but were unable to comprehend how they could have been constructed in the first place and moreover in such inaccessible locations. The Ethiopians were of course happy to reveal them the genesis, complete with angels and superhuman kings.
When James Bruce compiled the account of his long journey in the highlands between 1768-73 into five volumes, he was ridiculed even by the top officials of the Royal Geographic Society. His descriptions of life in Ras Michael's court, the endemic torture, killing and raw meat bacchanals didn't go down well with the puritanical British. His magnum opus was disbelieved and discredited, much to Bruce's dismay. His observations together with those before him were simply added to the body of "Ethiopian studies" a hodgepodge of lore centering around Prester John, the mighty Christian ruler of the kingdom.
Not that Bruce was without fault. In his work he freely mixed in other peoples contributions - older or contemporary - without bothering about references. Moreover, even though his description was titled "Travels to Discover the Source of the Nile..." it is far from clear what his driving motivation was. A case has been made that as a free mason he was trying to succeed where the medieval Order of Templars had succumbed; to locate the Ark of the Covenant and then bring it back to Europe or to Jerusalem.
Nowhere is Ethiopian history thicker in legend and misinformation as in the context of the Ark. The Ethiopian clergy are quite happy to keep it that way. The holiest of the holy in an Ethiopian coptic church is the place where the hard evidence lies. This material consists of the tabots - copies of the Ten Commandments, the old leather bound manuscripts and the sacred paintings. Just as in ancient Egyptian temples these are off-limits to all but the highest priests. Only some of the lesser pieces are displayed to the pilgrims at annual Genna and Timkat celebrations. According to legend, the Ark - which contains Moses' original law engraved in stone - has through the centuries eluded capture by Jewish and Moslem aggressors. It is claimed that it currently resides at St Mary of Zion church at Axum, high up in Tigre, near the Eritrean border.
There is no firm evidence that whatever is kept at that church is the 10th century BC relic from Israel. Indeed it is more than likely that if something indeed was brought over from there, it has by its mundane composition turned to dust under the rigors of 30 centuries. Yet one does not need to spend much time in Ethiopia to realize that by now the legend is far more important than whatever remains there may be in some chamber. The Ethiopian faith is rooted in the legend of the Ark, and Ethiopia as a country is held together by this faith.
Ethiopian holy sites and rituals exude devotion quite unlike anything in the west. Visiting their monasteries means ascending - spiritually as well as physically - to a still higher level. The innocence of a cherub next to a gruesomely detailed decapitation completes the landscape consisting of deep plunges and heavenly ascents. The bold colors and simplicity of line only add to the atmosphere. The Ethiopian frame of mind yearns for wild swings of mood; the utter abandon of a monotone chant followed by feverish drumming the next moment is no oddity.
Many have tried entering Ethiopia. Other brands of Christianity have been spread for some periods, but success hasn't been great. Even the most ruthless of missionaries, the Jesuits, were soundly beaten and expelled after some bloody turmoil. There was a twentieth century experiment with socialism, a Soviet-Cuban import, which in the end bore all the hallmarks of imperialism. It was erased after a bitter struggle and although there is a quasi modern if oligarchic government now, the church is again the supreme authority for most highlanders.
By far the most significant dent is that made by Islam. Throughout the centuries it has tried to make inroads with varying degrees of success. Its base has been along the Somalian coast and in Yemen from where it has spread over the eastern and southeastern deserts. Indeed there is a certain irony to the common perception that Ethiopia is a Christian country. The government statistics are not too clear - perhaps on purpose. There seems to be at least as many Moslems as Christians in Ethiopia. The mechanism is the same as in many other places, such as some Indonesian islands, Indian states or Kosovo; the Moslems have the highest birthrate. Over the decades this changes the demographics and the historical fact is no longer valid.
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