Volume Three—Chapter Nineteen.

Social and Moral Condition.

In Shoa a girl is reckoned according to the value of her property; and the heiress to a house, a field, and a bedstead, is certain to add a husband to her list before many summers have shone over her head. Marriage is generally concluded by the parties declaring, before witnesses, “upon the life of the king,” that they intend to live happily together, and the property of each being produced, is carefully appraised. A mule or an ass, a dollar, a shield, and a sheaf of spears on the one side, are noted against the lady’s stock of wheat, cotton, and household gear; and the bargain being struck, the effects become joint for the time, until some domestic difference results in both taking up their own, and departing to seek a new mate.

Matrimony is, however, occasionally solemnised by the church, in a manner somewhat similar to the observance of more civilised lands; the contracting parties swearing to take each other for life, in wealth or in poverty, in sickness or in health, and afterwards ratifying the ceremony by partaking together of the holy sacrament, and by an oath on the despot’s life. But this fast binding is not relished by the inhabitants of Shoa, and it is of very rare occurrence. Favourite slaves and concubines are respected as much as wedded wives. No distinction is made betwixt legitimate and illegitimate children; and, to the extent of his means, every subject follows the example set by the monarch, who, it has been seen, entertains upon his establishment, in addition to his lawful spouse, no fewer than five hundred concubines.

The king resides only for a few weeks at either of his many palaces; and whenever he proceeds to another, is accompanied by all his chief officers, courtiers, and domestics. At each new station a new female establishment is invariably entertained. All conjugal affection is lost sight of, and each woman is in turn cast aside in neglect. Few married couples ever live long together without violating their vow; and the dereliction being held of small account, a beating is the only punishment inflicted upon the weaker party. The jewel chastity is here in no repute; and the utmost extent of reparation to be recovered in a court of justice for the most aggravated case of seduction is but fivepence sterling!

Morality is thus at the very lowest ebb; for there is neither custom nor inducement to be chaste, and beads, more precious than fine gold, bear down every barrier of restraint. Honesty and modesty both yield to the force of temptation, and pride is seldom offended at living in a state of indolent dependence upon others. The soft savage requires but little inducement to follow the bent of her passions according to the dictates of unenlightened nature; and neither scruples of conscience nor the rules of the loose society form any obstacle whatever to their entire gratification.

The bulk of the nation is agricultural; but on pain of forfeiting eight pieces of salt, value twenty-pence sterling, every Christian subject of Shoa is compelled, whenever summoned, to follow his immediate governor to the field. A small bribe in cloth or honey will sometimes obtain leave of absence, but the peasant is usually ready and anxious for the foray; presenting as it does the chance of capturing a slave, or a flock of sheep, of obtaining honour in the eyes of the despot, and of gratifying his inherent thirst for heathen blood.

The principal men of the country who may not be entrusted with government, spend their time in basking in the sun, holding idle gossip with their neighbours, lounging about the purlieus of the court, or gambling at gébeta or shuntridge, (see Note 1) the management of the house being left to the women, and the direction of the farm to the servants and slaves. Visits are customarily paid early in the morning; and it is reckoned disreputable to enter a stranger’s house after the hour of meals, because the etiquette of the country enforcing the presentation of refreshment, the unseasonable call is ascribed to a desire to obtain it.

Whether in the cabinet or in the field, a great man is constantly surrounded by a numerous band of sycophants, and never for a moment suffered to be by himself. The custom of the country enjoins the practice; the cheapness of provisions favours the support of a large retinue; and through the lack of manufactories, the population is able to supply an unlimited number of idlers, who are willing to pick up a livelihood by any means that chance may present. But to the stranger the nuisance is a crying one. No privacy is to be enjoyed, for no retirement is ever permitted. A dozen naked savages are perpetually by one’s side, restrained by no very correct ideas of order or decorum. Each intruder seizes the first object that comes within his reach, and attacks ears, teeth, and nose, with the most reckless indifference to appearance. The confused hum and the half-suppressed chatter are far from affording assistance during the hours of mental employment; and at the season of meals, or during the presence of illustrious visitors, the whole establishment, denuded to the girdle, crowd into the apartment to satisfy their own curiosity, under pretext of doing honour to their lord and master.

On the first introduction of a stranger, an individual is selected from the establishment, and appointed the báldoraba, or “introducer.” He is designed to illustrate the agency of the holy Virgin and of the saints, between the Redeemer and the sinning mortal. To him and to him alone can a visitor look for admittance into the house; and unless he be present, the monarch and the great man are alike invisible. Courtyards may be thronged with attendants, and the doors may seem invitingly accessible, but the open sesame is wanting, and the repulsed party returns to his home disgusted with the insolence received. Time, however, gradually softens down the rigidity of this most inconvenient practice, which is at first so pertinaciously observed. Suspicion of evil design gives way on matured acquaintance; and after a certain probation, there is not much more difficulty experienced in gaining admittance to an Abyssinian hut, than to the lordly halls of the English nobleman.

Respect is paid by prostration to the earth in a manner the most degrading and humiliating—by bowing the face among the very dust—by removing the robe in order to expose the body—and on entering the house, by kissing the nearest inanimate object. Every subject, of whatever rank, when admitted to the royal presence, throws himself flat before the footstool, and three times brings his forehead in contact with the ground. All stand with shoulders bare to the girdle before His Majesty, or any superior; but to equals the corner of the cloth is removed only for a time. Any thing delivered to a domestic must be received with both hands in a cringing attitude; and should a present be made, the nearest object, generally the threshold of the door, is invariably saluted with the lips.

Amongst persons of rank, presents are frequently interchanged, and the utmost display is attempted on their delivery. Whenever anything was offered to us by our Amhára hosts, the articles were subdivided into a multiplicity of minute portions, placed in baskets covered with red cloth, consigned to a long train of bearers, and each component part of the gift exposed in turn to our view. Wild bulls and unruly he-goats, half as large as a donkey, were sometimes forcibly dragged into our sitting apartment, to the imminent danger and frequent pollution of all around. My personal inspection and approval was required to cocks and hens, unseemly joints of raw beef, loaves of half-baked dough, pots of rancid butter, sticky jars of honey, or leaky barillés of hydromel, sacks of barley, bundles of forage, and coarse overgrown cabbages; and any deviation from this established rule was certain to be visited with the most dire displeasure.

Meals are taken twice during the day—at noon and after sunset. The doors are first scrupulously barred to exclude the evil eye, and a fire is invariably lighted before the Amhára will venture to appease his hunger—a superstition existing, that without this precaution, devils would enter in the dark, and there would be no blessing on the meat. Men and women sit down together, and most affectionately pick out from the common dish the choicest bits, which, at arm’s length, they thrust into each other’s mouth, wiping their fingers on the pancakes which serve as platters, and which are afterwards devoured by the domestics. The appearance of the large owlish black face bending over the low wicker table, to receive into the gaping jaws the proffered morsel of raw beef, which, from its dimensions, requires considerable strength of finger to be forced into the aperture, is sufficiently ludicrous, and brings to mind a nest of sparrows in the garden hedge expanding their toad-like throats to the whistle of the school-boy. Mastication is accompanied by a loud smacking of the lips—an indispensable sign of good breeding, which is send to be neglected by none but mendicants, “who eat as if they were ashamed of it;” and sneezing, which is frequent during the operation, is accompanied by an invocation to the Holy Trinity, when every by-stander is expected to exclaim, Mároo! “God bless you!”

Raw flesh forms the grand aliment of life. It is not unfrequently seasoned with the gall of the slaughtered animal; but a sovereign contempt is entertained towards all who have recourse to a culinary process. The bull is thrown down at the very door of the eating-house; the head having been turned to the eastward, is, with the crooked sword, nearly severed from the body, under an invocation to the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost; and no sooner is the breath out of the carcass, than the raw and quivering flesh is handed to the banquet. It is not fair to brand a nation with a foul stigma, resting on a solitary fact; but from my own experience I can readily believe all that is related by the great traveller Bruce of the cruelties practised in Northern Abyssinia.

Sour bread, made from teff, barley, and wheat, is eaten with a stimulating pottage of onions, red pepper, and salt. Dábo, the most superior description of bread manufactured, is restricted to the wealthier classes; but there are numerous other methods employed in the preparation of grain, descending through all the grades of hebest, anbabéro, anabroot, deffo, amasa, debenia, demookta, and kitta; the first four being composed of wheaten flour, and the remainder of teff, gram, juwarree, barley, and peas.

Mead formed the beverage of the northern nations, and was celebrated in song by all their bards. It was the nectar they expected to quaff in heaven from the skulls of their enemies, and upon earth it was liberally patronised. In Shoa the despot alone retains the right of preparing the much-prized luxury, which, under the title of tedj, is esteemed far too choice for the lip of the plebeian. Unless brewed with the greatest care, it possesses a sweet mawkish flavour, particularly disagreeable to the palate of the foreigner; but its powers of intoxication, which do not appear to be attended with the after-feelings inseparable from the use of other potent liquors, extend an irresistible attraction to the Amhára of rank, who will never, if the means of inebriation be placed within his reach, proceed sober to bed.

The branches of the gesho plant are dried, pulverised, and boiled with water, until a strong bitter decoction is produced, which is poured off and left to cool. Honey and water being added, fermentation takes place on the third day. Chilies and pepper are next thrown in, and the mixture is consigned to an earthen vessel, closely sealed with mud and cow-dung. The strength increases with the age; and the monarch’s cellars are well stored with jars filled thirty years ago, which, little inferior in potency to old Cognac, furnish the material for the nightly orgies in the palace.

The tullah, or beer of the country, also possesses intoxicating properties, and if swallowed to the requisite extent, produces the consummation desired. Barley or juwarree, having been buried until the grain begins to sprout, is bruised, and added to the bitter decoction of the gesho. Fermentation ensues on the fourth day, when the liquor is closed in an earthen vessel, and according to the temperature of the hut, becomes ready for use in ten or fifteen more. The capacity of the Abyssinian for this sour beverage, which in aspect resembles soap and water, is truly amazing. In every house gallons are each evening consumed, and serious rioting, if not bloodshed, is too often the result of the festivity.

Rising with the liquor quaffed, the fiercer passions gradually gain the entire ascendency, and guests seldom return to their homes without witnessing the broil and the scuffle, the flashing of swords and the dealing of deep cuts and wounds among the drunken combatants. If but a small portion of the grease which is so plentifully besmeared over the Christian persons of the Amhára were employed in the fabrication of candles, the long idle evenings might be passed in a more pleasant and profitable manner than in the swilling of beer like hogs, and the consequent brawling contentions which at present stigmatise their nocturnal meetings.

On ordinary occasions, however, when not engaged in a debauch, the Abyssinian retires to his bed as soon as the shades of night close in. A bullock’s hide is stretched upon the mud floor, on which, for mutual warmth, all the inferior members of the family lie huddled together in puris naturalibus. The clothing of the day forming the covering at night, is equitably distributed over the whole party; and should the master of the house require sustenance during the nocturnal hours, a collop of raw flesh and a horn of ale are presented by a male or female attendant, who starts without apparel from the group of sleepers, exclaiming Abiet! “My lord!” to the well-known summons from the famished gaita.

Coffee, although flourishing wild in many parts of the kingdom, is at all times strictly forbidden on pain of exclusion from the church; and the priesthood have extended the same penal interdiction to smoking, “because the Apostle saith, that which cometh out of the mouth of a man defileth him.” One half the year, too, which is reserved for utter idleness, is marked by an exclusion of all meat diet, under the penalty of excommunication. Eggs and butter are then especially forbidden, as also milk, which is styled “the cow’s son.” Nothing whatever is tasted between sunrise and sunset; and even at the appointed time a scanty mess of boiled wheat, dried peas, or the leaves of the kail-cabbage, with a little vegetable oil, is alone permitted to those who are unable to obtain fish, of which none are found in any of the upland rivers.

Besides Wednesdays and Fridays throughout the twelve months, which are observed as holydays, the fast of the Apostles continues eighteen days, that of the holy Virgin sixteen, Christmas seven, Nineveh four, and Lent fifty-six. During all these, labouring men are strictly prohibited from every employment, and, as they desire their souls to be saved, are compelled to live like anchorites, to the serious diminution of their bodily strength. This is encouraged and promoted by the king; yet there is no system more baneful than that of devoting so many precious days to idleness and vice, and none forming a more fatal obstacle to the amelioration of the people. Where such a waste of time as this is sanctioned by religion, how deeply laid must be the foundation of mental ignorance! Six months out of the twelve devoted to listless idleness is indeed an immense source of evil, and God, who has placed men here for useful and worthy exertion, is not likely to reward them for their sloth. But throughout Abyssinia the evil is in full force. In arts, in industry, and in social as well as in moral existence, her sons are shrouded under a dense cloud of ignorance. Want of education denies them the relaxation of intellectual employment—little amusement varies the dull routine of a life awed by the church, by the king, and by the nobles; and an unprofitable existence having been passed in this world, the spirit passes away without any very distinct idea being entertained of what is to happen in the next.

Note 1. Gebeta is a game something allied to backgammon, but played with sixty-four balls, stored in twenty cavities on the board.

Shuntridge is, with few deviations, the Arab game of chess.