Volume Three—Chapter Twenty Three.

Feast of the Epiphany.

But by far the greatest holiday of the Abyssinian year is held on the Epiphany, styled Temkát, (i.e. Baptism) when the baptism of our Lord, by John, in the river Jordan, is commemorated with extraordinary pomp. He who neglects to undergo the annual purification enjoined on this day by the Ethiopic church, is considered to carry with him the burden of every sin committed during the preceding twelve months, and to be surely visited by sickness and misfortune, whereas those who perform the rite, are believed to have emerged thoroughly cleared and regenerated.

On the evening preceding this festival, the priests of all the churches in Ankóber and the environs, carrying the holy tábots under gaudy canopies, assembled in the open space, termed Aráda, immediately in front of the palace. Here, according to custom, they were received by the governor of the town, who, after falling prostrate on his face before the arks, escorted the procession to the river Airára—the clergy dancing and singing, whilst the female portion of the inhabitants lining the hill-side, indulged in the shrillest vociferation. A tent for each church had been erected on the bank; and a temporary dam being thrown across the stream, the night was spent in chanting appropriate hymns and psalms.

Long before dawn, the pent up waters having been blessed by the officiating priest, the entire population, the young, the old, the wealthy, and the indigent, gathered from many miles round, casting off their habiliments, flocked promiscuously into the pool—even babes who were unable to totter being thrown in by their naked mothers. Not the slightest modesty was evinced by either sex, all mingling together in a state of perfect nudity, and affecting, under the light of innumerable torches and flambeaux, which shed the broad glare of day over the disgraceful scene, to believe that a supernatural veil concealed each other’s shame.

The sacrament of Christ’s supper was then administered, accompanied by rites and ceremonies highly unbecoming the solemnity of this most sacred of Christian institutes. The multitude next proceeded to devour a pile of loaves, and to drain accumulated pitchers of beer, supplied by the neighbouring governors. Here too the most indecent excesses were committed. Declaring themselves to have swallowed a specific against intoxication, the clergy indulge to any extent they please, and each priest vying with his brother in the quantities he shall quaff, avers that if “the whole of the Lord’s bread and the Lord’s wine” be not consumed on the spot, a famine will arise throughout the land!

Festivities terminated, the officiating dignitaries, robed and mitred, preceded the holy arks and canopies in grand procession to the capital, singing hallelujahs. Holding in their left hands cymbals in imitation of David, and in the right the ecclesiastical staff, wherewith various absurd gesticulations are described, they danced and sang for some time in front of the palace gate. As usual, the performance displayed the most uncouth attitudes, and the least graceful figures. The beard and the crutch, and the aged face, and the sacred calling, were but ill in unison with the mountebank capers undertaken; and the actors rather resembled masks at the carnival than holy functionaries of the church.

“The foxes have holes, and the birds of the air have nests,” is a passage of Scripture which the clergy of Shoa interpret to their own advantage. “Who are the foxes,” they invariably inquire, “but the kings and the governors of the land, who seek only after worldly vanities? and who the birds but the priests and bishops, who in hymns and hallelujahs thus fly upwards, and build their nests in heaven?”

The clergy are distinguished from the laity by a beard, and by a monstrous white turban encumbering the head. This is designed to typify Moses covering his face on his descent from the Mount, when he had received the tables of the law. Their sacred persons are usually shrouded in a black woollen cloak, studded with emblems of the faith, and furnished with a peaked hood. The sacerdotal vest was first embroidered by command of Hatzé David, the father of Saint Theodórus, to commemorate the arrival from Jerusalem of a fragment of the true cross on which Christ died; and officiating priests are expected to appear in one of these, composed either of scarlet or party-coloured cloth.

A silver or brazen cross and a slender crutch are the never-failing accoutrements of the priest; and on all occasions of ceremony, the mitre, the censer, and the great umbrellas are conspicuous objects. Long rods, furnished with streaming pennants, manufactured of the light pith of the juwarree, in alternating bands of red and white, were carried by the host of dirty boys who swelled the procession; and after the labours of the day were over, these emblems of regeneration were hung up in the churches as votive offerings. On the conclusion of the exhibition, the clergy dispersed under a salvo of musketry to their respective churches, and individuals who, from any unavoidable circumstance, had been precluded from participating in the general immersion, were then privately baptised, males and females being alike divested of every portion of apparel, and plunged into a large reservoir prepared for their reception.

Four years have elapsed since Sáhela Selássie underwent this lustration, wherein he was wont annually to participate, but from which he is now held exempt, in consideration of the height of his power. Although in a state of perfect nudity, a cloth was held around him during the ceremony—a privilege to which neither virgins nor females of the highest rank are ever admitted.

Pots and pans that have been defiled by the unclean touch of a Mohammadan, are on this day purified by immersion in the water that has been blessed by the priest. Among many other superstitions there exists a firm belief, that all mules and horses that are not led forth to exercise on the festival of Temkát will die during the ensuing year. It is considered to be “a day of great splendour;” and on pain of excommunication, every good Christian is bound to appear clad in his best habiliments, and in all the trinkets he can muster, to the end that he may prostrate himself before the ark which he has adopted.

If enforced with rigour, excommunication is in fact a capital punishment, for it is interdictio aqua et igne. No one can speak to, or eat, or drink with the proscribed person, nor even enter his house. The offender can neither buy nor sell, nor visit. He cannot recover debts. He may be murdered at pleasure by any ruffian who will take the trouble to cut his throat, and when dead his body cannot be buried.

The bell, book, and candle are to be hired by any disappointed enemy, and the hooded priest may be purchased to perform the ceremony; but the undertaking in some cases is not without its attendant danger. The cells of the state prison frequently enclose the rash fanatic who wantonly interferes with the royal salvation. Scanty fare and close confinement eventually insure absolution, and the martyr to religious intolerance is summarily banished from the realm. Another powerful antidote is found in the argumentum baculinum, which, when persuasively applied to the shoulders of arrogant church pride, by the sturdy sinews of Europe especially, possesses a wonderful efficacy in allaying the storm.

A century has not elapsed since excommunication was performed upon one of the fair sons of the North. The turbaned bearer of the bell, book, and candle, was quietly introduced into the domicile, and his countenance fell as he perceived the object of his visit armed with a formidable cudgel. “My father must have been mistaken,” was the exordium that greeted his astounded ear, as the staff descended with an equally startling salutation—“My father never could have proposed the excommunication of his dear friend.” Again the weapon pattered upon the priestly back; and during full five minutes an able running commentary was supported by frequent playful taps over the head, to quicken the clerical understanding. This powerful appeal concluded, the crest-fallen functionary willingly withdrew his ban, and bestowing entire absolution, slunk back to his cell, mentally resolved to interfere no more with the incomprehensible European, who neither displayed terror at the curse of the church, nor entertained respect for the sacred persons of her ministers.

Unquies, the Bishop of Shoa, had long meditated the adoption of extreme measures towards the British escort, whom he declared to be no better than Mohammadans, since it was notorious that they did not kneel when the holy ark passed, and had no hesitation in partaking of flesh slaughtered by an infidel, instead of in the name of the holy Trinity. No one, however, could be found sufficiently bold to undertake the customary process where the Irish soldier was concerned; and the king’s “strong monk” had been fain at length to content himself with the clandestine promulgation of his spiritual denunciation for the many heresies committed.

The honorary distinctions conferred by the monarch for the destruction of the elephant first produced a good effect, which was still increased by the presentation of the silver shield that distinguishes the highest functionaries in the land; and although the opinions of the clergy generally were still far from favourable, there was a certain influential priest who invariably found it convenient to pass the long dreary evenings over the Residency fire. The pious father evinced no disinclination to participate in the good things of this world; and whilst sipping his strong drink, it was his delight to speculate upon scriptural grounds whether the skin of Eve was really white or black, and to prove that locusts could never have been tasted by John the Baptist, because they form the food of the unclean Mohammadan.

Edifying topics such as these were doubtless handled with greater eloquence than either abstinence, or the mortification of the flesh. Proceeding on his annual visit to Debra Libanos, the principal resort of those who prey upon the credulity of the public, the devout father at length stood voluntarily forward as the advocate of the Gyptzis; and so eloquently did he explain away the non-observance of fasts and other imputed heresies, that a wax taper of which we had made him the bearer was actually lighted in the sanctuary of Saint Tekla Ha?manót, and an immediate revulsion thereby created in the ecclesiastical sentiments entertained throughout the entire realm.