The source of the Blue Nile

by Arthur J. Hayes

See [p. 105.]

On Sunday, January 18, I moved to our new camping-ground. It was a well-wooded spot, grassy and full of wild flowering plants of many kinds. This pleasant place is called Sara; it is six or seven miles distant from the lake. Game was plentiful. On the way I shot a sand-grouse, and, taking my gun in the afternoon, brought down two plovers of a kind which I had not seen before. One, probably the male bird, had excrescences of yellow skin on each side of the beak. There were snipe and quail in abundance, but I did not get within range of any.

During the day a man came to me who had a splinter of wood about two inches long buried in his leg near the shin. To remove it I had to cut down a couple of inches into the flesh. My patient endured the operation without wincing.

Approaching the camp on the way back, I heard tomtoms, women warbling after the manner of the country and the ringing of bells. I supposed for a moment that a stray shot of mine had injured some one and that the neighbourhood was in an uproar about it, and expected to find a demonstration in progress. But on making inquiry I learned that next day the Epiphany was celebrated, when there is a general feast and holiday throughout Abyssinia. The gathering of Habashes was in a hut near the river where they had come to be ready for the opening of the festival. This is the blessing of the water by the priest, and the people are allowed to bathe in it after the ceremony. I did not myself see that any availed themselves of the privilege.

The Habashes, who had assembled near the stream, began their singular devotions at daybreak. Mansfield Parkyns witnessed the whole procedure of one of these commemoration feasts, and his lively account of it is as exact now as when it was written:—

“As we have already stated while speaking of the fasts, the day before the Epiphany is passed by the priests and other devout men in abstinence until sunset. During the afternoon the Holy Sacrament is administered to the priests only, in their churches. After the conclusion of the ceremony they form in procession, and, accompanied by the defterers or scribes, and bearing with them all the church paraphernalia, go down to the neighbouring rivulet. Tents are pitched near its banks, ready to receive them, and there is a store of comestibles of every variety, with, of course, the usual large proportion of beer and honey-mead; the whole of which good things are from the voluntary contributions of the devout of the parish.

“When the much-wished-for sunset has arrived the feasting begins, and it is fearful to behold with what vigour the half-famished divines set to work. There is abundance for them; for the food being begged as a supply for the ark, or tabote, the superstitious people think that they are doing a very godly act in providing vast quantities, while in reality the only result is that the priests make beasts of themselves. The whole night is often passed in alternate prayer, singing, dancing, and drinking. The songs and dances are both of a religious kind: the latter probably taken from the religious dancing of the Israelites, frequently mentioned in the Bible, is merely a peculiar sort of shrugging of the body and stamping with the feet. The end of these devotional orgies is the administration of the Sacrament before sunrise; but it not unfrequently happens that long before that time many of the priests are not in a very fit state to partake of it, disgraceful scenes of drunkenness often disturbing these religious festivals. During the evening of timkat, or the Epiphany, that I passed at Adoua, several of the holy priests were found to have tumbled into the neighbouring brook, Assam, overcome, as charitably disposed persons may have said, by their religious fervour; though some sinful scoffers—myself included, I fear—suggested that liquor might have been the cause of their overthrow.

“After the Sacrament has been distributed among the priests, the chief priest, raising his hands over the stream, blesses it, and then the people bathe in it. Great men, however, and priests, are sprinkled, to obviate the necessity of their mixing, even in such a ceremony, with the vulgar herd. After this the women dance and sing, and the men engage in various sports.”[73]

The “dancing” of the women seemed to me not unlike that which is customary in Egypt and the Soudan. The chief feature of it was the protruding of the chest and chin alternately. The more forcibly this was done the more excellent was the style of the dancer. During the performance they gasp like whirling dervishes.

The Abyssinian women are not kept in seclusion. Indeed, the liberty which they have would be considered license from a European point of view. But perhaps they had been shy of appearing before a band of strangers. Anyhow, I had had no opportunity of forming an opinion about the girls of Ethiopia while we travelled among the villages. They came in numbers to the combined church-service and dance which was in progress by the river, and I then found that some were very decidedly good-looking. I took a couple of snap-shots of one leading beauty, and the reader can determine for himself—or herself—if she is fascinating. Tastes differ in these matters; but it is fair to her to say that the charm of an animated, varying expression and of lithe, graceful movements is poorly represented in a photograph.