CHAPTER XXII.
Carpentering.—Fit up a study.—Worshippers of demons.—Saroitsh.—English superstition.—Priestly benediction.—Tabeeb monasteries.—Of their character and discipline.—Turning lathe.—Drinking hours.—Female ornaments.—Sumptuary edict.
August 13th.—Walderheros was occupied all day splitting and reducing to proper dimensions the ted tree that was brought yesterday, and of which I had determined to manufacture an English chair. Goodaloo was also busy, as he had undertaken to make me a table, and which he managed to do very well, after a long day’s labour. It consisted merely of a round basket open at both extremities, made by turning thin stripes of bamboo alternately, before and behind strong upright pieces of the same plant. This was completed by a top being constructed of the like material, dexterously interwoven upon a ray-like skeleton, which was afterwards lashed tight down upon the basket pedestal with thongs of raw hide, and in this manner an excellent round table was made, three feet and a-half in circumference, and more than a yard high.
I managed to put up a parchment window during the day in the mud and stick wall, over where I intended the table should stand. Conveniently to hand, when seated upon my intended chair, I also placed against the wall, upon stick pegs thrust through, a shelf of seven or eight short jowharee stalks, so secured as to form a flat surface for a few books to stand upon.
It was two days before I could manage the chair, for I had neither hammer nor nails to work with, only a small saw and a matrabier, or axe of Abyssinia, and which is identically the same in form as those used by the Dankalli. With these, however, and a medamager heated red hot, with which I burnt the holes in the frame, after some little trouble, I built up by degrees a very respectable-looking piece of furniture. Walderheros admired it greatly, and soon interwove a very convenient seat, with thongs of hide and a rope made of a long kind of very tough grass, called gwassia, which grows in the daggan, or high country, and is largely used by the Abyssinians in making mats, fining sieves for flour, and baskets.
When my new chair was placed in its situation by the side of the table, a good light falling through the parchment window, which I took care to emblazon with sundry hieroglyphical and heraldic devices, and my little library itself laden with my books, I considered that I had a study complete. On the partition behind the chair, which separated my recess in the narrow corridor between the two walls of my circular house, from that occupied by the bedstead of Walderheros, I put up a large map of Africa, whilst in the prolonged sweep, on the other side of the table, was contained my own bed, and although the greatest width of the recess was scarcely five feet, altogether when the arrangements were complete, I considered my retreat to be very snug and comfortable. All the portion of the inner wall of the house, in front of my chair and table, was knocked down, and being exactly opposite to the door, which was again opposite to the little wicket of my garden enclosure, not only was light admitted freely into my study, but I always had a good view, from my chair, of what was going on in the interior of my house, and also of the neighbours who might be passing down the lane, and who generally, whether they saw me or not, bawled out the morning or evening salutation.
I was now gradually becoming accustomed to the circumstances of my situation, and began to take more interest in observing man as I found him in Shoa, but still I could not overcome my disease, although for the sake of information, I had called into my aid nearly all native means and medicines. To-day some pretenders to a mysterious kind of treatment were introduced by Walderheros, with a strong request that I should give them a trial, but on understanding that they were professors of the black art, and undertook to dislodge the saroitsh, or demons, that afflicted me, I dismissed them very summarily.
The popular belief in the existence of an inferior order of bad spirits, is universal in Abyssinia, and to their malign influence it is usual to ascribe every disease incidental to the human frame. Different opinions exist as to the number of these “saroitsh” (sar, in the singular). Some affirm there are only eight, others sixteen, and not a few say as many as eighty. Christians, Mahomedans, and Pagan Gallas, alike pay a kind of reverence to these evil spirits, by observing customs to avert the consequences of their anger, when supposed likely to be excited. In England we do exactly the same, when certain means are adopted to avert what we term “bad luck.” I certainly believe myself that the same idea of minor devils afflicting man in some cases of ill health, was popular among our immediate ancestors, and the fantastical names that appear to have been bestowed upon them, assimilates still more closely this popular superstition of the Abyssinians of the present day, with that of the inhabitants of England about the time of Shakespear. Mad Tom, in “King Lear,” affords some illustration of this, for we observe he says of himself, “The foul fiend haunts poor Tom. Hop-dance cries in Tom’s belly for two white herrings.” From forgetfulness I neglected to note down the names of the Abyssinian “saroitsh,” for having one day inquired what they were, neither Walderheros nor his wife could recollect more than six, and they could not vouch for the correctness of these, so I was desired not to set them down, as I should have a better opportunity of acquiring them. After that it never occurred to me, until it was too late, that I had not again attended to the subject. One name, however, I recollect, was “Burr alunga,” silver whip, and this is somewhat of the same whimsical character as the name of Hop-dance; and, in my opinion, future inquiries will show a near approach in the nomenclature of the two countries as regards this very similar superstition. It must be also observed that Mad Tom was afflicted with more than one, Frateretto, Obidicut, Hobbididance, Mahu, Modo, and Flibbertigibbet, being the several fiends whom we are told tormented him.
August 14th.—Walderheros seeing that I defied the devil and all his works, by dismissing with a suitable admonition his lying agents, tried then, upon a different principle, to relieve me of the fever, and brought me down this morning two priests from the Church of Goodis Gorgis (St. George), which is situated on the ridge in front of Ankobar, before we come to the denuded site of the old Church of Abbo. These turbaned ministers of religion promised faithfully by prayers to cure me of my harassing complaint. I shook my head in a most scandalous manner, as I doubted the efficacy of their intercession quite as much as I did that of the devil worshippers, but gave them the salt notwithstanding, and after a long blessing, which I thought would never have ended, these two holy men took their leave.
When I was at Myolones, I heard that I was not far distant from a “goodam,” or monastery of Tabeebs. This is the name of the artificers of Shoa, a blacksmith, a carpenter, a potter, a saddle-maker, each being called “Tabeeb.” This has also become proverbial to particularize a clever man by an allusion to these cunning workmen, and I suspect that ere long the Shoans will have no other word for a sorcerer. I heard some remarkable tales respecting them: that they lived in common, men and women, but only met during the darkness of night, and the consequence was, that the greatest confusion of family and kindred ties resulted. In the day time the sexes lived, I was told, in separate houses. There was something very mysterious about them, so I determined as soon as the rains had subsided to visit one of their “goodams” and judge for myself. Among other things, it was said they were not Christians, and yet worshipped God and believed in Christ; that they had no “tabot,” and that all the men and women were priests and priestesses. I could, in fact, make nothing of them; sometimes I thought they might be Jews, and then again that they were Freemasons, whose orgies had here assumed a religious character.