I could not be very well angry with Walderheros, and I was too ill either to laugh at, or to endeavour to convert the priest, so I dismissed him with an ahmulah, for his willingness to relieve me of the supposed ban under which I was laid. When he was gone, however, the weather having cleared up a little, I directed my servants to kill the goat, and to ask such of their Christian friends who lived in Aliu Amba to come to the party on the occasion, as I wanted it eaten up, that no temptation should exist to divert me from my resolution not to take any animal food.
The best butcher in the place, Tinta’s misselannee, who had always shown himself ready to render assistance whenever I required some extra hand, could not, of course, be omitted. Gwalior, another servant of Tinta, and a patient of mine, was also called in at the death of the doomed goat, which gallantly showed fight, surrounded, as he was, by a host of hungry enemies, who, besides seeking the satisfaction of revenge for the indiscriminate tuppings and bumpings he had given and occasioned among the party, had had their interest excited by the portions of his venison mutton, that each, in the mind’s eye, already saw hanging up in a mimosa tree that grew in my garden, and which formed the shambles generally on such occasions.
A lot of yelping boys came into the enclosure, and crowded about the butchers aiding the goat in his attempts to get away, by attempting to catch him, and of course running in the way of those who might have been able to do it. A number of women also thronged in as the stir became faster, and who stood around me as a kind of body-guard, for the leaping “diabolus” of a goat sometimes threatened even to make our heads a stepping-stone to fly over the high enclosure. A long lasso at length being thrown ignobly at his feet, the next move he made ensnared him by the leg, and the triumph of his life-hunters was complete. The rope being run around the trunk of the mimosa, the unwilling goat was dragged, like a victim of Spanish civil war, backwards to his doom, and a prayer of peace being muttered by the clerk, Walderheros, the high priest, the misselannee, cut the throat of their prey, the invocation of the Trinity, like the Islam “ul Allah,” sanctifying the bloody business of depriving an animal of life.
It is singular to observe the pertinacity of custom, and how characteristic of descent particular habits and ceremonies become long after the separation of different nations from their original root. The Arabs, the Amhara, or the Abyssinians, and the Jews, all precede the slaughter of animals for food with some short prayer, which, differing in form, is still the same custom, and which, I think, originated at a period antecedent to their dispersion as different nations into the several countries they now occupy. It has also continued among them, even changed as these nations are in religion and social character, the Hebrew trader, the Arab nomade shepherd, and the Abyssinian agriculturist. Jew, Mahomedan, and Christian, still retain this evidence of a common origin, but which marks an ethnological era posterior, I believe, by many centuries to the more general custom of circumcision common to all these people, and to many other African nations.[10]
Such a goat as had just been killed, fed up to the high condition he was in, could not have been bought in the market for less than ten ahmulahs, two shillings and twopence. The skin alone, however, is supposed to be worth three ahmulahs; and great care is taken not to injure it with the point of the knife, when flaying the carcase. To be of any value, it must be taken off uncut, except around the neck, and in those situations necessary to enable the butchers to draw the legs out of the skin. Also, of course, where the first incision is made to commence the process, and which is a circular cut carried around both haunches, not many inches from and having the tail for a centre. The hide is then stripped over the thighs, and two smaller incisions being made around the middle joint of the hind legs, enable them to be drawn out. A stick is now placed to extend these extremities, and by this, for the convenience of the operators, the whole carcase is suspended from the branch of a tree, and by some easy pulls around the body, the skin is gradually withdrawn over the forelegs, which are incised around the knees to admit of their being taken out; after which, the head being removed, the whole business concludes by the skin being pulled inside out over the decollated neck. One of the parties now takes a rough stone and well rubs the inside surface, to divest it of a few fibres of the subcutaneous muscle which are inserted into the skin, and after this operation it is laid aside until the next day; the more interesting business of attending to the meat calling immediate attention.
These entire skins are afterwards made into sacks by the apertures around the neck and legs being secured by a double fold of the skin being sewed upon each other, by means of a slender but very tough thong. These small seams are rendered quite air-tight, and the larger orifice around the haunches being gathered together by the hands, the yet raw skin is distended with air, and the orifice being then tied up, the swollen bag is left in that state for a few days until slight putrefaction has commenced, when the application of the rough stone soon divests its surface of the hair. After this has been effected, a deal of labour, during at least one day, is required to soften the distended skin by beating it with heavy sticks, or trampling upon it for hours together, the labourer supporting himself by clinging to the bough of a tree over head, or holding on by the wall of the house. In this manner, whilst the skin is drying, it is prevented from getting stiff, and still further to secure it from this evil condition, it is frequently rubbed with small quantities of butter. When it is supposed that there is no chance of the skin becoming hard and easily broken, the orifice is opened, the air escapes, and a very soft flaccid leather bag is produced, but which, for several days after, affords an amusement to the owner, when otherwise unemployed, by well rubbing it all over with his hands.
Almost all the produce of the fields is conveyed to the market in such sacks as these—cotton, grain, and the Berberah pepper. It is even the only moneybag employed to carry home the salt returns for the different wares that have been sold. None other could have been employed by Joseph’s brethren when they loaded their asses and went down into Egypt; for none are more naturally the resources of a shepherd people, or better adapted by their form and size for the little useful animal which seems to have been as universally employed by the Jews as by the Amhara of the present day. By a species of gratitude, sincere as it is deserved, hiyah, the word signifying ass, is used by the latter people as another designation for friend; and I well remember the mistake of a learner of that language who went into a great rage by being accosted “hiyah” by an Amhara friend.
The skins of sheep and of small goats are made into parchment by being more particularly divested of the fleshy fibres with the rough stone, and then, after the hairs have been removed by putrefaction, simply drying in the sun. For this purpose, it is stretched in a favourable situation, a few inches from the ground, by a number of small wooden pegs, which are inserted into small apertures made in the edge of the skin, and it is thus prevented from becoming corrugated during the process of drying.
In the same manner, the larger hides of cows and oxen are dried, most frequently before putrefaction has produced any effect upon the hairs, and which, of course, then remain. This is the general seat for visitors during the day, and their bed at night, unless a tanned hide (nit, as it is termed) can be procured, and which is considered softer and more suitable for a respected guest.
The nit, or leather, is tanned by being made into a kind of trough, which contains an infusion of the bark of the kantuffa acacia. This trough is formed by a skin being loosely extended upon four stick supports, which elevate it about a foot from the ground. The kantuffa bark, after being well pounded in a mortar, is strewed over the surface, and the hollow is then filled with cold water, and in the course of a few days a strong red infusion is made, with which the whole surface of the skin is frequently washed, and when evaporation has reduced its contents to a sloppy paste, the sticks are withdrawn, the ends folded in, and with the contained mass, the skin then undergoes the usual fatiguing process of treading, until the evidences of the nit being properly prepared are satisfactory.