When rightly managed, the Abyssinians are a hospitable people. Some travellers take a soldier with them, and demand food and lodging. These of course are given, through fear, but without a welcome. The right mode is, that when a traveller comes to a village, he sits under a tree, and waits. The villagers soon gather round him, question him, and make remarks on his appearance with perfect candor. After he has undergone this ordeal, some one is sure to ask him to his house, and, should he happen to be a person of distinction, one of the chief men is certain to be his host.
When Mr. Parkyns was residing in Abyssinia, he always adopted this plan. On one occasion the headman invited him to his house, and treated him most hospitably, apologizing for the want of better food on the ground that he had lately been made liable for the tribute of a number of persons who had run away, and was consequently much reduced in the world. It proved that sixteen householders had escaped to avoid the tax, and that the unfortunate man had to pay the whole of it, amounting to a sum which forced him to sell his horse, mule, and nearly all his plough oxen, and, even when he was entertaining his visitor, he was in dread lest the soldiers should be quartered on him.
The question of hospitality naturally leads us to the cooking and mode of eating as practised in Abyssinia, about which so many strange stories have been told. We have all heard of Bruce’s account of the eating of raw meat cut from the limbs of a living bullock, and of the storm of derision which was raised by the tale. We will see how far he was borne out by facts.
The “staff of life” is prepared in Abyssinia much after the same fashion as in other parts of Africa, the grain being ground between two stones, and then made into a sort of very thin paste, about the consistency of gruel. This paste is allowed to remain in a jar for a day and night in order to become sour, and is then taken to the oven. This is a very curious article, being a slab of earthenware in which a concave hollow is made, and furnished with a small cover of the same material. A fire is made beneath the oven, or “magogo,” as it is termed, and when it is hot the baker, who is always a woman, proceeds to work.
She first rubs the hollow with an oily seed in order to prevent the bread from adhering to it, and then with a gourd ladle takes some of the thin dough from the jar. The gourd holds exactly enough to make one loaf, or rather cake. With a rapid movement the woman spreads the dough over the entire hollow, and then puts on the cover. In two or three minutes it is removed, and the bread is peeled off in one flat circular piece, some eighteen inches in width, and about the eighth of an inch in thickness. This bread, called “teff,” is the ordinary diet of an Abyssinian. It is very sour, very soft, and very spongy, and requires an experienced palate to appreciate it. There are several other kinds of bread, but the teff is that which is most valued.
As to the meat diet of the Abyssinians, it may be roughly divided into cooked and uncooked meat. Cooked meat is usually prepared from the least valued parts of the animal. It is cut up into little pieces, and stewed in a pot together with other ingredients, a considerable quantity of butter, and such an amount of capsicum pods that the whole mess is of a light red color, and a drop of it leaves a red stain on any garment on which it may happen to fall. This paste is called “dillikh,” and is made by grinding together a quantity of capsicum pods and an equal amount of onions, to which are added ginger, salt, black pepper, and other herbs, according to the taste of the preparer. The poorer class, who cannot afford meat, can still make dillikh paste, and live almost entirely on teff, clotted milk, and dillikh.
But the great treat for an Abyssinian epicure is the “broundo,” or raw meat, about which he is as fastidious as the European bon vivant about his sauces and ragouts. Not an Abyssinian will eat any animal which has incisor teeth in its upper jaw, and, like the Jews, they even reject the camel, because it has not a cloven hoof.
According to the account given by Bruce, when a dinner party is assembled, a cow is brought to the door of the house, bound, flung down, and a few drops of its blood poured on the ground in order to save the letter of the Mosaic law. The butchers then cut large strips of meat from the poor beast, taking care to avoid the vital parts and larger vessels, and managing so as to remove the flesh without much effusion of blood.
The still warm flesh is taken within the house, where it is sliced into strips by the men, and handed to the women who sit by their side. The women cut it up into small squares, lay it on the “teff” bread, season it plentifully with the dillikh paste, roll it up into balls, and push the balls into the mouth of their companion, who eats until he is satisfied, and then reciprocates the attention by making up a couple of similar balls, and putting them into the mouths of the women. (See [page 643].) Mead and tedge are then consumed as largely as the meat, and, according to Bruce, a scene of the most abominable licentiousness accompanies the conclusion of the festival.
These statements have been much controverted, but there is no doubt that, in the main, the narrative of Bruce was a truthful one. Many of the facts of which he wrote have since been corroborated, while the changes to which Abyssinia has been subjected will account for unimportant variations. Later travellers, for example, have not witnessed such a scene as has been narrated by Bruce, but that is no reason why such a scene should not have occurred. The most important part of it, namely, the eating of raw flesh, has been repeatedly corroborated, especially by Mansfield Parkyns, who lived so long with the Abyssinians, dressed like them, fed like them, and accommodated himself in most respects to their mode of life.