The City Fifty Years Ago By RICHARD K. P. PANKHURST

Visitors to Addis Ababa at the turn of the century were far from imagining that Menelik’s capital founded a few years earlier was destined within the space of little more than fifty years to become the most populous city between Cairo and Johannesburg. Ethiopia’s dramatic defeat of the Italians at the battle of Adowa in 1896 had not fully dispelled the doubt as to whether an independent African state could survive in the age of the ” scramble for Africa.” Moreover, most European observers believed that the Ethiopian capital was only a temporary headquarters of the monarch and would be abandoned within a few years, as had been the case of earlier Shoan capitals, such as Ankober, Angolala and Entotto.

Wax and Gold, by Gedamu Abraha

Skovoroda, a radical thinker of eighteenth-century Russia, viewed the wretched state of affairs in his beloved land and penned his cri de coeur: ” Our Father which art in Heaven, wilt Thou send down a Socrates to us soon, one who will teach us to know ourselves, so that knowing ourselves, we may then develop out of ourselves a philosophy which will be our own, native and natural to our land.”

And now in the second half of the twentieth century, Western foundations and universities viewing the wretched state of affairs amongst those described by Frantz Fanon as les damnés de la terre have convinced themselves that the undeveloped countries are in dire need of the kind of teacher Skovoroda had in mind. One can hardly find a single undeveloped country that has not been penetrated by intrepid anthropologists, sociologists, political scientists, manpower specialists, or low-income housing experts. This explosion in social science research has brought about another phenomenon in the book-publishing business: a torrential outpouring of books on the modernizing ” problems ” of the peoples of le tiers monde.

Ethiopian Jewelry

Artistic Jewelry

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A Note on Ethiopian Chess

By Richard Pankhurst
Ethiopia deserves an honourable place in the great history of chess which appears to have been traditionally popular in court circles and among the nobility. The game was known in Amharic as Sentherej, a name borrowed from the Arabs who called it Shatranj, a corruption of the Persian Chatrang, itself derived from the Sanskrit chaturanga.

The Monastic Community of Ethiopia

By Robert Van de Weyer
  The Ethiopian monastery has, so the monks believe, remained unchanged for 1,500 years. The original Christian monks in the fourth century were hermits living in the Egyptian desert. Gradually they came together to form communities, building simple villages for themselves with a common kitchen and a church where they could meet daily for prayers. From Egypt monasticism spread westwards to Italy and France where it quickly became highly organised and authoritarian. St. Benedict’s long rule which was soon adopted throughout Europe prescribed in detail every hour of the monks* daily lives, and set above them an abbot to whom they owed complete and unquestioning obedience.

Social Structure of the Ethiopian Church

By Ephraim Isaac
  Three of the great world religions are represented in Ethiopia: Judaism, Christianity and Islam. In addition, nature religions are adhered to by about 15 per cent of the population.

  These nature religions are remnants of the ancient Ethiopian religions and cults associated with the worship of trees and water, a serpent-king, the sun and the moon, and a goddess called Astarte.

  Some of these ancient cults produced an unusually impressive type of art and architecture such as we see in ancient temples and palaces and the outstanding monolithic stelae of Axum. The roots of Ethiopian Judaism go back to the ancient beginnings of the country, probably antedating Christianity. The faith has retained some of the original forms of the ancient Biblical religion of Israel, besides taking on many indigenous peculiarities. It is, therefore, substantially different from normative Judaism elsewhere. Its adherents, called Falashas (meaning ” migrants ”), are not at all distinguishable from other Ethiopians, except in their religious practices.