Ethiopia: The African and Africana

Ethiopia is ancient and its Christian tradition and roots run deep, dating to 1st century C.E. Words from Psalm 68:31 (KJV), “Ethiopia shall quickly stretch out her hands unto God,” predate Christianity and affirm Ethiopian antiquity in the same vein as do words from Zephaniah 3:10 (KJV): From beyond the rivers of Ethiopia my suppliants, even the daughter of my dispersed, shall bring mine offering. Tsegaye Gebre-Medhin, Poet Laureate of Ethiopia who was elected to the United Poets Laureate International, captures in a poem entitled Nile that antiquity and Africana consciousness in modern times. Verse 1 and the first line of Verse 2 of Nile give credence to a continuous flow of ancient traditions, like the River Nile, from the past into the present:

I am the first Earth Mother of all fertility.
I am the Source, I am the Nile, I am the African, I am the beginning!
O Arabia, how could you so conveniently have forgotten,
while your breath still hangs upon the threads of my springs?
O Egypt, you prodigal daughter born from my first love,
I am your Queen of the endless fresh waters,
who rested my head upon the arms of Narmer Ka Menes
when we joined in one our Upper and Lower Lands to create you!
O Sudan, born out of the bosom of my being,
how could you so conveniently count down
in miserable billions of petty cubic yards
the eternal drops of my life-giving Nile to you?
Beginning long before the earth fell from the eye-ball of heaven,
O Nile, that gushes out from my breath of life
upon the throats of the billions of the Earth's thirsty multitudes,
O World, how could you so conveniently have forgotten
that I, your first fountain, I your ever Ethiopia
I your first life still survive for you?

My name is Africa, I am the mother of the Nile.

(The Missing Slate, 2016)

Ethiopia: The African and Africana

Ethiopian Drum

Ethiopian Drum

(Photo: Leonard Gadzekpo)

Ethiopian Drum
C20th. Wood, leather, fiber, and paint.
8 x 8 x 15 inches.
Reginald Petty African Art Collection.

Ethiopian Poetry

Another Ethiopian poet, Adeleke Adeiti, captures in his poem “Pride of the Motherland” Christian religious tradition embodied in exquisite architectural style and artistic rendering found in carved-rock churches of Lalibela built almost 900 years ago. When Jerusalem was captured by Muslims, Emperor Lalibela (1181-1221) sought to build a “New Jerusalem” in his realm that produced awe-striking edifices, living landmarks of Ethiopian Christianity (Phillipson, 2009). An excerpt from Adeiti’s poem indicates how the churches that have been filling with Christian worshippers around the year for almost a millennium were built using bare hands and tools at a time when modern construction machinery and sophisticated measurement tools were not available:

Praying in an Ethiopian Church
Preserved in rocks built by humans’ hands
Never touched by conquest plans
Protected from the invaders’ footsteps
Queen of Sheba and Solomon’s nest
Touched by Arch of the Covenant
Mary, Joseph, and Jesus once slept

(The Missing Slate, 2016)

Ethiopian religious paintings presented in Conversation 2 evidence ancient Christian tradition is alive and ever-present in the lives of priests and monks and among Ethiopians in general.

Ethiopian Religious Painting

Ethiopian Religious Painting

(Photo: Leonard Gadzekpo)

Ethiopian Religious Painting
C20th. Paint on canvas.
52 x 24 inches.
Reginald Petty African Art Collection.

Ethiopian Religious Painting

Ethiopian Religious Painting

(Photo: Leonard Gadzekpo)

Ethiopian Religious Painting
C20th. Paint on leather parchment.
18 x 6 inches.
Reginald Petty African Art Collection.

Ethiopian Religious Painting

Ethiopian Religious Painting

(Photo: Leonard Gadzekpo)

Ethiopian Religious Painting
C20th. Paint on canvas.
52 x 24 inches.
Reginald Petty African Art Collection.

An ancient fable by Aesop has often been deployed in dealing with Africana, so that “Wash the Ethiopian White” with a moral teaching about recognizing a futile goal, also to be found in the Bible, in Jeremiah 13.23 (KJV), would be transformed into a racial trope as “Ethiopian” became entrenched as the Black African through the millennia (Aesop, trans. Gibbs, 2002). But Ethiopia, steeped in antiquity, offers a counter narrative to modern misconceptions and negative perspectives about Africans and all who belong to Africana. Ancient traditions and rhythms of life captured in paintings continue, despite demise of the ancient 3000-year old Solomonic dynasty with the overthrow of Emperor Haile Selassie I in a military led coup d’etat in 1974, engendering a civil war that worsened recurrent famines (Mazrui, 1999). Ethiopia remains a beacon for Africana because it conjures an African majestic past, an unflinching stance against colonial control, a continuing investment in Pan-Africa and the African Diaspora, and houses in its capital, Addis Ababa, the headquarters of an organization of fifty-five African nations, Organization of African Unity that became the Africa Union in 2001 (Roberts, 2014).

23rd Psalm

Twenty third Psalm

(Photo: Leonard Gadzekpo)

Edna Patterson-Petty, 23rd Psalm.
2003. Quilt, Fabric.
46 x 41.5 inches.

Edna Patterson-Petty presents in her art piece, 23rd Psalm, a younger African American Christian tradition that is parallel to an older Ethiopian Christian tradition captured in religious paintings. African American struggle during almost three centuries of slavery in America and, thereafter, in the long on-going march towards freedom, justice, and equality found sustenance and growth in the womb of the Black Church because for African Americans, through the centuries, a call to be Christian is also a call to be free and equal. Martin Luther King, Jr., the most visible and forceful voice of the modern Civil Rights Movement put it eloquently with Africana call and response tradition in full display during delivery of a sermon at Holt Street Baptist Church, Montgomery, Alabama, in 1955, when he said, “If we are wrong, the Constitution of the United States is wrong. [Yes] [applause] And if we are wrong, God Almighty is wrong” [That’s right] [applause] (King, 1955).