SELEDA presents *drum roll, befeTerachu* author of the groundbreaking Ethiopic — An African Writing System and a contributor for numerous publications, professor and Director of Undergraduate studies at the Africana Studies & Research Center at Cornell University, our very own Ge’ezologist — Ayele Bekerie.

We were rendered speechless, we tell you, when we discovered that this Kibur’est of tiliQ sew’s agreed to an interview with us. Upper Management raised the customary "they’re not worthy" tantrum while the rats at Lower Management heroically elbowed them out of the way in the race to fire the most questions.

And so we fired.

You know each society has its own category and definition of color. And definitely in our society, color has a place. We use color designations that refer to ones skin tone —Teyim, Qey, Qey dama etc. Sometimes these designations are tied with class structures that evolved from our feudal traditions, like shanQela, shanQo, Tossa — the weavers in the Gomu, Goffa region.

And then within the context of the urban tradition, it’s not unusual to give nicknames on the basis of skin tone. Arreru or nug to highlight a dark complexion with a negative connotation. Yet our notion of color shouldn’t be confused with the notion of color in western traditions. For example, in our society, it is true that in most instances the tradition established it in such a way so that its expected for people to seek partners who are lighter skinned, even though in our folklores, Teyim is the revered skin tone. And that’s tied to the mythology.

Well usually an Ethiopian is perceived as being Teyim, the one that God created in his perfection. Mythology has it that God made us from clay. The first person was pulled out quickly, and consequently was white. The second person was kept in the kilt for too long, and was black. The third person was pulled out at the perfect time, and that person was a Teyim Ethiopian.

Having said that it’s important to note that as Ethiopia goes through the inculcation of western traditions, our perception of color is still evolving.

Those categories come out of a tradition where you have a social order or hierarchy. We had this in pre-revolution Ethiopia, during the feudal order. The landowning class developed controlling images, stereotypes or caricatures against the landless, southern Ethiopians as a way to legitimize a certain oppressive or unjust system. It has its own way of dividing the people so that the few that rule the country enjoy the order. Out of that, those controlling characterizations or images evolved. So it’s more a phenomenon of its own internal dynamics, rather than something influenced by the West since we haven’t gone through the colonial experience. I mean, the fact Ethiopians called the Italians selato merely illustrates the fact that a white person doesn’t really appeal to Ethiopians. Of course if the Italians stayed for a longer period of time, our perceptions would have changed. After the second Italo-Ethio war, a slight fascination with whites emerged. Since we haven’t thoroughly addressed the war, I think to some extent our psyche has been affected or damaged, and part of that has been shown in the way contemporary Ethiopia defers to white people. This is surely not tied back to Adwa, which restored our identity, but to the second invasion. We never wholly dealt with that.

That’s very important. Usually, when we really think of the beginning of Ethiopian history, our reference point was established on basis of assumptions that were made by Ethiopianists. We say that Ethiopian, culture, civilization, tradition and spirituality came from Southern Arabia, across the red sea. That becomes very powerful in our psyche and the way we see ourselves. And then even in way northern Ethiopians see themselves in relation to southern Ethiopians.

It’s important to note that historically speaking there’s concrete evidence that shows whole range of linkages between ancient Ethiopia and ancient Egypt.

Firstly, we know that in the belief systems of ancient Egypt, incense was important an element in their rituals. Yet their environment or ecology is not conducive for the cultivation of incense, so it had to be imported to Egypt.

Where does this incense come from?

In the ancient Egyptian context and literature, traders and merchants were sent to the "land of the Punt." I also found out that in the ancient Egyptian language, hieroglyphics, the term for incense is eTan. And since the Egyptians don’t have eTan as an indigenous tree, the source of that word came from land of the Punt - Ethiopia. ETan was used in their religious rituals and also in the mummification process.

Secondly, there are rulers of ancient Egypt who specifically, in their records, mentioned the trips that they’ve made or their agents made to the land of the Punt. For example, in the 18th dynasty, Queen Hatshepsut ruled Egypt and in the palace that she built, she recorded all the items that brought from land of the Punt.

What other immaterial linkages are there? In ancient Egyptian rituals, as in our rituals and religious practices, dance is very important. St. Yared was not only known for his liturgical music but also as a shebsheba choreographer. By the same token, we find the same appreciation in ancient Egypt. And this the critical item I discovered…

Who are the people doing the dancing? They’re people who were actually brought from the land of the Punt. The Egyptians loved the way they danced. These dancers are known in terms of their height and were most probably dwarfs. They were called dink! In fact, in hieroglyphics dink also refers to short people. If you allowed me an etymological stretch, I might argue that the word dance evolved from the word dink since etymologists still don’t know the origin of the word dance. But if we go as far as ancient Egyptian times, these dancers were brought from the inter-land of Africa. So there lies another important linkage.

In ancient traditions, both Egyptian and Ethiopian, religion is way of life, not separated from other activities of the society. So, in that sense when you see the place of dance in the Ethiopian Orthodox Church, part of that tradition was adopted from pre-Christian Ethiopia. And we see this phenomenon not in the Arab peninsula but in ancient Egypt.

Outside of that, the most significant linkage is Teff. Egyptians knew of Teff and talk about it in their texts. Although how Teff was used was not specified, I know that botanists, in studying some of the pollen remains in Egyptian mud bricks, have found Teff straws. We know that Teff is indigenous to Ethiopia. So there’s an important linkage. In fact, to me, the most significant part in understating Ethiopian civilization lies in understanding her agricultural tradition, especially in north and central Ethiopia. And that tradition was founded, apart from other crops, on Teff culture. And yet if we go to Yemen and the Arabian peninsula, we won’t find any reference to the Teff tradition. So this goes to show the anteriority of what we call Ethiopia-Ethiopia, even though in ancient times, the Arabian peninsula was called eastern Ethiopia.

What else? They knew of kobba, Qocho, also indigenous to Ethiopia. This was actually found inscribed on clay pottery as early as the pre-dynastic period, as early as 3400 BC. If you go to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, you will find pottery with kobba on it.

All this demonstrates the cultural linkages and the continuity of history along the Nile river. We can’t separate one from the other. The study of these important linkages enable us to better understand history and better orient ourselves.

Now I’m not saying that there are no linkages between Ethiopia and the Arabian peninsula. In fact, there were a whole lot of cultural exchanges between the two. But Yemen and the Arabian peninsula cannot explain nor define the identity, tradition culture and history of Ethiopia.

In my book I argued that the writing system is a manifestation or reflection of the traditions that the people have established, like the Teff tradition for example. If you study the pictographic origins of the characters that constitute our writing system, you find that those characters, like the hieroglyphic characters, come out of a specific material culture of the people. For example, Ge comes from the word gemel, and looks like the neck of a camel. Be comes from bEt and looks like a dome. So I attempted to do a systematic study like that to relate our characters to the material culture and traditions of our people.

You see my argument is that for people to incorporate that character into the writing system, they must have some kind of orientation to the lowland or desert environment where camels reside. If you trace the pictographic origins of the characters, they’re more rooted in the agricultural reality of the people.

Our writing system starts with ha. Pictographically speaking, ha comes from the front face of an oxen, bere Qendu new "ha". And that’s not the only agricultural link.

I also discovered pictographic similarities in hieroglyphics and the Egyptian notion of beginning and end. In the ancient Egyptian language, ha means beginning, and the first character in their writing system is ha, pictographically represented by the front of a lion. The last character is pe, which also denotes end, is pictographically represented by the tail end of a lion. So is it purely coincidental that our writing system also starts with ha and ends with pe? On this note, it’s historically detrimental that some Ethiopian scholars are attempting to rearrange our writing system to imitate the latin system — beginning with A and ending with Z.

You see the people who organized that system must have had exposure to the lowlands and highlands, and the writing system encompasses aspects of the territories that ultimately became Ethiopia.

Aside from the allusions to beginning and end, the table is not organized just for the sake of being a surrogate to language. It has calanderical properties. The 7 sound characters represent the days of the week. There are 26 main characters, which, when multiplied by 7 yield 182 — the number of days in half a year. So in addition to ideographic properties, our writing system has what can be considered calenderical or astromonical properties.

Yes it predates both. We have archeological evidence that shows that ge’ez characters come from a pre-Christian period, with evidence as early as 1700 BC. I saw a sphinx with some characters identical to characters found in our writing system.

Even though some archeologists have found vocalized versions of Ethiopian letters in pre-Christian, most popular historians still insist that vocalization took place after the adoption of Christianity in our belief systems.

Definitely. And of course the fact that they were able to develop a perfect form of a writing system — our syllabic writing system, enabled them to not only document ideas, but also establish institutions, categorize knowledge and thoughts in various disciplines, and to establish an educational system to train people, alongside church services or in terms of understanding their world. In fact, qnE is precisely an outgrowth of that. To me, it’s a remarkable way of training a person to become a complete person. To master qnE, you go through so many stages of education before you reach the ultimate position where you are accomplished enough to create a qnE prose that is original. Then you’re regarded as a learned person.

QnE measures the richness of our language. Words have multiple meanings. I mean, just imagine a scholar observing something, recording the event and creating hidden meanings to that event. Sem ena worQ is our literally tradition in which people to can express themselves no matter how absolute or dictatorial a system is. So language, in a way, has become more sophisticated.

In this respect, you have to recognize indigenous traditions and religions in Ethiopia. One that comes to mind is Adbar in genbot. The elements in this practice are universal throughout Africa; this idea of having gods or goddesses connected to the specific desires or needs of people who invoke them…rain, locusts, whatever. In that sense, various traditions in Africa are linked.

And then of course in the African context, religion is personal. It’s not a socalled revealed religion, or organized religion. There are no intermediaries like priests or bishops. The connection to ‘god’ is direct. So people find various ways to relate to their spirit. Such practices are found in the southern part of Ethiopia. For example, burial sites are decorated with yete’Tereba enCHt, 3 dimensional objects. And that’s their way of establishing ancestral linkages.

Enduring symbols of Ethiopia… One could really have many categories of those symbols. If we’re talking within the Ethiopian Christian tradition, I would argue that Tabot is the most powerful symbol. Together with that, mesQel also becomes important, with all its fine designs. It becomes a way of expressing ones specificity: Axum, Lalibela, Gonder etc. If we take the country as a whole, the Axum stela is very important. If we consider states of mind, outside of hallmarks that were created by Ethiopians, terrara, highlands are engrained in our minds… adey abeba. Koki, is yet another symbol; the buna tradition is also an important, traditional clothes… etc.

Tsegay is a great poet. More than anyone else, not only is he an incredible crafter of the art, but he also has this ability to narrate the history and traditions of our country. When you read his poetry, you don’t simply enjoy a fine piece of literature. You also learn an aspect of Ethiopian history, and how that history is linked to history of the world. More than any other scholar that I know, Tsegaye is not only versed in our history, but he’s also well versed in African history. He understands the links with ancient Egyptian traditions. He also knows Ethiopia’s place is in Africa. He is truly a man of the people; a genuinely excellent example of Ethiopian identity with his articulated vision that when we talk about Ethiopian unity, we’re not talking about a theoretical thing. It’s real. He’s a priceless, invaluable person.

Information technology is going to help us promote and propagate our writing system to a larger audience, to people who don’t have access to it and allow them to learn it in a faster medium. The more common use of our text has enormous potential to strengthen culture. We’ll embrace it more than any other time. I’m optimistic about this.

Well glorification of ones identity isn’t unusual. Making ones identity supreme and so on and so forth is common and you can’t blame us for our self-elevation, so to speak. But the danger of that is that it isolates us. It makes us feel superior and in the process, forces us to simplistically see others, reject others or look down upon others. It perpetuates ignorance and false pride. It’s dangerous.

Well the Israeli’s say the same thing. It all depends on how you interpret the Bible. They could be referring to the Nubians because ancient Ethiopia was not limited to the Ethiopia-Ethiopia of today. This whole chosen notion is a dangerous notion.

Language, especially in a country like Ethiopia, with its rich, varied traditions, can’t be seen as something of utilitarian nature. It’s a carrier of culture. It carries the essence of our society, its identity, its reason to exist, its reason to see its future. It’s even deeper than that. And of course in the written, as well as in the oral tradition, there are a whole lot of elements that have been passed from generation to generation contained in language. So it’s dangerous to simplify it as a functional construct.

Sadly, the young generation is losing its attachment to our language. How many of us read novels, not from the immediate present, but rather old novels? From novels we learn a whole lot about our history and culture. Fqr eske mQabr is not just a love story. It contains an enormous wealth of knowledge in it… cultural knowledge, life experiences, philosophy, behaviors and how people interact with one another, wisdom carried in proverbs. All of this is carried through language.

Yes, we haven’t really reached a stage where we can provide support — institutional and financial support to develop Ethiopian film. Film has the advantage of reaching a larger audience and its an area that we haven’t fully developed yet.

So it’s refreshing to see great Ethiopian filmmakers emerging, consciously struggling to capture our history, cultures and tradition in a modern medium. Gerima did it in Harvest 3000 Years and Adwa and Salem Mekuria with Ye Wonz Maibel. And the same thing with Yemane and Gr-Gr, taking us back to the 60’s to help us understand why and how highly educated aristocrats challenged Haile-Selassie. But we still need to give them the institutional, material, financial support that they deserve.

Hmmm… Identity, firstly, is defined by place. This is the most critical element. There is what we call an Ethiopian place, geographically speaking. In that place, we have a people. The people have occupations, languages, cultures, belief systems. Some of these people come together or live autonomous of each other. The key thing is that these people, even though they may differ in terms of religion and languages and what not, unite when confronted with a common enemy. And this could lead to a hybridity of tradition.

Another aspect of Ethiopian identity is rooted in a people old enough to be regarded as ancestors of diversity; the earliest ancestors of Ethiopia that could perhaps be used as a basis for Ethiopian identity — Agew, Agazian, and then the Begans — yeQola hzb new, weyne adega. So what you discover is that through the course of history, these people established a government system, or system of rules. Through time and specificity of place, the kinds of religions and agricultural activities that they established enabled them to see each other as one people. At the same time, we should remember that Ethiopia is a collective term that goes beyond ethnic identity, a term that should be embraced at a larger, macro level.