BY MULUGETA GUDETA
Most Ethiopian craftsmen like weavers and potters, to name but a few of them, are still exercising their crafts in the good old ways without achieving any significant technological breakthroughs. More than technology and skills however, what has contributed to the retardation of handicrafts modernization in Ethiopia was the centuries of abuses and ostracism handicraftsmen were forced to endure. The situation has somehow improved in the last few decades since the end of feudalism in the country as a result of which craftsmen and women have started to feel free to exercise their skills and integrate with local communities.
Handicraftsmen were not however allowed to own land or abandon their traditional occupations that were assigned to them by centuries-old traditions. If the craftsmen and women are expected to modernize their crafts and reach wider markets, and thereby improve their economic status, the remnants of old feudal values, thinking and abuses need to be overcome completely.
For many centuries in feudal Ethiopia, as it was also the case elsewhere in the world, specific occupations are allocated to specific classes of people. The aristocrats were not for instance expected to engage in farming. Their role was to govern or rule the country. Soldiers were not expected to engage in artistic occupations like painting, carving, and writing or in arts and crafts in general. They were, as Plato would say, the guardians of the state. Last but not least, feudal lords were expected to force tenants work for them and pay taxes or tithes with their labors while craftsmen were excluded from ownership of any kind except their skills and primitive tools.
As it was the case, manual work was attributed to the so-called “lower classes’ in Ethiopia like the castes in India under the age-old caste system. Potters, craftsmen and women, as well as weavers and painters and writers were given various names that despised their positions in society. Musicians were sometimes called “Azmaris”, a derogatory term in Amharic which is synonymous to vocalists, but had also negative connotations that were only rectified recently.
Many prominent singers attained their pinnacles while enduring the pejorative term attached to their occupation. They are now mentally liberated and feel proud whenever they are called singers, musicians or even Azmaris. As defined by the Encyclopedia Britannica, “An Azmari (Amharic) is an entertainer who sings and plays traditional string instruments of the Ethiopian Highlands. It’s comparable to medieval European minstrels or bard or West African griots Azmari, who may be either male or female, are skilled at singing extemporized verses, accompanying themselves on either a masenqo (one-stringed fiddle) or krar (lyre).
The harshest name-calling was however endured by handicraft women like potters who were wrongly believed to be “evil eyes” or buddas in Amharic, who’s imagined “evil deeds”, were resented by the rural communities in the northern parts of Ethiopia in particular.
These were or are a cast of people who lived isolated from the communities and engage in pottery and handcrafts selling their products in the markets and rarely mixing with the general population due to the alienation and name-calling they suffered. Potters were not allowed to marry from other communities outside their own while none-potters are not eager or allowed to marry members of the cast of potters.
According to Encyclopedia Britannica, “Buda”, in Ethiopian and Eritrean folk religion, is the power of the evil eye and the ability to change into a hyena. Buda is generally believed by the wider society to be a power held and wielded by those in a different social group, for example among the Beta Israel or metalworkers. The belief is also present in Sudan, Tanzania, and among the Berber people in Morocco.
Belief in the evil eye, or buda, is still widespread in Ethiopia. The Beta Israel, or Ethiopian Jews, are often characterized by others as possessing buda. Other castes such as ironworkers are often labeled as bearing the buda. In fact, the Amharic word for manual worker, tabib, is also used to denote “one with the evil eye.” The alleged evil power of the tabib is believed to be at a level similar to that of witches.
According to a study, “In Ethiopia, pottery is a widely practiced artisanal occupation. Until recently however, traditional attitudes to pottery restricted this occupation to certain social groups. In many cases, these groups were considered people of lower repute.”
Ostracization also affected the Falasha or Ethiopian Jews who were engaged in weaving and pottery or other crafts. According to Dena, Freeman in a book entitled, “Understanding marginalization in Ethiopia”, “The trajectory of the Falasha through history is thus a complicated one. From being a farming community they were forced into taking up crafts by processes of politico-military defeat and the exclusion from land ownership, so that they became an occupational group on the margins of society.
For a period of two hundred years they were able to improve their position by working as masons under the protection of the emperor in Gondar. When imperial power went into decline their status also fell. They again lost any land that they had been given, and reverted to being a caste-like group among the majority Amhara farmers, who increasingly stereotyped them as the bearers of fearful supernatural powers.”
Under the defunct feudal system in Ethiopia, even writers were called bad names. They were believed to be practicing witchcraft as because they often referred to passages from religious or secular texts in order to engage in magical practices such as communicating with the dead or with demons to harm other people. They were called tenquay or wizard and sometime become targets of abuses and attacks. They were allegedly paid lavishly for their services. Members of the clergy who mastered the skill of writing were often dubbed debteras, or priests engaged in witchcraft. It was only in the 20th century that writing religious or secular texts started to be considered an honorable activity.
Medicine men and women were also considered evil doers and called “kitel betash” in Amharic or literally translated as “snatchers of leaves” meaning snatcher of leaves alluding to the herbs and leaves they used to produce potent medical drugs for the alleviation of various illnesses. These men and women rendered great services to their communities at times when there was no modern medicine to help those who fell ill from various malaises. Many of the victims could overcome their suffering thanks to these medicine men and women who did their job often freely or charged the patients little money or were paid in kind.
According to a paper published in 1991 on the subject, “Ethiopian traditional medicine is vastly complex and diverse and varies greatly among different ethnic groups. Most traditional medical practices in Ethiopia rely on an explanation of disease that draws on both the “mystical” and “natural” causes of an illness and employ a holistic approach to treatment.
According to historical reports, the development of spinning and weaving began in ancient Egypt around 3400 before Christ (B.C). The tool originally used for weaving was the loom. From 2600 B.C. onwards, silk was spun and woven into silk in China. Later in Roman times the European population was clothed in wool and linen. Now, there is an estimated 200,000 + hand loom weavers in Ethiopia. The Konso and Dorze ethnic groups have the reputation of being the most “skilled” weavers, though weavers can be found in every village in the country. They remain a quite marginalized group and most still only work in the informal sector.
Traditions and practices dating from many centuries are hard to overcome particularly when the tools and techniques of either weaving or pottery remain backward. Old mentality is hard to give way to new consciousness as the superstructure or the ideas, philosophies and traditions of society generally follow positive development in the social substructure that is to say in technology and capitalist development in general. Old habits are generally tenacious because of the resistance of certain interest groups that benefit from the backward situation in handicrafts or in any other social activity.
The basic challenge for improving the conditions of handicraftsmen and women in Ethiopia is first to educate society about the positive contributions they make to society, educate the weavers and potters and others and so that they can break old taboos and build their confidence so that they can release their creative powers. This is particularly relevant to women, who often bear the burden of social alienation, oppression or marginalization.
Governmental and non-governmental organizations should be involved more energetically in order to overcome the remnants of old feudal taboos regarding particular occupations like handicrafts. Research and development works should be implemented in the handicrafts sector whose potentials for growth are huge. There is virtually no persona who does not wear traditional hand-woven fabrics in one way or another.
It can be said that the entire rural population and women in particular, use traditional hand-woven dresses and clothes in their everyday lives or for holiday uses. This is a huge market that can only be exploiting by technically modernizing and industrializing this sector. There have been some positive development along his line in the past but they are not enough to revolutionize the sector and the lives of the producers of traditional household utensils and dresses. Isolated attempts were also noted in this sense. According to an Al Jazeera report, “Aysheshim Tilahun, an award winning inventor, has ambitions to modernize the weaving industry in Ethiopia. He invented a “dobby head” to help weavers add designs to their work. Tilahun says the invention will accelerate production and have a knock-on effect on the economy.”
This is only one example of innovation among many. What we need is a national, well-funded and well-implemented strategy to liberate the sector from its ages-old backwardness as well as allow the traditional handicraftsmen and women leave the old feudal taboos behind for good.
The Ethiopian Herald June 11/2022
