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Medical Museum Home Art That Heals Home Introduction Overview of the Exhibit Medico-Religious Identities Knowledge and Secrecy The Cross Talismans and Scrolls Images and Asceticism Christianity, Possession and Talismanic Art Gaze Visual Trances and Sacrificial works. Additional Sites Project Art
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Medical Museum
Art That Heals: The Image as Medicine
in Ethiopia
Knowledge and Secrecy
| The Ethiopian clerics did not invent the use of secret names, but they do attach a particular meaning to it. According to a priest educated in Tigray, who had just read a great protective book for a person who was ill, "Each of us has two names: the baptismal name and the name our mothers gave us. Like the first of these, the Names are secret. In reading them one comprehends all other books. This book of the Names, however, is entirely medicinal. The scholars have hidden it, so that it won't be known to all. Are the plants known to doctors familiar to all?" Indeed many Ethiopian people do keep their baptismal names secret, lest someone use it to cast spells on them. They are careful not to lend out a scroll on which that name is written. Moreover, this name, being in Geez, is generally not commonly understood, and is different from the second name, which is in the vernacular. |
19. A rare example of a scroll on which a scribe recopied all of the talismans in "Solomon's Net," instead of choosing a few of them. The lower motif is the net in which the demons are caught. Protective scroll, twentieth century, parchment. 13 x 9.5 cm. Collection: Musee National d'Art d'Afrique et d'Oceanie, Paris. Gift of Jacques Mercier. Photo courtesy of Guy Vivien |
20. In symbols like these, Ethiopian scholars see the origin of all writing. Some of them resemble letters in the Ethiopian syllabary (which derives from the Phoenician, as the Latin script does also.) Talismanic characters by Gera, 1992, ink on paper, 70 x 50 cm. Private collection. Photo courtesy of Guy Vivien |
To the clients and apprentices who are the recipients of these secrets, their own incomprehension of the sounds and letters of the Names indicates the presence of a powerful knowledge. Mastery of that knowledge, they believe, is reserved for "gods on earth"--the clerics familiar with spirits. Access to the powers of script used to be doubly locked--by a talismanic code and, more immediately, by a constraint around writing itself. Teachers of liturgical song used to forbid their pupils to learn to write, a skill they said would lead to the preparation of amulets and spells. (Griaule 1929). The secret talismanic writings were also associated with demons in those days. Whether demonic or divine (holy scripture, the Names of God), writing was rare in this country. |
21. Diagrams from the Book of Buni, the Geez translation of a version of the "Sun of Knowledge" (Shams al-Marif), a book attributed to Al-Buni, an Egyptian author of the thirteenth century. Each diagram containing figures or letters is accompanied by its method of use. Book of Buni, eighteenth century to nineteenth century, parchment, 27.5 x 24 cm. Private collection. Photo courtesy of Guy Vivien |
22. Cruciform seal. The cross is simultaneously Christ's cross and the seal of the Father, given by the Archangel Michael to King Solomon. From a "Book of Prayers for Undoing Charms" now in Tigray province, ca. 1750-55, parchment. Photo courtesy of Jacques Mercier, 1975 |
23. Talismanic crosses, some of them accompanied by the secret names of the members of the Trinity. To the right, the lamb of God, invoked against the "illness of Barya and Legewon," or convulsions, on behalf of a man called Walda Maryam. The prayer written below, in the center, has the same function. Some motifs come from "Solomon's Net." Leaves of parchment like this one were folded into a bag and carried by the inhabitants of Gojjam province, who also used scrolls for the same purpose, though cruder ones than in Tigray. Twentieth century, parchment, 28.5 x 51 cm. Private collection. Photo courtesy of Guy Vivien |
Text courtesy of Mercier, Jacques. Art That Heals: the Image as Medicine in Ethiopia. New York: Prestel Books and The Museum For African Art, 1997.
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