The talisman is intended to work on the person who is possessed. When the patient sees it, he is afraid and cries out, and then the demon leaves him--so say the clerics. Properly speaking, it isn't actually the patient who sees the image in this way but the spirit who lives in him, or who is attacking him--today we might speak of this as subconscious identification. The spirit sees the talisman through the eyes of his human victim.

34. A seal that can be interpreted in various ways--as the Ancient of Days and the Four Animals. Werzelya surrounded by demons (a reading suggested by the presence of the "Prayer for Saint Susenyos" elsewhere on the scroll), Christ on the cross surrounded by the Evangelists. Along with the central face, the "dove's-eye" ovals are the principle visual element. Protective scroll (detail), nineteenth century, parchment, 15.5 x 10.5 cm. Private collection. Photo courtesy of Guy Vivien

The clerics' use of images to remedy demonic possession may derive more from the old Ethiopian possession cures than from the astrological theory of correspondences. In such cures, possession is controlled through sacrifice: as the price of its departure, the spirit accepts a bloody offering. The sacrificied animal is a substitute for the patient. Scrolls too involve a sacrifice, and the parchment prepared from the animal's hide doubles for the patient's skin. (Is it not tailored exactly to the length of his body?) Thus there is an intimate, even mirrorlike link between the patient and his scroll. This probably explains why the figures on the scrolls seem so close to the viewer: the scroll and its talismans cure by sealing off access to the patient's body, just as the seals set by Alexander prevented Gog and Magog from entering the world of the living. The scroll is a symbolic limit to the body, a doubling of the corporeal envelope. If, in the possession cure, the interrogation of the aggressor spirit and various kinds of sacrificial manipulation bring the possession previously only suspected to light, the same goes for the talismans: they cannot cure and close the body without making the possession explicit--without activating the possession, making it signify. Outside Ethiopia, induction into a trance state is usually effected through music--through the sense of hearing. In the Ethiopian scrolls we find the rare case of induction into a trance through an image--through the sense of sight.

35. The Nine Saints. The protection of the nine Byzantine preachers of the Gospel in Ethiopia is invoked against demons (shown at left, with blue faces.) The saints in the top row look right, those in the middle look left, and those at the bottom look toward the center: the central figure seems to squint. Protective scroll (detail), eighteenth or nineteenth century, parchment, 27 x 16 cm. Collection: Musee National des Arts d'Afrique et d'Oceanie, Paris. Gift of Jacques Mercier. Photo courtesy of Guy Vivien

41. "Ram's horn" cross engraved on a hanging icon with two movable panels, seventeenth century, wood, 15 x 12 cm. Private collection. Photography courtest of Guy Vivien

42. This talisman multiples the decorative rosette motif common in early Ethiopian Christian art and in Muslim art (miniatures, cloth, talismans), and adds eyes to it. Protective scroll (detail), nineteenth century, parchment, 15 x 8.5 cm. Collection: Musee National des Arts d'Afrique et d'Oceanie, Paris. Gift of Jacques Mercier. Photography courtesy of Guy Vivien