Travels in southern Abyssinia, Volume 1 (of 2) : $b through the country of Adal to the kingdom of ShoaJohnston, Charles
History
Travels in southern Abyssinia, Volume 1 (of 2) : $b through the country of Adal to the kingdom of Shoa
Johnston, Charles
Ethiopia -- Description and travel; Shewa Kifle Hager (Ethiopia) -- Description and travel
The women occupy themselves with household duties, and carrying water
from a well about half a mile from the town. The water is carried in
large entire skins of the goat, which they tan with the pounded bark of
a mimosa, very common in the jungle near the town, and which, moistened
with a little water, they rub well into the skin. If it be designed to
be divested of the hair, the skin, before being tanned, is left for two
or three days until slight putrefaction has commenced, and the hair is
then easily detached. The most laborious occupation of the women is
grinding the jowaree, or millet, which is imported into Tajourah from
Aden and the Persian Gulf. They use for this purpose a large flat stone,
concave from above downwards, and placed upon the ground, behind this
upon her knees, the woman, half-naked, with long depending skinny
breasts, hangs over the mill, passing and repassing the grain beneath a
large heavy rolling-pin of stone. During the progress of the operation,
she frequently sprinkles the bruised mass with water, until a fine
powdered paste is produced, which, without more preparation, is carried
away to be baked upon the kiln-like oven I have before described. It
requires some time to make a few pounds of bread in this manner; and
when baked into flat cakes of about one pound each in weight, they are,
as might be expected, very heavy, and of a disagreeable acid taste.
Whilst grinding, two or three slaves, or women, (for the same term is
applied to all,) relieve each other, so that labour, except in the house
of a poor man, is not great.
I saw in Tajourah two old men weaving, who had learned the art in
Abyssinia; also an Arab blacksmith. It is usual for all the young men to
be able to make their own sandals. One of their principal occupations
in-doors is to make wooden spoons, sometimes carved in a most elegant
manner, and fedeenahs, or rests for the head during the night, and which
are the constant companion of the Dankalli when journeying. They differ
considerably in form from the wooden pillows of the New Zealanders; but
still it is singular that a somewhat similar manner of resting the head
during the night is in use among these two distant and distinct nations.
The ancient Egyptians employed the fedeenah exactly of the shape of
those of the Dankalli; but these, it seems, were sometimes made of
alabaster, and covered with hieroglyphics.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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