By Dr. Richard Pankhurst:-
We saw last week that Ethiopia imported large quanlities of cotton
and silk from India, in ancient and medieval times. Now read on:
Jewels were another costly import from India, destined largely for
the richest Ethiopian churches. Emperor Galawdewos’s chronicle states
that several places of worship destroyed by the soldiers of the Adal
conqueror Ahmad Gragn had been thus decorated with “precious Indian
stones”.
Pearl-encrusted thrones from India were yet another costly import.
They were imported for several monarchs, among them Emperor Dawit
(1314-1411) and Emperor Na’od (1404-1508), who are known to have
presented them to the churches of Tadbaba Maryam, in Gaynt, and Zemedu
Maryam in Lasta, respectively.
Art
Evidence of Ethiopian interest in India is apparent in medieval
Ethiopian art, and literature. A painting in the church of Yemrahanna
Krestos, in Lasta, depicts an elephant with an Indian-style mahout, or
driver, and a howdah, or seat, with two passengers. A similar motif is
found in the church of Dabra Salam, near Atsbi in Tegray.Both scenes
probably illustrated the travels in India of St Thomas, which were well
known to Ethiopian Christians versed in the history of their faith. The
holy man, his teaching and martyrdom, are featured in both the Gadla
Hawaryat, or Contendings of the Apostles, and the Ethiopian synaxarium.
The “Kebra Nagast”
Medieval Ethiopian awareness of India is similarly apparent in the
country’s national epic, the Kebra Nagast. It contains sundry, possibly
apocryphal, references to ancient Ethiopian and other relations with the
sub-continent at the time of the Queen of Sheba, and later.
The Hapshis of India
The long-standing trade between Ethiopia and India was accompanied by
a considerable export of Ethiopian slaves. Such men, women, and
children came to be known in India as Hapshis, a corruption of the
Arabic word Habash, or Abyssinian. The word was, however, used loosely,
apparently for any slaves from Africa, or their descendants. Denison
Ross, a British scholar of Indian affairs, less familiar with Africa,
observes that Habshi was “a term indicating Abyssinian, but no doubt
includes other negroid races from Africa”. Though the word was, as he
says, no doubt applied to non-Ethiopians from East Africa, it is,
however, highly unlikely that negroid people, i.e. West Africans from
the Niger area, were ever taken to India.
Hapshis played a major role in Indian history, for, as Ross declares,
“like the Turks who founded dynasties throughout the Muhammedan world
these Hapshis usually began as slaves, and seem to have shown the same
wonderful capacity, as did the Turks, for rising from slavery to the
highest positions”.Several indeed established ruling dynasties, the
history of which lies outside the scope of this, and the ensuing,
article.
Hapshis are known to have arrived in India as early as the thirteenth
century. The first Hapshi of whom we have record was a slave called
Jamal ad-Din Yaqut, who is reported to have won the favour of Queen
Radiyya (1236-1240), in the kingdom of Delhi.
Hapshis subsequently arrived in many parts of the sub-continent. The
largest concentrations were, as to be expected, in the areas with which
there was the most considerable trade with the Ethiopian region, i.e. in
the north-west, especially Gujarat and the Gulf of Cambay. Hapshis were
also established to the east of the sub-continent, in Bengal which was
also engaged in extensive Red Sea trade. The local ruler, Sultan Rukn
ad-Din (1459-1474), was reported to have no less than 8,000 Hapshi
slaves, some of whom rose to high positions.The Deccan, on the west
coast of India facing Africa, likewise had a sizable Hapshi population,
who were first reported in the area at the time of Bahmani Sultan Firuz
(1397-1422). He employed some of them as his personal assistants, and
others in hisharem.
Alvares, He Said
The importance of the Ethiopian slave export trade, which constitutes
the background to Hapshi history, was duly recognised by Alvares. He
noted, of the 1520s, that Ethiopian slaves from Damot in particular were
“much esteemed by the Moors”, i.e. Muslims, and that “all the country
of Arabia, Persia, India, Egypt, and Greece” was “full of slaves from
this country”. Such slaves, he says, “made very good Moors [i.e.
Muslims] and great warriors”.
Ethio-Indian Contacts of the 16th and 17th Centuries
Ethiopian-Indian contacts, which dated back, as we have seen, to
ancient times, were enhanced, in the late fifteenth century, by the
coming to the sub-continent, and to Red Sea waters, of the Portuguese.
The latter were perceived by Ethiopian rulers as fellow Christians, and
potential allies, from whom military assistance could be obtained.
Ethio-Portuguese contacts took place thereafter almost entirely by way
of India, the sub-continent’s western coast becoming to all intents and
purposes a stop-over on the route between Ethiopia and Europe. The first
Portuguese traveller to Ethiopia, Pero da Covilha, who arrived there
during the reign of Emperor Eskender (1478-1494), and the subsequent
Portuguese diplomatic mission described by Alvares, likewise travelled
by way of India.
Mathew, the Armenian, and Empress Eleni
Ethiopians and others making their way to Europe in this period also
usually travelled via India. Mathew, the Armenian merchant despatched by
Empress Elni to seek Portuguese assistance in view of impending
Adal/Muslim pressure, thus went to Goa, whence he sailed to Portugal.
Ethiopian Travellers to India
The first Ethiopian of whom we have record to undertake the
trans-continental journey to India and Europe was Brother Anthony of
Lalibala, who later proceeded to Venice, where he was interviewed by the
Italian scholar Alessandro Zorzi in 1523.
Only a few years later Emperor Lebna Dengel despatched six young
Ethiopians to study in India. Four of them apparently arrived in Goa,
“two to be taught to be painters, and two others to be trumpeters”.
Whether they in fact ever returned to their country or not is
unrecorded.
Christavao da Gama
A generation or so later, at the height of Ahmad ibn Ibrahim’s
invasion of the Christian highlands, a Portuguese military force, led by
Christovao da Gama, intervened, in 1541, on the Emperor’s behalf. It
was reportedly accompanied by “over seventy persons trained in all
trades, namely cross-bow makers, blacksmiths, carpenters, masons,
shoemakers, and other handicraftsmen”. Their impact, if any, on
sixteenth century Ethiopian technology has still to be analysed.
Subsequent contacts across the Indian Ocean led, during the reign of
the Mogul Emperor Akbar (1556-1605), to the arrival in India of what his
chronicle described as a “sea elephant”, i.e. an elephant from
overseas. It came to him from the ruler of Gujarat, which, as we have
seen, was one of the areas of India in closest relation with
Ethiopia.This leads us to suppose that the animal was probably of
Ethiopian, or at least East African, origin.
The Jesuits
The growth of Jesuit influence during the reign of Emperor Susneyos
(1607-1632), and his adoption of the Roman Catholic faith, witnessed a
rapid expansion in Ethiopian contacts with Portuguese India. The monarch
was reportedly much interested in the sub-continent, about which he
asked the Jesuit missionary Pero Pais numerous questions. Susneyos
likewise took an apparently even greater interest than previous
Ethiopian rulers in Ethiopian rulers in Indian imports. He is thus
described, by the Jesuit Manoel de Almeida, as wearing “a white Indian
bofeta”, and elegant Indian slippers, one pair of which was given to him
by the Jesuit Manoel Barradas, who presented similar footwear also to
the Emperor’s son Fasiladas, and brother, Ras Se’ela Krestos. Susneyos
likewise had a bed, or couch, decorated with “coverlets and blankets”
from Diu, Cambay, and Bengal, and a silk umbrella, which also came to
him from India.
A Crucifix and Chain
Susneyos also had a crucifix and chain, made by an Indian goldsmith,
which reportedly filled him with joy, and sent for “seed pearls from
India” which he subsequently wore in his crown. The country was
apparently recognised as a source of jewels, as suggested by Hiob
Ludolf’s Ge‘ez lexicon of 1681 which contains a reference to an a’enaqwe
hendake, or Indian jewel.
Other acquisitions from the sub-continent reported at this time
included a copper or bronze bell, which was hung at the Emperor’s great
church at Gorgora, by Lake Tana,papaya trees, which, according to Pero
Pais, “yielded very good fruit”, and Indian figs, which were likewise
said to be “very good’.
Highly Prized Animals: elephants, zebras, and a parrot
Several highly prized animals also travelled between Ethiopia and
India in this period. The voyage of “a small elephant from Abyssinia” is
reported in the Memoirs of the Mogul emperor Jahanger. They recall that
the beast, was “brought by sea in a ship”, in 1616. Its ears were
reportedly larger than those of Indian elephants, and its trunk and tail
longer.
At least one Ethiopian zebra was also taken to India. Susneyos is
reported to have sent it as a present to the Basha of the Red Sea port
of Suakin, whence “a Moor from India”, purchased it for two thousand
sequins to take to Mogul Emperor. This, or another such animal, is
described by Jahanger himself. He recalls that it arrived at his court,
in 1621, and, though an ass, was “exceedingly strange in appearance,
exactingly like a lion” – by which he probably meant a tiger; and had an
“exceedingly fine line” round its eyes. The creature seemed so strange
that some people thought that it had been coloured by hand, but the
monarch rejected this view, stating that it was in fact “the painter of
fate”, who had “left it on the page of the world”. The animal was so
remarkable, and highly regarded at the Indian court, that at least two
paintings of it were drawn by the Mogul artist Ustad Mansur.
The reign of Susneyos witnessed the arrival at the Ethiopian court of
a parrot. It was called dura, apparently a corruption of duri, the
Gujarati name for this type of bird. The Ethiopian royal chronicle
states that it came from Hend, i.e. India, spoke “hend”, presumably
Hindustani, or some other language of India, and several other tongues,
but was, unfortunately, subsequently eaten by a cat. God bless its soul!
Source: http://www.linkethiopia.org
No comments:
Post a Comment