Filling in the Interstitial Spaces
So I want to jam more Ethiopian history into the book. As I mentioned, I haven't decided yet if I'll try to do that as a dream sequence or fictional book or I don't know maybe just a blatant speaking to the camera through the fourth wall aside. But anyway, I've been plotting out the actual content. I feel like to start at the beginning, one either would point to the discovery of the Lucy skeleton in Ethiopia and note that humanity itself evolved in the area, or start with the queen of Sheba. I'm thinking of starting the historical section about Ethiopia with the latter, specifically, the pertinent bible quote:When the queen of Sheba heard about the fame of Solomon and his relationship to the Lord, she came to test Solomon with hard questions. Arriving at Jerusalem with a very great caravan-with camels carrying spices, large quantities of gold, and precious stones-she came to Solomon and talked with him about all that she had on her mind. Solomon answered all her questions; nothing was too hard for the king to explain to her. When the queen of Sheba saw all the wisdom of Solomon and the palace he had built, the food on his table, the seating of his officials, the attending servants in their robes, his cupbearers, and the burnt offerings he made at[a] the temple of the Lord, she was overwhelmed.
She said to the king, “The report I heard in my own country about your achievements and your wisdom is true. 7 But I did not believe these things until I came and saw with my own eyes. Indeed, not even half was told me; in wisdom and wealth you have far exceeded the report I heard. How happy your people must be! How happy your officials, who continually stand before you and hear your wisdom! Praise be to the Lord your God, who has delighted in you and placed you on the throne of Israel. Because of the Lord’s eternal love for Israel, he has made you king to maintain justice and righteousness.”
And she gave the king 120 talents of gold, large quantities of spices, and precious stones. Never again were so many spices brought in as those the queen of Sheba gave to King Solomon.
…
King Solomon gave the queen of Sheba all she desired and asked for, besides what he had given her out of his royal bounty. Then she left and returned with her retinue to her own country. - 1 Kings 1-13
(the ellipses are the excision of the seemingly unrelated 1 Kings 11 about trade goods brought from a place called Ophir whose location isn't even confidently guessed at by anyone.)
This is foundational both because I think most Christians/westerners will have heard of the Queen of Sheba yeah no yeah no? And Ethiopian tradition holds that the Queen got pregnant by Solomon (read that "gave the queen of Sheba all she desired" again), giving birth to the subsequent emperor of Sheba Menelik I, from whom the Ethiopian monarchs claim descendance on down to Haile Selassie as The Solomonic Dynasty.
There follows another editorial choice. The Ethiopian holy text the Kebra Negaste goes into much greater detail about this (Wikipedia: " While the Abyssinian story offers much greater detail, it omits any mention of the Queen's hairy legs or any other element that might reflect on her unfavourably."), such that I think one could describe it in narrative scene, and you know how I lorve to be writing historical fiction. BUT I think that description fits better in my second visit to Ethiopia wherein I travel to Axum and come into close proximity to the Ark of the Covenant which the Kebra Negast describes her stealing.
So what I'm thinking at present, is here in this first Ethiopia chapter, start the historical part with that bible quote (I suppose that would be easy, have me literally find a Gideon's bible in the hotel and look for the Queen of Sheba quote to find out what they're all on about hey. but then again being as Ethiopians are Ethiopian Orthodox and I think their bible varies a bit from the catholic/protestant ones Gideon deals in maybe they wouldn't have gideon's bibles laying around), and some expositive notes on the historical kingdom of Sheba / Saba
From there I think to move on to the traditional tale of hte discovery of coffee, which is that an Ethiopian shepherd noticed how extremely wakeful his goats were and thought he'd try to berries on the plant they were eating. I'll have to look into if any very specific place and name is associated with that. From that scene, expositive mention of the spread of coffee around the world.
Colonialism:
1885, The Berlin Conference, wherein European powers apportioned Africa amongst themselves, and pertinent at present is that Italy laid claim to Ethiopia and the horn of Africa. Going forward I think I'll have reason to return to the Berlin Conference repeatedly as it pertains to different countries, so I think I'm going to want to really read up on it, so I can set it as a scene and revisit it from slightly different angles every time it comes up again.
1889: Treaty of Wuchale, in which the Italian language version of the treaty made it an agreement to submit as a protectorate to Italy, and the Amharic (Ethiopian) version only said it was an agreement to friendly trade relations. Further background, Italy had just occupied formerly-ottoman Eritrea which lies between Ethiopia and the Red Sea -- this treaty in theory fixed the Italio-Eritrean/Ethiopian border. One can keep diving deeper into these things: the reason the "Ottomans" were pulling out of Eritrea were because it was Ottoman Egypt, which had just been taken over by Britain and could no longer maintain far flung colonial efforts of its own. I think this is interesting but one has to draw a line of simplification somewhere hey.
First Italo-Ethiopian War 1895-1896, the first decisive defeat of a European colonial power by a native African polity.
Then I think we'll be on to Haile Selassie. I'm thinking a scene of him as a young man as the duke (ras) of the house of Tafari, there are once again some interesting twists and turns leading to his becoming Emperor (he's only like a cousin of his predecessor, the Empress Zewditu, and there's a small civil war against another claimant, and then a kind of bizarre battle where the Empress' husband (Emperor Consort?) "rebels" against the increasing authority of Ras Tafari (by then actually king (negus) Tafari, which sounds grand but is still subordinate to the Empress, the "Queen of Kings"), and the Empress is officially on Tafari's side but really probably rooting for her husband. Byzantine politics it is! Anyway, I've got 17 interstities between days to fill so I should be able to jam a bunch of little scenes in. But yeah so Ras Tafari becomes the Emperor Haile Selassie, is involved in the foundation of the League of Nations, and becomes worshipped as a god by Rastafarians.
And then setting up the second Italo-Ethiopian war (1935-1937) in time in time to take place just in sync with the mention in my main text of the battle of Dembeguina Pass and Korem.
Then Haile Selassie in exile and returning to expel the Italians (he could have waited until the Italians were all the way out but he bravely returned just before that so he could be involved in giving them the boot, real good look it was).
And then I'll end the historical bits of this chapter with the Derg overthrow of Haile Selassie in 1974. The subsequent civil war against the Derg I'll put into the second Ethiopia chapter.
