by Karin Dienst
Wendy
Laura Belcher, an assistant professor of comparative literature and
African American studies at Princeton, specializes in medieval, early
modern and modern African literature. Her current research focuses on
the stories of women saints told in ancient Ethiopian texts.
Name: Wendy Laura Belcher
Name: Wendy Laura Belcher
Title: Assistant professor of comparative literature and African American studies
Scholarship: Belcher specializes in medieval, early
modern and modern African literature. One of her key interests is in how
African thought circulated in Europe before the 19th century, which she
explores in her latest book by focusing on the influence of Ethiopian
thought on the work of the English author Samuel Johnson. In 2011,
Belcher spent a year in Ethiopia on a Fulbright fellowship researching
ancient manuscripts illuminating the lives of women now regarded as
saints in the Ethiopian Orthodox Church, which dates back to the fourth
century. She also took the opportunity to photograph a range of scenes
and subjects during her visit. Stories from Ethiopia and the African
continent have resonated with Belcher since childhood, when she lived in
Ethiopia and Ghana. Her first book, "Honey from the Lion: An African
Journey," is an autobiographical account of her time in Ghana.
In
2011, Belcher spent a year in Ethiopia researching hagiographies —
biographies of saints — stored in monasteries to gain an understanding
of Ethiopia's women saints. In this work she is collaborating with
Selamawit Mecca (front left), an assistant professor of Ethiopian
literature at Addis Ababa University.
This May your
book "Abyssinia's Samuel Johnson: Ethiopian Thought in the Making of
an English Author" was published by Oxford University Press. What was
the connection between Ethiopia (then known as Abyssinia) and this
famous 18th-century author — the father of the English dictionary and
subject of the legendary biography by James Boswell?
One of the things Samuel Johnson did early in his literary life was
to translate a 500-page Portuguese tome about the Ethiopians. I think he
did the translation because he had read a book about the primitive
Christians and at that time Europeans thought that the primitive — the
"purest" — Christians were the Ethiopians, because they had been
Christians longer than anyone else. This book was about something
Johnson thought was horrible, about the Jesuits trying to convert the
Ethiopians from their ancient form of Christianity to Roman Catholicism
in the 17th century. But Johnson did this translation during a period
of mental instability and it took peculiar hold of his imagination. In
fact, I go so far as to say that he was possessed by it. For the rest
of his life, Johnson wrote fictions about the Ethiopians that were
partly animated by what the Ethiopians said about themselves. One of
these was his most famous book, "The History of Rasselas, Prince of
Abissinia," which was an imagined fiction about an Ethiopian
philosopher prince who searches in vain for ways to live happily.
We always look at how Europe affected Africa; we very rarely look at
how Africa affected Europe. So my book is trying to do the reverse of
what is so commonly done by looking at the influence of Ethiopian
thought on a canonical English author.
In your research on Johnson you made discoveries that led to your
current work on some remarkable Ethiopian women, who were described
as "diabolical" by the Portuguese Jesuits who were trying to convert
Ethiopians until they were ousted in 1632. What was significant about
these women?
As I was reading this tome Johnson translated, it was very
interesting because women kept popping up in the text — royal Ethiopian
women who refused to be Europeanized, who refused to convert to Roman
Catholicism. So I began to read other texts around it and I found
that the Jesuits who came to Ethiopia blamed the failure of Roman
Catholicism in Ethiopia on these royal women. At first I thought this
was just misogyny on the part of the Jesuits — blaming their own
failure on women. But then I began to wonder if maybe they were right.
The
more I read from the European sources and the Ethiopian sources the
more I saw that, in fact, almost all the men of the court converted
for reasons of state, to get arms from Europe, but almost all the women
refused. And did so in very active ways, speaking out before the
court, preaching against Roman Catholicism in the countryside,
fomenting armed rebellions. The Ethiopian women saved the church, saved
the nation. These women's resistance was very powerful. It is a story
of how early Africans successfully resisted early forms of European
colonialism, which people often assume always succeeded.
People also often assume that Africa has no texts before the 1950s.
The fascinating thing about this period of history in Ethiopia is that
we can compare two points of view, the Europeans' and the Ethiopians',
because both wrote books about these experiences. The Ethiopians were
writing historical chronicles and also hagiographies [biographies of
saints], because these women who resisted became saints through their
role. Ethiopia has about 200 indigenous saints, and most of them have
hagiographies, and between eight and 14 of those, we're still figuring
that out, are women. This is a large body of original early African
literature that has gone almost entirely unstudied.
When
visiting monasteries, some very remote, Belcher met nuns (above) and
monks who continue to tell the stories of Ethiopia's saints.
One
of these women who has captured your imagination, Walatta Petros, is
recognized as a saint in the Ethiopian Orthodox Church. Who was she?
I am working with Michael Kleiner, a leading scholar of the ancient
Ethiopian language Gə'əz, in translating a manuscript about Walatta
Petros [1594-1643], who was one of these royal women who refused to
convert. This book may be the first biography of an African woman
written by Africans. It will be at least 175 pages in print form in the
end, all about her and her life, and will be the first translation
into English. I am also collaborating with Selamawit Mecca, an expert
on Ethiopian female saints, who is an assistant professor of
Ethiopian literature at Addis Ababa University.
We learn that Walatta Petros had an adoring father, that all of her
three children died in infancy, that she left her husband because
she wanted to become a nun, that her husband burned down a town to
retrieve her, that she went back, left again, and started a series
of religious communities of people who were refusing to convert.
There are various points in the text when she is hauled in front of
the court and asked why is she being so recalcitrant, why is she
refusing to convert. She preaches about retaining the faith of
their fathers and not turning to the "filthy faith of the
foreigners."
We also learn lots about their daily lives, such as Walatta Petros
getting angry with the other nuns for doing manicures instead of
working.
People tend to think of Africa as the place where women have the
least power. And yet it is my firm belief that women everywhere in
every time have struggled for their rights and succeeded on some
fronts and not on others. So I'm always looking for the story that
goes against this narrative of Africa being particularly oppressive
toward women. So the story of these very powerful Ethiopian women
really captured my imagination.
Belcher's
work focuses on the story of Walatta Petros, a royal woman known for
her fiery resistance to Roman Catholicism in the 17th century, who is
recognized as a saint in the Ethiopian Orthodox Church. In comparing
manuscripts of Walatta Petros' story (such as those shown above),
Belcher, working with Michael Kleiner, a scholar of the ancient
Ethiopian language Gəʿəz, is hoping to publish the first biography of
the saint's life in English.
During a Fulbright
grant last year you did extensive research in Ethiopia on Walatta
Petros and other female saints, including visiting monasteries to
discover manuscripts for further study. What do you hope to gain
from this work?
What happened in Ethiopia when I was there was that Selamawit and I
managed to find other copies of Walatta Petros' story. By going to
monasteries and doing a lot to get permission to photograph these
handwritten parchment manuscripts and finding where they were, we now
have a number of versions. This is really important because the first
print edition in Gə'əz — and its Italian translation — is based on
only one copy of the text. This means that parts of the text were
confusing, probably due to scribal errors, and now, by comparing these
different texts, we will be able to clarify a lot more. By doing
that we may also be able to find out more information about who the
author is.
With Selamawit I visited Walatta Petros' monastery, for which you
have to travel for about an hour by motorboat across Lake Tana; it's
very remote — no running water, no electricity. At this monastery
there are quite a few manuscripts devoted to Walatta Petros.
You lived in Ethiopia as a young child. How does that experience resonate with you now?
My first memories are of Ethiopia. It was a completely magical place
for a child that age. There was a castle in my back yard. There was a
descendant of King David on the throne. My parents would point out
that the way the oxen were threshing the grain was the way they did
it in the Bible. It was like living in a book. And it fed my
lifelong fascination with books.
Published in May, Belcher's book "Abyssinia's Samuel Johnson"
explores the influence of Ethiopia on the famous 18th-century English
author.
Photos courtesy of Wendy Laura Belcher
In
2011, Belcher spent a year in Ethiopia researching hagiographies —
biographies of saints — stored in monasteries to gain an understanding
of Ethiopia's women saints. In this work she is collaborating with
Selamawit Mecca (front left), an assistant professor of Ethiopian
literature at Addis Ababa University.
When
visiting monasteries, some very remote, Belcher met nuns (above) and
monks who continue to tell the stories of Ethiopia's saints.
Belcher's
work focuses on the story of Walatta Petros, a royal woman known for
her fiery resistance to Roman Catholicism in the 17th century, who is
recognized as a saint in the Ethiopian Orthodox Church. In comparing
manuscripts of Walatta Petros' story (such as those shown above),
Belcher, working with Michael Kleiner, a scholar of the ancient
Ethiopian language Gəʿəz, is hoping to publish the first biography of
the saint's life in English.
