Wax and Gold: Tradition and Innovation in Ethiopian Culture

Abstract

These are two timely and valuable books on Ethiopia, an ancient land now in the throes of dynamic change and recovering from an aborted revolution. In both books the authors have addressed themselves to the forces making for change in Ethiopian societies, but whereas Levine's study places these changes within their sociological and ideological contexts, Greenfield's approach is primarily historical. Levine, who carried out field research in Ethiopia for three years, approached his study of Ethiopia through an analysis of the culture of the dominant Amhara group. He describes at length the world of the Amhara peasant; the problems of the Amhara adolescent; conflict and cooperation between the old and new elite; and the search among these people for leadership and social progress. Running like a leitmotif throughout his study, however, is the basic ambiguity of Ethiopian culture: and gold. The of any poem, statement, idea, or act is its obvious meaning; the is the hidden quality which, more than the wax, makes everything meaningful. Thus, social relations among the Amhara are not easy to comprehend, and actions must be carefully scrutinized if all their implications are to be understood. Levine's study is very good in so far as it deals with the stresses and strains within Ethiopian society and of the efforts being made by the people to forge allegiance to the Ethiopian nation-state. However, what is disturbing to scholars who have worked in other African societies is his attempt to use the psychoanalytic concept of orality to explain many aspects of Amhara behavior. This is not to deny that there may be such themes as orality, or even anality, in human societies, but socio-cultural processes are usually more strongly influenced by demographic, ecological, historical, and technological factors than by concern for orifices of the human body. Greenfield, like Levine, spent several years in Ethiopia, but as an administrator at the Haile Selassie I University rather than as a researcher. He, too, recognized the importance of the wax and gold in Ethiopian life, but eschews both this theme and orality in presenting his view of that country's recent political history. What he does is to outline in detail the political development of Ethiopia, indicating how the ruling family gained power, and delineate the intrigues which apparently were basic

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