Saba: Under the Hyena’s Foot

A Fierce Longing

The house grows colder as they eat. Saba can hear the wind drumming its fingers against their grass roof. All three of them pull their shammas tightly around their shoulders. Pretty soon, the Maskaram will be here, and the big rains will begin to lift. The streams and rivers will shrink to their normal size and fields will come to life again. The evenings won’t be as cold.

For the whole rainy season, Saba and Mesfin have had to wear capes as they worked. Emama says that Saba looks like a turtle, carrying her house with her everywhere she goes. But soon, the kosso trees will sprout red flames and the maskal flowers will make a thick, yellow cloak for Saba’s bare feet to walk on.

As Saba dips into the spicy lentil wat Emama’s prepared, her mind swirls with questions. Why doesn’t she want to take them with her to the market? What does she fear? Saba feels a fierce longing to go with Emama to market to help her. She wants to see the market for herself.

Saba had only ever been a traveler twice. The first time, she was little more than an infant. They had left the land the emperor had given Ababba and moved to the land of Ababba’s fathers. The second time, they moved to their current house on the edge of the wild forest. Saba watched Ababba cut down a tree for the center pole of their house and smaller trees to put in a circle around it. He dug a pit of clay and Saba helped stomp it to softness and mix straw into it. Then, they all scooped up the clay and used it to build the walls.

Emama and Ababba never told them why they moved and lived so far from other people. These questions often buzz inside of her. But if she vocalized her questions, Ababba would say she is rude. She shouldn’t question elders.

They have almost everything they need at home. Seeds to be pressed for the oil for cooking. A cow that gives milk to make butter. An ox to pull the plow. Red peppers for spices, and gourds and baskets for scooping and storing. The few other things they need, such as blades and pots, both of which are made by budas, Ababba always fetched from a market while out on his yearly travels.

So what is the restlessness inside of Saba? Perhaps it has something to do with what Mesfin said yesterday. Mesfin pointed out that soon, Saba may have a husband of her own to feed. Saba’s mouth had fallen open, and Emama quickly retorted that she’s very small, yet. It’ll take all three of them to grow enough food to survive the next dry season. Saba, picking up flour in her fingers, says she’s not ever leaving home.

The only other things Saba knows of the outside world is from Ababba’s stories and paintings in the goatskin book Emama shows them on feast days. She has a few small memories from their travels, such as a big body of water called Lake Dembya or a village market where she once played with another girl. But can’t someone who loves their home yearn to see the outside world, too?

Every time Ababba came home, he’d tell them stories of different markets he visited. The salt market in Mekelle, the Magnificent Gondar, and a place near Lake Dembya, where he found cotton and lemons to bring home. Saba liked to repeat the names of these places. Now, as she stares at the embers of the fire, she wishes to someday see just one market again.

Emama breaks through Saba’s thoughts. They must stay inside all day tomorrow, and must not leave the house until they hear her coming back. Mesfin is disgusted, and Emama turns to scold him. Saba watches them anxiously, unsettled by her brother’s behavior. She blurts out that maybe Emama just wants to keep all the marvels for herself.

Emama’s face is full of thunder. Saba shouldn’t be disrespectful. Anyone would think her mother forgot to feed her butter and honey to make her voice soft and sweet. Saba looks down and apologizes. But Emama’s words opened the floodgates inside of Saba, and she wants to let more questions pour out.

Emama says she’s leaving only to buy a pot, not to find amber beads to hang around her neck. Emama’s words remind Saba of a time Ababba pointed to the red sunset, and explained someday he’d find amber beads of that color to bring home for her.

Just then, Emama reaches out and pulls Saba closer to her. Saba can feel her fingers stroke her hair. Emama hums softly under her breath, undoing and redoing Saba’s braids.

Carefully, Saba says that maybe Emama will go to the village Ababba told her about, where there’s a big tree in the middle. The tree had butter rubbed into its trunk because of the sacred snake that lived in the tree. Ababba said that sometimes an elder kills a goat or sheep and leaves it for the snake. In her head, Saba wants to stand before that same tree and ask for protection for Emama, Mesfin, and herself.

Emama sniffles. Maybe Saba is a hippopotamus-eater to believe such tales. How can Emama compare her to the people who eat a hippopotamus’ unclean meat? Saba stubbornly wonders if a sacred snake did have power against the terrible things of the real world, and maybe the spirit world.

Emama’s voice rises, and she says it’s important they remember their Amhara blood. A long time ago, the Amhara people worshiped many things—trees, snakes, the sun. But no more. One snake became so powerful that the people had to feed it each day: ten cows, ten bulls, a thousand goats, a hundred sheep, and ten thousand of ten thousand of birds.

Saba knows this story well. Emama and Ababba had their own versions they liked to tell. In Emama’s version, the snake has fiery flame eyes and black eyebrows and a horn. The woman Makeda has astonishing courage. She walks right up to the snake and cuts off its head. Ababba said it was Makeda’s father who cuts off the head. Even in the story the Amharas tell of their own beginnings, the snakes are powerful. But Makeda is more powerful. But, she’s not the most powerful thing in all the earth, water, fire, or air.

After the Ethiopian people made Makeda queen—Queen of Saba—she heard of someone who had greater wisdom than her. She took seven hundred camels and many mules and donkeys on a long journey to find King Solomon of Israel. She saw the light of the king’s heart that was like a lamp in darkness. On her way home, with Solomon’s son growing inside her, she declared the Amharic people would not worship snakes or the sun anymore, but only the one true God. And all Ethiopian emperors were descended from her.

Saba is named after Makeda.

Emama finishes braiding Saba’s hair. Mesfin laughs. It looks just like the field he flowed. Saba laughs, too, but it’s covering a feeling of fear. Can Mesfin plow the earth all by himself? Without her brother’s help, will she be able to throw enough stones to keep the animals out of the fields?

Emama stands up and hangs the baskets and gourds on the cow horns fixed into the walls. Mesfin and Saba step outside and guide the animals through the special door in the back of the house. Four chickens, two goats, the cow, and the ox. Ababba used to have a mule, but he died two months before Ababba.

They tether the animals to their places, and Saba moves over to the corner of the floor where she sleeps curled up in her gahbi. Emama settles on a bench of mud coming out from the wall covered in animal hides and straw. Saba thinks about the strange crawling in her stomach when Emama brought up her mother. Does Mesfin have any memories of their parents? But she can’t ask him with Emama there.

Saba shuts her eyes, feeling mournful and alone. Most of the time, they considered their grandparents as their parents. They’d been with Emama and Ababba since they were little. But now, Emama’s words set off this longing inside of her. When Emama comes back from the market, she must find a way to coax Emama to tell her about her mother and father. She has to know more.