ETHIOPIA -- The faithful gather at dawn for prayer at the Church of St. Mary of Zion of Axum.

Ethiopia has Jewish and Christian influences combined in a unique way, like nowhere else. The building next door to this church is where they say they have the Ark of the Covenant, guarded by someone day and night. This place in the picture is the Church of St. Mary of Zion of Axum, a Christian pilgrimage church. I've been on quite a few pilgrimages, the penatentes in Cuba, places in India, but this is completely different. You could hardly see a face. They are all completely wrapped in cotton sheets.

In Addis, the capital, there is plenty of food, but in other cities, I have never seen such thin people; it feels that starvation in Ethiopia could just be ahead in just a few weeks and yet these people walk great distances to come here. Most are not even wearing shoes. Thousands of people were all gathered here in the yard and it was completely silent -- in India, on the haj, the air is full of the sounds and singing, but here there was complete silence. It felt to me that truly this is all they have, these cotton sheets to clothe themselves, this church. There was real holiness there.

No one paid me any mind; I wandered through there without any trouble whatsoever. Before the service, all the Coptic priests arrive. They are really quite magnificent looking with jewelry and the great Ethiopian crosses, which are about a foot to two feet high, worn around their necks.

The streets are filled with people heading to this area, thousands of them. The pilgrims fill the whole yard of the church, stay for several days and then walk home.

There were many situations, for example, you cannot take out a camera even to take a photo of a building, In fact I got chased off when I was trying to photograph a tomb there. No one was looking at me though when I was taking these photos, the pilgrims really are just doing what they're doing. It's one of the few cultures that aren't camera savvy, they don't all turn around and smile, or look at you. If anybody ever looks at me, though, I ask permission, I don't go in and start taking pictures, especially in these other countries, each culture -- some of them didn't care at all, some of them were very strict.

 

 

                 

Photographs (c) 1999 by Lynn Davis