Magical words: a Ge'ez healing scroll

[Ge'ez]. [Ge'ez healing scroll].

€ 1,500.00

A 19th century Ge'ez healing scroll. Often commissioned for both Christian and Muslim women, such scrolls were traditionally written using a combination of words (often invocations of saints) and images. In 19th and 20th century examples these scrolls often begin with a prayer for Saint Susenyos, who offers protection against the malevolent Werzeleya; most go on to quote extracts of the Gospels, and may even invoke the aid of Alexander the Great.

Medical scrolls are an ancient tradition in the Horn of Africa and especially associated with Amhara and Tigray communities in Ethiopia, where (along with neighbouring Eritrea) Ge'ez has been a liturgical language among Orthodox Christians for millennia. Though, as this implies, Ge'ez healing scrolls were a Christian practice, Ge'ez scrolls have been recorded for the use of Muslim women as well. Rather than remaining a staunchly Christian-only practice, they were incorporated by whole communities in which these scrolls long had a role in protecting the welfare of individuals and households.

An entire house could be protected by one very long scroll, but shorter scrolls like this one would be used by an individual seeking a cure from an ailment, and carried with the patient in the custom carrying case still present with this scroll. As the recipients were often women, it is not uncommon to find scrolls dedicated to curing illnesses of pregnancy or menstrual cramps, but others may be less specific, and comprise a series of prayers and liturgical texts for the health of the soul.

These scrolls were working magical objects, and would occasionally be reused. Here, the scribe has left made a few purposeful erasures where a busy practitioner needed to make a change: perhaps to personalize an invocation, or change out a patient's name.