The Barefoot Emperor: An Ethiopian Tragedy. Philip Marsden

In particular his chronicles tell a story similar in many ways to the early life of the greatest of all kings, the father of Solomon – King David.

      It was King David who had achieved what Ethiopian Christians longed for: he brought to an end the Zemene Mesafint. His story and the psalms attributed to him were a touchstone for educated Ethiopians who had all learnt by heart their ‘Dawit’, the psalms of David. As a boy Kasa completed his Dawit with great speed. In later years it was the story of David and the beauty of his psalms that he turned to in times of reflection and need. Those who met him said he carried a copy of the psalms wherever he went, and were struck by his command of them. Henry Dufton, who came to Ethiopia in the early 1860s, concluded that ‘he took for a standard – a model to which he could conform himself – his illustrious progenitor, King David’.

      The strange thing is that many of the confirmed facts of Kasa’s early life really do fit with the young David, as did the physical prowess, the military skills and the intensely human virtues and flaws that shaped each of their reigns.

      Like David, Kasa emerged not from the royal court, but from provincial obscurity. He was born in about 1820. His father was Dejazmach Haylu Welde Giyorgis, who died when Kasa was young. The truth about his mother troubled him all his life. His enemies taunted him with accusations that she was a camp-follower, a woman who had simply slipped into Haylu’s tent. They said she sold koso, a much-used purgative, on the street corners of Gondar. To others she was a noblewoman of astonishing beauty. Either way, it was she, Atitegeb, who ensured that he received many years of Church schooling. In biblical matters he could outquote many of the European missionaries who came to the country. He became proficient in Arabic.

      He was still a boy, studying at the monastery of Mahbere Selassie when it was attacked by a warlord. The novices were slaughtered or castrated, but Kasa fled unharmed. He joined that nameless tribe of outlaws who haunted the remoter hills of the kingdom. He lived in caves, off the berries of the forest.

      Then David departed and came into the forest of Hareth.

      His strength with the spear, his skills as horseman, his courage and luck attracted others around him. He was little more than twelve years old. Sometimes he and his band would rob a caravan, or ambush the soldiers of the hated Oromo, and then he divided the spoils as David had divided the spoils of the Amalekites.

      And when David came to Ziklag he sent of the spoil unto the elders of Judah, even to his friends, saying, Behold a present for you the spoil of the enemies of the Lord.

      The years passed. Kasa fought in the lowlands to the west. The number of his victories grew so quickly and with such mysterious ease that Kasa began to see them as part of a plan devised by God. Then a great drought came and famine swept through the highlands, and Ras Ali and his mother Empress Menen could do nothing for the people. Out of the wilderness rode Kasa and his men with looted grain. Kasa gave the people money to buy tools, and he himself helped cut back the forest to plant grain. He showed them how to make the wild places green.

      And every one that was in distress, and every one that was in debt, and every one that was discontented, gathered themselves unto him; and he became a captain over them.

      In Gondar, Ras Ali’s mother, Empress Menen, saw the rise of Kasa and despatched an army to defeat him. It was too late. When her men came upon him, such was his reputation that they fled with hardly a fight.

      Then Menen and Ras Ali and the Oromo chiefs became angry. Kasa’s support among the people was greater than theirs. They summoned him, that he might make an alliance with them.

      And the princes of the Philistines were wroth with him; and the princes of the Philistines said unto him, make this fellow return, that he may go again to his place which thou hast appointed him, and let him not go down to battle, lest in the battle he be an adversary to us.

      Menen and Ras Ali said to him: We will forgive all that you have done against us, if you will join us.

      Kasa refused. So they offered him the hand of Tewabach, the daughter of Ras Ali.

      And Saul said to David, Behold my elder daughter Merab, her will I give thee to wife; only be thou valiant for me.

      Kasa was astonished; the daughter of Ras Ali was celebrated for her beauty. He accepted their offer.

      And David said, Who am I? and what is my life, or my father’s family in Israel, that I should be son-in-law to the king?

      It was a marriage that should not have worked – a bride from the dynasty Kasa was determined to destroy. But in the years to come, though they were often apart, the two developed an understanding that survived the desperate turbulence of their times, the wilder fringes of his personality, even, when it came, his decisive rebellion against her own father and grandmother, Ras Ali and Menen. She remained loyal to him, and he to her. She was probably the only figure in his adult life he ever learned to trust.

      6

      Nothing but the chronicles and legend survives of Kasa’s early rise to power – except four brief letters. They were written during his years in the lowlands of the west. They are all in Arabic and all addressed to local rulers in the borderless land between Ethiopia and Sudan. A boisterous confidence gushes from them. They were clearly dictated from the centre of a camp that never knew defeat, in which a powerful aura had already gathered around its leader.

      In the letters Kasa refers to himself as ‘His Excellency, the honoured, the bravest of the brave and the greatest of horsemen, the mighty, the exalted, the praiseworthy, the owner of all the land, that is Shaykh Kasa …’ Demanding tribute from the Muslim rulers, he threatened: ‘Now, if you bring it, well and good. But if I come, then you’d better crawl back into whatever space is left in your mother’s womb … I am Kasa. No man can face me.’

      At about this time, towards the end of 1846, Kasa made his boldest move. When Empress Menen left the old capital of Gondar with her troops, he marched in and claimed the city for himself. Kasa was now in control not only of the imperial capital but also of all the land to Lake Tana and beyond. On 18 June 1847, Menen met Kasa in battle. Kasa was victorious. He captured Empress Menen and her husband, the King of Kings, the Solomonic ruler, Yohannis the Fool.

      In 1852, Ras Ali sent an army against Kasa. It was commanded by the great Ras Goshu, father of Biru Goshu. The two forces assembled on the plains of Gur Amba. Goshu’s men were pleased to find the rebel Kasa in such open country, so outgunned and so outnumbered. Goshu’s azmari, Tewfech, stood before the troops and sang a scurrilous song about Kasa to encourage them further:

      Have you seen this scatterbrain

      Coming down to Gur Amba, escorted by five hussies,

      Fondling them

      And followed by his usual band of loose women?

      Kasa was again victorious. Goshu was killed, his men fled. Many were captured – including the azmari Tewfech.

      ‘Please,’ asked Kasa, ‘recite for me this rhyme of yours.’

      When the azmari had finished, Kasa had him flogged to death.

      Ras Ali then summoned all the military force of his kingdom. From Wollo to Gojjam, Lasta to Begemder, the negarits sounded. He asked Wube too to send an army. He placed them all under the lucky command of Biru Aligaz. They marched against Kasa, and in April 1853 met at Takusa. In the ranks there was great confidence. ‘This man of the lowlands,’ scoffed Ras Ali’s men, ‘this grower of red pepper – at last he’s come to fight us!’

      ‘How does he dare? We are ten to his one!’

      ‘Shush! How can you know what the Lord has decided?’

      The Lord had decided on triumph for Kasa.

      Kasa then began to move more quickly. He marched south. In May he burned Ras Ali’s capital at Debre Tabor. On 29 June 1853, Kasa finally clashed with Ras Ali himself, his own father-in-law, on the flat