The Trials and Tribulations of Exile: The Ethiopian Story of Mary Nägärä Maryam

Nägärä Maryam The Story of Mary is a unique Ethiopian narrative, which entered written form in the late seventeenth century in the context of exegetical practices andǝmta devoted to Marian literature. It is hard to periodize, because various story fragments may have circulated in oral culture or are already documented in fifteenth-century Gǝˁǝz manuscripts and fourteenth-century translations of Marian writings from the Arabic.1 Some plot elements are inspired by fifth- and sixth-century Gǝˁǝz translations of ancient Greek and Syriac apocrypha, i.e., noncanonical Christian texts, but also Hebrew sources such as the Book of Enoch, of which the oldest extant Ethiopic manuscripts date back to the fourteenth century.2 The text thus demonstrates traces of continuous borrowing from Jewish and Christian texts in various Middle Eastern languages since Ethiopia's conversion to Christianity in 330 ce. In the early eighteenth century, the book acquired liturgical significance after numerous royal and aristocratic donors commissioned lavishly illustrated manuscripts of the story that tells the events relating to Mary's and the Holy Family's flight from Herod's persecution in a radically new manner.3 Nägärä Maryam portrays Our Lady Mary as a prophetess and teacher of the law and the covenant, and foreshadows her subsequent role as chief organizer of the early church (Kateusz 2019). She is neither meek, maternal, nor merciful, but a powerful Mother of God who punishes unbelievers with enchantments but works miracles for those who welcome and protect her. At the same time, she is a vulnerable and anxious single mother in exile, who laments her fate as a refugee and asylum seeker and breaks down when faced with deprivations, denial, and dissent. In this article, I analyze the interplay between these two aspects of her persona in passages that represent her stress and suffering in words and images. At the center of this discussion are the frequent tensions between Mary and her travel companions due to her unforgiving treatment of sinners, which eventually causes Joseph to attempt suicide by hanging. Throughout, I highlight how the text's pictorial program is (almost) entirely unprecedented. Due to the novelty of the subject matter, the vast majority of the miniatures contain freely invented compositions and details from everyday life. However, they also adapt certain well-known iconic motifs of the Virgin Mary to satisfy the demands of a lengthy pictorial program focusing on the Mother of God.My analysis is based on the manuscript commissioned by King Bäkaffa (1721–1730), which contains about 260 large miniatures rendered in the so-called Second Gondär style. In fact, it can be regarded as a pioneer of this new style in Ethiopian art (Bosc-Tiessé 2008: 13–14; Bosc-Tiessé 2003). The manuscript came to England as part of the looted Mäqdälä collection in 1868 and is catalogued at the British Library as Or. 603 (Pankhurst 1973: 20). It is characterized by a full palette of bright colors, with a preference for red, orange, and yellow. The figures retain their black outlines, a stylistic feature dating back to medieval art, but faces and garments are given volume and depth through careful shading. All of the miniatures are framed, and many consist of centrally planned, windowlike pictorial spaces, in which human figures are integrated into architectural elements, trees, and landscapes. This produces a certain naturalistic effect that differs from an earlier preference for abstraction. Sometimes, the miniatures are subdivided into several such windows to indicate narrative sequence, a technique that was often used in seventeenth-century representations of the First Gondär style that depict the Virgin's miracles in Täʾammǝrä Maryam The Miracles of Mary. But in distinction to the “synoptic,” seventeenth-century pictorial compositions of Täʾammǝrä Maryam that distribute loosely organized representations of different plot points over the entire page (Belcher, Brown, Worku, Muluneh, and Lambrinaki 2023: 303), most miniatures in Nägärä Maryam position their figures into a coherently composed pictorial space. Or. 603 thus features certain stylistic innovations vis-à-vis seventeenth-century manuscripts of the First Gondär style, when the color palette was more restricted and multiple renderings of the same figure were distributed across the page to indicate this person's change of location (Belcher et al. 2023: 303).In other aspects, the pictorial programs of seventeenth-century manuscripts of Täˀammǝrä Maryam and eighteenth-century manuscripts of Nägärä Maryam show many structural similarities. Both cannot be understood outside of the text they are illustrating. While Täˀammǝrä Maryam features summaries next to its illustrations—as in, for example, the story of how Mary cures the blind priest John with the milk of her breasts4—the miniatures of Or. 603 bear titles on top of the manuscript page. These seem to have been added by a different hand than that of the scribes who copied the text of the narrative.5 Ethiopian art has relied on descriptive inscriptions to convey the meaning of pictures since the Middle Ages—an ingrained habit that signals the primacy of writing and doubts about the unambiguous “readability” of the visual arts.6 Secondly, the miniatures of both Täˀammǝrä Maryam and Nägärä Maryam include details of everyday life such as baskets of injera, tej glasses, animals, weapons, and musical instruments. Or. 603 even features of to the Ethiopian of the the manuscript are in both of Marian example, Our Lady Mary of Nägärä Maryam different in subsequent and from to to and back from page to page. has been for Täˀammǝrä Maryam (Belcher et al. 2023: frequent between text and the pictorial programs of both Täˀammǝrä Maryam and Nägärä has been for Täˀammǝrä these from the on oral (Belcher et al. 2023: to Nägärä I that such from the text signals the to pictorial and for example, Mary is as a Virgin even the text for a is into a text of the of the Virgin Mary was in to the who with and in of both First Gondär style Täˀammǝrä Maryam and Second Gondär style Nägärä are through the hand their (Belcher et al. 2023: has that art is of art, of which were distributed by in the early seventeenth century their conversion Bosc-Tiessé art have the of Ethiopian in the of the their and In it has been that to art that was to since the seventeenth century, in the of and that the relied on has been and the of in at a in Ethiopian art of the First and Second Gondär In book art as as in Ethiopian of this It to be that a of the Virgin and is a of which It have been because of its and but because its a of Ethiopia's to the and as and of Ethiopian after a of have with representations of the Virgin and in medieval Ethiopian book It is an that but already to the Ethiopian its by the and subsequent into the First Gondär style, it on I Nägärä miniatures in to stylistic of the Second Gondär style but is on the of their and subject While of the miniatures adapt as the of the Virgin and narrative is for the most part freely in to the text they are illustrating. the miniatures are to the text they are I in the plot is on the of with Our Lady who and over the of the narrative as she punishes who are her. 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the she from of their who to her in of their in a of their her as Mother of the God of they how they were in their but be and Joseph full of and as and the Mary is with her in the of and to in their for She the law and the covenant, but and of her next The of the of of Mary as a and to her their Mary that they are a to she in by into to The Holy their and of The how Mary the of the of of and the the with and The in a with and a of and a in the The are rendered with to naturalistic and the of God to Mary and to because she be more The are down to are an her to be this Joseph is with even as the was a between to Mary is at who Mary in her and a of of which is The are back into their human their new Mary's new are and next to in of and but their faces are at a and they their the Virgin thus to of and that the of multiple of be they the the of or of the narrative Mary is and in after with She and The of God on and Joseph after suicide attempt and to in the as a attempt to Mary the Holy is to have Mary has the role of an a of and by with the But as as they they are The of the next they at but Mary has the back and of their the of the into the and the Holy of their and Joseph a attempt to Mary But Our Lady Mary She is and Joseph with and for in this which and in both and Joseph to back to but Mary to and for her for is to in but that have with who been given This how Mary of as a of Joseph that she and of her is of that the to a different story they at her and how the to and and how those who at it Mary at the a or The to with Joseph and who are Mary and her This is to Mary's of into it how the Virgin at to their of the to the The the a about and their of this is in the nor the text contain such a This between and be a of oral culture in in a for and of the those who the at both the story and its by that those who their have been But this is Mary has be Joseph Mary's is due to the that the so-called of to mother her has been to her In Nägärä it is the the who it to on the of of been many by an of who tells her to the she has for and Mary breaks in and to who has on tells her that the entire for her and that who her or in of this late for the many and who a to and their human But the more that it is Mary's as a refugee and asylum seeker that is the of her and The pictorial program of Nägärä Maryam and this structural plot The frequent of Mary with the to her Joseph on and a of on her as they across and other is a of the that this is a story about a of and Nägärä Maryam is a unique to Marian In its of Our Lady Mary as Mother of God with from her of it back to from But in its and of the and of exile, Mary as an and it the story in a that and the of and All of across and of in of and and in and and of who the of even the of and and et al. and In Nägärä Our Lady Mary faces and Due to her as Mother of God she but this her The of and her into an and travel of which her with Joseph and even In the story of Our Lady Mary's