WONDERS OF THE AFRICAN WORLD: INTO AFRICA WITH HENRY LOUIS GATES, JR.: THE HOLYLAND {PART 4 OF 6} (TV)
Summary
Part four of six. One in this documentary series where educator Henry Louis Gates, Jr. travels around different regions of Africa. In this episode, Gates travels through Ethiopia to learn more about Christian religious traditions in the only African country never colonized. Gates begins his tour in Addis Ababa, the present capital of Ethiopia. He visits the Holy Trinity Cathedral and meets with the patriarch of the Ethiopian Orthodox Church. He questions him about the Ark of the Covenant, which Ethiopian tradition says has been in Ethiopia for over two thousand years, since its disappearance from Jerusalem. Gates then visits the Holy Waters of Tidan Miret, a site visited by pilgrims in search of miraculous cures for physical and mental ailments. Gates briefly discusses the 1974 Marxist revolution. By chance, Gates encounters Minister Louis Farrakhan of the Nation of Islam at his hotel in Addis Ababa, which leads to an awkward meeting during which Gates limits himself to questions about Ethiopia. (Gates explains that Farrakhan disliked an article Gates had written about him for The New Yorker Magazine.) From Addis Ababa, Gates journeys to Lake Tana, the source of the Blue Nile. Gates discusses the biblical Queen of Sheba's Ethiopian origins, and the birth of Menolich, the son of the Queen of Sheba and Solomon, Ethiopia's first king and the legendary transporter of the Ark of the Covenant from Jerusalem to Ethiopia. These legends are explained as a prelude to a visit to an island monastery where the mummified bodies of five kings from the fourteenth through the seventeenth centuries are kept in a crypt along with their swords and helmets. Next, Gates is led to the Blue Nile Falls, which was first introduced to Europeans by James Bruce, an eighteenth-century Scottish explorer. Gates follows Bruce's route to Gondar, Ethiopia's capital from the seventeenth through the eighteenth century. En route, Gates stops at a Fellasha village, where the Ethiopian Jews lived before most were airlifted to Israel during the 1985 famine. Later, Gates arrives in Gondar and witnesses the celebration of Epiphany during which parades, dancing and singing are followed by a mass ceremonial baptism in the Emperor's private bathing pool at the castle compound. From Gondar, Gates travels to Lalibela, the twelfth to fourteenth century capital of Ethiopia, constructed by the kings to be a new Jerusalem in Africa, with twelve churches carved out of the volcanic rock. A tour guide brings Gates through the churches, where they encounter the few nuns and a monk who are the sole occupants. There are other visitors to the area, however, including the Archbishop of Canterbury, George Carey, with whom Gates briefly speaks about the Ethiopian Orthodox Church's claim of possession of the Ark. From Lalibela, Gates heads to Axum, a two-thousand-year old settlement which was the home of Ethiopia's pre-Christian kings and the place where the Ark is said to be currently held. On the road to Axum, Gates visits Debra Damo, a sixth-century mountain-top monastery and the oldest standing church in Ethiopia. He is led through the monastery by historian and Ark of the Covenant specialist Roderick Grierson, with whom he discusses the Ethiopian legend of the Ark. Later, Gates arrives in Axum, visits the monoliths at Axum with Grierson, the largest decorated single stones cut by humans which served as the tombs of Axum's kings until the arrival of Christianity in Ethiopia in the fourth century. Gates then visits the St. Mary of Zion church in Axum, the place where the Ark is said to be held and watched over by a monk twenty-four hours a day.
(This joint BBC/PBS production was originally broadcast by the BBC in July 1999.)
Cataloging of this program was made possible by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, 2003.
Details
- NETWORK: PBS
- DATE: October 26, 1999 Tuesday 10:00 PM
- RUNNING TIME: 0:53:54
- COLOR/B&W: Color
- CATALOG ID: T:75421
- GENRE: Public affairs/Documentaries
- SUBJECT HEADING: Africa - Civilization; African-American Collection - News/Talk
- SERIES RUN: PBS - TV series, 1999
- COMMERCIALS: N/A
CREDITS
- Jonathan Hewes … Executive Producer
- Ben Goold … Producer
- Katrina Phillips … Associate Producer
- Nick Godwin … Director
- Antonia Hinds … Researcher
- Henry Louis Gates, Jr. … Writer
- Allula Andeta … Music by
- Spirp, Wix, Legwabe … Music by, Theme Music by
- Henry Louis Gates, Jr. … Host
- James Bruce
- George Carey
- Louis Farrakhan
- Roderick Grierson
- King Solomon
- Menolich
- Queen of Sheba