Hitsinawinet/ሕፅናዊነት: The Genesis

The 1974 Ethiopian revolution initiated the beginning of the death of the linear story. The fragmenting elements unleashed then are still working their way through all aspects of life. A society in chaos/disharmony can not give you individuals that are comfortable in linearity. I had to look for ways to represent such realities and processes.

The conceptual image or geometric metaphor we acquire from such disorder is a labyrinth or a maze. What is more pertinent than "Injera" in representing this? I believe we can explain our social, political, economic and historical intricacies using this injera metaphor. One area is writing fiction. This type of writing which I currently exercise I call “Hisinawinet”.

The genesis of Hisinawinet is Teff Injera as a memory. It started by analysing the edible book, Injera. I assumed and believed that memory is stored in the injera. What Hisinawinet does is retrieve it. What is stored is in a spatial form. What we particularly retrieve is connectivity at the centre of existence. In this also we are connected in a way to our. We are teasing our pagan past in search of fruitful meaning.

Injera is more than a model. It is a metaphor. Injera is round. It is three dimensional yet flat. It has holes and yet is consistent. It is between solid and non-solid. At first the injera holes/precisely eyes/ seem to be monads, and yet they are all interconnected through a maze of miniature tunnels. It has a contrasting structure signified by opposites and yet all contributing to its whole physical ‘survival’. I am using the word ‘monad’ to say a unit… an atom...... a totally independent absolute. (More a dictionary definition)

In Hisinawinet, units and frozen identities do not exist. To be more radical, even a single short story can not exist as one story. The minimum stories are two, with a single shared title. A single monolithic story boasts of completeness, which is not right. The single story well crafted, with its own nice title must be put together with another story as a gesture, a tendency of showing connectivity. A single story from a Hisinawinet vantage, is rather a monad. Hisinawinet is a robust technology of writing fiction (at least in my current case). Definitely it is a technology of connectivity, of empathy and positive liaison. Its nature may lie in certain philosophical schools, which I did not bother to locate.

One may ask how “Hisinawinet/ሕፅናዊነት” and this metaphor are related. “Histin/ሕፅን” is a Geez word which designates spaces between two alphabets ('A' in the figure below). Texts can be read because an ‘empty space’ is set between the letters. The spaces within the alphabet are called "Mahesten/ማሕፀን" (which means womb) ('B" in the figure). Both terminologies have a certain similarity of meaning. These spaces I took as homologous to the eyes or holes of the injera.

The intention of "Hisinawinet" is filling this space. What is read is the filling, which is the new text. I translated this as 'Intertextuality' in my interview with Addis Neger. This is done actually for a lack of a suitable term to accommodate the "Hisinawinet".

Injera is predominantly feminine. The sauce has a male feature. The sauce enters the hole. The act of eating is communing with this unity. The very idea of inventing the word ‘Histin’ applauds this conceptual integrity. The spaces inside an alphabet (circumscribed micro spaces) are called Mahesten (womb), according to geez grammarians. Womb is a feminine feature. The spaces between the alphabets are called "Histin"; a word which obviously is related to "Mahesten (womb)".

The holes represent the feminine...and the edges around the eyes are the masculine features. It is elegant engineering that keeps the injera from falling apart. Yet it maintains a form resembling the feminine...

Injera as an Instrument of Designing a Fictional Form

If we take a closer look at the injera, the geometric shape of the eyes are hexagonal. We know that this type of shape is duplicated by human skin cells, blood cells, wood, metals, soils etc... This and such universality of form gives injera a serious symbolic power and a sense of planned purpose.

Injera has an interesting form. We can mark its genesis from pagan times when the sun was worshipped. In antiquity, the sun was represented by a circle. Our alphabet tse (ፀ) is a representation of the sun. or the Aynu A ( ዐ ), as the sun was the eye in the sky. I do not think it is an accident we call the ‘holes’ in injera ‘eyes’.

The circle was and is an ancient and universal symbol of unity, wholeness and infinity. There is also what is called a circumpunct circle with a dot/hole at the middle. It represents the sun and the sun god (Called “Ra” in Egypt), (what if the “ራ” in “እንጀራ” has to do with this?) and the creative spark of divine consciousness within people linking everyone to the creative mind (also to everyone) of a universal "god" thus making each persona "co-creator". The circle and the dot symbolise the spiritual merging of male and female forces. This is a universal/cosmic sensibility.

The meaning of the injera form becomes more complex and it’s meaning certain when the eyes are numerous and the concept and geometry of connectivity is reinforced and radicalised. This model is an ideology about connectivity (visible and invisible). I assume of the ancients who had the habit of planting Mistir/ምስጢር (mystery) in every lived action, including what we eat and the manner we eat.

When the ancients discovered/invented this form they not only bequeathed to us the injera as a form of sustenance, but also a transporter of the deep and necessary understanding of the concept of connectivity in the universe, the nation and the self. The realisation of the ancients about the interconnection of the universe as coded in the injera can be an instrument in designing a fictional form.

An Explanatory Mythology for Injera: Atse Sendeq Alama/ አፄ ሰንደቅ አላማ

Pre-monotheistic societies have explanations for the appearance of every type of creature and behaviour through stories. Before they put all responsibility on one superior god, all creation and acts of that were given account through myths and legends.

I remember in my interview with Addis Neger, I said that there may be an origin mythology for “Teff”/ጤፍ. (But I could not find it then) Luckily, I was able to find one, which tells us how “Teff” emerged as the seminal staple of Ethiopians.

I am not here to question the level of factity in the story. When we read myths we do not really worry about this, but work for a subterranean reading of the stories. We know different societies answer seemingly nonsense problems with stories. Few examples: how come the fox has a bushy tail? How come the dog became domesticated? Why does the moon reappear every month? How was man/woman created? The interesting thing about the “Teff” myth is that it has a certain rational taste. Something credible.

This happened around 1500 BC. Its appearance is connected to a real existent person. He was an Ethiopian king whose name was Esiael, Agabos (kingship name) also ATSE (the first king to call himself ATSE). His other name was “Sendeq Alama”. (Too many names)

He was a serpent king. (The serpent myth is a world wide myth) From his life story we find that he was not just a king, but also a ‘scientist’. It is said that he created the “Zememit”, the mule, the wild donkey by interbreeding them with related species. He had such interest in nature that he had his own arboretum and zoo. He was also capable of discovering a technology of longevity. He was able to live for more than 425 years not by the blessing of God but by his discoveries. It is said that what he ate and drank was different from other people. His water was from a spring that emerged from rocks. It was called the water of life. He was sleeping on a stone that has the power to keep him perpetually young.

After living 425 years, he was tired of life......and wanted to die. He allowed a young lady to kill him. The lady who murdered him later became Queen Makeda, Saba. Her original name was Iteya, Itye, Itege....... She was the first to be called Itege.

The story of Sendeq Alama does not stop. After he died, Saba became queen. During her reign there was widespread famine in the country. Since Saba was not able to feed the hungry, she went to the grave of Sendeq Alama and cried and prayed. God in her dream told her to use the seeds in the grass growing at the king’s grave and feed that to her people. Saba did as she was advised. That was the “Teff” plant. The word ‘Teff’ means ‘sweet and abundant’. It was a famous seed, hearing about it King David wrote a poem in praise.

Given Sendeq Alama being a ‘biologist’, the "Teff" seems to be a conscious discovery......... maybe the king himself discovered it but Makeda’s mythologists added about God, her prayer and her feeding of the people. Even if that is not the case, growing on that specific grave, is like "Teff" borrowing longevity from the dying body of the king. I hope someone can expose this to a serious myth analysis, unlike my perfunctory one. (Anyways, I gave it a shot).

The issue here is "Teff" having a unique mythology. (Do you know any explanatory myth attached to other types of grains?) And its appearance has to be transformed into injera and become a cultural object.

Injera as a Panel of Memory

Interpreting the past texts/materials to understand the roots of human nature (in our case our country and society) is done routinely. Freud did it with Oedipus. What he analysed was a drama. Jung did it by analysing dreams, fairytales and mandalas. Freud compared his work to palaeography, archetypal excavation, translation, the decipherment of ancient languages.

Injera is a panel of memory/a three dimensional sculpture. What is usually lost either in human culture or nature is usually found or discovered. A fish called coelacanth that flourished in the Devonian and cetacean periods was long assumed to be extinct. It was caught off the coast of South Africa in 1938.

Many people quote books to justify contemporary events. Yet, books are or may be tainted or be victims of competitive interpretations. What the ancient Ethiopian Sendeq Alama did was create a shared iconic for both sides of the competitors, a bread like injera, that subverts partiality and ideologies. It is quoted everyday and competed for. Why not find the hidden meaning, the Mistir/ ምስጢርof this innovation?

The place of injera in the general process of cultural evolution is important. The memories of the old were embedded in the injera, an element which both the powerful and the weak shared. In other words, History was embedded into the need and necessities of everyone. When visible direct representations (petroglyphs, thick parchments, language) expired through violence and prejudice, the subtle modest injera was carried to today on the backs of simple farmers, potters, ladies, Mabukias, Metad etc … What Hisinawinet does is retrieve these memories by abstracting them into ‘simple forms’ of circles, labyrinths and hexagons.

Injera as a Root Metaphor

I take injera not as a simple metaphor limited to write my fiction. I consider it to be a root metaphor. It will be appropriate to define this concept. Originator of the term, American philosopher Stephen Pepper defines root metaphor as

"An area of empirical observation which is the point of origin for a world hypothesis" (1967).

A root metaphor is one which is so embedded within a language or culture that it is often not realised as being a metaphor. Others define root metaphor as the metaphor from which other metaphors spring. The similarity to Rhizomatic writing is the dedication to connectivity, fiction as a multilayered and multifaceted construct.

Metaphorizing the Metaphor

We know the idioms and ‘metaphors’ that use injera:

Injerawin Gagere/እንጀራውን ጋገረ

Injera Felagi/እንጀራ ፈላጊ

Yeinjera gemedu tebetese/የእንጀራ ገመዱ ተበጠሰ

Injera berew/እንጀራ በሬው

Injerawin yabeselal/እንጀራውን ያበስላል…

Here, Injera is associated with existence/life. Existence is both chaotic and ordered; or ordered chaos. Interconnected...... Injera is used as a metaphor for describing or illustrating existence. And it is not far from the truth if I stretch this metaphor into a writing technique.

Injera is the memory of an idea; the idea of discovering or inventing a harmonious connectivity. Interbreeding of animals by Atse Sendeq Alama is the act of connecting genes heretofore unconnected and thereby creating a new quality.

Injera as a form of Representation

Injera is the most complete form of representation.

It is visual (like painting)

It is tactile (like sculpture)

It is tasted

etc....

Injera is a survivor document, an edible brana.

What Histinawi fiction tells us is to go deeper into the authentic memories of the writer, the characters, and nation and connect them. The meaning lies in the connectivity.

Labyrinth, Fractals and Telsem/ጠልሰም

Taking injera as a model/metaphor also brings us to chaos theory, fractals (for instance the short- short story Keremeloch in the collection Kesemy Yewrede Firfir/ከሰማይ የወረደ ፍርፍር was a fractal story), percolation theory (hydrology and hydraulics) and topology. There can even be an opportunity to systematise or mathematise such fiction.

I mentioned earlier about the injera as having a labyrinthine internal structure. Actually the labyrinth imagery is represented in two forms. The first is the unicursal labyrinth, which is the classical form. This represents traditional linear stories with a determinate end or closure. We find the unicursal labyrinth in Ethiopian traditional fiction and Kitabs/ክታብ. Its generic label is called ጠልሰም/Telsem/Talisman. It may have a specific name. Below are three telsems (talismans) from different times and geographical areas representing similar intentions.

The second type is multicursal. This is the injera form. It is a story with multiple entrances and multiple exits. (እቴሜቴ ሎሚሽታ/Etemete Lomishita). Multicursals are usually called mazes; while the classical ones are labyrinths.

Wendy Faris in her book “Symbolic Landscape and Narrative Design in Modern Fiction” states that:

”The labyrinth pattern suggests play and terror; it expresses both our control over our environment and our bewilderment within it; it represents orderly disorder; the systematic creation of a mystery more powerful than the creator, who may subsequently become lost in it. Labyrinth encompasses those opposing forces— order and confusion, reason and passion, playfulness and fear”

Plot movements/rhythms/patterns of diction/concepts as memes/ etc... for me are similar to the flow of the ወጥ/Watt/sauce inside the injera, like water percolating through sponge or the earth’s topsoil.

You can draw a two or three dimensional graph showing the movement of one of the stories in እቴሜቴ ሎሚሽታ/Etemete Lomishita. I did not try it, but can be an interesting exercise. We can also create a Telsem from a story. Take “Zelan/ዘላን”, for instance, the revised story in አለንጋና ምስር/Alengana Misir. It started as one story and split into four ‘sub-stories’.

There are of course stochastic processes involved in this. Outcomes are not a priori designed. The story represents one famous principle of chaos called bifurcation. We also find this concept in river systems studies and hydrology. In the future we could be able to draw three dimensional models and Telsems of complicated novels and stories using digital technology and compare (and enjoy) them not only as fictions but visual art products.

Is Hisinawinet unique?

There are few books that study this form. Those that exist are mostly directed to classification and the problem of genre. Some call it composite fiction. Some call it a short story cycle. Based on Deleuze and Guattari some may call it Rhizomatic writing. Rhizomatic writing is anti hierarchical, with out centre and continuously subversive. Rhizomatics is tainted with incoherence. For a good explanation of rhizomes consult this site: http://danm.ucsc.edu/~dustin/library/deleuzeguattarirhizome.pdf.

[Finally] In the dark cloudless night, this naked eye watches a firmament filled with stars. The firmament looks like an injera.

Meditate on the injera.