SEVEN DAYS' FEAST

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 556, 8 January 1929, Page 13

SEVEN DAYS' FEAST

ABYSSINIAN CORONATION GASTRONOMIC HOMAGE With the coronation at Addis Ababa of Ras Tafari as joint sovereign of Abyssinia with his aunt, the Empress, there will commence a week of such festivity, feasting and rejoicing as has not been seen in the country since the crowning of the Empress iu 1917. A dais, ornamented with brightly coloured cloth, has been erected near the Addis Ababa church, and Ras Tafari will march to the throne set upon it accompanied by a bodyguard of white-clad priests chanting and waving palms. Below the platform the nobility and chiefs of Abyssinia, wearing barbaric looking lions’ manes and skins, and carrying round shields, will assemble to pay homage to their new king.

"Lion of Judah” “Ras Tafari, King of Kings of Ethiopia, the conquering lion of Judah, the elect of God,” is tne shout that will rise from the crowd and re-echo through the land as the State herald reads the coronation proclamation. This part of the ceremony being concluded, the Royal party will drive off in the gaily-coloured State coach to the Royal villa.

Here lias been prepared a feast on a gigantic scale—a feast that ■will feed the whole of the Abyssinian Army, in relays, for seven days. All through the day Ras Tafari and his aunt, the Empress, rest on a comparatively secluded dais watching and sometimes taking parr in the revelry. Day by day the banqueting continues, until by the end of the week those w hose duty it is to take part each day are reduced almost to a state of coma. Ras Tafari is one of the most enlightened and progressive leaders of his country, and although subject to the sovereignty of his aunt, has been in the habit of conducting tjie affairs of Abyssinia almost entirely on his own responsibility.