Excerpt from letter: Emdeber, Ethiopia to home in May of 1968
Dear Folks,
Phil and I had glimpsed Zarrah before on a previous adventure, while searching for the Marranah Maid, whom I'm sure you'll recall. Zarrah with its crown of ancient fir trees lies just across the Wenkiya River in Gatoe, but we had thought little of it then. Phil had mentioned that it was probably the hill where Emperor Zariako spent the night while pursuing (or was it being pursued by?) some dissident Guragies. Well, the other day some more aerial photographs arrived at our school, filling in some odd corners of the map I've been building, including the Zarrah hill. Upon closer examination there appeared to be a small clearing in the fir grove, and by this time all us pagan scholars of Gurage knew what that means, especially when there is a round dot in the center of the clearing. Phil asked a few questions of our students and it seemed worthwhile to ride out and give it a looksee, especially since we were both looking for a break from classes, riots, and general administrative impotence. So off we rode Saturday morning toward the Aftar Market, following a new shortcut I had mapped out the night before, which oddly enough turned out to be not so short after we turned right off the wrong intersection. After leading our horses up and down an endless series of ridges and ravines we arrived breathless at the banks of the Wenkiya River, even more breathless as we peered down at the raging torrent below us, and the rickety plank bridge we were to lead our horses across. We mulled this one over a while, over an open can of Chairman Mau's pineapple slices. Fortunately a gentleman of the country appeared, and after a short discussion led us upstream a bit where it was fairly safe to ford the river, safe that is if you knew it was safe. Once over the river it was an easy matter to trot up to the foot of Zarrah, climb up to the top, and race our ponies across the field up to the forest, which was every bit as ancient and gnarled as one could wish. And sure enough there was a path leading into the heart of the forest, which upon racing down it at full gallop we discovered did not lead to any sacred grove with temple but rather mundanely to the other side of the hill. Whereupon I reined in my horse and studied the aerial photographs more closely. We then led the horses down the other side of the hill, toward a small field where an old man and some boys were tending their cattle. We made small talk with them in Chahenya (a dialect of Amharic). Well, the old man kindly offered to lead us out of the forest by another trail. Sure enough as we crossed another path I looked down it and there was a clearing, and a small round temple. After pointing this out to our guide he reluctantly admitted it indeed was a temple in honor of Waq (the star god). The setting within the grove was really beautiful, although the temple itself was in a sad state of repair. Still, it's always exciting to see the carved marker posts in front of the temple, and the sacrificial altar inside.
We spent the night at the home of another ritual leader in a neighboring village, after a long exciting ride in the darkening evening. We all gathered around the circular fireplace, our socks drying on a stick, as we told them of our adventures. The conversation drifted to how we celebrated Wak's special day in the States. Fortunately I had some Chinese skyrockets in my saddle pack. So we were able to give a convincing demonstation of our celebration. They were quite impressed! They also questioned us about what they had heard on their transistor radio, that the earth was round and circled the sun. We had some oranges with us, and dutifully laid them out as a model of the solar system, discussed how they were supposed to rotate, and then divided them up for consumption much to the delight of everyone.