is sophisticated and provides much food for discourse that came out of the construction
thought. of Shinto as an indigenous state ideology
The scope of Rambelli's monograph
is ambitious—perhaps too much so. It
encompasses a history of Buddhist materiality
from the ancient to the contemporary periods.
Rambelli acknowledges that he is a scholar
of Heian and medieval esoteric Buddhism.
Indeed the chapters that focus on these early
periods of Japanese history are the strongest.
His book offers less on the early modern
period (including references to nativism but
omitting, for example, the role of Shirakawa
Shinto in the "Shintoization" of labor rituals)
and virtually nothing on the period from the
Meiji era through the postwar period but
jumps immediately to the late twentieth
century—particularly in the introduction
and in Chapters 5, 6 and 7. Medieval and
early modern practices and doctrines
doubtlessly influenced contemporary beliefs
and practices, but a cultural history ought to
examine the tremendously important impact
of modernization, such as the development
of a fully industrialized capitalist economy
and the modern nation state. Since Rambelli
seeks to debunk Japanese uniqueness
theory, his argument might have been even
more effective if he had deconstructed the
ancient churches of
ethiopia
Phillipson, David. 2009
New Haven, CT and London: Yale
University Press
ethiopian crosses
121 a cultural history and
chronology
Chojnacki, Stanislaw. 2006
Milan: Skira
Reviewed by Crispin Paine, University College
London
DOI: 10.2752/174322010X12663379393611
Every Ethiopian church is built on a spot where
a drop of Christ's blood fell, sprinkled by the
angels at the crucifixion (Neburid Belai Meresa,
during the Meiji era, Japan's fascist 1930s
and 1940s, and the rapid economic
expansion after World War II, which he only
acknowledges in passing (pp. 140, 210, 225,
268, 273).
Nevertheless, despite these minor issues,
Rambelli's Buddhist Materiality represents a
provocative and important contribution to the
field of Japanese studies, Buddhist studies
and material religion. I highly recommend the
work to scholars and students alike.
Note
' Geopiety is not a term coined by Grapard but has
been more wideiy used. Though Grapard's term
"geognosis" sounds similar to the nineteenth-century
German geoiogicai term "geognosy" (the study of the
materials of the earth's crust), he uses it compieteiy
differently. See Grapard (1994).
Reference
Grapard, Ailan. 1994. Geosophia, Geognosis,
and Geopiety: Orders of Significance in Japanese
Representations of Space, in NowHere: Space, Time,
and Modemity, eds. Roger Friediand and Deirdre
Boden. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press,
372^01.
personal communication). Anyone who has
seen passers-by stop to kiss the gatepost of
a church recognizes the extraordinary power
that Ethiopian Orthodox Christians accord the
material—place and thing.
The ancient church buildings of the
Ethiopian and Eritrean highlands are one of
the most impressive and precious groups
of sanctuaries anywhere, made the more
remarkable by the local tradition of rock-cut
churches. With Phillipson's book their study
takes a big leap fonwards.
The core of this study is a new
understanding of the famous complex of
rock-cut churches at Lalibela in northern
Ethiopia. Phillipson proposes a chronology
running from the earliest, probably
secular, palace buildings of the seventh/
eighth century, up to the completion and
consolidation of the whole complex as a
"new Jerusalem" by King Lalibela, perhaps in
response to the fall of Jerusalem to Salah-ad-
Dinin 1187.
 But this study is by no means restricted
to Lalibela. Following a very valuable
summary of early Ethiopian history as
currently understood, Phillipson describes
a large selection of key churches, both built
and rock-cut, dating from the sixth century
until the fourteenth. Detailed descriptions
bring together a huge quantity of data from
a wide variety of travelers and scholars,
from Abu Salih in the fourfeenth century to
the recent excellent study by Lepage and
Mercier (Ethiopian Art: the Ancient Churches
ofTigrai, 2005)—this is not the least valuable
contribution of this book.
From all this data Phillipson develops
a chronology of Ethiopian church-building
which—if accepted—makes an important
contribution to the vexed political history of
early medieval Ethiopia. Phillipson accepts
a seventh-century date for the decline of
Aksum, proposing that church-building
reflects a move of political power to eastern
Tigray, and from the eleventh century furfher
south again. Retention of the Aksumite style,
and the development of Lalibela as a religious
center, reinforced the claims of the new
Zagwe dynasty to be the heirs of Aksum.
As Phillipson suggests, the next major
push must be in understanding how these
buildings have been used liturgically, and
how they were and are understood. It will
be parficularly useful to learn more about
122
pilgrimage, burial, the role of relics, and the
(changing?) role of the debteras and laity
in the liturgy—lay people attending mass
frequently remain outside. All these have
big implications not only for how churches
are designed and built, but also for how
church buildings, land and treasures are
understood—the meanings they are ascribed.
This will necessarily be principally the work
of Ethiopian scholars and especially of a
new generation of clergy able to move freely
between traditional and modern scholarship.
However, in Ethiopian Crosses, Chojnacki
reminds us that traditional church scholars,
too, "are generally endowed with a rich
imagination and, in turn, this may lead to
flights of fancy from time to time" (p. 79).
He is also rightly skeptical of much of the
symbolism imputed to Ethiopian crosses, as
well as of the efforfs of dealers and collectors
to classify them by form.
This is a masterly study of the cross in
a country in which the cult of the cross has
for long (how long?) been very powerful, and
in which the cross in a whole range of forms
and materials is found everywhere. Chojnacki
gives a scholarly history of the cross and
its cult firmly based on Ethiopian evidence,
explains the uses of the cross as a medium of
blessing and of healing, as a ward against evil
spirits, and as an identifier for both laypeople
and clergy
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