{"id":735,"date":"2010-05-27T19:35:49","date_gmt":"2010-05-28T00:35:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/weblog.larkvi.com\/?p=735"},"modified":"2010-05-27T19:35:49","modified_gmt":"2010-05-28T00:35:49","slug":"anata-zewchoas-axum-ethiopia-2009","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.larkvi.com\/blog\/photography\/anata-zewchoas-axum-ethiopia-2009\/","title":{"rendered":"Y\u00e4n\u00e4ta Zewchoas, Axum, Ethiopia, 2009"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a title=\"Y\u00e4n\u00e4ta Zewchoas, Axum, Ethiopia, 2009 by larkvi, on Flickr\" href=\"http:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/larkvi\/4645727057\/\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/farm5.static.flickr.com\/4028\/4645727057_d3c86bc6aa_o.jpg\" alt=\"Y\u00e4n\u00e4ta Zewchoas, Axum, Ethiopia, 2009\" width=\"427\" height=\"640\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Zewchoas is one of the chief instructors at the St. Yared Theological Academy in Axum, and has a reputation as a d\u00e4bt\u00e4ra, a magician (he is also properly a d\u00e4bt\u00e4ra in its original sense of liturgical specialist). A dwarf, he was picked upon, and learned magic in order to gain respect, notably a method for causing people to fart in public, which is considered extraordinarily rude in Ethiopia.<\/p>\n<p>Having achieved his aim, he later gave up the magician&#8217;s craft and focused more on his teaching work. He may often be found behind the school, leading students in the recitation and memorization of liturgical songs, and is a thoroughly respected member of his community, having overcome the prejudice traditionally associated with dwarfism.<\/p>\n<p>He is photographed sitting on a throne  on top of the stairs in front of the old Cathedral of St. Mary of Zion (Maryam Tsion).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Zewchoas is one of the chief instructors at the St. Yared Theological Academy in Axum, and has a reputation as a d\u00e4bt\u00e4ra, a magician (he is also properly a d\u00e4bt\u00e4ra in its original sense of liturgical specialist). A dwarf, he was picked upon, and learned magic in order to gain respect, notably a method for &hellip; <a href=\"http:\/\/www.larkvi.com\/blog\/photography\/anata-zewchoas-axum-ethiopia-2009\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;Y\u00e4n\u00e4ta Zewchoas, Axum, Ethiopia, 2009&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[32,74,209,250,270,287,521,890,909,1001],"class_list":["post-735","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-photography","tag-africa","tag-axum","tag-cleric","tag-dabtara","tag-dwarf","tag-ethiopia","tag-magician","tag-teacher","tag-tigray","tag-zewchoas"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.larkvi.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/735","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.larkvi.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.larkvi.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.larkvi.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.larkvi.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=735"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.larkvi.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/735\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.larkvi.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=735"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.larkvi.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=735"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.larkvi.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=735"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}