Meskel

Meskel means cross. The feast marks the finding of the cross on which Christ was crucified, by Empress Helena, mother of Constantine, in the fourth century. In the Ethiopian telling she was told in a dream to build a bonfire and follow the smoke, which bent towards the buried cross. That is the origin of the Demera, and the reason the fire rather than a procession is at the centre of the day.

A fragment of the cross is held by tradition to have reached Ethiopia and to rest at Gishen Mariam in Wollo, which draws pilgrims of its own around the feast.

A conical pile of branches is built in the days beforehand, topped with daisies and bound with a cross. On the eve, priests circle it in procession and it is lit at dusk. Crowds carry thin taper bundles, also called chibo, and light them from the fire.

The direction the burnt cross falls is read as a sign for the coming year. In the morning people mark their foreheads with ash from the embers. Meskel Square in Addis Ababa takes its name from the gathering, though the largest and oldest celebrations are in the south, particularly among the Gurage, where Meskel is the main holiday of the year and relatives travel home for it.

Meskerem 17 is fixed in the Ethiopian calendar, so it moves very little in Gregorian terms: 27 September in most years, 28 September in the year after an Ethiopian leap year. The Demera is lit on the evening before.