The story behind the vintage photo

Recently at a photography studio in Haya Hulet area of Addis Ababa, my attention was captured by a faded black and white photograph that was lying on the counter, evidently to be retouched. In it, a young man in a suit is depicted with his arm around a grown lion. I inquired the owner about it and sensing my keen interest, he assured me he could ask the person’s phone number for me, which he did a few days later. I contacted the man, an amiable person, and readily agreed to an interview the following week.

Seventy-two-year-old Mekonen Girma was sitting in the salon, visibly frail in his twilight years, with a white beard and hair and a forbidding expression.

The photo was taken two years before the downfall of the Emperor Haile Selassie, he told me. He was 25 then. The lion, called Mekuria,  had been kept a favouite friend in the palace. It was taken around Addis Ababa by the Ethiopian Imperial Guard for large public gatherings and holidays such as Meskel celebration.  It was even brought to the airport to welcome dignitaries. Mekuria was about seven years old, Mekonen recalls. He must have weighed about a hundred and eight kilograms and he had a nice, distinctive full mane. He was so popular among the members of the Imperial Guard that they named their football team after him, Mekonen says. There was another one and younger called Kojo, he added.

Not everybody was a fan of posing for photos with the cat, Mekonen recalls. Many feared the lion as it could retain its wild instincts no matter how ‘tame’ it appeared. But he said there was not an accident that he heard of.

Keeping the lions as pet seemed fitting for the Emperor, as one of his titles, was Conquering Lion of the Tribe of Judah, Mekonen says. Lions were taken from the wild for his private menagerie. At the palace, some of the lions were not tamed and they had to be kept in a grassier enclosure, fed by few experienced keepers, Mekonen recalls. Vistors could only see them from the towers, he said. Their descendants have lived in Addis Ababa Zoo, opened in 1948 and  Jubilee Palace ever since. (Talk has it that they would move to the newly built Unity Park built at the Ara Kilo Palace.)

Mekonen’s role in the Imperial Guard was to create and operate turret (alow armored tower, typically one that revolves, for a gun in a tank or Jeep.) He was also sought after to modify the tower on trucks that were used to move the lions around for the celebrations.

Mekonen reminds me he was a civilian and he learned the job when he went to in Asmara as a teenager and worked with the Italians as a mechanic, where he also perfected his Italian. In Addis Ababa, he went to the Tegbared Technical School on the night shift to fix an engine.

After the demise of the Emperor, he continued working at the army’s heavy vehicles repair garage located at Jan Meda until he retired in the late 90’s, he told me.