摘要：This article deals with the importance and role of honey and wax in Eritrean and Ethiopian
culture. Honey and mead and wax as a by-product have been important historically in the
plateau and lowlands. The Italian colonial regime and its officers and technicians dealing with
the economic and social values had to study the particular techniques used to gather and the
specific knowledge in ethnozoology and ethnobotany. They pursued the aim to modernize the
specific techniques involved and increase its economic value of exchange.
The article takes in account the regional varieties and the social value of honey and mead, mes
or tägg, which had a high cultural position in the alimentary code and practices and a symbolic
value at important occasions of consumption and feasting, at birth ceremonies, at cultural
functions in monasteries, at burial banquets. The Italian reports did not miss its presence in the
retinues of the chiefs in war and in the banquets of the élite or their capacity of expressing
cultural and religious boundaries and identities. Being honey present in circuits of exchange
and in the taxation system and in the levying of the chiefs, the Italian officers tried to control
its production and circulation.
