Abstract: The article addresses the political use of gesture in Ethiopian pre-modern political culture. It identifies and analyzes performative acts based on unexplored nineteenth-century local sources. The article proposes that gestural enactments, often closely linked with specific items of clothing such as the shawl (shemma), have been used by Ethiopian political actors to show political standing vis-à-vis one another, but also negotiate political position. By reconstructing two such events of momentous political consequences the article shows how Ethiopian ritualized enactments, with their gestural component, provided a platform for negotiating hierarchy, expressing and reiterating authority. The meetings between Emperor Yohannis IV (r. 1872–89) and King Menelik, as the ruler of Shewa, and some years later the ceremonial act of deference by Mengesha Yohannis in front of, by then, Emperor Menelik II (r. 1889–1913), were preceded by oral negotiations that culminated in these performances and provided a crucial step that facilitated transition to the next stage of the political game.