Kathleen Flanagan Rollins's Blog, page 3

Living with History: Thoughts on Visiting Croatia, Part I

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Croatia is the crescent-shaped country shown in green on the map, across the Adriatic Sea from Italy. It used to be part of Yugoslavia. 

† Today, Croatia’s Dalmatian Coast is a trending holiday location, famous for its picturesque islands with good harbors, clear water, and gentle weather. Boats pull up daily along the riva and disgorge young adults ready to party. There’s lots of music and good wine. 

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But up the hill from the bustling tourist shops sits a fortress built long ago, like the one pictured at Hvar, when that harbor had to be defended from marauders.  It’s a curiosity now, a place you can rent for a reception.  It’s also a reminder of the region’s history that’s so long and complex it’s shocking to people who are used to thinking of 1776 as a long time ago.  I found it fascinating.

Neanderthals

When Davoka Radovcic was appointed as the new director
of the Croatian Natural History Museum, she reviewed the collection of
artifacts held in storage.  Among them,
she noticed eight white-tailed eagle talons that had been excavated from
Krapina, a Neanderthal site in northern Croatia, back in 1899. 

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  The white-tailed eagle is a large, powerful
raptor with a wing-span of over six feet (1.8 meters). When Radovcic examined
the talons, she noticed most of them had a hole pierced through the top and
burnishing marks along the edges. 
Clearly, they’d been modified.

She showed the talons to David Frayer, a
paleoanthropologist friend who said later, “I was shaking when I saw them…I
knew how important they were.”  After
extensive study of the talons, Radovcic and Frayer became lead authors of a 2015
paper about them in PLoS One. They concluded that the talons, collected
from three different birds, had been purposely pierced and strung together,
possibly into a power necklace.  The
assemblage was dated to 130,000 years ago, at least 50,000
years before Homo sapiens are thought to have arrived in the area.  The necklace is now considered the oldest
known Neanderthal jewelry. 

Yet this extraordinary assemblage lay forgotten, tucked away in a drawer for a hundred years.  If not for Radovcic’s sharp eye, they might still be there.

Illyrians

Neanderthals may have been the earliest hominins in
the region, but waves of Homo sapiens, known collectively as Illyrians.
followed.  The ancient Greeks referred to
the area as Illyria, so all the groups living there before the Greeks arrived
were called Illyrians, in the same way that all native tribes in the Americas
were called Indians. Very little is known about these people, partly because
their history is buried under cities constructed by more recent and more famous
residents, including Greeks, Romans, Venetians, Turks, Austrians, French, and
British. As each new wave conquered an earlier one, people re-purposed stone
blocks, roads, foundations, tools, and artwork. 
In Poreč, for example, the famous Euphrasian Basilica is the third
Catholic church to be built on the site. 
It incorporates Greek colonnades, a Roman floor mosaic, a Venetian
decorated canopy, and wall mosaics by Byzantine artists, plus repairs and
changes made after fires and an earthquake.

Diocletian’s Palace

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Perhaps the most famous example of mixed histories is what’s called Diocletian’s Palace.  It was actually a fortress rather than a palace, built for the Roman Emperor over an earlier settlement in what is now the city of Split, on the coast.  Oddly enough, the city has grown up in and around the ruins, including many additions/modifications made to them through the centuries.  It’s become the Old City, home to shops, restaurants, churches, schools, and an open-air market. Its gates, once fiercely guarded, now stand open to all.

Emperor Diocletian was born nearby, in the Roman city
of Salona. After a successful military career, he rose to the rank of
Emperor.  During his reign (284 – 305
AD), he instituted changes in regional rule, coinage, trade, and taxation.  He attacked and conquered the Persian Empire,
a long-standing foe.  But mostly he’s
known for escalating the persecution of Christians.

Even more than previous Roman leaders, he saw their
religion as a threat.  Christians did not
participate in state-sanctioned festivals or make offerings to the official
gods. They didn’t believe in the Imperial Cult, which held that Emperors were
divinely appointed.  Diocletian felt he
had to unite an ethnically diverse empire through a standard series of laws and
practices, which included a return to the Olympian gods.  In this way, he thought the Empire could
return to the glory of Old Rome.  Sort of
“Make the Empire Great Again.”

So he instituted the last and most extensive program
of persecution of Christians in the Roman Empire, beginning in 303.  While the image of Christians being eaten by
lions in the Colosseum is disturbing, Diocletian’s purges turned out to be a
colossal failure as a deterrent.  Instead
of driving people away, they made the new religion more popular.  Those tortured and killed rose to the ranks
of martyrs and saints.  Even some Roman
rulers became uncomfortable with the practice.

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Disheartened and in poor health, Diocletian abdicated
his position in 305 and returned to his homeland. The drawing shows what his
“palace” looked like when completed.  The
fortified city covered 30,000 square meters (about 323,000 square feet). It
included room for an army garrison, private quarters, gardens, public squares,
and several temples.

But he found little peace there.  He was keenly disappointed to see his system
of regional governance fall apart after he abdicated.  One of his co-leaders, Maximian, tried to
take over as Emperor, but he was defeated and subsequently disgraced in a Roman
doctrine known as Damnatio memoriae: condemnation of memory.  His statues and portraits were destroyed, his
image removed from buildings  He killed himself
in what some sources call a “forced suicide.”

Diocletian, too, probably killed himself.  Afterwards, the palace remained an imperial
possession of the Roman Empire and sheltered Diocletian’s family and other
Roman nobles in the area.

When Constantine became Emperor in 324, he converted
to Christianity and made it the official religion of the Empire, reversing all
of Diocletian’s punitive measures. 

In the 7th century, when the area was under
attack by the Slavs, local people moved into the palace for protection. 

The aerial photo shows what it looks like today.

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 Over time, Diocletian’s presence was gradually if not quite erased then seriously over-written. A bust of him remains (but resides in the basement), as well as the basic layout of the fortress, some columns and arches, a few sections of the outer walls.  And one of the sphinxes out of the eight  he collected from Egypt.  The rest were beheaded after his death. The whole one, which once belonged to King Thutmose, mighty ruler of Egypt who was crowned in 1526 BC, now watches throngs of tourists walk through the courtyard that Roman soldiers used to guard.

After the city of Salona (Split) fell to Charlemagne,
King of Franks and Emperor of Romans, in 800 AD, Diocletian’s sarcophagus was
destroyed and his mausoleum remade into a Catholic church, now called the
Cathedral of Saint Domnius. The new builders combined Diocletian’s Corinthian
columns, which he took from the ancient Greeks, with elaborate carved and
gilded altarpieces.  New statues
portrayed Christian saints in Roman-style robes.  Elaborate stone carvings decorated the walls,
altar, and pulpit. Relics of Saint Domnius in a silver reliquary join the ranks
of the dead entombed in the church.

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In a deliberate rebranding, the place that held the
remains of the Emperor was claimed for the new ruler and new faith.  Over the centuries, this relatively small
church became the seat of the diocese.

Yet today, it’s a curiosity to most visitors rather than a place of spiritual power.  It bothered me that people talked and laughed, checked their phones, took photos of friends in front of the gilded altar.  It seemed disrespectful. It’s a church. One with a complicated history, but still a place of worship.

Diocletian isn’t much of a hero in the eyes of history.  His division of power is partly blamed for the collapse of the Roman Empire. Over 3000 Christians were killed by his order. Over 2000 slaves died in the construction of his palace.

And that was neither the beginning nor the end of sectarian violence.  Because Croatia and the other countries of the former Yugoslavia sit on the line between the Muslim East and the Christian West, religion has played a role in many conflicts involving Western Christians, Orthodox Christians, Muslims, and Jews that have resulted in well over a million deaths.

As recently as 1991 – 2001, the Yugoslav Wars accounted for over 140,000 deaths.

Blood permeates the stones in this church and everywhere else in the country.  The sheer weight of history the place carries is overwhelming.  At the same time, the workmanship of all sections is incredible.  It has a beauty and intensity that deserve recognition.

Balancing old and new

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In the vestibule (Peristyle) of the Palace, I listened to a klapa group, traditional a cappella singers.  The place has wonderful sound that resonates all the way to the open ceiling two stories up.  Several videos of klapa groups are listed in the sources.  Clearly, the all-male group has roots in church music, particularly Gregorian chant.  It still has a deep, solemn feel.

 Later, though, we heard a klapa group that used guitar, mandolin, and accordion for accompaniment and included more folk tunes and party music. Like everything else in the area, it seems to be in flux, part old and part new.

Game of Thrones

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The most surprising discovery of my tour of Diocletian’s Palace was the number of tourists who were there only to see locations used in filming Game of Thrones.  Special tours showed avid followers the basement of the palace (shown) where Daenerys kept her dragons in the show.  Fans could have their picture taken on a replica Iron Throne, take selfies in the narrow stone streets.  For many, the fictional world of Game of Thrones seemed more real and more immediate than the actual history. Granted, the site’s intensity and bloody past make it a perfect backdrop for a series featuring both.  But the dramas that played out in these halls were real.

More on Croatia, especially the island of Vis, will appear in Part II.

Sources and Interesting Reading

Bust of Diocletian, in Diocletian’s Palace, from
Intrepid Berkeley Explorer, https://intrepidberkeleyexplorer.com/Page30Q.html

Calloway, Ewen, “Neanderthals wore eagle talons as
jewelry,” Nature, 11 March 2015, https://www.nature.com/news/neanderthals-wore-eagle-talons-as-jewelry-1.17095

Croatia Adriatic map by Norman Einstein, May 20, 2005 https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=157083

“Diocletian’s Palace,” Croatian National Tourism
Board, www.diocletianspalace.org

“Diocletian’s Palace,” Wikipedia,
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diocletian%27s_Palace

Diocletian’s Palace drawing  By Ernest Hébrard (recoloured by DIREKTOR) –
http://www.civilization.org.uk/decline-and-fall/diocletian, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=32215172

Diocletian’s Palace peristyle today  By Bengt Nyman from Vaxholm, Sweden – Split
D81_3080, CC BY 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=64310000

Diocletian’s Palace today  By Beyond silence – Own work, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=2008466

Photo of walls of Diocletian’s
Palace in Split  By Beyond silence – Own
work, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=2008424

Diocletian’s Palace today, from the air By Ballota
(crop by DIREKTOR) – Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=31325036

 “Diocletian
Persecution,” Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diocletianic_Persecution

“Euphrasian Basilica,” Wikipedia,
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Euphrasian_Basilica

“History of Croatia,” Lonely Planet Travel
Information, https://www.lonelyplanet.com/croatia/history

“History of Dalmatia,” Wikipedia,
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Dalmatia

“Illyria,” Wikipedia.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Illyria

“Illyrians,” Wikipedia,
httos:/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Illyrians

Klapa singers in Diocletian’s Palace  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lnb7G-revKc

Klapa singers, another video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sciwtWcfdH4

Klapa singers photo The Lady Travels blog https://www.theladytravels.com/diocletianspalace/split-diocletians-palace-diocletian-quarters-klapa-singers-2/

“Krapina remains: fossil Neanderthal remains, Croatia,”
Encyclopedia Britannica, https://www.britannica.com/topic/Krapina-remains

Kubilius, Kerry, “Traveling to and around Croatia,”
TripSavvy, 4 June 2019, https://www.tripsavvy.com/where-is-croatia-1501269

“Neanderthal: First Discoveries,” Britannica Online
Encyclopedia, https://www.britannica.com/print/article/407406

Peristyle of Diocletian’s
Palace photo      By Ballota – Own work,
CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=24833618

Rubin, Alissa, “Religious Identity at the Heart of
Balkan War,” Los Angeles Times, 18 April 1999, https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1999-apr-18-mn-28714-story.html

Steves, Rick and Cameron Hewitt,  Rick Steves Croatia and Slovenia, Sixth
Edition. Avalon Travel, and imprint of Perseus Books, June, 2016

“World War II in Yugoslavia,” Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_War_II_in_Yugoslavia

“The Yugoslav Wars,” Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yugoslav_Wars

Zorich, Zach, “Neanderthal Necklace,” Archaeology
magazine, July-August 2015, https://www.archaeology.org/issues/182-1507/trenches/3366-trenches-neanderthal-eagle-talon-necklace

Trying to Buy Time

In
February, I visited the Actun Tunichil Muknal wet cave in central Belize. To get
into the most important area, visitors must swim across a river, then wade
through flooded sections of the cave, climb rock falls, crawl through openings,
and navigate tight spaces between rocks while in neck-high water.  Licensed guides provide hard hats and
headlamps, as well as advice on handling the difficult sections. The trek takes
4 – 5 hours. 

The
highlight of the visit is the “Cathedral,” a section deep in the cave where people
left offerings, mostly between 700 and 900 AD. 
Here, visitors must remove their shoes and stay in marked areas so they
don’t accidentally step on any of hundreds of ceramic bowls that are more than
a thousand years old  – or skeletons of
sacrificed humans.  Excavations by Thomas
Miller in 1986 identified remains of 14 humans. 
As of 2019, three more have been found.  The bones of the “Crystal Maiden” and other
victims are now coated with a thick layer of minerals left behind by the river,
making them sparkle in the light of a headlamp.

After a careless tourist dropped a camera on a skeleton, breaking the skull, recording devices of any kind were banned from the cave.  It’s just as well.  A camera would only separate the viewer from the scene.  And a selfie with the skeleton of a sacrificed victim is a terrible idea on multiple levels.

The cave has no interpretive signs, no visitor center, and no information about the people who left these offerings in the cave or their reasons for doing so.  They left no symbols carved on the walls or paintings on the pots. But we know that the time the offerings were placed in the cave coincides with the last phase of the occupation of the area by the Maya.  Between 800 and 900 AD, most of the great Maya cities in what is now Mexico, Guatemala, Belize, and Honduras were abandoned due to a fatal combination of deforestation, drought, famine, political instability, and warfare.  A few squatters set up huts in the empty squares of the great cities, but most of the surviving Maya scattered, going anywhere conditions were more favorable.  

If a
written record of the cave’s use survived, it would probably have been burned
along with other Maya texts when the Spanish “converted” the Maya to
Catholicism, often by torture.  On July
12, 1562, Bishop Diego de Landa began a program of purging Maya artifacts and
hand-written books by burning over 5000 objects that day alone.  This church policy of destroying “idols”
continued for 150 years.  By the 20th
century, so little was known of those who built the great cities that people
decided the huge stone temples and ornate carved slabs were the work of aliens,
a belief that persists, unfortunately, even today.

But four
of the hand-painted Maya books, originally sent to Europe as curiosities for
the monarchs, survived, providing essential information about Mayan language,
history, astronomy, mathematics, and religion. 
Plus the glyphs carved in stone remained, and gradually experts teased
out their meaning.  Over the last forty
years, archaeologists have been able to piece together much of the story of the
dynasties that rose and fell in the Maya world. 
But the deciphering process is on-going, partly because the Maya, like
the ancient Egyptians, used a complex combination of object symbols and sound
symbols in their writing, and that combination could vary at the whim of the
scribe.

Given all this, we can put together some of the background on the Actun Tunichil Muknal cave and the people who used it over a thousand years ago.

Time

Modern
Americans tend to think of time as an object apart from themselves.  A possession. 
We have time or we don’t have
time.  We spend time, like money.  We
run out of time the way we might run out of gas.  We use clocks to mark off little segments of
each day so we can be at appointments when expected.  But we don’t have any involvement in the
creation or continuation of time.  We
don’t have to earn time.  We feel no personal responsibility to make
time continue, to make the sun move, the rain fall, or the seasons change.

But the
ancient Maya did. In their city-states, from about 1800 BC to about 800 AD, they
built monuments to honor the passage of time. 
They marked the moment of the solstices and equinoxes with special
rituals and offerings.  (Diagram of the
E-group at Uaxactun, Guatemala, below.) 
These functioned much the same way as various stone and wood henges in
other parts of the world, with a viewing point and markers for the solstices
and equinoxes.

[image error]Maya E-group at Uaxactun






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They
maintained complex calendars that tracked the solar year, the lunar year, and
the number of days since the beginning of the Fourth Creation, what we would
call August 11, 3114 BC.  At that moment,
the Hero Twins, through their courage, resourcefulness, and magical abilities,
were able to make time start again.  Many
Maya monuments note the units of time passed since that day, in the same way
many western calendars count years from the birth of Jesus.

The Maya
divided time into units using a base 20 system:

Kin = one
day

Winal = 20
kins

Tun = 20
winals or 360 kins

Katun = 20
tuns or 7200 kins (19.7 years)

Baktun =
20 katuns or 144,000 kins (394.26 years)

Great
Cycle = 13 baktuns (5,128 years)

The
calendars were exact, but time itself was always uncertain, especially at the
end of a cycle, a little like the anxiety people felt at the approach of Y2K. 

To help
make time continue, the Maya gave offerings to the gods.  If they didn’t, they believed time would
stop.  The motion of the sun across the
day’s sky, the turn of the seasons, the coming of the rains, the seasons of
planting and harvest – all these required offerings. For the same gods who
brought rain could withhold it – or bring so much that the land was
flooded.  The sun god that drew the
seedling out of the ground could also kill it.

Blood sacrifice

[image error]Drawing of bloodletting scene from Yaxchilan

Blood was
the most precious offering.  Ritual
blood-letting by the city’s rulers, considered priest-kings, is recorded in
paintings and monuments of many Maya city-states.  The king and other aristocratic men would be
expected to pierce themselves with stingray spines.  The queen and other royal women would have to
draw a rope studded with thorns or obsidian blades through their tongues, as
shown in the drawing of a panel from Yaxchilan. 
Drops of their blood fell on special cloth that was offered to the
gods.  The dream-trance that accompanied
this act, pictured as a vision serpent, allowed the leaders to communicate with
their ancestors and the gods. 

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The glyph
for bloodletting/conjure, known as the “fish in hand” sign, appears in the
upper left hand group in the next panel from Yaxchilan,  Here, a kneeling queen, wearing the blood-spattered
cloth from her bloodletting to tie up her hair, sees the vision serpent rising
from the blood-spattered cloth in the bowl at the bottom left.  Out of serpent’s mouth emerges the head of
the ancestor/god. 

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A blood
sacrifice was thought to open up a channel of communication with the gods.
According to the Maya creation story, the gods created people by sprinkling
their own blood on maize dough.  They
wanted creatures who could honor them and nourish them through sacrifice.  The rulers’ blood offering released the
essence of the gods to regenerate the world.

Caves and cenotes

Even those
who did not participate in public bloodletting were expected to give offerings
to the gods. These included any items of great value: fine ceramics, exotic
shells, masks, and precious stones, especially greenstone.  These gifts were often set in caves or thrown
into rivers or cenotes (sink-holes containing water) to honor the powerful rain
god, Chaac. 

[image error]La Ventana cave, Guatemala

Ordinary people
offered the best they had, ritually sacrificing these items by burning them,
drilling a hole, or breaking off a section.

(The practice of leaving offerings in caves continues today in parts of Guatemala, where local people place flowers, candles, and incense in caves to seek favors from the gods, now combined with Catholic figures of Jesus, Mary, especially Our Lady of Guadalupe, and the saints as shown in the photo.)

Early triumphs

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For a long time, the Maya system seemed to be a great success. Their engineering feats rivaled the Romans’. Their art and architecture still amaze viewers. During what are called The Pre-Classic and Classic eras, lasting from 1000 BC to 250 AD, the Maya built the most sophisticated cities in the Western Hemisphere.  El Mirador’s La Danta Temple, at 236’ tall, was the tallest building in the world when finished.  Today it’s hard to see (photo) because the forest has reclaimed it.  The site included water management systems and wide roadways that connected it to other cities.  The UNESCO artist’s rendering provides an idea of what the city looked like at its peak.

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Tikal,
another powerful city-state, is still impressive, even though only ruins of the
largest structures remain.  (Photo shows
one of the twin temples in the  main
square)

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The political
and religious system that had powered the growth of this empire continued
despite warnings that the rulers’ practices were not sustainable.  Deforestation in rainforests left the soil
too weak to be productive.  Research
indicates that El Mirador failed for this reason. But there were other places,
and the kings simply moved their empires or their allegiance and built again.

Trouble

Then, between
650 and 800 AD, the rains began to fail across the Maya World, especially in
what is now the Yucatan Peninsula of Mexico, Belize, and the Petén area of
Guatemala.  According to the National
Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), several periods of intense
drought, each one lasting decades, coincided with the collapse of the Classic
Maya cities.

Desperation offerings

[image error]New cave finds at Balamku cave

The rulers apparently decided that Tlaloc/Chaac, the rain god, needed more offerings.  The recent discovery of ritual offerings at the Balamku cave system at Chichen Itza (Mexico) this year shows many similarities to the findings at Actun Tunichil Muknal cave in nearby Belize.  A team of explorers funded by National Geographic pulled themselves through tight passages in the cave for hours before finding an undisturbed collection of offerings left by the residents a thousand years earlier.  They included vases, decorated plates, braziers, and bowls.  The difference here is that the offerings were clearly marked for the rain god.

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The goggle-eyed figure on the pots is Tlaloc, the rain god.

 So it seems reasonable to say the offerings in Actun Tunichil Muknal served the same purpose – a plea for rain that would save the people and their community.  If the old beliefs were true, then the gods needed more offerings, better offerings.  And, perhaps, for a while, the offerings seemed to work.  The drought would loosen its grip and the rains would start.  But the change didn’t last.

Imagine
the confusion the people felt.  The same
system that had sustained them so brilliantly for so long wasn’t working.  So they offered more, ritually “killing” the
pots by breaking off a section or drilling a hole in the bottom.  Today, pots lie piled inside other pots,
often six or seven deep, all over the upper section of the Actun Tunichil
Muknal cave. 

When that still wasn’t enough, they turned to the most precious gift of all: blood.  Evidence shows the victims were killed inside the cave.  Many still have the killing stone lying next to them.  Some were teenagers.  Some were children.  Four were infants.

What drove
the people to these murders?  There are
many theories, including the slaughter of people suspected of being witches
bringing down bad luck.  But given the
Maya attitude toward offerings to the gods, especially blood offerings, it
seems more likely it was an extreme response to a terrible situation. Perhaps
it seemed the only way they might buy more time from the gods.

Today, the
skeletons lie scattered where floodwaters have taken them.  With their thick mineral coating, they’re
gradually becoming part of the flowstone. 
But they’re still powerful.

And desperation still hangs in the air of the cave.

Sources and interesting reading:

“Actun
Tunichil Muknal,” Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Actun_Tunichil_Muknal/

Coe,
Michael and Mark Van Stone. Reading the
Maya Glyphs.  London: Thames and
Hudson, 2001.

“Diego de
Landa: Spanish Bishop,” Encyclopedia Britannica,  https://britannica.com/biography/Diego-de-Landa/

“Drought
and the Ancient Maya Civilization,” NOAA, https://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/abrupt-climate-change/Drought/

“El
Mirador,” Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/El_Mirador/

Foer,
Joshua, Dyland Thuras and Ella Morton.  Atlas Obscura. New York: Workman
Publishing, 2018

Foster,
Lynn V.  Handbook to Life in the Ancient Maya World.  Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002.

Jarus,
Owen, “The Maya: History, Culture & Religion,” Live Science, 22 August
2017, https://www.livescience.com/41781-the-maya.html/

Longhena,
Maria.  Maya Script: A Civilization and its Writing.  New York: Abbeville Press, 2000.

Martin,
Simon and Nikolai Grube. Chronicle of the
Maya Kings and Queens: Deciphering the Dynasties of the Ancient Maya.
London: Thames and Hudson, 2000.

“Maya,”
History.com. 
https://www.history.com/topics/ancient-americas/maya

“Maya
Religion,” https://www.anccient.eu/Maya_Religion/

“Maya
Ruins of Belize,” Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maya_ruins_of_Belize/

Miller,
Mary Ellen.  Maya Art and Architecture. London: Thames and Hudson, 1999.

Monteferrante,
Sandra, “Maya Cycles of Time,” originally published in Convergence in March 2007,
https://www.maa.org/book/export/html/117893/.

Montgomery,
John. Dictionary of Maya Hieroglyphs.  New York: Hippocrene Books, 2006.

Schele,
Linda and Mary Ellen Miller.  The Blood of Kings: Dynasty and Ritual in
Maya Art.  New York: George Braziller
Inc., 1986.

Steffens,
Gena, “Maya ritual cave ‘untouched’ for 1,000 years stuns archaeologists,” National Geographic, 4 March 2019, https://www.nationalgeographic.com/culture/2019/03/maya-ritual-balamku-cave-stuns-archaeologists/

Spector,
Brandon, “Lost Cave of Jaguar God Rediscovered Below Mayan Ruins – and It’s
Full of Treasure,” Live Science, 5 March 2019,
https://www.livescience.com/64917-lost-mayan-reasure-cave-rediscovered.html/

Stone,
Andrea and Marc Zender.  Reading Maya Art.  London: Thames & Hudson, 2011.

“Treasure
trove of hundred of Mayan artifacts discovered beneath Chichen Itza,” Mexico News Daily, 5 March 2019, https://mexiconewsdaily.com/news/treasure-trove-of-hundreds-of-mayan-artifacts-discovered/

“Uaxactun,”
Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uaxactun

“Yaxchilan
bloodletting scene,” Lintel 17, drawing by Ian Graham courtesy of the Harvard
University collection, Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology,
2004.15.6.5.16 Digital file #101240031.

“Yaxchilan
Lintels,” The British Museum, https://www.britishmuseum.org/research/collection_online/collection_object_details/collection_image_gallery…

“Yaxchilan
Lintel 24,” Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yaxchilan_Lintel_24

Zraick,
Karen, “The Place Is Extraordinary: Well-Preserved Artifacts Are Found Under
Mayan Ruins,” The New York Times, 6
March 2019, https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/06/science/chichen-itza-mexico-mayan.html

Photos of
Tikal and La Ventana cave by the author

The stork, the baby, and the water lily

The jar of Vlasic pickles I found on the grocery store shelf sports a cartoon image of a stork on the front label and the top lid.  The stork has a bow tie, a deliveryman’s cap, and eye glasses sitting partway down its long beak.  It seems to be male.  He’s holding the pickle like a cigar.  In Vlasic TV commercials, the stork has a deep voice reminiscent of Groucho Marx. The tag line is “That’s the tastiest crunch I’ve ever heard,” with the last word sounding like “hoid,” imitating a stereotypical New York City accent. 

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According to the Vlasic story, the stork image was introduced in 1974, in an attempt to combine traditional ideas about the stork delivering babies and pregnant women’s supposed craving for pickles. In an early ad, the stork delivered a baby in a bundle. Hence the delivery man cap.  But in more recent ads, the stork has kept the cap and bow tie but lost the baby bundle and all reference to pregnancy and childbirth. The snappy patter simply extols the virtues of a crunchy pickle.  The change was probably a good way to expand their market for pickles, but the  new image has almost nothing in common with the stork’s mythical predecessors.  

The stork and the baby

In contemporary images of the stork/baby concept, a few show only the stork in flight, but most show the stork delivering a baby in a bundle.  It’s become a graphic shorthand for pregnancy and childbirth, commonly found on baby shower invitations and birth announcements.  The image on the Pampers diaper box is quite simple, but it still conveys the message.

Contemporary images of the stork and the baby

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Historical antecedents

Even more interesting are the older images of the stork delivering babies, especially those from the early 1900’s.  In some of those pictured here, the stork is a female, dressed in a bonnet or babushka and pushing a baby carriage.  In others, the stork appears male, dressed in a deliveryman’s cap and bow tie, much like the modern Vlasic stork.  In both cases, they wear human clothes, as if they are stork/human hybrids.

In one interesting vintage card, the stork prepares to drop the baby down the chimney, sort of like Santa Claus and his gifts.

Several cards show the storks plucking the babies out of the marsh, sometimes out of  pond lily flowers.

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Where did these ideas come from?  Some people dismiss the whole story about the
stork bringing the baby as simply a way for adults to avoid telling children
about sex and babies, like saying the baby was found in the cabbage patch (the idea
behind the Cabbage Patch Kids dolls) or under a blackberry bush.  But there’s much more to the image.  Storks became associated with pregnancy and
childbirth because of folk tales that perpetuated ancient beliefs.

“The Storks”

Hans Christian Andersen took the traditional stork
beliefs he knew as the inspiration for his story “The Storks,” published in
1838.  After a stork couple sets up a
nest, and their eggs hatch, local boys taunt the chicks with a song about how
the babies will be hanged and roasted. 
One boy, Peter, tells the others they shouldn’t make fun of animals, but
most of the boys ignore him.  Seeing that
the song makes the babies nervous, the mother stork tells them it’ll be all
right because they’ll all fly away to Egypt when they get older, while those
boys will be stuck in the cold.  When the
babies grow up and the family flies away, they ask if they can have their
revenge on the cruel boys.

The mother stork says, “I know the pond where all the
little children lie, waiting till the storks come to take them to their
parents.  The prettiest little babies lie
there dreaming more sweetly than they will ever dream in the time to come.  All parents are glad to have a little child,
and children are so pleased with a little brother or sister.  Now we will fly to the pond and fetch a
little baby for each of the children who did not sing that naughty song to make
fun of the storks.” 

The young storks ask what will happen to the
ringleader who taunted them.

“There lies in the pond a little dead baby who has
dreamed itself to death,” said the mother. “We will take it to the naughty boy,
and he will cry because we have brought him a little dead brother.”

It’s a considerably more complex version of the stork and baby than the cute, bland image we see on the diaper box.  Here the storks not only deliver babies, they also make moral choices about who should have one and who shouldn’t. The story also implies that humans have a clear moral responsibility toward animals in general and storks in particular, and they will be punished for failure to meet it.  Plus, it endows the storks with great powers.  They’re more spirit than bird.

Origins of the myths

Hans Christian Andersen borrowed heavily from Germanic
and Slavic folk tales for his stories. 
In these tales, animal spirits, animal-human hybrids, magic, and
shape-shifting were common.  

In Slavic mythology, storks carried souls from Vyraj
to Earth.  Vyraj was a kind of paradise,
located in the crown of the Cosmic Tree, far beyond the sea.  Long ago, people saw the storks fly away in
the fall to some unknown land and return in the spring. They believed the birds
flew to Vyraj and brought spring back with them.  When people died, their souls went to Vyraj
with the migrating storks.  After some
time, they were returned to earth and were delivered to loving homes by a stork
which found the unborn babies waiting in a dream-state, in a marsh.

Lotus and Water Lily

The other important element of the stork spirit and the babies in the marsh picture is the waterlily, which is an overwhelmingly positive, generative symbol. Photos: white pond lily (left) and lotus flower (right)

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Fossils of what is now considered the “mother of all flowering plants” 125 million years old, were discovered in China.  This plant apparently thrived in shallow pools and lakes, with its flowers extending above the surface.  Scientists believe it is the ancestor of both the lotus and the water lily. Though the modern lotus and water lily are separate species, their appearance, environment, and mythical importance are quite similar.

Birth and Rebirth

The lotus, native to North Africa, India, Asia, and
parts of the Middle East, is considered a mystic flower, a source of life.

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Ancient Egyptians saw the blue lotus, actually a water
lily, as a part of the cycle of birth and death.  In creation stories, it is often the first
life to grow out of the watery chaos. The creator god Nefertum, whose name means
Beautiful Beginning, is often shown emerging from the lotus flower as Khepri,
the scarab beetle that carries the sun, then as a small child. 

In the illustration shown below, winged Isis, the most famous Egyptian goddess, wife of Osiris, mother of Horus, is shown rising from the Nile on a lotus flower.

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A statue found in King Tut’s burial chamber shows the
boy-king’s head emerging from a blue lotus, a promise of his later rebirth.

(Interestingly, sniffing or eating the lotus flower
apparently can produce a feeling of euphoria, , though some people say the
claim results from confusion of the lotus and the poppy.  But it does make those illustrations of
people sniffing lotus flowers more interesting.)

According to legend, lotus flowers sprang up at the birth of the Buddha, symbolizing the ability to rise from the mud to sacred purity. The photo on the left shows the Buddha emerging from a lotus flower.

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For Hindus, the lotus represented cosmic renewal.  Pictured (right) is the goddess Lakshmi standing on a lotus flower and holding two more.

On the other side of the world, the Mother Goddess of ancient Teotihuacan, in central Mexico, was pictured as a bird-faced water spirit, the source of life.  Water drips from her hands while vines ending in lotus flowers grow out of her.  All around her, plants, animals, and humans thrive. (Pictured below)

[image error]The Great Goddess mural at Teotihuacan

In all of these, we have the lotus/water lily as a generative cradle of spirits and humans, and water as a powerful place that serves as a portal between worlds.  Its presence in the stork/baby picture helps to create a positive outlook.  The babies are plucked from the water lilies, the source of life.

Why do storks bring the babies?

Ancient people saw the storks fly away in the fall, into the unknown.  Later, the birds returned, bringing spring with them. Today we greet the return of the first migratory birds as a welcome sign that winter’s grip is failing.  It’s not much of a leap from there to seeing the birds as the agents causing the change, carrying spring on their wings, plucking new life from the magic flowers floating on still waters.

So the stork on the diaper box is a faint reflection
of a rich mythological past.  And the
Vlasic stork, probably changed from its original form in order to update the
company’s image and widen the appeal of its products, is now hardly
recognizable as part of the stork/baby/water lily story.  But other customs keep the concept
alive.  A friend’s daughter was born with
a birthmark on her neck, which her parents refer to as a “stork bite.”

Sources
and interesting reading:

Andersen, Hans Christian, “The Marsh King’s Daughter,”
http://hca.gilead.org.il/marsh_ki.html

Andersen, Hans Christian, “The Storks,” http://hca.gilead.org.il/storks.html

“Birds in Creation,” 
Birds in Mythology, http://www.mythencyclopedia.com/Be-Ca-?Birds-in-Mythology.html

Bryce, Emma, “What’s Behind the Myth That Storks
Deliver Babies?” Live Science 13 June 2018, https://www.livescience.com/62807-why-storks-baby-myth.html

Cieslik, Anna, “Cabinet of Curiosities: Why We Tell
Kids That the Stork Brought Their Baby Sibling,” Daily Break, 10 January 2018, https://www.dailybreak.com/break/where-does-the-myth-of-storks-delivering-babies-come-from/

 “Flowers of
July: Lotus and Water Lily,” Living in Season, https://www.livinginseason.com/naturalworld/3534/

Glynn, Amelia, “Where did the “delivery stork” myth
originate? Tails of the City, 08 May 2011, https://blog.sfgate.com/pets/2011/05/08/where-did-the-delivery-stork-myth-originate/

Iles, Linda,“The Lotus in Ancient Egypt,” Isis, Lotus
of Alexandria Lyceum, https://sites.google.com/site/isislotusofalexandrialyceum/the-lotus-in-ancient-egypt/

Inman, Jung, “A Lotus Flower Appeared at Each Step the
Baby Buddha Took, Buddha’s Birth and the Lotus,” 17 April 2016, http://www.busanddadang.com/buddhas-birth-and-the-lotus/

“Lotus Flower Meaning and Symbolism,”
https://lotusflowermeaning.net/

“Nefertem” Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nefertem

“Padma (attribute),” Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Padma_(attribute)

Statue of young Buddha emerging from the lotus flower, courtesy of the National Museum of Vietnamese History

Taylor-Brown, Alison, “Storch Myths and Legends, http://alisontaylorbrown.com/storch-myths/

“Were-storks and the Origins of Storks’ Baby Carrying,”
Beachcombing’s Bizarre History Blog, 26 October 2013, http://www.strangehistory.net/2013/10/26/were-storks-and-the-otigins-of-storks-baby-carrying

“Vlasic Pickles,” Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vlasic_Pickles

“Vyraj,” Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vyraj

“White Stork,” Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_stork/

“Zhiva, West Slavic goddess of life and fertility,
with swan,” Paintings by Igor Ogiganov, https://elhin25.livejournal.com/359021.html

Images of the stork/baby/marsh:

Twins in basket, stork with bandana  https://www.zazzle.com/vintage_stork_twins_congratulations_card-137508868719871231

Babies in swamp with storks

https://www.cardcow.com/133057/storks-babies/

Stork with glasses and baby

https://br.pinterest.com/pin/116249234103841132/

Stork chimney delivery

https://tuckdb.org/items/64976

Stork in bonnet with two babies

https://www.bonanza.com/listings/The-Stork-and-Babies-Paul-Finkernrath-of-Berlin-Post-Card/115363529

Baby on bird

https://www.etsy.com/listing/123552570/baby-on-bird-white-stork

Lotus and water lily photos by the author

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Clapping Games

When I was young, I liked to play clapping games like “A Sailor Went to Sea, Sea, Sea” and “I Am a Pretty Little Dutch Girl.”  Here’s a simple version:

A sailor went to sea, sea, sea

To see what he could see, see, see

But all that he could see, see, see

Was the bottom of the deep blue sea, sea, sea.

[image error]At the time, I didn’t stop to think it was a song about a sailor drowning.  I knew it was a play on the words see and sea, but mostly it was something to sing while we clapped.

 

 

 

We used the same “Sailor” tune for “I Am a Pretty Little Dutch Girl”:

I am a pretty little Dutch girl

As pretty as I can be

And all the boys in the neighborhood

Are crazy over me.

 

My boyfriend’s name is Mello

He comes from the land of Jello

With pickles for his toes and a cherry for his nose

And that’s the way my story goes.

 

Another version of the second verse went

I have a boyfriend Patty

He comes from Cincinnati

With 48 toes and a pickle on his nose…

 

In another, it’s a pimple instead of a pickle.

It was popular all over the USA and England.  An Australian version uses “Bush girl” instead of Dutch girl.  In others, he’s French.  In Israel, the boyfriend’s name is Chaim, which is made to rhyme with Jerusalem.  In some versions, the boyfriend is seen kissing another girl, and the narrator ends the story with kicking the boyfriend down the stairs.

In some versions, it’s conflated with “Miss Lucy,” (or Suzy, or other variant), to the same sing-song tune:

Miss Lucy had a baby

His name was Tiny Tim

She put him in the bathtub

To see if he could swim.

He drank up all the water

He ate up all the soap,

He tried to eat the bathtub

But it wouldn’t go down his throat.

 

Many also include near off-color jokes like this alternate version of “Miss Suzy” (one of many):

Miss Suzy had a speed boat

The speed boat had a bell

Miss Suzy went to heaven

The speed boat went to

Hello Operator

Give me number nine

If you disconnect me

I’ll kick you in the

Behind the refrigerator

There was a piece of glass

Miss Suzy sat upon it

And broke her little

Ask me no more questions….and so on.

 

And that’s a pretty mild version!

 

Down, Down Baby

Sesame Street had a nice segment on teaching another child how to do the motions to “Down Down Baby,” another standard.

In this video, you can see more complex clapping pattern.

Mary Mack

Another famous clapping game is “Mary Mack.”   The most common version goes:

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Miss Mary Mack, Mack, Mack

All dressed in black, black, black

With silver buttons, buttons, buttons

All down her back, back, back

 

She asked her mother, mother, mother

For fifty cents, cents, cents

To watch the elephants, elephants, elephants

Jump over the fence, fence, fence

 

They jumped so high, high, high

They reached the sky, sky, sky

And didn’t come back, back, back

‘Til the Fourth of July, ly, ly.

 

Origins of this song are obscure, and many explanations are hard to believe.  One says Mary Mack was a passenger who went down with the Titanic.  Another claims the name is a shortened version of the Merrimack, the ship the Confederates made into the iron-clad Virginia that faced off against the Monitor.  Despite seeing this explanation repeated in more than one source, I can find no factual support for it.

Another origin story makes the story a slave song, with encoded references to freedom, perhaps wanting money to escape slavery. Yet another says the elephant is a reference to the Republican Party.  And a different one says “Mack” was slang for flirting or prostitution.

Some recent versions have a very different last verse:

She was so high, high, high

She touched the sky, sky, sky,

And she didn’t come down, down, down

‘til she almost died, died, died.

 

The song is often described as a favorite of African American girls, particularly in low-income areas, in the 1970’s.

 

 

When I asked friends if they’d grown up with these clapping songs, most said they knew the same songs I mentioned.  One grew up in Louisiana, one in Colorado, one in Texas, one in Illinois, one in New York, one in Michigan, one in California.  So how did these songs become so popular they crossed continents and oceans – decades before the advent of the internet and YouTube videos?  And where did they come from in the first place?

Those questions are actually more complicated than they seem, as are the answers.  We’re asking about several histories here: the rhymes, the melodies, and the clapping patterns.  And once you pull on a historical thread, you often find it connected to many others.  In this case, the story involves immigrants to the US, a Pope with military ambitions, the West African slave trade, minstrel shows, vaudeville, population shifts in the US, and a lot of kids sharing and adapting clapping songs they liked.

Nursery Rhymes

Pat-a Cake

Nursery rhymes have a long, well-documented history in Europe.  “Pat-a cake” first appeared in a British play called The Campaigners, in 1698, though it probably existed in oral tradition long before that. In the play, a nurse makes reference to the cake and the Baker’s man while entertaining the baby.  In Mother Goose’s Melody (1765), the full verse appears:

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Patty Cake, Patty Cake

Baker’s Man.

That I will, Master,

As fast as I can.

Pat it and prick it,

And mark it with a T,

And there will be enough for Tommy and me.

 

(Marking baked goods was a way for the seller and buyer to identify the loaf ordered.)

You may know a more recent version, like this one:

Pat-a-cake, Pat-a cake,

Baker’s man,

Bake me a cake

As fast as you can.

Roll it, and pull it, and mark it with a B,

And put it in the oven for baby and me.

 

Some of the rhymes in these games came from England, and were brought to the US by immigrants.  Some are combinations of songs from multiple sources.  Like all folk songs, they morphed with their singers and the situation.  In some of the videos in the source list, you can watch girls – and sometimes boys  ̶  from India, Africa, the Caribbean, and Japan doing clapping games.  Many insert brand names, like Disneyland, Dr. Pepper, or Coca-Cola, and jokes like “What color was his fart?”

Music

There was no published music to accompany the Pat-a Cake verse until 1796, almost a hundred years after it first appeared.  Personally, I’ve never heard it sung.  It’s mostly recited, in a sing-song tone, with simple clapping and gestures that go along with ”roll it” and “pull it” and “mark it with a B.”  Often the mother or caregiver will hold the baby’s hands and help form the clapping gesture.

Many of the other clapping games share similar simple melodies, more like chants.  “My Boyfriend Gave Me an Apple,”  “I Went to a Chinese Restaurant,” and “My Mummy” have the same basic melody as “A Sailor Went to Sea.”

Clapping

Here’s where the story gets more interesting and a lot heavier. There seems to be a clear link between clapping games and Africanisms brought to the Americas and the West Indies with the slave trade.

While slavery of vanquished people was not uncommon in Europe and Africa, the West Africa slave trade the Portuguese began in the 1400’s increased dramatically in the 1600’s as demand grew for laborers to work on plantations in the Americas and the Caribbean islands.

Historical note: In 1452, Pope Nicholas V called on the Portuguese monarchy for help fighting the Saracens in Constantinople.  As a reward for their help, he issued a papal bull, Dum Diversas, which reduced non-Catholics to the equivalent of the Saracens, who were Muslims.  Thus non-Catholics became enemies deserving of a life of perpetual servitude.  Two years later, the Pope rewarded the Portuguese with a monopoly in the slave trade with West Africa.  While other countries soon ignored this decree, it served as a religious stamp of approval for trade in captive humans.

However, as Dawn L. Wright points out in her Master’s thesis, “An Examination of English speaking rhythmic games and plays of African American children,” many Africanisms survived, even in the face of enslavement and acculturation.  Two of her examples are call and response patterns of participation, and body percussion.  Both, she says, continue African music and movement styles while taking on parts of European customs as well.

Call and Response

Some clapping games involve call and response, but the pattern is more commonly found in work songs, sea shanties, and military marching songs.

This video, filmed at Kenya Connect Schools, features a call and response, a pair clapping game, and a circle elimination game.  The last clapping game featured in the video is especially impressive in its speed and complexity:   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WDF7PWPrNHs

 

Body Percussion

Because masters feared that slaves might use drums as a secret communication system, slaves were forbidden to use them, so body percussion filled in with complex combinations of stomping, clapping, finger snapping, and patting thighs or cheeks.[image error]

Hambone (Juba Dance) is a perfect example, brought from the Congo to South Carolina by slaves and later spread through slave communities in the Caribbean islands, Brazil, and the southern US.  Hambone body percussionists were usually male.  And the lines “Hambone, hambone, where you been?  Round the world and back again,” are one of many examples of double entendre in these songs.  One explanation is that a hambone that went from one pot to another in slave quarters, flavoring the soup, but it often had a more sexual interpretation as well.

Here’s a contemporary hambone performance by Derique McGhee at Lincoln Center https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PLmySQ5CuY0

Minstrel Shows

Minstrel shows, variety shows featuring song and dance acts that exaggerated and ridiculed African American music and dance, became popular in the 1800’s. Drawing on a much older custom of holding up “others” as curiosities, minstrel shows incorporated “slave ditties,” purported to be from African slaves but sung by white musicians in black face.

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Often the shows also included the Juba Dance, featuring a performer doing an elaborate dance involving stomping and body percussion.  The two parts later split into tap dancing, which merged with European step dancing to become American tap dancing, and hambone (body percussion), which is now more commonly performed by white artists.

Here’s a contemporary video of body percussion by the Hambone Brothers: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LuB9XFbeix0

But it was a weird business all around.  By 1900, minstrel shows had morphed into Vaudeville acts. While most minstrel-style groups were white men in black face,  there were also black minstrel groups who performed with or without black face, including Bert Williams, an African-American who was part of the Ziegfeld Follies beginning in 1910 and the highest paid African-American in show business at the time.  Mostly, though, these shows sold a demeaning caricature of African-Americans.  Thomas D. Rice, a white man who performed in black-face under the stage name “Daddy Jim Crow,” introduced the song “Jump Jim Crow,” accompanied by a dance.  It gave its name to the institutionalization of segregation and discrimination that lasted until the Civil Rights movement.  Its legacy still lingers today.

However, one of the many peculiar parts of this history is that the use of African-American songs, dances, and rhythms, even in the context of minstrel shows, served to perpetuate them.  It also created a strange hybrid wherein northern white songwriters like Stephen Foster wrote songs about slave life in the antebellum south, like “My Old Kentucky Home,” and “Oh, Susanna!” and “Camptown Races,” incorporating African-American rhythms and styles, which were then performed in minstrel shows by singers in blackface, often using African-origin percussion and instruments.[image error]

Here’s Al Jolson singing “Mammy” in black face in  The Jazz Singer (pictured) and singing “Camptown Races” in the video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_tuu5YtkPIo&pbjreload=10

While it’s sort of awful to see today, it shows the strange cultural mixing that went on in these shows.

The Children

Popular entertainment kept the clapping songs and dances alive in the public mind, but children must have passed them on simply because they were fun, right from the start.  Many slave girls were assigned white children to care for.  According to first-hand accounts, friendships between slave children and white children were fairly common.  It’s not hard to imagine a couple of kids passing the time with a clapping game, which would then spread.

Migrations

This spread happened on a far wider scale with the Great Migration.  Before 1910, 90% of the US African-American population lived in the rural South.  But between 1916 and 1970, over 6 million African-Americans moved to urban centers in the Northeast, Midwest, and Far West, seeking better jobs and treatment.  And they brought their songs with them, which then fueled the spread of gospel, blues, jazz, and rock and roll.

And some became the clapping games that gleefully skipped across social borders everywhere.  And morphed with each setting and group.

The earliest examples of clapping games were recorded in the American South in the 1850’s.  By 1950, “Miss Mary Mack” was the most popular clapping song in the English-speaking world.

The Clapping Song

In 1965, Shirley Ellis recorded “The Clapping Song,” written by Lincoln Chase, whose parents were from the West Indies.  It attempts to teach the clapping pattern while singing the song.  It wound up being very popular, reaching #8 on the pop charts, a good follow-up to her earlier hit, “The Name Game,” also written by Lincoln Chase.  It borrows from a 1930’s song “Little Rubber Dolly.”  Here’s the Shirley Ellis version:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qWuSPPLtkEQ

And the lyrics:

Three six nine, the goose drank wine.

The monkey chew tobacco on the street car line.

The line broke, the monkey got choked

And they all went to heaven in a little rowboat.

Clap pat, clap pat, clap pat clap slap!

Clap pat clap your hand, pat it on your partner’s hand

Right hand.

Clap pat clap pat clap your hand. Cross it with your left arm.

Pat you partner’s left palm.

Clap pat, clap your hand, pat your partner’s right palm

With your right palm again.

Clap slap, clap your hand, slap your thighs and sing a little song.

 

My mother told me, if I was goody.

That she would buy me a rubber dolly.

My aunty told her I kissed a soldier,

Now she won’t buy me a rubber dolly.

Three six nine, the goose drank wine.

The monkey chew tobacco on the street car line.

The line broke, the monkey got choked

And they all went to heaven in a little rowboat….

 

Today

Clapping games are currently enjoying a revival, especially among pre-teen girls who delight in learning and performing the really complicated versions with many different movements.  Most of the YouTube videos you’ll see in the Sources feature girls who, at 8 or 10 years old, are making their own videos of the games, slowing down the explanation sometimes for us older, slower folks.

My neighbor who teaches in a local elementary school told me that in an attempt to get the kids off their phones and interact with each other at recess, teachers have started including  clapping games. They teach hand-eye coordination, rhythm, and cooperation, and they exercise the brain and the body at the same time.  Besides, they’re fun.

 

Sources and interesting listening:

“ABC, 123, and Peter Pan clapping games,” video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bJUzX40zaw8

“Tic Tac Toe and other games,” video, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RhE38V1QbMO

Bishop, Julia, “Clapping Games,” British Library, 26 October 2016  www.bl.uk/playtimes/articles/clappinggames

“Blackface,” Wikipedia,  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blackface

“Body percussion,” Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Body_percussion

Cabrera, Gertrudis, “A Day in the Life of an Enslaved Child,” lesson plan and materials, Franklin Elementary School, Houston

“Call and response (music) Wikipedia  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Call_and_response-(music)

“Clapping Game,” Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clapping_game

“Doctor Pepper,” video, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Swe99oRW4wY

“Don’t Break the Window” clapping game, video also includes Lemonade, Bingo, and Double,double,  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tD42M...

“Down, Down Baby,” video clip from Sesame Street, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5K-FpmUUc7U   Cute group

“Down, down, baby! A hand-clapping history, SAHMurai, 17 April, 2016, https://sahmurai.wordpress.com/2016/04/17/the-truth-behind-3-hand-clapping-games-from-your-childhood/

Ellis, Shirley, “The Clapping Song,” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qWuSPPLtkEQ

Gaunt, Kyra D.  The Games Black Girls Play: Learning the Ropes from Double-Dutch to Hip-Hop.  New York: New York University Press, 1998.

Hambone Brothers, video, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LuB9XFbeix0

“Iona and Peter Opie,” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iona_and_Peter_Opie

Jenkins, Ella, “A Sailor went to sea,” Smithsonian Folkways recording, with clapping.  Jenkins identifies “a sailor” as African-American.  https://folkways.si.edu/ella-jenkins-a-sailor-went-to-sea/children/music/track/smithsonian

“Juba Dance,” Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Juba_dance

“Juba Dance,” WikiVisually, https://wikivisually.com/wiki/Juba_dance

“Liberian clapping games,” video from Africa Heartwood Project, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PtnTFj9xjKw7t=13s

“Mary Mack”  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GU4cVSdllko

McGhee, Derique, Hambone demonstration at Lincoln Center, New York, August 12, 2010  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PLmySQ5CuY0

Mintz, Steven, “Childhood and Transatlantic Slavery,” Children & Youth in History, Columbia University, http://chnm.gmu.edu/cyh/case-studies/57

“Miss Mary Mack,” Pop Culture, by Dictionary.com  https://www.dictionary.com/e/pop-culture/miss-mary-mack/

“My Mummy” British Library video clip and explanation  https://www.bl.uk/collection-items/my-mummy

“Nigerian clapping game” video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WDF79WPrNHs  clapping pair, elimination game, boys and girls

“Nursery Rhymes, childhood folklore and play: The archive of Iona and Peter Opie,” Archives and Manuscripts at the Bodleian Library, a Bodleian Libraries blog, 7 March 2017, http://blogs.bodleian.ox.ac.ukarchivesandmanuscripts/2017/03/07/opie-archive/

Opie, Iona and Peter.  The Oxford Dictionary of Nursery Rhymes.  Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 1997

“Pat-a-cake, pat-a-cake, baker’s man”  Wikipedia  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pat-a-cake/

Photo of children playing clapping games by Jarek Tuszynski, 2011

“Pretty Little Dutch Girl,” Wikipedia, https://wen.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pretty_Little_Dutch_Girl

Rosen, Michael, “An introduction to clapping games,” British Library, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RNVjc3c_SSc   A very good source

“A Sailor Went to Sea, Sea, Sea”  video clip, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=28uNq8XQPK8

Wiggins, David K. “The Play of Slave Children in the Plantation Communities of the Old South, 1820 – 1860,” Journal of Sport History, Vol 7, No.2 (Summer, 1980)  21 – 39.

Wright, Dawn L. “An examination of English speaking rhythmic games and plays of African American children,” Master’s thesis, Clark Atlanta University, 1 July 1996, available through Atlanta University Center’s Digital Commons @Robert W. Woodruff Library, Atlanta University Center, open access.

 

 

 

Heroes, Adventurers, and Crackpots

Alfred Lord Tennyson’s poem “Ulysses” (published in 1842) portrays Ulysses (Odysseus to the Romans) as an old man who is back home after his years fighting in the Trojan War, recounted in The Iliad, and his wanderings at sea, detailed in The Odyssey.

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The familiar tales in those books include the Trojan Horse, The Cyclops (shown above), the twin dangers of Scylla, the six-headed monster, and Charybdis, the violent whirlpool, as well as the alluring Circe who turns men into pigs, and the Sirens who comb back their long hair as they sing men to their doom (pictured).

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Through bravery, deceit, and considerable help from the gods, especially Athena, Ulysses survives all his adventures.  As the poem begins, he’s been reunited with his wife, Penelope, and once again sits on the throne of Ithaca.

[image error] Yet he’s restless, unsatisfied.  He misses the camaraderie of battle, the thrill of life at sea.  It’s more than nostalgia that he feels, it’s hunger for the life he used to know.  So he decides to leave the kingdom in his son’s hands and set off with his trusted companions once again.

His complaint is universal in its appeal:

 

“… How dull it is to pause, to make an end

To rust unburnished, not to shine in use!

As though to breathe were life…

 

Death closes all, but something ere the end,

Some work of noble note, may yet be done,

Not unbecoming men that strove with gods…

 

‘Tis not too late to seek a newer world…

To sail beyond the sunset, and the baths

Of all the western stars, until I die…

Though much is taken, much abides, and though

We are not now that strength which in old days

Moved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are;

One equal temper of heroic hearts,

Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will

To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.

 

It’s a rallying cry to those who don’t want to slow down, to become less with age.  It’s been read at dozens of retirement parties, the battle hymn of the old adventurer. It’s always been one of my favorites, even though, on re-reading The Odyssey, I find Ulysses considerably less heroic than I remembered.  If it weren’t for the intervention of Athena and other gods, he would have failed in his quest – early on.  Still, the poem speaks to the old hero’s undiminished search for adventure, for noble battle, perhaps for redemption.

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Ulysses is the archetype of the adventurer/hero.  His stories combine wild battles with superhuman enemies, beautiful/deadly women, natural hazards, magical tokens, and intervention by the gods.  It’s a winning combination, even today.  The powerful defender/avenger (!) figure appears in almost all Marvel super-heroes,  Star Wars heroes, and most of the fantasy warriors in on-line games.  Like Captain America (shown), the warrior hero lives for the noble fight.  He (or she) has little or no life outside of battle.  Super-heroes don’t usually chaperone class trips or take the kids to soccer practice.

But we forgive all that because, after all, they’re heroes.  Ulysses deserves to do great things, even in his old age, and we cheer for him even as he leaves poor, long-suffering Penelope at home once again and heads off into the great unknown with his band of old buddies.

 

A Different Story

In 2018, a Polish retiree named Aleksander Doba, at 71, completed his third trans-Atlantic solo crossing, in a 21′ kayak he designed.

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His first crossing was in 2011, from Senegal, West Africa, to Brazil, a 99-day journey.  (See map on left).  When he arrived at his destination, he was greeted by one journalist.

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Days after returning home, he started planning the second trip, which he completed in 2013, going from Portugal to Florida, a 6,000-mile journey.  (See map on right).  He had saltwater blisters and eye infections. His toe nails fell off.

When he tried to exercise by swimming in the ocean, he found he attracted sharks.  When his clothes became unwearable, he went naked.  On the trip, he suffered multiple equipment failures, including his satellite radio, GPS unit, and electric desalinator.  Most he fixed by himself or managed without.  But when his rudder broke during a storm near Bermuda, he was forced to head in to land for repairs.  As soon as it was fixed, he returned to his route.  (Notice the circular blip on the map of his journey.)  It’s believed to be the longest open-water kayak crossing in history.

Then he wanted to go again, this time from west to east, from New York to France.  Despite everyone’s attempts to dissuade him, he went.  His wife of 45 years, Gabriela, said when she couldn’t dissuade him, she gave up and accepted his decision.  But the third passage proved to be the hardest.

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Shortly after he got into open water off the New York coast, he ran into terrible storms with 65 mph winds and huge seas that required him to tie himself down in the narrow sleeping area he had inside the kayak. (See photo.)  But in the middle of the storm, he realized the waves were so high, the kayak would be buried in the troughs and destroyed unless he slowed it down by deploying a sea anchor, essentially a parachute opened in the water behind the kayak to slow its descent down the backs of the waves into the troughs.  It worked for a while, but then one of the ropes failed and the kayak began to roll in the waves so violently he thought it would break apart.  He had to rope himself to the kayak, go out in the sea into the teeth of the storm, and deploy the spare sea anchor. He admitted later that when he returned to his tiny cabin on the kayak, he was surprised he was still alive.

On each trip Aleksander Doba paddled and drifted over 6,000 miles, all alone in a kayak he designed, with a sleeping area about the size of a coffin set sideways.  He described the tedium of paddling as a form of dementia.  Though he’s partly deaf, he left his hearing aids behind so he wouldn’t lose them in the sea.  But he grew so disoriented, he started shouting at himself.  He spoke to sea turtles he passed and yelled at flying fish that struck him.

Late on the third trip, he lost all contact with family and friends.  “I came very close to the line of my possibility and human possibility,” he admitted later.  But he saw the crisis as an opportunity for triumph.  He wanted to move toward the suffering, not avoid it, so he would be a hero, not a victim.

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“If you aren’t willing to suffer,” Doba told a reporter from The New York Times, “you can do nothing.  You can sit and die.”  In the pictures of Doba on his arrival, he radiates a kind of fierce strength.  Ulysses would understand.

 

And yet, few people know of him and even fewer would call him a hero.  Why is Ulysses considered a classic hero and Doba is not?

Maybe we’re just used to the image of Ulysses as the hero and cling to the idea even after realizing he only survived his adventures with extensive help from Athena and Hermes.  Or that he had sex with (or killed) almost every female he met on the journey then declared he would kill his wife, Penelope, if he found out she’d been unfaithful in the twenty years he’d been gone.  Or that he couldn’t shut down his killing instinct even when he got home.  He killed all one hundred of Penelope’s suitors, leaving the great hall awash in blood.  When the families of the slain men showed up, looking for revenge, it was Athena who stepped in and shut down the cycle of killing.  Still, Ulysses had really good marketing.  Homer told his story so well that people have been reading it for 1200 years.

Doba, on the other hand, is a hero with almost no fanfare.  Many, including his own family, dismiss him as a crackpot.  But he has, perhaps, a far more important lesson to teach us than Ulysses does.

We need Doba.  We need all the adventurers.  They feed us, even if we’re not out on a kayak with them or climbing mountains or heading into space.  Doba said, “You can be made small by life or you can rage against it.”  When asked what he meant, he added, “I do not want to be a little gray man.”

That’s his gift to us.  We don’t have to be Ulysses/Odysseus, legendary king of Ithaca and beloved of the goddess Athena.  We can be regular folks, even old ones, and still strive for something extraordinary.

 

 

Sources and interesting reading:

Doba photo by Iwona Photography, Iwona.com

Gordon, James. “Kayaker paddles Atlantic,” The Daily Mail.com 23 April 2014, www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2611294/Polish-kayaker-paddles-Atlantic.html

Homer. The Iliad, translated by W. H. D. Rouse.  New York: New American Library, 1938.

Homer. The Odyssey, translated by Samuel Butler, Digireads.com Publishing, 2016

“Odysseus,” Britannica Online Encyclopedia, https://www.britannica.com/print/article/425301

“Odysseus: Myth, Significance, Trojan War, and Odyssey,” Britannica.com, http://www.britannica.com/topic/Odysseus

“Odysseus,” Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Odysseus

Squires, Nick.  “Greeks discover Odysseus’ palace in Ithaca, proving Homer’s hero was real,” The Telegraph, 24 August 2010, https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/eruope/greece/7962445/Greeks-discover-Odysseus-palace-in-Ithaca-provng-Homers-hero-was-real.html

Tennyson, Alfred, Lord, “Ulysses,” from Beginning with Poems: An Anthology, edited by Reuben A. Brower, Anne D. Ferry, and David Kalstone. New York: Norton, 1966.

Ulysses and Cyclops painting by Arnold Böcklin – Sotheby’s London, 11 June 2012, lot 8  Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=19582047

“Ulysses and Sirens” painted by H. J. Draper, 1909, Wikipedia Commons,https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=9684835

Ulysses, sculpted head, by Jastrow, from the Iliade exhibition at the Colosseum, September 2006–February 2007, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=1288487

Well, Elizabeth (author) and Joakim Eskildsen (photographer), “Alone at Sea: Why he kayaked across the Atlantic at 70 (for the third time),” The New York Times magazine, 22 March 2018, https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/03/22/magazine/voyages-kayaking-across-ocean-at-70.html

 

 

The Opera House at Manaus, Brazil

The Opera House was supposed to be a center of culture in the middle of the Upper Amazon Basin, a jewel of the arts to rival the great theaters of Europe.  And, in spite of its strange history, it is.  The day I visited, local school children were touring the building.  The Amazonas Philharmonic was scheduled to perform later in the week.  The gift shop was doing a brisk business.

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Construction began on The Opera House in 1884.  Its first performance was held in 1897.  But by 1921, it stood empty and abandoned, a victim of the sudden end of the Rubber Boom that ran from the late 1800’s to about 1910.

The Rubber Boom

[image error]Natural rubber comes from the Pará tree, native to South America.  When the harvester makes “V” cuts in the tree, the sap drips down and forms lumps which are refined into latex.

Ancient peoples at least as far back as the Olmec in Mexico (3500 years ago) used rubber to make waterproof textiles, boat patches, containers, and the ball they used in ceremonial games.  Because untreated rubber tends to lose its shape, they added sulfur to harden it.

However, the Portuguese who took the natives’ land starting in the 1500’s never asked for their advice about handling rubber, so it remained a mystery until Charles Marie de La Condamine explained the benefits of rubber to the Academie Royal des Sciences in France, in 1751.  He showed it could stretch and return to its former shape and could withstand being immersed in water without being affected.  In 1770, Joseph Priestley added that it was good for erasing pencil marks on paper.  Then Francois Fresneau discovered turpentine was a rubber solvent. But it wasn’t until 1839 that Charles Goodyear discovered “vulcanization” by accident.  He left a ball of rubber and some sulfur on the stove and found, in the morning, that the rubber was both charred and hardened.

With the coming of the Industrial Revolution, and more particularly the birth of the auto industry in the 1890’s, demand for rubber soared, especially for belting, gaskets, matting, gloves, adhesives, elastic in garments, and car tires.  South America was its main source, particularly Brazil.  As the money flowed in, the landowners’ greed, competition, and brutality grew.  Natives did the work and saw no profit.  When they rebelled, suppression was quick and deadly.  Since wild rubber trees are widely dispersed, Portuguese land owners acquired huge swaths of land, mostly by using private armies to terrorize the inhabitants into working for them. Their tactics included cutting off dissidents’ hands and displaying them.

Thinking plantations of rubber trees would make more money than individual trees in the jungle, the owners cleared land and planted hundreds.  But their trees died from a leaf blight that was fed by close proximity.  So the “rubber barons,” as they were called, went back to wild rubber trees.  The sap was tapped from the trees, collected, refined, and shipped down the Amazon to the Atlantic Ocean, and from there, to the world.  And they could charge whatever they wanted since they controlled most of the available rubber supply.

It’s hard to appreciate how much money these men amassed in a short time. Because the Rio Negro’s tannin-rich water turned their white shirts tan in the wash, they sent their laundry to France or Portugal to be washed, ironed, and perfumed, then returned by ship, a round-tip that might take months.  In the middle of the hot, humid rainforest, they still wore starched European style clothes and made their homes showplaces of European wealth, with fine paintings, sculpture, inlaid woods, marble, decorative tile-work, and enormous mirrors.  Both men and women wore jewels and fine fabrics that rivaled those sported by royalty. They were the highest per-capita buyers of diamonds in the world.  When they found the clip-clop of horses on the cobblestones distracting, they[image error]

ordered bricks made with rubber that would muffle the sound.  They are still visible near the Opera House.

Rubber-boom Manaus boasted electric lights, 16 miles of streetcar tracks, and a telephone system.

Buoyed by a belief in Social Darwinism that declared some men were more successful because they were innately superior, the barons indulged in contests of wealth.  If one had a fine yacht built, another ordered two.  One kept a tame lion in his villa.  Another claimed he watered his horse with French champagne.  In addition to a wife, a baron might take dozens of natives as sexual companions.

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So what would be a fitting place for these incredibly rich people to go, to see and be seen?  The theater, of course.  In 1884, construction began on an audacious project – a palatial opera house.  To complete it, they had to hire architects, artists, designers, and painters, get various exotic woods from the Amazon basin, and import roofing, art, and furniture from France, as well as marble from Italy and steel from the British Isles.

Light came from 198 chandeliers.  The reception room (pictured below) featured elaborate inlaid woods and large mirrors placed on opposite walls that provided the viewers with endless repetitions of their image.

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The dome required 36,000 decorated tiles and special supports.  The painted ceiling portrayed the spirits of music, dance, and drama.  The grand curtain depicted the Meeting of the Waters, where the dark water of the Rio Negro meets the lighter water of the Upper Amazon

In 1897, the opera house opened with a performance by Enrico Caruso in La Gioconda.    The barons had lured the brightest star in the opera world to the middle of the jungle to sing for them in their beautiful theater.  Clearly, they were meant to be where they were and to do everything they had done.

 

A Warning

[image error]Down the Rio Negro a bit from Manaus are the ruins of a town that was started but never finished.  Apparently, some powerful people grew unhappy with the status quo in Manaus and decided to form their own community.  They imported marble, granite, and ceramic tile, then started construction on several ornate homes and a chapel. But the settlement failed before the houses were completed. Today, the jungle is reclaiming the space, moving in over the decorative tile and marble steps.  The reason for the settlement’s collapse is unknown, but a small, family cemetery near the buildings hints at disease, perhaps Yellow Fever, which was common in the area.

  The Fall

Back in Manaus, the party lasted until their grip on the market failed.  An Englishman did what the rubber barons thought was impossible: he smuggled rubber tree seeds out of Brazil.  In 1876, when the barons were just beginning their meteoric rise, Henry Wickham shipped 70,000 seeds to British colonies in Malaysia and India, a number so high it suggests he had help from some locals.  The exact arrangement has never been explained, and the “rubber theft” is still something of a touchy subject in Manaus.

After some initial difficulties, the English efforts in India and Malaysian paid off.  By 1909, Brazilian rubber production dropped to only 50% of the world total.  In 1918, only 20 percent.

Manaus’s fortunes fell even more abruptly than they’d risen. The lights that once illuminated its buildings and streets went dark.  The tram stopped. The telephone lines went quiet.

The rich fled with what money they had left.  The theater was forgotten.  By 1921, visitors said it housed only bats, bugs, and vermin.  Aside from a brief appearance in a Werner Herzog film, it lay abandoned and decaying for over seventy years.

The Revival

In the 1970’s, the Brazilian government decided to put money into reviving some remote settlements, including Manaus.  It’s still in the middle of the Amazonian rainforest, with no overland road access due to seasonal flooding.  Visitors arrive by boat or plane.  But after the establishment of a Free Zone with its appealing tax incentives, businesses moved in.  National and international investment followed.  It’s now the sixth largest economy in Brazil, fueled not by rubber, but by shipbuilding and fishing, as well as trade in wild fruits like acai, guarana, and cupuacu, plus Brazil nuts, beer, soap, and petroleum products. [image error]

As the city’s fortunes improved, successful businessmen wanted to reclaim the best of the city’s past. A coalition of investors joined government agencies in funding the rehabilitation of some Gilded Age buildings, including a number of historic homes, the library, and the central market, the Mercado Adolpho Lisboa (pictured), built in 1882, which still does a booming business in fruits, vegetables, spices, and fish.

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But the star of the revival was the Opera House, which has become a symbol of the powerful present more than the colonial past.  In 2001, the provincial government allocated funds to lure top musicians to play in the Amazonas Philharmonic. Today, the completely restored Opera House hosts orchestras from around the world, as well as jazz bands, rock bands, and dance troupes. Jack White, of the White Stripes, was a featured performer in 2004.

Regular people who would never have been allowed inside the theater when it was built now look on it with pride.  The brutal oppression that allowed the rubber barons to amass their wealth is seldom mentioned.  Instead, the locals claim this striking building as their own.  They’re proud of it.  They support its concerts and relax in its gardens.  It represents their city’s endurance and quality, and therefore theirs.

 

Tours of the Opera House (about $8.00 per person) include a visit to the grand theater hall and the reception area, as well as a costume display.  Book ahead for an English-speaking guide.  If this is the start of your Upper Amazon tour, you’ll find it adds an interesting perspective on the area’s history.

 

Sources and interesting reading:

 

“A Brief History of Rubber,” Mongabay, https://rainforests.mongabay.com/10rubber.htm

Cunningham, Eleanor, “The Manaus Opera House: The Theatre of the Amazonian Jungle,” The Culture Trip, 10 November 2017  https://theculturetrip.som/wouth-america/brazil/articles/the-manaus-opera-house-the-theatre-of-the-amazonian-jungle/

“Manaus,” Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manaus

Morton, Ella, “Teatro Amazonas,”  Atlas Obscura on Slate, 14 January 2014, www.slate.com/blogs/atlas_obscura/2014/01/14/teatro_amazonas_the-unlikely_opera_house_in manaus_brazil.html

Ramm, Benjamin, “The beautiful theatre in the heart of the Amazon rainforest,”  BBC.com.  16 March 2017, http://www.bbc.com/culture/story/20170316-the-beautiful-theatre-in-the-heart-of-the-amazonian-rainforest

 

 

Other information courtesy of the tour guides at the Manaus Opera House and background provided by our Road Scholar group leaders

Photo of the Mercado Adolpho Lisboa from Wikipedia.  All other photos by the author.

 

 

Championing New Views of the First Americans

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In 1963, when Niede Guidon was a young archaeologist working at the Museu Palista in Sao Paulo, Brazil, a friend showed her some photographs of ancient paintings on rock walls.  Something about those photos made a profound impression on her.  The site was called Pedra Furada, Pierced Rock, after a famous rock formation with a hole in it.

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The remote area of northeastern Brazil where the photos were taken, stripped of its forests in colonial times, had suffered terrible erosion, silting of rivers, and subsequent desertification by the time Guidon visited in 1973.  But its isolation had helped to preserve the paintings.  As soon as she began studying the area, she realized it was something extraordinary.

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Where most rock art sites in Europe are a single cave or a series of caves in a single mountain, Pedra Furada is a collection of over 900 sites with over 1150 images painted on the walls and ceilings, mostly with red ochre or other clays, and some burned bone charcoal.  The oldest images date from 12,000 years old, the newest about 5,000 years old, showing a change in style over time from fingerwork to paintings created with cactus spines and brushes made of fibers or fur.  They show people hunting with atlatls (dart throwers), dancing, mating, giving birth, and fighting.  Many animal are represented, including caimans, llamas, pumas, deer, capybaras, turtles, fish, and iguanas.

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Often the red deer are large, surrounded by small images of people, as in the panel shown. Other sections feature rows of marks and unidentified figures, and what seem to be narrative sequences.

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Some large rectangular humanoid figures with patterned bodies are surrounded by smaller human forms with raised arms.

 

The treasure underfoot

What lay deep in the ground near the painted walls was even more surprising than the paintings.  Guidon and her team spent years carefully excavating the areas, finding evidence of hearth fires and stone tools in layers ranging from 5,000 years old to 32,000 years old, with lower levels dating to 48,000 years old.  Repeated analysis by independent labs, mostly in France, supported those dates.  Guidon herself, never one to shy away from an argument, maintained in a 1985 article in Nature that the site showed clear evidence of human occupation 60,000 years ago!

“Clovis First”

Her findings enraged American archaeologists because they challenged the common belief that people arrived in the Americas by walking across the land bridge from Asia, called Beringia, to Alaska during the Ice Age, about 13,000 years ago.  From there, they supposedly dispersed all through the Americas.

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This theory began in the 1930’s with the discovery of a finely-made spear point lodged in a mastodon bone near Clovis, New Mexico.  When other points/arrowheads with this same design were found in neighboring states, and then across the country, archaeologists decided that these points were made by East Asian big game hunters who followed their prey across Beringia and down an ice-free corridor between glaciers into what is now the western United States.  The presence of the Clovis points became the basis for a belief in a Clovis people and a Clovis culture that was so effective it spread from north to south throughout the Americas. The Clovis First theory was repeated endlessly in school textbooks throughout the 20th century.  (The Clovis point in the photo shows the characteristic fine work on both sides (bi-face).

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There were a few glitches in the theory, but they were largely ignored.  For instance, the greatest concentration of Clovis-style points has been found in the southeastern US, not in Alaska or northern Canada, so we can assume they moved from the east to the west, not the other way around.  (See diagram of Clovis point distribution)

Plus, there was never any proof that the Clovis-style points indicated either a people or a culture.  Today, iPhones are found all over the world, but they represent neither a people nor a culture.  They’re simply a very useful bit of technology.  Probably Clovis points were too.  A valuable trade item, endlessly copied – spreading across the continent.

But all of these problems with “Clovis First” were dismissed by the established powerhouses in American archaeology, especially at Harvard and Yale.

Dennis Stanford, now with the Smithsonian Museum of History, admitted that when he was excavating a site in Florida and came across signs of human habitation far older than Clovis dates, he told his team to fill the pit back in and tell no one about it since their findings would never be accepted.

Who’s she?  

Then along came this brash Brazilian woman with her French education and her crazy theories about early man in Brazil.  The US archaeological community tore her findings apart, claiming the tools were made by monkeys, or they were “geofacts,” natural objects altered by weather or falling to the ground.  In a heated response to a question about them from a reporter from The Guardian,  Guidon said, “US archaeologists believe that the artifacts are geofacts created naturally because the North Americans CANNOT BELIEVE they do not have the oldest site!”  When critics said the carbon hearth samples were the result of natural fires, she pointed out the sites lay well inside caves or rock overhangs, inside circles of stones.  No carbon was found in sample pits dug outside the shelters. “The carbon is not from a natural fire.  It is only found inside the sites.  You don’t get natural fires inside the shelters,” she retorted.  “Americans criticize WITHOUT KNOWING.  The problem is not mine!  The problem is theirs!  Americans should excavate more and write less!”

Guidon challenged American archaeologists to come to the site, draw their own samples, and do their own tests.  They refused.

When they couldn’t make her back down, US archeologists discredited, belittled, then ignored Guidon, her research, and her site. It simply never appeared in surveys of ancient settlements in the Americas.  “Everybody has pretty much deep-sixed Guidon,” one noted American archaeologist commented.

But time, it seems, is on her side.

 

New finds in Chile and South Carolina

Tom Dillehay, an American archaeologist working at sites in southern and central Chile, found extensive evidence of human habitation there 18,000 years ago, 5,000 years before the supposed appearance of the “Clovis people.”  Settlers on the Chilean coast built lodges, ate a variety of seafood, and used different kinds of seaweed for medicines.  Presence of quartz and tar from other areas indicated either a trade network or a wide area of exploration. Even though Dillehay had painstakingly recorded every discovery and each step of the dating process, and used independent labs for verification, the established archaeological community initially refused to consider his conclusions.  He had to spend ten years defending his findings, but thanks to his persistence, there’s now at least a bit of doubt concerning Clovis First.

Albert Goodyear, who has been working at the Topper Hill chert mine site in South Carolina since the 1980’s, ran into similar problems when he found a rich deposit of Clovis style points and then, much farther down, ran into a completely different set of hearths and tools.  The deepest layers dated to 50,000 years old.  Again, the archaeological community raged against the findings, making life so miserable for Goodyear that he considered leaving the field completely.

For scholars with a vested interest in preserving Clovis First, it simply wasn’t possible that there were settlements before Clovis.  If so, all their work would be meaningless.

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Santa Elina rock shelter and more

Then more news came from Brazil, including discoveries at Santa Elina rock shelter in central Brazil, where pierced bone ornaments made from giant sloths (photo) were dated over 23,000 years old.  Like Pedra Furada, it too had rock art and evidence of occasional, seasonal use over thousands of years.  A site in Uruguay yielded evidence of humans hunting giant sloths 32,000 years ago.  Now, these finds are being lumped together with Guidon’s research, indicating a record of human habitation in the area at least 30,000 years old.  Some suggest over 50,000 years old.

Other revelations have followed.  But the most dramatic challenge has come from Steven and Kathleen Holen, who have long held the belief that people were in the Americas before 40,000 years ago.  In a paper in Nature, they argue that break marks on 130,000 year old mastodon bones found in Southern California suggest hominins (ancestors of modern humans) did the butchering using stone tools, perhaps to get at the marrow or use the bones for tools.  To illustrate their point, the Holens used rocks they found at the site to break open elephant bones.

The dust still hasn’t settled from the fracas over their claims.

Even more radical theories

As Niede Guidon said years ago, “I think it’s wrong that everyone came running across Bering chasing mammoths – that’s infantile.  I think they also came along the seas.”  Now in her 80’s and mostly retired, she hasn’t softened her tone at all.  She currently maintains that people first arrived in South America from West Africa, perhaps as far back as 100,000 years ago.

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She says they could have floated or paddled across the sea with the current and the wind in their favor.  Both journeys have been replicated in modern times.  (The diagram at the left shows the route a 70-year-old Polish kayaker took in his solo journey across the Atlantic in 2017.)  If you look at the globe, an African origin certainly makes more sense for settlements in northeastern Brazil than having people go through Alaska, down the coast of North America and Central America, then across the Andes and the Amazon Basin to get to Pedra Furada.[image error]

But Guidon isn’t stopping there.  She suggests that the group from Africa may have merged with groups from the South Pacific that came by sea, settled on the Pacific coast and later crossed lower South America.

Evidence for the South Pacific theory    [image error]

Several native populations in South America were completely eradicated by the Spanish and Portuguese conquerors.  One group, the Botocudo, were murdered by the Portuguese because they wouldn’t submit to enslavement.  Oddly, the Portuguese kept several of the skulls, which later wound up in a museum.  When modern scientists drilled into the teeth and tested the DNA, they found markers typical of Polynesians and Australians. (Drawings of a Botocudo man, above).  See earlier post on “Chickens, Sweet Potatoes, and Polynesians in Brazil.”

The Long Chronology

Increasingly, it looks as if there is no one simple answer to the origin or timeline of the peopling of the Americas.  A new theory, called the Long Chronology, posits multiple waves of immigrants from different places arriving over a long period of time, probably with only a few successful, surviving settlements.  This pattern seems more promising than Clovis First – and certainly more defensible given new discoveries.  This does not rule out migration from Siberia or along the west coast of North America.  It simply takes away its claim of exclusivity.

Serra da Capivara

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Meanwhile, Niede Guidon is busy trying to get funding to keep the 320,000 acre national park she fought for, now called Serra da Capivara, open. (Entrance shown in photo.)  Her research helped establish it as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1991, but government support is undependable.  Few American archaeologists have ever visited.  Only the hardiest tourists make the trip.  But Guidon’s work is finally getting some attention from the press and the academic world.  Robson Bonnichsen, from the University of Maine’s Center for the Study of the First Americans, feels her work needs more attention.  “We’re trying to get some eminent American scholars down there to study the methods and results,” he said.  He plans to lead the first American excavation team there.

This should be interesting to watch.  Perhaps if an American man gets the same results, the data will get more respect.  If so, Guidon will probably wonder what took the rest of the world so long to catch up with her.

 

Sources and interesting reading:

Bellos, Alex, “Archaeologists feud over oldest Americans, The Guardian, 10 February 2000, https://www.theguardian.com/science/2000/feb/11/archaeology.internationalnews

Bower, Bruce, “People may have lived in razil more than 20,000 years ago,” Science News, 5 September 2017, https://www.sciencenews.org/blog/science-ticker/stone-age-people-brazil-20000-years-ago

Bower, Bruce, “Texas toolmakers add to the debate over who the first Americans were,” Science News, 11 July 2018, https://www.sciencenews.org/article/texas-toolmakers-add-debate-over-who-first-americans-were

Brooke, James, “Ancient Find, But How Ancient?” 17 April 1990, The New York Times, https://www.nytimes.com/1990/04/17/science/ancient-find-but-how-ancient.html

Fenton, Bruce, “Brazilian rock shelter proves inhabited Americas 23,000 years ago” The Vintage News, 29 January 2018, https://www.thevintagenews.com/2018/01/29/brazilian-rock-shelter/

Guidon, Niede, “Nature and the age of the depostis in Pedra Furada, Brazil: Reply to Meltzer, Adovasio and others, Antiquity, vol.68, 1994. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/285362399_Nature-and-age_of_the_depostis_in_Pedra_Furada_Brazil…

“Interview with Niede Guidon,” Crosscultural Maria-Brazil, http://www.maria-brazil.org/niede-guidon.htm

Jansen, Roberta, “The archaeologist who fights to preserve the vestiges of the first men of the Americas,” BBC News, 12 March 2016, https://www.bbc.com/portuguese/noticias/2016/03/160312_perfil_niede_guidon_rj_ab

“Niede Guidon,” Wikipedia, https://en.eikipedia.org/wiki/NI%C3%A8de_Guidon

“Niede Guidon,” WikiVividly, https://wikivividly.com/wiki/Niede_guidon

“Pedra Furada,” Britannica Online Encyclopedia, https://www.britannica.com/place/Pedra-Furada

“Pedra Furada,” Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pedra_Furada

“Pedra Furada, Brazil: Paleoindians, Paintings, and Paradoxes, an interview with Niede Guidon and others, Athena Review, vol. 3, no.2: Peopling of the Americas,

Peron, Roberto, “Pedra Furada the Pierce Rock Site,” Peron Rants (blog) 28 April 2017, https://rperon1017blog.wordpress.com/2017/04/28/pedra-furada/

Powledge, Tabitha, “News about ancient humanity: Humans in California 130,000 years ago?” PLOS Blogs, 5 May 2017, http://blogs.plos.org/onscience blogs/2017/05/05/news-about-ancient-humanity-humans-in-California-130000-years ago…

“The Rock Art of Pedra Furada,” The Bradshaw Foundation, http://www.bradshawfoundation.com/south_america/serra_da_capivara/pedra_furada/index.php

Rock Art panel, photo by Diego Rego Monteiro – Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=43861884

Romero, Simon, “Discoveries Challenge Beliefs on Humans’ Arrival in the Americas,” The New York Times, 27 March 2015, https://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/28/world/americas/discoveries-challenge-beliefs-on-humans-arrival-in-the-americas.html

“Serra da Capivara National Park,” Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serra_da_Capivara_National_Park

Wade, Lizzie, “Traces of some of South America’s earliest people found under ancient dirt pyramid,” Science, 24 May 2017, http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2017/05/traces-some-south-america-s-earliest-people-found-under-ancient-dirt-pyramid

Wilford, John Noble, “Doubts Cast on Report of Earliest Americans,” The New York Times, 14 February 1995, https://www.nytimes.com/1995/02/14/science/doubts-cast-on-report-of-earliest-americans.html

 

 

 

Rabbit’s Foot Mojo

Around the world, people believe certain activities bring good luck and others bring bad luck. In Russia, you shouldn’t whistle indoors because it will bring down financial ruin on the house. (My mother told me it made the Blessed Mother cry!)  In Hawaii, you shouldn’t whistle at night because it angers Pele, the god of fire.  In France, people tack horseshoes on the barn door with the opening facing down.  I was taught that made the good luck run out.

We think of ourselves as rational people, yet tradition and custom whisper that specific practices can and do influence the course of events.  Even those who claim they are not superstitious may cling to certain rituals before a big event, like playing a favorite song, repeating a certain phrase, carrying a photo of a loved one, wearing a “lucky” piece of clothing, getting dressed all left side first, or carrying an object infused with personal or religious meaning.

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Certain objects became easily recognizable good luck charms, including a four-leaf clover, a horseshoe, and a rabbit’s foot. The rabbit’s foot, usually the left hind foot, was attached to a metal collar and fitted with a chain.  Later versions were often dyed bright colors.  Today, carrying around part of a dead animal is considered more creepy than lucky, so the charm is less popular.  But the rabbit’s foot has a fascinating history.

Origin

Historians debate the origin of the rabbit’s foot charm.  Some claim it’s related to the rabbit/hare myths from Europe, China, and Latin America.  It’s true that rabbits were very important in these cultures’ stories.  (I’m using rabbit and hare as equivalents in this post although I understand they are different species in the same family.  For purposes of myth, they’re very similar.)

In antiquity, the rabbit was widely seen as a symbol of fertility and abundance because rabbits breed, well, like rabbits.  A female rabbit can have forty babies a year.

[image error]The Germanic/Celtic goddess Ostara or Eostre (pictured) represented spring and dawn.  Her feast was celebrated at the Vernal Equinox, the first light of spring.  Her symbols were the rabbit and the egg, as well as various flowers. Today we have the Easter Bunny, who leaves brightly colored eggs and candies, clearly a combination of ancient symbols: the egg and the rabbit, representing new and abundant life.  All of these have now been subsumed into our Easter celebration, held on the first Sunday after the first full moon following the Vernal Equinox.

In ancient Greek and Roman art, the rabbit was associated with Aphrodite/Venus and considered the gift of lovers.

The rabbit in the moon

[image error]Around the world, many people see the form of a rabbit in the surface of the moon, rather than the face of The Man in the Moon.  Shown in

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the picture is the Japanese moon rabbit stirring the elixir of immortality.

For the ancient Maya and Chinese, the rabbit was the companion of the moon goddess, known as Ixchel (shown with her large rabbit companion) and Chang’e (shown sitting on the crescent

moon) respectively, associated with fertility and beauty.[image error]

In Celtic myths, the hare, the sacred animal of the Earth Mother, could be a shapeshifter. According to one story, a hunter wounded a hare in the leg, forcing it to hide in a clump of bushes.  When the hunter followed, he found a door in the ground leading to a large subterranean hall, where he found a beautiful young woman bleeding from a wound in her leg.

With the advent of Christianity, many of the old spirits were dismissed or demoted to demons.  However, the rabbit was spared that fate when the black cat was substituted as the familiar of witches, a belief that continues, unfortunately, to this day.  The rabbit was re-branded as a Christian symbol.

[image error] A woodcut by Albrecht Durer, published in 1497, shows the Holy Family with three hares. Titan’s painting “Mary and Infant Jesus with a rabbit,” shows Mary stroking a white rabbit with one hand and holding the baby Jesus in the other. Later, the three hares symbol, probably originating in the Middle East, became very popular in European Catholic churches, especially the three running hares with connected ears forming a triangle symbolizing the Holy Trinity.[image error]

Clearly, the rabbit was an important symbol of fertility, abundance, rebirth, vitality, and spirit power.  However, all of these involve the whole rabbit, not just the foot.

The Foot

Folklorist Bill Ellis claims the first mention of the rabbit’s foot charm in America was in the 1800’s, when it was described as a fetish popular with African slaves in the south, especially around New Orleans.

The rabbit’s foot charm is actually an anti-charm, a protective talisman typical of West African folk magic known as hoodoo.

[image error]It’s like the evil eye charm (pictured) so prevalent in the Mediterranean region, a blue eye charm pinned to a baby’s clothes or blanket to ward off the evil eye – bad thoughts/wishes from others.  It takes the form of the evil it wishes to dispel.  The rabbit’s foot is, traditionally, the left hind foot of a cross-eyed rabbit killed in a cemetery under a new moon.  The use of the left foot (sinister) and the grave dirt combine to protect the wearer from ill fortune because it embodies ill fortune.

The Mojo

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The rabbit’s foot often became part of a “hand,” “toby,” or “mojo,” a bag of powerful charms, often with a hand pictured on the outside.  You can still find them for sale on line (including the one pictured).  Some include a rabbit’s foot, a bone, a lodestone, lavender or other herbs, John the Conqueror root, or other powerful items, plus oil the user needs to  rub on them to “activate” them.  These “hands” can be configured to suit many different purposes, including love, reconciliation, revenge, vision, safe travel, uncrossing of evil conditions or hexes, luck in gambling, wisdom, and sexual attraction.  Each purpose would require a separate “hand” or “mojo.”

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This is the “mojo” referenced in the blues songs like “I’ve Got My Mojo Working,” made famous by Muddy Waters (pictured). Two nice YouTube videos of it are listed in the sources.  In the song, the speaker says

“I’m goin’ down to Louisiana, get me a mojo hand

I’m gonna have all you women under my command.”

 

But the chorus indicates the magic isn’t working on the woman he wants.

“I got my mojo working

But it just won’t work on you.”

Unfortunately, “mojo” was sometimes misinterpreted as male sexual performance (as in Jim Morrison’s “L.A. Woman/Mojo Risin’”), but mojo was a term used by both male and female blues singers, referring to a collection of powerful charms.  Interestingly, “I Got My Mojo Working’” was recorded by Ann Cole in 1957, before Muddy Waters claimed it as one of his signature songs. A recording of her version is also included in the sources.

So a rabbit’s foot was a form of mojo, a protective charm against bad luck, brought to America with the slave trade and later combined with both American Indian and European influences.

The Appeal of Magic

Oddly, though, in the 1950’s and early 1960’s, the rabbit’s foot charm was appropriated by the white community.  It was part of a general fascination with magic/voodoo/spells, potions, fetishes, and charms that showed up in popular culture.  In 1951, the English Witchcraft Act of 1735 was revised, making witchcraft legal as long as it was considered entertainment.  That seemed to reflect the thinking in the U.S. as well.

[image error]Although Cole Porter recorded “You Do Something to Me” in 1929, with the famous line “the voodoo that you do so well,” the song wasn’t widely popular until the 1950’s when it was recorded by Bing Crosby for his radio show (1955), then Doris Day (1957) and Frank Sinatra, Judy Garland, and Dean Martin (1962) as well as many others. Other popular songs of the time included “Witchcraft,” also popularized by Sinatra (1957), “Casting My Spell on You” sung by Johnny Otis ((1958), and “The Witch Doctor” (1958), which invokes witchcraft but also mocks it (Ooo-eee, ooo-ah ah, Ting Tang, walla walla bing bang).

[image error]In 1961, Elvis Presley recorded “Good Luck Charm,” in which he compares his love to a four-leaf clover, a horse shoe, a silver dollar, a rabbit’s foot on a string, and a lucky penny, and concludes she’s worth more – as a lucky charm on his arm.

“Don’t want a silver dollar

Rabbit’s foot on a string

The happiness in your warm caress

No rabbit’s foot could bring”

 

“Love Potion Number 9,” which tells of a man seeking help from a “gypsy with a gold-capped tooth” and her magic potion to improve his love life, was recorded by The Clovers in 1959, then by the The Searchers, a white group, in 1964, when it reached number 3 on the Billboard Top 100 chart.

Witchcraft was clearly fascinating, though most appealing when filtered through a white lens, just as ten years later, Black American R&B would become wildly successful when delivered by The Rolling Stones.

So the rabbit’s foot was caught in the middle of all this history.  It was a charm made up of bad luck elements that combine to defend the wearer from bad luck.  It also referenced the Trickster Rabbit of West African and American Indian folklore, the one who is smaller and less powerful than his enemies but winds up out-smarting them through his skill and courage – and dumb luck. Yet it became most popular in the white community during the segregated post-WWII era, divorced from its African past except in a sort of mocking nod to witchcraft, which seemed to be fascinating mostly because it was alien.  So, like jazz and the blues, it entered mainstream white culture through the back door, as something different and edgy. The rabbit’s foot that dangled from the keychain, though stripped of its cultural underpinnings, retained some of its powers, at least as a statement of 1950’s cool.

 

 

Sources and interesting reading:

“5 Famous Lucky Charms That Get More Baffling With Research,” Cracked, http://www.cracked.com/blog/5-bizarre-origin-stories-famous-good-luck-charms/

Backer, William H. and Cecelia Sinclair.  West African Folk Tales. Loyal Books.com. www.loyalbooks.com/book/west-african-folk-tales-by-Willaim-H-Backer

“Chang’e,” Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chang%27e

Cole, Ann, recording of “Got My Mojo Working” from 1957 YouTube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lY9XvUc6xWE

D’Costa, Krystal, “What Makes a Rabbit’s Foot Lucky?” Anthropology in Practice blog, Scientific American Blog Network, 26 October 2011, https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/anthropology-in-practice/what-makes-a rabbits-foot-lucky/

Dembicki, Matt (ed.).  Trickster: Native American Tales. Golden, Colorado: Fulcrum Books, 2010.

Devi, Debra, “Language of the Blues: MOJO” American Blues Scene, 8 July 2015, https://www.americanbluesscene.com/language-of-the-blues-mojo/

Durer, Albrecht, “The Holy Family with Three Hares” from the Metropolitan Museum of Art collection, https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/359765

“Good Luck Charm,” written by Clarence Satchell, Ralph Middlebrooks, James L. Williams, and others, sung by Elvis Presley, AZlyrics.com https://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/elvispresley/goodluckcharm.html

“L.A. Woman” lyrics, The Doors Lyrics, AZ Lyrics, https://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/doors/lawoman.html

Locke, Tony. “Superstitions and Folklore of the Rabbit and Hare,” Irish Abroad blog, 29 March 2013, http://www.irishabroad.com/blogs/Post?View.aspx?pid=4325

“Love Potion No. 9 (song),” Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Love_Potion_No._9_(song)

“Lucky Rabbit Foot Shadowbox,” available on Etsy, https://www.etsy.com/listing/585526587/lucky-rabbit-foot-shadowbox?ga/

Mama Zogbe Chief-Hounon Amergansie, “Hoodoo – a New World Name of an Ancient African Magical Tradition,” http://www.mamiwata.com/hoodoo/hoodoo.html

“Mojo Hand, Mojo Bag, Toby, Conjure Bag, Wanga, Gris-Gris, What it is,” Lucky Mojo, http://www.luckymojo.com/mojo.html

“The Moon Rabbit in Legend and Culture,” Owlcation, 11 January 2018, https://owlcation.com/social-sciences/moon-rabbit

“Ostara, herald of springtime,” http.//www.northernpaganism.org/shrines/Osta...

“Maya whistle in the form of the moon goddess and her rabbit consort,”(photo) Princeton University Art Museum.

“Mojo,” definition by Merriam Webster diction,

https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/mojo

“Mojo (African-American culture)” Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mojo_(African-American_culture)

Muddy Waters singing “Got My Mojo Workin’” YouTube videos from 1956 and 1966 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aI_JFcrTooM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8hEYwk0bypY

Nosowitz, Dan, “Why Is The Rabbit’s Foot Considered A Good Luck Charm?” Modern Farmer, 20 March 2017, https://modernfarmer.com/2017/03/rabbits-foot-considered-good-luck-charm/

Panati, Charles. Extraordinary Origins of Everyday Things. New York: Harper Collins, 1987.

“Rabbits and Hares in Art,” Wikipedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rabbits_and_Hares_in_art

“Rabbit’s Foot,” RationalWiki, https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Rabbit%27s_foot

“Rabbit’s Foot,” New World Encyclopedia, www.newworldencyclopedia.org/entry/Rabbit%27s_foot

“Rabbit’s Foot,” Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rabbit%27s_foot

Sifferlin, Alexandra, “What’s the Origin of the Easter Bunny?” Time magazine, 1 April 2015, http://time.com/3767518/easter-bunny-origins-history/

“Three Hares,” Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org.wiki/Three_Hares

Windling, Terri, “Into the Woods” series, 43: The Folklore of Rabbits and Hares, 18 December 2014,  http://www.terriwindling.com/blog/2014/12/the-folklore-of-rabbits-and-hares.html

“You Do Something to Me,” song written by Cole Porter, Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/You_Do_Something_to_Me

Yronwode, Catherine, “Rabbit Foot in Hoodoo Folk Magic, Spell-Craft, and Occultism,” Herb Magic, http.www.herbmagic.com/rabbit-foot-html

“Fat Boys,” Magnetism, and Magic

The “fat boys” are sculptures usually associated with Olmec/Maya/Izapan sites in southern Mexico and Guatemala, especially near the Pacific coast.  They look very different from the sophisticated sculptures we usually associate with the ancient cities of that area.  They’re stumpy stone figures of very fat humans, with a big ball for the bottom and a smaller, flattened ball for the top.  The arms can barely stretch across the wide belly. [image error]

I first saw one of these sculptures at Takalik Abaj (See photo), an Olmec/early Maya major trade site near Chocola, where I was part of an Earthwatch team helping with a dig.  The basalt figure stood about 4’ tall, with a flattened head and an enormous belly. Kaminaljuyu, just down the way from Takalik Abaj and now mostly absorbed by Guatemala City, had the greatest number of “fat boy” sculptures discovered at a single site.

Some of the fat boy sculptures are so worn, they look like blobs, with no indication of features.  Tourists often pass them by without a second glance.

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Yet hundreds of large and small versions of the “fat boys,” as the sculptures became known after their discovery, have been found across the Isthmus of Tehuantepec in southern Mexico, through modern Guatemala, and down into Honduras, Belize, and El Salvador.  Why were they so popular over such a wide area?

Some of the sculptures, also called “potbellies,” featured a collar around the figure’s neck, possibly a sign of wealth.  Many were situated on pedestals.  Some had a prominent navel.  None had specific genitals that would identify it as male or female, though a few had a bulge at the bottom.

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Date

Dating stonework is always difficult, but researchers found the task even more difficult when they realized that many of these sculptures had been moved from their original location and reused or perhaps traded. The ones near La Democracia, Guatemala, (See photo with a fat boy, a fat boy-style head, and local traffic) had been moved and buried.  They were discovered when workers were digging up a sugarcane field.  Official guesses about their age have varied from 1500 BC to 500 BC.

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Source

The stone itself may have come from the Pacific Piedmont area near the border of Guatemala and Mexico, or from the Tuxtla Mountains on the Gulf Coast side.

Meaning

Interpretations are varied and conflicting.  Some experts said the sculptures represented dead people with bloated bodies.  Or burial markers, although only three examples were found associated with burials.  Or rulers whose corpulence showed their wealth.  Or ancestors.

History

Although it’s hard to date these figures, it seems the earliest versions were numerous, quite small, and found in individual households, not public spaces.  The one found in Tikal (MS 81), which Michael Coe described as “an incomplete, minor pot belly sculpture,” is an example.  What purpose could this sculpture have had that made it important to have in regular households?

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A new find provides a clue

In 1996, a previously unreported pot belly sculpture was found near Teopan, on an island in the caldera of volcanic Lake Cotepeque in western El Salvador.  What made this sculpture so important was its excellent condition that made it possible to see that the figure was clearly a very pregnant woman, probably engaged in giving birth. (See photo)  In a letter dated 1576, Spanish official Diego Garcia de Palacio described a “large stone idol in the form of a woman” on an island in the same lake.

Archaeologists are slow to change their minds, but the evidence seems to be piling up that the “fat boys” were neither fat nor boys, at least in some cases.  They were females embodying the concept of fecundity.  Perhaps they functioned as charms for safe and successful childbirth, or as an Earth Mother figures.  Certainly, figurines of pregnant women giving birth are quite common in ancient Mesoamerica and South America.  The Santarem pottery piece featured in the photos below shows a pregnant woman giving birth.  [image error]

But there’s also a whole different side to the potbellied figures.

Magnetism

Some of the potbellies are lodestones!  A lodestone is a natural magnet, and like any magnet, is capable of attracting or repelling other ferrous metals as well as temporarily magnetizing other objects with iron content.

The lodestone “potbellies” are, like their non-lodestone cousins, carved out of magnetite, a kind of iron ore.  But only a small percentage of magnetite stones are lodestones.  Geologists do not completely understand how some stones become magnetized, but the most common theory is through a lightning strike. Perhaps a bolt of lightning is enough to align all the charges of the ions in the stone. (Interesting that the ancient Maya often pictured black stones at the bottom of lightning bolts.)

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In 1976, Vincent Malmstrom and his assistant, Paul Dunn, discovered that when a compass was held up to one of the “potbellies” at Monte Alto, the needle reacted.  It swung away from true north and pointed to the stone.  When they tested others potbellies and giant heads on site, they found the needle was sharply attracted when they held a compass to the navel of some statues and to the right temple in others.  The magnetic force of the stone was far stronger than the magnetic field of the earth.

Four of the five “potbellies” in La Democracia, Guatemala were found to have these magnetic arrangements, as well as four of the six giant heads. Though he searched, Malmstrom found no spot indicating material had been inserted into any of the sculptures he tested, so he concluded that the skilled carvers were aware of magnetism, could identify lodestones, were able to work them, and knew exactly where the poles were in the rock, so they carved the statues to take advantage of that arrangement.  He found other magnetic sculptures in the Soconusco region, including a turtle/frog head, a rearing jaguar, and two men seated on a bench. Malmstrom thought the sculptures were pre-Olmec in origin, dating them to 2000 BC.  That date has not held up well under scrutiny by archaeologists.

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What has lasted is Michael Coe’s extraordinary 1968 find at the Olmec site of San Lorenzo, (photo by John B. Carlson) much closer to the Gulf of Mexico side of the Isthmus – a small, carefully-shaped, polished rectangular bar of hematite, dubbed M-160.  It was broken in ancient times and broken again in the course of study.  However, it showed remarkable refinement in its construction and, when floated in water or liquid mercury, it consistently aligned to the same point, west of magnetic north, the same orientation as the buildings in the Olmec sites of San Lorenzo, La Venta and others.

If M-160 indicates an Olmec understanding of magnetism as a direction finder, it predates the Greek discovery of magnetism (600 AD), perhaps by a thousand years.  Other groups claiming the first understanding of magnetism as a directional force include the Vikings, the Arabs, the Persians, and the Chinese.  If you read different sources, you’ll find widely different dates and accounts, and they all claim they’re the first.

The magic of magnetism

It’s interesting to guess how this knowledge might have been used.  In addition to direction finding, especially when combined with star lore, magnetism had to appear to be magic.  It still does.

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For about ten dollars, you can get a set of small lodestones and do your own experiments.  You can magnetize pins and paper clips and make them move other pins without touching them.  Or make some move toward the lodestone and others scoot away.  (You can also ruin your electronics if you pass the lodestone over them!)  If you hold a paperclip on a string near a pole on the lodestone but not touching it, the paperclip will swing back and forth as if it’s frantic to reach the pole.  It doesn’t take much imagination to see all of this being used in a show of magic and power in ancient times.

In that sense, then, with the introduction of magnetism, the “potbellies” may well have morphed from a Mother Goddess/ birthing figure to a general power figure, one rulers would want to possess, display, and manipulate.  As Preclassic expert Julia Guernsey notes, “Importantly, rotund bellies were a frequent and long-standing attribute of Preclassic figurines, sometimes alluding to pregnancy and in other cases appearing to reference obesity.”

Unfortunately, we have very little data on how many of the figures were constructed to take advantage of magnetic poles and almost no information on their use.  It does seem that the cluster of finds near Soconusco/Monte Alto/ La Democracia suggests a large-scale production of the figures from lodestone magnetite found in the area, perhaps for trade.

Another theory [image error]

Some experts believe that the ability to find and use lodestones as well as how to use them came from Asia and the Pacific islands, carried across the sea by long-distance sailors who already knew about their uses as a navigational aid.  While the idea is often dismissed as far-fetched, it’s a possibility I pursue in Past the Last Island.

 

 

Sources and interesting reading:

Amarolli, Paul. “A Newly Discovered Potbelly Sculpture from El Salvador and a Reinterpretation of the Genre,” www.fundar.org.su/referencias/teopan.pdf

Barreto, Christina, ed. “Figurine Traditions from the Amazon,” Oxford Handbook of Prehistoric Figurines, Oxford University Press, 2016, https://www.reasearchgate.net/figure/Santarem-figurine-of-pregnant-woman-left-and-back-of-seated-figurine-with-perforated_273134801

“Aztec ‘Birthing Figure’” Aztecs, Mexicolore, http://www.mexicolore.co.uk/aztecs/artifacts/birthding-figure

Carlson, J. B. “Lodestone Compass: Chinese or Olmec Primacy?” Science 189 (1975) p. 753.

Coe, Michael D. America’s First Civilization. New York: American Heritage/Smithsonian Library, 1968. New Word City e-book, 2017

Review of Coe, Michael D. America’s First Civilization. Science, 2 May 1969, 164:538-539.

Dill, J. Gregory, “Lodestone and needle: The rise of the magnetic compass,” Ocean Navigator, January/February 2003, http://www.oceannavigator.com/January-February-2003/Lodestone-and-needle-the-rise-of-the-magnetic-compass/

Guernsey, Julia, “Rulers, Gods, and Potbellies,” The Place of Stone Monuments: Context, Use and Meaning in Mesoamerica’s Preclassic Tradition. Dumbarton Oaks, 2010

Guernsey, Julia. Sculpture and Social Dynamics in Preclassic Mesoamerica. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012.

“Izapa,” Mundo Maya.  http://mundomaya.travel/en/arqueologia/top-10/Izapa.html

“Izapa,” Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Izapa

“Enigma of the Ancient Magnetic ‘Fat Boys’ and Their Curious Magnetic Properties,” MessagetoEagle.com, 19 April 2014, http://www.messagetoeagle.com/enigma-of-the-ancient-magnetic-fat-boys-and-their-curious-magnetic-properties/

Jenkins, John Major, “Some Iconographic and Dosmological Observations of the Symbolism of the new Stela 48 from Takalik Abaj,” Alignment, 22 April 2008, http://alignment2012.com/Takalik48.html

“Kaminaljuyu,” Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kaminaljuyu

“Lodestone,” Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lodestone

“Lodestone – 600 BC” Magnet Academy, History of Electricity, magnetism, National MagLab, the National High Magnetic Field Laboratory, 2014

“Lodestone – Physical Properties and Healing Properties,” Kidzrocks. http://www.kidzrocks.com/v/education/LODESTONE

“Magnetite and Lodestone,” Geology.com, https://geology.com/minerals/magnetite.shtml

“Magnetism in the New World,” Second Look Magazine, 1979, p. 8.

Malmstrom, Vincent H. “Chapter 3, Strange Attraction: The Mystery of Magnetism,” from Izapa: Birthplace of Time.  Dartmouth College, 1997.

Mills, Allan A. “The Lodestone: History, Physics, and Formation,” Annals of Science, (61) 2004

“Olmec,” Encyclopedia Britannica online, https://www.britannica.com/print/article/427846

“Olmec,” Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olmec (an excellent source)

“Potbelly sculpture,” Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Potbelly_sculpture

Selin, Helaine. “From Second to Third Age: Olmec Origin,” Encyclopedia of the History of Science, Technology, and Medicine in Non-Western Cultures. Boston: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 1997.

Stern, David P. “The Lodestone,” Earth mag, http://www.phy6.org/earthmag/lodeston.htm

Thompson, Lauri McInnis and Fred Valdez, ” Potbelly Sculpture: An Inventory and Analysis,” Ancient Mesoamerica, Spring 2008, 13 – 27.

Wilford, John Noble, “Oldest Pottery in Americas Is Found in Amazon Basin,” The New York Times, 13 December 1991, http://www.nytimes.com/1991/12/13/world/oldest-pottery-in-americas-is-found-in-amazon-basin.html

Solstice and Santa

The Winter Solstice in the Northern Hemisphere is December 21 this year, the shortest day and longest night of the year. (For those in the Southern Hemisphere, it’s the Summer Solstice and the longest day of the year.)

What is a Solstice?

If you note the spot where the sun rises each day for a year, you’ll see it moves along the eastern horizon until it reaches its farthest point (the solstice or sun-stop) before it seems to turn around and move back toward the center (the equinox). For a more complete explanation, see the earlier post on Solstice and Equinox.

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The Winter Solstice is an important event for those of us who hate the very brief daylight and early darkness of late fall days because we know all that will start to change after the Winter Solstice. The days will start to get longer, the nights shorter. We’ll be on the upswing, even if the day to day change is slight.

This moment of change is so important it’s often marked by rituals and lights. The Hindu festival of Diwali features lights, candles, fireworks, prayers, treats and sweets.[image error]

The Jewish festival of Chanukah (Hanukkah) involves songs, prayers, special foods, good fellowship, and of course, the lighting of the candles on the menorah one by one over the course of eight days. The bronze menorah pictured features a Tree of Life design inspired by the African Acacia tree, an interesting combination of themes.

Perhaps the best-known post-Winter Solstice celebration is Christmas, but it is a complicated holiday and season. In some ways, it’s about the birth of Jesus. In others, it’s more a commercial and social event, one sewn together out of dozens of cultural patches from different times and regions.

Two main influences have shaped our thoughts about the Winter Solstice and Christmas: the Mediterranean and ancient Near East, especially the Roman Empire and the early Catholic Church, and the Nordic traditions of Yule.

In the Mediterranean world and the Ancient Near East

The greatest power in the Ancient Near East about 500 BC was the Persian Empire. It stretched from the Black Sea to the Red Sea to the Persian Gulf. After Alexander the Great, originally from Macedonia in Greece, defeated the Persian King Darius, Alexander became the new King and, by 323 BC, extended the empire’s reach from Greece to India, over two million square miles! Alexander sought to combine elements of Greek, Middle Eastern, and Persian culture.

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After Alexander’s death, the empire fell apart, but his efforts to spread Greek culture ushered in the Hellenistic period, which lasted over two hundred years and had a lasting influence on Western civilization.  Alexander coin, below. Note his interesting headdress.

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When the Roman Empire conquered Greece, about 146 BC, it incorporated many parts of Greek culture, as well as some elements of Persian culture that Alexander had introduced. When the Roman Empire conquered new lands (See map, below), their armies spread those cultural elements as well.

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One interesting element of Persian culture spread by the Roman army was Mithraism, a mysterious men-only cult that involved worship of the sun as Mithra, complex initiations, a strict hierarchy of power, and absolute loyalty to the ruler.[image error]

Even after the cult’s popularity faded, Emperor Diocletian dedicated an altar to Mithra (pictured above) as patron of the Roman Empire. In 80 AD, an altar to Sol Invictus (The Unconquered Sun)/ Mithra in Rome carried the inscription “The Unconquered Sun Mithra.” In a mosaic, Mithra-Sol appears in a chariot drawn across the sky by four horses, as he makes the sun rise and set. Sol-Mithra, the Unconquered Sun, is generally shown with a halo around his head, or a crown of rays, like the sun.

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How does all of this about Mithras/Sol Invictus relate to those of us anxiously awaiting the Winter Solstice? The biggest day of the year for followers of Mithras was December 25, when it was clear that the sun was once again growing in strength. The priests of Mithras, called Magi, studied the stars for signs. (They show up in a later story.)

Today, the Iranian festival Shab-e Yalda (“The Night of Birth”) carries on the tradition of gathering together with friends and family to ward off the darkness of the longest night and then celebrate the triumph of Mithra, the Sun God, over darkness.

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Interestingly, Sol/Helios, with halo, is sometimes pictured in a golden chariot being pulled by four horses. A 3rd century AD mosaic of Sol Invictus still lies in a necropolis (place of the dead) underneath Saint Peter’s Basilica in Rome. Some now interpret it as the sun-god Helios/Sol Invictus/Jesus Christ. (Mosaic pictured, left)

 

Saturnalia

The Romans later morphed the December 25 “dies soli invicti nati” (the birthday of the unconquered sun) into a week-long wild party called Saturnalia, dedicated to Saturn, the god of agriculture, liberation, and time. During the festival, which dates back at least as far as 217 BC, Romans decorated their houses with greenery and candles, gave gifts to children, and enjoyed good food, drink, sex, some gambling and fighting – all the regular party elements. With work suspended and lots to celebrate, it was the most popular of the Roman festivals. (Saturn in his chariot, below.  Yes, there is a similarity.)

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Indeed, the festival remained popular long after Emperor Constantine ended the persecution of Christians, (312 AD), converted to Christianity, banned Saturnalia and other “pagan” festivals, and made Christianity the official religion of the Roman Empire.

When Catholic Church officials realized they couldn’t eradicate Saturnalia, they co-opted it, making it the celebration of the birth of Jesus. No one knew the actual date of Jesus’s birth, so it was a perfect date for a celebration of new birth and the triumph of light over darkness.

Art

Though the Roman Empire had a new official religion, it maintained many of the older customs, not just in terms of festivals. Important figures, formerly seen as gods and goddesses, were now presented as Jesus and His particularly notable followers. Through their pure faith and ability to inspire others, they became known as saints. In Christian artwork, they were often marked by a halo, a golden orb around the head very much like the sun orb around the head of Sol/Mithra and the orbs surrounding Hindu and Buddhist holy people.

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When Jesus appeared in a painting or sculpture with other holy people, his halo often had rays as well as the orb, in keeping with the Mithraic sense of rank.

The Benoit Madonna, or Madonna with Flowers, one of Leonardo da Vinci’s early paintings (on the far right), shows subtle floating halos around the heads of the Madonna and Child. However, the more modern stained glass image of Jesus shows a full rayed halo reminiscent of the older image in the mosaic (left) and the image of Alexander on the coin.

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Saint Nicholas

Saint Nicholas was a bishop in Myra (modern-day Turkey) in the 4th century AD, who was known for his strict defense of the Christian faith and his generous gift-giving. He was said to have given gifts to poor children and secretly provided the dowry money to keep three sisters out of a life of prostitution.[image error]

The icon show his serious demeanor, as well as his halo. The painting by Gentile da Fabriano, made a thousand years after Saint Nicholas’s death, shows him sneaking up the side of a building so he can throw bundles of money inside.

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The Nordic Connection

Meanwhile, in Scandinavia, the Juul (Yule) Feast before, during, and after the Winter Solstice featured feasting, fighting, drinking, and merrymaking, as well as lots of fire, heat, and light to encourage the return of the sun.

In Norse mythology, the wolf, a symbol of darkness and destruction, is always chasing the goddess of light. At the Winter Solstice, she is at her most vulnerable. Yet the epic Edda says she is reborn out of the belly of the wolf even after she is killed and eaten. Just as she will always be consumed by darkness, she will always be reborn. So the Winter Solstice is a celebration of the interplay of death and rebirth.

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Like holly, the evergreen tree was a Norse symbol of immortality because it didn’t lose its leaves and turn brown, even after all the other plants did. Therefore, it had special powers. Vikings used holly leaves and berries to make circular wreaths to decorate their houses. To some people, trees were considered homes of the gods, so they decorated evergreen trees in winter with charms and offerings.

The Yule log was burned in honor of the Norse god, Thor, the protector of Earth (Midgard). A piece of the giant log was kept for good luck and as kindling for the following year’s fire.[image error]

The picture shows a log in a hearth, but really a Yule log should be giant and the hearth that can hold should also be giant, so that, for a moment at least, it can drive away all thoughts of the dark and the cold.

Thor

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Unlike the Thor of the Marvel comics and movies, Thor in Nordic legends traveled the skies in a magic chariot drawn by two goats. Sometimes he killed and ate the goats, but they would always be reborn the next day – a perfect symbol for the Winter Solstice sun dying one day and being reborn the next. The goat became a symbol of Thor. Today, the Yule Goat is the most common holiday decoration in Scandinavian countries.

 

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In some holiday images, elves drive a sleigh pulled by one goat, or several, so they can deliver gifts to children.

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The Dark Side

Ancient Norse folk beliefs also included dark, scary figures: the Yule Riders of Norwegian folklore, dangerous creatures of the Underworld; Lussi, who would steal children away into her dark world, Icelandic trolls and the Yule Lads, who live in the mountains with their terrifying ogress mother Gryla and her cat, which eats children.

Krampus

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Norse and Germanic folklore also gave us Krampus, the Christmas devil who shows up on December 6, which is also the feast day of Saint Nicholas, but Krampus is not carrying gifts. He’s carrying a rod with which he can beat wicked children. He looks truly terrifying. Oddly enough, he’s enjoying a resurgence in popularity these days, especially in Austria and Germany. The photo included is from this year’s festival. Some parents  take their children to meet Krampus and be terrified. Maybe it’s supposed to scare them into behaving well. The main legacy of Krampus, though, seems to be the idea that someone is keeping tabs on your behavior, and you’ll be rewarded with gifts if you’ve been good, but be punished if you’ve been bad.

Mistletoe

[image error]Thank the Celtic Druids for the mistletoe you hang in the parlor. Mistletoe, a semi-parasitic plant that grows on willow, apple and oak trees, was long considered a magical, mysterious, and sacred plant that should be gathered at the Summer or Winter Solstice. People often pinned a sprig of mistletoe over the door to ward off evil spirits and encourage goodwill. Interestingly, mistletoe was incorporated into many Saturnalia celebrations as a fertility symbol.

Old Man Winter/Father Christmas/Sinterklaas/Santa Claus

The Nordic Yule Goat at one time brought children gifts. Other pre-Santa Nordic figures include Old Man Winter and Father Christmas.[image error]

Father Christmas was pictured as an old man with a long beard, very often dressed in embroidered cloth or furs and carrying a cut evergreen tree or perhaps wearing a wreath of holly.  He might still carry a switch to punish bad children.  Sometimes he rode a goat.

 

 

The antique Christmas card pictured below shows Father Christmas carrying a cut evergreen tree, toys, and the baby Jesus, who has a rayed halo, an interesting mix of cultural images.

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Sinterklass was the Dutch version of Saint Nicholas/Father Christmas. A serious old man sporting a full beard and fine red robes, he kept a book in which he recorded whether each child had been good or bad. He would deliver gifts to good children and a broom made of willow branches to spank bad children.

The Trouble with Christmas

People from all over the globe came to the New World and brought their native customs about the Solstice and Christmas with them. However, these customs were not always welcomed. The Puritans and other conservative Christian sects hated Christmas, claiming it was little more than a pagan celebration with a Christian veneer.

Worse than that, by 1800, Winter Solstice/Christmas celebrations in the US had become wild, rowdy affairs noted for public drunkenness, aggressive begging, and destruction. The common practice of demanding food and drink from the rich (which later turned into the tamer “Wassailing”) sometimes ended in gangs threatening to destroy a house if not offered the finest food and ale.

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Stephen Nissenbaum describes the problem in his fine book, The Battle for Christmas. There were two camps in the eastern US in 1800: those who wanted the wild Solstice/Harvest party like the one pictured, and those who wanted something gentler, kinder, and more religious. In 1809, partially in response to these problems, Washing Irving published Knickerbocker’s History of New York, in which the narrator claims to remember the old customs associated with Christmas, particularly those of the early Dutch settlers in New York. He describes Saint Nicholas’s wagon, his pipe, and his gifts, and the great customs of visiting family and friends, sharing good food and drink, as well as games. It’s a fine, civilized picture.

In 1810, John Pitard paid for the publication of a pamphlet featuring a picture of Saint Nicholas bringing gifts like toys, oranges, and candy to good children.

In 1821, William Gilley published a poem called “Old Santeclaus with Much Delight,” which includes many of the features we’ve come to expect of Santa: the red outfit, the appearance on Christmas Eve, and the presents for good children. For naughty children, he leaves a birch rod with which parents can beat the offending little ones. And the poem is the first to mention reindeer pulling the magic sleigh, rather than goats. [image error]

“A Visit from St. Nicholas”

This poem, published in 1823, also called by its first line, “’Twas the night before Christmas,” did the most to change the figure of Saint Nicholas into what we know as Santa Claus. Though the main character is called Saint Nicholas in the poem, he’s not the 4th century Turkish bishop, the stern authority figure of the early Church. He’s now good ol’ Saint Nick, dressed in fur that was covered in soot. “He look’d like a peddler just opening his pack.” His eyes twinkle. He has a broad face and a round belly. He’s “chubby and plump, a right jolly old elf.” He has lost his halo and his bishop’s robes. He no longer has dark hair, dark eyes, and a stern face. In the 1857 Harper’s version, he’s seen climbing down the chimney while his magic flying reindeer/deer wait for him.

Moore’s Santa is much kinder than Sinterklaas or Santeclaus. He’s a jolly old elf like those of Norse lore, even though he doesn’t look much like an elf. He doesn’t leave birch rods, only presents. He winks at the viewer/narrator before he heads back up the chimney, as if they’re both in on a wonderful joke. And he wishes a Happy Christmas to ALL. He’s Father Christmas without all the dark stuff.

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The Thomas Nast illustration  shown makes Santa really fat. He’s a figure of plenty. He brings gifts to children. He lives in the North Pole and has a workshop run by elves.  And he’s wildly popular. But he’s not overtly religious. He has a sprig of holly in his cap and a knowing twinkle in his eye. He now carries a long clay pipe, the type fancied by the wealthy. His cheeks look pretty flushed. He carries so many toys he can barely keep hold of them all.  He’s an odd relative of the severe saint he’s named after and the Father Christmas figures who preceded him. Mostly, he’s shown riding on his magical sleigh while he brings presents to children on Christmas Eve. Interestingly, in the card pictured below, he has an American flag on his pink sleigh.  Make that two.  Does this mean Santa only delivers in the USA?

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Through the early 1900s, the Nast version of Santa co-existed with the more gaunt or elfin figures of Father Christmas.[image error]

Then, in 1931, Coca-Cola asked Haddon Sundblom to design an image of Santa for their ads. Sundblom’s painting clearly uses the Nast figure of Santa as a model. He’s not an olive-skinned Turk. He’s a blue-eyed, ruddy-cheeked, jolly fat man who sports the red outfit with fur trim on the cuffs. Sundblom’s Santa was so popular, the artist went on to paint Santa ads for Coke for the next 32 years!

So, out of the Solstice, Saturnalia, Mithra, Sol Invictus, Saint Nicholas, Old Man Winter, Father Christmas, Thor, elves, Yule, and good old American commercialism, we end up with something that has parts of all of them and yet turns into something a little less than the sum of those parts. Santa is pleasant and acceptable to many, but in the end, it’s quite a bland image, especially now that it’s been stripped of its ethnic, spiritual, and magical associations. Today he’s used to peddle cars and power drills and soft drinks. He works in malls and shows up at various events around town before Christmas. Children are encouraged to sit in his lap and make wishes/demands.

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Who is this man with the fake beard and strange outfit? He’s meant to be the figure he never quite manages to be: the Santa in Miracle on 34th Street (1947), in which Edmund Gwenn, as Kris Kringle, convinces young Susan, played by Natalie Wood, and her doubting mother, played by Maureen O’Hara, that Santa Claus really does exist.

That Santa Claus is the personification of a fond memory, a wish for something magical.

Every year, I hear about people who are upset because they think holiday lights and candles and evergreens and mistletoe are “pagan” and therefore evil. But they’re just elements of the past that belongs to all of us. Time didn’t begin with the birth of Jesus. Indeed, He followed customs and rituals of His Jewish ancestors. When we decorate an evergreen tree with lights and hang mistletoe, we are simply giving a nod to our amazing – and complicated – collective past.

Happy Winter Solstice!  Happy Hanukkah!  Merry Christmas!

Sources and interesting reading:

Bagot, Neil, “Yule – A Merry Viking Christmas?” Viking Slots, 19 December 2014, https://www.vikingslots.com/blog/yule-viking-christmas

Basu, Tanya. “Who is Krampus? Explaining the Horrific Christmas Devil,” National Geographic News, 1 December 2017 https://news.nationalgeographic.com/n...

“Coca-Cola didn’t invent Santa – but they did change Christmas as we know it,” The Aps Group, https://www.theapsgroup.com/coca-cola-didnt-invent-santa-change-christmas-know/

Eldridge, Allison. “7 Winter Solstice Celebrations From Around the World,” Britannica.com, https://www.britannica.com/list/7-winter-solstice-celebrations

Fox, Selena, “Celebrating Winter Solstice,” Circle Sanctuary, 2017.

Galloway, Laura, “How Santa Got His Reindeer,” CNN, 223 December 2012, http://www.cnn.com/2012/12/22/opiion/galloway-reindeer/index.html

Harris, Kathleen, “How Joulupukki, the Finnish Santa, went from naughty to nice,” Ink Tank, 22 December 2015. http://inktank.fi/how-joulupukki-the-finnish-santa-went-from-naughty-to-nice/

“Halo (Religious Iconography)” Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halo_%28religious_iconography%29

Handwerk, Brian, “Saint Nicholas to Santa: The Surprising Origins of Mr. Claus,” National Geographic News, 29 November 2017, https://new.nationalgeographic.com/news/2013/12/131219-santa-claus-origin-history-christmas-facts-st-nicholas/

“Holidays and Traditions around the December solstice,” Time and Date AS, 1995 – 2017. Timeanddate.com

“Icelandic Folklore,” Iceland Travel. https://www.icelandtravel.is/about-iceland/culture/folklore

“Julbock ornament – pewter” Scandinavian Shoppe.com.

“The Magical History of Yule, The Pagan Winter Solstice Celebration,” The Huffington Post, 2 December 2016, https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/winter-solstice-pagan-yule_us_585970abe4b03904470af4c5

Map of Persian Empire about 500 BC, http://www.worldmapsonline.com/persian_empire.htm

Map of Roman Empire at the end of Julius Caesar’s reign, 100 BC BBC Primary History/Romans/Rome

“Mithraism/Persian Religion,” Encyclopedia Britannica, https://www.britannica.com/topic/Mithraism

Miracle on 34th Street, Twentieth Century Fox, 1947.

“Mosaic of Sol Invictus in Mausoleum M in pre-4th-century necropolis beneath St Peter’s Basilica,” Halo, Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halo_%28religious_iconography%29#media/File:ChristAsSol.jpg

Nelles, Scott, Tree of Life menorah, cast bronze, https://www.etsy.com/listing/59829422/tree-of-life-menorah-cast-bronze-9

Nissenbaum, Stephen. The Battle for Christmas. New York: Vintage Books, a division of Random House, Inc, 1998.

Nystrom, Jenny, “Elf Gnome Delivering Presents on Goat Sled,” Christmas counted cross stich or counted needlepoint pattern, Orenco Originals, (//cdn.shopify.com/files/1/1003/2254/pro...…)

“Old Norse Yule Celebration – Myth and Ritual,” Lady of the Labyrinth’s Old Norse Mythology, http://freya.theladyofthelabyrinth.com/?page_id=397

“Old Santeclaus with Much Delight,” anonymous poem published in New York in 1821, Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_Santeclaus_with_Much_Delight

Pruitt, Sarah, “8 Winter Solstice Celebrations around the World,” History Stories, A&E Television Networks, 20 December 2016, http://aenetworks.com

“Saint Lucy,” BBC – Religions – Christianity: Saint Lucy. http://www.bbc.co.uk/religion/religions/christianity/saints/lucy.shtml

“Saint Nicholas,” Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saint_Nicholas

Saint Nicholas painting by Gentile da Fabriano (1370-1427), public domain, Wikipedia Commons, https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Gentile_da_Fabriano_063.jpg

“Santa Claus,” History.com. http://www.history.com/topics/christmas/santa-claus/print

“Santa Claus,” Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Santa_Claus

“Saturn,” Encyclopedia Britannica. https://www.britannica.com/topic/Saturn-god

“Sinterklaas,” Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sinterklaas

“Sol Invictus,” Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sol_Invictus

“Stained Glass Good Shepherd,” stained glass at St. John the Baptist’s Anglican Church, New South Wales. Wiki Common, https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:StJohnsAshfield_StainedGlass_GoodShepherd_Face.jpg

Thomas, Robert B. “Yule comes from the name of old feast in honor of Thor, Midwinter solar rituals included fires, which evolved into yule log,” Deseret News, 12 December 1999. . Also Ask the Almanac, The Old Farmer’s Almanac, http://www.almanac.comYankeePublishing

“Thor,” Thor with goats, Wiki Commons. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Thor_1832_from-Die_Helden_und Gotter_des_Nordens.jpg

“The Tradition of Mistletoe at Christmas,” Why Christmas? https://www.whychristmas.com/customs/mistletoe.shtml

“A Visit from St. Nicholas,” poem by Clement Moore, Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Visit_from_St._Nicholas

“A Visit from St. Nicholas,” poem by Clement Moore, 1822, from Burton Egbert Stevenson, ed. The Home Book of Verse, Volume 1 (New York: Henry Holt and Company, 1912), Project Gutenberg etext #2619, https://www.hymnsandcarolsofchristmas.com/Poetry/a_visit_from_st_nicholas.htm

Wade, Deena, “Winter Solstice Traditions: Rituals for a Simple Celebration,” Mother Earth Living, November-December 2004, https://www.motherearthliving.com?Health-and-Wellness/simply-solstice-celebrate-winter-with-new-and-old-traditions

Weaver, Sue. “The Yule Goat (Yulbock)” Storey Publishing, http:www/storey.com/article/yule-goat/

Whipp, Deborah, “The History of Santa’s Reindeer,” Altogether Christmas, http://www.altogetherchristmas.com/traditions/reindeer.html

“Why is Christmas Day on the 25th December?” Ehy Christmas, https://www.whychristmas.com/customs/25th.shtml

“Yule Goat,” Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yule_Goat