Musing
and History
Quote
of the day:
“The
degree of inner tranquility comes from the development of love and
compassion. The more we care for the happiness of others, the
greater own on sense of well-being.”
Dalai
Lama
The
History of Halloween
This
pagan celebration of Halloween goes back more that 2000 years to the
ancient Celts of present day Ireland, England and northern France.
The original name of the festival was Sawhain pronounced “sow-in”
and was to celebrate the harvest and prepare for the upcoming harsh
winter. The Celts celebrated November 1 as the beginning of a new
year and the evening before became known as “All Hallow’s Eve”
which morphed to Halloween. It was the only day of the year that
the boundary between the living and the dead became clouded and on
this night the dead walked the earth. It was also believed that only
on this night could one person predict the future of another. This
was very important because of the rigors of the upcoming winter did
indeed kill many of them. Every house extinguished the fire in their
hearth because the Celtic priests (Druids) would cut down a sacred
tree and build a gigantic bonfire for this night’s celebration. It
was believed that if they could get a scrap of burning wood from this
sacred fire and bring it into their homes to start a fire, it would
keep them warm throughout the winter. When the Celts approached the
sacred fire they were costumed in animal heads and skins for
ritualistic reasons. Upon the arrival of the Romans the rituals
changed somewhat and Roman rituals were introduced as being part of
the ritual. One of these rituals was the celebration of the harvest
also except here they would honor the Roman goddess of fruits and
trees, Pomona. Pomona is represented by the symbol of an apple. I
guess y’all see where this is going. That’s right; it is the
bobbing for apples and trying to bite an apple while it is hanging
from a string that was the result of paying homage to Pomona. During
the 8th
and 9th
century the Roman Catholic Church tried their damnedest to eliminate
this pagan festival and make it a church related event and instituted
all Saint’s Day on November 1 hoping to sway the existing pagans
back under the umbrella of the church. It did not work. This pagan
festival continues to this day. There is no written evidence for the
rise of the event known as “trick or treat” except that on All
Hallow’s Eve some of the dead that walked the earth were mean,
spiteful critters. I suspect that ritual was really fostered by
candy manufacturers and costume makers. The colors that are
associated with Halloween as being orange and black have a meaning.
Orange represented the changing color of the leaves on deciduous
trees and black meant winter, shorter days and death was on the
horizon for some. It bothers me somewhat for different churches to
sponsor a Halloween event. It means that they are fostering a pagan
festival. But maybe I am too old-fashioned. Bah Humbug.
This
Date in History October 28
1961
Rhythm and blues singer Chuck Berry went on trial for the second
time for violation of the Mann Act. The trial was dubbed the “Apache
Trial” by the media. It seems that Chuck had met Janice Escalante
in a bar in El Paso, Texas. Chuck became enamored with Janice and
invited her to join his entourage. Janice was a Mescalero Apache
Indian. Chuck questioned her at length about her age and she
insisted that she was 21 years old. After a few weeks Janice tired
of the road and Chuck’s treatment of her and she went to
the
cops and complained and Chuck was arrested. At the trial the
prosecution produced a birth certificate showing Janice as being only
14 years old. In spite of the fact that Janice lied to Chuck about
her age, Chuck was indeed found guilty and was sentenced to three
years in Leavenworth. Later on he was sent to a jail in Saint Louis
where he served his time until paroled. By the way, the Mann Act
makes it a Federal crime
to
transport women across state lines for immoral purposes. It was
meant to prevent interstate prostitution and white slavery. Does
that mean if I take a woman from Greenville, South Carolina to
Hendersonville, North Carolina, about 40 miles, to look at the leaves
or pick apples and we spend the night, am I am guilty of a Federal
crime? I realize that leaf looking and apple picking is not immoral,
but I had thoughts of staying over in mind from the start.
1775
The new British military governor, General William Howe, ordered
that every citizen of the city of Boston cannot leave town until
further notice. Additionally, he decreed that all the citizens were
expected to combat that group of ruffians that threw the tea into the
harbor and that rag tag militia that had killed 226 and wounded 838
of his majesty’s troops at the Battle of Bunker Hill in June of
this year. The Continental Congress had elected Virginia planter
George Washington as commander-in-chief of the army but he was having
a hell of a time convincing his troops that this was not a game.
They were used to being commanded like a militia whereby the leaders
are elected by the troops and if the leader was not what they wanted
they simply fired him. Not only that, they all went back to the farm
at harvest time. It happened here and Washington had no choice but
to wait until spring and recruit a new army. Only this time he would
have a professional military trainer to whip them into shape. That
man was the Prussian Baron Von Steuben who joined Washington at
Valley Forge this winter. Von Steuben did indeed begin training the
troops that were left soon after his arrival. It worked and a well
trained and disciplined army emerged. Von Steuben also cured the
unusual amount of disease and illness among the troops when encamped.
The troops had never heard of a latrine and just went where they
were. Von Stuben convinced them to dig slit trenches downhill from
the camp site and that went a long way to fix things. Howe stayed in
Boston until in the following March when Washington and the brilliant
Henry Knox were able to get some captured British artillery on high
ground overlooking Boston. Howe had no choice but to retreat and the
Bostonians were free to travel about for the first time in six
months.
1999
Cyclone 05B comes ashore on the southeast coast of India. As
y'all know, in that part of the world a hurricane is known as a
cyclone. This bad boy was a category 4 when it came ashore. The
only problem is that it never quite came ashore completely and
stalled out with part of it still out over the Indian Ocean which
kept feeding it warm, moist air and therefore the storm never broke
up. It poured torrential rains for days which resulted in biblical
flooding. After it was all over there were 10,000 dead or missing
along with 406,000 head of cattle. The same thing happened here that
happened earlier in Bangladesh. Some of the human bodies were not
found right away and the tigers came out of the jungle and feasted on
them. They developed a taste for it and began hunting humans as a
matter of course. It took a generation for the tigers to get back to
normal.
1965
On this day the famous arch in Saint Louis, Missouri is dedicated.
This monument was designed by the famous Finnish architect Eero
Saarinen as a memorial to the western expansion fostered by Thomas
Jefferson and explored by the immortal Lewis and Clark expedition
that began and ended in Saint Louis.
Births and deaths:
1898
US costume designer Edith Head is born. She said “Your dress
should be tight enough to show that you are a woman but loose enough
to show that you are a lady.” Hey Edith, will you go have a talk
with Lindsay Lohan?
Thanks
for listening I can hardly wait until tomorrow.
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