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dwellordream · 3 years ago

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“An examination of the economic abilities associated with women in the German, Lowland, and Italian regions of medieval Western Europe reveal that women had the capacity to obtain sizable amounts of land through marriage customs and inheritance laws, and could partake in the public economic realm through the production of textiles and the selling of goods. A medieval women’s influence extends even beyond the realm of economic power, however. A study of the politics of these three regions during the Middle Ages demonstrates that the political position of women was often influential.

The same German society that allowed women to partake in textile production and to acquire wealth and property through inheritance laws also recognized women as citizens. Citizenship in such cities as Lille, Bruges, Frankfurt, and Leiden during the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries involved a process of registration; according to the records of Bruges, Leiden, and Frankfurt specifically, independent women were often registered “because in these cities citizenship was easily acquired and was obligatory for almost all workers.”

As “co-managers and co-owners of the household and its property...[women] were inevitably full members of citizenries with households as their constituent units.” German urban women, through their citizenship, fulfilled the “the objective qualifications for governmental positions,” although paradoxically, they were still barred from obtaining such positions by the male-dominated politics of most cities.

The German poem of Ruodlieb again provides an important insight into the actual traditions that governed a woman’s place of power in noble family life. During one of its episodes, Ruodlieb is hosting a banquet at his home, and his mother is in attendance. Ruodlieb “commanded one higher chair to be placed for his mother, so that she in this way she could be seen to be mistress.”

The poem goes on to mention that “by giving honor to his mother in this way, and holding her as his liege-lady, he earned praise not only from the people, but from the almighty a crown and everlasting life in heaven.”Ruodlieb, a noble, allowed his mother to occupy a position of power at the table, and further, such an allowance endeared Ruodlieb not only to his subjects, but also to the higher power.

In the Low Countries, women were afforded a political role as participants in public political acts. Ellen E. Kittell, in her extensive article “Women, Audience, and Public Acts in Medieval Flanders,” describes the integral roles that women employed regarding the link between public performances and law-making in fourteenth century Flemish society. Flanders was unique in that it was little affected by Roman law and rather maintained “a fundamentally Germanic system of law and custom that was based more on public negotiation among groups than on the arbitrary decisions of constituted authorities.”

As Flanders’ thriving commercial and industrial economy grew around the eleventh century, Flemish communes began to utilize citizen participation by allowing a broad cross-section of their population, a cross-section that included the women of the city, to participate in political affairs. Women thus had “routine appearances in public as chief and effective agents in the variety of oral-aural transactions...were countesses and castellans... [and part of] the legal and commercial lives of most cities”.

These public audience law systems in turn allowed women to gain influential positions of power, such as Countess Jeanne in 1206 and Countess Margaret in 1280 acquiring the role of ruling over a county. Even single women were systematically afforded similar rights to perform actions in these public hearings as their married counterparts; their independent status did not disenfranchise them from participating in the existing public political arena.

As in the German and Lowland regions, the political climate of Italy during the Middle Ages provided women with definite political abilities that would not be mirrored in the centuries to come. Although the political systems of Italy differed from those of the northern European civilization, as did their economic policies, the prevalence of powerful Italian queens during the early to mid-Middle Ages demonstrates the type of political power that Italian women could indeed wield.

Joan Kelley discusses in her article the two queens Giovanna I of Naples ruling in 1343 and Giovanna II of Naples ruling in 1414. Giovanna I of Naples was designated as heir to rule over the significant kingdom of Naples, Provence, and Sicily, and Giovanna II was similarly afforded this leadership position through the death of her brother.

Besides the powerful queen figure, other feminine rulers also prevailed in medieval Italian political culture. Matilda of Tuscany, who ruled during the eleventh century, reigned as a powerful countess in this region of Italy. She played an essential role in the conflict between Pope Gregory and Emperor Henry IV. Upon being excommunicated from the church due to his defiance to the Pope, Henry IV attacked Rome and drove Gregory into exile.

It was Matilda’s armies that defended the Pope’s church both during the Pope’s lifetime and after his death. Further, Matilda persistently excluded her husband from handling her property and allowed it to remain solely under her control. As with the other women Italian rulers mentioned above, Matilda maintained a definite sense of autonomy, and had been granted a political leadership position.

There, indeed, was a place in the economic and political sectors of society in the German, Lowland, and Italian regions of medieval Europe for the female population. The feudal and family-oriented government structure allowed for women to acquire political power, and the important economic roles that women played in society further influenced their significant status in the cultures of these regions---as David Herlihy states, “women in the early Middle Ages...played a major role in the display of kin connections; they were also stations in the flow of wealth down the generations; they were supervisors, managers, producers.”

Through changes in the political, social, and economic systems of each region, women gradually began to lose much of the economic and political powers that they previously enjoyed, however. In order to demonstrate the extent to which women suffered a loss in status and influential visibility as the Middle Ages approached the opening of the Renaissance, it is prudent to again analyze the German, Lowland, and Italian regions specifically and the changes that occurred in these areas over time. By comparing the society of the later Middle Ages and early modern period to that of the earlier medieval times, the disparities that existed for women are made remarkably evident.

Women in medieval German economic culture, as mentioned above, were active in the textile industries and allowed financial power through inheritance and marriage customs. An examination of the economic actions in later German society reveals a very different feminine condition, however. One of the first aspects of women’s economic involvement that was affected was their role in the textile industry. There was a general increase in both the guild and governmental regulations imposed on women workers.

Research performed by Merry Weisner cited in Judith Brown’s article states the consolidation of guilds in sixteenth and seventeenth century Nuremburg resulted in “regulations excluding women from traditional occupations and relegated them to the margins of the world of work.” In 1421 a major conflict emerged in Cologne concerning religious female weavers and local linen weavers, resulting in a restriction of the number of looms the women could operate.

In the town of Strasbourg, the later Middle Ages saw reductions in the roles of women in the woolen industry; “women at Strasbourg as indeed in many towns were reduced to helpers and auxiliaries.” And women in sixteenth century Nurnberg “successfully protested an ordinance of 1530 [that] deprived them of the right to employ maids in their workshops...their victory was only temporary,” demonstrating the losses in female influence occurring in the later years of the Middle Ages.

Other economic changes ensued regarding a women’s place in society as well. The bridegifts and morning gifts that allowed women to procure economic power through the acquirement of property underwent a series of reductions as the Middle Ages progressed. The earlier gifts often included deeds for property, while over the course of the tenth and eleventh centuries, “fewer deeds gave the wife outright ownership, and even the usufruct was generally restricted to the use of the husband and wife jointly, not to the wife exclusively.” Eventually “daughters claim on the inheritance gradually gave way to the dowry provided by her family,” and the morning gift and bridgegift customs were changed entirely.

Also, a weakening of the feudal system in Germany also accelerated the reduction of a woman’s economic role in society, for the extensive “powers exercised by women were...largely derived from the rather irregular powers held by the great families of the age.” As the Constitutio de feudis of 1037 was passed by Konrad II, women were thereby excluded from the inheritance of fiefs, a measure which over time greatly affected their ability to obtain property and in turn an economic status in society.

To better demonstrate the assertion that women indeed did lose economic clout in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, it is useful to examine the laws of German communities during this time. Such regulations are available for the German town of Madgeburg for the year of 1261. One law providing information about the measures that are taken after the death of a husband states that a widow “shall have no share in his property except what he has given her in court, or has appointed for her dower...if the man has no provisions for her, her children must support her as long as she does not remarry.”

Unlike the customs described in such studies as that conducted by John Freed concerning the Archdiocese of Salzburg, married German women in later medieval society had a very tenuous grasp on property. The economic power that women could accrue through land inheritance prior the later Middle Ages is not at all mirrored in the inheritance laws described for this specific thirteenth century German town

Other evidence exists that demonstrates the economic losses women incurred during the later Middle Ages as well. The Ladies Tournament, a German tale of courtly behavior composed by an anonymous author during the thirteenth century, discusses the proprieties and traditions associated with noble marriage and family life. Although the general pretense of the story is of a community of men and a community of women conversing over matters of courtly rules rather than being an epic tale, its purpose is similar to Ruodlieb’s in that it provides insight into the traditions governing marriage in German society during that time.

In Sarah Westphal-Wihl’s analysis of the story, a marriage is described, as it is in the story of Ruodlieb; however, rather than an exchange of dowries, “the only marital assignment mentioned in the text is the dowry...there is no hint of a contribution from the groom’s side, or of any informal exchange of gifts.”

According to Westphal, the dowry emerged as a custom in Germany by 1200, and although the earlier customs of morning gifts and other gifts on the part of the husband still existed, they are not mentioned in the text of The Tournament of Ladies. This telling omission highlights a growing emphasis on the dowry of a woman, and the concurrent diminishment of a man’s gift to his bride. From the time of Ruodlieb during the eleventh century to that of the Tournament, women’s ability to acquire property and through marriage customs had been altered greatly.

The women of Germany were losing economic influence as the Middle Ages progressed, and comparable losses affected women in the Low Countries as well. Simon’s work reveals that while some “women may have occupied prominent positions in trade and in a few crafts during the thirteenth, fourteenth, and early fifteenth centuries...their numbers declined in the next decades.”

Also, like in the German regions of Europe, restrictions were increasingly placed on female industrial workers; in both Ghent and Flanders “in 1374 the wives of fullers or women of any sort were forbidden to wash any types of clothes.”

Further restrictions were also delineated concerning the economic tasks undertaken by women in beguinages: “because the beguines were able to produce goods cheaply, they found themselves drawn into disputes with the guilds and corporations who considered the beguine activities to be unfair competition.”The earlier urban culture that allowed for a high degree of female participation was doubtlessly being challenged.”

- Susan Papino, Shifting Experiences: The Changing Roles of Women in the Italian, Lowland, and German Regions of Western Europe from the Middle Ages to the Early Modern Period

#susan papino #history #high middle ages #late middle ages #renaissance #guilds #dowries

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mckyjsn · 4 years ago

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DOMINANT THEMES AND STYLES LITERATURE

SOUTH EAST ASIA

This area, which embraces the region south of China and east of India, includes the modern nations of Burma, Thailand, Cambodia, Laos, Vietnam, The Philippines, Malaysia and Indonesia. The earliest historical influence came from India around the beginnings of the Christian era. At a later period, Buddhism reached mainland Southeast Asia. Its influence was a major source of traditional literature in the Buddhist countries of Southeast Asia. Vietnam, under Chinese rule, was influenced by Chinese and Indian literature. Indonesia and Malaysia were influenced by Islam and its literature. All of the countries, except for Thailand, underwent a colonial experience and each of the countries reflects in its literature and in other aspects of its culture the influence of the colonizing power, including the language of that power. Education in the foreign language was to bring with it an introduction to a foreign literature and this, in turn, was to have considerable impact upon their modern forms of literary expression. One finds, then, all the well-known literary genres of Western literature, the novel, the short story, the play, and the essay. Poetry had been the most popular form of the traditional literature over the centuries but was rigid in form. However, through increased acquaintance with Western poetry, the poets of Southeast Asia broke the bonds of tradition and began to imitate various poetic types. A reading list of books is included.

EAST ASIA

Thinkers of the East is a collection of anecdotes and ‘parables in action’ illustrating the eminently practical and lucid approach of Eastern Dervish teachers.

Distilled from the teachings of more than one hundred sages in three continents, this material stresses the experimental rather than the theoretical – and it is that characteristic of Sufi study which provides its impact and vitality.

The emphasis of Thinkers of the East contrasts sharply with the Western concept of the East as a place of theory without practice, or thought without action. The book’s author, Idries Shah, says ‘Without direct experience of such teaching, or at least a direct recording of it, I cannot see how Eastern thought can ever be understood’.

SOUTH AND WEST ASIA

Chicana/o literature is justly acclaimed for the ways it voices opposition to the dominant Anglo culture, speaking for communities ignored by mainstream American media. Yet the world depicted in these texts is not solely inhabited by Anglos and Chicanos; as this groundbreaking new book shows, Asian characters are cast in peripheral but nonetheless pivotal roles.

Southwest Asia investigates why key Chicana/o writers, including Américo Paredes, Rolando Hinojosa, Oscar Acosta, Miguel Méndez, and Virginia Grise, from the 1950s to the present day, have persistently referenced Asian people and places in the course of articulating their political ideas. Jayson Gonzales Sae-Saue takes our conception of Chicana/o literature as a transnational movement in a new direction, showing that it is not only interested in North-South migrations within the Americas, but is also deeply engaged with East-West interactions across the Pacific. He also raises serious concerns about how these texts invariably marginalize their Asian characters, suggesting that darker legacies of imperialism and exclusion might lurk beneath their utopian visions of a Chicana/o nation.

Southwest Asia provides a fresh take on the Chicana/o literary canon, analyzing how these writers have depicted everything from interracial romances to the wars Americans fought in Japan, Korea, and Vietnam. As it examines novels, plays, poems, and short stories, the book makes a compelling case that Chicana/o writers have long been at the forefront of theorizing U.S.–Asian relations.

ANGLO -AMERICA AND EUROPE

ANGLO - AMERICA

The Division of Rare and Manuscript Collections has considerable holdings in Anglo-American literature from the 17th century onward, with notable strengths in the 18th century, Romanticism, and the Victorian and modern periods. Among the seventeenth-century holdings is a complete set of the Shakespeare folios, and works by John Milton and his contemporaries. Eighteenth-century highlights include near comprehensive printed collections of Jonathan Swift and Alexander Pope, and substantial holdings on John Dryden, Samuel Johnson, Joseph Addison, Sir Richard Steele, William Cowper, Fanny Burney, and others. Related materials include complete runs of periodicals, such as the Spectator and the Tatler.

EUROPE

The history of European literature and of each of its standard periods can be illuminated by comparative consideration of the different literary languages within Europe and of the relationship of European literature to world literature. The global history of literature from the ancient Near East to the present can be divided into five main, overlapping stages. European literature emerges from world literature before the birth of Europe—during antiquity, whose classical languages are the heirs to the complex heritage of the Old World. That legacy is later transmitted by Latin to the various vernaculars. The distinctiveness of this process lies in the gradual displacement of Latin by a system of intravernacular leadership dominated by the Romance languages. An additional unique feature is the global expansion of Western Europe’s languages and characteristic literary forms, especially the novel, beginning in the Renaissance.This expansion ultimately issues in the reintegration of European literature into world literature, in the creation of today’s global literary system. It is in these interrelated trajectories that the specificity of European literature is to be found. The ongoing relationship of European literature to other parts of the world emerges most clearly at the level not of theme or mimesis but of form. One conclusion is that literary history possesses a certain systematicity. Another is that language and literature are not only the products of major historical change but also its agents. Such claims, finally, depend on rejecting the opposition between the general and the specific, between synthetic and local knowledge.

Africa

African literature has origins dating back thousands of years to Ancient Egypt and hieroglyphs, or writing which uses pictures to represent words. These Ancient Egyptian beginnings led to Arabic poetry, which spread during the Arab conquest of Egypt in the seventh century C.E. and through Western Africa in the ninth century C.E. These African and Arabic cultures continued to blend with the European culture and literature to form a unique literary form.

Africa experienced several hardships in its long history which left an impact on the themes of its literature. One hardship which led to many others is that of colonization. Colonization is when people leave their country and settle in another land, often one which is already inhabited. The problem with colonization is when the incoming people exploit the indigenous people and the resources of the inhabited land.

Colonization led to slavery. Millions of African people were enslaved and brought to Western countries around the world from the sixteenth to nineteenth centuries. This spreading of African people, largely against their will, is called the African Diaspora.

Sub-Saharan Africa developed a written literature during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. This development came as a result of missionaries coming to the area. The missionaries came to Africa to build churches and language schools in order to translate religious texts. This led to Africans writing in both European and indigenous languages.

Though African literature's history is as long as it is rich, most of the popular works have come out since 1950, especially the noteworthy Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe. Looking beyond the most recent works is necessary to understand the complete development of this collection of literature

LATIN AMERICA

Latin American literature consists of the oral and written literature of Latin America in several languages, particularly in Spanish, Portuguese, and the indigenous language of America as well as literature of the United States written in the Spanish language. It rose to particular prominence globally during the second half of the 20th century, largely due to the international success of the style known as magical realism. As such, the region's literature is often associated solely with this style, with the 20th Century literary movement known as Latin American Boom, and with its most famous exponent, Gabriel Garcia Marquez. Latin American literature has a rich and complex tradition of literary production that dates back many centuries

Bocar, Mark Jason P.

Stem 11- St. Alypius

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ayearinfaith · 5 years ago

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𝗔 𝗬𝗲𝗮𝗿 𝗶𝗻 𝗙𝗮𝗶𝘁𝗵, 𝗗𝗮𝘆 𝟰𝟵: 𝗘𝗹𝗳

Elves are a supernatural race of human-like creatures from Germanic mythology. They have become very popular in the modern era, even outside of Western cultures, as a staple figure of the “high fantasy” genre largely thanks to the influence of 𝘓𝘰𝘳𝘥 𝘰𝘧 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘙𝘪𝘯𝘨𝘴 author J.R.R. Tolkien.

𝗣𝗿𝗲-𝗖𝗵𝗿𝗶𝘀𝘁𝗶𝗮𝗻

Though the Germanic speaking peoples of Central and Northern Europe had written language, they were never as prolific as the Greeks and Romans and preferred to pass on culture through an oral bardic tradition. By the time they did start writing their own histories, they were already Christian. This puts Elves in an interesting position: we know they were widely believed in and significant cultural features for centuries but their remains incredibly sparse attestation as to what those beliefs actually were. We know elves were popular and common across Germanic peoples for a variety of reasons, one of the easiest being their frequency as a part of names. The record of North, West, and even extinct East Germanic languages all contain many elf-names. The most common one in modern English is “Alfred” literally “Elf-council”. Aside from this, we can only infer. The word “Elf” comes from a Proto-Indo-European word for the color white. Likely this was a reference to a pale complexion. We do know that Elves were supposed to be beautiful, and fair skin is a very common standard for beauty in traditional Germanic cultures. Icelandic poetry tells of an autumn-time ritual called “Álfablót” i.e. “Elf sacrifice” which was celebrated privately. Elves are mentioned sparingly in both the Poetic Edda, a collection of more or less authentic Norse pagan poetry, and the Prose Edda, a 13th century tome written by the Christian Icelander Snorri Sturluson, which together serve as the primary sources of modern knowledge on Germanic mythology. Elves are said to live in Alfheim, which is a heavenly realm alongside Asgard, where most of the Norse gods live. They are particularly associated with the god Frey, a god of kingship, peace, and the harvest. In one poem dominion of Alfheim is given to Frey and his right-hand man, Skirnir, may have been an Elf though it is never explicitly stated. Its possible that Elves in general may have had a close relationship to the class of Norse gods called “Vanir”, of which Frey was one. Because of the sparse attestation of the term Vanir outside of the Eddas it is even possible that the Elves and Vanir are the same, though at this point we are thoroughly in the realm of conjecture. It is also possible that Elves were a generic term for smaller divinities, as later Germanic academics would use the word to translate the Western European “Nymph” a broad class of feminine nature spirits.

𝗟𝗶𝗴𝗵𝘁 𝗘𝗹𝘃𝗲𝘀, 𝗗𝗮𝗿𝗸 𝗘𝗹𝘃𝗲𝘀, 𝗖𝗵𝗿𝗶𝘀𝘁𝗺𝗮𝘀 𝗘𝗹𝘃𝗲𝘀

Belief in Elves changed under Christianization, but it did not die. Christianity is typically dualistic, portraying the earth as a spiritual battleground between good and evil. Germanic paganism lacked this division, and as such Elves did not fall neatly into Christian cosmology. Snorri Sturluson seems to have split the line of Elves into two groups for this purpose: Light Elves (“Ljósálfar”) and Dark/Black Elves (“Dökkálfar” and “Svartálfar”). Snorri’s Light Elves were in-line with what we know of Elves outside of the Prose Edda: Beautiful inhabitants of the heavens. By contrast the Dark Elves lived underground and have unpleasant dark complexions. Its worth noting that its unknown whether or not these Dark Elves were supposed to have dark skin, like humans of African descent, or if it was a more supernatural or corpse-like coloring: the color term most commonly used for African skin tones in the Viking Age was actually “blue”. Regardless, there is no evidence for this distinction amongst Elves outside of the Prose Edda, and it is also possible that Snorri was using “Dark Elf” as an alternate name for another Germanic supernatural race: Dwarves. If this was the case, it would give more credence to the idea of “Elf” as a generic term. In fact, if not the case in pagan times it certainly became the case later, as in the British Isles Germanic Elves and Celtic Aos Sí would syncretize into Fairies, a term that almost completely replaced the word “Elf” in English from Chaucer until Shakespeare. With this syncretism the perception of Elves also changed. While Snorri’s Elves were still human-sized and supernaturally beautiful, Medieval elves became diminutive and funny looking. Negative associations, primarily with mental illness, developed. The modern word for a nightmare in German is “Albtraum”, literally an “Elf-dream”, showing how Elves came to include the Germanic embodiment of sleep paralysis, the Mara (from which the English “nightmare” is derived). With the coming of the modern age, folk beliefs started to lose weight, and fear of Elves or Fairies was replaced with interest and delight. Thus, the arbitrary use of Elf instead of Fairy in notable Christmas poems (ex. 𝘛𝘸𝘢𝘴 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘕𝘪𝘨𝘩𝘵 𝘉𝘦𝘧𝘰𝘳𝘦 𝘊𝘩𝘳𝘪𝘴𝘵𝘮𝘢𝘴) led to the codification of Santa’s helpers, and other similar crafty spirits, as Elves.

𝗠𝗼𝗱𝗲𝗿𝗻 𝗘𝗹𝘃𝗲𝘀

I have alluded to Tolkien several times in this post as the source of modern conceptions of Elves. It should be noted that he was not the first to re-introduce more “authentic” Elves of Germanic paganism to modern fantasy. 13 years prior to 𝘛𝘩𝘦 𝘏𝘰𝘣𝘣𝘪𝘵, Lord Dunsay’s 𝘛𝘩𝘦 𝘒𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘰𝘧 𝘌𝘭𝘧𝘭𝘢𝘯𝘥’𝘴 𝘋𝘢𝘶𝘨𝘩𝘵𝘦𝘳 featured human sized beautiful and magical Elves, even including the term “Elfland” as an equivalent to the Norse Alfheim. That said, it is definitely Tolkien’s works that directly inspired the subsequent resurgence in Elf popularity. Even the spelling of words like “Elvish” instead of “Elfish” are Tolkien constructions, a choice made to make the word seem more authentically Anglo-Saxon. Though there are some instances of Victorian depictions of Fairies/Elves with pointed ears it’s uncertain if this was why Tolkien described his Elves as having “leaf-shaped” ears. Regardless, this feature has easily become their most distinctive. Curiously, this is particularly pronounced in the art of modern Korea and Japan, where Elves are commonly drawn with ears that are pointed, much longer, and angled away from the head more than human ears. The star Elf of Tolkien’s 𝘓𝘰𝘳𝘥 𝘰𝘧 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘙𝘪𝘯𝘨𝘴, Legolas, is specifically responsible for the association of Elves and archery and forestry, even though these features were specific to him as a woodland ranger, not to Tolkien Elves in general. The role-playing game 𝘋𝘶𝘯𝘨𝘦𝘰𝘯𝘴 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘋𝘳𝘢𝘨𝘰𝘯𝘴 further expanded Tolkien tropes, and borrowed Snorri’s Light Elves and Dark Elves to create subdivisions that mirrored distinctive fantasy tropes: Elves as near-divine magicians (High Elves), Elves as woodland Fairies (Wood Elves), Elves as tricksters and maladies (Dark Elves). Between Tolkien’s influence on fantasy novels and 𝘋𝘶𝘯𝘨𝘦𝘰𝘯𝘴 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘋𝘳𝘢𝘨𝘰𝘯𝘴 impact on games, both video and analog, the long lived and long eared Elf is now a staple of even non-Western fantasy and are increasingly viewed more distinctly from Fairies. Ironically, though much of modern Elf tropes are modern inventions, they have become much more similar to the pagan Elves of Central and Northern Europe than the Elves of the Medieval ages, successfully distilled from centuries of syncretism.

Image Credit: Art from 𝘔𝘢𝘨𝘪𝘤: 𝘛𝘩𝘦 𝘎𝘢𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘳𝘪𝘯𝘨 card 𝘞𝘰𝘰𝘥 𝘌𝘭𝘷𝘦𝘴, by Rebecca Guay, 1997

#A Year in Faith #Elf #Elves #Religion #Mythology #Day 49

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gum-recessiongrowback-blog · 4 years ago

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Gum Recession Grow Back

Despite the fact that dental care was certainly not a concentrated branch of Ayurveda, it is actually consisted of in its own Shalakya Tantra (body of surgical operation). Problems including impairments of the oral cavity, oral plaque buildups and diseases were actually taken care of in ancient India. Standard medicine may manage various contagious as well as chronic problems. For more about Grow Back Receding Gums

Research has presented that all sort of eating sticks illustrated in old Ayurveda content possess therapeutic as well as anti-cariogenic buildings. Its oil taking (Kaval, Gandush) practice is actually asserted to cure about 30 systemic ailments.

Gum Regrowth Treatment

Amla (Emblic myrobalan), is actually a basic rebuilder of oral health. Bilberry fruit (Vaccinium myrtillus) and hawthorn berry (Crateagus oxycanthus) support bovine collagen, reinforcing the gum tissue. Liquorice root (Glycyrrhiza glabral) markets anti-cavity action, minimizes cavity enducing plaque, and has an antibacterial impact. Use risk-free, quality items as well as techniques need to be actually made sure based upon readily available proof if standard medicine is to become acknowledged as part of main health care. Scientific verifications of the Ayurveda dental health strategies can justify their consolidation right into modern dental care. Promotion of these methods using ideal media would certainly benefit the basic populace by offering additional assurance in the old techniques, thus protecting against dental caries and also loss. Keyword phrases: Ayurveda, kaval, oral health, oil taking, traditional medication Go to: INTRO

Ayurveda is actually an all natural system of medication which grew in India some 3000-5000 years ago, a body of standard medicine belonging to the Indian subcontinent, now performed in various other component of the world as a form of corresponding medicine. [1] The earliest literary works on Indian medical technique appeared throughout the Vedic duration in India. The Susruta Samhita as well as the Charaka Samhita are its earliest authoritative messages. [2] Over the centuries, Ayurvedic practitioners built great deals of medical preparations and surgical procedures for the treatment of several health problems as well as diseases. [3] Although dentistry was actually not a specialized branch of Ayurveda, it was actually featured in its own device of surgery. In ancient India, concerns like impairments of the mouth, oral plaque buildups and also diseases might be handled and also also treated.

Gum Regrowth Treatment At Home

Conventional medication is actually the sum total of knowledge, capabilities and strategies based on the ideas, opinions as well as knowledge indigenous to various cultures that are actually used to preserve health, and also to prevent, identify, boost or deal with physical and mental illnesses. Standard medication that has been actually embraced by other populaces (outside its own indigenous culture) is commonly labelled complementary or even holistic medicine. Natural medicines consist of herbs, organic materials, plant based prep work, and finished herbal products which contain portion of plants or even various other plant products as energetic components.

In some Asian and African nations, 80% of the population depends upon typical medication for main medical. In a lot of established nations, 70% to 80% of the populace has actually made use of some type of substitute or corresponding medicine. Organic treatments are actually the most preferred form of standard medicine, and also are extremely beneficial in the global market place. Yearly incomes in Western Europe got to US$ 5 billion in 2003-2004. In China sales of items headed to US$ 14 billion in 2005. Organic medicine profits in Brazil was US$ 160 thousand in 2007. [4] Ayurveda and also oral health

In Ayurveda, dental health (danta swasthya in Sanskrit) is upheld be actually really individual, varying with each person's nature (prakriti), and also weather modifications resulting from sunlight, lunar and planetary effects (kala-parinama). The body system constitution is actually classified based upon the preponderance of several of the 3 doshas, vata, pitta as well as kapha. The domination dosha in both the personal and also attribute finds out medical in Ayurveda, featuring dental health.

Natural Gum Regrowth

[5] Most likely to: EATING STICKS

Ayurveda suggests chewing embed the morning along with after every meal to stop ailments. Ayurveda insists on making use of herbal combs, around 9 inches long as well as the density of one's little finger. These natural herb sticks ought to be either 'kashaya' (astringent), 'katu (acrid), or 'tikta' (harsh) in flavor. The approach of making use of is to crush one point, chew it, and consume it little by little. [6] Toothbrushing is actually a task executed with a 'tooth brush' which is an exclusive little brush designed for make use of on teeth. Nibbling a therapeutic stick equivalent advised by a Vaidya, or other typical practitioner, might validly be actually upheld be equivalent to the western-pioneered activity of 'brushing the teeth ', however it is actually not adequately similar to become given the exact same name, especially given that sticks that are munched are made use of totally in different ways coming from combs.

It is actually advised that chewing sticks be acquired from new controls of details plants. The neem (margosa or even the Azadiraxhta indica) is a famous organic chewing stick. The stems need to be actually well-balanced, soft, without leaves or knots and also drawn from a healthy tree. Nibbling on these stems is strongly believed to result in attrition and levelling of attacking areas, help with salivary secretion and, possibly, assistance in oral plaque buildup control, while some stems have an anti-bacterial action. With reference to the individual's constitution and also dominant dosha, it is actually specified that folks with the vata dosha dominance might establish atrophic and also receding gums, as well as are encouraged to utilize chewing stick to bitter-sweet or even astringent preferences, including liquorice (Glycyrrhiza glabra) and black catechu or even the cutch plant (Acacia Catechu Linn.), specifically.

Natural Gum Regrowth Treatment

[7] Pitta dosha leading individuals are highly recommended to use chewing stick to an unsweetened flavor like the branches coming from the margosa plant (Azadirachta indica or even natures neem) as well as the arjuna plant (Terminalia arjuna). Those with the kapha dosha prevalent are probably to have light as well as hypertrophic gums and are actually asked to utilize chewing sticks with a poignant taste, presenting the fever nut (Caesalipinia bonduc) and the typical milkweed vegetation (Calotropis procera). Present-day research has actually revealed that all the chewing sticks defined in historical Ayurveda content (circa 200 BC) possess therapeutic and also anti-cariogenic properties. [8] Saimbi et al (1994) assessed the anti plaque effectiveness of Neem remove, Ayurvedic tooth grains and also commercial tooth pastes. Neem extract prevailed as well as commercial tooth pastes were actually the last. [9] In one more research study Venugopal et al (1998) assessed a total amount of 2000 children (1-14 year age group) in Mumbai for cavities incidence. Those children who were actually utilizing natures neem datun were located to be less impacted along with cavities. [10] In southern India, mango fallen leave is actually largely used for cleaning teeth. A clean mango leaf is actually washed and the midrib is cleared away. Fallen leave is actually then folded up lengthwise with shiny surfaces encountering each other. It is rolled into a round pack. One point of the pack is bitten off 2-3mm to develop a raw surface area which is rubbed on the teeth - pack is actually held in between the thumb as well as the forefinger. In the end, the midrib, which was first removed, is actually made use of as a tongue cleaner. Sumant et alia (1992) assessed the efficiency of mango fallen leave as an oral health help and also acquired interesting results. [11] Much higher soft down payment ratings were stated in team that made use of mango leaf. Cavities knowledge in this group utilizing mango leaf was similar to the group that utilized tooth comb. Mangiferin a substance found in mango leaves had considerable antibacterial property against particular strains of Pneumococci, Streptococci, Staphylococci, as well as Lactobacillus acidophilus.

Gum Regrowth At Home

The miswak (miswaak, siwak, sewak) is actually a teeth washing branch created from a branch of the Salvadora persica tree, additionally called the arak plant or even the peelu plant and also functions in Islamic health jurisprudence. The miswak is predominant in Muslim locations yet its make use of precedes the inception of Islam. Almas and also Atassi (2002) carried out research to analyze the effect of miswak and also tooth brush filaments end-surface structure on enamel. Twenty-one specimens were actually prepared; they were actually divided right into Aquafresh toothbrush team, Miswak group as well as command team. End results revealed that filaments end-surface texture play major duty in abrasive energetic activity as well as enamel tooth area loss. Miswak revealed smaller result on enamel as compared to Aquafresh toothbrush. [12] Almas and Zeid (2004) in a research to determine antimicrobial activity of miswak chewing embed vivo, particularly on streptococcus mutans and also lactobacilli confirmed that miswak had a prompt antimicrobial result reviewed to toothbrush. Streptococcus mutans were more at risk to miswak than lactobacilli. [Thirteen]

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leavyes-a · 4 years ago

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meta on media consumption as beholding, and the creation of the conservator role, based on conversations with @hdtvtits. content warning, as always, for addiction, compulsive / obsessive behavior, aggressive hoarding, and implied terminal illness, all of the eldritch variety. also allusions to real-life hollywood dramas, though nothing remotely specific is discussed in this post.

foreword: this is just the first part of a bunch of meta i’ll likely end up posting on why levi is what they are and why their beholding manifests the way it does, because like... for secrets and the underbelly of film production i have a lot to say but a lot to source as well. but there are a few things i want to address in this post, namely: what the eye feeds off of, whether or not levi is feeding the eye in their media consumption ( and how ), and how it ultimately serves the eye’s purposes to have this be levi’s method of feeding. this probably won’t even be my last post on the subject as i keep sort of logicking out the way that beholding works and how it can manifest. it’s important to me though that it exist and function outside of just what happens in the institute ( which is proven in the statements ), mostly because fear entities are global and primal and jonny said that the story really is britain-centric. now, media consumption isn’t particularly groundbreaking; it addresses a more american culture, but that’s still western-centric and sort of ‘typical’ of europe and america, though i will say that european filmmaking as an institution is... different. it has its own history and quirks. hollywood is its own beast. someday i’ll make a post on levi’s judaism and how that interacts with beholding and manifests as more than their aesthetic, because they haven’t even used their ayin hara on this blog yet though it’s a ( minor ) power they possess, but that deserves its own post. ANYWAYS. with that said.

what does the eye feed off of? the eye doesn’t just function based off a primal fear, it has a drive that it imbues its servants with: “it is the manifestation of the fear of being watched, exposed, followed, of having secrets known, but also the drive to know and understand, even if your discoveries might destroy you.” i think that most of the entities function in a similar way, with the things they inspire and feed off of on the one hand, and avatars with a desire to evoke that fear in the other; i.e., avatars create food to feed their entity, and if they don’t, the entity devours them instead. that’s pretty basic knowledge. ( i also have stuff to say about entities consuming themselves because every time claire says autocannibalism i go absolutely hog wild about it but that’s for another day. ) there are, then, multiple ways that an avatar can go about gathering fear for its entity, but what sets the eye apart from others, i believe, is that it doesn’t need to directly cause the fear it consumes -- though i think that it finds the fear of being watched more filling than just watching other people be afraid, it can still ‘survive’ off of that. this is where eye shit starts to get confusing and it’s why these posts are so longwinded and involve me talking myself in circles, because the eye both has a specific fear that it’s linked to and can devour other people’s experiences of fear that it did not cause, yes even before the apocalypse. that’s just how jon feeds for the majority of the series. for a good long while, he’s not going out and getting statements himself; and even when he does, he’s double dipping on both the fear they convey to him about their experiences ( knowledge gained ) and the fear that this man is pulling information out of them ( secrets exposed ).

but that’s jon and we’re not talking about jon, we’re talking about levi, and my ever-evolving thesis on voyeurism in / and media.

so what does an eye avatar need to do, exactly, to eat? it needs to accumulate knowledge, that’s the baseline that it can survive off of -- knowledge of the other entities is best, but i don’t know that it’s a requirement... and i don’t know if it’s not! i am going to make the call that eye avatars can survive off of just hoarding information because the eye isn’t super picky and wants to know everything anyways, but not feeding off of fear for a long time is going to leave the avatar really weak. and for an eye avatar to develop its powers and grow, it needs to take statements directly, or else give other people the distinct feeling of being observed against their will. the more people it feeds off of as a result of its own actions, the more powerful it becomes. that said, i don’t think this is common, which is why watchers ( heads of institutes ) have set up these systems where they’re generating food for themselves on two axes simultaneously: fear of people who give statements, and fear of people who have to work at their institutes ( either taking statements or working directly under the eye ). that just sort of accumulates power upwards within eye bureaucracies, though the archivists who take and sort the statements are also going to become remarkably powerful if they lean into their role.

( also side note: these systems work for the english, american, and chinese institutes, but there are ways for beholding avatars to thrive outside of them, and again someday i’m going to post about oral traditions and the ability to craft stories in different regions of beholding that feed the eye. but i need to do research first and we’re talking about levi! )

here’s the thing... levi is not an archivist. levi is not powerful. levi does not have a strong connection to beholding. they worship it, but fanaticism does not equal feeding, sadly, and the role they’ve been given is not one that pushes them to go and gather statements for themselves. they have taken read and statements at afi, because wyatt was raising them into an avatar, but, though conservators and archivists can overlap in the real world, they ( in my word of god for this blog’s canon and the monster i made up ) are two very different things under the eye. essentially, conservators serve archivists ( and watchers ) by witnessing, recording, and playing back statements that archivists can then maneuver through. the more experienced the conservator, the more they can shift the camera, allowing the archivist to comb through statements in detail and pull the knowledge that they want from them. remember that the beholding grants knowledge, not understanding, and while that may be fine for the eye, sometimes its ‘human’ servants need to put the pieces together in order to advance its plans.

the conservator is a relatively new position within beholding, because it does function like a film camera. i think that, in other times, places, and cultures, there were similar avatars who filled a similar role, but it wasn’t the same. the conservator really is a miskatonic / american experiment to help the institute delve into the information it already possessed. for one example of how conservators are useful, consider what happened with sasha: the archivist had his voice recordings of her, because it can’t effect magnetic tape, but jon the person still had her wiped completely from his memory. that wouldn’t happen to a conservator, because all of their memories are converted into (meta)physical tape stock. they are a lockbox that cannot be opened or altered unless you’re a more powerful beholding avatar. ( the limitation here is that they only have so much storage space, they will need to expunge some memories to store more; though those memories can be kept in physical containers, film stock obviously degrades and is a very unstable and extremely flammable medium; their body will also internally decompose to make room for more data and that is a painful process that eventually renders the conservator just a storage without any ability to function beyond sitting still and replaying witnessed / read events. )

we’ve established that levi feeds normally. they take statements, they are present in an archive, they’re hearing the scary stories. finally, finally on to why levi consumes media and how levi consumes media, because the one is intrinsically linked to the other. let me start by saying that just watching television or films does not a beholding avatar make. yes you are watching, but the distinction is in whether you are passively or actively viewing. and the power that is drawn from someone zoning out and being addicted to passively consuming media does not go to the eye. that is neither a fear of being observed ( for the one watching or for the actors / writers, because nobody is going to care about an audience that doesn’t form an opinion at all beyond basic emotional reactions; uncritical consumers are milk and honey to them ) nor a pursuit of knowledge ( passively accepting knowledge is, according to elias, far less effective in raising up eye avatars than letting them learn to ‘see’ on their own ). all that power goes to mx media ( @hdtvtits ) or, if you don’t like crossovers, Just Definitely Not the Eye. it’s when you start performing analysis that the eye takes interest -- which is why the eye continues to thrive in academia ( au where i write meta on just how bad that gets, historically, but again there are things we don’t get into until we research thoroughly ). the more you lose yourself in compiling information, to the exclusion of everything else, the more you appeal to beholding. and when you start unveiling secrets, which there are plenty of in film and film production, things kept private from the audience, ‘movie magic’, then feeding can begin.

this may come as a surprise, but levi does not have a response to whether or not they ‘like’ movies. if you ask them, ‘did you enjoy that movie?’ they will not say ‘yes’ or ‘no’, they will just start launching into ripping it apart. levi probably started out enjoying movies recreationally, but at some point, they became not just unwilling to but incapable of watching films without analyzing -- and what separates this from normal people who are conscientious and engaged viewers is that this is a mania that spans hours. their ‘digestion’ of a film is obsessive and has a physical component because it is eldritch in nature. i can’t stress enough that levi isn’t just a pretentious film buff who says ‘oh i can’t consume media for pleasure or uncritically’, though they may have been at some point in their college career! they have a physical and metaphysical makeup that drives them to frenzy over what they watch. the instant they finish a film, they’ll begin a rapid accumulation of knowledge of anything they can dig up: the who, what, when, where, why, how. if they do have an emotional response, it’s incredibly removed, and their way of processing it is to drill into how and why the film made them feel that way.

if they try to avoid this step in the process -- if they just watch a movie, turn it off, and attempt to go to bed -- they will start to weaken immediately. watching the movie isn’t enough for feeding. if it was, the eye wouldn’t take any interest at all. it’s the genuinely out-of-control driving impulse to keep researching and researching until there is nothing left about a piece of media that isn’t known, shredding through academic papers and script drafts and director’s notes and interviews and everything they can get their hands on, that stems from and feeds beholding. they do not settle for what is put on the screen. they will even cold call creators in a fit and try to get them to talk about the production ( which is, yes, invasive -- beholding is an eldritch entity, it is not healthy or good and does not inspire healthy or good habits! ).

they may not even be capable of enjoying a piece on its own merits; it’s all about the world it opens up to them, it’s about stuffing themselves with information until they can’t breathe and overstimulate and pass out. then recovery from that can take days as they process what they learned and sort it all out in their mind. they don’t really do much with this information; just knowing it is enough. if an archivist or watcher wants to take action about it, they can ask levi to spit it back up for them. but ultimately, despite the impact that this has on their health, this is still low-level feeding for a low-level avatar. unless it’s a truly gruesome movie or has an exceptionally shady production background, it’s not really the fear that the eye is looking for. levi is feeding one half of beholding, the half that wants them to consume knowledge and secrets. if levi didn’t take / read statements as well, or go out and witness live horrific events, they would probably starve -- their body would eat itself processing knowledge.

and i will talk about the component of parasocial relationships, anxiety that stems from being an actor / director / content creator in general and having your work and your image spiral out of control as it’s ripped apart and dissected by consumers, because that is beholding territory as well. it’s just not actually what levi does, but because it relates to the media-beholding relationship, i’ll have it on this blog.

#➢ photoplay expresses the action of the mind! ( headcanon. )

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do-gums-growback-blog · 5 years ago

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Do Gums Grow Back?

Although dentistry was not a focused branch of Ayurveda, it is consisted of in its own Shalakya Tantra (device of surgical treatment). Concerns like impairments of the oral cavity, cavity enducing plaques and contaminations were handled in early India. Traditional medicine may treat numerous contagious as well as persistent problems. Read more about Will A Receding Gum Grow Back?

Research has presented that all kinds of eating sticks described in ancient Ayurveda content possess therapeutic as well as anti-cariogenic residential or commercial properties. Its oil pulling (Kaval, Gandush) practice is actually stated to cure about 30 systemic conditions. Amla (Emblic myrobalan), is an overall rebuilder of oral health. Bilberry fruit (Vaccinium myrtillus) and hawthorn berry (Crateagus oxycanthus) maintain bovine collagen, strengthening the gum cells. Liquorice origin (Glycyrrhiza glabral) promotes anti-cavity action, lowers oral plaque buildup, as well as has an antibacterial effect.

Can Your Gum Line Grow Back?

Use of safe, top quality items as well as practices must be actually made certain based on available evidence if standard medication is actually to be acknowledged as aspect of main medical. Scientific verifications of the Ayurveda dental health practices can warrant their consolidation right into modern dental treatment. Publicity of these approaches using suitable media would certainly help the general populace by giving more self-confidence in the historical techniques, therefore protecting against dental caries as well as loss. Keywords: Ayurveda, kaval, oral health, oil taking, conventional medicine Go to: INTRODUCTION

Ayurveda is an all natural system of medication which grew in India some 3000-5000 years ago, a body of traditional medication native to the Indian subcontinent, right now performed in other parts of the globe as a kind of corresponding medication.

[1] The earliest literature on Indian medical technique appeared during the Vedic time period in India. The Susruta Samhita as well as the Charaka Samhita are its earliest authoritative messages. [2] Over the centuries, Ayurvedic practitioners developed large numbers of medicinal plannings as well as procedures for the treatment of numerous disorders and also ailments. [3] Although dental care was certainly not a specialized branch of Ayurveda, it was consisted of in its unit of surgical operation. In historical India, concerns including deformities of the oral cavity, cavity enducing plaques and diseases can be handled and also also healed.In another research of clients with hypertension, extreme gum disease was associated with damage left wing side of the heart.

How To Grow Back Receding Gums Naturally?

Typical medicine is the result of know-how, skill-sets as well as techniques based upon the theories, beliefs and expertises aboriginal to various cultures that are utilized to maintain health, and also to stop, identify, enhance or alleviate physical and also mental illnesses. Conventional medication that has actually been taken on through other populations (outside its own indigenous lifestyle) is actually frequently termed complementary or natural medicine. Organic medications feature cannabis, plant based materials, plant based preparations, as well as finished plant based products that contain parts of plants or even various other plant products as active elements.

In some Asian and African countries, 80% of the populace depends on typical medicine for primary healthcare. In many industrialized countries, 70% to 80% of the populace has actually utilized some kind of different or complementary medicine. Organic therapies are one of the most well-liked type of standard medication, as well as are extremely financially rewarding in the worldwide marketplace. Yearly profits in Western Europe connected with US$ 5 billion in 2003-2004. In China sales of items visited US$ 14 billion in 2005. Organic medication income in Brazil was actually US$ 160 thousand in 2007. [4] Ayurveda and oral health

In Ayurveda, dental health (danta swasthya in Sanskrit) is held to be incredibly self-loving, differing along with everyone's nature (prakriti), and weather modifications coming from solar energy, lunar as well as earthly impacts (kala-parinama).

Grow Back Receding Gums Naturally

The physical body constitution is categorized based upon the preponderance of one or more of the 3 doshas, vata, pitta as well as kapha. The prominence dosha in both the personal and nature identifies medical care in Ayurveda, consisting of dental health. [5] Go to: EATING STICKS

Ayurveda recommends eating embed the early morning in addition to after every meal to avoid diseases. Ayurveda insists on using natural brushes, about 9 ins long and also the thickness of one's little hands. These natural herb catches must be actually either 'kashaya' (astringent), 'katu (acrid), or 'tikta' (bitter) in taste. The technique of making use of is to crush one end, eat it, and eat it little by little. [6] Toothbrushing is actually a task accomplished along with a 'toothbrush' which is a special little comb made for use on teeth. Biting a therapeutic stick equivalent encouraged through a Vaidya, or even other typical specialist, might validly be actually held to be equivalent to the western-pioneered task of 'brushing the teeth ', yet it is certainly not adequately comparable to become provided the same name, exclusively given that sticks that are actually munched are actually made use of totally in a different way from brushes.

It is actually suggested that nibbling sticks be actually obtained coming from fresh contains of certain vegetations. The natures neem (margosa or the Azadiraxhta indica) is actually a popular herbal chewing stick. The contains must be healthy and balanced, soft, without fallen leaves or even knots as well as taken from a healthy and balanced plant. Eating on these arises is felt to trigger weakening and levelling of biting areas, assist in salivary tears as well as, possibly, support in oral plaque buildup command, while some stems possess an anti-bacterial activity.

Will Gums Grow Back?

Apropos of the person's constitution as well as dominant dosha, it is mentioned that people along with the vata dosha prominence might build atrophic and receding gums, and also are advised to use chewing sticks with bitter-sweet or even astringent preferences, such as liquorice (Glycyrrhiza glabra) and black catechu or the cutch plant (Acacia Catechu Linn.), specifically. [7] Pitta dosha prevalent individuals are actually recommended to make use of chewing stick to an unsweetened taste like the branches coming from the margosa tree (Azadirachta indica or natures neem) and also the arjuna plant (Terminalia arjuna). Those with the kapha dosha prevalent are actually likely to possess light and also hypertrophic gums as well as are asked to utilize chewing stick to a pungent taste, presenting the high temperature nut (Caesalipinia bonduc) and also the usual milkweed plant (Calotropis procera). Modern investigation has revealed that all the chewing sticks described in ancient Ayurveda text messages (circa 200 BC) possess medical and also anti-cariogenic attributes. [8] Saimbi et alia (1994) checked the antiplaque efficiency of Neem extraction, Ayurvedic tooth powders as well as office tooth pastes. Natures neem extraction triumphed and also office tooth pastes were the final. [9] In yet another study Venugopal et alia (1998) studied a total of 2000 little ones (1-14 year generation) in Mumbai for decays occurrence. Those kids who were actually utilizing natures neem datun were found to be much less influenced along with cavities. [10] In southern India, mango leaf is actually largely made use of for cleansing teeth. A clean mango fallen leave is cleaned and the midrib is removed. Leaf is at that point folded lengthwise with glossy surface areas experiencing each other. It is actually rolled into a cylindrical pack. One end of this pack is actually bitten off 2-3mm to create a raw surface area which is wiped on the teeth - pack is held between the finger and also the index finger. By the end, the midrib, which was first cleared away, is actually utilized as a tongue cleaner. Sumant et alia (1992) examined the efficacy of mango leaf as an oral hygiene aid as well as gotten exciting searchings for.

How To Strengthen Gums Naturally?

[11] Greater smooth down payment scores were actually stated in team that used mango fallen leave. Cavities experience in this group using mango fallen leave was similar to the group that utilized tooth brush. Mangiferin a material current in mango leaves had considerable antibacterial characteristic versus certain strains of Pneumococci, Streptococci, Staphylococci, and also Lactobacillus acidophilus.

The miswak (miswaak, siwak, sewak) is actually a teeth cleansing twig created coming from a branch of the Salvadora persica tree, additionally called the arak tree or even the peelu plant and features in Islamic health law. The miswak is predominant in Muslim regions but its own use precedes the inception of Islam. Almas and also Atassi (2002) performed study to examine the effect of miswak as well as tooth comb filaments end-surface structure on enamel. Twenty-one samplings were readied; they were actually arranged right into Aquafresh toothbrush team, Miswak team and also control team. Outcomes revealed that filaments end-surface texture action primary role in rough active activity and polish tooth surface area loss. Miswak showed lesser impact on enamel as contrasted to Aquafresh toothbrush.

Do Receding Gums Grow Back?

[12] Almas and Zeid (2004) in a research to analyze antimicrobial activity of miswak eating stick in vivo, specifically on streptococcus mutans and lactobacilli confirmed that miswak possessed a prompt antimicrobial impact compared to toothbrush. Streptococcus mutans were even more susceptible to miswak than lactobacilli. [13]

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graysonfirewolf85-blog · 6 years ago

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Queer Positive Deities

Keep in mind that this is NOT a complete list of ALL pantheons and deities that are queer positive. This is a good majority, but by all means it is NOT all of them. Also not all photos would fit.

DISCLAIMER

This wiki will contain sexual terms and other mature items that each deity represented or did in their specific pantheon. If any of it bothers you, please exit the wiki and move on from it. Thank you.

Achilles (Greek)

The Greek hero Achilles was invulnerable excepting his famous weak heel, but a male shieldbearer broke through the warrior’s romantic defenses. While Homer never explicitly states a gay relationship between Achilles and sidekick Patroclus, many scholars read a romantic connection between the two, as only Patroclus ever drew out a compassionate side to the famously arrogant warrior. Patroclus’s death at the hands of Trojan Prince Hector sent Achilles into a rage in which he killed Hector and dragged his body around Troy. Other myths also disclose Achilles was struck by the beauty of Troilus, a Trojan prince.

Adonis/Tammuz (Phoenician/Greco-Roman/Mesopotamian)

The name “Adonis” now refers to a strikingly beautiful male, but the original Adonis is a cross-cultural deity, showing up in Phoenician and Greco-Roman mythology. Adonis is often equated with the Mesopotamian Tammuz, with whom he shares many attributes and stories. Most noted for his relationships with goddesses, including Astarte, Aphrodite, and Persephone, Adonis was also the beloved of the god Dionysus. Adonis and Tammuz are fertility gods, representing the vegetation of the land, in a constant state of life, death, and resurrection. Adonis died from a boar’s attack, which mutilated his genitals. In the much-celebrated descent-of-the-goddess stories known in many cultures, the Goddess travels into the many layers of the underworld to retrieve the spirit of her consort. Adonis is seen not as a king, but as a lover, somewhat effeminate or homoerotic. His priests in Athens were homoerotically inclined, and, along with priestesses, they celebrated his life and death by planting gardens of Adonis, and then uprooted them only a few days after sprouting. In the Greek magical papyri, Adonis is invoked for lesbian love spells.

Antinous (Greco-Roman-Kemetic)

This resurrection figure holds ties to ancient Egyptian, Greek, and Roman cultures. Antinous was a real historical figure and the male companion of the Roman emperor Hadrian. The pair would take journeys around the Mediterranean. And on one trip, Antinous drowned in the Nile on the same day that Egyptians commemorated the watery death of Osiris. Deeply affected by the death of his lover, Hadrian encouraged the deification of Antinous, and cults sprung up around the Mediterranean honoring him. In some tellings, Antinous rose from the Nile after his death and was then revered as a form of Osiris reborn. Indeed, the god and the Roman cult that followed him still have devotees today.

Apollo and Hyacinth (Greek)

Apollo was initially the Greek god of light and later was associated with the Sun. His twin sister is Artemis. As the god of music, dance, divination, healing, and artistic inspiration, he can grant these gifts to others. Apollo is known for taking many male lovers, most notably, Hyacinthus, or Hyacinth, a mortal youth. When he was tossing the discus with Apollo, it struck Hyacinth with a mortal blow. The western wind god Zephyrus, who desired Hyacinth and was angry and jealous of Apollo, caused the accident with his winds. The Sun god could not save his beloved, but from his wound Apollo created the Hyacinth flowers, a symbol of youth cut too short. Hyacinth later became a divine patron to those pursuing same-sex love.

Aphrodite/Venus (Greco-Roman)

Aphrodite embodies the powers of love on every level, especially romantic love. Known as Venus to the Romans, and associated with the morning and evening star, the planet Venus, she was renowned for her gifts of attraction and beauty. She originated—along with the Furies—from Uranus, the sky god, springing forth from the foamy sea where Uranus’s genitalia had fallen after being castrated by his son Chronos. She is usually displayed as a beautiful woman rising out of the sea, as in Botticellis painting, “The Birth of Venus.” As she walks on land, she trails flowers behind her, even in the most barren of deserts. Her aid Eros is the original archetype for the Valentine’s Day cupid, shooting his arrows and making people fall in love. She had many lovers, most notably Ares the war god and her husband, Hephaestus. She bore Hermaphrodite from her union with Hermes.

Artemis/Diana (Greco-Roman)

Artemis is the huntress, the goddess of wild things, the protector of women and children, and the maiden aspect of the Moon. From her bow, she fires silver arrows, the shafts of moonlight to illuminate her path. In many versions of her myths, she is the archetype of the strong, independent woman, goddess of Amazons and unsympathetic to those of traditional masculinity. After her birth, she immediately got up and helped her mother deliver her twin brother, Apollo. Artemis rejects many traditional roles, such as marriage and conventional society, and feels kinship to those beyond traditional roles. Her festivals included same-sex eroticism involving both females and males. As the Romans’ Diana, she took on a more maternal, universal goddess archetype, and became the mother of Aradia, her avatar in 14th-century Italy, who taught the Goddess’s craft.

Astarte (Phoenician/Canaanite)

Astarte is a manifestation of the Great Mother Goddess of the Paleolithic cultures, identified with the earlier goddesses Ishtar and Inanna, and later the Greco-Roman Aphrodite/Venus. Versions of Astarte were worshiped throughout the Middle East, Egypt, and even across Europe, with the spread of the Roman Empire. She is a Queen of Heaven, and patron of love and war. She, too, is involved in the resurrection and fertility myths of Adonis, also known as Adoni, or lord. Though usually remembered in feminine form, like other goddesses, she does have mixed gender incarnations, sometimes depicted as a hermaphrodite, and later the Phoenician records mention King Astarte. Astarte’s temples were served by the kelabim and possibly a gender-variant order of Amazonian women.

Athena/Minerva (Greco-Roman)

Springing fully formed from the head of Zeus, without aid of a goddess, Athena is presented as the wise warrior woman of the Olympians. She has the ability to transform into a young man. Her affairs often end on a tragic note, and most modern myths present her as celibate, though such descriptions were probably added by the patriarchal rise, to demonstrate a strong warrior woman could not have love. In one such myth, her “brother” Hephaestus makes her armor, for “her love.” He means physical love, while she assumes platonic love. I find it hard to believe such a goddess of wisdom and strategy would misunderstand such an offer. Most likely, our modern Athena is a sanitized version of the ancient Minoan snake goddess. Her darker half was shed and cast off as the gorgon Medusa. Modern Athena carries a shield with Medusa’s face on it. Athena is the goddess of strategy, weaving, and invention, who is credited with teaching humans how to graft olive branches onto trees, yielding more harvest. The city of Athens is named after her. She is often called Pallas Athena, in honor of her friend (or possible lover) who died as a youth in a spear throwing accident. Minerva is her Roman name.

Atum (Kemetic)

In the creation story for the Egyptian gods, the first deity, Atum, was both male and female, according to studies by researcher Mark Burstman. The ancestor to all self-produced two offspring, Shu and Tefnut, through either a sneeze or his own semen, and it wasn’t for a few generations that the archetypal male and female gods of Isis and Osiris were born.

Baphomet (Europe)

Baphomet is not a traditional pagan god, but one most noted for its link to the Knights Templar. Pictured as a hermaphrodite, with breasts and a penis, Baphomet was also a mix between human and goat, a perfect mix between male and female, human, and animal, although something akin to the traditional Middle Age view of the devil. Baphomet is a deity of fertility and wealth. To curb their growing power and influence, King Philip IV of France claimed the Knights Templar were worshiping Baphomet and practicing homosexuality, two acts of heresy in the eyes of the Church.

Baron Samedi (Vodoun)

The Voodoo loa (law) named Baron Samedi is a god of the dead and magick, but is also evoked for help in daily life. His place is the cemetery and his symbol, a skull. Samedi is depicted as transgendered, wearing a combination of men’s and women’s clothing of black and purple, possibly representing his walk between two worlds, the living and the dead, in the same way that his sunglasses, with only one lens, do. He sees in both worlds. The Baron is known for his sexually suggestive movements indicating a desire for anal intercourse.

Bona Dea (Roman/Italian)

Bona Dea is the “Good Goddess” about whom little is known. She is a goddess of healing, magick, prosperity, and women. In fact, her cult did not allow the participation of men, and none of her mysteries were to be shared with the outside world. Most of our information on Bona Dea comes to us from the written accounts of male scholars lacking a personal connection to her rites. Her ceremonies possibly included lesbian acts of love as a part of worship.

Bran (Welsh)

Bran the Blessed is a Celtic hero/god of the mystical otherworlds. In many Celtic myths, the line between divine and mortal, spirit and flesh, is less visible than in most other mythologies. The legends were passed on orally, and recorded only much later by Christian writers. To preserve the story, yet not blaspheme, the gods and goddesses were transformed into heroes of folktales as the stories are told and retold. Bran is a patron of magick, battle, and resurrection. His main tale is the rescue of his sister, Branwen, who in many ways seems like his feminine half. She was abused by Matholwch, her husband and king of Ireland. Bran’s army defeated Matholwch’s men and rescued her, but Bran was fatally wounded. His head was eventually severed and continued, after his death, to speak and give magical advice. Eventually it was buried in London. As an interesting note to his history, Robert Craves, the somewhat controversial author of The White Goddess, believed Bran was worshiped by an order of homosexual priests, and Amathon, a version of the Green Man, wrests Bran’s secret magical name by seducing one of Bran’s priests.

Cernunnos/Herne the Hunter (Celtic/Proto-Celtic)

Cernunnos is the fabled Horned God, a central figure in modern witchcraft. He represents the god of the waning year and animal lord, the complement to the Green Man. Usually depicted naked, sitting in a lotus position, with stag antlers and a torc (Celtic neck ring resembling a choker) around his neck and one in his hand, surrounded by the animals of the forest. Some renditions portray the Horned God with an erect penis, surrounded by men with erections as well. Very little of Cernunnos’s original mythos survives, so old are his cults. Worship of him, primarily in Caul and other Celtic territories, is believed to predate the arrival of the Celts. We don’t even know his proper name; Cernunnos is a Roman variation. He has been equated with Herne the Hunter and even the Greek Pan and Dionysus due to their similar associations with nature and shamanic trance work. Herne is a figure of British folklore, the God of the Wild Hunt, appearing at times of crisis. Cernunnos is sometimes associated with the chalk carving of the god figure at Cerne Abbas in Dorset. The figure is not horned, but associated with fertility, due to his depiction with his exaggerated phallus. Cernunnos is an aspect of the Great Father God, a force of nature, like the Goddess—loving, gentle, and receptive, but also fiercely protective and powerful.

Chin (Mayan)

Chin is described as a small child or dwarf, and is a deity of magick, divination, and the destiny of rulers. He introduced homoerotic relationships to the Mayan nobles. The nobles would obtain youths of the lower classes to be the lovers of the nobles’ sons. Such unions were considered legal marriages under Mayan law.

Chrysippus (Greek)

Euripedes wrote that this divine Peloponnesian hero was on the way to compete in the Nemean Games when his Theban tutor Laius ran off with him and raped him. The incident drew a curse upon the city of Thebes.

Damballah (Vodoun)

Damballah is the serpent god of the Voodoo loa and although Damballah is portrayed as a father figure, he has an androgynous nature and can manifest homoerotically or bisexually. Invoked for guidance, peace, and prosperous good fortune, Damballah is the god of rain and rainbows, making a modern connection to the queer rights movement.

Dionysus/Bacchus (Thracian/Greco-Roman)

Dionysus is the son of Zeus and a mortal woman named Semele. Myths paint Zeus’s immortal wife, Hera, as the villain, tricking Semele to her death while she was still pregnant. Zeus could not save her, but saved his child, and implanted the unborn child in his thigh, carrying him to term. Thus, in this myth, Dionysus is “twice born” and associated with immortality and Zeus is transgendered and associated with birth. Older myths cite Dionysus’s early death and rebirth, as well as a serpent, perhaps Persephone in disguise, as his mother. Hera plagued him after his birth, so to disguise himself, he learned the art of shape shifting into various plants and animals and dressed in women’s clothing to avoid detection. He kept company with woodland creatures, depicted as soft and feminine, yet virile and strong, Dionysus is a balance of extremes. His myths, too, contain both ends of the spectrum. As a god of ecstasy, wine, and love, he traveled the world with his teachings, before ascending to Olympus as one of the twelve main deities. Like Jesus, but predating him, Dionysus spread his message and gathered followers to his cult. Some expressions were peaceful and loving, while others were more extreme and violent. His female followers of the more extreme rituals were called the Maenads, or Bacchante. Noted for his associations with Aphrodite and Persephone, taking a sacrificial Adonis-like role in several stories, Dionysus was less well known for his love affairs with men, including Adonis and Hermaphrodite. Dionysus is both an upperworld god of light, as a newborn child of innocence, and one who has braved the underworld, in search of his mother’s spirit, to come back with the power the shamanic realms has to offer. As Bacchus to the Romans, this god was depicted less beautiful, and more masculine, yet he retained his softness and sensitivity. Dionysus is quite the example of balancing gender identities as a path to enlightenment.

Ereshkigal (Sumerian)

Sister to Inanna, and Queen of the Underworld, Ereshkigal is the dark goddess of the dead. She is like the crone, and associated with the power of transformation and destruction, with Greek Kore/Persephone, Hindu Kali, Celtic Morgan, and Norse Hel. In Egypt, Ereshkigal was petitioned for gay male love spells.

Eros (Greek)

Eros is most popularly known as the cupid image of Valentine’s Day cards, and as the aid to Aphrodite, shooting arrows to make mortals and gods alike fall in love. The mythic, truly worshiped god Eros is much different from our conception of him. Like Dionysus, he contained a mixture of feminine and masculine energies, being soft, gentle, loving, effeminate, and childlike on one hand, and ancient, wise, aggressive, and masculine on the other. Eros is the patron and protector of homosexual love. He, along with Hermes and Hercules, could grant blessings upon male couples—the gifts of loyalty, eloquence, and strength, respectively. Eros is a major deity in the Orphic Mystery Schools, associated with the dolphin, flute, lyre, rose, and rooster. As a patron of success in battle, he was called upon by warrior/lovers before a fight, because many in the Greek world believed the love men had for each other would unite and lead them to victory.

Erzulie (Vodoun)

Erzulie is the Voodoo loa of love, seduction, and beauty, who grants the gift of manifesting beauty to those in the creative arts, such as painters, musicians, poets, and designers. Although similar in some ways to the Aphrodite archetypes, Erzulie also contains darker elements akin to the underworld goddesses. Her symbol is the mirror, not only to admire her beauty, but in Voodoo, the mirror is the symbol of the spirit world, the gateway to the realm of the loa. She is sometimes known as a loa of tragic love, for she is Erzulie Ge Rouge, Erzulie of the Red Eyes. She weeps constantly because no man can love her enough. Some practitioners consider her a patron to gay men and lesbians. Men “ridden” by Erzulie often display transgender traits.

Freyja (Norse)

The Norse myths divide the gods into two tribes, the Aseir and Vanir. The Vanir tribe is considered earthier, embodying the natural forces. The Aseir represent the more intellectual aspects demonstrated by sky-god cultures. The two tribes clashed and eventually the Aseir won the conflict. As a sign of peace, the tribes traded members. Freyja and Freyr lived in Asgard with the Aseir as part of the agreement. Freyja is the good goddess of these ancient people who would become the Norse. She is the goddess of the land, fertility, eroticism, and magick. She specialized in a shamanic magick called Seidr, the practice of inducing shamanic states through shivering and shaking, and sex magick acts are also attributed to her. She wears the golden falcon cloak, which carries her into the otherworlds like the bird of prey. Freyja taught her magick to the god Odin, the all-father of the Aseir. This great goddess later became a goddess of battle, and her initiations included the rite of boys becoming men and warriors. Although modern practitioners of the Norse traditions, the Asatru, are often seen as dominantly heterosexual and sometimes even unwelcoming of gays, it appears possible their ancient spiritual ancestors had homoerotic overtones in actuality, or ritually, like most ancient cultures. Becoming a warrior was a form of blood brothering. Ritual anal intercourse may have been a part of that warrior bonding.

Freyr (Norse)

Her brother, the god Freyr, also embodies the earth, like a vegetation king, growing, dying, and then resurrecting. Sharing attributes with the traditional Wiccan horned and green gods, Freyr is sometimes depicted with an erect penis, and fertility icons are present as part of his worship. He is also a patron of magick, shamanism, water, eroticism, love, peace, boars, horses, and stags. Freyr seems to keep his associations with peace, an association many queer men identify with instead of focusing on the more patriarchal and warlike gods, while other gods, including his sister, were directed toward war. His priest may have been homoerotic or transgendered, and well versed in his sister’s form of shamanic magick. In many ways, Freyja and Freyr are like two sides of the same coin, even in name. To modern pagans, they represent the primal Goddess and God of the land, the Lady and Lord seen all over the world

Ganesha (Hindu)

Ganesha, the breaker of obstacles and binder of evil, is usually depicted as a four-armed, plump, elephant-headed man, riding a rat. Ganesha is a benefactor, a wise, gentle, and loving god, acting as an aide and intermediary for other deities of the Hindu faith. He is the son of the goddess Parvati. One myth claims his father is the god Shiva. Another says he was created by Parvati from clay and dust, to be both her son and servant. Lesser-known myths say he sprung from the union of Parvati with the goddess of the Ganges River, Ganga, or another handmaiden goddess. Shiva beheads him in a fit of anger, as Ganesha protects the inner chambers of Parvati. The goddess replaced his fallen human head with an elephant’s head. Shiva later gave control of his armies, his own power, to Ganesha. The inner chambers of the goddess represent the inner, sacred power, and the power of sexuality, as he is said to guard the root chakra, and kundalini. The gates to the kundalini energy are the vagina and anus, and the elephant-headed god has been linked to homoerotic forms of worship involving anal sex. Ganesha is mixed in terms of sexuality, masculine in gender, and as represented with the elephant’s trunk, but also is soft, tender, and portrayed with breasts. He opens the gateways that block our path, removes obstacles, and protects travelers. Speaking from personal experience, Ganesha is a powerful ally to have when overcoming challenges placed before you.

Ganymede (Greek)

The most famous male lover of the Olympian god-king Zeus, Ganymede was a prince whom Zeus coveted. Taking the shape of an eagle, Zeus snatched Ganymede up to Mount Olympus to be his lover and his cupbearer, pourer of the golden ambrosia, the nectar of the gods. Ambrosia, like other sacred liquids, is associated with semen. The sign of Aquarius is associated with Ganymede.

Gwydion (Celtic)

Brother to the Welsh warrior Gilfaethwy, Gwydion is an archetypal magician figure, whose attributes were later absorbed by the Arthurian legends in the figure of Merlin. Gwydion is a trickster, as well as a magician, associated with the Celtic otherworlds and rites similar to shamanism, shape-shifting, and transformation. To woo the lady Goewin from the warrior/magician/king Math, Gilfaethwy asked for Gwydion’s aid. Though greatly skilled, they failed, causing a war with the King Pywll. Math punished them by transforming them into animals of the opposite gender and having them mate, producing a deer, pig, and wolf, who were later transformed by Math into human men, the heroes Hyddwn, Hychtwn, and Bleiden. Gilfaethwy took the female role twice, but Math made them both retain their human consciousness within their animal incarnations, as punishment. The results, however, were quite

wonderful, creating three heroes. Such myths can construe an archetypal reality that preceded events of ritual transgenderism and homoerotic worship among the Celtic people. Only later, as the myth was retold to Christian audiences, does the same-sex union become punishment for misdeeds. Gwydion later guides the development of the warrior Lleu, much like Merlin did with King Arthur.

Hecate (Greco-Roman)

The archetypal goddess of the witches, Hecate is the triple goddess of magick, justice, travel, the night, and the crossroads. She guards the roads of travel, sailors, horses, dogs, and wealth. As Hecate Triformus, she is the one who is three, embodying maiden, mother, and crone, but is most often seen as the crone, the dark goddess of the underworld—the bringer of light or terrible darkness, as a goddess of blessings and curses. Her symbol is the torch, carried into the dark night. As a handmaiden to Aphrodite and Persephone, she is a goddess of love, evoked for gay male love spells going back to the 3rd century C.E. She is also linked with Diana and Proserpina by the Romans, as triple Moon goddesses, and with Artemis, Luna, and Persephone in various triplicies, by the Greeks. Though most typically viewed as a Greek goddess, worshiped by priestesses, her roots trace back to Thrace, and she was honored by gender-variant male priests called semnotatoi. The Romans did not change her name when they assimilated her from the Greek pantheon.

Heracles (Greek)

The famous hero had a number of male companions through his many trials. Among them: Abderos, who kept the mares of Diomedes for Heracles but was eaten by the beasts; Hylas, Heracles’ companion when he sailed on the Argo, who was eventually kidnapped by nymphs in Mysia; and Iolaus, who help cauterize the necks of the hydra when Heracles famously chopped off the beast’s many heads. Indeed, the relationship with Iolaus was enshrined in Thebes, where male couples of the day could be found “exchanging vows and pledges with their beloved at his tomb,” according to historian Louis Crompton.

Hermaphrodite (Greek)

Hermaphrodite is a deity of both genders, having a penis and breasts. One myth states Hermaphrodite is the child of Hermes and Aphrodite, hence the name, and contained the best attributes of them both. Another myth states a nymph named Salmacis pursued a mortal man who spurned her. She asked that she and the mortal be joined forever, and the gods did just that, fulfilling her exact words, and not her intention. The gods melted the two together into one being with both masculine and feminine attributes.

Hermes/Mercury (Greco-Roman)

Although called the messenger god of the Olympians, Hermes has a much greater sphere of influence. True, he is the god of travel, but he is not restricted to any place or role. When speaking to his father, Zeus, he asks to go anywhere he chooses, and takes the role of messenger and psychopomp, traveling between the heavens, Earth, and underworlds. A psychopomp is a guide for souls who takes the dead to the underworld, and new souls to Earth. The psychopomp is the divine archetype of the shaman and magician. As one not bound by traditional roles and obligations, he is free to go and do as he pleases. Hermes took male and female lovers as he desired. With Hercules and Eros, he is part of a homoerotic trinity. His son is the god Pan. Although a male deity, Hermes is androgynous, and carries a lot of boyish charm. Called “Mercury” by the Romans, and associated with Thoth of the Egyptians, Hermes was evoked during the 3rd century in Egypt for gay and lesbian love spells in Hellenistic (Greek) magick. Dill seeds are considered the “semen of Hermes.” Hermes is also credited with giving humans the gifts of writing, mathematics, music, geometry, games, gambling, gymnastics, and wrestling. He is even said to be the inventor of masturbation. Invoked for protection when traveling, Hermes is another Greek patron of the crossroads. He is the god of both intellect and cunning, and as a trickster spirit, he is a patron of thieves. The symbols of Hermes include the winged sandals and cap, the caduceus, and the wand. The caduceus symbolizes the currents of kundalini, rising in a spiral, and later pictured as a double helix, like DNA, or the currents of masculine and feminine energy blending together. Now it is the symbol of modern medicine, as Hermes is a patron of healers. Hermes is a versatile god of many talents, trades, and attributes.

Horus (Egyptian)

Horus is the avenging son and a savior figure, a divine child in the Osirian cults. Horus is the falcon-headed god. One of his eyes is the Sun and the other is the Moon. The son of Osiris and Isis, he revenges himself against his father’s murderer, his uncle Set. Although Horus and Set were in constant conflict until Horus’s eventual victory, one myth relates the story of oral intercourse between Set and Horus, and Set consequently gives birth to Horus’s child. The child is either the Moon god Khonshu or the scribe of the gods, Thoth. Thoth is also associated with the Moon and homosexuality, although in most stories Thoth predates Horus. Homoerotic reproduction is common between divine personages, and their union often signifies birth of a mystical truth rather than a physical child. This particular birth suggests that the child of light and the god of darkness, nephew, and uncle are really two sides of the same deity, much like the cyclical Oak and Holly King of Celtic myth. Unfortunately, many scholars interpret the saga of Horus and Set as the struggle of good versus evil.

Hypnos (Greek)

Popular in mythology is the story of the Moon goddess Selene, who loved the boy Endymion. Most versions tell us she was so distracted by her love that she failed to pull her Moon chariot across the sky, causing darkness and the phases of the Moon. The gods punished her by putting poor Endymion to sleep, yet she still visits, continuing the dark phases of the Moon. The underworld god Hypnos, god of sleep, also loved Endymion, and he put Endymion to sleep, so they may share time together through dreams.

Indra (Hindu)

Indra is the Hindu sky god, with many similarities to Zeus. Both bisexual and transgendered, Indra loves his wife, Indrani. Indrani and Indra are viewed as the feminine and masculine sides to one being. Indra also loves the Moon god Soma, who elicits comparisons to Ganymede. The word soma also refers to the drink of the gods, like the Greek ambrosia, an offering, or potentially a psychotropic substance, real or mythic, which opens the gate to the gods. Soma also forms a union with Agni, the Hindu god of fire.

Isis (Egyptian)

The most beloved of goddesses, Isis is the Great Mother goddess of the Egyptians, the mother of gods and pharaohs. As the goddess of the land, agriculture, Moon, heaven, the underworld, healing, and magick, she is essentially the goddess of life. Her worship started in Stone Age Egypt, but was later incorporated in the more patriarchal myths of Ra, Osiris, and Horus. Even so, she plays a pivotal part in such dramas. Her worship spread into Europe, particularly as a result of Rome’s contact with Egypt, and only diminished with the rise of Christianity and the violent conversions associated with it. Christianized emperor Constantine forbade her worship and rites, desecrated her temples and killed her priests and priestesses. Actually, she was worshiped almost twice as long as Christ has been, and modern pagans are reviving her worship. Her cults and mysteries may have been similar to or even inspired the Eleusian mysteries of Persephone and Demeter. Although associated with homosexuality through her son Horus and brother Set, Isis, like other goddesses of her time and place, is served in ancient times, and today, by gay and transgendered priests and priestesses. Priests of the ancient world grew out their hair and nails, wore skirts, engaged in ritual sex, fertility rites, and possibly ritual castration, all to the dismay of later Christian observers. As the Great Mother, she welcomes all genders, orientations, races, and classes to her worship, and is considered one of the most popular and well-known goddesses in the modern pagan movement.

Kali Ma (Hindu)

Known in Hindu myth as the destroyer, the warrior goddess, and devouring mother is Kali. She is a dark goddess of magick, tantra, thieves, warriors, and death, with many arms carrying weapons, skin like ebony, and wearing a necklace of human heads. She is the destroyer of demons, and the wife/mother of Shiva, the dissolver. In modern practice, Kali is the harsh mother called upon to destroy what does not serve, including our own egos and illusions. She is both beauty and horror personified, forcing us to face our fears. Most people misunderstand the power of Kali. She is not a monster. She is akin to the Celtic war goddesses and crones, like the triple Morgan and the Cailleach. In the Hindu traditions, she is like Mother Nature. Male worshipers sometimes dress as Kali, with fright wigs, masks, and dresses, or ritually cut themselves with swords, as a symbolic castration.

Loki (Norse/Scandinavian/Germanic)

Originally, Loki was a fire god, later absorbed by the Teutonic tribes. In Norse myth, he is adopted as Odin’s blood brother. As his myth changed over time, he was demonized much like the Egyptian Set was. Loki is the trickster, in the positive and negative associations of the word. Although oriented to fire and light, Loki is as much a mercurial figure as Hermes and Thoth, working in words and clever unpredictability, like a combination of The Fool and The Magician of the tarot. Later his words turned to lies and his pranks turned much more malicious, siding with the enemies of the Asgardian gods, causing the death of Balder, the Sun god, son of Odin and brother to Thor. Loki is credited with starting Ragnarok, the Norse Apocalypse the gods desperately tried to prevent. As a shape-shifter, Loki is associated with transgenderism. To help Thor recover his hammer, stolen by the giants, he dresses Thor as Freyja and disguises himself as “her” handmaiden. Later disguised as the giantess Thokk, he prevented Balder’s resurrection by refusing to cry for Balder and defying the goddess Hel’s vow to release Balder from the land of the dead if all would shed a tear for him. Loki also assumed Freyja’s form and cloak, indicating magical and shamanic associations with the goddess, although it appears Loki never had a cult or priesthood exclusively his own. He transforms to a mare, gets pregnant, and gives birth to Odin’s eight-legged magical steed Sleipnir. Because of it, Loki, as a male god, is associated with homosexual union, called “argr” by Odin, an abusive term in old Norse for a sexually receptive male. Related to the word “ergi” that may indicate a sexually receptive male and one versed in Freyja’s magick. Loki also fathered the Midgard Serpent, Fenris Wolf, and Hel, the goddess of death.

Macha (Celtic)

Macha is an aspect of the Celtic triplicity known as the Morgan. Her name means “battle” and she is associated with both the crow and the horse. Three Machas have appeared in Celtic myth. The first is the wife of Nemed. Another is Cimbeath’s wife, who becomes a war chief, herself. The last, and most unusual, is Macha, the wife of Crunnchu. She came to Crunnchu as a fairy lover, making him promise never to reveal her identity. She becomes pregnant with his child. Foolishly, Crunnchu brags to the King in Ulster that his wife can outrun any of the king’s horses. The king accepts his challenge, demanding Crunnchu’s head should the latter lose the bet. Macha, in her mortal guise, is forced to run the race, and she wins, immediately gives birth to twins, and reveals her divine nature, cursing the men of Ulster for their treatment of her. For nine generations, in times of great crisis, all the men of Ulster experience a feminine transformation, living the pains of childbirth. Such androgynous transformation could signify a strong goddess cult influence in Ulster, originally demonstrating not a punishment, but an understanding of the goddess Macha. Although a goddess of war, she is also a goddess of life and sovereignty, giving birth under harsh conditions. Both Emain Macha, Ulster’s capital, and Ard Macha are named after her.

Morrigu/Morrigan/Morgan (Celtic)

The Celtic trinity of war goddesses are known by the name Morrigu. One version contains the goddesses Anu, Babd Catha, and Macha. Another version consists of Babd, Macha, and Nemain. All are associated with battle and death, but also with life. On Samhain, the Morrigan mates with the Dagda, with one foot in the river and one on land, symbolizing the veil between the worlds opening as spirits pass through it. In the revival of modern witchcraft, she is one of the most popular Celtic goddesses, associated with the Great Mother of the Earth, sea, and cosmos. In later myths, she was transformed into Morgan Le Fey of the Arthurian legend, sometimes ally and sometimes villain.

Narcissus (Greek)

A figure mostly known for his obsessive vanity, this son of a nymph and a river god would spend his last days gazing at his own reflection, but the first man he showed affection for was not himself. A myth traced in origin to the Boeotia region mentions a relationship between Narcissus and the smitten Ameinias, whom Narcissus would eventually grow tired of before sending him a sword as a kiss-off. Ameinias, desperately depressed over the rejection, killed himself.

Nephthys (Kemetic)

While there are fewer tales in Egyptian history and mythology about female than male homosexuality, many considered the goddess Nephthys to be a lesbian. The sister and constant companion of Isis, she married brother Seth but bore him no children. Scholars have debated whether the stories of Nephthys, who did bear one son by Osiris, show that the culture held lesbians in greater esteem than gay men, because they could still be fertile despite their sexual orientation. Then again, others express skepticism about her lesbianism altogether.

Odin/Wotan (Norse/German/Scandinavian)

Known as Wotan the Wanderer in Germanic myth, Odin is the all father and king of the Aseir, the warrior gods of the Norse pantheon. Credited with creating, with his brothers, the nine worlds of the Norse cosmology Odin, is a god king and mercurial figure, a traveler, binder, and inspirer. Odin is very shamanic, hanging himself from the world tree to gain knowledge of the runes and giving his eye for knowledge. He is attended by two ravens—Thought and Memory—the head of Mimir who granted him knowledge, and the spirits of the warriors of Valhalla and the Valkyries. (“Valkyrie” means “choosers of the slain,” a group comprising of Amazon-like warrior goddesses acting as psychopomps to the souls of heroes, leading them to Valhalla.) He is the god of nobles, leaders, warriors, poets, magicians, and mad men, evoking a frenzy or fury for battlers. His son Thor is the chief god of the common folk. Odin is known to have assumed feminine dress and identity when it suited his purpose. Freyja initiated him into Seidr shamanic magick, a form traditionally reserved for women and transgendered/homosexual men. He is blood brother to Loki, and their bonding has homoerotic overtones, much like the process of warriors bonding in the rites of Freyja.

Orpheus (Greek)

The legendary poet and musician may be best known for the story of his journey to the underworld to retrieve his wife, Eurydice; he failed to do so when he succumbed to temptation and looked at her before both had returned to the world of the living. According to Ovid, he never took another female lover after that — but did love other young men in Thrace. Spurned, Ciconian women would eventually tear Orpheus apart during a Bacchic orgy.

Osiris (Egyptian)

Osiris is one of the few fertility gods of the ancient pagan world not specifically associated with homosexual relationships, as Adonis and Dionysus are. His only association comes from his brother Set and his son Horus. Originally a god of fertility, he is killed by his brother Set, and resurrected by his wife, Isis. Angered by his resurrection, Set dismembers him. Isis finds all the pieces, except his penis. She resurrects him, placing a symbolic phallus in the correct position. Because of his inability to create new life, Osiris becomes lord of the dead. Either prior to his second death, or through the magical workings of Isis after his second resurrection, he conceives a child with Isis, named Horus, who continues his battle against Set, with the aid of Anubis, Nephthys, and Thoth, and eventually wins, becoming the new pharaoh, ruling in Osiris’s name. The flooding of the Nile River is said to be the semen of Osiris, the life-giving waters resulting from his acts of self-pleasure in the realms below. Pharaohs may have imitated Osiris during their enthronement rituals, masturbating before the image of the gods. These rituals later led to public masturbation as religious worship in Egypt. Such acts of religious sexuality can be found also in ancient Phoenicia, Babylon, and Assyria.

Pan/Faunus (Greco-Roman)

The horned god Pan incarnates the power of the land and animals, the power of wild things, into an archetype of immense power. Often viewed as the primary representation of the Wiccan godforce, Pan is the goat-legged god of music, creativity, poetry, nature, animals, sexuality, and even terror. He is the god of life and death, though not often portrayed as a lord or king, but somewhat as a trickster or nature spirit, cavorting with nymphs and satyrs. Originating the term “pansexual,” Pan loves both men and women. Artwork depicts him playing the panpipes, penis erect and chasing after men and maidens, particularly shepherds and young men to whom he is teaching music. He has been associated with Dionysus and Ganymede. Unfortunately, his visage was partially adopted by Christians to embody the devil, or Satan, though Pan’s pagan historical worship had absolutely nothing to do with Satan.

Poseidon (Greek)

According to Pindar’s First Olympian Ode, Pelops, the king of Pisa, once shared “Aphrodite’s sweet gifts” with the ocean god himself. Pelops for a time was taken to Olympus by Poseidon and trained to drive the divine chariot.

Quan Yin (Asian)

Quan Yin, or Kuan Yin, is the Chinese goddess of compassion. She sits on an island and listens to the prayers of the world, particularly those of women, children, and sailors. In Buddhists terms, she is a bodhisattva, one who forsakes her own union with divinity to remain behind on a spiritual plane, to guide and help the people of the world. She could be thought of as an ascended master or saint. Quite possibly Quan Yin was once depicted as male, from Indian origin, as Avalokiteshvara, and later viewed as a female figure, since union with the divine reconciles the female and male aspects. The Buddha is generally shown as male, so his companion, Quan Yin, was depicted as female in the 8th century. As a bodhisattva, Quan Yin is seen as beyond this world’s concept of gender, and can change gender at will, as needed.

Ra (Kemetic)

While the sun god Ra in most mythological accounts was regarded as the father to the major gods, Sir Ernest Alfred Wallis Budge wrote of clear indications of a double-gender nature to the deity. As early as the fifth dynasty, Budge wrote of Ra’s female counterpart Rat, who was considered the mother of the gods.

Rama (Hindu)

Another origin story for the hijras comes from the Ramayana, which tells the tale of Rama gathering his subjects in the forest before his 14-year adventure. He tells the men and women to return to their appropriate places in Ayodhya, but upon his return from his epic journey, Rama finds some have not left the place of that speech and instead merged together in an intersex fashion. He grants hijras the ability to confer certain blessings, the beginning of the badhai tradition.

Sedna (Native American/Inuit)

Several myths paint Sedna has a gynandromorphous creation deity, served by two-spirit shamans. Others depict her as a young woman who lived with her female partner at the bottom of the ocean. She is a mother goddess of life and death, of animals, particularly sea creatures, hunting, heaven, and destiny.

Set (Egyptian)

Set, or Seth to some, is the brother to Isis and Osiris, the divine mother and father of dominant Egyptian myth. He is also husband to his sister Nephthys, a dark goddess who lacked Set’s association with evil and later defected to her sister Isis’s cause. Set is considered the god of evil by the Osirian cults of Egypt, but more rightly he is the god of the harsh forces, the desert, the tests of the world, and the mysteries of death and sacrifice. He is distinguished by his red hair and fair skin—a far cry from the other Egyptian gods—suggesting a previous incarnation and set of associations from another people that were later absorbed into the Egyptian pantheon. His redness is reminiscent of the red sands and dust storms. He is also considered pansexual. Much later he was connected with Typhon, the serpent chaos god and nemesis of Zeus. Typhon is associated with the watery chaos serpent creation goddess Tiamat of Sumeria. In modern mythology, Set slays his brother Osiris twice out of jealousy and twice Isis returns him to life, though finally as a god of the dead. The two begot Horus, who continues the fight. Though Set himself was Horus’s nemesis, the two have oral sex, Set swallows Horus’s seed, and gives birth to a child.

Teiresias (Greek)

The blind prophet of Apollo was most famous in Greek myth for being transformed from a man into a woman for seven years. During his female years, Teiresias became a priestess of Hera, married, and even had children, according to Hesiod. Call him mythology’s original transgender person. After the gods changed him back, Zeus asked who enjoyed sex more, men or women. Teiresias revealed the ladies had it roughly 10 times better than the lads. Reporting this earned him a blinding by Hera.

Tezcatlipoca (Aztec)

As the Father of Witches, Tezcatlipoca walks the jungles in many forms, including a jaguar, coyote, monkey, or woman. He is the patron of sorcery and divination, often depicted holding his namesake, a black obsidian, or “smoking,” mirror. Seen as a dark solar figure at times, he is the mirror image of Quetzalcoatl, with whom he battled often. As a magician and shaman, Tezcatlipoca grants miraculous healings, although he is associated with death and sacrifice. Tezcatlipoca and his priests are associated with transgenderism, homosexuality, and ritual prostitution similar to the cults of the Middle Eastern goddesses.

Thoth (Egyptian)

The myths surrounding Thoth are numerous and varied, ranging from his role as a primal creation god to that of guide and aide to the ruling god, or son of Set and Horus’s homosexual union. His is pictured variously as a man with an ape or ibis head. Thoth’s title, “shepard of the anus,” comes from his association with the ibis, which fastidiously cleans its anus with its beak. He is primarily a god of writing, communication, magick, invention, justice, and the Moon.

Tlazoteotl (Aztec)

Tlazoteotl is the “Eater of Filth,” “Dirt Goddess,” or the “Shit Goddess” who takes all the darkness of the world, all the horrors, pain, and suffering and transforms it to purest gold. With these attributes in mind, Tlazoteotl can be viewed as an underworld, dark goddess figure, bringing the wisdom of the shadow to her people. She is a powerful goddess of life and death. Viewed as the archetypal witch, even in the Americas, she is seen partially nude, with either horns or a conical hat, holding a snake and riding a broom. The rabbit is her animal. Along with Xochiquetzal, she is mother and protector of the huastecs, transgendered, lesbian priestess. She is also linked with male homosexuality in her form as “Goddess of the Anus.” In most recent times, in a pop-culture, graphic story called The Invisibles by Grant Morrison (Vertigo/DC), she is associated with a shamanic drag queen named Lord Fanny.

Xochilpilli (Aztec)

Known as “the prince of flowers,” Xochilpilli is the Aztec patron god of flowers, physical pleasure, fine food, dancing, singing, games, entertaining, and perfumes. Although he is a giver of curses as well as blessings, his festivals are known for their lack of human sacrifice. Xochilpilli is a corn or grain god, partaking in the fertility mysteries of the spring equinox, much like a New World Adonis, with his mother and lover, Xochiquetzal. He is a patron of gay men, gender variance, and male prostitution. As a form of the god Naxcit-Xuchitl, he is said to have introduced homosexuality to his people. As Naxcit-Xuchitl, he ruled the Age of Flowers, or the Cosmic Cycle of the Four-Petaled Flower. Though most records of this time are derogatory, the general, less hostile position marks it as a time ruled by women warriors, where a form of Xochiquetzal was prevalent, and men focused on the arts and possibly same-sex relationships. Perhaps the Four-Petaled Flower age was a New World matriarchal age.

Xochiquetzal (Aztec)

An Aztec goddess of the underworld and of spring flowers, Xochiquetzal is somewhat akin to the Greek Persephone in that regard, though others relate her to the biblical Eve. The rain god Tlaloc is her husband, though Tezcatlipoca fell in love with her and took her away. Tlaloc then brought the great flood. Xochiquetzal is the mother of Quetzalcoatl and Xochilpilli. Marigolds, the Moon, red serpents, deer, spiders, butterfly wings, and thorns are her symbols, as she is a goddess of weavers, painters, sculptors, craftsmen, smiths, poets, and those engaging in nonreproductive sex. She is a protector of lesbians, along with Tlazolteotl, and is strongly linked to gay and transgendered men.

Vishnu/Mohini (Hindu)

A major deity of the religion regarded as protector of the world, Vishnu is clearly depicted in the faith as gender-fluid. This major Hindu deity frequently took on the female avatar of Mohini. Vishnu even procreated with Shiva in the Mohini form, resulting in the birth of Ayyappa, a major figure still worshipped by millions who make pilgrimages to shrines in India. The avatar Mohini frequently gets describes as an enchantress who maddens lovers.

Yemaya (Santeria)

Yemaya is the orisha of oceans, rivers, and water, a divine mother. The orisha are like the loa of Voodoo, but Santeria practices have a particularly Spanish flair. Yemaya is a great sorceress, a powerful patron of magick, and is known to shapeshift into a man at times. As a warrior woman, Yemaya is linked to transgendered and lesbian women. Water is generally associated with healing, cleansing, and emotion, so Yemaya is appealed to for healing, particularly now, to wash away HIV/AIDS, as she is also seen as a patron to gay, bisexual, and transgendered men.

Zeus/Jupiter (Greco-Roman)

Zeus is a sky and storm god, the carrier of lightning and rain, and the leader of the Olympians. The son of Chronos the Titan and grandson of the sky god Uranus, Zeus led his siblings to victory against the Titans. He divided creation among his brothers. He gained the heavens, Poseidon the seas, and Hades the underworld. Zeus is both a beneficent father figure and a stern patriarch, but always the supreme god. Zeus is associated with the planet Jupiter, which is his Roman name, and the granter of fortune, blessings, and prosperity. His wife is the sky goddess Hera, although he is known for his liaisons with both men and women, siring numerous offspring. Zeus is a shape-shifter and often uses the ability to seduce unsuspecting young men and women. In the Orphic mythology, he is transgendered as Zeus Arrhenothelus, being both mother and father. Later myths completely abandon Zeus’s transgendered aspects, but he retains some motherly attributes. Zeus gave birth to the goddess of wisdom, Athena, directly from his brow, as he did Dionysus from his thigh. This ability to carry a child to term echoes Zeus’s older attributes and we should not forget Them.

https://www.pride.com/entertainment/2017/9/11/52-queer-gods-who-ruled-ancient-history

Christopher Penczak’s Gay Witchcraft: Empowering the Tribe

#queer positivity #pantheons #lgbttqqiaap #magick #witchcraft

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elegantshapeshifter · 7 years ago

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Who Was Aradia? The History and Development of a Legend

The Pomegranate: The Journal of Pagan Studies, Issue 18, Feb. 2002.

by Sabina Magliocco California State University, Northridge

The author wishes to thank Ronald Hutton and Chas S. Clifton for their helpful critiques of an earlier draft of this work.

Aradia is familiar to most contemporary Pagans and Witches as the principal figure in Charles G. Leland’s Aradia, or the Gospel of the Witches, first published in 1899. Leland presents her as the daughter of Diana, the goddess of the moon, by her brother Lucifer, “the god of the Sun and of the Moon, the god of Light” (Leland, 1899, 1998:1), who is sent to earth to teach the poor to resist the oppression of the wealthy classes through magic and witchcraft. Through Leland’s work, Aradia’s name and legend became central to the Witchcraft revival. Between 1950 and 1960, “Aradia” was probably the secret name of the Goddess in Gardnerian Craft (it has since been changed), and she has also given her name to numerous contemporary Witchcraft traditions (Clifton, 1998:73).

Leland’s Aradia also inspired a number of 20th century works of Pagan literature. In a privately published electronic document entitled The Gospel of Diana [which according to Silvio Baldassare originated as a spoof of the Gnostic Gospels (Baldassare, 1997:15)], Aidan Kelly expands on Leland’s idea of Aradia as a religious leader and heroine of an Italian peasant resistance. Kelly’s Aradia, however, is a notably erotic character; according to her teachings, the sexual act becomes not only an expression of the divine life force, but an act of resistance against all forms of oppression and the primary focus of ritual. Kelly’s document has not achieved broad diffusion in contemporary Pagan circles, however. Much more influential in the perpetuation of Aradia’s legend is the work of Raven Grimassi. Grimassi, the author of a series of popular books on Stregheria, or Italian-American Witchcraft, presents Aradia as a wise woman who lived in Italy during the 14th century, and who brought about a revival of the Old Religion. He claims to practice a tradition founded by Aradia’s followers (Grimassi, 1995:xviii). In Hereditary Witchcraft, Grimassi expands on Leland’s version and the material he presented in Ways of the Strega by adding a chapter on Aradia’s teachings (Grimassi, 1999:191-201), which include a series of predictions about the future of humankind and the return of the Old Religion (1999:207-208). After Aradia’s mysterious disappearance, her twelve disciples spread her gospel, explaining the diffusion of the Old Religion throughout Italy and Europe (1999:203-210).

But who was Aradia? Was she the legendary figure of Leland’s Gospel, or a 14th century teacher of the Craft, as Grimassi proposes? Or is her story more complicated? In this paper, I explore the roots of the legend of Aradia, and in the process attempt to shed light on the formation of some of the most important motifs in the legendcomplex surrounding witchcraft, both traditional and contemporary. While my conclusions differ from those of Leland, Kelly and Grimassi, they may reveal a surprising possibility underlying the legend that has not been considered before. My approach is grounded in the academic discipline of folklore, which regards stories about historical or alleged historical figures as legends. A legend is a story set in the real world about an extraordinary or numinous event. Legends are typically told as true, with many features that root them in a specific time and place and lend them authenticity; but they are not necessarily believed by all who tell them. In fact, according to legend scholars Linda Degh and Andrew Vazsonyi, it is the tension between belief and disbelief that keeps legends alive and circulating, as each new listener must decide “Is this true? Could this have happened?” (Degh and Vazsonyi, 1976). Within any given community, there are legend believers and disbelievers; our community is, of course, no exception when it comes to this particular legend. The truth content of legends—that is, how closely they correspond to actual historical events— can vary widely; although some contain a kernel of reality, many legends are “true” only in the most metaphorical sense, in that they are an accurate reflection of popular attitudes, values and morality at a given time and place.

Legends can take many forms. Most typically, they occur as narratives, either in the first person (“This actually happened to me”) or third person (“This actually happened to a friend of a friend/ long ago, etc.”). Logically, many legends start out as first person accounts and become third person accounts; but just as often, a narrator may retell a third person account as though it had actually happened to him/her, making the story more vivid for the audience. Legends can also exist as simple statements (“The house on the hill is haunted”), and occasionally become dramatic enactments known as “ostension” (Degh and Vazsonyi, 1986), which I will describe later at some length. Legends appear in multiple variants; no one variant is any more correct than any other. At times, legends may cluster together to form what folklorists call a legend complex: a group of interrelated legends and beliefs centered around a particular theme. The multiple legend complexes centering around witchcraft are among the most enduring in Western history. Legends are extraordinarily responsive to social change; in fact, they are one of the most sensitive indices of transformations in cultural values and worldview (Dundes, 1971; Magliocco, 1993). For that reason, it is imperative to understand them in the cultural, political and social context in which they appear. In considering the development of the legend of Aradia, I will be applying all of the above principles, but especially the latter. My goal is to show how each successive historical era added and subtracted elements to this tale in keeping with the cultural preoccupations of the time, giving us not only today’s concept of Aradia, but also a much broader legend complex surrounding the nature of witchcraft itself.

ORIGINS: HERODIAS AND DIANA

The origin of the name “Aradia” is veiled in mystery. I have not been able to find it in written form before the publication of Leland’s Gospel in 1899. However, Leland himself equates Aradia with the legendary figure Herodias, a central character in the development of the witchcraft legend complex in Europe (Leland, 1899/1998:1). According to the Gospel of St. Matthew, Herodias was the sister-in-law of King Herod, the wife of his brother Philip (Matthew 14:3-12). Apparently she hated John the Baptist, and asked Herod to arrest John when the holy man was found in his dominion. But Herodias wanted John dead, so she concocted a plan in which she urged her daughter Salome to dance for King Herod. In exchange, the girl was to demand the head of John the Baptist on a platter. The plan worked: Salome danced, Herod delivered, and here the gospel stops. But according to an early Christian legend derived from the gospel, when Salome saw the head brought before her, she had a fit of remorse, and began to weep and bemoan her sin. A terrible wind began to blow from the saint’s mouth, so strong that it blew the famous dancer into the air, where she is condemned to wander forever (Cattabiani, 1994:208). Since in Roman usage, the wives and daughters of a house were commonly known by the name of the male head of the household, it is easy to see how Salome became confused with her mother Herodias. In medieval Italian, Herodias is rendered as “Erodiade,” only a short linguistic step away from Aradia.

One of the earliest mentions of Herodias is in the work of Raterius of Liegi, Bishop of Verona (890-974 CE). He laments that many believe that Herodias, wife of Herod, is a queen or a goddess, and say that one third of the earth is under her charge (Bonomo, 1959:19). Herodias gets linked with Diana in the Canon Episcopi, a document attributed to the Council of Ancyra in 314 CE, but probably a much later forgery, since the earliest written record of it appears around 872 CE (Caro Baroja, 1961:62). Regino, Abbot of Pr¸m, writing in 899 CE, cites the Canon, telling bishops to warn their flocks against the false beliefs of women who think they follow “Diana the pagan goddess, or Herodias” on their night-time travels. These women believed they rode out on the backs of animals over long distances, following the orders of their mistress who called them to service on certain appointed nights. Three centuries later, Ugo da San Vittore, a 12th century Italian abbot, refers to women who believe they go out at night riding on the backs of animals with “Erodiade,” whom he conflates with Diana and Minerva (Bonomo, 1959:18-19).

In each of these cases, legends about women who travel in spirit at night following Herodias or Diana are being recorded by clerics whose agenda is to eradicate what they see as false beliefs. It is difficult to gauge whether these reports represent a wide diffusion of the legends in north-central Italy and southern Germany between the 9th and 12th centuries, or whether the authors of early medieval decrees and encyclicals simply quoted each other, reproducing the same material. However, the work of German historian Wolfgang Behringer demonstrates that legends of night-flying societies, including followers of Diana, were in oral circulation in the western Alps (a region that now includes parts of Germany, Switzerland and Italy) in the 16th century, and probably well before it as well (Behringer, 1998:52-59). Herodias appears in these legends, as in the New Testament, as a symbol of wantonness (so she remained; as late as the 19th century, prostitutes in Paris were euphemistically referred to by Eliphas Levy as les filles d’Herodiade, “the daughters of Herodias”)—but also as a tragic figure, condemned to wander through the air forever as punishment for her sins. Regino equates her with Diana, and Ugo adds Minerva; we cannot know, based on the evidence, if this was their own interpretation, formed as a result of their educated knowledge of Roman mythology, or whether tellers themselves were merging Herodias with other Roman goddesses in their narratives. It is telling, in any case, that pagan goddesses are being syncretized with one of the most wicked characters in the New Testament.

Whether the association was of scholarly origin or arose from oral tradition, Herodias and Diana are linked in folk legend from the 9th century CE onward; and it is through Diana that the connection to witchcraft is formed. The goddess Diana is associated with witchcraft from early Classical Roman literature. She was often conflated with Selene (a deity from Asia Minor) and Hecate, all three of whom were associated with the moon. Hecate was also the queen of the spirits of the dead, present at tombs and at the hearth, where pre-Roman peoples buried their ancestors. At night she would appear at crossroads, followed by her train of spirits flying through the air and her terrifying, howling dogs (Caro Baroja, 1961:26). Folklore about Diana’s night rides may be a permutation of earlier tales about Hecate and the rade of the unquiet dead, which survived in Europe well into the middle ages and, in northern Europe, fused with the legend of the wild hunt. All three goddesses were known for helping witches: Horace, writing about the witch Canidia, has her invoke “night and Diana, ye faithful witnesses of all my enterprises” to assist her in thwarting her enemies (Horace, Epode 5, vv.49-54; cited in Caro Baroja, 1961:26). In Roman times, women of all social classes worshipped Diana on the kalends of August at her sanctuary near Lake Nemi. Her rituals were conducted at night; the lake was ringed by torches. Archeologists have found votive offerings of tablets seeking Diana’s aid as well as clay statuettes of mother and child (Diana protected women in childbirth) and of uteri, as well as horned stags representing Actaeon, the youth whose desire the goddess punished by transforming him into a stag. Since the rites were women’s mysteries, little information remains to us about their nature (Bernstein, 2000:154). However, we do know that men were often suspicious of women’s mystery rites, and may have circulated legends about them like those cited by Juvenal about the rites of the Bona Dea, another goddess worshipped in secret exclusively by Roman women. According to this 1st century BCE Roman author, men imagined the rites to be of a sexual nature, with feasting, dancing and wild orgies (Juvenal 6.314, cited in Bernstein, 2000:220). It is important to remember that this is a male fantasy of secret women’s rites, rather than a description of their actual content, and that Juvenal was writing about the rites of the Bona Dea and not those of Diana. Nevertheless, it is not impossible that similar kinds of stories circulated about many women’s mysteries, including the rites of Diana. The motif of rites of sexual pleasure may thus have become associated with the legend of Diana and her followers. This motif surfaces again centuries later in association with the witches" sabbat.

Christian legends of Herodias, the flying dancer, may have begun to merge with those of the pagan goddess Diana because of their shared theme of night flight. With the merging of the two traditions, additional motifs become part of the legend complex: a connection with the moon; the practice of witchcraft; the presence of additional spirits, i.e. the spirits of the unquiet dead from Hecate’s rade; and gatherings of women that included feasting, dancing, and sexual license. By the 10th century CE, legends of Diana and Herodias were in wide circulation in Europe, and this continued well into the 12th century. At this point, the legends began to incorporate material from yet another legend complex.

THE FAIRIES

During the 12th century, authors begin to report folk legends about spiritual beings, variously called bonae res (“good things”), dominae nocturnae (“night women”) or fatae (“fairies”), that would visit homes at night to feast. If food was plentiful and the house was in good order, these visits were thought to bring good luck, since the bonae res would restore everything they consumed before the night was out. The bonae res could also punish householders whose homes were not orderly, or who did not have plenty to eat and drink, by withdrawing their blessing. The spirits were sometimes said to be led by a queen who had different names, depending on the source of the legend: Bensoria, Diana or Herodiana (combining Herodias and Diana) in Italy; Satia and Dame Abonde in France; Holde or Berchta in what is now Germany (Bonomo, 1959:22) These female figures were the protectors of spinners and of orderly homes, distributors of fertility and plenty who rewarded the good and punished the lazy. Diana and Herodias became identified, in parts of Europe, as leaders of these spiritual assemblies (Bonomo, 1959:29).

In 1249, William of Alverina, Bishop of Paris, discussed beliefs in night rides by the followers of “Domina Abundia,” who brings abundance and good luck to the homes she visits if there is plenty to eat, but whose followers abandon and scorn houses where they receive no hospitality (Bonomo, 1959:22). Vincent of Beauvais (1190-1264) reports an instance of ostension involving this legend: a group of young men forced their way into the home of a rich farmer, helping themselves to whatever was lying around while dancing and singing “unem premes, cent en rendes” (“we take one, return a hundredfold”). The thieves ransacked the place while the credulous farmer told his wife to keep quiet, for the visitors were bonae res and would increase their riches a hundredfold (Bonomo, 1959:25-26).

A similar story appears in Boccaccio’s Decameron (1348-54) as the “Queen’s Tale” (#9). Two common laborers, Bruno and Buffalmacco, explain to a learned doctor that despite their poverty, they are able to live happily, because they go in corso (“on course,” “on a journey”). “From this we draw anything we want or need, without any harm to others, and from this comes our happy lifestyle which you see,” explains Bruno. The doctor wants to know what this is all about, but Bruno tells him it is a great secret, and that he could never reveal it. The doctor swears he won"t tell a soul, so at last Bruno confides the details to him. He and Buffalmacco are part of a brigade of 25 men with a captain and two council members elected every six months, guided by two disciples of a great necromancer. Twice a month, the brigade assembles; each person states their wishes and all are provided for. The assembly then feasts on delicious food and fine wine, while sweet music plays and beautiful women are available for erotic fun. The doctor can"t wait to go “in corso” himself, and begins to ply the laborers with gifts and money, hoping they will take him. Finally they agree. They tell him that on an appointed night, a dark, hairy beast will appear and carry him to a secret location, but he must not mention God or the saints. On the designated night, Buffalmacco and Bruno appear dressed in a bear-skin and carry the gullible doctor on their backs, leaping and yelping, until they dump him into a sewage ditch while they escape, laughing at his foolishness.

Legends about fairies who reward neatness and plenty and punish want and slovenliness seem to address issues of class conflict and social inequality in pre-modern Europe. One family’s good fortune could be explained as the result of supernatural intervention. At the same time, such legends also gave hope to the lower classes that if they keep a neat enough house, they too might be blessed by the bonae res. In this sense, the stories acted as a form of social control, reinforcing values of orderliness and hospitality while threatening sanction against householders who violated them. The stories also contained compensatory fantasies for the lower classes, a theme that will appear again a few centuries later. For people whose very survival depended on subsistence farming, and who often suffered from hunger and privation, the idea of breaking into the homes of the wealthy and enjoying some of their benefits, even in spirit, must have been a compelling one indeed, especially as the food magically restored itself by morning. It is not surprising that instances of ostension like the one described by Vincent of Beauvais occurred.

These versions also demonstrate that legends about night-time travels in the company of spirits had both believers and skeptics. Moreover, there may have been class differences between the two: lower classes were more likely to know about them and believe in them than the educated classes, for reasons I explained above. In Boccaccio’s tale, the learned doctor, who has never heard of the legend, is taken advantage of by shrewd laborers, who themselves are non-believers, although they are familiar with the legend. They successfully fool and humiliate the learned doctor, reversing the usual power relationships between social classes. However, nowhere in Boccaccio’s version is there mention of a company of women, or of a female leader of the spiritual assembly; instead the company is led by a great necromancer, and the doctor is told he will be borne to the assembly by a hairy beast, perhaps a reference to the diabolization of these legends that was taking place during Boccaccio’s lifetime.

In all accounts discussed so far, the point of view of the Canon Episcopi prevails: the night travels are spiritual journeys; they do not take place in the flesh. The stupidity of the gullible is exactly that they mistake a spiritual tradition for an actual practice. Moreover, while the clerics decried belief in these legends because they diverted parishioners" attention away from God, they were not taken as evidence of the practice of witchcraft, nor did they have any diabolical content. But as the 12th century advanced, a new view began to emerge and compete with that of the Canon. According to this emergent worldview, the women’s nightly journeys were not spiritual, but real. At the same time, older legends about the Society of Diana and Herodias, the bonae res and Dame Abonde begin to merge with tales about maleficent witches. These legends took on a menacing tone. Combined with new attitudes about the nature of the night journeys, they became the building blocks of the witches" sabbat in the subversion myth of diabolical witchcraft.

FAIRIES, HEALING AND SECRET SOCIETIES

Until the 11th century, legends of the society of Diana or Herodias existed side by side with legends about a very different kind of character: women who entered homes at night in sprit form to harm the inhabitants by sucking blood, eating bodies and cooking them before restoring to them the appearance of life. Their victims eventually became ill and died. These are related to the Classical Roman legends of striae, women who could transform into birds of prey to fly out at night and eat their victims, often infants, in their beds (Bonomo, 1959:33). Their victims often appeared perfectly healthy, but over a period of time sickened and died: their souls were thought to have been eaten and, in some cases, cooked by the maleficent beings.

In some parts of Sicily, Sardinia, and Friuli, these two strains still existed separately as recently as the 19th century. In Sardinian folklore, cogas (lit. “cooks;” vampire-like witches) and janas (fairies; from dianas, “followers of Diana;” cf. Neapolitan ianare) are very different types of creatures: while cogas are uniformly malevolent, janas live in caves or Neolithic shaft tombs in the mountains, are expert weavers and singers, and can interact with and even marry humans (Liori, 1992:107- 111). The 19th century country doctor and folklore collector Giuseppe Pitré reported that Sicilian peasants distinguished between the vampiric, maleficent witch (stria, nserra) and the donna di fuori. Sicilian donne di fuori (“women from the outside”) or belle signore (“beautiful ladies”) documented by Pitré are creatures somewhere between fairies and witches. They appear as beautiful women who can enter homes at night through the keyhole. If all is in order, they reward the householders, but they punish dirt and disorder. They love babies, but too much attention from the donne di fuori can also harm children (Pitré, 1889: iv:153). Gustav Henningsen, in his careful review of Spanish Inquisition documents from Sicily, reveals that during the 16th century, the term “donne di fuori” referred to both fairies and people of both genders who were believed to ride out with them at night (Henningsen 1993:195). These individuals were usually folk healers who could cure illnesses caused by the fairies, often as a result of some unwitting offense against them (Henningsen, 1993:195). The usual cure involved a ritual supper offered to the fairies by the victim. The fairies, accompanied by the healers in spirit form, would come to the victim’s home on an appointed night where they would dance, celebrate and spiritually consume the food, thus curing the afflicted person (Henningsen, 1993:200-01).

These medieval Sicilian beliefs have interesting parallels throughout the modern Mediterranean. In rural Greece, as recently as the 1960’s, certain folk healers specialized in curing ills brought about by the fairies, known as exotica (“those from outside;” cf. donne di fuori) (Henningsen, 1993:210). Anthropologist Vincent Crapanzano, working in Morocco in the 1960’s, documented a belief system centered around the jinn (fairies) and their human followers, folk healers belonging to religious brotherhoods who could cure illness by performing a trance-dance to special music. The queen of the jinn, known as ëA"isha Qandisha, could appear either as a beautiful woman or a hideous hag, but always had a non-human feature, such as camel toes. Healers consulted ëA"isha Qandisha in their dreams, where she explained the cause of the illness and its cure (Crapanzano, 1975:147). In the 1970’s, folklorist Gail Kligman documented Romanian brotherhoods of trance dancers who specialized in curing ailments thought to be caused by iele (fairies), whose patron saint was Diana or Irodeasa [cf. Erodiade] (Kligman, 1981). And in Sardinia in the 1980’s, folklorist Clara Gallini studied argismo, a belief system based on the idea that the (often metaphorical) bite of certain insects could be cured only through ecstatic dancing, done to music played by groups of specialized musician-healers (Gallini, 1988). There may also be parallels to tarantismo, the folk belief system documented in southern Italy, especially Calabria, by folklorist Ernesto De Martino (1961); but this is a topic beyond the scope of this paper.

The broad diffusion of similar motifs in the circum-Mediterranean suggests that we are dealing with a belief-system of significant antiquity which may once have existed in many parts of Europe. It involved beliefs about illnesses caused by fairies or spirits, folk healers who specialized in communicating with these spirits through dreams and trances, and the enactment of ritual cures, which may have included special meals, music and trance-dancing. In many cases, healers themselves belonged to a society which may have met either in spirit or in actual ritual enactments of the cures.

THE DIABOLIZATION OF A LEGEND COMPLEX

But in most of Europe, belief systems involving night-time spiritual journeys, folk healers and fairies began to change during the 12th century, merging with motifs about maleficent witches and with the growing diabolical interpretation of witchcraft generated by the Church. John of Salisbury (1110-1180) combines the two by attributing to Herodias the leadership of night-time cannibalistic banquets, where babies were offered to the lamiae, female-headed serpents of Classical provenance. By the 14th century in Italy, Jacopo Passavanti first mentions the tregenda (sabbat) in conjunction with his merging of the two legendary strains. In his description, demons take the place of humans at these gatherings, leaving humans asleep in their beds. The intent of the demons is diabolical: to lead people astray. He mentions that certain women believe they travel with this company, and that its leaders are Herodias and Diana (Bonomo, 1959:64).

An examination of some Italian trial records shows the gradual transformation of legends about the society of Herodias/ Diana into diabolical sabbats, where feasting, drinking and dancing are accompanied by sex acts and cannibalism. Two early trials which have captured a great deal of scholarly attention are those of Sibillia and Pierina of Milan (Bonomo, 1959; Caro Baroja, 1961; Muraro Vaiani, 1976; Ginzburg, 1989). Both trials took place in the late 14th century; both women were probably first identified and persecuted because they practiced divination or folk healing (Muraro Vaiani, 1976:153). Sibillia’s first trial took place in 1384. Accused of heresy, Sibillia confessed to having believed in and told legends about the games of Signora Oriente (“milady of the East”), not thinking it was a sin. Signora Oriente or La Signora del Giuoco (“the lady of the game”) presided over these gatherings, where there was feasting on all manner of delicacies, music and dancing; she could predict the future, reveal secrets and resurrect the animals that had been eaten by the assembly, so that in the morning, all appeared exactly as before.

In 1390, Pierina de Bugatis, also of Milan, confessed under questioning to participating in the “game of Erodiade.” The gatherings would slaughter and feast on livestock, whose bones Signora Oriente would put back into their skins before resurrecting them with her magic wand. The party would visit the homes of the wealthy, where they would eat and drink; they would bless homes that were neat and clean. Signora Oriente instructed her followers about the properties of various herbs and answered their questions about illness and thefts. But the followers were sworn to secrecy. To attend the assembly, Pierina would call upon a spirit named “Lucifelus,” who appeared in the form of a man to take her there.

The tales told by Sibillia and Pierina illustrate the merging of a number of motifs from different traditions into a single legend complex: the night journeys, the company of women led by a female leader, who seems to control both abundance and rebirth, as well as revealing the future and dispensing advice on healing; the magical feasting in which appetites are satisfied; the resurrection of dead animals after the banquet; the fairy visits to the homes of the rich, where hospitality is rewarded and all returns as before at the evening’s conclusion. In Pierina’s version, we have the first appearance of “Lucifelus,” a variant of Lucifero, or Lucifer, as the agent of transport to the games—a minor figure, at this point, who is diabolical in name only.

Italian historian Luisa Muraro Vaiani believes the judges hearing these depositions had a hard time understanding their nature. The women at times spoke as though they were reporting folklore, while at other times they spoke as though they themselves had experienced these night journeys—a characteristic of legend performance I have already remarked upon, and one which makes sense if we accept the hypothesis that both women were folk healers who continued an ancient tradition of consulting with spiritual beings for healing advice. Their tales were dreamlike, mixing familiar elements with supernatural ones. To us, they may even suggest events that took place in an altered state of consciousness, and like many such experiences, they alternate in perspective between the self and a kind of detachment from the self. But the judges, working with a binary system of opposites in which illusion and reality were mutually exclusive concepts, didn"t know what to make of these dream-like visions that seemed so real to the accused. They ended up assuming they were real. Sibillia was sentenced to prison at her first trial for having believed in and told people about the society of Diana, acts that were considered apostasy, not witchcraft. But at her second trial in 1390, she was sentenced to death for recidivism and for having actually participated in the games. Thus, the transition between attitudes of the Canon and later ones hinged on the understanding of legendary material as fact (Muraro Vaiani, 1976:137-142)—a critical transition which had ominous consequences in the development of the witchcraft persecutions.

One of the best-known of the Italian witch trials took place two centuries after Sibillia and Pierina were tried and executed. In 1540, Bellezza Orsini of Colle Vecchio (Perugia), a widely respected folk healer who cured using herb-infused oils, was accused of poisoning. At first she swore her innocence, but under torture, she confessed to being part of a secret society of witches. The secret society she described was a hierar- chical one in which the initiate-to-be apprenticed with a master strega. Initiation involved a formal renunciation of Church teachings, a renegation of baptism, and the invocation of the devil, who was called Mauometto (“Mohammed”), and appeared as a handsome man dressed in black. At the time of Bellezza’s trial, the Islamic Ottoman empire was expanding its reach towards Europe. The use of the name “Mohammed” for the devil reflects widespread popular fear and prejudice towards Muslims in16th century Europe. Sexual intercourse with the devil was part of the initiation. Afterwards, the assembled company would fly off, with the help of flying ointment, to the magic walnut tree of Benevento where they would dance with other devils. Initiates chose new, non-Christian names so they could be used when members got together again. Orsini described witches as organized into teams according to their place of origin. Each team was led by a captain with 20-30 students under her. A “witch queen,” called Befania, ruled over all the teams. Each November 1, there was a “reconciliation,” or gathering of witches, during which a new witch queen would be elected. According to Orsini, the members of the witch society were sworn to help one another, and to help less fortunate teams by sharing baby-meatballs and other ingredients. By then, witch gatherings included cannibalistic feasting, and the dead were no longer brought back to life.

It is evident that drastic changes had taken place in the Diana/Herodias legend complex between 1390 and 1540. Gone are the earlier legends of all-female societies of revelers whose presence brought good luck to the homes they visited, and where all that was consumed was magically restored—a kind of compensatory fantasy for the poor not unlike other contemporary portrayals of utopias of plenty, such as Cuccagna and Bengodi (Del Giudice, 2001). By 1540, Herodias and Diana are no longer players in the dangerous “game.” Instead, it has acquired menacing, diabolical elements introduced by ecclesiastical revisions which interpreted all deviations from Christian doctrine as evidence of a world-wide diabolical conspiracy whose agents were witches. The witch gathering is now presided over by the devil, whose name is identical to that of the Islamic prophet Mohammed—evidence of the demonization of Islam in the popular imagination by the 16th century. Besides the devils" followers, the women present include the witch-queen Befania, a corruption of the word epifania (“epiphany”), and witches who initiate their charges into the diabolical society. According to Cattabiani, there may well be a connection between Befana, the Italian Christmas witch, and earlier legends of Herodias. This link is preserved in the names for the Befana in the region of the Italian Alps near Belluno, where to this day she is known as “Redodesa,” “Redosa,” or “Redosola"—possible corruptions of "Erodiade” (cf. Romanian “Irodeasa”) (Cattabiani, 1994:13). The witches gather at Benevento and fly around the magical walnut tree with the help of flying ointment; cannibalism and sexual intercourse with the devil are integral features of their assemblies. The witch society is a secret society; initiates are brought in by a teacher, and secret names are used to conceal everyday identity. November 1 is now a recognized time for witches" gatherings. Bellezza Orsini’s confession reveals the growing diabolization of the legend of the night journeys, as well as the crystallization of certain folk motifs which continue to be central in contemporary revival Witchcraft: secrecy, the use of ritual names, initiation through a teacher, and the importance of October 31/ November 1 in the year cycle. The transition in the content of the legends was accompanied by a change in the attitudes of the clerics and the elite: material previously understood as legendary was now being understood as fact. The tension between belief and disbelief that had kept the legends circulating was beginning to solidify into an acceptance of the witches" sabbat as an actual event. By 1525, the Canon Episcopi was being called into question: Paolo Grillando writes in De sortilegiis eorumque poenas that the Canon was mistaken about the illusory nature of the witches" sabbats, and that they were in fact real (Bonomo, 1959:110).

BETWEEN DREAM AND REALITY

But what if the judges were right? If the games of Diana/ Herodias were in fact experiences of the imagination, whether dreams or other alternate states of consciousness, why did many women confess to having attended them? Is it possible that the Society of Diana/ Herodias was a real secret society of women, and that Sibillia, Pierina and Bellezza were members? Could Herodias/ Erodiade/ Aradia have been the secret name of an actual leader of such a society, who then became legendary? If this were true, it would give us an intriguing source for Leland’s legend of Aradia, as well as revolutionizing our understanding of the history of the witch trials and our sense of gender relations in Europe during the middle ages. Let us carefully examine the evidence both for and against this hypothesis. First, it is important to remember that not all women confessed to the reality of their experiences; many maintained their dream-like nature to the bitter end. Other confessions, like Bellezza’s, were produced under torture, and are thus unreliable as historical evidence. Victims would often confess to outrageous acts under torture because the narration of fantastic episodes brought respite from agony and bought the accused time. A strange compact often developed between judges and their victims which may have led some women to manufacture diabolical details they thought would satisfy their accusers, leading to the creation of fantastic trivia such as the baby meatballs in Bellezza’s confession. Other details might have been drawn from the victim’s knowledge of everyday reality; for example, the complex organization of the witch society described by Bellezza parallels the organization of other medieval social institutions such as trade guilds and religious fraternities and sororities, which were led by elected officials chosen at yearly assemblies. These guilds and fraternities functioned as mutual aid societies, much as Bellezza describes for the secret society of witches. Thus we need to be selective in interpreting the nature of these narratives. Some details suggest that certain aspects of the Society of Diana/ Herodias may have been real. The women who reported on it constituted only a small minority of all those accused of witchcraft. Moreover, the narrators had an important element in common: they were folk healers and diviners. A key function of the night-time journeys was the obtaining of answers to divinatory questions and information on cures. This structure parallels that of similar belief-complexes about spirits, healers and night journeys from the circum- Mediterranean. In several of these examples, we know that folk healers indeed were members of a society that convened in the flesh to play music, dance ecstatically and conduct healing rites. In other cases, the societies reported by healers existed only in spirit, and included spiritual members, whether fairies, jinn, exotica or iele. These details, shared with other circum- Mediterranean healing traditions, suggest that the accused may indeed have been part of a secret society of folk healers—either actual, spiritual, or both.

At the same time, other legend elements have content that is clearly dream-like and fantastic: all wishes are granted; food magically regenerates; humans fly. These motifs point to the spiritual nature of at least some of the experiences. Additional elements suggest the creation of a legendary peasant utopia: there is food and drink aplenty for all assembled; humans and nature exist in harmony; death is followed by resurrection or rebirth; relationships, though hierarchical, are based on mutual trust and dignity; knowledge is available to all members; gratification is ubiquitous, and the Christian notion of earthly pleasures as sinful is completely absent. These descriptions suggest a kind of utopia, an “imagined state” whose conditions inversely reflect those of its source (Del Giudice and Porter, 2001:4-5). Muraro Vaiani suggests that Diana/ Herodias was to her followers as Christ was to his, albeit in a parallel universe: the Lady did not judge or deny the Christian universe, but offered an alternative (Muraro Vaiani, 1976:153). Legends of the secret society may have constituted a kind of compensatory fantasy for women— one in which women had power and the ultimate authority rested with a benevolent supernatural female leader. Through legends and perhaps even dreams, they may have offered solace and compensation to women whose real-life experiences reflected the hardships of gender and class oppression in medieval Europe, much as narratives of earthly paradises such as Cuccagna and Bengodi, where rivers flowed with wine and mountains were made of cheese, were created by Italian peasants whose everyday lives were filled with hunger and privation (Del Giudice, 2001:12).

How can we better understand the nature of these narratives, which even after six centuries seem to take place in a world between dream and reality? I would suggest that it is not unreasonable to assume the existence in medieval Italy of legend complexes similar to those in other parts of the circum-Mediterranean, concerning fairies, spiritual journeys and healing. As we have already seen, aspects of these belief systems existed in parts of Europe and North Africa until the end of the 20th century. Henningsen’s work confirms the existence of similar beliefs in Sicily during the 16th century, and Behringer documents their presence in the western Alps. If Sibillia, Pierina and Bellezza were indeed members of such a society, their stories begin to make a certain amount of sense. This is especially true if we consider two additional tentative assumptions: the idea of ostension and that of the autonomous imagination. Ostension is Degh and Vazonyi’s term for the enactment of legends. For example, a Halloween haunted house may portray legends about ghosts, vampires and werewolves, or a Pagan ritual may dramatize the legend of Robin Hood. Ostension always derives from a pre-existing legend: the legend precedes the existence of its enactment. Thus, for instance, legends of contaminated Halloween candy predated the finding of actual contaminants in treats by at least ten years (Degh and Vazsonyi, 1986/1995). Individuals who placed needles, razor blades and other dangerous objects in treats as pranks engaged in a form of ostension. The theory of ostension explains how easily certain elements can pass from legend to ritualized action. Hypothetically, legends about spiritual journeys to dance with the fairies and receive healing can easily be transformed by creative individuals into healing rituals with food offerings to the fairies and ecstatic dancing to special music. What if some women, inspired by utopian legends of the Society of Diana/ Herodias, decided to try to replicate such a society in medieval Europe? Though we have no proof such a society ever existed, it is not inconceivable that a few inspired individuals might have decided to dramatize, once or repeatedly, the gatherings described in legends. The use of the term giuoco (“game”) by Sibillia and Pierina suggests the playful, prankish character of ostension. A “game” based on legends of Diana/ Herodias and the fairies would probably have been secret and limited to the friends and associates of the creative instigators, who might well have been folk healers. One or more women might even have played the role of Diana or Herodias, presiding over the gathering and giving advice. Feasting, drinking and dancing might have taken place, and the women may have exchanged advice on matters of healing and divination. The “game” might even have had a healing intent, as was the case for many comparable circum- Mediterranean rituals, and may have involved trance-dancing. This is one possible explanation for the remarkably consistent reports of Sibillia and Pierina, tried within a few years of each other. The existence of ostension in connection to these legends could also mean that Grimassi’s claim that Aradia was a real person may, in fact, not be entirely out of the question; a healer who was part of the society might have chosen to play the part of, or even take on the name of, Erodiade.

However, it is important to remember that even if a group decided to enact aspects of the legend of Diana/ Herodias, it would not have been a revival of pre-Christian paganism, but an attempt to act out certain ritual aspects described in the legends. Moreover, the more magical aspects from the trial reports—night flights on the backs of animals, ever-replenishing banquets, resurrection of dead livestock—could not have been achieved through ostension. We need to consider these as fantastical legend motifs, reports of experiences from trances or dreams, or both.

One way to explain these motifs is to consider the role of the autonomous imagination in blending cultural and personal material. This term, coined by anthropologist Michele Stephen, refers to a part of the human imagination that operates without our conscious control (Stephen, 1989:55- 61). It emerges in dreams and in alternate states of consciousness such as vision trances and religious ecstasy. The visions it produces are vivid and detailed, appearing “more real than reality” to experiencers. They seem to arise independently of any conscious volition on the part of the subject. The autonomous imagination is more creative and synthetic than ordinary thought processes, easily combining elements from the subject’s personal life with cultural and religious material. Thus dreams and visions seem to speak directly to our most intimate concerns, but also bring religious and cultural symbols to bear upon them. Furthermore, the autonomous imagination processes time and memory differently from ordinary conscious thought. Past, present and future events may blend together; personal memories may combine with cultural material in unusual ways.

It is possible that some of the experiences of the Society of Diana/ Herodias described by the accused are attributable to the autonomous imagination of the experiencers. Please note that I am not claiming that the accusers invented the experiences; in fact, I am saying quite the opposite. To women such as Pierina and Sibillia, the experience of flying out to the games of Herodias may have seemed more real than ordinary, everyday reality if it took place in trance visions. While it is possible that vision trances may have played a part in a hypothetical, ostensive Society of Diana/ Herodias, it is also conceivable that women who were active narrators of these legends as well as folk healers might have experienced altered states of consciousness, either through the use of herbs or by using meditative techniques. This is consistent with the discoveries of Behringer, who studied the trial transcripts of Conrad Stoeckhlin, a 16th century horse herder from Oberstdorf, in the western Alps, who was executed for practicing witchcraft. Stoeckhlin, a folk healer, reported that an angel led him on a series of trance journeys and gave him advice on healing and divination (Behringer, 1998:17-21; 138). We also know that some contemporary Italian folk healers used such techniques well into the 20th century, and that they reported contacting spirits who helped them with their healing (Henningsen, 1993; De Martino, 1961, 1966; Selis, 1978; DiNola, 1993:41).

Of course, spiritual experiences (and their interpretations) vary widely according to culture and historical period. It is not unlikely that contemporary legend material about Diana, Herodias and the fairies may have made its way into the trance visions of medieval Italian folk healers through the mechanism of the autonomous imagination, giving rise to their reports of actually participating in the game of Herodias. The healers were telling the truth; their experiences were real. Both Behringer, in his research on the visionary horse herder Stoeckhlin, and Stuart Clark, in his monumental study of early European demonology, propose early modern European folk culture did not always distinguish sharply between experiences that took place in dreams, ecstatic visions or trances and reality (Behringer, 1998:158-59; Clark, 1997:193-96). The dualistic conception in which “dreamtime” was opposed to “reality” was a product of medieval Church reforms that culminated in the formation of the myth of diabolical witchcraft. Here we must return to Muraro Vaiani’s hypothesis that it was the judges who did not know how to understand the ecstatic experiences of the accused because they fell outside of their dualistic conception of the nature of reality. Therefore, they interpreted them as sorcery—the only mechanism they understood through which illusion could be made to seem real.

CONCLUSIONS

What can we conclude from this evidence about the legend of Aradia? The evidence I have examined and presented here suggests that the legend of Aradia has roots in archaic, pre-Christian materials concerning societies of healers who trafficked with spirits in order to cure. Healing may have involved trance-journeys as well as ecstatic dancing. These ancient materials combined with Classical legends of Diana and Hecate, and during the middle ages became attached to the New Testament story of Herodias, the eternal dancer. By the 11th century, these elements had become part of a widespread legend complex in Europe that may have involved episodes of ostension, or the enactment of certain legend motifs, probably for the purposes of healing. As clerical and popular attitudes towards the nature of nighttime spiritual journeys changed, these legends merged with parallel folk materials about maleficent witches, and became the building blocks of the subversion myth of the diabolical sabbat, responsible for the death of tens of thousands of innocent women and men between 1300 and 1750.

What Leland collected from Maddalena may represent a 19th century version of this legend that incorporated later materials influenced by medieval diabolism: the presence of “Lucifero,” the Christian devil; the practice of sorcery; the naked dances under the full moon. While there may have been instances of ostension regarding this legend, the evidence does not support the idea that Aradia was an early teacher of the Craft, although some women may have called themselves Erodiade during ostensive episodes. There is no evidence of a widespread revival of pre-Christian religion as a result of the proliferation of this legend. In fact, it is ironic that a compensatory legend that envisioned a society led by women, featuring relationships based on equality, access to knowledge for all, and the fulfillment of all earthly desires became twisted into the subversion myth of the diabolical sabbat, which was responsible for the murder of so many innocent women during the witch craze.

Legends and beliefs about healing, fairies and nighttime spiritual journeys may have continued to exist in pockets throughout Italy until the late 20th century. Because legends always change to reflect their social environment, they became Christianized, and incorporated references to saints. In some cases, saints may have replaced the earlier fairies. Some version of this legend complex may be at the core of both Leland’s discovery of a “witch cult” in Tuscany in the late 1800’s, and Grimassi’s claims that his family practiced a form of folk healing that involved spirits, dancing, and the goddess Diana (Grimassi, pers. communication 8/25/00). These were not, as Leland suggested, survivals of Etruscan religion, but elements of great antiquity reworked into systems that made sense for Italian peasants of the late 1800’s and early 1900’s. Some parts of these belief systems may even have survived the journey to America, forming the basis of Stregheria, or Italian American revival Witchcraft.

Folklore, of course, seldom dies; it transforms itself according to new paradigms and cultural discourses. So it is not surprising to read new versions of this legend emerging today. Grimassi’s expansion of Leland’s materials must be understood in exactly such a context—as the continuation of the legend begun so long ago. It is intriguing to note that while both Leland’s and Grimassi’s versions may appear to be strictly Neo- Pagan in content, both also contain very strong Christian influences. In the Gospel of the Witches, Diana sends her only daughter Aradia to earth to teach people to resist their oppressors just as in the New Testament, God sends his son Jesus to earth for much the same purpose. In Hereditary Witchcraft, Grimassi describes Aradia as having twelve disciples—six male-female couples—who help spread her teachings after her mysterious disappearance. Do these elements invalidate the legends? Quite the contrary, I would argue. They simply demonstrate how easily legend material absorbs motifs from the surrounding culture. These elaborated new versions show that the legend of Aradia is a living tradition that continues to evolve today, changing to adapt to the individual needs of the narrator as well as the larger changes in society.

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Muraro Vaiani, Luisa. 1976. La signora del gioco: episodi della caccia alle streghe. Milano: Feltrinelli.

Pitré, Giuseppe. 1889. Usi, costumi, credenze e pregiudizi del popolo siciliano. Palermo: Giuffé.

Selis, Luisa. 1978. “Prime ricerche sulla presenza delle streghe in Sardegna oggi.” In L"erba delle donne: maghe, streghe, guaritrici. Roma: Roberto Napoleone Editore, 137-147.

Stephen, Michele. 1989. “Self, the Sacred Other and Autonomous Imagination.” In The Religious Imagination in New Guinea. ed. Michele Stephen and Gilbert Herdt, 41-64. New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press.

Sabina Magliocco is Associate Professor of Anthropology at California State University - Northridge. She has done fieldwork in Sardinia (Italy) as well as among contemporary Pagans in the San Francisco Bay area, and is the author of a forthcoming book Neopagan Sacred Art and Altars: Making Things Whole (University Press of Mississippi) and a number of articles. She is a Gardnerian initiate.

www.AradiaGoddess.com

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katandhercgbojac · 6 years ago

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Inuit vs Eskimo

https://www.uaf.edu/anlc/resources/inuit-eskimo/

Although the name "Eskimo" is commonly used in Alaska to refer to all Inuit and Yupik people of the world, this name is considered derogatory in many other places because it was given by non-Inuit people and was said to mean "eater of raw meat."

Linguists now believe that "Eskimo" is derived from an Ojibwa word meaning "to net snowshoes." However, the people of Canada and Greenland prefer other names. "Inuit," meaning "people," is used in most of Canada, and the language is called "Inuktitut" in eastern Canada although other local designations are used also. The Inuit people of Greenland refer to themselves as "Greenlanders" or "Kalaallit" in their language, which they call "Greenlandic" or "Kalaallisut."

Most Alaskans continue to accept the name "Eskimo," particularly because "Inuit" refers only to the Inupiat of northern Alaska, the Inuit of Canada, and the Kalaallit of Greenland, and it is not a word in the Yupik languages of Alaska and Siberia.

https://www.aaanativearts.com/alaskan-natives/eskimo-vs-inuit.htm

I answered a letter a while ago, from someone at a museum in Alaska. They wanted to know why Inuit (which I am of) dislike being called "Eskimos." After all, many Alaskans don't mind being called Eskimos, and even seem to dislike the term "Inuit" when southerners apply it them, however well-intentioned.

I am not surprised by the confusion. The ascendancy of Inuit culture, through good reportage and the establishment of Nuvavut, has conditioned southern folks to say "Inuit" instead of "Eskimo." Southerners have complied beautifully, but at last they are running up against peoples, related to Inuit, who insist that they are Eskimos. The confusion derives from this sticky fact: Inuit are not Eskimos, and Eskimos are not Inuit.

In simple terms: The first Mongolic peoples of North America (linked by genetic heritage to the Mongols of Asia) settle in Alaska as early as 8,000 years ago. Paleo-anthropologists like to call them the "Arctic Small Tool Tradition," which, frankly, is fine by me.

Millennia creak by. Some of these people move east across North America in waves. The first such Mongolic wave (I dislike the term "Mongoloid") finishes settling as far as Greenland about 4,000 years ago. Once they settle, they are dubbed the "pre-Dorset" culture, later developing into the more advanced "Dorset" culture. These are a Mongolic people from Alaska, but they live in an incredibly cold world without dog-sleds and most of the technologies Inuit are used to. Their rectangular encampments are bordered by short walls of flat stone. They are obsessed with art, particularly images of human faces, which they leave everywhere around the Arctic.

Then the Earth warms up a bit. Between the period of Europe's late dark ages to its early middle ages, about 800-1200 A.D., a new Mongolic people dubbed "Thule" sweep eastward from Alaska. They are tool-obsessed people (over 40 items in a seal-hunting kit alone), mainly following whales and walrus along newly-opened channels in the ice. These are the inventive souls who bring such innovations as dog-sleds, soapstone lamps, float bladders, igluvigak ("igloo") building, waterproof stitching, and toggling harpoons with them. By the time they have completely occupied the area from the eastern edge of Alaska to Greenland, around 700 years ago, the Earth cools again. It is time to curb the nomadism.

They supplant the Dorset, and become Inuit.

Now, I have read too many interpretations of "Inuit" as meaning, "Humans" or "The People," probably under the (incorrect) assumption that this is every culture's name for itself.

However, having been a translator for 30 years, I can guarantee you that "Inuit" is a specific term. It precisely means, "The Living Ones Who Are Here." It denotes a sense of place, of having arrived, a memory that Inuit knew they had kin somewhere else. It also betrays the fact that Inuit once knew they were not the original peoples of their lands. Interestingly, in this way does language act as a code to preserve heritage.

The Alaskan Eskimos are descended from the Mongolic peoples that continued to develop into diverse western cultures. As such, they have their own preferred words for themselves, such as, "Yup'ik" and "Aleut" and "Nunamiut." Nevertheless, none of us has completely left our heritage behind, and I still get a kick out of it when I understand the speech of people from Alaska, or even the Chukchi Peninsula.

There was only one culture in the Canadian Arctic and Greenland before Inuit. These, Inuit refer to as the "Tunit." These are Dorset. Inuit remember them well in their oral traditions. The Tunit were small, very strong, incredibly shy. It is said that Tunit taught Inuit about their lands, that they built the first inuksuit ("images of men," man-like stone structures) to herd caribou along predictable paths for hunting. Paradoxically, they were thought of as poor craftsmen.

Unfortunately, the Tunit are now extinct. Inuit, therefore, have the luxury of using "Inuit" in a wide context, since they are the only ones remaining. But even this can get politically tricky, since there are a couple of peoples adjacent to them - "Inuvialuit," for example - who do not always approve of being called Inuit. But, generally, one can get away with using "Inuit" as a kind of umbrella term for eastern Mongolic peoples.

The umbrella term for the far west, Alaska, is "Eskimo." Alaskans do not seem to mind its usage these days, simply because it provides a handy general term. And there may be another reason not to mind it, as well. The old thinking was that it derived from Cree, derogatorily meaning, "Eaters of Raw Meat." It was thought that it was overheard by French missionaries, distorted to "Esquimaux" or "Esquimau," then Anglicized to "Eskimo."

It is amazing how widespread this belief has become, so that it is cited by all but the most informed sources. Yet, while remaining a bit of a mystery, the missionary-origin of "Eskimo" is pretty much discounted today, since there is some compelling evidence that the word was existent in pre-colonial times. Some researchers have made a good case for it coming from Montagnais vocabulary, literally meaning, "snowshoe net-weaver," but culturally being a term that indicates any craftsman of great skill. It seems to me that this makes more sense and, if true, would mean that the word is not derogatory after all.

Inuit, however, can never be Eskimos. Existent in the west or not, preferred by Alaskans or not, it was simply never part of their vocabulary. Inuit, after all, have their own name for themselves: Inuit. Today, "Eskimo" only reminds Inuit of the days when missionaries kidnapped them, dumped flea powder all over them, and assigned "Eskimo numbers" to them, instead of bothering to note the proper name for the culture or the individuals within it.

It all really boils down to choice, the right to accept or reject specific labels at will, the right to be known as one wishes to be. And is that not what liberty is all about?

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aestheticcc-whoreee-blog · 7 years ago

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CAPE History: Nordic Movements Into The Americas

The settlement was large. Thanks to the fact that the halls follow known Icelandic room layouts, for which sleeping space requirements are known, we can determine the number of people the L'Anse aux Meadows buildings could accommodate. Sourced from:

I. The Caribbean in the Atlantic World by John Campbell & Heather Cateau

II. https://journals.lib.unb.ca/index.php/nflds/article/view/140/236

III. https://naturalhistory.si.edu/vikings/voyage/subset/vinland/archeo.html

The Vikings

‘Viking’ is a collective term used to refer to a larger group of Icelandic people who shared different cultures but maintained some commonalities. The Vikings spoke Old Norse, and was made up of Danes and Norwegians who actively raided from 793 - 1066 AD.

The Vikings arrived on the English coast in approximately the 9th century AD in waves of exploratory raids, and were branded as a violent seafaring people only interested in conquest.

The Vikings established cities such as York and Dublin, and once their period of exploration, raids and conquest was over, they went on to adopt sedentary lifestyles on their new lands, living as farmers.

Vinland

Vikings did not rely on written records apart from runestones, instead making use of oral sagas.

The two best known sagas are the Greenlanders’ Saga and the Saga of Erik the Red. It is through these accounts that we learn, in detail, of their explorations into Europe and the Americas.

Most importantly however, is their account of a land called ‘Vinland’, which if found true, corresponds to the lands of the Americas.

Here, the sagas claim that the Vikings interacted and conducted tade with the Native People they found. Such trade would’ve taken place from 1050 - 1350 AD.

The Sagas are therefore important historical artefacts that have formed the basis of the revisionist view of the discovery of the Americas.

The idea of Vinland emerged in The Book of the Icelanders, published between 1122 and 1133, and which contained extensive accounts about the history of the Icelandic people, and again, the book mentioned that the Vikings had reached Vinland. This point was further elaborated in a text by Danish Writer, Carl Christian Rafn, who published Antiquitates Americanae in 1837.

Rafn argued that the sagas provided definitive evidence that the Vikings arrived in North America some 500 years before Columbus. Additionally, Historians have analyzed the Sagas and date the discovery to about 1,000 AD.

Substantiating Evidence

Substantiating evidence was found in archaeological remains of a viking settlement located in what is now L’Anse Aux Meadows, Newfoundland, Canada, pictured below. (Image sourced from the Encyclopedia Britannica)

There were some anomalies at L’Anse Aux Meadows however.

In most aspects, L'Anse aux Meadows resembles other early eleventh-century Norse sites in Iceland or Greenland; but its location and layout differ from all other such sites. Its situation on the most exposed bay in the area contrasts with the sheltered areas favoured for West Norse livestock farming. The usual large West Norse barns and byres are missing. Specific archaeological testing showed no sign of enclosures or shelters for livestock of any kind, or of disturbances in the flora caused by grazing and cultivation. Nor were remains of domestic animals found: all the identifiable bones being seal and whale. (A small scapula originally identified as domestic pig has now been identified as seal:

(A.S. Ingstad 1977: 45, 179, 266; Rick 1977; Spiess 1990.)

All the buildings were Icelandic in style, an architecture rooted in the traditions of western and northern Norway -- but which developed its own characteristics, as the tenth century progressed. This Icelandic style was transferred to Greenland, as is evident from the first generation of buildings there

(Albrethsen 1982, Arneborg 2001, Guldager, Stumman Hansen and Gleie 2002).

A few small items were lost by their owners: a small bronze pin, a glass bead, a minute fragment of a gilded bronze ornament, a spindle whorl, a small whetstone for the sharpening of needles, and a bone needle.

The only finished Norse object deliberately left on the site was a small beach boulder of igneous rock with a shallow depression pecked out of its centre. Similar objects found in Iceland have been interpreted as oil lamps

(Roussell 1943: 97; Kristján Eldjárn 1949: 38-39; Gísli Gestsson 1959: 75-76; Nordahl 1988: figs. 89a,b).

The site can be dated by its style of architecture and artifacts, and by radiocarbon dates. The architecture is distinctly Icelandic, in the style evolving towards the end of the tenth century and remaining in vogue into the thirteenth century.

All the buildings at L'Anse aux Meadows were permanent, year-round buildings, constructed to withstand a northern winter. One is reminded of a point made explicit in The Greenlanders' Saga:

“Leif and his crew carried their skin sleeping bags off board, and built themselves booths. Later they decided to winter there and built big houses” (Jones 1986: 198).

three butternuts, recovered from the carpentry waste, prove that some of the Norse who over-wintered at L'Anse aux Meadows had been farther south. Butternut or white walnut, Juglans cinerea, is a North American species of wood but is not indigenous to Newfoundland.(Adams 2000).

L'Anse aux Meadows was a base for exploration and a transshipment station for resources collected farther afield. The archaeology of the site tells us that its occupants were mostly men, who spent considerable time away but who periodically returned, and that some of the exploration was in a southerly direction. The only comparable Norse settlement in the sagas is the Vinland settlement of Straumfjord.

In order to obtain wares from Europe, the Norse needed goods to offer in exchange. Walnuts, grapes, and lumber from Vinland would not have been very useful, since these were available in Europe as well. Only walrus and narwhal tusks, and products from seals and other sea mammals fit the bill. For these, the Norse had to go north, to Norðsetr, the Northern Shielings, in a direction opposite to Vinland. Under these circumstances it is not difficult to understand why Vinland was not colonized, or why L'Anse aux Meadows-Straumfjord was soon abandoned. Sporadic voyages to relatively nearby Markland continued, and there is some evidence for forages, both planned and unplanned, into the Arctic (Gad 1971: 123, Schledermann 1996, Sutherland 2000).

The last bit of evidence is a Norse coin made of Bronze was found off the Coast of Maine, and dated from 1065 - 1100.

To summarize, the sagas provided ethnohistorical evidence for the Nordic movements into the Americas, substantiated by dendrochronology, carbon dating and archaeological findings, we can safely say that the Vikings did in fact, discover America prior to Christopher Columbus.

#History #CAPE #CAPE-History #A-Levels #Vikings #Norse #Columbus #America

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potentiam0 · 3 years ago

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The Complete Definition Of The Music

Music is a type of workmanship that includes coordinated and discernible sounds and quietness. It is ordinarily communicated as far as pitch (which incorporates tune and congruity), beat (which incorporates rhythm and meter), and the nature of sound (which incorporates tone, enunciation, elements, and surface). Music may likewise include complex generative structures on schedule through the development of examples and blends of regular improvements, chiefly strong. Music might be utilized for creative or tasteful, informative, amusement, or stately purposes. The meaning of what comprises music differs as per culture and social setting.

In the event that painting can be seen as a visual artistic expression, music can be seen as a hear-able work of art.

Purposeful anecdote of Music, by Potentiam Network

Moral story of Music, by Lorenzo Lippi

Substance

1 Definition

2 History

3 Aspects

4 Production 4.1 Performance

4.2 Solo and gathering

4.3 Oral practice and documentation

4.4 Improvisation, translation, organization

4.5 Composition

Primary article: Definition of music

See additionally: what is a blockchain

The broadest meaning of music is coordinated sound. There are noticeable examples to what in particular is comprehensively named music, and keeping in mind that there are reasonable social varieties, the properties of music are the properties of sound as seen and handled by people and creatures (birds and bugs likewise make music).

Music is defined or coordinated sound. Despite the fact that it can't contain feelings, it is now and then intended to control and change the feeling of the audience/audience members. Music made for films is a genuine illustration of its utilization to control feelings.

Greek scholars and archaic scholars characterized music as tones requested evenly as tunes, and in an upward direction as harmonies. Music hypothesis, inside this domain, is concentrated with the pre-speculation that music is methodical and regularly wonderful to hear. Nonetheless, in the twentieth century, arrangers tested the thought that music must be wonderful by making music that investigated harsher, more obscure tones. The presence of some current kinds, for example, grindcore and commotion music, which appreciate a broad underground after, show that even the crudest clamors can be viewed as music if the audience is so disposed.

twentieth century author John Cage couldn't help contradicting the idea that music should comprise of lovely, noticeable songs, and he tested the thought that it can convey anything. All things being equal, he contended that any sounds we can hear can be music, saying, for instance, "There is no clamor, just sound,"[3]. As indicated by musicologist Jean-Jacques Nattiez (1990 p.47-8,55): "The boundary among music and commotion is in every case socially characterized - which infers that, even inside a solitary society, this line doesn't generally go through a similar spot; so, there is once in a while a consensus.... Apparently there is no single and intercultural widespread idea characterizing what music may be."

Johann Wolfgang Goethe accepted that examples and structures were the premise of music; he expressed that "design is frozen music."

Fundamental article: History of music

See additionally: Music and governmental issues

Dolls playing stringed instruments, unearthed at Susa, third thousand years BC. Iran National Museum.

The historical backdrop of music originates before the composed word and is attached to the advancement of every novel human culture. Albeit the soonest records of melodic articulation are to be found in the Sama Veda of India and in 4,000 year old cuneiform from Ur, the majority of our set up accounts and studies manage the historical backdrop of music in Western development. This incorporates melodic periods, for example, archaic, renaissance, rococo, old style, heartfelt, and twentieth century time music. The historical backdrop of music in different societies has additionally been recorded somewhat, and the information on "world music" (or the field of "ethnomusicology") has gotten an ever increasing number of pursued in scholastic circles. This incorporates the archived old style customs of Asian nations outside the impact of western Europe, just as the people or native music of different societies. (The term world music has been applied to a wide scope of music made outside of Europe and European impact, in spite of the fact that its underlying application, with regards to the World Music Program at Wesleyan University, was as a term including all conceivable music sorts, including European practices. In scholarly circles, the first term for the investigation of world music, "near musicology", was supplanted in the 20th century by "ethnomusicology", which is as yet viewed as an unacceptable money by a few.)

Well known styles of music changed broadly from one culture to another, and from one period to another. Various societies underlined various instruments, or methods, or utilizations for music. Music has been utilized not just for diversion, for services, and for useful and imaginative correspondence, yet in addition broadly for publicity.

As world societies have come into more prominent contact, their native melodic styles have frequently converged into recent fads. For instance, the United States twang style contains components from Anglo-Irish, Scottish, Irish, German and some African-American instrumental and vocal practices, which had the option to intertwine in the US' multi-ethnic "mixture" society.

There is a large group of music orders, a considerable lot of which are up to speed in the contention over the meaning of music. Among the biggest of these is the division between old style music (or "workmanship" music), and mainstream music (or business music - including rock and move, blue grass music, and popular music). A few types don't fit flawlessly into one of these "enormous two" orders, (like society music, world music, or jazz music).

Classifications of music are resolved as much by custom and show as by the real music. While most old style music is acoustic and intended to be performed by people or gatherings, numerous works portrayed as "traditional" incorporate examples or tape, or are mechanical. A few works, similar to Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue, are guaranteed by both jazz and old style music. Numerous current concerts commend a specific melodic sort.

There is regularly conflict over what establishes "genuine" music: late-period Beethoven string groups of four, Stravinsky expressive dance scores, serialism, bebop-time Jazz, rap, underground rock, and electronica have all been viewed as non-music by certain pundits when they were first presented.

[edit] Aspects as seen by [http://www.FaceYourArt.com]

Primary article: Aspects of music

The customary or traditional European parts of music frequently recorded are those components given power in European-affected old style music: song, agreement, mood, tone or tone, and structure. A more thorough rundown is given by expressing the parts of sound: pitch, tone, tumult, and duration.[1] These viewpoints consolidate to make optional angles including construction, surface and style. Other regularly included angles remember the spatial area or the development for space of sounds, motion, and dance. Quietness has for quite some time been viewed as a part of music, going from the sensational stops in Romantic-time orchestras to the cutting edge utilization of quiet as an imaginative proclamation in twentieth century works, for example, John Cage's 4'33."John Cage considers span the essential part of music since it is the solitary angle normal to both "sound" and "quietness."

As referenced above, not exclusively do the perspectives included as music differ, their significance shifts. For example, tune and agreement are regularly viewed as given more significance in traditional music to the detriment of mood and tone. It is regularly discussed whether there are parts of music that are general. The discussion regularly relies on definitions. For example, the genuinely basic declaration that "resonance" is widespread to all music requires a sweeping meaning of resonance.

A heartbeat is now and again taken as an all inclusive, yet there exist solo vocal and instrumental classes with free, improvisational rhythms with no standard pulse;[2] one model is the alap part of a Hindustani music execution. As indicated by Dane Harwood, "We should find out if a diverse melodic widespread is to be found in the actual music (either its design or work) or the manner by which music is made. By 'music-production,' I plan genuine execution as well as how music is heard, seen, even educated." [3]

[edit] Production

Principle article: Music industry

Music is created and performed for some, reasons, going from tasteful delight, strict or stately purposes, or as an amusement item for the commercial center. Novice artists create and perform music for their own pleasure, and they don't endeavor to get their pay from music. Proficient performers are utilized by a scope of foundations and associations, including military, places of worship and temples, ensemble symphonies, broadcasting or film creation organizations, and music schools. Too, proficient performers function as consultants, looking for agreements and commitment in an assortment of settings.

Albeit novice artists vary from proficient artists in that novice artists have a non-melodic kind of revenue, there are regularly numerous connections among novice and expert performers. Starting novice artists take exercises with proficient performers. In people group settings, progressed novice artists perform with proficient artists in an assortment of troupes and ensembles. In some uncommon cases, novice artists accomplish an expert degree of skill, and they can act in proficient execution settings.

#new

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nchyinotes · 6 years ago

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the future of wikipedia (katherine maher & lucy crompton-reid)

February 3 2018

https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/the-future-of-wikipedia-tickets-42271530285#

Thoughts: So this was kind of my first foray into open knowledge/culture, and there were two parts to this day - the first was learning about wikidata and how to query it and contribute to it. This was pretty cool and actually what I had initially signed up for because I want to get out of my comfort zone/learn a new skill for research, but I did feel a little over my head haha. The second part I actually just found out about on the day, and stayed for. This was a talk about the future of Wikipedia, and it sounds pretty awesome tbh. I came in knowing nothing about Wikipedia, how it works as an organisation (it’s a non profit!), or how the site is maintained or who contributes, or what its missions are. Katherine is a great speaker. And while the talk was obviously very specific to Wikipedia, I think I was able to learn about all sorts of topics I’m interested in - how NGOs operate and are funded, how huge collaborative projects work, acknowledgment of and potential solutions to structural barriers that promote limited diversity in contributors of the collaborative projects, the bias that results from this, the impact of new technology, and their vision and belief in the public good of open knowledge. Was a very well spent day for me.

lucy

global movement for open knowledge

non profit

free and open access to info/knowledge = driver of social/cultural/economic development, fundamental right

work with cultural + educational organisations to enable them to contribute to a democratic understanding of the world

3 programs:

1) diversify editing community + content

not reaching + representing every community, voice, sum of human knowledge

gender gap, minorities

2) promoting open knowledge

3) education and learning

reach and impact?

metrics: people we reach, editors we have, ??

social bias + impact? how open knowledge genuinely improves society

katherine

wikimedia is based in san fran

300 people at the foundation, all over the world

“a world in which every single human can share in the sum of all knowledge” - aspirational statement, room for everyone to participate (+ create knowledge), not just consume

asymptotic, active

the more info on wikipedia, the better resource it’ll be

people who contribute to wikipedia, if they come with a partisan view over time become more neutral

wikidata (structured and linked data), wikimedia commons, DBpedia

populations are shrinking - japan, russia, europe - where wikimedia is well known + prominent

sub saharan africa

means of knowledge production hase been changing over time

the way we consume, faith / trust / research in institutions is on decline and shifting into influencers/personal trust networks, interfaces are changing (go beyond browser)

internet: info —> communication medium

native > additive experience in their lives

how do we want to evolve in response to the way world is changing?

hopes + fears for free knowledge

wikimedians

talked to experts (futurists, technologists, policy, arts, etc) - how they anticipate the change to be

what did we learn?

knowledge gaps + biases = highest concern

wikimedia doesn’t serve the entire world (language coverage, breadth of coverage, representative)

structural inequality prevents us from achieving ^ mission

who is creating the reliable sources that wikimedia relies on?

adapt to world’s changing knowledge needs

leverage new technology (video? open ML?)

more people in institutions (science, cultural, edu) want to join but dk how

direction:

becoming an essential infrastructure of the ecosystem of free knowledge

anyone who shares our vision will be able to join us (barriers)

knowledge as service - how to serve more people, ??

knowledge equity - ensure that info that exists doesn’t just have large numbers but a breadth and depth that is truly reflective of the world and serves it in a meaningful way

Panel

at a personal level, what do you want to see for open knowledge by 2030?

more people to know what open knowledge means

successful in communicating value of what this means to a broader audience

more entities participating, the more healthy the ecosystem is

—> advancing the concept of it

structural barriers that exist?

leisure time, literacy, gender inequity, marginalised communities are not usually secondary sources because historically haven’t been able to challenge dominant narrative — still replicating canon (way they evaluate sources, relies on means of knowledge production which is very traditional)

awareness, access (affordability)

where in that hierarchy do we sit?

balloons for the internet (some big tech companies ??)

incentivising local language production?

how to identify these gaps / barriers and breaking them down so more people can participate

notability? deletionism? guidelines as a community, when they’re appropriate? where to strike that balance to make sure it’s accurate + reliable, but also easy to contribute.

community conversation

oral citation? how to rely on this, which is far more prevalent than we give it affordance for

what does notability look like in a community, language, culture? their own validation methods within different areas?

NYT - considered newspaper of record? lawsuit in california by gay softball league of san Francisco. NYT wrote about the case, but never mentioned their ethnicity. everyone that wasn’t decided gay was POC. — active exclusion happening in sources we think are reliable. what are our paradigms for liability anyway? even though that was the crux of the issue of the case.

hidden, implicit bias

fake news

how we enable people to be more aware of bias (not our own, but in interpreting/analysing the media and recognising it)? how important that foundation has a educational ???

should wikipedia position itself as alternative to mainstream media?

wikipedia ranked more trustworthy than BBC, 1 survey, by 2 points —> horrifying

wikipedia relies on secondary sources. if trustworthiness in BBC declines, that’s bad for wikipedia!

i want you to use wikipedia, but you need to ask those questions and CHECK CITATIONS to become a participant and not a consumer - be a critical reader

what can we do to advocate on the need for media literacy, more funding for research??

engage with educators, learners (and not just uni) - how to google stuff, read + edit wikipedia

wales community!

investment in science community - impact of brexit?

wikimedia engaging in the culture community - partnership with cultural + educational institutions

how is scientific information actually diffused in society?

natural partner for us

how do we bring that community into the wikidata community?

corresponding investment in open science

working with researchers / research community

lots of communities struggle with open data structure, how to maintain catalogues, etc - we are building the tools that do that, but not thinking of it as tools beyond wikimedia. wiki base can be used as an asset by so many other institutions - more info to be available to the world, helping other orgs, etc. —> makes everything better for everyone

automation of content creation?

vietnamese - automated almost all stubs?

stub articles = incentives to create (what is this - short wikimedia article)

wikimedia is fundamentally a human pursuit

machines can augment human work in ways that can be quite helpful - washing machine

multilingual people!

entirety of the ecosystem and identify gaps across all language communities we have

who decides what those gaps are?

opp of wikidata to reveal that

resources - implicit in convo - the fact that there are so many resources invested in western world + global north, what do we need to do to create equity ?

tremendous asymmetry - agency, power in decision making

when they see problems, wikimedians are highly incentivised to make a change

all the more reason to have more voices in the room

1) "human project" - neural machine translation, challenges of ML and machine content creation. challenges of people knowing about machines involvement (turing test?)

ML already exists on wikipedia

how do we use it in a way that’s consistent with our values

3 things

it has to be open - difficult in AI, because transparency doesn’t mean much bc we can’t think the way machines do. intention, legibility, explainability - why was this software made, what should it achieve

inclusivity - biases in datasets we’re training. open, transparent around datasets using

can receive feedback from public

consent - making sure people working on projects consent to the way ML is being used in projects, know how/why it’s happening [ no one wants something being done to them]

2) future financial sustainability of the movement

71.6M USD to keep foundation running this year

very little money for world’s 5th most popular website

created an endowment in last two years - trying to raise significant one to protect it into the future

even if cannot build on it, want to keep it at least open

what resources we require to keep this running into future? gap between where we are and want to be? sustainability in long run?

model is amazing, no one owns it bc of open licensing, building a life long relationship with people for what wikimedia stands for

3) china

blocked in china

people don’t write in chinese only in china - from variety of places in the world

we want to be there for when we’re unblocked, ready + present for chinese public to have access in meaningful way

deliberately trying to effect policy in org to support the description of these things in public? significant portions of UK not represented in publicly meaningful sense. difficult for wikimedia to address that issue.

rural-urban gap in wikipedia bc of nature of secondary sources, media

concentrates around population density, where communities not urban are not represented

even within communities in city - marginalised communities are not recorded in

who creates culture? it just is, what we live.

stuart hall - nature of who creates culture and where it comes from, production of culture (high brow > the one we all live, which isn’t documented)

oral citation project in india - traditional game kids play, no ones ever written it down

daily lived culture is not good at documenting, haven’t found way to address this

reflection of the world

what does knowledge equity really mean? and how do we program for it?

when thinking about core articles, how to raise quality of those and to keep them relevant?

tool - ores?? to evaluate article quality

opp to see what those gaps are, assess in more automated way, based on verifiability (not just density of info)

build tools to help editors maintenance function, or where quality gaps are, so there’s a continuous effort to update + maintain them

can do this not just for one language, but for all

project tiger - with google. how to identify main drivers of traffic (specific pages etc), and make sure the quality is good, and point people to work on that.

worried about losing relevance in the future? things to do to stay relevant?

we don’t know why people leave / fall out of contributor pipe line

give ourselves metrics to be able to evaluate that, so we can focus on retention as priority

rateability -

no one knows that simple english wikipedia exists!

how it’s being utilised by third party reusers

the way we’re composing info so that it becomes reusable! that it offers a service - answers the question, solves the problem

broken connection - maintaining consistency between wikimedian + re users. complying with licensing terms?

Seeing the work you’ve done being credited - for retention.

why based in US?

affordances from a policy POV that do not exist in other places in the world (USA) - hosting controversial or illegal content

intermediary liability protections (nuisance lawsuit)

rotating figureheads of leadership?

awareness + participation

knowledge equity as a priority, yet to determine how that looks like and what changes we need to implement to get there

global secretariat that could be stationed around ??

recently identified 6 countries where there is gap between awareness and ??potential - india, nigeria, iraq

marketing - in language of the community, “awareness raising videos”, ads written by communities themselves

changing what we think contribution + dedication looks like?

data typology on wikipedia that presents different types of data ?? presenting as much info in symbolic / visual forms?

multimedia integration

blockchain?

generally don’t think it’s good for wikipedia (from engineers)

persistence of information - revision history, revisions

feels like a diversion from existing stack

lots of arab wikimedians to be are refugees, with videos, names, locations, sitting on so much data that they want to put on open source etc. lack workshops in camps, any way to get into camps?

how to seek external funding on migrant communities?

big funder didn’t recognise that digitisation of stuff and getting it onto wikipedia was cultural preservation

institutional POV: do they actually want us to come in?

cultural heritage component

wiki loves africa + wiki med + wiki deutschland - building offline editing environments?

when there’s momentum as a community —> generally leads to structure

#wikipedia #open knowledge #tech #digital society #2018 #london #event

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nebris · 6 years ago

Text

Who Was Kobo Dashi?

A bodhisattva-like miracle worker credited with founding the Shingon school, Kobo Daishi—known as Kukai during his life—is a monumental figure in Japan but little known to North American Buddhists.

Aaron P. Proffitt

Summer 2018

The landscape of North American Buddhism was, in its broad outlines, first shaped most significantly by Japanese Buddhism. While the contours of that landscape have been filled in over the years by Buddhist traditions originating throughout Asia, the roots of Buddhism in North America continue to be strongly intertwined—in ways readily apparent and in ways hard to see—with Japan’s religious culture. Especially elusive is the influence of esoteric Buddhism

For most North American Buddhists, the tantric teachings and practices that developed in India are known by way of the forms they took in Central Asia, especially Tibet. But Buddhist tantra also took root in East Asia, where its transmission followed a very different path (and where it was historically referred to most often as a body of “secret,” or esoteric, teachings.) While today schools of Japanese Buddhism such as Shingon and Tendai represent the dominant esoteric traditions, for centuries esoteric Buddhist teachings and practices were incorporated into the framework of many schools. In ways both diffuse and specific, esoteric Buddhism has had a great influence throughout the history of Japanese Buddhist traditions, including such schools as Zen, Shin, and Nichirenshu, which are more familiar to most contemporary Buddhists than Shingon but developed several centuries later.

The following article is the second in a series of three essays on the esoteric Buddhism of Japan. [The first was “Becoming a Buddha” in the Winter 2017 issue.] This essay focuses on Kukai—also known by the honorific Kobo Daishi—who is often credited with introducing esoteric Buddhism to Japan (though this is not exactly true) and with founding the Shingon school (which is also not precisely the case). As Aaron P. Proffitt’s essay shows, Kukai was a person remarkable both for his spiritual accomplishment and his religious and temporal abilities. He was and remains a towering figure in Japanese Buddhism’s development. Japanese esoteric Buddhism, and Kukai himself, are little known in North American Buddhist circles. And that itself might be what most recommends them to our attention. When we look, we will find things familiar and things seemingly quite foreign. One can learn from both, but I think it is the latter that has most to offer. In grappling with difference, one’s own assumptions, usually so hard to see, come into focus, and in that way one’s horizons grow wider and richer.

—Andrew Cooper, Features Editor

In all of Japanese history, seldom has an individual’s legacy captured the country’s imagination as has that of Kukai, the legendary founder of the Shingon school of Buddhism. Kukai (774–835 CE), posthumously named Kobo Daishi (“the great teacher who spread the dharma”), is widely regarded not only as the founder of one of the most influential schools of Japanese Buddhism, but also as a bodhisattva-like savior figure still active in the world, leading beings to awakening.

shingon Literally, “true word,” or mantra, the Shingon school is one branch of East Asian esoteric Buddhism.

Although he is little known among Buddhists in Western countries, local legends about Kukai and the miracles he is said to have performed may be found in towns and villages throughout Japan. Two sites in particular have been made famous by his legacy. One is Mount Koya, the monastic complex that houses his mausoleum, revered by some even today as an earthly Pure Land, a paradise from which one can readily attain complete enlightenment. The other is not a single site but rather comprises 88 temples along a pilgrimage route around the island of Shikoku, a route that purportedly retraces the path Kukai took during his time as a wandering ascetic. As Kukai the monk was reimagined as Kukai the saint, Kukai the savior, and Kukai the founder, he emerged as a major force in the history of Japanese religion. But there is a space between the Kukai of history and the Kukai of faith, between Kukai the monk and Kobo Daishi the saint. By taking up both perspectives, we can gain a fuller and richer understanding of the life and legacy of this towering figure.

Kukai was born to a middling aristocratic family on the island of Shikoku. He began his education in the national academy, training in the Confucian classics, as most East Asian males of his class were apt to do. For reasons unknown to us, he dropped out of school and set upon the wandering path of the ascetic. At some point during his travels, he had a profound mystical experience, a vision he could not understand or explain. Soon thereafter he learned of the Mahavairocana Sutra, a tantric Buddhist text that seemed to illuminate the meaning of his vision. But he was frustrated by his teacher’s inability to explain the many mantras that were key to fully appreciating the text. His aspiration to find a teacher who could give him the instruction he sought led him to join, in 804, a mission to China to study in Chang’an, the capital of the Tang dynasty and the center of the East Asian Buddhist world.

Once in China, Kukai took up residence at Qinglong Temple. According to Kukai’s own account, the Buddhist master who served as the head priest there, Huiguo (746–805), rejoiced at his arrival, sensing that someone worthy of his teachings had finally arrived. Under Huiguo’s instruction Kukai studied what many regarded as the pinnacle of Buddhist wisdom: the esoteric, or “secret,” teachings of the Buddha.

The practices and teachings found in tantric lineages are generally deemed “esoteric” for two related reasons: First, many aspects are kept hidden from noninitiates, and in fact many ritual manuals are written with gaps that require the oral commentary of one’s teacher. Second, the Buddha is said to have taught different things to different people in accord with their capacity to understand and progress on the path. Sometimes the Buddha’s true meaning was not readily apparent on the surface, the “exoteric” level. Tantric traditions hold that some teachings either were secretly transmitted to a group of advanced students or required additional elaboration to reveal the “esoteric,” hidden meaning that would allow one to make rapid progress along the bodhisattva path, even to the attain attainment of Buddhahood in this very body in this very life. In addition, esoteric practices were said to empower one to perform rainmaking rituals, and gain health, wealth, longevity, and other worldly benefits.

Kukai asserted that Buddhahood could be achieved in this body, right here and now.

Because the early study of Buddhism in Europe and North America took place under significant influence from Protestant Christian culture, a pervasive skepticism toward ritual as a significant expression of authentic spiritual life has led many Buddhist “modernists” to downplay such things as ritual, image worship, and devotion as major features of Buddhist practice, preferring instead an emphasis on highly secularized views of meditation and doctrine. For Kukai, as for other Buddhist tantric practitioners of both East Asian esoteric Buddhism and Indo-Tibetan Vajrayana Buddhism, tantric practice was considered the most rapid path to the attainment of full, complete awakening. Through initiation into esoteric tantric lineages and the coordinated ritual practice of mudra, mantra, and mandalic visualization—that is, rituals of body, speech, and mind—it was said one could attain union with the body, speech, and mind of the buddhas and bodhisattvas. While the practitioner initially feels these forms to be in some sense directed outward, continued practice reveals the veil separating buddhas and ordinary beings to be immaterial; ordinary beings as well as buddhas participate in the ultimate reality. This approach, though represented to greater or lesser degrees across a broad spectrum of Mahayana tradition, was a central feature of Kukai’s teaching.

In China, Kukai was initiated into the use of two esoteric mandalas, the Taizokai mandara (Womb Realm Mandala) and the Kongokai mandara (Vajra Realm Mandala), and studied the Mahavairocana Sutra and the Vajrasekhara cycle of tantric texts, which correspond respectively to the two mandalas. The Womb Realm Mandala is said to represent the universe as it is in its true state, while the Vajra Realm Mandala represents the wisdom necessary to grasp the true nature of this reality. These mandalas, depicting two interrelated views of reality, are potent objects of meditative visualization and devotion. It is often said that the Mahavairocana provides much of the doctrinal content that informed Kukai’s approach to Buddhism while the Vajrasekhara provided the ritual dimension.

After almost two years, Kukai returned to Japan. He introduced a vast corpus of tantric ritual manuals that were for the most part previously unknown in Japan and transmitted an approach to Buddhism in which ritual and doctrine, practice and theory, were inextricably linked.

Kukai’s theory of Buddhist practice focused on the coordination of the three mysteries of body, speech, and mind, in which the body, speech, and mind of sentient beings do not function in isolation from the body, speech, and mind of buddhas. It was a holistic and corporeal approach to awaken ing, wherein one realizes that ordinary foolish beings and awakened buddhas are ultimately not two but one. Accordingly, Kukai asserted that Buddhahood could be achieved in this body, right here and now.

In time, Kukai garnered the attention of the emperor, who eventually allowed him to establish a chapel within the palace for the performance of esoteric rituals. In his treatises and commentaries, as well as his charismatic ritual performances, Kukai impressed both the ecclesiastical establishment and the emperor himself. This eventually led to the proliferation of esoteric Buddhist training lineages within the major temples of Japan. Through this close relationship with the emperor and the imperial family, Kukai was given permission to train monks at Toji, a temple built by the emperor in Kyoto, and he eventually took a leading role in the government’s central monastic bureau in the old capital in Nara. Kukai then began initiating and training monks who belonged to a variety of monastic institutions. At this time, becoming a practitioner within these ritual lineages did not require that one convert from one kind of Buddhism to another. If you were, say, a scholar of the Lotus Sutra or Yogacara philosophy or a devotee of the Buddha Amitabha, adding esoteric ritual to the mix was simply a matter of receiving initiation and training under a qualified master. With Kukai overseeing the central monastic administrative office, this is precisely what happened at many of the major monastic institutions in Japan. Kukai’s diplomatic approach to introducing esoteric thought and practice has inspired Buddhist practitioners up to the present.

Mastery of esoteric Buddhism required long periods of dedicated practice and meditation under the tutelage of accomplished masters, and Kukai wanted a retreat center for training monks far away from the hustle and bustle of the capital. In 816, he was granted the site of Mount Koya, where he established a monastic training complex. Kukai was an accomplished meditator, renowned calligrapher, skilled monastic administrator, sought-after civil engineer, and powerful ritual master. His status as a renaissance man, however, placed great demands on him, which eventually took their toll. He died at Mount Koya, without seeing the full completion of the monastic complex.

One common misconception about Kukai is that he introduced to Japan a new school of Buddhism, against which all other forms of Buddhism were to be found lacking. This misunderstanding is likely the result of an overly literal and decontextualized reading of certain works attributed to him. Kukai asserted that the esoteric truth of the Buddha’s awakening is found to a greater or lesser extent in all paths, Buddhist or otherwise. That truth of the Buddha’s teaching was simply more explicit in esoteric texts than in exoteric texts, as the latter cloaked this deeper truth in upaya, or skillful means, for the benefit of those not ready for the directness of the esoteric teachings. The new ritual texts and theories that Kukai introduced were to be used as tools for looking more deeply and more actively into the forms of Buddhism already in existence.

Kukai did not regard himself as the founder of a new school or sect, and he appointed no successor. He trained monks from a variety of backgrounds and helped to establish esoteric Buddhism as a major area of study to be practiced alongside other ritual and doctrinal traditions. Following his death, training in esoteric Buddhism became an essential component of the curriculum used to train monks at the major temple complexes throughout Japan. Moreover, subsequent generations of monks from across Japan embarked on their own voyages to China to receive new esoteric initiations, texts, and ritual artifacts.

By the 10th century, the Tendai school, centered on Mount Hiei, came to dominate Japanese Buddhist culture in both doctrine and ritual practice. With its incorporation of esoteric ritual, Pure Land devotion, and Lotus Sutra teachings—not to mention skillful political maneuvering—it remained so until the late 16th century. Japanese Tendai is derived from the Chinese Tiantai tradition and was transmitted to Japan by Saicho (767–822), who traveled to China as part of the same envoy as Kukai. Saicho had returned before Kukai and was thus the first in Japan to teach esoteric Buddhism. Saicho had studied esoteric teachings during his training in the Tiantai mountains in Eastern China; Kukai, by contrast, had studied in the cosmopolitan capital, Chang’an. Because of his superior erudition in Mahayana esoterica and his diplomatic skill, Kukai quickly surpassed Saicho as Japan’s leading Buddhist teacher of the time. But because Kukai did not appoint a successor or found a distinct school, his place in Japanese Buddhism soon diminished. The study of his treatises fell out of fashion, and Mount Koya—faced with financial hardship, fire, loss of status and political support—was virtually abandoned. Kukai the monk, and his mountain, were all but forgotten for nearly two centuries.

In the 11th century, however, monks in the capital in Kyoto again began reading Kukai’s texts. Furthermore, monastics in Nara and Kyoto started working to revitalize Mount Koya as a pilgrimage site and a monastic training center. While Tendai remained the dominant Buddhist school, from this time on, we see an evolving reinvention, recreation, and reimaging of Kukai.

Devoted recorders and commentators on Kukai’s life and teaching claimed that he did not die in the normal sense but rather entered into an eternal samadhi, or deep meditative absorption, and is awaiting the descent of the bodhisattva Maitreya, the next buddha for our world. Devotion to Maitreya and aspiration for rebirth in the Tushita heaven where he resides had long been popular among Buddhists across schools and traditions. Because of belief in Kukai’s close connection to Maitreya, Mount Koya itself came to be recast as a Pure Land in the midst of our world, a place where one’s practice, whatever its focus, would be rendered more effective.

Today, when one hears of Buddhist Pure Lands, one is likely to think of devotion to the Buddha Amitabha, or to schools centered on attaining rebirth in the Pure Land in which he abides, and to the practice of nenbutsu, of calling his name (“Namu Amida Butsu” in Japanese), since this is the dominant form of Pure Land aspiration in East Asia as well as in Western countries. It is, however, basic to traditional Buddhist thought that all buddhas and bodhisattvas “purify” their spheres of influence, and so devotion to the Buddha Amitabha is but one form of Pure Land practice relating to Mahayana sutras and tantras. A Buddhist may aspire to be reborn in the abode of a bodhisattva such as Maitreya or Avalokiteshvara (the Bodhisattva of Compassion) or in that of a buddha such as Akshobhya (who resides in a Pure Land to the East of our world).

On Mount Koya, a unique esoteric Pure Land culture developed. Following the 11th-century revival of Kukai studies and the establishment of Mount Kōya as a popular pilgrimage site, Kukai came to be regarded as a bodhisattvalike figure and a kind of savior. Aristocrats, samurai, members of the monastic elite, poets, wandering ascetics, and others from various walks of life traveled to Mount Koya seeking Pure Land rebirth and the purification of their karma. In addition to chanting the nenbutsu, practitioners were encouraged to chant the “treasure name of the great teacher” (daishi myogo), “Namu Daishi Henjo Kongo” (“Praise to the Great Teacher [Kukai], the Universally Illuminating Vajra”), as a kind of Kukai nenbutsu. Images depicting Amitabha’s descent from the Pure Land to usher back devotees, were worshipped along with the Womb and Vajra Mandalas, and even portraits of Kukai himself. Some features of this esoteric Pure Land culture remain active even to this day, as Kukai devotees (who are often, but not always, affiliated with the Shingon School) travel to Mount Koya to pray for their ancestors and for their own rebirth in the Pure Lands of the Mahayana universe. Here, Kukai is the saint who, from his own Pure Land on Mount Koya, ushers beings to various cosmic Pure Land abodes.

The 14th to 17th centuries saw the establishment of more clearly defined boundaries between different schools of Japanese Buddhism. Institutional hierarchies and discourses on the purity and continuity of sectarian institutions led to the creation of founder narratives and a more exclusive approach to Buddhist practice. But by the end of the 17th century, the samurai government in Edo (Tokyo) had passed a series of edicts clearly delineating the relationships between temples and institutions that required the exclusive study of the doctrines of sect founders. It was in this context that Kukai became the founder of the Shingon School. Before this time, the course of a monk’s career might include study of Zen meditation, Tendai scholasticism, Pure Land devotion, esoteric Buddhist ritual, and so on.

During the Warring States Period (1467–1603), rival warlords destroyed many temples, and in 1571 the power center of Tendai Buddhism, on Mount Hiei, was nearly wiped off the map. Yet Mount Koya managed to survive throughout the period, something that many regarded as miraculous. Filling the void left by the fall of Tendai, Shingon began to reshape itself as a more clearly defined school, and it was this later Shingon School that rewrote the history of esoteric Buddhism in Japan, with Kukai as the great founder and standard against which other esoteric traditions were to be judged. This way of thinking about the history of Japanese Buddhism, not surprisingly, tended to draw a clear line from Kukai the monk to the modern Shingon School.

Just as many modern historians of religion set out to find, say, the historical Jesus of Nazareth or Prince Siddhartha Gautama, modern scholars of Japanese Buddhism often focus their efforts on the historical founders of different Japanese Buddhist traditions. The historical Kukai now has a place in the copious amounts of meticulous scholarship aimed at uncovering what we can “really” know about the 8th-century monk whose legacy came to take on so many different forms. In the construction of the modern study of esoteric Buddhism, it was a new Kukai—Kukai the founder and philosopher—who moved to the foreground.

The academic study of religion and the “theological” study of religion (the study of religion by practitioners, for practitioners) are often assumed to be at odds with one another. When devotees or practitioners recount their own school’s history, the meaning of a text or tradition is often reinterpreted and applied to a new context. Practitioners interpret the meaning of an event or scriptural passage for the edification of devotees. The academic scholar of religion is not necessarily in the business of proving or disproving myth or legend, but rather aims to situate claims in particular historical, cultural, or political contexts—which in some cases may amount to the same thing. In other words, while these two ways of approaching Buddhism are different, they need not be the antagonists they are so often assumed to be.

In the space between these two modes of knowing, there can be in their difference not just conflict but also complementarity. In this space, religious figures can be seen anew, both as players in history and as carriers and embodiments of how different communities have found meaning in the buddhadharma. In such a space, with each perspective acting upon the other, we can better see Kukai the monk and Kobo Daishi the saint, side by side.

https://tricycle.org/magazine/who-was-kobo-daishi/

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