Category: Ancient Cultures

May Day

4/29/2022

Cheryl Harness

She’s historical!

For some of us, spring begins when you can go outside in your shorts and not get cold legs. For those of us in the northern hemisphere, spring’s official start is at the vernal equinox, when the sun shines directly on the earth’s equator. For me, here in Missouri, that was March 20, 5:45 P.M. CDT. The autumnal equinox arrives in September— when spring begins in the southern hemisphere! But I digress from today’s theme: May Day. For thousands of years, it’s been a day for celebrating spring, But that’s not all it’s been.

     Since the oldest olden days, winter-weary people have gloried when the weather warms and the cold earth comes back to life. Some of their ancient festivals still happen every spring, such as Sham el Nissim, in Egypt. In India, on Holi, dancing Hindus still shower one another with colors; and Iranians still fix a special supper at Norooz, as did their ancient Persian ancestors.

     When the Roman armies invaded ancient Britain, in 55 B.C.E. they brought along their spring holy day, Floralia, when they gathered bouquets of flowers for their goddess, Flora. The Celts, who’d been living in Britain for years, celebrated the earth mother’s reawakening with dances and bonfires at Beltane, around the end of April. Over the years, the holidays blended into May Day, a time for giving gifts of flowers and dancing about a Maypole, strung with ribbons.

Then, in the 1880s, May Day celebrations changed. It was like this: For decades, factory owners had been making their employees work anywhere from 10 to 16 hours a day, six days a week (even children!), often in unsafe, nasty conditions. The workers were sick of it! They organized themselves into labor unions. At a Chicago gathering, in 1884, they started a worldwide movement for an 8-hour workday. With a huge demonstration in the city, on May 1, 1886, May Day came to be the first Labor Day, a day of parades. It’s still celebrated as International Workers’ Day in many countries.

But one more thing happened, in 1923. Because ‘May Day’ sounds like the French phrase, ‘m’aidez’ or ‘help me,’ a London radioman turned it into an international distress call. So if you hear “Mayday! Mayday!” on your radio, no one’s wishing you ‘Happy Spring!’ Someone’s in trouble! And once he or she is saved, I’ll bet he or she would like to have some pretty flowers.

May Day festivities at National Park Seminary in Maryland, 1907. Celebrations were common at women's colleges and academic institutions in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century. Wikimedia Commons

A maypole at a Renaissance Fair in Tuxedo Park, New York. Wikimedia

International Workers' Day began a celebration of laborers and the working classes but later the date was adopted by anarchists, socialists, and communists and other groups. It occurs every year on May Day. "Socialists in Union Square, N.Y.C." May 1, 1912. The Library of Congress

Cheryl Harness is the author and illustrator of Remember the Ladies: 100 Great American Women. One of the 100 Ladies is the great and heroic labor union activist "Mother" Mary Harris Jones. She was born on May Day, 1830. Click here to find out more about about Mary, and about a lot of other great Americans.

MLA 8 CItation
Harness, Cheryl. "May Day." Nonfiction Minute, iNK Think Tank, 1 May 2018,
www.nonfictionminute.org/the-nonfiction-minute/May-Day.

0 Comments

The Real Life Legendary Trung Sisters of Ancient Vietnam

3/21/2022

0 Comments

Cheryl Harness
She’s historical!

Way, way back in the year 111 BCE (Before our Common Era), thousands of Chinese warriors armed with fine iron swords and lethal crossbows, rode and marched south to conquer the little kingdom of Nanyue. To the people living there, the little kingdom was Nam Viet. To us, faraway in their unimaginable future, their land is northern Vietnam.

After the invaders came all sorts of Chinese colonizers. They would build roads and temples plus new trading ports on Nanyue’s coast, where the Red River empties into the South China Sea perfect for China’s merchant ships, on their way to or just returned from India. The Chinese brought their culture, language, and top-down style of government too. It would all be for the glory (and increased wealth) of the empire and for the betterment of the conquered barbarians. You’d think they’d appreciate it!

Not necessarily. Over the next thousand years or so, the ancient Vietnamese would get fed up with their heavy taxes and harsh treatment. They’d rise up more than once to challenge their Chinese overlords. One particular revolt would inspire stories ever after. It took place around the years 39-43 CE. Who led this famous revolt? Two daughters of a military ruler; they lived in the vicinity of the modern city of Hanoi.

The women of ancient Vietnam enjoyed much more social equality than Chinese women. Females worked in business, as public officials and they could inherit property. They could become proficient in the martial arts, as did Trung Hac and her younger sister, Trung Nhi. With their knowledge of armor and swords and with their fury, they raised up an army of 80,000 soldiers! Other women, including their mother, were generals, mounted on war elephants at the head of the Trung Sisters’ army! They liberated fortresses, battled the Chinese, and drove them out of Vietnam!

Alas, this is not the end of the Legend of the Trung Sisters. The warriors of wealthier, more powerful China returned to defeat them in the year 43. And rather than surrender, the sisters took what was for them the more honorable action: They took their own lives. Some stories say they drowned themselves in a river. Some say they disappeared into the clouds. Whatever did happen, the Trung Sisters are remembered in plays, poems, and songs to this very day, as Heroines of Vietnam.

The Trung Sisters, warrior-queens of northern Vietnam, ride into battle on war elephants, circa 41 CE. Painting by Bac Ninh via Wikipedia

Trung Hac and Trung Nhi

Even though the Trưng Sisters' revolt against the Chinese was almost 2,000 years ago, its legacy in Vietnam remains as they are seen as symbols of Vietnamese resistance and freedom. To this day, the people of Vietnam perform memorial ceremonies for the sisters every year at a Hanoi temple named for them. This is a statue of the Trung sisters in Ho Chi Minh City.

In a 1776 letter cautioning her husband to "remember the ladies," Abigail Adams made one of the earliest pleas for women's rights in America. How could she have known, in the years to follow, just how many strong and independent women would step forward to forge new paths in their fight for equality?
From Clara Barton and Harriet Tubman to the less well-known but equally important Belva Lockwood and Maya Ying Lin, Remember the Ladies spans the centuries to provide an engaging look at one hundred outstanding women who have helped shape our great nation. Click here.

MLA 8 Citation
Harness, Cheryl. "The Real Life Legendary Trung Sisters of Ancient Vietnam."
Nonfiction Minute, iNK Think Tank, 22 May 2018, www.nonfictionminute.org/
the-nonfiction-minute/The-Real-Life-Legendary-Trung-Sisters-of-Ancient-Vietnam.

0 Comments

Happy New Year--in August?

1/3/2022

1 Comment

Jim Whiting
The Running Encyclopedia

The onset of spring, summer, fall, and winter every year is precisely measured, depending on the sun’s position. But there’s no similar astronomical or scientific reason for celebrating New Years on January 1.

Many people don’t. The Chinese New Year occurs on the second new moon after the winter solstice, between late January and mid-February. Muslims mark the occasion on the first day of Muharram, the first month of the Islamic calendar. That calendar is based on the lunar cycle, 11 or 12 days shorter than the solar calendar. So their New Year comes a little earlier every year. Rosh Hashanah, the start of the Jewish New Year, is a two-day observance that begins 163 days after Passover and varies between September 5 and October 5. Unlike other New Year’s celebrations, Rosh Hashanah is holy, a time for piety rather than parties.

There was just as much variation in ancient times. In Babylon, the first new moon after the vernal equinox marked the New Year. Egyptians celebrated it in early August, when the annual Nile River flooding began. In Greece, Athens and Sparta couldn’t get along, so their respective new years didn’t occur at the same time. In Athens, it was the first new moon after the summer solstice, while the Spartans waited until early fall.

So how did January 1 become the most widely accepted start of the New Year? The answer: Julius Caesar. For centuries, the Roman calendar was in a state of chaos, with the number of days in the year fluctuating widely. In 46 BCE, Caesar worked with the brightest Egyptian astronomers to retool the calendar. He wanted the year to begin on the first of January, a month named after the god Janus. Janus had two faces: one looking backward (at the year just ending) and the other facing forward. For the Romans, it was party time!

Caesar didn’t stick around very long after his innovation. On the Ides of March—March 15, 44 BCE—he went to the Roman Senate as usual. While one senator distracted him, others swarmed around him with knives they’d hidden inside their togas, hacking and gashing. He collapsed and died.

His calendar proved more durable. When Roman legions conquered new territories, the natives had to adopt the Roman calendar. Every day, especially at the start of the new year, it was a reminder of Roman power.

Bust of Julius Caesar in the National Archaeological Museum of Naples

A statue representing Janus the ancient Roman god of beginnings and transitions. The Vatican Museums

The senators encircle Caesar. A 19th-century interpretation of the event by Carl Theodor von Piloty

Here's what a Roman calendar looked like. Some 200 fragments have been found so far. They are collectively known as Fasti.

You've been hearing from Jim Whiting almost weekly, so we thought you might want to know more about him. He's an interesting fellow:

Children's book author. Acclaimed multi-genre freelance editor. Entertaining and informative classroom visitor. Middle school running coach. Award-winning magazine publisher. Workshop presenter. Sportswriter. Light versifier. E-commerce and e-book writer. Teacher. Runner. World traveler. Sailor. Scuba diver. Photographer. Actor. Patron of the arts. Hometown Hero. And of course Voracious Reader.

For more about Jim, read his biography and background.

MLA 8 Citation
Whiting, Jim. "Happy New Year--in August?" Nonfiction Minute, iNK Think Tank, 2 Jan. 2018, www.nonfictionminute.org/Happy-New-Year-in-August.

1 Comment

The Story of Hanukkah

11/29/2021

0 Comments

Jim Whiting
Nonfiction is the new black

When the Seleucid emperor Antiochus IV came to power in 175 BCE after his brother was assassinated, he insisted on being called Antiochus Epiphanes (“Antiochus the Visible God”). To the Jews who had the misfortune to be among his subjects, he was Antiochus Epimanes (“Antiochus the lunatic”).

No matter his name, he was definitely bad news to the Jews. Because of his Greek background, Antiochus believed in many gods. The Jews, on the other hand, were monotheistic. Antiochus soon began imposing his beliefs on the Jews and making it much more difficult for them to practice their religion. For example, anyone caught circumcising their newborn children would be put to death.

In 168 he sacked Jerusalem. His forces cut down thousands of defenseless Jews of all ages, looted and desecrated the Second Temple, and erected a massive statue of the chief Greek god Zeus (using himself as a model for the sculptor who created the statue). Soon the altar ran red with the blood of swine that were slaughtered as sacrifices. For good measure, Antiochus also outlawed the Hebrew religion.

The outraged Jews fought back. An elderly priest named Mattathias and some of his men killed a group of Seleucid soldiers. That ignited a revolt against Antiochus’s rule. When Mattathias died, his son Judah assumed the leadership role. Judah soon acquired the surname of Maccabee (“the hammer”) for his skill in battle. After a series of successful guerrilla operations, he led his vastly outnumbered forces to two decisive victories that resulted in the recapture of Jerusalem in 165.

The first order of business was cleansing the temple so it could be rededicated. The ceremony began on the 25th day of the Hebrew month of Kislev. According to legend, the small amount of purified oil that was readily available for the rites was expected to burn just a single night. Instead it burned for eight nights, when a new supply became available. That miracle gave rise to the ceremony of lighting one candle for each of the eight nights of Hanukkah, which means “dedication.”

Because the Hebrew calendar is lunar-based, the dates of Hanukkah change each year. This year Hanukkah begins [December 12] at sunset and lasts until sunset on December [20].

To the Jewish families who celebrate the holiday, Happy Hanukkah!

The holidays are approaching and millions of people will be listening to Handel’s Messiah. Read all about the composer in Jim Whiting’s Masters of Music biography.

MLA 8 Citation
Whiting, Jim. "The Story of Hanukkah." Nonfiction Minute, iNK Think Tank, 11 Dec. 2017, www.nonfictionminute.org/the-story-of-hanukkah.

0 Comments

Cheribaya, Desert Mummies: Discovering a Lost Culture

10/15/2021

1 Comment

Trish Marx
The Earth Whisperer

One upon a time, about a thousand years ago, a vibrant tribe of people, lived a simple life in the Alticama of southern Peru, the driest desert on earth. We call them the Chiribaya, but locals, who knew where their remains were, called them the gentle spirits and left them to rest in peace. There was gold and other precious metals in the sandy hills where they lived, but they left them un-mined. They were afraid that the Aztecs and Mayans who lived nearby, might attack them for their riches. It is amazing to think that a group of more than 20,000 people agreed to not be greedy, leave the riches untouched so they could live in peace.

Local people who now live in that area knew about them because they placed their dead in sand holes, sitting crossed legged and upright, with a bundle beside them containing what they would need for the afterlife.

The bodies were preserved by a salty chemical in the dry sand. Years later, the sand shifted so modern people knew where to go and archaeologists came to study them.
Dr. Sonya Guillen, a Peruvian archeologist and anthropologist got the job of heading the study of the Chiribaya, who are the ancestors of modern Peruvians. I went down there with a photographer and we followed her for three weeks as she worked. Here’s what I learned:

The Chiribayans live on the sand mountains of the Alticama. They had to communicate directly with each other, which meant that they had to walk all over the mountains. This isn’t easy because I tried it. I discovered that dry sand on a hill is very slippery.
They dug holes in the sand for their homes, shoring up the walls with planks. They ate vegetables grown in the soggy land along a small streambed. What they did revere was their ancestors, who taught them how to live and thrive in harsh conditions. Their bundles contained a llama blanket (because the desert was cold at night), painted pottery, food, beer or wine, bowls with vegetable or Llama meat stew, llama shirts, all signs that they lived in comfort.

I learned you don’t need computers, video games or television to define luxury; peace, whalebone flutes, and a nightly carpet of stars on an azure blue sky will do just fine.

Chiribayba painted pottery: animals, insects and plant-life of southern Peru. After visiting Dr Guillen, Japanese anthropologists returned home to write a computer program about all the living things in the desert. In order to understand the curious images on this pottery, they also had to travel to understand the work of others.

Chiribaya child living in Peru today.

A dog DNA expert tested the DNA of this living dog, Alhaji, against that of the mummy dogs in Dr. Guillen's museum.

he Altacama Desert is mostly bare sand hill. The vegetation must be able to live with little moisture.

Dr. Gullen brushes debris off a mummy, before studying it and storing it in her mummy bunker.

This is the torso of a mummy found with her weaving tools, needed for her afterlife. Balls of colored yarn and large thorns used for knitting are in the basket on her left shoulder.

Trish Marx has authored some terrific nonfiction titles. Check out Everglades Forever for some more high interest reading about animal behavior.

1 Comment

<<Previous

May Day

The Real Life Legendary Trung Sisters of Ancient Vietnam

Happy New Year--in August?

The Story of Hanukkah

Cheribaya, Desert Mummies: Discovering a Lost Culture

Categories

Archives