More Integration.
A Sri Lankan girl at the Dutch National Speed Ice-skating Championships..

Integration
I know consequently look the wrong way at crossings on the continent...

¿Indios en Holanda?
Today I visited the Lakenhal Museum in Leiden with a Secondary School friend who had returned from the Far East to see his parents here. We went to see the exhibition "Rembrandt's Mother, Myth adn Reality" that was held because 2006 will be the 400th anniversery of Rembrandt van Rijn who - as you all knew, of course - was born in Leiden. This exhibition had nice paintings, some minor works by the Master himself but mostly works by his pupils, especially Gerard Dou and Frans van Mieris, and the free audio-tour was very repetitive, almost emphasising that the theme of the exhibition was somewhat weak. The thing is that we don't really know whether this old woman that appears so often in his paintings and etches actually is Rembrandt's Mother. And the evidence for his Father's, Brother's and Sister's featuring as models is even weaker.

However, there were some fascinating things I found in other paintings in the collections. For instance there was the idiosyncratic (eigenwijze, originele) way in which Hell was portrayed in the Last Judgement of Lucas van Leijden and in similar paintings from the same period and environment. Hell was a Giant Fish, and his mouth was the entrance to it. The rest of the scenes was classic Jeroen Bosch stuff with marvellously fantastic devil creatures, but Hell a Fish? Of course my mind then goes on to think, nay scream: "Pagan stuff!"(I always hope to find clues of a pagan past in medieaval paintings, texts etc.) "Obviously they're somehow associating Jormungand(r) with Hell! (Lady Hel is Jormungand's (half-?)sister)" Can somebody check my wildly-running imagination? Anna? Lani?

Anyway, I called this piece "Indians in Holland?". I'll get to that bit now. In the Lakenhall was also this painting by Rembrandt's Amsterdam teacher Pieter Lastman called "the Baptism of the Eunuch" (1612; in Dutch: Doop van de Kamerling, click the links for the bible story), in which the Apostle Philip baptises a Eunuch in the service of Queen Candace of Ethiopia and this Ethiopian is obviously depicted a sub-Saharan black man. But his equally black servant (holding the book Isaiah the Eunuch had been reading in) is dressed rather oddly: around his head is a feathery head dress you very often see in illustrations of (Brazilian) Indians (e.g. Montaigne's "On Cannibals", 1580) and what is that bird another black servant is holding, all the way to the left? A Macaw? That's not a sub-saharan bird.

Immediately I thought about this article I read for my last paper, I forgot the exact title, but it was a chapter in a book with a title along the lines of "the Stranger in Shakespeare" and it dealt especially with the character Caliban in "the Tempest", a play that was probably written at the same time as Lastman's painting was made (± 1612). This character, the article argued, merged the new 'savages' that had recently been discovered over the last century in both sub-Saharan Africa and the Americas into some sort of primordial nature force (literally: Caliban is clearly a magical, super-natural figure), encountered on a virgin island by the white man Prospero and subsequently enslaved.

Now how is this possible? The ressemblences between the portrayal of these 'savages', these black/indian Others in the painting and the play are quite uncanny, at least at first glance... If I find out more about this, I'll report; suggestions welcome.

Back in the NL
Well, I am back in the Netherlands for two and half a week. And it's odd to say the least. I was here already some two weeks ago for Sinterklaas and that was absolutely fantastic; but now it was almost normal and I didn't feel like leaving London all that much and arriving I seemed to lack enthusiasm. I had had a rather hectic week writing my final paper for Critical Issues in Social Anthropology last week, a week bordered by two weekends with friends visiting.

London Visitors
The weekend before my final week I had Albert visit me, whom had bought tickets for a nice play at the Royal Court Theatre on Saturday: the Alice Trilogy. Rather psychological drama about a woman (Alice) that had nothing really to complain about but a nagging sense of unease. Nothing exciting really happened but it was convincing and good to watch; it was my first visit to a Theatre in London. Furthermore, on our way to Borough Market to buy the ingredients for an excellent sunday meal, we climbed down the quay to walk a while on the Beach of the Thames. Yes. The Thames has a beach that appears at low tide. Yes. The Thames has tides. It's a fantastic place to find random stuff (as anyone who ever visited the Tate Modern knows). At some point we looked down at our feet not to find the shells or pieces of wood that they had seemed from a distance but a whole load of animal bones: thigh bones, jaws, teeth, ribs etc (at least, we hope they were).

Then, after my week of hard-working came Anna and Olivier. It was Anna's second visit, but Olivier's first, so we went to the British Museum, a.o. Rather unfortunately I was rather tired, but it was really good to be among friends again, including my Dutch flatmate there were now four of us in the Kitchen. Maybe that's why the move back to the Netherlands was so surprisingly boring! I had been under the Dutch for well over a week already!

Back at UCU
First thing I did upon returning to these Low Lands was to get over to Utrecht, to see my old Campus again, which is my real old home. As expected, I saw a lot of old friends again, which was absolutely fantastic. I had a four-hour Lunch with my former Tutor and some graduates and Rich came by for some time too. The four hours were mainly achieved because of old-fashioned gezelligheid, not the amounts of food! (although the food was excellent too: home-made quiche and salad) Afterwards, I had tea with Bart, whom I bumped into, and dinner at Maja's with Albert, Ines and Judith, after which I had tea with Annemarie whom I hadn't seen in ages. Then I went over to my Grandmother's where I spend the night, as per arrangement. Next day I spent mainly at Richard's where I helped clean the place a bit too and I had a lunch in the Dining Hall that I did not miss, except maybe the social athmosphere of that place. To complete my list (no I don't care what you think reader, I am chronicling this for myself as well) : after this I had coffee with Albert at Oudaen in the city centre (on my way bumping into Barbara) and then I went over to see Brina and Floris. Finally, I had dinner with Brina, Joram, Katja and her new boy-friend Tijmen (who's of my year).

And more Maya footage!
Here's the movie of the new painting (right-click and download). Spectacle! Jungle! Mud! Monkeys! More paintings! &c.
Thanks to boingboing

New Mayan Painting

Thanks to Lani who first send me this story. Here's the newly discovered Mayan painting from San Bartolo, click for bigger. Not only does it look absolutely amazing, it is also some 1900 years old, almost from the dawn of Mayan civilization. Unfortunately, I can't find any better pictures than this one, which is rather small and doesn't give a whole lot of detail. It seems to represent a Maya 'King' (Ahau), part of a whole story associating him with the Maize God, the four trees that support the Sky (Kah, as opposed to the Void or Heaven that is beyond that: Kahuleu) and legitimising his rule by the sacrifices he makes. I just noticed on this picture - although I wonder why no report draws you attention to it explicitly - you can see that the Ahau offer his own blood by an ancient method that still appeared many centuries later: from his penis. You can see the white long stick and the red gushes of blood. How potent and strong this Ahau is! Ahau meant something like 'Real Man', if I remember correctly. Mayan masculinity exposed...

National Geographic Society story
San Bartolo excavation site: a really nice web-site that has some good pictures and an easy-to-understand story of the excavation site.

Brand in Londen
Who heard the big bang? Apparently yestermorn's explosion of the Fuel depots at Buncefield near Hemel Hempstead were heard even in the Netherlands and France, whereas I, a mere 20-30 miles away, slept peacefully. There seemed to be rain in the air; dark clouds moved like a front, but after I heard the news of the fire and had another look the clouds were actually a bit different! Too thin, too brownish-black to be rain clouds: these were the clouds of burning petrol smoke you can see on the BBC picture below (story).

Well, that all fitted in with the Fire theme that's been haunting the last couple of days, starting with last wednesday's fire alarm tests, thursday's fire alarm (false it seemed) and sunday evening ended it all by bringing us, peaceful residents of these central London halls, a proper fire alarm. Apparently somebody forgot about his/her dinner still being on the stove ... Like thursday (I wisely stayed away during wednesday's announced tests), the fire fighters came very quickly sirens and all, but unlike last thursday they started to unroll their fire-hoses! By sunday we, peaceful residents, had become annoyed - not again! - residents, but this put things back in perspective, I guess. Still, the fire alarm is not funny if only because it really and truly hurts your ears so hard you only want out. So, there's another reason I don't understand the one resident that decided to stay in his room and wait for the fire-fighters to turn the damned noise off.

London's Concrete Valleys.
Just realised how 'high' buildings here in London tend to be (especially on my way to Uni). It all makes the sky a whole lot further away. Especially when I put this experience next to my sudden realisation how 'low' the sky can be in the Dutch fields when I was in the car on my way to my Family's Sinterklaas celebrations in Zwolle last weekend. Yes, for less than two full days I was back, which despite a stormy crossing was extremely nice. Saint Nicholas was particularly kind for me this year with nice books, nice records (all French), and two washing-up 'sponsjes'.

Sinterklaas
Meanwhile, I find Sinterklaas an enormously complex phenomenon to explain here now the poor ignorant foreigners don't see any signs of the man's presence as they would at UCU. So today I brought 'strooigoed' to my class and telling the story of the Saint Nicholas feast and how Black Peter would throw this stuff around ("Strooigoed" = "Throwing Stuff"), after which I get the question from my teacher whether indeed I already celebrated Christmas and whether we ate Turkey as well...

No. We had Boerenkool.

First Contact
Meantime, I am working on my end-of-term paper and enjoying it tremendously. I am writing about "first contact" between westerners and 'natives' in Hawai'i, Mexico and Papua New Guinea and for the first time I get to read all these eye-witness accounts, which is great. There is one book interviewing old Papuans who were there when the Australians first 'discovered' the Highlands in the early 1930's. The shock! The dead have arisen! Indeed, there are many tales about how some people recognised the aussies as recently deceased relatives. Another tribe (the Mikaru) had an explanation very close to the Aztecs. They told how the giant Souw had returned, a creator figure who was caught in the act with his own daughter and therefore was angry with the ones that had shamed him by their discovery of his crime: the Mikaru-tribe. Compare that with Quetzalcoatl, king of Tula and (later become) God of Arts, Knowledge and Wisdom, amongst others, who by the evil magician Tezcatlipoca was made drunk and who then also commited incest with his daughter and then fled ashamed to the West, over the sea. Quetzalcoatl was now returned to take the place of the Aztecs (worshippers of Tezcatlipoca, who was presided over Fate) and punish them.

Anyway, what is really revealing to see (although also: to be expected) is how natives and westerners act in complete ignorance of the other's motivations and project their own assumptions on the other. I am seeing the same in the American case, where I am now reading all this first hand accounts, which is like a dream come true! Some time ago I already bought myself a translation of Bernal Diaz's eye-witness account of the fall of Mexico-Tenochtitlan (the Aztec capital), he was one of Cortez's soldiers, and now I found Columbus's and Cortez's letters in the library and the complete Sahagun in the British Museum Anthropology Centre. Sahagun, the Spanish friar who brings us the words of real Aztecs.

Ok, I've been writing for too long now. I was working on my paper before this, hence my enthusiasm about that, but I promis more on Sinterklaas if I find the time. Albert will be visiting this weekend and next weekend may be reading week (no classes) I still need to finish two papers and then Anna & Olivier come and then I go home. Hèhè.

Thanksgiving pictures
First photographic evidence that I actually reside in London (with my fellow Anthropologists) Pictures courtesy of him (the guy at the far right) whose camera was used in the taking. ➛

For all the knitwear-addicts.
Shaun of the Dead and other zombies, in knitted figures.. Waar moet dat heen met deze wereld?

(BTW: look! I ccan now do pictures! More to follow soon, I hope.)
By the BTW (for the thick): these pics are not by me! I did not start knitting zombies.

The Nefarious Influence of the Big City

I suffer from an increased indifference to people. This especially results in ignoring the very existence of all the charity workers that try to chat you up on the streets. I do it and I find myself shocked at my own behaviour: it is one of the rudest things you can possibly do to an individual in Western society. How wrong is this from a left-wing/socialist perspective? Am I not suppossed to care about people, and shouldn't I therefore be the most generous of persons? Still I loathe the idea of confronting those people on the street who beg for charity and do the worst symbolic violence to them, by not even reacting to their calls. Charity organisations pick up where the State fails. And England has a lot of charity. I am in a grim mood (as noted), but tomorrow I am coming home for Sinterklaas! Hossana!