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.
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.
posted by Isalicus at 23:29
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