In ancient Sparta the diet was typically basic and limited by the local resources of the Greek landscape. The Spartans were not as in love with their food as most of ancient Greece, and their diet was more humble and basic.
The Spartans as with everything put their military above all, and their food and diet was no different. Their theory on food meant that they ate to be strong and healthy, and not to over indulge.
As is now, over indulgence would have had a negative effect on not only the physiques of the Spartan warriors but also their energy levels, and as we already know peak fitness and performance was essential to be a Spartan citizen.
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Natural food, grown locally by the helots was were most of the Spartan diet would come from. The Spartan society was very self sufficient and this shines through in their approach to food. Common foods were meat and fish, with a wide variety of animals and fish consumed.
Honey, milk, cheese and bread were also common, as were figs and wine. And of course fresh fruit would grow well in the warm Greek weather, providing the Spartans with lots of variety albeit rather basic.
Of course, the Spartans as they were warriors, they were also fine hunters, not only could a Spartan strike fear into any enemy in the distance, I’m sure they had the same effect on their prey. The Spartans would use any animal they hunted for food, even though it was also considered a sport to them, they would not waste any fruits of their hunt.
The Spartan diet would regularly consist of meat, including pigs, goat, and sheep. Fish would also be eaten when available, and of course and spoils from hunting would be on the menu too, including animals like wild boar and rabbits.
Dairy was also commonplace in the Sparta diet, with milk sourced from local sheep and goats. The milk would additionally be used to create cream and cheese for use in various dishes, and sealing cheese was a well known skill in all of Sparta.
The Spartans did eat bread, although it was not a staple of their diet. Typically barley was used over wheat to create bread, although it is believed that on special occasions wheat bread would be made.
The legendary Spartan black broth or black soup is thought to have been a staple food for the Spartan community, although certain historical information points that is was not a common dish. Either way it’s one of the most well known Spartan dishes.
Fabled to be created from boiled pork, with salt, vinegar and blood, this thick soup or broth was not considered a delicacy but rather a means to an end. Whether the Spartans believed that this broth would give their soldiers strength or power, we do not know and unfortunately there are no detailed surviving recipies.
Wine was popular in ancient Sparta, liked but never to be over indulged in. The Spartans would drink wine with or after most meals, although they typically watered the wine down because as we alluded to before, being drunk in Sparta was not considered appropriate.
The Spartans considered drunkenness a sin of sorts, they believe it had negative effects on not only the mind but also the body, and of course their warrior nature could be compromised by its effect.
Just like their attitude to war and physical excellence, the Spartan diet was just another component of their life. The diet was treated as just that, a diet and not an indulgence. The Spartan diet could be considered quite healthy for the time, and even nowadays would be a good diet with a balance of foods with no major over indulgence. As with everything the Spartans were organised and regimented and their diet was too.
http://www.legendsandchronicles.com/ancient-civilizations/ancient-sparta/ancient-spartan-food-and-diet/
The Vikings and their funeral and burial rituals were wholly affected by their pagan religion and beliefs. For a Viking their death would lead them into an afterlife and into one of the Vikings nine realms. It was this belief that led the Viking to take so much time on their funerals and burials trying their hardest to send their friends, family or fallen comrades to a successful afterlife.
The two realms in Norse mythology that were commonly associated with the religious practises of funerals and burials were Valhalla and Helheim. Valhalla was a place for fallen warriors and in opposite contrast, Helheim was for Viking people who had died from what was considered a dishonourable death. To die in bed of sloth, or to die of old age was not considered brave in old Norse times.
In Viking times if you died, they would typically send you on your way in one of two ways, cremation or inhumation. There are typically two common ways to bury the dead, and the Vikings did practise both at some point.
The first method, cremation is to burn the body at temperatures so hot that flesh and bone would turn to ash, the ash could then be scattered, buried or sailed out to sea. The second, inhumation was to bury the body in its current state under the ground, and then either place earth, dirt or stones on top of the body.
The Vikings in the early years were almost entirely pagan in their beliefs and they would typically cremate their dead. Later as Christianity become more common it is believed the use of inhumation was more widely adopted.
For the purpose of this article however we will focus primarily on the typical Viking practise, pre Christianity of cremating their dead. It was normal in Norse times to cremate the deceased body before a land or sea burial, a practise that had significant reach to their afterlife. By cremating their dead the Vikings believed the smoke would carry them to their rightful destination in the afterlife.
Successful cremation in Viking times required a very hot fire, hot enough to burn flesh and bone to ash, and to achieve this a pyre was required. Funeral pyre - The Vikings created and used pyres to cremate their dead. Without the intense heat caused by a pyre, a normal fire would likely not burn the body completely. This could leave parts of the body remaining and is of course not desirable.
Therefore the Viking uses pyre to ensure their dead were successfully cremated. A pyre is easily described as a large volume of wood, or a construction of wood that the body is laid upon. The construction of such pyres could take hours to build, necessary to ensure the heat was located in such a way that the body would burn effectively.
When it comes to the burial, the Vikings would bury the ashes of their dead in graves or even under piles of rocks. Goods and belongings would be buried with the deceased, suitable to match their life.
Viking graveyards were even common, with certain settlements and groups keeping all their dead in one location. There are even large stone ships structures in Scandinavia to allow the dead to sail even without a sea burial. Ship burial - A Viking sea burial - Another kind of burial was for the Vikings to sail their dead out to sea.
The lore of this practise often involves the burning of the ship before the dead are cast out. However in practise its believed that this was not always the case, with many believing the body to be cremated before the ship was sailed. Either way it was common for the dead’s goods to travel with them out into the water.
This type of burial was not common however, and was likely reserved for sea captains, noble Vikings and the very wealthy. In old Norse times boats would have taken months to construct and would not have been wasted without valid cause or a suitable amount of status.
It was common for the Vikings to bury their dead with some of their goods or belongings. This was considered necessary for them to use in the afterlife, I mean what warrior would want to be without his trusty weapons, even if he were not to need them in the next life.
A warrior could be buried with his shield or sword, and a craftsman might be buried with his tools. A Viking woman might find her cloth making equipment or cooking tools would follow her in the afterlife.
In Norse mythology it is believed and alluded too in many texts that the afterlife you reached would depend on how you lived your life. The Vikings believed that the brave warriors who fell in battle would reap the most reward in the afterlife.
This belief in many ways freed the Vikings to walk into battle with no fear and this would be the goal for many Viking in death. If you weren’t a warrior then of course you still had an opportunity for an afterlife as well.
Valhalla was the hall situated in Asgard the realm of the gods, and Odin’s home. It’s often reported that Valhalla was a place for only warriors to go to, if you fell in battle as a brave warrior then entry to Valhalla would be granted to you.
Folkvangr was another place brave warriors could live in the afterlife. Folkvangr was a field ruled over by the Goddess Freya, and was an alternative location for warriors. Freya would be able to choose half of the dead warriors from battle to come and live in the afterlife in Folkvangr.
Helgafjell was known as the ‘holy mountain’, and was widely thought of as a rather nice place to live out the afterlife. Helgafjell was somewhere you could go if you did not die in battle, but you would have had to have lived what is considered a good life.
Helheim was possibly the worst outcome for a Norse person in the afterlife. Helheim was cold and dark, ruled by the Goddess Hel, it was reserved for those Norse folk who died in a dishonourable way. This could be from laziness, old age, for example to die in your bed.
In Viking times, dying in a brave way was definitely the most honourable. Funeral celebrations occurred in old Norse society, but the Vikings would wait for seven days before celebration. This day would be marked with the drinking of ale, which signified the passing of any property from the deceased. After this celebration the heir would truly claim their inheritance.
http://www.legendsandchronicles.com/ancient-civilizations/the-vikings/viking-funerals-buriels-and-the-afterlife/
The number of people you’ll see in Japan wearing surgical masks is pretty surprising. Sure, Japan is a hard working society, and the spread of productivity-sapping sickness is always a concern at schools and workplaces, but that doesn’t seem like reason enough for the proliferation of facial coverings that sometimes has Tokyo offices looking more like an operating room.
Health concerns are only part of the equation, though, as recent studies have revealed multiple reasons people in Japan wear masks that have nothing to do with hygiene.
Until recently, masks were primarily worn by people who had already come down with an illness. If you were feeling under the weather but couldn’t take the day off, common courtesy dictated that you cover your mouth and nose with a mask, so as not to breathe your germs all over you class or office mates or fellow commuters.
Things started changing in 2003, though, when medical supply maker Unicharm released a new type of mask specifically designed for hay fever sufferers. Until that point, most masks had been made of cotton, with an inner pouch into which gauze was placed. After taking off the mask users threw out the gauze, washed the cotton mask for reuse, and restuffed the pocket.
Unicharm’s anti-hay fever masks, though, were made of non-woven material, which was more effective in blocking pollen. They were also completely disposable and could be cheaply bought in bulk. This new type of mask was a game changer, and business research firm Fuji Keizai now says non-woven masks account for 86% of the market today.
The introduction of these cheap, easier-to-use masks also made it more practical to wear one in order to prevent getting sick in the first place. Commuting in Japan often means spending an hour or more pressed up against your fellow passengers on a train or bus, and not everyone has the good manners to put down their smartphone and cover their mouth when they cough or sneeze.
Sales figures show that use of masks has more than tripled over the last decade, with particularly large spikes caused by influenza outbreak fears in 2009 and worries over micro particulate matter following the earthquake and nuclear accident of 2011. Estimates for fiscal year 2013 value Japan’s mask market at 23.9 billion yen.
But as masks provoke less and less surprise, some people are using them for purposes that have nothing to do with physical health. One 46-year-old mother, who herself wears a mask every day in the winter to prevent getting sick, says her high-school-age daughter wears one for a completely different reason.
“She puts on a mask and sticks headphones in her ears so that people won’t bother her. It makes it harder for them to start talking to her.”
Juvenile psychologist Jun Fujikake has made simmilar observations. “When we deal with others, we have to judge whether to do things like smile or show anger,” he explains. “By wearing a mask, you can prevent having to do that.
The trend of wearing a mask to prevent directly dealing with other may have roots in the current youth culture in which many of them are more accustomed to communicating indirectly through email and social media.”
But the recent surge in masks’ popularity isn’t entirely the result of a desire to give people the cold shoulder. On the contrary, an increasing number of people are using masks because of their desire for warmth.
Japan gets pretty chilly during the winter. Thankfully, the layered look is definitely in, and as the temperature drops, you can bundle up with tights, undershirts, sweaters, parkas, gloves, scarves, and caps. One thing that’s hard to do, though, is keep your face warm.
Granted, you could always pick up a ski mask at the sporting goods shop, but effectiveness aside, you’re going to get some strange looks wearing one anywhere other than on the slopes. But since Japanese society has already gotten used to people wearing surgical masks outside of the hospital, you can safely put one on to keep your nose and cheeks warm without attracting any attention.
Not only have masks become so commonplace that wearers aren’t seen as unattractive, some people are finding fashion and beauty uses for them. One professional model interviewed by reporters says she often slips on a mask after washing off her makeup at the end of a photo shoot, in order to keep her au naturel face hidden from the public.
Even women whose livelihood doesn’t depend on looking their best at all times are finding masks to be a handy for those times when they need to dash out to run errands and don’t feel like spending a half-hour putting on blush and lipstick first.
Some people even see masks as a fashionable accessory. An online search for masuku bijin or “beautiful masked girl” will bring up hundreds of results, and an increasing number of companies are offering masks with floral, polka dot, and even houndstooth patterns, not to mention jet-black ninja-style masks for guys.
There’s even a mask whose seller claims it’ll help you lose weight. Cosmetics maker T-Garden has jumped into the mask arena with its Flavor Mask. Not only does it feature a pretty-in-pink design, each disposable mask comes infused with the scent of raspberry, which T-Garden says will boost your metabolism.
We’re not entirely convinced about the scientific soundness of their promise, and from an armchair psychology viewpoint, it seems like a food-based fragrance is going to do more to ramp up your appetite than your metabolism.
Still, like any mask it should help prevent you from passing a cold around, keep your face a little warmer, cut off unwanted social interaction, and preclude the need to wear extensive makeup, none of which is necessarily diminished by its calorie-burning quackery.
https://japantoday.com/category/features/lifestyle/why-do-japanese-people-wear-surgical-masks-its-not-always-for-health-reasons
First time visitors to Japan may be surprised to see so many people wearing surgical masks in public. There are a few reasons for this, the most common being that they are sick and are wearing a mask to keep their nasty germs to themselves in consideration of those around them.
Likewise, many people also wear a mask to guard themselves from whatever illness is going around. Others use it vainly to shield their faces from the onslaught of cedar pollen that descends upon the masses every spring.
Then there are those who wear masks because they’re self-conscious about the way they look or have something they want to hide, like a pimple or even their emotions.
In particular, wearing surgical masks for cosmetic and comfort purposes has become so popular among young people in Japan over the past few years that the media has begun labeling it as a “fashion trend.”
In March 2011, News Post Seven surveyed 100 people wearing surgical masks in Shibuya, Tokyo’s most popular fashion district, and found that roughly 30% of them were wearing them for reasons unrelated to sickness or allergies.
Adding to that data, earlier this month Japanese news program ZIP! aired a special about young men and women who wear surgical masks as fashion items, in which they counted the number of people wearing masks as they walked down a Tokyo street and found that the number has increased 14-fold compared to previous data.
ZIP! also surveyed the reasons why people who aren’t sick or have allergies wear masks. The results, beginning with the most popular answer, are as follows:
They’re not wearing any makeup and want to hide their face
To keep their face warm
To make their face look small
It comforts them
To keep their throat from drying while sleeping
According to info-gathering site Naver Matome, some women see the mask as not only a way to cover up their face on a bad makeup day, but also as an accessory that can make them more attractive.
“It gives you a mysterious appearance since only your eyes are showing,” says one high-school girl. “Wearing a mask makes me look cuter!”
Some companies are even seeking to capitalize on this new fashion trend, such as Picomask, which has been selling stylish and colorful surgical masks since 2010.
Other testimonies by those who say they wear masks for the comfort it provides suggest that there is something psychologically deeper than self-image issues as work.
“I don’t want to show others my true self,” “Since my face is covered, people don’t know how I’m really feeling. It’s comforting,” and “I don’t like having to create facial expressions for people” are some of the reasons given by Japanese high school students who mask up regardless of the season.
According to Yuzo Kikumoto, author of "Date Mask Izonsho," a book discussing why young people may have begun “hiding” behind masks in public, explains that many Japanese students wear a mask to keep them from standing out among the crowd: “They have an abnormal fear of showing who they really are to their peers.”
Others believe that having to rely on a mask to feel comfortable in public is a byproduct of Japanese youth becoming too accustomed to using e-mail and social networks to communicate with each other; they can’t interact with others unless there is a protective “wall” that offers them some degree of anonymity.
“The nail that stands out will be hammered down” is one of the better-known proverbs in Japan. Japanese are educated from childhood to but the group before their own interests, and many people feel reluctant to do anything that would make them stand out—the most famous example being the Japanese student who deliberately gives the wrong answer when called on during class for fear that “showing off” will lead them to be ostracized by their classmates. Surgical masks give these young people another way to blend in with the crowd.
https://japantoday.com/category/features/lifestyle/more-japanese-youth-wearing-surgical-masks-to-hide-their-face
In this article, I will be looking at the burial rituals and practices of the Phoenicians. I chose this culture specifically to learn more about it as it is an enigmatic and mysterious culture, and kings, like Hiram I, play a role in the legend of the Masonic fraternity.
First I will define certain terms then I will give an introduction of the Phoenician people, the Phoenician religion, an introduction into funerary rituals and practices, early burial rites and practices of the Phoenicians, evolution of these rituals and practices, foreign influence on the Phoenicians, and placement of the cemeteries.
In this article several terms and phrases will be used such as funerary rites and/or mortuary rites. To make all things clear, I will define specific terms.
Rite is defined as “a ceremonial act or action.” Rites are often planned sets of activities that bring together aspects of an organization or culture in a single event. Rituals are repeated communication performances during a rite or ceremony that communicates a particular value or role definition.
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There are a variety of rituals: personal rituals, societal rituals such as burial rituals, and task rituals (weekly staff meetings).
A ceremony is a “formal act or event that is a part of a social or religious occasion.” Burial Rite is defined as “any of the ceremonial acts or customs employed at the time of death and burial.” This is also synonymous with funeral which is a ceremony connected with the burial or cremation of the dead. There are two types of ways to deal with the dead, either inhumation or cremation. Inhumation is defined as to bury, inter, or place in a grave/tomb. Cremation is to reduce a body to ashes by burning or incineration.
When researching Phoenician burial rituals, there is an issue with the sources. The most notable sources from ancient times are Philo of Byblos, Eusebius of Caesarea, and Porphyry of Tyre, but these sources lived long after the early burial rituals and each seem to be discounted by most scholars for a variety of reasons. Philo’s accuracy has been called into question.
Porphyry’s writings are now just fragments maintained in works of others and while from the city-state of Tyre, he never referred to himself as Phoenician and held a negative view of the culture. Eusebius seemed to hold a negative view of the Phoenicians as he was Christian and saw their culture as pagan and heretical.
Even the Bible which talks about the Canaanites and Phoenicians was less concerned on the particulars of their ritual and more focused upon the fact that they did not consider Phoenician rituals as proper worship. With insufficient primary texts, scholars and researchers have had to use archaeological evidence to reconstruct Phoenician culture.
The Phoenicians were an ancient civilization that emerged sometime between the 16th and 13th centuries BCE on the coast of the Levant. Scholars now view Phoenicians as descendants of Bronze Age Canaanites who gained independence with the decline of Egyptian influence in the region around 1200 BCE.
The mainland boundaries ranging from northern modern-day Israel into southern Syria with the Lebanon Mountain range as its eastern border.
Their major cities were Tyre, Sidon, Byblos, and Arwad. Phoenicia appears to have been a confederacy of city-states which each city having its own ruler, but retaining cultural ties such as their religion. The Phoenicians became a maritime power in the Mediterranean and soon Phoenician traders began to expand their trade. In turn this expansion led to the establishment of colonies around the Mediterranean such as Carthage and as far west as Spain.
They traded first with wood, metals, salves, wine, and glass, but one of its trades it was known for, was its rare purple dyes which were used primarily by royalty as it was so costly. It was the purple dye that gave the Phoenicians their name as Phoenician means "purple people," originating from the Greek word "phoinios" meaning "purple."
Eventually the Phoenicians would eventually be conquered by the Persians and divided into four vassal kingdoms. Under Persian control, the Phoenicians still flourished, but this ended, around the 4th century BCE, when Alexander the Great sought to control the naval bases along the eastern Mediterranean coast.
Even under the Persians, Phoenicia was a confederacy of city-states and each city resisted Alexander in their own way: Arwad, Sidon, and Byblos surrendered without putting up a fight, but Tyre does not.
Alexander the Great attempted to lay siege, but was originally unsuccessful as Tyre was a well-fortified island city-state. He had to destroy Ushu, town on the mainland that supplied Tyre, to build a causeway to the island was he enabled to bring siege engines and scale the walls of Tyre.
He was brutal to the people of Tyre; he executed many of the males who were of age to serve in the military, sold thousands to slavery, and razed the city to the ground. This brutality stems from the Tyrians killing an ambassador that Alexander has sent to them asking for a peace treaty.
Soon Greek influence is seen intruding into the Phoenician culture and would not regain independence until the 3rd century CE, but never regained the prominence it once had.
When discussing the Phoenician religion, one must be cautious because, as Richard J. Clifford states, primary source material is “seriously deficient.” Helen Dixon states that the “Phoenician religion is presented as simply impossible to know given the current state of evidence.”
It is complicated to fully understand this religion as sometimes it is seen as a unified religion and at other times as a confederacy with city-gods and the appearance of a pantheon that extends throughout the region; usually the triad of this pantheon is the main city-god with a fertility goddess and a “rising god.”
Things are further complicated as the names of gods could also be used as a title or share the name of city. Death played a major role in the Phoenician religion as they sought to appease their ancestors and the gods by performing rituals that would send the soul to the afterlife there to be reunited with its ancestors in the underworld.
Funerary rituals and practices are an important aspect of any culture. While they serve a religious function, that of properly sending the deceased’s soul into the afterlife, it also serves a social and psychological function, whereby society can further build a communal memory and to create a strengthen memory between the living and the dead. Through funerary rituals, one may express their feelings of the deceased, often in a way that is consistent with cultural and religious values; provides support for the living; and helps the living acknowledge the reality of temporarily and death. This holds true to the Phoenicians who saw it was their duty to properly bury their dead and ensure they were not disturbed thereafter.
The study of Phoenician funerary rites and practices also helps with understanding the “boundaries of the Phoenician homeland, markers of ethnicity in this territory, and our understanding of Phoenician religious practice.”
The earliest evidence of Phoenician burial rituals date back to around the 13th century and the rituals surrounding the preparation and burial varied according to region and the deceased’s social status.
They employed both inhumation and cremation, but there is no evidence that anyone in the upper class was ever cremated; that appears to have been used by the lower class and then possibly only to save space or due to a lack of time such as in warfare.
The archaeological evidence shows that the upper class (royal, noble, and aristocratic families/individuals) were often embalmed then buried in a sarcophagus while lower classes used partial cremation and stored the remains in vessels such as jars or amphora (see Figure 1).
Some tombs contained just an individual and some excavated tombs are found with hundreds of bodies buried in them. The youngest individuals found buried are said to have been between 12 and 14-years of age; young children and infants it is reported were found to be buried beneath the floor of the house.
With the use of sarcophagus, they may be plain or ornate (See Figure 2). The ornate ones would have relief sculptures or carved motifs on the sides and lid, and/or include inscriptions that cursed those who dared disturb the tomb.
In these early tombs there would also be found bracelets, pins, necklaces, and various vessels such as jars, amphora, and bowels. Once the tomb was sealed, for those who could afford it, there would be a stelae (an upright stone slab or column) placed atop the tomb to serve as a grave marker and identify who was in that particular tomb.
For lower classes, there were a variety of ways observed in how they buried their dead. In the case of inhumation, the poor would only use very plain coffins (made of wood instead of stone). Jars and possession would be left around the coffin. In the case of cremation, some tombs contained two jars for a person where one jar held the ashes and the other contained the charred bones as well as the possessions of the deceased.
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With the expansion of other cultures and/or empires such as the Roman and Greek, there appears to be some changes in burial rites. Some notices are that a lot of emphasis on the legacy of the king are placed on inscriptions, whether on the stele or tomb itself.
Many royal tombs seem to get more lavish, but there is nothing to suggest that this didn’t happen earlier and that the evidence is missing or destroyed. It could also suggest outside influence on the funerary rites from cultures around the Phoenicians.
Both are plausible, particularly the latter since the Phoenicians were a maritime power who had traveled and colonized throughout the Mediterranean and elsewhere. One example of outside influence is seen with the use of ankh’s similar to those seen in Egyptian funerary rites.
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The Phoenicians often placed their cemeteries away from the city in distance or used natural barriers such as rivers to divide the living from the dead. In the case of the island settlement of Tyre, the cemetery was placed on the mainland adjacent to the island.
In conclusion, we see a culture that saw importance in burying and caring for the deceased, but we see differences in how deceased were buried according to their social status. We see that they view the need to properly treat the dead and prepare them for the afterlife, regardless of their social status.
In this article, I defined specific terms to assist in understanding the subject of Phoenician funerary rites. We looked at the Phoenicians and their religion, mortuary rites and practices practiced by them as show from existing archaeological evidence, some influences by neighboring cultures, and the placement of the cemeteries.
From the evidence available we don’t see a typical burial practice completely uniform across the entire Phoenician culture, but this could be due to it being a decentralized culture. Ancient texts are hard to place a value on and have been scrutinized, but cannot be wholly dismissed.
They must be used in conjunction with inscriptions and other archaeological evidence. The classical texts on the Phoenicians is an article unto itself as modern scholars are hesitant in taking them literally since many of them held hostile views of the Phoenicians and the writings are best described as terse.
http://www.travelingtemplar.com/2015/09/phoenician-burial-rites.html?m=1
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The landscape of Guizhou, a province in the southwest part of China will soon have a new addition. A giant, silver statue of the Goddess of Beauty is being built in Jianhe county. The 88-metre-high statue depicts Yang’asha, a deity worshipped by the Miao, a local ethnic group. According to the People’s Daily, upon completion, the statue will be the tallest in China.
The Miao are one of 55 ethnic minority groups officially recognised by China, though many Miao are self-designated into further sub-cultures and linguistic groups.
Yang’asha is a legendary beautiful woman worshipped by many Miao people because she fought for her love. The statue depicts Yang’asha with a serene facial expression and wearing traditional Miao garments, including the iconic horned silver headdress worn by many Miao women.
The Yang’asha statue is the latest in a string of giant sculptures being built around China, including an enormous statue of the god Guan Yu unveiled in Hubei last year and a giant statue of Mao Zedong that was erected and subsequently torn down in Henan. Local authorities hope that the Yang’asha statue will draw more tourists to secluded Guizhou province.
https://www-lonelyplanet-com.cdn.ampproject.org/v/s/www.lonelyplanet.com/amp/news/2017/04/20/goddess-of-beauty-china?amp_js_v=0.1&usqp=mq331AQCKAE%3D#origin=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.google.com&prerenderSize=1&visibilityState=prerender&paddingTop=0&history=0&p2r=0&horizontalScrolling=0&storage=1&development=0&log=0&aoh=15782615250201&cap=cid&csi=0&cid=1
Tocoyal it is a kind of tape that is wrapped around the head. The tocoyal measuring between 20 and 25 yards long.
The majority of indigenous peoples in Guatemala are of Mayan descent. The Mayans of Guatemala are the only indigenous culture that constitutes a majority of the population in a Central American republic. There are 21 different Mayan communities in Guatemala making up an estimated 51 per cent of the national population.
Maya are dispersed throughout Guatemala especially in the western highlands. The largest populations are in rural departments north and west of Guatemala City, most notably, Alta Verapaz, Sololá, Totonicapán and Quiché. Maya are also located on farms in Guatemala’s southern area known as Boca Costa.
Increasing numbers of Mayans of varying social classes live in all of Guatemala’s cities, as well as in Belize, Honduras and especially Mexico. Mayan groups are distinguished by language. The most common of the approximately 26 indigenous Mayan languages that are still spoken are Q’eqchi’, Cakchiquel, Mam (Maya), Tzutujil, Achi and Pokoman.
Mayan history shows strong evidence of connections to the more ancient Olmec (Xhi) civilization of southern Veracruz in Mexico. The physical ‘boundaries’ of the ancient Mayan empire spanned the countries of modern-day Guatemala, Belize , the western portions of Honduras and El Salvador, and the five Mexican states of Yucatán, Quintana Roo, Tabasco, Campeche and Chiapas.
One group of Mayans called the Huaxtecs separated in ancient times and established itself outside of this geographical area. There were 28 other ethnic groups whose names correspond to their languages.
These are the Mam, Yucatec, Chorti Itza, Lacandon, Mopan, Chontal, Chol, Cholti, Tzotzil, Tzeltal, Coxoh, Tojolabal, Chuj, Jacaltec, Kanhobal, Mocho, Tuzantec, Aguacateca, Ixil, Quiche, Tzutuhil, Cakchiquel, Uspantec, Achi, Pocomchi, Kekchi and Pocomam.
The ancient Maya developed an agriculture-based society (maize, beans and root crops) supplemented with wild game and fish caught in rivers, lakes and oceans.
Ancient Maya cities were densely populated. They established far-reaching production and trade networks as well as temples and religious centres, and developed writing, mathematics and astronomy, which allowed them to monitor other planets and predict eclipses.
While the Mayan civilization was already in a prolonged hiatus when the Spanish arrived in the sixteenth century, the invasion prompted a very rapid decline. This occurred through the dispossession of lands and the use of Mayans for forced labour on cocoa and indigo plantations.
Mayan leaders today refer to the massacres of the 1980s as the ‘third holocaust’, the other two being the Spanish conquest and its aftermath, and the land dispossession during the Liberal revolution of the nineteenth century.
The large self-identified Mayan majority remains partly due to the group’s ability to assimilate cultural and religious influences. This is in part because of the internal coherence of Mayan communities in their approach to the outside world, and also because of the significant process of cultural resistance that the community continues to exercise.
The 1960s saw the rise of social movements in Guatemala demanding land and fair wages in the Mayan highlands and the large farms of the south coast. The repression that the movement faced was exemplified by the burning down of the Spanish Embassy on 31 January 1980 when a group of 39 Mayan leaders sought refuge inside.
This created fertile ground for recruitment to the armed insurgency under the umbrella of the Guatemala National Revolutionary Unit (URNG).
The state response, in the form of the counter-insurgency campaigns of General Ríos Montt and the subsequent militarization of the area, caused almost 200,000 deaths, created over 200,000 refugees in Mexico and a million internally displaced within the country. These actions were subsequently defined as genocidal by the United Nations-sponsored truth commission.
The return to civilian rule created a state with less formal discrimination. However, discriminatory legislation against women still existed and de facto discrimination continued to exclude the Mayan communities from the legal, political, economic and social systems of Guatemala. In many Mayan areas, militarization as a consequence of the armed conflict left the army as the only visible institution of the state apart from the Catholic Church.
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Article 66 of the 1985 Constitution recognized the existence of Mayan groups and provided for the state to respect their rights to use indigenous languages, traditional dress, customs and forms of social organization. Article 70 called for a law to establish regulations relating to indigenous questions.
However, 10 years after the introduction of the Constitution, the necessary law had not been enacted. In addition, under the existing electoral law, the Maya had no opportunity to organize politically. During 1992, there was some hope that Congress might ratify International Labour Organization (ILO) Convention No. 169 relating to indigenous peoples, but a series of delays and a short-lived coup in 1993 put an end to the process.
Mayan culture continued to be denigrated by the national political elite, which was implicated in their massacre. Where concessions were made, as in the limited government bilingual education programme, these were more designed to assimilate Maya into mainstream national culture, in this case by integrating Mayan children into the existing Spanish education system.
Despite the levels of discrimination and the negative effects of the 1985-95 internal armed conflict, a new movement of Mayan organizations blossomed, which included locally based development groups. Issues such as the rights to land, civil and cultural rights, bilingual education and the recognition of Mayan local authorities became major topics of focus.
In addition, Mayan academic institutions and research institutes began gathering and documenting the history of Mayan civilization. A key symbol of the indigenous popular movement was the 1992 Nobel Peace Prize award to Mayan exile Rigoberta Menchú, which gave the entire Mayan issue increased international recognition and some local protection from military repression.
These developments forced all parties in the conflict to radically alter their perceptions regarding the Maya. A significant step forward was taken in March 1995 with the signing of an accord on indigenous rights between the government and the guerrillas.
This was cautiously welcomed by the Coordination of Guatemalan Mayan Organizations (COPMAGUA), the umbrella organization of Mayan organizations, which subsequently presented proposals for the Peace Accords to the Assembly of Civil Sectors for discussion.
The accord defined the Guatemalan nation as ‘multi-ethnic, pluricultural and multilingual’, a definition which was to be incorporated into the Constitution. It promised the introduction of anti-discriminatory legislation and the congressional approval of ILO Convention No. 169.
It also agreed on a number of measures to increase Mayan participation in society, including the promotion of bilingual education at all levels of the state education system; the official use of indigenous languages within the legal system sanctioned through indigenous legal aid organizations; the training of bilingual judges and interpreters and the provision of special legal defence services for indigenous women.
In addition, commitment to the principle of municipal autonomy was made through an agreement to reform the municipal code and to strengthen Mayan authorities.
In 1996, Guatemala ratified ILO Convention No. 169 and in May 1999, a national referendum was held on indigenous peoples’ rights that proposed changes to four points of the Constitution.
There was criticism concerning voter intimidation and overtly racist campaigns, which may have affected the outcome. In the end the proposal on cultural and linguistic plurality was defeated receiving support from only 43 per cent of voters, who in turn represented barely 19 per cent of the total electorate.
In 2002 and 2003 once again there was a rise in death threats and abductions against human and indigenous rights leaders. This particularly involved activists working to bring government officials and military officers to trial over civil war-related atrocities, and there were scattered reports of murders of indigenous and human rights leaders.
Much of this activity was attributed to the reactivation of groups connected to the 2003 election campaign of presidential candidate General Efraín Ríos Montt, the founder of the Guatemalan Republican Front (FRG) party who was Guatemala’s dictator during the 1982-83 period.
The overwhelming defeat of General Montt in the November 2003 presidential election offered what was considered by activists to be a less than ideal, but nonetheless better, chance of stabilization and democracy.
Historical social practices and apathy in the government continue to result in political exclusion of indigenous people, including limited access to the civil service and high public office.
While constitutional law permits universal suffrage, indigenous people’s voting rights are still constrained by exclusionary social practices. These involve tedious voter registration requirements, elections scheduled during harvest season and inadequate transportation, all of which serve to limit the numbers who actually vote.
It is also reflected in constraints with regard to seeking election. National political parties restrict the election of their indigenous members to decision-making leadership posts in the internal party structure, thereby effectively excluding them from the wider political arena.
Though indigenous peoples are underrepresented and excluded from political life and decision making across the country, despite representing at least 40 per cent of the population, they do typically have more representation in local government.
Nevertheless, the major political parties and local authorities continue to exclude indigenous peoples from their structures and do not uphold their demands and rights. The only existing indigenous political party, Winaq, usually wins only around 3.5 per cent of the vote and has limited financial resources.
In reality, apart from the few remedial policies of recent years and the gradual emergence of a slightly more tolerant climate, little that is concrete has occurred to improve the lot of the indigenous population following the end of the 36-year civil war.
Despite the 1996 agreement to promote indigenous cultural and social rights, the free expression of Mayan religion, language and other factors continues to be hampered by a shortage of resources and a lack of political will to enforce laws and implement the 1996 peace accords.
Indigenous Guatemalans continue to have a number of key grievances. Among these are protection, redistribution and access to land, and improved wages and working conditions.
Less than 1 per cent of export-oriented agricultural producers still control 75 per cent of the best land, leaving indigenous people to continue to seek wage labour through internal and external seasonal migration.
Other enduring issues include lack of constitutional support for indigenous civil rights and status; the location and identification of indigenous persons disappeared or dead since the internal armed conflict; the prosecution of war crimes and human rights abuses committed during the civil war; the right to teach, publish and deal with the government in indigenous languages; less discriminatory police services; greater political rights in their own communities; access to justice, including the right to administer indigenous justice; and greater participation in central state decision-making.
Discrimination also continues in the restrictions on indigenous peoples’ rights in judicial proceedings. Many Maya continue to be tried in Spanish, even though they do not speak the language. This is due to a shortage of both bilingual judges and/or interpreters.
In practice, too few interpreters are trained or hired; consequently, in some localities, provisions mandating the presence of a suitably qualified interpreter are ignored.
The government’s efforts to acknowledge and prosecute human rights abuses, including its cooperation with a UN-sponsored ‘truth commission’, have been marred by charges of judicial corruption evidenced by the light sentencing of human rights cases.
Nevertheless, the arrest and prosecution of former president Ríos Montt, responsible for the mass killing of indigenous Guatemalans in the early 1980s, while repeatedly inconclusive, appeared to offer some progress towards achieving long delayed justice for the victims of the civil war.
There have been other positive developments for minority and indigenous communities in recent years in terms of addressing the root causes of impunity in Guatemala.
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In June 2014, two former soldiers were arrested in a case concerning the sexual assaults of 15 Q’eqchi’ Mayan women in 1982 in Zarco, followed by the arrest shortly afterwards of three former policemen in relation to the 1990 murder of Myrna Mack, an anthropologist working on and defending indigenous peoples’ rights.
There was also progress regarding the redress of thousands of Maya Achi indigenous people and their family members who were either displaced or massacred over the construction of the Chixoy dam in the 1980s.
Following an Act passed in January 2014 by the US Congress that denied financial aid to Guatemala unless it implemented reparations for the people affected by the dam, President Otto Pérez Molina publicly apologized to the victims and signed an agreement to execute a reparations plan for the affected indigenous communities.
The plan has a budget of US$154 million and includes the construction of housing, infrastructure and other amenities for the affected communities, as well as land restitution. This case sets a historic precedent for redressing violations of indigenous peoples’ rights over the past decades as well as ongoing land conflicts.
Furthermore, in August 2014 a local court in Sipicapa ruled that mining permits and activities are illegal if local communities have not been given information and are not consulted. This ruling set legal precedents for indigenous movements upholding their land rights.
Currently there is no official recognition of Maya culture as such. The term ‘Mayan people’, consecrated by the 1995 Agreement, is still not widely used in the rural communities; however, some note is taken of this in Articles 42, 58 and 62 of the Constitution.
Many indigenous peoples consider the government’s use of sacred grounds (so called ‘Mayan ruins’) as profitable tourist destinations as an affront to their spiritual rights. There is no free access to these sacred sites for indigenous Guatemalans and no government policy guaranteeing the long-term preservation or protection of ceremonial sites as archaeological preserves.
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While there is legislation protecting indigenous dress in public and private schools, individual school officials have the right to enforce their own specific non-Mayan dress codes. Furthermore, traditionally dressed Mayan women, regardless of income level, still face discrimination in all spheres of social life.
There is also continuing opposition to obligatory bilingual education displayed by teachers in certain indigenous areas. This means that even those children living in municipalities that are densely indigenous are still taught in Spanish.
It is expected that the growing numbers of indigenous middle-level professionals, such as teachers, nurses, NGO staff and technical personnel in various fields, and an ever-growing number of university students will begin to have an increasing effect on achievement of indigenous peoples’ rights.
One of the major ongoing issues affecting Mayan communities is the increasing activity of the mining industry. According to Rights Action, a US-based NGO that supports indigenous land reclamation efforts, protesters in the Q’eqchi’ Mayan village of Chichipate located atop a large deposit of nickel have claimed mining company complicity in the forced removal of indigenous residents to begin mine construction.
Indigenous communities as well as environmentalists are also concerned about damage and pollution of water sources through use of water from nearby Lake Izabal to cool nickel-smelting furnaces at a rate of 200 litres per second. Clashes during a protest in May 2017 led to one dead and six injured; artisan fishers say that the nickel processing has contaminated local fisheries.
The extractive industry model promoted by the Guatemalan government and the construction of large-scale development projects on indigenous lands without community consent has been a source of ongoing disputes with resistance movements.
These conflicts are exacerbated by the fact that the existing legal mechanisms available for indigenous communities seeking to defend their rights to land and to free, prior, and informed consent are not effective tools for this purpose.
Indigenous farmers have also been involved in increasing conflict over the possession of their lands. In 2013, the Ministry for Agrarian Issues reported that nearly 60 per cent of the land conflicts’ plaintiffs were indigenous farmers.
Community resistance has also led to the criminalization of respected indigenous elders. In 2016, a group of 11 Maya Mam activists were arrested by police in the community of San Pablo in the department of San Marcos; they included leading ancestral authority Tata Oscar Sánchez Morales.
They were protesting the Hidrosalá hydroelectric dam, which they state was authorized without their community’s consent. Oscar Sánchez was released into house arrest after two months’ detention; his detention sparked an international outcry.
Local activists reported that approximately 50 arrest warrants were pending against elders, creating an atmosphere of fear in the community.
Guatemala’s long civil war, ongoing conflicts related to large-scale development or extractive projects and extreme rural poverty have all contributed to the migration of indigenous people from rural to urban areas, mostly to Guatemala City.
This migration has added pressure to a metropolitan area that has historically lacked proper planning policies, with a large proportion – over 40 per cent – of the city’s population living in slums or shanty towns.
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Following this pattern, indigenous people migrating to Guatemala City and other urban areas have established or settled in informal and unplanned urban spaces or shanty towns that lack proper basic public services, such as water and health care, and are often located in dangerous or inaccessible areas.
Indigenous people in Guatemala’s urban areas experience high levels of discrimination and exclusion based on their ethnic background, dress and language. Since many do not speak Spanish and wear their traditional clothes, they are marginalized from the formal labour market, limiting their opportunities to access social security and a better income.
For example, according to one estimate, 80 per cent of maids working in private homes are indigenous. Because of their concentration in such low-paid jobs, indigenous families in Guatemala’s urban areas mobilize all their members, including children, to work.
https://minorityrights.org/minorities/maya-2/
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