WINTER'S COMING. Winter Solstice Celebrations. From Halloween to Carnival.
Read the following text about the origins of Christmas.
Before reading.
- What do you do on the following dates?
1st November
24th December
25th December
28th December
31st December
1st January
- Are you a religious person? What do you understand by pagan?
Read the first text and answer.
What are the Saturnalia?
Read the following text. What does it describe?
"On Christmas, believers attended church, then celebrated raucously in a drunken, carnival-like atmosphere similar to today’s Mardi Gras. Each year, a beggar or student would be crowned the “lord of misrule” and eager celebrants played the part of his subjects. The poor would go to the houses of the rich and demand their best food and drink. If owners failed to comply, their visitors would most likely terrorize them with mischief. Christmas became the time of year when the upper classes could repay their real or imagined “debt” to society by entertaining less fortunate citizens."
Read the second text.
Christmas traditions Worldwide.
What do all these countries have in common? Can you add more from what you have seen or heard of?
Where can you find references to the SUN / LIGHT? Can you add more from the ones you know or have heard of?
Why do you think food is so important?
Where can you find references to nature?
Solstice date
December 25 was the date of the winter solstice in the Roman calendar.[16][52] A late fourth-century sermon by Saint Augustine explains why this was a fitting day to celebrate Christ's nativity: "Hence it is that He was born on the day which is the shortest in our earthly reckoning and from which subsequent days begin to increase in length. He, therefore, who bent low and lifted us up chose the shortest day, yet the one whence light begins to increase."[53]
Linking Jesus to the Sun was supported by various Biblical passages. Jesus was considered to be the "Sun of righteousness" prophesied by Malachi: "Unto you shall the sun of righteousness arise, and healing is in his wings."[37]
About Carnival.
Watch and listen
True or False?
1. Carnival is celebrated in less than 50 countries around the world.____
2. It originated in Egypt.______
3. The name means welcome to meat and is related to the beginning of fasting during Lent._______
4. In 18th cdntury Italy people celebrated throwing fancy-dress parties.____
5. In 2016 Rio de Janeiro in Brazil received more than 1 milllion tourists for Carnival____
6. The origin of Carnival in Trinidad had to do with slaves who used to sing and dance mocking French colonists.____
7. In India Carnival is widely celebrated______
"From an anthropological point of view, carnival is a reversal ritual, in which social roles are reversed and norms about desired behavior are suspended.[19][20]
Winter was the reign of the winter spirits; these needed to be driven out in order for the summer to return. Carnival can be seen as a rite of passage from darkness to light, from winter to summer: a fertility celebration, the first spring festival of the new year.[21]
Traditionally, a Carnival feast was the last opportunity for common people to eat well . Until spring products were available, people were limited to the minimum necessary meals during this period. On what nowadays is called vastenavond (the days before fasting), all the remaining winter stores of lard, butter, and meat which were left would be eaten, for these would otherwise soon start to rot and decay. The selected livestock had already been slaughtered in November and the meat would no longer be preservable. All the food that had survived the winter had to be eaten to assure that everyone was fed enough to survive until the coming spring would provide new food sources.[22]
Several Germanic tribes celebrated the returning of the daylight. The winter would be driven out, to make sure that fertility could return in spring.[19] A central figure of this ritual was possibly the fertility goddess Nerthus. Also, there are some indications that the effigy of Nerthus[23] or Freyr was placed on a ship with wheels and accompanied by a procession of people in animal disguise and men in women's clothes.[22][24][25] Aboard the ship a marriage would be consummated as a fertility ritual.
WIKIPEDIA
Answer the following questions:
- What is a reversal ritual? What do people intend to do with reversal rituals? Are they only in Carnival (remember what we have commented in the classroom)? Can you give any examples?
-What is the connection with Carnival and food?
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