Page 6
University Daily Kansan, December 6, 1983
Myths and folklore continue into 20th-century Christmas
By United Press International
For those who steer clear of the tinseled trappings of the Christmas season, there is refuge in deeper traditions.
The customers many people think of as the old way of celebrating Christmas are a throwback to something far earlier than the birth of the Christ child, Jesse Tony Barrand, who teaches at anthropology at Boston University.
Barrand, 38, an English-born singer, has spent about 10 years researching the songs, dances and other surviving customs of pre-Christian origin.
Barrand says many midwinter celebrations stem from ceremonies once thought to bring on longer days, the promise of life and the spring season.
HE AND HIS musician wife, Andrea,
and his singing partner, John Roberts,
will teach courses on those customs,
songs and dances Jan. 2 to 7 in Elkins,
Va., at Winter Augusta, an offshoot of
a popular summer music and crafts
festival.
"One of the things that really fascinated me was that in the songs—and actually in the dances and plays—I saw a substantial layer of meaning," Barrand said.
"One was the new version of why we celebrated . . . the birth of the Christ child. But you find strange traces of another, much older meaning, from the mother-cult pagan celebrations in service to the white goddess figure. She is the goddess of winter, the holly king, and one born in midsummer, the oak king.
"CHRISTIANITY became very big in the third and fourth centuries. It primarily succeeded because it recognized that there was an existing cycle of days and set holy days right on top of the ones and gave new reasons for them.
In the 15th and 16th centuries, secular dance tunes were brought into the church, and church text was set to them, he said.
Carols such as "The Holly and the
Myths" incorporate strains of ancient
myths.
Until the early 18th century in England and through the 19th century in the United States, the church established Christmas Day was Jan. 6.
That date fell within the framework of mid-winter celebration and the
ancient tradition of the 12 days between the solar and lunar calendars.
EVENTUALLY, the notion evolved that Jesus was born on Dec. 25, but it took 12 days for the Magi to reach him, Barrand said.
Even the standard Nativity scene reflects ancient origins, he said.
In the oldest of Christmas images,
Jesus, Mary and Joseph are in a stable with an ox and an ass and the Magi. The ox and ass were symbols of the king and other gods, the kings born in midwinter and midsummer,
Barrand said.
A fourth-century Nativity scene shows the Magi wearing caps associated with followers of the Persian god Mithras. It's a clear symbol of repression, showing the old and powery religions worshipping a new god, Barrand said.
The stable scene "established an important core of the new religion, humility. But it was also an opportunity to have representatives of the other two really seriously competing religions present and worshipping. And that's still our primary symbol of Christmas." he said.
"“A LOT of carols still mention Jesus being born between an ox and an ass. The meaning is lost to people now—but it is powerful. Dvid enough image so people keep it."
As late as the 1950s, residents of the Outer Banks of North Carolina brought out a "hobby horse" on Jan. 6, a direct link to the ancient dance tradition in which someone draped in a blanket and holding a horse's skull aloft went door-to-door, answering riddles and being invited in for food.
"That was the essence of the gift-giving and visiting customs. You come and bring a dance or a play," Barrand said.
The holiday, Mummer, deals with death-and-resurrection themes and all-male costumed casts are another tradition that survives.
The most visible legacy is the annual Jan 1 Mummers Day Parade in Philadelphia, an extravaganza with a huge float, costumes and boys marching through the city.
"I HAVE A text of a Mummers' play performed in Kentucky by men and boys in the 1930s at Christmas. And there's another report of the same sort of thing in Boston in the 1890s." Barrand said.
Computers help shoppers make gift decisions
By United Press International
DALLAS — Christmas shoppers desperate for gift ideas can get help from computers at four Sanger-Harris department stores.
It's an idea that probably will spread, at least within the Sanger-Harris chain but also probably throughout the department store industry. It grew out of the tie-up between Sanger-Harris and ComputerLand, the computer and software retailer.
ComputerLand, which has retail space within the four Sanger-Harris stores, places computers on the sales floor of the department stores. Information on the computer screen guides customers through a step-by-step process where they answer questions about the type of person they are buying for and the amount of money they want to spend.
Then a list of suggestions, with prices and the departments in which the items are found, is printed out on a printer next to the computer. The customer directed to tear off the document and carry it to the correct department.
It is an idea that seems to benefit to all concerned — to the customers, to ComputerLand and to Sanger-Harris.
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