George's CFL blog

In Rome, the men-dancers, twenty-four strong, were dedicated to Mars, the god of the first month, March. Each carried a staff as they marched about the city, stopping at certain loci to ‘act’ their medicine-dance and promote growth. During the Feast of the Lupercalia, the young men-dancers, after they had been `blooded’, danced through the streets flicking the women with strips of goatskin to render them fertile and give easy delivery. These were of the priesthood of Faunus or Pan, the Indo-European God of the forests and of the herds­men who recognized him by his cloven feet and ears like a goat’s. Still today in Thrace a drama-cult is performed by men dressed in goatskins and carrying sticks. One of them, the ‘Smith’, `acts’ the forging of an iron plough-share which rapes Mother Earth. A baby is born, grows to manhood, is ritually murdered and resurrected to make the corn grow; in the presence of antic gods all now become fools and clowns.

The great migrations of these Iron-Age stick-dancing medicine-men five or six thousand years ago carried such spring-festival rites across Europe from the Balkans to Spain and Portugal, from Sicily north to Scandinavia and the British Isles. After a pause in Europe of a few thousand years, they reached forward again to cross the Atlantic into Mexico and Brazil. Here in Central and South America the European stick dancers with their ‘fools’ and animal characters mixed their customs with similar indigenous customs evolved from rites belonging to another family of gods.

I have been fortunate during my life to see groups of these stick-dancing men in different countries. With their hobby-horses, hobby-goats, animal masks and antic hays, they flutter their ribbons, rattle their bells, and clash their sticks to generate life-bringing ‘medicine’ and dance in pro­cession to dispense it through their communities.

In rural Rumania the `Caluari’ dancers have a cure for a sick child as valued as a bottle of modern physic. In Macedonia the `Rusallia’ dancers are thought to improve a girl’s prospects of marriage. The spring-festival dance of the young men is in demand for the farm-yard as well as for the crops. It may be regarded as just a hangover from our pagan days, but in all these country places the old identification with Nature, with the animal world and with growing crops is still much more than skin deep.

In England it is in our Morris Dance that we recognize the Spring Festival of the early medi­cine men. On May-Day or at Whitsuntide, the white-clothed Morris dancers festooned with flowers, fluttering ribbons and jingling bells, waving white handkerchiefs and clashing their staves, march through the villages to stop at different loci where they generate ‘medicine’ for the community. With them may be a Fool with his cow’s tail and pig’s bladder, animal-men of sorts and perhaps a grotesque female figure—a Baba or Betty or Old Mother; even if one had no clue whatever as to the source of these ‘antiques’ there is something arresting in their ‘acting’ and their close relation to the group of dancing men mystically absorbed in their rite.

In India of today, the stick dancers in their immaculate white garments create new life with their acting-medicine. In near-by Ceylon, dance dramas of the ancient fertility-design and older than Hinduism or Buddhism are acted in the more remote villages. The dancers who wear the white clothes and who are men despite the `breasts’ sewn to their costumes are dedicated to the Earth-Goddess, mother of fertility. The Sky-God also lives on here in Ceylon with his ‘pole’ up which he himself ‘ascends’ carrying his symbolic torch of fire.

The jump from Ceylon to Mexico, while indeed a long one in distance, would seem to telescope time, for we find a Mexican Sky-God with his high pole from the top of which his dedicated medicine-men throw themselves head-downward to ‘fly’, each on an unwinding `trapeze’, until they reach the receiving earth with their inverted magic touch.

In other parts of the world the magic seems to lie in the leap up rather than down. The bound­ing Basques caper high for good crops and `raise’ one of their initiates high aloft on a shield of sticks. Their sticks are little ‘poles’, rich with the magic of trees, symbols of evergreen and ever-renewing life, and able to beat out and drive away death. With such a wand each dancer is a magician, still working the spells of the Earth-Goddess he has so long represented.

The white-robed stick dancers of Miranda in Portugal have a womanish look about them. Are they priests or earth-mothers or half-men half-women? In India the women still dance stick dances for fertility and there are women ritual dancers in Rumania, Bulgaria, Hungary

Standing before the animal figures painted on the walls of the Lascaux caves, I tried to visual­ize the scene of the painters at work 40,000 years ago. Such a span of time demands a very special effort of thought. At my age I can easily think back fifty years and, with a little effort, in multiples of fifty. Ten times takes me to Henry VII; eighteen times, back to the year 1066, is only a little more difficult; eight hundred times, to 38,000 B.C., is a lot more difficult, but by the time I am over that fence, my mind is ready for further adjustment away from my 20th-century psychology toward the meaning of geological time.

Among the pictures on the walls, distinct from the vivid forms of buffalo, horse and stag, is an animal clown, a pantomime horse, more human than animal. In another cave, further south, is the `Sorcerer’, an antlered man-deer up on its hind legs. Another mental adjustment is needed here to conceive the degree of intimacy that must have then existed between hunter and hunted and prompted such masquerading as enabled the cave-painters to transmit their inmost feelings toward the animals directly onto the wall of the cave.

Yet these Stone-Age figures of four hundred centuries ago are part of a tradition of masked men dancing that has continued into our own time. The animals were the hunters’ gods, symbols of the continuity of their own life, symbols which were full of meaning after man left off hunting and turned to herd and shepherd the animals and to collect and sow seeds for a regular harvest. Rams were sacrificed as burnt offerings. Scapegoats loaded with sin were driven out into the desert to free man from the risks of scarcity and evil. These early rituals were continued when tribal life gave way to settled life in cities.

Several centres of civilization evolved more or less independently with their local deities, but all with the underlying common themes of a life-and-death conflict, of death and resurrection, of Sky-God fertilizing Earth-Mother and of a new life come dancing back each year to feed and succour mankind.

In the early civic centres in Mesopotamia, Egypt and India a cult-drama developed round this annual battle of life and death, on the outcome of which man’s future depended. With growing reliance on agriculture, the great waters of Babylon and the flooding Nile in Egypt were linked with new beneficent gods and threatening dragons battling for the victory of rainfall over drought. A new kind of Weather-God or Sky-God ousted the earlier Tree-Gods and Animal-Gods, and ‘married’ the old Earth-Goddess who lived on to be fertilized and to fructify.

The Sky- or Weather-God had different names in different countries, Faunus, Adonis, Attis, Baal and Osiris. He played his part in the Spring Festival when he restored fertility. His symbol of new life was the evergreen may-pole or a flag­staff hung with a young lamb fleece.

About 5000 years ago began great movements of population, emerging out of the East and North-East in waves and spreading westward from India through Asia Minor to Greece, to Sicily and across Europe. Starting in the Bronze Age and continuing through the Iron Age this spread of Indo-Europeans carried along cultures that mixed and merged with others and again moved forward with cultural elements picked up on the way. One of their Sky-Gods, Zeus, ousted his rivals in Greece, sending them to ‘Limbo’. The Indo-Europeans who settled in Greece continued to celebrate the Spring Festival with fertility rites, designed to keep man’s contact with animals and with vegetation, a contact of great comfort to peasants and herdsmen. With their panegyrics, their communal feasts of precious meat, their festivals of music and dancing and games, the Greeks celebrated the sowing and the harvest. The women had their special rites for their Earth-Mother-Goddess, The Low Country dancers of Ceylon are the distant, exotic cousins of the English Morris men; they wear white, with bell-pads and coloured adornment, and the `side’ is also generally six dancers. Their costume (above) shows feminine traits, symbols of fertility. Their dance tradition belongs to an ancient religion. (Right) Kapurla was the Sky-God of Ceylon : he mounts to the top of his thirty-foot pole, to dance up there with flaming torches, making his celestial ‘medicine’ Demeter, and her corn daughter Kore who set the feast of sowing in May.

The Greek scapegoat was led through the streets and flogged with green boughs in expia­tion. In rural parts, the dancers—to promote fertility—sang goat-songs or Komoi that were later to lead their drama-cult on into classic Comedy and Tragedy.

In Crete the men-dancers dedicated to Kore (the Kuretes) had acquired the special name of Mystae, because of the magic life-medicine they dispensed when driving away death and evil, while moving in their torch-lit procession in the search for the abducted Kore.

If you are a lover of nature, especially mountainous terrains, the Pyrenees Mountains presenting themselves as a border between Spain and France are a perfect place to be in. This is one natural border that encompasses a tiny country called Andorra. One great way to explore the natural beauty of these mountains and the two countries is to walk through this beautiful terrain. This is possible by getting a guided walking tour either in France or Spain as there are companies specializing in these special holidays for the tourists coming from all parts of the world.

If you happen to be in Cauterets, which is a small town situated just on the outskirts of Pyrenees National Park, you are where most of the walking holidays around Pyrenees start from Dubai apartments. There are scores of trails and footpaths where you can set on your own or take one of the guided tours. Whichever route you take, you are sure to find enthralling scenes and bounty of nature all along. In fact, this part of Europe is considered to be a paradise for all those who love outdoor activities, especially mountain trails and walking.

Whether you love forests, springs, waterfalls, forests, lush green pastures or mountain streams, there is one guided walkthrough that would be ideal for you. The choice of the trail depends upon you and you can chose depending upon your company as well as the time at your disposal. Apartments in Lisbon. There are some great physical features of the stunning Pyrenees landscape that one witnesses when he is on one of these walking tours in and around Pyrenees.

Different companies have given attractive names to their holidays designed to make tourist walk along the Pyrenees. One such self guided walking tour, when you are in Cauterets, is Heart of the Pyrenees. There are some others like Discover the Pyrenees, Pyrenees-Walking around France, and some more. The choice of a guided tour is often dependent upon the place you are in.

Talking about heart of the Pyrenees, you need to find an accommodation in Cauterets which remains your base for the duration of the walking tour (probably 8 days). The town may be small, but there are lots of shops and restaurants to regale you when you happen to be at the base. You are given a self sustained, apartment in Rome, fully furnished apartment often with a balcony that gives a panoramic view of the surrounding Pyrenees Mountainsents.

As described above, you can choose from many different types of walking tours and there are some really tough ones too. In fact, the host who is assigned to you will chalk out your itinerary after consultation with your team members or your family members. Every day of the 8 day tour provides a different experience to the tourists. The price of this walking tour is Euro 163 per person though prices vary depending upon time of the year.