Faith · Art · Mores · Ethnography
The traditional Norwegian dance of the dead, the likvaka, went like this: a crowd of young people gathered in the house of the deceased and danced to lively music, shaking the floor so hard that the corpse lying there in its bed or coffin jumped. Sometimes the dance was arranged
Faith · Art · Ethnography
Quite often in Western churches one comes across an image of a lamb lying on a cross amid golden rays: it symbolises the sacrifice and death of Jesus Christ. In fact, until the fifth century Jesus himself was not depicted on the crucifix; now and then his presence was indicated
Archive · Faith · Ethnography
At the synagogue service for Rosh Hashanah (the Jewish New Year), the shofar, a wind instrument made of a ram's horn, is sounded a hundred times, the very instrument whose blasts brought down the walls of Jericho. A shofar is made from the horns of rams, antelopes and
NB! · Faith · The East · Mores · Ethnography
Archaeology · Faith · The East · Ethnography
The farmers of ancient Qatar spent most of the winter painting pebbles with horsehair brushes, which they sowed in spring together with the grain. The intricately decorated pebbles were meant to scare off greedy spirits that spoil the seed
Archaeology · Science · Ethnography
Strabo, Claudius Aelianus and several other authors write that the Scythian battle mixture for arrowheads was made from human blood serum, dung and the venom of various snakes. A wound from such an arrow could cause not only direct poisoning by snake venom but also blood poisoning. In other words,
NB! · Archaeology · Ethnography
These treacherous arrowheads are considered a Scythian invention and date from roughly the 7th century BC. But their power lay not only in the barbs, serrations and facets: the arrowheads were steeped in viper's venom, just to make certain
NB! · Faith · The East · Ethnography
Among the Japanese supernatural creatures, the yokai, there is an old woman called Amazake Baba, who knocks at doors in winter and calls out to the householders; whoever answers will fall mortally ill. The old crone can be frightened off with a cedar branch
NB! · Archaeology · Faith · Ethnography · Humour
Figurines of Baubo, the old woman who made the goddess Demeter laugh in her grief for her daughter by lifting her skirts and displaying her nether parts. There were Baubos in the old days!
Faith · Observations · Mores · Ethnography
In England there was a fortune-telling custom before Christmas or on St Thomas's Day: girls took three, five or eight onions and pierced them with pins, marking each with a special sign or initial standing for the names of the young men they had their eye on,
NB! · Architecture · Saint Petersburg · Ethnography
There is an old Finnish legend about a tsar who could not build a city on a marsh, because the stones kept sinking. And what did he do then? He built the city in the heavens and lowered it onto that boggy ground
Archive · Books · Ethnography
“At first we could not understand why so many reindeer were being driven across the tundra to Arkhangelsk. The soldiers escorting us said that military units would be organised. We still did not understand what sort of military units could be made of reindeer. Among us there were Nenets, Komi,