Quebec - Putting the God in Gaspé

It surprised me to learn that Canada is a predominantly Catholic country.  According to the 2001 census, approximately 44% of Canada's population is Catholic, whereas only 30% of the population is Protestant.  As with Germany, when I was researching religion in Nordrhein-Westfalen for my blog post earlier this year, I've grown up assuming that Canada was a predominantly Protestant country, because of its role in the British Empire and strong place Protestantism holds in the country's political sphere.

As with the research I did into religion in Germany, the figures are skewed somewhat by those whose parents (or grandparents) would have professed the protestant faith, but who now have no religious belief. The situation in Canada confirms my belief that the development of Protestantism over previous centuries has, in many ways, led to 21st-century secularism.

Religion in Quebec

Cathedral Christ-Roi in Gaspe

Much less surprising, due to its French and Irish heritage, is the fact that Quebec is predominantly Catholic, in fact, according to the 2001 census, Quebec is 83% Catholic and only 5% Protestant, having the lowest percentage of Protestants in any province or territory of Canada. With around 24% of Canada's population, Quebec certainly influences the statistics in favour of Catholicism and around 46% of Canada's Catholics live in Quebec.

Canadian Protestants

If you take Quebec out of the equation, then the overall stats for Canada would look slightly different, with Canada-minus-Quebec being 37% Protestant and 31% Catholic.  Of course, the ratio of Catholic to Protestants varies from one Canadian province/territory to the next. The other predominantly Catholic provinces/territories are New Brunswick (which also has a large French Catholic population), Northwest Territories and Prince Edward Island (although only marginally so).

Ontario is split 50/50 with around 35% of people professing each faith - the provinces/territories with the highest number of Protestants are Nunavut and Newfoundland/Labrador. Nova Scotia, Manitoba, Saskatchewan, Alberta, British Columbia and Yukon all have predominantly Protestant populations.

The Jews of Montreal

Moe Wilensky's in Mile End, Montreal by Patrick Donovan

As I've been researching about Quebec and, particularly as I've been reading Mordecai Richler's novel Barney's Version, I've become very aware of Montreal's prominent Jewish population and the place Montreal has had in the history of Jewish emigration to North America.

Montreal has several predominantly Jewish suburbs, like Cote-St-Luc and Hampstead. Richler would argue that the oppressive nationalism of French-Canadians in Quebec in the 1990's has convinced many Jewish people to leave the province and move, either to the United States, Israel or neighbouring Ontario.

The 2001 stats would seem to bear this out, as it showed that 58% of Canada's Jews live in Ontario, compared to the 27% of Canadian Jews who call Quebec home. Interestingly, British Columbia has the highest percentage of Jewish people, with 5.5% of people in British Columbia professing the Jewish faith.  British Columbia seems to be the most religiously diverse part of Canada, as it also has the nation's highest percentages of Buddhists, Sikhs and people professing no religious beliefs (around 36% of British Columbians fall into this latter category).

Religious diversity in Canada

Detail of Montreal's Basilique Notre-Dame

I was surprised to learn that Alberta has the highest percentage of Muslims (16.7%) in Canada, although it's hard to compare Alberta's population with Ontario's, which is four times bigger and this doesn't change the fact that 60% of Canada's Muslims live in Ontario.  Ontario is also home to 55% of Canada's Orthodox Christians and 73% of Canadian Hindus.

Newfoundland/Labrador and Nunavut seem to be the places with the least religious diversity and Newfoundland/Labrador has the most religious/Christian population with 97% of people professing either Protestant or Catholic faith.

The home of Raëlism

One of the most unusual 'religions' I've come across whilst I've been researching Quebec is Raëlism, a quasi-religious belief in UFOs and extraterrestrials that was founded in 1974 by a Frenchman called Claude Vorilhon, aka Raël. Raël now lives in Quebec, although his movement has around 90,000 followers in 90 countries world-wide. Raëlians use the swastika as a symbol of peace and believe in sexual liberation, cloning, intelligent design and the idea that aliens (the Alohim) will one day return to Earth, which they created.  They're due to arrive in Jerusalem in 2025!

Quebec has one of the highest concentrations of Raëlians in the world and it was interesting to read about Taras Grascoe's encounter with the Raëlian movement, which he recounts in his book, Sacre Blues: An Unsentimental Journey through Quebec.

Image credits:

The image of Moe Wilensky's in Mile End, Montreal was taken by Flickr member Patrick Donovan, who is from Quebec City.  You can see more of Patrick's photos on his flickr account. Thanks Patrick for sharing this image using the Creative Commons license.

The images of the cathedrals in Gaspe and Montreal were taken by me - feel free to re-use these images with the Creative Commons license: Attribution, Share-alike, non-commercial.  

Oaxaca - In Other Words

One of the books I read as background research for this blog was Sliced Iguana: Travels in Mexico (2001) by the English travel journalist, Isabella Tree.  Isabella travelled to Oaxaca, as well as Chiapas, Patzcuaro and the Sierra Madre, where she went beyond the usual tourist/traveller experiences, in an attempt to understand the complex and, apparently, contradictory nature of Mexican culture.  I found her book very informative and entertaining and I would definitely recommend it.

I've come across quite a few new words/phrases, both in Tree's book and elsewhere, as I've been researching about Oaxaca and Mexico.  I've chosen some of these, by coincidence all beginning with the letter 'M', which touch on important areas of Oaxacan and Mexican culture.

México profundo

Benito Juarez, 26th President of Mexico

In many ways, Oaxaca is the very definition of México profundo or 'Deep Mexico'. Something I've learned about Mexico is that, rather than thinking of it as a single, united country, it's more useful to think of Mexico as a patchwork of cultures and experiences, many of which wouldn't conform to outsiders' stereotypes of what Mexico is or should be.

Even the capital, Mexico City, isn't exactly typical of Mexico and, by all accounts, if you want to see the real Mexico, a country of charros (Mexican cowboys), tequila and mariachi music, it's better to go to Mexico's second-biggest city, Guadalajara, the capital of Jalisco state.

Oaxaca is the other side of Mexico - a state where 58% of the population is indigenous and where some of the Zapotec, Mixtec, Mixe, Zoque, Mazateco, Chinanteco, Popaloco etc. people don't speak Spanish. An estimated 15% of Mexico's population is indigenous and almost half of Mexico's indigenous people live in Oaxaca.

It's hardly surprising then that Mexico's first indigenous President, Benito Juárez (President from 1858 to 1864) was from Oaxaca.  He famously proclaimed that:

No hay indios en México, somos todos Mexicanos
There are no Indians in Mexico, we are all Mexicans

Whilst it's noble political statement, I can't help thinking he was brushing indigenous culture under the carpet.

Mezcal

Mezcal bottles with worms

Oaxaca is the biggest producer of Mezcal, a distilled alcoholic drink made from Maguey, a kind of agave plant which is native to Mexico and the southern United States.  Mezcal was mostly used in religious ceremonies, before it became another commodity, for sale in duty-free shops all over the world.  The most famous form of Mezcal is tequila, which is made from the 'blue agave' and produced in Jalisco, as mentioned above.

During her travels to Mexico, Isabella Tree spent some time with the Huichol people of the Sierra Madre in Zacatecas state.  Another M word I can share is Mara'akame, a Huichol word meaning 'elder', often interpreted as 'shaman' and Huichol religious beliefs, more than those of any other indigenous group in Mexico, have attracted the attention of people outside Mexico, because of their use of peyote, a cactus that contains mescaline and induces hallucinations and psychedelic 'trips'.

Tree herself consumed peyote as part of a religious ceremony overseen by a Mara'akame and many other Westerners, writers and poets like Ken Kesey, Allen Ginsberg and Carlos Castaneda, have travelled to Mexico seeking enlightenment and inspiration from this magical plant.

Despite the name, Mezcal doesn't contain mescaline, as peyote does, although people believe that eating the worm at the bottom of the Mezcal bottle will induce an hallucinogenic trip!

For many years, after the 1910 revolution and the introduction of a new constitution in 1917, religion was officially off the agenda for the newly-secular Mexico.  Shortly after his trip to Liberia in the 1930's (see my blog post about this) Graham Greene was sponsored by the Catholic Church to visit Mexico and report back on the Mexican government's secularisation campaign and suspected rights abuses against practising Catholics.  His book, The Lawless Roads, records his experience in Mexico and he was also inspired to write a novel, The Power and the Glory which featured an alcoholic priest.  Not surprisingly, this didn't go down so well with his sponsors in the Vatican!

Interior of church in Oaxaca, by einalem

Despite the lack of official support, religious practice seems to have survived in Mexico and Catholicism has remained in a strong position, where Protestantism has made more inroads in other, traditionally-Catholic countries, like Brazil.  Nevertheless, Mexico's Protestant population has also increased in recent years, especially in far-flung corners of the country, like Quintana Roo and Chiapas.  Mexico's 'other Christian' population currently stands at about 10% (compared to around 40% in Brazil).

It took a while for Christianity to catch on in Oaxaca and these days there are slightly fewer Catholics and slightly more Protestants in Oaxaca than the national averages.  I didn't come across a lot of information about indigenous religious practises in Oaxaca, although I'm sure indigenous religious beliefs still permeate Oaxacan life - my impression was more of a general ambivalence to religion in the state, which perhaps reflects a wider national trend where church attendance is pretty low, even if people are nominally Christian.

Muxe

LGBT pride in Mexico City by Carlos Mejía Greene

I came across this Zapotec word when I was reading about Isabella Tree's experiences partying with the transsexual community in Oaxaca.  The word muxe (pronounced moo-shey) is believed to have derived from the Spanish word mujer meaning 'woman' and is the word used to describe Oaxaca's 'third sex', i.e. women who were born male.

Another important M word that's relevant is machismo and Mexican men are famous for their macho image, just as Mexican women are supposed to be beautiful, passive and all-suffering.  Oaxaca seems to buck the trend and, in an interesting narrative about her time there, Tree explains how it's the women who are in the driving seat in Oaxaca, not the men.

As well as having a refreshingly open attitude towards gender roles, indigenous cultures in Mexico also seem to take a much more relaxed view of sexuality and are, generally speaking, more tolerant of same-sex couples.  The situation for LGBT people in Mexico is improving all the time, but there is still a long way to go for same-sex couples to be given the same rights as male-female partners and incidents of violence against LGBT people remains pretty high.

Coahuila on the border with the USA was the first Mexican state to legalise same-sex partnerships and Oaxaca saw its first same-sex marriage in 2013. To date, only the government of Mexico City provides any legal framework for a change of gender identity, although states like Oaxaca, with large indigenous populations have tolerated the existence of muxe for many years.

Image credits:

The image of Benito Juarez is from Wikipedia and is in the public domain.

The image of the Mezcal bottles is from the Finnish version of Wikipedia and was shared using the Creative Commons license by Suvi Korhonen (user: Suviko) - you can see more information about the image on its Wikicommons page.  

The interior of the church in Oaxaca was taken by my fellow countrywoman and Flickr member, einalem - you can see more of her Oaxaca photos on her photo stream.

The photo from LGBT pride in Mexico City was taken by Carlos Mejía Greene, a native of the city who now lives in Canada.  You can see more of Carlos' photos on his Flickr account.

Thanks to Suvi, Einalem and Carlos for sharing these images with us using the Creative Commons license.  

Nordrhein-Westfalen - Learning about Protestantism

Having been brought up in the Catholic faith in Donegal, in the north of Ireland, Protestantism and Protestant culture is a topic that was totally verboten to me as a child and teenager.  Protestants were 'other', not part of our community and, as a result, I grew up knowing very little about the Protestant faith(s) or, indeed, Protestant people.  Although I have some Protestant ancestry, through a great-grandmother, it's not something that was widely acknowledged in my family, or celebrated as part of our identity.

Naturally, I'm really curious to learn more about Protestantism and I've used this period of blogging about Nordrhein-Westfalen as an excuse to find out more about the origins of the various Protestant faiths.  It's fair to say that Protestantism originated in Germany with the Reformation and Martin Luther, so I thought that Germany would be a good place to set off on my learning journey on Protestantism and those 'others' I know so little about.

I started by reading Protestantism: A Very Short Introduction by Mark A. Noll, published by Oxford University Press.  I love this series of books and can't recommend them highly enough - I've use the OUP Very Short Introduction series before, for example, when I was blogging about dinosaurs back in June 2012.  Protestantism is a fascinating subject area and I could write many blog posts on the theme, but I'll try to pick out a few key points that I learned as a result of reading this little book.

Diversity of belief

Whilst I was brought up believing that Catholicism was the one and only true faith, as an adult, it looks rather monolithic and monotonous, with not a lot of room for different opinions or perspectives - Catholicism is a faith to be followed, rather than one where the average person can lead.

Figures at Cologne cathedral by me

Compared to other major world faiths, such as Hinduism, Islam and Buddhism, Catholicism is rather unusual, in that there is only one main faith and one leader of the church, currently Pope Francis.

In that sense, Protestantism is much more like the other major world faiths, in that there are many different variations on religious truth.  There are different 'schools of thought', like the madhab of Islam and a much greater diversity in terms of belief than I have experienced, coming from a Catholic background.  I'm not particularly religious, but diversity appeals to me and I sense the more democratic nature of Protestantism, where ordinary believers can have a greater role in the church and a more direct relationship with God.

The origins of Protestant schools of thought

The vast number of Protestant churches that are in existence means that any categorisation of Protestant belief can only ever be simplistic, however, Noll puts forward the following origins of Protestantism that I found very useful:

1. Martin Luther.  The 'protest' that Luther made, which kicked off the Reformation, was basically a protest against the sale of 'indulgences' and general corruption in the Catholic church.  The popes in Rome were so out-of-touch with ordinary people that they had no idea how to set an example and lead a faith that would still be relevant in the changing world of 16th century Europe.  Lutheranism is still the pre-dominant form of Protestantism in Germany and other northern European countries like Denmark, Norway and Sweden.

2. Ulrich Zwingli. Zwingli was an important contemporary of Martin Luther and had a lot of influence on the origins of the Protestant faith, in terms of interpreting religious practice and electrifying 16th-century Zurich with his radical preaching.  He disagreed with Luther over the issue of transubstantiation, i.e. whether or not the consumption of the body and blood of Christ during the Christian mass was real or symbolic.  Zwingli argued that it was merely symbolic, which seems like a no-brainer in the 21st century, but was a very contentious issue back then.  Zwinglism didn't really spread beyond the borders of Switzerland and mostly exists in the 21st century in the form of the Swiss Reformed Church.

Votive candles at Cologne cathedral by me

3. The Anabaptists.  Perhaps my favourite branch of early Protestantism, the Anabaptists were radical Protestants who believed in complete freedom of speech and were fervently anti-war.  They were called Anabaptists because they believed that people should only be baptised as adults, when you can make a conscious choice about faith, rather than being baptised as a baby.  I guess in 21st century terms, they were quite 'left-wing', although that concept didn't exist in the 16th century.

Many Anabaptists ended up moving to newly-colonised places like the Volga region of Russia or, much later, newly-independent countries like Mexico and Paraguay, where they could live in peace and practice their own version of Protestantism. Nowadays we mostly hear about the Mennonites, or related churches, such as the Amish of Pennsylvania, who supposedly reject all modern technology in favour of a more traditional way of life.

Cologne cathedral interior by me

4. John Calvin.  Whilst Zurich had Zwingli, 16th-century Geneva got caught up in the Calvinist revolution. In modern terms, it was a very right-wing approach to Protestantism that emphasised predestination (i.e. the chosen ones being marked out for salvation at the end of the world).  Calvinism went even further than the ideas of the original Reformation and didn't just aim to free Protestants from the tyranny of the Catholic church, but aimed to build the first-ever society founded on Protestant principles.

Calvinist ideas really caught on in the new colonies of North America and Calvinist doctrine lives on in the 21st century through subsequent movements such as Presbyterianism.  Ironically, Geneva - the 'Protestant Rome' - is now a mainly Catholic city.

5. Anglicanism.  The 16th and 17th centuries were incredibly tumultuous times for England and Protestantism here was initially much more 'top-down' in the form of Henry VIII's Church of England (a.k.a. the Anglican church).  Grassroots Protestantism also flourished in England and took on many shapes and forms over the coming centuries that led to new churches being formed by well-known groups such as the Puritans, Quakers, Methodists and Baptists, as well as lesser known groups such as the Ranters, Diggers, Behmenists and Muggletonians! Protestant movements originating in England spread throughout the world with the establishment of the British Empire and this gives 21st century Protestantism a distinctly 'global' identity.

Protestantism in Nordrhein-Westfalen

Nordrhein-Westfalen is predominantly Catholic.  Whilst, I knew that Bavaria and southern Germany were mostly Catholic, I thought the Rhineland was most definitely Protestant, so this came as a bit of a surprise to me.  As you can see on the map, the southern and western parts of Germany are mostly Catholic, whereas the northern and eastern parts are generally Protestant or (after many years of communism) non-religious.  In fact, both Germany and the Netherlands - countries I've always thought of as Protestant - have more people professing the Catholic faith than Protestant ones!

Of course, one of the reasons for this is because Germany and the Netherlands, like many other European countries have become increasingly secularised and many people no longer profess any faith.  Perhaps, the true outcome of the Reformation was to move in the direction of secularisation and I can't help thinking that the Anabaptists' radical 16th-century ideas on freedom of speech and heresy were not only important steps in the direction of greater religious freedom, but the first steps towards freedom from religion itself?

Image credits:

All photos were taken by me at Cologne cathedral which, despite the topic of this blog post, is a Roman Catholic church.  Feel free to reuse these images with attribution to this blog post.

The map of religious belief in Germany was taken from Wikipedia and you can see more information about this image on its information page there.

Indiana - Sex in America

Although he was a very well-known figure during the 1950's, I might never have heard about Professor Kinsey's research into sexual behaviour, had it not been for Bill Condon's movie Kinsey (2004) starring Liam Neeson.  As part of my research, I also read Jonathan Gathorne-Hardy's Alfred C.Kinsey - A Biography: Sex, the Measure of all Things (1999), a very sympathetic portrayal of this ground-breaking scientist.

What's so embarrassing about sex?

The study of sexual behaviour is a fascinating subject area, incredibly relevant when trying to understand other people's cultures - yet, it is an area of study that carries a lot of 'baggage'; taboo, ignorance, (a)morality and downright animosity.  I don't consider myself to be a prude, but I did feel a bit self-conscious reading Kinsey's biography on public transport (with the word Sex prominent on the cover).  Strangely enough, the only other time I've felt like this was when I was doing research on alleged cannibalism in the South Pacific.

What is it about sex that shocks people so much?  Surely, it's an incredibly important aspect of human culture that every one of us is involved with?  Well, coming from Ireland, a nation that was incredibly sexually repressed when I was growing up (although I hope things have moved on a bit since then!), I can really relate to the sexual repression that Kinsey fought against for most of his adult life.  People suffer terribly because of the sexual laws of their particular society and not much of it makes sense.  Understanding another culture's attitude towards sex, means understanding the historical/cultural values that have defined 'morality' in that particular society.

Kinsey's crusade

Cerne Abbas giant from Wikicommons

Despite the importance of his work, Kinsey was questioned, undermined and morally castigated in ways that few other scientists have had to endure.  Perhaps if he'd stuck to his first great passion, the study of gall wasps, then he might have had a much quieter life, as just any other professor in Bloomington, Indiana! I'm sure, he wouldn't have achieved as much fame with his study of gall wasps, as he has done through his research into human sexual behavious and perhaps he wouldn't have lost his own sexual inhibitions and explored his own sexuality, as he did? 

From what I've seen and read, it seems as though he was an eccentric character; stubborn, passionate and determined in his pursuit of a greater understanding of this key area of human life.  He may well have been ahead of his time and despite the constant attempts by the religious 'right' to turn back the clock, Western society, in general, seems to be moving forward in terms of understanding human sexuality, although there is still a long way to go.

Misconceptions about sex

One of the most interesting things I learned from reading Kinsey's biography was that the 'missionary position' - woman on her back, man lying on top, facing her - such an accepted 'norm', certainly in Anglo-Saxon culture, is perhaps the most unnatural position for a woman to start with.  Kinsey got interested in sex research because of problems he had with his own wife, when they first got married.  For many women, the first experience of sex was off-putting, painful because of the deeper level of penetration that the missionary position permits.  Kinsey argued that a much more natural position for male-female couples is 'woman on top, man on his back' - this way the woman can control the level of penetration and do what feels most comfortable and enjoyable for her.

I realised that the 'traditional' missionary position is something that has been imposed on male-female couples by a male-dominated, religious society.  As with female castration in parts of Africa, the missionary position was encouraged, to ensure that women didn't enjoy sex too much and also because this position reinforces man's dominating role over his female partner.  Not surprisingly, it worked and many of our mothers and grandmothers led lives that were sexually unfulfilled.

Anyone's crime?



The Death of Hyacinth by Alexander Kiselev

One of the things that shocked people so much, when Kinsey's studies were published, was the high percentage of people, particularly men, who had engaged in sexual activity with the same sex.  This was during a time when sodomy, which included all homosexual acts and many heterosexual ones (eg. oral sex) was a felony or serious crime, in every American state.  Kinsey was distressed when he visited 'sex offenders' in prison, many of whom had been convicted for performing oral sex or engaging in homosexual acts - his study showed that 'everyone's crime is no one's crime', ie. it was hypocritical for society to imprison people for sexual acts that were so widespread in the general population. 

Gay or Straight?

Kinsey didn't believe, as many people still do, in a simple 'gay/straight' dichotomy - instead he pioneered a 'spectrum' of sexuality, a six-point scale to indicate whether someone was more attracted to their own or the opposite sex.  Given the harshness of sodomy laws at that time, I personally feel that it was important for society to first embrace a 'dichotomy' and recognise same-sex relationships - although our choice of a life-long partner hardly seems relevant to our choice of sexual partners and I tend to agree with Kinsey that we are all born bisexual and learn our sexual behaviour as we mature. 

Punishing people for their sexual choices is, quite simply, barbaric and I'm really happy to live in a world where same-sex relationships are sanctioned by many (mostly Western) societies.  However, I've never really believed in the 'genetic' argument, as to why someone is gay and I also find it hard to believe that someone's sexuality will remain the same throughout their entire life. 

When Kinsey studied gall wasps, he discovered that no two specimens were exactly the same - he also caused a lot of controversy by his 'expansive' approach to taxonomy.  Like Kinsey, I also believe that each person's sexuality is unique - although the straight/gay dichotomy helped late-20th century society find a place for same-sex relationships, I still think we have a long way to go, in terms of really understanding human sexual behaviour.

Sex and War

Detail, Bathers at San Niccolo

My theory on society's sexual phobia is that the society/community leaders fear the powerful energy of sexual release.  People have risked life, limb and career to find sexual satisfaction and it's an impulse that every culture/society struggles to control.  Sex is used as a weapon in times of war, as a motivating factor in terms of achieving fame and success (how many musicians started writing music because they wanted to attract sexual partners?)  Sex is even promised as a reward in the after-life for people who can remain 'pure' in this life. 

Truth be told, most societies are scared of releasing people's sexual energy - sexual liberation is all-too-often linked to a fear of breakdown in law and order.  However, studies of cultures outside the West have shown that sex can, in fact, be a great peace-maker in society - I personally believe that, when people are sexually content, they are less likely to feel frustrated, aggressive, abusive or violent towards society/other people.  Perhaps sexual freedom is the worst thing for a country intent on making war - could this be another factor in a society's instinct towards sexual repression?

Americans and Europeans

Towards the end of his life, Kinsey travelled to Europe - it surprised me to hear that he found Europe incredibly 'liberated' compared to the United States.  I think we Europeans usually assume that Americans are much more liberated in sexual matters than we are - our perception of American sexuality is, all too often, a result of our experience of American movies and TV shows.  The reality, I imagine, is that the US is still a fairly conservative place, on the whole, when it comes to sexual attitudes.  The US seems to contain many of the extremes of human experience - at once, the most liberated/wealthiest/modern country on Earth, at the same time repressed/poor and backward looking?

I've leaving with a trailer for Kinsey - if you haven't seen this movie already, I'd highly recommend it!




Image credits:

All images are taken from Wikicommons, you can find the copyright conditions on the following pages:

The Cerne Abbas Giant

Kiselev - the Death of Hyacinth

Detail of the Bathers at San Niccolo by Domenico Passignano

Honduras - El pueblo, unido, jamás será vencido!

To kick off my research about Honduras, I read a really inspiring book called Don't be Afraid, Gringo: A Honduran Woman Speaks from the Heart (1987).  Translated and edited by the US political activist, Medea Benjamin, it tells the story of Honduran community leader, Elvia Alvarado and her involvement in the campesino/a struggle for land rights. 

Elvia had a pretty tough life, born into poverty with no real opportunity for education, she got pregnant as a teenager and went on to have six kids, working as a maid for rich people in the city, who fed their dog better than Elvia could afford to feed her children.  She settled down with a typical campesino who worked in the fields, earning very little money, drank a lot and was against her having a life of her own. 

Campesina by ndbutter

After 15 years of being a housewife, she decided to get more involved in her community, initially with the Catholic church's Mothers Club, then with FEHMUC, the Federation of Campesino women and, ultimately, with national political movements of the 1980's, such as the Central Nacional de Trabajadores del Campo (CNTC).  From housewife to political dissident, hers is a fascinating story - whilst feeling fulfilled as someone who could really make a difference to her country and bring justice for landless campesinos, she also faced state intimidation, imprisonment and even torture. 

I was quite interested about the role the Catholic church had to play in Elvia's becoming politicised.  The Mother's Club she first got involved with had the objective of providing food to impoverished mothers and children in isolated asentamientos (settlements) around Honduras.  The very act of organising relief politicised the women and, when they really started organising themselves to improve life in the asentamientos, the Church got scared, pulled the funding and branded the women as Marxists.  In Elvia's own words:

They (the Catholic Church) wanted us to give food out to malnourished mothers and children, but they didn't want us to question why we were malnourished to begin with.  They wanted us to grow vegetables on tiny plots around our houses, but they didn't want us to question why we didn't have enough land to feed ourselves. 

Despite her disillusionment with the Church, Elvia didn't lose her faith in God. 

'I don't think God says, 'Go to the church and pray all day and everything will be fine'.  No.  For me God says, 'Go out and make the changes that need to be made, and I'll be there to help you.''

Campesinos by ndbutter

I guess these statements highlight the basic contradiction of organised religion - is it about acceptance of the status quo or empowering people to make the most of their lives?  It also made me think that the message of Jesus was a radical one - about equality and peace.  By all accounts, Jesus told his followers it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God (Matthew 19:23-26) and this kind of teaching inspired Elvia to fight for the rights of the poor in her own country. 

She also mentioned the persecution of celebradores de la palabra (celebrants of the word), bible-study groups that were seen as subversive by the Honduran church and state.  It's interesting how threatening religious sentiment becomes when it doesn't conform to the state's religious identity! 

I experienced this in Uzbekistan, where there was a real fear of the wahhabis - an ultra-conservative form of Islam, but used in Uzbekistan as a catch-all term for anyone who was too interested in following their own religious path.  We can also see it in countries like China, where the government has cracked down heavily on religious movements, such as the Falun Gong.

Central America is famous as the birthplace of Liberation Theology - a grass-root movement involving many Catholic priests, who fought alongside the campesinos to protect their rights.  Elvia mentions the massacre at Los Horcones, which took place in June 1975, in Olancho, Honduras' 'wild west' province.  It's an event which has scarred modern Honduran politics and involved the murder of two priests, as well as some of the villagers who were reclaiming land that they believed belonged to them.

Campesinos by ndbutter

I'd like to do some more research on Liberation Theology, perhaps in a later blog post.  Growing up in Ireland in the 1980's, where the Catholic church pretty much controlled people's lives, education and freedom to believe in whatever they wanted to believe in, it's hard for me to reconcile the words religion and liberation. 

What inspired me most about Elvia was her dogged optimism and determination to make the world a better place, in spite of the obstacles she faced.  I'm going to leave you with another quote from this inspirational woman - one I feel encapsulates the spirit of this blog, Learning about the World:

So I've learned that if you want to know what's going on in the world, you should study as much as you can.  You should read or listen to as much news as you can.  You should take it all in, but digest it in your own way, and judge for yourself what you think the truth is. 

Image credits:

For this blog post I want to highlight the work of flickr member ndbutter who is from Phoenixville in Pennsylvania - I really love his portraits - the ones in this blog post were taken in Honduras, but he has many more amazing portraits, which you can see on his photostream.  Thanks ndbutter for sharing these wonderful images with us, using the Creative commons license. 

Please note, the old woman in the photo above isn't Elvia Alvarado - unfortunately, I couldn't find any copyright-free images of Elvia, but you will surely find her, if you Google her name - she looks like quite a tough cookie!

Eritrea - How to Speak Eritrean?

Slightly smaller than England, but with the population of Ireland, or roughly the same size of Ohio, but with the population of Wisconsin - Eritrea is one of Africa's (and the world's) 'newest' countries, officially gaining its independence in 1993, after a long and bitter struggle against neighbouring Ethiopia.  I've put the word 'new' in inverted commas as, arguably, Eritrea has been a nation for quite some time.  For most people of my generation, Eritrea didn't exist as a nation, so I'm really interested to start at the beginning with this fascinating country and find out what Eritrea is all about.  Like a lot of you out there, my knowledge of Eritrea is pretty minimal!

A good news story?

So I've got some books, I'm listening to the Asmara All-Stars and Faytinga and trawling the Internet for information about this relatively unknown country.  What I've found on the Internet, thus far, paints a pretty dismal picture of a politically isolated nation, with an autocratic ruler and an appallingly bad record of press freedom - a far cry from the optimism of Eritreans, when their country achieved independence, almost twenty years ago.  I feel like I did when I was researching Saudi Arabia and (to a certain extent) Cambodia - it's hard to get the 'good news' story.  But I want to go beyond the more negative aspects of Eritrea, portrayed in the media and find out more about Eritrean culture, music, food and people.

Unity in Diversity

Eritrea independence day by thecomeupshow

One of the first things I've learned about Eritrea is that it is a nation with nine main ethnicities.  I think Eritreans can be proud of the fact that the ethnic diversity of their country has become one of its defining characteristics.  Not to mention the fact that Islam and Christianity peacefully co-exist in Eritrea, without any of the tensions that these two religions experience in many other countries around the world.  When I asked the question How to Speak Eritrean? the answer is that there is no such language as Eritrean.  People in Eritrea speak a variety of languages which represent three of Africa's major language families, Semitic, Cushitic and Nilotic.  (For my previous blog post on African linguistics, click on this link.)

So who are the nine nationalities of Eritrea?  Well, I've grouped them in my own way below:

The Majority

The Tigrinya and Tigre peoples are ethnically related and make up the majority of Eritrea's population.  They live in the heartlands of Eritrea, mostly in the north around Asmara, the Eritrean capital.  The Tigrinya and Tigre languages are both descended from the Ancient Ge'ez and are related to Amharic and (more distantly) Arabic and Hebrew.

Orthodox Christian church by thecomeupshow

Whilst closely related, these two languages are not mutually intelligible and, although commonly confused, the Tigrinya and Tigre peoples have very distinct cultures.  Most Tigrinya are Orthodox Christians, with a minority Muslim Tigrinya, know as Jeberti.  The Tigre, by contrast, are almost exclusively Muslim and, whilst Tigrinya has a long written tradition, using the ancient Ge'ez script (a version of which is also used to write Amharic), Tigre has a strong oral tradition and, despite the fact that the Eritrean government uses Ge'ez script to in Tigre publications, a lot of Tigre people prefer to use Arabic or Latin scripts to write their language.

With more than half of Eritrea's population being Tigrinya, it's hardly surprising that Tigrinya language and culture is the one that's most associated with Eritrea.  I've seen some lively debates on Twitter, with Eritrea ex-pats, now based in the US, reminding the world that Eritrea has more languages and cultures than Tigrinya.  Although they make up the majority of Eritrea's population, there are more Tigrinya people living in Ethiopia than in Eritrea.  By contrast, the majority of Tigre people live in Eritrea, with a smaller number across the border in Sudan.

The Cushites

Forming much smaller minorities are the Cushite tribes of Saho, Afar, Hedareb and Bilen.  It's believed that the Cushites (and the Saho in particular) may have been the original inhabitants of this region.  Their languages are more closely related to Somali than to Tigrinya or Amharic and they live right across Eritrea, from the Hedereb on the northern border with Sudan, to the Afar tribe, who live in southern Eritrea and are close to their kinsmen who live in the Afar state in Ethiopia.  The Afars have a particularly fierce reputation and were known as a warrior tribe, when Europeans first colonised the region in the 19th century. The Bilen people mostly live around one city, Keren, about 60 miles north-west of Asmara.  Most of the Cushitic tribes practice Islam, except the Bilen people, who are a mixture of Christian and Muslims.

The Nilotics

Eritrean Highlands by thecomeupshow

The Kunama and Nara (also known as Baria) are two small tribes who speak rare Nilotic languages and live in the north of Eritrea, on the borders with Sudan and Ethiopia.  Their languages seem to have been pushed aside by the more dominant African language families and, nowadays, Nilotic speakers are scattered in small pockets all over eastern and northern Africa, as far apart as the Maasai people of Kenya to the Songhay people of Mali and Burkina Faso.

Not surprisingly, Nilotic languages are very much in decline across Africa and Nara, in particular, is being replaced by Arabic or Tigrinya.  Interestingly, the Kunama still hold many animists beliefs and their supreme deity is called Anna. They're amongst the most ancient peoples of Africa but together, they make up less than 4% of Eritrea's population.

The Newcomers

The newest ethnic group to arrive in Eritrea (apart from the Italians!) are the coastal Rashaida people, who arrived in Eritrea in the mid-19th century, fleeing war in their native Arabia.  They make up less then 1% of Eritrea's population, speak Arabic and practise Islam.

Image credits:

To illustrate this blogpost I have used images taken by Flickr member thecomeupshow aka Adulis 'Chedo' Mokanan, a hip-hop and R&B DJ who is based in London, Ontario!  Adulis took a trip to Eritrea in 2011 and has shared his photos with us, using the Creative Commons license - you can see the whole album on his photostream and you can listen to his music on his website.

Dorset - the Wizards of Wimborne

Wimborne Minster seems to be the musical capital of Dorset.  Last month saw the Wimborne Folk Festival take place - folk music, ceilidhs and morris dancers.  It's been going for 33 years and attracts thousands of people from all over Dorset, England and (indeed) the world!  I'm totally down with Morris dancing (skipping around waving handkerchiefs, how hard can it be?), so I decided to challenge myself a little bit by concentrating on Wimborne's other famous musical export, Doom Metal band Electric Wizard.

So what is Doom Metal?

Doom Metal is a sub-genre of Heavy Metal.  It's more extreme or 'heavier' than Heavy Metal, with a slower tempo and a lot of electric guitar, bass guitar and drums.  I must admit, I'm no great fan of Heavy Metal (or Doom Metal!) - I find it repetitive and depressing - but this blog is all about challenging myself to learn new things, so I downloaded the album Electric Wizard and I've been listening to it over the past few weeks.

Stoner Doom

I've learned that within Doom Metal, there are more sub-genres, depending on the kind of Doom Metal a group plays.  Electric Wizard are considered to be a 'Stoner Doom' band, as many of their lyrics refer to drug-taking, especially marijuana or hashish, leading to hallucinations.  Something I like about Electric Wizard is that their lyrics are quite interesting. 

Stone Magnet

Electric Wizard album cover

The first track on the album Electric Wizard is called Stone Magnet - which is a reference to 'getting stoned', but also, I think, doubles up as a reference to the ancient stones that dot the English countryside (Stonehenge being the most famous) and their supposed magnetic qualities.  The lyrics include images like 'the ultraviolet sun' and 'Spinning eye of the Lord' and the hallucinatory effect of smoking dope is described in the line '[I] can see a thousand worlds, right here in my bed'

I'm also including a video from YouTube, so you can listen for yourself.




Other forms of Doom


Other sub-genres of Doom Metal include; Epic Doom (which uses elements of classical music), Sludge Doom (influenced by Punk), Funeral Doom (which uses funeral dirges), Drone Doom and Death Doom.  It's a whole world of Doom that I didn't even know existed!

Religion and Black Sabbath

One of the original 'doom' bands was Black Sabbath and, indeed, Electric Wizard takes their name from a combination of two well-known Black Sabbath songs, The Wizard and Electric Funeral.  I also listened to a bit of Black Sabbath, as I was researching this blog post and, I must admit, I quite liked their first album and I can see it was a very original concept, when it was released in the early 1970's.

One theme across the Doom genres, is the pagan element of the music.  This often comes through as satanism, but I can't help wondering if it's merely an expression of something in English (and Northern European) culture that is pre-Christian?

Evil woman

Metal music, in general, is incredibly male-dominated.  It's all about men dealing with their fear and anxiety and there is hardly any place for a woman to get involved.  Women are either portrayed as being evil witches, who trick men and break their hearts (like Black Sabbath's song, Evil Woman) or helpless virgins whose only purpose in life is to be sacrificed to dark powers, as with Electric Wizard's songs, Devil's Bride and Black Butterfly.

Memories of Ancestral trauma?

It's interesting that Heavy Metal also tends to be dominated by white, 'Anglo-Saxons' or Northern Europeans.  It's been incredibly popular in countries like England, Germany, Sweden, but also amongst descendents of northern Europeans in the United States and Canada. 



Cover of Come my Fanatics

In my first blog post about Dorset, I talked a lot about the 'Celtic Heritage' of England and, listening to the death and destruction of Doom Metal, I can't help but speculate on the ancestral memories of a people who have suffered invasion after invasion - perhaps, musical genres like Heavy Metal have inherited some of that 'ancestral trauma'?  When I listen to the songs of bands like Electric Wizard and Black Sabbath, I hear the voices of pre-Christian paganism, but Anglo-Saxon paganism rather than Celtic paganism. 

English folk songs are often quite violent in their underlying meaning, I'm thinking of songs like John Barleycorn and I wonder if Heavy Metal has inherited an angst and despair that is particularly Germannic?

Environmental Destruction and the Apocalypse

I've learned that Doom Metal is quite Apocalyptic which, in the late 20th-century world of Electric Wizard, has translated into anxiety about environmental destruction.  You just have to listen to songs like Mourning Prayer with its lyrics about 'poison clouds in the sky/Acid rain in my eyes' to see what I mean.  I'm pasting in a video from YouTube below, so you can listen for yourself.



The political side of Doom Metal

At first, it might not seem as though Doom Metal is overtly political, but some of Electric Wizard's lyrics in songs like Mourning Prayer and Stone Magnet deal with the corruption of the political systems 'Politicians, can't they see/Their greed is destroying me' and the despair of young men living in a society where the economic future is bleak 'No hope, no future, no fuckin' job'. 

Even after listening to Doom Metal for a couple of weeks and trying to understand the concepts behind the music and lyrics, I can't say that I've grown to like it, but I can see how appeals to young, especially teenage, men who are full of anxiety about their place in an increasingly alienated society.

Doom Metal today

Electric Wizard are still recording and touring, in fact, not long before the Wimborne Folk Festival, Doom Metal bands from all over the world, including Electric Wizard, gathered to play at the Maryland Deathfest.  Featuring bands with names like Dying Fetus and Church of Misery - I couldn't think of a worse way to spend my weekend - give me skipping and hankie-waving any day!

Yemen - the Madhab (مذهب) or Islamic schools of thought

It's quite apt to be blogging about a Muslim country during Ramadan.  I'd love to say that I planned it that way, but that's not the case.  When I was blogging about Saudi Arabia, I touched on the subject of Islam in a very general way, but it's such a rich and fascinating subject area, it will take me quite a few blog posts, I'd imagine to begin to understand the complexities of the Islamic faith.

Shi'a or Sunni?

One thing I learned about Islam when I was doing research about Saudi Arabia, is that it's an incredibly diverse faith.  There is no centralised power structure and history has led different branches of Islam in different directions, depending on which caliphate (from the Arabic خلافة khilafa meaning 'succession') you or your tribe believed in.

I'm sure most people will be aware that there are two main branches of Islam, أهل السنة or Sunni, who make up the majority of Muslim believers and  شيعة or Shi'a, predominant in Iran and parts of Iraq.  I'm still struggling to understand the difference between Sunni and Shi'a, but it seems to relate to a split that happened back in the early days of the development of Islam.

So what is Shi'a?

Arabia Felix by eesti

Followers of Shi'a believe that Muhammad's cousin Ali was his rightful successor, not the three Caliphs or successors (Abu Bakr, Umar and Uthman) followed by orthodox Sunni believers.  Ali's succession gained early support in (what is now) Iraq and his final resting place is the incredibly important Shi'a shrine حرم الإمام علي in Najaf, Iraq.  The politics of Islam seemed to have moved away from Arabia pretty early on, as Syria and Iraq championed these first rival factions of Islamic belief. I'm just beginning to understand the significance of the Iraqi holy sites to Muslim and, more specifically, Shi'a believers. 

I'm also trying to understand what all of this means to Islam in the 21st century and what I've understood is that the independence of the Shi'a imams from the rigidness of the Quranic scriptures and the Hadiths has given the Irani imams power that goes beyond the laws of the state.  On one hand, Shi'a seems to have a greater capability to deal with 21st century life.  On the other hand, belief in the god-given rights of imams and end-of-the-world predictions about the coming of مهدي al-Madhi, a kind of 'messiah', make Shi'a seem arcane and backward.

The Schools of Shi'a

Yemen countryside by eesti

Shi'a is further divided into three main schools:

اثنا عشرية or ithna asharriyah often called the Twelvers in English - is the biggest school of belief in Shi'a and predominates in Iran, Iraq, Bahrain, Azerbaijan and Lebanon

الإسماعيليون or Ismaili often called the Seveners in English - they seem to be a very small sect with a minority of believers spread throughout the Islamic world.

الزيدية or the Zaydi is a Shi'a school very closely connected to Yemen - they are know as the realists of Shi'a and split off from the other two branches very early on so, although they believe in the succession of Ali, they don't seem have the same belief in the god-given powers of the Imam or al-Mahdi

The schools of Sunni

Doorway in Ta'izz by eesti

Sunni believers also fall into various different schools or Madhab.  I can't even begin at this point to understand the difference between these, so for now, I'll content myself with identifying the four main ones and where they have most of their followers:

حنفي or Hanafi is the main Madhab in India, Pakistan, Central Asia, Egypt, Turkey, Syria, Jordan, Palestine, parts of Iraq and amongst Muslim communities in the UK and Germany. 

مالكي or Melikiyah is the predominant Madhab in north and west Africa (but not in Egypt or Sudan) - it's also the school of jurisprudence followed by most Muslims in Eritrea.

شافعي or Shafi'i spreads in a great arc across the Indian ocean, from the Muslim populations of Ethiopia, Sudan,Yemen and Somalia to Malaysia, Indonesia and South East Asia. 

حنبلى or Hambela is the school of Islam followed in Saudi Arabia.

There is also a Madhab called الاباضية or Ibadhi which is neither Sunni nor Shi'a and is the dominant school of Islam in Oman and Zanzibar.

Of course, all of this is an over-simplification of the spread of Islamic beliefs and each country, as well as many non-Muslim countries, will have a range of Madhabs and believers, from the main schools of Sunni and Shi'a, as well as more obscure Madhabs not mentioned in this blog. 

Islam in Yemen

Mosque in San'a by eesti

Yemen seems to have a characteristic north-south split when it comes to religion, with northern Yemen following the Shi'a school of Zaydi and southern Yemen following the Sunni school of Shafi'i.  By all accounts, both schools are in the moderate camps of Sunni and Shi'a so (perhaps?) not all that different to each other in terms of religious practice.  I get the sense that, whilst religion is important to Yemeni culture, it doesn't seem to dominate all aspects of Yemeni life, in contrast to the form of Islam practiced across the border in Saudi Arabia.

I look forward to learning more about Islam in future blog posts, now that I have added another piece to the puzzle!

Image credits:

For this blog post I've chosen to highlight the work of flickuser eesti who is from Saitami prefecture, just outside Tokyo and Japan.  He seems to have photographed half of the world, so it's well worth visiting his photostream on flickr.  He's also photographed Uzbekistan and Russia and has a very cute teddy bear who crops up in different places!

Thanks eesti for sharing your photos with us under the Creative Commons License.

Veneto - Regarding the Body of the African Saint

John Ruskin, the famous 19th century art critic, famously described Venice's Basilica San Marco as a 'treasure heap'.  He meant it as a compliment, but the use of the word 'heap' is unusual in this context and suggests a carelessness that is alarmingly casual in a city that is famous for its aestheticism.  I imagine that Ruskin was also alluding to the fact that almost everything of value in the Basilica San Marco was robbed by the Venetians, during the centuries when they dominated and colonised the ancient civilisations of the Mediterranean Sea. 

The bodysnatchers of Alexandria

The first church on the site of the Basilica was built to house the body of St Mark, which was stolen by Venetian merchants from its original resting place in Alexandria in Egypt.  Not having existed in Roman times, Venice lacked the religious sites or relics of other cities in the Roman Empire.  The theft of St Mark's body provided the Venetians with an important symbol for their city and a relic that was second-to-none!  If you believe the myths surrouding the event, the merchants smuggled the body past the guardians of the church, by covering it in slabs of pork, knowing that the Jewish and Muslim officials of Alexandria wouldn't search a container full of pig's meat.  To be honest, this sounds like an embellishment to the story, most likely added in later centuries, as European colonies in the East were being invaded by the Muslim Ottoman Turks. 

The first Basilica burnt to the ground in 976, but 'miraculously' St Mark's body reappeared in time for the consecration of the new Basilica almost a century later!  St Mark became the patron saint of Venice, displacing the previous, Byzantine saint, St Theodore.  The adoption of St Mark very much symbolised Venice's independence, as St Mark was neither a Roman nor a Byzantine saint.  Mind you, he wasn't the only saint who turned up in Venice - there was also St Nicholas of Myra (modern-day Demre in Turkey), whose body was robbed by sailors from Bari and brought to the south of Italy.  According to some accounts, his remains ended up in the church of San Nicolò al Lido in Venice.  St Nicholas wasn't just the original Santa Claus (see my earlier blogpost on this) but was also the patron saint of sailors, an important symbol for a sea-faring republic like Venice. 

The significance of relics

It find it fascinating that people would travel for miles in medieval times, to see the relics of their favourite saint.  I guess, it was a medieval version of 'celeb' culture and, to a certain extent, it's a tradition we continue in modern times (hands up who's been to see Jim Morrisson's grave in Paris?).  I guess it all started with visiting the saints tomb and then, as Christianity spread to the far reaches of Europe and the tombs were far away in the Middle East, crusaders and adventurers, like the Venetian merchants, took to robbing the saints bodies and bringing them back to a more convenient location. 

Many saints were associated with miracles and, I guess, people believed that the presence of their bones would either lead to more miracles or, at the very least, bring fortune and protection to the cities where the saints bodies were enshrined.  Often you didn't need a whole saint to make your church sacred, an arm or a leg would do!  A mania for religious relics swept through medieval Europe, so that any religious settlement worth its name, needed to have the relic of a revered saint, that pilgrims would be able to visit. 

Protecting their Christian heritage

One of the excuses for stealing the bodies of St Mark and St Nicholas was that the Venetians and others were protecting their Christian heritage from the growing influence of Islam.  This became even more important with the arrival of the Ottoman Turks and the conquest of lands in the Eastern Roman Empire.  Venice became a major departure point for Crusaders, on their way to the Middle East, who plundered cities in the Holy Land and brought back religious 'souvenirs' of their escapades. 

The publication of Golden Legends by the Genoese archbishop, Jacobus de Voragine, in the 13th century, caught the imagination of the medieval world so that, before long, every cathedral in Europe claimed to have a piece of the True Cross, the blood, arms, knees, elbows or feet of various saints or the various implements and clothing belonging to Jesus Christ (one of the biggest prizes of all!)  The relic that I find most bizarre is the veneration of the Holy Prepuce (ie. Christ's foreskin) - at one stage, in medieval Europe, there were no less than 18 Holy Prepuces doing the rounds!



The Shroud of Turin by Gilberto Viciedo

 To this day, the Catholic Church recognises the existence of relics and has even categorised them as First Class relics (things relating to Jesus, or the bones of saints), Second Class relics (objects that were worn or used by the saints) and Third Class relics (objects, usually pieces of cloth, that have come into contact with first or second class relics).  I'm sure every Catholic home in Ireland has a string of rosary beads, a picture of Christ or some other object that was blessed by Pope John Paul II when he visited Ireland in 1979.  Although I'm in no way religious, like any good Irish Catholic boy, I still carry the holy medal my mother gave me, in my wallet!

I guess what I'm getting at is the idea that relics are still relevant in the modern world.  The most famous case in modern times is the Turin Shroud.  The subject of numerous books, documentaries and scientific tests, it's an issue that remains controversial and divides the opinions of believers and non-believers.  Even more recently than that, the Turkish government has asked for the restoration of St Nicholas' body, to its original resting place in Myra (Demre), stating that this was what St Nicholas would have wanted (although I've no doubt they have an eye on the pilgrim dollar, all the same!)

The Reformation: a return to basics



The Crypt, St Wulfram's in Grantham

 The French theologian, John Calvin, claimed that there were enough pieces of the True Cross in Europe to fill a ship!  With the Reformation came a return to basics in the new Protestant churches.  One of the main differences between the Protestant and Catholic faiths is that the Protestants viewed icon-relic-saint worshipping as idolatry and superstition.  I guess, as the religious mood changed across Europe, the fad for relics eventually waned.  I'm not sure how many churches in Ireland and Britain claimed to have relics, but I remember my visit to St Wulfram's church in Grantham (see my blogpost about this) which claimed to have hosted the arm of this important 7th century saint. 

Relics in other religions

I also remember when I lived in Thailand, visiting a religious site which was built around the footprint of Buddha.  Like Jesus, relics of Buddha exist in many countries and, similarly, serve the purpose of providing a focal point for local people, far removed from the original sites that are significant to the development of their religion.  Whether or not Buddha actually visited Thailand is not really the point - people travel from all over the country to pay their respects. 

Relics remain important to Orthodox Christians and are still venerated by Orthodox churches, such as those in Greece and Russia.  Icons are very important in the Russian Orthodox Church and are carried in religious processions.  Also, the Topkapı Palace in Istanbul houses some of the most important relics of the Muslim world, including the Prophet Mohammed's cloak and sword.  I was really impressed when I visited these relics, both by the serious atmosphere in the reliquary and the continuous chanting of the Qu'ran in the background. 

I'm sure a lot of you, who are reading this blog, will have had some experience with relics.  Don't forget to share your experiences with me, by using the Comment box below.

Image credits:

The image of the flag of Veneto was provided copyright-free on Wikimedia, the original image having been supplied by wikuser Vajotwo with this derived version being added by wikiuser Flanker - you can see a more detailed description of this image at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Flag_of_Veneto.svg

The image of St Mark was created by wikiuser Lanternix who has released it into the public domain - you can see more information at the file's description page. 

The image of the Shroud of Turin created through a mosaic of flowers is by flickruser Gilberto Viciedo who is originally from Cuba, but now lives in Miami.  Gilberto has created a website to help photographers who are interested in photomosaics.  Thanks Gilberto for sharing this image with us, using the Creative Commons License. 

The image of the crypt in St Wulfram's Church in Grantham was taken by me, during my Ancaster walk in 2009.