It is very interesting phenomenon: mostly all Austronesian people, Including Polynesian trace their origin to some mystical land that they call Hawaiki. Polynesian cultures have ancient oral traditions that say that they migrated from their homeland Hawaiki to the islands in the Pacific Ocean in open canoes. Maori people of New Zealand also trace their ancestry to groups of people who traveled from Hawaiki in open canoes.
In the same oral traditions the legendary land of Hawaiki also serves like some kind of place where the spirits of Polynesian people return to after death. In New Zealand Maori people even give possible pointers to the direction in which Hawaiki may like.
Before the advent of DNA analysis many anthropologists doubted that a deliberate migration in open canoes ever happened. They preferred to believe that the migration occurred accidentally when seafarers became lost and drifted to uninhabited shores. Famous Norwegian explorer Thor Heyerdahl wanted to test the legends and sailed the Kon-Tiki, a balsa-wood raft, from South America into the Pacific in 1947. By that expedition Thor tried to show that humans could have settled Polynesia from the eastern shores of the Pacific Ocean, with sailors using the prevailing winds and simple vessels.
Soon by using DNA, linguistic and archaeological evidence, scientists began to realize that the Austronesian-speaking peoples,including the Polynesians, probably originated from islands in eastern Asia, possibly from Taiwan, and moved southwards and eastwards through the South Pacific Ocean. The common ancestry of all the Austronesian languages supports this theory. At least some of the migration occurred against the prevailing winds and was deliberate migration rather than just accidental. Austronesian and Polynesian navigators may have deduced the existence of uninhabited islands by observing migratory patterns of birds.The possibility of such migration seems more likely in the view of recent research. More and more boat builders construct vessels by using traditional materials and techniques, sail them using ancient navigation methods.
Saturday, February 9, 2008
Thursday, February 7, 2008
Famous Trobaritz of the past
There are not many works of medieval female troubadours or trobaritz, as they called them in Occitan, that survived to our days. Specialists attribute to them from twenty three to forty six works only. We have names of a dozen or more trobaritz but very few biographical details. Some of them were even considered fictitious in the past, like Alamanda de Castelnau. Only later after numerous researches, it was found that her name was mentioned by at least three famous troubadours, who pointed at her prominence in Occitan poetic circles. And only one of her songs reached us.
Two trouvères from Arras, in Picardy, France remain mysterious as well. They were called Dame Margot and Dame Maroie and they created music and wrote poetry somewhere in the 13th centuyry. But all that we have today is their only existing work, which represents a single debate song. And guess, what? This song survives in two manuscripts, and each version give separate and unrelated melodies.
The same goes for Beatriz de Dia. She was born somewhere in the 12th century, and, probably, was the daughter of Count Isoard II of Día. One song in Occitan with the music intact came to us through the ages, other songs exist too but without the melody. According to her short romanticized biography, Beatriz was married to Guillem, Count of Viennois but she was deeply in love with famous troubadour Raimbaut of Orange.
We know somewhat more about famous trobaritz Na Castelloza, who created music and poetry in the early thirteen century. She was a noblewoman from Auvergne and a wife of Turc de Mairona, Her husband’s ancestors had participated in a Crusade, which was the origin of his name. She wrote several songs about Arman de Brion. She was in love with him, but he was of greater social rank than Castelloza. Romanticized biography describes her as vivacious, highly intelligent and beautiful lady. Her four songs still exist, but, unfortunately, all without music. This, however, makes her the share the tie for the title of the most prolific of trobairitz in terms of surviving works. Only Beatriz de Dia certainly has also four songs to her name. The subject of all Caselloza poems is courtly love.
Two trouvères from Arras, in Picardy, France remain mysterious as well. They were called Dame Margot and Dame Maroie and they created music and wrote poetry somewhere in the 13th centuyry. But all that we have today is their only existing work, which represents a single debate song. And guess, what? This song survives in two manuscripts, and each version give separate and unrelated melodies.
The same goes for Beatriz de Dia. She was born somewhere in the 12th century, and, probably, was the daughter of Count Isoard II of Día. One song in Occitan with the music intact came to us through the ages, other songs exist too but without the melody. According to her short romanticized biography, Beatriz was married to Guillem, Count of Viennois but she was deeply in love with famous troubadour Raimbaut of Orange.
We know somewhat more about famous trobaritz Na Castelloza, who created music and poetry in the early thirteen century. She was a noblewoman from Auvergne and a wife of Turc de Mairona, Her husband’s ancestors had participated in a Crusade, which was the origin of his name. She wrote several songs about Arman de Brion. She was in love with him, but he was of greater social rank than Castelloza. Romanticized biography describes her as vivacious, highly intelligent and beautiful lady. Her four songs still exist, but, unfortunately, all without music. This, however, makes her the share the tie for the title of the most prolific of trobairitz in terms of surviving works. Only Beatriz de Dia certainly has also four songs to her name. The subject of all Caselloza poems is courtly love.
Tuesday, February 5, 2008
Author of sarcastic masterpieces
One of the most famous German minnesingers Neidhart von Reuental was born in Bavaria and lived in Austria. His name is most likely a pseudonym and we don’t know much about his life at all.
Neidhart’s creative period lasted for almost thirty years - from 1210 to 1240. He was well-known for his sarcastic and comical masterpieces that were extremely popular in Europe. His songs were so harsh, that they were complete opposite to the topics that regular minnesingers used, singing about courtly love and romances. In his most famous songs called May Time he starts describing beautiful landscape and peaceful spring, but pretty soon switches to insulting his foes and several friends and allies who betrayed him. In spite of his harshness, the popularity of Neidhart’s songs gave birth to many imitators of his style in the next two centuries. Specialists even gave these imitators special names, like pseudo-Neidharts.
Neidhart’s creative period lasted for almost thirty years - from 1210 to 1240. He was well-known for his sarcastic and comical masterpieces that were extremely popular in Europe. His songs were so harsh, that they were complete opposite to the topics that regular minnesingers used, singing about courtly love and romances. In his most famous songs called May Time he starts describing beautiful landscape and peaceful spring, but pretty soon switches to insulting his foes and several friends and allies who betrayed him. In spite of his harshness, the popularity of Neidhart’s songs gave birth to many imitators of his style in the next two centuries. Specialists even gave these imitators special names, like pseudo-Neidharts.
Monday, February 4, 2008
Lost Continent of Mu
This news caused quite a stir in the Western world. Augustus Le Plongeon, a nineteen century traveler, writer, and antiquarian just returned from the Maya ruins in Yucatan peninsula. Upon his return he made a sensational announcement. He stated that he managed to translate ancient Mayan writings. These writings showed that the Maya of Yucatan were older than later civilizations of Egypt and Atlantis. They also told the story of even older continent of Mu, which had perished like Atlantis and, that its survivors founded the Maya civilization. During my research, I learned that Le Plongeon mistranslated the writings, to put it mildly.
This is, basically, how the myth of the hypothetical lost continent Mu started. Very soon, this myth got second birth: it was popularized in the serious of books written by James Churchward. In a short time he created New Age type of a book Lost Continent of Mu, the Motherland of Man. It was followed by the book The Children of Mu, then by The Lost Continent Mu and The Sacred Symbols of Mu. These books enjoyed wild success at the times, and even now have their devotees.
One can say, that even nowadays the search for a lost continent of Mu is still in progress. There were multiple researches on Mu and expeditions to various locations. Some called Easter Island a mountain top of a submerged continent of Mu. One well-known institute even suggested that underwater structures off the coast of Okinawa, Japan, were the ruins of Mu without any real scientific evidence. Some marine biologists stated that they identified the ruins of an ancient city off the coast of Japanese Yonaguni island as the remnants of an Asian equivalent of Atlantis and, that it was sunk three thousand years ago during an earthquake.
This is, basically, how the myth of the hypothetical lost continent Mu started. Very soon, this myth got second birth: it was popularized in the serious of books written by James Churchward. In a short time he created New Age type of a book Lost Continent of Mu, the Motherland of Man. It was followed by the book The Children of Mu, then by The Lost Continent Mu and The Sacred Symbols of Mu. These books enjoyed wild success at the times, and even now have their devotees.
One can say, that even nowadays the search for a lost continent of Mu is still in progress. There were multiple researches on Mu and expeditions to various locations. Some called Easter Island a mountain top of a submerged continent of Mu. One well-known institute even suggested that underwater structures off the coast of Okinawa, Japan, were the ruins of Mu without any real scientific evidence. Some marine biologists stated that they identified the ruins of an ancient city off the coast of Japanese Yonaguni island as the remnants of an Asian equivalent of Atlantis and, that it was sunk three thousand years ago during an earthquake.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)