Tag Archives: pagan

Easter Tradition

“A tradition I have is every year for Easter my whole extended family goes to Cabo. Since Easter is on a Sunday and most of us have school the next day, we celebrate Easter on Saturday because we have to leave on Sunday. During the day we hangout and paint and decorate eggs which will be turned into deviled eggs in a couple hours. Then, we get ready for our easter egg hunt which only involves the grandkids. There are eggs sitting on the grass on the floor, however those eggs are only for the very very young kids. Each of us has a basket we need to find and as well as candy eggs and baskets there are golden eggs that contain different amounts of money. Since we are getting older, it is starting to get competitive because we all want the money. My grandpa always gives us some hints and sometimes our parents do too. After the hunt, we all open our baskets then get into teams and play croquet. After croquet, we all have a nice dinner together at the house.”

The informant does this every year on Easter weekend in Cabo, Mexico. Her whole family is involved, including aunts, uncles, cousins, and grandparents. Her grandpa helps hide the eggs and gives them hints when necessary. Her parents get all of her siblings small baskets, the other parents give their kids baskets as well, which are full of small gifts like bracelets and chocolate. She believes Easter egg hunting has always been a thing for Easter, and her family has been doing this for as long as she can remember.

The tradition is part of the widely held celebration of Easter, the Christian day on which Jesus Christ was said to have risen from the dead after his crusifiction. On this day, it is common for children to hunt for Easter eggs, which are colorful plastic eggs full of candy. This holiday is often spent with family and friends and is celebrated on the first Sunday after the full Moon that occurs on or after the Spring Equinox. Although the holiday is now a large part of the holiday economy and is very consumerist, it started as a celebration of the coming of Spring before it was Christanized. It is celebrated around the world as an important Christian holiday.

Névnap

Text:

Name Day (Névnap) celebrations are a popular tradition in Hungary. In Hungary, there is a registry of names that you can pick from when naming a child, and every child is given a name from that list. Each day of the year in Hungary is dedicated to 2-3 Hungarian names, and on that day, everyone who has those names gets celebrated. Name Day celebrations are similar but not as elaborate as birthdays. They are announced each day in the newspaper and on the radio, and throughout the day, Hungarians exchange celebratory greetings with the people whose names are being celebrated. Flowers and desserts are customarily given as small gifts, and a feast is often held in the evening with family and close friends to round out the day’s festivities. Where possible, the gifts and food are usually themed around the name being celebrated in associated recipes, cards, engravings, etc.

Context:

The informant participated in this tradition when he was living in Hungary as a child. He explained how many countries have Saint Day celebrations where everyone who has the name of a saint gets celebrated, but Hungary made this more inclusive by expanding these celebrations to include names from Hungary’s pagan history as well.

Analysis:

I would like to argue that Hungarian Name Day celebrations, which are meant to be secular holidays, in fact, have a distinctly religious purpose. My informant made a point of mentioning that many European countries have Saint Day celebrations, where everyone with the name of a saint is celebrated on a certain day of the year. However, Hungary chose to expand this to also include names in its pagan history that were not related to the saints or other biblical figures. However, why they chose to do this, I believe, is something worth probing further. While on the surface it could be argued that it was simply to be more inclusive, this doesn’t seem to add up. To explain, my informant told me that Hungary has a predetermined registry of names that every parent must pick from when naming their child. There are two lists, one for boys and one for girls. There are no gender neutral options, he said, and there is no room for creativity or personal expression. This rigid naming convention seems contrary towards promoting inclusivity, and so I would like to push back against the notion that Hungary merely expanded this holiday to seem “more inclusive.” I believe that it may have been a way of getting more of the population to identify with what was traditionally a Christian holiday (Saint Days), and thus, even historically pagan families with pagan names would be drawn to celebrate their Name Days in traditional Christian fashion, receiving gifts and acknowledgement to make them feel special. The customary rituals, gift giving, and greetings throughout the day all contribute to the appeal and allure of this annual celebration. Name Day celebrations were arguably aimed at attracting more people to Christian holidays, and so I conjecture that this ostensibly “pagan” holiday was a way of subtly reinforcing and promoting Christian values.

The Haunted House of a Pagan High Priestess

Informant: A

Interviewer: B

Text:

A: “So I have a friend who, she was like 22 or 23 when I met her, but that doesn’t really matter, but she is like a certified Pegan High Priestess um a very interesting lady um and we stayed the night at her house one time uh me and my boyfriend at the time and we stayed at her house because we were all going to go to an anime convention the next day. Um and we were staying in her room and she was like “I have to warn you that my house is haunted” and we were like ‘Kimi what do you mean?” *laughs* “What does that mean?” and she was like “As a kid I did a ritual to summon a demon in my basement” and she didn’t realize it was a demon but she did the ritual to summon something in her home and since then, she was like 12, and since then it has been in her house. And we’re like “okay” and she was like “do not go down this specific hallway” and we’re like “okay umm” *strained voice* So um we stayed the night at her house and neither of us could sleep because of this feeling of awful. We were both like “did you just feel dreed all night” and we were like “yeah” and I don’t remember if it was that night or a different night but I distinctly remember um her coming to us and telling us that she woke up with gouging scratch marks on her back which she showed us and we were like “oh that’s fun and cute, how did you sleep through that” and she was like “this happens not infrequently because my house is haunted” and we were loke “COOL were not gonna spend the night at your house again, cool goodbye” and I’m pretty sure to this day that her house is haunted which is weird because she like cleanses houses, like she cleansed one of our rooms, but apparently she can’t get rid of the demon so *laughs* that’s the tale.”

A: “One is always skeptical when a friend of yours comes over and tells you they’ve summoned a demon and in hindsight I had a very high impression of this person because I met her when I was like 14 and she was like 20 something and so I like I already had a very, they’re like an older sister role model to me um but I did believe her because um idk it felt off before she told us that her house was haunted and there were actively, again this could be placebo, but my boyfriend at the time, we had concluded, we had seen things on her balcony. I guess this is a separate story but whenever we went up the stairs you would get up to the top of the stairs and, not out of breath or anything, not out of exertion, but our chests would feel heavy and other people had reported, had told us this too that “your upstairs has bad vibes”, and there was no reason for the upstairs to have bad vibes but it did and we had like seen things on the balcony like shadowy figures and were like you know what this is not good, so she like came and cleansed it and it helped. So obviously it could the placebo and the kind of wanting it to be better but um and I think a lot of ghost stories, their reliability has to do with how much you believe in it sometimes. I don’t know I think it’s fun and I hope she’s not being hurt by something that might be in her house.” *laughs*

B: “What was the house itself like?”

A: “It was a very normal house, the only thing is, it wasn’t out out in the middle of nowhere, but it was kind of on the outs. It was less suburbia and more like, I don’t know if other people use this terminology, but it’s what I would call ‘out in the country’ so but like the inside was perfectly normal. It’s not like the pool where it has an inherently creepy vibe, it was just like a house, yeah.”

Context:

The informant learned of the haunting as they were spending the night in their friend’s house. The informant and the owner of the house had been friends for years prior to the incident. The informant believes that the haunting is real and that the High Priestess is telling the truth. The informant saw deep cuts on the High Priestess’s back the night after sleeping in the same room together and barely sleeping due to a feeling of dread. Given that experience, the informant believes that the simplest explanation is that the High Priestess is telling the truth about the demon haunting.

Analysis:

I’m sure that understanding the particular form of Paganism that the High Priestess practices would help provide further context to interpret the haunting. However, the informant does not recall the specifics of the High Priestess’s beliefs. From preliminary research on overarching principles of Paganism, the inclusion of demons appears to be quite sparse. Perhaps the lack of information regarding demons in Paganism is why the High Priestess has not been able to remove the demon. It is also noteworthy that the house itself seemed quite normal and was not an uninviting space—further emphasizing the power of the High Priestess’s beliefs. I do not know what to make of the gauges in High Priestess’ back. The informant reported that the High Priestess’ back was smooth before going to bed and that she shared a room with two other people, none of whom slept deeply or left the room. Given that information, I cannot easily see an explanation for how the cuts appeared. However, I doubt the High Priestess felt that she was in frequent mortal danger as she did invite two friends to stay the night.

St. Lucia’s Day Sweden

Main Piece:

The following conversation is transcribed from a conversation between me (HS) and my co-worker/informant (SC).

HS: So you have some particular traditions that you celebrate here in the United States that you got from your Swedish heritage, is that right?

SC: Oh yeah. Lots of stuff that we do and when I tell people they’re like, really? I’ve never heard of this before! So we celebrate Santa Lucia or St. Lucia Day- it’s kind of like a pre-Christmas holiday. It’s a really big thing back in Sweden where my family is from and we’ve kind of carried it on out here. It basically commemorates this girl who died while bringing food to Christians that were trying to escape the Romans. My daughter dresses up in all white to represent the purity of Saint Lucia and there’s a big feast after. Lots of amazing food. You’ve gotta try saffron bread.

Background:

My informant is a co-worker from my job. He is a Relationship Banker, and so we work a lot less closely than my other co-workers on the teller line. Regardless, he is a great guy and we enjoy a little office rivalry- he went to UCLA. Yuck. His parents immigrated to the United States from Sweden, but because he still has a lot of family living there, he visits a lot and in the process has brought back a lot of Swedish traditions to his family here in the United States.

Context:

We had gotten all of the pre-opening work done that we needed to get done, and it just so happened that our Branch Manager brought in some Dunkin Donuts to rally the morale of the troops. And so my co-worker and I sit there, grubbing some glazed donuts, going about the usual surface-level conversation. The typical weekend updates, customer complaints, all the good stuff. I decided to shift the conversation to talk about a tradition that my family and I had done the past weekend and asked if he had any that he did with his family. He was delighted to hear the question and started elaborating immediately.

Thoughts:

It was interesting to learn about this tradition and how important it is in Swedish culture. According to some brief research that I did about the holiday, it is supposed to mark a time of light and happiness in a time of a lot of darkness. A lot of schools end classes early so that families can prepare for the festivities. The aspect of the holiday that I found most intriguing was how it incorporates both pagan and Christian traditions. This has to do with an inherent struggle between light and darkness that Pagan culture elaborates a lot upon, as the geographic location of Sweden leads to long periods of light and darkness instead of the typical day. Scholars have gone as far as to say that St. Lucia is simply the Norse goddess Freya “dressed up” as a Christian saint.

Source of Pagan “dress up” theory:
https://www.norwegianamerican.com/victory-light-winters-dark-gloom/#:~:text=Some%20scholars%20believe%20that%20the,up%E2%80%9D%20as%20a%20Christian%20saint.

We Are A Circle- A Pagan Chant

Background: My informant (M) shared with me her experience with a song we learned growing up. We attended a daycare, which was run by our grandmother, from infancy to 5 years old, and would frequently stay there during summer breaks. She shared with me her perspective on a ritual we performed daily. Neither of us had ever thought too much about this ritual until we got older, but talking about it now we could tell there was probably more to this chant than we realized as kids. Our grandmother always talked about the importance of being kind to the Earth and thanking it whenever we took something from it, like food. As kids, this was just part of growing up, and the chant was part of our daily routine, we agreed that we never thought about the words or meaning until we got older.

M’s Perspective on The Ritual:

M: “I guess it was a way for all of the daycare kids to come together and bond and be calm. We would sit in a circle with a candle in the middle and we would sing childhood songs and tell nursery rhymes. At the end of the “circle time,” as our grandmother called it, we would have a closing ceremony of sorts where we would stand up and join hands and we would sing this one song. She played it on a CD, but we all knew all the words and we would look at each other and sing. There were a couple of verses to the song that I don’t remember very well, but during the chorus, we would all sing loud and join hands and walk in a circle. Then it would be another verse and we would stop walking. The verses all had to do with the elements, you know fire and wind and stuff. And with each new chorus, we would walk faster and faster until it got a little crazy and we were screaming this song (laughs). I don’t think she does it anymore because it started getting a little aggressive. But anyway the closing line had something to do with coming “FACE TO FACE” and we would all get really close to each other- you know face to face- and we would throw our hands up and someone would blow out the candle and that was it (laughs and pauses).

And we did this for probably ten years or more. It was a little strange now that I’m thinking about it, like what was that even about? We never really anything else that I can look back on as being out of the ordinary.

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