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Holy Smoke (History)
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Mick Harper
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In: London
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I seem to remember that Mardi Gras is something to do with the dead (and surely that's neither May nor November). What's the story here? Are these festivals something to do with merrymaking-with-the-dead or making alum?
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Mick Harper
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In: London
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Hey, I just had a thought. Alum-making takes six months (or nine months according to some sources) of constantly tending bonfires. What if one of these holidays is to celebrate not lighting fires but at long last letting the damned things go out?
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DPCrisp


In: Bedfordshire
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That's an interesting thought. I was just wondering whether youse had realised that May 1st and November 5th are 6 months apart. (Note also that the Celtic year is reckoned to have been reckoned as a dark half and a light half. Praps it would have been shale fires throughout the winter, then get on with farming in the spring/summer.)

It's hard to keep track of the various changes to the calendar (July & August each gained a day; days lost in the change-over from Julian to Gregorian...) and to know what their effects are on tracking dates and astronomical events across long periods of time... so the fact that it's October 31st that is exactly half a year after May 1st might be significant.

Beltane, the Celtic May Day festival, means bright fire. Edinburgh has a famous Beltane Fire Festival. (Maypole dancing is an English/Germanic tradition, I think.)

As for the bonfire 'industry', Wikipedia says only:

Bone ash is the white, powdery ash left from the burning (calcination) of bones. It is primarily composed of calcium phosphate. It is commonly used in fertilizers, polishing compounds, and in making ceramics (such as bone china). It also has historical uses in the manufacture of baking powders and assay cupels. As of 1935 it was imported chiefly from South America.

Although synthetic alternatives have been produced (synthetic tri- or dicalcium phosphates), the majority of bone china is still made using natural bone ash. Synthetic bone ash has also found use as a mold release agent for the casting of non-ferrous metals such as copper.

Interesting. Might have found a similar use in the Bronze Age, huh? There must be a mountain of historical interest not even hinted at here. Bone ash was surely a raw ingredient for... gods know what... and different from wood ash.

Funeral pyres would be mostly wood ash... mostly not stuffed into the cremation urn... and they find so many animal bones, they don't seem to have burned domestic bones as a routine... but at what period, I dunno. More research needed!

What did people do with the ashes from their hearths? Who came and emptied the 'ash cans'? Piss used to be collected up wholesale. (And you could make a living collecting dog shit, but I can't remember what for.) Tanning and cloth making seem to have made good use of domestic (urban) excreta... but we don't hear much about what happened to their effluents.
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DPCrisp


In: Bedfordshire
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We also found whiteness, purity, fire and flowers all mixed up with tsars/Zarathustra and salt.

Come to think of it, rock salt is probably not white, but sea salt is: purifying sea water or rock salt is a burning (boiling) process.

Curious that halo- = salt- and halo = disk of (sun) light. Cf. Ammon. Salt is the gift of the Gods or something?
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Oakey Dokey



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Dan writes:
Curious that halo- = salt- and halo = disk of (sun) light. Cf. Ammon. Salt is the gift of the Gods or something?

Even more curious that there is a further correlation between salt and sun, namely Sodium and Sol, and the Hal and halo. Sodium produces a yellow flame when burnt as does the sun's halo. Burning salt produces a yellow flame similar to the sun's colour, could this be the origin?

I know a lot of ancient rituals used salt in their ceremonies but I cannot find one example of them burning it. But it is very obviously bright yellow when placed in a flame. I'll keep looking into this.
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Oakey Dokey



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Another avenue I explored was the ceremonial relationship of salt throughout history. I tried to base it on the burning of salt. I didn't have much luck. I pursued this avenue because of the very well known colour of salt when burnt, sun yellow. And the Alchemy name soda for salt from which we get the modern chemistry term sodium.

However I was greatly surprised to find translated ceremonial techniques relating salt to Alchemy, Masonic traditions, Greek temple services to all manner of deities, Indian marriage services and the English wicker tradition. My head is hurting from the strain of trying to understand the language involved in the wicker tradition.

The only problem I had was that in not one case was the salt burnt to produce a yellow flame; in each case it was either the representation of balance, purity, domestic obedience or harmony of 'blending' as in food taste.
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Tani


In: Fairye
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I was thinking about Salt in Mythology, I think it's probably something worth checking out. What I can come up with offhand right now, is salt being an essential part in folklore and customs, such as:
if you stumble with your left foot, you're supposed to throw some salt over your right shoulder in order to ward off bad luck...
if you spill salt, it means bad luck for 7 years....
sleeping in a circle of salt prevents nightmares......

All of the above came down to me through my Sinti family. From the same source (Sinti) comes the custom to give a visitor bread and salt as a welcome gift - I don't know if other folks have any of the above mentioned customs.
What it proves though, imo, is a connection of Travellers (Sinti) to salty stuff.
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DPCrisp


In: Bedfordshire
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First Footing: dark stranger first across the threshold at New Year, bringing coal, bread and salt.

Salt is a gift from the Sun god?
Well, if you leave sea water lying around in the Middle East, with the Sun gazing upon it, it'll soon disappear and leave salt behind. Ammon might even have been clearing away nuisance flood water...

Or maybe the salt water (sea water? salt-bearing flash-flood-water?) killed the fertile soil and Ammon provided an alternative living (the salt trade).

(Makes me wonder about the Jordan valley [part of the Rift] having once been flooded and Jericho being a seaside town... There's a lotta salt in them thar parts.)
Sol = Sal
Sal = Sol = Hol = Holy
[Solo/solitary = alone, like the Sun. That's another branch of connections.]
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Oakey Dokey



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I will only hint at this to see if anyone else can arrive at the same destination as myself but try these two words/names:

Solon

Solomon.

OK, I need a Masonic expert for this: is there any reason why the prefix of Sol would mean peace in English? As both Solon and Solomon in their original language mean 'peace' yet solomon is supposedly a Masonic term as well.

A King James interpretation of Sol (sun) and omon (moon) is also supposedly a Masonic mix. Anyone have any more info on this? (There's a tenuous link to salt in all this).
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Oakey Dokey



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Tani writes:
I was thinking about Salt in Mythology, I think it's probably something worthwhile to check out. What I can come up with offhand right now, is salt being an essential part in folklore and customs, such as :
if you stumble with your left foot, you're supposed to throw some salt over your right shoulder in order to ward off bad luck...
if you spill salt, it means bad luck for 7 years....
sleeping in a circle of salt prevends nightmares......
All of the above came down to me through my Sinti family. From the same source (Sinti) comes the custom to give a visitor bread and salt as a welcome gift - I don't know if other folks have any of the above mentioned customs.
What it proves though, imo, is a connection of Travellers (Sinti) to salty stuff
.

The spilling of salt and its throwing over the shoulder is a quasi-Biblical reference. If you spill it you can throw salt in the eye of 'Old Nick' who is said to look over the shoulder of which you throw it (can't remember if it's left or right, but I think it's left).

I've also gone deeper into the mythology and folklore, and again it's related to Biblical (or a common source) reference, as in the breaking of bread (also a Celtic tradition).

The main quality attributed to salt is purity, this is probably why it's used to consecrate holy water.

Something else I found out is salt makes food less bitter, not sure of the relevance but interesting nonetheless.
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Ishmael


In: Toronto
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Tani wrote:
Place names: check this out: Hall statt ('statt' is not necessarily town; in German 'statt' or 'staette' means just 'place') in Austria.

OK...now...tell me.....what is the link between the word "statt" and the word "statue?" Why do I ask? I keep thinking about Lot's wife being "turned into a pillar of salt." What in heck is that a reference to??? Is she a statue carved in Salt Rock?
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Tani


In: Fairye
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I posted a cry for help on the GH.com mystery board re Salt in Mythology and the most promising stuff I got so far, that could (or not) have any bearing on the A/S and salt-question was actually quite a nice one:

remember Odin, the chief of Northern Gods? Well, according to one poster, "he was licked into being by a cow from a block of salt".

The Aztecs had a salt goddess by name of Huixtocihuatl.
The Babylonians believed the salt water ocean was Tiamat.
The Greeks declined Poseidon's offer of a salt water spring in favour of Athena's olive tree - could this reflect the transition to agriculture/Neolithic?
All this offered in the pure spirit of brainstorming.
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Oakey Dokey



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Ishmael wrote:
Tani said: Place names: check this out: Hall statt ('statt' is not necessarily town; in German 'statt' or 'staette' means just 'place') in Austria.
OK...now...tell me.....what is the link between the word "statt" and the word "statue?" Why do I ask? I keep thinking about Lot's wife being "turned into a pillar of salt." What in heck is that in reference to??? Is she a statue carved in Salt Rock?

I thought it came from 'stationary' as in fixed/immoveable. Now you mentioned Lot's wife; it's something I've looked at recently and is indeed a very peculiar story.

The location of Sodom, the city destroyed, is in between two basins of the Dead Sea, essentially the ground underneath this area is saturated with salt solution and is sandy. The place is known as the El Lisan Peninsula. At first I couldn't see the link but then remembered a clip of tape showing what happened to water-logged soil in an earthquake. Liquefaction is the effect of packing down sandy soils by vibration, thus forcing liquid out of the ground. It's quite spectacular to see.

Now what if the 'fire and brimstone' was an earthquake, something well-known in the area? Liquefaction could be a cause of her demise and her lifeless body would quickly dry out into a salt covered shape.
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Oakey Dokey



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DPCrisp wrote:

Salt is a gift from the Sun god?
Sal = Sol = Hol = Holy
[Solo/solitary = alone, like the Sun. That's another branch of connections.]

I missed this point until I read it a few times.
Sal = Sol = Hol = Holy

It now makes sense why Holy water is consecrated with salt (in Gnostic and ancient reference). It's the salt that makes it 'Holy' not the blessing. Maybe the reference to the water being Holy merely describes its properties, as in 'that's brine' and the consecration is something separate that over time has been lumped in.
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Tani


In: Fairye
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Some more assorted stuff on places and people:
Central Europe
Switzerland: HELvetia (Hel <=> Hal?)
also Helvetii :a (according to J.Caesar) 'celtic' people

There's the celtic Sun God Bel (or Belenus) and we still have Beltainne.
(Hel- <=> Bel)

There's a fairly big region in Austria called Salzkammergut ("region of the salt chamber") , there we find Hallein, Hallstatt.
But there's something odd about Austria : on the one hand we have Hal- place names (which Dan pointed out comes from Greek Hal- for salty), on the other hand,we also have Salzburg in Austria (from Lat. Sal-)....
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