The Hidden Meanings Behind Our Favorite Children's Nursery Rhymes

Lizzie Borden took an axe,
And gave her mother forty whacks.
And when she saw what she had done,
She gave her father forty-one.

While many know that this popular children’s jump-rope rhyme refers to the infamous hatchet murders that took place in Fall River, Massachusetts on August 4, 1892, allegedly at the hands of New England spinster Lizzie Borden (who many assume killed her father and stepmother), few know the dark and hidden meanings behind many other nursery rhymes that were popular through the ages.  Here is a look at a few of the most popular–and notorious.  Read more . . .

The Wodaabe: the Beautiful People of Northwest Africa

The Wodaabe, a subculture of the larger Fulbe-speaking Fulani, are a group of nomadic cattle-herders and traders who historically have been highly influential in politics and economics throughout western Africa.  Known to have existed for over one thousand years, the Wodaabe continue to play a significant role in furthering Fulani domination in the West African region.  Referring to themselves as Bororo, the Wodaabe migration area currently stretches from southern Niger to northern Nigeria, northeastern Cameroon to the western region of the Central African Republic.  In 1983, the number of Wodaabe was estimated at 45,000; a more current assessment virtually impossible due to geographic dispersal and cultural restrictions.  Perhaps the most visually striking culture compared to other indigenous groups of this region, the Wodaabe are known for their beauty (both men and women), elaborate attire, and rich cultural ceremonies.  Read more . . .

The Lost Continent of Mu

Could it be that the Biblical story of creation is based on the oral and written history of a great civilization that existed thousands, perhaps tens of thousands of years before the ancient Greeks, Chaldeans, Babylonians, Persians, Egyptians, or Aryans?  Is it possible that the Garden of Eden did in fact exist but was not located in the Near East as most historians speculate, but on a now-sunken continent that once existed in the middle of the Pacific Ocean--the remnants of which we now call Hawaii, Fuji, Samoa, and Tahiti?  Well, according to extensive studies conducted in the early 1900s by renown explorer and historian Colonel James Churchward, there is considerable and what many consider rather astonishing evidence supporting a theory that such a wondrous land did in fact once exist.  A land called Mu.  Read more . . .

The Palermo Stone: the Other Important Egyptian Stone Tablet

Though far less known than the famous Rosetta Stone, the Palermo Stone is no less significant, and in fact, reveals far more than its more celebrated stone cousin.  Essentially, the Palermo Stone is the oldest known history book of Egypt following the unification of Lower Egypt and Upper Egypt.  Named for the museum in which it is housed, the Salinas Regional Archaeological Museum in Palermo, Italy, this basalt fragment, which was engraved toward the end of the Fifth Dynasty in the 25th Century BCE, provides records of the kings of Egypt from the First Dynasty through the Fifth Dynasty, a list of what is thought to be the mythical kings prior to the dynastic era, as well as information on cult ceremonies, sculpture, taxation, buildings, and public warfare.  Read more . . .

Sodom and Gomorrah: History or Allegory?

According to one of the earliest stories of the Bible, two cities, Sodom and Gomorrah, and all their inhabitants were destroyed some 5,000 years ago for not living up to the ethical standards of God.  But, did these ancient cities actually exist?  And if so, were they actually destroyed by fire and brimstone or is this purely a cautionary, anagogical tale as many stories of the Bible are thought to have been?  These are the questions believers and scholars alike have asked for centuries.  Read more . . .

The Legend of Sleepy Hollow and the Headless Horseman

This wondrous and spooky tale is set in the late 18th century in the Dutch settlement of Tarry Town, in a secluded glen aptly named Sleepy Hollow.  Like many remote towns in this place and time, the country folk of this land are given to fantastic beliefs in ghosts and evil spirits, and most every fireside gathering invariably becomes the stage for blood-curdling stories of the weird and ghoulish, many invoking the famous legend of the Headless Horseman.  Central to this tale is one Ichabod Crane, a tall and long-limbed, highly superstitious traveling schoolmaster from Connecticut, who despite his numerous shortcomings, nonetheless seems quite taken with himself.  Read more . . .

The Invention of Writing

Most historians agree that more than any other human achievement, it was the invention of writing that untimately brought the seeds of “civilization” to fruition.  The taking of this unprecedented step some 5000 years ago made it possible to preserve thoughts and experiences that had previously been entrusted to the realm of oral tradition, wisdom passed generation to generation with hopes that key elements wouldn’t be lost.  Essentially, the invention of writing provided a maintenance of social ideas that allowed complex societies to develop and empires to be built.  Read more . . .

The Yiddish Language

Yiddish is a Germanic language with about three million speakers worldwide, primarily Ashkenazic Jews (the Jews of Central and Eastern Europe and their descendants) residing in the US, Israel, Russia, Ukraine, and many other countries.  The name Yiddish is probably an abbreviated version of yidish-taytsh, which means "Jewish German.”  A hybrid of Hebrew and medieval German, Yiddish takes most of its vocabulary from German but borrows liberally from Hebrew and many other languages from the many lands the Ashkenazic Jews have lived through the centuries.  Although it has a grammatical structure all its own, Yiddish is written with an alphabet based on Hebrew characters.  Read more . . .

The Spanglish Language

Generally speaking, Spanglish refers to the blending of the Spanish and English languages.  Not a “pidgin” language (a formalized, middle language that develops as a means of communication between groups that have no common language), Spanglish is totally informal, with no pre-established rules of linguistic structure.
Although Spanglish contains common patterns of word and phrase usage, it is actually a dimension of what linguists term “code switching,” whereby two languages are interwoven in a free-form style that literally allows the two languages to be intertwined at will by the speaker.  Read more . . .

The Klingon Language

The Klingon language (tlhIngan Hol, in Klingon) is the language spoken by the warring culture known as the Klingons, who inhabit the virtual realm of the Star Trek universe.  Unlike most languages, which evolve over time by a developing culture, Klingon was intentionally designed by Planet Earth linguist Marc Okrand.  Based heavily on Star Trek/Klingon-related concepts which evolve around spacecraft and warfare, the Klingon language is understandably awkward for everyday use by non-Klingons.  (For instance, while there is a term for the bridge of a ship (meH) there is no word for a bridge that crosses water.)  Purposefully constructed to sound "alien,” Klingon has a number of typologically uncommon linguistic features.  But, while it was Okrand who succeeded in developing the Klingon language into a fully-functioning, grammatically complete language, the language’s basic sound, along with the first few words, was created by Enterprise Chief Engineer Montgomery “Scotty” Scott (James Doohan) for Star Trek: The Motion Picture.  Read more . . .

Brad Pitt and the Pikey Culture: a Look at the Shelta Language

If you're a Brad Pitt fan and have seen the new cult classic, Snatch, then you're already familiar with the Pikey language.  The term “pikey” is a pejorative, slang term used mainly in the UK to refer to Irish Travellers, Gypsies, and people of low social class.  The Irish of the "pikey" culture, however, refer to themselves as “Pavees,” and call their language (which is neither Irish nor English) Shelta.  Brought to the US during the late 19th century, the derivative “piker” is used even today in Appalachian America to refer to someone who is stingy.  Found in old English, "pikey" has long been associated with itinerant life and constant travel, with pikey directly derived from "pike," which during the 16th century meant to "go away from, to go on" and related to the words turnpike (toll-road) and pike-man (toll-collector).  Read more . . .

The Gullah Language

Gullah is a language spoken by the African American population living on the sea islands and coastal region of the US states of North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, and northeast Florida, and those commonly known as the Gullah people. The Gullah language is what linguists call an English-based creole language, which develop in the context of trade, colonialism, and slavery when people of diverse backgrounds are forced together and must devise a common means of communication.  In the case of Gullah, the vocabulary is largely English in origin, but the African languages have altered the pronunciation of almost all the English words.  Linguists today view Gullah and other creoles as complete and independent languages with their own systematic grammatical structures.  Read more . . .

The Rules of Grammar: What Purpose Do They Really Serve?

Every day in classrooms across America, children and adults alike are instructed in the fine art of grammar, the speaking, usage, and writing of the English language in its "proper" form.  "Between him and me is what you really meant to say," you can hear an instructor of Standardized American English (SAE) saying, " . . . not "he and I."  But, what makes one word choice "correct" while another is not?   In a word, PRESCRIPTION.  And whether you label it "tradition," "standards," or just "the way of educated people," it boils down to one group of people establishing the "proper" way to communicate for another.  And from the anthropological perspective, it’s just another means of establishing societal dominance and class distinctions, and most often results in accomplishing little more than erasing cultural identity.  Read more . . .

Linguistics and the Study of History

From the anthropological perspective, linguistics cannot be separated from history.  In fact, language cannot be understood to any true resolve without considering the history surrounding it.  As linguist and father of the “linguistic relativity” concept, Benjamin Whorf (1897–1941), said a century ago, “studying language and studying culture is the same thing.”  Yes, linguistics, in the broad sense of the term, does mean the physical components relating to “sound production,” i. e., place of articulation, manner of articulation, phonetics, and morphology, but none of that has real relevance without cultural context.  And since every culture is dynamic and ever changing, the past (both written and oral tradition) must be factored in.  Read more . . .

The Method of Ritual Magic(k)

For many aspirants of ritual magic(k), it is with the acquisition of ritual tools that the magic(k)al journal actually begins.  In that magic(k) requires a vast selection of highly specialized tools, each chosen specifically for one and one purpose only, this process typically takes many years to complete.  For many adepts, the acquisition of ritual tools becomes an ongoing, lifetime mission, with instruments of higher magnitude replacing lesser ones as fate provides. Thus, as any ritualist will attest, establishing the proper “thinking” behind choosing one’s magic(k)al tools cannot be simplified or overemphasized.  Read more . . .

Is a Society Where Men and Women Have Equal Rights Possible? A Look at the Mbuti of Africa

For centuries, social scientists, theologians, historians, and philosophers hypothesized that a society where men and women had equal rights could exist in "theory," but had maintained the perspective that circumstances supporting such a society would be extremely rare, and temporary at best.  Eurocentric ideals supported the premise that individual survival depends on societal organization, societal survival depends on institutional progress, and progress depends on the intentional delineation of social responsibilities according to one’s abilities.  This perspective concluded that a society could not survive if it did not exploit its resources–through forced labor, slavery, and threat of violence; and that included the strengths and weaknesses of its people.  Read more . . .

The Laws of Ritual Magic(k)

Throughout recorded history, the ability to influence the forces of nature has distinguished our greatest leaders–tribal chiefs, religious figures, and trusted imparters of wisdom.  From Ramesses II  to Solomon, Leonardo to Pope Benedict XVI, those believed to possess the ability to reach through the veil separating the realm of the mundane from the otherworldly have been afforded particular status, authority, privilege, and often, power.  While in ancient times the practice of magic(k) was commonplace–magicians said to be on every street corner–it was often a matter of whose magic(k) was more powerful that ultimately determined societal ranking; those able to demonstrate their skills on command afforded more social clout.  Read more . . .

Quaint Greeting Customs from Around the World

In the now infamous scene from Crocodile Dundee, Paul Hogan’s character “Mick” grabs the genitals of a sexually-ambiguous individual at a socialite party in order to verify his or her gender, to which Mick’s love interest “Sue” responds, “Oh, he’s okay, he’s Australian"–the inference being that his behavior is appropriate for someone from the Land Down Under.  And while this isn’t actually a common greeting custom in Australia, there are a number of customs practiced around the world that while seeming quite appropriate among certain cultures, would seem quite unusual among others.  Read more . . .

Witches and Witchcraft: So, You Think You Know What Witchcraft is?

Whenever the word “witch” is used in everyday conversation, any number of images may come to mind.  Some may relate the word to the “Wicked Witch of the West,” while others to the modern Wiccan image associated with the likes of Sybil Leek.  Some may harken the image long held of the Salem witches, while still others may imagine a curandera, the wise woman found in Hispanic communities throughout North, Central, and South America (and Europe as well).  In fact, depending on one’s place of origin, age, sex, spiritual persuasion, life experience, education, and worldview, any number of archetypes are possible.  Read more . . .