Children of the Days (13 page)

In the year 234 before Christ, a sage named Eratosthenes planted a rod at noon in the city of Alexandria and measured its shadow.

Exactly one year later, at the same time on the same day, he planted the same rod in the city of Aswan and it cast no shadow.

Eratosthenes deduced that the difference between shadow and no shadow proved the world was a sphere not a plate. Then he measured the distance between the two cities in steps, and with that information tried to calculate the size of the world's waist.

He was fifty miles off.

At midnight tonight, big bonfires are lit.

Crowds gather around them.

This night will cleanse houses and souls. Old junk and old desires, things and feelings worn out by time, are tossed into the fire to make room for the new to be born.

From the north this custom spread all over the world. It was always a pagan holiday. Always, until the Roman Catholic Church decided tonight would be Saint John's Eve.

Today, starting at dawn, the sun festival known as Inti Raymi is celebrated on the steppes and peaks of the Andes.

At the beginning of time, the earth and sky were in darkness. There was only night.

When the first woman and the first man emerged from the waters of Lake Titicaca, the sun was born.

Viracocha, god of gods, invented the sun so that woman and man could enjoy the sight of each other.

Chinese poet Li Po died in the year 762 on a night like this one.

A drowning.

He fell from the boat when he tried to hug the moon reflected in the waters of the Yangtze.

Li Po had sought out the moon on other nights.

Today is International Day Against Torture.

By tragic irony, the Uruguayan military dictatorship was born the following day in 1973 and soon turned the country into one huge torture chamber.

For obtaining information torture was useless or practically useless, but it was very useful for sowing fear, and fear obliged Uruguayans to live by silence or lies.

While in exile, I received an unsigned letter:

Directorium Inquisitorum
, published by the Holy Inquisition in the fourteenth century, set down the rules for torture. The most important was: “The accused who hesitates in his responses shall be tortured.”

Back in the year 960, Christian missionaries invaded Scandinavia and threatened the Vikings: if you persist in your pagan customs you will end up in hell where eternal fires burn.

The Vikings welcomed the good news. They trembled from cold, not fear.

Some say it's said that today is Saint Peter's Day, and they say he holds the keys to the gates of heaven.

Who knows for sure.

Well-informed sources report that heaven and hell are just two names for the world each of us carries around inside.

Today in 1819 Juana Manso was baptized in Buenos Aires.

The holy waters were to set her on the path to meekness, but Juana Manso was never meek.

Bucking wind and tide she founded secular schools in Argentina and Uruguay where girls and boys studied together, religion was not a required course and corporal punishment was banned.

She wrote the first textbook on Argentine history plus several other works, among them a novel that derided the hypocrisy of married life.

She founded the first public library in the country's interior.

She got divorced when divorce did not exist.

The Buenos Aires papers took great pleasure in mocking her.

When she died, the Church refused her a tomb.

In the year 2008, the government of the United States decided to erase Nelson Mandela's name from its list of dangerous terrorists.

The most revered African in the world had featured on that sinister roll for sixty years.

During the 1904 Olympic Games in the American city of St. Louis, a series of special competitions took place over the course of what they called “Anthropology Days.”

Taking part were Native Americans, Japanese Ainu, African pygmies and other specimens on display in the parallel world's fair.

They were not allowed into the formal athletic competitions, begun six weeks earlier and continuing for another three months, although two Zulus in the Boer War exhibit obtained special dispensation to run the marathon and came in fifth and twelfth.

Fred Lorz, white and male, won that race, which was the most popular event. Shortly thereafter, it came out that he had run half the route in a friend's car.

That was the last piece of Olympic chicanery that did not involve the chemical industry.

From then on, the world of sport went modern.

Athletes no longer compete on their own. They carry whole medicine cabinets inside.

Three months had passed since King James II outlawed golf in 1457 and still not a single Scot paid any heed.

In vain, the monarch repeated the order: young men must dedicate their best efforts to the art of archery, essential for national defense, instead of wasting time whacking little balls.

But golf was born in Scotland's green pastures back around the year 1000 by shepherds who eased their boredom knocking stones into rabbit holes, and the tradition remained invincible.

Scotland is home to the two oldest golf courses in the world. They are open to the public and entry is practically free. What a rarity: in most of the world this privatized sport belongs to the few, and golf courses gobble up the land and chug the water that belongs to us all.

On this night in 1799, Alexander von Humboldt and Aimé Bonpland discovered the Southern Cross.

Sailing across the immense ocean, they saw these heretofore unseen stars.

The Southern Cross pointed the way to America.

Humboldt and Bonpland did not come to conquer. They wished not to take but to give. And give they did, these scientist adventurers who helped us to see and know ourselves.

Years later, at the end of their trip deep into the South American heartland, Humboldt returned to Europe.

Aimé, “Don Amado,” chose to remain behind in this land that had become his own.

To the end of his days, Don Amado collected and classified thousands of unknown plants. He rediscovered lost medicinal herbs from the indigenous store of knowledge and set up free herbal pharmacies for all. He hoed, planted, harvested; he raised children and chickens. He learned and taught, endured prison and practiced love thy neighbor (“starting with the females,” he liked to say).

According to the Bible, King Solomon of Israel did not have a high opinion of laughter. “It's crazy,” he said.

And on happiness: “What good is it?”

According to scripture, Jesus never once laughed.

The right to laugh without sin had to wait until this day in 1182, when a baby named Francis was born in the town of Assisi.

Saint Francis of Assisi was born smiling and years later he instructed his disciples, “Be happy. Avoid sad faces, frowns, scowls . . . ”

Today in 1810 Phineas Barnum was baptized in Connecticut.

The baby grew up to found the most famous circus in the world.

It began as a museum of rarities and monstrosities that drew multitudes:

they bowed before a blind slave woman, 161 years old, who had suckled George Washington;

they kissed the hand of Napoleon Bonaparte, 25 inches tall;

and they confirmed that the Siamese twins Chang and Eng were truly attached and that the circus mermaids had genuine fishtails.

Professional politicians of every epoch envy Barnum more than any other man. He was the undisputed master at putting into practice his great discovery:
People love to be fooled
.

In 1954 a Communist demonstration marched through the streets of Mexico City.

Frida Kahlo was there in her wheelchair.

It was the last time she was seen alive.

She died shortly thereafter, without fanfare.

A number of years passed before the huge uproar of Fridamania awakened her.

A just restitution or just business? Did this woman, who hated the pursuit of success and prettiness, deserve this? Did the artist of pitiless self-portraits, complete with unibrow and moustache, and bristling with pins and needles and the scars of thirty-two operations, deserve such treatment?