Pagan Christmas (22 page)

In 1655 in Rome, the Catholic cardinal Brancatio wrote an ode that sounds very pagan:

As long as the great heavenly light shines for me,

You, tree of trees,

Will be a life giver to me

And a creator of my purest feelings.

From you alone my spirit’s power is welling

O sweet gift of heaven

O much praised drink of gods!

Farewell to thee,

You beautiful dew of the kingdom of Bacchus!

In your place I honor a new well, which a god showed me.

Stream on and give your relief

In overabundance to the human beings!

Ladybugs were sacred in pagan times and were dedicated to Freia, the love goddess. Why does this chocolate ladybug have—like the fly agaric mushroom—white instead of black dots?

A tasty chocolate Father Christmas—and an invitation to a modern ritual “Christmas cannibalism.” (Photo by Claudia Müller-Ebeling)

Macabre Gods’ Food

The Aztecs referred to chocolate or cocoa metaphorically as yollotl, eztli—“heart, blood.”

This is why it was said: “The heart, the blood are to be feared.” It was also said that it is like jimsonweed or thorn apple (Datura stramonium a toxic hallucinogen); and it was said that it is like the mushroom (Psilocybe spp.), because it makes you drunk, it intoxicates you (Sahagun-Seler 1927).

The Aztec cocoa beverage was a vehicle for ingestion of entheogenic mushrooms, the “flowers of the earth.” Even today, Mexican shamans take sacred mushrooms (Psilocybe spp.) along with cocoa or chocolate. In their ritual “flower language,”5 the Aztec called the still-pulsating hearts taken from live human sacrifices cacahuatl, meaning “cocoa fruit” or “gods’ food.” With the bloody hearts, the priests symbolically quenched the gods’ desire for chocolate. The human beings that were sacrificed were taken to the butcher. First their heads were cut off and put on a pile in the tzompantli (wood shelves next to the temple pyramid). Then they were butchered like animals and sold at the market. Sacrificial meat was sacred. Thus, the Aztec xocolatl-drinkers and cacahuatl-eaters were cannibals who treasured the cocoa-fruit and the living heart in equal measure as foods of the gods.

During the sacrificial rites, chocolate served as a sort of macabre healing substance that prevented the chosen human sacrificial victims from falling into depression. Instead, the beverage was used to put the victim into an ecstatic condition of intoxication.

[The sacrificial priests] hurried to get the sacrificial knives, and washed off the blood, and made, with the dirty water, a pumpkin cup of chocolate that they gave the victim to drink. It is said that this drink had the following effect on him: he became nearly unconscious and forgot what was said to him. Then his good mood came back and he started to dance again. It is believed that, bewitched by the drink, he gave himself, full of joy and happiness before death. This drink was called itzpacalatl, which translates to the equivalent of “water with which obsidian blades are washed” (Diego de Durán, Crónica, X, as quoted in Coe and Coe, 1997, 124).6

But what does this gruesome story have to do with our tasty and beautiful Christmas chocolates? In the end we also “butcher” our Father Christmas. After we tear the wrapping paper off our chocolate Santa, we devour the Theobroma—the food of the gods—with pleasure. Many of us tend to first bite off the head. Even if it is only symbolic, it amounts to a sort of ritualistic cannibalism. “Oh, divino chocolate!” Even the Catholic Church has a symbolic connection with the Aztec sacrifice ritual. During Holy Communion, believers drink the blood of Christ in the form of red wine and eat his body as a host.

Mugwort, the Sacrificial Goose, and the Christmas Roast

The shamanic flight is not an easy enterprise. Demons and dragonlike fiends are the keepers of the entry to the otherworld. The shaman must be pure in body and soul so that he does not fall down or surrender to the demons of frenzy. One of the measures he can take is to rub on or smoke the holy herb mugwort.

STORL 1996A, 139

Artemisia vulgaris L., Asteraceae (mugwort)

OTHER NAMES

Armoise, beifuss, felon herb, sonnwendgürtle (Old German, “solstice girdle”), naughty man, old man, old Uncle Harry, St. John’s plant, wild wormwood

In mugwort we have one of the oldest relics of the ritual life of humanity. The herb is an important incense and smudge substance for the smudging nights. It is bound up with the life rod. Mugwort was also used to spice roasts on the festive first day of Christmas and thus, in the end, is related to animal sacrifice.

Mugwort was found in huge amounts in the caves of Lascaux, France. These cathedrals of the Ice Age, as they are sometimes called, were a ritual center of the Stone Age. Deposits left here by reindeer hunters at least seventeen thousand years ago show us that these reindeer hunters had as profound a connection with mugwort as the herb has with the culinary main event of our Christmas feast. This is yet more evidence that the connection between reindeer and Christmas goes all the way back to this Stone Age shamanic culture.

Mugwort (Artemisia vulgaris) in flower in Wallis, Switzerland. This wild herb is among the oldest of European ritual, magic, and healing plants. Mugwort is also one of the most important smudging substances for the smudging nights, a typical Christmas spice for sacrificial roasts, and an ingredient for beer, absinthe, and baccy.

Mugwort, one of humanity’s oldest shamanic plants. Mugwort is an age-old smoking substance of the shamans of old Europe, the Himalayas, modern Korea, and other parts of the world. Because of its three-toothed leaves, in Nepal it is called the trident of the old shaman Shiva. (Kalinchok, Nepal, August 1998)

The German name for mugwort, beifuss, translates literally to “by the foot.” This might be taken to imply that mugwort grows near footpaths. But the name actually comes from the medieval word biboz, which in German is linked with the words beibett (next to the bed) or beistoss (next to the thrusting). In this sense, the plant appears closely related to aphrodisiac attributes. And indeed, mugwort was sacred to the love goddess Freia and said to be a love magic: “Mugwort gave the power of a thunder god to the loins and opened the sacred female lap” (Storl, 1996b). When giving birth, Germanic women held a thatch of mugwort in their hands. Mugwort is holy to the Germanic birth goddess Holla (or Frau Holle) and was supposed to help the new child in the transition from the otherworld to this world.7 For the same reason, the dead were provided with mugwort in the grave, and old Germanic peoples offered bunches of mugwort on bonfires to their dead.

The old German name sonnwendgürtle (solstice girdle) refers to the ritual role played by mugwort during both the winter and summer solstices—the longest and the shortest days and nights of the year. During solstice rituals, the people wore belts or girdles of mugwort while dancing around the fire, and later burned the mugwort belts to banish bad luck.

The association of the plant with the wild god Wotan can be clearly seen in the ancient English names old man, felon herb, naughty man, and old Uncle Harry. The Old Nordic name Harr means “high,” and was applied to Wotan (Odin).

Anglo-Saxon Herb Blessing

“Remember, mugwort, what you said, what you said in your solemn proclamation. You, the oldest of all herbs, have all the power against three and thirty, you have the power against poison and contagious diseases, you have the power against evil that comes over the country” (quoted in Schöpf 1986, 63).

MAGICAL AND FOLK USE

Mugwort is an old apotropaic (a substance used for protection against demons), counter spell, and amulet. It protects against lightning and was dedicated to the thunder god, Donar or Thor. The Romans put mugwort wreaths in their houses to ward off the evil eye.8 As indicated by the botanical name Artemisia, mugwort was dedicated to Artemis, the Greek goddess of the forest and the twin sister of Apollo, the sun god. Artemis was identified with the Roman hunting goddess, Diana, who was reclassified as a witch in early modern times. Thus mugwort, like many other plants sacred in pre-Christian times, became a “witches’ herb” used both for protection against witches and by the witches themselves. Mugwort was a love magic that counteracted impotence and frigidity caused by bewitchment.

The Christmas or St. Martin’s Goose

In many myths of many cultures there is a goose that lays the golden egg from which the sun is born.

NAUWALD 2002, 34

Smudging house and stable and spicing the St. Martin’s goose with mugwort goes back to old Germanic and Celtic rituals.

St. Martin—whose day is November 11—took the place of the god of the dead, Samain, after the Christianization of the Celtic people. In the foggy, gray, sad November days, this god of the underworld defeats the sun god and takes over the country; he also captures the goddess of vegetation, the wife of the dying sun. With loud cries of despair, wild geese flying south tell of the change of the season. Now the plant goddess with her green vegetation is gone from this world, down into the dark home of her black new master. With the gathering of the gray mugwort, which may now finally be harvested, the time to pick herbs is over. All plants are now pucca—taboo. What is gathered and picked now only brings bad luck, instead of health and healing. With the last bush of mugwort, house and stable are smudged, and a goose is sacrificed for the feast of the turning of the year (Storl 1996a, 137).

Flying Balm from Goose Fat

The goose is a very obvious symbol for the flying witch, a vision of the magical flight that is known even in modern Western cultures. Frau Holle (a version of the old Nordic Hela), the goddess behind the veils of the underworld, is associated with the winter snow that is supposed to fall from the feathers of her sacred bird, the migrant goose. In English-speaking regions, we are reminded of her in the form of Mother Goose, as in the following nursery rhyme:

Old Mother Goose

When she wanted to wander

Would fly through the air

On a very fine gander.

The witch “flying” through the night often rubbed goose fat on her body as a symbolic representation of her flight. The nightly witches’ flights were called grease flights, and the witches themselves grease birds or lard wings (Devereux, 2000: 131f).

In fruit and vegetable shops with a good assortment of herbs, you can find fresh mugwort at Christmastime. Mugwort is a classic spice for the roasted St. Martin’s goose—“the holy goose become a Christmas goose”9 (Storl 1996b). Mugwort is supposed to help with the digestion of heavy goose fat10—something for which other spices are often much more effective!11 The real reason for this use of mugwort is much more ritualistic. The sacrificial goose is perfumed with the sacred scent of mugwort to send an olfactory signal to Wotan. The scent incites the god to pay attention to the sacrifice, so he can hear and fulfill the wishes of those making the sacrifice—if he so wishes! The smell of the sacrificial goose is, in other words, a scented wish list for Father Christmas.

What Does Sacrifice Mean?

The word sacrifice evokes complicated feelings and associations. For some, it conjures gruesome images of barbaric people sacrificing human beings and animals before the idols of their dreadful gods. Another sort of impression comes from heated debates in the German parliament over tax reforms that require citizens to “make sacrifices.” However, the concept of sacrifice also has a completely different dimension: It is a way to make a connection between life and death! Animal sacrifice is a relic of the time when human beings lived purely as hunters. Hunters thanked the hunted animals for surrendering their lives to sustain the lives of human beings. The hunting and killing of animals reminded the hunters of the inevitable conclusion of life: death.

In former times, animal sacrifice was practiced in many cultures. Later, after the custom was suppressed, it was primarily expressed on a purely symbolic level. However, in some regions of the world, this religious practice has continued to the present day. In Nepal, sacrifice of various animals—such as chickens, goats, and buffalo—accompanies nearly every religious expression and is a part of daily life. Besides its social and culinary purposes, sacrifice has shamanic, magical, and consciousness-raising aspects. Animal sacrifice has not degenerated to a perfunctory act of ritual killing, but still has an important place in the thoughts and feelings of the Nepali people. Through this conscious contact with death, a participant in the ritual can see his or her own place in the cosmos and can better understand life.

The future roast goose looks for protection beneath the Christmas mushroom. (Page from a pocket calendar. Munich: W. Heye Verlag, 2001)

At Christmastime, even today, we practice customs that invoke the idea of ritual sacrifice, even if we no longer view them that way. Geese, turkeys, and carp give up their lives for us at Christmastime. We make a ritual sacrifice when we burn fir branches or incense cones. When we drink a celebratory toast to health, we make a sacrificial offering of Yule beer, punch, Christmas grog, wine, or champagne.

Rosemary and the Yule Boar

Rosemary was dedicated to Fro and Holda in the days of the gods, and the Yule buck was decorated with rosemary sprigs … as a plant associated with memory.

VON PERGER 1864, 143

Rosmarinus officinalis L., Lamiaceae (rosemary)

OTHER NAMES

Compass plant, encensier, incensier (French)

The evergreen rosemary has played a role similar to that of mugwort in the ethnobotany of Christmas. It has served not only as an incense substance, a winter green, a blossom miracle plant, and a herb for making rods, but also as a spice for seasoning another animal sacrifice that has nearly vanished from the menu: roast boar.12

A gold-bristled boar is the animal associated with Freyr, the fertility god of the pagan northern Germans. During processionals, the bristles of this boar were supposed to have shone so brightly that even the darkest night became light. The boar symbolizes sunlight in the depths of darkness. It is he who, with his enormous power, pushes the wheel of the year that has come to a standstill during the “mother nights” so that it turns again and the days grow longer (Storl 2000, 82).