In the northern hemisphere, the Winter Solstice is the shortest day of the year and various pre-Christian European groups had rituals to bring back the light, etc., which is why Christmas ended up around this time of year in this part of the world.
But what about indigenous cultures south of the equator? When Europeans colonized those areas (Australia, South Africa), they celebrated Christmas on December 25, but in fact, it was pretty close to what would be the Summer Solstice, right? So the whole “pray for the return of the light” thing would be kind of inappropriate… White Christmases, sleighbells in the snow, reindeer, etc., really don’t fit, but oh well…
MY question is, before the European December 25th Christmas got installed in these places below the equator, did indigenous cultures have rituals concerning the return of the light around the Summer Solstice in June, which would be THEIR shortest day of the year?
As an Antipodean I can take a fair answer at this. I’d say “mostly not”. Take a look at a globe and most of the land in the Southern Hemisphere is closer to the equator. Only the far Southern tip of South America, the South Island of New Zealand and Tasmania are far enough south to have real winters, and even those are quite mild. (Sure places like Sydney have a winter but it never has snow unless you go over 1000 meters)
Accordingly, most indigenous peoples in the Southern Hemisphere were in semi-tropical or temperate climates where the variation between day length is not that extreme.
For interest sake, here’s a summary of some of the way’s Australian aboriginal groups counted seasons:
Mostly based on rain cycles, prevailing winds, or availability of certain animals to hunt rather than on solstices / astronomy.
The Fuegian’s who lived on the far south tip of Argentina may have had some kind of ritual for the shortest day but that’s beyond my knowledge.
Well at least in Australia, also, there was not really formal religions amongst the various aboriginal people’s. Each regional group had their own animistic and shamanistic traditions and beliefs. Some of them did take various astronomical event’s into consideration in their calendars.
Of course, so much of their culture has been destroyed, by colonialism and missionaries, so we really don’t know, there may well have been some group that celebrated the shortest day.
Aha: So the Maori in New Zealand celebrate Matakiri in June as the start of their new year. It corresponds with the rising of the Pleiades rather than the shortest day, but that’s the closest thing I got.
Yeah, I’m unfamiliar with any Bushman or Khoe-khoen solstice rituals. There’s lots of stellar and solar mythology, no solstice observances that I know of.
You can always find some woo sites about sacred astronomy and the like, but it’s just woo. IMO, only agriculturalists need to mark that kind of thing. HGs (Bushmen) & pastoralists (Khoe-khoen) don’t really.
But I must object to the idea that it’s only NH temperate peoples who marked the sun that closely - the NH Tropical Maya definitely marked equinoxes at least (look atChichen Itza), and the SH equatorial Incans had a winter solstice festival
I was thinking along the lines of something dramatic like Stonehenge-ish calendar formations in Australia, or the tip of Africa or South America.
What got me on to this subject was watching The Brokenwood Mysteries*, an Australian cop show-- an episode involving a Christmas parade and the murders of two Santa Clauses. The female detective was lamenting the futility of wishing for a White Christmas, and it got me to thinking about the fact that a European, northern hemisphere Christmas celebration is all about the cold, dark winter. “Amid the cold of winter when half spent was the night,” etc. Notwithstanding that it was likely relatively balmy in Bethlehem at the first Christmas, if there was one.
*Pretty good show, available on AcornTV.
Oh, definitely dramatic! No quibble on that. This is definitely what I’m taking about.
But my original line of wondering was about a non-equatorial part of the southern hemisphere that observes or celebrates a “return of the light” in June, because that’s when their shortest day of the year falls. A hypothetical place with a dramatic difference in the hours of sunlight in mid-December v. mid-June, and a population that noted this and observed it with ritual(s) that invoked the return of the light.
But that’s the dilemma the entire concept faces. Earth’s continents taper, or devolve into isolated islands, in it’s southern hemisphere. There’s smaller and smaller groups experiencing temperate climates in those land masses. Except for Australia, which isolated its aboriginal groups by other mechanisms.
For example, I often wonder, is winter milder, and summer hotter, in the southern hemisphere, because in addition to Earth’s axial tilt, the Earth is closer to the sun.
“Nobody knows Arkcon, continents are shaped different between North America, Europe and Asia vs. Australia, South Africa and Argentina.”
I’m like, – yeah, but …
“Water surrounds those areas, apples and oranges”
But … but … but
“Impossible to generalize the diverse, isolated areas of the Southern hemisphere the same way as we can for Europe, Asia and North America. Discussion ends”
I do see that in general. But what about Argentina, Chile, and South Africa? Not as populous as the northern hemisphere, but people do live there, and have lived there in the past.
Did some of those aboriginal groups in Australia (regardless of whether they were isolated from each other) notice that there were long, sunny days at one time of the year and that the days got frighteningly short when it was cold? Were they afraid that the sun might not come back unless they invoked it in some way?
It might be pointed out that the people who lived in these areas were pretty much non-agricultural. The Bantu, who were agriculturalists, moved into South Africa relatively recently. The South Island of New Zealand wasn’t suitable for Polynesian crops. And the Amerindians of the Southern Cone of South America were mostly hunter-gatherers.
Do you think being agricultural is the pivotal consideration? Because of needing the sun to favor their crops? But even non-agricultural people depended on a certain amount of sunlight to function back in A World Lit only by Fire.
It does line up with the solstices, but it’s not known when it was built (it is pre colonial) and the current “mob” elders ( the traditional owners of that area) don’t have any knowledge of how it was used.
True. But although hunter-gatherers need to know the seasons to some extent to find game and plants to collect, agriculturalists are far more dependent on them in order to know when to plant.
Agriculturalists are also more likely to build fixed monuments, both because they have a permanent home to build the monuments in, and because they have more free time with which to build them.
Not what the OP is asking, but in tropical regions, the solstices might be noted, but aren’t usually considered as significant as the two days (equally far before and after the summer solstice) when the Sun passes directly overhead.