This thread made me think of something. I know there were a lot of Pagans during the Roman Empire, and there were still some in the Middle Ages (Saxons, et al). Christians were very harsh on them (which is probably where the evil witches and Pagans-are-satanists stories came from) So, are there any original Pagan descendents? There are wiccans and neo-pagans around, are there pagans in Europe who can seriously trace themselves to the days of the Roman Empire, or older? Or were they wiped out by Christians? Maybe I am totally confused and there are plenty of real Pagans around, I don’t know.
No, the answer is that pretty much all of the old pagans were killed or converted, and the old pagan religions just died out. Some pagan customs survived by adapting themselves to Christianity…some Irish saints, like St. Brigit, are probably Christianized versions of pagan gods and goddesses, for example. Some neo-pagan groups claim to be directly descended from ancient pagan religions, practiced in secret for over a thousand years, but those claims can’t be substantiated.
Santa Maria Sopra Minerva! Capt Amazing is correct. Lot’s of Christian customs, holidays, etc that have pagan origins, but I don’t believe anyone has celebrated the Saturnalia in quite a while.
Actually, if you only want to talk Europe, there’s Strega in Italy and Asatru in Iceland. Asatru is the old Norse Aesir/Vanir religion and Strega is the religion of the Roman peasants in northern Italy. After that, it depends on how you define pagan. Hindus are still going strong, of course, and then there’s Shinto and the various Native American religions.
Hennadancer, wouldn’t Strega be more of a neo-pagan revival? Although it appears that Strega has been around since the 1300’s and I don’t know how “neo” it is.
Most pagans are revialists (Hindus excepted), but there are a few isolated areas where the pagan tradition has taken a natural route.
One of the most interesting of these is a tribe living in the remote mountainous regions of Afghanistan. They are descendants of soldiers from Alexander the Great’s army who married local women and settled down in that area. They still have many ancient hellenic rituals and worship their pantheon of Gods (Zeus, etc.) in an unbroken tradition. It would be interesting to find out what happened to them under the Taliban.
Ave Minerva: Saturnalia took place the same date each year as Ground Hog Day does in modern times. It’s the day midway between the Winter Solstice and the Spring Equinox. What better day to predict what the weather will be for the next 6 weeks?
Some of us who are not even card-carrying Pagans, including yours truly, celebrate on that day.
OK, went off and had a little search for this lost tribe of Alexandrian Greeks in Afghanistan. Unfortunately, while I’ve found a few sites that make this claim for the Nuristani and the Kalash peoples of Afghanistan and Pakistan, most sources I’ve been able to find have said that it was a romantic myth created by bored British soldiers.
The Saturnalia took place at the winter solstace. Originally it was just the feasts of Saturn and Ops, (Dec. 19 and 20, about), but it was expanded to a weeklong festival during the Empire.
That was a large part of the plot of THE MAN WHO WOULD BE KING, wasn’t it? I wonder if Rudyard was in on the invention.
Certainly there are many Afghani legends about Alexander still, and of course ‘Kandahar’ was originally a variant of Alexandria. In one legend, Alex fathered seventy sons with local women (apparently it was the eunuch’s night off) and his horse (Bucephalos in real life of course, but in the legends he can fly and has claws instead of hooves) fathers as many colts by local horses (fathering seventy children is found in Greek, Arabic, Hebrew, and other myths- I’ve tried to research the origin of this number and it appears earliest in the Tiamat myths, but I digress.) To this day tribesmen do indeed claim descent from these unions. I don’t know about the rituals being kept up, though.
Certainly it’s romantic to think that some of the mystery cults of Rome survived, but it’s probably doubtful. It would explain more of the 2000 election decisions, though.
(Kabul also claims to have the grave of Cain, but I digress.)
(Alexander did have a son with an Afghan wife, but son and mother were murdered by one of his successors.)