07-10-2010, 02:15 PM
Actually it's the folks who parade around in the sun in their full kit--whether Roman, Germanic, Napoleonic or American Civil War--who are tough.
Virginia is normally cooler than the American plains. This has been a bad year thus far.
Back to skulls: the early Celts integrated them to portals, leading one to wonder if there wasn't a religious or spiritual basis for their displays. Certain tribes of native Americans reputedly ate their enemies' heart or liver to appropriate the power of their defeated foe's spirit.
Nailing a skull to a wall/tree/door post--absent better knowledge of the culture involved implies a degree of disrespect which seems consistent with proclaiming victory over a hated foe. (Didn't Marius' troops urinate on the bodies of dead Teutons to excite the rest of the Germans to lure them into the trap that resulted in the annihilation of that people at Aquae Sextiae (102 BC)? Or is that a fable?)
Virginia is normally cooler than the American plains. This has been a bad year thus far.
Back to skulls: the early Celts integrated them to portals, leading one to wonder if there wasn't a religious or spiritual basis for their displays. Certain tribes of native Americans reputedly ate their enemies' heart or liver to appropriate the power of their defeated foe's spirit.
Nailing a skull to a wall/tree/door post--absent better knowledge of the culture involved implies a degree of disrespect which seems consistent with proclaiming victory over a hated foe. (Didn't Marius' troops urinate on the bodies of dead Teutons to excite the rest of the Germans to lure them into the trap that resulted in the annihilation of that people at Aquae Sextiae (102 BC)? Or is that a fable?)
"Fugit irreparabile tempus" (Irrecoverable time glides away) Virgil
Ron Andrea
Ron Andrea
