Everyone knows the greasy pole as an innocent popular game, where various objects (perhaps hams and food) are tied on top of a pole with soap, and that competitors should try to reach by climbing. But this is a very ancient tradition, and meaningful. to "plant the May" was an ancient tradition and spread throughout Europe was the use, on the night of the last day of April and 1 May, the youth of the community planted branches flowers, young trees in village squares or in front of houses, and in particular at the door or window of the girl to whom you wanted to pay homage. [...]. That of May 1 was a rite of fertility related to the awakening of nature and to the memory of the cults of ancient trees. It is the evolution of this tradition we have both the practice of planting the tree of liberty, popular in the French Revolution and political events, however, it was heavily influenced by both the current celebration of May Day. (Ottavia Niccoli, stories every day in a city of the seventeenth century , Laterza, p. 67).
The official version of the origins of May Day in reality tells another story, more directly linked to workers' demands, but it is said that the two versions are incompatible with each other, and that is that the date of May 1 has not been chosen in order to overlay it with another holiday before, as we have seen a noble tradition. The
May, the delicate floral tribute targeted at girls, but could also have implications more grotesque: the book of Niccoli tells of how the cheeses are sometimes goliardic uploading of content, if not openly defamatory of girls targeted for several reasons. This is the case, for example, a girl of Bologna, which he found in his porch a pole which had been linked to sexual objects of meaning, then clear: figs, a male member made of paper, a doll ("prostitute") in rags. The suspect of the joke, he turned to the girl unwanted attention and wanted to punish her so, was shown in the rector of the parish (some things never change). Sometimes they were even on the pretext for a number of brawls and fisticuffs.
It was during the seventeenth century, however, the Church began to be subjected to strict discipline this and other occasions of festivity. Initially they tried to turn in a more modest and the meaning of certain religious rites, such as ensuring that the tribute was not addressed to a girl on earth, but the Virgin Mary, giving rise to the various festivities of the Marian month of May. Even the "flowers", the small sacrifices to be offered to the Virgin, a practice that are born in the eighteenth century as a further evolution of the rite. But in some places, as in Bologna, the party came to be abolished altogether, claiming that the various disturbances and quarrels it arose. In reality, as well as spiritual reasons behind the trouble was caused by party politics, too, often having the meaning of May Day calendar that is tied to local power in opposition to the ecclesiastical. This
in Italy, and as far as the Catholic Church. In Europe, the tradition of Maibaum and survives in northern Europe, where the stakes are placed at the entrance, sometimes with the stylized representation of local products. Its subversive potential, however, has never been entirely forgotten. Just think of the British horror film "The Wicker Man," 1973. In the film, a policeman arrives on an island to investigate the disappearance of a girl. He discovers that all the island's inhabitants are followers of a strange religion that worships the sun, and especially at its center, orgiastic rites of fertility. The police suspects that the missing girl is about to be sacrificed, but eventually discovers that the island has been drawn through deception, and that the sacrifice is really him. In one of the most beautiful scenes of the film (there are many), the island boys dancing around a maypole while singing a song that highlights the phallic symbolism.
But the Maypole in America was at the center of a famous historical episode, this time really happened. I like to tell, because è quello da cui traggono origine sia il mio nick che il nome che ho dato a questo blog. Thomas Morton (1579-1647) fu un colonialista americano, che separandosi dai Puritani fondò nel 1626 in Massachussetts la colonia di Merrymount , improntata a un progetto sociale utopistico e per i tempi piuttosto libertario. Composta da soli uomini liberi (Morton era fortemente contrario alla schavitù), la colonia prevedeva un certo grado d'integrazione e di collaborazione con i nativi, fatto questo che da solo giustificava i sospetti in ambito puritano. Ma soprattutto, la sua religiosità, pur se cristiana, accoglieva vari elementi paganeggianti e arcaizzanti, comprendenti il gioioso culto della natura e abitudini un po' libertine.
La pietra dello scandalo fu proprio l'erezione, nel 1628, di un Maypole intorno al quale, scrisse orripilato il reverendo Bradford nella sua storia della piantagione di Plymouth, i coloni si misero a danzare e bere per vari giorni, invitando le donne indiane ad unirsi a loro, e cantando odi alla madre di Cupido e altre divinità classiche, come in un moderno Baccanale (che la festa fosse anche un'occasione, per i coloni, di cercare moglie fra i nativi non è una cosa di cui venisse fatto troppo mistero, del resto). In realtà non erano alieni nemmeno motivi economici dall'ostilità dei Puritani, vista la prosperità della colonia di Merrymount che, grazie ai commerci di pelle con gli Indiani, minacciava il monopolio the colony of Plymouth.
However, the Puritans decided it was too, broke with their troops in the colony (meeting little resistance, perhaps because of the fumes of alcohol), cutting down the tree, and captured Thomas Morton, who was first put in the pillory, and then exiled to an island to starve to death (if it were not for the help offered, again, by the natives). As soon regained a bit 'of forces managed to flee to England. Back in America after a year, he was arrested again and riesiliato in England, barely surviving the treatment meted out during the trip. Morton in England, thanks to the support of King Charles I had great sympathy for the Puritans, became very famous as a champion of freedom against the colonial regimes and genocide of the Indians, and published the book New Canaan Inglese, where he narrated his adventures, the story of the colony of Merrymount, and principles which had inspired it.
The civil war turned back the favors of fortune against him, that he returned to America and imprisoned a third time, then ended his days in Maine. But the episode is the Maypole in all these years, remained as one of the deep scars in American history, a kind of myth, like the Salem witch trials, or the story of the princess Pocahontas. He was told by Nathaniel Hawthorne (The Maypole of Merrymount ) dal poeta William Carlos Williams ( In the American grain ), e svolge un certo ruolo anche nel libro di Philip Roth L'animale morente .
Così, tanto per ricordare che in America non ci sono stati solo Buffali Bill e generali Custer.
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