Category: Editorial

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Breaking News Editorial

What is Taira rock art, and what does it tell us about ancient desert culture in Chile?

What does the Taira rock art depict? Roughly 90% of the artworks focus on llamas. Some are pregnant, others are suckling their young; and all represent life. The other 10% of the engravings depict the diversity of the desert, with foxes, snakes, ostriches, partridges and dogs featuring in scenes. Human figures are few and far between, and always drawn small. Archaeologists have posited that it is as if painting them small represents just how important desert animals were to their culture and economy. [caption id="attachment_8867" align="aligncenter" width="500"]
View of drawings at the Taira Cave in Chile, located at a height of 3,150 meters, on July 21, 2018. The paintings left by shepherds almost three millennia ago on the walls of the rocks that flank the course of the Loa River. Credit: AFP Martin Bernetti.[/caption]

The role of llamas in ancient desert culture

Archaeologist and curator at Santiago’s Museum of Pre-Colombian Art, Jose Bereguer, says that Taira art is ‘a celebration of life’. First rediscovered by Swedish archaeologist Stif Ryden in 1944, the gallery has been dated to c.400-800 BCE. 16 paintings remain, sitting 3,000 metres above sea level on the banks of the Loa River that traverses the desert. [caption id="attachment_8866" align="aligncenter" width="670"] Archaeologist Jose Bereguer, above, curator at Santiago’s Museum of Pre-Columbian Art, describes the site as “the most complex in South America” because of its astronomical importance as well as the significance to local shepherds. Credit: AFP Martin Bernetti[/caption] Previous studies tell us that the rock art was created by shepherds, who were pleading with the ‘deities that governed the skies and the earth’ to allow their llama flocks to flourish. The Alero Taira drawings, which were created in a natural shelter 30 metres away from the Loa River, give us deeper insight into the role of llamas in ancient desert culture. More than just the lead source of wealth for people inhabiting the desert, the llama was a symbolic creature used in ritual ceremonies throughout the Andes for thousands of years. The ‘Wilancha’, for instance, sees llamas given as sacrifice to ‘Pacha Mama’ (Mother Earth). Volcanoes, like springs, were considered deities by the Atacama natives, while llamas were thought to have been born of springs. Berenguer says: “No one can understand the things done 18,000 years ago because the cultures that did them have disappeared. Here, it’s possible to delve into the meaning because we have ethnography and because there are still people living in practically the same way as in the past.”

Lasting significance for indigenous peoples

The Rumualda Galleguillos is one of roughly 15 indigenous peoples that still raises llamas in the Atacama Desert. Just like their forefathers, it’s a matter of tradition and a way of life. To the Rumualda Galleguillos, these pictures are a ‘testament’ to their ancestors who did not read or write.

UNESCO plans

Now, conservationists want UNESCO to officially recognise the Taira Valley rock art as a heritage site, which will allow them to develop sustainable tourism for the region – similar to Spain’s Cave of Altamira of France’s Lascaux caves.]]>

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Breaking News Editorial

How did Christianity spread?

Christian populations across the world. Credit: M Tracy Hunter[/caption]

70 Christian communities analysed

A new paper delves into research from 70 Austronesian Christian societies, where political hierarchies, social inequality and population size were all analysed. Austronesian societies shared a common ancestral language and are located across Southeast Asia, East Africa and the South Pacific. Despite some similarities, they have a great variation of societal make ups; with some forming small, egalitarian, family-based communities and others following the concept of a large, politically complex society. Hawaii is an example of the latter. The communities were converted in the 18th and 19th Centuries. Some took under a year to convert; the longest took 205 years. With such a range of social structures and reactions to conversion, these Austronesian societies were ideal for exploring theories on cultural change.

Win the chief and you win the tribe

The researchers have revealed that cultures with political leadership structures already in place were usually more easily converted to Christianity. They call it a ‘top down’ process of conversion: chiefs and elite leaders were the first to be converted by missionaries. Due to their existing influence over their people, the spread of Christian doctrine followed naturally. Jesus Christ Interestingly, social inequality was not related to conversion times. This debunks the theory that Christianity spread from the bottom up, by empowering the impoverished and promising an improved experience in the afterlife. There was a distinct correlation between small populations and the fast spread of Christianity, proving the importance of population size during processes of cultural change.

“A smaller populace is more open to innovation”

Lead author Dr Joseph Watts undertook the research at the University of Auckland’s School of Psychology and the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History in Germany. The research team also includes doctoral candidate Oliver Sheehan, Professor Joseph Bulbulia, and Professor Russell Gray. Dr Watts says: “While people often think of big societies as sources of innovation, our findings show that bigger societies can also be slow to pick up on new ideas… In a small population, it becomes more likely that beliefs will be transmitted relatively quickly, particularly if they are being driven by leaders and other powerful figures.”

Cultural change

Looking beyond Christianity and even religion, Dr Watts says this is indicative of cultural change at large. “If you look at our contemporary world, some things spread incredibly quickly while others take a very long time so here we provide evidence of why that might be.” University of Auckland Professor Quentin Atkinson adds: “This research can help us understand how both the size and the structure of populations influence the diffusion and adoption of new institutions, ideologies or technologies.”]]>

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Breaking News Editorial

Why Homo sapiens survived (and other hominins didn't)

Map of the potential distribution of archaic hominins, including H. erectus, H. floresiensis, H. neanderthalenesis, Denisovans and archaic African hominins, in the Old World at the time of the evolution and dispersal of H. sapiens between approximately 300 and 60 thousand years ago.
Credit: Roberts and Stewart. 2018. Defining the ‘generalist specialist’ niche for Pleistocene Homo sapiens. Nature Human Behaviour. [/caption]

Homo sapiens surviving extreme conditions

Archaeological and palaeoenvironmental datasets from the Middle and Late Pleistocene eras have come under critical review in the recent collaboration between the Max Planck Institute and the University of Michigan. Hominin movement and biological development within and beyond Africa proves our species’ ability to occupy diverse and ‘extreme’ settings around the world. This could well explain how Homo sapiens became the last surviving hominin on the planet. Previously, it was thought that early homo sapiens had stayed close to the coast or savannahs, not infiltrating extreme environments until around 15,000 years ago. But this new evidence has shown humans were in tougher climates far earlier, affecting the debate over what it means to be human – as a Homo sapien, at least.

What does it mean to be human?

“So much focus has gone into finding the next artwork, the next fossil, that in the search for a sort of ‘modernity’ as it is often put – other fundamental elements were neglected,” says Dr Patrick Roberts from the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History. Under this new theory, investigations into what separates Homo sapiens from our ancestors would shift away from attempts to uncover the earliest traces of art, language and technological complexity. They’d move, instead, towards understanding what makes our species ecologically unique.

New ideas of Neanderthal creativity

Recent research exposed the fact that our Neanderthal cousins created art before Homo sapiens, and were therefore capable of creating symbolism independently. Because of this, the lines between Homo sapiens and our ancestors are becoming increasingly blurred. You can read more about Neanderthal creativity and the recent discoveries that probe into it here. [caption id="attachment_8774" align="aligncenter" width="500"] A model an adult Neanderthal male head and shoulders on display in the Hall of Human Origins in the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History in Washington, D.C. Credit: Tim Evanson[/caption]

Ancestral ecologies

In contrast to other hominins, our species not only colonised environments as varied as deserts, tropical rainforests, high altitude settings and the palaeoarctic, but also flourished in these extreme conditions. Looking at our ancestral ecologies, we know that the genus Homo is highly diverse. Although often given the blanket name of ‘human,’ both academically and colloquially, using one term is certainly deceptive. There were a range of Homo species, all of which comfortably developed to reflect their surroundings. Homo erectus and Homo floresiensis (also known as ‘the Hobbit’) are thought to have occupied resource-scarce tropical rainforests from 1 million to 100,000 and 50,000 years ago respectively. The Neanderthals (Homo Neanderthalensis) occupied the high latitude areas of Eurasia between 250,000 and 40,000 years ago. To some extent, they backed themselves into an ecological corner, by only developing hunting skills in specialised environments.

What is the difference between ‘humans’ and Neanderthals?

While it might seem like there were gulfs between Homo sapiens and Homo Neanderthalensis, it would be remiss not to point out that the Neanderthals were our closest hominin relatives. In fact, Homo Neanderthalensis shares 99.7% of DNA with Homo sapiens. The history, appearance, intelligence and behavioural similarities and differences between the two are explored by Daryl Worthington on the New Historian – click here to read more.

Rapid Homo sapien colonisation

In contrast to the rest, Homo sapiens had spread to higher-elevation niches by around 80-50,000 years ago. By 45,000 years ago, the species was rapidly colonising both palaeoarctic and tropical rainforest conditions in Asia, Melanesia and the Americas. In order to decipher how our species demonstrated its colonising capacity elsewhere in places like northwest India and the high elevations of Tibet and the Andes, better-dated and higher resolution environmental datasets are required.

Homo sapiens: the ‘generalist specialist’

Ultimately, the new theory is that Homo sapiens were a ‘generalist specialist’. The ’generalist specialist’ is a new ecological niche: one that reflects Homo sapiens’ ability to occupy a huge diversity of environmental settings across the majority of the Earth’s continents by the Late Pleistocene. Dr Patrick Roberts has written: “A traditional ecological dichotomy exists between ‘generalists’, who can make use of a variety of different resources and inhabit a variety of environmental conditions, and ‘specialists’, who have a limited diet and narrow environmental tolerance.” He continues: “However, Homo sapiens furnish evidence for ‘specialist’ populations, such as mountain rainforest foragers or palaeoarctic mammoth hunters, existing within what is traditionally defined as a ‘generalist’ species.”

How did Homo sapiens become a ‘generalist specialist’?

Dr Brian Stewart, from the Department of Archaeology at the University of Michigan, thinks that this new niche was carved out through extensive cooperation between non-kin individuals. He writes: “Non-kin food sharing, long-distance exchange, and ritual relationships would have allowed populations to ‘reflexively’ adapt to local climatic and environmental fluctuations, and outcompete and replace other hominin species.” It comes down to empathy, as well as an ability to accumulate and pass on cultural knowledge.

How our species became the last surviving hominin on the planet

“As with other definitions of human origins, problems of preservation also make it difficult to pinpoint the origins of humans as an ecological pioneer. However, an ecological perspective on the origins and nature of our species potentially illuminates the unique path of Homo sapiens as it rapidly came to dominate the Earth’s diverse continents and environments”, says Roberts. He writes: “Understanding this ecological niche provides a framework for discussing what it means to be human and how our species became the last surviving hominin on the planet.”]]>

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Editorial

Meet Ching Shih: the prostitute-turned-pirate who banned rape in her 50,000-man fleet

Obscure beginnings Like so many politically influential women before (and after) her, Ching Shih went undocumented by history for a shockingly long time. In fact, her legacy was only first explored in depth in 1987, when Dian Murray published Pirates of the South China Coast, 1790-1810 – 143 years after the pirate lord died. Records call her Ching Shih, Madam Ching or Zheng Shi, all meaning ‘widow of Zheng Yi’; though she was born Shil Gang Xu, a girl from the Guangdong (Canton) province of south east China. At one point, it seems she worked as a prostitute on a floating brothel; though there is scant documentation of her life before 1801.  

A pirate’s life for Shih

At this point, she had a chance encounter with Zheng Yi, pirate commandeer of the Red Flag Fleet. Legend would have us believe that he pillaged the floating brothel and captured her; other stories suggest that he proposed, but that she refused unless he would sign over half his fleet. If this is true, it was the first significant negotiation of what turned out to be an astute strategic mind. Either way, they married; and Zheng Yi did indeed gift her an equal partnership in leadership of his 200 ships.  

The Red Flag Fleet grows

Zheng Yi hailed from a long lineage of pirates. His name commanded a great deal of respect; and the ever-strategic Ching Shih advised him to unite the various pirate fleets of the South China Sea under the banner of the Red Flag Fleet. In 1804, just three years after their marriage, accounts tell us that the fleet had grown to either 300 or 600 ships of 50-100 pirates each. At the very least, that would mean 15,000 pirates were answering to the couple. At the most, it would have been 60,000. At the height of its power, some records provide estimates of 1,800 ships. Later that year, the fleet issued a blockade of a Portuguese trading port in Macau. The Portuguese squadron quickly fell to the power of the Red Flag and even the British Royal Navy stepped back from the conflict.  

Navigating a power vacuum

Six years into her marriage, Ching Shih was widowed. As is typical for their story, there are multiple accounts of Zheng Yi’s cause of death: he is alleged to have died in the Tay Son Rebellion in Vietnam in 1807, but also to have died in a typhoon or simply fallen overboard. As his heir, some even point fingers at Ching Shih. However he might have died, Ching Shih had to act fast – lest her empire crumble. She formed an alliance with her adoptive son, Cheung Po Tsai. Together, their secured the loyalty of a selection of Zheng Yi’s relatives, all of whom were leaders in the fleet. The wife of Cheung Po Tsai’s lieutenant, Cai Qian Ma, was a Western weaponry expert who spoke fluent English. Within the fleet, she was notorious for her viciousness in battle, addiction to opiates, and sexual exploits. But as well as this, Cai Qian Ma was an expert negotiator. She was able to provide Ching Shih and Cheung Po Tsai with strong connections to Western weapon dealers – thereby supplying the fleet with British guns. [caption id="attachment_8849" align="aligncenter" width="450"] The merciless pirate lord, Ching Shih. Credit: thefemalesoldier.com[/caption]

Seeing red: the merciless Madam Ching

As Ching Shih secured her position, her code of conduct tightened. If a town sent a makeshift army out to fight the fleet, the Red Flag would sink the army and go ashore to kill all adult males they found. Often, resisters had their feet nailed to the decks before a beating. However, towns that did not resist and instead paid a tribute were rewarded with protection. Any pirate who tried to loot a town that had previously paid tribute to the Red Flag was beheaded and buried at sea. A violent death also befell any pirate who disobeyed an order, went ashore without permission, stole treasure or raped a female captive. Even if the sex was consensual, he’d be beheaded. However, pirates were permitted to marry attractive female captives, which would elevate the women to normal members of the fleet with rights and duties. Their husbands were bound to be faithful to their wives (upon pain of death, obviously). Ugly women, it is said, were released with no harm done. Interestingly, deserters weren’t killed. They’d simply have their ears cut off.  

Ching Shih’s financial policy

Any money seized in a raid would be accounted for and registered before it was distributed. Ching Shih worked out a system whereby the ship responsible for the capture would receive 20% of the loot. The remainder went into a large collective fund to be spread among the entire fleet. Failure to comply with her policy would result in severe public whippings or beheading.  

Why didn’t the Qing government stop Ching Shih sooner?

There had never been a great naval tradition in the Chinese empire. A small selection of the Qing fleet were copies of captured pirate ships, but most of its fleet was made up of converted merchant vessels. Even then, they were greatly outnumbered by the technologically superior Red Flag ships. After a vicious exchange that saw the death of notable pirates including Cai Qian Ma, as well as government officials, the Qing government and the Red Flag fleet engaged in a pitched naval battle in 1808. The pirates enjoyed a glorious victory, causing the Qing government to reach out to Portugal and Britain again. Despite concessions offered to the two external powers, they were unable to help.  

The tide turns against Ching Shih

In 1809, the tide turned. The imperial government continued to pour resources into their destruction and it became a question of attrition. The following year, the government issued amnesty for all pirates willing to lay down their arms. Cheung Po Tsai entered into a negotiation with the Qing forces, but was unable to make any headway. Ching Shih took the reins and walked, unarmed, into the governor’s office in Guangdong.  

Shih who dares, wins

Due to her conversational prowess, all but 400 of her pirates would be able to walk free without ceding any of their wealth – on the condition that they all kneel before the governor and pay homage. Ching Shih refused. She expertly steered the conversation to a resolution, whereby she and Cheung Po Tsai would kneel – but only if their legal relationship as mother and son could be dissolved and they were allowed to be married. The two were wed with the governor as witness, and as per tradition, they knelt to thank him. Ching Shih had negotiated freedom for all but 400 of her fleet, kept all of their riches, not had to pay homage outside of usual marriage ritual, was able to marry the man she loved – and both became members of the Chinese aristocracy ‘by Imperial decree’. [caption id="attachment_8850" align="aligncenter" width="440"] Ching Shih is immortalised in Disney’s Pirates of the Caribbean franchise as ‘Mistress Ching’.[/caption]

Ching Shih: the family woman

Cheung Po Tsai died at sea 9 years later, and his widow would go on to marry another former underling. They returned to the Guangdong province, where she opened a gambling house and brothel. Ching Shih lived to see her son and grandchildren grow up, and died in her bed, surrounded by her family, in 1844.]]>

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Editorial

Melanesian cargo cults and the unquenchable thirst of consumerism

Credit: https://godshotspot.wordpress.com/2016/05/02/the-cargo-cult-belief/[/caption]

Outsiders come to the islands

During the Second World War, the US Army’s ‘island hopping’ strategy saw its troops occupy small, relatively unguarded but well-located islands in the South Pacific. From there, they could embark upon their path to invade Japan. In avoiding major islands and focusing on island hopping, American soldiers came into contact with people who had, until then, had little or no contact with the outside world. The G.I.s came with aeroplanes, manufactured goods, modern medicine, canned food and guns: all of which were new concepts to the islanders.

Perceiving new technologies

Having been colonised by the British Empire, the people of Tanna, a small island in what is now Vanuatu, had already encountered Westerners. Mass-produced goods, however, were new to them. Sci Fi writer Arthur C. Clarke’s assertion that ‘any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic’ was proven true: it wasn’t long before cults worshipping the American goods appeared in islands around the Pacific. Most notably, they cropped up in the islands of Vanuatu, Fiji and New Guinea.

The John Frum cargo cult

These foreigners and their apparently miraculous supplies caused the people of Tanna to mix their existing beliefs (which included an anti-colonialist cult as well as Keraperamun, a volcano god) with their new experiences. The result came to be known as the John Frum cargo cult. To this day, the members of the cult worship a god named John Frum, who is usually depicted as an American solider in full uniform. A neighbouring cult from the same island also worships a god called Tom Navy. These were not considered to be ‘new’ gods, but instead extensions of their existing deities.

Absence leads to fetishism

As the war came to an end, the Americans went back home. The islanders, however, continued to worship their newly evolved deities in an effort to convince the gods to return and bring with them an abundance of cargo. To the people of Tanna, John Frum, Tom Navy and the other deities became messianic figures who would one day return in ships and aeroplanes laden with fascinating goods. A kind of fetishism emerged, as members of the John Frum cargo cult started to build symbolic runways out of bamboo. Adding to this, they erected wooden air control towers and designed life-size replicas of aeroplanes out of the wood and straw from the island. [caption id="attachment_8823" align="aligncenter" width="500"] Members of the John Frum cult with a replica of an aeroplane. Credit: http://purgingtalon.com/diabologue/wp-content/uploads/2009/01/cargocult1.jpg[/caption] In 1957, this fetishism progressed further as the newly formed ‘Tanna Army’ emerged. It is a non-violent organisation that emulates the public parades and military mannerisms of the American army. Its ‘soldiers’ dress in red, white and blue; and to this day, a parade occurs on the 15th of February every year.

So what are the Melanesian cargo cults?

The definition of ‘cargo cults’ has thrown up a multitude of problems. In 1948, anthropologist Lucy Mair wrote ‘the motive force of cargo cult is a feeling of hopeless envy of the European with his immensely higher material standards’. This is by no means an accepted analysis of the movements; but it presents an interesting juxtaposition of the cults with modern consumerism. Loosely, we can now say that they are organised social movements of people in pursuit of ‘cargo’ by means of ritual action. Whether the cults were nativistic, and thus concerned with reviving waning traditions, or iconoclastic, and thus focused on replacing local culture with Western substitutes, continues to be subject to debate. We can say with absolute certainty, though, that over the past 7 decades, these movements have played a pivotal role in developing the communities and cultures currently in play on the islands of Vanuatu. Where there are leaders and prophets of these cults, they are concerned with social harmony and order. They insist that in order for new cargo to arrive on the islands, certain social rules have to be followed. Moral renewal and collectivism over individualism are common themes: to love one another, to perform different kinds of sexual relationships, and the rejection of stealing, lying and cheating. No order, no cargo. A prominent writer and researcher on the cargo cults, Peter Worsley, has argued that cargo cults ‘weld previously hostile and separate groups together into a new unity’ and that ‘by projecting his message on to the supernatural plane’, a cargo cult luminary establishes that his leadership ‘transcends the narrow province of local gods and spirits associated with particular clans, tribes or villages’.

Cargo cults: a comforting reflection of the human condition

Despite having largely faded away, stories of cargo cults are constantly doing the rounds. A quick internet search of the term will throw up seemingly endless analyses and hypotheses; and if you are so inclined, you can purchase a bottle of John Frum alcohol to sip at your leisure. Many documentaries have been made about the faction that specifically worships Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh. So why the obsession? Simply put, they epitomise modern, consumerist desire. It is a desire that cannot be satiated. We have endless opportunities to shop for our own cargo, and yet the acquisition of goods never seems to satisfy us. When we get our cargo, it doesn’t quash the desire. It intensifies it. Unending desire and the constant strive to be better, have more, and achieve dominance is human nature – whether it’s on the shores of Tanna or in the heart of Manhattan. To Westerners, cargo cults seem to be as futile as they are relatable. It’s the modern condition, reflected in a place that feels like another world.]]>

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Editorial

How did 'dazzle painting' affect World War One military tactics?

German U-boats: A looming challenge As a Royal Navy volunteer, Norman Wilkinson was all too aware of the threat from Germany’s U-boats. The Kaiser had declared a no-holds-barred approach to submarine warfare on January 31st 1917 and, desperate to bring an end to such a costly and gruesome war, he ordered torpedoes on any ship entering the warzone. Unbridled horror ensued: on April 17th 1917, the HMHS Lanfranc, a hospital ship with wounded German soldiers, was torpedoed by Imperial U-boats. 40 died, including 18 Germans. Maritime camouflage became one of the big questions being passed around the British Royal Navy offices. On a ship’s journey, it moves through changing light and visibility. If a camouflage was to work, it would need to evolve every second. What worked on land simply wouldn’t work at sea. As imaginative ideas from artists and inventors arose, they were discussed, trialled and ultimately vetoed. Thomas Edison’s idea, to adorn a vessel with trees to make it look like an island, was actually put into practice on the S.S. Ockenfels. It made it to New York harbour before the winds got the better of the disguise.

Hidden in plain sight

Artist-turned-Royal-Navy-volunteer Wilkinson took a different approach. Rather than hide the boat, he’d distort it. Reflecting on his idea, he said: “Since it was impossible to paint a ship so that she could not be seen by a submarine, the extreme opposite was the answer – in other words, to paint her, not for low visibility, but in such a way as to break up her form and thus confuse a submarine officer as to the course on which she was heading.” A U-boat gunner would need to hit the target from between 300 and 1900 metres away. He had under 30 seconds to pick out the ship through his periscope before he would be spotted, thus revealing the submarine’s location. Terribly expensive and often slow, torpedoes were in limited supply: a typical U-boat would only carry 12. For the gunner, getting it right first time was imperative. The visibility of a British ship may have been its vulnerability; but the gunner’s weakness was his reliance on his own guesswork during that 30-second window. Spotting this, Wilkinson realised that ‘dazzling’ the gunner was the only way to compromise his estimation. In that split moment, he’d have to decide: should he risk shooting a precious torpedo when he couldn’t be certain where the ship was heading? With this theory in place, Wilkinson started to design. He used broad strokes of intense colours in geometric shapes to blur the vessel’s shape, size and direction. For example, a curve on the side of the ship could conjure up a phantom wave; making the ship seem smaller. Bold patterns on the stern or bow could create an optical illusion, turning the ship around in the eye of the gunner and his low-down viewpoint. [caption id="attachment_8786" align="aligncenter" width="500"] HMS London in May 1918. Credit: British Royal Navy[/caption] Consciously or not, Wilkinson’s newly militarised creativity reflected the overwhelming strides being made in contemporary art.

What was happening in the art world?

As an artist, Wilkinson would have been aware of the truly ground-breaking movements occurring in art during the First World War. Consumed by nihilism, many international artists had begun to express their anguish at a humanity hell-bent on tearing itself apart. In 1915, one artist, the Russian Kazimir Malevich, painted a simple black square on a canvas. Representing the end of everything, the omnipresence of death, and a bleak hopelessness, Black Square remains one of the most influential artworks of the 20th Century. Malevich’s Black Square was part of the artist’s Suprematist movement: a bold visual language of abstract geometric shapes and stark colours. The first ever Suprematist exhibition was held in 1915, showing 35 of Malevich’s seemingly random arrangements of shapes and colours. Despite the sparse conversation around the relationship between Suprematism and dazzle painting, the influence is clear. [caption id="attachment_8785" align="aligncenter" width="500"] Supremus 58 by Kazimir Malevich. Credit: Russian Museum[/caption] More frequently discussed is the impact Cubism may have had on dazzle painting. Picasso, a leading artist of the Cubist movement that first gained traction in 1907, claimed inspiration for the new military technique. Whether Cubism, Suprematism or something else, Wilkinson was functioning in an art world obsessed with randomised geometric shapes and a gripping use of colour. His subconscious would have been overflowing with an aesthetic intended to confuse.

Dazzle painting gets the royal approval

By late October, Wilkinson’s idea had come to fruition. King George V was sent to inspect the ‘Dazzle Section,’ a new division of the British merchant naval service. At first, the King was presented with a small model of a ship. Rather than the classic battleship grey, it had been painted with a joyous palette of contrasting colours. Looking through a periscope about 10 feet from the tiny model, he was asked to guess the ship’s course. As an ex-Naval officer, he knew what he was doing. “South by west,” he answered. Had he been a gunner, he’d have wasted one of 12 precious torpedoes on that guess. The dazzle-painted ship had actually been heading east by southeast. The king was first confounded, and then convinced.

Dazzle artists at work

The Royal Academy of Arts offered four unused studios as dazzle-painting headquarters. Wilkinson’s team of 19 was made up of 5 artists, 3 model makers and 11 female art students who hand-painted the technical plans. To become predictable was to become defunct; so each design was unique and tailored to individual ships. Within a year, 2,300 British ships were painted with dazzle. By the end of the war, that number would grow to 4,000. [caption id="attachment_8787" align="aligncenter" width="500"] A Dazzled Merchantman by Charles Pears. A Merchant vessel at sea during choppy weather conditions. The ship is painted in a dazzle camouflage scheme, which incoporates shades of blue, pale green, mauve and also black and white. Credit: Imperial War Museum[/caption]

Did dazzle painting work?

Whether or not dazzle painting worked is up for debate. In the first three months of 1918, 72% of dazzled British ships that were attacked were sunk or damaged. In the second quarter, though, this dropped to 60%; compared to the 68% of non-dazzled ships. Dazzled ships in America fared better: of 1,256, only 18 were sunk. The conversation continues to this day. In 2011, the University of Bristol released research concluding that dazzle painting can certainly disrupt a person’s perception of the speed of a moving target. In truth, though, it didn’t matter whether dazzle painting worked. Insurance companies thought it did, so they lowered the premiums on painted boats. Morale on dazzled ships was higher, making deployment of the strategy a no-brainer. Despite being met with general derision in the press, dazzle ended up having a distinct effect on the identity of wartime Britons. Its distinctive visuals appeared on fashion items, cars and even high street windows. People attended ‘dazzle balls,’ where they would dress up in dazzle-inspired costumes and raise money for the war effort. Its military effect may be debatable but one thing is certain: a creative injection into a flailing war can have a morale boost at sea and at home.]]>

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Editorial

The Irish Fright of 1688: racism, rumours and the reign of fake news

here). Often, outbreaks occur in small, tight-knit groups, due to the intensity of collective thinking. But if common thought is scaled up, hysteria can still occur. The Irish Fright of 1688 is a solemn reminder that when a prejudiced ideal is held by an entire country, fear can hypnotise the human mind into insanity. All it needs is a catalyst: political instability. [caption id="attachment_8768" align="aligncenter" width="600"] Anti-Irish propaganda continued for centuries: this cartoon is from ”Punch” magazine, published in December 1867. Credit: Wikimedia Commons[/caption]

The 17th Century Englishman’s understanding of the Irish

The trope of the ‘wild Irishman’ had been a firm narrative of the British Empire for centuries. Negative stereotypes appear as far back as 1190, with the Norman chronicler Giraldus Cambrensis justifying the Norman invasion of Ireland. He penned Topographia Hibernica, or Topography of Ireland, which played a lasting role in shaping English colonial attitudes towards the Irish. More than just poor and uncultured, the Irish were painted as unholy. In The Anglo-Irish Experience, 1680-1730: Religion, Identity and Patriotism, historian DW Hayton says: “the native Irish were called ‘a brutal race that Israel’s God ne’er knew’”. Conditioned by a racist misconception of the Irishman, the English people had a well-established fear. With political instability nibbling at their heels, they were primed for acts of mob mentality.

Political instability rocks England

When King James II took the throne after the death of the ‘Merry Monarch’ Charles II, his policies of religious tolerance were met with opposition from the political powers. Troubled by the new King’s Catholicism and his close ties with France, they were increasingly outspoken about the king’s unsuitability for the throne. Prior to the birth of James II’s son on 10th June 1688, the heir presumptive had been his 26-year-old daughter Mary, a Protestant married to William of Orange.  This change in the line of succession meant that the establishment of a Roman Catholic dynasty seemed ever more likely. In private, Tories and Whigs worked together to bring William of Orange to England to perhaps quell any danger of rising Catholic influence.

Irish soldiers come to Portsmouth

On his ascension to the throne, James had inherited an army in Ireland. It was made up of 8,238 men; majority Protestant. Over the next three years, the army would welcome some Catholic soldiers and grow to have almost 9,000 men. Due to the looming threat of an expected invasion by William of Orange, the English Army needed support from Irish troops. When 2,820 men were sent to Portsmouth in September 1688, the townspeople were suspicious. Fear began to spread. A few weeks after the Irish soldiers arrived, a newspaper reported that people were making “great complaints of the rude Irish who have caused many families to leave that place, having committed many robberies.” Rather than robberies, the true fear of the local people was that Irish or Catholic forces were in a fine position to launch an anti-Protestant uprising. In fact, just a few years earlier, the House of Lords had announced that there was a “horrid and treasonable Plot and Conspiracy, contrived and carried on by those of the Popish Religion in [Ireland], for massacring the English, and subverting the Protestant Religion, and the ancient established Government of that Kingdom.” As the Glorious Revolution to overthrow James II took hold, the Irish troops were ordered to go north to fight in the Battle of Reading on 9th December 1688. After a sorry defeat, some Irish troops were sent back to Portsmouth; some to Uxbridge, just west of London.

The Irish Fright grips England

One account from 1746 quotes Bishop Gilbert Burnet: “Country Fellows, arriving about Midnight at Westminster caused a sudden Uproar by Reporting that the Irish, in desperate Rage, were advancing to London, and putting all before them to Fire and Sword.” Other news writers passed similar comment, immediately igniting enough panic for 100,000 men to mobilise. Contemporary accounts tell us that men were discharging firearms and beating drums rapidly. Women were able to contribute more significantly to the din by beating pots and pans. False reports flew about the country. Allegedly, Uxbridge had been ransacked by the Irish. The House of Lords even had an emergency meeting at 3am in Whitehall to dissect the situation. Rather than subsiding due to lack of evidence, the Irish Fright snowballed. The following day, hysterical reports that the Irish were attacking Kent and Norfolk caused people to mobilise. People living in Kingston-upon-Thames started to cut down trees to barricade themselves against the ‘wild Irishman’. Madness swept northwards. By 15th December, Yorkshire succumbed to the Fright; believing that both the Lancastrians and the Irish were coming to burn their towns to the ground. Three days later, the Fright reached remote parts of England and Wales. On 18th December, a local mob shot and killed a supposed Irishman. As it turned out, he was an exciseman; someone they might have been happy to see the back of anyway. Significantly, the reports feeding from one town to the next talked about “8 or 9,000 Bloody Irish,” despite only 2,820 men having been stationed in Portsmouth originally. Hayton comments: “This panic was the climax to a decade of Whig propaganda, seeking to terrify the English public with the traditional nightmare of bloodthirsty Irish papists. That the programme worked so well proved the persistence in England of the popular reputation of the Irishman as a cruel savage, though it did require a political crisis to realise its full potential.”

The fallout of the Fright

Contemporary accounts tell us that at least 19 counties were swept up into the Irish Fright. All displayed a similar narrative: an onslaught of bloodthirsty Irishmen were said to have massacred the inhabitants of towns only around a day’s journey away. The panic burned brightly for a day or two before subsiding. Although the exciseman was the only casualty, innocent Catholics were targeted. A diarist noted: “[Protestant mobs] made most miserable of all the papists’ [Catholics’] houses they came near; for, under pretence of seeking for arms, they did many thousands of pounds worth of hurt, cutting down rich hangings, breaking through walls, pulling in pieces of excellent ceilings … then they secured all the papists they could get, intending to carry them all away to prison.” [caption id="attachment_8769" align="aligncenter" width="600"] Anti-Irish propaganda from ”Punch” magazine, published in May 1882. Credit: Wikimedia Commons[/caption] For all of its insanity, the Irish Fright was not a standalone, freak occurrence. Historians agree that it bore a striking resemblance to the French Great Fear of 1789, which followed the fall of the Bastille. In both uprisings, false rumours of massacres caused men and women to take up arms. Concerns about a collapsing regime, coupled with the cold realisation that no central authority could protect the people, resulted in a volatile civilian situation. With its echoes throughout history pointing towards a continuing relevance, the Irish Fright is a startling reminder of the power of a racist narrative in times of political instability.]]>

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Editorial

“The strangest leader west of North Korea”: the personality cult of Turkmenbashi

Turkmenbashi rises to power Turkmenistan had operated under Russian control for more than a quarter of a century when it became part of the Soviet Union in 1924; so when Communism fell, the country found itself independent for the first time in 100 years. When it came to appointing a new leader, Saparmurat Niyazov was the obvious choice. Having operated as the Communist Party’s puppet governor since 1985, he was already considered by many to be the country’s ruler. Still, an election took place. On 21st June 1992, the Turkmenistani presidential election saw Niyazov chosen as the country’s first elected president. He was the sole candidate.

A post-Soviet cultural vacuum

One of his first acts was to declare himself Türkmenbaşy, or Turkmenbashi. Shortly afterwards, a plebiscite extended his term to 2002. Allegedly, it was to enable him to oversee a decade-long development plan. The proposal achieved a 99.9% approval rate in the vote. However, before the term was complete, Parliament declared him ‘President for Life’. It was no coincidence that parliamentary elections had been held just a few weeks earlier, in which the president had chosen all the candidates.

Extreme mismanagement of the economy

The gas-rich state allowed Turkmenbashi to indulge himself at the expense of a downtrodden population. His National Democratic Party managed the economy disastrously; meaning that 35% of the population lived below the poverty line. The average income, in fact, was less than £30 a month. Housing and fuel were cheap; but healthcare and education were sparse. This didn’t stop him from commissioning Central Asia’s largest mosque, the Spirit of Turkmenbashi, at a reported cost of £60m. On top of the hardships of widespread poverty, the ubiquitous image of the leader became inescapable. And yet, criticising the money lavished on this and other presidential projects – such as eccentric horse race tracks – would be committing the offence of ‘parricide’. In the national criminal code, this was defined as ‘questioning the policy of the president’.

Bizarre policies

Daily life in Turkmenistan became increasingly eccentric. He declared July 10th a public holiday to honour melons. April 27th was Horse Day. As time went on, allegedly drug-fuelled paranoia came to define the President-for-Life’s policies. The arts fell victim to Turkmenbashi’s whims: ballet, circuses and opera were all banned.

An ego goes berserk

Many of Turkmenistan’s new laws reflected an uncontrollable ego. When he gave up smoking in 1997, so too did his populace (in public places, at least). Doctors took an oath not to Hippocrates, but to Turkmenbashi. The month of January was renamed Turkmenbashi; and a 250 ft gold statue of Turkmenbashi constantly rotated to face the sun. Streets, cities schools, and even the airport were all renamed Turkmenbashi, making the country increasingly difficult to navigate. When a meteorite landed in Turkmenistan in 1998, its given name surprised no one. [caption id="attachment_8752" align="aligncenter" width="450"] Credit: Martijn Munneke via Wikimedia Commons[/caption]

Turkmenbashi, the author

And yet, for all of his self-aggrandising moves, there are few that compete with his book. Like Chairman Mao and Colonel Gaddafi before him, Turkmenbashi penned a philosophical treatise known as Ruhnama, which is Persian for ‘Book of the Soul’. To celebrate finishing it in September 2001, he renamed the month ‘Ruhnama’. A combination of poetry, moral guidelines and revisionist history, it became compulsory reading in all schools. Indeed, an entire day of the schoolchild’s week was spent on Ruhnama. Memorisation was required to graduate, get a state job or receive a driver’s license. Its effect was not limited to the mortal lives of the people. The book lay next to the Quran in mosques, and it was to be kissed by all worshippers on entering the building. Shortly before his death, Turkmenbashi even suggested that reading the Ruhnama was a requirement for entry into heaven. Without much competition (all Soviet-era books were banned), Turkmenbashi awarded himself the Magtymguly International Prize, an accolade honouring the best pro-Turkmen poetry.

Repressing opposition politics

The edict of Ruhnama was so strictly enforced that when former chief mullah Nasurallah Ibadullah resisted, he was punished with a 23-year prison sentence. But of course, extreme punishments became characteristic of Turkmenbashi’s rule. Some were welcomed by certain pockets of society: he would execute Turkmen gangsters and display their dead bodies on national television. Other punishments were more political. In 2002, the country’s former foreign minister, Boris Shikmuradov, wrote an open letter accusing Turkmenbashi of staging an attack on his car so that he could enforce harsh laws. He wrote: “I intend to hand myself in to the National Security Ministry in the hope my arrest will stop the massive arrests and torture of innocent people… I write this while I am free. I can only assume what will happen to me in the near future… We have several times witnessed how people were physically and psychologically tortured.” Shikmuradov was arrested in December that year, confessed to his crimes on national television and was jailed for life. After that, the number of political prisoners in the country rocketed to an estimated 20,000. Many were forced to watch as their relatives were beaten. [caption id="attachment_8753" align="aligncenter" width="334"] Turkmenbashi walks with Vladimir Putin in 2000. Credit: kremlin.ru via Wikimedia Commons[/caption]

The strangest leader west of Pyongyang?

On 21 December 2006, Turkmenbashi died of a heart attack. Since then, his successor has been busy dismantling a personality cult that permeated every aspect of Turkmenistan’s society. As political author Daniel Kalder writes, “Soon Niyazov will be reduced to a footnote of history, a joke to all except the unfortunate five million Turkmens obliged to live under his rule.”]]>

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Editorial

Colour symbolism in Viking culture: what we know so far

The pigments of pillage Regarding the Vikings, research has been relatively sparse. We know they used bold colours to be seen from a distance, and they would produce these colour pigments from numerous sources, including ochre and charcoal. These would have been blended together along with a binding agent (such as milk products, egg, or linseed oil), to allow the colour to adhere to the material. Now, after the publication of a new chemical analysis on Viking objects, we know more about the Viking use of colour than ever before. [caption id="attachment_8744" align="aligncenter" width="500"] En vikingehøvdings højsætning (“The burial of a Viking jarl”), Carl Schmidt, 1888. Credit: Wikimedia Commons[/caption]

No sailing under false colours

With the help of specialist teams of chemists, archaeologists have been able to study colour used in the Viking Age. Chemical analyses of pigments from objects have allowed them to stipulate what could have been the Vikings’ symbolic colour palette. Co-author of the paper and conservator from the National Museum of Denmark, Line Bregnhøi, says that the Viking Age was probably more visually vibrant that we may have first assumed. She says: “When we’ve previously excavated finds from the Viking Age among others, we weren’t so interested in colours. Partly because we didn’t have the techniques to study pigments, but also because we assumed that the colours appeared more or less as they were found.” [caption id="attachment_8743" align="aligncenter" width="440"] The study includes a selection of colours that are likely to have been used by the Vikings. Credit: National Museum of Denmark / Roberto Fortuna[/caption]

Authenticity first

However, she has now worked with colleague Lars Holten, director of the Centre for Historical and Archaeological Research and Communication, to create the colour palette used in the reconstructed version of The Royal Hall, Denmark’s largest Viking building. In the reconstruction, which sits at the Centre for Historical and Archaeological Research and Communication in Denmark, the team has worked with the same type of paint that would have been used by those in the upper echelons of Viking society. The Royal Hall has been decorated with linseed oil paint, as it would have been the most durable binding agent available to Viking painters. For authenticity’s sake, the hall has not been entirely covered in paint, as sheer expense means that this would have been unlikely.  

A study in scarlet

As has been true throughout the history of paint, some colours were rarer and thus more expensive than others. Imbued with symbolism, they indicated a separate social standing. Lars Holten comments: “We know that the symbolism of colour is enormously important in all cultures. Red, white, and black are some of the most common and have similar symbolism among numerous cultures.” Henriette Syrach Lyngstrøm, an archaeologist from the University of Copenhagen’s Saxo Institute, says: “it’s an important study because it presents the chemical analyses that form the basis for the very subjective ideas that archaeologist have on Viking Age colour.” Although not involved in the new study herself, she says it’s one of the most essential reports we have on the Viking’s use of colour. She continues: “On the rare occasion that we excavate a piece of painted wood, the colour looks nothing like the original. Here, chemists and conservators analyse the pigments and help us to further our interpretations.”]]>

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Editorial

Nazi Germany and its curious treatment of lesbians

Memorial “to the gay and lesbian victims of National Socialism” in Cologne: The inscription on the left side of the monument (to the viewer’s right from the angle depicted) reads “Totgeschlagen – Totgeschwiegen” (“Struck Dead – Hushed Up”). Credit: Jörg Lenk via Wikimedia Commons[/caption]

Female oppression as a cause for the tolerance of lesbians?

Some have argued that lesbians weren’t as harshly persecuted as gay men, simply because female sexuality wasn’t taken seriously. Others have said that the regime’s policy of pronatalism, which encouraged reproduction and the nuclear family, didn’t face as much of a threat from lesbians as it did gay men. Further still, the Nazis believed women were inferior to men and thus dependent on them. Under this theory, a lesbian would still rely on the men in her community, and is hardly a threat to male dominance. The Nazis also dismissed lesbianism as they believed lesbians could still occupy a German woman’s primary role: to mother as many German babies as possible. Sexuality, they believed, did not interfere with a woman serving the Nazi state as a wife and mother. There is another prominent narrative, which has gained attention over the past year. Samuel Clowes Huneke from Stanford University posits that Nazi officials didn’t see lesbians as a strong political threat, due to the fact that women were barred from politics and public life. “In light of both the fearsome persecution of homosexual men and scholarship that places it in the context of National Socialist pronatalism, the regime’s seeming lack of interest in female homosexuality is startling, for in other respects the government placed considerable burdens on women,” says Huneke.  

Four couples betrayed

Specialising in homosexuality in the Third Reich, Huneke has examined 4 cases of investigation by the Kriminalpolizei, or the German criminal police. Discovered at the Landesarchiv Berlin in 2015, the files shed light on the investigation of 8 women. They show us signed statements from witnesses and the women themselves. In all 4 of the cases, the women were accused by a person they knew and trusted: whether that was a neighbour, co-worker or even a parent. “That these eight women were denounced to the Berlin criminal police in the early 1940s is striking on its own, given the archival silence when it comes to female homosexuality,” Huneke says. Astonishingly, there is no evidence that any of the 8 women were punished as a result. All 4 cases tell us that the women could not be prosecuted for same-sex relations under the criminal code, in the way that gay men would have been. Huneke was fascinated: “To scholars accustomed to seeing in the Nazi state a jungle of overlapping jurisdictions, personal initiative and law based solely on the Führer’s wish, this is a curious portrait of the Nazi justice system, one marked by an unexpected concern for the strict interpretation of statute.” One case stands out as particularly peculiar. Margot Liu née Holzmann was a Jewish lesbian living in Berlin. In 1941, she married a male Chinese waiter and received Chinese citizenship, which protected her from being deported to a concentration camp. However, when her husband discovered she was in a lesbian relationship, he filed for divorce and reported her to the police. Curiously, the police did not intervene. Moreover, they insisted, in multiple documents, that she was protected because of her Chinese citizenship – despite being a German Jewish lesbian. At this point, it is worth noting that in all 4 of these cases, including Margot Holzmann, we are looking at the judgment of one single officer. That particular officer may have just been less inclined to pursue homophobic policy than other officers. However, the rules were very closely followed, which has led some historians to consider this to be an indication of relative tolerance for lesbians.  

“Open – but not enviable – lives”

The files show that the 8 women had led relatively open – though certainly not enviable – lives as lesbians before being denounced to the authorities. Ordinary German citizens would have been aware of their female friends, co-workers and acquaintances in same-sex relationships, but were less likely to report them to the police. A patronising understanding of female sexuality comes into play: “Gender is perhaps why lesbians weren’t persecuted in the same ways… [but] these files throw into sharper relief the duplicity of tolerance that has characterised societies’ views of female sexuality for centuries,” says Huneke. By no means was life as a lesbian in Nazi Germany easy, though. In 1928, for example, the police banned popular lesbian journals such as Die Freundin (Girlfriend) based on the Protection of Youth from Obscene Publications Act.   [caption id="attachment_8709" align="aligncenter" width="561"] Credit: Bund für Menschenrecht/Wikimedia Commons[/caption] Many conservatives are documented as demanding the enactment of criminal statutes against lesbian sexual acts. Pamphlets with messages against homosexuals, feminists, Republicans and Jews were everywhere, usually bringing with them the ideas of a conspiracy from marginalised peoples to destroy Germany. These pamphlets denounced the movement for women’s rights, saying that feminism was nothing more than a seduction into lesbianism. Culturally, it seems there was a war against lesbians; and yet there appears to be at least some level of tolerance when it came to prosecution.  

Tolerance and the nature of dictatorships

The case of lesbian life in Nazi Germany is considered to demonstrate that dictatorships often rely not purely on overt oppression; but on limited tolerance of certain groups. Huneke calls it the ‘divide-and-conquer approach’. “One of the most important takeaways from this research, to my mind, is to break the popular idea that authoritarian governments maintain their power only through repression.” Moreover, Huneke says: “the experiences of lesbians in Nazi Germany can help shed light not only on how gender operates in multivalent ways, but also the complex negotiation of both repression and toleration on which authoritarian regimes depend.”]]>