Friday, February 02, 2018

God, Groundhog Day & Government



The roots of Groundhog Day
go back to the Bible and perhaps even earlier.

The Romans considered February [the name comes from februa, to purify] as "a time of cleansing in preparation for a fresh start" because the the month comes halfway between December 21, the first day of winter in the Northern Hemisphere, and March 21 (the Spring or Vernal Equinox).

The connection to the Bible is that in Hebrew tradition mothers were required to purify their children in the temple 40 days after giving birth.

Mary, mother of Jesus, purified Jesus on Feb. 2nd, 40 days after Jesus's birth, establishing the tradition of the "Feast of the Presentation."

The early Christians, working off of an earlier Roman tradition, associated February 2nd with the lighting of candles (i.e. "the bringing of new light") and established "Candlemas" as a Christian tradition. In the ancient Pagan world, Groundhog Day was known as Imbolc.

A Candlemas rhyme was developed to mark the occasion of the turning of the seasons, and the rhyme suggested that Candlemas itself was a kind of weather predictor:

Somewhere along the way the weather-predictive power of Candlemas came to be associated with badgers. No one is quite sure why, but it is probably due to pre-Christian Germanic tradition that associated the romantic roamings of this large weasel with the start of a slowly lengthening day.

In any case, when German and Dutch immigrants came to Eastern North America there were no badgers to be found, and so they transposed their badger tradition to the groundhog, which also burrowed in the ground and which also came out of hibernation at approximately the same period of time.

In 1887, Clymer H. Freas, city editor of the Punxsutawney Spirit newspaper in Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania came up with the idea of a "Punxsutawney Groundhog Club" as a kind of boosterism for his ill-begotten city (the name Punxsutawney means "place of sand flies").

It was a crazy idea, but perseverence paid off. Over the course of several years, story and ritual were heaped up, and the Punxsutawney Groundhog Club stoked the flames of a myth, claiming that "Punxsutawney Phil" was a legendary groundhog that never died and could predict the weather for six weeks in advance. If Punxsutawny Phil can see his shadow, so the legend goes, then six weeks of winter are supposedly at hand. Of course, that's not too big a leap: six weeks is approximately the time of the Spring Equinox (March 20th.)

In December of 2004, the 100-year-old civic boosterism of Clymer H. Freas came to its latest fruition when Congressman John Peterson (R-Pa.) managed to snake $100,000 in Federal funding out of Congress for a "Punxsutawney Weather Discovery Center".

The "grand opening" of the Punxsutawney Weather Discovery Center was Groundhog Day, 2006, but (you will be relieved to hear) it already has a home on the Web. Just >> Click here.
.
"If Candlemas be fair and bright,
Winter has another flight.
If Candlemas brings clouds and rain,
Winter will not come again."
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6 comments:

Rocambole said...

One of my distant PA Dutch relatives wrote the definitive book on Groundhog Day. You can buy it at Amazon here:

http://www.amazon.com/Groundhog-Day-Don-Yoder/dp/0811700291/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1233587559&sr=1-3

Don is 86 and the very definition of a gentleman. He is fluent in several languages and still flies to Germany alone to visit libraries and read obscure manuscripts.

However, we can't get him to use a computer. When his typewriter had to go to the shop three years ago and the repairman was so behind that he couldn't say when it would be returned, I ended up digging out the manual typewriter my mother used in college, then I used in high school and college (went to grad school at Drexel during the Mac revolution and never looked back! :-)) and running it down for Don so he could type up a paper for some PA Dutch journal. I haven't bothered to ask for it back as Don keeps using it and I certainly wouldn't.

Buy Don's book -- he's a wonderful person, writes beautifully and you'll learn a lot! :-D

Dorene

JL said...

PeTA wants to put Phil on unemployment, replacing him with a robot. See http://www.csmonitor.com/Innovation/Horizons/2010/0201/Groundhog-Day-PETA-wants-to-replace-Punxsutawney-Phil-with-a-robot

As Gina says, why is anybody listening to PeTA?

Anonymous said...

Except that Jesus wasn't born in December. It was just a convenient date for the Church to transition over pagan rites during Saturnalia.

PBurns said...

One has to take the great leap that Jesus was born at all. If he was, it would most likely have been in April or so, based on the fact that there were shepherds about. But who knows? A book full of magic is not likely to hold true on too much. Think Harry Potter, and you are closer than you would imagine.

As for Saturnalia, see >> http://terriermandotcom.blogspot.com/2016/12/the-war-on-saturnalia.html

Anonymous said...

How does the presence of shepherds imply it was spring?

PBurns said...

In early Spring, shepherds will stay with their flocks in the fields to protect newborn and young lambs from predators who normally come to prey at night, and also to help any ewe that is having a troubled birth.

In Luke we find: "And in that region there were shepherds out in the field, keeping watch over their flock by night."

During the rest of the year, sheep can generally take care of themselves.