Extraordinary Origins of Everyday Things

by Charles Panati

  Quite simply, to count and pray simultaneously, even with the aid of the fingers, is practically impossible; assistance was required. And the rosary was the perfect memory aid. It was referred to in Sanskrit as the “remembrancer,” and in European languages as the calculi and the numeralia.

  For many peoples, simple memory aids sufficed: strings of fruit pits, dried berries, bones, knotted cords. Priests of the Greek Church tallied their numerous genuflections and signs of the cross with cords of a hundred knots. Wealthy people strung together precious stones, trinkets of glass, and nuggets of gold.

  Europeans even referred to a knot, berry, or pit as a prayer; our word “prayer” comes from the Anglo-Saxon for “bead,” bede, which in turn derived from biddan,“to ask.”

  In the eleventh century, the Anglo-Saxon gentlewoman Lady Godiva, famous for her tax-protesting nude ride through Coventry, England, bequeathed to a monastery “a circlet of gems which she had threaded on a string, in order that by fingering them one by one, as she successively recited her prayers, she might not fall short of the exact number.”

  It was in the following century that the rosary was popularized in the Catholic Church by the Spanish Saint Dominic, founder of the Friars Preachers, which evolved into the Dominican order of priests. In an apparition, the Virgin Mary asked him to preach the rosary “as a spiritual remedy against heresy and sin.”

  Etymologists offer two possible origins for the word “rosary” itself. Many early rosaries had beads carved of rosewood and were known as wreaths of roses. An alternate theory holds that the linguistic origin is found in the French for “bead,” rosaire. In many Mediterranean countries, rosaries were simply called “the beads.”

  Halo: Antiquity, Europe and Asia

  The luminous circle of light used for centuries by artists to crown the heads of religious figures was originally not a Christian symbol but a pagan one—and was itself the origin of the royal crown.

  Early writings and drawings are replete with references to nimbuses of light surrunding the heads of deities. In ancient Hindu, Indian, Greek, and Roman art, gods emit a celestial radiance about the head. Early kings, to emphasize their special relationship to a god, and the divine authority thus invested in them, adopted a crown of feathers, gems, or gold. Roman emperors, convinced of their divinity, seldom appeared in public without a symbolic orb. And the crown of thorns thrust upon Christ’s head was intended as a public mockery of his heavenly kingship.

  Through extensive use over time, the circle of light lost its association with pagan gods and became a valid ecclesiastical symbol in its own right for many faiths—with one notable exception. Fathers of the early Catholic Church, perspicacious of the halo’s pagan roots, deliberately discouraged artists and writers from depiction or mention of celestial auras. (Illustrated manuscripts from the Middle Ages reveal the religious admonitions to have been less than one hundred percent effective.)

  Historians trace the Church’s gradual adoption of the halo, around the seventh century, to a prosaic, utilitarian function it served: as a kind of umbrella to protect outdoor religious statuary from precipitation, erosion, and the unsightly droppings of birds. Such haloes were large circular plates of wood or brass.

  During these centuries, the halo was known by a variety of names—except “halo.”

  Etymologists trace the origin of the word to neither its pagan roots nor Christian recognition. Millennia before Christ, farmers threshed grain by heaping the sheaves over hard terrain and driving a team of oxen round and round over them. The circuits created a circular track, which the Greeks called a halos, literally “circular threshing floor.” In the sixteenth century, when astronomers reinterpreted the word, applying it to the auras of refracted sunlight around celestial bodies, theologians appropriated it to describe the crown surrounding a saint’s head.

  Thus, as one modern religious historian observes, “The halo combines traditions of Greek farming, the Roman deification of megalomaniac rulers, medieval astronomy and an early protective measure against dirt and inclement weather.”

  Amen: 2500 B.C., Egypt

  One of the most familiar and frequently used of all religious words, “amen” appears in both early Christian and Moslem writings. The word makes thirteen appearances in the Hebrew Bible; 119 in the New Testament.

  To the Hebrews, the word meant “so it is” —expressing assent or agreement, and also signifying truth. Thus, a Hebrew scholar terminating a speech or sermon with “amen” assured his audience that his statements were trustworthy and reliable.

  The word originated in Egypt, around 2500 B.C. To the Egyptians, Amun meant “the hidden one” and was the name of their highest deity, at one time worshiped throughout the Middle East. As later cultures invoked the god Jupiter with the exclamation “By Jove!” the Egyptians called on their deity: “By Amun!” It was the Hebrews who adopted the word, gave it a new meaning, and passed it on to the Christians.

  The origins of other common religious words:

  Pew. To draw an analogy with a 1960s civil rights issue, a pew was originally the church’s equivalent of the front of the bus.

  Our designation of the long seats found in many churches comes from the French puie, meaning “raised place” or “balcony.” The French word, in turn, originated from the Latin podium, an amphitheater’s balcony reserved for prominent families and royalty.

  In colonial America, the European tradition was continued. Certain church seats were cordoned off so Christian families of stature could appreciate sermons on the equality of mankind without having to mix with families of lesser stature. These segregated rows were called “pews.” As the ropes gradually yielded to a doctrine of democracy, the term “pew” came to apply to all rows in a church.

  Reverend. The word has been associated with clergymen since the seventeenth century in England. The designation, from the Latin reverendus, meaning “worthy of respect,” was given by British townspeople to their local minister as a gesture of respect for his spiritual leadership.

  Pastor. From the Latin for “shepherd,” since a minister traditionally has been viewed as the shepherd of his flock. Christ often referred to himself as the “Good Shepherd,” willing to lay down his life for his sheep.

  Parson. In colonial America, farmers had little time for education. If they needed certain book information, they turned to the one person in the region esteemed for his formal learning: the minister. Reverently, he was referred to as “the town person,” which when spoken with a heavy New England accent became “the town parson.”

  Evangelist. The term comes from the Greek evangelion, meaning “welcome message,” for the traveling preacher was regarded as God’s messenger, the bearer of good news.

  The four writers of the Gospels—Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John—were known as the Four Evangelists. Later, the term was applied to the religious circuit riders who traveled on horseback to their assigned churches in the western frontier of the United States during the 1890s.

  Monsignor, The term derives from monseigneur, French for “my lord.”

  Monk. From the Latin monachus, meaning “one who lives alone.” Many of the oldest historical records, sacred and secular, are writings of monks, who were among the relatively few learned people of the Dark Ages.

  Abbot. When Christ prayed to Almighty God, he referred to him as “abba,” which comes from the Hebrew Ab, meaning “Father.” St. Paul, emphasizing the theme, urged Christians to employ the term when addressing the Lord. Gradually, the head of a monastery was addressed as “Abbot,” to signify that he was the monks’ spiritual father.

  Nun. In Sanskrit, nana meant “mother”; in Latin, nonna was “child’s nurse”; in Greek, nanna was “aunt”; and the Coptic word nane meant “good.” All precursors of “nun,” they say much about the vocation itself. The word for the nun’s traditional garb, the “habit,” is derived from the Latin habitus, meaning “appearance” or “dress.”

  Vicar. The term comes from the same root
as the word “vicarious,” and it connotes a “substitute” or “representative.” Vicars are Christ’s representatives on earth, and the Pope bears the title “Vicar of Christ.”

  The word “pontiff” stems from the Latin pontifex, meaning “bridge builder,” for one of the pontiff’s principal functions is to build a bridge between God and humankind.

  The word “see,” as in “Holy See,” is a corruption of the Latin sedes, meaning “seat.” It refers to the official headquarters (or seat) of the bishop of Rome, the highest level of church authority. The Pope’s residence was known as the “Holy Seat,” or “Holy See.”

  Handshake: 2800 B.C., Egypt

  In its oldest recorded use, a handshake signified the conferring of power from a god to an earthly ruler. This is reflected in the Egyptian verb “to give,” the hieroglyph for which was a picture of an extended hand.

  In Babylonia, around 1800 B.C., it was required that the king grasp the hands of a statue of Marduk, the civilization’s chief deity. The act, which took place annually during the New Year’s festival, served to transfer authority to the potentate for an additional year. So persuasive was the ceremony that when the Assyrians defeated and occupied Babylonia, subsequent Assyrian kings felt compelled to adopt the ritual, lest they offend a major heavenly being. It is this aspect of the handshake that Michelangelo so magnificently depicted on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel.

  The handshake once symbolized the transferral of authority from a god to a king. A fifteenth-century woodcut combines the musical tones “so” and “la” with Latin words to form Sola fides sufficit, suggesting good faith is conveyed through a handshake.

  Folklore offers an earlier, more speculative origin of the handshake: An ancient villager who chanced to meet a man he didn’t recognize reacted automatically by reaching for his dagger. The stranger did likewise, and the two spent time cautiously circling each other. If both became satisfied that the situation called for a parley instead of a fight to the death, daggers were reinserted into their sheaths, and right hands—the weapon hands—were extended as a token of goodwill. This is also offered as the reason why women, who throughout history were never the bearers of weapons, never developed the custom of the handshake.

  Other customs of greeting have ancient origins:

  The gentlemanly practice of tipping one’s hat goes back in principle to ancient Assyrian times, when captives were required to strip naked to demonstrate subjugation to their conquerors. The Greeks required new servants to strip from the waist up.

  Removing an article of clothing became a standard act of respect. Romans approached a holy shrine only after taking their sandals off. And a person of low rank removed his shoes before entering a superior’s home—a custom the Japanese have brought, somewhat modified, into modern times. In England, women took off their gloves when presented to royalty. In fact, two other gestures, one male, one female, are remnants of acts of subjugation or respect: the bow and the curtsy; the latter was at one time a full genuflection.

  By the Middle Ages in Europe, the symbol of serfdom to a feudal lord was restricted to baring the head. The implicit message was the same as in earlier days: “I am your obedient servant.” So persuasive was the gesture that the Christian Church adopted it, requiring that men remove their hats on entering a church.

  Eventually, it became standard etiquette for a man to show respect for an equal by merely tipping his hat.

  Chapter 3

  On the Calendar

  New Year’s Day: 2000 B.C., Babylonia

  Our word “holiday” comes from the Middle English halidai, meaning “holy day,” for until recently, humankind’s celebrations were of a religious nature.

  New Year’s Day is the oldest and most universal of all such “holy day” festivals. Its story begins, oddly enough, at a time when there was as yet no such thing as a calendar year. The time between the sowing of seeds and the harvesting of crops represented a “year,” or cycle.

  The earliest recorded New Year’s festival was staged in the city of Babylon, the capital of Babylonia, whose ruins stand near the modern town of al-Hillah, Iraq. The new year was celebrated late in March, at the vernal equinox, when spring begins, and the occasion lasted eleven days. Modern festivities pale by comparison. Initiating events, a high priest, rising two hours before dawn, washed in the sacred water of the Euphrates, then offered a hymn to the region’s chief god of agriculture, Marduk, praying for a bountiful new cycle of crops. The rump of a beheaded ram was rubbed against the temple walls to absorb any contagion that might infest the sacred edifice and, by implication, the next year’s harvest. The ceremony was called kuppuru—a word that appeared among the Hebrews at about the same time, in their Day of Atonement festival, Yom Kippur.

  Food, wine, and hard liquor were copiously consumed—for the enjoyment they provided, but more important, as a gesture of appreciation to Marduk for the previous year’s harvest. A masked mummers’ play was enacted on the sixth day, a tribute to the goddess of fertility. It was followed by a sumptuous parade—highlighted by music, dancing, and costumes—starting at the temple and terminating on the outskirts of Babylon at a special building known as the New Year House, whose archaeological remains have been excavated.

  A high priest presiding over a New Year’s celebration, once a religious observance staged in spring to mark the start of a new agricultural season. Julius Caesar moved the holiday to the dead of winter.

  How New Year’s Day, essentially a seed-sowing occasion, shifted from the start of spring to the dead of winter is a strange, convoluted tale spanning two millennia.

  From both an astronomical and an agricultural standpoint, January is a perverse time for symbolically beginning a crop cycle, or new year. The sun stands at no fiduciary place in the sky—as it does for the spring and autumn equinoxes and the winter and summer solstices, the four solar events that kick off the seasons. The holy day’s shift began with the Romans.

  Under an ancient calendar, the Romans observed March 25, the beginning of spring, as the first day of the year. Emperors and high-ranking officials, though, repeatedly tampered with the length of months and years to extend their terms of office. Calendar dates were so desynchronized with astronomical benchmarks by the year 153 B.C. that the Roman senate, to set many public occasions straight, declared the start of the new year as January 1. More tampering again set dates askew. To reset the calendar to January 1 in 46 B.C., Julius Caesar had to let the year drag on for 445 days, earning it the historical sobriquet “Year of Confusion.” Caesar’s new calendar was eponymously called the Julian calendar.

  After the Roman conversion to Christianity in the fourth century, emperors continued staging New Year’s celebrations. The nascent Catholic Church, however, set on abolishing all pagan (that is, non-Christian) practices, condemned these observances as scandalous and forbade Christians to participate. As the Church gained converts and power, it strategically planned its own Christian festivals to compete with pagan ones—in effect, stealing their thunder. To rival the January 1 New Year’s holiday, the Church established its own January 1 holy day, the Feast of Christ’s Circumcision, which is still observed by Catholics, Lutherans, Episcopalians, and many Eastern Orthodox sects.

  During the Middle Ages, the Church remained so strongly hostile to the old pagan New Year’s that in predominantly Catholic cities and countries the observance vanished altogether. When it periodically reemerged, it could fall practically anywhere. At one time during the high Middle Ages—from the eleventh to the thirteenth centuries—the British celebrated New Year’s on March 25, the French on Easter Sunday, and the Italians on Christmas Day, then December 15; only on the Iberian peninsula was it observed on January 1.

  It is only within the past four hundred years that January 1 has enjoyed widespread acceptance.

  New Year’s Eve. From ancient times, this has been the noisiest of nights.

  For early European farmers, the spirits who destroyed crops with disease were
banished on the eve of the new year with a great wailing of horns and beating of drums. In China, the forces of light, the Yang, annually routed the forces of darkness, the Yin, when on New Year’s Eve people gathered to crash cymbals and explode firecrackers. In America, it was the seventeenth-century Dutch, in their New Amsterdam settlement, who originated our modern New Year’s Eve celebration—though the American Indians may have set them a riotous example and paved the way.

  Long before settlers arrived in the New World, New Year’s Eve festivities were observed by the Iroquois Indians, pegged to the ripening of the corn crop. Gathering up clothes, furnishings, and wooden household utensils, along with uneaten corn and other grains, the Indians tossed these possessions of the previous year into a great bonfire, signifying the start of a new year and a new life. It was one ancient act so literal in its meaning that later scholars did not have to speculate on its significance.

  Anthropologist Sir James Frazer, in The Golden Bough, described other, somewhat less symbolic, New Year’s Eve activities of the Iroquois: “Men and women, variously disguised, went from wigwam to wigwam smashing and throwing down whatever they came across. It was a time of general license; the people were supposed to be out of their senses, and therefore not to be responsible for what they did.”

  The American colonists witnessed the annual New Year’s Eve anarchy of the Indians and were not much better behaved themselves, though the paucity of clothes, furnishings, and food kept them from lighting a Pilgrims’ bonfire. On New Year’s Eve 1773, festivities in New York City were so riotous that two months later, the legislature outlawed firecrackers, homemade bombs, and the firing of personal shotguns to commemorate all future starts of a new year.