minimalist bedrooms

tents and canopies

Meeting all sorts of people

Enjoying autumn

Mushroom spotting.

favourite wiki of the week

St Guinefort

St Guinefort is a French saint, whose shrine was a popular site for blessing children. The reason he was so awesome, was that he was actually a dog.

The greyhound Guinefort was entrusted by his master to watch over a baby. When the master returned, the baby's room was full of blood, and Guinefort had a bloody mouth. The master killed Guinefort on the spot, believing the worst. As the dog let out a yelp, he awoke the baby, who was safe and sound - the blood was from a snake, as the master discovered. In his remorse, the master buried Guinefort in a well, a Celtic custom for dogs, and planted a grove of trees around to make a shrine.

Guinefort was revered as a saint, and local people brought their babies to his grave to be healed.

In the mid 13th Century, a Catholic Inquisitor, Stephen de Bourbon, visited the area, and after hearing of the many healing miracles of St Guinefort, decided to find out more about this holy 'man'. Upon discovering the Saint was in fact a dog, he had Guinefort officialy declared a heretic (dogs can't be saints, but can be heretics OF COURSE), and destroyed the grove, the shrine and the remains of the dog.

Despite the Catholic Church's complaints and efforts (including spreading rumours that babies were thrown down the well at Guinefort's shrine, and enlisting local henchmen to confiscate property of people going near the site), the cult of St Guinefort continued until the 1940s. There is a ruined chapel for him in Brittany, and there have been several films made based on the story.

The other reasons I particularly like St Guinefort were that he was on the Wikipedia lists of 'Famous Dogs', 'Folk Saints', and '13th Century Animal Deaths' - and also that his day of veneration is my brother's birthday, August 22nd.

favourite wiki of the week

My favourite wiki of the week, and favourite person of the week, or possibly the month, is Bessie Coleman.

Born in Texas in 1892, she was a very hard-working and successful student despite poverty and hard conditions. When she finished school she went to the Oklahoma Colored Agricultural and Normal University, but all her savings only paid for one term, and so she moved to Chicago to be with two of her twelve siblings. 


Hearing about First World War pilots inspired her to want to fly planes. Despite backing from influential men in the black community, as a black woman she could not get admitted to any US flight schools. However, she knew that in France, women were already being trained as pilots.


She learned French while  in Chicago, and got financial backing to travel to Europe from Robert Abbott, a wealthy black Chicago businessman. On June 15 1921, she was awarded an International Aviation Licence  from the Fédération Aéronautique Internationale.


This meant she was the first African American woman to hold any pilots licence, and the first African American to hold an international pilots licence. 


After a brief return to the USA, once again finding herself unable to get training there, she took further tuition in France, the Netherlands and Germany in advanced aviation. She continued learning with the aim of becoming a stunt pilot, the only real way to make a living as a civilian aviator before the age of commercial flights. 


She achieved great popularity and success as a stunt pilot when she went back to the USA, while never compromising on issues of race. She would not participate in flying displays in any venue that didn't admit people of colour, and she walked off the set of a film which would have starred her, when she discovered the script required her to appear in stereotypical tattered clothes. 


Her aim was to make enough money to set up a flying school for black aviators, of both sexes. Sadly, she died when the plane being flown by her mechanic went into a tailspin and she was thrown to the ground. The plane crashed, also killing the mechanic. Although this cut short her ambitions, and her life (she was only 34), she had already inspired a generation of African Americans, and opened the eyes of some white Americans.

favourite wiki of the week

Fakelore: stories made up to seem like, and purporting to be, genuine folklore. For example, in the Soviet era there were attempts to replace genuine Russian folk tales- often morose, religious and fatalistic- with 'fakelore' government-approved up-beat 'progressive' stories.

Sort of like viral marketing eh.

I love this new deely on my phone: RetroCamera

Having people over for dinner

favourite wiki of the week

Bondegezou or Dingiso (Dendrolagus Mbaiso) - a whistling tree kangaroo. The reason I liked this guy so much is that the Moni people of Papua New Guinea revere the bondegezou as an ancestor. They say that when they come across one in the jungle, it will raise its arms and whistle at them, as a sign of their kinship.

The Moni protect them, so although they are sometimes hunted by other peoples, they remain relatively common in Moni areas. 'Mbaiso' in its Latin name is Moni language, meaning the 'forbidden animal'.

Although it's a tree kangarou, Bondegezou spends a lot of time on the ground, so it appears quite different to other tree kangaroos due to its longer, thinner bones. It also has a thicker coat as it lives in subalpine forest at elevations of up to 4200 meters.

Anyway they are cute little guys, who are quite tame (so unfortunately easy to hunt for the non-Moni), and they are the revered ancestors of the Moni tribe.

Recycling

favourite wiki of the week

Alice Guy-Blaché was the first woman film director, and basically invented narrative film. Her film La Fée aux Choux was also the first film with a running time of at least one minute, probably first screened April 1896. 

favourite wiki of the week

This week I have been obsessed with culture-bound syndromes, thanks to stumbling on an article about Wendigo Psychosis.

Wendigo Psychosis exists in Algonquian cultures, and it seems to have once been fairly frequent, although as the cultures now mingle with the European American cultures it is no longer a problem. The disorder stems from the Algonquian belief in the evil Wendigo spirit, which could possess humans, especially those who practised cannibalism. The Wendigo gorges on human flesh, but is always starving and emaciated. The tales and customs surrounding the Wendigo strengthened the taboo of cannibalism, and encouraged moderation in all things - the Wendigo could possess those who were too greedy, as well as those who ate human flesh, even to save their own lives.

Wendigo Psychosis takes the form of an intense craving for human flesh, terror of becoming a cannibal, and can lead to cannibalistic feeding frenzies, as in the case of one Swift Runner who killed and ate his entire family. Some sufferers of the syndrome requested to be executed before they turned into Wendigos, or, more rarely, ended up being executed once they began to exhibit threatening behaviour. This happened in the few instances that treatment from a traditional healer or a European doctor had no effect.

Koro is another culture bound disorder found in SE Asia, sufferers of which believe their nipples (in the case of women) or penis are shrinking or retracting into the body, and that this will be fatal. Injury can occur if the sufferer takes measures to prevent the retraction. It can be treated with psychotherapy, although in China, unsurprisingly it is seen as yet another reason to eat animal penises.

Perhaps the strangest is Taijin Kyofusho - a Japanese social anxiety disorder. Sufferers dread social contact due to their intense fear of offending or harming others. The reason I found this the strangest is that it is said to affect up to 20% of the population of Japan. To me that suggests a disorder of the culture and society rather than a disorder of those individuals. The treatment also seems slightly bizarre - devised 100 years ago, the Morita method uses patient isolation, bed rest, manual labour, and lectures on the importance of self acceptance. So, the treatment for wanting to isolate yourself is isolation... Lately medication and talking therapy have been included in the treatment, luckily for that one in five socially awkward Japanese.

getting enough calcium

Cherries! From MY GARDEN!

Dali walks his anteater

I like surreal pets.

I like tiny versions of big things

And big versions of tiny things

New house today :)

I like hats.