Herald & Lantern 30 December 81

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Beware of Redheads! Strange Customs of New Year’s Eve

As you’re quaffing your last toast to the New Year, beating on a noisemaker or pondering that final moat important resolution, you might well ask yourself, What'a all thafuta about?" Well, be reassured; generations before you have made the same to-do — and then some. As a Druid in- old England, you would have gathered mistletoe from sacred trees to give as New Year's gifts. Or you might have gone /Irat footing in Scotland. After a midnight church service, Scottish homes were open to visitors, and it was said that a fandly's luck for ‘he year would de- « pend on who first crossed the threshold. You would have been heartily welcomed as a first visitor that night if. you'were a darkhaired man. On the other hand, if you were a woman, a redhead, a beggar or a person with a squint, your foot first in the door would portend bad luck, j Homeowners even got in the habit of paying darkhaired men to be there ear - i ly. A RllSSIAN custom would‘have required that . you beat thC' comers of your house with sticks to drtve out Satan around the new year Yfb could try that today if y<$i ban ignore the gape-mouthed stares of your neighbors.^ HoW about wonaaillri your apple tree, as British'farmers were wont to do, by sprinkling it with cider and singing a song for a good crop in the coming year? Just tell the quickly gathering crowd that it’s an old family custom. If you were a king in ancient Babylon, you would have been stripped of your royal robe, made to knee) and then solemnly boxed on the ears and tweaked on the nose by the high priest as part of the official New v Year’s festival ' At a New Year's Eve^party in Derbyshire, England, you might have fished for a ring in a poaaet pot. To foretell who would marry during the folioiring year, the hostess dropped her wedding rtrtg into the pot of hot spiced milk dnd wine, and the singles tried to pick up the ring with each ladleful of the beverage. If a guest succeeded, it was a sure omen that he. would wed that year. GIFT GlVirSl, visiting friends, drivings out evil and foretelling^vents of the coming year are but a few New Year’s customs that have been carried on through the ages. New Year’s is one holiday that just about everyone around the world, Westerners and fasteners, celebrate in wome^ fashion on some set date, says Shirley Cherkasky, who has researched 4 holiday celebrations for the Smithsonian's Division of Performing^Arts New Year’s is “as old as the hills," too. Recorded history shows that for more than 5,000 years people have had some way of recognizing the beginning of a new year. In support of the time-honored concept of annual rebirth or

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celebrations have been the order of the day. The day, however, has not always been observed on the first of January by many of the worlM^nations. In fact, the new ydar has been launched on Christmas, Easter, the autumnal equinox, the winter solstice and March 25 (around the time of the vernal equinox). March a seems to have been one of the moat often celebrated dates because it was the time for sowing crops, the first step in the annual agricultural cycle. THE ROMANS apparently were the first, in 153 B.C., to mark January 1 as the beginning hf the year. That was just one part of their. numerous calendar reforms aimed at making man’s schedule agree with nature's cycles. But it wasn't until the Gregorian calendar, the same one we use today, warf* instituted . by Pope Gregory in 1582 that January 1 b«tpn to gain wide acceptanceVThe day’s proximity to the winter solstice, when the days begin to lengthen, made Lt\ a logical beginning. 1 \ All the haggling over the time of' celebration, however, didn’t make the need or reason for New Year's events any less significant. The rites of New Yeai s have long helped people make it through the cpming year in the best'pouible way — whether it was winning out over evil, producing a good crop or avoiding a death in the family. Scholars have tried to pinpoint the common elements of early New Year's celd^rations around the worir and they’ve determined that the things we do today to celebrate actually seem (o have started in the past. * ITS BEEN suggested that the txcesaive drinking associated with some New Year’s Eve parties is a

disruption and chaos practiced by primitive peoples at the end of each year. If things weren’t topsy-turvy, hew ertild ,they make a fresh start with the beginning of the new year? Today’s New Year’s Day football contests on the playing field could very well be a modern-day rem-~ nant of another ancient practice — that of cleansing or purifying through sacrifice, confession or ritual combat between good and evil. % Cleansing gave one a chance for a brand nev start. Spring housecleaning appears to be a relic of purification, which used to take place before the begin ning of the year. Today’s New Year’s Day football contests on the playing field could very well be a modern-day remnant of another ancient practice — that of cleansing or purifying through sacrifice, confession or ritual combat between good and evil, Cleansing gave one a chance for a brand new start. Spring housecleaning appears to be a relic of purification, which used to take place before the beginning of the year. The din and racket we now think we’re making Just for fun add celebration . — the blowing of party horns, the tooting of car horns, the ringing of bells, the banging of pots and pans and, in some places, the firing of guns — was originally meant to scare away low and evil spirits. MAKING A GOOD start in the new year by resolving to change sonjething or “turning over a new leaf" has been part of New Year’s plans for ages. Watching today’s New Year's resolutions fall by the wayside as the year progresses doesn't mean it was all for naught. And to the Babylonians, the public humiliation Vhd subsequent reinstatement