<div style="text-align: center; font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">===========================================<br>L O W L A N D S - L - 21 June 2009 - Volume 07<br style="color: rgb(153, 153, 153);"><span style="color: rgb(153, 153, 153);">Encoding: Unicode (UTF-08)</span><br style="color: rgb(153, 153, 153);">
<span style="color: rgb(153, 153, 153);">Language Codes: <a href="http://lowlands-l.net/codes.php">lowlands-l.net/codes.php</a></span><br>===========================================<br></div><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">
<span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">From: </span><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;" class="gI"><span class="gD" style="color: rgb(0, 104, 28);">Roger Thijs, Euro-Support, Inc.</span> <span class="go"><<a href="mailto:roger.thijs@euro-support.be">roger.thijs@euro-support.be</a>></span></span><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">
<span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">Subject: </span><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;" class="gI">LL-L "Traditions"<br><br></span><div style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">
<font size="2">De gemeente Herstappe (89 inwoners) aan de taalgrens ten
zuiden van Limburg is nooit kunnen fusioneren omdat ze valt onder een regime van
taalfaciliteiten.</font></div>
<div style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"> </div>
<div style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><font size="2">Is dat verbranden van stro bij en bruiloft nog elders
gebruikelijk?</font></div>
<div style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"> </div>
<div style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><font size="2">Citaat uit url: <a href="http://www.hbvl.be/limburg/herstappe/na-negen-jaar-nog-eens-een-bruiloft-in-herstappe-2.aspx" target="_blank">http://www.hbvl.be/limburg/herstappe/na-negen-jaar-nog-eens-een-bruiloft-in-herstappe-2.aspx</a></font></div>
<div style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><font size="2"><em>20/06 Erik Robeyns (28) uit Herstappe en Marlutje Jackers
(23) uit Val-Meer geven elkaar vandaag het ja-woord. In Limburgs kleinste
gemeente is dat reden tot feesten voor het hele dorp: het is immers negen jaar
geleden dat er nog eens een bruiloft plaatsvond in de
gemeente.</em></font></div>
<div style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><font size="2"><em>.... In Herstappe wordt veel volk verwacht aan het
gemeentehuis en in de Sint-Jan De Doperkerk. Bij een huwelijk worden er nog een
aantal tradities in ere gehouden, zoals <strong>centjes grabbelen</strong> na de
viering en <strong>stro verbranden om de boze geesten te
verjagen</strong>.</em></font></div>
<div style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"> </div>
<div style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">mvg,</div>
<div style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">Roger<br><br>---------<br><br><span style="font-size: 11pt;" lang="NL">From: R. F. Hahn <<a href="mailto:sassisch@yahoo.com" target="_blank">sassisch@yahoo.com</a>><br>
Subject: Traditions<br><br>Hi, Roger and the rest of you Lowlanders!<br><br>Pardon me for switching over to English, Roger. This may be a topic some people want to weigh in that do not read Dutch.<br><br>Roger cites a report about a tiny community on the edge of Limburg in which the first wedding was celebrated in nine years. One of the old traditions followed at the event was burning of straw to dispel evil spirits. Roger asks if burning straw at weddings is a tradition in other areas.<br>
<br>To start off</span>, I will have to go beyond the Lowlands and enter my usual, much larger playground: Eurasia. I think that the straw part is incidental, that the fire part is all important. Lighting fires for ritual cleansing purposes is connected with ancient rituals found all over Central Asia all the way south to parts of Iran, Afghanistan and Pakistan, and as far east as Xinjiang (Eastern Turkestan) and Qinghai (青海, མཚོ་སྔོན་, Köke Naɣur, Gökdeñiz), areas under Chinese power. <br>
<br>The tradition of fires at weddings is particularly wide spread among Central Asians of Iranian and Turkic descent. It seems to belong to an areal cultural feature that may have emanated from pre-Islamic Iranian cultures. Among traditional Tajiks and various other Iranian-speaking peoples, including those living on the eastern slopes of the Pamir Mountains in China, also among traditional Uzbeks, Uyghurs and other Turkic peoples with close Iranian ties, a bridebroom and his party fetch the bride from her parents' home and take her on horseback to the bridegroom's parents' home; before entering, the couple (with the bridegroom either leading the horse or sitting on horseback in front of the bride) <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8"><meta name="ProgId" content="Word.Document"><meta name="Generator" content="Microsoft Word 11"><meta name="Originator" content="Microsoft Word 11"><link rel="File-List" href="file:///C:%5CDOCUME%7E1%5CRon%5CLOCALS%7E1%5CTemp%5Cmsohtml1%5C01%5Cclip_filelist.xml"><style>
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</style><span style="font-size: 11pt;">circumambulates </span>a bonfire three or more times. This cleansing ritual is required before the bride may enter her new home.<br><br>Fire as a cleansing element plays an important role among traditional speakers of Iranian languages. Its pre-Islamic importance can be witnessed in Zoroastrianism where water (<i>apo</i>) and fire (<i>atar</i>) are elements of ritual purity. Fire temples serve as strongholds of light and purity, and there are several purifying rituals involving fire. Zoroastrianism has by some been described as likely being a remnant of the oldest Eurasian religion (not counting Shamanism, I suppose). The Iranian language group is a branch of Indo-European (as is the Germanic group). The name Iran (<i>(An)ērān</i>) is etymologically connected with "Aryan" ("Noble", also the name of the people that invaded Southern Asia from the north, the name later misused by the Nazis).<br>
<br>Anyway, even though this may seem a bit farfetched at first thought, I propose that it is possible that in Europe there are some remnant rituals that originated in a more widespread, possibly Indo-European feature of fire as a cleansing power. Who knows? Herstappe may be one of those places where it survives.<br>
<br>Regards,<br>Reinhard/Ron<br>Seattle, USA<br></div><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">
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