Nut Dancers, Bacup (Lancashire, England)
Every Easter Sunday morning, the Lancastrian clog dancers known as Nutters, Nut or Coconut/Coconutters, dance 11 km (7 miles) across town and nearby areas for about 9 hours!
The dance has been performed for a 110 years since 1857.
Some of the actions of this particular dance show listening for sounds that could warn of the danger of tunnels collapsing.
The tradition of blackening their faces, dates back to when miners in the area danced when emerging from the mine pits, with their faces dirty with coal dust. Others say that mill workers danced to get extra money and painted their faces so that their landlords wouldn’t know and raised their rents.
Their name comes from the wooden nuts worn on the waist, wrists and knees made of wood, used down the mines when men often had to crawl.
The clogs, shirt and britches are traditionally from Lancashire, but the white and red skirt and hat/turban were adopted by Cornish tin miners, from Moorish pirates who came to England from the North of Africa, through Spain and France and stayed to work in the mines.
When the work in Cornwall diminished during the 18th & 19th centuries some of these Cornish miners moved to the North-West to work in the mines and quarries, bringing the tradition with them.
How were the WeekDays Named?
A long long time ago, there was no concept of weekdays and a year was divided into 12 months of 30 days. But then, ancient people experimented with making a 10 day week, a 5 day week and finally they adopted a seven day system. Why? Because then, people identified seven heavenly bodies in the sky – Sun, Moon, Mars, Mercury, Venus, Jupiter and Saturn.
The names for the days of the week are related to these planets.
Sunday – The first day of the week was named after The Sun.
Monday – Named after The Moon. Since it is a moon’s day it was called Moonday; later it changed to Monday.
Tuesday – ‘Tiw’ was the God associated with planet Mars. Thus ‘Tiwsday’ was the day of Mars.
Wednesday – ‘Wodensday’. ‘Woden’ was the God related with Mercury in olden times.
Thursday – After ‘Thor’ God of Jupiter.
Friday – Comes from ‘Friggs’day’, day of Venus.
Saturday – was the day of Saturn.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)