On 11/1/2011 7:04 PM, Darren New wrote:
> On 11/1/2011 1:33, Warp wrote:
>> Btw, in this case the witches refer to the traditional (both real and
>> mythological) witches of Lapland (northern Finland),
>
> Sounds like Discworld witches. :-)
>
> ? not the pointy-hat
>> wearing broom-riding witches (although some dress as those as well).
>
> I wonder if the pointy hat black cloak witch was entirely an invention
> of the Wizard of Oz movie. I think I remember old woodcuts with
> broom-riding women, but they were always pagan-naked.
>
>
Of course they where. Porn might have been frowned on, but porn as a 
social statement about the "evils of witches", would be OK. lol

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Kevin Wampler <wam### [at] uwashingtonedu> wrote:
> In order to get replies, it seems best to post something incorrect in an 
> area where plenty of people have enough knowledge to point out your mistake.

  But that would derail the conversation.

-- 
                                                          - Warp

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Darren New <dne### [at] sanrrcom> wrote:
> On 10/31/2011 23:41, Patrick Elliott wrote:
> > in the end, *any* harvest festival pretty much "is" Halloween, we just ended
> > up with the version that included costumes and candy.

> Actually, we got American Thanksgiving, too. So double-plus there.

  What do you need two harvest festivals for?

-- 
                                                          - Warp

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Darren New <dne### [at] sanrrcom> wrote:
> On 10/31/2011 13:46, Warp wrote:
> >    In other parts of Finland Easter time was, for some reason, associated
> > with witches (I think this is a more international phenomenon than Finland
> > only).

> The earliest it was reasonable to dance naked in the forest? :-)

  The typical image of a Lapland witch was a rural very old wrinkled woman.
I don't think "dancing naked" was part of the imago... :P

  To be honest, I have no idea at what age the real-life "witches" started
their "profession" back when they were still active. I suppose they had
some kind of apprentices, if not even daughters that would succeed them.

  I also don't know when the practice was completely eradicated, but I think
they prevailed up until surprisingly recently. AFAIK even in 1950's there
were still some such women up there far in the north.

> >    At some point these two traditions got merged,

> Cool traditions. Somehow I'd always thought that Europe had more generally 
> homogenous cultures in things like that, but I guess that's just the Ugly 
> American(tm) in me. :)

  Europe is not the United States. The cultures are extremely varied, both
in the north-nouth axis and the east-west axis.

-- 
                                                          - Warp

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On 11/1/2011 11:27 PM, Warp wrote:
> Kevin Wampler<wam### [at] uwashingtonedu>  wrote:
>> In order to get replies, it seems best to post something incorrect in an
>> area where plenty of people have enough knowledge to point out your mistake.
>
>    But that would derail the conversation.

Heh, indeed it often seems to.  I most assuredly wasn't making a 
recommendation -- I much prefer well researched and thought-out posts 
(within reason, this isn't Wikipedia so more conversational stuff is 
nice too).  I was just making an observation.

Thanks again for the Finnish culture posts, I quite liked them!

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Kevin Wampler <wam### [at] uwashingtonedu> wrote:
> Thanks again for the Finnish culture posts, I quite liked them!

  Now in return you'll have to tell me something I didn't know about the
culture of your country. :)

  (From your sender address I'm assuming that would be the US. That
probably makes the task a bit difficult, given how much Americans have
spread knowledge of your culture through Hollywood and TV... :) But I'm
sure there's something I didn't know already.)

-- 
                                                          - Warp

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On 2-11-2011 2:55, Darren New wrote:
> On 10/31/2011 13:21, andrel wrote:
>> we don't have one either and I am pretty sure many countries on the
>> equator
>> won't have one too.
>
> Well, that's a fair point, yes. But given that Warp said in Finland
> anything above freezing is short-sleeve weather, I rather think if
> Finland lacks a harvest festival, it's not because it's always a warm
> and prosperous growing season. ;-)
>

I think we had one (and still have remnants in some forms, e.g. 
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bloemencorso ) and most probably Finland 
did also, it is just that the tradition died out. Using my thumb as a 
reliable source of hypotheses, it might have been that the focus shifted 
to the cities and it became outdated and considered backwards.

-- 
Darren, please put your examples on the counter

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Darren New <dne### [at] sanrrcom> wrote:
> Doesn't Finland have a harvest celebration, tho? Like Thanksgiving and 
> Mid-Autumn Festival and stuff like that? That's really all Halloween is, 
> except some Christians went and dressed it up in evil icons because it was 
> the pagan version of the holiday.

  Btw, now that you mention it and I looked it up, All Saints Day actually
*is* an official holiday in Finland. De jure, at least. It's in the saturday
between october 31 and november 6.

  However, it's a purely Christian holiday with its origin in Catholicism,
rather than being a traditional harvest festival.

  In practice nobody celebrates this. Not that I know of. (Perhaps some
churches might.) IIRC you don't even get a day off work (iow. it's not
*that* official).

-- 
                                                          - Warp

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On 11/2/2011 7:50 AM, Warp wrote:
>    Now in return you'll have to tell me something I didn't know about the
> culture of your country. :)
>
>    (From your sender address I'm assuming that would be the US. That
> probably makes the task a bit difficult, given how much Americans have
> spread knowledge of your culture through Hollywood and TV... :) But I'm
> sure there's something I didn't know already.)

As you expected, I'm having quite a bit of trouble thinking of anything. 
  Not only because you already seem to know a fair bit about America, 
but because much of American culture (particularly on the west coast 
where I live) is so young.  It's seems odd to talk about something 
that's only been going on for 10 years as "culture".  Of course there 
are very old Native American cultural traditions, but they're not really 
something I caa speak to with authority.  To further complicate matters, 
US culture varies a great deal depending on where in the US you are.

I guess the best thing I can think of is that in many areas in America 
seem to delight in other cultures.  I'd estimate that 1/2 to 2/3 of the 
restaurants within a few miles of where I live are based on food from 
somewhere else (Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Thai, Vietnamese, Russian, 
Mexican, Italian, German, Ecuadorian, Malay, Ethiopian, etc.).  In the 
summer I'll also expect to see several festivals or parades celebrating 
other countries/cultures.  In some semi-paradoxical sense, I tend to one 
of the most "American" cultural traits to be the way in which other 
cultures are brought together and combined.  I assume you were already 
aware of this though, but it's the main thing that came to mind.

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On 11/1/2011 14:32, Warp wrote:
>    Just joking, of course. Was expecting *some* comments, though. :)

Now you know how Andrew feels after writing a five page essay on Haskell? :-)

-- 
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   People tell me I am the counter-example.

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