1.
Ancestral Puebloans
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The Ancestral Puebloans are believed to have developed, at least in part, from the Oshara Tradition, who developed from the Picosa culture. They lived in a range of structures that included small family pit houses, larger structures to house clans, grand pueblos, the Ancestral Puebloans possessed a complex network that stretched across the Colorado Plateau linking hundreds of communities and population centers. They held a distinct knowledge of celestial sciences that found form in their architecture, the kiva, a congregational space that was used chiefly for ceremonial purposes, was an integral part of this ancient peoples community structure. In contemporary times, the people and their culture were referred to as Anasazi for historical purposes. The Navajo, who were not their descendants, called them by this term, reflecting historic traditions, the term was used to mean ancient enemies. Contemporary Puebloans do not want this term used, archaeologists continue to debate when this distinct culture emerged. The current agreement, based on terminology defined by the Pecos Classification, suggests their emergence around the 12th century BC, beginning with the earliest explorations and excavations, researchers identified Ancestral Puebloans as the forerunners of contemporary Pueblo peoples. Three UNESCO World Heritage Sites located in the United States are credited to the Pueblos, Mesa Verde National Park, Chaco Culture National Historical Park and Taos Pueblo. Pueblo, which means village in Spanish, was a term originating with the Spanish explorers who used it to refer to the particular style of dwelling. The Navajo now use the term in the sense of referring to ancient people or ancient ones, Hopi people used the term Hisatsinom, meaning ancient people, to describe the Ancestral Puebloans. The Ancestral Puebloans were one of four major prehistoric archaeological traditions recognized in the American Southwest and this area is sometimes referred to as Oasisamerica in the region defining pre-Columbian southwestern North America. The others are the Mogollon, Hohokam, and Patayan, in relation to neighboring cultures, the Ancestral Puebloans occupied the northeast quadrant of the area. The Ancestral Puebloan homeland centers on the Colorado Plateau, but extends from central New Mexico on the east to southern Nevada on the west. Structures and other evidence of Ancestral Puebloan culture has been found extending east onto the American Great Plains, in areas near the Cimarron and Pecos Rivers, terrain and resources within this large region vary greatly. The plateau regions have high elevations ranging from 4,500 to 8,500 feet, extensive horizontal mesas are capped by sedimentary formations and support woodlands of junipers, pinon, and ponderosa pines, each favoring different elevations. Wind and water erosion have created steep-walled canyons, and sculpted windows, in areas where resistant strata, such as sandstone or limestone, overlie more easily eroded strata such as shale, rock overhangs formed. The Ancestral Puebloans favored building under such overhangs for shelters and defensive building sites, all areas of the Ancestral Puebloan homeland suffered from periods of drought, and wind and water erosion. Summer rains could be unreliable and often arrived as destructive thunderstorms, while the amount of winter snowfall varied greatly, the Ancestral Puebloans depended on the snow for most of their water
2.
Spider
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Spiders are air-breathing arthropods that have eight legs and chelicerae with fangs that inject venom. They are the largest order of arachnids and rank seventh in total species diversity among all other orders of organisms, Spiders are found worldwide on every continent except for Antarctica, and have become established in nearly every habitat with the exceptions of air and sea colonization. As of November 2015, at least 45,700 spider species, anatomically, spiders differ from other arthropods in that the usual body segments are fused into two tagmata, the cephalothorax and abdomen, and joined by a small, cylindrical pedicel. Unlike insects, spiders do not have antennae, in all except the most primitive group, the Mesothelae, spiders have the most centralized nervous systems of all arthropods, as all their ganglia are fused into one mass in the cephalothorax. Unlike most arthropods, spiders have no extensor muscles in their limbs and their abdomens bear appendages that have been modified into spinnerets that extrude silk from up to six types of glands. Spider webs vary widely in size, shape and the amount of thread used. It now appears that the orb web may be one of the earliest forms. Spider-like arachnids with silk-producing spigots appeared in the Devonian period about 386 million years ago, true spiders have been found in Carboniferous rocks from 318 to 299 million years ago, and are very similar to the most primitive surviving suborder, the Mesothelae. The main groups of spiders, Mygalomorphae and Araneomorphae, first appeared in the Triassic period. It is estimated that 25 million tons of spiders kill 400–800 million tons of prey per year. Spiders use a range of strategies to capture prey, trapping it in sticky webs, lassoing it with sticky bolas, mimicking the prey to avoid detection. Spiders guts are too narrow to take solids, and they liquefy their food by flooding it with digestive enzymes and they also grind food with the bases of their pedipalps, as arachnids do not have the mandibles that crustaceans and insects have. Male spiders identify themselves by a variety of courtship rituals to avoid being eaten by the females. Males of most species survive a few matings, limited mainly by their life spans. Females weave silk egg-cases, each of which may contain hundreds of eggs, females of many species care for their young, for example by carrying them around or by sharing food with them. A minority of species are social, building communal webs that may house anywhere from a few to 50,000 individuals, social behavior ranges from precarious toleration, as in the widow spiders, to co-operative hunting and food-sharing. Although most spiders live for at most two years, tarantulas and other spiders can live up to 25 years in captivity. While the venom of a few species is dangerous to humans, scientists are now researching the use of venom in medicine
3.
Akan people
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The Akan /əˈkæn/ are a meta-ethnicity predominantly speaking Central Tano languages and residing in the southern regions of the former Gold Coast region in what is today the nation of Ghana. Akans also make-up the majority of the populace in the Ivory Coast, Akans are the largest group in both countries and have a population of roughly 20 million people. The Akan language is a group of dialects within the Central Tano branch of the Potou–Tano subfamily of the Niger–Congo family, subgroups of the Akan proper include, Asante, Akuapem and Akyem, Agona, Kwahu, Wassa, Fante and Bono. Subgroups of the Bia-speaking groups include, the Anyin, Baoulé, Chakosi, Sefwi, Nzema, Ahanta, the Akan subgroups have cultural attributes in common, notably the tracing of descent, inheritance of property, and succession to high political office. A large number of Akans were taken as captives to the Americas, during the 18th and 19th centuries, Akan slaves were all referred to as Coromantees. Oral traditions of the ruling Abrade Clan relate that they originated from ancient Ghana and they migrated from the north, they went through Egypt and settled in Nubia. Around 500AD, due to the pressure exerted on Nubia by Axumite kingdom of Ethiopia, Nubia was shattered, and these kingdoms grew, and around 750AD the Empire of Ghana was formed. From Kong they moved to Wam and then to Dormaa, the movement from Kong was necessitated by the desire of the people to find suitable savannah conditions since they were not used to forest life. Around the 14th century, they moved from Dormaa South Eastwards to Twifo-Hemang, the kingdom of Bonoman was established as early as the 12th century. Between the 12th and 13th centuries a gold boom in the area brought wealth to numerous Akans, during different phases of the Kingdom of Bonoman, groups of Akans migrated out of the area to create numerous states based predominantly on gold mining and trading of cash crops. This brought wealth to numerous Akan states like Akwamu Empire, and ultimately led to the rise of the most well known Akan empire, the Empire of Ashanti, the most dominant of the Akan states. From the 15th century to the 19th century the Akan people dominated gold mining and trading in the region, from the 17th century on, the Akan goldfields, according to Peter Bakewell, were the highly auriferous area in the forest country between the Komoe and Volta rivers. The Akan goldfield was one of three principal goldfields in the region, along with the Bambuk goldfield, and the Bure goldfield and this wealth in gold attracted European traders. Initially, the Europeans were Portuguese, soon joined by the Dutch, Akan gold was also used to purchase slaves from further up north via the Trans-Saharan route. The Akan purchased slaves in order to clear the dense forests within Ashanti. About a third of the population of many Akan states were indentured servants, the Akans went from buyers of slaves to selling slaves as the dynamics in the Gold Coast and the New World changed. Thus, the Akan people played a role in supplying Europeans with indentured servants, Ghana later apologized to the descendants of slaves for the role some of its people may have played in the slave trade. Akan people, especially the Ashanti people, fought against European colonists to maintain autonomy including many Anglo-Ashanti wars, the war of the Golden Stool, and other similar battles
4.
Ghana
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Ghana, officially the Republic of Ghana, is a unitary presidential constitutional democracy, located along the Gulf of Guinea and Atlantic Ocean, in the subregion of West Africa. Spanning a land mass of 238,535 km², Ghana is bordered by the Ivory Coast in the west, Burkina Faso in the north, Togo in the east, Ghana means Warrior King in the Soninke language. The territory of present-day Ghana has been inhabited for a millennium, numerous kingdoms and empires emerged over the centuries, of which the most powerful was the Kingdom of Ashanti. Beginning in the 15th century, numerous European powers contested the area for trading rights, following over a century of native resistance, Ghanas current borders were established by the 1900s as the British Gold Coast. On 6 March 1957, it became the first sub-Saharan African nation to become independent of European colonisation, a multicultural nation, Ghana has a population of approximately 27 million, spanning a variety of ethnic, linguistic and religious groups. Five percent of the population practices traditional faiths,71. 2% adhere to Christianity and 17. 6% are Muslim and its diverse geography and ecology ranges from coastal savannahs to tropical jungles. Ghana is a country led by a president who is both head of state and head of the government. Ghanas economy is one of the strongest and most diversified in Africa, following a century of relative stability. Ghanas growing economic prosperity and democratic political system have made it a power in West Africa. It is a member of the Non-Aligned Movement, the African Union, the Economic Community of West African States, Group of 24, Ghana was already recognized as one of the great kingdoms in Bilad el-Sudan by the ninth century. Ghana was inhabited in the Middle Ages and the Age of Discovery by a number of ancient predominantly Akan kingdoms in the Southern and this included the Ashanti Empire, the Akwamu, the Bonoman, the Denkyira, and the Mankessim Kingdom. Until the 11th century, the majority of modern Ghanas territorial area was unoccupied and uninhabited by humans. Although the area of present-day Ghana in West Africa has experienced many population movements, by the early 11th century, the Akans were firmly established in the Akan state called Bonoman, for which the Brong-Ahafo Region is named. From the 13th century, Akans emerged from what is believed to have been the Bonoman area, to create several Akan states of Ghana and these states included Bonoman, Ashanti, Denkyira, Mankessim Kingdom, and Akwamu Eastern region. By the 19th century, the territory of the part of Ghana was included in the Kingdom of Ashanti. The Kingdom of Ashanti government operated first as a loose network, prior to Akan contact with Europeans, the Akan Ashanti people created an advanced economy based on principally gold and gold bar commodities then traded with the states of Africa. The earliest known kingdoms to emerge in modern Ghana were the Mole-Dagbani states, the Mole-Dagombas came on horseback from present-day Burkina Faso under a single leader, Naa Gbewaa. The death of Naa Gbewaa caused civil war among his children, some of whom broke off and founded separate states including Dagbon, Mamprugu, Mossi, Nanumba, Akan trade with European states began after contact with Portuguese in the 15th century
5.
Caribbean
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The Caribbean is a region that consists of the Caribbean Sea, its islands and the surrounding coasts. The region is southeast of the Gulf of Mexico and the North American mainland, east of Central America, situated largely on the Caribbean Plate, the region comprises more than 700 islands, islets, reefs and cays. These islands generally form island arcs that delineate the eastern and northern edges of the Caribbean Sea, in a wider sense, the mainland countries of Belize, Guyana, Suriname and French Guiana are often included due to their political and cultural ties with the region. Geopolitically, the Caribbean islands are usually regarded as a subregion of North America and are organized into 30 territories including sovereign states, overseas departments, and dependencies. From December 15,1954, to October 10,2010, there was a known as the Netherlands Antilles composed of five states. The West Indies cricket team continues to represent many of those nations, the region takes its name from that of the Caribs, an ethnic group present in the Lesser Antilles and parts of adjacent South America at the time of the Spanish conquest. The two most prevalent pronunciations of Caribbean are KARR-ə-BEE-ən, with the accent on the third syllable. The former pronunciation is the older of the two, although the variant has been established for over 75 years. It has been suggested that speakers of British English prefer KARR-ə-BEE-ən while North American speakers more typically use kə-RIB-ee-ən, usage is split within Caribbean English itself. The word Caribbean has multiple uses and its principal ones are geographical and political. The Caribbean can also be expanded to include territories with strong cultural and historical connections to slavery, European colonisation, the United Nations geoscheme for the Americas accords the Caribbean as a distinct region within the Americas. Physiographically, the Caribbean region is mainly a chain of islands surrounding the Caribbean Sea, to the north, the region is bordered by the Gulf of Mexico, the Straits of Florida and the Northern Atlantic Ocean, which lies to the east and northeast. To the south lies the coastline of the continent of South America, politically, the Caribbean may be centred on socio-economic groupings found in the region. For example, the known as the Caribbean Community contains the Co-operative Republic of Guyana. Bermuda and the Turks and Caicos Islands, which are in the Atlantic Ocean, are members of the Caribbean Community. The Commonwealth of the Bahamas is also in the Atlantic and is a member of the Caribbean Community. According to the ACS, the population of its member states is 227 million people. The geography and climate in the Caribbean region varies, Some islands in the region have relatively flat terrain of non-volcanic origin and these islands include Aruba, Barbados, Bonaire, the Cayman Islands, Saint Croix, the Bahamas, and Antigua
6.
Suriname
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Suriname, officially known as the Republic of Suriname, is a sovereign state on the northeastern Atlantic coast of South America. It is bordered by French Guiana to the east, Guyana to the west, at just under 165,000 square kilometers, it is the smallest country in South America. Suriname has a population of approximately 566,000, most of live on the countrys north coast, in and around the capital and largest city. Long inhabited by cultures of indigenous tribes, Suriname was explored and contested by European powers before coming under Dutch rule in the late 17th century. In 1954, the country one of the constituent countries of the Kingdom of the Netherlands. Its indigenous peoples have been active in claiming land rights and working to preserve their traditional lands. Suriname is considered to be a culturally Caribbean country, and is a member of the Caribbean Community, while Dutch is the official language of government, business, media, and education, Sranan, an English-based creole language, is a widely used lingua franca. Suriname is the territory outside Europe where Dutch is spoken by a majority of the population. The people of Suriname are among the most diverse in the world, spanning a multitude of ethnic, religious, and linguistic groups. This area was occupied by cultures of indigenous peoples long before European contact, remnants of which can be found in petroglyph sites at Werehpai. The name Suriname may derive from a Taino indigenous people called Surinen, British settlers, who founded the first European colony at Marshalls Creek along the Suriname River, spelled the name as Surinam. When the territory was taken over by the Dutch, it part of a group of colonies known as Dutch Guiana. The official spelling of the countrys English name was changed from Surinam to Suriname in January 1978, a notable example is Surinames national airline, Surinam Airways. The older English name is reflected in the English pronunciation, /ˈsʊrᵻnæm/ or /ˈsʊrᵻnɑːm/, in Dutch, the official language of Suriname, the pronunciation is, with the main stress on the third syllable and a schwa terminal vowel. Indigenous settlement of Suriname dates back to 3,000 BC, the largest tribes were the Arawak, a nomadic coastal tribe that lived from hunting and fishing. They were the first inhabitants in the area, the Carib also settled in the area and conquered the Arawak by using their superior sailing ships. They settled in Galibi at the mouth of the Marowijne River, while the larger Arawak and Carib tribes lived along the coast and savanna, smaller groups of indigenous peoples lived in the inland rainforest, such as the Akurio, Trió, Warrau, and Wayana. Beginning in the 16th century, French, Spanish, and English explorers visited the area, a century later, Dutch and English settlers established plantation colonies along the many rivers in the fertile Guiana plains
7.
Sierra Leone
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Sierra Leone, officially the Republic of Sierra Leone, is a country in West Africa. It is bordered by Guinea to the north-east, Liberia to the south-east, Sierra Leone has a tropical climate, with a diverse environment ranging from savannah to rainforests. Sierra Leone has an area of 71,740 km2. Sierra Leone is divided into four regions, the Northern Province, Eastern Province, Southern Province and the Western Area. Freetown is the capital, largest city and its economic and political centre, Bo is the second largest city. The other major cities are Kenema, Makeni and Koidu Town, Sierra Leone is a constitutional republic with a directly elected president and a unicameral legislature. Sir Milton Margai built his government based on democratic principles. Throughout his time in power, Sir Milton Margai was very popular across Sierra Leone, the main opposition APC, led by its leader Siaka Stevens, narowly defeated the ruling SLPP under the leadership of Albert Margai in the 1964 general elections. Stevens ruled for eighteen years in a government, in which his critics. Soldiers and politicians convicted of plotting a coup to topple Stevens were executed, under president Stevens, the APC was made the only legal political party in Sierra Leone, and all other political parties were banned, including the main opposition. Stevens handpicked successor, retired major general Joseph Saidu Momoh, lacked the political dominance of Stevens, Momoh reestablished the country as a multi party democracy in 1991. The current constitution of Sierra Leone was adopted in 1991 during the presidency of Joseph Saidu Momoh, the rebels started the civil war in 1991 in the eastern part of the country during Momohs presidency. Momoh was very unpopular, and Public anger against the Momoh government increasingly grew due to corruption, poor economy. In 1992 a group of officers in the army led by a 25-year-old captain, Valentine Strasser. In 1996 during the war, another military coup of soldiers within Strassers inner circle, led by a 32 year old Brigadier General Julius Maada Bio, toppled Strasser. Since independent to present, Sierra Leones politics has been dominated by two political parties, the Sierra Leone Peoples Party and the All Peoples congress. From 1991 to 2002, the Sierra Leone civil war was fought and this proxy war left more than 50,000 people dead, much of the countrys infrastructure destroyed, and over two million people displaced as refugees in neighbouring countries. In January 2002, then Sierra Leones president Ahmad Tejan Kabbah, fulfilled his promise by ending the civil war, with help by the British Government, ECOWAS
8.
Netherlands Antilles
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The Netherlands Antilles was a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands. The country consisted of several island territories located in the Caribbean Sea, the islands were also informally known as the Dutch Antilles. The country came into being in 1954 as the successor of the Dutch colony of Curaçao and Dependencies. All the island territories that belonged to the Netherlands Antilles remain part of the kingdom today, as a group they are still commonly called the Dutch Caribbean, regardless of their legal status. The islands of the Netherlands Antilles are all part of the Lesser Antilles island chain, within this group, the country was spread over two smaller island groups, a northern group and a western group. No part of the country was in the southern Windward Islands and this island sub-group was located in the eastern Caribbean Sea, to the east of Puerto Rico. There were three islands, collectively known as the SSS islands, Sint Maarten Saba Sint Eustatius and they lie approximately 800–900 kilometers north-east of the ABC Islands. This island sub-group was located in the southern Caribbean Sea off the north coast of Venezuela, the Leeward islands are subject to hurricanes in the summer months, while those islands located in the Leeward Antilles are warmer and drier. Spanish-sponsored explorers discovered both the leeward and windward island groups, however, the Spanish Crown only founded settlements in the leeward islands. In the 17th century the islands were conquered by the Dutch West India Company, from the last quarter of the 17th century, the group consisted of six undisputedly Dutch islands, Curaçao, Aruba, Bonaire, Sint Eustatius, Saba and Sint Maarten. In the past, Anguilla, the present-day British Virgin Islands, St. Croix, the various islands were united as a single country — the Netherlands Antilles — in 1954. The country was dissolved on 10 October 2010, in the second half of the 18th century Sint Eustatius became the commercial hub of the north-eastern Caribbean, earning the nickname the Golden Rock. From 1815 onwards Curaçao and Dependencies formed a colony of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, slavery was abolished in 1863, and in 1865 a government regulation for Curaçao was enacted that allowed for some very limited autonomy for the colony. Although this regulation was replaced by a constitution in 1936, the changes to the government structure remained superficial, the island of Curaçao was hit hard by the abolition of slavery in 1863. Its prosperity was restored in the early 20th century with the construction of oil refineries to service the newly discovered Venezuelan oil fields, colonial rule ended after the conclusion of the Second World War. In May 1948 a new constitution for the territory entered into force, among other things, universal suffrage was introduced. The territory was also renamed Netherlands Antilles, after the Dutch constitution was revised in 1948, a new interim Constitution of the Netherlands Antilles was enacted in February 1951. A consolidated version of this remained in force until the dissolution of the Netherlands Antilles in 2010
9.
Aruba
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It measures 32 kilometres long from its northwestern to its southeastern end and 10 kilometres across at its widest point. Together with Bonaire and Curaçao, Aruba forms a group referred to as the ABC islands, collectively, Aruba and the other Dutch islands in the Caribbean are often called the Dutch Caribbean. Aruba is one of the four countries that form the Kingdom of the Netherlands, along with the Netherlands, Curaçao, the citizens of these countries all share a single nationality, Dutch. Aruba has no subdivisions, but, for census purposes, is divided into eight regions. Unlike much of the Caribbean region, Aruba has a dry climate and this climate has helped tourism as visitors to the island can reliably expect warm, sunny weather. It has an area of 179 km2 and is densely populated. Arubas first inhabitants are thought to have been Caquetío Amerindians from the Arawak tribe, fragments of the earliest known Indian settlements date back to 1000 AD. As sea currents made travel to other Caribbean islands difficult. Europeans first learned of Aruba following the explorations for Spain by Amerigo Vespucci, both described Aruba as an island of giants, remarking on the comparatively large stature of the native Caquetíos compared to Europeans. Gold was not discovered on Aruba for another 300 years, Vespucci returned to Spain with stocks of cotton and brazilwood from the island and described houses built into the ocean. Vespucci and Ojedas tales spurred interest in Aruba, and Spaniards soon colonized the island, because it had low rainfall, Aruba was not considered profitable for the plantation system and the economics of the slave trade. Aruba was colonized by Spain for over a century, simas, the Cacique, or chief, in Aruba, welcomed the first Catholic priests in Aruba, who gave him a wooden cross as a gift. In 1508, the Spanish Crown appointed Alonso de Ojeda as its first Governor of Aruba, Arawaks spoke the broken Spanish which their ancestors had learned on Hispaniola. Another governor appointed by Spain was Juan Martínez de Ampiés, a cédula real decreed in November 1525 gave Ampiés, factor of Española, the right to repopulate Aruba. In 1528, Ampiés was replaced by a representative of the House of Welser, the Dutch statutes have applied to Aruba since 1629. The Netherlands acquired Aruba in 1636, since 1636, Aruba has been under Dutch administration, initially governed by Peter Stuyvesant, later appointed to New Amsterdam. Stuyvesant was on a mission in Aruba in November and December 1642. The island was included under the Dutch West India Company administration, as New Netherland and Curaçao, in 1667 the Dutch administration appointed an Irishman as Commandeur in Aruba
10.
Bonaire
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Bonaire is an island in the Leeward Antilles in the Caribbean Sea. Together with Aruba and Curaçao, it forms the group known as the ABC islands, unlike much of the Caribbean region, the ABCs lie outside the hurricane belt. The islands have a climate, which helps tourism, as visitors to the islands can reliably expect warm. Bonaire is a destination for SCUBA divers, and it is also well known for easy access to its various reefs from the shore. The island has a permanent population of 18,905 and an area of 294 km2, Bonaire was part of the Netherlands Antilles until the countrys dissolution in 2010, when the island became a special municipality within the country of the Netherlands. It is one of the three BES islands in the Caribbean, the other two BES islands are Sint Eustatius and Saba, the name Bonaire is thought to have originally come from the Caquetio word Bonay, a name that meant low country. The early Spanish and Dutch modified its spelling to Bojnaj and also Bonaire, the French influence, while present at various times, was never strong enough to make the assumption that the name means good air. Bonaires earliest known inhabitants were the Caquetio Indians, a branch of the Arawak who came by canoe from Venezuela in about 1000 AD, archeological remains of Caquetio culture have been found at certain sites northeast of Kralendijk and near Lac Bay. Caquetio rock paintings and petroglyphs have been preserved in caves at Spelonk, Onima, Ceru Pungi, the Caquetios were apparently a very tall people, for the Spanish name for the ABC Islands was las Islas de los Gigantes or the islands of the giants. In 1499, Alonso de Ojeda arrived in Curaçao and an island that was almost certainly Bonaire. Ojeda was accompanied by Amerigo Vespucci and Juan de la Cosa, de La Cosas Mappa Mundi of 1500 shows Bonaire and calls it Isla do Palo Brasil or Island of Brazilwood. In 1526, Juan de Ampies was appointed Spanish commander of the ABC Islands and he brought back some of the original Caquetio Indian inhabitants to Bonaire and Curaçao. Ampies also imported domesticated animals from Spain, including cows, donkeys, goats, horses, pigs, the Spaniards thought that Bonaire could be used as a cattle plantation worked by natives. The cattle were raised for hides rather than meat, the Spanish inhabitants lived mostly in the inland town of Rincon which was safe from pirate attack. The Dutch West India Company was founded in 1621, starting in 1623, ships of the West India Company called at Bonaire to obtain meat, water, and wood. The Dutch also abandoned some Spanish and Portuguese prisoners there, the Dutch and the Spanish fought from 1568 to 1648 in what is now known as the Eighty Years War. In 1633, the Dutch—having lost the island of St. Maarten to the Spanish—retaliated by attacking Curaçao, Bonaire, Bonaire was conquered in March 1636. The Dutch built Fort Oranje in 1639, while Curaçao emerged as a center of the slave trade, Bonaire became a plantation of the Dutch West India Company
11.
Oral tradition
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Oral tradition, or oral lore, is a form of human communication where in knowledge, art, ideas and cultural material is received, preserved and transmitted orally from one generation to another. The transmission is through speech or song and may include folktales, ballads, chants, prose or verses. In this way, it is possible for a society to transmit oral history, oral literature, oral law and other knowledge across generations without a writing system, or in parallel to a writing system. Oral tradition is information, memories and knowledge held in common by a group of people, over many generations, in a general sense, oral tradition refers to the recall and transmission of a specific, preserved textual and cultural knowledge through vocal utterance. As an academic discipline, it both to a set of objects of study and a method by which they are studied. The study of tradition is distinct from the academic discipline of oral history. Oral tradition is distinct from the study of orality defined as thought. A folklore is a type of tradition, but knowledge other than folklore has been orally transmitted. According to John Foley, oral tradition has been an ancient human tradition found in all corners of the world, according to Goody, the Vedic texts likely involved both a written and oral tradition, calling it a parallel products of a literate society. In ancient Greece, the tradition was a dominant tradition. Homers epic poetry, states Michael Gagarin, was composed, performed and transmitted orally. This is evidenced, for example, by the multiple scriptural statements by Paul admitting previously remembered tradition which he received orally. Oral traditions face the challenge of accurate transmission and verifiability of the accurate version, Oral cultures have employed various strategies that achieve this without writing. For example, a rhythmic speech filled with mnemonic devices enhances memory. A few useful mnemonic devices include alliteration, repetition, assonance, in addition, the verse is often metrically composed with an exact number of syllables or morae - such as with Greek and Latin prosody and in Chandas found in Hindu and Buddhist texts. Such strategies help facilitate transmission of information from individual to individual without a written intermediate, rudyard Kiplings The Jungle Book provides an excellent demonstration of oral governance in the Law of the Jungle. Not only does grounding rules in oral proverbs allow for transmission and understanding. These stories, traditions, and proverbs are not static, but are often altered upon each transmission barring the overall meaning remains intact, in this way, the rules that govern the people are modified by the whole and not authored by a single entity
12.
New World
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The New World is one of the names used for the Earths Western Hemisphere, specifically the Americas. The term was coined by Florentine explorer Amerigo Vespucci, the Americas were also referred to as the fourth part of the world. New World are meaningful in historical context and for the purpose of distinguishing the worlds major ecozones, and to classify plant and animal species that originated therein. One can speak of the New World in a context, e. g. when discussing the voyages of Christopher Columbus. For lack of alternatives, the term is still useful to those discussing issues that concern the Americas. The term New World is used in a context, when one speaks of Old World. Biological taxonomists often attach the New World label to groups of species that are exclusively in the Americas, to distinguish them from their counterparts in the Old World. New World monkeys, New World vultures, New World warblers, the label is also often used in agriculture. Common Old World crops, and domesticated animals did not exist in the Americas until they were introduced by contact in the 1490s. Other famous New World crops include the cashew, cocoa, rubber, sunflower, tobacco, and vanilla, there are rare instances of overlap, e. g. In wine terminology, New World has a different definition, Vespucci was finally convinced when he proceeded on his mapping expedition through 1501-02, covering the huge stretch of coast of eastern Brazil. But this opinion is false, and entirely opposed to the truth, Vespuccis letter was a publishing sensation in Europe, immediately reprinted in several other countries. The Venetian explorer Alvise Cadamosto had used the term un altro mundo to refer to sub-Saharan Africa, however, this was merely a literary flourish, not a suggestion of a new fourth part of the world. Cadamosto was quite aware sub-Saharan Africa was firmly part of the African continent, the Italian-born Spanish chronicler Peter Martyr dAnghiera often shares credit with Vespucci for designating the Americas as a new world. Peter Martyr used the term Orbe Novo in the title of his history of the discovery of the Americas as a whole, a year later, Peter Martyr again refers to the marvels of the New Globe and the Western hemisphere. Christopher Columbus touched the continent of South America in his 1498 third voyage, in another letter, Columbus refers to having reached a new heavens and world and that he had placed another world under the dominion of the Kings of Spain. The Vespucci passage above applied the New World label to merely the continental landmass of South America, although the proceedings of the Toro-Burgos conferences are missing, it is almost certain that Vespucci articulated his recent New World thesis to his fellow navigators there. In English usage the term New World was problematic and only accepted relatively late, while it became generally accepted after Vespucci that Columbuss discoveries were not Asia but a New World, the geographic relationship between the two continents was still unclear
13.
Atlantic slave trade
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The Atlantic slave trade or transatlantic slave trade took place across the Atlantic Ocean from the 15th through the 19th centuries. This was crucial to those western European countries which, in the late 17th and 18th centuries, were vying with each other to create overseas empires, the Portuguese were the first to engage in the New World slave trade in the 16th century. In 1526, the Portuguese completed the first transatlantic voyage from Africa to the Americas. The first Africans imported to the English colonies were classified as indentured servants, like coming from England. By the middle of the 17th century, slavery had hardened as a caste, they and their offspring were legally the property of their owners. As property, the people were considered merchandise or units of labour, the major Atlantic slave trading nations, ordered by trade volume, were, the Portuguese, the British, the French, the Spanish, and the Dutch Empire. Several had established outposts on the African coast where they purchased slaves from local African leaders and these slaves were managed by a factor who was established on or near the coast to expedite the shipping of slaves to the New World. Slaves were kept in a factory while awaiting shipment, current estimates are that about 12 million Africans were shipped across the Atlantic, although the number purchased by the traders is considerably higher, as the passage had a high death rate. Near the beginning of the century, various governments acted to ban the trade. In the early twenty-first century, several governments issued apologies for the slave trade. The Atlantic slave trade arose after trade contacts were first made between the continents of the Old World and those of the New World, between 1600 and 1800, approximately 300,000 sailors engaged in the slave trade visited West Africa. In doing so, they came into contact with societies living along the west African coast, historian John Thornton noted, A number of technical and geographical factors combined to make Europeans the most likely people to explore the Atlantic and develop its commerce. That leadership later gave rise to the myth that the Iberians were the leaders of the exploration. Slavery was practiced in parts of Africa, Europe, Asia. There is evidence that people from some African states were exported to other states in Africa, Europe. The African slave trade provided a number of slaves to Europeans. The Atlantic slave trade was not the slave trade from Africa, although it was the largest in volume. As Elikia M’bokolo wrote in Le Monde diplomatique, The African continent was bled of its resources via all possible routes
14.
Guyana
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Guyana, officially the Co-operative Republic of Guyana, is a sovereign state on the northern mainland of South America. It is, however, included in the Caribbean Region due to its cultural, historical. Guyana is bordered by the Atlantic Ocean to the north, Brazil to the south and southwest, Suriname to the east, with 215,000 square kilometres, Guyana is the fourth-smallest country on mainland South America after Uruguay, Suriname and French Guiana. The region known as the Guianas consists of the large landmass north of the Amazon River. Originally inhabited by indigenous groups, Guyana was settled by the Dutch before coming under British control in the late 18th century. It was governed as British Guiana, with mostly a plantation style economy until the 1950s and it gained independence in 1966, and officially became a republic within the Commonwealth of Nations in 1970. The legacy of British rule is reflected in the political administration and diverse population, which includes Indian, African, Amerindian. Guyana is the only South American nation in which English is the official language, the majority of the population, however, speak Guyanese Creole, an English-based creole language, as a first language. In addition to being part of the Anglophone Caribbean, Guyana is one of the few Caribbean countries that is not an island in the West Indies, CARICOM, of which Guyana is a member, is headquartered in Guyanas capital and largest city, Georgetown. In 2008, the joined the Union of South American Nations as a founding member. The name Guyana is derived from Guiana, the name for the region that formerly included Guyana, Suriname, French Guiana. According to the Oxford English Dictionary, Guyana is derived from an Indigenous Amerindian language, there are nine indigenous tribes residing in Guyana, the Wai Wai, Macushi, Patamona, Lokono, Kalina, Wapishana, Pemon, Akawaio and Warao. Historically the Lokono and Kalina tribes dominated Guyana, although Christopher Columbus sighted Guyana during his third voyage, the Dutch were the first to establish colonies, Essequibo, Berbice, and Demerara. After the British assumed control in 1796, the Dutch formally ceded the area in 1814, in 1831 the three separate colonies became a single British colony known as British Guiana. Since its Independence in 1824 Venezuela has claimed the area of land to the west of the Essequibo River, in 1899 an international tribunal ruled the land belonged to Great Britain. Guyana achieved independence from the United Kingdom on 26 May 1966 and became a republic on 23 February 1970, the US State Department and the US Central Intelligence Agency, along with the British government, played a strong role in influencing political control in Guyana during this time. The American government supported Forbes Burnham during the years of independence because Cheddi Jagan was identified as a Marxist. In 1978, Guyana received international notice when 918 members of the American cult, Peoples Temple, however, most of the suicides were by Americans and not Guyanese
15.
Nyame
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Nyame is the God of the Akan people of Ashanteland. His name means he who knows and sees everything and omniscient, omnipotent sky god in the Akan language, Nyame is portrayed as a benevolent God, if sometime aloof and distant. One of Nyames creations was Kamunu, the first human being, Nyame gave Kamunu the task of naming all the other creations. Nyame is Spirit and has no family, a giant python once terrorised the Ashanti people, who then prayed to Nyame. Nyame was tired of a human named Kwaku Anansi, the Spider Man, boasting about his wit and intelligence. Anansi tricked the python into eating a meal and consuming strong wine. When the snake fell unconscious, Anansi summoned the villagers to beat the creature, Nyame was pleased with Kwakus wit and blessed him with tremendous wisdom and life
16.
Calabash
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The fresh fruit has a light-green smooth skin and a white flesh. Rounder varieties are called calabash gourds and they grow in a variety of shapes, they can be huge and rounded, small and bottle shaped, or slim and serpentine, more than a metre long. The gourd was one of the first cultivated plants in the world, grown not primarily for food, but for use as water containers. The bottle gourd may have carried from Africa to Asia, Europe. It has been proven to be in the New World prior to the arrival of Christopher Columbus and it is a commonly cultivated plant in tropical and subtropical areas of the world, now believed by some to have spread or originated from wild populations in southern Africa. Stands of L. siceraria, which may be source plants and this apparent domestication source plant produces thinner-walled fruit that, when dried, would not endure the rigors of use on long journeys as a water container. Todays gourd may owe its tough, waterproof wall to selection pressures over its history of domestication. Gourds were cultivated in Africa, Asia, Europe, and the Americas for thousands of years before Columbus discovery of America. Historically, in Europe, Walahfrid Strabo, abbot and poet from Reichenau and advisor to the Carolingian kings and this study showed that gourds found in American archaeological finds appeared closer to Asian variants than to African ones. In February 2014, the hypothesis was revived based on a more thorough genetic study. Nowadays, bottle gourds are grown by sowing of seeds or transplanting 15- to 20-day-old seedlings. It prefers well-drained, moist, rich soil and it requires plenty of moisture in the growing season and a warm sunny position sheltered from the wind. It is cultivated in places such as in a pot. In rural areas, many houses with thatched roofs are covered with the gourd vines. Bottle gourds grow very rapidly and their stems can reach a length of 9 m in the summer, if planted under a tall tree, the vine can grow up to the top of the tree. To get more fruit, sometimes cut off the tip of the vine when it has grown to 6–8 feet long. This forces the plant to produce side branches that produce much sooner and more flowers. The male flowers have long peduncles and the females have short ones with an ovary of the shape of the fruit, sometimes, the female flowers drop off without growing into a gourd due to the failure of pollination if no bee activity occurs in the garden area
17.
Caldecott Medal
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The Randolph Caldecott Medal annually recognizes the preceding years most distinguished American picture book for children, beginning with 1937 publications. It is awarded to the illustrator by the Association for Library Service to Children, the Caldecott and Newbery Medals are the most prestigious American childrens book awards. The award is named for Randolph Caldecott, a nineteenth-century English illustrator, rene Paul Chambellan designed the Medal in 1937. The obverse scene is derived from Randolph Caldecotts front cover illustration for The Diverting History of John Gilpin, the reverse is based on Four and twenty blackbirds baked in a pie, one of Caldecotts illustrations for the nursery rhyme Sing a Song of Sixpence. Beside the Caldecott Medal, the awards a variable number of citations to worthy runners-up. The Honor was introduced in 1971, but some runners-up had been identified annually, the number of Honors or runners-up had always been one to five, and it had been two to four since 1994, until five were named in 2013 and six in 2015. The Honor Books must be a subset of the runners-up on the final ballot, the artist must be a US citizen or resident and the illustrations must be original to the book, which must be published first or simultaneously in the US in English during the preceding year. A picture book provides a visual experience, a picture book has a collective unity of story-line, theme, or concept, developed through the series of pictures that constitute the book. Picture books for any audience up to age 14 should be considered, the Medal is for distinguished illustrations in a picture book and for excellence of pictorial presentation for children. The book must be self-contained, independent of media for its enjoyment. Components other than illustration should be considered as they bear on effectiveness as a picture book. The committee that decides on the Caldecott Award winner comprises fifteen members, eight are elected by the entire ALSC membership and seven including the chairperson are appointed by the ALSC President. Many publishers send copies of books to the committee,2009 members each received more than 700, to help identify possible contenders, the chairperson generally asks for committee members to identify strong contenders each month. In the fall each member of the committee may formally nominate seven books, publications late in the year should receive equal consideration. As of 2009/2010 each committee member must nominate three and no books in October, two in November, two in December, and January identification of worthy December publications is solicited. The latest winner of the Caldecott Medal, awarded in 2016, is Sophie Blackall for Finding Winnie, The True Story of the World’s Most Famous Bear, the 2016 committee named four Caldecott Honor Books. The annual number of runners-up has ranged from one to six, same as for the Newbery Medal during the same timespan, indeed, for twenty years from 1993 to 2012 there were two to four Honors every year. Robert Lawson alone has won both a Caldecott Medal and a Newbery Medal, the 1941 Caldecott for They Were Strong and Good and he both wrote and illustrated both books
18.
Ladybird Books
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Ladybird Books is a London-based publishing company, trading as a stand-alone imprint within the Penguin Group of companies. The Ladybird imprint publishes mass-market childrens books, the company traces its origins to 1867, when Henry Wills opened a bookshop in Loughborough, Leicestershire. Within a decade he progressed to printing and publishing guidebooks and street directories and he was joined by William Hepworth in 1904, and the company traded as Wills & Hepworth By August 1914, Wills & Hepworth had published their first childrens books, under the Ladybird imprint. From the start, the company was identified by a logo, at first with open wings. The ladybird logo has undergone several redesigns, the latest of which was launched in 2006. Wills & Hepworth began trading as Ladybird Books in 1971 as a result of the brand recognition that their imprint had achieved in Britain. In the 1960s and 1970s the companys Key Words Reading Scheme was heavily used by British primary schools and this series of 36 small-format hardback books presented stereotyped models of British family life – the innocence of Peter and Jane at play, Mum the housewife, and Dad the breadwinner. Many of the illustrations in this series were by Harry Wingfield, in the 1960s, Ladybird produced the Learnabout series of non-fiction books, some of which were used by adults as well as children. An independent company for much of its life, Ladybird Books became part of the Pearson Group in 1972, the Ladybird offices and printing factory in Loughborough closed the same year, and much of the companys archive of historic artwork was transferred to public collections. The publisher added, Out of literally hundreds of titles currently in print and its parent company, Penguin Random House Children’s division would also be following suit. Imprints of Ladybird Books Ltd. included Balloon, Paperbird, Sunbird, in October 2015, it was announced that Ladybird books would be publishing its first series of books for adults. They were published on 18 November 2015, the series follows a trend of other spoof Ladybird books including We Go to the Gallery by Miriam Elia who had previously been threatened with legal action by Penguin. On 5 July 2016, Touchstone Books, an imprint of Simon & Schuster, announced that they would publish American adaptations of the Ladybird Books for Grown-ups, the classic pocket-sized mini-hardback Ladybird book measured roughly four-and-a-half by seven inches. It was a way of producing books, enabling the books to be retailed at a low price which, for almost thirty years. The first book in the line, Bunnikins Picnic Party, a story in verse for children with illustrations in colour, was produced in 1940, the book featured stories in verse written by W. Perring, accompanied by full-colour illustrations by A. J. MacGregor. The appeal of Bunnikin, Downy Duckling and other characters made the book an instant success. Later series included nature books and a host of books, including hobbies and interests, history. Ladybird began publishing books in formats in 1980
19.
Wisdom
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Wisdom or sapience is the ability to think and act using knowledge, experience, understanding, common sense, and insight. This implies a possession of knowledge, or the seeking of knowledge to apply to the given circumstance and it often requires control of ones emotional reactions so that the universal principle of reason prevails to determine ones action. In short, wisdom is a disposition to find the truth coupled with a judgement as to what actions should be taken. Charles Haddon Spurgeon defined wisdom as the use of knowledge. Robert I. Sutton and Andrew Hargadon defined the attitude of wisdom as acting with knowledge while doubting what one knows as was said by Lucy of the North. The ancient Greeks considered wisdom to be an important virtue of Petross the Great, personified as the goddesses Metis, Athena is said to have sprung from the head of Zeus. She was portrayed as strong, fair, merciful, and chaste, to Socrates and Plato, philosophy was literally the love of Wisdom. Aristotle, in his Metaphysics, defined wisdom as the understanding of causes, i. e. knowing why things are a certain way, the ancient Romans also valued wisdom. It was personified in Minerva, or Pallas and she also represents skillful knowledge and the virtues, especially chastity. Her symbol was the owl which is still a representation of wisdom. She was said to be born from Jupiters forehead, Wisdom is also important within Christianity. Jesus emphasised by Petross the wise, Paul the Apostle, in his first epistle to the Corinthians, argued that there is both secular and divine wisdom, urging Christians to pursue the latter. Prudence, which is related to wisdom, became one of the four cardinal virtues of Catholicism. The Christian philosopher Thomas Aquinas considered wisdom to be the father of all virtues, in the Inuit tradition, developing wisdom was one of the aims of teaching. An Inuit Elder said that a person became wise when they could see what needed to be done and do it successfully without being told what to do. In many cultures, the name for third molars, which are the last teeth to grow, is linked with wisdom. Public schools in the US have an approach to character education, eighteenth century philosophers such as Benjamin Franklin, referred to this as training wisdom and virtue. Traditionally, schools share the responsibility to build character and wisdom along with parents and he teaches that new knowledge and technological know-how increase our power to act which, without wisdom, may cause human suffering and death as well as human benefit
20.
Bombax
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Bombax is a genus of mainly tropical trees in the mallow family. They are native to western Africa, the Indian subcontinent, Southeast Asia, as well as regions of East Asia. Distinguish from the genus Ceiba which has whiter flowers, common names for the genus include silk cotton tree, simal, red cotton tree, kapok, and simply bombax. In Chinese they are known as Mumian, meaning tree cotton, currently four species are recognised, although many plants have been placed in the genus that were later moved. The genus is best known for the species B. ceiba and it is native to southern and eastern Asia and northern Australia. Bombax species are used as food plants by the larvae of some Lepidoptera species including the leaf-miner Bucculatrix crateracma which feeds exclusively on Bombax ceiba, the tree appears on the flag of Equatorial Guinea. Bombax species are among the largest trees in their regions, reaching 30 to 40 metres in height, the leaves are compound with entire margins and deciduous, being shed in the dry-season. They measure 30 to 50 cm across and are palmate in shape with five to nine leaflets, the calyx is deciduous, meaning it does not persist on the fruits. They bear five to ten cm long red flowers between January and March while the tree is still leafless, the stamens are present in bundles in two whorls, while the staminal column lacks lobes. Bombax anceps Pierre Bombax buonopozense P. Beauv, Bombax ceiba L. Bombax costatum Pellegr. Bombax mossambicense A. Robyns Ceiba aesculifolia Britten & Baker Ceiba pentandra Gaertn, Cochlospermum religiosum Alston Cochlospermum vitifolium Spreng. Pachira insignis Savigny Pseudobombax ellipticum Dugand Pseudobombax grandiflorum A, the carpenter tricked the devil into entering the tree in which he carved seven rooms, one above the other, into the trunk. Folklore claims that Bazil still resides in that tree, Bombax in Sanskrit is known as Shaalmala. According to Hindu Scriptures Shalmala Dweepa or Shalmala Island is one of the Seven Continents of the world, though geographically the Island is not yet been identified, It is believed that South Asian Subcontinent is perhaps regarded as Shalmala. The tree is regarded as incarnation of Lord Vishnu according to traditional Hindu Belief. Robyns, André, Essai de monographie du genre Bombax s. l, Bulletin du Jardin botanique de lÉtat a Bruxelles, Bulletin du Jardin botanique de lÉtat a Bruxelles, Vol.33, No. 1,33, 1–144, doi,10. 2307/3667210, JSTOR3667210 Haryana Online, Semul Shimul Bombax in West African plants – A Photo Guide
21.
Br'er Rabbit
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Brer Rabbit /ˈbrɛər/, also spelled Brer Rabbit or Brer Rabbit or Bruh Rabbit, is a central figure as Uncle Remus tells stories of the Southern United States. Brer Rabbit is a trickster who succeeds by his wits rather than by brawn, provoking authority figures, the Walt Disney Company later adapted this character for its 1946 animated motion picture Song of the South. In one tale, Brer Fox constructs a doll out of a lump of tar, when Brer Rabbit comes along he addresses the Tar-Baby amiably, but receives no response. Brer Rabbit becomes offended by what he perceives as the Tar-Babys lack of manners, punches it, the more Brer Rabbit punches and kicks the tar baby out of rage, the more he gets stuck. When Brer Fox reveals himself, the helpless but cunning Brer Rabbit pleads, please, Brer Fox, dont fling me in dat brier-patch, as rabbits are at home in thickets, the resourceful Brer Rabbit uses the thorns and briers to escape. The story was published in Harpers Weekly by Robert Roosevelt. The Brer Rabbit stories can be traced back to figures in Africa, particularly the hare that figures prominently in the storytelling traditions in West, Central. These tales continue to be part of the folklore of numerous peoples throughout those regions. In the Akan traditions of West Africa, the trickster is usually the spider Anansi, however, Anansi does encounter a tricky rabbit called Adanko in some stories. The Jamaican character with the same name Brer Rabbit, is an adaptation of the Ananse stories of the Akan people, though not always successful, the efforts of Brer Rabbit made him a folk hero. However, the trickster is a multidimensional character, while he can be a hero, his amoral nature and his lack of any positive restraint can make him into a villain as well. For both Africans and African Americans, the animal represents a extreme form of behavior that people may be forced to adopt in extreme circumstances in order to survive. The trickster is not to be admired in every situation and he is an example of what to do, but also an example of what not to do. The tricksters behavior can be summed up in the common African proverb, in other words, sometimes people must use extreme measures in extreme circumstances. Several elements in the Brer Rabbit Tar Baby story are reminiscent of those found in a Zimbabwe-Botswana folktale, the stories of Brer Rabbit were written down by Robert Roosevelt, an uncle of US President Theodore Roosevelt. Theodore Roosevelt wrote in his autobiography about his aunt from the State of Georgia, that She knew all the Brer Rabbit stories, and I was brought up on them. One of my uncles, Robert Roosevelt, was struck with them, and took them down from her dictation, publishing them in Harpers. This was a good many years before a genius arose who, in Uncle Remus, Harris also attributed the birth name Riley to Brer Rabbit
22.
Joel Chandler Harris
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Joel Chandler Harris was an American journalist, fiction writer, and folklorist best known for his collection of Uncle Remus stories. Harris was born in Eatonton, Georgia, where he served as an apprentice on a plantation during his teenage years and he spent the majority of his adult life in Atlanta working as an associate editor at the Atlanta Constitution. As Joel Chandler Harris, fiction writer and folklorist, he wrote many Brer Rabbit stories from the African-American oral tradition, Joel Chandler Harris was born in Eatonton, Georgia in 1848 to Mary Ann Harris, an Irish immigrant. His father, whose identity remains unknown, abandoned Mary Ann, the parents had never married, the boy was named Joel after his mothers attending physician, Dr. Joel Branham. Chandler was the name of his mothers uncle, Harris remained self-conscious of his illegitimate birth throughout his life. A prominent physician, Dr. Andrew Reid, gave the Harris family a small cottage to use behind his mansion, Mary Harris worked as a seamstress and helped neighbors with their gardening to support herself and her son. She was a reader and instilled in her son a love of language. Dr. Reid also paid for Harris school tuition for several years, in 1856, Joe Harris briefly attended Kate Davidsons School for Boys and Girls, but transferred to Eatonton School for Boys later that year. He had an academic record and a habit of truancy. Harris excelled in reading and writing, but was known for his pranks, mischief. Practical jokes helped Harris cloak his shyness and insecurities about his red hair, Irish ancestry, in March 1862, Joseph Addison Turner, owner of Turnwold Plantation nine miles east of Eatonton, hired the 16-year-old to work as a printers devil for his newspaper The Countryman. Harris worked for clothing, room, and board, the newspaper reached subscribers throughout the Confederacy during the American Civil War, it was considered one of the larger newspapers in the South, with a circulation of about 2,000. Harris learned to set type for the paper, and Turner allowed him to publish his own poems, book reviews, Turners instruction and technical expertise exerted a profound influence on Harris. During his four-year tenure at Turnwold Plantation, Joe Harris consumed the literature in Turners library and he had access to Chaucer, Dickens, Sir Thomas Browne, Arabian Nights, Shakespeare, Milton, Swift, Thackeray, and Edgar Allan Poe. Turner, a fiercely independent Southern loyalist and eccentric intellectual, emphasized the work of southern writers, in The Countryman Turner insisted that Harris not shy away from including humor in his journalism. While at Turnwold Plantation, Harris spent hundreds of hours in the quarters during time off. He was less self-conscious there and felt his background as an illegitimate. He absorbed the stories, language, and inflections of people like Uncle George Terrell, Old Harbert, the African-American animal tales they shared later became the foundation and inspiration for Harriss Uncle Remus tales
23.
Uncle Remus
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Uncle Remus is the fictional title character and narrator of a collection of African-American folktales adapted and compiled by Joel Chandler Harris, published in book form in 1881. A journalist in post-Reconstruction Atlanta, Georgia, Harris produced seven Uncle Remus books, Uncle Remus is a collection of animal stories, songs, and oral folklore, collected from southern African-Americans. Many of the stories are didactic, much like those of Aesops Fables, Uncle Remus is a kindly old former slave who serves as a storytelling device, passing on the folktales to children gathered around him. The stories are written in an eye dialect devised by Harris to represent a Deep South Gullah dialect, the genre of stories is the trickster tale. At the time of Harriss publication, his work was praised for its ability to capture plantation Negro dialect, Brer Rabbit is the main character of the stories, a likable character, prone to tricks and trouble-making, who is often opposed by Brer Fox and Brer Bear. In one tale, Brer Fox constructs a lump of tar, when Brer Rabbit comes along, he addresses the tar baby amiably but receives no response. Brer Rabbit becomes offended by what he perceives as Tar Babys lack of manners, punches it, the animal stories were conveyed in such a manner that they were not seen as racist by many among the audiences of the time. Providing additional controversy is the context, as they are set on a former slave-owning plantation and portrayed in a passive, even docile. Nevertheless, Harriss work was, according to himself, an account of the stories he heard from the slaves when he worked on a plantation as a young man. He claimed to have listened to, and memorized, the African American animal stories told by Uncle George Terrell, Old Harbert and he acknowledged his debt to these storytellers in his fictionalized autobiography, On the Plantation. Many of the stories that he recorded have direct equivalents in the African oral tradition. Harris himself said, in the introduction to Uncle Remus, that he hoped his book would be considered. a sympathetic supplement to Mrs. Stowes wonderful defense of slavery as it existed in the South. Mrs. Stowe, let me hasten to say, attacked the possibilities of slavery with all the eloquence of genius, but the same genius painted the portrait of the Southern slave-owner, and defended him. Mark Twain read the Uncle Remus stories to his children, who were awed to meet Harris himself, in his Autobiography Twain describes Harris thus, He was the bashfulest grown person I have ever met. When there were people about he stayed silent, and seemed to suffer until they were gone. But he was lovely, nevertheless, for the sweetness and benignity of the immortal Remus looked out from his eyes, Twain wrote, It may be that Jim Wolf was as bashful as Harris. Jim Wolf is a character from the first humorous story Twain ever told, Jim Wolf, an Uncle Remus and His Tales of Brer Rabbit newspaper strip ran from October 14,1945 through December 31,1972. The stories have inspired at least three films, The first and best known is Walt Disneys Song of the South
24.
Tar-Baby
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The Tar-Baby is the second of the Uncle Remus stories published in 1880, it is about a doll made of tar and turpentine used by the villainous Brer Fox to entrap Brer Rabbit. The more that Brer Rabbit fights the Tar-Baby, the more entangled he becomes, in modern usage, tar baby refers to any sticky situation that is only aggravated by additional involvement with it. In one tale, Brer Fox constructs a doll out of a lump of tar, when Brer Rabbit comes along, he addresses the tar baby amiably, but receives no response. Brer Rabbit becomes offended by what he perceives as the Tar-Babys lack of manners, punches it and, in doing so, the more Brer Rabbit punches and kicks the tar baby out of rage, the worse he gets stuck. Now that Brer Rabbit is stuck, Brer Fox ponders how to dispose of him, as rabbits are at home in thickets, however, the resourceful Brer Rabbit escapes. The story was published in Harpers Weekly by Robert Roosevelt. Variations on the tar baby legend are found in the folklore of more than one culture, in the Journal of American Folklore, Aurelio M. Espinosa examined 267 versions of the tar baby story. The next year, Archer Taylor added a list of stories from more sources around the world, citing scholarly claims of its earliest origins in India. Espinosa later published documentation on tarbaby stories from a variety of communities around the world. A very similar West African tale is told of the mythical hero Anansi the Spider, in this version it is Anansi who creates a wooden doll and covers it over with gum, then puts a plate of yams in its lap, in order to capture the she-fairy Mmoatia. Mmoatia takes the bait and eats the yams, but grows angry when the doll does not respond and strikes it, becoming stuck in the process. In a variant recorded in Jamaica, Anansi himself was once similarly trapped with a made by the eldest son of Mrs. Anansi. In a Spanish language version told in the parts of Colombia. A Buddhist myth tells of Prince Five-weapons who encounters the ogre Sticky-Hair in a forest, in Mexico, the tar baby story is also found among Mixtec Zapotec, and Popoluca. In North America, the tale appears in White Mountain Apache lore as Coyote Fights a Lump of Pitch, in this story, white men are said to have erected the pitch-man that ensnares Coyote. In the Tar Wolf story, the animals were thirsty during a dry spell, the lazy rabbit refused to help dig, and so had no right to drink from the well. But she was thirsty, and stole from the well at night, the other animals fashioned a wolf out of tar and placed it near the well to scare the thief. The rabbit was scared at first, but when the tar wolf did not respond to her questions, then she struggled with it and became so ensnared that she couldnt move
25.
Walt Disney
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Walter Elias Walt Disney was an American entrepreneur, animator, voice actor and film producer. A pioneer of the American animation industry, he introduced several developments in the production of cartoons, as a film producer, Disney holds the record for most Academy Awards earned by an individual, having won 22 Oscars from 59 nominations. He was presented with two Golden Globe Special Achievement Awards and an Emmy Award, among other honors, several of his films are included in the National Film Registry by the Library of Congress. Born in Chicago in 1901, Disney developed an early interest in drawing and he took art classes as a boy and got a job as a commercial illustrator at the age of 18. He moved to California in the early 1920s and set up the Disney Brothers Studio with his brother Roy, with Ub Iwerks, Walt developed the character Mickey Mouse in 1928, his first highly popular success, he also provided the voice for his creation in the early years. As the studio grew, Disney became more adventurous, introducing synchronized sound, full-color three-strip Technicolor, feature-length cartoons, the results, seen in features such as Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, Fantasia, Pinocchio, Dumbo and Bambi, furthered the development of animated film. New animated and live-action films followed after World War II, including the critically successful Cinderella and Mary Poppins, in the 1950s, Disney expanded into the amusement park industry, and in 1955 he opened Disneyland. In 1965, he began development of theme park, Disney World, the heart of which was to be a new type of city. Disney was a smoker throughout his life, and died of lung cancer in December 1966 before either the park or the EPCOT project were completed. Disney was a shy, self-deprecating and insecure man in private and he had high standards and high expectations of those with whom he worked. Although there have been accusations that he was racist or anti-semitic and his reputation changed in the years after his death, from a purveyor of homely patriotic values to a representative of American imperialism. Nevertheless, Disney is considered an icon, particularly in the United States. Walt Disney was born on December 5,1901, at 1249 Tripp Avenue and he was the fourth son of Elias Disney—born in the Province of Canada, to Irish parents—and Flora, an American of German and English descent. Aside from Disney, Elias and Calls sons were Herbert, Raymond and Roy, in 1906, when Disney was four, the family moved to a farm in Marceline, Missouri, where his uncle Robert had just purchased land. In Marceline, Disney developed his interest in drawing when he was paid to draw the horse of a neighborhood doctor. Elias was a subscriber to the Appeal to Reason newspaper, Disney also began to develop an ability to work with watercolors and crayons. He lived near the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway line and he and his younger sister Ruth started school at the same time at the Park School in Marceline in late 1909. In 1911, the Disneys moved to Kansas City, Missouri, before long, he was spending more time at the Pfeiffers house than at home
26.
Song of the South
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Song of the South is a 1946 American live-action/animated musical film produced by Walt Disney and released by RKO Radio Pictures, based on the Uncle Remus stories collected by Joel Chandler Harris. The film stars James Baskett in a role, Bobby Driscoll, Luana Patten, Glenn Leedy, Ruth Warrick, Lucile Watson, Hattie McDaniel. It was one of the earliest of Disneys films to live actors. The films song Zip-a-Dee-Doo-Dah won the 1947 Academy Award for Best Song, is used as part of Disneys montage themes. James Baskett was given an honorary Academy Award in 1948 for his portrayal of Uncle Remus and this marked the first Oscar awarded to a black male actor. The film inspired the Disney theme park attraction Splash Mountain, because of this, the film has never been officially released in its entirety on home video in the United States. The film is set on a plantation in the US state of Georgia, although sometimes interpreted as taking place before the U. S. Civil War while slavery was still in force in the region, the setting is the later Reconstruction Era after slavery was abolished. Harris original Uncle Remus stories were all set after the American Civil War, seven-year-old Johnny is excited about what he believes to be a vacation at his grandmothers Georgia plantation with his parents, John Sr. and Sally. Johnny, distraught because his father has never left him or his mother before, leaves that night under cover of darkness and sets off for Atlanta with only a bindle. As Johnny sneaks away from the plantation, he is attracted by the voice of Uncle Remus telling tales in his way of a character named Brer Rabbit. Curious, Johnny hides behind a tree to spy on the group of people sitting around the fire. By this time, word has gotten out that Johnny is gone and some plantation residents, Uncle Remus replies that hes with him. Shortly afterwards, he catches up with Johnny, who sits crying on a nearby log and he befriends the young boy and offers him some food for the journey, taking him back to his cabin. As Uncle Remus cooks, he mentions Brer Rabbit again and the boy, curious, Johnny makes friends with Toby, a little black boy who lives on the plantation, and Ginny Favers, a poor white girl. However, Ginnys two older brothers Joe and Jake are not friendly at all, they constantly bully Ginny and Johnny, when Ginny gives Johnny a puppy, her brothers want to drown it. A rivalry breaks out among the three boys, heartbroken because his mother refuses to let him take care of the puppy, Johnny takes the dog to Uncle Remus and tells him of his troubles. They go to the plantation and tell Sally, who is upset that Uncle Remus kept the dog despite her order and she orders the old man not to tell any more stories to her son. The day of Johnnys birthday arrives and Johnny picks up Ginny to take her to his party, Ginnys mother has used her wedding dress to make her daughter a beautiful dress for the party
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Folklore
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Folklore is the body of expressive culture shared by a particular group of people, it encompasses the traditions common to that culture, subculture or group. These include oral traditions such as tales, proverbs and jokes and they include material culture, ranging from traditional building styles to handmade toys common to the group. Folklore also includes customary lore, the forms and rituals of celebrations like Christmas and weddings, folk dances, each one of these, either singly or in combination, is considered a folklore artifact. Just as essential as the form, folklore also encompasses the transmission of these artifacts from one region to another or from one generation to the next, for folklore is not taught in a formal school curriculum or studied in the fine arts. Instead these traditions are passed along informally from one individual to another either through verbal instruction or demonstration, the academic study of folklore is called folkloristics. To fully understand folklore, it is helpful to clarify its component parts and it is well-documented that the term was coined in 1846 by the Englishman William Thoms. He fabricated it to replace the contemporary terminology of popular antiquities or popular literature, the second half of the compound word, lore, proves easier to define as its meaning has stayed relatively stable over the last two centuries. Coming from Old English lār instruction, and with German and Dutch cognates, it is the knowledge and traditions of a particular group, the concept of folk proves somewhat more elusive. When Thoms first created this term, folk applied only to rural, frequently poor, a more modern definition of folk is a social group which includes two or more persons with common traits, who express their shared identity through distinctive traditions. Folk is a concept which can refer to a nation as in American folklore or to a single family. This expanded social definition of folk supports a view of the material, i. e. the lore. These now include all things people make with words, things they make with their hands, Folklore is no longer circumscribed as being chronologically old or obsolete. The folklorist studies the traditional artifacts of a group and how they are transmitted. Transmission is a part of the folklore process. Without communicating these beliefs and customs within the group over space and time, for folklore is also a verb. These folk artifacts continue to be passed along informally, as a rule anonymously, the folk group is not individualistic, it is community-based and nurtures its lore in community. As new groups emerge, new folklore is created… surfers, motorcyclists, in direct contrast to high culture, where any single work of a named artist is protected by copyright law, folklore is a function of shared identity within the social group. Having identified folk artifacts, the professional folklorist strives to understand the significance of these beliefs, customs, for these cultural units would not be passed along unless they had some continued relevance within the group
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Southern United States
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The Southern United States, commonly referred to as the American South, Dixie, or simply the South, is a region of the United States of America. The South does not fully match the geographic south of the United States, arizona and New Mexico, which are geographically in the southern part of the country, are rarely considered part, while West Virginia, which separated from Virginia in 1863, commonly is. Some scholars have proposed definitions of the South that do not coincide neatly with state boundaries, while the states of Delaware and Maryland, as well as the District of Columbia permitted slavery prior to the start of the Civil War, they remained with the Union. However, the United States Census Bureau puts them in the South, usually, the South is defined as including the southeastern and south-central United States. The region is known for its culture and history, having developed its own customs, musical styles, and cuisines, the Southern ethnic heritage is diverse and includes strong European, African, and some Native American components. Since the late 1960s, black people have many offices in Southern states, especially in the coastal states of Virginia. Historically, the South relied heavily on agriculture, and was rural until after 1945. It has since become more industrialized and urban and has attracted national and international migrants, the American South is now among the fastest-growing areas in the United States. Houston is the largest city in the Southern United States, sociological research indicates that Southern collective identity stems from political, demographic, and cultural distinctiveness from the rest of the United States. The region contains almost all of the Bible Belt, an area of high Protestant church attendance and predominantly conservative, indeed, studies have shown that Southerners are more conservative than non-Southerners in several areas, including religion, morality, international relations and race relations. Apart from its climate, the experience in the South increasingly resembles the rest of the nation. The arrival of millions of Northerners and millions of Hispanics meant the introduction of cultural values, the process has worked both ways, however, with aspects of Southern culture spreading throughout a greater portion of the rest of the United States in a process termed Southernization. The question of how to define the subregions in the South has been the focus of research for nearly a century, as defined by the United States Census Bureau, the Southern region of the United States includes sixteen states. As of 2010, an estimated 114,555,744 people, or thirty-seven percent of all U. S. residents, lived in the South, the nations most populous region. Other terms related to the South include, The Old South, the New South, usually including the South Atlantic States. The Solid South, region largely controlled by the Democratic Party from 1877 to 1964, before that, blacks were elected to national office and many to local office through the 1880s, Populist-Republican coalitions gained victories for Fusionist candidates for governors in the 1890s. Includes at least all the 11 former Confederate States, Southeastern United States, usually including the Carolinas, the Virginias, Tennessee, Kentucky, Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, and Florida. The Deep South, various definitions, usually including Louisiana, Alabama, Mississippi, Georgia, occasionally, parts of adjoining states are included
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Cherokee
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The Cherokee language is part of the Iroquoian language group. The Cherokee were one of the first, if not the first, article 8 in the 1817 treaty with the Cherokee stated Cherokees may wish to become citizens of the United States. The Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma has around 300,000 tribal members, in addition, numerous groups claiming Cherokee lineage, some of which are state-recognized, have members who are among those 819, 000-plus people claiming Cherokee ancestry on the US census. Of the three federally recognized Cherokee tribes, the Cherokee Nation and the United Keetoowah Band of Cherokee Indians have headquarters in Tahlequah, the UKB are mostly descendants of Old Settlers, Cherokee who migrated to Arkansas and Oklahoma about 1817. They are related to the Cherokee who were relocated there in the 1830s under the Indian Removal Act. The Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians is on the Qualla Boundary in western North Carolina, the Cherokee refer to themselves as Ani-Yunwiya, which means Principal People. Many theories—though none proven—abound about the origin of the name Cherokee and it may have originally been derived from the Choctaw word Cha-la-kee, which means people who live in the mountains, or Choctaw Chi-luk-ik-bi, meaning people who live in the cave country. The earliest Spanish rendering of the name Cherokee, from 1755, is Tchalaquei, Another theory is that Cherokee derives from a Lower Creek word, Cvlakke. The Iroquois in New York have historically called the Cherokee Oyata’geronoñ, Tsalagi is sometimes misused as a name for the people, Tsalagi is actually the Cherokee word for the Cherokee language. There are two theories of Cherokee origins. Another theory is that the Cherokee had been in the Southeast for thousands of years, researchers in the 19th century recorded conversations with elders who recounted an oral tradition of the Cherokee peoples migrating south from the Great Lakes region in ancient times. They may have moved south into Muscogee Creek territory and settled at the sites of mounds built by the Mississippian culture, in the 19th century, European-American settlers mistakenly attributed several Mississippian culture sites to the Cherokee, including Moundville and Etowah Mounds. However, the Cherokee did not reach this part of Georgia until the late 18th century, pre-contact Cherokee are considered to be part of the later Pisgah Phase of Southern Appalachia, which lasted from circa 1000 to 1500. During the late Archaic and Woodland Period, Indians in the region began to cultivate plants such as elder, lambsquarters, pigweed, sunflowers. People created new art forms such as shell gorgets, adopted new technologies, during the Mississippian Culture-period, local women developed a new variety of maize called eastern flint corn. It closely resembled modern corn and produced larger crops, the successful cultivation of corn surpluses allowed the rise of larger, more complex chiefdoms with several villages and concentrated populations during this period. Corn became celebrated among numerous peoples in ceremonies, especially the Green Corn Ceremony. Much of what is known about pre-18th-century Native American cultures has come from records of Spanish expeditions, the earliest ones of the mid-16th-century encountered people of the Mississippian culture, the ancestors to later tribes in the Southeast such as the Muscogee and Catawba
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Protagonist
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A protagonist is the main character in any story, such as a literary work or drama. The protagonist is at the center of the story, typically makes the key decisions, the protagonist usually affects the main characters circumstances as well, as they are often the primary actor propelling the story forward. If a story contains a subplot, or is a made up of several stories. The word protagonist is used notably in stories and forms of literature and culture that contain stories, in those forms the protagonist may simply be the leading actor, or the principal character in the story. The antagonist will provide obstacles and complications and create conflict that test the protagonist, thus revealing the strengths, the earliest known examples of protagonist are dated back to Ancient Greece. At first dramatic performances involved merely dancing and recitation by the chorus, but then in Poetics, Aristotle describes how a poet named Thespis introduced the idea of having one actor step out and engage in a dialogue with the chorus. This was the invention of tragedy, which occurred about 536 B. C, then the poet Aeschylus, in his plays, introduced a second actor, inventing the idea of dialogue between two characters. Sophocles then wrote plays that required a third actor, euripides play Hippolytus may be considered to have two protagonists. The protagonist of the first half is Phaedra, who dies partway through the play and her stepson, the titular Hippolytus, assumes the dominant role in the second half of the play. In Ibsen’s play The Master Builder, the protagonist is the architect Halvard Solness, the young woman, Hilda Wangel, whose actions lead to the death of Solness, is the antagonist. In Shakespeare’s play Romeo and Juliet, Romeo is the protagonist and he is actively in pursuit of his relationship with Juliet, and the audience is invested in that story. The character of Tybalt opposes Romeo’s desires, he is the antagonist, in Shakespeare’s play Hamlet, Prince Hamlet, who seeks revenge for the murder of his father, is the protagonist. The antagonist would be the character who most opposes Hamlet, Claudius, in the novel The Catcher in the Rye, the character Holden Caulfield is the protagonist. He is the character, and the reader is invested in his story. Sometimes, a work will have a false protagonist, who may seem to be the protagonist, the character Marion in Alfred Hitchcocks film Psycho is an example. A novel that contains a number of narratives may have a number of protagonists, alexander Solzhenitsyns The First Circle, for example, depicts a variety of characters imprisoned and living in a gulag camp. Leo Tolstoys War and Peace, depicts fifteen major characters involved in or affected by a war
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Sky father
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In comparative mythology, sky father is a term for a recurring concept of a sky god who is addressed as a father, often the father of a pantheon. The concept of sky father may also be taken to include Sun gods with similar characteristics, the concept is complementary to an earth mother. While there are numerous parallels adduced from outside of Indo-European mythology, in Mesopotamian mythology, An or Anu, Sumerian for heaven, sky, is the father deity of the Sumerian and Assyro-Babylonian pantheon and is also the earliest attested Sky Father deity. In Ancient Rome, the sky father, or sky god, was Jupiter, often depicted by birds, usually the eagle or hawk, nicknames included Sky God and Cloud Gatherer. While many attribute a sky god to the sun, Jupiter ruled mainly over the clouds, Apollo was, however, the son of Jupiter. In Māori mythology, Ranginui was the sky father, in this story, the sky father and earth mother Papatuanuku, embraced and had divine children. Wākea is a sky father in Hawaiian mythology, in Native American mythology and Native American religion, the sky father is a common character in creation myth. In China, in Daoist belief, 天, meaning sky, is associated with light, the positive, male, etc. whereas 地 meaning earth or land, is associated with dark, shangdi 上帝 was a supreme God worshipped in ancient China. It is also used to refer to the Christian God in the Standard Chinese Union Version of the Bible, Zhu, Tian Zhu 主, 天主 is translated from the English word, Lord, which is a formal title of the Christian God in Mainland Chinas Christian churches. Tian 天 is used to refer to the sky as well as a personification of it, whether it possesses sentience in the embodiment of an omnipotent, omniscient being is a difficult question for linguists and philosophers. Tengri sky, chief god of the religion of the Turkic peoples. In Ancient Egypt, Horus was ruler of the sky and he was shown as a typical male humanoid, however, he appeared to have the head of a falcon. It is not uncommon for birds to represent the sky in ancient religions, in the ancient prehispanic territory of Colombia the Muisca used to worship Bochica as the sky father. Taevaisa is the word by which adherents in Estonia of the Maausk, all things are sacred for those of the faith of the land, but the idea of a sky father - among other sacrednesses - is something all Estonians are well aware of. In newer history, after the arrival of Christianity, the ideas of a sky father, one way or another, the phrase taevaisa remains in common use in Estonia. The Liber Sancti Iacobi by Aymericus Picaudus tells that the Basques called God Urcia, the current usage is Jaungoikoa, that can be interpreted as the lord of above. The imperfect grammaticality of the word leads some to conjecture that it is a folk etymology applied to jainkoa, the theory about earth goddesses, sky father, and patriarchal invaders was a stirring tale that fired various imaginations. The story was important in literature, and was referred to in various ways by important poets and novelists, including T. S. Eliot, D. H. Lawrence, James Joyce, earth mother Sky deity Thunder god
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Sun
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The Sun is the star at the center of the Solar System. It is a perfect sphere of hot plasma, with internal convective motion that generates a magnetic field via a dynamo process. It is by far the most important source of energy for life on Earth. Its diameter is about 109 times that of Earth, and its mass is about 330,000 times that of Earth, accounting for about 99. 86% of the total mass of the Solar System. About three quarters of the Suns mass consists of hydrogen, the rest is mostly helium, with smaller quantities of heavier elements, including oxygen, carbon, neon. The Sun is a G-type main-sequence star based on its spectral class and it formed approximately 4.6 billion years ago from the gravitational collapse of matter within a region of a large molecular cloud. Most of this matter gathered in the center, whereas the rest flattened into a disk that became the Solar System. The central mass became so hot and dense that it eventually initiated nuclear fusion in its core and it is thought that almost all stars form by this process. The Sun is roughly middle-aged, it has not changed dramatically for more than four billion years and it is calculated that the Sun will become sufficiently large enough to engulf the current orbits of Mercury, Venus, and probably Earth. The enormous effect of the Sun on Earth has been recognized since prehistoric times, the synodic rotation of Earth and its orbit around the Sun are the basis of the solar calendar, which is the predominant calendar in use today. The English proper name Sun developed from Old English sunne and may be related to south, all Germanic terms for the Sun stem from Proto-Germanic *sunnōn. The English weekday name Sunday stems from Old English and is ultimately a result of a Germanic interpretation of Latin dies solis, the Latin name for the Sun, Sol, is not common in general English language use, the adjectival form is the related word solar. The term sol is used by planetary astronomers to refer to the duration of a solar day on another planet. A mean Earth solar day is approximately 24 hours, whereas a mean Martian sol is 24 hours,39 minutes, and 35.244 seconds. From at least the 4th Dynasty of Ancient Egypt, the Sun was worshipped as the god Ra, portrayed as a falcon-headed divinity surmounted by the solar disk, and surrounded by a serpent. In the New Empire period, the Sun became identified with the dung beetle, in the form of the Sun disc Aten, the Sun had a brief resurgence during the Amarna Period when it again became the preeminent, if not only, divinity for the Pharaoh Akhenaton. The Sun is viewed as a goddess in Germanic paganism, Sól/Sunna, in ancient Roman culture, Sunday was the day of the Sun god. It was adopted as the Sabbath day by Christians who did not have a Jewish background, the symbol of light was a pagan device adopted by Christians, and perhaps the most important one that did not come from Jewish traditions
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Star
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A star is a luminous sphere of plasma held together by its own gravity. The nearest star to Earth is the Sun, many other stars are visible to the naked eye from Earth during the night, appearing as a multitude of fixed luminous points in the sky due to their immense distance from Earth. Historically, the most prominent stars were grouped into constellations and asterisms, astronomers have assembled star catalogues that identify the known stars and provide standardized stellar designations. However, most of the stars in the Universe, including all stars outside our galaxy, indeed, most are invisible from Earth even through the most powerful telescopes. Almost all naturally occurring elements heavier than helium are created by stellar nucleosynthesis during the stars lifetime, near the end of its life, a star can also contain degenerate matter. Astronomers can determine the mass, age, metallicity, and many properties of a star by observing its motion through space, its luminosity. The total mass of a star is the factor that determines its evolution. Other characteristics of a star, including diameter and temperature, change over its life, while the environment affects its rotation. A plot of the temperature of stars against their luminosities produces a plot known as a Hertzsprung–Russell diagram. Plotting a particular star on that allows the age and evolutionary state of that star to be determined. A stars life begins with the collapse of a gaseous nebula of material composed primarily of hydrogen, along with helium. When the stellar core is sufficiently dense, hydrogen becomes steadily converted into helium through nuclear fusion, the remainder of the stars interior carries energy away from the core through a combination of radiative and convective heat transfer processes. The stars internal pressure prevents it from collapsing further under its own gravity, a star with mass greater than 0.4 times the Suns will expand to become a red giant when the hydrogen fuel in its core is exhausted. In some cases, it will fuse heavier elements at the core or in shells around the core, as the star expands it throws a part of its mass, enriched with those heavier elements, into the interstellar environment, to be recycled later as new stars. Meanwhile, the core becomes a remnant, a white dwarf. Binary and multi-star systems consist of two or more stars that are bound and generally move around each other in stable orbits. When two such stars have a close orbit, their gravitational interaction can have a significant impact on their evolution. Stars can form part of a much larger gravitationally bound structure, historically, stars have been important to civilizations throughout the world
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Moon
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The Moon is an astronomical body that orbits planet Earth, being Earths only permanent natural satellite. It is the fifth-largest natural satellite in the Solar System, following Jupiters satellite Io, the Moon is second-densest satellite among those whose densities are known. The average distance of the Moon from the Earth is 384,400 km, the Moon is thought to have formed about 4.51 billion years ago, not long after Earth. It is the second-brightest regularly visible celestial object in Earths sky, after the Sun and its surface is actually dark, although compared to the night sky it appears very bright, with a reflectance just slightly higher than that of worn asphalt. Its prominence in the sky and its cycle of phases have made the Moon an important cultural influence since ancient times on language, calendars, art. The Moons gravitational influence produces the ocean tides, body tides, and this matching of apparent visual size will not continue in the far future. The Moons linear distance from Earth is currently increasing at a rate of 3.82 ±0.07 centimetres per year, since the Apollo 17 mission in 1972, the Moon has been visited only by uncrewed spacecraft. The usual English proper name for Earths natural satellite is the Moon, the noun moon is derived from moone, which developed from mone, which is derived from Old English mōna, which ultimately stems from Proto-Germanic *mǣnōn, like all Germanic language cognates. Occasionally, the name Luna is used, in literature, especially science fiction, Luna is used to distinguish it from other moons, while in poetry, the name has been used to denote personification of our moon. The principal modern English adjective pertaining to the Moon is lunar, a less common adjective is selenic, derived from the Ancient Greek Selene, from which is derived the prefix seleno-. Both the Greek Selene and the Roman goddess Diana were alternatively called Cynthia, the names Luna, Cynthia, and Selene are reflected in terminology for lunar orbits in words such as apolune, pericynthion, and selenocentric. The name Diana is connected to dies meaning day, several mechanisms have been proposed for the Moons formation 4.51 billion years ago, and some 60 million years after the origin of the Solar System. These hypotheses also cannot account for the angular momentum of the Earth–Moon system. This hypothesis, although not perfect, perhaps best explains the evidence, eighteen months prior to an October 1984 conference on lunar origins, Bill Hartmann, Roger Phillips, and Jeff Taylor challenged fellow lunar scientists, You have eighteen months. Go back to your Apollo data, go back to computer, do whatever you have to. Dont come to our conference unless you have something to say about the Moons birth, at the 1984 conference at Kona, Hawaii, the giant impact hypothesis emerged as the most popular. Afterward there were only two groups, the giant impact camp and the agnostics. Giant impacts are thought to have been common in the early Solar System, computer simulations of a giant impact have produced results that are consistent with the mass of the lunar core and the present angular momentum of the Earth–Moon system
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Neil Gaiman
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Neil Richard MacKinnon Gaiman is an English author of short fiction, novels, comic books, graphic novels, audio theatre, and films. His notable works include the book series The Sandman and novels Stardust, American Gods, Coraline. He has won awards, including the Hugo, Nebula. He is the first author to win both the Newbery and the Carnegie medals for the work, The Graveyard Book. In 2013, The Ocean at the End of the Lane was voted Book of the Year in the British National Book Awards and his father, David Bernard Gaiman, worked in the same chain of stores, his mother, Sheila Gaiman, was a pharmacist. He has two sisters, Claire and Lizzy. His other sister, Lizzy Calcioli, has said, Most of our social activities were involved with Scientology or our Jewish family and it would get very confusing when people would ask my religion as a kid. I’d say, I’m a Jewish Scientologist, Gaiman says that he is not a Scientologist, and that like Judaism, Scientology is his familys religion. About his personal views, Gaiman has stated, I think we can say that God exists in the DC Universe, I would not stand up and beat the drum for the existence of God in this universe. I dont know, I think theres probably a 50/50 chance and it doesnt really matter to me. Gaiman was able to read at the age of four, when he was about ten years old, he read his way through the works of Dennis Wheatley, where especially The Ka of Gifford Hillary and The Haunting of Toby Jugg made an impact on him. One work that made an impression on him was J. R. R. Tolkiens The Lord of the Rings from his school library. He consistently took them out and read them and he would later win the school English prize and the school reading prize, enabling him to finally acquire the third volume. For his seventh birthday, Gaiman received C. S. Lewiss The Chronicles of Narnia series and he later recalled that I admired his use of parenthetical statements to the reader, where he would just talk to you. Id think, Oh, my gosh, that is so cool, when I become an author, I want to be able to do things in parentheses. I liked the power of putting things in brackets, Narnia also introduced him to literary awards, specifically the 1956 Carnegie Medal won by the concluding volume. Lewis Carrolls Alices Adventures in Wonderland was another favourite. Alice was default reading to the point where I knew it by heart and he also enjoyed Batman comics as a child
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American Gods
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American Gods is a Hugo and Nebula Award-winning novel by English author Neil Gaiman. The novel is a blend of Americana, fantasy, and various strands of ancient and modern mythology, all centering on the mysterious, several of the themes touched upon in the book were previously glimpsed in The Sandman comic book series. The book was published in 2001 by Headline in the United Kingdom, a special tenth anniversary edition, with the authors preferred text and including an additional 12,000 words, was published by William Morrow in June 2011. The text is identical to the signed and numbered limited edition that was released by Hill House Publishers in 2003 and this version of the text has also been in print from Headline, Gaimans publisher in the UK since 2005. The tenth anniversary edition marks the first time the preferred text has been available in wide release outside the UK. Gaiman also did a very extensive sold-out book tour celebrating the tenth anniversary, both were produced and published by Harper Audio. In March 2017, The Folio Society published a collectors edition of American Gods with many corrections to the authors preferred text version. Gaiman described it as the cleanest text there has ever been, starting in April 2017, Starz will air a television adaption of the novel, with Bryan Fuller and Michael Green serving as showrunners, and Gaiman serving as an executive producer. The central premise of the novel is that gods and mythological creatures exist because people believe in them, immigrants to the United States brought with them spirits and gods. The power of mythological beings has diminished as peoples beliefs waned. New gods have arisen, reflecting Americas obsessions with media, celebrity, technology, Shadow is a taciturn convict who is released from prison early when his wife, Laura Moon, and best friend Robbie Burton die in a car accident, leaving him alone in the world. Bereaved, he takes a job as a bodyguard for a mysterious conman, Mr. Wednesday, Shadow and Wednesday travel across America visiting Wednesdays unusual colleagues and acquaintances until Shadow learns that Wednesday is in fact an incarnation of Odin the All-Father. Shadow meets many gods and magical creatures, including Mr. Nancy, Czernobog, Shadow tosses the coin into his wifes grave, inadvertently bringing her back from the dead as a semi-living revenant. Shadow and Wednesday try to rally the Old Gods to fight the new, the New Gods abduct Shadow, but Laura rescues him, killing several Men in Black in the process. Wednesday hides Shadow first with a few stray Egyptian gods who run a funeral parlor in Illinois, Shadow meets many colorful locals in Lakeside including Hinzelmann, an old-timer who spins tall tales, and Chad Mulligan, the workaday local chief of police. Lakeside is tranquil and idyllic but Shadow suspects something is not quite right about the town, while neighbouring communities turn into ghost towns, Lakeside is mysteriously resilient. Disappearances of children occur with unusual frequency, Shadow is unable to investigate further, busily traveling across America with Wednesday, meeting the likes of Johnny Appleseed and the goddess Easter to solicit their help. They are pursued all the while by the Men in Black, particularly Mr. Town, finally the New Gods seek to parlay with Wednesday, but they murder him at the meeting
