It is believed the Druids, Celtic high priests, led ritual celebrations during midsummer. This tradition of rejoicing by the side of bonfires was also practiced by Germanic, Slavic, and Celtic pagans this tradition is still enjoyed in Germany, Austria, Estonia, and other countries today. They would also visit wells thought to have healing powers and build huge bonfires. ![]() Midsummer was a crucial time of year for Vikings, Nordic seafarers, who would meet to discuss legal matters and resolve disputes around the summer solstice. Roman rituals included the removal of an unborn calf from its mother's womb and subsequent sacrifice. Meanwhile in the days leading up to summer solstice, the Ancient Romans paid tribute to Vesta, the goddess of the hearth. For Greeks, the summer solstice also marked a one-month countdown to the opening of the Olympic games. Abandonging their social codes, slaves participated as equals and were often served by their masters. For summer solstice, they participated in ceremonies to honor the earth, femininity, and the force known as yin in contrast to winter solstice rituals, which were devoted to the heavens, masculinity, and yang.Īmong the Ancient Greeks, summer solstice meant celebration, including rituals for a festival in honor of the agriculture god Cronus. The ancient Chinese believed the sun was exactly in the middle of the sky, without slant, at noon on summer solstice thus, they marked this moment as the beginning of summer. Not an uncommon belief for summer solstice, which has been celebrated by the ancients around the globe. The ceremony as a whole spoke to the continuity of life it was meant to convey a cycle of regeneration wherein all of nature is intertwined. Symbolic of death and renewal, the dancer was believed to be reborn mentally, spiritually, and physically. Typically, a dancer was pierced through the skin and connected by ropes and pegs to either a tree or a stake around which he would dance until the pegs or the piercings broke. The sundance was generally outlawed in the latter part of the nineteenth century because of the perceived aspects of self-torture. The Arapaho, Arikara, Asbinboine, Cheyenne, Crow, Gros, Ventre, Hidutsa, Sioux, Plains Cree, Plains Ojibway, Sarasi, Omaha, Ponca, Ute, Shoshone, Kiowa, and Blackfoot are among the tribes that celebrated. Although the ceremonies varied in form from tribe to tribe, many had features in common, such as dancing, singing and drumming, prayer, meditation, the experience of visions, fasting, and skin-piercings. The sundance, believed to have originated with the Lakota tribe, is a ceremony that lasted 28 days, with a final four to eight days of intense festivity. Many, if not all, of the native American tribes performed ceremonies focused on summer solstice. Probably constructed by ancient Pueblo Indians, Fajada Butte may have been the center of a complex society of precolumbian culture and the site of celebrations and native ceremonies. According to tradition, Fajada Butte is sacred ground. The structure includes three slabs and spiral petroglyphs, which cast shadows and shafts of light to indicate the cycles of both sun and moon. Fajada Butte rises nearly 148 yards above the canyon floor and is known to contain a solar marking site that records the equinoxes and solstices. ![]() It is believed that the Bighorn "observatory" is simply one part of a larger configuration of interrelated archeological sites that represent 7,000 years of Native American cultural adaptation to their landscape.Īnother significant structure is located in Chaco Canyon, an arid valley in New Mexico. The structure is only reachable during the warm summer months as it was built at the top of the mountain range at 9,642 feet.īetween 70 and 150 wheels have been identified in South Dakota, Wyoming, Montana, Alberta, and Saskatchewan. Each orients a person to certain places on the distant horizon that indicate where the sun rises or sets on summer solstice. Six more stone cairns are arranged around the circle, most large enough to hold a sitting human. At the center is a doughnut-shaped pile of stones (a cairn) connected to the rim of the outer circle by 28 spokes of stones. The "medicine wheel," with a diameter of 80 feet, aligns with solstice sunrise and sunset. Some scholars believe that the arrangement of stones built several hundred years ago by the Plains Indians on the top of Wyoming's Big Horn Mountains is a tribute to the summer solstice. Among the most interesting rituals are those of the native American tribes. Throughout time, the year's longest span of daylight has been marked and celebrated by many different cultures. From the Latin words for "sun" and "to stop" comes our word "solstice." On solstice, the sun does appear to pause in the sky when it reaches its northernmost point, which occurred at 1:04 a.m.
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