Early Years
Rolihlahla Mandela was born in Mvezo, a village near Mthatha in the Transkei, on July 18, 1918, to Nonqaphi Nosekeni and Henry Mgadla Mandela. His father was the principal councillor to the Acting Paramount Chief of the Thembu. Rolihlahla literally means “pulling the branch of a tree”. After his father’s death in 1927, the young Rolihlahla became the ward of Jongintaba Dalindyebo, the Paramount Chief, to be groomed to assume high office. Hearing the elder’s stories of his ancestor’s valour during the wars of resistance, he dreamed also of making his own contribution to the freedom struggle of his people.
After receiving a primary education at a local mission school, where he was given the name Nelson, he was sent to the Clarkebury Boarding Institute for his Junior Certificate and then to Healdtown, a Wesleyan secondary school of some repute, where he matriculated. He then enrolled at the University College of Fort Hare for the Bachelor of Arts Degree where he was elected onto the Students’ Representative Council. He was suspended from college for joining in a protest boycott, along with Oliver Tambo.
He and his cousin Justice ran away to Johannesburg to avoid arranged marriages and for a short period he worked as a mine policeman. Mr Mandela was introduced to Walter Sisulu in 1941 and it was Sisulu who arranged for him to do his articles at Lazar Sidelsky’s law firm. Completing his BA through the University of South Africa (Unisa) in 1942, he commenced study for his LLB shortly afterwards (though he left the University of the Witwatersrand without graduating in 1948). He entered politics in earnest while studying, and joined the African National Congress in 1943.
Despite his increasing political awareness and activities, Mr Mandela also had time for other things. “It was in the lounge of the Sisulu’s home that I met Evelyn Mase … She was a quiet, pretty girl from the countryside who did not seem over-awed by the comings and goings … Within a few months I had asked her to marry me, and she accepted.” They married in a civil ceremony at the Native Commissioner’s Court in Johannesburg, “for we could not afford a traditional wedding or feast”. Mase and Mr Mandela went on to have four children: Thembikile (1946), Makaziwe (1947), who died at nine months, Makgatho (1951) and Makaziwe (1954). The couple was divorced in 1958.
At the height of the Second World War, in 1944, a small group of young Africans who were members of the African National Congress, banded together under the leadership of Anton Lembede. Among them were William Nkomo, Sisulu, Oliver R Tambo, Ashby P Mda and Nelson Mandela. Starting out with 60 members, all of whom were residing around the Witwatersrand, these young people set themselves the formidable task of transforming the ANC into a more radical mass movement.
Their chief contention was that the political tactics of the “old guard” leadership of the ANC, reared in the tradition of constitutionalism and polite petitioning of the government of the day, were proving inadequate to the tasks of national emancipation. In opposition to the old guard, Lembede and his colleagues espoused a radical African nationalism grounded in the principle of national self-determination. In September 1944 they came together to found the African National Congress Youth League (ANCYL).
Mandela soon impressed his peers by his disciplined work and consistent effort and was elected as the league’s National Secretary in 1948. By painstaking work, campaigning at the grass-roots and through its mouthpiece Inyaniso (“Truth”) the ANCYL was able to canvass support for its policies amongst the ANC membership.
Emerging as Leader
Spurred on by the victory of the National Party which won the 1948 all-white elections on the platform of apartheid, at the 1949 Annual Conference the Programme of Action, inspired by the Youth League, which advocated the weapons of boycott, strike, civil disobedience and non-co-operation, was accepted as official ANC policy.
The Programme of Action had been drawn up by a sub-committee of the ANCYL composed of David Bopape, Mda, Mr Mandela, James Njongwe, Sisulu and Tambo. To ensure its implementation, the membership replaced older leaders with a number of younger men. Sisulu, a founding member of the Youth League, was elected secretary-general. The conservative Dr AB Xuma lost the presidency to Dr JS Moroka, a man with a reputation for greater militancy. In December Mr Mandela himself was elected to the NEC at the National Conference.
When the ANC launched its Campaign for the Defiance of Unjust Laws in 1952, Mr Mandela, by then President of the Youth League, was elected National Volunteer-in-Chief. The Defiance Campaign was conceived as a mass civil disobedience campaign that would snowball from a core of selected volunteers to involve more and more ordinary people, culminating in mass defiance. Fulfilling his responsibility as Volunteer-in-Chief, Mr Mandela travelled the country organising resistance to discriminatory legislation. Charged, with Moroka, Sisulu and 17 others, and brought to trial for his role in the campaign, the court found that Mr Mandela and his co-accused had consistently advised their followers to adopt a peaceful course of action and to avoid all violence.
For his part in the Defiance Campaign, Mr Mandela was convicted of contravening the Suppression of Communism Act and given a suspended prison sentence. Shortly after the campaign ended, he was also prohibited from attending gatherings and confined to Johannesburg for six months.
During this period of restrictions, Mr Mandela wrote the attorneys admission examination and was admitted to the profession. He opened a practice in Johannesburg in August 1952, and in December, in partnership with Tambo, opened South Africa’s first black law firm in central Johannesburg. He says of himself during that time: “As an attorney, I could be rather flamboyant in court. I did not act as though I were a black man in a white man’s court, but as if everyone else – white and black – was a guest in my court. When presenting a case, I often made sweeping gestures and used high-flown language…. (and) used unorthodox tactics with witnesses.”
Their professional status didn’t earn Mr Mandela and Tambo any personal immunity from the brutal apartheid laws. They fell foul of the land segregation legislation, and the authorities demanded that they move their practice from the city to the back of beyond, as Mr Mandela later put it, “miles away from where clients could reach us during working hours. This was tantamount to asking us to abandon our legal practice, to give up the legal service of our people … No attorney worth his salt would easily agree to do that”. The partnership resolved to defy the law.
In 1953 Mr Mandela was given the responsibility to prepare a plan that would enable the leadership of the movement to maintain dynamic contact with its membership without recourse to public meetings. The objective was to prepare for the possibility that the ANC would, like the Communist Party, be declared illegal and to ensure that the organisation would be able to operate from underground. This was the M-Plan, named after him. “The plan was conceived with the best of intentions but it was instituted with only modest success and its adoption was never widespread.”
During the early fifties Mr Mandela played an important part in leading the resistance to the Western Areas removals, and to the introduction of Bantu Education. He also played a significant role in popularising the Freedom Charter, adopted by the Congress of the People in 1955. Having been banned again for two years in 1953, neither Mr Mandela nor Sisulu were able to attend but “we found a place at the edge of the crowd where we could observe without mixing in or being seen”.
During the whole of the ‘50s, Mr Mandela was the victim of various forms of repression. He was banned, arrested and imprisoned. A five year banning order was enforced against him in March 1956. “[But] this time my attitude towards my bans had changed radically. When I was first banned, I abided by the rules and regulations of my persecutors. I had now developed contempt for these restrictions … To allow my activities to be circumscribed my opponent was a form of defeat, and I resolved not to become my own jailer.”
Although Mr Mandela and Mase had effectively separated in 1955, it wasn’t until 1958 that they formally divorced – and shortly afterwards, in June, he was married to Nomzamo Winnie Mandela. Their first date was at an Indian restaurant near Mr Mandela’s office and he recalls that she was “dazzling, and even the fact that she had never before tasted curry and drank glass after glass of water to cool her palate only added to her charm … Winnie has laughingly told people that I never proposed to her, but I always told her that I asked her on our very first date and that I simply took it for granted from that day forward”.
Unlike his first marriage, the couple observed most of the traditional requirements, including payment of lobola, and were married in a local church in Bizana on June 14. There was no time (or money) for a honeymoon – Nelson had to appear in court for the continuing Treason Trial and anyway his banning order had only been relaxed for six days.
The Trials
In fact for much of the latter half of the decade, he was one of the 156 accused in the mammoth Treason Trial, at great cost to his legal practice and his political work, though he recalls that, during his incarceration in the Fort, the communal cell “became a kind of convention for far-flung freedom fighters”. After the Sharpeville Massacre on March 21. 1960, the ANC was outlawed, and Mr Mandela, still on trial, was detained, along with hundreds of others.
The Treason Trial collapsed in 1961 as South Africa was being steered towards the adoption of the republic constitution. With the ANC now illegal the leadership picked up the threads from its underground headquarters and Nelson Mandela emerged at this time as the leading figure in this new phase of struggle. Under the ANC’s inspiration, 1 400 delegates came together at an All-in African Conference in Pietermaritzburg during March 1961.
Mr Mandela was the keynote speaker. In an electrifying address he challenged the apartheid regime to convene a national convention, representative of all South Africans to thrash out a new constitution based on democratic principles. Failure to comply, he warned, would compel the majority (Blacks) to observe the forthcoming inauguration of the Republic with a mass general strike. He immediately went underground to lead the campaign. Although fewer answered the call than Mr Mandela had hoped, it attracted considerable support throughout the country. The government responded with the largest military mobilisation since the war, and the Republic was born in an atmosphere of fear and apprehension.
Forced to live apart from his family (and he and Winnie by now had two daughters, Zenani born in 1959 and Zindzi, born 1960) moving from place to place to evade detection by the government’s ubiquitous informers and police spies, Mr Mandela had to adopt a number of disguises. Sometimes dressed as a labourer, at other times as a chauffeur, his successful evasion of the police earned him the title of the Black Pimpernel.
He managed to travel around the country and stayed with numerous sympathisers – a family in Market Street central Johannesburg, in his comrade Wolfie Kodesh’s flat (where he insisted on running on-the-spot every day), in the servant’s quarters of a doctor’s house where he pretended to be a gardener, and on a sugar plantation in Natal. It was during this time that he, together with other leaders of the ANC, constituted a new section of the liberation movement, Umkhonto we Sizwe (MK), as an armed nucleus with a view to preparing for armed struggle, with Mr Mandela as its commander in chief.
At the Rivonia Trial, Mr Mandela explained: “At the beginning of June 1961, after long and anxious assessment of the South African situation, I and some colleagues came to the conclusion that as violence in this country was inevitable, it would be wrong and unrealistic for African leaders to continue preaching peace and non-violence at a time when the government met our peaceful demands with force. It was only when all else had failed, when all channels of peaceful protest had been barred to us, that the decision was made to embark on violent forms of political struggle, and to form Umkhonto we Sizwe ... the Government had left us no other choice.”
In 1962 Mandela left the country, as ‘David Motsamayi’, and travelled abroad for several months. In Ethiopia he addressed the Conference of the Pan African Freedom Movement of East and Central Africa, and was warmly received by senior political leaders in several countries including Tanganyika, Senegal, Ghana and Sierra Leone. He also spent time in London where he managed to find time, with Oliver Tambo, to see the sights as well as to spend time with many exiled comrades. During this trip Mr Mandela met up with the first group of 21 MK recruits on their way to Addis Ababa for guerrilla training.
Prisoner 466/64
Not long after his return to South Africa Mr Mandela was arrested, on August 5, and charged with illegal exit from the country, and incitement to strike. He was in Natal at the time, passing through Howick on his way back to Johannesburg, posing again as David Motsamayi, now the driver of a white theatre director and MK member, Cecil Williams.
Since he considered the prosecution a trial of the aspirations of the African people, Mr Mandela decided to conduct his own defence. He applied for the recusal of the magistrate, on the ground that in such a prosecution a judiciary controlled entirely by whites was an interested party and therefore could not be impartial, and on the ground that he owed no duty to obey the laws of a white parliament, in which he was not represented. Mr Mandela prefaced this challenge with the affirmation: “I detest racialism, because I regard it as a barbaric thing, whether it comes from a black man or a white man.”
Mr Mandela was convicted and sentenced to five years imprisonment. He was transferred to Robben Island in May 1963 only to be brought back to Pretoria again in July. The authorities issued a statement to the press that this had been done to protect Mr Mandela from assault by PAC prisoners. “This was patently false; they had brought me back to Pretoria for their own motives, which soon became clear.” Not long afterwards he encountered Thomas Mashifane, the foreman from Liliesleaf Farm in Rivonia where MK had set up their HQ. He knew then that their hide-out had been discovered. A few days later he and 10 others were charged with sabotage.
The Rivonia Trial, as it came to be known, lasted eight months. Most of the accused stood up well to the prosecution, having made a collective decision that this was a political trial and that they would take the opportunity to make public their political beliefs. Three of the accused, Mr Mandela, Sisulu and Govan Mbeki also decided that, if they were given the death sentence, they would not appeal.
Mr Mandela’s statement in court during the trial is a classic in the history of the resistance to apartheid, and has been an inspiration to all who have opposed it. He ended with these words:
“I have fought against white domination, and I have fought against black domination. I have cherished the ideal of a democratic and free society in which all persons live together in harmony and with equal opportunities. It is an ideal which I hope to live for and to achieve. But if needs be, it is an ideal for which I am prepared to die.”
All but two of the accused were found guilty and sentenced to life imprisonment on June 12, 1964. The black prisoners were flown secretly to Robben Island immediately after the trial was over to begin serving their sentences.
Nelson Mandela’s time in prison, which amounted to almost 27 years, was marked by many small and large events which played a crucial part in shaping the personality and attitudes of the man who was to become the first President of a democratic South Africa. Many fellow prisoners and warders influenced him and he, in his turn, influenced them. While he was in jail his mother and son died, his wife was banned and subjected to continuous arrest and harassment, and the liberation movement was reduced to isolated groups of activists.
In March 1982, after 18 years, he was suddenly transferred to Pollsmoor Prison in Cape Town (with Sisulu, Raymond Mhlaba and Andrew Mlangeni) and in December 1988 he was moved to the Victor Verster Prison near Paarl, from where he was eventually released. While in prison, Mr Mandela flatly rejected offers made by his jailers for remission of sentence in exchange for accepting the bantustan policy by recognising the independence of the Transkei and agreeing to settle there. Again in the ‘80s Mr Mandela and others rejected an offer of release on condition that he renounce violence. Prisoners cannot enter into contracts – only free men can negotiate, he said.
Nevertheless Mr Mandela did initiate talks with the apartheid regime in 1985, when he wrote to Minister of Justice Kobie Coetsee. They first met later that year when Mr Mandela was hospitalised for prostate surgery. Shortly after this he was moved to a single cell at Pollsmoor and this gave Mr Mandela the chance to start a dialogue with the government – which took the form of ‘talks about talks’. Throughout this process, he was adamant that negotiations could only be carried out by the full ANC leadership. In time, a secret channel of communication would be set up whereby he could get messages to the ANC in Lusaka, but at the beginning he said: “I chose to tell no one what I was about to do. There are times when a leader must move out ahead of the flock, go off in a new direction, confident that he is leading his people in the right direction.”
Released on February 11, 1990, Mr Mandela plunged wholeheartedly into his life’s work, striving to attain the goals he and others had set out almost four decades earlier. In 1991, at the first national conference of the ANC held inside South Africa after being banned for decades, Nelson Mandela was elected President of the ANC while his lifelong friend and colleague, Oliver Tambo, became the organisation’s National Chairperson.
Negotiating Peace
In a life that symbolises the triumph of the human spirit, Nelson Mandela accepted the 1993 Nobel Peace Prize (along with FW de Klerk) on behalf of all South Africans who suffered and sacrificed so much to bring peace to our land.
The era of apartheid formally came to an end on the April 27, 1994, when Nelson Mandela voted for the first time in his life – along with his people. However, long before that date it had become clear, even before the start of negotiations at the World Trade Centre in Kempton Park, that the ANC was increasingly charting the future of South Africa.
Rolihlahla Nelson Dalibunga Mandela was inaugurated as President of a democratic South Africa on May 10, 1994. In his inauguration speech he said:
“We dedicate this day to all the heroes and heroines in this country and the rest of the world who sacrificed in many ways and surrendered their lives so that we could be free. Their dreams have become reality. Freedom is their reward. We are both humbled and elevated by the honour and privilege that you, the people of South Africa, have bestowed on us, as the first President of a united, democratic, non-racial and non-sexist government.
“We understand it still that there is no easy road to freedom. We know it well that none of us acting alone can achieve success. We must therefore act together as a united people, for national reconciliation, for nation building, for the birth of a new world. Let there be justice for all. Let there be peace for all. Let there be work, bread, water and salt for all. Let each know that for each the body, the mind and the soul have been freed to fulfil themselves. Never, never and never again shall it be that this beautiful land will again experience the oppression of one by another and suffer the indignity of being the skunk of the world. Let freedom reign.”
Mr Mandela stepped down in 1999 after one term as President – but for him there has been no real retirement. He set up three foundations bearing his name: The Nelson Mandela Foundation, The Nelson Mandela Children’s Fund and The Mandela-Rhodes Foundation. Until very recently his schedule has been relentless. But during this period he has had the love and support of his large family – including his wife Graça Machel, whom he married on his 80th birthday in 1998.
In April 2007 Mandla Mandela, grandson of Nelson and son of Makgatho Mandela who died in 2005, was installed as head of the Mvezo Traditional Council at an ubeko (“anointment”) ceremony at the Mvezo Great Place, the seat of the Madiba clan.
Nelson Mandela never wavered in his devotion to democracy, equality and learning. Despite terrible provocation, he has never answered racism with racism. His life has been an inspiration, in South Africa and throughout the world, to all who are oppressed and deprived, to all who are opposed to oppression and deprivation.
A good head and a good heart are always a formidable combination.
Nelson Mandela
After climbing a great hill, one only finds that there are many more hills to climb.
Nelson Mandela
Communists have always played an active role in the fight by colonial countries for their freedom, because the short-term objects of Communism would always correspond with the long-term objects of freedom movements.
Nelson Mandela
Does anybody really think that they didn't get what they had because they didn't have the talent or the strength or the endurance or the commitment?
Nelson Mandela
Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world.
Nelson Mandela
For to be free is not merely to cast off one's chains, but to live in a way that respects and enhances the freedom of others.
Nelson Mandela
I cannot conceive of Israel withdrawing if Arab states do not recognize Israel, within secure borders.
Nelson Mandela
I detest racialism, because I regard it as a barbaric thing, whether it comes from a black man or a white man.
Nelson Mandela
I dream of an Africa which is in peace with itself.
Nelson Mandela
I dream of the realization of the unity of Africa, whereby its leaders combine in their efforts to solve the problems of this continent. I dream of our vast deserts, of our forests, of all our great wildernesses.
Nelson Mandela
I learned that courage was not the absence of fear, but the triumph over it. The brave man is not he who does not feel afraid, but he who conquers that fear.
Nelson Mandela
If the United States of America or Britain is having elections, they don't ask for observers from Africa or from Asia. But when we have elections, they want observers.
Nelson Mandela
If there are dreams about a beautiful South Africa, there are also roads that lead to their goal. Two of these roads could be named Goodness and Forgiveness.
Nelson Mandela
If you talk to a man in a language he understands, that goes to his head. If you talk to him in his language, that goes to his heart.
Nelson Mandela
If you want to make peace with your enemy, you have to work with your enemy. Then he becomes your partner.
Nelson Mandela
In my country we go to prison first and then become President.
Nelson Mandela
It always seems impossible until its done.
Nelson Mandela
It is better to lead from behind and to put others in front, especially when you celebrate victory when nice things occur. You take the front line when there is danger. Then people will appreciate your leadership.
Nelson Mandela
Let freedom reign. The sun never set on so glorious a human achievement.
Nelson Mandela
Let there be work, bread, water and salt for all.
Nelson Mandela
Money won't create success, the freedom to make it will.
Nelson Mandela
Never, never and never again shall it be that this beautiful land will again experience the oppression of one by another.
Nelson Mandela
Only free men can negotiate; prisoners cannot enter into contracts. Your freedom and mine cannot be separated.
Nelson Mandela
There can be no keener revelation of a society's soul than the way in which it treats its children.
Nelson Mandela
There is no easy walk to freedom anywhere, and many of us will have to pass through the valley of the shadow of death again and again before we reach the mountaintop of our desires.
Nelson Mandela
There is no passion to be found playing small - in settling for a life that is less than the one you are capable of living.
Nelson Mandela
There is no such thing as part freedom.
Nelson Mandela
There is nothing like returning to a place that remains unchanged to find the ways in which you yourself have altered.
Nelson Mandela
We must use time wisely and forever realize that the time is always ripe to do right.
Nelson Mandela
When the water starts boiling it is foolish to turn off the heat.
Nelson Mandela
Live at Top Of The Pops
April 1984 as rebroadcast on TOTP2
Perseid meteor shower in pictures Telegraph.co.uk - August 13, 2010
Glastonbury, a small town about 125 miles or 220 km west of London, is full of myth and legend. The town is known for its history, including Glastonbury Lake Village, Glastonbury Abbey, Somerset Rural Life Museum, and Glastonbury Tor. There are many myths and legends associated with the town.
Joseph of Arimathea
Holy Grail Mythology
King Arthur
Glastonbury is notable for myths and legends concerning Joseph of Arimathea, the Holy Grail and King Arthur. The legend that Joseph of Arimathea retrieved certain holy relics was introduced by the French poet Robert de Boron in his 13th century version of the grail story, thought to have been a trilogy though only fragments of the later books survive today. The work became the inspiration for the later Vulgate Cycle of Arthurian tales.
De Boron's account relates how Joseph captured Jesus' blood in a cup (the "Holy Grail") which was subsequently brought to Britain. The Vulgate Cycle reworked Boron's original tale. Joseph of Arimathea was no longer the chief character in the Grail origin: Joseph's son, Josephus, took over his role of the Grail keeper.
The earliest versions of the grail romance, however, do not call the grail "holy" or mention anything about blood, Joseph or Glastonbury.
Stories of a sacred vessel dear to the Celts became entwined with the story of Christ's Last Supper and the Christian Holy Grail which inspired quests and crusades across England, Europe and the Far East. The Glastonbury and Somerset legends involve the boy Jesus together with his Uncle, Joseph of Arimathea building Glastonbury's first wattle and daub church. These legends gave rise to the continuing cult of the Virgin on the site of the present Lady Chapel and inspired the title 'Our Lady St. Mary of Glastonbury,' which is still used today.
After the crucifixion of Jesus, lore has it that Joseph of Arimathea (who according to the Bible donated his own tomb for Christ's interment after the Crucifixion) came to Britain, bearing the Holy Grail--the cup used by Christ at the Last Supper and later by Joseph to catch his blood at the crucifixion.
When Joseph landed on the island of Avalon, he set foot on Wearyall Hill - just below the Tor. Exhausted, he thrust his staff into the ground, and rested. By morning, his staff had taken root - leaving a strange oriental thorn bush-the sacred Glastonbury Thorn.
For safe keeping, Joseph is said to have buried the Holy Grail just below the Tor at the entrance to the Underworld. Shortly after he had done this, a spring, now know as Chalice Well, flowed forth and the water that emerged brought eternal youth to whosoever would drink it.
Intertwining the myths and legends of Glastonbury Abbey's history, it is widely believed that finding The Holy Grail Joseph is said to have hidden was years later the purpose behind the quests of King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table.
In 1191, monks at the abbey claimed to have found the graves of Arthur and Guinevere to the south of the Lady Chapel of the Abbey church, which was visited by a number of contemporary historians including Giraldus Cambrensis. The remains were later moved and were lost during the Reformation. Many scholars suspect that this discovery was a pious forgery to substantiate the antiquity of Glastonbury's foundation, and increase its renown. In some Arthurian literature Glastonbury is identified with the legendary island of Avalon.
An early Welsh poem links Arthur to the Tor in an account of a confrontation between Arthur and Melwas, who had apparently kidnapped Queen Guinevere. According to some versions of the Arthurian legend, Lancelot retreated to Glastonbury Abbey in penance following the death of Arthur.
Joseph is said to have arrived in Glastonbury by boat over the flooded Somerset Levels. On disembarking he stuck his staff into the ground and it flowered miraculously into the Glastonbury Thorn (or Holy Thorn). This is the explanation of a hybrid hawthorn tree that only grows within a few miles of Glastonbury, that flowers twice annually, once in spring and again around Christmas time (depending on the weather). Each year a sprig of thorn is cut, by the local Anglican vicar and the eldest child from St John's School, and sent to the Queen.
The original Holy Thorn was a centre of pilgrimage in the Middle Ages but was chopped down during the English Civil War (in legend the roundhead soldier who did it was blinded by a flying splinter). A replacement thorn was planted in the 20th century on Wearyall hill (originally in 1951 to mark the Festival of Britain; but the thorn had to be replanted the following year as the first attempt did not take). Many other examples of the thorn grow throughout Glastonbury including those in the grounds of Glastonbury Abbey, St Johns Church and Chalice Well.
Today, Glastonbury Abbey presents itself as "traditionally the oldest above-ground Christian church in the World," which according to the legend was built at Joseph's behest to house the Holy Grail, 65 or so years after the death of Jesus. The legend also says that earlier Joseph had visited Glastonbury along with Jesus as a child. The legend probably was encouraged in the mediaeval period when religious relics and pilgrimages were profitable business for abbeys. William Blake mentioned the legend in a poem that became a popular hymn, 'Jerusalem' (see And did those feet in ancient time).
Glastonbury Abbey in Somerset, England
Glastonbury Abbey was a rich and powerful monastery in Glastonbury, Somerset, England. Since at least the 12th century the Glastonbury area was frequently associated with the legend of King Arthur, a connection promoted by medieval monks who asserted that Glastonbury was Avalon. The abbey was suppressed during the Dissolution of the Monasteries under King Henry VIII of England. The ruins and associated buildings are open today as a visitor attraction.
Chalice Well The Lion
Vesica Pisces - Sacred Geometry
Chalice Well is a holy well situated at the foot of Glastonbury Tor in the county of Somerset, England. The natural spring and surrounding gardens are owned and managed by the Chalice Well Trust (registered charity no. 204206), founded by Wellesley Tudor Pole in 1959.
Archaeological evidence suggests that the well has been in almost constant use for at least two thousand years. Water issues from the spring at a rate of 25,000 gallons per day and has never failed, even during drought. Iron oxide deposits give water a reddish hue, as dissolved ferrous oxide becomes oxidized at the surface and is precipitated. Like the hot springs in nearby Bath, the water is believed to possess healing qualities. In addition to the legends associated with Glastonbury, the Well is often portrayed as a symbol of the female aspect of deity, with the male symbolized by Glastonbury Tor. As such, it is a popular destination for pilgrims in search of the divine feminine, including modern Pagans. The Well is however popular with all faiths and in 2001 became a World Peace Garden.
Wells often feature in Welsh and Irish mythology as gateways to the spirit world. The overlapping of the inner and outer worlds is represented by the well cover, designed by the church architect and archaeologist Frederick Bligh Bond and presented as a gift after the Great War in 1919. The two interlocking circles constitute the symbol known as the Vesica Piscis. In the well lid design, a spear or a sword bisects these two circles, a possible reference to Excalibur, the sword of the legendary King Arthur, believed by some to be buried at the nearby Glastonbury Abbey. Foliage represents the Glastonbury Holy Thorn.
Bligh Bond wrote that the vesica design for the well cover was "typical of many early diagrams, all having the same object the rendering of spiritual truth by means of the purest, most intellectual system of imagery conceived by the mind, namely, truth which is Œaeonial¹ or eternal, of which geometry is the best interpreter, since it can figure for us with remarkable suggestiveness those formative principles upon which the Father has built his Creation, principles which shall endure when heaven and earth have died ." (Ref. Central Somerset Gazette, Friday, November 14, 1919)
Christian mythology suggests that Chalice Well marks the site where Joseph of Arimathea placed the chalice that had caught the drops of Christ's blood at the Crucifixion, linking the Well to the wealth of speculation surrounding the existence of the Holy Grail. The red of the water is also said by some Christians to represent the rusty iron nails used at the Crucifixion. Frequent events are held in the grounds of Chalice Well including annual celebrations for the winter and summer solstices, World Peace Day, Easter, Michaelmas and Samhain (Halloween). It is a grade I listed building.
Glastonbury Giants
A landscape zodiac (or terrestrial zodiac) is a map of the stars on a gigantic scale, formed by features in the landscape, such as roads, streams and field boundaries. Perhaps the best known alleged example is the Glastonbury Temple of the Stars, situated around Glastonbury in Somerset, England. The temple is thought by some to depict a colossal zodiac.
The theory was first put forward in 1935 by Katherine Maltwood, an artist who "discovered" the zodiac in a vision, and held that the "temple" was created by Sumerians about 2700 BC. Interest was re-ignited in 1969 by Mary Caine in an article in the magazine Gandalf's Garden.
The landscape zodiac plays an important role in many occult theories. It has been associated with the Celtic Saints, Grail legend and King Arthur (according to some legends buried in Glastonbury).
The Glastonbury Giants or Zodiac is a great landscape configuration, a circle 10 miles across. The 12 zodiac signs appear in their right order, formed by hills, outlined by roads and rivers. Katherine Maltwood who rediscovered this great circle in the 1930's claimed it as the original Round Table in Avalon with Arthur, Guinevere, Merlin and the Chief Knights still seated about it as the signs of the Zodiac and the seasons of the year. A great hound five miles long, the Girt Dog of Langport, guards this star temple. Several local legends and about 100 place-names, like Wagg on the Dog's tail, Earlake Moor on his ear, hint that these effigies were once well known. You will find Aries at Street, the Phoenix of Aquarius rises from Glastonbury Tor, and the circle continues around the Isle of Avalon.
The Glastonbury Zodiac, a marvelous example of geomantic earthwork, measures 10 miles across and can be viewed totally only from the air. Hedges, roads and woods were laid out to form a ring of the 12 signs of the zodiac in the Age of Taurus as a Temple of the Stars. With the passage of time, successive cultures have interpreted the form according to their own myths and symbols, so the Zodiac has also been seen as an illustration of King Arthur´s Round Table and the quest for the Holy Grail.
Parkwood in the center of the Zodiac represents the Pole Star, a point of stillness in the heavenly wheel. It remains today a virgin wood, like a sancturary to the soul.
Colored Balls of Light
Perhaps the most intriguing of all Glastonbury's mysteries are the strange balls of colored lights frequently seen spiraling around the Tor. In 1970, a local police officer reported seeing eight egg-shaped objects "dark maroon in color, hovering in formation over the hill" and in 1980 a witness saw "several green and mauve lights hovering around the tower, some smaller than others, about the size of beachballs and footballs.
One hovered outside the east facing window". This author spent one summer night sleeping within the tower and, waking from a dream of castles and magical beings, found the interior of the tower radiantly aglow with a luminous white light.
Glastonbury, the mystic isle of Avalon is truly an enchanted place. A sacred site since time immemorial, it is often forgotten but always rediscovered. Today a major haven for pilgrims and spiritual seekers, Glastonbury is a power place of potent transformational energies.
Quetzalcoatl is sometimes depicted as a white man (light, the shining ones) looking nothing like the Mesoamerican people who worshipped him. Most often he is depicted as a feather serpent. Feathers represent the ascension of human consciousness back to its origins - while serpent represent human DNA or physical reality.
Quetzalcoatl as Thoth writing the stories of our reality manifest through Sacred Geometry. As with all gods, there is a promise to return one day, the truth being, no gods return, we return to light. Some Mormon scholars believe that Quetzalcoatl, as a white, bearded God who came from the sky and promised to return, was actually Jesus Christ. According to the Book of Mormon, Jesus visited the American natives after his resurrection.
Quetzalcoatl - Codex Telleriano
Quetzalcoatl is a Mesoamerican deity whose name comes from the Nahuatl language and has the meaning of "feather-serpent".
The worship of a feathered serpent deity is first documented in Teotihuacan in the Late Preclassic through the Early Classic period (400 BCE - 600CE) of Mesoamerican chronology - "Teotihuacan arose as a new religious center in the Mexican Highland, around the time of Christ..." -- whereafter it appears to have spread throughout Mesoamerica by the Late Classic (600 - 900 CE) (Ringle et al.).
In the Postclassic period (900 - 1519 CE) the worship of the feathered serpent deity was centered in the central Mexican religious center of Cholula. It is in this period that the deity is known to have been named "Quetzalcoatl" by his Nahua followers.
In the Maya area he was known as Kukulcan or Ququmatz, names that also translate as "feathered serpent" in different Mayan languages. In the era following the 16th-century Spanish Conquest a number of sources were written that describe the god "Quetzalcoatl" and relates him to a ruler of the mythico-historic city of Tollan called by the names "Ce Acatl", "Topiltzin", "Nacxitl" or "Quetzalcoatl".
It is a matter of much debate among historians to which degree, or whether at all, these narratives about this legendary Toltec ruler Topiltzin Ce Acatl Quetzalcoatl describe actual historical events. Furthermore early Spanish sources written by clerics tend to identify the god-ruler "Quetzalcoatl" of these narratives with either Hernan Cortes or St. Thomas - an identification which is also a source of diversity of opinions about the nature of "Quetzalcoatl".
Among the Aztecs, whose beliefs are the best-documented in the historical sources, Quetzalcoatl was related to gods of the wind, of Venus, of the dawn, of merchants and of arts, crafts and knowledge. He was also the patron god of the Aztec priesthood, of learning and knowledge.
Quetzalcoatl was one of several important gods in the Aztec pantheon along with the gods Tlaloc, Tezcatlipoca and Huitzilopochtli.
Feathered Serpent Deity in Mesoamerica
Feathered Serpent head at the Ciudadela complex in Teotihuacan
Vision Serpent depicted on lintel 15 from Yaxchilan.
A feathered Serpent deity has been worshipped by many different ethno-political groups in Mesoamerican history. The existence of such worship can be seen through studies of iconography of different mesoamerican cultures, in which serpent motifs are frequent. Based on the different symbolic systems used in portrayals of the feathered serpent deity in different cultures and periods scholars have interpreted the religious and symbolic meaning of the feathered serpent deity in Mesoamerican cultures.
The earliest representations of feathered serpents appear in the Olmec culture (circa 1400-400 BCE). It is believed that Olmec supernaturals such as the feathered serpent were the forerunners of many later Mesoamerican deities, although experts disagree on the feathered serpent's importance to the Olmec. The Olmec feathered serpent is generally shown as a crested rattlesnake, sometimes with feathers covering the body, and often in close proximity to humans. Several Olmec representations have survived including La Venta Monument 19 and a painting in the Juxtlahuaca cave.
The pantheon of the people of Teotihuacan (200 BCE - 700 CE) also featured a feathered serpent, shown most prominently on the Temple of the Feathered Serpent (dated 150-200 CE). Several feathered serpent representations appear on the building, including full-body profiles and feathered serpent heads.
Buildings in Tula, the capital of the later Toltecs (950-1150 CE), also featured profiles of feathered serpents.
Quetzalcoatl is the Aztec incarnation of the Feathered Serpent deity, known from several Aztec codices such as the Florentine codex, as well as from the records of the Spanish conquistadors. Quetzalcoatl was a bringer of knowledge, the inventor of books, and associated with the planet Venus.
The feathered serpent was rare in the Classic era Maya civilization. Along with the feathered serpent deity, several other serpent gods existed in the pantheon of Mesoamerican gods with similar traits.
The earliest iconographic depiction of the deity is believed to be found on Stela 19 at the Olmec site of La Venta, depicting a serpent rising up behind a person probably engaged in a shamanic ritual. This depiction is believed to have been made around 900 BC, although probably not exactly a depiction of the same feathered serpent deity worshipped in classic and post-classic periods it shows the continuity of symbolism of feathered snakes in Mesoamerica from the formative period and on, for example in comparison to the Mayan Vision Serpent shown below.
The first culture to use the symbol of a feathered serpent as an important religious and political symbol was Teotihuacan. At temples such as the aptly named "Quetzalcoatl temple" in the Ciudadela complex, feathered serpents figure prominently and alternate with a different kind of serpent head. The earliest depictions of the feathered serpent deity were fully zoomorphic, depicting the serpent as an actual snake, but already among the Classic Maya the deity began acquiring human features.
In the iconography of the classic period Maya serpent imagery is also prevalent: a snake is often seen as the embodiment of the sky it self, and a vision serpent is a shamanic helper presenting Maya kings with visions of the underworld.
The archaeological record shows that after the fall of Teotihuacan that marked the beginning of the epi-classic period in Mesoamerican chronology around 600 AD, the cult of the feathered serpent spread to the new religious and political centers in central Mexico, centers such as Xochicalco, Cacaxtla and Cholula. Feathered serpent iconography is prominent at all of these sites. Cholula is known to have remained the most important center of worship to Quetzalcoatl, the Aztec/Nahua version of the feathered serpent deity, in the postclassic period.
During the epi-classic period a dramatic spread of feathered serpent iconography is evidence throughout Mesoamerica, and during this period begins to figure prominently at cites such as Chichen Itza, El Tajin, and throughout the Maya area. Colonial documentary sources from the Maya area frequently speak of the arrival foreigners from the central Mexican plateau often lead by a man whose name translates as "Feathered Serpent", it has been suggested that these stories recall the spread of the feathered serpent cult in the epiclassic and early postclassic periods.
In the postclassic Nahua civilization of central Mexico (Aztec) the worship of Quetzalcoatl was ubiquitous. The most important center was Cholula where the world's largest pyramid was dedicated to his worship. In Aztec culture depictions of Quetzalcoatl were fully anthropomorphic. Quetzalcoatl was associated with the windgod Ehecatl and is often depicted with his insignia: a beak like mask.
Interpretations
Based on the Teotihuacan iconographical depictions of the feathered serpent, archaeologist Karl Taube has argued that the feathered serpent was a symbol of fertility and internal political structures contrasting with the War Serpent symbolizing the outwards military expansion of the Teotihuacan empire.
Historian Enrique Florescano also analysing Teotihuacan iconography shows that the Feathered Serpent was part of a triad of agricultural deities: the Goddess of the Cave symbolizing motherhood, reproduction and life, Tlaloc, god of rain, lightning and thunder and the feathered serpent, god of vegetational renewal. The feathered serpent was furthermore connected to the star venus because of this star's importance as a sign of the beginning of the rainy season. To both Teotihuacan and Mayan cultures Venus was in turn also symbolically connected with warfare.
While not usually feathered, classic Maya serpent iconography seems related to the belief in a sky, venus, creator, war and fertility related serpent deity. In the example from Yaxchilan the Vision Serpent has the human face of the young maize god, further suggesting a connection to fertility and vegetational renewal, the Mayan Young Maize god was also connected to Venus.
In Xochicalco depictions of the feathered Serpent is accompanied by the image of a seated, armed ruler and the hieroglyph for the day sign 9 Wind. The date 9 wind is known to be associated with fertility, venus and war among the Maya and frequently occurs in relation to Quetzalcoatl in other Mesoamerican cultures.
Based on the iconography of the feathered serpent deity at sites such as Teotihuacan, Xochicalco, Chichen Itza, Tula and Tenochtitlan combined with certain ethnohistorical sources, historian David Carrasco has argued that the preeminent function of the feathered serpent deity throughout Mesoamerican history was as the patron deity of the Urban center, a god of culture and civilization.
Quetzalcoatl in Aztec Culture
Quetzalcoatl as depicted in the Codex Borbonicus.
The worship of Quetzalcoatl sometimes included animal sacrifices, and in colonial traditions Quetzalcoatl was said to oppose human sacrifice.
Mesoamerican priests and kings would sometimes take the name of a deity they were associated with, so Quetzalcoatl and Kukulcan are also the names of historical persons.
One noted Post-Classic Toltec ruler was named Quetzalcoatl; he may be the same individual as the Kukulcan who invaded Yucatan at about the same time. The Mixtec also recorded a ruler named for the Feathered Serpent. In the 10th century a ruler closely associated with Quetzalcoatl ruled the Toltecs; his name was Topiltzin Ce Acatl Quetzalcoatl. This ruler was said to be the son of either the great Chichimeca warrior, Mixcoatl and the Culhuacano woman Chimalman, or of their descent.
It is believed that the Toltecs had a dualistic belief system. Quetzalcoatl's opposite was Tezcatlipoca, who, in one legend, sent Quetzalcoatl into exile. Alternatively, he left willingly on a raft of snakes, promising to return.
The Aztecs turned him into a symbol of dying and resurrection and a patron of priests. When the Aztecs adopted the culture of the Toltecs, they made twin gods of Tezcatlipoca and Quetzalcoatl, opposite and equal; Quetzalcoatl was also called White Tezcatlipoca, to contrast him to the black Tezcatlipoca. Together, they created the world; Tezcatlipoca lost his foot in that process.
Along with other gods, such as Tezcatlipoca and Tlaloc, Quetzalcoatl was called "Ipalnemohuani", a title reserved for the gods directly involved in the creation, which means "by whom we live". Because the name Ipalnemohuani is singular, this led to speculations that the Aztec were becoming monotheistic and all the main gods were only one. While this interpretation cannot be ruled out, it is probably an oversimplification of the Aztec religion.
Attributes
The exact significance and attributes of Quetzalcoatl varied somewhat between civilizations and through history. Quetzalcoatl was often considered the god of the morning star, and his twin brother Xolotl was the evening star (Venus). As the morning star he was known by the title Tlahuizcalpantecuhtli, meaning "lord of the star of the dawn." He was known as the inventor of books and the calendar, the giver of maize (corn) to mankind, and sometimes as a symbol of death and resurrection. Quetzalcoatl was also the patron of the priests and the title of the Aztec high priest.
Most Mesoamerican beliefs included cycles of suns. Usually, our current time was considered the fifth sun, the previous four having been destroyed by flood, fire and the like. Quetzalcoatl allegedly went to Mictlan, the underworld, and created fifth-world mankind from the bones of the previous races (with the help of Chihuacoatl), using his own blood, from a wound in his penis, to imbue the bones with new life.
His birth, along with his twin Xolotl, was unusual; it was a virgin birth, to the goddess Coatlicue. Alternatively, he was a son of Xochiquetzal and Mixcoatl.
One Aztec story claims that Quetzalcoatl was seduced by Tezcatlipoca into becoming drunk and sleeping with a celibate priestess, and then burned himself to death out of remorse. His heart became the morning star.
Belief in Cortes as Quetzalcoatl and the fall of Tenochtitlan
It has been widely believed that the Aztec Emperor Moctezuma II initially believed the landing of Hernan Cortes in 1519 to be Quetzalcoatl's return. This has been questioned by some ethnohistorians, like Matthew Restall, who argues that the Quetzalcoatl-Cortes connection is not found in any document that was created independently of post-Conquest Spanish influence, and that there is little proof of a pre-Hispanic belief in Quetzalcoatl's return. Most documents expounding this theory are of entirely Spanish origin, such as Cortes' letters to Charles V of Spain, in which Cortes goes to great pains to present the naive gullibility of the Aztecs in general as a great aid in his conquest of Mexico.
Much of the idea of Cortes being seen as a deity can be traced back to the Florentine Codex written down some 50 years after the conquest. In the codex's description of the first meeting between Moctezuma and Cortes, the Aztec ruler is described as giving a prepared speech in classical oratorial Nahuatl, a speech which, as described verbatim in the codex (written by Sahagun's, Tlatelolcan informants), included such prostrate declarations of divine or near-divine admiration.
Subtleties in, and an imperfect scholarly understanding of, high Nahuatl rhetorical style make the exact intent of these comments tricky to ascertain, but Restall argues that Moctezuma politely offering his throne to Cortes (if indeed he did ever give the speech as reported) may well have been meant as the exact opposite of what it was taken to mean: politeness in Aztec culture was a way to assert dominance and show superiority. This speech, which has been widely referred to, has been a factor in the widespread belief that Moctezuma was addressing Cortes as the returning god Quetzalcoatl.
Other parties have also propagated the idea that the Native Americans believed the conquistadors to be gods: most notably the historians of the Franciscan order such as Fray Geronimo de Mendieta. Some Franciscans at this time held millennarian beliefs and the natives taking the Spanish conquerors for gods was an idea that went well with this theology. Bernardino de Sahagun, who compiled the Florentine Codex, was also a Franciscan.
Some scholarship still maintains the view that the Aztec Empire's fall may be attributed in part to the belief in Cortes as the returning Quetzalcoatl. However, a number of Mesoamericanist scholars (such as Matthew Restall (2003), James Lockhart (1994), Susan D. Gillespie (1989), Camilla Townsend (2003a, 2003b), Louise Burkhart, and Michael E. Smith (2001) among others) consider the "Quetzalcoatl/Cortes myth" as one of many myths about the Spanish conquest which have risen in the early post-conquest period. (Knight 2004)
Some scholars have noted a resemblance of the Quetzalcoatl legend with that of the myth of the Pahana held by the Hopis of northern Arizona. Scholars have described many similarities between the myths of the Aztecs and those of the American Southwest, and posit a common root. The Hopi describe the Pahana as the "Lost White Brother," and they expected his eventual return from the east during which he would destroy the wicked and begin a new era of peace and prosperity. Hopi tradition maintains that they at first mistook the Spanish conquistadors as the Pahana when they arrived on the Hopi mesas in the 16th century.
Quetzalcoatl and Hummingbird (Rebirth)
Hollow Earth Hypothesis
One theory of the Hollow Earth Hypothesis states that Quetzalcoatl disappeared on a UFO for 8 days. He visited the inner worlds beneath the sea, returning to create man, leaving messages in the geometry of his design to be found at the end of time. (Lots of metaphors here)
In the News ...
Snake-bird gods fascinated both Aztecs and Ancient Egyptians
Reuters - September 24, 2007
Ancient Mexicans and Egyptians who never met and lived centuries and thousands of miles apart both worshiped feathered-serpent deities, built pyramids and developed a 365-day calendar, a new exhibition shows. Billed as the world's largest temporary archeological showcase, Mexican archeologists have brought treasures from ancient Egypt to display alongside the great indigenous civilizations of Mexico for the first time.
The exhibition, which boasts a five-tonne, 3,000-year-old sculpture of Egyptian pharaoh Ramses II and stone carvings from Mexican pyramid Chichen Itza, aims to show many of the similarities of two complex worlds both conquered by Europeans in invasions 1,500 years apart. "There are huge cultural parallels between ancient Egypt and Mexico in religion, astronomy, architecture and the arts. They deserve to be appreciated together," said exhibition organizer Gina Ulloa, who spent almost three years preparing the 35,520 square-feet (3,300 meter-square) display.
The exhibition, which opened at the weekend in the northern Mexican city of Monterrey, shows how Mexican civilizations worshiped the feathered snake god Quetzalcoatl from about 1,200 BC to 1521, when the Spanish conquered the Aztecs.
From 3,000 BC onward Egyptians often portrayed their gods, including the Goddess of the Pharaohs Isis, in art and sculpture as serpents with wings or feathers. The feathered serpent and the serpent alongside a deity signifies the duality of human existence, at once in touch with water and earth, the serpent, and the heavens, the feathers of a bird," said Ulloa. Egyptian sculptures at the exhibition -- flown to Mexico from ancient temples along the Nile and from museums in Cairo, Luxor and Alexandria - show how Isis' son Horus was often represented with winged arms and accompanied by serpents. Cleopatra, the last Egyptian queen before the Roman conquest of Egypt in 30 BC, saw herself as Isis and wore a gold serpent in her headpiece.
Uncanny Similarities
In the arts, Mexico's earliest civilization, the Olmecs, echo Egypt's finest sculptures. Olmec artists carved large man-jaguar warriors that are similar to the Egyptian sphinxes on display showing lions with the heads of gods or kings. The seated statue of an Egyptian scribe carved between 2465 and 2323 BC shows stonework and attention to detail that parallels a seated stone sculpture of an Olmec lord. There is no evidence the Olmecs and Egyptians ever met.
Shared traits run to architecture, with Egyptians building pyramids as royal tombs and the Mayans and Aztecs following suit with pyramids as places of sacrifice to the gods. While there is no room for pyramids at the exhibition -- part of the Universal Forum of Cultures, an international cultural festival held in Barcelona in 2004 -- organizers say it is the first time many of pieces have left Egypt. They include entire archways from Nile temples, a bracelet worn by Ramses II and sarcophagi used by the pharaohs. Mexico has also brought together Aztec, Mayan and Olmec pieces from across the country.
English Movie
