Storytime Tapestry Newsletter

The newsletter devoted to spreading love and cultural awareness throughout the world.

Welcome to Fascinating Facts and Tantalizing Trivia

A Hartson Dowd Column

Sept 11, 2006

SEPTEMBER 11^th.

Holidays

RC Saints - Virgin of the Holy cave; Saint Deiniol, Our Lady of Coromoto, Protus and Hyacinth.

Beheading of John the Baptist - Usekovanje glave svetog Jovana Krstitelja (Eastern Orthodox Religion)

Coptic Orthodox Church - Feast of Neyrouz, the New Year's Day in the Coptic calendar.

Many Egyptian-Canadians belong to the Coptic Orthodox Church (the  nativen Christian Church in Egypt).  For them, the New Year is celebrated on September 11^th.  This may sem like a strange time of the year to observe New Year, but the rationale for it is very reasonable.

The Dog Star, Sirus, is the brightest star in the sky.  The ancient Egyptians calculated their year from the time Sirius reappeared, after a breif absence from the Egytian sky, just before dawn on September 11^th.  The reappearance signalled the flooding of the Nile over the fertile plains area and the beginning of the new planting season.  And so it was that September 11^th became the Egyptian New Year.

The church, also celebrating the New Year on this day, commemorates the martyrs of the church by having the priests wear red vestments.  As well, the altar is covered with red cloth for the Coptic New Year service.  Red dates are particularly significant for worshippers today.  The red skin is said to symbolize the blood of the martyrs, the white meat inside represents the purity of their hearts, and the pit depicts their steadfast faith.

New Year's Day in the Ethiopian calendar (Enkutatash)

Ethiopia's New Year’s Day (or Enkutatash) is celebrated in mid-September towards the end of the big rains. Unlike the 1 January, which is comparatively arbitrary, New Year’s Day in Ethiopia marks a new season and a new beginning.

The grass is green, the sun has come out, and there is fresh food to be harvested. Apart from the cyclical explanation for the timing of Ethiopian New Year, there is also a legend which maintains that Enkutatash is celebrated to commemorate the return of Queen Sheba from Jerusalem.
            According to the legend, Queen Sheba returned from visiting King Solomon in Jerusalem and was welcomed by her chiefs with a gift of jewels? (Enkutatash). Since then, it is said that the occasion has been celebrated yearly. Nowadays in Addis Ababa, New Year’s Eve is spent feasting and partying. However, traditionally, the eve of New Year was not really celebrated in Ethiopia but was spent preparing for the next day’s feast.
            On New Year’s Day, the house is decorated with yellow Meskal daisies. Children make gifts of colourful paintings or spring flowers to give to their family and friends (and increasingly also to strangers in return for bread or sweets). Girls, dressed in their new Ethiopian dresses and armed with a kabero (small drum), go from house to house singing a special Enkutatash song, in return for some money.
            The main religious celebration takes place in the 14th-century Kostete Yohannes church in the town of Gaynt, in the Gondar region. Three days of prayers, psalms, hymns and sermons, and massive colourful processions mark the advent of the New Year. Closer to Addis Ababa, the Raguel Church, on top of the Entoto Mountain north of the city, has the largest and most spectacular religious celebration. However, Enkutatash is not really a religious holiday. It is primarily a family occasion. There is a festive mood in the air, but it is modest in comparison to Meskal, which takes place later the same month.
            The Ethiopian calendar is, like the ancient Egyptian one, based on lunar cycles and differs from the belatedly altered Christian calendars. There are 13 months in a year, all of which have 30 days, apart from the 13th month which has either 5 or 6 days (the date of New Year's Day therefore varies slightly from year to year - check before you go...).

Catalonia - National Day

On September 11, Catalonia commemorates the 1714 Barcelona defeat during the War of the Spanish Succession. As a punishment for their support to the claim of Habsburg Archduke Charles to the throne of Spain, institutions and rights of the territories of the Crown of Aragon were abolished by the victorious absolutist Bourbon monarchy.

In 1980, the restored Generalitat de Catalunya (autonomous Government of Catalonia), as its first public act proclaimed 11 September the Catalan National Holiday.

           Organizations and political parties traditionally lay floral offerings at the monuments of Rafael Casanova and General Moragues for their fight against the Bourbon army.

           Catalan citizens also meet in the Fossar de les Moreres, where they pay homage to the defenders of city who where killed and buried in that place.

           Throughout the day, there are political demonstrations, concerts and celebration events. Many citizens wave the flags of Catalonia: senyeres.

Latin America Teacher's Day, after the death of Argentine - Domingo F. Sarmiento

Domingo F. Sarmiento February 15 1811 – September 11 1888) was an Argentine statesman, educator, and author. He was president of Argentina from 1868 to 1874.
Sarmiento was born in San Juan, Argentina.  During the 1830s and 1840s, he lived in exile in Chile, where he wrote his best known work Facundo (1845), an in-depth study of caudillismo and personalism in politics. He became very interested in the Chilean public school system, and traveled to places such as the United States and Europe to improve his teaching ability.

He died in Asunci??n (Paraguay) and was buried in La Recoleta Cemetery in Buenos Aires.

Latin American's Teacher's Day was established after Sarmiento's date of death in 1943s Interamerican Conference on Education, held in Panama.

Death anniversary of Muhammad Ali Jinnah, founder of Pakistan.

Other observances

* Proclaimed 9-1-1 Emergency Number Day by President Reagan on August 26 in 1987 and celebrated since then by some United States communities, particularly the local emergency services.
* 1987 - CBS Evening News anchor Dan Rather, angry over being preempted for a tennis match, marches off the set, leaving affiliates with six minutes of an empty news desk.
*1987 - Reggae musician Peter Tosh is murdered in his own home in Kingston, Jamaica, Jamaica.
*1989 - The iron curtain opens between the communist Hungary and Austria. From Hungary thousands of East Germans throng to Austria and West Germany.
*1990 - C?line Dion releases her first English-language album, Unison.
* 1990 - President George H. W. Bush delivers a nationally televised speech in which he threatens the use of force to remove Iraqi soldiers from Kuwait, which Iraq had recently invaded.
*1992 - Hurricane Iniki, the third most damaging hurricane in United States history so far, devastates the State of Hawaii especially the islands of Kauai and Oahu.
*1997 – Scotland votes to re-establish its own Parliament on the 700th anniversary of the Battle of Stirling Bridge, after 290 years of union with England.
*1998 - Independent counsel Kenneth Starr sends a report to the U.S. Congress accusing President Bill Clinton of 11 possible impeachable offenses.
*2000 - Activists protest against the World Economic Forum meeting.

Patriot Day (USA - Anniversary of the September 11 attacks .)  *2001 - The September 11 attacks destroy the World Trade Center in New York City and part of The Pentagon in Washington, D.C., and down a passenger airliner in Pennsylvania. In total, almost 3,000 are killed.

Feast day of Saint Deiniol

Saint Deiniol (died 584) was the first Bishop of Bangor in North Wales. He is also venerated in Brittany as Saint Denoual. In English, the name is Daniel but this is rarely used.

Very little is known of the saint's life, but he tradition that he was the first Bishop of Bangor is very strong. He was apparently consecrated in 545 by Saint David. The present Bangor Cathedral is dedicated to Deiniol and is said to be on the site where Deiniol's first monastery stood. His feast day is September 11.

*2005 – September 11^th., - The State of Israel officially declares an end to military rule in the Gaza Strip after 38 years of occupation.

Hartson S. Dowd                                                                                                               hsdowd@telus.net