Culture Surfing

Los Cenzontles

No one knows exactly when the sugar skull was invented. It may be the most recognizable symbol of Dia de los Muertos today, but the brightly decorated, edible molds likely date to a time before the colonization of the Americas. Many of Central America’s indigenous populations kept human skulls and bones to use in celebrations honoring the life and death cycles. At some point, sugar bones became a common offering, perhaps symbolizing the sweetness of life in the shape of death. Things changed when the Conquistadors arrived, however. For those who survived the bloody invasion, the Catholic Church moved the celebrations from the ninth month of the Aztec calendar to All Saints Day and All Souls Day on Nov. 1 and 2. Sugar skulls will be easy to find in the coming days at the Atlanta History Center and the Rialto Center for the Arts, where Eugene Rodriguez’s Los Cenzontles performs this week.

Continue reading “Dia de los Muertes leaves a trail of dead this weekend” »

(Photo courtesy the Rialto Center)

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Citizens of ancient Rome didn’t mind slavery. As they saw it, there were Romans, and there was everyone else. In 70 B.C., slaves comprised 20 percent of the Roman population, and included Celts, Germans, and Thracians from modern-day Bulgaria. They also included a man named Spartacus.

A Thracian who fought in the Roman army, Spartacus was accepted in principle as a Roman but was exploited as a slave and gladiator. He revolted in the summer of 73 B.C. with 70 other slaves, using kitchen knives as weapons. Spartacus went on to assemble an army of 60,000 slaves that rebelled in the name of nationalism, revenge and faith. For two years, Spartacus ravaged the countryside, defeating nine Roman armies. The Republic had never been so vexed from within.

Barry Strauss, a military historian and professor of classics at Cornell University, chronicles Spartacus’ legendary slave revolt in his new book, The Spartacus War. Strauss recognizes the rebellion as one of the most successful insurgencies in world history, and finds some intriguing parallels between it and the United States’ War on Terror.

Continue reading “The Spartacus War follows a rebel with a cause”

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