Land of the prize turkey
QUESTION Is it true that the Mayans worshipped turkeys? What creatures have been considered to be gods?
The Mayans worshipped at least 250 gods, some of which were animals, but these deities did not include turkeys. however, this bird did play a part in this civilisation’s religion.
From 1600 BC, the Mayans were the people found in southern Mexico, Guatemala and northern Belize.
The civilisation went into decline from AD900 and met its demise following the Spanish conquest.
The Mayans had gods to oversee every aspect of daily life: from birth and death, gaming and gambling to the Sun, Moon, nature, travel and trade.
The gods were changeable: they could be one sex or both, young and old, good, but sometimes evil, depending on the time and circumstance.
The ancient Maya believed everything was imbued with different degrees of
k’uh, which meant sacredness. Most of the important gods were in human form, including Itzamna the creator god; Yum Kaax the maize/nature god; Kinich Ahau the sun god; Ix Chel, an old woman, the medicine god; and Chaac, the goggle-eyed rain god.
Some important gods took animal form, the most important being Kukulkan, the feathered serpent god. A cult that included human sacrifice grew up around Kukulkan, the priests of which fostered trade and communications.
Several gods took the form of the jaguar, notably Baalham, the god of the underworld. There was also Camazotz, the bat god, and Zipacna, a crocodile warrior.
Turkeys played an important role in sacrifice and religion. The Mayans prized the wild ocellated turkey for its multicoloured feathers and heads. They were also known to farm and eat domesticated turkeys imported from north Mexico.
Mayan art portrays turkeys with slit throats being used in New Year rites. Bird sacrifices were made to set the stage for a fertile new year, and turkeys were seen as messengers to the gods.
Many ancient religions worshipped animals. The prehistoric Uffington White horse carved into a chalk hillside in Oxfordshire shows the importance of this creature to the Celts.
Satyrs (half-human, half-goat) and centaurs (half-human, half-horse) were prominent in Greek mythology. The Ancient egyptians had many animals sacred to deities such as the mongoose, shrews and birds to horus; dogs and jackals to Anubis; and bulls to Apis.
J. E. Amble, Hinckley, Leics.
QUESTION Were soldiers paid with salt?
The notion that salt was used to supplement a soldier’s pay refers to the Ancient Romans.
Before the invention of canning and refrigeration, salt was critical for food preparation and preservation. It was so valuable that during the Phoenician era it was accepted as a trading currency.
Acquisition of salt resources played an important role in Graeco-Phoenician colonisation. It may have led to the founding of Greek colonies in southern France and was the motivation behind the Phoenician settlement of Na Guardis off Mallorca and along the Andalusian coast, where fish salting was set up.
In Yunnan Province in Ancient China, there is evidence that cakes of salt were used as money along with cowrie shells.
The Romans considered salt to be a precious commodity. In his Natural history, Pliny the elder writes that ‘in Rome . . . the soldier’s pay was originally salt and the word salary derives from it’.
however, modern scholars take Pliny’s definition with a pinch of salt!
A network of roads was built to move salt rapidly around the Roman empire. Guarded and often built by soldiers, the Via Salaria in Italy drew its name from the name of the trade it carried.
Most commentators maintain salarium (salary) was the money paid to soldiers for guarding the Via Salaria, possibly with a metaphorical use, similar to being paid peanuts. Roman soldiers were paid in money, and the word soldier is said to derive from a coin called the solidus.
Salt was an important part of the Roman diet and its name lives on in several english words. Salad comes from the Latin salata — vegetables dressed in salt. A person in love was called salax, meaning salted, which is the origin of the word salacious.
There are many instances of salt being used as currency. Until the end of the 19th century, cones of salt served as trading tokens between the Chad and Fessan people of North Africa. They were called kantos and weighed between 10kg and 20kg. The ethiopians used slabs of salt named amole (amulet).
Michelle Rowntree, Portsmouth, Hants.
QUESTION Which UK idioms should you never use in the U.S.? And vice versa?
The earlier answer described the confusion caused by using the American term fanny pack for a bum bag.
Lyricist Oscar hammerstein, of Rodgers & hammerstein fame, wrote a line in Don’t Marry Me for the musical Flower Drum Song that must have seemed strange over here. ‘They’ll get splinters in their little fannies,’ meaning their bottoms in the States.
The Lauren Bacall/Kirk Douglas film, Young Man With A horn, was greeted with howls of laughter over here. In the U.S., a horn is a trumpet.
Danny Darcy, Reading, Berks.
I Worked for an U.S. company for 30 years in various parts of the world. As an engineer at a nuclear power plant in Brazil, I asked for a torch to help trace pipes in an unlit area.
This amused my American colleagues, who imagined me with a flaming torch as seen in historical films. ‘You mean a flashlight, don’t you?’ was their response.
I was picked up on other differences over the years. Americans use a knife to cut their food and then continue to eat with one hand using just the fork. I was jokingly told this allows them to hold a gun with the other hand under the table.
I could always confuse them by asking them to explain the differences between Britain, Great Britain, the United Kingdom and the British Isles.
Peter Kenny, Southport, Lancs.