Colonialism and postcolonialism fascinate me. I studied it quite a bit at Uni and it was the main theme of my dissertation, where I came across the concept of ‘the mimic’ in postcolonial society, that is, ‘one [who] copies the person in power (be it their actions, attitudes, clothes or whatever) because one hopes to have access to that same power oneself’ [Source].
With that in mind, I find it particularly interesting how the Herero tribe of Namibia have completely undermined this notion by adopting the dress of their 19th century German colonisers as an act of defiance and way of memorialising their ancestors who were massacred in the name of Empire.
Victorian dress was first introduced to the Herero people in the mid-19th century and they quickly began to accessorise it with vibrant colourisation and such features as the cow-horn headdresses worn by the women above. Then, in the 1904 war with their colonisers Herero men claimed the military uniforms of dead German soldiers and these outfits now constitute the Herero’s traditional dress. Anthropologist Dr Lutz Marten said: ‘Wearing the enemy’s uniform will diminish their power and transfer some of their strength to the new wearer. This is in part assimilation to European culture, and also in part appropriation, a coming-to-terms with, and overcoming of history and the colonial experience,’ he said.
Namibia has a particularly bloody colonial history, about which more can be read here, however, the fact that there were around 80,000 Herero people when the Germans arrived, and just 15,000 when they were finally defeated, demonstrates how close an entire culture came to being completely destroyed.
![Dancing Mania
Dancing Mania was a social phenomenon that occurred in mainland Europe between the 14th and 17th centuries. It involved groups of people dancing erratically, sometimes thousands at a time. The mania affected men, women, and children, who danced until they collapsed from exhaustion. One of the first major outbreaks was in Aachen, Germany, in 1374, and it quickly spread throughout Europe.
Affecting thousands of people across several centuries, dancing mania was not an isolated event, and was well documented in contemporary reports. It was nevertheless poorly understood, and remedies were based on guesswork. Generally, musicians accompanied dancers, to help ward off the mania, but this tactic sometimes backfired by encouraging more to join in. There is no consensus among modern-day scholars as to the cause of dancing mania.
The several theories proposed range from religious cults being behind the processions to people dancing to relieve themselves of stress and put the poverty of the period out of their minds. It is, however, thought to be as a mass psychogenic illness in which the occurrence of similar physical symptoms, with no known physical cause, affect a large group of people as a form of social influence.
[Image: Engraving of Hendrik Hondius portrays three women affected by the plague. Work based on original drawing by Peter Brueghel, who supposedly witnessed a subsequent outbreak in 1564 in Flanders]](http://24.media.tumblr.com/6af8caa566eab255922c95a6e5bd8992/tumblr_mgoz9r04Zb1rnseozo1_1280.jpg)
![Pope Joan (also called La Papessa) is the name of a legendary female pope who supposedly reigned for less than three years in the 850s, between the papacies of Leo IV and Benedict III (though there were only two months between the two reigns). She is known primarily from a legend that circulated in the Middle Ages. Pope Joan is regarded by most modern historians and religious scholars as fictitious, possibly originating as an anti-papal satire. The story of Pope Joan is known mainly from the 13th century chronicler Martin of Opava – writing 500 years after the alleged Popess. Most scholars dismiss Pope Joan as a medieval legend. The Oxford Dictionary of Popes acknowledges that this legend was widely believed for centuries, even among Catholic circles, but declares that there is “no contemporary evidence for a female pope at any of the dates suggested for her reign,” and goes on to say that “the known facts of the respective periods make it impossible to fit [a female pope] in”. For those who are wondering what would happen if this were true (or were to ever be true): nothing; a female is not able to be a priest and a Pope cannot be crowned unless he is a priest first. [Source]](http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m81ujsfXFs1rnseozo1_400.jpg)
![Glass delusion
The glass delusion was an external manifestation of a psychiatric disorder recorded in Europe in the late Middle Ages (15th to 17th centuries). People feared that they were made of glass “and therefore likely to shatter into pieces”. One famous early sufferer was King Charles VI of France who refused to allow people to touch him, and wore reinforced clothing to protect himself from accidental “shattering”.
The sufferer could believe or claim that he was any sort of glass object. A 1561 account reported a sufferer “who had to relieve himself standing up, fearing that if he sat down his buttocks would shatter… The man concerned was a glass-maker from the Parisian suburb of Saint Germain, who constantly applied a small cushion to his buttocks, even when standing. He was cured of this obsession by a severe thrashing from the doctor, who told him that his pain emanated from buttocks of flesh.”
In modern times, the glass delusion has disappeared. “Surveys of modern psychiatric institutions have only revealed two specific (uncorroborated) cases of the glass delusion. Foulché-Delbosc reports finding one Glass Man in a Paris asylum, and a woman who thought she was a potsherd was recorded at an asylum in Meerenberg.
[With thanks to barnaclebobsfreshfishfriday for bringing this particular oddment to my attention]](http://24.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m6fd5rgY4y1rnseozo1_1280.jpg)
