Culture
Poster sessions about topics of cultural and historical interest will be available for viewing throughout the day. The sessions presented have appeared as research essays in various publications. Complete copies of the essays ~ including references for further research ~ will be provided upon request the day of the event. More topics are being added, so please check back. If you'd like to contribute a poster session of your own, please contact us with your proposal.
Norse Colonization of New England
From the first-hand accounts of the Vinland Saga to the numerous archeological sites of interest uncovered throughout New England and beyond, it is becoming clear that hundreds of years before Columbus ever set sail on his famous expeditions, hardy bands of Norse explorers navigated, traded within, and colonized regions of the New World. This presentation will discuss sites and points of interest that have become the source of ongoing contentious debate among archeologists and historians.
Huginn, Muninn and the Mórrígan: The Symbolism of the Raven in Norse and Irish Culture, Lore and Cosmology
For the pre-Christian Celtic and Germanic peoples of Northern Europe, the Raven was a complex and paradoxical shamanic embodiment of both divinity and supernatural dread. This presentation shall explore the fascinating role the Raven plays, which is deeply interwoven throughout the mythologies, lore and folkways of Northern Europe. Ravens served as signatory heralds and messengers of the gods, bridging the worlds of the natural and supernatural. In a more sinister nature, they also served as omens of fast-approaching death and impending bloodshed. This session includes a cross-cultural comparison of Ravens and their relationship to the warrior-chieftain gods Oðinn and Lugh. The Ravens role with the Celtic battle goddess the Mórrígan and the Germanic Valkyries particularly as a battleground carrion-feeder and herald of death - will also be explored.
Red Legs: History of the Enchained Irish
The Irish have at times experienced severe periods of discrimination, poverty, and exploitation both in their mother country under the era of English rule and as a migrant labor force during the formative years of the American republic. From 1652 until 1659 alone, over 50,000 Irish men, women, and children became the victims of a system of forced deportation and colonial enslavement made infamous under the British Empire as it expanded throughout the New World. Throughout the reigns of Charles I, the Cromwell regime, and onward through the restoration of the crown under Charles II, native Irish found themselves torn from their homeland and condemned to labor as slaves in the Caribbean plantation islands and other British-occupied territories of the West Indies. Traces of their presence remain to this day among the commonality of Irish surnames among modern Jamaicans. Their direct blood-descendents live on as an obscure, desperately impoverished, and quickly vanishing minority in modern Barbados. The locals refer to these surviving descendants as the "Red Legs". This derogatory term was historically used to describe both the tartan kilts of the imported Scots/Irish slaves and the resulting sunburns which ravaged their fair skin.