BY DR TONY MONDA
Religion is an important and vital part of indigenous Zimbabwean heritage; with religion come certain practices and regulations that in time become approved customs.
In recent times, African countries previously colonised by France and Britain have incorporated in their calendars secular holidays, not of national significance, but are denoted and celebrated; -one being Valentine’s Day, fêted on the 14th of February.
Contrary to common belief, most Western religions have their basis in paganism; therefore, in order for us to understand the various aspects of Christian commemorations, such as Valentine’s Day, one needs to understand paganism; a polytheistic religion, practiced in Roman times; from which the Roman Catholic religion of today remixed, appropriated and superimposed with its own.
Amongst the various Greco-Roman pagan rituals was the Roman primeval rite of “Februa”, said to be a “spring-cleaning” ritual held during “Februarius”, the name for the month of February, known today as “Febbraio” in Italian.
The Februa ceremony was conducted to prevent evil spirits, purify the communities of the city of Rome and promote health and fertility; no doubt, much like the Kore-kore practice of “kuchenesa masango”, the cleaning of the forests in preparation of the on-coming rains.
In time, this pre-Roman pastoral ritual event was superseded by the ceremony of “Lupercalia” which came to be observed annually on the 15 th February. In ancient Greek mythology, the name Lupercalia was connected with the worship of Lycaean Pan, assumed to be a Greek equivalent to the Roman deity Faunus.
In Roman mythology, “Lupercus” is the deity of shepherds. His festival being celebrated on the anniversary of the founding of the Roman Temple on 15th February. It came to be known as the “Lupercalia”, and was held in the cave where the infants Romulus and Remus were suckled by a she-wolf, after they were found abandoned, and who subsequently became the founders of Rome.
The pagan celebration of Lupercalia was a fertility festival dedicated to Faunus, the Roman god of agriculture, as well as to Romulus and Remus the founders of Roman and was celebrated at the ides of February, or 13th of February.
The Luperci, an order of Roman priests, would gather at the sacred cave, dressed in goatskins; at which a goat for fertility, and a dog for purification were sacrificed, and salt meal cakes prepared by the Vestal Virgins were burnt. This was followed by stripping the goat’s hide into strips, dipping them into the sacrificial blood and taken to the streets, gently slapping both women and crop fields with the strips.
Roman women welcomed the touch of the hides since it was believed to make them more fertile in the coming year. According to legend, the city’s young women would place their names in a big urn later in the day. Each of the city’s bachelors would then choose a name from the urn and become paired with his chosen woman for the year. These matches often ended in marriage.
Although the Lupercalia survived the rise of Christianity, it was later outlawed by Pope Gelasius I who deemed it “un-Christian” at the end of the 5th Century. Circa 496, he recast this pagan festival as a Christian feast day and dedicated February 14 th to St. Valentino; which much later came to be associated with love.
Another ancient pagan Roman festival was “Terminalis”, dedicatory to the god Jupiter, Terminalis was said to preside over boundaries. His figure was merely a stone or post stuck in the ground to distinguish between adjacent properties. His veneration was instituted by the emperor Numa Pompilius (c.715-673 B.C), the second king of Rome who was said to have instituted religions rites in Rome. Pompilius ordered that landed property owners marked their boundaries with stones, to be consecrated to Jupiter Terminalis.
The annual public Festival of Terminalia was celebrated at the sixth milestone- landmark on the road towards Laurentum, at which sacrifices were offered. The owners of the two adjacent properties Romulus and Remus with the She-Wolf would raise a crude altar and crown the stone markers with wreaths on which they offered corn, honeycombs and wine and sacrificed a lamb or a suckling pig. The rite or festival was concluded by singing praises of the deity Jupiter Terminalis.
The Roman pagan ritual of “Saturnalia”, is well-described by Dan Brown in his novel “Da Vinci’s Code”, whereby the Vestal Virgins are raped as part of the ceremony.
Roman emperor Claudius II, claiming that bachelors made better soldiers, is alleged to have prohibited marriage for young men, to prevent them from avoiding the draft by marrying.
Valentinus, a Christian priest, agreed to perform secret marriages for those who wished to become married. He was eventually apprehended by the Romans and put to death. Some however argue that he in fact, urged his men to take multiple wives.
Probably the most plausible account surrounding St. Valentine is one not focused on passionate love – Eros, but on agape, Christian love, the Christian who was martyred for refusing to renounce his religion.
Valentine’s Day is celebrated on February 14 in many Christian denominations. Whilst In the Anglican Communion St. Valentine is marked as a “commemoration” in the calendar of saints; in the calendar of saints for the Lutheran church it is included as the” feast” of St. Valentine. In 1969, the Roman Catholic Church however revised its liturgical calendar, removing the feast days of saints whose historical origins it deemed questionable; thus the feast of St. Valentine was removed from the Roman Catholic Calendar of Saints. This however, has not diminished the favour of the event.
Foreign Roman-Greco pagan festivals such as Lupercalia, Saturnalia, et al, together with their muses of love such as Aphrodite and Venus, the roman goddess of love and beauty, known as Aphrodite by the Greeks, are still part of our colonial mind-set and have been incorporated into the international Euro-centric calendar.
Aphrodite was the mother of Cupid, the muse of love. His father Vulcan, was the patron of metal work, he was said to have wrought the strongest, finest, sharpest metal arrows that could cause lightning and thunder.
His ageless offspring Cupid is known as the Roman deity of love and is represented as a winged boy with a bow and arrow; his mythological Greek counterpart is known as Eros, have become an important visual symbol of love on Valentine’s Day.
As we know it today, St. Valentine’s Day, contains vestiges of both Christian and ancient pagan Roman primordial rites. Valentine’s Day, as with most Western holidays and celebrations that we have come to take for granted was steeped in pagan roots and is centred on the experiences of an individual, in this case St. Valentino whose real identity is obscured in the mists of socio-religious history. What originated from an ancient pagan Roman rite, is now an internationally recognised day of love.
Dr. Tony Monda holds a PhD. in Art Theory and Philosophy and a DBA in Post-Colonial Heritage Studies. For Comments E-mail: tonym.MONDA@gmail.com
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