The African Origin of Christmas & Seshat

7 Days Before The New Year (Christmas Eve) in Africa & Seshat and the Origin of Christmas Celebrations
Every year 7 days before the New Year the Ancient Egyptians would pay homage to the goddess of the tree of life (paut neteru­ ­), Seshat. These 7 days would culminate with a great festival on the New Year.

There would be theatrical reenactments such as the script written in what was published as The Book of Thoth, The Opening of the Mouth Ceremony, and the Stretching of the Cord Ceremony. Theatrical reenactments were accompanied by music, food, and just a general festive atmosphere. The celebratory day was preceded by gift giving. It is the origin of these rituals that interest me in their connection with Seshat.
There are two themes I will explore in this blog that I found striking connecting Seshat to the rituals still practiced today:

1. Ancient rituals (Old Kingdom) associated with current holidays (holy days): There are obvious connections with the Bible and Jesus published thousands of years after the origin of these ceremonies, festivals, and books. The Book of Thoth has script that is also found in the Holy Bible. The integration of these concepts in theater through plays were central both in ancient Egypt and in Germany, where the Christmas tree tradition was first recognized by Europeans. 
2. Linguistic, architectural, and artistic similarities: The symbol for Seshat has been correlated in ancient times among the Hebrew as parallel with the symbol used for Jesus as evidenced in this Urn.

The goddess of the New Year was Seshat, the goddess and the symbolism in which her figure embodied is so old she was nameless for millenniums that followed. The priest were not to utter her name. To know her name and to be able to call her name was of great significance. To call her name at the hour of the New Year, which was tied to astronomy, was said to be the most powerful time to do so, because a portal was to be open at that moment where the voice could be "heard" so to speak. This Hr of the start of the NY was marked by great celebration among the Egyptians, as we do today with the drop of the apple in NY, another symbol of education and wisdom. The first of Thouth/Thuthi/Thoth, 9/11, was a name attributed to this day in later Dynasties. However the New Years Festival predates Djehudi, it predates the 4th Dynasty of Ra, and is mentioned in text prior to the 1st Dynasty. It is associated with the heliacal rising of Sirius (Sopdet/Sothis) and Pleiades prominence in the sky. This season was also dedicated to Hapi/Hapy/Happy

Seshat means "she who scrivens", meaning the women who writes, the author. Among the early literate she was identified as the original author. What her symbol embodied was the beginning of hieroglyphic writing, the knowledge contained in those books and taught in the schools of ancient Egypt to scholars. With subjects ranging, but intricately connected, to Astronomy, Alchemy, Chemistry, Architecture, Herbology, Medicine (Farmacopia), and Anatomy. 

1. The architecture included site selection and orientation, which later became ritualized into the Stretching of the Cord Ceremony and reenacted at the New Years festival. This is the same ceremony found in the Book of Solomon. Solomon (reigned c.970-c.930 BCE) was very learned from the books of Seshat. In the Testament of Solomon (700-300 AD) he was called upon by the Hebrew to help construct the First Temple of Jerusalem. The science of Seshat embued in architecture legitimized the churches because its orientations were directed by her knowledge and tools for its astrological proper alignment. Seshat was the great architect among the ancient Egyptians. The "sanctuary contained the seven branched candlestick, the table of showbread and the Incense Altar." and "an Ezrat Nashim (Women's Court) to the east and main area to the west". The table of shewbread or table of Presence was made of acacia wood overlaid in pure gold. I may try this for my holiday party for the 12 days of Christmas as we come into the New Year of 2012. Maybe with a pyramid shaped meat filled sambusas.

Symbols of the Christmas Tree

Nhaha (flail) & Heka (Crook)

Candy Cane from my tree 2011

This month at a Christmas party I talked about my coming book on Seshat and showed the picture at the top of this blog to my friends and family. I had already noticed similarities between the dates of Christmas, the Christmas Tree, and Seshat, who was also correlated with Christ in early Hebrew artifacts that have been found. But when I walked by my Christmas tree it all began to come together clearer. The first thing I noticed was the candy cane hanging on the tree. The Crook, Crozier or Heka, is symbolic of the shepherd among the Egyptians and others of African culture as is the candy cane among early Americans. The Crooks in the above photos are striped. The popular colors of Christmas are also represented in the red, white, green, and gold of the ancient Egyptian art.

Angel Tree Topper holding Stars

I will write more in another blog about the Tree of Knowledge and the apple of the Bible and how it relates to Seshat. However, the topper of the evergreen tree of life is undeniably related not just to Egypt but to Seshat herself. At the top of most Christmas trees you will find an Angel, not a Shepherd or anything else, but a Women or a Star as shown atop Seshat's head as her tool and symbol which was said to connect constellations, such as Orion and Sirius, to determine the proper alignment for the foundation of the temples. The heliacal rising of Sirius marked the New Year. Recordings were to be done on the everlasting papyrus/paper which transcended time and imparted the knowledge and science of early writers for us to view today, 7,000 years later. The people of ancient KMT gave gifts each year beginning 7 days before the New Year.

Portal of the House of the Blackheads

One link to all this is the Brotherhood of the Blackhead, founded as a military organization. Members included foreign (to Estonia & Latvia) ship owners, merchants, goldsmiths, chemist, scholars, and school teachers...(sound familiar?). According to Wiki:

 Patron saint of the 

Brotherhood of Blackheads,

 Moorish Saint Mauritius.

(indigenous African in full armour, 

bearing a standard and a palm; 

knight in armour with a 

red cross on his breast, 

which is the badge of the

 Sardinian Order of Saint Maurice) 

born 3rd century. Thebes, Egypt.

in the Cathedral of Madgeburn, 

1250 A.D. Germany

(oldest Gothic cathedral

 in Germany (9/21/937)

"Blackheads commit themselves to decorating and lighting the altar of St. Mary"....Twice a year the Brotherhood celebrated major holidays: at the end of the navigation season during between December 24 and January 10 Christmas and New Year, and from Easter to the beginning of the navigation season. Both celebrations commenced with an official session where organizational matters were settled, and continued with feasts, dancing, and festivities that sometimes included the whole town. The custom of erecting a Christmas Tree can be historically traced to such activities in the 15th and 16th centuries. According to the first documented uses of a Christmas tree in Estonia, in 1441, 1442, and 1514 the Brotherhood erected a tree for the holidays in their brotherhood house in Tallinn. At the last night of the celebrations leading up to the holidays, the tree was taken to the Town Hall Square where the members of the brotherhood danced around it.[4] In 1584, the pastor and chronicler Balthasar Russow wrote of an established tradition of setting up a decorated spruce at the market square in Tallinn where the young men “went with a flock of maidens and women, first sang and danced there and then set the tree aflame”.[5] The first description of a Christmas tree used the Brotherhood in Riga in 1510 resembles the descriptions from Tallinn. Also as this church is held a baptismal font dated several thousand years old brought from Gebel Abu Dokhan near Hurghada, Egypt. It is made of red porphyry from a single quarry in the Eastern Desert of Egypt, from 600 million year old andesite of the Arabian-Nubian Shield, an area known for its watering wells and marked by hydreumata. Porphyry was extensively used in Byzantine monuments such as in the Hagia Sophia or Holy Wisdom. Sophia comes from "Wisdom" in Latin. The Church of the Holy Wisdom, 360AD, was said to have "changed the history of architecture". It was designed by scientist and a mathematician. Justinian proclaimed at its completion, "Solomon, I have outdone thee!". Its dedication feast takes place on 25 December, when the church was dedicated to the Logos, the second person of the Holy Trinity. Logos, originally meaning "word" it became a technical term (ca 535BC-475BS) in philosophy for a principle of order and knowledge. Wisdom is a central topic in the "sapiential" books, i.e. Proverbs, Psalms, Song of Songs, Ecclesiastes, Book of Wisdom, and Wisdom of Sirach. See also 1 Corinthians 1:20 "Where is the wise? Where is the scribe?". "n the liturgy of the Orthodox Church, the exclamation Sophia! or in English Wisdom! will be proclaimed by the deacon or priest at certain moments, especially before the reading of scripture, to draw the congregation's attention to sacred teaching."

The church also houses a statue of Jesus nailed to a tree, Lebensbaumkruzifix (literally: Tree of life cross) 1986. In 1510, according to the National Christmas Tree Association, the merchants decorated the tree with artificial roses, danced around it in the marketplace and then set fire to it. This practice reminds me of the burning bush mentioned in the bible and references to the tree of life. The rose was considered a symbol for the Virgin Mary. By the 17th century it became common in Germany to decorate the tree with apples. An object noted in the bible to represent knowledge and wisdom.

One educational site says this about the origin of the first Christmas tree,

"The origin of the first Christmas tree dates back to the Middle Ages in Western Germany. The people during this time period participated in and watched dramatic plays called miracle and mystery plays. These plays were performed to teach the common people about religious truths that were contained in the bible. There were no printed books available, and pictures were scarce during this period of time. "As laymen joined with the clergy, the individual plays were arranged in a lengthy series or cycle throughout the church year" (Foley, pg. 39). In this way, peasants were taught about the Old and New Testaments of the bible.During the Christmas season, the Paradise play was presented. This play depicted Adam and Eve in the garden of Eden. On stage was an evergreen tree, covered in apples, which showed Adam and Eve's sin and later banishment from the garden. The tree received particular attention because it was the only prop on the stage. This symbol remained firmly planted in the minds of spectators and actors. Later, after the plays "ceased to be performed in Germany" ( Foley, pg. 41), people began putting their own trees in their homes."....."Candles were also important symbols to the Germans. The candle was their main source of light, and it represented Christ being the Light of the World. The candles were placed on a wooden pyramid structure with shelves called the lightstock or Christmas pyramid. This pyramid stood next to the Paradise tree. This candle holder was also decorated with tinsel, paper or cloth roses, and a star was usually placed on top."

"The Moravians made more of Christmas than any other religious denomination in this country from Colonial times. On Moravian.org, "Moravian stars are connected to math lessons in school where students learned to draw and make geometrical shapes. One of the shapes was a pyramid. At the Moravian boarding school in Niesky, Germany, pupils practiced by making shapes from paper.....The first account of a star made specifically for Christmas dates from 1867 when Hermann Bourquin, a former pupil at Niesky, made a paper star for his parents in Herrnhut.....The Moravian star is distinguished by its well-proportioned shape. The length of the points corresponds proportionally to the diameter of the body."Such a rich consistent history...

During the 1800s, according to Christmas in Pennsylvania, Philadelphia was known for its Carnival of Horns, the marching bands, young men costumed in mock military equipment, with fireworks and parading in the streets. This book makes notes of the Bishop of Worms, who in the 11th century cautioned his priests against the people's custom of wearing animal skins and masks on the calends of January (i.e. January 1). Shoemaker notes this is the earliest reference to a practice that found expression in the Belsnickel custom of the Pennsylvania Dutch culture. This is also linked to the medieval Shrove Tuesday Fastnacht. Looking back at the Brotherhood of the Blackheads, the military tones of Christmas parades now make sense to me. The New Years Eve type festival/parade connection is brought together. Considering the early starters of this tradition were largely merchants and teachers I know hold a deeper understanding of store and school closings during this time period across the nation in preparation for and to celebrate these two holidays.

For more on my finding of the connections between America, Europe, and Africa around the winter solstice see my Happy New Year blog I published 1/1/11.

Foley, Daniel J. (1960). The Christmas Tree. Philadelphia: Chilton Company.
Bodum, Herman (1836). The Stranger's Gift. Boston.