Snow Day

Snow Day

Pagan is such a strange word for you to use in connection with snowmen. I expect you intend something such as pre-Christian or pre-Muslim or pre-Organized religion. Snowmen are connected to those cultures and peoples who live in climates that have snow and especially have a history with the Ice Age. Those who stayed in place during the harsh winters rather than migrating great distances can relate to the snowman. To others the snowman is a game or curiosity.

Is my book based upon fact, complete with smoking gun? No. Have you ever made a snowman and six months later examined the remains of what had been the snowman? When was the last time you ate a turkey for Thanksgiving? Where are the remains that prove you ate the bird?

I have no proof that Ice Age humans made a decision to substitute human sacrifice with symbolic snowmen.

But, when you look at any ancient children’s game you will find a darker origin that has been sanitized during the past hundred or so years. Consider the tale of Little Red Riding Hood in the Blue Fairy Books. Nobody saves the girl. Despite claims that Ring-Around-the-Rosie did not relate to the Black Death, you can be sure that in its current form is nothing like the first performed dance, reminding us that “ashes, ashes, we all fall down”. Examine the German stories that tell us what happens to bad children, the not-so-nice creature that jolly old Saint Nick is fabricated to clean up.

But back to snowmen. Consider Mardi Gras, the festive time that proceeds forty days of fasting. Why would a community need to cut back on eating during the waning days of winter? Could it be a shortage of food during harsh weather, during the cycle of the year when crops are not replenished? When you note that other religions and cultures also choose symbolic group sacrifice over the culling of the herd, then you can imagine the offering of a surrogate snowman rather than aunt Margaret.

What happens in Zurich and a few other locations in the world connects the notion that we celebrate the end of winter by making one final sacrifice of a snowman.

A snowman is more than a simple activity on a snow day.


visit Sandy Kinnee.com

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