The Curse of Cleopatra’s Needle

Tags

Cleopatra, Cleopatras Needle, curse of the mummy, curses, Egyptian curses, Egyptian Obelisk, Embankment, London, London lore, sites, Thames, tourism, tourist sites

PART ONE: HOW IT ALL BEGAN!

_{Cleopatra’s Needle, London. Public Domain, ^{https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=735816}} 

If you stroll along the Victoria Embankment between Victoria Embankment and Temple underground stations, you will see a large obelisk flanked by two sphinxes jutting out into the sky. Cleopatra’s Needle is a distinctive landmark in London and a popular tourist spot but few people take the time to understand its history and the supernatural stories which surround it.

The Obelisk of Thutmose III

Although the obelisk in London is associated with Cleopatra, in reality its only connection to the famous Egyptian is that she moved it to Alexandria in 12 BCE, her royal city and set it up in Caesareum – a temple built in honour of Mark Anthony[1]. The obelisk was in fact carved over 1000 years before Cleopatra came to power. Hewed out of red granite from the quarries of Aswan and dedicated to Pharaoh Thutmose III[2], the obelisk was erected in the city of Heliopolis in around 1450 BCE. Two hundred years later inscriptions on the side lines of the shaft were carved out in honour of Rameses the Great commemorating his military victories[3].

A Gift for Great Britain

^{Lieutenant-General Sir James Alexander, c1880.
_{By Stephencdickson – Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0,
https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=66156088}} 

In 1819, the Albanian Ottoman governor and ruler of Egypt and Sudan, Muhammad Ali gave the obelisk as a gift to Great Britain. The obelisk was seen as a fitting monument to commemorate the British victories over Napoleon in the Battle of Nile (1798) and the Battle of Alexander (1801)[4]. Unfortunately, the cost of transporting the 224-ton obelisk proved too much and plans to bring it over to Great Britain were dropped. The subject was again unsuccessfully revisited in 1822 and 1832.

In 1867, Lieutenant-General Sir James Alexander read a paper to the Royal Society of Edinburgh outlining his ideas for bringing the obelisk to Britain[5]. In 1875, Alexander visited Egypt to assess its condition. On his trip he met with the civil engineer and Egyptology enthusiast Mr John Dixon who had already been researching the obelisk. At the end of 1876, Dixon and Alexander consulted with Sir William James Erasmus Wilson, a distinguished anatomist, who agreed to contribute £10,000 to the endeavour. Dixon accepted full responsibility for any other expenses incurred as well as transportation logistics. With a firm plan and the permission of the then Khedive Ismael Pasha, Dixon set about drawing up blueprints for a ship strong enough to hold the obelisk[6].

^{The iron cylinder barge, Cleopatra. Victoria and Albert Museum Collection.}

The Cleopatra

The ship, Cleopatra, built to transport the obelisk was ingenious in its design. The cigar-shaped iron cylinder (around 92 feet long by 16 feet wide) which encased the granite monolith was constructed around it, with the sheets of metal riveted together. A bridge was built to shelter the crew. Once the iron case was complete, it was towed to the dry-dock of the Egyptian Admiralty and converted into a ship. Here the internal ballast rails, stern and rudder were added[7].

A crew of eight Maltese sailors led by Captain Carter were hired to steer the Cleopatra whilst the Olga, a steam ship was engaged to act as a tow ship under the command of Captain Booth[8]. On 21 September 1877, the Cleopatra and the Olga left Egypt bound for Falmouth.

The Deadly Bay of Biscay

Initially the journey was uneventful but on the 14 October as the ship entered the Bay of Biscay, the weather took a turn for the worse. The violent storm whipped up the sea causing the iron rails to break loose. At 9.20pm the Cleopatra signalled to the Olga that they were in trouble and a small boat manned by six volunteers were sent over to assist them[9]. Tragically, the crew of the Cleopatra were unable to secure the ropes flung to them and the small boat drifted away, swallowed up by the rough water. Having not heard from the Cleopatra, Captain Booth was under the impression that she was safe. It was only when a few hours later he received a second distress signal asking for the Olga to pick them up, that he realised the seriousness of the situation. The Olga managed to pull up alongside the container ship, collect the crew and cut the tow-rope[10]. An attempt was made to find the six men but to no avail, the boat had disappeared. The names of the men who drowned were William Askin, Michael Burns, James Gardiner, William Donald, Joseph Benton and William Patan (their names are inscribed on the base of the Needle)[11]. Thinking the obelisk lost, the Olga returned to Falmouth.

Incredibly a few days later, the container ship was spotted still afloat proving Dixon’s faith in his design correct, “its buoyancy and sailing qualities have been shown to be of a high order by one of the severest tests to which a vessel, likely to encounter ocean storms can be exposed”. The Cleopatra was picked up by the English steamer ship, Fitzmaunce and brought into the port of Ferrol. After a short and tricky negotiation (the captain of the Fitzmaunce had placed a lien for salvage on the container[12]), the steam ship Anglia was sent to bring the monolith to Britain. On the 21 January 1878, the obelisk arrived at Gravesend (school children in Gravesend were given the day off to welcome the Cleopatra[13]). Even at this stage, the obelisk’s final home had not been decided. Many sites were suggested but in the end the decision was made by the two men who had paid for its journey, Sir Wilson and John Dixon[14]. In September 1878, the obelisk was at last installed to cheers from the crowds and the 68 feet (21 metres) monolith became Cleopatra’s Needle.

_{The Cleopatra hits storm weather in the Bay of Biscay.
Victoria and Albert Museum Collection.}

PART TWO: THE CURSE OF THE OBELISK

Cleopatra’s Needle has developed a strange reputation. A reputation which probably stemmed from the idea that Egyptian objects are by their nature cursed and the tragic story of its journey to Britain.

The Suicidal Lady

For some unknown reason the site of Cleopatra’s Needle has become a popular suicide spot. On two separate occasions, a policeman was approached by a distressed woman urging him to come to the banks of the River Thames to prevent someone from jumping into the water. As the policeman reach the area of the needle, they see the same woman, who had just stopped them, leap into the river[15].

The Phantom Sailor

Unearthly laughter has been heard coming from the Needle at night. This eerie sound has been linked to the ghost of a naked man who has been witnessed on a number of occasions, running from out behind the obelisk and throwing himself into the River without making a splash[16]. The first sighting of this apparition occurred a few weeks after the installation of the obelisk leading many people to believe it was in fact the ghost of one of the sailors who died in the Bay of Biscay.

An Egyptian Curse

_{Aleister Crowley. Unknown author, Public domain, via
Wikimedia Commons} 
 

As with many Egyptian artifacts some believe the obelisk is cursed and that the soul of Rameses II has been imprisoned inside the granite.

There is a very odd tale relating to the obelisk and Egypt which may or may not have any basis in truth and which is closer to a horror than ghost story. In 1880, a Miss Davies, aged 27 from Pimlico, was wandering along the Embankment when she felt herself being unwillingly pulled towards the site of the Needle. As she got closer to the obelisk, she heard unearthly laughter and losing control of her legs she flung herself into the water. Luckily for her, she was saved by a vagrant. She was taken to hospital to recover. Although physically healed, she experienced terrifying nightmares in which a tall woman with a white face and black almond eyes wearing red robes appeared. As the woman opened its mouth, she revealed sharp pointed teeth and the flesh from her face is ripped off[17]. Miss Davies believed her ordeal to be caused by the obelisk. The description of the woman’s appearance conjures up the image of an Egyptian priestess or member of the Egyptian nobility.

The Crowley Connection

Another unsubstantiated story regards the occultist Aleister Crowley. It is said that Crowley performed dark sorcery one dark night at the base of the obelisk in order to release Rameses’ trapped spirit. The ceremony involved the feeding of animal blood to a human skeleton. Crowley was unsuccess and It is said that Rameses mockingly laughed at Cowley’s failure[18].

The Ill-fated Needle

Many believe that the curse of the obelisk lead to it being bombed in an air-raid during the First World War. At midnight on Tuesday, 14 September 1917, the obelisk was hit disfiguring the pedestal[19]. After the war ended, it was decided not to repair the bomb damage – the scars having become part of its history and its cursed legend.

A Haunting Time Capsule?

When the obelisk was erected, a time capsule was inserted into the pedestal. This capsule contains many objects including 12 photographs of the best looking women of the day,  box of hairpins, a box of cigars, tobacco pipes, a set of imperial weights, a baby’s bottle, toys, a shilling razor, samples of cables used in the erection of the obelisk, a portrait or Queen Victoria, a written history of the transportation of the obelisk and a map of London[20].

Could the time capsule contain objects which are themselves haunted? Is that what is responsible for the ghostly stories associated with the obelisk?

The Guardian Sphinxes

Lastly, there are the sphinxes. The sphinxes (as well as the pedestal) were sculptured by the English architect, George John Vulliamy[21]. As with the pedestal, the sphinxes were damaged by the same bomb. It has long been said that the sphinxes were accidentally placed the wrong way round. Logically, they should have been facing outwards, symbolising protection for the obelisk, but maybe the sphinxes were positioned correctly. Maybe their role was not to stop harm from coming to the obelisk but rather to prevent anything from getting out!

^{Inward facing sphinx, showing shell damage from World War I. This file is licensed under the 
Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license. Subject to disclaimers.} 

Final Word

The history of Cleopatra’s Needle is a fascinating and sad one and the obelisk itself is very beautiful. Personally, I highly doubt that there is any Egyptian curse on it. Egyptian curses became fashionable after the opening of the tomb of Tutankhamun and are now a mainstay of films and books but it is a mystery as to why the site has become a magnet for those with a desire to commit suicide. Does the obelisk have some sort of power or magnetic pull? I have visited it on numerous occasions at all times of the day and night and have never felt any particular draw to it but if you are brave enough there is a legend that if you want a particular question answered you should look at the pyramidon at the top and say the words “I call spirits from the vasty deep”[22]. Maybe you will receive an answer from the spirit of the obelisk!

Cleopatra’s Needle from across the Thames. Lenora 2022

Bibliography and Further Reading

Brier, Bob (Dr), Cleopatra’s Needles: The Lost Obelisks of Egypt, Bloomsbury Academic, 2021

Sir Erasmus Wilson, Cleopatra’s Needle: With Brief Notes on Egypt and Egyptian Obelisks, London: Brain & Co, 1877

---

Notes

[1] THROUGH THE ARCHIVES: Cleopatra’s needle arrives in London from Egypt From the News Letter, January 24, 1878, https://www.newsletter.co.uk/heritage-and-retro/retro/through-archives-cleopatras-needle-arrives-london-egypt-3103696

[2] Cleopatra’s Needle: The Story Behind Three Awe-Inspiring Obelisks, https://www.ancient-origins.net/artifacts-other-artifacts/cleopatra-s-needle-story-behind-obelisks-007051

[3] Sir Erasmus Wilson, Cleopatra’s Needle: With Brief Notes on Egypt and Egyptian Obelisks

[4] Cleopatra’s Needle: The Story Behind Three Awe-Inspiring Obelisks

[5] Cleopatra’s Needle: With Brief Notes on Egypt and Egyptian Obelisks

[6] Ibid

[7] Cleopatra (cylinder ship), https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cleopatra_(cylinder_ship)

[8] William Penman Lyon, Cleopatra’s needle, London: The Book Society, https://books.google.co.il/books?id=RoYDAAAAQAAJ&pg=PA5&dq=cleopatra%27s+needle&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjt77DGuLnvAhUIrRQKHdICBYoQ6AEwA3oECAAQAg#v=onepage&q=london&f=false

[9] Ibid

[10] Ibid

[11] Cleopatra’s Needle, https://www.historic-uk.com/HistoryUK/HistoryofBritain/Cleopatras-Needle/

[12] William Penman Lyon, Cleopatra’s needle

[13] THROUGH THE ARCHIVES: Cleopatra’s needle arrives in London from Egypt

From the News Letter

[14] Dr Bob Brier, Cleopatra’s Needles: The Lost Obelisks of Egypt

[15] Cleopatra’s Needle and Haunted Victoria Embankment in London, http://hauntedearthghostvideos.blogspot.com/2012/05/cleopatras-needle-and-haunted-victoria.html

[16] Cleopatra’s Needle, https://www.mysteriousbritain.co.uk/hauntings/cleopatras-needle/

[17] Cleopatra’s Needle Exorcism, https://www.wattpad.com/331285523-voodoo-creepypasta-1-cleopatra%27s-needle-exorcism

[18] Cleopatra’s Needle, https://topicaltens.blogspot.com/2014/09/12th-september-cleopatras-needle.html

[19] Cleopatra’s Needle, London, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cleopatra’s_Needle,_London

[20] Cleopatra’s Needle and Haunted Victoria Embankment in London

[21] George John Vulliamy, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_John_Vulliamy

[22] The London Obelisk: Cleopatra’s Ghosts, https://glennashton.blogspot.com/2010/12/the-london-obelisk-cleopatra-ghosts.html

The Hidden History of Shrunken Heads (Tsantsas)

Tags

Achuar, Amazon, Colonialism, Ecuador, fakes, Jivaro, museum collections, rituals, Shrunken heads, Shuar, tourism, Tsantsas

_{Credit: Shrunken heads. Wellcome Collection. Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY} 4.0)

The hidden history of shrunken heads 

Across Europe and America, if you visit a museum with an Ethnography section, you may come across a display of shrunken heads, or Tsantsas, from South America. The heads are no larger than a man’s fist, with lips and eyes stitched up, threads hanging from them, and framed by long black hair. If you haven’t seen one in a museum, then you’ve likely seen one depicted in popular culture, the movies Beetlejuice and more recently Harry Potter both feature shrunken heads in a horror/comedy setting. 

But how did shrunken heads from the Amazon basin find their way into the museums and collections of Britain, Europe and the USA and how did interaction with western societies influence and change this indigenous tradition? 

Who made them? 

Tsantsas were created by the Shuar, Achuar, Awajun/Aguaruna, Wampis/Huambisa, Candoshi-Shampra, who are now collectively known as SAAWC. Europeans historically referred to this group of peoples as Jivaro, however, this became synonymous with being uncivilized or savage, so is considered offensive in Ecuador [1].  

These groups lived in the Amazon, in small villages often based on family groups. They subsisted primarily from hunting, fishing, raising pigs and gardening. They also traded with other indigenous groups, and later with European settlers.  

The Shuar’s primary claim to fame is that they successfully thew off the yoke of the Spanish Conquistadors in 1599, earning themselves a legendary reputation for fierceness and independence. This love of independence is reflected in the structure of their society, which was based on family groups and existed without any centralised authority [2]. 

_{Family group c1901. Smithsonian Institution. Bureau of American Ethnology, No restrictions, via Wikimedia Commons}

More than just a war trophy 

It is fair to say that even now the popular view in the West is that all headhunting cultures took heads as war trophies. And while some did, this is a reductive view, for the SAAWC peoples the head of an enemy killed in combat was much more than simply a brutal material symbol of victory. The power of Tsantsas came from harnessing the power imbued in them from the dead man’s soul for the benefit of the warrior’s family. The process of obtaining and preparing a Tsantsa was complex, time consuming and resource intensive, it was also fraught with danger. This meant that the practice of headhunting was not taken lightly, nor one practiced frequently by SAAWC peoples.  

SAAWC peoples believed that the soul of a man was made up of separate components the Arutam and the Muisak. The Arutam was the soul-power, the spirit, power, and knowledge of the man. A man became Kakaram through killing and this strengthened his Arutam, this power was obtained through raids on other tribes to obtain Tsantsas. So, the best Tsantsas, the most powerful, came from a man who had killed a lot of people and therefore had strong Arutam. However, taking the head of such a man (and it invariably was a man, as a woman was not thought to be possessed of a strong Arutam), a powerful enemy warrior, possessed of such power, required careful rituals, or else his Muisak, his avenging soul which came into being at the point of death, could wreak havoc on his killer [3] [4].

_{Objets dAmazonie (réserves visitables du musée national dethnologie).  Dalbera from Paris, France, CC BY 2.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0, via Wikimedia Commons}

How were they made? 

The skills involved would be passed down from father to son [5]. The process was both practical and ritual. To ensure the head could be transported away from the enemy village quickly, the skull, brains, muscle were removed, making it lighter to carry. This skin ‘bag’ was then filled with hot sand and pebbles repeatedly until it shrunk to the size of a man’s fist [6]. Shrinking the head was the beginning of the ritual process of trapping power in the artefact.  

A series of rituals and feasts were held, the first of which was a binding ritual. It was crucial to trap the Muisak in the head before it could escape and seek revenge. The Muisak would try and escape through the mouth, so it was vital to sew up the lips of the decapitated head quickly. Similarly, eyes were sewn shut to prevent it from seeing, and the skin was blackened with charcoal [7] [8]. Once the Muisak was trapped, the owner could begin to use the soul- power of the Tsantsa, and transfer it to others, through a series of ritual feasts.  

The feasts could take place over several years, this allowed the owner and his family to grow enough food to feed the many guests that would be expected to attend. The purpose of the feasts was to harness the power of the individual warrior’s Arutam (his skills and knowledge} and pass them on to the women of the owner’s family, so that they would be more productive. The final ritual would expel the Muisak from the head, rendering the physical head less valuable to the village. Sometimes the warrior would keep the head, but more often than not the head, once divested of its spiritual power, would be discarded, or traded away [9]. As the whole ritual process associated with creating and utilising a Tsantsa was a lengthy one, and required extensive resources, it was not done often. 

The Shuar themselves have emphasised that it is not the head per se that interests them [10], it was the soul-power of the warrior, which was contained in the decapitated head, that was their object in creating Tsantsas. However, by the end of the nineteenth and early twentieth century the production of tsantsas escalated rapidly. Now women, even children might find themselves targets of head-hunting raids.  

So, how, and why did this tradition change? 

Guns for heads 

In the late nineteenth century, Europeans began to encroach on Shuar lands in search of rubber and cinchona bark, which was used to make Quinine, and this led to more interactions between the Shuar and neighbouring tribes and westerners. Quickly trade began between the groups, the Shuar providing settlers with much needed pigs, deer, salt and occasional Tsantsas, in return for cloth, machetes and guns. The dynamic changed when the settlers began raising their own livestock, the Shuar still wished to trade for goods such as machetes and guns, which made their lives easier, (they did not make their own metal) but the only thing the settlers wanted now was Tsantsas [11][12]. 

_{Webley & Scott Mk VI. Caliber .455 Collection Paul Regnier, Lausanne, Switzerland. Photograph by Rama, Wikimedia Commons, Cc-by-sa-2.0-fr, CC BY-SA 2.0 fr, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=12346282}

A trade had rapidly grown up around Tsantsas with North American and European Museums, collectors, and souvenir hunters all eager to snap up these curious tribal artefacts. Because the numbers of Tsantsas produced for ritual purposes was so limited, demand soon outstripped supply.  

To meet this demand for Tsantsas, the Shuar and other tribes, massively increase in head-hunting raids, often using the guns they so keenly traded for. Raids involved hundreds of people, and now encompassed the murder of women and even children, who would not have previously been victims as their soul-power was considered lesser than a man’s. Frances Larson notes that the going rate for one gun was one Tsantsa, and commented that the Tsantsas on display in museums show more of the history of “white man’s gun” as an economic incentive for the Shuar to kill [13]. Tsantsas produced for trade would not be ritual Tsantsas, they were produced specifically for the open market.  

This trade in tribal curios led to many fake shrunken heads being created, with some reports of the bodies of the poor-dead in morgues being used to create Tstantsas, along with the heads of countless monkeys and sloths [14]. Some of these fakes even ended up in distinguished museums in North America and Europe.  Charlie Morgan of the Wellcome Collection, estimates that up to 80% of Tsantsas on display could in fact be fakes [15].

The Holy Grail of Ethnography 

From the enlightenment onwards western society has been obsessed with cataloguing everything, from plants and animals to humans. However, in the nineteenth century this drive to understand the world soon became a tool for justifying an ethnocentric world view. The gap created by the end of the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade in the early nineteenth century, was filled the European Imperial Project. Imperialism often wore a paternalistic face, civilised western nations claimed to be improving the lives of less advanced races who were unable to govern themselves.  

_{Wellcome Historical Medical Museum, shrunken heads (pre-1946). Wellcome Collection. Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)}

This Imperialist project was quick to co-opt science to support colonialist expansion. In a similar way that the pseudo-science of phrenology began as a genuine endeavour to understand how the brain worked but ended up being used to justify eugenics and racism, so ethnographic hierarchies of people (with white Europeans at top of the evolutionary tree, and brown and black races at the bottom) were used to promote a race theory which justified the ‘superior’ races colonising less civilised races. The fall-out from this is still being felt today. 

The position of Shuar peoples, never having been colonised meant they fell into that Holy Grail of Victorian Ethnography: the untouched tribe. A tribe in need of being studied and civilised.  

Education, entertainment, exploitation 

In the nineteenth century and early twentieth century, Human Zoos or ‘ethnological expositions’ were extremely popular. These exhibits would have people from traditional societies displayed in a ‘natural setting,’ ostensibly for the education of Western spectators, but in reality, as a way contrasting ‘primitive’ peoples and societies unfavourably to the more advanced nations of the West [16].  

_{By Henri Sicard and Farradesche Lithographers – Jardin zoologique d’acclimatation, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=41478061}

People are still drawn to the exotic and the ‘other.’  Museum visitors today, when faced with Tsantsas, often experience a sense of horror and an underlying feeling of cultural superiority, in that the viewer, is perhaps grateful that they do not belong to a culture that could produce such unnerving artefacts, that they themselves live in a ‘civilized’ culture where these things do not happen [17].  

A review by Peter Gordon in 2003, reinforced this view as he found that visitors to the Pitt Rivers Museum often viewed the Shrunken heads for entertainment purposes, using words like ‘gruesome’ ‘barbaric’ and evoked ‘a freakshow element’ [18]. This led the museum to re-evaluate their display and whether it was achieving its intended aims to teach visitors about how other cultures treated their dead enemies. 

This is in part because Tsantsas have come to represent an entire culture, this is all many people will ever know of the SAAWC peoples. Head-hunters have become synonymous with primitive and savage practices that the march of human progress has suppressed. However, this is a distortion of the rich symbolic meaning behind these sacred ritual objects. 

Should the Tsantsas head home? 

At a time when museums are being challenged to de-colonise their collections and address their imperial past, the history of the trade in shrunken heads is a timely reminder of the impact European colonisation had on the indigenous cultures they encountered.  

Greater involvement and dialogue with indigenous cultures whose artefacts, particularly those that constitute human remains, are in western museums has changed the landscape of many museums. Museums, such as the Pitt Rivers Museum in Oxford, have now removed their displays of Tsantsas, and have reconsidered how they present information about indigenous cultures.  This moved has been a polarising one, with some people welcoming the change and others against it.

The debate over the role of Western museums in curating artefacts from the colonial past, especially human remains, is a highly fraught area, with excellent arguments on both sides. There is a vocal lobby for the for the role of museums as conservators of our shared past, and educators, and equally strong lobby against that, and that the views of other cultures and their struggle to regain control over their own identities and heritage should take precedence.  And of course there is also the problem of identifying real Tsantsas from the many historic fakes on display.

The issues of repatriation of cultural objects is a very controversial area, with genuine fears of great museum collections being broken up and lost forever. Use of modern technologies, such as digitised collections, contextualisation of collections and most importantly, involvement from colonised cultures could be one way to build a bridge between the rights of those cultures that were colonised alongside the valuable role of museums to protect and educate using artefacts from our shared past. I suspect this is an argument that will continue for many years to come, and may never have an outcome that will please everyone.

The last word 

But what of the people whose ancestors made these artefacts, what are their views? Currently SAAWC peoples are engaged in a political and cultural fight for survival against the pressures of mining and the oil industry, sacred objects created by their ancestors, are potent symbol of cultural unity, and many now want them returned.  Federación Interprovincial de Centros Shuar-Achuar now represent the interests of the SAAWC peoples.

The last word should go to Shuar themselves, Indigenous leaders Miguel Puwainchir and Felipe Tsenkush:

“Our ancestors handed over these sacred objects without full realising the implications” [19]

“We don’t want to be thought of as dead people to be exhibited in a museum, described in a book, or recorded on film.” [20]

I would love to hear your views on this topic.  

_{Modern Shuar dance in Logroño, Ecuador. IJlh249, CC BY-SA 3.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0, via Wikimedia Commons}

Sources

My primary inspiration for writing this article was the chapter on Tsantsas in Severed: A History of Heads Lost and Found, by Frances Larson, a fabulously witty, erudite, and thought provoking book.

Byron, C.D., Kiefer, A.M., Thomas, J. et al. The authentication and repatriation of a ceremonial tsantsa to its country of origin (Ecuador). Herit Sci 9, 50 (2021).

Harner, J, The Jivaro: People of the Sacred Waterfalls, 1984

Houlton,Tobias M.R.and Wilkinson, Caroline M., Recently identified features that help to distinguish ceremonial tsantsa from commercial shrunken heads – ScienceDirect

Larson, Frances, Severed: A History of Heads Lost and Heads Found, 2015

McGreevy, Nora, Oxford Museum Permanently Removes Controversial Display of Shrunken Heads | Smart News | Smithsonian Magazine

Morgan, Charlie, Shrunken Heads Real and Fake, Wellcome Collection Blog, 27 June 2014

Peers, Laura, Shrunken Heads, (Pitt Rivers Museum publication)

Rubenstein, Steven Lee, Circulation, Accumulation, and the Power of Shuar Shrunken Heads in Cultural Anthropology Vol. 22, No. 3 (Aug., 2007), pp. 357-399 (43 pages)

shrunken « Bizzarro Bazar

Shrunken heads | Pitt Rivers Museum (ox.ac.uk)

The Pitt Rivers Museum and its Shrunken Heads – Sang Bleu

Wikipedia, Shuar

Wikipedia, Human Zoo

Notes

[1] Shuar

[2] The Jivaro: People of the Sacred Waterfalls

[3] ibid

[4] ibid

[5] Oxford Museum Permanently Removes Controversial Display of Shrunken Heads

[6] Severed: A History of Heads Lost and Heads Found

[7] Shrunken Heads

[8] Severed: A History of Heads Lost and Heads Found

[9] ibid

[10] Shuar, Wikipedia

[11] Severed: A History of Heads Lost and Heads Found

[12] Shrunken Heads

[13] Severed: A History of Heads Lost and Heads Found

[14] ibid

[15] Shrunken heads real and fake

[16] Human Zoo

[17] Shrunken Heads

[18] ibid

[19] Oxford Museum Permanently Removes Controversial Display of Shrunken Heads

[20] The authentication and repatriation of a ceremonial tsantsa to its country of origin (Ecuador)

Mother Shipton: Yorkshire’s Nostradamus

Tags

English history, history, Knaresborough, Mother Shipton, Nostradamus, Petrifying Well, seventeenth century, tourism, witches, Yorkshire

Old Mother Shipton

I visited Knaresborough in Yorkshire on a family holiday when I was a teenager.  One of the things I remember most about the trip was a visit to Old Mother Shipton’s cave and the Dropping Well – famed for its petrifying properties (hang a teddy up and it will turn to stone in under five months).

The Dropping Well, Image by Chris (click image for copyright info)

For a start Old Mother Shipton looked like the archetypal witch, but more than that, she was credited with being Yorkshire’s answer to Nostradamus.  She was a prophetess and seer who had predicted everything from the death of Cardinal Wolsey, the great fire of London, the building of Crystal Palace, the Crimean War, the train, the car, the telephone – you name it Mother Shipton had prophesied it!  I was understandably impressed.

The legend is born

Sculpture of Mother Shipton in the cave where she was alleged to have been born. Image by Chris, click image for copyright info.

In 1488 Ursula Southeil was born out-of-wedlock to a fifteen year old girl called Agatha.  Agatha steadfastly refused to name the father of her child and sought refuge in the cave by the dropping well on the banks of the River Nidd, here she gave birth to the remarkably ugly Ursula.  Agatha either died in childbirth, or gave Ursula up for fostering when the child was two.  Because strange happenings followed the child, people began to suspect her father was non other than Old Nick himself.

Tales of objects moving around or going missing and furniture shifting about were common.  In one such tale, the foster-mother returns home to find baby Ursula gone, and a commotion in her cottage.  Upon entering, she and her companions are set upon by imps disguised as monkey’s.  Ursula is finally located swinging in her crib – up the chimney!

Ursula Southeil was noted for her startling appearance.  One early source describes her thus:

“She was of an indifferent height, but very morose and big boned, her head very long, with very great goggling but sharp and fiery eyes; her nose of an incredible and improportionable length, having in it many crooks and turnings, adorned with many strange pimples of divers colours, as red, blue and mix’t..”  (1)

When she married Toby Shipton at the age of 24, it was said she used a love potion to attract him (either that or else he just had very bad eyesight!).

Their home in Shipton soon became the focus for people seeking advice and her reputation for wisdom grew.  She was particularly good at locating lost or stolen property.

She is most famous for her prophecies, many of which came true during her life time.  She was also supposed to have predicted her own death, at the age of 73, in 1561.

A talent for prediction

Mother Shipton did not write down any of her prophecies.  As a poor woman in the sixteenth century the chances of her being able to write would have been slim – nevertheless her biographers credit her with a sharp intelligence and inborn ability to read from a very early age.

Mother Shipton and Cardinal Wolsey, image Public Domain via Wikimedia Commons

Her fame grew beyond her locality when her prophecies were published in 1641.  ‘The Prophesie of Mother Shipton in the Raigne of King Henry the Eighth’ was printed in York and was composed of regional predictions and had only two prophetic verses, this version did not predict the end of the world (2).

A later version of her life and predictions ‘The Life and Death of Mother Shipton’ was published in 1684 by the unfortunately named Richard Head.  It is likely that he invented most of the biographical details about her.

A still later version published by Charles Hindley in 1862 contains the famous rhyming couplets relating to Crystal Palace, cars trains, and the famous end of the world prediction (1881):

“Carriages without horses shall go,
And accidents fill the world with woe.
Around the world thoughts shall fly
In the twinkling of an eye.
The world upside down shall be
And gold be found at the root of a tree.
Through hills man shall ride,
And no horse be at his side.
Under water men shall walk,
Shall ride, shall sleep, shall talk.
In the air men shall be seen,
In white, in black, in green;
Iron in the water shall float,
As easily as a wooden boat.
Gold shall be found and shown
In a land that’s now not known.
Fire and water shall wonders do,
England shall at last admit a foe.
The world to an end shall come,
In eighteen hundred and eighty one.”

Sir Henry buys a well

In 1630 Sir Henry Slingsby, a local grandee, purchased some land around the River Nidd from King Charles I.  The land contained the Dropping Well (now known as the Petrifying Well).  The enterprising Sir Henry, seeing the potential in such an extraordinary geological feature quickly constructed an exhibition and began running tours.

Could it be co-incidence that only 11 years after he begins this commercial venture, a book of prophecy linked with the well is published?  As Philip Coppens points out, having a famous prophetess linked to the miraculous well would be an added draw to reel in visitors.

Some believe that the well was feared and avoided by the locals during Mother Shipton’s life – supposedly believing that its petrifying properties would turn them to stone.  However, this does not seem to have been the case with everyone.  John Leyland, the Antiquary of Henry VIII visited the well during Mother Shipton’s lifetime – 1538.  He remarked that the well was known for its healing properties and was regularly visited.  He doesn’t seem to have mentioned Mother Shipton at all.  All of which would point to Mother Shipton being a fabrication to bring in paying visitors.

And tourists did come – even the famous female traveller Celia Fiennes visited the cave in 1697 and noted the following in her journal:

‘and this water as it runns and where it lyes in the hollows of the rocks does turn moss and wood into Stone …I took Moss my self from thence which is all crisp’d and perfect Stone … the whole rock is continually dropping with water besides the showering from the top which ever runns, and this is called the dropping well’(3).

The Truth behind the legend…

So what is the truth behind the legend?  Well, the historical evidence for the existence of Mother Shipton is as scarce as clear skin was on her nose.  This is not necessarily proof she didn’t exist, but if Leyland visited the well during her lifetime  and knew of the miraculous properties of the well, surely he would also have mentioned the presence of a noted seer so closely associated with it?

The links to the commercialisation of the well and the publication of the first prophecies are also suggestive of her tale being fabricated.  Also, as Philip Coppens points out: it is quite a common historical feature to associate oracles with wells, caves and other subterranean features.  Mother Shipton added a mythic dimension to the geological feature.

Mother Shipton working at her predictions, image public domain via Wikipedia Commons

There might even be a hint of intercontinental rivalry going on here as well – the French had Nostradamus, so maybe the English came up with Mother Shipton?  It is notable that after the repeal of laws relating to witchcraft in 1736 Mother Shipton’s image began to transform from the archetypal witch, to a more benign prophetess, depicted with scrolls instead of familiars, and much less warty about the nose.

As for the predictions – the earliest are from 80 years after her death, and relate mainly to events that have already happened.  The later versions seem to have embellished the prophecies.  Charles Hindley author of the 1862 version (extract quoted above) later admitted to inventing the predictions he published.

A Folk-memory of a cunning woman?

For hundreds of years (and well into the nineteenth century) the cunning woman or cunning man was an integral part of village life in England.  A local healer who could offer advice and assistance in the form charms and love potions.

I like to think that Mother Shipton falls into this category.  That she did exist in the capacity of a local cunning woman, and that a folk-memory of her endured until Sir Henry’s day allowing him to appropriate her for his own purposes. The facts and details of her life that have come down to us may be total fabrication and her prophecies have certainly been elaborated down the centuries, but I think that there is a tiny grain of truth in the tale of Mother Shipton which has fixed her in to the very fabric of folk-memory and the landscape itself.

The Cave and Well are open to the public, you can find details of how to arrange a visit on the Museum website:  http://www.mothershipton.co.uk/

River Nidd, Mother Shipton’s Museum just visible under the arches.

Notes

(1) Extract from ‘Yorkshire Legends and Traditions’ by Rev. Thomas Parkinson 1881, himself quoting from Richard Head’s 1684 account.
(2) Wikipedia/Mother Shipton
(3) Morris, Christopher (Ed), The Journeys of Celia Fiennes, Cresset Press, 1947.

Sources

http://www.ephemera-society.org.uk/articles/shipton.html
http://www.mysteriousbritain.co.uk/occult/mother-shipton.html
http://www.philipcoppens.com/mother_shipton.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mother_Shipton