Some notes on Hajj

Old Turkish Map of Mecca

As the Hajj approaches, late in November, there are serious fears of it becoming the nexus of an epidemic. Fears of the H1N1 virus are widespread, though the threat may be more apparent than real. Also feared, and with good reason, is polio. All but eradicated in much of the world, reservoirs of polio are still to be found in at least four countries sending large numbers of pilgrims on Hajj - Bangladesh, India, Nigeria, and Pakistan. Pilgrims coming from those countries for the ritual visit to Mecca will be dosed with an oral polio vaccine on arrival in order to keep the highly contagious disease from spreading during the Hajj the Science section of the New York Times reported Tuesday 29 September 2009.

This afternoon I read a fascinating article on attitude changes among Hajjis in Pakistan, one of the first social scientific studies I have encountered to examine pilgrimages using statistical techniques. In order to limit the number arriving each year, Saudi Arabia allots quotas of Hajj visas to each of the various countries with large Muslim populations. Pakistan gets about 150,00 such visas each year. About half go to specific groups - the army, the civil service, and tour operators - while the remainder are distributed by lottery. Using a sample of those entered in the lottery for visas to visit Mecca, the study compares attitudes of those who won visas and made the Hajj with those who were unsuccessful. It finds some significant attitudinal shifts. Instead of promoting militancy and reactionary attitudes, participation in the Hajj seems to foster a greater tolerance, including more relaxed attitudes toward the role of women. The article in the August 2009 (volume CXXIV #3, pp.1133-1170) issue of the Quarterly Journal of Economics is by David Clingsmith et al. and is titled "Estimating the Impact of the Hajj."I strongly recommend at least the beginning and final sections of the article. For non-social scientists to whom statistics are baffling, the middle part of the article could prove difficult.

New Martin Sheen Movie about the Camino de Santiago

Chapel at Roncesvalles, a first stop on the Camino de Santiago in Spain, EOP 1998.

This morning I received a notice on another group site, one I am quoting because I think it is of interest. I had heard rumors for some time that the actor Martin Sheen and one of his sons were making a movie about the Camino. Apparently that movie is now ready to be distributed. It is one of several movies about the Camino and the pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela made since 2005. A quite good one, le pelerinage was produced in France several years ago. I have heard rumors about a new Austrian movie in German "I'll take you to the end of the world" directed by Christian Kabish, but I was unable to find its title in German or a web link this morning. I may post a more complete set of comments on these and other pilgrimage-themed movies when I have seen the Sheen movie and perhaps the one in German.

Review of the Martin Sheen Movie:

"The Way, Emilio Estevez's fourth feature as writer-director, begins at the Camino de Santiago's start, in St.Jean-Pied-de-Port below the often-snowbound Route de Napoleon over the Pyrenees. Starring Martin Sheen, Estevez's father, it takes in Galicia's improbable looking Santiago de Compostela, a huge piece of medieval real estate topped by a jaw-dropping cathedral. Sheen plays Tom, an American widower who;s in St. Jean too reclaim the body of his estranged son, who died, lost on the Route de Napoleon. Tom cremates the remains, puts them in his son's backpack and starts off to complete the young man's journey.

Added 25-09-09: A couple of links to posts on the Sheen movie as well as other films in production on the Camino:

http://www.elcaminosantiago.com/PDF/Variety_Filming_In_Galicia_2009.pdf

http://tinyurl.com/lh2bue

Pilgrimage and the H1N1 (Swine Flu) Virus

Saint Roch, among other things patron saint of epidemics. Note that he is dressed in the garb of a pilgrim to Santiago de Compostela!

Yesterday I received a note from a news group on the Camino de Santiago about the dangers of the H1N1 virus (my wife is a physician with a specialty in public health, and she forbids my use of the term "swine flu" in favor of the more technically correct H1N1!) for pilgrims this autumn and winter. Fear of the virus is not an idle one, for Spain has one of the highest rates of infection and death among Northern Hemisphere countries. In the Southern Hemisphere where the winter flu season is just ending, Brasil, a major source of pilgrims to Santiago de Compostela, has the largest number of deaths attributable to H1N1 of any country where reliable records are kept. Fortunately pilgrimage to Santiago is mostly a summer phenomenon with the largest numbers during the warmer months, peaking on July 25 St. James Day. In consequence even if over the winter flu season the pilgrimage suffers from the potential pandemic, only a fairly small number of people will likely be struck with the illness. A daily general report on the situation and forecasts for Europe with data for much of the world is provided by the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control.

The Hajj is perhaps the largest gathering of pilgrims from many parts of the world into a single place over a short time period. The 2009 pilgrimage is expected to be from 25-30 November, well into the Northern Hemisphere flu season. While most government officials in Saudi Arabia are dismissing the dangers of a pandemic, health authorities in the various other countries sending pilgrims to Mecca have expressed great concern about the dangers of the H1N1 virus. Egypt has even considered a ban on its nationals making the trip to Medina and Mecca. In Saudi Arabia religious officials have warned about the disease, and at least one cleric has issued a fatwa against people carrying the disease making the Hajj.

Elsewhere I have not found many reports of linkages between pilgrimages other than the Hajj and the virus. India, a country with numerous pilgrimages involving large numbers of people, is greatly concerned with the spread of the disease, but I was unable to locate any materials in a western European language on its linkage to pilgrimages other than the Hajj. China is taking particularly aggressive measures to control the spread of the virus, limiting pilgrimages of its Muslim citizens to Mecca and imposing quarantine on visitors to China suspected of carrying the virus. Meanwhile Iran claims that half of all its cases of H1N1 are pilgrims returning from Saudi Arabia.

The concern about the spread of H1N1 is important, for the virus could create a demographic disaster given its tendency to strike young adults, especially pregnant women. Pilgrimages have been important in the spread of disease for at least as long as epidemiologists are able to trace records. The ease of travel and the dispersed origins of pilgrims to major sites like Mecca or Santiago mean an epidemic can quickly spread from a local site to much of the world. I will write more about this later if conditions suggest updates.

Religious Pilgrimage and Tourism Sites in the United States

Christ Church, Alexandria, Virginia from altar end, photo EOP Spring 2004.

Working on materials for the ALRI course on pilgrimage, I have been examining some theses and dissertations relevant to the topic. There are many, and I shall comment on some of them in due course. After a scan reading I am not greatly impressed by the quality of a 2008 Ph.D. dissertation at Loyola University of Chicago, Sarah Bill Schott, Religious Tourism in America (perhaps my impression will become more favorable after a more careful reading). Concerned with tourist visits to a half dozen sites associated with various religious sects, mostly sites in the Middle West, the dissertation seems to be primarily a description of the places the tourists visit. Of greater interest to me, the dissertation concludes with an appendix listing sites of religious tourism in the United States. The author notes that the list is not exhaustive, and among the omissions are most of the numerous Protestant sites in southern states like Virginia and Georgia, but the list still runs to seven single-spaced pages. This is one of the first forays I have made into an inventory of religious sites attracting tourists (and pilgrims) in the United States. It forces a realization that religious sites attracting tourists, at least some of them attracting pilgrims, are quite as numerous here as they are in most of the remainder of the world.

For example, within an hour drive of Fairfax City there are at least a dozen Episcopal and previously Episcopal churches of historic and therefore touristic interest, some of them, like Christ Church in Alexandria, on the itineraries of many tourists. I am uncertain whether any of the churches are pilgrimage destinations, but some of them along with other religious sites nearby could certainly fall into that category based on their antiquity and their associations with significant events.

Relics, Miracles and Pilgrimages

The altar above the purported tomb tomb of Paul in the Basicilica San Paulo fuori la Mura just outside Rome, photo EOP January 2009.

"Relics, especially the integral skeletons of widely-known saints, emitted a kind of holy radioactivity which bombarded everything in the area..." Finucane, Ronald C. 1977. Miracles and Pilgrims, p. 26.

As with images, I rather took for granted the role of relics in the creation of Christian pilgrimages, thus pilgrims ventured to Santiago to venerate the purported tomb of St. James the Greater (Santiago) or to Rome where Saints Peter and Paul are presumably buried. In fact the early Christian cult of relics went far beyond prompting visits to the remains, real or imagined of the apostles and others who were closely related to the Christ. Of course there were also things related to Christ and Mary, vials of her milk or pieces of the true cross, for example, but in addition there were the skeletons of literally hundreds of saints of the early church. Many of those were local, martyrs and others who served the church as it was gaining adherents in late Roman and early medieval Europe.

While the relics themselves were presumably of interest to early Christians, even those who had no immediate problems for which they were seeking relief, they were especially important for those who wanted relief from the myriad problems suffered by people. Many of the problems were medical, and visits to the sites of the relics allowed the sufferer of a disease or infirmity to be irradiated with the "holy radioactivity" the relics were thought to emit. Miracles were sought and, if the records are to be believed, a major theme in Finucane's book, sometimes occurred. Those miracles were blieved to be especially likely in places where the whole skeleton of one or another saints lay in repose.

Over time the whole skeletons were dispersed as individual bones, or even fragments of bones were moved to other churches and shrines. Not infrequently bits of skeletons were given to visiting dignitaries to take home. The hand of St, James from Compostela was given to an early English pilgrim and found a new shrine in the Abbey of St. James in Reading just west of London. Other remains were stolen and translocated to a shrine somewhere else. The remains of St. Foi, an early Christian martyr in France, for example, were stolen from a shrine in the Rhone Valley and relocated to Conques on the southern edge of the Massif Central. The post-reformation dissolution of the monastic establishments in England and the French Revolution respectively led to the loss of the bones of the apostle and the martyr, though both the ruins of the abbey in Reading and the lovely romanesque church and the rich treasury at Conques remain pilgrimage destinations.

Of course pilgrimage seeking after miracles was not limited to the medieval era, for many Christian pilgrims travel today to Lourdes, Fatima, Guadeloupe, and numerous other shrines in hopes of cures for disease and other problems of living. And it is not limited to Christians, as among almost countless possible examples, Buddhist pilgrims travel to see the tooth of the Buddha in Kandy, Sri Lanka or Shia Muslims go to the tomb of Hussein in Karbalah, Iraq. Relics in the form of skeletal remains and other physical things associated with particular saints, and the miracles they can create, however, have lost some of their importance over time. Now numerous pilgrimages are to images, and relatively few Christian pilgrimage sites created since the Middle Ages are devoted to minor saints. More on that later.

Icon, Image and Pilgrimage

A 15th century olive wood statue, about life size, of the Christ Child in the Church of Santa Mara in Aracoeli adjacent to the Capitoline Hill in Rome. Among many other objects of veneration and immense artistic value in that magnificent church, the statue, covered in votive offerings, has been an object of pilgrimage for centuries, venerated especially by women wishing to become pregnant. Photo EOP January 2009.

In the process of doing research for the upcoming course at ALRI, I have been reading materials in art history related to pilgrimage. While it is clear in retrospect, I had not previously given much thought to the issue of "images" in pilgrimage, especially in Christian pilgrimages. Travel to venerate an icon - a painting, a statue or some other visual representation of a diety or a holy person - is one of the most common types of pilgrimage. The various "black virgin" statues scattered across Europe at places like Jasna Gora in Poland or Le Puy in France are major pilgrim destinations as are various other visual representations of the Christ, Mary, or one or another saints housed in churches, monasteries, or isolated hermitages. Almost as important is taking home an icon, a visual representation of the pilgrimage. Even those who walk a pilgrim route in a spirit of postmodern irony usually take lots of photos and often buy a souvenir to take home. Rare is the postmodern pilgrim to Santiago de Compostela who does not go home with the iconic scallop shell, a handful of postcards, and often with a tasteful olive wood carving of St. James dressed as a pilgrim. A more traditional pilgrim has an even greater array of souvenirs to chose from and take home.

Today I finished reading a most significant work on the importance of images to pilgrimage, among other related topics, Freedberg, David (1989). The Power of Images: Studies in the History and Theory of Response. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. ISBN 0-226-261441-1. Chapter 6 "Image and Pilgrimage" is especially important in a book that should be read by any serious student of pilgrimages in the Roman Catholic tradition.

Between Sessions -- Amarnath Pilgrimage in Kashmir

I have not written since the OLLI course ended in May, but as I shall be teaching a similar course on pilgrimage in Arlington (Arlington Learning In Retirement Institute) beginning in October, I have decided occasionally to add to this blog in the interim. Most of the postings, including this one, are likely to be short.

Today while doing some research on pilgrimage in India for possible discussion in the Arlington course, I came across the sad news that a pilgrim has already died on the famous route to the Amarnath shrine. Another was killed when a helicopter crashed near the ice caves. Amarnath yatra is the the annual pilgrimage from Pahalgam to the ice caves at the very high elevation of over 3,800 m (nearly 14,000 feet) in the Himalaya of Indian-controlled Kashmir. An ice cave with an ice lingam, a symbol of the god Shiva, is the goal of about a half million pilgrims annually. Usually pilgrimage is limited to a few summer weeks squeezed between the intense cold of winter and the wet and foggy weather of the wet monsoon period in later summer. In 2009 The Amarnath Yatra was scheduled from 15 June to 9 August, but it was necessary to delay the start of the pilgrimage because of bad weather, high water in streams that need to be crossed and an accumulation of ice and snow making travel to the cave impossible.

The Sacramento Bee newspaper has a photo blog The Frame with some stunning photographs of the Amarnath pilgrimage, a site well worth a visit by anyone with an interest in India, Hinduism, pilgrimage, or simply looking at fine photos. Also worth a view is a 12 minute Google video on the Amarnath Yatra.