Wherever you go in Mexico you will see skulls. Why? Because the skull in Mexican culture represents death and rebirth, the cycle of life. People here believe that the afterlife is as important if not more important than your life on earth. The skull symbolises both sides, life and the afterlife.
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In 1531 a peasant, Juan Diego, reported seeing an apparition of the Virgin Mary on the hill of Tepeyac, today swallowed up in the metropolis of Mexico City. The Virgin, he said, spoke to him in in Nahuatl, his first language, asking that a church be built on the site in her honour.
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Like many people I have long been fascinated by the lifestyle of the Amish and Mennonite people. Their rejection of many of the technological conveniences we take for granted. Their seclusion from modern society. And the beliefs that influence the choices they make about how to live. One way to learn more is to visit.
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You might think that a place called Hellville would have a dark past. But this lively town on the Madagascan island of Nosy Be takes its name not from any Satanic connections but from Anne Chrétien Louis de Hell, a French admiral who was governor of Réunion Island from 1838 to 1841.
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In addition to the national parks in Madagascar there are a number of small community-run reserves. In these local people care for and maintain their patch of forest. The money they get from visitors, e.g. for guiding and souvenir sales, is invested into both the village and the upkeep of the forest.
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Islands are often special places, removed as much in their culture from the mainland as they are physically separate from it. Chiloé is no exception. This is a place of soft green hills, wild coasts and homely architecture. Famed for its wooden churches, sixteen of which are UNESCO listed, its people still more than half believe in the witches, ghost ships and forest gnomes that inhabit its mythologies.
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The scent of wood smoke hangs in the air. Children play in the dusty soil. Small pigs, chickens and dogs wander at will between the wooden houses. And inside one a blacksmith is at work, shaping a machete over glowing coals. This is Phou Taen Khamu, home to some of the Khamu people, one of Laos’ minority ethnic tribes.
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Red, in Japan, is the colour of the sun (not yellow as in other cultures). It stands for life, power and protection, but also for death. It is thought capable of expelling demons and illness. You see red everywhere; on temple roofs, torii gates at shrines, lanterns and pagodas. And in the bibs and caps worn by the haunting Jizō statues of Kanmangafuchi Abyss in Nikko.
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After the deforestation of Rapa Nui, and the destruction of the moai, probably as a result in part at least of war between the tribes, the people needed to believe in something; if their ancestors could no longer protect them, who would? The answer was, one of their own.
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It happened that the Mogollon inhabitants of Chaco Canyon were forced to leave their home by a prolonged drought. Their ancestors had been told by the spirits ‘at the time of emergence’ that a place had been prepared in which they would live. So the tribe left their lands in Chaco and wandered through the American Southwest, pausing from time to time to call out ‘Haak’u’, which means ‘a place prepared’.
