No other element has had as much impact in the development and destruction of entire civilizations as fire. From the ashes of over 70,000 homes in the Great Fire of London, to the $940 million dollars spent on fireworks each year in the U.S., man’s ability to harness the flame has resulted in both sparks of genius and bursts of devastation. Ethos’ “Elements” series has examined society through one of the most basic ideas humans have used to explain the world around them: four “elements,” earth, water, fire, and air.
Story by Leah Kennedy & Jonathan Marx
Photos by Blake Hamilton
Illustrations by Cam Giblin
Fiery Traditions
A native of Jakarta, Indonesia, Vania Situmeang found herself strangely out of place in her own country when she arrived in Bali in 2007. Attracted by news of a royal funeral, Situmeang joined the crowd of thousands lining the streets, unaware that she would witness a sacred ritual practiced only by the Hindu population of Bali. Known as Ngaben, the celebration honors the transition of the deceased into the afterlife. “It was a big ceremony because in Bali they still have a royal family, and it was one of the mothers of the royal family,” Situmeang says, a slight hint of her Indonesian accent coming through as she recalls the details from the day.
On the day of the ceremony, the community gathered at the home of the royal family to help carry the wadah, an animal-shaped sarcophagus, to the temple. For this ceremony, the wadah was in the shape of a bull, representative of the Brahmin caste, the highest Balinese social class. At the temple, the essence of the community was performed with the community and all of the members of the royal family in attendance. “When the royal family first arrived at the temple, they prayed and circled around the wadah and did rituals for an hour and a half,” Situmeang says. “After that is when the fire starts.” Doused with holy water and kindled with leaves, the wadah, along with gifts of money and food, instantly ignites into flames.
Though the Ngaben cremation ceremony is unique to Bali, the use of fire to spiritually transport the soul of the deceased is not. For the Klamath Tribe of Oregon, cremation ceremonies are used for sacred purposes as well as a security measure against the spread of disease, says Gordon Bettles, steward of the University of Oregon’s Many Nations Longhouse.
“The belief is that fire sends the things it burns into the next world for the ancestors who have moved on, so that when you move on it’s there,” Bettles says. “Fire itself is an element of immense power.” He relates his tribe’s beliefs about cremation, as well as the way fire has been used throughout history to shape and define their people. “When you think about fire, it needs things to burn,” Bettles says inside the Longhouse, as the afternoon sun filtered in through the windows.
Talking about fire and its significance to his tribe seems to soften his expression. The embers, flames, smoke, and ash – all are pivotal to Bettles and his tribe. “When you burn fire, you’re actually paying tribute to one of the oldest tools man had learned how to use,” he says.
From the use of heated rocks to draw out sickness to representing the union of man and wife, fire also plays the role of guardian and caretaker overseeing the tribe’s well-being. Conjuring images of cozy fireplaces and wood-burning stoves, flames evoke simple thoughts of warmth. But in religious practices around the world, fire and its smoke and ash are used in ceremonies from cremations to weddings, and are as diverse as the people who practice them.
In a traditional Klamath wedding, the groom paddles across a river or lake to pick up his waiting bride. The couple makes their way out to the middle of the water where the groom cooks his bride food with a fire he created on a stove in the canoe.
The Klamath Tribe members refer to fire as “grandmother” in honor of the role it plays in their lives. “Your grandmother takes care of you,” Bettles says. “Without it your food won’t cook, and you’ll get cold because you can’t warm up at night in the snow.”
The uses of fire throughout these and hundreds of other religions and cultures are diverse and unique. A simple fire takes on a new meaning to observers hailing from different backgrounds. Whether it’s used to cremate or to marry, to pray or to heal, most can agree this powerful element is essential to the survival and spiritual well-being of all.
Taking Another Form
Suspended 93 million miles above our heads, the sun shines its light on all creeds and cultures. For thousands of years, this fiery orb has been revered by countless civilizations throughout the globe, with traditions both old and new. From Aztecs to Egyptians, Jews to Bulgarians, millions of followers look up to the sun for spiritual awakening.
Known as Huitzilopochtli, the Aztec god of sun and war often appears with hummingbird feathers adorning his head and left leg while holding a serpent-shaped scepter. According to Aztec legend, Huitzilopochtli encouraged the Aztecs to leave their land and travel south where they founded Tenochtitlan, modern day Mexico City.
The Aztecs believed Huitzilopochtli was in constant battle with the moon and stars, and every sunrise marked another victorious battle over darkness. His constant victories didn’t come without significant cost; the Aztecs practiced human sacrifice to fuel Huitzilopochtli’s battles. In Tenochtitlan alone, an estimated 20,000 sacrifices took place at the four-day dedication of the god’s main temple.
Similarly, the Egyptians believed their sun god Ra battled with darkness. In the form of a serpent, the demon Apep attempted to hypnotize and eat Ra. However, Apep’s attempts were never completely successful. The Egyptians attributed solar eclipses to Apep’s short-lived victories over Ra. In the end, all-powerful Ra always overcame darkness and brought light back to Egypt as he traveled across the sky on his two solar boats.
Sun worship, while not as violent or chaotic, continues to this day. On July 1, crowds gather along the Black Sea’s coast in Bulgaria to celebrate what’s known as “July Morning.” Standing on the cliffs above the sea, the group of mostly Bulgarian youth welcomes the sun’s rays as a new beginning in life. It’s a fairly new tradition, originating thirty years ago, and the crowd is young and energetic. They sing “July Morning,” a hit by British rock group Uriah Heep, as the sun slowly appears over the ocean.
“There I was on a July morning looking for love,” belts David Byron, the group’s vocalist. “With the strength of a new day dawning and the beautiful sun.”
Long before Bulgarians gathered to rock out to the sunrise, religious groups have adapted sun worship in a variety of ways. The Jewish faith observes Birkat Hachamah, or “the blessing of the sun.” According to the first chapter of Genesis, God created the universe in seven days and on the fourth, at nightfall on a Tuesday, placed the sun in the sky: “Let there be lights in the expanse of the sky to separate the day from the night.” Today, Jews celebrate this anniversary when the spring equinox occurs on Tuesday night. Birkat Hachamah remembers the sun’s return to this original position, which happens once every twenty-eight years. Last observed in 2009, the celebrations spanned the globe. It brought an estimated 50,000 people to Jerusalem’s Western Wall for prayer, and in Uruguay hundreds gathered to watch a small plane pulling a sign reading, “Thank you, G-d, for creation.”
Lost in the Embers
Sending pages up in flames to control information is far from a modern concept. Throughout history, rulers, churches, and governments have used book burning as an effective censorship tool to quell dissent. From ancient China to medieval Europe, burning books proved the best way to eliminate contrary ideas once and for all. Before the invention of the printing press, setting one copy aflame had the power to destroy a book’s content forever.
A city in crisis. A city filled with immigrant workers and controlled by corrupt businessmen. A city where one man enters a world of workers to tell their story. Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle shocked America and resulted in a massive overhaul of corrupt and unfair labor practices of the meatpacking industry, vastly improving the lives of factory workers.
Sinclair’s book was one of more than 25,000 volumes burned in what is arguably the largest documented book burning in history. On May 10, 1933, students at Wilhelm Humboldt University in Berlin set ablaze a massive pile of books while singing Nazi anthems. Besides Sinclair’s The Jungle, the crowd burned books by Sigmund Freud, Albert Einstein, Helen Keller, Franz Kafka, Ernest Hemingway, Karl Marx, and hundreds, possibly thousands of other authors. Freud’s books were burned in protest to his open discussion of sexual desires in human nature, an idea the Nazi regime hoped to eradicate as they “purified” the nation.
The highlight of the event was an inspirational speech by Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels. The book burning was given so much positive attention from the German media that it ignited several other similar events across Germany.
“One of the things that the Nazi book burning did was create an icon, a cultural image that can be replicated,” University of Oregon history professor David Luebke says. “It has a kind of iconic status that no other book burning really has. And in that sense, that’s the frame of reference for what you think of when you think of book burning.”
A large portion of the books burned were taken from a library run by Magnus Hirschfeld, a gay Jewish man, Luebke says. While none of the books consumed by the flames on the streets of Berlin in 1933 were in danger of being lost forever, the book burning had a political significance that still impacts modern book burnings.
Today, piles of books deemed controversial are still reduced to ashes in bonfires around the globe. But in this technological age the gesture is purely symbolic — there’s little chance a book’s content will be forever erased. In Ray Bradbury’s futuristic book Fahrenheit 451, he envisions a society where books are illegal, and firemen burn them as a trade to control ideas.
The events of May 1933 possibly inspired churches including the Christ Community Church of New Mexico to organize modern book burnings. In 2001, the Community Church staged a mass burning of the Harry Potter series and other objects the group deemed sinful, including AC/DC records and Ouija boards.
