The Hill of Crosses - Lithuania
The Hill of Crosses (Lithuanian: Kryžių kalnas) is a site of pilgrimage about 12 km north of the city of Šiauliai, in northern Lithuania. The exact origins are unknown, but it is considered that the first crosses were placed on the former Jurgaičiai or Domantai hill fort after the 1831 Uprising.Over the centuries, not only crosses, but giant crucifixes, carvings of Lithuanian patriots, statues of the Virgin Mary and thousands of tiny effigies and rosaries have been brought here by Catholic pilgrims. The number of crosses is unknown, but estimates put it at about 55,000 in 1990 and 100,000 in 2006.
Number of crosses
1900 : 130
1902 : 155
1922 : 50
1938 : Over 400
1961 : Destroyed 5,000
1975 : Destroyed 1,200
1990 : Some 55,000
History
There are several theories on how these hills developed; it has become a sort of legend. One story is that in the thirteenth century, when Lithuania was mostly Pagan and before it had been Christianized, a group of Pagans burned down a church on that spot. The remnants formed two hills and as a memorial to the priests of that church people started placing Crosses there. Many variations to this story exist, such as two Christian crusaders were passing by and were killed at that spot, as opposed to there ever being a church there. These legends, similar to other such stories, were most likely formulated to evoke feelings of national unity and pride. The recent history of the Hill of Crosses, on the other hand, has all been formally documented. Siauliai is the closest city to the site and is located approximately 12km to the south. Crosses are integral in Lithuanian life and are placed everywhere, from the countryside to city squares to outside homes. Individuals erect Crosses to bring health and prosperity and to commemorate joyous occasions.
Over the centuries, the place has come to signify the peaceful endurance of Lithuanian Catholicism despite the threats it faced throughout history. After the 3rd partition of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth in 1795, Lithuania became part of the Russian Empire. Poles and Lithuanians unsuccessfully rebelled against Russian authorities in 1831 and 1863. These two uprisings are connected with the beginnings of the hill: as families could not locate bodies of perished rebels, they started putting up symbolic crosses in place of a former hill fort.
When the old political structure of Eastern Europe fell apart in 1918, Lithuania once again declared its independence. Throughout this time, the Hill of Crosses was used as a place for Lithuanians to pray for peace, for their country, and for the loved ones they had lost during the Wars of Independence.
Most recently, the site took on a special significance during the years 1944–1990, when Lithuania was occupied by the Soviet Union.The most severe time of persecution for the Lithuanian Catholics was between 1945 and 1955, when 4 bishops, 185 priests, and approximately 275,000 followers were arrested or sent to Siberian concentration camps (New Catholic Encyclopedia, vol.8, p.145).
Continuing to travel to the Hill and leave their tributes, Lithuanians used it to demonstrate their allegiance to their original identity, religion and heritage. It was a venue of peaceful resistance, although the Soviets worked hard to remove new crosses, and bulldozed the site at least three times (including attempts in 1963 and 1973). There were even rumors that the authorities planned to build a dam on the nearby Kulvė River, a tributary to Mūša, so that the hill would end up under water.
On September 7, 1993, Pope John Paul II visited the Hill of Crosses, declaring it a place for hope, peace, love and sacrifice. In 2000 a Franciscan hermitage was opened nearby. The interior decoration draws links with La Verna, the mountain where St. Francis received his stigmata. The hill remains under nobody's jurisdiction; therefore people are free to build crosses as they see fit.
Other interesting website about The Hill of Crosses - Lithuania : kryziukalnas
Source : Wikipedia
Anna Mitchell-Hedges and a Crystal Skull.
Hill of Crosses - Lithuania
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Hill of Crosses - Lithuania
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The Al-Jazari Elephant clock
The elephant clock was a medieval Muslim invention by al-Jazari (1136–1206), consisting of a weight powered water clock in the form of an elephant. The various elements of the clock are in the housing on top of the elephant. They were designed to move and make a sound each half hour.
A modern full-size working reproduction can be found as a centrepiece in the Ibn Battuta Mall, a shopping mall in Dubai, United Arab Emirates. Another working reproduction can be seen outside the Musée d'Horlogerie du Locle, Château des Monts, in Le Locle, Switzerland.
In addition to its mechanical innovations, the clock itself is seen as an early example of multiculturalism represented in technology. The elephant represents the Indian and African cultures, the dragon represents Chinese culture, the phoenix represents ancient Egyptian culture, the water work represents ancient Greek culture, and the turban represents Islamic culture
Mechanism
The timing mechanism is based on a water-filled bucket hidden inside the elephant. In the bucket is a deep bowl floating in the water, but with a small hole in the centre. The bowl takes half an hour to fill through this hole. In the process of sinking, the bowl pulls a string attached to a see-saw mechanism in the tower on top of the elephant. This releases a ball that drops into the mouth of a Serpent, causing the serpent to tip forward, which pulls the sunken bowl out of the water via strings. At the same time, a system of strings causes a figure in the tower to raise either the left or right hand and the mahout (elephant driver at the front) to hit a drum. This indicates a half or full hour. Next the snake tips back. The cycle then repeats, as long as balls remain in the upper reservoir to power the emptying of the bowl.
Automaton
In the mechanism, a humanoid automaton strikes the cymbal and a mechanical bird chirps, like in the later cuckoo clock, after every hour or half hour.
Passage of temporal hours
Another innovative feature of the clock was how it recorded the passage of temporal hours, which meant that the rate of flow had to be changed daily to match the uneven length of days throughout the year. To accomplish this, the clock had two tanks, the top tank was connected to the time indicating mechanisms and the bottom was connected to the flow control regulator. At daybreak the tap was opened and water flowed from the top tank to the bottom tank via a float regulator that maintained a constant pressure in the receiving tank.
Flow regulator
The mechanism employed a flow regulator, which was used here to determine the time when the clock strikes at hourly intervals. The hourly intervals were determined with the use of a small opening in a submersible float, which was calibrated to give the required rates of flow under different water rates.
The float regulator was later a common mechanism during the Industrial Revolution of the 18th century, when it was employed in the boiler of a steam engine and in domestic water distribution systems.
Closed-loop system
This appears to be an early example of a closed-loop system in a mechanism. The clock functioned as long as there were metal balls in its magazine.
Other interesting websites about The Al-Jazari Elephant clock : Muslimheritage
Source : Wikipedia
The Al-Jazari Elephant clock
The Hōnen Matsuri a.k.a.
Japanese penis festival
The Hōnen Matsuri a.k.a.
Japanese penis festival
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The Hōnen Matsuri a.k.a.Japanese penis festival
The Hōnen festival at Tagata shrine is one of the most famous (or infamous?) festivals in Japan.
Amongst foreigners visiting Aichi Prefecture it is frequently referred to as the "penis shrine", or "Japanese penis festival", primarily due to the ancient Hounen Matsuri (a festival celebrating fertility and renewal), which is held every March 15th.
History.
Tagata Jinja is believed to be about 1500 years old, due to discoveries in 1935 of an ancient sword and extensive pottery fragments. These days the shrine is surrounded by suburbia, but until recently it was surrounded by a forest called "Agata", a name believed to have derived from the name of one of the rulers of the local area during the end of the Yamato period (approx 3rd-5th century AD). These rulers were warriors who settled the area from Nara as the emerging feudal Japanese state defeated and displaced indigenous Ainu tribes and pushed its frontiers to the east. According to the official history of the shrine, the daughter of the feudal lord was called Tamahime, and was bethrothed to Takeinadane. The tradition holds that Takeinadane was killed in a distant battle and that his wife and children (and powerful father in law) developed the area. Tagata Jinja stands on the site of Tamahime's residence, and she is the principal deity (called kami in Japanese) enshrined there.
Enshrined as Tamahime-no-mikoto, she is worshipped in the main sanctuary of the building called the honden. This is the main shrine building. Behind and to the left of this structure, you can find another building called the Shinmeisha which contains a large number of natural and man-made objects, almost all of which are either shaped like a penis or have some phallic theme. It is important to understand that the worship is not of the phalli, but instead a worship of the earth, of the power that nature has through renewal and regeneration. It is this context that provides the phallus with its significance.
The Tagata shrine is dedicated to the god named Mitoshi-no-Kami and godess named Tamahine-no-Mikoto. According to an ancient Japanese belief, mother earth has to be impregnated by father heaven, so that everything can grow and develop.
Fertility.
With everything from penis shaped candy to suck on, phallus keychains, azuki filled dumplings in the shape of the male member, and small wooden objects to take home as souvenirs, it is easy to think that it is the phallus that is being worshipped. This is not the case. Each of the hundreds of objects in the shrine buildings are essentially offerings to the enshrined deity, and are venerated as such. In the past, the shrine often lended these phalluses to those in need, for example a couple wishing to conceive, an individual searching for a suitable spouse, or to cure childhood illnesses. The objects were returned with interest, for after the desired result was obtained the borrowed phallus was returned to the shrine, along with a new object donated in gratitude. However what the veneration is about though is the worship of a feminine deity. The kami is female and embodies fertility and fecundity. Not far from Tagata shrine there is another place of worship called Ogata (Oogata) Jinja, where the objects are representative of female genitalia. In an agricultural community, the sacred feminine was worshipped, and the rituals that have survived to this day at the Tagata shrine were celebrations of this, conducted in order to ensure bountiful agricultural harvests, regeneration and renewal as well as human birth. In this way the Hounen matsuri is similar to other fertility rituals around the world. Hounen means bountiful year. The festival is held March 15th because spring is the time of regeneration where seeds sprout and dormant trees and plants that seem to be dead come back to life.
Each year, a new giant wooden phallus is carved from a large hinoki (cypress) tree. In Japan newly made objects are thought to express more purity and vitality. The tree is brought to the shrine for purification rituals during the coldest part of the winter, before a master craftsman begins to shape it. The craftsman uses only traditional tools and wears clothing that has also been purified through rituals at the shrine. It is this phallus that will be the central focus of the procession, and then be placed into the Shinmeisha shrine as the principal phallus after the festival.
Originally the phallus was much smaller and attached to a straw effigy of a samurai warrior, possibly representing Takeinadane. However in time this was considered a bit too risque even for a fertility ritual, so the effigy was discarded and the phallus was paraded by itself. As its size was still about 1 meter long, the phallus was paraded by itself, carried by 4 or 5 people. However, this practice was also altered with the partial shielding of the phallus by a small portable shrine (mikoshi), the same style that houses it today. As if to compensate for not being fully revealed, the size of the phallus has grown considerably over the years until it is now about 2.5 meters (13 feet) long and weighs 280 kilograms (620 pounds). It protudes from both ends of the portable shrine, and when considering the extra weight of the later, the bearers are basically struggling under a weight of 400 kilograms (885 pounds). Some 60 men in total (sometimes more) work in teams of 12 to deliver it to Tagata Shrine.
The festival starts with celebration and preparation at 10:00 a.m. at Tagata Jinja. At about 2:00 p.m. everyone gathers at Shinmei Sha for the start of the procession. Shinto priests say prayers and impart blessings on the participants and mikoshi, as well as on the large wooden phallus, which are to be carried along the parade route.
When the procession makes its way down to Tagata Jinja the phallus in its mikoshi is spun furiously before it is set down and more prayers are said. Everyone then gathers in the square outside Tagata Jinja and waits for the mochi nage, at which time the crowd is showered with small rice cakes which are thrown down by the officials from raised platforms. The festival concludes at about 4:30 p.m.
Other interesting websites about The Hōnen Matsuri a.k.a.Japanese penis festival : Official website
The Tsar Bomba
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The Tsar Bomba
Tsar Bomba (Russian: Царь-бомба), literally "Tsar-bomb", is the nickname for the AN602 hydrogen bomb — the largest, most powerful nuclear weapon ever detonated.
Developed by the Soviet Union, the bomb was originally designed to have a yield of about 100 megatons of TNT (420 PJ); however, the bomb yield was reduced to only 50 Megatons — one quarter of the estimated yield of the 1883 eruption of Krakatoa — in order to reduce nuclear fallout. Only one bomb of this type was ever built and it was tested on October 30, 1961, in the Novaya Zemlya archipelago.
The remaining bomb casings are located at the Russian Atomic Weapon Museum, Sarov (Arzamas-16), and the Museum of Nuclear Weapons, All-Russian Research Institute of Technical Physics, Snezhinsk (Chelyabinsk-70). Neither of these casings has the same antenna configuration as the actual device that was tested.
The Tsar Bomba is attributed with many names in literature: Project number – Project 7000; Product code – Product code 202 (Izdeliye 202); Article designations – RDS-220 (РДС-220), RDS-202 (РДС-202), RN202 (PH202), AN602 (AH602); Codename – Vanya; Nicknames – Big Ivan, Tsar Bomba. The term "Tsar Bomba" was coined in an analogy with two other massive Russian objects: the Tsar Kolokol, the world's largest bell, and the Tsar Pushka, the world's largest howitzer. Although the bomb was so named by Western sources, the name is now used in Russia as well.
Design
The Tsar Bomba was a three-stage Teller–Ulam design hydrogen bomb with a Nuclear weapon yield of 50 megatons (Mt).This is equivalent to 1,400 times the combined power of the two nuclear explosives used in World War II: Little Boy (13-18 kilotons) and Fat Man (21 kilotons), the bombs that destroyed Hiroshima and Nagasaki. A three-stage H-bomb uses a fission bomb primary to compress a thermonuclear secondary, as in most H-bombs, and then uses energy from the resulting explosion to compress a much larger additional thermonuclear stage. However, there is evidence that the Tsar Bomba had a number of third stages rather than a single very large one.
The initial three-stage design was capable of approximately 100 Mt, but would have caused too much radioactive fallout. To limit fallout, the third stage and possibly the second stage had a lead tamper instead of a uranium-238 fusion tamper (which greatly amplifies the reaction by fissioning uranium atoms with fast neutrons from fusion reaction). This eliminated fast fission by the fusion-stage neutrons, so that approximately 97% of the total energy resulted from fusion alone (as such, it was one of the "cleanest" nuclear bombs ever created, generating a very low amount of fallout relative to its yield). There was a strong incentive for this modification since most of the fallout from a test of the bomb would fall on populated Soviet territory.
The components were designed by a team of physicists headed by Academician Julii Borisovich Khariton and including Andrei Sakharov, Victor Adamsky, Yuri Babayev, Yuri Smirnov, and Yuri Trutnev. Shortly after the Tsar Bomba was detonated, Sakharov began speaking out against nuclear weapons, which culminated in his becoming a dissident.
The test
The Tsar Bomba was flown to its test site by a specially modified Tu-95V release plane, flown by Major Andrei Durnovtsev, which took off from an airfield in the Kola peninsula. The release plane was accompanied by a Tu-16 observer plane that took air samples and filmed the test. Both aircraft were painted with a special reflective white paint to limit heat damage.
The bomb, weighing 27 tons, was so large (8 metres (26 ft) long by 2 metres (6.6 ft) in diameter) that the Tu-95V had to have its bomb bay doors and fuselage fuel tanks removed. The bomb was attached to an 800 kilogram fall-retardation parachute, which gave the release and observer planes time to fly about 45 kilometres (28 mi) from ground zero.
The Tsar Bomba detonated at 11:32 on October 30, 1961 over the Mityushikha Bay nuclear testing range (Sukhoy Nos Zone C), north of the Arctic Circle on Novaya Zemlya Island in the Arctic Sea. The bomb was dropped from an altitude of 10.5 kilometres (6.5 mi); it was designed to detonate at a height of 4 kilometres (2.5 mi) over the land surface (4.2 kilometres (2.6 mi) over sea level) by barometric sensors.
The original U.S. estimate of the yield was 57 Mt, but since 1991 all Russian sources have stated its yield as 50 Mt. Khrushchev warned in a filmed speech to the Communist Parliament of the existence of a 100 Mt bomb (technically the design was capable of this yield). The fireball touched the ground, reached nearly as high as the altitude of the release plane and was seen and felt almost 1,000 kilometres (620 mi) from ground zero. The heat from the explosion could have caused third degree burns 100 km (62 miles) away from ground zero. The subsequent mushroom cloud was about 64 kilometres (40 mi) high (nearly seven times the height of Mount Everest), which meant that the cloud was well inside the Mesosphere when it peaked. The base of the cloud was 40 kilometres (25 mi) wide. The explosion could be seen and felt in Finland, breaking windows there and in Sweden.Atmospheric focusing caused blast damage up to 1,000 kilometres (620 mi) away. The seismic shock created by the detonation was measurable even on its third passage around the Earth. Its seismic body wave magnitude was about 5 to 5.25. The energy yield was around 7.1 on the Richter scale but, since the bomb was detonated in air rather than underground, most of the energy was not converted to seismic waves.
Since 50 Mt is 2.1×1017 joules, the average power produced during the entire fission-fusion process, lasting around 39 nanoseconds, was about 5.4×1024 watts or 5.4 yottawatts (5.4 septillion watts). This is equivalent to approximately 1.4% of the power output of the Sun.
The Tsar Bomba is the single most physically powerful device ever utilized by humanity. Its size and weight excluded a successful delivery in case of a real war. By contrast, the largest weapon ever produced by the United States, the now-decommissioned B41, had a predicted maximum yield of 25 Mt, and the largest nuclear device ever tested by the US (Castle Bravo) yielded 15 Mt (this was due to a runaway reaction; the design yield was approximately 5 Mt).
Analysis
The weight and size of the Tsar Bomba limited the range and speed of the specially modified bomber carrying it and ruled out its delivery by an ICBM (although on December 24, 1962, a 50 Mt ICBM warhead developed by Chelyabinsk-70 was detonated at 24.2 Mt to reduce fallout). In terms of physical destructiveness, much of its high yield was inefficiently radiated upwards into space. It has been estimated that detonating the original 100 Mt design would have released fallout amounting to about 25 percent of all fallout emitted since the invention of nuclear weapons. Hence, the Tsar Bomba was an impractically powerful weapon. The Soviets decided that such a test blast would create too great a risk of nuclear fallout and a near certainty that the release plane would be unable to reach safety before detonation.
The Tsar Bomba was the culmination of a series of high-yield thermonuclear weapons designed by the USSR and USA during the 1950s (examples include the Mark-17 and B41). Such bombs were designed because:
The nuclear bombs of the day were large and heavy, regardless of yield, and could only be delivered by strategic bombers. Hence yield was subject to dramatic economies of scale;
It was feared that many bombers would fail to reach their targets because their size and low speed made detection and interception easy. Hence maximizing the firepower carried by any single bomber was considered vital;
Prior to satellite intelligence, each side lacked precise knowledge of the location of the other's military and industrial facilities;
A bomb dropped without benefit of advanced inertial navigation systems could easily miss its intended target. Parachute retardation would only worsen the bomb's accuracy.
Thus certain bombs were designed to destroy an entire large city even if dropped five to ten kilometres from its centre. This objective meant that yield and effectiveness were positively correlated, at least up to a point. However, the advent of ICBMs accurate to 500 metres or better made such a design philosophy obsolete. Subsequent nuclear weapon design in the 1960s and 1970s focused primarily on increased accuracy, miniaturization, and safety. The standard practice for many years has been to employ multiple smaller warheads (MIRVs) to "carpet" an area. This results in greater ground damage.
Documentary
Footage from a Soviet documentary about the bomb is featured in Trinity and Beyond: The Atomic Bomb Movie (Visual Concept Entertainment, 1995), where it is referred to as the Russian monster bomb.The movie incorrectly states that the Tsar Bomba project broke the moratorium on nuclear tests. Soviets restarted their tests two months before Tsar Bomba, and there was no de jure moratorium in place at the time (the U.S. had already announced that it considered itself free to resume testing without further notice).
Other interesting websites about The Tsar Bomba : sonicbomb
Source : Wikipedia
The Chinese Foot Binding
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The Chinese Foot Binding
Foot binding (simplified Chinese: 缠足; traditional Chinese: 纏足; pinyin: chánzú, literally "bound feet") was a custom practiced on young girls and women for approximately one thousand years in China, beginning in the 10th century and ending in the early 20th century.
Foot-binding resulted in lifelong disabilities for most of its victims, though as the practice waned in the early 20th century, according to a study conducted by the University of California, San Francisco, "some girls' feet were released after initial binding, leaving less severe deformities." However, some effects of foot-binding were permanent, especially if a girl's arches or toes had been broken or other drastic measures taken in order to achieve the desired smallness. In the 1990s and early 2000s, some elderly Chinese women still suffered from disabilities related to bound feet.
History
Multiple theories attempt to explain the origin of foot binding: from the desire to emulate the naturally tiny feet of a favored concubine of a prince, to a story of an empress who had club-like feet, which became viewed as a desirable fashion. However, there is little strong textual evidence for the custom prior to the court of the Southern Tang dynasty in Nanjing, which celebrated the fame of its dancing girls, renowned for their tiny feet and beautiful bow shoes.The practice has been attributed to a dancer by the name of Yaoniang in 930 AD. What is clear is that foot binding was first practiced among the elite and only in the wealthiest parts of China, which suggests that binding the feet of well-born girls represented their freedom from manual labor and, at the same time, the ability of their husbands to afford wives who did not need to work, who existed solely to serve their men and direct household servants while performing no labor themselves. The economic and social attractions of such women may well have translated into sexual desirability among elite men.
However, by the 17th century, Han Chinese girls, from the wealthiest to the poorest people, had their feet bound. It was less prevalent among poorer women or those that had to work for a living, especially in the fields. Some estimate that as many as 2 billion Chinese women were subjected to this practice, from the late 10th century until 1949, when foot binding was outlawed by the Communists. (Foot binding had already been banned by the Nationalists decades before.) According to the author of The Sex Life of the Foot and Shoe, 40-50% of Chinese women had bound feet in the 19th century. For the upper classes, the figure was almost 100%. Generally speaking, footbinding was not as widespread in southern China as in the north. In contrast to the majority of other Han Chinese, the Hakka of southern China did not practise foot binding and had natural feet. Manchu women were forbidden to bind their feet by an edict from the Emperor after the Manchu started their rule of China in 1644. Many other non-Han ethnic groups continued to observe the custom, some of them practiced loose binding which did not break the bones of the arch and toes but simply narrowed the foot.
Binding the feet involved breaking the arch of the foot, which ultimately left a crevice approximately two inches deep, which was considered most desirable. It took approximately two years for this process to achieve the desired effect; preferably a foot that measured three or three and one-half inches from toe to heel. While foot binding could lead to serious infections, possibly gangrene, and was generally painful for life, contrary to popular belief, many women with bound feet were able to walk, work in the fields, and climb to mountain homes from valleys below. As late as 2005, women with bound feet in one village in Yunnan Province formed an internationally known dancing troupe to perform for foreign tourists. And in other areas, women in their 70s and 80s could be found working in the rice fields well into the 21st century. In the 19th and early 20th century, dancers with bound feet were very popular, as were circus performers who stood on prancing or running horses.
When foot-binding was popular and customary, women and their families and husbands took great pride in tiny feet that had achieved the desired lotus shape. This pride was reflected in the elegantly embroidered silk slippers and wrappings girls and women wore to cover their feet. Walking on bound feet necessitated bending the knees slightly and swaying to maintain the proper movement. This swaying walk became known as the Lotus Gait and was considered sexually exciting by men. Later, the Manchu women who were forbidden to bind their feet, and who were supposedly envious of the Lotus Gait, invented their own type of shoe that caused them to walk in a swaying manner. They wore 'flower bowl' shoes, on a high platform generally made of wood or with a small central pedestal. In fact, bound feet became an important differentiating marker between Manchu and Han women.
The practice of foot binding continued into the 20th century, when both Chinese and Western missionaries called for reform; at this point, a true anti-foot-binding movement emerged. Educated Chinese began to realise that this aspect of their culture did not reflect well upon them in the eyes of foreigners; social Darwinists argued that it weakened the nation, since enfeebled women supposedly produced weak sons; and feminists attacked the practice because it caused women to suffer. At the turn of the 20th century, well-born women such as Kwan Siew-Wah, a pioneer feminist, advocated for the end of foot-binding. Kwan herself refused the foot-binding imposed on her in childhood, so that she could grow normal feet.
There had been earlier but unsuccessful attempts to stop the practice of foot-binding, various emperors issuing unsuccessful edicts against it. The Empress Dowager Cixi (a Manchu) issued such an edict following the Boxer Rebellion in order to appease foreigners, but it was rescinded a short time later. In 1911, after the fall of the Qing Dynasty, the new Republic of China government banned foot binding. Women were told to unwrap their feet lest they be killed. Some women's feet grew a half-inch to an inch after the unwrapping, though some found the new growth process extremely painful as well as emotionally and culturally devastating. Still, societies were founded to support the abolition of foot binding, with contractual agreements made between families who would promise an infant son in marriage to an infant daughter who did not have bound feet. When the Communists took power in 1949, they were able to maintain the strict prohibition on foot-binding, which is still in effect today.
In Taiwan, foot-binding was banned by the Japanese administration in 1915.
Process
The process was started before the arch of the foot had a chance to develop fully, usually between the ages of three and fourteen. Binding usually started during the winter months so that the feet were numb, meaning the pain would not be as extreme.
First, each foot would be soaked in a warm mixture of herbs and animal blood; this was intended to soften the foot and aid the binding. Then, the toenails were cut back as far as possible to prevent in-growth and subsequent infections, since the toes were to be pressed tightly into the sole of the foot. To prepare her for what was to come next the girl's feet were delicately massaged. Cotton bandages, ten feet long and two inches wide, were prepared by soaking them in the blood and herb mixture. To enable the size of the feet to be reduced, the toes on each foot were curled under, then pressed with great force downwards and squeezed into the sole of the foot until the toes break. This was all carried out with no pain relief, causing severe pain. The broken toes were then held tightly against the sole of the foot. The foot was then drawn down straight with the leg and the arch forcibly broken. The actual binding of the feet was then begun. The bandages were repeatedly wound in a figure eight movement, starting at the inside of the foot at the instep, then carried over the toes, under the foot, and round the heel, the freshly broken toes being pressed tightly into the sole of the foot. At each pass the binding was tightened, pulling the ball of the foot and the heel ever close together, causing the broken foot to fold at the arch, and pressing the toes underneath, this would cause the young girl excruciating pain. When the binding was completed, the end of the binding cloth was sewn tightly to prevent the girl from loosening it. As the wet bandages dried they constricted, making the binding even tighter.
The girls' broken feet required a great deal of care and attention, and they would be unbound regularly. Each time the feet were unbound they were washed, the toes carefully checked for injury, and the nails carefully and meticulously trimmed. When unbound the broken feet were also kneaded to soften them and make the joints and broken bones more flexible, and were soaked in a concoction that caused any necrotic flesh to fall off.Immediately after this pedicure, the girl's broken toes were folded back under and the feet were rebound. The bindings were pulled ever tighter each time, so that the process became more and more painful. This unbinding and rebinding ritual was repeated as often as possible (for the rich at least once daily, for poor peasants two or three times a week), with fresh bindings. It was generally an elder female member of the girl's family or a professional foot binder who carried out the initial breaking and ongoing binding of the feet. This was considered preferable to having the mother do it, as she might have been sympathetic to her daughter's pain and less willing to keep the bindings tight. A professional foot binder would ignore the girl's cries and would continue to bind her feet incredibly tightly. Professional foot binders would also tend to be more extreme in the initial breaking of the feet, sometimes breaking each of the toes in two or three separate places, and even completely dislocating the toes to allow them to be pressed under and bound more tightly. This would cause the girl to suffer from devastating foot pain, but her feet were more likely to achieve the three inch ideal. The girl was not allowed to rest after her feet had been bound; however much pain she was suffering, she was required to walk on her broken and bound feet, so that her own body weight would help press and crush her feet into the desired shape.
The most common problem with bound feet was infection. Despite the amount of care taken in regularly trimming the toenails, they would often in-grow, becoming infected and causing injuries to the toes. Sometimes for this reason the girls' toenails would be peeled right back and removed altogether. The tightness of the binding meant that the circulation in the feet was faulty, and the circulation to the toes was almost cut off, so any injuries to the toes were unlikely to heal and were likely to gradually worsen and lead to infected toes and rotting flesh. If the infection in the feet and toes entered the bones, it could cause them to soften, which could result in toes dropping off—though this was seen as a positive, as the feet could then be bound even more tightly. Girls whose toes were more fleshy would sometimes have shards of glass or pieces of broken tiles inserted within the binding next to her feet and between her toes to cause injury and introduce infection deliberately. Disease inevitably followed infection, meaning that death from septic shock could result from foot binding, but a surviving girl was more at risk for medical problems as she grew older. In the early part of the binding many of the foot bones would remain broken, often for years. However as the girl grew older the bones would begin to heal, although even after the foot bones had healed they were prone to re-breaking repeatedly, especially when the girl was in her teens and her feet were still soft. Older women were more likely to break hips and other bones in falls, since they could not balance securely on their feet, and were less able to rise to their feet from a sitting position. Since the women in China weren't able to walk properly anymore, most had to have servants do most of the cleaning, cooking, and caring of kids and husband.
Reception and appeal
Bound feet were once considered "intensely erotic". Qing Dynasty sex manuals listed 48 different ways of playing with women's bound feet. Some men preferred never to see a woman's bound feet, so they were always concealed within tiny "lotus shoes" and wrappings. Feng Xun is recorded as stating, "If you remove the shoes and bindings, the aesthetic feeling will be destroyed forever" -- an indication that men understood that the symbolic erotic fantasy of bound feet did not correspond to its unpleasant physical reality, which was therefore to be kept hidden. For men, the primary erotic effect was a function of the lotus gait, the tiny steps and swaying walk of a woman whose feet had been bound. Women with such deformed feet avoided placing weight on the front of the foot and tended to walk predominantly on their heels. As a result, women who underwent foot binding walked in a careful, cautious and unsteady manner. The very fact that the bound foot was concealed from mens' eyes was, in and of itself, sexually appealing. On the other hand, an uncovered foot would also give off a foul odor, as various fungi would colonise the unwashable folds.
Another attribute of a woman with bound feet was the limitations of her mobility and therefore her inability to take part in politics, social life, and the world at large. Bound feet rendered women dependent on their families, particularly their men, and therefore became an alluring symbol of chastity and male ownership, since a woman was largely restricted to her home and could not venture far without an escort or the help of watchful servants.
In literature and film
The bound foot has played a prominent part in many works of literature, both Chinese and non-Chinese. These depictions are sometimes based on observation or research and sometimes on rumor or supposition. This is only to be expected when a practice is so emotionally charged. Sometimes, as in the case of Pearl Buck's The Good Earth, the accounts are relatively neutral.
Li Juzhen (1763–1830) wrote a satirical novel Jinghua yuan, translated as Flowers in the Mirror, which includes a visit to the mythical Kingdom of Women where men have to bear children, menstruate and bind their feet. In the novel Three Inch Golden Lotus the Chinese author Feng Jicai (b. 1942) presents a satirical picture of the movement to abolish the practice.
In the 1958 film The Inn Of The Sixth Happiness Ingrid Bergman portrays British missionary to China Gladys Aylward, who is assigned as a foreigner the task by a local mandarin to unbind the feet of young women, an unpopular order that the civil government had failed to fulfill.
Ruthanne Lum McCunn wrote a biographical novel A Thousand Pieces of Gold (later adapted to a film), about Polly Bemis, a Chinese American pioneer woman. It describes her feet being bound, and later unbound when she needed to help her family with farm labour.
Other interesting websites about The Foot Binding : cuny.edu
Source : Wikipedia
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