La Befana....the Witch of Christmas : Melbourne Indymedia

Cuture is important and I reckon those of us who want to preserve a bit of festive magic and myth but are grossed out by the general nastiness of capitalist Christmas to start a move (back) to Old Christmas Day, also known as the "12th day" of Christmas or Epiphany, the day when the Wise Men visited Jesus and also the day 30 odd years later when he performed his first offical miracle of turning water into wine. Old Christmas Eve is still when kids normally get their presents in Europe or so I'm told. In the same way that New Chrsitmas Day is close to the solstice, Old Christmas day is close to the perihelion of the earth when it goes closest to the sun. But unlike the solstice the perihelion is of course the same for both north and south hemispheres.

One especially attractive figure assocaited with Old Chrsitmas Day is La Befana, the Italian Chrsitmas Witch who brings presents on the night of Jan 5, Old Chrsitmas Eve. She is portrayed as a broomstick riding hag, one leaves ricotta cheese out for her, because her teeth are so bad. It is widely recognised that she is a form of Hecate or Hekate, the ancient mythological Goddess of the Witches.....beloved Hecate. who as Hesiod (circa 700bc) said can grant to every man his hearts desire. Well, beloved by some reviled by others. Give them a Google, Befana and Hecate, there is plenty of interest.

Anyway, La Befana as usually recognized today has been fitted into the Christian Christmas story. One legend is that she was too busy sweeping her house to join the Wise Men and ever since then has been trying to catch up with them. Another is that she was the mother of one of the children killed by Herod in his unsuccesful attempt to get Jesus. In either case she represents the forgotten people of history who did the work and took the knocks while others got the headlines.

There is a La Befana event on January 6 in Argyll Place Carlton about 3:30 till dark. La Befana herself makes an appearance and then stars in a play about herself. I went last year . It was fun, sort of daggy but fun; and I'lll go this year too.

As for Santa Claus/father Christmas......its not true that he is a creation of Coca-Cola as the urban legend (and a recent misleading SBS doco) claim. Substantially he is the creation of Thomas Nast, an American illustrator who also created the Elephant and Donkey representing the US parties, and helped develop Uncle Sam (Nast is also worth a Google). Nast synthesised various figures of folklore, including St Ncholas amongst others, to create the jolly fat man dressed in red and white with his elves at the North pole who comes down the chimney bringign presents and so forth. Nast developed this figure over more than 20 years in illustrations for the Christmas Special of Harpers Weekly, the figure being complete by the 1880s. Though I do have to say that Nast's Santa Claus had a pipe and an ivy wreathe round his head and a dangerous glint in his eye.....a bit less plastic than the modern version. Anyway Nast's Santa Claus had become a mass popular culture figure and crossed the Atlantic and fused with the English Father Christmas by world war one at the very latest, Coca Cola had nothing to do with it. However the broader point that Santa is a commercial creation has I think to be conceded. Even his elves, non-unionised to be sure show him to be a symbol of capitalist production. I believe he was already appearing in New York department stoes in the 1880s.

And cultural symbols do count. I recommend La Befana. Especially to the police who read Indymedia so assiduously. Let la Befana into your heart, officer.