Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class, a production
Speaker 1: of I Heart Radios How Stuff Works. Hello, and welcome
Speaker 1: to the podcast. I'm Holly Fry and I'm Wilson and
Speaker 1: Happy Holiday season, Tracy. Yes, it is after Thanksgiving, so
Speaker 1: I feel okay about saying that. At least it will
Speaker 1: be when this episode comes out. It's the last thing
Speaker 1: we're recording before we actually have that holiday. Yeah, I don't.
Speaker 1: I don't. We've talked about this, I think well back
Speaker 1: when we're doing pop stuff, I mentioned I have no
Speaker 1: calendar issues with people saying happy holiday greetings in July
Speaker 1: because I grew up going to craft stores where the
Speaker 1: holidays are always out. Sure, so I don't. I don't
Speaker 1: have any concerns. And I my house is literally Halloween
Speaker 1: three and sixty five days a year, so to me,
Speaker 1: the holidays are a very fluid concept. But we are
Speaker 1: officially in December, which is when most people would get
Speaker 1: into the holiday spirit. And back in sixteen, we did
Speaker 1: a series of three holiday episodes two sixteen that we
Speaker 1: called the Crampus and Friends Holiday Special and we've missed them,
Speaker 1: so this year we are bringing it back for a
Speaker 1: part four just for expectations management. For any listeners who
Speaker 1: were not listening back then and maybe haven't heard those episodes,
Speaker 1: this episode does not feature Crampus. Crampus kicked off the
Speaker 1: whole thing for us, and that's what we call it
Speaker 1: Crampus and Friends. Uh So we covered him in part one.
Speaker 1: You can go back and listen to that or to
Speaker 1: all three if you really want to travel the world
Speaker 1: of holiday traditions. But today we're going to have a
Speaker 1: mix of Scandinavian and Japanese traditions as we cover the Nissa,
Speaker 1: the Yule Goat, and the Seven Lucky Gods. So Scandinavian
Speaker 1: folklore features a familiar looking little fellow who goes by
Speaker 1: a slightly different name depending on what country you're in.
Speaker 1: In Norway he's known as Nissa. In Sweden, he's Tempta,
Speaker 1: and he's Tempted in Finland. They are pretty consistent, these
Speaker 1: depictions and how they're characterized across those various countries. The
Speaker 1: names are just a little different, and the word Nissa
Speaker 1: is said to be a derivation of the name Nils
Speaker 1: Nicholas essentially, and Tempta shares a route with the Swedish
Speaker 1: word tampt, which is a land parcel or a homestead,
Speaker 1: and the tampta or nissa is a solitary creature. It
Speaker 1: turns both helpful and mischievous, and you will see why
Speaker 1: it's tied to the concept of homes and homesteading. Nissan
Speaker 1: are protective entities that help families, and they particularly help
Speaker 1: with the farm homes to care for the livestock and
Speaker 1: the land. There's a particularly strong affinity on the part
Speaker 1: of nissa for horses, and he'll be sure to take
Speaker 1: extra special care of horses, sometimes even braiding their manes
Speaker 1: and tails to keep them looking their best. They're also
Speaker 1: considered generally pretty lucky. If a nissa settles on your land,
Speaker 1: he said to attract good fortune and to drive away evil.
Speaker 1: And a nissa is a diminutive spray. He tops out
Speaker 1: at about three feet that's about a meter tall, and
Speaker 1: he dresses in simple farmer's garb of a tunic fitted
Speaker 1: pants and boots, plus a cap on his head, and
Speaker 1: he sometimes depicted as a little bit raggedy. Usually his
Speaker 1: cap is red, but some depictions show the nissa with
Speaker 1: variations in colors, although they're generally bright shades and red
Speaker 1: is almost always the color of at least one of
Speaker 1: his garments, and if you give a nissa new clothes,
Speaker 1: that nissa might feel too fancy to do any works,
Speaker 1: So definitely don't do that. As I was looking for
Speaker 1: artwork to go with this episode, the depictions of nissa
Speaker 1: reminded me of gnomes a little bit. They're very much
Speaker 1: There's a reason that they have been appropriated into garden
Speaker 1: sculpture because everyone wants one of these. If you have
Speaker 1: a nissa, you have good fortune in a tidy home.
Speaker 1: So yeah. So the face of the nissa is that
Speaker 1: of an elderly man with a full beard full of
Speaker 1: white hair, although in some places like Denmark, they might
Speaker 1: have clean shaven chins. Where did the us to come from?
Speaker 1: That is a little unclear, although some versions of the
Speaker 1: folklore suggest that a nissa is the spirit of the
Speaker 1: enterprising farmer who originally cleared and settled the land where
Speaker 1: he lives, and that he remains on that land to
Speaker 1: protect the generations of farmers that follow and ensure that
Speaker 1: his work is not undone. But people who live in
Speaker 1: cities might also have a tampton or nissa, and in
Speaker 1: these cases they just hunker down under the floorboards during
Speaker 1: the warmer months and then come out as the winter
Speaker 1: holidays approach. Uh. Yeah, they come out at night. They
Speaker 1: do some chores, they take care of you h And
Speaker 1: in exchange for all of this kind help, the family
Speaker 1: has its own side of the bargain to hold up.
Speaker 1: It has to take care of the Nissa and show
Speaker 1: their appreciation by leaving him a buttery bowl of porridge
Speaker 1: to eat on occasion, and in recent times this offering
Speaker 1: has come to be a Christmas Eve tradition specifically. And
Speaker 1: you should absolutely not look for the Nissa because they
Speaker 1: do not like to be seen and they will turn
Speaker 1: invisible to avoid it. So also don't mess Vanessa. If
Speaker 1: you don't fulfill your duties with the porridge provisions, or
Speaker 1: if you behave in a way that he doesn't like,
Speaker 1: including trying to see him or undoing the braids that
Speaker 1: he's left in your horse's hair, you might incur his wrath.
Speaker 1: And while you might delight in the Nissa doing chores,
Speaker 1: don't ever interrupt him while he's carrying these duties out,
Speaker 1: because if Vanessa is angered, he might bite, and there
Speaker 1: is venom in that bite that can only be tempered
Speaker 1: with a magical antidote. Yes, adorable and poisonous uh the
Speaker 1: best of holiday things. You also want to make sure
Speaker 1: that you do your part in keeping an orderly home
Speaker 1: because that is what nissa like. And if you spill anything,
Speaker 1: you have to give a yell to your nissa and
Speaker 1: let him know so that he doesn't slip see above red.
Speaker 1: Getting angry and uh and irritated Nissa might hide your
Speaker 1: things or inactive bit of trickery in order to get revenge.
Speaker 1: But there are some even scarier stories of nissan that
Speaker 1: tell tales of them injuring livestock or in some cases
Speaker 1: even killing animals if the farmer they belong to you
Speaker 1: has acted poorly. One such instance of a nissa being
Speaker 1: particularly cruel is from a legend about a servant girl
Speaker 1: purposely trying to fold the household nissa. She hid the
Speaker 1: butter in his Christmas porridge down at the bottom of
Speaker 1: the bowl instead of putting it on top, and thinking
Speaker 1: that he had been stiffed on his butter, the nissa
Speaker 1: killed the family's cow, but then went ahead and ate
Speaker 1: the porridge, and then, realizing that he had been served
Speaker 1: the butter just down at the bottom of the bowl,
Speaker 1: he stole a cow from a neighbor to replace the
Speaker 1: one he had killed, So kind of a mixed bag
Speaker 1: behavior wise. Uh, your Nissa is great, but your neighbor's
Speaker 1: Nissa you don't want any part. Yes, this is also
Speaker 1: kind of a two wrongs don't make a right situation right,
Speaker 1: And this ties into some stories you'll occasionally hear about
Speaker 1: Scandinavia during Christianization and how that impacted the Nissa's story.
Speaker 1: The Nissas started to be viewed in some ways as
Speaker 1: negatively and started to be associated by some extremists as
Speaker 1: a servant or an associate of the devil. So welcoming
Speaker 1: Enissa during this time when they were viewed with all
Speaker 1: this suspicion was considered to be playing a very dangerous
Speaker 1: game with the fate of your soul. And in this transition,
Speaker 1: in some areas where they reviewed this way, success started
Speaker 1: to be targeted as having some sort of sinister aspect
Speaker 1: to it because Nissa must be involved, and that meant
Speaker 1: that you were consorting with something that consorted with evil.
Speaker 1: And this also ties into that Lord we just talked about,
Speaker 1: that Enissa might steal from one farmstead to benefit the
Speaker 1: farmer that he lived with. The Nissa has evolved over time.
Speaker 1: It was in the middle of the nineteenth century that
Speaker 1: these sprites came to be linked to Christmas, and in
Speaker 1: some areas a different entity branched off of the Nissa legend,
Speaker 1: known as the Ulnissa, which is closer to a Santa
Speaker 1: Claus entity. Yeah, there as there are with Nissa, where
Speaker 1: you'll see them as Tompta or tom too. Uh. You
Speaker 1: can see you Lenissa and their other uh sort of
Speaker 1: Yule root names in different countries. But still this idea
Speaker 1: of this gnome like home sprite persisted in Scandinavia. In
Speaker 1: a one Swedish novelist Victor Roderberg wrote the poem Thompton,
Speaker 1: which became very popular, and it also cemented the idea
Speaker 1: of Toompton or Nissen as farm spirits in modern folklore.
Speaker 1: That has also been adapted a number of times. You
Speaker 1: can find modern storybook versions of it which are really
Speaker 1: really sweet. And this also added to the lore of
Speaker 1: Toompton and Nissen by characterizing these helpful spirits as being
Speaker 1: philosophically thoughtful about the people that they watch over. Here's
Speaker 1: the translation of one of the stanzas, so he has
Speaker 1: seen them sire and son year by year in that
Speaker 1: room there sleep first as children everyone. But whence did
Speaker 1: they come there? This generation to that was air blossomed,
Speaker 1: grew old and was gone. But where that is the
Speaker 1: hopeless burning riddle ever returning. This poem also established the
Speaker 1: tempted as a nocturnal creature who watches over things while
Speaker 1: the humans rest, and it concludes with the lines now
Speaker 1: sinks the moon in night, profound snow on the furs,
Speaker 1: and pines around, snow on the roofs is gleaming. All
Speaker 1: but the goblin are dreaming. Coming up, we're going to
Speaker 1: talk about goats and fire, but first we will take
Speaker 1: a quick break for a sponsor break. Today. People that
Speaker 1: are raised in the US probably think that You'll is
Speaker 1: just a synonym for Christmas. I did for quite a
Speaker 1: long time, But originally Ule was, of course a multi
Speaker 1: day pagan winter solstice festival. As Christianity spread throughout Europe,
Speaker 1: this celebration slowly transition to the Nativity feast and became
Speaker 1: associated with Christmas rather than its origin point. And a
Speaker 1: goat has played various roles and seasonal celebrations going back
Speaker 1: to You'll, Although the precise origins of the goats presence
Speaker 1: are un lear. There are a lot of different associations
Speaker 1: with goats and Scandinavian legend and that could be part
Speaker 1: of the origin of goats as a symbolic part of
Speaker 1: winter holidays. For example, Thor's chariot is said to have
Speaker 1: been pulled by two goats in Norse mythology, and as
Speaker 1: Father Christmas was adopted into winter celebrations and some Scandinavian traditions,
Speaker 1: he rides a goat. Going back to the sixteen hundreds,
Speaker 1: there was a tradition in Danish farming villages for one
Speaker 1: of the young men in the area to dress as
Speaker 1: a goat during Yule, complete with a goat skull on
Speaker 1: his head, and go door to door, essentially bursting into
Speaker 1: people's houses and creating sort of a fun havoc. This
Speaker 1: havoc generally included throwing around some insults and gently overturning
Speaker 1: some furniture maybe, but the goat could be placated with
Speaker 1: beer and snacks and then sated, he would move on
Speaker 1: to the next house to do some carousing there. A
Speaker 1: less raucous and more benevolent version of this tradition involved
Speaker 1: the village goats stopping by Yule parties and doling out
Speaker 1: gifts to good children. Goats made out of straw or
Speaker 1: other natural materials became holiday descor over time, sometimes with
Speaker 1: an accompanying story that the goat was keeping an eye
Speaker 1: on things and making sure holiday preparation was being handled properly.
Speaker 1: Eventually they became available in all sizes, from ornaments to
Speaker 1: massive centerpieces large enough to decorate town squares. Yes, some
Speaker 1: people still like to play the game where you hide
Speaker 1: a yule a small Yule goat in your neighbor's house.
Speaker 1: The idea is like you're being watched and then it's
Speaker 1: your job to then pass that goat onto someone else,
Speaker 1: which is sort of fun. But speaking of that massive
Speaker 1: scale that Tracy just mentioned, that is what has made
Speaker 1: the Yule goat his his most famous in the last
Speaker 1: half century. In nineteen sixty six, the town of Yavle, Sweden,
Speaker 1: erected a giant goat in its castle square, and that's
Speaker 1: something that the town has done every year since, starting
Speaker 1: with the first Sunday of Advent, and that practice has
Speaker 1: taken on its own story, in part because of an
Speaker 1: unofficial offshoot this that some citizens of the town have
Speaker 1: adopted of setting the goat on fire that first year.
Speaker 1: The Yavla goat was installed on December one, and at
Speaker 1: the stroke of midnight, as the new year arrived, it
Speaker 1: went up in flames. The goat arsonist was identified and
Speaker 1: charged with vandalism. For a couple of years, the You'll
Speaker 1: goat went up and lasted through the entire holiday season,
Speaker 1: but on New Year's Eve of nineteen sixty nine the
Speaker 1: goat was once again set on fire, although that time
Speaker 1: the perpetrator was not identified. The goat erected in nineteen
Speaker 1: seventy only lasted six hours. A new goat for the
Speaker 1: nineteen seventy season was quickly built and put into its
Speaker 1: place in Castle Square, and the rest of the nineteen
Speaker 1: seventies were frankly rough on the goat. According to the
Speaker 1: Yavla tourism site, over that decade it imploded one year,
Speaker 1: it was smashed two bits. On several occasions, it was
Speaker 1: rammed with a car, and it suffered several unknown fates.
Speaker 1: It also burned again, once in nineteen seventy four and
Speaker 1: again in nineteen seventy nine, when it went up in
Speaker 1: flames before it was even put up. A second nineteen
Speaker 1: seventy nine goat also destroyed throughout the nineteen eighties. The
Speaker 1: goat had a similarly precarious life. Even when it was
Speaker 1: saturated with fire retardant materials, arsonists still managed to burn
Speaker 1: it down. In nineteen eighty nine, the raw materials for
Speaker 1: the goat were set on fire before it was even assembled.
Speaker 1: The nineteen eighties did see the Yavlay You'll goat make
Speaker 1: it into the Guinness Book of World Records for the
Speaker 1: largest straw goat in the world. Another development in the
Speaker 1: nineteen eighties was the construction of two goats each year
Speaker 1: that started in nineteen eighty six. Yeah, when the goat
Speaker 1: tradition started in nineteen sixty six, it was originally the
Speaker 1: work of the city's tradesmen, but after those first few
Speaker 1: years of their work being destroyed, they just didn't want
Speaker 1: to do it any longer. I cannot blame them, So
Speaker 1: in nineteen seventy one, the Natural Science Society of Vazascotland
Speaker 1: took over the annual building of the goat. But then
Speaker 1: in nineteen the six the tradesmen of Yavla once again
Speaker 1: started constructing giant yule goats, and at that point, as
Speaker 1: a rivalry between the two goat building groups, began in
Speaker 1: Both of the goats were set on fire eight days
Speaker 1: after they were set up. The Tradesmen's goat was rebuilt,
Speaker 1: only to be burned again. The same arsonist was found
Speaker 1: to have set all three fires and was arrested. Another
Speaker 1: interesting thing started happening in the nineteen nineties, and that's
Speaker 1: some of the citizens of Yavla started setting up guard
Speaker 1: details for the goats to try to deter these would
Speaker 1: be arsonists and pranksters. The two thousands and the twenty
Speaker 1: teens have seen a mixed bag of fires and survival
Speaker 1: for the Yule Goat. In two thousand five, the Yule
Speaker 1: Goat was besieged by flaming arrows, which were shot by
Speaker 1: attackers that were dressed as gingerbread men and Father Christmas
Speaker 1: in would be kidnappers trying to bribe the man who
Speaker 1: was guarding the Yule goat into looking the other way
Speaker 1: while they attempted to airlift it with a helicopter. That
Speaker 1: guard could not be bought. Thankfully, the goat actually went
Speaker 1: on a little trip. It traveled to China, where he
Speaker 1: was visited by more than four hundred thousand people during
Speaker 1: his time on display there. The Yavla Yule Goat has
Speaker 1: become something of a celebrity and now has a webcam
Speaker 1: which has been hacked by saboteurs at least once. It
Speaker 1: also has a Twitter presence and an Instagram account and
Speaker 1: a dedicated spokesperson so you can keep tabs on how
Speaker 1: he's doing. While it is a constant battle to keep
Speaker 1: this giant goat safe, it's also become a significant tourist
Speaker 1: to draw in an economic driver for Yavla, so it's
Speaker 1: unlikely that they will end this tradition anytime soon. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I have seen multiple things online like in discussion or
Speaker 1: comments on articles or the like why do they keep
Speaker 1: doing this? It's he's expensive and like a pain in
Speaker 1: the neck because it gets burnt so often. And it's
Speaker 1: like if you look at Yavla's main like city website,
Speaker 1: a lot of it is about tourism related to the goats,
Speaker 1: so I don't think they want to give that up. Also,
Speaker 1: it's beautiful, uh, and the goat has gotten bigger and
Speaker 1: bigger over the years. His height at this point is
Speaker 1: thirteen meters that's about forty two point six ft anyways,
Speaker 1: three point six tons. It takes an estimated one thousand
Speaker 1: man hours and an entire truckload of straw to build
Speaker 1: the goat with the straw affixed to a metal frame base.
Speaker 1: In and eighteen, the goat made it all the way
Speaker 1: through the holiday season. Intact, here's to hoping in twenty
Speaker 1: nineteen this will also be true. Hopefully, as of when
Speaker 1: this episode comes out, the goat has not already been
Speaker 1: set up and burned down. I'm not sure what the
Speaker 1: schedule is, right, I hope not, because you know, as
Speaker 1: we said, there's uh there are our webcams and people
Speaker 1: protecting them now and it's apparently worked for a couple
Speaker 1: of years, but you never know when a gingerbread man
Speaker 1: with a flaming arrow might show up. There's also one
Speaker 1: story of an American tourist who set him on fire ones,
Speaker 1: which is embarrassing and horrifying. We are going to switch
Speaker 1: away from your in traditions and kind of make our
Speaker 1: way to the next set of holiday characters in another
Speaker 1: part of the world. But before we do that, we're
Speaker 1: gonna pause for a word from one of the sponsors
Speaker 1: that keep stuff you missed in history class going. We
Speaker 1: are moving now to a slightly later point on the
Speaker 1: yearly calendar and across the globe to Japan, and we're
Speaker 1: going to talk about the seven Lucky gods that are
Speaker 1: associated with the New year. These Chichi Fukujin are a
Speaker 1: mix of deities and one historical figure who traveled together
Speaker 1: in a treasure ship from heaven into the human world
Speaker 1: and offer good fortune for the new year. And according
Speaker 1: to tradition, you should place a picture of these seven
Speaker 1: lucky gods under your pillow on New Year's Eve to
Speaker 1: ensure that they bring you good fortune in the year ahead.
Speaker 1: The first mention of these deities and their grouping of
Speaker 1: seven together is in fourteen twenty when a procession of
Speaker 1: the seven Lucky Gods was staged. The first two gods
Speaker 1: of this group that became popular were Ebisu and Daikoku,
Speaker 1: and that's because the two of them are linked to
Speaker 1: business prosperity. Since merchants are believed to have been the
Speaker 1: first to adopt the seven Lucky gods, that makes sense
Speaker 1: from there. The other gods were adopted by other groups
Speaker 1: of people who wanted some representation of luck that correlated
Speaker 1: to their work. According to one legend, these gods were
Speaker 1: selected at the behest of the showgun yamts Tokugawa in
Speaker 1: the sixteen hundreds to correlate to the seven god like
Speaker 1: virtues that were laid out by the Buddhist priest tank A.
Speaker 1: Those virtues were fortune, longevity, honesty, amiability, popularity, fortune, and dignity.
Speaker 1: Ibisu is tied to the fishing and food industries, as
Speaker 1: well as the virtue of honesty. He'll often see images
Speaker 1: or sculptures of him holding a fishing rod in his
Speaker 1: right hand and a fish in his left, although sometimes
Speaker 1: it's also a fan. These accessories form a contrast against
Speaker 1: his clothing, which is usually represented as brocaded courtwear. While
Speaker 1: all the things these holding are more rustic, Visu is
Speaker 1: unique and that he is the only member of the
Speaker 1: seven Lucky Gods that is native to Japan, originating in
Speaker 1: the Shinto religion. All of the others came from India's
Speaker 1: Hindu belief system or China's Taoist Buddhist traditions. The Abesu
Speaker 1: Co Festival is held every November. It's named for this deity,
Speaker 1: and in the modern era, it's an event where merchants
Speaker 1: pray for prosperity and good dealings. One origin story for
Speaker 1: the festival, though, suggests that it was intended as a
Speaker 1: time when merchants sold their wears. It discounted prices as
Speaker 1: a way to appease the god of fair deals for
Speaker 1: their profitable transactions throughout the rest of the year. Daikoku
Speaker 1: Dan or Daikoku has roots in India's belief system and
Speaker 1: was introduced in Japan in the ninth century. Daikoku is
Speaker 1: based on Mahawkla, a manifestation of Shiva, and in the
Speaker 1: Japanese pantheon, he's a god of prosperity in wealth, and
Speaker 1: he represents the virtue of fortune and is normally depicted
Speaker 1: standing on a bale or sometimes two bales of rice
Speaker 1: whole ding a magic mallet which can produce money when
Speaker 1: it strikes an object, and he sometimes also carries a
Speaker 1: bang that is filled with money as well. And Daikoku
Speaker 1: is sometimes named as Abesus Father, although there is not
Speaker 1: consensus on the matter of ABSs parentage. Other people believe
Speaker 1: that he came from a different set of circumstances. Bisha
Speaker 1: Mountain appears in armor, which often leads to him being
Speaker 1: described as the god of warriors, but really he's just
Speaker 1: defending against evil and darkness, not a representative of war
Speaker 1: or aggression. His virtue is dignity and he's usually depicted
Speaker 1: as carrying some sort of a weapon, normally a spear
Speaker 1: or a sword, as well as a pagoda representing faith.
Speaker 1: He's sometimes posed the top two vanquished demons. Bisha Mountain
Speaker 1: hails from India and is also revered by doctors, police
Speaker 1: and soldiers. Fukurokuju is a Chinese scholar and is the
Speaker 1: god of happiness and wealth, and the virtue that he
Speaker 1: represents is longevity. Fukurokuju, who originated in the Taoist Buddhist tradition,
Speaker 1: is said to be able to revive the dead, that
Speaker 1: is a power that only he has among the seven
Speaker 1: Lucky gods, and true to his scholarly ways, he keeps
Speaker 1: a scroll tied to his walking stick, and he's a
Speaker 1: short man, but he has a large head. He's often
Speaker 1: accompanied by a sacred creature that also represents longevity, such
Speaker 1: as a tortoise, a snake, a stork, or a white deer.
Speaker 1: Duro Jean has the visage of an old man, which
Speaker 1: aligns with the wisdom that's his virtue and which he
Speaker 1: bestows on those who pray to him. He's sometimes confused
Speaker 1: with the Kurokuju, since both of them are depicted as
Speaker 1: elderly and being accompanied by deer. But kurokujus dear companion
Speaker 1: is white and duro Jean's can companion is black, indicating
Speaker 1: that's older and wiser. Jo Jean also has a little
Speaker 1: vice and that he loves to drink, and he'll bestow
Speaker 1: some of his wisdom on people who offer him wine.
Speaker 1: I like that aspect of him. It's charming. There is
Speaker 1: only one woman among the seven Lucky gods, and she
Speaker 1: has Benton, goddess of art and knowledge. She's associated with
Speaker 1: the virtue of amiability. In modern writings, you will often
Speaker 1: see her virtue listed as joy. Benton wears flowing robes
Speaker 1: and plays an instrument, usually a flute or the loot.
Speaker 1: Like Bua, and Benton can be jealous, but she is
Speaker 1: also compassionate. Musicians in particular have historically been very devoted
Speaker 1: to Benton, with stories of some refusing to marry so
Speaker 1: that she will not become jealous and take away their talent.
Speaker 1: Hotel is the only one of the seven Lucky gods
Speaker 1: that said to be based on an actual person, and
Speaker 1: that's the Chinese monk Buddhai. This is the rounded, smiling
Speaker 1: Buddha that you've probably seen depicted in any number of places.
Speaker 1: It's a jolly character who represents popularity and magnanimity. He's
Speaker 1: the god of both happiness and abundance. He carries a
Speaker 1: bag of fortune, which is said to contain all the
Speaker 1: things that are needed by man. One of the lessons
Speaker 1: of his that abundance comes from simply being happy with
Speaker 1: what you have. We mentioned at the beginning of this
Speaker 1: section that if you want the seven Lucky Gods to
Speaker 1: grace you, you should put their picture under your pillow.
Speaker 1: But that is not the end of it. The first
Speaker 1: week of the new year, uh, there is a tradition
Speaker 1: where families travel to the temples of each of the deities.
Speaker 1: That's a practice that dates back to the Edo period,
Speaker 1: and it becomes something of a pilgrimage as the shrine
Speaker 1: for each of the seven lucky gods has to be
Speaker 1: visited to ensure that all kinds of luck is yours
Speaker 1: in the new year. So here's to hoping that all
Speaker 1: of our listeners have beautiful holidays no matter what you're celebrating,
Speaker 1: and comes with some good fortune for all of us. Yes,
Speaker 1: I hope, I hope. UM. For listener mail, I have
Speaker 1: nothing to do with luck okay, but instead a fun
Speaker 1: story about traffic lights. UM. This comes from our listener
Speaker 1: father Daniel. He writes, Hello, Holly and Tracy. I have
Speaker 1: enjoyed your podcast for a few years now, and a
Speaker 1: couple of recent episodes touched indirectly on some New York
Speaker 1: state history which I think you might find interesting. There's
Speaker 1: a traffic light in Syracuse, New York, on Tipperary Hill
Speaker 1: which is upside down, with the green on top and
Speaker 1: the red on bottom. And I put upside down in
Speaker 1: quotes because historically the Irish locals had seen the regular
Speaker 1: arrangement of the signal read above green as a statement
Speaker 1: about the supremacy of England read over Ireland green. Since
Speaker 1: its installation in the signal was regularly vandalized, rocks were
Speaker 1: thrown at it to bust the lights, and while it
Speaker 1: was continually repaired, they needed a more permanent solution. Apparently,
Speaker 1: a local alderman named John huck O Ryan was the
Speaker 1: one who suggested putting the green on top and the
Speaker 1: red on the bottom, which resulted in in the arrangement
Speaker 1: of the only upside right traffic signal in the world
Speaker 1: for color blind people, there is a sign warning that
Speaker 1: the light is inverted. But unfortunately, in order to understand
Speaker 1: the sign, you would also have to not be color blind. Whoops. Uh.
Speaker 1: And to commemorate this history of vandalism and civil disobedience,
Speaker 1: there is a charming bronze statue at the intersection of
Speaker 1: an older man teaching a few young boys to throw
Speaker 1: rocks at the light. Uh. That is a fascinating story,
Speaker 1: he said. Secondly, I would like to thank you for
Speaker 1: the episode about the Black Sox scandal. To commemorate the
Speaker 1: one anniversary, not so much of the scandal, but of
Speaker 1: Honest Eddie's honesty, Honest Eddie Murphy's hometown of Hancock, New
Speaker 1: York placed a bronze statue of him in the town
Speaker 1: square the weekend before last, and his grandson Ed and
Speaker 1: other family were present for this dedication. I have attached
Speaker 1: a photo of the front page of the Hancock Herald
Speaker 1: which covered the event. Father Daniel, thank you so much
Speaker 1: for those two tidbits. I um I uh am kind
Speaker 1: of amused by the idea of busting a traffic light
Speaker 1: as something to be commemorated with a statue. But you know,
Speaker 1: every historical moment has its has its place in the
Speaker 1: bigger story. So thank you so much for writing us.
Speaker 1: If you would like to do that, you can do
Speaker 1: so at our email which is History Podcast at I
Speaker 1: heart radio dot com. Again, that is a new uh.
Speaker 1: We used to be at a different address, so to
Speaker 1: switch it over to the new one if we're in
Speaker 1: your address book, and you can also find us everywhere
Speaker 1: on social media. That remains the same app Missed in
Speaker 1: History That is also our website, Missed in History dot com.
Speaker 1: You can check us out as subscribers. We love subscribers.
Speaker 1: You can do that on the I Heart Radio app,
Speaker 1: at Apple Podcasts, or wherever it is you listen. Stuff
Speaker 1: you Missed in History Class is a production of I
Speaker 1: Heart Radios. How stuff Works. For more podcasts for my
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Speaker 1: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.