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Page: Profile: Wren's Nest News Local
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Article: 19238
[Culture]
Date Posted:
1/15/2008
4:25:49 pm EST
Wvox Stats
Views: 6,514
RSS: 16,072
Comments: 6
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Little Town With A Big Image Problem
Author: Tanya Katterns, Dominion Post Source: Stuff (NZ)
Title: LITTLE TOWN WITH A BIG IMAGE PROBLEM
A spat over whether Dannevirke should retain its Scandinavian heritage could see the axe fall on its Viking icon.
Many in the town, including some within the bitterly-divided Tararua District Council, want the Viking image thrown out - saying the warrior iconography does not suit the town.
Many locals - including Maori leaders - are dead set against a pagan statue on the high street.
Opponents say portraying a warrior race renowned for pillaging, looting, and carrying off women would be culturally insensitive and would distort the history of the town.
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Community Thoughts: There are 6 comments posted | Reverse Sort |
| Oh Please! | Jan 16th. at 2:20:00 pm EST
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Just A Wolf (Seward, Michigan) - Email Me
Perhaps they should think of the tourist money if they follow the Tampa model of dealing with past history. They need a big festival every year where pseudo vikings sack the village, and abduct toursists.
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| I Have A Question.... | Jan 16th. at 3:13:41 am EST
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nasionnaich (Stanchfield, Minnesota) - Email Me
The Maori are known as a "Warrior People" -- they conquered and pillaged all over Polynesia -- but they are opposed to an icon of another "Warrior People".
Would they be so against the statue if it were of one their own Warrior Chiefs, commemorating some battle-field victory over another Island Nation? Somehow, I don't think so....... It may be another case of "We don't care if it's your heritage, or that your ancestors founded the town - it's not our heritage and we won't allow it!"
Sure, they may be peaceful people now, but they, too, have a very bloody past, and they celebrate that past with intricate ceremonies, rituals and rites-of-passage. And the "pagan" statue -- it isn't of a "god", it's of a generic "Viking" (just like on the signs at either end of the town...it's actually a stereotype-caricature of a Viking) . There are statues of people and things, celebrating one thing or other, all over New Zealand, but somehow those aren't "pagan".
The people opposed to the statue are hypocrites.
----nasionnaich
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| The Problem With Knightly Chivalry.. | Jan 15th. at 10:55:08 pm EST
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bigcat (peoria, Illinois) - Email Me
was that it never really extended to the lower classes. To the knight, the serf was a nothing, even though the serf in question raised the grain for his bread and put the meat on his table.
The Vikings may have been a real problem to the lands they raided- but they didn't always raid. Many settled and formed the basis for many cities throughout Europe.
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| Ummm... | Jan 15th. at 6:24:37 pm EST
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Young Coyote (W. Hempstead, California) - Email Me
Every current society, culture, nation, etc. is based on one group of people conquering another. What the vikings did was nothing out of the ordinary, they just gained a fierce reputation because of who they were ("barbarian" pagans from the north) and the society they plundered (Christian feudal kingdoms where news was gained second-hand at best) .
For some reason I doubt they would have had a problem if the statue was of, say, a knight. While our modern interpretation of the knight is one of an honorable, self-sacrificing warrior, that is only because it's based on the same source material that we get our information from the vikings from.
Yet knights are just as guilty of pillaging, razing, and raping. They just did it with a lord's permission and under the guise of "order".
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| But.... | Jan 15th. at 5:37:57 pm EST
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Jedi Gordy (Edinboro, Pennsylvania) - Email Me
Vikings DID do all those things, as has every culture. But they were also excellent seafarers, tradesmen, fishermen, farmers and ranchers, etc. Why not portray all those other aspects? Or is it the Pagan part that REALLY bothers them, and they use the "warrior" concept as a scapegoat?
With wisdom and love,
Gordon
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