The news cycle moves fast, but some may remember the horned DC protester popularly known as "Jamiroquai." Is the horned anarchist the latest example of the ancient pagan cult of the Dorset Ooser, alive and kicking in the US? Alan Delgarde reports from the UK:
The horned headdress of a protestor at the heart of the riots and invasion of the US Capitol building in Washington on 6th January may have been inspired by an ancient ritual mask known as the 'Dorset Ooser.'
The horned protester has been named in news reports as Jake Angeli who goes by the on-line moniker 'QAnon Shaman.' He stood out among demonstrators at the centre of the invasion of the US Capitol on 6th January and features on photos which have circulated around the world. His distinctive headgear resembles the image of the Dorset Ooser, still used in in mid-winter and mid-summer re-enactments and ceremonies today.
A replica of the horned headgear is preserved at Dorset County Musuem in Dorset. It is a copy of the originals of the mid-winter mask once used at Melbury Osmund and also at Shillingstone where, by the 19th century, it had become known as 'the Christmas Bull'.
The donning of horns, weird masks and strange animal costumes is a widespread tradition and, in various forms, is recognised as a European wide-folk custom practised in rural areas since ancient times. The custom was condemned by the early Church and later associated with the figure of the devil.
In Archbishop Theodore of Canterbury's (668-690 AD) Liber Poenitentialis (Penitential Book) wearing animal heads was condemned as 'devilish.'
"(He) goes about as a stag or a bull; that is, making himself into a wild animal and dressing in the skin of a herd animal, and putting on the heads of beasts; those who in such wise transform themselves into the appearance of a wild animal, penance for three years because this is devilish."
It is striking how this headgear worn by the 21st century protester so closely resembles the seasonal folk costume worn for centuries in disorderly folk customs in ancient Britain and Europe, and is now sported at exactly the same point in the winter calendar in the Capitol of the United States.
Is the QAnon Shaman an example of a faked up Fed mimicking Old World archetypal folk customs emerging in the New World or just another Anarcho-Marxist crisis actor out for cheap thrills and kicks, or both?
As always, you the reader be the judge.
Your Friend,
LSP
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Sources
Sources:
https://dorsetcountymuseum.wordpress.com/2015/05/01/the-dorset-ooser/
https://www.historic-uk.com/CultureUK/Dorset-Ooser/
https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/13676847/qanon-shaman-jake-angeli-capitol/
