When did the Civil War End?
What was the Date and Location that the Civil War Ended?
When and Where did the Civil War End?
Last Battle and Final Surrender of the Confederate
General Robert E. Lee surrendered his army to General U.S. Grant, President Jefferson Davis was determined to continue the
fight, but Maj. Gen. John C. Breckinridge, the highest ranking U.S. official to ever commit treason, said that "this has
been a magnificent epic, in God's name let it not terminate in farce."
When did the American Civil War end? A question that is phrased
many ways and is asked from casual students to diehard Civil War buffs. The conflict that claimed some 620,000
Americans, the deadliest war in the nation's history, actually did not have a single date that hostilities ceased, but
rather it consisted of an order of Confederate forces surrendering to U.S. authorities.
When Lee surrendered to Grant
he only surrendered the Army of Northern Virginia, one army, albeit the most significant in the field, while numerous other
Confederate armies continued to remain active. Confederate President Jefferson Davis, as well as his inner circle, also
refused to surrender. Lee's acquiescence signaled the beginning of the end of what many called the Lost Cause, and it would
soon be followed by the capitulation of other prominent generals and their commands.
The Confederacy itself could not
surrender, however, because, by now, Richmond, the Southern capitol, had
fallen, the government officials had fled, and many of the papers and documents of the newly formed Confederate States of
America had been burned. It was now in the hands of each Rebel commander in the field to surrender his respective army
as news from the East reached him. Beginning with Lee, the following are brief descriptions of how each Confederate fighting
force surrendered during America’s
|Last Civil War Surrender?
|While Lee surrenders to Grant at Appomattox, the Civil War raged on...
General Robert E. Lee on April 9, 1865
Having arranged a truce and sent
notes to Lt. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant requesting a meeting, Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee awaited his response. Shortly after noon, April 9,
Grant’s reply arrived and Lee rode into the village of Appomattox to prepare for Grant’s arrival. Lee’s aide selected the home of Wilmer Mclean.
Lee waited in the parlor. At about 1:30 p.m. Grant arrived with his staff. The two generals exchanged greetings
and small talk, and then Lee declared the purpose of the meeting. Grant stated, in writing, the surrender terms in an order
book and handed it to Lee to read. The terms, proposed in an exchange of notes the previous day, were honorable: Surrendered
officers and their troops were to be paroled and prohibited from taking up arms until properly exchanged, and arms and supplies
were to be given over as captured property. After Lee had read the terms and added an omitted word, he ordered his aide to
write a letter of acceptance. This concluded at about 3:45 p.m. when the generals exchanged
documents. Riding back to his lines, Lee was swarmed by his adoring troops from his beloved Army of Northern Virginia, many nearly hysterical with grief. Trying to soothe them with quiet phrases—you
have done all your duty. Leave the results to God, were some of the words from Lee, as he rode slowly on, followed by
many who wept and implored him to say that they should fight on. The next day he issued his eloquent farewell to his army.
On the morning of April 11, following a spartan breakfast and tearful good-byes from his staff, the general mounted his warhorse,
Traveler, and with a Union honor guard left Appomattox for
General Joseph E. Johnston on April 26,
Following its strategic defeat
N.C., March 21, 1865, the Confederate army of Gen. Joseph E. Johnston was reduced to perhaps 30,000 effectives, less than half the size of Union Maj. Gen. William T. Sherman's Federal command.
Though the Confederates had fought well at Bentonville, their leader had no illusions about stopping his adversary's inexorable
march through North Carolina. When Maj. Gen. John M. Schofield's
force, joining Sherman at Goldsboro, March 24, swelled the Union
ranks to 80,000, Johnston saw the end approaching. Dutifully,
however, he followed Sherman's resumed march northward April
10. En route the Confederate commander learned of the evacuation of Petersburg and Richmond and of Gen. Robert E. Lee's surrender at Appomattox.
This ended his long-held hope of joining Lee to oppose the invaders of the Carolinas. Arriving
near Raleigh, Johnston at first attempted to have North Carolina Gov. Zebulon B. Vance broach
surrender terms to Sherman. On April 12, Johnston went to Greensboro to meet with fugitive Confederate Pres. Jefferson Davis, whom
he persuaded to authorize a peace initiative. Sherman was
immediately receptive to peace negotiations, and on the 17th, under a flag of truce near Durham Station, met General Johnston
for the first time "although we had been interchanging shots constantly since May, 1863." The 2-day conference at the James
Bennett home produced peace terms acceptable to both generals. But since these intruded on matters of civil policy (for example,
recognition of the existing Southern state governments), officials in Washington quickly
rejected the agreement and criticized Sherman's imprudence.
Disappointed, the Federal leader informed Johnston that unless
more widely acceptable terms were reached, a 4-day armistice would end on April 26. That day, however,
the war-weary commanders met again at the Bennett home and thrashed out an agreement confined to military matters. At once
Gen-in-Chief Ulysses S. Grant wired his approval, and, May 3, Johnston's once-proud army laid
down its arms, closing hostilities with the largest Confederate army east of the Mississippi River.
|Gen. Johnston surrenders to Gen. Sherman
|General Sherman following his March through the Carolinas
(About) General Sherman with Generals Howard, Logan,
Hazen, Davis, Slocum, and Mower, photographed by Mathew Brady, May 1865.
William Tecumseh Sherman (February 8, 1820 – February
14 1891) was an American soldier, businessman, educator, and author. He served as a general in the United States Army during
the American Civil War (1861–65), receiving both recognition for his outstanding command of military strategy, and criticism
for the harshness of the "scorched earth" policies he implemented in conducting total war against the enemy. Military historian
Basil Liddell Hart famously declared that Sherman was "the first modern general."
Lieutenant General Richard Taylor on
May 4, 1865
At war’s end, Confederate
Lt. Gen. Richard Taylor, son of former U.S. President Zachary Taylor, held command of the administrative entity called the Department of Alabama, Mississippi,
and East Louisiana, with some 12,000 troops. By the end of April 1865, Mobile,
AL., had fallen and news had reached Taylor
of the meetings between Gen. Joseph E. Johnston and Maj. Gen. William T. Sherman. Taylor agreed
to meet Maj. Gen. E.R.S. Canby for a conference a few miles north of Mobile.
On April 30 the two officers established a truce, terminable after 48 hours notice by either party, then partook of a
"bountiful luncheon ... with joyous poppings of champagne corks ... the first agreeable explosive sounds," Taylor wrote, "I had heard for years." A band played "Hail Columbia" and a few bars of "Dixie." The party separated: Canby went to Mobile and Taylor
to his headquarters at Meridian, Miss. Two days later Taylor received news of Johnston's surrender,
of Pres. Jefferson Davis's capture, and of Canby's insistence that the truce terminate. Taylor
elected to surrender, which he did on May 4, 1865, at Citronelle,
AL., some 40 miles north of Mobile.
"At the time, no doubts as to the propriety of my course entered my mind," Taylor
later asserted, "but such have since crept in." He grew to regret not having tried a last-ditch guerrilla struggle. Under
the terms, officers retained their sidearms, and mounted men their horses. All property and equipment was to be turned over
to the Federals, but receipts were issued. The men were paroled. Taylor
retained control of the railways and river steamers to transport the troops as near as possible to their homes. He stayed
with several staff officers at Meridian until the last man was gone, and then went to Mobile, joining Canby, who took Taylor by boat to the latter’s home
in New Orleans.
Captain Stephen Whitaker on May 12, 1865
On May 12, 1865, a Confederate force consisting of Highlanders and Indians would participate in "The Final Surrender" east of the Mississippi River. The soldiers of Company E, Walker's Battalion, Thomas' Legion of Indians and Highlanders, would
sign their parole papers beginning on May 12, with the last signature recorded on May 14, 1865. Col.
William H. Thomas, the legion's namesake, had
surrendered days earlier on May 9. Having recently
fought at Hanging Dog, in Cherokee County, Capt. Stephen Whitaker and Company E, First Battalion, were stationed at Franklin, North Carolina, but were moving toward White Sulphur Springs to reinforce Thomas when they were intercepted by the
General Tillson had ordered Col. George W. Kirk and the Union 3rd North Carolina Mounted Infantry to Franklin (O.R., 1, Vol. 49, part II, p. 689), and when they approached
the battalion, Whitaker, having formed a skirmish line, was prepared for battle. But when he soon received word of Thomas and Martin capitulating
at nearby Waynesville, Whitaker and his company reluctantly laid down their arms and surrendered. Meanwhile,
on May 10, President Jefferson Davis was captured in Irwinville, GA. On May 14 the legionnaires completed their paroles and then
viewed "Whitaker roll them up, tie them, place them in a Haversack, and give them to Col. Kirk's Courier. And thus at
10 o'clock in the morning of May 14, 1865, our Civil War Soldier Life ended and our Every Day Working Life began," said John
H. Stewart of the Thomas Legion. With mixed emotions, the confederates had surrendered to Kirk understanding that the fight had finally come to an end, and the
reality of aftermath embraced the region.
|Brig. Gen. Stand Watie
|Cherokee Chief and Confederate General Stand Watie
Lieutenant General E. Kirby Smith
on May 26, 1865
From 1862 until the conflict ended,
Confederate Lt. Gen. E. Kirby Smith commanded the Trans-Mississippi Department. By early May 1865 no significant Confederate
force remained east of the Mississippi River. Smith received official proposals that the surrender of his department
be negotiated. The Federals intimated that terms could be loose, but Smith’s demands were unrealistic. Smith then began
planning to continue the fight. Lt. Gen. U. S. Grant took preliminary steps to prepare a force to invade West
Texas should that prove necessary. It did not. The war’s last land fight occurred May 12-13, 1865, at
Palmito Ranch (aka Palmito Hill, Palmetto Ranch) Texas,
where 350 Confederates under Col. John S. "Rest in Peace" Ford scored a victory over 800 overconfident Federals under
Col. Theodore H. Barrett. But afterward the Confederates learned that Richmond
had fallen and Gen. Robert E. Lee had surrendered more than a month earlier. The news devastated their morale, and they abandoned
their lines. A similar decay in morale occurred throughout the department. On May 18, Smith left by stagecoach for Houston with plans to rally the remnants of the department. While he
traveled, the last of the department’s army dissolved, however. On May 26, at New Orleans, Lt. Gen. Simon B. Buckner, acting in Smith’s name,
surrendered this department. Smith reached Houston on May
27 and learned that his army had evaporated. Not all of the Trans-Mississippi Confederates went home. Some 2,000 fled into
Mexico; most of them went alone or in
squad-sized groups, but one body numbered 300. With them, mounted on a mule, wearing a calico shirt and silk kerchief, sporting
a revolver strapped to his hip and a shotgun on his saddle, was Smith.
Brigadier General Stand Watie on June
When the leaders of the
Confederate Indians learned that the government in Richmond had fallen and the Eastern armies had
been surrendered, they, too, began making their plans to seek peace with the Federal government. The chiefs convened the Grand
Council June 15 and passed resolutions calling for Indian commanders to lay down their arms and for emissaries to approach
Federal authorities for peace terms. The largest force in Indian Territory was commanded
by Confederate Brig. Gen. Stand Watie (December 12, 1806 – September 9, 1871), who was also a chief
of the Cherokee Nation. Dedicated to the Confederate cause and unwilling to admit defeat, he kept his troops in the
field for nearly a month after Lt. Gen. E. Kirby Smith surrendered the Trans-Mississippi on May 26. Finally accepting the
futility of continued resistance, June 23, Watie rode into Doaksville near Fort Towson in Indian Territory and surrendered his battalion of Creek,
Seminole, Cherokee, and Osage Indians to Lt. Col. Asa C. Matthews, appointed a few weeks earlier to negotiate a “peace
with the Indians.” Watie was the last Confederate general officer to surrender his command.
Sources: Historical Times Encyclopedia of the Civil War, edited by Patricia
L. Faust; Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies.
Recommended Viewing: The Civil War - A Film by Ken Burns. Review: The
Civil War - A Film by Ken Burns is the most successful public-television miniseries in American history. The 11-hour Civil War didn't just captivate a nation,
reteaching to us our history in narrative terms; it actually also invented a new film language taken from its creator. When
people describe documentaries using the "Ken Burns approach," its style is understood: voice-over narrators reading letters
and documents dramatically and stating the writer's name at their conclusion, fresh live footage of places juxtaposed with
still images (photographs, paintings, maps, prints), anecdotal interviews, and romantic musical scores taken from the era
he depicts. Continued below...
The Civil War uses all of these devices to evoke atmosphere and resurrect an event that many knew
only from stale history books. While Burns is a historian, a researcher, and a documentarian, he's above all a gifted storyteller,
and it's his narrative powers that give this chronicle its beauty, overwhelming emotion, and devastating horror. Using the
words of old letters, eloquently read by a variety of celebrities, the stories of historians like Shelby Foote and rare, stained
photos, Burns allows us not only to relearn and finally understand our history, but also to feel and experience it. "Hailed
as a film masterpiece and landmark in historical storytelling." "[S]hould be a requirement for every
Recommended Reading: The Civil War: A Narrative,
by Shelby Foote (3 Volumes Set) [BOX SET] (2960 pages) (9.2 pounds). Review: This beautifully written trilogy of books on the American Civil War is not only a piece of first-rate history,
but also a marvelous work of literature. Shelby Foote brings a skilled novelist's narrative power to this great epic. Many
know Foote for his prominent role as a commentator on Ken Burns's PBS series about the Civil War. These three books, however,
are his legacy. His southern sympathies are apparent: the first volume opens by introducing Confederate President Jefferson
Davis, rather than Abraham Lincoln. But they hardly get in the way of the great story Foote tells. This hefty three volume
set should be on the bookshelf of any Civil War buff. --John Miller. Continued below…
Foote's comprehensive history
of the Civil War includes three compelling volumes: Fort Sumter to Perryville, Fredericksburg
to Meridian, and Red River to Appomattox.
Collected together in a handsome boxed set, this is the perfect gift for any Civil War buff.
Fort Sumter to Perryville
"Here, for a certainty,
is one of the great historical narratives of our century, a unique and brilliant achievement, one that must be firmly placed
in the ranks of the masters." —Van Allen Bradley, Chicago
"Anyone who wants to relive
the Civil War, as thousands of Americans apparently do, will go through this volume with pleasure.... Years from now, Foote's
monumental narrative most likely will continue to be read and remembered as a classic of its kind." —New York Herald Tribune Book Review
Fredericksburg to Meridian
"This, then, is narrative
history—a kind of history that goes back to an older literary tradition.... The writing is superb...one of the historical
and literary achievements of our time." —The Washington
Post Book World
with such meticulous attention to action, terrain, time, and the characters of the various commanders that I understand, at
last, what happened in that battle.... Mr. Foote has an acute sense of the relative importance of events and a novelist's
skill in directing the reader's attention to the men and the episodes that will influence the course of the whole war, without
omitting items which are of momentary interest. His organization of facts could hardly be bettered." —Atlantic
River to Appomattox
"An unparalleled achievement,
an American Iliad, a unique work uniting the scholarship of the historian and the high readability of the first-class novelist."
"I have never read a better, more
vivid, more understandable account of the savage battling between Grant's and Lee's armies.... Foote stays with the human
strife and suffering, and unlike most Southern commentators, he does not take sides. In objectivity, in range, in mastery
of detail in beauty of language and feeling for the people involved, this work surpasses anything else on the subject....
It stands alongside the work of the best of them." —New Republic
Hardtack & Coffee or The Unwritten Story of Army Life. Description: Most histories of the Civil War focus on battles and top brass. Hardtack and Coffee
is one of the few to give a vivid, detailed picture of what ordinary soldiers endured every day—in camp, on the march,
at the edge of a booming, smoking hell. John D. Billings of Massachusetts enlisted in the
Army of the Potomac and survived the hellish conditions as a “common foot soldier”
of the American Civil War. "Billings describes
an insightful account of the conflict – the experiences of every day life as a common foot-soldier – and a view
of the war that is sure to score with every buff." Continued below...
authenticity of his book is heightened by the many drawings that a comrade, Charles W. Reed, made while in the field. This
is the story of how the Civil War soldier was recruited, provisioned, and disciplined. Described here are the types of men
found in any outfit; their not very uniform uniforms; crowded tents and makeshift shelters; difficulties in keeping clean,
warm, and dry; their pleasure in a cup of coffee; food rations, dominated by salt pork and the versatile cracker or hardtack;
their brave pastimes in the face of death; punishments for various offenses; treatment in sick bay; firearms and signals and
modes of transportation. Comprehensive and anecdotal, Hardtack and Coffee is striking for the pulse of life that runs through
Recommended Reading: The Life of Johnny Reb: The Common Soldier of the Confederacy (444
pages) (Louisiana State University Press) (Updated edition) (November 2007) Description: The Life of Johnny Reb
does not merely describe the battles and skirmishes fought by the Confederate foot soldier. Rather, it provides an intimate
history of a soldier's daily life--the songs he sang, the foods he ate, the hopes and fears he experienced, the reasons he
fought. Wiley examined countless letters, diaries, newspaper accounts, and official records to construct this frequently poignant,
sometimes humorous account of the life of Johnny Reb. In a new foreword for this updated edition, Civil War expert James I.
Robertson, Jr., explores the exemplary career of Bell Irvin Wiley, who championed the common folk, whom he saw as ensnared
in the great conflict of the 1860s. Continued below...
About Johnny Reb:
"A Civil War classic."--Florida Historical Quarterly
"This book deserves to be on the shelf of every Civil War modeler and enthusiast."--Model
"[Wiley] has painted with skill a picture of the life of the Confederate
private. . . . It is a picture that is not only by far the most complete we have ever had but perhaps the best of its kind
we ever shall have."--Saturday Review of Literature
Recommended Reading: Life of Billy Yank: The Common Soldier of the Union (488 pages) (Louisiana State
University Press). Description: This fascinating social history reveals that while the Yanks and the Rebs fought for very
different causes, the men on both sides were very much the same. "This wonderfully interesting book is the finest memorial
the Union soldier is ever likely to have. Continued below...
[Wiley] has written about the Northern troops with an admirable objectivity, with sympathy and understanding
and profound respect for their fighting abilities. He has also written about them with fabulous learning and considerable
pace and humor.
Fields of Honor: Pivotal Battles of the Civil War,
by Edwin C. Bearss (Author), James McPherson (Introduction). Description: Bearss,
a former chief historian of the National Parks Service and internationally recognized American Civil War historian, chronicles
14 crucial battles, including Fort Sumter, Shiloh, Antietam, Gettysburg, Vicksburg, Chattanooga, Sherman's march through the
Carolinas, and Appomattox--the battles ranging between 1861 and 1865; included is an introductory chapter describing John
Brown's raid in October 1859. Bearss describes the
terrain, tactics, strategies, personalities, the soldiers and the commanders. (He personalizes the generals and politicians,
sergeants and privates.) Continued below...
The text is augmented by 80 black-and-white photographs and 19 maps. It is like touring the battlefields
without leaving home. A must for every one of America's countless Civil War buffs,
this major work will stand as an important reference and enduring legacy of a great historian for generations to come. "This
stout volume covers not only the pivotal American Civil War battles, but also the bloodiest and costliest battles." Also
available in hardcover: Fields of Honor: Pivotal Battles of the Civil War.


Stanza theory and conventions
There are four overlapping ways of handling rhymes and stanzas in European poetry, although only the easiest one has any importance in classic English poetry. Three of these techniques are usually referred to by their Provençal name, for reasons that are unclear to anybody but some long-dead Occitanic scholar.
The first one is called coblas continuadas; in it, any set of rhymed endings is restricted to a single stanza and no other one; this means that any rhyming pattern is resumed in the next stanza with a different set and generally no reference to the preceding one. In a few words, each line of a stanza only rhymes with other lines within the same stanza. This is the common way of writing poems both in English and in most other modern European languages.
As virtually every rhymed English poem you can quickly think of falls into this category, the Present Author refrains from bugging you with one more example, and for that you should be grateful to Him for centuries to come.
The second technique is called coblas capcaudadas; with it, one or more rhymes are carried from one stanza to the following one, so that they affect two stanzas only and not the whole work.
The third and even rarer one, coblas unissonantis consists in keeping the exact same rhymes the exact same positions in all stanzas.
Last but not least, there is the rime en kyrielle technique, which consists in periodically repeating an entire line. It is to be noted that some of the forms we shall analyse sometimes do not fall precisely in any one of these groups, but they can usually be assimilated to them. Furthermore, two or more techniques can be combined in the same poem: a piece written entirely in rime en kyrielle would just be a silly repetition of the same thing, for example, so that the reoccurring verses are complemented by new ones which are connected to them according to one, or more, of the three other ways of arranging verses.
All this may seem complicated, but the practical cases will immediately show how elementary the underlying concepts are; what actually matters is understanding that these four basic techniques, applied according to the taste of the poet, produce the endless variety of classic verse, and that the theoretical attempts at classifying hundreds of different verse forms appear to be idle and vain when compared to the more general idea. The case of the ode, which immediately follows, is by far the most prominent.
Under this tattered flag are grouped an endless number of poems made of equal stanzas in coblas continuadas. Such a poem need not be always called an 'ode', and oftentimes it is not even referred to as a verse form in itself; the rules generally applied in its construction are:
Belle rose porporine
che tra spine
sull'aurora non aprite;
ma, ministre degli amori,
di bei denti custodite:
Dite, rose prezïose,
dite, ond'è, che s'io m'affiso
nel bel guardo vivo ardente,
disciogliete un bel sorriso?
E' ciò forse per aïta
di mia vita,
che non regge alle vostr'ire?
O pur è perché voi siete
me mirando in sul morire?
Belle rose, o feritate,
del sì far la cagion sia,
io vo' dire in nuovi modi
ma ridete tuttavia.
Se bel rio, se bell'auretta
sul mattin mormorando erra;
se di fiori un praticello
si fa bello;
noi diciam: ride la terra.
Quando avvien che un zefiretto
bagni il piè nell'onde chiare,
sicché l'acqua in sulla rena
noi diciam che ride il mare.
Se giammai tra fior vermigli
se tra gigli
vesta l'alba un aureo velo;
e su rote di zaffiro
move in giro;
noi diciam che ride il cielo.
Ben è ver, quand'è giocondo
ride il mondo,
ride il ciel quand'è gioioso:
ben è ver; ma non san poi
fare un riso grazïoso.
The easiest, basest kind of coblas continuadas (and of verse in general) is the rhyming couplet. Dearly loved by rhymesters and pop singers of all ages, this metre has become so common so quickly it actually features an impressive amount of decent, good and even masterly pieces. It is impossible to track back this verse to its origins, which are certainly to be found in the transition of Latin from a quantitative to an inflected language, and maybe even before that (hints of rhyming can be seen in some perfectly classic hexameters), but it was certainly already obsolete when the first Romance poems we know were written; in spite of that, rhyming couplets enjoyed an unrivalled popularity in the late Middle Ages, when they became the metre of the French and English lai. A rhyming couplet is simply a pair of verses, usually of the same type, rhyming with each other; several of these units are arrayed, without necessarily having any logical or phonetic interruption in between. Perhaps the true masterpiece of the kind is Verlaine's 'Effet de nuit'.
La nuit. La pluie. Un ciel blafard que déchiquette
De flèches et de tours à jour la silhouette
D'une ville gothique éteinte au lointain gris.
La plaine. Un gibet plein de pendus rabougris
Secoués par le bec avide des corneilles
Et dansant dans l'air noir des gigues nonpareilles,
Tandis que leurs pieds sont la pâture des loups.
Quelques buissons d'épine épars, et quelques houx
Dressant l'horreur de leur feuillage à droite, à gauche,
Sur le fuligineux fouillis d'un fond d'ébauche.
Et puis, autour de trois livides prisonniers
Qui vont pieds nus, un gros de hauts pertuisaniers
En marche, et leurs fers droits, comme des fers de herse,
Luisent à contresens des lances de l'averse.
English examples are found throughout all the history of British literature, from Chaucer to Eliot, and particularly
in the most shallow Cavalier poets; Marlowe's
translations of Ovid' Elegies are an example of a less deleterious use of the form.
Couplets are used in classic European poetry basically only in English and French; they are avoided in Italian because they sound somewhat sing-songy, and Provençal authors seemed to think of them as too primitive a device. No Spanish example is known to the Present Author, who, however, from the abysms of his ignorance in the field, cannot say whether any exist.
Starting from the middle of the 19th century, an increasing number of authors wrote rhyming couplets composed of verses of arbitrary length; this form, of which the best examples are perhaps to be found in Ogden Nash's work, is not strictly a type of coblas continuadas anymore.
This is merely the name given by most English authors to odes made mostly of, or to couplets made exclusively of, verses with an odd number of metrical syllables (which, as already stated in chapter one, sound sing-songy). Most rock and country lyrics fit in this definition as well.
This is the first prosody manual ever, and maybe the last, revealing this truth to the people.
Songs are fairly common, often treat of Springtime and/or love, and tend to be demented and annoying; songs, or fragments of them, are often included in Renaissance plays in a vain effort to wake up the onlooker: even the gloomiest Webster at times resorts to this childish device as in 'The Duchess of Malfi' (albeit he manages to be anamorphic even in that, and lengthening some verses and shortening others while keeping the general effect):
Hark now every thing is still
The screech-owl and whistler still
Call upon our Dame, aloud
And bid her quick don her shroud.
Much you had of land and rent,
Your length in clay's now competent.
A long war disturb'd your mind,
Here your perfect peace is sign'd.
Of what is't fools make such vain keeping?
Sin their conception, their birth weeping:
Epigrams are not too clearly defined as a form; they have antique origins, being already common in decadent Latin authors, particularly Seneca and Martial. Through the influence of the latter author, epigrams were introduced in English as a type of short, rhymed metre used for trenchant humour, personal attacks, and/or triviality.
Prosodically speaking, epigrams generally are made of a single stanza, often a short one; as the original Latin ones are written in distichs, English ones tend to be either made of couplets of uniform verses, or of alternated patterns of one longer and one shorter verse.
An example of the former type is provided by Sir John Harrington's translation of Martial's 'To one that had meat ill dressed':
King Mithridate to poysons so inur'd him
As deadly poysons damage non procur'd him
So you to stale vnsauorie foode and durtie,
are so inur'd, as famine ne're can hurt yee.
Whereas the latter type is well illustrated by the Earl of Rochester's 'On Charles II':
God bless our Good and Gracious King,
Whose Promise none relies on;
Who never said a Foolish Thing,
Nor ever did a Wise One.
Famous epigrams were written by John Donne and Ben Jonson; the latter was quite prone to use this otherwise polemical form for toadying, as one can see in this example.
As hinted above, the ballad is basically a barbaric involution of an ode with four lines in each stanza. The various degrees of the transition (Darwin, envy me!) are apparent in some of Robert Burns' works. Its verses usually have an easy but irregular rhythm, and they often either have eight metric syllables or four beats (or both features). The second line of each stanza rimes with the fourth, while the first and third are unrhymed (or rime with each other, but that is rare); the last one is sometimes shorter than the other three, carrying only three beats (or six metric syllables, or both).
Ballads are used for storytelling, usually for melancholic and corny tales about damsels and knights; well-crafted samples of this typically 18th century form sound somewhat archaic, so that the layman uses to think it originated in mediaeval ages (during which, instead, the world 'unrhymed' was never applied to poetry by any sane man).
Ballads are exclusive to English and the Scottish (non Celtic) dialect; Coleridge was certainly thinking of them when writing his 'Rhyme of the Ancient Marineer', and Keats' 'La Belle Dame Sans Merci' is definitely an example.
Logically speaking, this form is the simplest possible application of the concept of coblas capifinidas: it is made by a sequence of stanzas of three verses each of the same type, of which the two extreme ones rhyme with each other, while the inner one rhymes with the first (and then also with the last) line of the next stanza, thus creating a pattern of the type:
Until now, in this chapter, we have mostly been frolicking around with forms one can easily use to write a list of his desiderata at the greengrocer's shop down the lane; the Present Author is actually able to do that in a pantoum as well (although He is keeping to his promise not to flaunt His skill and shan't do it here), but freely admits it takes some time and concentration.
The pantoum is a peculiarly abstruse classic Malay open form that has been introduced into French poetry by Hugo, through a translation in his 'Orientales'; the metre is so difficult that, up to today there is no example in classic literature that fits exactly in its definition, which is the following:
A piece in this style, and probably the most popular pantoum ever written, is Baudelaire's 'Harmonie du Soir' A more relaxed, and therefore more popular, convention rhymes the first line with the third and the second with the fourth, producing a completely different effect, but at least dramatically easying the execution to the scheme:
ABAB 2C4C 6D8D ...
Albeit obviously a simplification, this second definition of pantoum is used by such poets as Banville and Laforgue and, in England, by Henry Austin Dobson, whose 'In Town' is a good example of the form. A quite widespread opinion in some (allegedly) English-speaking countries pretends pantoums are only a mean by which one can write a 'poem' of 2n+4 lines while squeezing only n+4 of them out of his miserable brains: we have too high an opinion of our Reader's tastes to irk him with examples of this kind.
Pantoums are used in Malay, French and English, usually for melancholy descriptive pieces; it is quite interesting to notice that the word 'pantum' in Malay doesn't indicate any form in particular, and just means 'poem'.
The virelai ancien is likely the most difficult form in coblas capifinidas ever devised. It is made of a sequence of 12-line stanzas; in each of these, lines 1, 2, 4, 5, 7, 8, 10 and 11 rime with each other and have eight metrical syllables; lines 3, 6, 9, and 12 rime with each other and have four metrical syllables. The pattern is therefore
One can go on like that as long as he wishes, but the shorter lines in the last stanza must rime with the longer ones in the first. The Present author is aware that this is a terrible mess, and sorry he is unable to provide you with any example, as he himself suspects none exists (although Chaucer's virelai is in coblas capifinidas and resembles our definition a bit), and that this metre is merely a speculation. Anyway, a virelai ancien, e.g., of five stanzas would have this structure:
The troubadouric song is perfectly alike to an ode, and follows the same rules with one difference: its stanzas are rhymed as coblas unissonantis rather than as coblas continuadas (refer to the first paragraph), although rhyming also within the same stanza is neither forbidden nor particularly rare; also, unlike the ode, this metre is almost invariably concluded by an envoi (by several of them, at times), which is built exactly as the other stanzas, but with a number of lines removed starting from the top (the examples will clarify this point better).
The term 'troubadouric song' is appropriate to the most common usage of this form in French and, mostly, Provençal, but it is not standard, and its definition as such is probably exclusive to this guide.
This type of metre was the most popular one among 'trobar clus' Provençal poets around the turn of the XII century, but has found applications in French in the same age and in Italian, although very seldom, in the late mediaeval age; the involvement of English in this form was triggered by T. S. Eliot, who shows interest for it in several works. Here are some examples:
Petrarca's 'Verdi panni, sanguigni, oscuri o persi'
'Ans que sim reston de branchas' by Arnaut Daniel
The second part of 'The Dry Salvages' quartet by T. S. Eliot
This form has been originally devised for courtly love songs, but it has occasionally been employed for lechery, war songs and political themes -- almost everything aside from descriptions.
The virelai nouveau is among the rarest metres, and one of the most unclear in its definition; there certainly are French examples, and some authors seem convinced that English and Latin ones exist as well; it only shares the first part of the name with the virelai ancien, and it is an even more difficult to write.
This form starts with a couplet, ends with the same (sometimes turned upside-down), and is made of stanzas that use only two rhymes, ending alternately with one line of the starting couplet or the other. Banville's 'Virelai a mes editeurs' is a good example, and Tennyson is said to have written something in this style as well.
This as far as the theory goes; actual virelais generally appear as a disorderly sequences, in which the two rhymes of the first stanza are used alternately in the other ones, and the first line also concludes every even stanza, and the poem.
Probably, the most famous example is 'Je chante par couverture' by C. Pisan; a more confusing specimen is this one by Deschamps. The English poem that perhaps approaches most closely the French virelai is the short piece that concludes Chaucer's The Parliament of Foules. Of course, as said before, the many English villanelles can be regarded as virelais nouveaux as well.
A form of Spanish origin, the glose has found acceptance in Central and South America as well, but has never encountered much favour in other linguistic areas. It consists of two parts: a head made of a few verses (usually four), often written by someone different from the author of the rest of the piece and a tail made of as many stanzas as the verses in the head are. Each stanza is built as a normal ode's, but must end with the corresponding verse of the head: the first stanza ends with the first verse of the head, the second stanza with the second verse and so forth. There is no general rule concerning the construction of the stanzas, except that they must be in coblas continuadas. The rondeau redoublé is, clearly, a variety of this form, so the Voiture example given in the former chapter should do for a French example; an English one has been written by Porter Garnett on a quatrain by E. Fitzgerald, while Spanish glosas range from the mystical ones by Juana Inés de la Cruz to the modern 'Ritmos negros del Perú' by singer Nicomedes Santa Cruz.
'Glosa' roughly means 'explanation' in Spanish, so that this form is practically the long unfolding of a concept contained in the few lines of the head. The character of this poem is then usually religious or philosophical and the opening lines are usually deeply gnomic.
Another variation on the glose (actually, a proper one turned upside-down) is the sonnet redoublé, a sequence in which the opening lines of fourteen sonnets are combined, in order, to form a fifteenth; it was popular in Elizabethian times.
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During the Paleolithic era, from about 35,000 years ago and over the next 25,000 years, toward the end of the last major Ice Age, Cro-Magnon’s artistic expression reached a critical mass as seen in cave paintings all over Europe, Asia, Siberia, Australia and Africa – throughout the old world.
The earliest known example of deliberate patterns made by ancient humans predates Paleolithic cave art by several hundred thousand years. Identified in 2014 by an international team of scientists, the zig-zag patterned shell was carbon-dated to as far back as 430,000–540,000 years ago, which discounts the possibility that it was made by either Neanderthals or modern humans.
The shell was actually found in 1891 on the Indonesian island of Java by the Dutch paleontologist Eugene Dubois who discovered “Java Man,” now known as Homo erectus. It took 123 years, great advances in technology, and perhaps a change of expectation and attitude about our place in the world, before we were able to entertain the idea that abstract thought and the expression of it might possibly have existed in our pre-human ancestors – and to recognize that these shell markings were deliberately made.
Such deliberate markings were until then thought to be indicative exclusively of modern cognition and behavior, originating with Homo sapiens in Africa. This find was at least four times older than what was previously the oldest known etched artefact – geometric carvings in a sample of ochre found in South Africa’s Blombos Cave. This meant the shell engravings would have to have been made by our pre-Neanderthal ancestor, Homo erectus, and pushed the origin of the ability to deliberately engrave back by at least 300,000 years.
In this same period these early ancestors first recognized symbolic representation: the Acheulian figurine Tan-Tan (500,000–300,000 years old), to date the oldest known hominid representation, and the Berekhat Ram female figurine from Israel, (250,000–280,000 years old), both appear to have been created by nature, but then manually modified in places. They were the first steps to creating three-dimensional portable art that would become prevalent during the Paleolithic period.
These more recent findings in no way undercut the exponential growth of the art we know as Paleolithic. But they serve to remind us that the evolution of our journey to become modern human, capable of abstract symbolic thought, was a long one – it may well have taken more than 500,000 years! By about 30,000–40,000 years ago the capacity for abstract thought and symbolic representation finally became a stable and universal capacity of the human mind and one of the universal traits that we share with all other humans. It enabled us to communicate in an unprecedented way, and build the world we know today. We were the same human beings then as we are now.
Prior to this time human artistic and creative abilities existed but were far less widespread. Portable representations of the human figure have been dated as far back as 502,000 BCE from Africa and 302,000 BCE from present-day Israel. But from about 35,000 years ago, and over the next fifteen thousand years, throughout the last Ice Age, Cro-Magnon’s artistic expression reached a critical mass and spread not only all over Europe, Asia and Siberia but also appeared in Australia and Africa – throughout the old world.
About 45,000 years ago Cro-Magnon developed blades and spear-throwers with a considerably greater range, velocity and penetration than earlier examples so far found. Hunters could now kill large animals from a longer, much safer, distance. With these new inventions, population densities rose in some areas, with much more contact between neighbors. Hunting technologies were quite possibly shared between groups, and so methods and tools evolved rapidly as human migrations followed reindeer and bison.
Over this period our ancestors invented burins to help make tools from antlers, such as bone spears and harpoons that were often beautifully engraved and carved. They crafted small bone needles from which to fashion vital, multilayered clothing for insulation and to survive the extreme temperature fluctuations. Ornamentation symbols of kinships, status and collective identity have been found from this period.
Venus figurines dating from this same period have been found over an expanse of territory from the west of Europe into Russia. This suggests that people were linked across these vast distances, communicating and developing social relationships that would be advantageous at a time when food resources were limited or depleted in specific areas.
Creativity in Response to Crisis
As we see throughout our human journey, creative insight and actions flower in response to problems.
The most intense artistic activity happened just as the Ice Age reached its most severe (approximately 40,000–15,000 years ago), then about 10,000 years ago, it virtually disappeared as the Ice Age finally ended. This leads some anthropologists to think that our early ancestors made art to help them survive the Ice Age world. If this is true, how did it do this?
For early humans living in Europe 35,000 years ago, the climate must have presented extreme hardship and been quite terrifying. Within a few years their climate transformed from one very much like our own to one more like Siberia, with brutally cold winters that eventually lasted through spring and summer. Freezing temperatures prevailed with very little respite. For years, endless snow and ice simply accumulated and deepened, covering Europe with glaciers, forcing many humans to flee, die out, and, thankfully for us, some to adapt.
About 20,000 BCE the landscape was glacier-dominated. A mile-high polar ice cap enshrouded Scandinavia and most of northern Europe. Elsewhere harsh conditions favored grassland that provided fodder for large grazing mammals such as mammoth, bison, aurochs, horses, reindeer and elk.
Cave Paintings: Cosmic Maintenance and The First Recorded Stories
Within a 25,000-year period of the Ice Age – more than twelve times the age of Christianity – extraordinary cave art covered most of Europe, from Andalusia in Spain to the Ural Mountains of central Russia. Today we know of approximately three hundred sites, but scholars suggest there must have been thousands. Hopefully some have still to be discovered.
These cave paintings, engravings and carvings are the very first record we have of our ability to create two-dimensional representations of three dimensional figures. They may well be our first recorded stories. They reveal realistic portraits of the magnificent animals our early ancestors lived alongside, perhaps preyed on, and in some cases most certainly were the prey of.
Some were created possibly to show how animals were tracked, or to describe herd movements that not only aided hunting, but might also have predicted climate change. Others may have been created for reasons of “Cosmic Maintenance” functioning chiefly as part of a ritual whereby human beings connect and collaborate with the spirit world to assist in keeping the world and their survival in good working order.
In Chauvet Cave (southern France) dangerous animals such as cave bears, rhinoceroses, lions and even a spotted leopard are depicted. Scholars feel that these may well have been selected for their symbolic power. Cave images have been found, such as in the Lascaux Caves in southwestern France, that appear to have pockmarks made by pointed spears, possibly thrown in a ritual to “wound” the animal and so ensure future hunting success.
These artists were precise observers of the animals around them. They could define an animal’s rump, back, and body with a single line. Just a few more lines, and antlers and muscles stand out. They made use of cave cracks and protuberances. Flickering torchlight, would render the illusion of movement and three-dimensionality.
These images were found in deep caves that were not used for habitation or burial. Human skeletons have been found in the large rock shelters at cave entrances, but none in the caverns below. It seems much more likely that, over thousands of years, these hidden spaces were used only for ritual practices. Hand prints, both male and female, and some quite small suggest sacred areas where men and women and even children participated in rituals of initiation. Some caves appear to have been chosen for their echo quality. Bone flutes have been found on cave floors indicating that ceremonies involving music took place.
As Steven Mithen writes in Thoughtful Foragers: A Study of Prehistoric Decision Making, “This art was part of modern human ecological adaptation to their environment. The art functioned to extend human memory, to hold concepts which are difficult for minds to grasp, and to instigate creative thinking about the solution of environmental and social problems.”
Some scholars suggest that elements in cave paintings found around the world can be interpreted as a regular system of symbols which may have been the origins of written language.
It seems very likely that at this point in history we first began to conceive of a tiered cosmos – a world below our world and one above – and to formulate rituals to encounter forces above and below the physical world that influence our life and that might in turn be influenced by us, an idea that has been with us ever since.
At this point, we can say that our ancestors, not only physically but psychologically, became modern human beings. Our need to solve problems, seeking always to innovate and improve on previous solutions, together with our quest to understand the world and our place it in – our current human journey – began then.
Origin of Two Dimensional Art: Re-connecting with the Spirit World
So two dimensional representational art is not an innate human ability. The cave artists were reproducing the visions they saw while in a trance state.
The South African archeologist and scholar David Lewis-Williams spent years studying and explaining the method and meaning of the art of the hunter-gatherer San peoples of South Africa. His work with the San included accumulating ethnological data, neurophysiological research and an in-depth study of the rock art of South Africa.
In 1995, he began a collaboration with the eminent prehistorian Jean Clottes. Together they studied 12 French caves with examples of Paleolithic parietal (or rock) art dating from the earliest Gravettian (26,000–20,000 BCE) period to the ancient, Middle and Upper Magdalenian (12000–9000 BCE).
Both he and Clottes were familiar with many of the known religious traditions and art of other early peoples, for example in Siberia, the Americas and Australia.
They suggest that, like the images of the San and other shamanic artists, many of these Paleolithic images were created as part of a ritual that took place in the caves in which our early ancestors re-created and re-worked their out-of-body visions. The very act of painting or engraving the images evoked these same animal spirits, or transformed shaman-spirit-animals, calling them from the underworld through the cave walls into their presence. In this way their supernatural power and the experience of it became palpable and accessible to those present.
Says Lewis-Williams, “People didn’t one day invent making pictures. What happened was that people were familiar with the images that their brains were producing which were being projected onto cave walls and ceilings. And they wanted to nail down and make permanent those images, those visions that they saw.”
Some images seem to have been created by spitting the ochre and charcoal onto the wall. The prehistoric art specialist Michel Lorblanchet who has reproduced elements in this way, feels that this spit-painting, common among aboriginals, may have had a symbolic significance. “Human breath, the most profound expression of a human being, literally breathes life onto a cave wall. The painter projected his being onto the rock.” Moreover, the being of the shaman artist was the animal spirit. He or she was one with the image evoked.
The Shamans of Prehistory
Clottes and Lewis-Williams’ investigations of the caves lead them to conclude that not only their art but the layout of the caves themselves were employed to induce, control and exploit altered states of consciousness. In this way members of the community were initiated and became the world’s first ritual practitioners, priests or shamans.
As archeologist Paul G. Bahn reports in The Cambridge Illustrated History of Prehistoric Art, “… some of the art in deep caves appears to be ‘public’, being easily visible in large, readily accessible chambers. However, a great deal of it is undeniably ‘private’, in small niches, or chambers only accessible through a long journey or after negotiating difficult physical obstacles necessitating climbs, crawls or tight squeezes.
There are cases – as with the famous Ice Age clay bison of France’s Tuc d’Audoubert – where the very act of making the journey and of producing the images seems to have been what mattered; the artist(s) never returned to visit their work.”
To increase their chances of safety and survival, these people needed desperately to make sense of everything around them. Life and death were not hidden away, packaged and sanitized as they are in the societies of most of us, but experienced by individuals every day. It seems very likely that during this early period the spirit world and its power was more – or, at least, as – present and essential as the world of everyday life.
Our early ancestors were animists, they experienced a vital spirit inherent in all things everywhere: humans, animals, plants, rocks, mountains, rivers, and the weather. Robert Wright points out in The Evolution of God that “… if you asked hunter-gatherers what their religion is, they wouldn’t know what you were talking about. The kinds of beliefs and rituals we label “religious” are so tightly interwoven into their everyday thought and action that they don’t have a word for them. We may label some of their explanations of how the world works “supernatural” and others “naturalistic,” but those are our categories, not theirs.”
Their different circumstances meant that they favored different mental abilities. Areas of the brain that are now taken up with vocabularies of over 20,000 words and our ability to read them were used for different capacities they needed to survive. Language then was in its infancy, but our ancestors may well have been just as comfortable with alternate forms of communication: relying much more on their senses than we do today.
The ability of all the senses to observe in detail and “read” – facial expressions, the movement of grasses and animals, the night sky; to identify sounds with accuracy – a footstep, a vocal sound, a taste, a smell, and so on – would have essential implications for safety and far-reaching consequences for survival and understanding of themselves and their world.
In the book The Wind is my Mother: Life and Teachings of a Native American Shaman, the contemporary Muskogee Creek Indian shaman, Bear Heart, talks of the early days of his people: “The environment was our starting point in learning as much as we could from what was around us – the seasons, the things that grow, the animals, the birds, and various other life forms. Then we would begin the long process of trying to learn about that which is within ourselves. We didn’t have any textbooks, we didn’t have great psychiatrists who lived years ago and presented theories in this and that. We had to rely on something else, and that was our senses. Rather than through scientific investigation, we sensed those things within and around us.”
The ratio of Paleolithic peoples who experienced altered states of consciousness was considerably higher than at any time in our history – initially the majority of people perhaps had this capacity. Caves and the selected areas deep within them appear to have been chosen specifically to stimulate this trance state in shamanic ritual. It was obviously highly valued, and likely shared and encouraged with all members of the group. In the 1950’s the anthropologist Lorna Marshall in her monograph Nyae Nyae !Kung Beliefs and Rights noted that about half the men in a !Kung or San camp in the Kalahari desert were shamans and about a third of the women. Sharing such an important capacity is made all the more likely when we consider that egalitarianism is key to the hunter-gatherer lifestyle and survival. James Suzman’s Affluence Without Abundance: The Disappearing World of the Bushmen gives an excellent example of how far people will go to ensure it. He reminds us that meat is highly valued and yet, rather than praise the successful hunter, people went to great lengths to ensure that he didn’t see himself as above everyone else. The meat was very carefully distributed according to a strict etiquette, and in a ritual called “insulting the meat,” anyone consuming it went to great trouble to be rude about it. The insults are designed to “cool his heart and make him gentle.”
Deep in the caves, in darkness or flickering torchlight, Paleolithic participants in shamanistic rituals would rhythmically move and perhaps chant. They would experience oxygen deprivation (anoxia), conditions that would destabilize them and help to induce a trance state. While in these altered states, they would communicate with the spirit worlds whose transferred power enabled them to solve a variety of problems: changing the weather, foretelling the future, healing the sick, discerning what was edible, the right time to hunt specific animals, and quite possibly predicting and controlling these animals by supernatural means.
What better way to survive than to seek to understand, harmonize and possibly acquire some control over these external forces, whether they be in this or the spirit world? As Karen Armstrong says in her book The Case for God “The desire to cultivate a sense of the transcendent may be the defining human characteristic.” It began the moment we became modern man.
Shaman-like activities have been perpetuated by prophets and spiritual teachers throughout our history. Zoroaster spent seven years meditating in the solitude of a mountain cave. His visionary insights were stimulated by mantras, prayers and an intoxicating drink called Haoma which was thought to grant users “temporary immortality.” Max Weber in his classic book Ancient Judaism noted that many of the Hebrew prophets exhibited shaman-like behavior, “They described visual and auditory hallucinations and abnormal sensations of taste and feeling of diverse sorts. …They felt as if they were floating…or borne through the air, they experienced clairvoyant visions of spatially distant events like, allegedly, Ezekiel in Babylon at the hour of Jerusalem’s fall. …They saw hallucinatory blinding flashes of light and in it the figures of superhuman beings.”
Stephen K. Sanderson in his book Religious Evolution and the Axial Age, asserts that “Christ was the most ‘shaman-like’ of all the prophets … Christianity reproduced many elements of the shamanic tradition, and this gave it great appeal. In terms of the similarities between Christ and shamans, consider the following…
- Shamans often spend periods of time in seclusion undergoing intense ordeals, during which they hone their skills; Jesus spent forty days alone in the wilderness as part of his development.
- Shamans have special contact with the world of spirits; Jesus was in direct contact with God the Father.
- Shamans above all heal and cure; Jesus healed the sick and the lame.
- Shamans enter the world of spirits and often ascend to the sky; Jesus upon resurrection ascended to the sky.
- Potential shamans often undergo an initiatory ritual death from which they are resurrected; Jesus, of course, was resurrected.
- Shamans in some regions, such as Australia, undergo initiation in caves; Jesus’s body was put in a tomb and he was resurrected in this tomb.
- Shamans always have spirit helpers; Jesus had helpers in the form of disciples, Christ helpers in the form of angels, etc.
- In their curing rituals shamans often look for the sick person’s lost soul in order to restore it to the person; Christ saves your soul from eternal damnation.”
The Prophet Mohammad used to go regularly to a mountain cave called Hira, three miles north of Mecca. There in isolation he would meditate, contemplate and pray. It was in the year 610 AD, during one of these retreats, that the Angel Gabriel first appeared before him and commanded him to “Recite.”
The Three Stages of Altered Consciousness
Clottes and Lewis-Williams point out that although shamanic cultures are very different from one another, there are remarkable similarities that point to a basic human universal: the way the human nervous system behaves in altered states.
When they looked at how people became shamans, they found that all initiates either experience altered states involuntarily (hallucinations, visions, etc.) or took certain steps to induce them.
A Native American apprentice shaman might go on a vision quest, and, through hunger, pain, intense concentration and isolation from society induce a trance state where his spirit animal helper appears to him and he is filled with its supernatural potency. A South African San man or woman who wishes to become a shaman might dance with an experienced shaman until he or she achieves a trance state.
Prolonged privations, isolation, sacred places, rhythmic repetitive movements, chanting, protracted dancing, hyperventilation, intense concentration and hallucinogens are the elements selected and combined in various ways, depending upon the culture, as the individual seeks to achieve a deep trance state that connects him or her to the spirit world. The spirit encountered in this state bestows a supernatural power on the initiate. It is this power that enables an individual to function as a shaman, to address and solve the problems brought to him or her.
Neurophysiological studies of the trance state have shown that three overlapping stages can be identified:
In stage one, people “see” geometric forms, which can be brightly colored, flicker and pulsate, enlarging, contracting and blending one with another.
Second, the geometric forms are illusioned into objects of religious or emotional significance.
The third state, as Clottes and Lewis-Williams describe in The Shamans of Prehistory, “… is reached via a vortex, or tunnel. Subjects feel themselves drawn into the vortex, at the end of which is a bright light. On the sides of the vortex is a lattice derived from the geometric imagery of Stage One. In the compartments of this lattice are the first true hallucinations of people, animals, and so forth.”
These are described as like projected images, floating across animated surfaces, walls and ceilings. The scholars note that what the subject “sees” in this third stage is culturally determined: people see what they expect to see. A shaman might “see” an animal spirit, a Christian mystic, her favorite saint.
In this third stage hunter-gatherer societies believe that a shaman’s spirit leaves his body. Often people feel they can fly and change into birds or animals – become one with their hallucination, so to speak. Quite frequently the subject descends into the underworld.
According to Clottes and Lewis-Williams, “The ubiquity among shamanic groups of beliefs concerning descent into the earth may be explained by the neurologically generated sensations of the vortex that draws people into the third and deepest stage of trance, the state in which they experience hallucinations of animals, monsters, and so forth. The vortex creates sensations of darkness, constriction, and, sometimes, difficulty in breathing. Entry into an actual hole in the ground or a cave replicates and is a physical enactment of this neuropsychological experience. …
But entry into a cave does not only replicate the vortex; it may also induce altered states of consciousness. The social isolation, sensory deprivation, and cold that characterize caves are important factors in the induction of trance. During the Upper Paleolithic, entry into an actual cave may therefore have been seen as virtually the same thing as entry into deep trance via the vortex. The hallucinations induced by entry into and isolation in a cave probably combined with the images already on the walls to create a rich and animated spiritual realm. A complex link between caves and altered states seems undeniable.”
So shamans universally operate within a tiered cosmos. From the everyday world, they can fly to the spirits above and descend to the spirits below. This, too, is reflected in the three-tiered world of the Paleolithic caves, selected because they would help induce the states of consciousness that connected the initiates to the spirit worlds.
Over thousands of years, individuals and groups of people exploited the way each cave was structured, its topography, passages and chambers to reflect this tiered cosmos – the arched roof, the ground-level gathering places of ordinary life and the narrow passageways that lead to the caverns below. Echoes of this same idea have persisted to this day in our own religious architecture.
At Lascaux (15,000 BCE) the westward facing entrance has a 12° downward slope that leads to the paintings in a large cavern known as the Hall of the Bulls. At the sunset of the Summer Solstice, the sun’s rays penetrate far into the cave and reach the Hall of the Bulls where they illuminate several already awe-inspiring paintings. This is the first evidence we have of the shaman priesthood harnessing the power of the Sun, a god that in the next Neolithic era would be similarly worshipped in environments created by our ancestors for that purpose.
Daniel Smith, The Conversation
Given the ubiquity of storytelling, it may perform an important adaptive role in human societies by broadcasting social norms to coordinate social behavior and promote cooperation.
James Q. Jacobs
With recent cave art discoveries and the accurate dating of the rock paintings, our concepts of human evolution have undergone significant transformations.
Ian Sample, The Guardian
Neanderthals painted on cave walls in Spain 65,000 years ago – tens of thousands of years before modern humans arrived.
What cultural role did this 4.4″ tall statuette of a female figure play in society over 25,000 years ago?
Robin McKie, The Guardian
In Chauvet and Lascaux caves 26 specific signs are used repeatedly. These markings are no mere abstract scribbles but appear to be a code that was painted on to rock by the Cro-Magnon people, who lived in Europe 30,000 years ago.
Bruce Bower, Wired
60,000 year old ostrich eggshells engraved with geometric designs demonstrates the existence of a symbolic communication system among Stone Age hunter-gatherers.
Paul Goldsmith, ASC and Alan P. Garfinkel
Hidden away in the canyons of a top secret military base on the edge of the Mojave Desert is the largest concentration of rock art in North America. Created over thousands of years by a now vanished culture, it represents the oldest art in California. Talking Stone explores the remote canyons and mysteries surrounding these amazing images.


My 7th grade Language Arts students will be starting the novel, Seedfolks by Paul Feischman this week.
I really wanted to do something different, like my Literature Circles. However, I only have 8 students in this intervention class, and I knew I needed to make some modifications for something like this to work this year.
This new collection of Seedfolks Chapter Worksheets has 13 graphic organizers (all the same, but labeled with each character’s name.)
I plan on completing the first few together, and then have them work with a partner or group on others. At some point near the end of the novel, they will do one on their own for a grade.
I also made 8 different pages that look like this:
Each page will ask the students to list three character traits, which is a review from earlier in the year. Also, on each page, the students will have to ask one question, as if they were talking to the character in the chapter. I’m excited to see what they come up with for this box! The box across the bottom and the box on the right-hand side are different on each of the eight pages, covering a variety of reading skills including:
- Making Connections
- Author’s Craft
- Asking Questions
- Evaluating Text
My plan will be to pass a different one out to each student at the start of the chapter, and then we will discuss in a literature circle type fashion.
Seedfolks is based on the concept of individuals coming together to create a community garden. My lessons will be based on the concept of a community of readers.
I may just call them my “Readfolks. “
As the Resource Room teacher, I have some flexibility in choosing my novels, based on my group each year. This semester, I chose The Giver. What a wonderful book!! I’ve always loved it, and after seeing the movie, I knew this was the perfect book for my 8th graders.
My thematic foundation for this nine weeks is a continuation of the 2nd nine weeks: “Opinions, Choices, and Consequences.” My students are continuing to make connections between their choices and actions and the consequences of those decisions. This life lesson is one that all young adults need to learn.
As we are have just began the novel, the focus is on “Adherence to the Rules” and how the rules shape the setting, affect the characters, and create conflict. The students need to understand the general rules of the society before we move on in the story. In the first few chapters of the novel, students have been making observations and inferences and analyzing the text to predict and determine the conflict in the novel.
Through the close-reading and analysis of The Giver, students will actively use reading strategies that will enhance their comprehension of the literature. The strategy I am using is called “Notice and Note.” It comes from the book Notice & Note: Strategies for Close Reading by Kylene Beers & Robert E. Probst. This is a strategy I read about over Christmas break. The strategy prompts students to seek 6 different signals from the author. Over the course of the novel, students will learn to use these signposts independently as they read. The Signposts include:
- Contrasts and Contradictions
- Again and Again
- Memory Moments
- Words of the Wiser
- Aha Moment
- Tough Questions
I did not purchase the book which was a little pricey. Between Pinterest and some general research I was able to piece things together and find a way to make the strategy work for my students.
So far, so great. I can’t think of a more perfect book to introduce this strategy. The first three chapters alone are full of examples of Contrasts and Contradictions, Again and Again, and Memory Moments.
It has been very exciting watching my students’ hands shoot up in the air as I read something that needs to be marked. Right now, as a class, they have a lot of questions:
What is going on in this community? Why are there so many rules? Who made up these rules? Why don’t the people think it’s strange? When does this book take place? Is this our future?
Some students caught on very quickly and only needed a day to understand the signposts, which I introduced one at a time. (We’ve only covered the first three so far.) Others are having a little more difficulty, but through guided practice and a lot of discussion, I see more and more students participating with confidence.
I typically read a short passage from the chapter out loud. When I see several students marking their books, I pause and we talk. One thing I’ve noticed is my students aren’t highlighting EVERYTHING like they typically do. They are searching and listening for specific pieces of information (the signposts) which helps them really focus on what’s happening in the novel.
As I hand out assignments for community work or dwelling work (more on this later), I remind students to look at the annotations they’ve already made in their books because that is where they will likely find the answers to important questions.
If you are in need of something simple and applicable to all novels, “Notice and Note” may be a strategy that works for you.
Do you use Notice and Note in your classroom?
Have you purchased the book? Is it worth the pricetag?
I would love to hear your thoughts!
To improve reading comprehension, I will often ask students to make connections to their own lives.
This simple handout works for any text. (See the links at the end of this post.) I have edited this handout several times to get the responses I want.
Four things I’ve learned about this activity that are worth sharing:
1. Avoid any sort of question that allows students to find a loophole.
Does this text remind you of anything in your own life?”
Is this text similar to anything you’ve read before?
What does this text remind you of from tv, the news, or Channel One?
My students were quick to figure out they could write “No,” “Nope,” “Yes”, or “Nothing really” as an answer.
2. Require students to give a specific example from the text.
Otherwise, you’ll get answers like these:
“She did the same thing I did.”
“When I had a dog.”
“Yesterday on Channel One they said the same thing.”
3. Two out of three isn’t bad.
For some of my IEP students, I allow them to choose two of the three connections. This allows them to have a choice and is a slight modification that still requires them to think about what they have read.
4. It’s important for students to share their responses.
Sharing can be a whole group discussion, a pairing of students, or a rotation. Allowing students to share does two things. First, it sends the message that their connection is important. Secondly, it gives others an opportunity to look at things from a different perspective or spark their own connection if they had trouble.
PDFs for you to download:
Making Text Connections – This is the basic template following the ACE model.
Making Text Connections with LINES – This is a modified version for students who need the lines to write on. The prompt is slightly different. This is the version my Alternate Assessment students received.
How do you get students to make a personal connection to a text?
What do you do if your students aren’t big readers and don’t have a lot of texts to connect to?
How do you explain text-to-world? (This is so difficult for my class!)
Share your thoughts in the comments!
When I was working on my master’s degree online I remember reading an entire article and thinking “What did I just read?”
I also do that when I’m reading my 7th graders’ Social Studies book!
I know my students zone out, exhaust themselves with decoding, or simply struggle with comprehension itself.
Not a new strategy, but new-to-me, I introduced a modified version of Say Something for my Resource Room.
Here is how my version goes:
Phase 1:To introduce this strategy, I chose an article in a Scholastic magazine.
“Use your right hand and cover the first part of the text. That is approximately how much I am going to read to you before I stop. This is a reasonable chunk of text. When I am done reading you will have to Say Something.
1) Ask a question.
2) State a fact.
3) Make a prediction.
If you cannot do any of those three things, I will have to read it again, until you can.”
With only ten students, this is doable and everyone gets to Say Something. I modeled this with several chunks of text. It only took one time of me rereading for all the students to be able to comment.
Phase 2: Have students read a small chunk with a partner and respond. Again, modeling may be necessary.
Phase 3: Have students read a small chunk silently and then, as a class, ask them to respond.
This strategy really forces the reader/listener to be engaged and think about what is being read. Knowing that they will have the opportunity to discuss and share after reading just a short selection keeps them interested as well.
I don’t use all the suggested prompts for my Resource Room, but I think I could introduce more response options over time. I just wanted to keep it simple as we started.
Did I explain this well enough?
Let’s try it!
Say Something in the comments!
You know how you get coupons online or via text and they burn a hole in your pocket? A few weeks ago I had a 50% off for Joann‘s. Our local Joann’s is small and lacking in everything. However, there is a larger store up north and my friend and I often make a stop there when we get together.
How excited I was to find this bulletin board display in the teacher aisle! Cool motivational posters based on Guinness World Records. Each poster has a brief blurb at the bottom about the record. Having just finished up my iPad training, it all hit me super fast!
This will be a great kick-off to the year. I have a huge bulletin board in the back of the room and these posters are definitely conversation starters. I can introduce the iPads with some QR codes and simple writing prompts with Show Me or Explain Everything.
And….the best part? It naturally leads right into our first novel, When Zachary Beaver Came to Town. The whole story revolves around the “fattest boy in the world”, Zachary Beaver, and the effect he has on two young boys one summer.
While I am just starting to put a plan in place, I thought I would share some of the ideas I have come across. As we know all too well, the first few weeks of school never go exactly like you think they will.
Writing and Language
- Use these images for great journal prompts or story starters.
- Adapt these lesson ideas created for ESL learners to meet the needs of your students. (Reading, grammar, speaking, and writing activities – I plan to use them all!)
- Try these four free samples for reading comprehension.
- Downloaded an 18 page free sample PDF of the 2013 Guinness book and put it in iBooks/Subtext.
For use with the iPads
- Check out the Augmented Reality feature in the 2013 edition (I know my students will love this.)
- This web quest isn’t quite updated to the current Guinness site but the activities are still good.
Teamwork and Cooperative Learning
- This Goal-Makers, Record-Breakers lesson plan has students plan for their own sports related record-breaking ideas. (I feel like there needs to be a disclaimer like “Don’t try this at home!”)
- Maybe geared a little more towards STEM courses, this Strong Structures lesson plan would be another good cooperative activity.
Lastly, a short promo for the book:
To go along with my Prezi, I decided to create mini-lessons for the five text structures.
The plan was to spend one day on each, using the Prezi as an intro, taking notes in the Text Structure Flip Book I created, and then doing corresponding activities.
The activities took me a little longer than five days but ended up making a great unit.
I used many of the graphic organizers from a PDF I found online (Comprehension and Text Structure Graphic Organizers)
I also used many of the nonfiction reading selections from www.readworks.org.
Here are some highlights from each mini-lesson.
Students used a graphic organizer that really helped them think spatially as they described our classroom. I gave students the option of describing their bedroom if they wanted to.
Compare and Contrast
For this lesson students rotated in groups to three different stations. Each station had a nonfiction selection from ReadWorks.org. I picked a variety of Lexiles and highlighted some text features like footnotes, headings, bold words, and captions.
At each station they had to record three details showing similarities and differences.
I used the questions that come with the selections the following day as a review of test taking strategies on the SMART Board.
Cause and Effect
I used the cards and activity that begins on page 29. I cut the cards and students picked one from the bag. They then wrote their “cause” statement on their paper. I played some music and students walked around until the music stopped. They plopped down and wrote one “effect” on the paper. We repeated this process about 5 or 6 times and each time the students had to read all of the effects listed and come up with something different. I loved the creativity of some of their responses and they loved walking around and writing on their classmates papers.
Sequence or Process Writing
For sequence writing, I used three nonfiction selections spread out over a few days. We completed these individually just like we would the OAA – I read the directions and questions, they read the selection, and I repeated the directions (per their IEP accommodations). This provided some practice and forced them to pay attention to detail and read headings.
- The Scientific Method 600L
- Scientific method questions
- Colorful Crayons 630
- Crayons questions
- Magellan Was First 790
- Magellan questions
Problem and Solution
I turned this mini-lesson into a speaking/listening/social skills lesson where students had to rotate with small groups to 6 different “problems.” For each problem they had to come up with a good solution and they had to use a signal word from the list on the Prezi in their response. After reading some of their solutions, I realized we needed to work on some of our social skills so I will be coming back to this activity later this week.
The final activity was a matching activity and part of the PDF file.
Wow! That is a lot of information. I hope I provided enough information to show the variety of the lessons. The last thing I wanted to do was bore them with a bunch of worksheets but with the OAA coming up tomorrow I wanted to be sure to cover a lot.
And on THAT note….I should probably wrap this up and relax a little before the fun starts tomorrow! If you happen to be in Ohio, or are taking any sort of achievement tests this week….Good luck! It’s all downhill from here!
Each week my Resource Room students have to complete a reading passage and comprehension questions at their specific ability level. This ranges anywhere from Beginning-Low to Intermediate-High. I like to use stories from ReadTheory.
Students are expected to complete these one page readings independently. The last few times we did this activity, I made them circle the text that supported their answer. This forced them to go back, locate the “evidence” and confirm their answer. I’m happy, and not suprised, to say their scores have drastically improved since I starting enforcing this rule.
To get the most out of this leveled reading I created an additional activity which students have been completing in groups. On the first page, students have to identify:
On the second page I decided to throw in some grammar/language and vocabulary. Note the small boxes in the right hand corner of each. This is where I can modify the assignment for each student. I put a number in each box to tell them how many nouns, verbs, and adjectives they need to find. I do the same for the vocabulary words.
This activity takes them quite awhile and is very challenging for this group of students. I direct them to their journal notes or the Part of Speech bulletin board to figure out what they are looking for. It takes about 20-25 minutes for most groups to complete it. This provides me with some time to circulate and talk to all the students and note what they are having trouble with. It also gives me time to point out things like capitalization of names and cities.
The way I designed this, it can work with any short story. If you think of any ways to improve or to add additional skills let me know.
- Summarizing Short Stories: Story Elements and Conflict (allaccesspassblog.wordpress.com)
I found out yesterday I will be teaching a multi-grade level Language Arts Resource Room this fall. I will have a dozen 6th, 7th, and 8th graders for 84 minutes a day 1st and 2nd period. And as this is the first year of this class, I have to come up with the curriculum and materials!
Here are 10 of my first 100 thoughts:
- I still get to teach my own class!
- The first class of the day? This could be good…or bad.
- How do I fill 84 minutes?
- How do I teach 3 grade levels at the same time?
- How will 8th graders and 6th graders get along?
- I’ve never taught 7th grade!
- There are so many possibilities!
- Where do I start?
- I can’t wait to start figuring it out!
I will admit, I spent 30 minutes grumbling/stressing/freaking to Admiral Bodee on the phone (he reminded me I like challenges like this) and then another hour grumbling/stressing/freaking to Captain Algebra who is on vacation.
Then I painted my nails, took a drive to the pharmacy, cleared my head, took a deep breath, and I got down to business.
My first goal was to find a series of printable resources that could be used as bell ringer or transition activities. I am not a huge fan of worksheets, but with 84 minutes I know I will need to break class up with group work, independent work, and whole class activities.
I plan to use the things I found in a variety of ways. For example, I like to take worksheet content and put one question per page on a SMART Notebook file. Then students use dry erase boards to show their work. No paper and pencil needed.
Here are the jewels I found this afternoon all on one related site:
English for Everyone – This website has almost 40 categories with tons of free printable worksheets. With answers! There are beginning, intermediate, and some advanced levels.
English Maven – This specific site takes about half of the above categories and includes interactive activities that could be used on individual computers or the SMARTBoard. Some are exactly the same as the worksheets in terms of questions. Some are different. You do not have to register to use it.
ReadTheory – The link will take you to the BETA page with a big “Coming Soon” at the top. At the bottom is a link to the current webpage for reading comprehension resources. There are three levels (Beginning, Intermediate, and Advanced) and all of the stories can be completed online or printed out. It includes short stories at all three levels and informational selections for the beginning levels. It just did a spot check, but it looks like there is audio for all the stories through the low-intermediate level as well.
My next mission: To find a novel that none of them have read in previous years that is appropriate. I’m thinking around a 4th grade reading level???
Do you teach a multi-grade level class?
Do you have any great online resources for Language Arts?
Can you recommend any novels?
For the past three years I have taught Language Arts 8 in a Resource Room setting. Working with students with decoding and reading comprehension skills below grade-level, I am forced to modify the materials and curriculum used by the other Language Arts teachers. Choosing reading material isn’t always easy – it must be high interest and low readability. I feel like I have a pretty good choice of novels and selections from the text book that cover everything I need to cover.
The four novels I read during the school year are
*With the exception of Stargirl, the general education teachers at my grade level use these exact same novels.
However, with the adoption of the Common Core, I am faced with a decision. All because of increased lexile bands.
According to the Common Core State Standards Initiative, the lexile levels will increase for each grade level band. 6th-8th graders who were previously reading in the 860L–1010L range but will now be expected to read in the 955L–1155L range.
While the jump is not earth shattering for high ability readers, it is significant for students with reading disabilities.
Look again at the novels I use with my students with disabilities:
According to the lexile levels, only one of these books falls into the new range for 8th graders. In fact, three of these books are apparently in the range for 2nd and 3rd graders! If you haven’t read The Outsiders or The Giver, there are definitely some scenes that are not appropriate for 7-8 year olds. (I do understand the the Common Core is not recommending students at that grade level read these particular books, but you must get what I am saying.)
So does that mean that we ditch the books that have been middle school “classics” for years? The content is appropriate and the literary elements are there. I’ve seen these books make non-readers read because of the story lines. I’ve seen non-readers take these books home or ask if they can keep a copy because they love them. I’ve had students say that their parents are now reading these books because they’ve raved about them so much. In my mind, these books are keepers!
My frustration is in the fact that some people think that these novels, because of their lexile levels, must be thrown out. How can I justify not using three of the four books I have built my curriculum around? Especially when these novels are perfect for the students I work with.
At this point, I plan to use these novels and supplement with increasingly more difficult text as my students are able to handle it. Supposedly, we will be getting some software that will allow us to determine a student’s reading range. This should be helpful in writing the IEP and planning instruction, but will I be allowed to use these novels with 8th graders? That answer will hopefully come when we receive additional training in the Common Core later this summer.
How do you feel about the new lexiles and the Common Core?
Would you discard a classic novel that is grade appropriate because of its lexile?
How will you select your novels as your district adopts the Common Core?