. . . that Gerald Gardner did not invent Wicca in the early 1950s.
Or not.
But it is one of a series of “50 Unexplainable Black & White Photos.”
Number 2 looks like some kind of fertility ritual to me.
7 thoughts on “Photographic Evidence . . .”
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#2 seems to be an exaggerated menarche mattress photo. See
http://www.flickr.com/photos/changoblanco/3038137183/in/set-896872
The world has changed enormously since those days!
#1 is probably a Temperance League photo referencing the perils of beer. I couldn’t see the others (running noscript tends to make sites like that very sparse.)
Great photos. My favourite is #18.
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Robert: The young women look well past the age of menarche. I wondered if it was some kind of spoof of a proof of virginity–?
Yes, I wondered about that also. Two other, less likely possibilities are a childbirth at home or — as one comment on the original photo hinted — the violent disposal of a husband who pushed his wife too far.
Since it’s an exaggerated (or spoof) photo, anything could be possible.
What about the dating of the photo, anyone? I’m no expert on hair styles and fashions. Broadly, it looks and feels to me like sometime in the 1940s or very early 1950s.
As I know from stories in my family and my wife’s family, women of that generation sometimes weren’t told anything in advance about their impending menarche (even by their own mothers), so they were terrified when they woke up some morning in their early teens and found their bed all bloody. One usual reaction was to think they were dying. Even though these women are well past their own menarche, they might still have wanted to lay old terror by spoofing it.
Looking through that set of 50 photos makes me wonder what sort of photos would provide early evidence of Neo-Paganism. I mean, what elements or things in such a photo would distinguish Paganism from staged scenes–that’s how I see that guy with the bird and the antlers–or secular masked and/or festive activities? What would a pre-Gardnerian Neo-Pagan look like in a photo?