Marmot’s day predictions on the arrival of spring paid attention to Punxsutawney Phil every February 2, but celebrating the midpoint between the shortest and darker day of the year and the spring equinex has old roots in life in life European agricultural.
Punxsutawney Phil is far from being the only marmot whose human handlers make annual ads about whether they have seen their own shadows and predict six more winter or principles of spring.
The date not only divides the calendar between the winter solstice and the Spring equinox – It is also a time of the year that appears in the Celtic calendar and the Christian Festival of the candles.
And in Eastern and Central Pennsylvania, where people of German ancestry have been observing the annual emergence of the Marmota hibernation for centuries, there is a tradition of Marmota clubs and celebrations that are independent of Phil.
Some download the Punxsutawney event as an unworthy rival of his own festivitiesThey say they forecast more precise weather predictions. There have been marmotes that predict the climate in at least 28 US states and Canadian provinces, and less formal celebrations everywhere.
One thing is not: serious issues.
“We know this is silly; We know that this is fun, ”said Marcy Galando, executive director of the Groundhog Club of Punxsutawney. “We want people to come here with a sense of humor.”
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Celtic people throughout Europe marked the four days that are halfway between the winter solstice, the spring equinox, the summer solstice and the autumn equinox. What the Celts called Imbolc is also treated when Christians celebrate candles, timed to the presentation of Joseph and María de Jesús in the temple in Jerusalem.
Ancient people would observe the sun, stars and animal behavior to guide agricultural practices and other decisions, and the practice of observing the emergence of an animal of winter hibernation to forecast the climate has roots in a similar German tradition that involves Texas or bears. The Germans of Pennsylvania apparently replaced the marmot, endemic to the east and the western media of the United States.
Historians have found a reference in an 1841 newspaper to the meteorological forecasts of the Marmota in early February among the families of German ancestry in Morgantown, Pennsylvania, according to the late Don Yoder, professor at the University of Pennsylvania, whose book of 2003 On the day of the Molenada explored the Celtic connection.
Yoder concluded that the festival has roots in “ancient, undoubtedly prehistoric and meteorological.”
The Germans of Pennsylvania settled in the area, already the end of the 1880s, began to celebrate the holidays making a picnic, hunting and eating marmotes.
The members of the Punxsutawney Groundhog Club, organized in 1899, take care of Phil and his Woodchuck family in a personalized space next to the Punxsutawney Memorial Library, where there is a window with a view to the burrow of the creature.
Punxsutawney’s marmot makes predictions, but it is not always predictable. The designated marmot arose before dawn in 1929 and did not leave until the end of the afternoon of 1941.
Bill Murray’s film of 1993 “Growosía Day” caused a great resurgence of interest that two years after it came out, the organizers of the event expressed concern about the noise crowds who drank all night, people who climb trees and others They undressed in underwear. In 1998, a Marmota club leader who used a $ 4,000 marmot demand reported having been assaulted for half a dozen young men.
Alcohol is now prohibited in the Gobbler knob, the place of Phil to about 80 miles (123 kilometers) northeast of Pittsburgh.
The first festivities in Punxsutawney were followed in 1907 by people in Quarryville, an agricultural area in Lancaster County in the southeast corner of Pennsylvania. The approximately 240 members of the dream of the dream of the sleep report the winter prognosis of hiding orphie, or less through their well -preserved remains.
The marmot is a member of the squirrel family and is related to squirrels and prairie dogs. It is also known as a wooden frame, a whistle pig, or in the language of Dutch Pennsylvania, a language with German roots, a “grundsau”.
Marmots are herbivorous that are edible to humans, although they are not widely consumed. His useful life in nature is typically two or three years.
Some chefs advise that marmots take better when they are young and after Clover is in flower, since it is believed that a clover diet improves the taste of the meat.
As of the 1930s, the Marmota accommodations opened in eastern Pennsylvania. They were social clubs with similarities with Freemasonry.
With the intention of preserving the German culture and traditions of Pennsylvania, the clubs sometimes fine who were trapped speaking anything except their Dutch language of Pennsylvania in the meetings. Traditionally they were groups for men and several of the clubs remain active.
All share the unifying characteristic of the meteorological forecast of a marmot, according to William W. Donner, Professor of Anthropology at the University of Kutztown and author of “Gravesentense”, a book on lodges and other efforts to preserve the German heritage.
“I think it is only one of these traditional rituals in which people enjoy participating, which may be taken from modern life for 15 minutes,” Donner said.
Some well -intentioned efforts have tried to determine the accuracy of Phil, but which means “six weeks of winter” is debatable. He affirms that a marmot has seen or not having seen his shadow, and that he is able to communicate that a human are also just territory for skeptics and altered humor.
According to all reports, Phil predicts more winter much more frequently than predicting a principles of spring.
Marmots are mostly solitary creatures that begin to emerge in the winter winter to find a couple. The science behind whether they can make any precise weather prediction is problematic at best.
Among the skeptics are the National Environmental Information Centers, within the Oceanic and Atmospheric National Administration. The government agency Compare Phil’s record With national temperatures from the United States to conclude that it is not perfect.
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