Humans

May Day in Oxford, 2024

These photos were taken during a spring folk festival that takes place across the UK each year. The festivities begin in the early hours of the morning on the first day of May. 

The tradition goes back thousands of years and relates to the Gaelic Celtic festival Beltane which was one of four seasonal festivals: Samhain (1 November), Imbolc (1 February), Beltane (1 May), and Lughnasadh (1 August). Themes of the May festival include rebirth, growth, and fertility. In some places, bonfires are an important part, and cattle were brought out to walk between twin fires in a sacred ritual believed to protect them from disease. In Wales, a festival at the same time named Calan Mai involved rituals of nine men lighting a fire with nine branches of nine different trees. In some cases, people pretend to throw someone into the flames, and for a while afterwards would talk about them as though they were dead. Sometimes dolls made from hay are hung up, and large statues called wicker men were built and burnt. There is discussion over whether these particular traditions developed from older traditions involving real human sacrifice. In parts of England, mostly small rural villages, a May Queen is selected and crowned with flowers each year. The May King, or Green Man, is also a recurring character. Dancing around a May Pole is a common celebration in England, though the earliest record of this practice is found in a Welsh poem.

After Christianity arrived in Britain, the older "pagan" traditions were heavily condemned and repressed. There's a quote from the year 1250 when a former chancellor of Oxford University condemned the festival, forbidding "all dancing in masks or with disorderly noises, and all processions of men wearing wreaths and garlands made of leaves of trees or flowers or what not." Despite this, the festivities continue every year in Oxford, and today you can still find thousands of people in the streets, dressed in ribbons and bells and flowers. The festival has changed a lot and is now merged with Christian traditions and beliefs. In Oxford, the festival begins when people gather at 6AM beneath Magdalen College Tower to hear a Latin hymn. From then, and throughout the rest of the day, the streets are filled with dancers and performers.

Papua New Guinea, August 2023

I took these photos during the Enga Cultural Show in Wabag. Enga is located around 2,500 metres above sea level in the highlands of Papua New Guinea. The "first contact" between the people of Enga and the outside world happened in the 1930s, and so the traditions and culture of this region are still relatively intact. This cultural show was established as a way of connecting the many tribal groups that live around Enga. Papua New Guinea is home to an estimated 600 tribes, with nearly as many different languages. Enga festival was established as a way of creating a national identity between them, while preserving the unique cultures and traditions. The show is attended by hundreds of highlanders, but very few foreigners.