Procession, Nyambaa baga, Gumbaynggirr Country
A variety of processions:
Southern coast of Palestine 6thC BCE
After this, you will come to the Gibeah of God . . . there, you will meet a procession of prophets coming down from the high place, with harp, tambourine, flute, and zither before them, and they will be prophesying. The Book of Samuel (1) 10.5
From Romulus to January 1, 404. Rome
The Roman Triumph paraded through the streets of Rome culminating with sacrifices at the Temple of Jupiter Optimus Maximus. Usually, captives, animals, treasures and even models of battlefields preceded the triumphant general standing in the chariot for the whole procession. He wore a wreath of laurel with a gold crown, a purple toga covered with patterns or designs (derived from the royal togas of Rome’s Etruscan kings) and he held a sceptre. In some reports, his face is painted red. His soldiers followed.
19 July 1919. London
The British Peace Procession, marking the end of the First World War, made its way through the streets of London. The day was proclaimed a public holiday.
7 November, 1919. Moscow
A procession of cadets, infantry, cavalry, and units, as well as horse-drawn artillery took part in the first annual October Revolution Day Parade in Moscow’s Red Square. In honor of the anniversary of the Great October Socialist Revolution of 1917.
May 10 1933. Munich
Arrive at the designated area at precisely 11 pm.
At 11 pm. the torchlight procession of the entire Munich Students Association will be arriving.
1. The united bands will play parade music.
2. The festivities will begin at 11 with the song “Brothers, Forward!”
3. Speech by the leader of the German Students Association Kurt Ellersiek.
4. Burning of the nation-corrupting books and journals.
5. Group sing-along.[i]
May 10 1933. Berlin
‘German men and women! The age of arrogant Jewish intellectualism is now at an end! . . . You are doing the right thing at this midnight hour—to consign to the flames the unclean spirit of the past. This is a great, powerful, and symbolic act . . . Out of these ashes the phoenix of a new age will arise. . . . Oh Century! Oh Science! It is a joy to be alive!’[ii]
4–7 April, 1958. London to Aldermaston
The first major Aldermaston march was organised by the Direct Action Committee Against Nuclear War (DAC) and supported by the recently formed CND. Several thousand people marched for four days from Trafalgar Square, London, to the Atomic Weapons Establishment to demonstrate their opposition to nuclear weapons. I joined the march from school in 1971 and then again in 1972.
August, 1982. Kandy, Sri Lanka
The Kandy Esala Perahera procession pays homage to the Sacred Tooth Relic of Buddha. Night drummers, fire dancers, whip-dance garments. Elephants dressed in lights. It was exhilarating and spectacular.
7 May 2015. Moskvoretskiy Bridge, Moscow
As I photographed a l’Oreal billboard usurping St Basil’s candy-coloured onion-domes, trucks pulled up disgorging soldiers against the sounds of impending battle, a distant roar – wrath of drums – columns of troops approached, battle hardened from Chechnya. Squads of cropped heads shouldering semi-automatics passed our hotel below singing Red Army songs, a dark and guttural noise warriors have bellowed since farmers and hunters nourished warlords and armies. They stamped on the road below. Behind us, their comrade musicians lit up in readiness. A sax player blew a few bars of in ‘The Mood’, rehearsing for Saturday’s Victory Day parade.
14 July, 2019. Bellingen, NSW
The New Orleans style Street Parade, Bello Winter Music. Great fun, music on the go with street performers and the crowd joining in enthusiastically moving with the musicians.
[i] https://www.ushmm.org/exhibition/book-burning/burning.php’. 25,000 volumes of “un-German” books, were burnt. That night, in most university towns, right-wing students marched in torchlight parades “against the un-German spirit.” Rituals scripted for the event called for high Nazi officials, professors, university rectors, and student leaders to address the participants and spectators. At the meeting places, students threw the pillaged and unwanted books into the bonfires with great joyous ceremony, band-playing, parades, songs, and “fire oaths.”
[ii] Joseph Goebbels, Reich Minister for Public Enlightenment and Propaganda. https://www.ushmm.org/exhibition/book-burning/burning.php’.
