Honouring The Dead

Here’s something different to my usual Hallowe’en article. Just for a change, here’s my take on Hallowe’en and how today, All Soul’s Day, is just as important, and how one lgbt community has turned Hallowe’en’s true meaning into a popular celebration.

I’m sure you know that Hallowe’en is short for Hallows Evening, the night before All Hallows (or All Saints) Day, when the lives of Christian saints are honoured. This is followed by today, All Souls Day, when lives of all the departed are honoured. Hallowe’en is the English name for the Festa di Ognissanti, the real name, celebrated in Catholic churches today, and they don’t celebrate it with trick-or-treat and pumpkins (unless they copy the Americans).

I’ve often felt uncomfortable about the way Hallowe’en is celebrated. I know what the word Hallowe’en actually means and what it symbolises, and neither have anything to do with horror, trick-or-treat, or pumpkins. Most modern Hallowe’en practices originate in the USA, and most (not all) of them were appropriated from European Christmas traditions.

As I grew up I went along with the horror aspect of Hallowe’en because I was led to believe by the media that this was how it should be celebrated. When I left school I began research into all things historical, and I realised that what I was told about a lot of things were not completely accurate, including Hallowe’en.

There’s nothing wrong with having a bit of fun at Hallowe’en. I enjoy sitting down to watch “Abbott and Costello Meet the Mummy” or “Carry on Screaming”. But, like other genuine Christians, I also mark the day as it should be. No pumpkins, no scary costumes, and definitely no trick-or-treat.

Being quarter Irish, my main misgiving about modern Hallowe’en is the false belief that it is an Irish Celtic pagan festival. Neo-pagans and anti-Christians consistently claim that it originated in something called Samhain. They provide no evidence, except to repeat a lot of unsourced 17th century suppositions.

The name Samhain first appears in the 9th century, AFTER the Catholic Church created All Saint’s Day and Hallowe’en. The idea that Celts had a festival in October or November was first suggested in the 17th century by amateur “historians” who based their history on folklore and legend, not documentary evidence. There isn’t even any evidence to say what Samhain actually was. A festival? A month? A season? People who believe those old “historians” remind me of Mr. Copper in the “Doctor Who” episode “Voyage of the Damned”, who gives this description of Christmas:-

There are many reasons why horror, monsters and gore became associated with Hallowe’en, which will take too long to explain. Most of them don’t come from the Celts but from Germanic Christmas customs, but the Christian Hallowe’en has always been about honouring our ancestors, not being scared by them. Ironically, neo-pagans appropriated this idea for their modern Samhain.

European colonists in the 16th century took the above-mentioned Festa di Ognissanti with other festivals to the New World. The Spanish, in particular, had a large empire in the Americas, and it is in Latin America where we find that the closest observances to the original Hallowe’en are still celebrated. Their celebration is called the Dia de los Muertes. You probably know it better as Day of the Dead.

Let’s have a look at what is probably the longest running lgbt Day of the Dead festival, the Calavera LGBTQ Festival in Los Angeles, California, USA.

Calavera is the name given to representations of the human skull that are decorated with colourful patterns. You’ve probably seen some of these in your area. Originally, in the 18th century, they may have just been sugar candy skulls given to children.

 The Calavera LGBTQ Festival was created by the Latino Equality Alliance (LEA), an organisation founded in 2009 in response to California’s Proposition 8, a state amendment that outlawed gay marriage. LEA’s purpose is to promote equality and community for those of Latin-American heritage.

In 2016 LEA produced their first lgbt Day of the Dead events. First was a workshop where visitors could learn about the meaning and spirituality of the occasion and place small gifts on an ofrenda, an altar traditionally erected to honour the dead. These altars are erected everywhere during Day of the Dead, including people’s homes, in communal areas in streets, and on the graves of family ancestors. Several days later LEA hosted a Calavera Dance Party, where guests painted their faces like calaveras.

The impetus for the creation of this event was the terrible shooting in the “Pulse” nightclub in Orlando, Florida, the previous June in which many young people, mainly lgbtq, were killed. Perhaps LEA was also inspired by their Youth Council, who had set up an ofrenda in October 2015 to honour transgender murder victims.

In 2017 LEA held their second event, renamed the Calavera LGBT Community Celebration, and this marked the start of its annual return. Since then, ofrendas and acts of remembrance have gone alongside celebrations and traditional dances, and at the same time raising money for local lgbt Latin-American causes and charities.

From 2019 the event has had its current name of the Calavera LGBTQ Festival and has been held every year since then. Like many events during the Covid Year, 2020, the festival was held online, and was available to a wider audience. In 2021 the festival returned to its usual format. The most recent festival was held on 18th October.

With the focus of Hallowe’en, All Souls Day, and the Day of the Dead all being on honouring your ancestors it provides a perfect occasion for genealogist and family historians, which is how I usually celebrate these days. I concentrate on doing family history research (which is what I’m going to do after I’ve posted this, particularly research into my great-uncle who was a professional boxer) and placing (plastic) roses around photos of my family. For an alternative celebration you could decorate the walls with lgbtq flags as though it was Pride Month or your local Pride, or celebrate whatever other community you identify with, or all communities.

Advent 3: Christmas is a Bit of a Drag

Modern drag has advanced little since the start of this century (if at all). Much of it is lingering in the style of the 1980s, desperately trying to appear relevant and significant in today’s world, and failing, due to drag’s outdated gay stereotypes. However, it is far advanced from the drag and female impersonations of a hundred years ago.

If we go back further to look at what influenced modern drag we find the British pantomime dame and, even earlier, the character of the Italian commedia dell’arte. And even further back than that, we have comic female characters played by men in medieval mystery plays based on stories in the Bible.

It has to be admitted that these very early drag-like performances were purely for entertainment purposes and no gender identity was assigned to the performer. It is well-known that at one time women were not allowed, or discouraged, to be actors. That meant that any female character, including the Virgin Mary in Christmas nativity plays, were played by men or boys.

One development of the medieval mystery play is one I wrote about in 2019, the French Société Mattachine. In that article I explained how the early gay rights organisation in the USA, the Mattachine Society, was named after these medieval performers.

The Mattachines were not confined to France. The name seems to derive from the Italian “mattaccino”, which comes from “matto” meaning “mad”. From this we understand how the comic characters found in various mattachine groups throughout medieval Europe act in over-the-top performances, as if mad.

If we skip across to Spain we find the matachines who were popular in the 17th century, quite some time after other European variations had begun to die away. Because of this, the Spanish matachines is the form which has survived today – but not in Spain.

The Spanish matachines had developed into a more musical and dance form rather than drama. It still had the stock characters familiar in all its forms in Europe – a hero, a young woman, an old man, a villain, and more pertinent for our purposes today, an old woman played in drag. A particularly Spanish addition to the cast was a bull.

But what have the matachines got to do with Christmas? Bear with me while I digress. We have to look at how the matachines dances evolved after the Spanish colonised Central America. There’s a debate which is pertinent to the matachines, and Christmas in general. It concerns what I believe is a common misconception constantly repeated at this time of year that Christmas traditions are actually pagan. No matter how much research in many academic papers and books I can find no actual proof of this, only a lot of unsupported opinion based on coincidence from the 18th century onwards (not to mention modern crap about Santa and Coca Cola). Thankfully, an increasing number of qualified historians have debunked many of these pagan lies. Just because two things sound or behave the same it doesn’t prove they’re connected.

Usually, the Christian Church is presented as adopting pagan practices to encourage indigenous communities to convert to Christianity. I believe the opposite. I’m not alone in this. This 2021 article on the history of matachines in Mexico from the Universad Nacional Autómona de México comes to the same conclusion. It is becoming clear through modern research that it was newly converted indigenous communities who looked at what Christian practices were similar to their own and then adapted them without losing their own cultural identity. The Christian Church authorities, in their turn, saw no reason to object and, as long as Christian doctrine was followed, accepted the new ethnic take on their practices (except a handful of puritan extremists, like those today who want to ban “Harry Potter” because it “promotes witchcraft”).

The Spanish Conquistadors spread their matachine dances across Central America. In Mexico the Aztecs in particular merged it with their own dance rituals and produced a variation which they still use today, a variation that actually includes a king character based on Moctezuma (Montezuma). This is performed on special occasions, though not often at Christmas as with their US Pueblo counterparts. It also has a slightly different name – matlachine.

The two female characters of the Pueblo matachine are called Malinche and Perejundia (or Abuela). The Perejundia is always played by a man in drag, and the Malinche is now usually played by a girl. They represent opposites. Malinche is a beautiful, young, innocent girl, while Perejundia is an ugly, bawdy and coarse old woman. The video above shows one of the few clear visual representations on YouTube of the bawdy Perejundia.

Usually, matachine dances are performed during Advent, most often on December 12th, the Feast of the Immaculate Conception celebrating the conception of the Virgin Mary (often referred to as Our Lady of Guadelupe). This is also the date which is generally considered as the start of Christmas in the Pueblo communities. In fact, several matachine performances have taken place this week. Because the celebration is religious and often performed inside churches, the Perejundia character is sometimes omitted. The video below is the matachine from two days ago in Laredo, Texas. You can see the Malinche played by a very young girl, and the old man character, but no Perejundia.

Prof. Brenda Romero of the University of Colorado, an expert on hispano-indigenous music, has noted that matachines among Pueblo communities have become quite inclusive. She says that gay men (and women, as can be seen in the video below) are actively involved. I may be assuming too much, and this is only my theory, but are some Pueblo gay men specifically drawn to playing the Perjundia in the same way that some gay men in the USA become drag performers? I have absolutely no evidence or proof of this, but it’s an interesting thought.

Whatever the gender identity of the person playing the Perejundia in the Christmas matachines, it is clear that there is a direct line of descent from medieval mystery plays to the commedia dell’arte, the Perejundia, the British pantomime dame and modern drag queens.

Next week we look at a Hellenic Christmas gift-giver and his association with a reluctant priest.

The World's Most Homophobic Number?

It’s not a pleasant note to begin the New Year with, but 2024 may be regarded by some as a year to avoid because the number 24 is considered as unlucky as the number 13, particularly in Brazil. The only difference is that 24’s reputation stems from its association with homosexuality. Is it the world’s most homophobic number?

So many numbers are considered as either lucky of unlucky. Most of these beliefs are based on superstition or pseudo-numerology.

We don’t have to go that far back to discover why. To 1892, in fact. That’s within the lifetimes of two of my grandparents, both of whom lived into the 1980s. The story behind it involves a monkey farm, a zoo, and a lottery.

We’ll start with the monkey farm. Despite first impressions, the monkey farm, or the Fazenda do Macacos, was a complex of fruit orchards, gardens and sugar cane plantations in Rio de Janeiro. Once owned by the Franciscans, it got its name because it was over-run by monkeys in the harvesting season, all eager to snatch some fresh fruit.

The Fazenda passed from the Franciscans to the Portuguese crown, of which Brazil was still then a colony, in the 1750s. After independence in 1825 the first Emperor of Brazil, as the King of Portugal became, visited the Fazenda from Portugal for hunting and riding. After several years the emperor stopped visiting Rio and the Fazenda began to be neglected. By the 1870s the Rio municipal authorities were developing the area around the Fazenda. João Batista Viana Drummond, Baron Drummond (1825-1897) bought the Fazenda in 1872 and decided to create Rio’s first zoo on the site in 1888.

Entry to the zoo was free, but the baron received tax rebates and subsidies from the city council. This financial arrangement soon vanished the following year when Brazil became a republic. Income and attendance at the zoo fell, so in 1892 Baron Drummond came up with a lottery to raise funds, basing it on animals in his zoo.

The lottery was called the Jogo do Bicho, or Game of Beasts. Everyone visiting the zoo could buy a ticket upon which were printed the name of one of 25 different animals in the zoo. At the start of each day the baron would chose which animal would be the winning ticket. A picture of the chosen animal was revealed later that day, and holders of the winning tickets won the prize money. The winning animal was publicised in the Rio newsagents.

Very soon people were asking for tickets of their favourite or lucky animals. Then people began buying tickets without entering the zoo, and the whole thing blew up into a big gambling racket. Within four years some people were buying tickets in bulk, and these “intermediaries” began re-selling them on the streets for a profit. The lottery gradually evolved. Numbers were allotted to each of the 25 animals, and soon people began betting on their favourite number as well. Bets were taken in newspaper kiosks, on street corners and anywhere the “intermediaries” could attract custom.

By this time Baron Drummond was dead, and most of the money from ticket sales that should have gone to the zoo was going into the pockets of the “intermediaries”. In the 1890s the Brazilian government tried to crack down of gambling, but the Jogo do Bicho survived because police and local authorities turned a blind eye, and were probably being bribed. Officially the Jogo do Bicho was banned in 1946, but it still survives as an underground lottery, which everyone, including the government, knows about.

So, why did the number 24 in the Jogo do Bicho lottery become associated with the gay community and become so homophobic? It’s all about one of those animals featured on the tickets, specifically the animal that was numbered 24, a deer. In Portuguese this animal is called “veado”. In the mid-20th century the word “veado” began to be used as a derogatory term for gay men in Brazil, first appearing in print in 1956. Because the Jogo do Bicho was such a huge part of Brazilian culture, it wasn’t long before people were linking the number 24 with homosexuality purely because it was the number assigned to a deer on the lottery ticket.

The link between 24 and the deer may even have been a misunderstanding of the word “veado”, because there is another theory that says that “veado” is short for “transviado”, which means “deviant” or “immoral”. There may be no connection to a deer at all. But this hasn’t stopped 24 from being regarded as both unlucky, and unmanly. In Brazilian sport there are many sportsmen who refuse to play in a team (e.g in football) if their shirt number is 24. There have been a few cases in recent years of male footballers defiantly wearing 24 on their shirt, regardless of the homophobic abuse they receive from fans during a match because of it. Other people renumber their house if it is number 24, changing it 23.5. There are people who would prefer not to celebrate their 24th birthday, and celebrate being 23+1 instead. There’s even 23+1 birthday candles (pictured above).

Even though gambling in Brazil is illegal (mainly applying to casinos) the Jogo do Bicho still exists, though its 20th century history was polluted by the involvement of crime gangs and money laundering. But two surprising outcomes of their involvement is the formation of local football (soccer) clubs, and the growth of the carnival parade culture in Brazil.

Although crime gangs weren’t the only influence on carnival culture, the money they accumulated through their use of “intermediaries” to sell Jogo do Bicho tickets at a profit went towards keeping the local citizens on their side, so to speak, without having to make overt threats. To do this, the crime bosses gave money to local communities to set up football clubs (and we know how much Brazilians love their football) and samba dance schools (samba being a vital part of the carnival culture, which the Brazilians love just as equally). This was more effective in the larger Brazilian cities. It could be claimed that the famous carnival parades in Rio de Janeiro or São Paulo only became so big through the money given by crime gangs.

Back to the number 24 and homosexuality. Just like the Nazi pink triangle the lgbt+ community has begun to “reclaim” the number 24 and use it to help the cause of democracy. This was seen during Brazil’s municipal elections in 2012 when over 100 lgbt+ candidates stood for election. All candidates receive an official electoral number, without which they could not legally stand for election. Many of the lgbt+ candidates included the number 24 in their electoral number.

The 2012 election saw the largest ever number of lgbt+ candidates in municipal election in Brazil up to that time. According to Associação Brasileira de Lésbicas, Gays, Bissexuais, Travestis e Transexuais (ABGLT), a leading lgbt+ rights organisation in Brazil, there were only 78 in the previous election in 2008.

One of the 2012 candidates was Bia Ifran Oliveira (1969-2019), a transgender candidate for the Partido dos Trabalhadores (Worker’s Party) in the election to the city council of São Borja, her home city in the southernmost province of Brazil. The 2012 election was taking place several years before Brazil passed the law recognising non-reassigned transgender individuals’ right to legally change their gender on their birth certificates, so Bia was registered as a male candidate.

Bia was a hairdresser and stylist as a profession and was well-known figure in São Borja. She was president of the city’s prestigious samba school (not founded by Jogo do Bicho crime gangs as far as I can discover), which is also one of the biggest participants in the city’s annual carnival parade. Bia was also an lgbt+ activist. She was the first transwoman to run for municipal election for the Partido dos Trabalhadores. Below is one of her campaign adverts in which you can see her election number containing 24. In the election Bia won 339 votes, placing her 35th, which isn’t bad when you consider that she was up against 102 other candidates.

It remains to be seen whether the stigma attached to 24 in Brazil will finally disappear during 2024. After all, it’s the first time that the number has been part of the year number since it became a derogatory term. Brazil is one of those contradictory places – you hear so much about homophobia and transgender murders, yet at the end 2023 Brazil was placed higher than the UK and the USA in many equality indexes (I’ve never understood the USA’s self-declared place as a champion of lgbt rights anyway). Just in case you question Brazil’s placing, you can do what I did and look online (organisations which publish figures include the UN, World Population Review, Human Rights Campaign, Amnesty International, Equaldex, and many more).

But let’s forget about the stigma and homophobia of the number 24 and follow the example of Brazil’s lgbt candidates in 2012 and make 2024 the year in which we can all show that it is a year of hope, acceptance and enlightenment for all communities of every race, gender, politics, faith, non-faith, age, ability, culture, and opinion.

Day Of The Dead: Out Of His Hollywood Tree

We’re halfway through what the Christian Church calls Hallowtide. This is the 3-day period of remembrance and devotion to our ancestors. It began with All Hallow’s Eve (corrupted into Hallowe’en), followed by All Hallow’s Day (or All Saint’s Day), and tomorrow is All Soul’s Day. We don’t need to go into the history of Hallowtide, except to say that historians day there’s no evidence that there was any similar festival in pagan of pre-Christian times. No, the Celts didn’t have a festival called Samhain. As far the evidence suggests, Samhain was the name of a month or time of year, not a festival.

Mexico is the country that is most widely recognised as celebrating Hallowtide in a unique way in the festival which translates into English as the Day of the Dead. It was the Spanish colonists are recorded as taking Hallowtide to the Americas, and perhaps the ancestors of today’s subject was among them. The person whose ancestors I have chosen to delve into was the early Hollywood sex symbol Ramon Novarro (1859-1968).

There another reason why I have chosen him. Two days ago, the day before Hallowe’en, was the 55th anniversary of Ramon Novarro’s murder. You can read a bit about Ramon in this “80 Gays” article.

Ramon was not the only member of his family to make it big in the early days of cinema. His first cousin (daughter of his mother’s sister) was Andrea Palma (1903-1987), who became a big star in their native Mexico, though she did make a memorable supporting role in an American gilm, “Tarzan and the Mermaids” (1948) starring Johnny Weismuller.

A more distant cousin, Dolores del Rio (1904-1983), had bigger success in the US. She is particularly remembered as a lead character in “Flying Down to Rio” (1933), though people usually only remember two supporting actors, Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers, the legendary dancing partnership first brought together for this film. Dolores and Ramon were third cousins, both being great-great-grandchildren of Leandro Sanchez Manzanera and his wife. Dolores was also famous for an affair she had with Orson Welles.

There are several other acting cousins of Ramon Novarro, including some alive today, but his ancestry shows no indication of where the acting bug came from. So, what is his ancestry?

Ramon Novarros’ real name was José Ramón Gal Samaniego. His parents were Dr. Mariano Sameniego (1871-1940) and Leonor Pérez-Gavilán (1872-1949). Both came from well-connected and prominent families with long lineages. Ultimately, as you might guess, the majority of Ramon’s ancestry came from Spain.

There is a tantalising rumour that Ramon has Aztec ancestry through his mother, to no less a person than Moctezuma (or Montezuma), probably the most famous Aztec “emperor”, but I am unable to find any information to verify this. However, that doesn’t stop Ramon from having family connections to other Mexican emperors. His grandfather’s great-uncle was married to the sister of Agustin I Yturbide (1783-1924), the first Emperor of Mexico after independence from Spain. He wasn’t in office long. There was a lot of opposition to Mexico becoming a monarchy, most strongly in the Mexican Congress. Agustin dismissed Congress and appointed his own. Very soon almost everyone else turned against him and he was ousted.

A feature of European colonialism is that quite a lot of the first colonists came from wealthy, landed families and minor aristocracy (most of the US Founding Fathers were from the upper classes). Because of this Agustin Yturbide can be put on the list of Ramon Novarro’s famous distant blood relatives in addition to his connection though marriage. Ramon and Agustin are descended from a Spanish noble called Fernán Yañez de Saavedra (d.1370). In turn, Fernán is descended from an illegitimate daughter of King Sancho IV of Castile (1221-1284). Going back further, and one of King Sancho’s ancestors was King Henry II of England, meaning I am a very distant cousin of Ramon Novarro also.

That opens up a huge catalogue of blood relatives that Ramon Novarro can claim. For this particular article, however, let’s just concentrate of some Hispanic cousins.

I haven’t done a massive amount of research into the ancestries of many Latin American or Spanish celebrities and famous people, though I have done some into those of national leaders. Through the same small group of Conquistadors in Ramon’s ancestry he is distantly related to at least two Presidents of El Salvador, six Presidents of Nicaragua, several dozen from Costa Rica, a couple from Colombia, and a couple from Argentina.

Among the Colombian Presidents in Virgilio Barco Vargas (1921-1997). One of my previous “Out of His Tree” articles featured President Barco’s gay son, the activist Virgilio Barco Isakson.

As far as Mexico is concerned, Ramon has at least four Mexican Presidents as distant cousins. One in particular is of interest, the fourth president Anastasio Bustamente (1780-1853). We enter Abraham Lincoln territory here. That is to say, there is clear evidence that the president shared a bed with another man, but that doesn’t necessarily indicate homosexuality. Both Lincoln and Bustamente shared a bed with another man. That was common in pre-20th century times. We have no evidence that any physical or sexual intimacy occurred. However, even though I still have reservations about the sexuality attributed to Abraham Lincoln I a have fewer regarding Anastasio Bustamente. It is widely reported that he preferred the company of young men, and he never married. So perhaps, he could have been gay.

Which other well-known Latin Americans are related to Ramon Novarro though his Conquistador ancestors? Well, there’s Che Guevara, Simon Bolivar, Eva Peron, and Cristiano Ronaldo.

Going back and looking at Ramon’s non-Hispanic cousins, you can get a good idea from the articles I wrote about descendants of King Edward II of England, beginning here.

So, that’s Ramon Novarro’s family tree. It is dominated by the bloodlines and legacy of the Spanish Conquistadors. His immediate ancestry centres on the Durango province of Mexico, but most of his earliest colonial ancestors settled in the northern part of Spanish Mexico, the area which is now the US state of New Mexico.

Game of Gay Thrones 5: Byzantium, England, Scotland, Quito and Thurn und Taxis

Here’s another collection of lgbt pretenders, claimants, usurpers and heirs of some royal thrones. Again, these are listed in chronological order of each claim.

1) Olympius of Ravenna (d.652): self-proclaimed Emperor of Byzantium.

In my previous “Game of Gay Thrones” article I included Eleutherius, a eunuch who proclaimed himself Emperor of Byzantium in 620. A generation later another eunuch called Olympius did the same thing in similar circumstances.

Both Eleutherius and Olympius had been a cubicularius, an imperial court chamberlain, an office usually held by a eunuch. As with his predecessor we don’t know which type of eunuch Olympius was. He may have been a natural eunuch, a castrated eunuch, or intersex.

In 649 Emperor Constans II sent Olympius to Rome to arrest the pope because Constans had not approved the pope’s election. At the same time Olympius was appointed Exarch (the Byzantine-appointed governor) of Ravenna in central Italy. On his arrival in Rome Olympius tried to whip up support from the bishops and citizens but found them firmly behind the pope. Olympius eventually realised he was wasting his time and switched to the pope’s side. He then declared himself Emperor of Byzantium, with the backing of his new papal friend.

Olympius marched south to fight his Byzantine opponents, but he and his army were struck down by a mysterious plague and Olympius died even before he could defend his claim to the throne.

2) Sir Henry Stuart, Lord Darnley (1545-1567): heir to the thrones of England and Scotland.

ir Henry has several senior titles but is usually known by the one he used as heir to his father the Earl of Lennox. For this claimant I need to show his family tree (below - sorry if its a bit big and goes over the edge). It only includes the royal lines of people who were living in the years Mary, Queen of Scots, and Queen Elizabeth I of England ascended to their thrones (1542 and 1547 respectively). The fact that Darnley was created King Consort on his marriage to Mary doesn’t mean he reigned as a king, even though he fought for the right to do so.

Lord Darnley was probably bisexual. A recent fictionalised film about Mary, Queen of Scots, implies Darnley was the lover of her secretary. He wasn’t, though Darnley is believed to have been the lover of a distant older relative.

England during Queen Elizabeth’s reign was dominated by the question of succession. Mary, Queen of Scots, her most well-known heir, was Elizabeth’s closest living heir through Princess Margaret Tudor. The second in line was Princess Margaret’s only other living descendant, Lord Darnley.

Darnley’s Scottish claim is much more complicated. Mary, Queen of Scots’ heir is found way out on the family tree. When she became queen at the age of 6 days old in 1542 Regents were appointed to rule Scotland. The first was James, 2nd Earl of Arran, who was also declared heir to the throne as Mary’s closest bloodline heir (by primogeniture – male-preferred succession). However, Matthew, 4th Earl of Lennox, objected and claimed that Arran’s father was bigamous making the Regent illegitimate and ineligible for the throne. Lennox, as the next closest bloodline heir to Queen Mary, claimed himself to be first in line to the throne, and he had enough support from some of the bishops and nobles to make his claim valid. This made Darnley second in line to the Scottish throne through his father, as well as second in line to the English throne through his mother.

Now, here’s where it gets weird. Queen Mary and Lord Darnley only had one son, who became King James VI of Scotland when his mother abdicated. If we agree that the Arran family were illegitimate, the first person in line of succession to James’s throne would still have been the Earl of Lennox, his own grandfather. With Darnley dead, this made King James second in line to his own throne! Lennox did manage to get as near as he could get to becoming king – for a while he was one of the Regents who governed for his young grandson.

3) Carlos de Montúfar (1780-1816): heir presumptive to the throne of Quinto.

Back in November I wrote about the independence struggle in Ecuador and the role played by Carlos de Montúfar and his father Juan Pio, Marquis de Selve Alegre. When the Marquis was appointed President of the Government of Quinto in 1809 he assumed the title of His Most Serene Highness (HMSH). Historians are of the opinion that the Quinto government intended to form a monarchy with the Marquis becoming HMSH Juan, 1st Prince of Quinto. His sons would have become princes also. The eldest son would have become the heir apparent. However, this son had no children, so Carlos, the second surviving son, would have become second in line of succession – the heir presumptive.

Unfortunately, troops loyal to imperial Spanish rule forced the Quinto government and the de Montúfar family to flee into exile just a few months later.

4) Prince Johannes von Thurn und Taxis (1926-1990): heir to the sovereign principality of Thurn and Taxis.

Even though Johannes is usually referred to as the 11th Prince of Thurn and Taxis the title refers more to his status as head of the family rather than of the former sovereign principality of the same name. German law does not recognise aristocratic titles. However, like a lot of European ex-royals Johannes still lived like a prince. He was once called he wealthiest man in Germany.

Thurn and Taxis was one of almost two thousand sovereign kingdoms, principalities, duchies, counties, lordships and bishoprics within the Holy Roman Empire. When the Empire was abolished in 1805 the principality of Thurn and Taxis, like the other sovereign states, became a non-sovereign state within the Austrian Empire, and later the German Empire.

Johannes, 11th Prince of Thurn and Taxis, was a colourful character. He was openly bisexual and frequented the gay clubs in Munich. He virtually squandered his wealth away on luxuries and extravagant parties. On his 60th birthday his wife, the equally colourful and homophobic “Punk Princess” Gloria spent $20 million on a party, which included a birthday cake with candles shaped like penises.

I’ll leave you with that image in your mind! The next, and probable final, instalment of “Game of Gay Thrones” will appear in the summer.

80 More Gays Around the World: Part 25) Friends and Betrayal

Last time on “80 More Gays”: 68) Bruce Voeller (1934-1994) was the person credited with coming up with the name “AIDS”, and names form the basis of the AIDS Memorial Quilt created by 69) Cleve Jones (b.1954), for which many companies have raised funds, including South African wine companies, one of which is owned by 70) Gerard Holden (b.1964), while another is located on the site of a leper hospital were 71) Dr. James Barry (c.1795-1865) worked.

After over 40 years service in the British army as a pioneering surgeon 71) Dr. James Barry retired to London where he died. His body was laid out in preparation for burial by a woman called Sophia Bishop. It was she discovered that James Barry was physically female and had successfully hidden this secret from the army for decades. When Sophia was refused payment for her services she took the secret to the press.

The revelation that one of the most revered army surgeons was born a woman caused quite a stir. The army were so embarrassed that they tried to suppress James Barry’s military records for a hundred years. Their attempt failed and the world got to know James Barry’s secret.

James Barry was baptised Margaret Ann Bulkey in Ireland. From adulthood he lived as a man. This suited James’ father who managed to enrol him into Edinburgh University as a medical student in 1809. Women were not allowed to study medicine in those days.

James qualified as a doctor in 1812 and enlisted into the army a year later. He rose very quickly to become Assistant Surgeon to the Forces in 1815. This position gave James the chance to travel the world. His first posting was to Cape Province in South Africa where he became Colonial Medical Inspector. In this role he went to the leper hospital at Hermanus (the location of the present Hamilton Russell wine estate) and immediately set about improving health care and hygiene practices.

James had a reputation for voicing his opposition to many established medical practices wherever he went. He even had a big row with Florence Nightingale during the Crimean War over hygiene (she then stole his ideas and passed them off as her own).

By the time of his death James Barry was well-known and respected, and all because his father enrolled him into Edinburgh University all those decades earlier. Others also kept his gender a secret. One of the family friends was a Venezuelan revolutionary called Francisco de Miranda. The original plan may have been for James to act as governess to Miranda’s children, perhaps in Venezuela, before he made his decision to become a doctor. James wouldn’t have become such a famous figure in the medical world if he had gone to Venezuela because South America was in a state of turmoil as colonies began revolting against their Spanish and Napoleonic rulers. Francisco de Miranda laid the foundations for the liberation of much of South America, assisted by compatriot revolutionaries such as a Simón Bolivar and 72) Carlos de Montúfar (1780-1816).

Carlos’s relationship with the German explorer Alexander von Humboldt is mentioned here. After he and Humboldt went their separate ways Carlos entered the Spanish army and fought in several battles against the Napoleonic French. In 1810 he sailed back to his native Ecuador, a Spanish colonial province then called the Quito Audiencia. There he joined the independence movement with his father, the Marques de Selva Alegre.

In 1812 independence was declared under the name of the Autonomous Government of Quito with Carlos’s father as President. However, a few months later Spanish loyalist troops took Quito city and the revolutionary government, including Carlos de Montúfar, fled. Eventually Carlos joined Simón Bolivar in his independence campaigns in Colombia but was captured at the Battle of the Cuchilla de Tambo in June 1816. The following month he was executed.

Simón Bolivar went on to become the big hero of South American independence, even having the country Bolivia named after him, of course. Strangely, Bolivia attracted many German settlers. Their descendants are recognised as a separate ethnic community to this day.

In the 1920s Bolivia decided to call upon Germany to help them reorganise their army. One of the military instructors that was sent was 73) Ernst Röhm (1887-1934), one of Adolf Hitler’s close friends.

Ernst arrived in Bolivia in January 1929. He was disappointed that a recent conflict with Paraguay has been resolved before he arrived and he was often at odds with his commanding officer, Gen. Hans Kundt. Shortly after his arrival a coup supported by Kundt deposed the Bolivian president. Ernst was rumoured that the new president had chosen him to replace Kundt, but before that could happen Ernst received a letter from Hitler ordering him to return to Germany. If only he had stayed in Bolivia.

What attracted Ernst back was the promise of becoming Chief of Staff of the SA (Sturmabteilung, the Storm Battalion, known as the Brown Shirts), the Nazi’s paramilitary wing which Ernst had helped to found in 1921. By 1934 the general reputation of the SA had deteriorated to the status of armed thugs and Hitler decided to scale back its powers.

Heinrich Himmler and Reinhard Heydrich, the Chief of the SS Security Service, fabricated documents against Ernst Röhm, suggesting that the SA were planning to overthrow Hitler. Most of this evidence centred on the alleged activities of the many known gay members of the SA. Hitler knew Ernst was gay and was at first reluctant to believe the evidence. What resulted was the “Night of the Long Knives”, a pivotal event in the history of the rise of Hitler.

On 30th June 1934 Hitler and SS troops arrested Ernst Röhm and the SA leaders in a surprise attack. After some procrastination Hitler ordered the execution of Ernst two days later. Following the Night of the Long Knives Hitler strengthened Paragraph 175, the law criminalising homosexuality, and Hitler assumed more power.

Reinhard Heydrich, the co-author of the fake documents, became Protector of Nazi-occupied Bohemia and Moravia (modern-day Czech Republic). Czech rebels murdered Heydrich in 1942 and Hitler retaliated by ordering the execution of every man in the village of Lidice, where he claimed the assassins had been harboured. The “Lidice Massacre” horrified the world. Some places still commemorate it to this day. One commemoration was a verse-play called “The Murder of Lidice” and it was written by 74) Edna St. Vincent Millay (1892-1950).

Next time of “80 More Gays”: How a village was destroyed, how reputations were built, and how civilisations were revealed.

80 More Gays Around the World: Part 15) A Price For Art

Last time on “80 More Gays”: Japanese shogun 39) Tokugawa Tsunayoshi (1646-1709) introduced a festival that originated in an ancient harvest celebration, while over in colonial America the similar Thanksgiving festival was being celebrated by Puritan colonists, including 40) William Plaine (d.1646), a colonist executed for sodomy and an ancestor of 41) Vincent Price (1911-1993).

It is very rare for any white American to be only descended from one Puritan colonist of the early 17th century. 41) Vincent Price, the star of many films who became a horror icon, is no exception. Not only is he descended from 40) William Plaine and several of the other New Haven colonial families but he is also a Mayflower descendant.

This year we commemorate the 400th anniversary of the sailing of the Mayflower and the Pilgrims to America. I’ll write more about the Mayflower Pilgrims and some of their lgbt descendants in September. Much research into Mayflower ancestry has been done by many genealogists over the years. In some respect discovering one of your ancestors was a Mayflower passenger is as much of a bonus for American family historians as finding a descent from royalty is for some of us Brits. Some American have both. But caution must be taken when going online to look for Mayflower ancestry. A lot of research is not based on actual sources and quite often even top professional genealogists have had different opinions.

At this moment in time the only Mayflower passengers that we can prove are direct descendants of Vincent Price are James Chilton (c.1556-1620), his wife (name unknown) who died with her husband in that first winter, and their daughter Mary (1607-1679). Legend says that Mary was the first person to set foot on Plymouth Rock. She married John Winslow, the brother of Mayflower passenger Edward Winslow, later the Governor of Plymouth Colony who approved of the death sentence of William Plaine.

Vincent Price

Vincent Price was one of quite a significant group of male and female Hollywood actors who were lesbian, gay or bisexual, a fact often known to the film studios and hidden from public knowledge behind “lavender” marriages. These marriages were usually arranged by the film studios with the full knowledge of the couple that one, or even both, of them was lgb. Many lavender marriages were arranged specifically to stop rumours in the press about an actor’s sexuality.

In Vincent Price’s case his bisexuality was easier to hide with a marriage. His first two marriages were not lavender marriages, though his last to actor Coral Browne in 1974, effectively, was. This is not to suggest that there was no genuine love between them.

It was Vincent’s daughter 42) Victoria Price (b.1962), herself openly lesbian, who ended speculation on his sexuality in 2014 when her 1999 book “Vincent Price: A Daughter’s Biography” was reprinted. After her father’s death Victoria was asked about his sexuality. Her biography referenced these rumours without really answering them. In an interview with “Boom” magazine while promoting her reprinted book Victoria gave the following remark: “I am as close to certain as I can be that my dad had physically intimate relationships with man. I know for 100% fact that my dad was completely loving and supportive of lgbt people.”

While Vincent Price’s acting career is what made him famous another side to him is less well-known. He was an art collector and historian. At Yale University he studied art history, after which he became an art teacher for a year. Then he travelled to England to study at the Courtauld Institute of Art in London.

In London he became attracted to the stage and began his acting career when he returned to the USA. In 1935 he made his first stage performance playing Prince Albert, Prince Consort in “Victoria Regina”. Acting became his profession but he continued to study art and amassing a huge art collection.

His love of art inspired him to write “The Vincent Price Treasury of American Art” (1972) as well as a couple of other art books. He also gave lectures on art, and was a committee member on several art organisations. In 1947 he co-founded the Modern Institute of Art in Beverley Hills with fellow actors Edward G. Robinson and Fanny Bryce. Sadly, the venture only lasted two years. One other passion was food. Vincent wrote a series of cook books and often demonstrated his recipes on American television.

Vincent and his second wife Mary were frequent visitors to the East Los Angeles College. With his keen desire to see better access to art given to marginalised sections of the community he donated 90 works of art from his own collection to the college in 1957. This formed the basis of a teaching collection and was the start of the Vincent Price Art Museum (VPAM) which now has collected over 9,000 works.

Victoria Price is currently a board member of the VPAM. She continues to support the museum’s aim to foster under-represented artists, often of ethnic or disadvantaged backgrounds, as well as established artist and old masters. One of the artists showcased at the VPAM was a former student of the East Los Angeles College, 43) Laura Aguilar (1949-2018). Laura took a photography course there in the early 1970s.

Laura was a photographer who was an example of the under-represented artists the VPAM championed. She was an open lesbian from a poor background, came from a Mexican-American-Irish family, was dyslexic and diabetic. Her dyslexia affected her learning abilities as a child. With her grandmother Laura would go out into the California countryside and the landscapes influenced her art.

While at the East Los Angeles College Laura was told by a teacher that she was wasting her time trying to be an artist when she couldn’t even read properly. Because of this attitude Laura transferred to the Pasadena City College. This has a more inclusive and progressive programme of teaching.

Laura’s interest in photography was sparked by her brother who taught her how to develop photographs. She became a pioneer in the genres of Latina and chicana lesbian imagery, often using herself as a nude model. Her focus was on the ordinary lives of Los Angeles lesbians. A series of portraits called “Latina Lesbians” (1986-1990) is one of her most significant works.

During her lifetime Laura’s works were exhibited in many international galleries and museums. She died from complications arising from her diabetes at the age of 58. The VPAM was the first gallery to mount a retrospective of her work the following year.

Let’s go back to the Pasadena City College where Laura studied in the 1980s. There’s several other former alumni worth mentioning. First is Fred Phelps (1929-2014), the vehemently homophobic pastor of the Westboro Baptist Church. Two other alumni are more welcome, and linked - George Reeves (1914-1959), who became famous as television’s Superman in the 1950s, and his co-star 44) Jack Larson (1928-2015).

Next time on “80 More Gays”: We dive into superhero comics and films, and take a philosophical look at a lost continent.

Out of His Paternal Tree: Pete Buttigieg Part 2

In March I had a look at Pete Buttigieg’s maternal ancestry. Pete’s father’s line is very different and has some unexpected ethnic origins.

Pete Buttigieg’s father was originally from Malta. His name was Dr. Joseph Anthony Buttigieg (1947-2019), and he was a Professor of English. He became a US citizen in 1979, though he was born a citizen of the British colony of Malta, and then a Maltese citizen when it gained independence. The Buttigieg family is one of the oldest of Maltese families, having an unbroken recorded male line of descent for over a thousand years.

As mentioned at the end of the article on his mother’s ancestry the name Buttigieg translates as “owner of chickens” or, but it can also be translated as “chicken on a barrel”. I mentioned a coat of arms as well last time. It’s a perfect example of a heraldic pun. Whether the original family name really was actually meant to refer to a chicken on a barrel or evolved from the similar sounding name is uncertain but it has been used by the family since medieval times. I found three variations of the coat of arms for the family, and have yet to determine with certainty which one has been inherited by Pete Buttigieg (I favour the middle one).

Among the influential members of the Buttigieg family were Anton Buttigieg (1912-1983), 2nd President of Malta, and Monsignor Michele Francesco Buttigieg (1783-1816), 1st Bishop of Gozo. Along with Pete Buttigieg they are descended from Silvestrino Buttigieg (b.c.1500).

Let’s see how far back the family can be traced. From information in the Maltese National Archives and various online genealogies I’ve found that there is a continuous father-to-son bloodline for the family that probably goes back to 850 AD.

Silvestrino Buttigieg’s great-grandfather, Ansaldinu Buttigieg (b.1390), is listed as a Nobile, a title similar to the feudal lords of the manor in medieval England. Owners of these titles held great influence in the government of the Malta for several generations.

The Buttigieg’s title of Nobile was first held by Ansaldinu’s great-great-great-grandfather Antonio bin Buttigieg. You may have noticed a slight change to the surname, the “bin”, which indicates that Antonio belonged to a Muslim family. From unverified information this brings an intriguing element into Pete Buttigieg’s ancestry, because this Antonio is said to have been the son of a prince of the Muslim Kalbid dynasty.

The Kalbids were an Arab family who settled in the Maghreb, the region in North Africa between present day Morocco and Egypt. Arabs from the Maghreb captured Malta and Sicily from the Byzantine Empire in the 9th century, and al-Hasan al-Kalbi, the founder of the Kalbid dynasty and Pete Buttigieg’s direct male ancestor, because the Emir of Sicily and Malta in 947. The throne of Sicily-Malta separated in 1053 and the last Emir of Malta, Jafar III, Pete Buttigieg’s ancestral cousin, was deposed in 1240.

The Buttigiegs descend from the junior Kalbid line down to Prince Muhammad Kalbid, Hakim (i.e. governor) of Catania. Between 1000 and 1150 different lines of Pete’s ancestral Kalbid cousins were Kings of Badajoz, Majorca and Segura, and Emirs of Messina, Agrigento and Castrogiovanni.

The Kalbids were deposed by Norman invaders from Italy, led by Roger I de Hauteville (c.1031-1101), Count of Sicily. Malta thus became a part of the county of Sicily. Many Muslim family were permitted to remain and some converted to Christianity, including some of the Kalbid princes.

Pete Buttigieg’s father is also descended from the Hauteville dynasty. The bloodline goes down into the royal family of Aragon who were subsequent conquerors of Malta and Sicily. Princess Leonor de Aragona-Sicilie (c.1346-after 1369) was the daughter of Prince Giovanni, Duke of Athens and Regent of Sicily-Malta (son of King Federigo II of Sicily). Through her Pete Buttigieg acquires the bloodline from Roger de Hauteville.

Eventually this Hauteville and Aragon bloodline merged with the Kalbid bloodline in 1664 with the marriage of Giuseppe Buttigieg and the Aragon descendant Domenica Galea.

Five generations later another Giuseppe Buttigieg married Maria Micalief, a member of one of the many other influential Maltese families in Pete’s ancestry. If we follow Maria’s line back a few generations we find several lines of descent from a Spanish soldier who arrived in Malta called Jofre Albano de Borja. If that name sounds familiar it’s because his brother was great-grandfather to the notorious Italian Borgias and Pope Alexander VI.

The Maltese Borjas changed their name to Borg, and one of Pete’s distant cousins from this family was George Borg Olivier (1911-1980), who was twice Prime Minister of Malta. With Malta being a small nation it is not surprising that a very high proportion of people on the Maltese islands are interrelated or are distant cousins, more so than in the USA where there are millions of people. So, its also no surprise to learn that as well and George Borg Olivier and Anton Buttigieg (both above-mentioned) Pete Buttigieg is related by blood to most of the Presidents, Prime Ministers and medieval rulers of Malta.