XMAS CELEBRATES a boy child's birth in the desert. But we wait for an old Gift-Bringer to 'fly' in from the land of perpetual snow. So who exactly is this 'merry' dude in red and white, descending chimneys with his 'red nosed' reindeer and gifts?
Let's investigate this mystery, as the cops might say.

As if answering an underlying need, the modern Santa myth was sparked as a craze across America in 1823 by the publication in the Troy Sentinel of The Visit Of Saint Nicholas. The author, Professor Clement Clark Moore, was a scholar of ancient languages.

Next, Bavarian-American Thomas Nast dressed the cat in Arctic clothing for Harpers Illustrated Weekly, and called him Santa Claus in the Dutch-American fashion. German-American Moritz Von Schwind added his red costume.

Ancient languages? Old Bavarian, German, Dutch, Siberian? Does Santa trace back to some pre-Christian European tradition? Christendom's superimposition of its myths on pagan power spots obviously included the important pagan midwinter celebrations dramatising the Old Year's death and the New Year's rebirth. But the cruel, energetic suppression of the seasonal 'Yules' and 'Saturnalias' by Cromwell's Puritans' shows how stubborn was their continuing popularity among the common people (that's us! - Ed).

Displaced ever northwards by intolerant, monotheistic Christianity, this shamanic culture survives today, perched on the tundras of Siberia/Lapland where the lifestyles of the Koryak, Chukchee and Kamchadel tribes reach back to the end of the last Ice Age.

Is the evidence to be found there, serge?

The Greatest 'Gifts' of All?
Among these 'unspoiled' peoples the Shaman still combines the roles of priest, psychiatrist, doctor, DJ, dealer, historian, magician and story teller. His duty is to ensure the spiritual welfare of the tribe, which he achieves by entering ecstatic 'trance' states and 'flying' to the Underworld (renamed 'Hell' by the Christians) to defeat the demons of disease, disorder and depression, or 'flying' to the Upperworld (now 'Heaven') to consult the gods, and bringing back divine 'gifts' in the form of answers, new songs, trance tracks, visions and legends.

In Lapp epics people write messages to the gods, then burn them so they travel up the chimney. 'Responses' descend by the same route. The 'gifts' Santa brings to all Good Children?

Santa's Red and White Coat?
To aid their 'flying,' shamans eat Fly Agaric mushrooms (Amanita Muscaria) which produce spectacular visions and the experience of 'flying.' Red and white, see? All Siberians were fond of them, as a Swedish prisoner of war reported:

"They pour water upon some of these mushrooms, boil them, and drink the liquor, which intoxicates them. The poorer sort post themselves round the huts of the rich and, when they come down to piss, hold a wooden bowl to receive the urine, which they drink of greedily."

Sometimes they'd drink their own urine to prolong the trip.

The Red Nosed Reindeer?
Reindeer still provide these tribes with food, clothing, utensils and ornaments (as once across all Europe) and play a vital role in their religious traditions. And they love the mushrooms too, charging wildly across the snow to slurp the piss of anyone rash enough to take a leak outside!

The Merry, Red Nosed "Horned God" perhaps? Pretty convincing identity parade, no?

More Tea, Santa? But Don't Get Pissed!
In small doses, Fly Agaric acts as a tonic. When the Koryak travel great distances, with their reindeer as beasts of burden, both they and the animals get an intoxicating slug of mushroom infusion/urine. Santa travels immensely long distances in one night - could any Christian deny him his cuppa?!

Coming down the Chimney?
For their Winter yurts these tribes throw a roof of birch logs over a hole. The smoke hole, directly above the fire, doubles as the main entrance. Does Santa think he's coming in the front door?

The shaman, too, 'flies' in and out via the smoke hole. And, in Germany, the patron saint of chimney sweeps is the Fly Agaric mushroom.

Which just about closes this case, serge.

A Merry Pagan Xmas To All Our Patrons!

How appropriate that the real 'Resurrection' of Christmas, into the neo-pagan festival we celebrate today, is a gift of "Merry" Old Santa from a New World whose indigenous Native American population had themselves crossed from Siberia to Alaska!

The Midwinter Festival, today called "Xmas", celebrates the magic of personal and planetary transformation. How appropriate, then, that a Shaman, from our distant but never quite forgotten past and probable future, is the Leader of the Feast, 'pulling down' the "Gift" of Change itself.

where's the list?