Ammonium

A while ago, I wrote an article about tanning leather and had my gag reflex thoroughly tested thanks to some of the early materials utilized, perhaps most notably, ammonium (in the form of urine).  Quite recently this came up in conversation with a friend, like it does for all of you out there.  I was mentioning an item shared on FB about the origins of certain phrases: 'piss poor' (being so poor that you sold your urine to the tannery) and the more extreme 'doesn't have a pot to piss in.'  It's always fun when certain pieces of knowledge snug up next to each other (though I couldn't say if those phrase origins are true, they seem to make sense at least). 
    After being appropriately delighted, she (yes, she.  don't you talk about urine with your lady-friends?) mentioned that, in Rome, they used urine to take the stains out of garments (ammonium, dontcha know) and had collection stations placed around the city for the good citizens to make their deposits.  These vessels were then transported to a fullonica for the cleaning process.  The idea that Senators went about in their pristine togas, smelling faintly of the urinal, does elicit a satisfying smile.
    Figuring that this was a worthwhile pursuit, I did a little more digging, only to remind myself that I'd covered most of these topics (though organized rather differently).  I've mentioned the tanner's trade already.  Urine was also used as a mordant in the dyer's profession.  Somewhere I must have made mention of the fertilizer angle.  The stain-fighting was the only bit it seems I really missed (in my time period).  The other noted stain-fighting application, in the Smithsonian article noted below, was to keep your teeth brighter. 
    The one application that I hadn't covered, that's of really interesting note, is its use in making explosives.  Now, Europe didn't get into making explosives until rather late in the game (since the Chinese had been doing it for quite some time), so it's not necessarily applicable to the world I'm creating, but it's not something I should necessarily rule out either.  It's certainly something that could be stumbled upon by a curious mind.  How it impacts warfare and society is an interesting question, when you have magic in the world.  Something to think about.
    The myriad applications of urine are just one example of people taking what they have in abundance and putting it to use.  It's easy to forget how difficult it was to obtain certain materials, when (today) you can drive to your corner store and pick up a bottle of detergent for the wash and some limes for your margarita.  While not every experiment was a success, folks made do with the materials they had on hand.  We shouldn't be too surprised that they found a number of ways to put their own eliminations to good use.  I seem to remember hearing that some baseball players piss on their hands to toughen them up, but that could just be an old wives' tale.



Historic Ammonium Use - http://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/from-gunpowder-to-teeth-whitener-the-science-behind-historic-uses-of-urine-442390/?no-ist

Urea and Vitalism - http://humantouchofchemistry.com/urea-and-the-beginnings-of-organic-chemistry.htm

Fertilizers - http://www.madehow.com/Volume-3/Fertilizer.html

Friendship

"I didn't watch that movie because you didn't watch the one I told you to." - a girl talking to her friend in the park yesterday.

    Yeah, I know, the quote seems rather banal, but it helped draw together some ideas that had been bouncing around in my head for some time.  It started back with the research for my posting "What is Feudalism?" and came back in while doing my reading for the last post, "Jobs - Castellan," especially that Master's thesis I stumbled upon.  The ideas essentially boiled down to the title of this post, "Friendship."  Listening to those kids in the park started me thinking about my views on friendship, which then led to how those views were shaped by my childhood, which made me ponder how relationships would be different in a world where the legal and social construct I lived within did not exist.
    One of the larger conversations among historians, regarding the Middle Ages, is whether there was any such thing as feudalism, or if the "system" was purely a construct of later generations.  While this isn't entirely pertinent to my title, the connection lies in the idea that these political constructs were based on social ties of loyalty and trust.  The fiction that most of us lazily ascribe to is that those connections were based on a strict code of honor which bound these men of war into a rigid hierarchy.  In fact, these relationships functioned much the same way as "friendships" do today, depending entirely upon the specific connection between the participants.
    The basic idea in feudalism is this: the leader would give his men control over certain portions of the land he had conquered, but expected a little something in return.  However, what they owed him was open to negotiation.  There were no written rules on all of this; they made it up as they went along.  Often vassals were required to provide counsel to their overlord and soldiers in time of war.  Cash was often accepted in place of personal service in war (especially as time went on and cash became more common).  Vassals were also required to feed and house their overlord if/when they came visiting, which could be part of an annual tour of the realm, if a lord wanted to sit in judgement at local courts, or even used punitively, as a sort of additional tax.  Now we're beginning to see some of the complications.
    In reality, the larger the domain, the less frequent the visits with your overlord and the stronger the bonds needed to be.  Think Game of Thrones.  At the onset, Ned hadn't seen Robert for years, even though they had grown up together and been trusted and faithful allies in their rebellion.  Clearly, Ned is the kind of guy you want to put in a position of trust, overseeing an enormous area of land and covering your ass.  Not only is he loyal, but he is content in his role as caretaker.  How common do you think guys like Ned are in the real world?  I can't help but feel that if GRRM ever had the time to write Ned's early years, that he'd have a tough time keeping the character alive. 
    Hereditary rights are the other aspect of the lord/vassal relationship that we naturally associate with the period.  Yeah, not such a safe assumption.  Naturally, every parent wants to be able to pass on all that they have acquired to their children, and kings got to do that because they were in charge, but their vassals didn't always have the same assurances.  This was for a number of reasons.  Just because your dad was a good man and a friend of mine doesn't mean that his kids are the kind of folks I want administering my kingdom.  Not everyone is cut out for that kind of thing and it keeps the next generation working hard to stay in the king's good graces.  Next, as the old saying goes, "land is the one thing they aren't making any more of."  If a large landholder dies, I can now distribute that wealth to other deserving vassals without having to fight to expand my kingdom, or stripping fiefs from my other subordinates.  The granting of hereditary title was demanded by especially powerful vassals in return for service, but it was not the obvious choice we all think of it as now.  Later this became a more common fixture, denoting special favor of the lord (in which case it could be just as easily stripped).
    In a world where you are fighting to determine who writes the laws, the bonds of honor might be a touch tenuous.  It is no surprise that those in power sought to ally themselves with religious institutions.  By being declared "the anointed" of whatever deity, they added another bond between lord and vassal.  Not only was it then dishonorable to go against your liege lord, it was also a sin.  Christian lords who fought against those favored by the Pope were excommunicated (which might not sound like much to a non-believer, but is significant if you are allergic to hellfire).  Of course the priesthoods also became corrupted by this association (becoming a route to power for younger sons in Europe, with positions regularly bought and sold), but the purpose of this corruption remains the same, strengthening the bindings between the haves and the have nots. 
    The bonds that I have in my personal life find me doing things for friends with no expectations.  If they need, I give.  When I need, it tends to work out the same way.  It's not a question of keeping score.  While this works for me, somehow I don't think that this social contract would be quite as functional in lord/vassal relationships of the Middle Ages.  What started out as simple bonds of loyalty and faith became political game pieces.  Friendship is all well and good, but I need to look out for my future, my family.  What value does your friendship have in the long term?  You might have a basketball court in your driveway, but that guy has a swimming pool and he doesn't like you very much.  You don't come over all that much anymore, anyway.  I didn't watch that movie, because you didn't watch the one I told you to.

Jobs - Castellan

Castles served many functions in the Medieval world.  They were homes, defensive structures, and symbols of power that dotted the landscape.  The possession of these complexes were significant markers of a noble's position in the Medieval hierarchy.  Traditionally, a lord would subdivide lands under his control and parcel them out to worthy followers as a reward for service, but you can only do this so much without giving up controlling interest in your own territory.  A lord needed a hired hand to look after the shop in his name, while he was busy doing whatever lordly things needed doing elsewhere.  The castellan governed the castle in his lord's stead, ordering the household and the garrison.
    The title of castellan, naturally, meant different things in different regions (and sometimes from position to position).  The position of castellan was non-noble, but could be a hereditary title.  It could be one of multiple titles held by an individual in lay or ecclesiastic governance.  Some regions utilized them to direct regional strongholds or simple fortifications.  In many cases, he was the manager of a castle and surrounding lands, responsible for: collection of taxes, maintenance of defensive structures, administering justice, and defending the domain under his control.  Sworn vassals, they were often responsible for maintaining their own body of troops, but drew an annual wage from the lands under their direction.  In many cases, while the lords were away, they ceased to be caretakers and took over the domain in fact.  Some charted their own lineages back to mythic forebears to establish their credentials. 
    Placing someone in direct control over such an important possession was a calculated risk for the nobility.  Once granted, that power was not always so easy to rescind.  As they say, "Possession is nine tenths of the law."  By investing a subordinate with a measure of your power, you set them up as authorities, who the locals get used to listening to and working with.  The larger your domains, the more that you need to entrust to subordinates, who may stab you in the back at any time.  Allegiances shifted at alarming rates in these times, at all levels of governance, especially as the middle class began to assert itself, blurring the lines between noble and commoner.  What appears to have initially been an attempt to avoid giving control of important castles to power-hungry lesser nobles, instead simply muddied the waters even further. 



References
title in non-British countries - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Castellan

Germany - http://books.google.com/books?id=FHgaJ3k9j3MC&pg=PA99&lpg=PA99&dq=medieval+castellan&source=bl&ots=V2Au6_9kTb&sig=kYZfa0o9-u-PJYXy19U4gXtyd8g&hl=en&sa=X&ei=lrIhVM-BPNivyASg0oGgBQ&ved=0CCcQ6AEwAjgK#v=onepage&q=medieval%20castellan&f=false

France - http://books.google.com/books?id=5ebFAAAAQBAJ&pg=PA152&lpg=PA152&dq=medieval+castellan&source=bl&ots=08bwxjiBj2&sig=NMC0mFMZxMjmj3NHP_6obZs8LtA&hl=en&sa=X&ei=0bIhVIj8Ksj2yQTatYHQDA&ved=0CDIQ6AEwBTgK#v=onepage&q=medieval%20castellan&f=false

Flanders - http://books.google.com/books?id=WhmtAgAAQBAJ&pg=PA47&lpg=PA47&dq=medieval+castellan&source=bl&ots=EsLDQ48FuX&sig=gxD6T4iTyA0Ls5wHpnbtjwmCKz4&hl=en&sa=X&ei=S7MhVKi_IIq3yASo2oKgBg&ved=0CEQQ6AEwCTgK#v=onepage&q=medieval%20castellan&f=false

Related Thesis - http://repository.lib.ncsu.edu/ir/bitstream/1840.16/6290/1/etd.pdf

Jobs - Puppeteer

I've been a fan of the Muppets since I was a wee tyke.  Watching the show was a family experience, as was later Fraggle Rock.  A couple of months ago I got hooked on watching that reality show which has young designers designing creatures for industry types (including Jim Henson's spawn).  It's amazing how some shag carpet and a pair of googly eyes can morph such a creepy art form into a cute little snuggle monster.  During my time in Prague, I learned a bit about the depth of tradition involved in the historic tradition, but today I wanted to delve a little deeper into these wooden nightmare machines.

Goodness, when will I learn with these topics?  I should have known that a history of puppets would go back thousands of years and appear in most ancient cultures around the world.  Like so many other topics, lots of cultures claim to have been the first to utilize puppets, but that's more about propaganda than it is about history.  Part of the trick in that argument is untangling the articulated dolls from the marionettes (see what I did there?).  However, this is not the purpose of today's posting.  Bullet dodged.  Moving on.

When you discuss puppetry, there are four main types: shadow, rod, glove, and string.

Shadow puppets may have been the earliest type (you've made some with your hands at night in front of a lamp, right?), with all of the elements of this type of performance being used by Plato in his story about the cave dwellers.  Traditionally, flat figures were cut from leather and manipulated via thin rods or strings.  These figures were projected onto a screen with the use of oil lamps.  This method of storytelling is still popular in India and Indonesia, but seems to have been practiced in China thousands of years ago.

http://www.unima-usa.org/publications/shadow/Brown.html

Rod puppets are manipulated from below.  The first of these were likely shadow puppets, but eventually they came out from behind the screen (perhaps the performers wanted to work better hours) and got prettied up with paint and other forms of decoration.  Indian and Indonesian puppets were manipulated from below, while Chinese puppets were performed from the side.  Later rod puppets attained a third dimension, gaining significantly in expressiveness.

Glove puppets are the most common today, including sock and finger puppets.  Originally, these were rod puppets that used cloth to cover the rods, allowing the hand within to manipulate the rods unseen.



String puppets, or marionettes, are thought to have derived from those string automata (toys) found in ancient tombs of many cultures (automata would do one action, like kneading bread, when triggered).  Created in Medieval France, or Italy, the term "marionette" may have come from their use in early Christian morality plays.  In Europe, marionettes were generally considered the more refined form of the puppet show, due to their more artful construction, leaving the more crudely designed rod or glove puppets to the masses. 

For those of you keeping track at home, muppets were named for being a combination of marionette and hand puppet.

Puppets have been used to tell all kinds of stories.  They have been political commentators, religious spokespeople, and pure entertainment in equal measure throughout history.  While many could be operated by a single performer, some in Japan (bunraku) required three men dressed in black (in full view of the audience) to operate them.  Plays and operas were adapted for their use, but some stories were designed specifically for the smaller stage.
    Similar to a pantheon of gods, many characters took on archetypal roles.  Punch, (evolved from the Italian "Pulcinella) who may have attained his greatest fame on the English stage, was a trickster.  Guignol (French), had an acerbic wit.  Spejbl and Hurvinek were a father and son duo from the more modern part of the Czech tradition.  Some of these characters were specific to a performer, while others spread as a national tradition.  
    While puppetry may have been appreciated by the upper classes, those pulling the strings were certainly not of their rank (much like their acting brethren).  In Europe, when puppets began to be used for more than simple religious education and started injecting comedy, they were outlawed.  These entertainers then hit the road and began to perform alongside other traveling acts, attaining the same sort of reputation as the gypsies (and, truth be told, most anyone from "outside" that relatively static society).  In many cultures, this became a serious art form, requiring years of dedication to the craft. 



Worth noting is that while ventriloquism was known as far back as ancient Greece, some Medieval European folks pretended to use it to commune with the dead, so they tended to burn people for doing it. 



Wiki overview - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Puppetry
Chinese shadows - http://www.travelchinaguide.com/intro/focus/shadow-puppetry.htm
Czech Puppetry - http://unima.idu.cz/en/czech-puppetry
Lots of Links - http://www.bransonshows.com/articles/PuppetShowsHistoryofthePuppet.htm

Feminism in Fantasy

In my quest to become a better author, I continue to read.  To those of you who follow this blog, that might not be much of a surprise, but what is unusual is that I often have to push myself to read modern works within my genre.  Maybe I just need to be pointed in the right direction by helpful folks (hint hint).  
    Recently, I picked up a novel by an author whose other work I have thoroughly enjoyed (no, I'm not saying who) and found the story of a plucky young princess who has had to take up the mantle of leadership.  During this political upheaval, she decides to throw out "appropriate" riding clothing for a lady, because it isn't utilitarian enough.  There is also the soldier who pines for the princess he knows he can never have.  Perhaps the author turns these tropes on their heads and the story comes to a satisfying conclusion, but I doubt I'll ever find out.  There was plenty more going on in the story, but these central characters just didn't grab me.  Perhaps I'm not the audience for them.  It did, however, help to inspire this posting. 

    Over the last few months, I've been exposed to more and more material about the continuing difficulty that women face in the modern world (it helps that I have a friend in a politically focused punk band).  While things certainly have gotten better for women today, there is still a long way to go before "equality" can even be sniffed in the distance.  As with other globe-spanning issues, the problem can feel overwhelming.  The joy of the artist is that we can impact large numbers of people (theoretically).  If our work is successful, we can help make that change, even if it isn't in the modern world, but with the next generation.
    Ah yes, another crusading white man.  Not exactly.  I get that I don't really know what it's like to be discriminated against.  I grew up as a white christian male in the suburbs, in relative affluence.  Even during the brief time I lived in Brazil, and was obviously in the minority, being light skinned was still an advantage.  In my heart and my experience, I know that there is no inherent difference between people, but it's difficult at times to know if some of my thoughts and actions are actually sexist, racist, or simply rational.  What thoughts come from training and what from reasonable understanding?  Real introspection is required to sort through those feelings.  Then again, the answers I come up with will certainly not jibe with everybody's, so where does that leave me?  Ah right, trusting the moral compass. 
    One of the things I harp on most often is that I love genre fiction because it allows our readers to suspend their disbelief and go on a ride unimaginable in standard fiction.  We create heroes and heroines to inspire our readers.  We invent ideal societies.  We subvert gender and racial norms.  We do all these things to promote our hopes and beliefs, but we shouldn't make our leads into Disney princesses. 
    There are plenty of examples of women in history who stepped outside of the defined gender-roles and did incredible things.  Cleopatra seems to have been quite a woman (hi there Kahleesi).  Some trained as soldiers, like the Norse shield-maidens (have you still not watched "Vikings"?).  Even more fought when they had no other choice (JRRT has Eowyn told to go defend the women and children when Theoden fully expects to have his army crushed, right?).  Other women became doctors and midwives (that show from the BBC has been rather popular, hasn't it?).  These are the ladies we most often meet in Fantasy novels, the exceptional ones (meaning, not the historic norm).  These are the figures we choose for our heroines.
    However, those women that didn't take on the roles assigned to men also made significant contributions.  Do you think that the life of a farmer was easy?  Did his wife just tend the fire and cook his meals?  Hell, reading The Good Earth was an eye-opener for me too, but I was what, 14 at the time?  Nurses still play an enormous role in modern healthcare.  Women have had to work just as hard as men did to scrape out an existence.  Do you really think women didn't hunt, or gather?  When the men went off to war, do you think the ladies had a quilting bee?  They had to take over "men's jobs", just like during WWII.  Why are these ladies not represented?
    It's time for Fantasy to do more than to invest princess figures with modern ethics.  Sure, it's good to give little girls someone to admire.  It's important to inspire them to break new ground.  It's also important to demonstrate what they've been accomplishing throughout history.  Taking on the roles traditionally assigned to men is great, but it is just as valid for strong female characters to fill traditionally ascribed roles (you can find some in GoT).  There is the old saying that, "behind every good man, is a great woman."  Where are these partnerships?  It feels important to show that women don't have to change or prove themselves worthy of respect, but that they've been worthy all along. You never know, along the way we just might teach some men as well.

Damn.  These blog posts keep giving me more stories I have to tell.  Well, I guess it's good to know I won't run out anytime soon.  Sorry about another observational post.  I promise that next time I'll get back to the history.  Then again, if you liked it (or didn't), let me know.  It's always good to get feedback.

9/11/01

When you're from New Jersey, like I am, you meet loads of people who have powerful memories related to that date.  There are thousands of people who have a more personal connection to the tragedy, but I'm having trouble thinking of much else today, so this is my memory.

At the time, I was working on a job site in Newark, right on the hillside abutting the Passaic river.  In the distance, the NYC skyline was visible, poking up between the highrises of Jersey City.  My work had me on site before dawn to set up my instruments before the construction guys showed to fire their engines.  It was a gorgeous day.
    The first time we knew something was wrong, one of the operators was calling from his excavator that there had been a terrible accident.  He'd heard on his radio that a plane had somehow struck the World Trade Center.  In the distance we could see the smoke streaming into the sky.  Then the sirens began to wail, fire engines and ambulances began to flow across the river in a stream that would not end.  For a brief interval we all stood and watched, saddened.  Then we went back to work.
    It wasn't until the second plane struck that we understood.  Maybe we'd known all along and hadn't wanted to admit it, but now there was no way to deceive ourselves.  Machines stopped.  We all stood there and watched.  Cars pulled off the road onto the site for a view or just to be with someone else.  The foreman's voice broke through the stillness and the ceaseless sirens' wail.  "Alright, let's get back to work."  We didn't even see them collapse.
    No work day could be more surreal.  Machines ran, moving earth.  My instruments needed maintenance.  In the background was that everexpanding stream of smoke gashing the brilliant blue sky.  I picked up lunch from the food truck up the street and ate in silence.  Morgan, my normally gregarious colleague, spent the day in the office trailer, emerging only to take photos to document the site.
    At the close of day, machines quieted and instruments packed, we dispersed.  It was driving that finally made the day hit home.  Growing up in New Jersey teaches a certain resignation towards the presence of traffic, but that afternoon the streets were empty.  I didn't know that the tunnels were closed.  Driving past Newark Airport was awful.  The Jersey Turnpike was silent, but for one car streaking north.  Finally I pulled up in the driveway of my parents' house, went inside, took my mother in my arms, and wept.

"Are you ready for a (holy) war?"

Sorry for the header, but I just re-watched "Braveheart" again (yeah, I've seen it enough to use redundancies).  It's a sort of guilty pleasure, considering my love of history, but my Fantasist brain loves Mel for not letting the facts get in the way of a good story.  However, today's post is not about the perils of relying on Historical Fiction for your Trivial Pursuit victories.  Today is about faith and true believers. 

http://historyspaces.blogspot.com/2011/09/pope-urban-ii-first-crusade-kill-them.html

    One of the most common elements of the Fantasy genre is war.  I would guess that most modern Fantasy writers grew up playing D&D or the like, which for many people focuses on the "hack and slash" aspect of the game, with little true "role-playing" in evidence.  I would guess that it tends to color how we view these Medieval style worlds.  It doesn't help, of course, that dates memorized in History Class often related to famous battles.  In truth, fighting with each other has been one of the world's favorite pastimes regardless of species.  Tolerance seems to be a relatively newfangled term, especially when related to religion.  While the genre is much larger than my personal reading, I am surprised to have encountered so few Holy Wars in its pages.

    War is most commonly depicted in Fantasy as a tool of acquisition.  By having more land than the other guy, you are theoretically more powerful, so the bad guys or the good guys go slaughter a few neighbors (though the "good guys" do it because the "bad guys" are such bad guys).  I remember playing Risk on the computer in college and always playing black, so that when I won, the whole planet looked like one solid block .  While most modern fiction is not this simplistic, wars in them tend to be kicked off due to greed or avarice.  Many would suggest that these were the true motivations for the religious wars of the past, that faith was a simple way to control the people.  While I may agree to a certain extent, I think its a gross oversimplification of the situation.   

    Intolerance is an ancient practice (I'm trying to watch D.W. Griffith's film of the same name, but damn it's long), with lines most clearly drawn between faiths.  Uncounted cultures have attacked and repressed each other all over the world for the simple reason that, "they are not us."  European history is pockmarked with purges of the Jews (for a variety of reasons), gypsies, and others.  Yes, faiths usually fall along political and social (racial?) lines as well. Many times it is difficult to untangle faith from politics in terms of motivation.  It is easy to be skeptical of faith as an explanation in these days of space exploration and hand-held computers, but in a time when they thought there might just be an edge to the world, God was the only bulwark you had against the unknown.  Faith built communities.  What would you do to someone who threatened your way of life?

    As I mentioned in an old post about designing your own religions, for a faith to survive, it must offer access to a heaven that non-believers cannot reach.  For a believer, this is significant motivation.  Now, imagine that you have tangible evidence that your God exists; your God has performed miracles or invested you with holy power.  What would that do to your level of fervor?  What would you be willing to do for that God?  In a world of interventionist Gods, Holy War would seem to be an inevitability. 

    While it is a sweeping statement, I feel relatively confident in suggesting that religion is on the decline in the Western World.  Yes, I know I'm going out on a limb here.  The point is that as religion as a whole decreases in importance for the larger population, the less likely the reader is to identify with the protagonist in such a story (or any of the cast).  If you don't really know what it means to "take it on faith," then you might not accept the actions of a true believer.  I know that I can't fathom a suicide bomber, much less what drove someone like George Orwell to volunteer to fight in someone else's civil war.  Perhaps we authors (or it could be the publishers) feel that the wider readership has become too cynical for a character defined by their faith in a God.

    It's possible that authors are afraid of tackling a subject that is too topical, as well as being a significant threat in the modern world.  Much of what I read in the Fantasy genre covers a lot of old ground with women fighting for their rights (literally and figuratively), racial intolerance frowned upon, and alternate sexual preferences being defended (more recently at least).  While these are all important themes (which I use in my own writing), it seems like now would be the perfect time to explore the mind of a believer.  Even Tom Waits, in "The Road to Peace," can only describe what many call fanaticism (though the song is about a lot more than that) from the outside.  Fantasy is one of the best ways we have to explore the mind of the other, the unknown, the unexplainable.  It's what I love about my genre.  Damn, I suppose that means I'll have to write it.  Put it on the list.


Am I completely off base here?   I know GRRM is including some soldiers of faith in upcoming works (or at least he has set them up), but do you know any others?  Let me know.  I'd be interested to read (as if I didn't have enough books in the queue).    

Pierced Ears

Sir Walter Raleigh

 Every now and again I have those moments in life where I begin to wonder, "Who thought that was a good idea?"  Personal adornment, as an expression of individuality, I get.  Who do you think the first person to say, "Let's drive a spike through my earlobe and make it good for something besides nibbling on," was?  Neither of my Grandmothers had pierced ears, and apparently it was a somewhat rebellious thing for my Mom to get hers done (I believe my Grandfather asked if she "wanted to look like a Gypsy").  Granted, both sides of the family had strong Protestant backgrounds, but is it truly that modern a concept?
    It turns out that people have been piercing their ears for a long long time and on every continent.  The Iceman (a 5,300 year old mummy discovered in the Alps) was found to have evidence of pierced ears, as was King Tut (though none were actually found in Tutankhaman's ears when they opened the tomb).  It seems that in Egypt, earring may have been a common ornament for children, but not adults.  The Israelites, of the Old Testament were mentioned to have golden earrings and other jewelery.  It was the Christians who later began to go away from adornment.
    The cultural significance of ear piercing varies widely from civilization to civilization.  During the Roman Empire, pierced ears were a sign of status.  In nomadic tribes the world over, carrying your wealth on your person, in the form of jewelery, could simply be a practical choice.  Passage into adulthood is marked in some cultures by the piercing of one ear.  In Borneo, a child's ears are pierced to show dependence on the parents.  Some believed that the materials used for earrings might impart mystical powers.  Apart from adornment, the Bible also mentions marking slaves by using an awl to pierce their ear.  Soldiers wore them in Mesopotamia and other ancient cultures.  Sailors were said to have worn them to potentially pay for their burial if they washed up on shore (or to pay Charon the boatman for their crossing, or because they thought it might improve their eyesight, or because they were nomads of a sort too).  It seems that this simple form of decoration took on myriad meanings.
    In medieval Europe, earrings were not widely popular, though a resurgence began in the Renaissance.  Male nobles in the 16th Century began to display a single gaudy earring to display their dash and daring.  Women still thought them somewhat uncivilized and tended to have high collars and elaborate wigs, which would tend to hide the earrings anyway.  The resurgence started in Spain, Italy, England, and France, spreading slowly back across the continent and eventually to the US (where it fell from favor again after WWI after clip-on earrings were invented, which are what my grandmothers wore, which made the "Gypsy" question doubly odd).
    Well, there we are.  It seems that only my repressive Christian forebears were strongly against getting your ears pierced.  Otherwise, the practice seems to have shown up all over the world, even if it was done for wildly different reasons.  Their presence, or absence, might hold a variety of significant meanings, dependent upon the society inn question.  The wearer might be a noble or a slave, sailor or soldier.  As I continue to develop this Fantasy world of mine, I'll have to look for some good opportunities to adorn my own people for some suitable purpose. 




Wiki - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earring#History
Biblical References - http://www.openbible.info/topics/ear_piercings
General History - http://psjewelers.blogspot.com/2013/06/when-did-people-first-start-piercing.html
General Tradition - http://www.squidoo.com/history-of-ear-piercings
General Body Mod History - http://steelandsilver.com/product/piercing_history.aspx
Brief Blog - http://blog.bodyjewelry.com/?p=438