OCTOBER 30 — CLIFFORD GEERTZ
Radical American cultural anthropologist, anti-colonialist.

“There is an Indian story — at least I heard it as an Indian story — about an Englishman who, having been told that the world rested on a platform which rested on the back of an elephant which rested in turn on the back of a turtle, asked (perhaps he was an ethnographer; it is the way they behave), what did the turtle rest on? Another turtle. And that turtle? ‘Ah, Sahib, after that it is turtles all the way down’” – Clifford Geertz, Interpretation of Cultures

OCTOBER 30 HOLIDAYS AND FESTIVALS
Chan Kom, Mexico: At midnight the ANGELITOS, spirits of dead children,
come. Doors are decorated with flowers to welcome them.
Offerings of food are left for them and they stay the night.
DEVIL’S NIGHT. COVENANT OF GRACE DAY. LIQUOR IS QUICKER DAY.

ALSO ON OCTOBER 30 IN HISTORY…
1838 — Oberlin College becomes first in U.S. to admit women students.
1871 — French “pure” poet Paul Valéry born, Sète, France.
1885 — American poet, fascist-symp Ezra Pound born, Hailey, Idaho.
1938 — Martians land at Grover’s Mill, New Jersey & start “War of the Worlds.”
1958 — Boris Pasternak bows to Soviet pressure, refuses Nobel Literature award.
2006 — Radical cultural anthropologist Clifford Geertz dies, Philadelphia, PA.

Excerpted from The 2009 Autonomedia Calendar of Jubilee Saints: Radical Heroes for the New Millennium by James Koehnline and the Autonomedia Collective

Previously on Arthurmag.com:

1. Today’s Autonomedia Jubilee Saint — Tom Lyttle
2. Today’s Autonomedia Jubilee Saint — H. G. Wells
3. Today’s Autonomedia Jubilee Saint — Sam Caldwell
4. Today’s Autonomedia Jubilee Saint — Henri de Saint-Simon
5. Today’s Autonomedia Jubilee Saint — Lu Xun