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Birthdays all over
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March 9, 2000 | We sang "Happy Birthday To You" which was copyrighted in 1893 by two sisters, Mildred J. Hill, a church organist and authority on Negro spirituals, and Patty Smith Hill, a professor of education at Columbia University. They were born in Louisville, Ky., and published the song together in "Songs and Stories for the Kindergarten." It was originally called "Good Morning to All" and was similar to several other songs written earlier. The tune was changed here and there and the words "Happy Birthday to You" were added to the second stanza in 1924 by an unknown lyricist, who neglected to apply for a new copyright. It is the most frequently sung song in the Anglo-Saxon world.
A birthday party celebrates two important themes: It is a rite of initiation and a ceremony of measurement. How old are you now? How far have you come? Celebrating a birthday sets the stage for moving into another cycle of life. Ancient Romans celebrated three different types of birthdays: Private celebrations among family and friends, the birthdays of cities and temples and the birthdays of past and present emperors or members of the imperial family. During the 4th century B.C., people began to feel that they had a personal god that looked after them. In Rome this figure was called a genius, who entered the world when you were born. The genius accompanied you through life. You prayed to your genius. Your genius would send you a message and then let you know about it by making you sneeze. People would say "God bless you" in the hope that the message you had just gotten was good news. The Roman idea of a genius lives on in the belief in guardian angels. It was a short step for the emperors of Rome to decide that they were themselves geniuses and gods, and demand that they be worshiped on their birthdays. The early Christians found this sacrilegious, and their refusal to worship emperors as gods led to the first persecutions. Early Christians refused to have anything to do with birthdays and didn't even celebrate Christ's birth until the 4th century A.D. They deliberately celebrated death as the beginning of eternity and liberation. The deaths of people who were martyred for not celebrating the emperor were of particular importance. Today the birthday party is a celebration of passage from one stage of life to another. It follows the traditional pattern for initiations by requiring witnesses. Others must see that you are moving on, and they ratify the transition. The other people present are manifestations of your power; you, after all, were able to get these people together to celebrate your big day. The birthday cake speaks to the meaning of the feast -- the sharing and the unity. The cake is not made according to a specific form as is a wedding cake or Christmas cake, because one of the most important aspects of the birthday is the person as an individual. The cake presented to me at my last birthday was made in the shape of an easy chair and represents my family's hope that someday I will sit down and be quiet.
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