Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Humanities/2019 May 17

= May 17 =

Funerals of military/police personnel being held at large event venues
In the United States, there have been cases where deceased military or police personnel to have their funerals to take place in large venues such as arenas or stadiums. A famous example would be Chris Kyle, who was given a public memorial service at AT&T Stadium following his murder. How common is this practice in the United States and outside the US? Based on a search, it appears that there has been at least one example in Canada (where three RCMP had a memorial service in an arena following their deaths in a terrorist attack), but is it also common in Canada? Outside of these two countries, it seems that arena and stadium funerals are more common for sports or political personalities, but what about military and police? And why such large venues in the first place? Narutolovehinata5 tccsdnew 02:58, 17 May 2019 (UTC)
 * The "why" should be obvious, it is expected that large numbers of people would want to attend. Note that that is not meant to be a generalization to all military or police funerals, only that when such funerals are held in stadiums it is because large numbers of people are expected to want to attend those particular funerals. --Khajidha (talk) 12:43, 17 May 2019 (UTC)
 * Per Khajidha, funerals can be held in any particular venue (or none at all. Some people don't have funerals).  The choice of venue is not mandated by any rule or law or anything else that I know.  I guess if you're expecting 10,000 people to show up, you would need a venue that big.  -- Jayron 32 12:55, 17 May 2019 (UTC)

The funeral of Ronald Reagan was held in the Capitol Rotunda and "The general public stood in long lines waiting for a turn to pay their respects to the president. About 5,000 per hour passed the casket, after waiting up to seven hours. In all, 104,684 paid their respects when Reagan lay in state.[29][30]". Some critics of Reagan's policies at the time called this event the "Reagasm". I was surprised to not find a redirect under that name. It's not just a US thing: the Funeral of Pope John Paul II article mentions:
 * The event had an estimated viewership of over 2 billion people; the Catholic Church claims only 1.3 billion among its members. The funeral of John Paul II was by far the largest funeral in the history of the world. In lieu of a public viewing at the Basilica of St. John Lateran, as was tradition, immense digital screens instead broadcast the Mass of Requiem and subsequent Rite of Interment to those in the pope's cathedral church outside the confines of Vatican City. The same digital screens were hoisted at several sites in Rome, including the Circus Maximus, and at specially designated campsites outside the city for the millions of pilgrims who descended on the city.[1] The funeral was perhaps the most-watched live event in the history of television. Because people in North America understood that the service took place during the early morning hours on their side of the Atlantic, many awoke to view the funeral, and others taped it for a historical record. In addition, several television networks in the Americas rebroadcast the funeral later in the day.

I was going to look at a few more (I started by typing "funeral of" into the search box and looking at the autocomplete suggestions) but I think I'll stop after that one. One learns so many things on Wikipedia. 67.164.113.165 (talk) 07:23, 19 May 2019 (UTC)


 * The Funeral of Diana, Princess of Wales was watched by 31 million people in the UK (almost half the total population) and by 2.5 billion worldwide.   Alansplodge (talk) 17:45, 24 May 2019 (UTC)

Ancestors of Borte Chino
Without giving any references, Wikidata traces Genghis Khan's legendary ancestory, Borte Chino, to the Tibetan king Thothori Nyantsen. The intermediary ancestors are given as Tengri Khan, Namri Songtsen, Takri Nyenzig, Drongnyen Deru, and Trinyen Songsten. Where is this information coming from? https://m.wikidata.org/wiki/Q662696 déhanchements (talk) 03:57, 17 May 2019 (UTC)
 * The Wikipedia article titled Family tree of Genghis Khan traces his family tree back to Borte Chino and states the genealogy comes from the The Secret History of the Mongols, a c. 13th century document. -- Jayron 32 12:29, 17 May 2019 (UTC)


 * Courtesy Wikilink, so that you don't get the mobile version if you're on a computer: Q662696.
 * , two of those entries were added by d:User:Melderick. You could ask them where they got them from. --ColinFine (talk) 12:27, 17 May 2019 (UTC)

Christian church opposed to washing
Over at Alice Clark (singer), there is a mention of "a religious order that forbade either bathing or washing hair, I don't recall exactly which." This would have been in the late 1960s, in the US. Which group might that be? Ghmyrtle (talk) 08:18, 17 May 2019 (UTC)


 * I have read historical novels where the Knights Templar had rules similar to that, if correct it would probably have something to do with Latin Rule. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 09:13, 17 May 2019 (UTC)
 * But it's hard to see how that would apply in Brooklyn in the 1960s... Ghmyrtle (talk) 10:35, 17 May 2019 (UTC)
 * Maybe they found the Latin Rule and decided to go for it. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 11:18, 17 May 2019 (UTC)
 * The Latin Rule doesn't say anything about bathing or washing hair (although it does say they should keep their hair short). Some weird 20th century American sect probably isn't going to have much in common with a medieval monastic order of knights. Adam Bishop (talk) 12:04, 17 May 2019 (UTC)
 * I can't find anything in any google search, but that doesn't mean it doesn't exist. There are MANY small religious sects which proliferated in the 20th century, often with communities that may have only had a few dozen adherents, and if you can think of a rule, there was probably a sect that had it.  It's entirely plausible.  -- Jayron 32 12:21, 17 May 2019 (UTC)
 * x2 In this discussion of the rule (at p. 16) it is noted:

"'neatness is especially necessary inwardly and outwardly in those who serve the highest author, as he himself attested who said, 'make yourself clean,' because 'I am pure and without sin' (chap. 28).'"
 * Michael the Syrian, page 27, says "monastic rule... not bathing" . Found it in this discussion. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 21:26, 17 May 2019 (UTC)


 * Yes, traditional Christian aversion to hygiene is usually associated with hermits and ascetics, and certain ascetic-influenced monastic orders of the eastern Mediterranean. It doesn't have much to do with making soul records or having children, so it seems to me that Alice Clark would be more likely to be part of a modern cult-like group... AnonMoos (talk) 00:18, 18 May 2019 (UTC)


 * The quoted comment potentially could be related to the ancient Jewish custom of the Nazirite, which was a system whereby some people would swear to practice certain customs for a period of time or for life, which included, among other things, not cutting hair and abstaining from alcohol. To my eye it seems reminiscent of some of the gambling self-help mechanisms nowadays whereby people have themselves banned from casinos, only  targeted at alcoholism, but I may be putting much too secular a spin on it with that.  In any case, Judaism being like it is, the custom apparently expanded to not combing hair, because a comb might pull out hairs, and potentially could limit the washing of hair by the same logic.  Among Christians, the idea is (apparently) confused with that of a Nazarene, someone who grew up in Nazareth, as Jesus did; hence the movies showing Jesus as long-haired, which could have been the case, but perhaps not as a Nazirite, since there are well-known accounts of Jesus drinking with publicians and taking wine on the Cross.  According to our article, Rastafarianism is one modern group that practices this (hence, like Muslims and Mormons, they have sometimes been culturally associated with marijuana instead). Wnt (talk) 20:48, 18 May 2019 (UTC)
 * Thanks - that makes sense. I've only just realised that photos of Clark (such as here) show her with hair apparently wrapped tightly in a scarf or turban.   Ghmyrtle (talk) 20:55, 18 May 2019 (UTC)

Nature in South Africa
How many private game farms and nature reserves are there in South Africa, excluding the 20 National Parks listed by Google. Thank you Anton 81.131.40.58 (talk) 11:54, 17 May 2019 (UTC)
 * We have some listed at Associated Private Nature Reserves and you might also look at the category Nature reserves in South Africa. 70.67.193.176 (talk) 16:11, 17 May 2019 (UTC)

Streets with no addresses
Is there a term for a street that has no addresses? For example, a street called "First Avenue" where no buildings along it or near it have an address like "123 First Avenue". Thanks for any help. RoamingData (talk) 17:30, 17 May 2019 (UTC)
 * I'm not aware of any special terminology for merely not having addresses. There is the terminology Limited-access road and Controlled-access highway (which are sometimes interchangeable, and sometimes not, depending on the jurisdiction) for roads (not streets, though the distinction is also subtle as well) where property owners along the road are not allowed to have driveway access to the road.  But that only covers that situation, and does not cover roads and/or streets where someone could build a structure and have an address on it, but just haven't yet.  I am not aware of any special word or phrase to describe that.  -- Jayron 32 17:44, 17 May 2019 (UTC)


 * As implied by the history in House numbering, more than two or three hundred years ago, it would have been called "normal". And if you look at city directories for rural communities, often there was no numbering until well into the 20th century. And the numbering of farm roads is a pretty recent development - all driven by the need to be able to find someone, such as if there's a fire or medical emergency. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 19:41, 17 May 2019 (UTC)

Falsehoods programmers believe about addresses doesn't even mention that type of street, but gives lots of other interesting edge cases. 173.228.123.207 (talk) 06:14, 18 May 2019 (UTC)
 * One other question — are you interested in streets with no buildings (and thus no addresses), or do you only want streets with address-less buildings? I've been in US towns where some residential blocks are really small, and all houses in some blocks face the same direction (i.e. the north-south streets may have no addresses because all the houses face the east-west streets).  In the latter case, there could be addresses if the houses had been built with the proper orientation, or maybe there aren't any buildings at all, because the street was never developed or the area suffered from severe urban decay, e.g. E. 39th Street in Cairo, Illinois.  Nyttend (talk) 22:17, 19 May 2019 (UTC)

In Ghana, most cities do not have street addresses. The BBC reported on it: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-35385636 118.168.76.26 (talk) 01:47, 20 May 2019 (UTC)

Gem fr (talk) 11:35, 22 May 2019 (UTC)

The First Conspiracy
How historically accurate is The First Conspiracy by Brad Meltzer? --Puzzledvegetable (talk) 19:36, 17 May 2019 (UTC)
 * Is there anything about it in Wikipedia? What does he say the first conspiracy is? The assassination of Julius Caesar was a long time ago, but that wasn't necessarily the first one. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 19:42, 17 May 2019 (UTC)
 * The First Conspiracy: The Secret Plot to Kill George Washington. Not sure if "first conspiracy" as in first in the United States, or a play on "first lady". Pretty sure the author doesn't think conspiracies started in the 18th century. Anyway, the book is very new, and I can't find any reviews of it by historians. The book is said to be the product of recent scholarship that has not received widespread attention prior to the book, but the authors of this book are fiction writers, not scholars. They did not uncover any new information themselves. It sounds like they mention their sources, so until a historian reads the book and weighs in, I think the best you could do is look up those sources and see if it matches up. Someguy1221 (talk) 20:01, 17 May 2019 (UTC)
 * A play on "first lady"? This was some time before he was president. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 21:54, 17 May 2019 (UTC)
 * And? Anyway, in one of his interviews, Meltzer didn't explicitly say why he called it "The First", but he kept mentioned things of the sort, "The United States' first ____", so I guess there you go, that's probably what was on his mind. Someguy1221 (talk) 22:49, 17 May 2019 (UTC)
 * I'm sure the sources match up, I'm just not sure how well they support his thesis. The author claims that there was a massive conspiracy being run by New York's loyalist governor in exile William Tryon, that included recruiting loyalists to join the King's forces upon the arrival of British troops in New York, bribing Continental army soldiers to betray Washington, destroying King's bridge (the only major connection between and Manhattan and the mainland), and lastly, killing Washington himself. The author always seems to follow his amazing revelations with what appear to me to be rather weak sources. I was wondering if any historians felt the some way.


 * William Tryon does mention the conspiracy, but the whole section is fairly recent, and has only one source: the book in question. --Puzzledvegetable (talk) 20:26, 17 May 2019 (UTC)
 * Ugh. That's a serious problem. A claim does not gain extra credibility or significance from being filtered through a non-expert work. Does the book give any clear indication of which claims are sourced where, or at least a pile of all his sources? Someguy1221 (talk) 22:43, 17 May 2019 (UTC)


 * A brief description of the 1776 "Hickey Plot" is in The Campaign of 1776 around New York and Brooklyn, Henry Phelps Johnston, Long Island Historical Society, (Brooklym 1878) in a footnote on p. 92. It was apparently well known then, the passage starts: "The particulars of this plot need hardly be repeated". Alansplodge (talk) 23:24, 17 May 2019 (UTC)
 * Also, we have an article; Thomas Hickey (soldier), who "was tried and executed for mutiny and sedition, and he may have been involved in an assassination plot against George Washington in 1776" (my emphasis). Alansplodge (talk) 23:27, 17 May 2019 (UTC)
 * The author does include a bibliography in the back, but I have neither the time nor the interest to look through it. Interestingly, the author mentions that he got the idea for the book from a footnote in another book, although he can’t remember which. Perhaps, he is referring to the work you mentioned. --Puzzledvegetable (talk) 01:38, 19 May 2019 (UTC)