Galician Heraldry: coat of arms of La Coruña

 
Montferrato
 
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Montferrato
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02 October 2006 06:27
 

The Coat of Arms of La Coruña:

As you can see, this is an example of Galician Heraldry. Probably, the oldest coats of arms of Spain come from the ancient Kingdom of Galicia. This example is the Coat of Arms of the city of La Coruña, my natal city. It is also an example of the diversity of Spain. When I lived in the UK, people tended to consider Spain like a country of bullfighters and flamenco dancers (lol). This is a very biased notion. In fact, Galician people are much more alike to the Scottish, Irish, and people from French Brittany. We have Pipers, local spirits in the northern style (very strong), and we come from a very curious mixture: Celts, Suevi (German), Iberos, and Normans. Also, there was no Arab presence, and the Galician language, was used many years in some parts of Spain, including the Castilian court.

 

I attach the coat of Arms of La Coruña. The tower represents an ancient roman lighthouse, almost 2000 years old called the Tower of Hercules. It is called the tower of Hercules because according to the legend, the Hero Hercules defeated and killed his enemy, the giant Geryon.  That explains the skull and crossbones.  Maybe this could give some heraldic inspiration to the mythical society called Skull & Bones, lol.

 
Joseph McMillan
 
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Joseph McMillan
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02 October 2006 08:09
 

Montferrato wrote:

Maybe this could give some heraldic inspiration to the mythical society called Skull & Bones, lol.


Luis Valle,

 

Not sure if you meant "mystical," but there is nothing mythical about Skull & Bones.  Even though a good deal of popular mythology surrounds it, the society itself is quite real.

 
Montferrato
 
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Montferrato
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02 October 2006 08:49
 

I meant mythical because i thought this society did not exist. I had the idea that it was a kind of legend, a product of the popular imagination, and they are important actors in all conspiracy theories. Who are they? Freemasons? I think the coat of arms of La Coruña would suit them very much.

 
Patrick Williams
 
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02 October 2006 10:10
 

Montferrato wrote:

I meant mythical because i thought this society did not exist. I had the idea that it was a kind of legend, a product of the popular imagination, and they are important actors in all conspiracy theories. Who are they? Freemasons? I think the coat of arms of La Coruña would suit them very much.


No, Luis, they are not Freemasons. Skull & Bones is a fraternity from Yale University here in the USA. Many important people (including US Presidents) have been members of Skull & Bones.

 
Joseph McMillan
 
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02 October 2006 10:24
 

Skull and Bones is one of several secret "senior societies" at Yale University. Others include Scroll and Key, Book and Snake, Berzelius, etc.

Skull and Bones is the oldest (founded 1832) and most secretive of these groups. It probably has some quasi-Masonic connections in its original founding (keeping in mind that US-British style freemasonry is seen as dangerously conspiratorial only by those on the lunatic fringe—George Washington and Benjamin Franklin were masons, after all), and is also supposed to have been influenced by the German system of Studentkorps.

 

If one were compiling a list of influential quasi-aristocratic institutions in the US, Skull and Bones would clearly have a place, along with such functionally equivalent social groups as the Porcellian Club at Harvard and the Ivy Club at Princeton, but the mythology propagated by conspiracy theorists has built it up into more than it is, in part thanks to its windowless, mausoleum-like clubhouse in New Haven, Connecticut, in part thanks to its morbid name and insignia, and in part thanks to the clout of its members within the traditional US East Coast "establishment." But one could easily find a comparable number of equally powerful people in the ranks of other senior socieities at Yale, as well as Porcellian and the other "final clubs" at Harvard and the "eating clubs" at Princeton.

 

(To make this a bit more directly heraldry related, here’s the badge of Skull and Bones from the Yale University website:

 

http://mssa.library.yale.edu/derivatives/archives/692/thumb/001893.jpg

 
Patrick Williams
 
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02 October 2006 10:35
 

Quasi-Masonic…I like that. Indeed many of the early fraternites that sprung up at colleges throughout the US have some striking similarities in their initiation and other ceremonies to those of Freemasonry. But also keep in mind that the ceremonies of the Odd Fellows, the Woodmen of the World, the Eagles, etc. etc. all have striking similarities as well. The early 1800’s were rife with fraternal organizations and most of them were obviously formed by men who were also Masons as their ceremonies and practices are based in those of ‘The Gentle Craft’. It is important to note that none of them are Masonic organizations, they merely borrowed the ceremonials and trappings of Masonry to form their own.

 
Montferrato
 
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02 October 2006 11:17
 

They sound like a posh masonic club. I have seen that the insignia of these guys is like a pirate flag. It probably means that they are good at business. Sounds to me like the American version of the Hellfire club founded by Sir Francis Dashwood. Probably it is not so delightfully decadent.

I find the insignia of this club most interesting. What’s the meaning of this symbol clearly linked to the idea of death?