title: Aeta people

text: The endonyms of most of the various Aeta peoples are derived from Proto-Malayo-Polynesian "*ʔa(R)ta" (also reconstructed as "*qata" or "*ʔata") meaning "[Negrito] person." This is in contrast to the other terms for "person" in other Philippine (and Oceanian) groups derived from Proto-Malayo-Polynesian "*tau" (e.g. Tagalog "tao"), which refers to lighter-skinned groups with majority Austronesian descent. Lawrence A. Reid wrote that "*ʔa(R)ta" may have originally been the Negrito word for "person" in Northern Luzon, but was adopted into Austronesian languages with the meaning of "dark-skinned person", after the arrival of Austronesian migrants to the Philippines from Taiwan. A common folk etymology is that the name "Aeta" is derived from "itom" or "itim" meaning, "black", but this is incorrect.


title: Aeta people

text: The term "Dumagat" or "Dumaget" is an exonym meaning "[people] from Magat River." Although it is commonly confused with the etymology of the Visayan Dumagat ("sea people", from the root word "dagat" - "sea") of Mindanao.


title: Aeta people

text: Other exonyms of the Aeta are more derogatory. These include "baluga" ("half-breed") and "pugot" ("head-hunter"). The Aeta themselves call non-Negrito groups with various names that reflect their ancient relationships with Austronesians. These include names like "ugsin", "ugdin", "ogden", or "uldin" ("red"); "putî" or "pute" ("white"); "unat" ("straight-haired"); or "agani" ("[rice] harvester").


title: Aeta people

text: Aeta (also Ayta, Áitâ, Ita, Alta, Arta, Atta, or Agta) is a collective term. Although commonly thought of as a single group, it is in reality composed of several ethnic groups that share similar hunter-gatherer lifestyles and physical features. They are usually divided into three main groups: the Aeta from Central Luzon; the Agta of Southeastern Luzon; and the Dumagat (also spelled Dumaget) of Eastern Luzon. These divisions, however, are arbitrary, and the three names can be used interchangeably. They are also commonly confused with the Ati people of the Visayas Islands.


title: Aeta people

text: The following is a list of ethnolinguistic groups usually considered to be Aeta, and the provinces they are from.


title: Aeta people

text: The Aeta people in the Philippines are often grouped with other Negritos, such as the Semang on the Malay Peninsula, and sometimes grouped with Australo-Melanesians, which includes groups such as the natives of Australia and Papuans; as well as partially, the Melanesians of the Solomon Islands, Vanuatu, Fiji, and the French overseas special collectivity of New Caledonia. Australo-Melanesians are genetically diverse due to the thousands of years they have been isolated from each other, but they all display high percentages of Denisovan gene flow.


title: Aeta people

text: The Aeta, like other Negritos, are the descendants of the earliest modern human migrations into the Philippine islands during the Paleolithic, around 40,000 years ago. In contrast with the later seaborne Austronesian migrations (c. 5,000 years ago), the Negritos arrived through the Sundaland land bridges that linked the islands with the Asian mainland.


title: Aeta people

text: Despite this, the Aeta, like other modern Philippine Negrito groups, have significant Austronesian admixture (~10% to 30%) due to population mixing after Austronesian contact. The Aeta speak Austronesian languages and follow Austronesian cultural practices to a limited extent. Conversely, other Filipino ethnic groups not traditionally considered Negritos, also have Negrito admixture (~10 to 20%). Aetas are most closely related to the Batak people of Palawan.


title: Aeta people

text: A recent study in 2021 analyzing archaic ancestry in 118 Philippine ethnic groups discovered an independent admixture event into Philippine Negritos from Denisovans. The Ayta Magbukon in particular were found to possess the highest level of Denisovan ancestry in the world, with ~30%–40% more than even that found in Aboriginal Australians and Papuans (Australo-Papuan or Australo-Melanesians), suggesting that distinct Islander Denisovan populations existed in the Philippines which admixed with modern humans after their arrival. At the same time, Central Luzon Negritos such as the Ayta Magbukon and Ayta Ambala were also found to have the least amount of East-Asian-related (Austronesian) ancestry of all sampled Philippine ethnic groups, at ~10%–20%.


title: Aeta people

text: Unlike many of other Filipino ethnic groups, the Aetas have shown resistance to change. Aetas had little interaction with the Spaniards as they remained in the mountains during the Spanish rule. Even the attempts of the Spaniards failed to settle them in "reducciones" or reservations all throughout Spanish rule.


title: Aeta people

text: According to Spanish observers like Miguel López de Legazpi, Negritos possessed iron tools and weapons. Their speed and accuracy with a bow and arrow were proverbial and they were fearsome warriors. Unwary travelers or field workers were often easy targets. Despite their martial prowess, however, the Aeta's small numbers, primitive economy and lack of organization often made them easy prey for better-organized groups. Zambals seeking people to enslave would often take advantage of their internal feuding. They were often enslaved and sold to Borneo and China, and, unlike the serf feudal system ("alipin") imposed on other Filipinos, there was little chance of manumission.


title: Aeta people

text: Aetas are found in Zambales, Tarlac, Pampanga, Panay, Bataan, and Nueva Ecija, but were forced to move to resettlement areas in Pampanga and Tarlac following the devastating Mount Pinatubo eruption in June 1991.


title: Aeta people

text: Some Aeta communities have received government land titles recognizing their claims to their ancestral lands.


title: Aeta people

text: A total of 454 Aeta families in Floridablanca, Pampanga, received their Certificate of Ancestral Domain Title (CADT) on May 27, 2009. The title covers about 7,440 hectares in San Marcelino and Brgy. Batiawan in Zambales and barangays Mawakat and Nabuklod in Floridablanca. It was the first time clean ancestral domain titles were distributed by the National Commission on Indigenous Peoples.


title: Aeta people

text: A Certificate of Ancestral Domain Title (CADT), was awarded to 1,501 Aeta families in Botolan, Zambales, on January 14, 2010. The area covers 15,860 hectares that include the four barangays of Villar, Burgos, Moraza and Belbel in Botolan, Zambales.


title: Aeta people

text: The Aeta Abellen community of Sitio Maporac, Barangay New San Juan, Cabangan, Zambales, received the first Philippine's first Certificate of Ancestral Domain Claim (CADC) on March 8, 1996. The CADT was acquired 16 years later in December 2010.


title: Aeta people

text: Dumagat-Remontado communities inhabit the Sierra Madre mountain range in Rizal and Quezon. Their ancestral domain claims cover parts of the Sierra Madre mountain range.


title: Aeta people

text: Nevertheless, Aeta communities face difficulties in getting ancestral domain titles. Aetas of Tarlac, for example, have failed to get titles for 18,000 hectares of land in Capas despite applications for CADT filed in 1999, 2014, and 2019.


title: Aeta people

text: The Aeta are nomadic and build only temporary shelters made of sticks driven to the ground and covered with the palm of banana leaves. The more modernized Aetas have moved to villages and areas of cleared mountains. They live in houses made of bamboo and cogon grass.


title: Aeta people

text: Mining, deforestation, illegal logging, and slash-and-burn farming have caused the indigenous population in the country to steadily decrease to the point where they number only in the thousands today. The Philippine government affords them little or no protection, and the Aeta have become extremely nomadic due to social and economic strain on their culture and way of life that had previously remained unchanged for thousands of years.


title: Aeta people

text: As hunter-gatherers, adaptation plays an important role in Aeta communities to survive. This often includes gaining knowledge about the tropical forest that they live in, the typhoon cycles that travel through their area, and other seasonal weather changes that affect the behavior of the flora and fauna in their location. Another important survival skill is storytelling. Like many other hunter-gatherer societies, the Aeta promote social values, such as cooperation, through stories. Thus, they highly value skilled storytellers.


title: Aeta people

text: Dry season for many Aeta communities means intense work. They not only hunt and fish more, the start of the dry season also means swiddening the land for future harvest. While the clearing of land is done by both men and women, Aeta women tend to do most of the harvesting. During this period, they also do business transactions with non-Aeta communities living around the vicinity they temporarily settled in either to sell the food they gathered, or to work as temporary farmers or field laborers. Aeta women play more active roles in business transactions with non-Aeta communities, mostly as traders and agricultural workers for lowland farmers. While dry season typically means bountiful food for Aetas, rainy season (which often falls in the Philippines between September and December) often provides the opposite experience, considering the difficulties of traversing flooded and wet forests for hunting and gathering.


title: Aeta people

text: Aeta communities use different tools in their hunting and gathering activities. Traditional tools include traps, knives, and bow and arrow, with different types of arrow points for specialized purposes. Most Aetas are trained for hunting and gathering at age 15, including Aeta women. While men and some women typically use the standard bow and arrow, most Aeta women prefer knives and often hunt with their dogs and in groups to increase efficiency and for social reasons. Fishing and food gathering are also done by both males and females. In terms of gender, then, Aeta communities are more egalitarian in structure and in practice.


title: Aeta people

text: All Aeta communities have adopted the language of their Austronesian Filipino neighbors, which have sometimes diverged over time to become different languages. These include, in order of number of speakers, Mag-indi, Mag-antsi, Abellen, Ambala, and Mariveleño.


title: Aeta people

text: There are different views on the dominant character of the Aeta religion. Those who believe they are monotheistic argue that various Aeta tribes believe in a supreme being who rules over lesser spirits or deities, with the Aeta of Mt. Pinatubo worshipping "Apo Na".


title: Aeta people

text: The Aetas are also animists. For example, the Pinatubo Aeta believe in environmental spirits. They believe that good and evil spirits inhabit the environment, such as the spirits of the river, sea, sky, mountain, hill, valley and other places. Kamana the forest spirit appears and disappears providing solace and hope during difficult times.


title: Aeta people

text: No special occasion is needed for the Aeta to pray, but there is a clear link between prayer and economic activities. The Aeta dance before and after a pig hunt. The night before Aeta women gather shellfish, they perform a dance which is partly an apology to the fish and partly a charm to ensure the catch. Similarly, the men hold a bee dance before and after the expeditions for honey.


title: Aeta people

text: There are four manifestations of the "great creator" who rules the world: Tigbalog is the source of life and action; Lueve takes care of production and growth; Amas moves people to pity, love, unity, and peace of heart; while Binangewan is responsible for change, sickness, and death.


title: Aeta people

text: In the mid-1960s, missionaries of the American-based Evangelical Protestant mission group New Tribes Mission, in their effort to reach every Philippine tribal group with the Christian Gospel, reached out to the Agtas/Aetas. The mission agency provided education, including pastoral training for natives to reach members of their own tribe. Today, a large percentage of Agtas/Aetas of Zambales and Pampanga are Evangelicals. Jehovah's Witnesses also have members of the Aeta people. (See 1993 Yearbook of Jehovah's Witnesses)


title: Aeta people

text: Their traditional clothing is very plain. The young women wear wrap around skirts. Elder women wear bark cloth, while elder men wear loin cloths. The old women of the Agta wear a bark cloth strip which passes between the legs, and is attached to a string around the waist. Today, most Aeta who have been in contact with lowlanders have adopted the T-shirts, pants and rubber sandals commonly used by the latter.


title: Aeta people

text: The Aetas are skillful in weaving and plaiting. Women exclusively weave winnows and mats. Only men make armlets. They also produce raincoats made of palm leaves whose bases surround the neck of the wearer, and whose topmost part spreads like a fan all around the body.


title: Aeta people

text: According to one study, "About 85% of Philippine Aeta women hunt, and they hunt the same quarry as men. Aeta women hunt in groups and with dogs, and have a 31% success rate as opposed to 17% for men. Their rates are even better when they


title: Aeta people

text: Among the Aeta community in Ilagan, Isabela for example, banana leaves are used to cure toothache. They also bathe themselves with cooled-down water boiled with camphor leaves ("subusob") to help alleviate fever, or they make herbal teas out of the camphor leaves that they then drink thrice a day if the fever and cold still persist. For muscle pains, they drink herbal teas extracted from "kalulong" leaves and have the patient take it thrice a day. In order to prevent relapse after giving birth, women also bathe themselves in cooled-down water boiled with "sahagubit" roots. The drinking of "sahagubit" herbal tea is likewise recommended to deworm Aeta children, or generally to alleviate stomachache. For birth control purposes, Aeta women drink wine made out of "lukban" (pomelo) root. They are, however, not advised to drink herbal tea from "makahiya" extract even if it's also used to elevate stomachache problems due to the belief that it will cause abortion. The idea behind this is that like the closing of "makahiya" leaves once touched, the womb may also close once the "makahiya" touches it. The Aeta in Isabela also recommend drinking herbal tea out of wormwood ("herbaca)" leaves or stem to address women's irregular menstrual cycle. They take herbal teas from lemon grass ("barbaraniw") extract thrice a day to normalize blood pressure.


title: Aeta people

text: If the illness persists even after continuous drinking of recommended herbal medicine, that's when they seek the help of an "herbolario" (or soothsayer). They do so because the Aeta believe that their illnesses are caused by a spirit that they may have offended, in which case herbal medicines or medical doctors won't be able to address. In order to appease the spirits, they ask the "herbolario" to perform a ritual called "ud- udung". In this ritual, the "herbolario" places rice or raw eggs on the patient's forehead first to determine what causes the illness and repeats this several times to confirm. After the "herbolario" is satisfied, the patient will be asked to bathe with ricewash, and then to offer food to appease the offended spirit.


title: Aeta people

text: The Aeta communities take pride in their use of herbal medicines and their own natural ways of curing the sick. Finding their main source of herbal medicines in their habitat rather than buying costly medicines, emphasizing the mutual relationship with the nature, also has a great attitudinal impact pertaining to sustainability approach and practices in healthcare.


title: Aeta people

text: A traditional form of visual art is body scarification. The Aetas intentionally wound the skin on their back, arms, breast, legs, hands, calves and abdomen, and then they irritate the wounds with fire, lime and other means to form scars.


title: Aeta people

text: Other "decorative disfigurements" include the chipping of the teeth. With the use of a file, the Dumagat modify their teeth during late puberty. The teeth are dyed black a few years afterwards.


title: Aeta people

text: The Aetas generally use ornaments typical of people living in subsistence economies. Flowers and leaves are used as earplugs for certain occasions. Girdles, necklaces, and neckbands of braided rattan incorporated with wild pig bristles are frequently worn.


title: Aeta people

text: The Aeta have a musical heritage consisting of various types of agung ensembles, ensembles composed of large hanging, suspended or held, bossed/knobbed gongs, which act as drone, without any accompanying melodic instrument.


title: Aeta people

text: While the father is normally the figurehead of the family, Aeta communities or bands traditionally had an anarchic political structure wherein they don't have appointed chiefs to exercise authority over them. Individual Aeta is on equal grounds with the other and their main course of social interaction is through their tradition. It's also the tradition, and not constituted laws, that maintain the equality among them and guide their way of life. They do have groups of elders in their community, called "pisen," who they tend to go to when it comes to arbitrating decisions. However, the decisions made by the elders only remain in advisory capacity and no one could force any individual to follow those decisions. Their guiding principle and conflict resolution is through a sustained deliberation.


title: Aeta people

text: Over time, this egalitarian political structure was disturbed due to recurring contacts with the lowland Filipinos wherein the local officials and individuals they interact with forced Aeta communities to create government structure resembling those in the lowlands. At times, Aeta communities do organize themselves in government-like system with a "Capitan" (Captain), "Conseyal" (Council) and "Policia" (Police). But mostly, they resist such imposed organization. In particular, they refuse to appoint a chief (or a president) that will govern them although they do have one elder that takes the responsibility of leadership. This informal kind of government can also be found in their judicial process. When someone in their community did something wrong, they would deliberate about it, but more importantly, they do not talk about what kind of punishment they will hand to the wrong-doer. Instead, the deliberation is about understanding the motivation behind the action and prevent the consequence of the action from developing into something worse. Young men and women are excluded from the deliberation process. In this particular case, women are also largely excluded from the deliberation process even when they are allowed to attend the hearing or even when sometimes they can make their opinion about the problem. For the most part, women are not given room within the decision making process because the Aeta communities also follow a strict gender role where women are mostly expected take care of the children and the husband.


title: Viking activity in the British Isles

text: Viking activity in the British Isles occurred during the Early Middle Ages, the 8th to the 11th centuries AD, when Vikings from Scandinavia travelled to Great Britain and Ireland to settle, trade, or raid. Those who came to the British Isles have been generally referred to as Vikings, but some scholars debate whether the term "Viking" represented all Viking settlers or just those who raided.


title: Viking activity in the British Isles

text: At the start of the Early Medieval period, Scandinavian kingdoms had developed trade links reaching as far as southern Europe and the Mediterranean, giving them access to foreign imports, such as silver, gold, bronze, and spices. These trade links also extended westwards into Ireland and Britain.


title: Viking activity in the British Isles

text: In the last decade of the eighth century, Viking raiders sacked a series of Christian monasteries located in what is now the United Kingdom, beginning in 793 with a raid on the coastal monastery of Lindisfarne on the north-east coast of England. The following year they sacked the nearby Monkwearmouth–Jarrow Abbey, and, in 795, they attacked again, raiding Iona Abbey on Scotland's west coast.


title: Viking activity in the British Isles

text: During the Early Medieval period, the islands of Ireland and Britain were each culturally, linguistically, and religiously divided among various peoples. The languages of the Celtic Britons and of the Gaels descended from the Celtic languages spoken by Iron Age inhabitants of Europe. In Ireland and parts of western Scotland, as well as in the Isle of Man, people spoke an early form of Celtic Gaelic known as Old Irish. In Cornwall, Cumbria, Wales, and south-west Scotland, the Celtic Brythonic languages were spoken (their modern descendants include Welsh and Cornish). The Picts, who spoke the Pictish language, lived in the area north of the Forth and Clyde rivers, which now constitutes a large portion of modern-day Scotland. Due to the scarcity of writing in Pictish, which survives only in Ogham, views differ as to whether Pictish was a Celtic language like those spoken further south, or perhaps even a non-Indo-European language like Basque. However, most inscriptions and place-names hint towards the Picts being Celtic in language and culture. Most peoples of Britain and Ireland had already predominantly converted to Christianity from their older, pre-Christian polytheistic religions. In contrast to the rest of the isles though, much of southern Britain had become the various kingdoms of Anglo-Saxon England, where Anglo-Saxon migrants from continental Europe had settled during the fifth century CE, bringing with them their own Germanic language (known as Old English), a polytheistic religion (Anglo-Saxon paganism) and their own distinct cultural practices. By the time of the Viking incursions though, Anglo-Saxon England too had become mostly Christian.


title: Viking activity in the British Isles

text: In northern Britain, in the area roughly corresponding to modern-day Scotland, lived three distinct ethnic groups in their own respective kingdoms: the Picts, Scots, and Britons. The Pictish cultural group dominated the majority of Scotland, with major populations concentrated between the Firth of Forth and the River Dee, as well as in Sutherland, Caithness, and Orkney. The Scots, according to written sources, constituted a tribal group which had crossed to Britain from Dalriada in the north of Ireland during the late-fifth century. Archaeologists have not been able to identify anything that was unique to the kingdom of the Scots, noting similarities with the Picts in most forms of material culture. The northern Britons lived in the Old North, in parts of what have become southern Scotland and northern England, and, by the seventh or eighth centuries, these had apparently come under the political control of Anglo-Saxons.


title: Viking activity in the British Isles

text: By the mid-ninth century, Anglo-Saxon England comprised four separate and independent kingdoms: East Anglia, Wessex, Northumbria, and Mercia, the last of which was the strongest military power. Between half a million and a million people lived in England at this time, with society being rigidly hierarchical. The class system had a king and his ealdormen at the top, under whom ranked the thegns (or landholders), and then the various categories of agricultural workers below them. Beneath all of these was a class of slaves, who may have made up as much as a quarter of the population. The majority of the populace lived in the countryside, although a few large towns had developed, notably London and York, which became centres of royal and ecclesiastical administration. There were also a number of trading ports, such as Hamwic and Ipswich, which engaged in foreign trade.


title: Viking activity in the British Isles

text: In the final decade of the eighth century, Viking raiders attacked a series of Christian monasteries in the British Isles. Here, these monasteries had often been positioned on small islands and in other remote coastal areas so that the monks could live in seclusion, devoting themselves to worship without the interference of other elements of society. At the same time, it made them isolated and unprotected targets for attack.


title: Viking activity in the British Isles

text: The first known account of a Viking raid in Anglo-Saxon England comes from 789, when three ships from Hordaland (in modern Norway) landed in the Isle of Portland on the southern coast of Wessex. They were approached by Beaduheard, the royal reeve from Dorchester, whose job it was to identify all foreign merchants entering the kingdom, and they proceeded to kill him. There were almost certainly unrecorded earlier raids. In a document dating to 792, King Offa of Mercia set out privileges granted to monasteries and churches in Kent, but he excluded military service "against seaborne pirates with migrating fleets", showing that Viking raids were already an established problem. In a letter of 790-92 to King Æthelred I of Northumbria, Alcuin berated English people for copying the fashions of pagans who menaced them with terror. This shows that there were already close contacts between the two peoples, and the Vikings would have been well informed about their targets.


title: Viking activity in the British Isles

text: The next recorded attack against the Anglo-Saxons came the following year, in 793, when the monastery at Lindisfarne, an island off England's eastern coast, was sacked by a Viking raiding party on 8 June. The following year, they sacked the nearby Monkwearmouth–Jarrow Abbey. In 795, they once again attacked, this time raiding Iona Abbey off Scotland's west coast. This monastery was attacked again in 802 and 806, when 68 people living there were killed. After this devastation, the monastic community at Iona abandoned the site and fled to Kells in Ireland. In the first decade of the ninth century, Viking raiders began to attack coastal districts of Ireland. In 835, the first major Viking raid in southern England took place and was directed against the Isle of Sheppey.


title: Viking activity in the British Isles

text: The England runestones () is a group of about 30 runestones in Sweden which refer to Viking Age voyages to England. They constitute one of the largest groups of runestones that mention voyages to other countries, and they are comparable in number only to the approximately 30 Greece Runestones and the 26 Ingvar Runestones, of which the latter refer to a Viking expedition to the Middle East. They were engraved in Old Norse with the Younger Futhark.


title: Viking activity in the British Isles

text: The Anglo-Saxon rulers paid large sums, Danegelds, to Vikings, who mostly came from Denmark and Sweden who arrived to the English shores during the 990s and the first decades of the 11th century. Some runestones relate of these Danegelds, such as the Yttergärde runestone, U 344, which tells of Ulf of Borresta who received the danegeld three times, and the last one he received from Canute the Great. Canute sent home most of the Vikings who had helped him conquer England, but he kept a strong bodyguard, the Þingalið, and its members are also mentioned on several runestones.


title: Viking activity in the British Isles

text: The vast majority of the runestones, 27, were raised in modern-day Sweden and 17 in the oldest Swedish provinces around lake Mälaren. In contrast, modern-day Denmark has no such runestones, but there is a runestone in Scania which mentions London. There is also a runestone in Norway and a Swedish one in Schleswig, Germany.


title: Viking activity in the British Isles

text: Some Vikings, such as Guðvér, did not only attack England, but also Saxony, as reported by the Grinda Runestone Sö 166 in Södermanland:


title: Viking activity in the British Isles

text: Various hoards of treasure were buried in England at this time. Some of these may have been deposited by Anglo-Saxons attempting to hide their wealth from Viking raiders, and others by the Viking raiders as a way of protecting their looted treasure.


title: Viking activity in the British Isles

text: One of these hoards, discovered in Croydon (historically part of Surrey, now in Greater London) in 1862, contained 250 coins, three silver ingots, and part of a fourth as well as four pieces of hack silver in a linen bag. Archaeologists interpret this as loot collected by a member of the Viking army. By dating the artefacts, archaeologists estimated that this hoard had been buried in 872, when the army wintered in London. The coins themselves came from a wide range of different kingdoms, with Wessex, Mercian, and East Anglian examples found alongside foreign imports from Carolingian-dynasty Francia and from the Arab world. Not all such Viking hoards in England contain coins, however: for example, at Bowes Moor, Durham, 19 silver ingots were discovered, whilst at Orton Scar, Cumbria, a silver neck-ring and penannular brooch were uncovered.


title: Viking activity in the British Isles

text: The historian Peter Hunter Blair believed that the success of the Viking raids and the "complete unpreparedness of Britain to meet such attacks" became major factors in the subsequent Viking invasions and colonisation of large parts of the British Isles.


title: Viking activity in the British Isles

text: From 865, the Viking attitude towards the British Isles changed, as they began to see it as a place for potential colonisation rather than simply a place to raid. As a result of this, larger armies began arriving on Britain's shores, with the intention of conquering land and constructing settlements there. The early Viking settlers would have appeared visibly different from the Anglo-Saxon populace, wearing Scandinavian styles of jewellery, and probably also wearing their own peculiar styles of clothing. Viking and Anglo-Saxon men also had different hairstyles: Viking men's hair was shaved at the back and left shaggy on the front, whilst the Anglo-Saxons typically wore their hair long.


title: Viking activity in the British Isles

text: Viking armies captured York, the major city in the Kingdom of Northumbria, in 866. Counterattacks concluded in a decisive defeat for Anglo-Saxon forces at York on 21 March 867, and the deaths of Northumbrian leaders Ælla and Osberht.


title: Viking activity in the British Isles

text: Other Anglo-Saxon kings began to capitulate to the Viking demands and surrendered land to Viking settlers. In addition, many areas in eastern and northern England—including all but the northernmost parts of Northumbria—came under the direct rule of Viking leaders or their puppet kings.


title: Viking activity in the British Isles

text: King Æthelred of Wessex, who had been leading the conflict against the Vikings, died in 871 and was succeeded on the throne of Wessex by his younger brother, Alfred. The Viking king of Northumbria, Halfdan Ragnarrson (Old English: "Healfdene")—one of the leaders of the Viking Great Army (known to the Anglo-Saxons as the Great Heathen Army)—surrendered his lands to a second wave of Viking invaders in 876. In the next four years, Vikings gained further land in the kingdoms of Mercia and East Anglia as well. King Alfred continued his conflict with the invading forces but was driven back into Somerset in the south-west of his kingdom in 878, where he was forced to take refuge in the marshes of Athelney.


title: Viking activity in the British Isles

text: Alfred regrouped his military forces and defeated the armies of the Viking monarch of East Anglia, Guthrum, at the Battle of Edington (May 878). In 886, the Wessex and the Viking-controlled East Anglian governments signed the Treaty of Wedmore, which established a boundary between the two kingdoms. The area to the north and east of this boundary became known as the Danelaw because it was under Viking political influence, whilst those areas south and west of it remained under Anglo-Saxon dominance. Alfred's government set about constructing a series of defended towns or "burhs", began the construction of a navy, and organised a militia system (the "fyrd"), whereby half of his peasant army remained on active service at any one time. To maintain the burhs, and the standing army, he set up a taxation and conscription system known as the Burghal Hidage.


title: Viking activity in the British Isles

text: In 892 a new Viking army, with 250 ships, established itself in Appledore, Kent and another army of 80 ships soon afterwards in Milton Regis. The army then launched a continuous series of attacks on Wessex. However, due in part to the efforts of Alfred and his army, the kingdom's new defences proved to be a success, and the Viking invaders were met with a determined resistance and made less of an impact than they had hoped. By 896, the invaders dispersed—instead settling in East Anglia and Northumbria, with some instead sailing to Normandy.


title: Viking activity in the British Isles

text: Alfred's policy of opposing the Viking settlers continued under his daughter Æthelflæd, who married Æthelred, Ealdorman of Mercia, and also under her brother, King Edward the Elder (reigned 899–924). When Edward died in July 924, his son Æthelstan became king. In 927, he conquered the last remaining Viking kingdom, York, making him the first Anglo-Saxon ruler of the whole of England. In 934, he invaded Scotland and forced Constantine II to submit to him, but Æthelstan's rule was resented by the Scots and Vikings, and, in 937, they invaded England. Æthelstan defeated them at the Battle of Brunanburh, a victory which gave him great prestige both in the British Isles and on the Continent and led to the collapse of Viking power in northern Britain. After his death in 939, the Vikings seized back control of York, and it was not finally reconquered until 954.


title: Viking activity in the British Isles

text: Edward's son Edmund became king of the English in 939. However, when Edmund was killed in a brawl, his younger brother, Eadred of Wessex took over as king. Then in 947 the Northumbrians rejected Eadred and made the Norwegian Eric Bloodaxe (Eirik Haraldsson) their king. Eadred responded by invading and ravaging Northumbria. When the Saxons headed back south, Eric Bloodaxe's army caught up with some them at Castleford and made 'great slaughter'. Eadred threatened to destroy Northumbria in revenge, so the Northumbrians turned their back on Eric and acknowledged Eadred as their king. The Northumbrians then had another change of heart and accepted Olaf Sihtricsson as their ruler, only to have Eric Bloodaxe remove him and become king of the Northumbrians again. Then, in 954, Eric Bloodaxe was expelled for the second and final time by Eadred. Bloodaxe was the last Norse king of Northumbria.


title: Viking activity in the British Isles

text: Under the reign of Wessex King Edgar the Peaceful, England came to be further politically unified, with Edgar coming to be recognised as the king of all England by both Anglo-Saxon and Viking populations living in the country. However, in the reigns of his son Edward the Martyr, who was murdered in 978, and then Æthelred the Unready, the political strength of the English monarchy waned, and, in 980, Viking raiders from Scandinavia resumed attacks against England. The English government decided that the only way of dealing with these attackers was to pay them protection money, and so, in 991, they gave them £10,000. This fee did not prove to be enough, and, over the next decade, the English kingdom was forced to pay the Viking attackers increasingly large sums of money. Many English began to demand that a more hostile approach be taken against the Vikings, and so, on St Brice's Day in 1002, King Æthelred proclaimed that all Danes living in England would be executed. It would come to be known as the St. Brice's Day massacre.


title: Viking activity in the British Isles

text: The news of the massacre reached King Sweyn Forkbeard in Denmark. It is believed that Sweyn's sister Gunhilde could have been among the victims, which prompted Sweyn to raid England the following year, when Exeter was burned down. Hampshire, Wiltshire, Wilton, and Salisbury also fell victim to the Viking revenge attack. Sweyn continued his raid in England and in 1004 his Viking army looted East Anglia, plundered Thetford and sacked Norwich, before he once again returned to Denmark.


title: Viking activity in the British Isles

text: Further raids took place in 1006–1007, and, in 1009–1012, Thorkell the Tall led a Viking invasion into England.


title: Viking activity in the British Isles

text: In 1013, Sweyn Forkbeard returned to invade England with a large army, and Æthelred fled to Normandy, leading Sweyn to take the English throne. Sweyn died within a year, however, and so Æthelred returned, but, in 1016, another Viking army invaded, this time under the control of the Danish King Cnut, Sweyn's son. After defeating Anglo-Saxon forces at the Battle of Assandun, Cnut became king of England, subsequently ruling over both the Danish and English kingdoms. Following Cnut's death in 1035, the two kingdoms were once more declared independent and remained so, apart from a short period from 1040 to 1042 when Cnut's son Harthacnut ascended the English throne.


title: Viking activity in the British Isles

text: Harald Hardrada, King of Norway, led an invasion of England in 1066 with 300 longships and 10,000 soldiers, attempting to seize the English throne during the succession dispute following the death of Edward the Confessor. He met initial success, defeating the outnumbered forces mustered by the earldoms of Northumbria and Mercia at the Battle of Fulford. Whilst basking in his victory and occupying Northumbria in preparation for the advance south, Harald's army was surprised by a similarly sized force led by King Harold Godwinson, which had managed to force march all the way there from London in a week. The invasion was repulsed at the Battle of Stamford Bridge, and Hardrada was killed along with most of his men. Whilst the Viking attempt was unsuccessful, the near simultaneous Norman invasion was successful in the south at the Battle of Hastings. Hardrada's invasion and defeat has been described as the end of the Viking Age in Britain.


title: Viking activity in the British Isles

text: Archaeologists James Graham-Campbell and Colleen E. Batey noted that there was a lack of historical sources discussing the earliest Viking encounters with the British Isles, which would have most probably been amongst the northern island groups, those closest to Scandinavia.


title: Viking activity in the British Isles

text: The "Irish Annals" provide us with accounts of much Viking activity during the 9th and 10th centuries.


title: Viking activity in the British Isles

text: The England Runestones, concentrated in Sweden, give accounts of the voyages from the Viking perspective.


title: Viking activity in the British Isles

text: The Viking raids that affected Anglo-Saxon England were primarily documented in the "Anglo-Saxon Chronicle", a collection of annals initially written in the late ninth century, most probably in the Kingdom of Wessex during the reign of Alfred the Great. The "Chronicle" is, however, a biased source, acting as a piece of "wartime propaganda" written on behalf of the Anglo-Saxon forces against their Viking opponents, and, in many cases, greatly exaggerates the size of the Viking fleets and armies, thereby making any Anglo-Saxon victories against them seem more heroic.


title: Viking activity in the British Isles

text: The Viking settlers in the British Isles left remains of their material culture behind, which archaeologists have been able to excavate and interpret during the 20th and 21st centuries. Such Viking evidence in Britain consists primarily of Viking burials undertaken in Shetland, Orkney, the Western Isles, the Isle of Man, Ireland, and the north-west of England. Archaeologists James Graham-Campbell and Colleen E. Batey remarked that it was on the Isle of Man where Norse archaeology was "remarkably rich in quality and quantity".


title: Viking activity in the British Isles

text: However, as archaeologist Julian D. Richards commented, Scandinavians in Anglo-Saxon England "can be elusive to the archaeologist" because many of their houses and graves are indistinguishable from those of the other populations living in the country. For this reason, historian Peter Hunter Blair noted that, in Britain, the archaeological evidence for Viking invasion and settlement was "very slight compared with the corresponding evidence for the Anglo-Saxon invasions" of the fifth century.


title: Steve Rubell

text: Steve Rubell (December 2, 1943 – July 25, 1989) was an American entrepreneur and co-owner of the New York City disco Studio 54.


title: Steve Rubell

text: Rubell and his brother Donald grew up in a Jewish family in New York City. His father worked as a postal worker and later became a tennis pro. Rubell attended Wingate High School and was also an avid tennis player, but decided against playing professionally.


title: Steve Rubell

text: Entering Syracuse University, Rubell completed bachelor's and master's degrees in finance. While attending college, Rubell met Ian Schrager, who became a lifelong friend and business partner. Rubell and Schrager were both brothers of the university's chapter of the Sigma Alpha Mu fraternity.


title: Steve Rubell

text: Rubell joined the National Guard, returning to New York after a tour of duty in a military intelligence unit. He worked at a brokerage firm after his return. Rubell then decided to start his own business and opened two Steak Lofts restaurants, one in New York City, and the other in Mystic, Connecticut.


title: Steve Rubell

text: With the help and knowledgeable influence of disco promoter Billy Amato (Smith), executive vice president 20th Century-Fox Records, Steve Rubell and Ian Schrager were introduced to the dance and disco market in early 1975 by John Addison of La Jardin.


title: Steve Rubell

text: Rubell and Schrager opened two clubs, one in Boston with John Addison from La Jardin, the other, called "The Enchanted Garden", in Queens in 1975, which later became "Douglaston Manor". In April 1977, they opened Studio 54 in the old CBS Studio on West 54th Street that the network was selling. Rubell became a familiar face in front of the building, turning people away and only allowing entry to those who met his pedantic standards. Rubell also dealt with the club's celebrity patrons, ensuring that they were thrown lavish parties. His approach worked and the club made $7 million during its first year.


title: Steve Rubell

text: On December 14, 1978, Studio 54 was raided after Rubell was quoted as saying that only the Mafia made more money than the club brought in. In June 1979, Rubell and Schrager were charged with tax evasion, obstruction of justice, and conspiracy for reportedly skimming nearly $2.5 million in unreported income from the club's receipts, in a system Rubell called "cash-in, cash-out and skim." Police reports state that cash and receipts were in the building and were hidden in the ceiling sections of Rubell's office, where both he and Schrager worked. A second raid occurred in December 1979. The pair hired Roy Cohn to defend them, but on January 18, 1980, they were sentenced to three and a half years in prison and a $20,000 fine each for the tax evasion charge. On February 4, 1980, Rubell and Schrager went to prison and Studio 54 was sold in November of that year for $4.75 million. On April 17, 1981, Rubell and Schrager were released from prison after which they lived at a halfway house for two and a half months.


title: Steve Rubell

text: After their release on April 17, 1981, Rubell and Schrager opened the Executive Hotel on Madison Avenue and renamed it Morgans. The hotel was conveyed to them in lieu of payments due to them from defaulted promissory notes from the sale of the club. Steve Rubell and Peter Gatien later opened the Palladium, a large dance club famous for displaying art by Keith Haring, Kenny Scharf, Jean-Michel Basquiat, and Andy Warhol, and considered central to the New York club scene in the 1980s. In 1998, the Palladium was demolished so that New York University dorms could be built in its place.


title: Steve Rubell

text: In 1985, Rubell, who was closeted for most of his life, discovered he had contracted HIV, which later progressed to AIDS. He began taking AZT, but his illness was exacerbated by his continued drug use and drinking, which affected his compromised immune system. A few weeks before his death, Rubell checked into Beth Israel Medical Center in New York City under an assumed name, to seek treatment for severe peptic ulcers, kidney failure, and hepatitis. He died there on July 25, 1989. Rubell's official cause of death is listed as hepatitis and septic shock complicated by AIDS.


title: Steve Rubell

text: Rubell's private funeral was attended by numerous Studio 54 regulars including Bianca Jagger and Calvin Klein on July 27 at the Riverside Chapel on Amsterdam Avenue and 76th Street in Manhattan. He is buried at Beth Moses Cemetery in Farmingdale, New York.


title: Steve Rubell

text: Rubell has also been the topic of an episode of "Biography" titled "Steve Rubell: Lord of the Disco".


title: Good Luck Sakhi

text: Good Luck Sakhi is a 2022 Indian Telugu-language sports comedy film written and directed by Nagesh Kukunoor. The film stars Keerthy Suresh, Aadhi Pinisetty and Jagapathi Babu. The plot follows Sakhi (Keerthy) who supposedly brings bad luck to everyone. After an army colonel moves to town and opens a sharpshooting centre, she begins to train as a shooter to participate at the national level.


title: Good Luck Sakhi

text: The film was announced in April 2019 and marked Kukunoor's directorial debut in Telugu cinema. Devi Sri Prasad composed the music, with cinematography by Chirantan Das and editing by A. Sreekar Prasad. The film was shot in Hyderabad, Vikarabad and Pune, and was completed in September 2020.


title: Good Luck Sakhi

text: "Good Luck Sakhi" was released theatrically on 28 January 2022, having been delayed multiple times due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The film opened to negative reviews from critics.


title: Good Luck Sakhi

text: The story starts with Sakhi or "Bad luck Sakhi" in a marriage proposal. While arriving the groom is injured as the horse stumbles. The scene is then continued by a song. We then see a normal villager, a shooting coach comes to visit her village where he decides to train some of them to represent the shooting squads. Sakhi is picked alongside Soori. Soori loots jewelry from the bus passengers using the gun from the coach and buys a new bike. The coach learns of all this and exiles him from the academy. Sakhi attends the shooting competition and refuses to participate after looking at the talented shooters. Coach encourages Sakhi and she goes on. Sakhi is caught using her lucky marbles which were given to her by Goli Raju in her childhood. Coach says that her concentration is more important than superstitions. Sakhi again continues without the marbles and is qualified for the national level. Everyone in the village is proud of her. Goli Raju still misunderstands the love of Sakhi and the coach.


title: Good Luck Sakhi

text: The next day, it was Goli Raju's performance day and the most famous actor in the town had come to watch the play for selecting actors for his next Mayabazar remake. The coach and Sakhi also attend the play. Goli Raju, due to the effect of Sakhi's Bad luck, forgets the lines and disappointed goes to the green room. Sakhi pays him a visit and Goli Raju agrees that she has bad luck and unfriends her. Sakhi returns the marbles to Raju which were given by him in her childhood and leaves.


title: Good Luck Sakhi

text: The next day is Sakhi's national shooting competition. Disappointed due to the breaking up of her and Goli Raju, she loses her concentration in the competition and loses her aim. She then comes in eighth place. In the green room (before the final round), Sakhi tells the coach does not want to participate in the finals because of her bad luck and there arises a fight between them. She then goes to participate and purposefully misses her aim. Meanwhile, the famous actor selects Raju for the remake of Mayabazar and realizes that Sakhi and the coach told him that he was a talented actor. Goli Raju immediately rushes to Hyderabad along with the good luck marbles which Sakhi gave to him that day (which he gave to Sakhi in childhood). He reaches at the correct time and gives Sakhi the marbles. Sakhi remembers that in the last competition, her coach said that her concentration is more important than the superstitions. She drops the marbles purposefully and shoots her aim, leading her to win gold.


title: Good Luck Sakhi

text: Nagesh Kukunoor initially wrote the script for Hrishikesh Mukherjee. After fifteen years it became the director's debut Telugu film. Kukunoor wanted Keerthy Suresh after watching her in "Mahanati". The film was officially announced on 27 April 2019. The title "Good Luck Sakhi" was unveiled in November 2019. Keerthy plays a rural girl from Andhra Pradesh who supposedly brings bad luck to everyone. Following the accidental death of her fiancé just before their wedding, she begins to train as a sharpshooter to participate at the national level.


title: Good Luck Sakhi

text: The first schedule of filming started in April 2019 in Hyderabad. Filming took place in Vikarabad and Pune. Dil Raju joined the production team as presenter in July 2019. 75% of filming was completed by November 2019. After being suspended by the COVID-19 pandemic, filming was resumed in September 2020 and was completed in the same month.


title: Good Luck Sakhi

text: "Good Luck Sakhi" is released theatrically on 28 January 2022. It was initially scheduled to be released theatrically on 3 June 2021, along with the dubbed versions of Tamil and Malayalam languages. However, the release was indefinitely postponed owing to the COVID-19 pandemic in India. After a while, the film release was scheduled for 19 and 26 November 2021 and also for 3, 10 and 31 December 2021.


title: Good Luck Sakhi

text: Post-theatrical digital streaming rights of the film were acquired by Amazon Prime Video. It will be premiered on 12 February 2022 in Telugu along with the dubbed versions in Tamil and Malayalam.


title: Good Luck Sakhi

text: The film opened to negative reviews from critics. A reviewer from "The Hans India" wrote: ""Good Luck Sakhi" is a sports drama that lacks strong characterisations and a gripping presentation. Despite good performances from all the key characters, the dull and predictable proceedings make "Good Luck Sakhi" a disappointing watch. "The New Indian Express" rated 1.5 out on 5 and wrote Good Luck Sakhi also positions itself as a woman-empowerment message movie, even if this angle becomes secondary to everything else. The vagueness in the narration doesn't always drive home the message: 'There's no such thing like luck, you determine your own destiny.' So nothing much stays with us once you step out of the theatre. Writing for "The Hindu", Sangeetha Devi Dundoo wrote that the story was "simplistic and predictable," and falls way short of being another "Iqbal".


title: Good Luck Sakhi

text: "The Times of India" critic Neeshita Nyayapati rated 2.5 out on 5 and wrote felt that Kukunoor's Telugu debut was a let down. ""Good Luck Sakhi" has a terrific opening that draws you in. Devi Sri Prasad's number "Bad Luck Sakhi" plays out almost like a musical on a Broadway show and you're intrigued. However, despite the composer, cinematographer Chiratan Das and the lead actors giving their best, the film's sound design and editing are also a let-down." A reviewer from "Eenadu" appreciated the performances but criticized the screenplay and lack of strong conflict.


title: Wok

text: A wok (; Pinyin: ; Cantonese ) is a deep round-bottomed cooking pan from China. It is believed to be derived from the South Asian karahi. It is common in China and similar pans are found in parts of East, South and Southeast Asia, as well as being popular in other parts of the world.


title: Wok

text: Woks are used in a range of Chinese cooking techniques, including stir frying, steaming, pan frying, deep frying, poaching, boiling, braising, searing, stewing, making soup, smoking and roasting nuts. Wok cooking is often done with utensils called (spatula) or (ladle) whose long handles protect cooks from high heat. The uniqueness of wok cooking is conveyed by the Cantonese term : "breath of the wok".


title: Wok

text: The origin of the wok is unclear, but most scholars believe it originated from the South Asian karahi and the Southeast Asian kuali (believed to be the etymon of Mandarin 𡆇). These cooking vessels are universal in South and Southeast Asian cuisine for stewing and quick evaporation. They likely entered China via Central Asia from India where it evolved into the wok.


title: Wok

text: The first possible depictions of woks in China appeared in the Han dynasty (c. 202 BCE - 220 CE). But these are conjectural, since these "woks" were made of clay and were only used to dry grains. Metal woks only started to appear in China in the Ming dynasty (1368 - 1644), where it was first used for stir frying (an original Han Chinese innovation).


title: Wok

text: The wok's most distinguishing feature is its shape. Classic woks have a rounded bottom. Hand-hammered woks are sometimes flipped inside out after being shaped, giving the wok a gentle flare to the edge that makes it easier to push food up onto the sides of the wok. Woks sold in Western countries are sometimes found with flat bottoms—this makes them more similar to a deep frying pan. The flat bottom allows the wok to be used on an electric stove, where a rounded wok would not be able to fully contact the stove's heating element. A round-bottom wok enables the traditional round spatula or ladle to pick all the food up at the bottom of the wok and toss it around easily; this is difficult with a flat bottom. With a gas hob, or traditional pit stove, the bottom of a round wok can get hotter than a flat wok and so is better for stir frying.


title: Wok

text: Most woks range from or more in diameter. Woks of (suitable for a family of 3 or 4) are the most common, but home woks can be found as small as and as large as . Smaller woks are typically used for quick cooking techniques at high heat such as stir frying (). Large woks over a meter wide are mainly used by restaurants or community kitchens for cooking rice or soup, or for boiling water.


title: Wok

text: The most common materials used in making woks today are carbon steel and cast iron. Although the latter was the most common type used in the past, cooks tend to be divided on whether carbon steel or cast iron woks are superior.


title: Wok

text: Currently, carbon steel is the most widely used material, being relatively inexpensive compared with other materials, relatively light in weight, providing quick heat conduction as it has a low heat capacity, and having reasonable durability. Their light weight makes them easier to lift and quicker to heat. Carbon steel woks, however, tend to be more difficult to season than those made of cast-iron ('seasoning', or carbonizing the cooking surface of a wok, is required to prevent foods from sticking and to remove metallic tastes and odors). Carbon steel woks vary widely in price, style, and quality, which is based on ply and forming technique. The lowest quality steel woks tend to be stamped by machine from a single 'ply' or piece of stamped steel. Less expensive woks have a higher tendency to deform and misshape. Cooking with lower quality woks is also more difficult and precarious since they often have a "hot spot". Higher quality, mass-produced woks are made of heavy gauge (14-gauge or thicker) steel, and are either machine-hammered or made of spun steel. The best quality woks are almost always hand-made, being pounded into shape by hand ("hand hammered") from two or more sheets of carbon steel which are shaped into final form by a ring-forming or hand-forging process.


title: Wok

text: Two types of cast iron woks can be found in the market. Chinese-made cast iron woks are very thin (), weighing only a little more than a carbon steel wok of similar size, while cast iron woks typically produced in the West tend to be much thicker (), and very heavy. Because of the thickness of the cast iron, Western-style cast iron woks take much longer to bring up to cooking temperature, and their weight also makes stir-frying and techniques difficult.


title: Wok

text: Cast iron woks form a more stable carbonized layer of seasoning which makes it less prone to food sticking on the pan. While cast iron woks are superior to carbon steel woks in heat retention and uniform heat distribution, they respond slowly to heat adjustments and are slow to cool once taken off the fire. Because of this, food cooked in a cast iron wok must be promptly removed from the wok as soon as it is done to prevent overcooking. Chinese-style cast iron woks, although relatively light, are fragile and are prone to shattering if dropped or mishandled.


title: Wok

text: Steel woks coated with non-stick coatings such as PFA and Teflon, a development originated in Western countries, are now popular in Asia as well. These woks cannot be used with metal utensils, and foods cooked in non-stick woks tend to retain juices instead of browning in the pan. As they necessarily lack the carbonizing or seasoning of the classic steel or iron wok, non-stick woks do not impart the distinctive taste or sensation of . The newest nonstick coatings will withstand temperatures of up to , sufficient for stir-frying. Woks are also now being introduced with clad or five-layer construction, which sandwich a thick layer of aluminum or copper between two sheets of stainless steel. Clad woks can cost five to ten times the price of a traditional carbon steel or cast-iron wok, yet cook no better; for this reason they are not used in most professional restaurant kitchens. Clad woks are also slower to heat than traditional woks and not nearly as efficient for stir-frying.


title: Wok

text: Woks can also be made from aluminium. Although an excellent conductor of heat, it has somewhat inferior thermal capacity as cast iron or carbon steel, it loses heat to convection much faster than carbon steel, and it may be constructed much thinner than cast iron. Although anodized aluminium alloys can stand up to constant use, plain aluminium woks are too soft and damage easily. Aluminium is mostly used for wok lids.


title: Wok

text: The handles for woks come in two styles: loops and stick. Loop handles mounted on opposite sides of the wok are typical in southern China. The twin small loop handles are the most common handle type for woks of all types and materials, and are usually made of bare metal. Cooks needing to hold the wok to toss the food in cooking do so by holding a loop handle with a thick towel (though some woks have spool-shaped wooden or plastic covers over the metal of the handle). Cooking with the tossing action in loop-handled woks requires a large amount of hand, arm and wrist strength. Loop handles typically come in pairs on the wok and are riveted, welded or extended from the wok basin.


title: Wok

text: Stick handles are long, made of steel, and are usually welded or riveted to the wok basin, or are an actual direct extension of the metal of the basin. Stick handles are popular in northern China, where food in the wok is frequently turned with a tossing motion of the arm and wrist when stir-frying food. The classic stick handle is made of hollow hammered steel, but other materials may be used, including wood or plastic-covered hand grips. Because of their popularity in northern China, stick-handled woks are often referred to as "pao woks" or "Peking pans". Stick handles are normally not found on cast-iron woks since the wok is either too heavy for the handle or the metal is too thin to handle the tensile stress exerted by the handle. Larger-diameter woks with stick-type handles frequently incorporate a "helper" handle consisting of a loop on the opposite side of the wok, which aids in handling.


title: Wok

text: The wok can be used in a large number of cooking methods. Before the introduction of Western cookware, it was often used for all cooking techniques including:


title: Wok

text: The Cantonese phrase () literally, the "air of the wok", refers to the distinct charred, smoky flavor resulting from stir-frying foods over an open flame in Cantonese cuisine. The second character () is transliterated as () according to its Standard Chinese pronunciation, so is sometimes rendered as in Western cookbooks. refers to the flavor, taste, and "essence" imparted by a hot wok on food during stir frying. It is particularly important for Cantonese dishes requiring high heat for fragrance such as and beef. Out of the Eight Culinary Traditions of China, the concept is only encountered in Cantonese cuisine, and may not even be an accepted underlying principle in most other Chinese cuisines.


title: Wok

text: To impart the traditional way, the food is cooked in a seasoned wok over a high flame while being stirred and tossed quickly. Constant contact with the heat source is crucial as the addition of new ingredients and each toss of the wok inevitably cools the wok down; therefore, cooking over flame is preferred. Consequently, many chefs (especially those with less-than-ideal cookers) may cook in small batches to overcome this problem so that the wok is still as hot as it can be, and to avoid "stewing" the food, instead. When cooking over gas stoves or open flame, it additionally allows for the splattering of fine oil particles to catch the flame into the wok; this is easily achieved when experienced chefs toss the wok and can be a demonstration of experience. For these reasons, cooking over an open flame is preferable to other types of stoves. Cooking with coated woks (e.g. nonstick) notably will not give the distinct taste of , which is partially imbued from previous cooking sessions. In practical terms, the flavor imparted by chemical compounds results from caramelization, Maillard reactions, and the partial combustion of oil that come from charring and searing of the food at very high heat in excess of . Aside from flavor, the texture of the cooked items and smell involved also describe .


title: Wok

text: In Indonesia, a wok-like pan is known as a or (also spelled , from Javanese language, from the root word meaning "steel"). In Malaysia, it is called a (small wok) or (big wok). Similarly in the Philippines, the wok is known as or in Tagalog, and it is called in Kapampangan, while bigger pans used for festivals and gatherings are known as . In India, a similar pan is called "karahi".


title: Wok

text: In Japan, the wok is called a . In South India, the Chinese wok became a part of South Indian cooking, where it is called the (literally, "Chinese pot" in Malayalam and Tamil).


title: Wok

text: Woks were designed to be used over the traditional Chinese pit-style hearth () with the wok recessed into the stove top, where the heat is fully directed at the bottom of the wok. Round grate rings on the edge of the opening provide stability to the wok. There are two styles of traditional wok stoves. The same design aspects of these Chinese stoves can be seen in traditional Japanese stoves. The more primitive style was used outdoors or in well ventilated areas since hot gasses from the firebox exhaust around the wok. The more advanced style, found in better-off households, has a chimney and may be used indoors. These stoves are similar in design to modern rocket stoves.


title: Wok

text: Pit stoves originally burned wood or coal but are now more typically heated by natural gas with the burner recessed below the stovetop. In areas where natural gas is unavailable, LPG may be used instead. With the adoption of gas and its less objectionable combustion products, the chimney has been replaced by the vent hood.


title: Wok

text: This type of stove allows foods to be stir-fried at a very high heat, sometimes hot enough to deform the wok itself. Professional chefs in Chinese restaurants often use pit stoves since they have the heating power to give food an alluring .


title: Wok

text: Traditionally shaped woks can be used on some Western-style (flat-topped) gas stoves by removing a burner cover and replacing it with a "wok ring", which provides stability and concentrates heat. Although not as ideal as "pit stoves", these allow woks to be used in a manner more suitable for their design and are good enough for most tasks required in home cooking.


title: Wok

text: Wok rings are sold in cylindrical and conical shapes. For greatest efficiency with the conical wok ring, position it with the wide side up. This allows the base of the wok to sit closer to the heat source.


title: Wok

text: In recent years, some consumer indoor stoves using natural gas or propane have begun offering higher-BTU burners. A few manufacturers of such stoves, notably Kenmore Appliances and Viking Range Corp. now include a specially designed high-output bridge-type wok burner as part of their standard or optional equipment, though even high-heat models are limited to a maximum of around 27,000 BTU (7.9 kW).


title: Wok

text: Because of the high cost of kitchen modifications, coupled with increased heat and smoke generated in the kitchen, more home chefs are using their wok outdoors on high-heat propane burners with curved wok support grates. Many inexpensive propane burners are easily capable of 60,000–75,000 BTU (17.5–22 kW) or more, easily surpassing most in-home gas stoves.


title: Wok

text: Woks, round or flat bottomed, do not generally work well for stir-frying or other quick cooking methods when used on an electric cooker. These stoves do not produce the large amounts of quick even heat required for stir-frying. It is possible, however, to find round-shaped electric stove elements that will fit the curve of a wok, which allows the wok to be heated at its bottom along with part of its sides. A flat-bottomed wok may also work better on an electric stove.


title: Wok

text: Coupled with the lower heat retention of woks, meals stir-fried on electric stoves have a tendency to stew and boil when too much food is in the wok rather than "fry" as in traditional woks, thus not producing . A wok can, however, benefit from the slow steady heating of electric stoves when used for slower cooking methods such as stewing, braising, and steaming, and immersion cooking techniques such as frying and boiling. Many Chinese cooks use Western style cast-iron pans for stir-frying on electric stoves, since they hold enough heat for the required sustained high temperatures.


title: Wok

text: A newer trend in woks is the electric wok, where no stove is needed. This type of wok is plugged into an electrical outlet and the heating element is in the wok. Like stove-mounted non-stick woks, these woks can also only be used at lower temperatures than traditional woks.


title: Wok

text: Induction cookers generate heat in induction-compatible cookware via direct magnetic stimulation of the pan material. While carbon steel and cast iron (the most common wok materials) are induction-compatible metals, induction cooking also requires close contact between the cooking vessel and the induction burner. This presents problems with tossing techniques, where the wok is lifted off the burner and agitated, will break contact and turn off the burner. Traditionally shaped woks, which are round-bottomed, also do not have enough contact with the cooking surface to generate notable heat. Bowl-shaped induction cookers overcome this problem and can be used suitably for wok cooking in locations where gas stoves are not suitable.


title: Wok

text: Flat-bottomed woks make sufficient contact to generate heat. Some cookware makers are now offering round-bottomed woks with a small flat spot to provide induction contact, with a specially designed support ring, and some induction cooktops are now also available with a rounded burner that is able to make contact with the rounded bottom of a traditional wok. In both cases, the food will need to be stirred with a cooking utensil, instead of being tossed by lifting the wok itself.


title: Wok

text: The main advantage of the wok, beyond its constructed material, is its curved, concave shape. This shape produces a small, hot area at the bottom which allows some of the food to be seared by intense heat while using relatively little fuel. The large sloped sides also make it easier for chefs to employ the tossing cooking technique on solid and thick liquid food, with less spillage and a greater margin of safety. The curved sides also allow a person to cook without having to "chase the food around the pan", since bite-sized or finely chopped stir-fry ingredients usually tumble back to the center of the wok when agitated.


title: Wok

text: The curve also provides a larger usable cooking surface versus Western-style pots and pans, which typically have vertical edges. This allows large pieces of food seared at the bottom of the wok to be pushed up the gently sloped sides to continue cooking at a slower rate. While this occurs another ingredient for the same dish needing high heat is being cooked at the bottom. The pointed bottom also allows even small amounts of oil to pool. As such, large food items can be shallow fried, while finely chopped garlic, chili peppers, scallions, and ginger can be essentially deep-fried in both cases with very small amounts of cooking oil.


title: Gold rush

text: A gold rush or gold fever is a discovery of gold—sometimes accompanied by other precious metals and rare-earth minerals—that brings an onrush of miners seeking their fortune. Major gold rushes took place in the 19th century in Australia, New Zealand, Brazil, Chile, South Africa, the United States, and Canada while smaller gold rushes took place elsewhere.


title: Gold rush

text: In the 19th century, the wealth that resulted was distributed widely because of reduced migration costs and low barriers to entry. While gold mining itself proved unprofitable for most diggers and mine owners, some people made large fortunes, and merchants and transportation facilities made large profits. The resulting increase in the world's gold supply stimulated global trade and investment. Historians have written extensively about the mass migration, trade, colonization, and environmental history associated with gold rushes.


title: Gold rush

text: Gold rushes were typically marked by a general buoyant feeling of a "free-for-all" in income mobility, in which any single individual might become abundantly wealthy almost instantly, as expressed in the California Dream.


title: Gold rush

text: Gold rushes helped spur waves of immigration that often led to the permanent settlement of new regions. Activities propelled by gold rushes define significant aspects of the culture of the Australian and North American frontiers. At a time when the world's money supply was based on gold, the newly-mined gold provided economic stimulus far beyond the goldfields, feeding into local and wider economic booms.


title: Gold rush

text: Gold rushes occurred as early as the times of the Roman Empire, whose gold mining was described by Diodorus Siculus and Pliny the Elder, and probably further back to ancient Egypt.


title: Gold rush

text: Within each mining rush there is typically a transition through progressively higher capital expenditures, larger organizations, and more specialized knowledge. They may also progress from high-unit value to lower-unit value minerals (from gold to silver to base metals).


title: Gold rush

text: A rush typically begins with the discovery of placer gold made by an individual. At first the gold may be washed from the sand and gravel by individual miners with little training, using a gold pan or similar simple instrument. Once it is clear that the volume of gold-bearing sediment is larger than a few cubic metres, the placer miners will build rockers or sluice boxes, with which a small group can wash gold from the sediment many times faster than using gold pans. Winning the gold in this manner requires almost no capital investment, only a simple pan or equipment that may be built on the spot, and only simple organisation. The low investment, the high value per unit weight of gold, and the ability of gold dust and gold nuggets to serve as a medium of exchange, allow placer gold rushes to occur even in remote locations.


title: Gold rush

text: After the sluice-box stage, placer mining may become increasingly large scale, requiring larger organisations and higher capital expenditures. Small claims owned and mined by individuals may need to be merged into larger tracts. Difficult-to-reach placer deposits may be mined by tunnels. Water may be diverted by dams and canals to placer mine active river beds or to deliver water needed to wash dry placers. The more advanced techniques of ground sluicing, hydraulic mining and dredging may be used.


title: Gold rush

text: Typically the heyday of a placer gold rush would last only a few years. The free gold supply in stream beds would become depleted somewhat quickly, and the initial phase would be followed by prospecting for veins of lode gold that were the original source of the placer gold. Hard rock mining, like placer mining, may evolve from low capital investment and simple technology to progressively higher capital and technology. The surface outcrop of a gold-bearing vein may be oxidized, so that the gold occurs as native gold, and the ore needs only to be crushed and washed (free milling ore). The first miners may at first build a simple arrastra to crush their ore; later, they may build stamp mills to crush ore at greater speed. As the miners venture downwards, they may find that the deeper part of vein contains gold locked in sulfide or telluride minerals, which will require smelting. If the ore is still sufficiently rich, it may be worth shipping to a distant smelter (direct shipping ore). Lower-grade ore may require on-site treatment to either recover the gold or to produce a concentrate sufficiently rich for transport to the smelter. As the district turns to lower-grade ore, the mining may change from underground mining to large open-pit mining.


title: Gold rush

text: Many silver rushes followed upon gold rushes. As transportation and infrastructure improve, the focus may change progressively from gold to silver to base metals. In this way, Leadville, Colorado started as a placer gold discovery, achieved fame as a silver-mining district, then relied on lead and zinc in its later days. Butte, Montana began mining placer gold, then became a silver-mining district, then became for a time the world’s largest copper producer.


title: Gold rush

text: Various gold rushes occurred in Australia over the second half of the 19th century. The most significant of these, although not the only ones, were the New South Wales gold rush and Victorian gold rush in 1851, and the Western Australian gold rushes of the 1890s. They were highly significant to their respective colonies' political and economic development as they brought many immigrants, and promoted massive government spending on infrastructure to support the new arrivals who came looking for gold. While some found their fortune, those who did not often remained in the colonies and took advantage of extremely liberal land laws to take up farming.


title: Gold rush

text: In New Zealand the Central Otago Gold Rush from 1861 attracted prospectors from the California Gold Rush and the Victorian Gold Rush and many moved on to the West Coast Gold Rush from 1864.


title: Gold rush

text: The first significant gold rush in the United States was in Cabarrus County, North Carolina (east of Charlotte), in 1799 at today's Reed's Gold Mine. Thirty years later, in 1829, the Georgia Gold Rush in the southern Appalachians occurred. It was followed by the California Gold Rush of 1848–55 in the Sierra Nevada, which captured the popular imagination. The California gold rush led directly to the settlement of California by Americans and the rapid entry of that state into the union in 1850. The gold rush in 1849 stimulated worldwide interest in prospecting for gold, and led to new rushes in Australia, South Africa, Wales and Scotland. Successive gold rushes occurred in western North America: Fraser Canyon, the Cariboo district and other parts of British Columbia, in Nevada, in the Rocky Mountains in Colorado, Idaho, Montana, eastern Oregon, and western New Mexico Territory and along the lower Colorado River. There was a gold rush in Nova Scotia (1861-1876) which produced nearly 210,000 ounces of gold. Resurrection Creek, near Hope, Alaska was the site of Alaska's first gold rush in the mid–1890s. Other notable Alaska Gold Rushes were Nome, Fairbanks, and the Fortymile River.


title: Gold rush

text: One of the last "great gold rushes" was the Klondike Gold Rush in Canada's Yukon Territory (1896–99). This gold rush is featured in the novels of Jack London, and Charlie Chaplin's film "The Gold Rush". Robert William Service depicted in his poetries the Gold Rush, especially in the book "The Trail of '98". The main goldfield was along the south flank of the Klondike River near its confluence with the Yukon River near what was to become Dawson City in Canada's Yukon Territory, but it also helped open up the relatively new US possession of Alaska to exploration and settlement, and promoted the discovery of other gold finds.


title: Gold rush

text: The most successful of the North American gold rushes was the Porcupine Gold Rush in Timmins, Ontario area. This gold rush was unique compared to others by the method of extraction of the gold. Placer mining techniques were not able to be used to access the gold in the area due to it being embedded into the Canadian Shield, so larger mining operations involving significantly more expensive equipment was required. While this gold rush peaked in the 1940s and 1950s, it is still active today with over 200 million ounces of gold having been produced from the region. The gold deposits in this area are identified as one of the largest in the world.


title: Gold rush

text: In South Africa, the Witwatersrand Gold Rush in the Transvaal was important to that country's history, leading to the founding of Johannesburg and tensions between the Boers and British settlers as well as the Chinese miners.


title: Gold rush

text: South African gold production went from zero in 1886 to 23% of the total world output in 1896. At the time of the South African rush, gold production benefited from the newly discovered techniques by Scottish chemists, the MacArthur-Forrest process, of using potassium cyanide to extract gold from low-grade ore.


title: Gold rush

text: The gold mine at El Callao (Venezuela), started in 1871, was for a time one of the richest in the world, and the goldfields as a whole saw over a million ounces exported between 1860 and 1883. The gold mining was dominated by immigrants from the British Isles and the British West Indies, giving an appearance of almost creating an English colony on Venezuelan territory.


title: Gold rush

text: Between 1883 and 1906 Tierra del Fuego experienced a gold rush attracting many Chileans, Argentines and Europeans to the archipelago. The gold rush begun in 1884 following discovery of gold during the rescue of the French steamship "Arctique" near Cape Virgenes.


title: Gold rush

text: There are about 10 to 30 million small-scale miners around the world, according to Communities and Small-Scale Mining (CASM). Approximately 100 million people are directly or indirectly dependent on small-scale mining. For example, there are 800,000 to 1.5 million artisanal miners in Democratic Republic of Congo, 350,000 to 650,000 in Sierra Leone, and 150,000 to 250,000 in Ghana, with millions more across Africa.


title: Gold rush

text: In an exclusive report, Reuters accounted the smuggling of billions of dollars’ worth of gold out of Africa through the United Arab Emirates in the Middle East, which further acts as a gateway to the markets in the United States, Europe and more. The news agency evaluated the worth and magnitude of illegal gold trade occurring in African nations like Ghana, Tanzania, and Zambia, by comparing the total gold imports recorded into the UAE with the exports affirmed by the African states. According to Africa’s industrial mining firms, they have not exported any amount of gold to the UAE – confirming that the imports come from other, illegal sources. As per customs data, the UAE imported gold worth $15.1 billion from Africa in 2016, with a total weight of 446 tons, in variable degrees of purity. Much of the exports were not recorded in the African states, which means huge volume of gold imports were carried out with no taxes paid to the states producing it.


title: Portuguese Macau

text: Portuguese Macau (officially the Province of Macau until 1976, and then the Autonomous Region of Macau from 1976 to 1999) was a Portuguese colony that existed from the first official Portuguese settlement in 1557 to the end of colonial rule and the transfer of sovereignty over Macau to the People's Republic of China in 1999. It comprised the Municipality of Macau and the Municipality of Ilhas. Macau was both the first and last European holding in China.


title: Portuguese Macau

text: Macau's history under Portugal can be broadly divided into three distinct political periods. The first was the establishment of the Portuguese settlement in 1557 until 1849. There was a system of mixed jurisdiction; the Portuguese had jurisdiction over the Portuguese community and certain aspects of the territory's administration but had no real sovereignty. The second was the "colonial period", which scholars generally place from 1849 to 1974. As Macau's importance among other territories grew within the Portuguese Empire, Portuguese sovereignty over Macau was strengthened and it became a constitutional part of Portuguese territory. Chinese sovereignty during this era was mainly nominal. Finally, the third was the "transition period" or "post-colonial period", which occurred after the Carnation Revolution in 1974 until the handover in 1999.


title: Portuguese Macau

text: Through archaeological studies, many artefacts have been discovered that indicate that the Chinese already settled in Macau between 4000 and 6000 years ago and in Coloane 5000 years ago.


title: Portuguese Macau

text: According to certain historical records Chinese merchant ships from Canton that traded with peoples of Southeast Asia often stopped in or near Macao to supply themselves with water and food, at least from the 5th century onwards.


title: Portuguese Macau

text: In 1277, about 50,000 supporters and some members of the Song Dynasty, fleeing the Mongol invaders, arrived in Macau and built several settlements, the largest and most important being in the Mong-Há region in the north of Macau. It is believed that the oldest temple in Macau, the Temple of Kun Iam (Goddess of Mercy), was located in Mong-Há.


title: Portuguese Macau

text: During the Ming Dynasty, many fishermen from Guangzhou and Fujian settled in Macau and it was they who built the Temple of A-Ma.


title: Portuguese Macau

text: The first Portuguese to visit China was Jorge Álvares, in 1513, during the Age of Discovery. He erected a "padrão" with the arms of Portugal in the port of Tamau, located on a neighboring island of Sancho (or Sanchoão) at the mouth of the Pearl River, near Macau. This visit was followed by the establishment in the area of numerous Portuguese traders, who would erect temporary wooden buildings that would be destroyed when the traders left, having done their business. The Portuguese were not yet allowed to stay, obtaining only visitor status.


title: Portuguese Macau

text: In 1517, Fernão Pires de Andrade, the head of a Portuguese expedition to China, managed to negotiate with the Chinese authorities in Canton for the entry of the Portuguese ambassador Tomé Pires to Beijing and the establishment of a trading post in Tamão. But, due to the barbaric attitudes of his brother (who built a fortress in Tamão), Tomé Pires was arrested and killed by the Chinese authorities in Beijing and the Chinese Emperor prohibited trade with the Portuguese.


title: Portuguese Macau

text: Despite this order, Portuguese traders continued their lucrative activity and the mandarins of the area allowed the Portuguese to settle on the island of Sanchuão to continue their business.


title: Portuguese Macau

text: In 1542, the Portuguese, who already frequented the eastern coasts of China, settled in Liam Pó. But in 1545 this community, which at the time had about 3,000 inhabitants, was razed by a Chinese army of 60,000 in five hours. The Portuguese tried to settle in Chin-Cheu, but were expelled again in 1549.


title: Portuguese Macau

text: The Portuguese were defeated by the Ming Chinese at the Battle of Sincouwaan at Lantau Island and Shuangyu in 1548, where several Portuguese were captured, and near the Dongshan Peninsula in 1549, where two Portuguese junks and Galeote Pereira were captured. During these battles the Ming Chinese captured weapons from the defeated Portuguese which they then reverse engineered and mass produced in China such as matchlocks, muskets and arquebuses, which they named bird guns and breech loading swivel guns which they named Folangji (Frankish) cannon because the Portuguese were known to the Chinese under the name of Franks at this time.


title: Portuguese Macau

text: The Portuguese later returned to Tamão and the islands of Sanchuão and Lampacau to carry out their lucrative commercial transactions. They even began to establish trade relations with the Chinese from the port of Hou-Quiang (Macau). They presented themselves as Portuguese instead of Franks in the Luso-Chinese agreement (1554) and rented Macau as a trading post from China by paying annual lease of hundreds of silver taels to Ming China.


title: Portuguese Macau

text: The use of Macau as a commercial port dates back to 1535 during the Ming dynasty, when local authorities established a custom house, collecting 20,000 "taels" in annual custom duties. Sources also call this payment a rent or bribe. In 1554, the custom house was moved to Lampacao, likely due to threats of piracy. After the Portuguese helped the Chinese defeat the pirates, they were allowed to settle in Macau. By 1557, they established a permanent settlement, paying an annual ground rent of 500 "taels".


title: Portuguese Macau

text: The name of Macau seems to have originated in one of the first places accessed by the Portuguese, the Bay of A-Má (in Cantonese, "A-Ma Gao"), a name that is due to the existence in this bay of a temple in honor of the goddess A -Ma. A-Ma Gao would become, Amacao, Macao and, finally, Macau.


title: Portuguese Macau

text: At the time, the Portuguese commercial establishment of Macau was only a small village with a few blocks, churches and residences, joined by a small number of streets. Most of the population lived on trade, so many of them left Macao for months and sometimes even years to carry out their lucrative trade. At that time, it had a vaguely defined political-administrative organization, as the Portuguese Crown had not yet carried out any proper planning for Macau. Therefore, at that time, the Captain-Major of the Voyage of China and Japan was responsible for the affairs of the Portuguese during his stay in Macau. He, as the only existing authority, sought to maintain order among the Portuguese while his great merchant ship was in port.


title: Portuguese Macau

text: Over time, issues emerged whose resolution could not wait for the Captain-Major's return from his trips to Japan, so a kind of triumvirate was formed, which began to direct the administration of the establishment. It was composed of three representatives of the residents, called "homens-bons" ("good men"), chosen by vote. In 1562, one of those elected became, by choice, Land Captain. These three representatives continued to be nevertheless dependent on the Captain-Major. Specifically, the function of these three representatives was to regulate all matters of public order and politics. In addition to the triumvirate, there was also a judge, and four merchants elected by the people who participated in the administration. These elements together formed a kind of council.


title: Portuguese Macau

text: Although the Portuguese remained in Macau, the Chinese authorities maintained that Macau was an integral part of the Chinese Celestial Empire, so the Portuguese had been obligated to pay annual rent (about 500 taels of silver) and certain taxes to the Chinese, since the year 1573. The governor of Canton, the highest Chinese authority in the region, ordered some mandarins in the vicinity of Macau to watch and supervise that Portuguese commercial establishment, namely with regard to the collection of rent and taxes levied by the Guangzhou authorities on all Chinese products and on all products exported by the Portuguese. These Chinese officials exercised great influence over the administration of Macau and also exercised control and ultimate jurisdiction over all Chinese residents in Macau. Many of them lived in the north of the peninsula.


title: Portuguese Macau

text: In 1573 or 1574, the Chinese authorities ordered the construction of a barrier on the northern border of the Peninsula, in a place very close to where today is the current "Frontier Post of Portas do Cerco", to prevent the expansion of the Portuguese through the island of Xiangshan (modern Zhongshan), to better supervise the collection of taxes on goods entering or leaving the city and to control Macau's supply.


title: Portuguese Macau

text: Macau also became an important point of departure for Catholic missionaries to different countries in Asia, namely China and Japan. In addition to evangelization, these missionaries, especially the Jesuits, also promoted ethical, cultural and scientific exchange between the West and the East; and contributed in an important way to the development of Macao. Belchior Carneiro Leitão, the first Governor of the Bishopric of Macau, founded, in 1569, the first hospital in Macau, Hospital dos Pobres (later to be called "Hospital de São Rafael"), and the first European institution charity in this region, the Santa Casa da Misericórdia. These Catholic religious also contributed to the development of social assistance, creating orphanages and even a leprosy, and education in Macau.


title: Portuguese Macau

text: The Colégio de São Paulo was founded in the 16th century and the Seminary of São José in the 18th century. These two institutions had the function of training missionaries and priests. Due to the great importance of Macau, Pope Gregory XIII created the Diocese of Macau on January 23, 1576. The seminary, due to the lack of priestly vocations, was closed and the College was destroyed by fire in 1835.


title: Portuguese Macau

text: On several occasions, the Jesuits who regularly attended the Court in Peking used their influence to save Macau from various dangers and from various exaggerated demands imposed by the Chinese authorities in Canton or by the Emperor himself.


title: Portuguese Macau

text: From its founding until the loss of trade with Japan in 1639, Macau survived and prospered due to the China-Macao-Japan triangular trade. This lucrative trade, based on the exchange of silk and gold from China for silver from Japan, began when, in the 1540s Portuguese merchants began selling Chinese products in Japan. Within just a decade, Macau became a key entrepot and intermediary in trade between China and Japan, especially after Chinese authorities banned direct trade with Japan for over a hundred years. In these circumstances, the Portuguese gained a monopoly over trade between China, Japan and Europe.


title: Portuguese Macau

text: From 1550 onwards, this commercial monopoly was exercised and ensured by the Captain-Mor of the Voyage of China and Japan (or, simply, called Captain-Mor of the Voyage of Japan) and he also enjoyed the right to sell his post to others.


title: Portuguese Macau

text: In 1580, the position of "ouvidor" ("ombundsman") was created. The first magistrate was sent from Lisbon to Macau, under the pretext of putting an end to the rivalries existing in the settlement. In 1581, the residents of Macau learned of the accession of Philip II of Spain to the throne of Portugal, which took place in the year 1580. This news saddened the citizens of Macau because it placed Macau in a dangerous situation, as the Chinese authorities had granted Macau to the Portuguese Crown and not to the Spanish. The Portuguese feared that they would be expelled by the Chinese authorities, losing their monopoly on trade with China. It was mainly for this reason, but also for the patriotic spirit of the Portuguese residents, that the Portuguese flag remained always hoisted during this period.


title: Portuguese Macau

text: The new state of affairs in Portugal had the effect of establishing a more organized, effective and representative administration. In 1583, on the initiative of the Bishop of Macau, the Leal Senado, a municipal and senatorial body more representative than the oligarchic Junta, was founded to better administer Macau and to maintain Macau's autonomy from the Spanish authorities. The Senate, which feared the interference of Chinese authorities in the administration, the economy (mainly in commerce) or even in the statute or in the very existence of Macau, prepared large sums of gifts for the Chinese authorities, with the intention of trying to distance them from Macao's internal affairs. This situation of subservience on the part of Macau would only be overcome with the measures imposed during the mandate of Governor João Ferreira do Amaral (1846–1849), although Macau continued to depend on China.


title: Portuguese Macau

text: Due to the growing prosperity and importance of Macau, this commercial establishment was elevated to the status of city in 1586 or 1587, by decision of King Filipe II of Spain (Filipe I of Portugal), changing its name to "Cidade do Santo Nome De Deus de Macao". This Spanish monarch did not intend to send a Governor to the city, preferring to keep things as they were.


title: Portuguese Macau

text: It was during the period of Habsburg control of Portugal that Macau reached great prosperity, entering its "golden age". Some historians point to the period between 1595 and 1602 as the height of its "golden age". In this period, Macau became one of the busiest commercial cities in the Far East and served as an entrepot for many Portuguese and Spanish trade routes, mainly for the lucrative route to Japan. At that time, the Portuguese, although increasingly dependent on the capital of the great Chinese and Japanese merchants and also suffering from increasing Dutch competition, had exclusivity on this route because Japan did not allow the entry of other foreign ships. This route, especially when the Dutch began to disturb the routes to Goa and Malacca, became one of the main sources of income for Macau and provided a key support to Portuguese trade in the China Seas.


title: Portuguese Macau

text: It was during this period that the Church of São Paulo and many other architectural works, built mostly according to European-inspired architectural styles, were completed, giving a strong touch of splendor and grandeur to the city.


title: Portuguese Macau

text: During this period, the Leal Senado was able to avoid open conflicts with the mandarins, bribing them with significant sums, and compromises with the Spaniards, who wanted to end the commercial monopoly that the Portuguese enjoyed in China (at that time, Portuguese ships, when entering Canton, paid two-thirds less than other ships of the same tonnage).


title: Portuguese Macau

text: The Spaniards, based in Manila, even sent embassies to China and Japan, in an attempt to end the privileged position of the Portuguese, but they did not achieve what they sought, partially due to the pro-Portuguese actions of the Jesuits based in those Asian countries. In fact, the Jesuits were at the service of the Portuguese Empire at that time, within the scope of the Portuguese Padroado agreement.


title: Portuguese Macau

text: Portuguese-Spanish relations were characterized more by distrust and rivalry than by cooperation and unity. For example, in 1589, the establishment of a Macau-Acapulco trade route greatly angered the Spaniards of Manila. In another example, some Spaniards even wanted the King of Spain (and Portugal) to order the destruction of Macau, transferring the silver and silk trade between Japan and China to Manila; this proposal was not, however, put into practice.


title: Portuguese Macau

text: Alongside this, trade between Macau and Manila grew and was gradually regulated, also becoming an important source of income for the City of the Name of God.


title: Portuguese Macau

text: Having an important strategic position, Macau was attacked several times by the Dutch (enemies of Spain and Portugal due to the union of these two countries between 1580 and 1640), who were envious of the monopoly the Portuguese enjoyed and wanted to control trade between Europe and the Far East.


title: Portuguese Macau

text: King Philip III of Spain, who was at war with the Dutch, put an embargo on Dutch trading ships in all his territories including Portugal, so these ships headed east, causing many problems for the Portuguese settled in this region. In 1601, a Dutch fleet led by Admiral Van Neck appeared in Macau. In 1603, warships from Holland bombarded the city; and in the years 1604 and 1607 came, respectively, the expeditions led by Admirals and Cornelis Matelieff de Jonge.


title: Portuguese Macau

text: These Dutch invasion attempts forced the Portuguese authorities to build a defensive system for the city. But the Chinese authorities through threats prevented the fortification of Macau at all costs, fearing a possible coup against China. In 1614, the Emperor, through a decree, sanctioned the construction of fortifications in Macau. The Portuguese managed to build their desired and necessary fortifications, thanks to the magnificent gifts offered to the mandarins in charge of watching the city.