prompt_front: Answer the question based on the given passages. Only give me the answer and do not output any other words.

Question: Migene González-Wippler is leading expert on a religion that developed among which ethnic group ?

The following are given passages.
Context 1: Passage 1:
Ovambo people
The Ovambo people (pronounced [ovambo] (listen)), also called Aawambo, Ambo, Aawambo (Ndonga, Nghandjera, Kwambi, Kwaluudhi, Kolonghadhi, Mbalantu), or Ovawambo (Kwanyama), are a Bantu ethnic group native to Southern Africa, primarily modern Namibia  They are the single largest ethnic group in Namibia, accounting for about half of the population  They have retained many aspects of their cultural practices, despite concerted efforts from Christian missionaries to wipe out what were believed to be ‘pagan practices’  They are also found in the southern Angolan province of Cunene, where they are more commonly referred to as "Ambo"  The Ovambo consist of a number of kindred Bantu ethnic tribes who inhabit what was formerly  called Ovamboland  In Angola, they are a minority, accounting for about two percent of the total Angolan population There are about 2 million ethnic Ovambo, and they are predominantly Lutheran Christians (97%) 

Demographics
The Ovambo people reside in the flat sandy grassy plains of north Namibia and the Cunene Province in south Angola, sometimes referred to as Ovamboland  These plains are generally flat, stoneless and at high altitude Water courses, known as oshanas, irrigate the area  In the northern regions of Ovamboland is tropical vegetation sustained by abundant but seasonal rainfall that floods the region into temporary lakes and islands  In dry season, these pools of water empty out  The Ovambo have adapted to the widely varying seasonal weather patterns with their housing, agriculture, and livestock practices The Ovambo people are a Bantu-speaking group  In Namibia, these are the AaNdonga, Ovakwanyama, Aakwambi, Aangandjera, Aambalantu, Ovaunda, Aakolonkadhi, Aakwaluudhi and Aambandja  In Angola, they are the Ovakwanyama, Aakafima, Evale and Aandonga  The Ovakwanyama are the largest sub-tribe 

History
The Ovambo started migrating to their current location around the 14th century from the Zambia region to the northeast  They settled near the Angola-Namibia border then expanded further south in Namibia in the 17th century  They have a close cultural, linguistic and historical relationship to the Herero people found in more southern parts of Namibia, and Kavango people to their east settled around the Okavango River In contrast to most ethnic groups in Africa, their isolated, low-density pastoral nomadic lifestyle left the Ovambo people largely unaffected by Swahili-Arab and European traders before the 19th century  When Germany established a colony in Namibia in 1884, they left the Ovambo people undisturbed  The Germans focused on the southern and coastal regions  After World War I, Namibia was annexed by the South African government into the Union of South Africa as the Territory of South West Africa  This brought major changes, with South African plantation, cattle breeding and mining operations entering the Ovamboland  The Portuguese colonial administration in Angola, who had previously focused on their coastal, northern and eastern operations, entered southern Angola to form a border with the expanding South African presence  The Ovambo people launched several armed rebellions against South African rule in the 1920s and 1930s, which were all suppressed by the Union Defence Force The South African administration in Namibia continued the so-called "Police Zone" in south, a region created by the Germans with a veterinary Red Line covering about two-thirds of the province later to become Namibia  Ovambo people were not allowed to move into the Police Zone, neither other tribes nor Europeans could move north without permits  This isolated the Ovambo people, preserving traditional authorities and reducing numbers of White farmers in the north  However, because of labor shortage in the Police Zone and South Africa, in part because of massacre of native Africans such as through the Herero and Namaqua genocide, the South African government allowed migrant wage labor  Numerous Ovambo people became migrant laborers in South African towns such as Cape Town and in the Police Zone, where they experienced segregation and lived under highly restrained human rights The South African Apartheid rule was brought into the Ovamboland in 1948  The South African government declared the Ovamboland an independent province in 1973, and appointed chiefs aligned with the South African government's policies  The Ovambo people rejected these developments, and in 1975 the appointed chief minister of Ovamboland was assassinated  In conjunction with the armed SWAPO movement, Namibia and its Ovambo people gained independence from South Africa in 1990 

Religion
Traditional religion
The traditional religion of the Ovambo people is the primary faith of less than 3%, as most state Christianity to be their primary faith  The Ovambo's traditional religion envisions a supreme being named Kalunga, with their rites and rituals centered around sacred fire like many ethnic groups in southwestern Africa  The Kalunga cosmology states that the Supreme Being created the first man and first woman, who had a daughter and two sons  It is the daughter's lineage that created Ovambo people, according to the traditional beliefs of the matrilineal Ovambo people The rituals involve elaborate fire making and keeping ceremonies, rain making dance, and rites have involved throwing herbs in the fire and inhaling the rising smoke  The head priest traditionally was the king of a tribe, and his role was in part to attend to the supernatural spirits and be the chief representative of the Ovambo tribe to the deities 

Christianity
Christianity arrived among the Ovambo people in the late 19th century  The first Finnish missionaries arrived in Ovamboland in the 1870s, and Ovambo predominantly converted and thereof have identified themselves as Lutheran Christians  The influence of the Finnish missions not only related to the religion, but cultural practices  For example, the typical dress style of the contemporary Ovambo women that includes a head scarf and loose full length maxi, is derived from those of the 19th-century Finnish missionaries The Ovambo now predominantly follow Christian theology, prayer rituals and festivities, but some of the traditional religious practices have continued, such as the use of ritual sacred fire  They also invoke their supreme creator Kalunga  Thus, the Ovamba have preferred a syncretic form of Christianity  Most weddings feature a combination of Christian beliefs and Ovambo traditions  Their traditional dancing is done to drumming (Oshiwambo folk music) 

Society and culture
The traditional home is a complex of huts surrounded by a fence of large vertical poles linked by two horizontal poles on each side  The complex is a maze with two gates but it is easy to get lost within the homestead  Each hut generally has a different purpose, such as a Ondjugo (the woman of the homestead's hut) or Epata (kitchen area) 
The Ovambo people lead a settled life, relying mostly on a combination of agriculture and animal husbandry  The staple crops have been millet and sorghum (iilyavala), and beans (omakunde) are another popular crop  In drier regions or seasons, pastoral activity with herds of cattle (eengobe/eenghwandabi), goats (iikombo/onakamela) and sheep (eedi) becomes more important  The animal husbandry is not for meat (ombelela), but primarily as a source of milk (omashini)  Their food is supplemented by hunting, fishing, and gathering During the colonial era, the Ovambo were active in elephant (eenjaba) hunting for their tusks to supply the ivory demand, and they nearly hunted the elephants in their region to extinction 

Each Ovambo tribe had a hereditary chief who is responsible for the tribe  Many tribes adapted representation by having a council of headmen who run tribal affairs  Members of the royal family of the Owamboland are known as aakwanekamba, ovakwaluvala, ovakwamalanga, ovakwaanime, aakwanyoka and many more; only those who belong to this family by birth, through the maternal line, have a claim to chieftainship  The tribes figure their descent by a matrilineal kinship system, with hereditary chiefs arising from the daughter's children, not the son's  Polygyny is accepted, with the first wife recognized as the senior 

Ovambo brew a traditional liquor called ombike  It is distilled from fermented fruit mash and particularly popular in rural areas  The fruit to produce ombike are collected from makalani palms (Hyphaene petersiana), jackal berries (Diospyros mespiliformis), buffalo thorns (Ziziphus mucronata), bird plumes and cluster figs (Ficus racemosa)  Ombike, with additives like sugar, is also brewed and consumed in urban areas  This liquor is then called omangelengele; it is more potent and sometimes poisonous  New Era, a Namibian English-language daily newspaper, reported that clothes, shoes, and tyres have been found to have been brewed as ingredients of omangelengele 

Ovambo clans
The following table contains the names, areas, dialect names and the locations of the Ovambo according to T  E  Tirronen's Ndonga-English Dictionary  The table also contains information concerning the classification of noun class of the Proto-Bantu language for these words 

See also
Herero people
Himba people
Nama people
Oorlam people
Passage 2:
Santería
Santería (Spanish pronunciation: [san̪ t̪eˈɾi a]), also known as Regla de Ocha, Regla Lucumí, or Lucumí, is an African diasporic religion that developed in cuba during the late 19th century  It arose through a process of syncretism between the traditional Yoruba religion of West Africa, the Catholic form of Christianity, and Spiritism  There is no central authority in control of Santería and much diversity exists among practitioners, who are known as creyentes ("believers") 
Santería is polytheistic and revolves around deities called oricha  Deriving their names and attributes from traditional Yoruba divinities, they are equated with Roman Catholic saints  Each human is believed to have a personal link to a particular oricha who influences their personality  Various myths are told about these oricha, who are regarded as subservient to Olodumare, a transcendent creator deity  Olodumare is believed to be the ultimate source of aché, a supernatural force permeating the universe that can be manipulated through ritual actions  Practitioners venerate the oricha at altars, either in the home or in the casa (temple), which is run by a santero (priest) or santera (priestess)  Membership of the casa requires initiation  Offerings to the oricha include fruit, liquor, flowers and sacrificed animals  A central ritual is the toque de santo, in which practitioners drum, sing, and dance to encourage an oricha to possess one of their members and thus communicate with them  Several forms of divination are used, including Ifá, to decipher messages from the oricha  Offerings are also given to the spirits of the dead, with some practitioners identifying as spirit mediums  Healing rituals and the preparation of herbal remedies and talismans also play a prominent role 
Santería developed among Afro-Cuban communities following the Atlantic slave trade of the 16th to 19th centuries  It formed through the blending of the traditional religions brought to Cuba by enslaved West Africans, the majority of them Yoruba, and Roman Catholicism, the only religion legally permitted on the island by the Spanish colonial government  In urban areas of West Cuba, these traditions merged with Spiritist ideas to form the earliest casas during the late 19th century  After the Cuban War of Independence resulted in an independent republic in 1898, its new constitution enshrined freedom of religion  Santería nevertheless remained marginalized by Cuba's Roman Catholic, Euro-Cuban establishment, which typically viewed it as brujería (witchcraft)  In the 1960s, growing emigration following the Cuban Revolution spread Santería abroad  The late 20th century saw growing links between Santería and related traditions in West Africa and the Americas, such as Haitian Vodou and Brazilian Candomblé  Since the late 20th century, some practitioners have emphasized a "Yorubization" process to remove Roman Catholic influences and created forms of Santería closer to traditional Yoruba religion 
Practitioners of Santería are primarily found in Cuba's La Habana and Matanzas provinces, although communities exist across the island and abroad, especially among the Cuban diasporas of Mexico and the United States  The religion remains most common among working-class Afro-Cuban communities although is also practiced by individuals of other class and ethnic backgrounds  The number of initiates is estimated to be in the high hundreds of thousands  These initiates serve as diviners and healers for a much larger range of adherents of varying levels of fidelity, making the precise numbers of those involved in Santería difficult to determine  Many of those involved also identify as practitioners of another religion, typically Roman Catholicism 

Definitions
The term Santería translates into English as the "way of the saints"  This term was first used by scholarly commentators in the 1930s and later spread among the religion's practitioners themselves  It has become the most popular name for the religion, although some practitioners find it offensive  A common alternative is Regla de Ocha, meaning "the rule of ocha", ocha being a term for the religion's deities  Some adherents regard this as the religion's "official" name  The tradition has also been called Lucumí, in reference to the colonial Spanish term for the Yoruba people, or alternatively La Religión Lucumí ("the Lucumí religion") or Regla Lucumí ("the rule of Lucumí") Santería is an Afro-Caribbean religion, and more specifically an Afro-Cuban religion  In Cuba it is sometimes described as "the national religion", although it has also spread abroad  Santería's roots are in the traditional religions brought to Cuba by enslaved West Africans, the majority of them Yoruba, between the 16th and 19th centuries  In Cuba, these religions mixed with the Roman Catholicism introduced by Spanish colonialists  Roman Catholic saints were conflated with West African deities, while enslaved Africans adopted Roman Catholic rituals and sacramentals  In the 19th century, elements from Spiritism—a French variant of Spiritualism—were drawn into the mix, with Santería emerging as a distinct religion in western Cuba during the late 19th century Although Santería is the best known of the Afro-Cuban religions, and the most popular, it is not the only one  Others include Palo, which derives from practices originating in the Congo Basin, and Abakuá, which has its origins among the secret male societies practiced among the Efik-Ibibio  Many practitioners of Palo and Abakuá also follow Santería  Another Afro-Cuban religion is Arará, which derives from practices among the Ewe and Fon; although its origins are not Yoruba, it is sometimes considered a branch of Santería rather than a separate system  
Santería also has commonalities with other West African and West African-derived traditions in the Americas which collectively form the "Orisha religion", "Orisha Tradition", or "Orisha worship " These include Haitian Vodou and Brazilian Candomblé, sometimes characterized as "sister religions" of Santería due to their shared origins in Yoruba traditional religion Santería is a flexible and eclectic tradition, with considerable variation in how it is practiced  There is no strict orthodoxy, no key sacred text, and no central authority in control of the entire religion  It has absorbed elements from many cultures that it has encountered, such as that of the Chinese migrants who came to Cuba in the 19th century, while in continental North America, Santería has also incorporated influences from Central American and Mexican religions as well as from New Age and modern Pagan practices  As well as it being common for Cubans to idiosyncratically blend ideas from different religions, many of Santería's practitioners claim multiple religious allegiances  Santería's adherents often consider themselves to be Roman Catholics—some priests and priestesses of Santería refuse to initiate anyone who is not a baptised Roman Catholic—and others consider themselves to be Spiritists, Hindus, Vodouists, or Jews 

Terms for practitioners
Different vocabulary indicates the level of a practitioner's involvement, with the various terms sometimes reflecting different political and social agendas  Practitioners of both Santería and other Afro-Cuban religions are called creyentes ("believers")  Some people external to the religion have referred to its practitioners as "santerians" although this is not used by adherents themselves  A non-initiate, including those who may attend public Santería ceremonies, is an aleyo ("stranger"); these non-initiates make up the majority of people involved in the religion  Initiates are known as santero if male, and santera if female, although these two terms have sometimes been used for anyone, initiate or not, who participates in the religion  Alternative terms for an initiate are babalocha or babaloricha ("father-deity") if male and an iyalocha or iyaloricha ("mother-deity") if female  Those who have a sustained engagement with the religion are also referred to as omoricha ("children of the oricha"), aboricha ("one who worships the oricha"), and an oloricha ("one who belongs to the oricha") 

Beliefs
Olodumare and the oricha
Santería teaches the existence of an overarching divinity, known as Olodumare, Olofi, or Olorun  Practitioners believe that this divinity created the universe but takes little interest in human affairs  As this creator deity is inaccessible to humanity, no major offerings are dedicated to it  The three facets of this divinity are understood slightly differently; Olodumare represents the divine essence of all that exists, Olorun is regarded as the creator of all beings, while Olofi dwells in all creation  In taking a triplicate form, this deity displays similarities with the Christian Trinity 

The oricha
Santeria is polytheistic, revolving around deities called oricha, ocha, or santos ("saints")  The term oricha can be both singular and plural, because Lucumí, the ritual language of Santería, lacks plural markers for nouns  Practitioners believe that some oricha were created before humanity, while others were originally humans who became oricha through some remarkable quality  Some practitioners perceive the oricha as facets of Olodumare, and thus think that by venerating them they are ultimately worshipping the creator god  Certain oricha are female, others male  They are not regarded as wholly benevolent, being capable of both harming and helping humans, and displaying a mix of emotions, virtues, and vices Origin myths and other stories about the oricha are called patakíes  Each oricha is understood to "rule over" a particular aspect of the universe, and they have been described as personifications of different facets of the natural world  They live in a realm called orún, which is contrasted with ayé, the realm of humanity  Oricha each have their own caminos ("roads"), or manifestations, a concept akin to the Hindu concept of avatars  The number of caminos an oricha has varies, with some having several hundred  Practitioners believe that oricha can physically inhabit certain objects, among them stones and cowrie shells, which are deemed sacred  Each oricha is also associated with specific songs, rhythms, colors, numbers, animals, and foodstuffs 

Among the oricha are the four "warrior deities", or guerrors: Eleguá, Ogun, Ochosi, and Osun  Eleguá is viewed as the guardian of the crossroads and thresholds; he is the messenger between humanity and the oricha, and most ceremonies start by requesting his permission to continue  He is depicted as being black on one side and red on the other, and practitioners will frequently place a cement head decorated with cowrie shells that represents Eleguá behind their front door, guarding the threshold to the street  The second guerro is Ogun, viewed as the oricha of weapons and war, and also of iron and blacksmiths  The third, Ochosi, is associated with woods and hunting, while the fourth, Osun, is a protector who warns practitioners when they are in danger Perhaps the most popular oricha, Changó or Shango is associated with lightning and fire  Another prominent oricha is Yemaja, the deity associated with maternity, fertility, and the sea  Ochún is the oricha of rivers and of romantic love, while Oyá is a warrior associated with wind, lightning, and death, and is viewed as the guardian of the cemetery  Obatalá is the oricha of truth and justice and is deemed responsible for helping to mould humanity  Babalú Ayé is the oricha associated with disease and its curing, while Osain is linked to herbs and healing  Orula is the oricha of divination, who in Santería's mythology was present at the creation of humanity and thus is aware of everyone's destiny  Ibeyi takes the form of twins who protect children  Olokún is the patron oricha of markets, while his wife Olosá is associated with lagoons  Agagyú is the oricha of volcanoes and the wasteland  Some oricha are deemed antagonistic to others; Changó and Ogun are for instance enemies Although in Santería the term santo is regarded as a synonym of oricha and is not a literal reference to Christian saints, the oricha are often conflated with one or more Roman Catholic saints based on similar attributes  For instance, the Holy Infant of Atocha, a depiction of Christ as a child, is conflated with Eleguá, who is seen as having a childlike nature  Babalú Ayé, who is associated with disease, is often identified with the Catholic Saint Lazarus, who rose from the dead, while  Changó is conflated with Santa Barbara because they both wear red  Cuba's patron saint, Our Lady of Charity, is equated with Ochún  It has been argued that Yoruba slaves initially linked their traditional deities with Christian saints as a means of concealing their continued worship of the former from the Spanish authorities, or as a means of facilitating social mobility by assimilating into Roman Catholic social norms 

Relationships with the oricha
Santería's focus is on cultivating a reciprocal relationship with the oricha, with adherents believing that these deities can intercede in human affairs and help people if they are appeased  Practitioners argue that each person is "born to" a particular oricha, whether or not they devote themselves to that deity  This is a connection that, adherents believe, has been set before birth  Practitioners refer to this oricha as one that "rules the head" of an individual; it is their "owner of the head"  If the oricha is male then it is described as the individual's "father"; if the oricha is female then it is the person's "mother"  This oricha is deemed to influence the individual's personality, and can be recognised through examining the person's personality traits, or through divination To gain the protection of a particular oricha, practitioners are encouraged to make offerings to them, sponsor ceremonies in their honor, and live in accordance with their wishes, as determined through divination  Practitioners are concerned at the prospect of offending the oricha 
Creyentes believe that the oricha can communicate with humans through divination, prayers, dreams, music, and dance  Many practitioners also describe how they "read" messages from the oricha in everyday interactions and events  For instance, a practitioner who meets a child at a traffic intersection may interpret this as a message from Eleguá, who is often depicted as a child and who is perceived as the "guardian" of the crossroads  At that point the practitioner may turn to divination to determine the precise meaning of the encounter  The information obtained from these messages may then help practitioners make decisions about their life 

Birth and the dead
Santería teaches that the human head contains a person's essence, their eledá or orí  It maintains that before birth, the eledá goes before Olodumare, where it is given its essential character, and forms a link with the oricha who becomes "the owner of the head"  The concept of the eledá derives from Yoruba traditional religion, where it is seen as a person's "spiritual double"  In Santería, this concept idea has syncretised with Roman Catholic beliefs about guardian angels and Spiritist notions of the protecciones or protector spirits  There is no strict orthodoxy on this issue and thus interpretations differ  Practitioners often believe that everyone has a specific destiny, their destino (destiny) or camino (road), although their fate is not completely predetermined Ancestor veneration is important in Santería  The religion entails propitiating the spirits of the dead, known as egun, espíritus, or muertos  Practitioners believe that the dead must be treated with respect, awe, and kindness; they are consulted at all ceremonies  Although the dead are not deemed as powerful as the oricha, they are still thought capable of assisting the living, with whom they can communicate through dreams, intuition, and spirit possession  Santería teaches that a person can learn to both see and communicate with the dead  Practitioners will often provide offerings, typically seven glasses of water, to the egun to placate and please them  Especially propitiated are those egun regarded as ancestors; these ancestors can include both hereditary forebears or past members of one's congregation, with practitioners believing that a creyente becomes an ancestor when they die Adherents believe that everyone has a cuadro espiritual ("spiritual portrait" or "spiritual picture") of egun who protect them  Individuals can have as many as 25 protectores, or protective spirits  The religion maintains that all people have multiple egun accompanying them at all times, and that these can be benevolent, malevolent, or a mix of both  Practitioners also believe that the number and identities of these spirits can be determined through divination  It draws a distinction between evolved spirits, who can help those they are attached to, and unevolved spirits, who lack the wisdom and skill to be useful and instead cause havoc  Santería teaches that through offerings and prayers, individuals can help some of their unevolved spirits to become evolved  Santería also divides the spirits into categories that each exhibit different traits, reflecting stereotypes about different social groups, with such spirits often portrayed as African, Haitian, Gypsy, Arab, or Plains Indian  The gitano (gypsy) spirits for instance are believed capable of foreseeing impending troubles and diagnosing illnesses while the congo spirits of Africa are perceived as strong-willed, powerful, and adept at guiding people through hostile circumstances 

Aché
Aché is a major cosmological concept in Yoruba traditional religion and has been transferred to Santería  Aché is regarded as the organizing power of the cosmos; the Hispanic studies scholars Margarite Fernández Olmos and Lizabeth Paravisini-Gebert referred to it as "a spiritual-mystical energy or power found in varying degrees and in many forms throughout the universe"  The medical anthropologist Johan Wedel described it as "life force" or "divine force", while the folklorist Michael Atwood Mason called aché the "ritual generative power"  The ethnomusicologist Katherine Hagedorn described aché as "the realized and inherent divine potential in all aspects of life, even in apparently inert objects " She added that "Aché is neither good nor bad; rather, aché is motion" While deeming Olodumare the ultimate embodiment of aché, practitioners believe that aché permeates all life, and is present in both the visible and invisible world  It is nevertheless deemed to sometimes congregate more densely, for instance in the forces of nature, specific locales, and in certain human individuals; initiates are believed to attract more of it than other humans  Santería holds that aché can emanate from the human body via speech, song, dance, and drumming, and can be transmitted through such acts as singing praise songs for the oricha or sacrificing an animal  Among practitioners, aché is sometimes described as conveying notions of luck, health, and prosperity, and has the power to fortify a person's health 

Morality, ethics, and gender roles
Santería has standards for behavior expected of practitioners, encouraging behaviors influenced by the mythological stories about the oricha  The religion presents strict rules regarding how to interact with other people and with the supernatural, for instance placing emphasis on respect for elders and superiors  A general attitude in Santería is that if an individual maintains good character, the oricha will aid them  Practitioners generally take socially conservative stances, having high regard for traditional family structures, marriage, fidelity, and child-rearing; adherents in the United States often adopt more progressive stances on issues surrounding gender and sexuality than their counterparts in Cuba The religion is non-dualistic and does not view the universe as being divided between good and evil; rather, all things are perceived as being complementary and relative  Several academics have described Santería as having a "here-and-now" ethos distinct from that of Christianity, and the social scientist Mercedes C  Sandoval suggested that many Cubans chose Santería over Roman Catholicism or Spiritism because it emphasizes techniques for dealing with pragmatic problems in life  In the U S , some African American adherents have contrasted what they regard as the African-derived ethos of Santería with the non-African origins of Christianity, thus adopting it as a religion readily combined with black nationalism The scholar of religion Mary Ann Clark labelled Santería a "female oriented and female normative" religion, arguing that all of its practitioners are expected to take on "female gender roles" during its rituals  Women can hold the highest leadership positions, although restrictions are placed on them while menstruating  Similar restrictions are also placed on homosexual males, traditionally prohibiting them from taking part in certain forms of divination and ritual drumming  Many gay men are nevertheless santeros, and some santeras are lesbians  A stereotype exists that all male Santería priests are homosexual, and members of other Afro-Cuban traditions with a more masculinist orientation, such as Palo, have often denigrated it for being dominated by women and men they consider to be "womanly" 

Practices
Santería is a practice-oriented religion; ritual correctness is considered more important than belief  It has an elaborate system of ritual, with its rites termed ceremonias (ceremonies)  Most of its activities revolve around the oricha, focusing on solving the problems of everyday life  Practitioners usually use the term "work" in reference to ritual activity; thus "working ocha" describes its rites Santería is an initiatory religion, one which is organized around a structured hierarchy  An ethos of secrecy pervades many of its practices, with initiates often refusing to discuss certain topics with non-initiates  For this reason, Mason described Santería as a secret society  For ritual purposes, the Lucumí language is often used  Sometimes referred to as la lengua de los orichas ("the language of the oricha"), it is regarded as a divine language through which practitioners can contact the deities  Although some practitioners are uncomfortable using it, most initiates know tens or hundreds of Lucumí words and phrases  Most Cubans do not understand the Lucumí language, barring a few words that have filtered into Cuban Spanish  Lucumí derives from the Yoruba language, although it has become "increasingly fragmented and unintelligible" since the 19th century  As Yoruba transitioned into Lucumí, the Yoruba pronunciations of many words were forgotten, and in the early 21st century some practitioners have studied the Yoruba language to better understand the original meaning of Lucumí words 

Houses of worship
Rituals take place in the casa templo ("house of worship"), casa de santos ("house of saints"), casa de religión ("house of religion"), or ilé ("house")  This casa ("house") is usually the personal home of a santero or santera  It will typically have an inner room, the igbodu ("sacred grove of the festival"), where the most important rituals take place  There will also be an eyá aránla or sala, often a living room, where semi-private rites can be conducted  Another space, the iban balo, or patio, will be used for public occasions, as well as for the cultivation of plants and the housing of animals due to be sacrificed  The casa will typically include a place to store ritual paraphernalia, kitchen facilities, and space for visitors to sleep The casa refers not only to the building where ceremonies take place, but also the community of practitioners who meet there  In this sense, many casas trace a lineage back to the 19th century, with some santeros and santeras capable of listing the practitioners who have been initiated into it  In some ceremonies, the names of these individuals, who are regarded as the ancestors of the house, are recited in chronological order 
Although members of different houses often interact, each casa is largely autonomous, allowing for variation in their practices  In Cuba, it is common for Santería practitioners to meet with each other regularly, and to regard each other as being akin to a family: the familia de santo  Conversely, in an area like Veracruz in Mexico, many practitioners attend group rituals and then leave, sometimes never seeing their co-practitioners again Most casas are established by a santero or santera who has attracted a following  An apprentice is known as their ahijado (godson) or ahijada (goddaughter)  They refer to their santero/santera as padrino (godfather) or madrina (godmother)  The relationship between santeros/santeras and their "godchildren" is central to the religion's social organization, and practitioners believe that the more "godchildren" a santera or santero has, the greater their aché  The "godchildren" are expected to contribute both their labor and finances to events held at the casa and in return the santero/santera provides assistance for their needs  Within the religion, offending one's godparent is regarded as also offending the oricha that "rules the head"  Practitioners express respect both to their godparent and the oricha via a ritual prostration, the moforibale, in which they bow their head to the floor  The precise form of the moforibale differs depending on whether the individual's personal oricha is male or female 

Shrines
Altars or shrines to the oricha are typically found both within the igbodu and in practitioners' homes  Central to these altars are sacred objects, termed fundamentos ("fundamentals"), which are contained within porcelain vessels, often tureens, called sopera  The most important of the fundamentos are stones termed otanes (sing  otán), which are regarded as the literal and symbolic representation of the oricha, and thus living entities  They are deemed to be sources of aché, with older otanes having more aché than younger ones Practitioners will collect stones from the landscape and then use divination to determine which ones contain an oricha and, if so, which oricha it is  Specific otanes sometimes display traits linking them to particular oricha; for example ocean stones are linked with Yemaya, river pebbles with Ochún, and meteorite fragments with Changó  Each oricha is deemed to prefer a particular color and number of otanes in sopera devoted to them; Changó has six or ten black stones, Obatala has eight white stones, while Ochún favors five yellow stones  New otanes undergo a bautismo ("baptism") rite, entailing them being washed in osain, a mixture of herbs and water, and then "fed" with animal blood  When an initiate receives their stones, they take an oath to protect them and feed them at least annually 

Other material placed inside the sopera includes cowrie shells; usually 18 are added although the precise number differs depending on which oricha the sopera is devoted to  The sopera will often be covered by a cloth known as a pañuelo that is colored in accordance with the oricha in question  Often laid over the sopera are necklaces known as collares, again representing a particular oricha  On the altar, the sopera will be arranged in a descending hierarchy depending on which oricha each is dedicated to, with that of Obatala at the top Many altars contain few or no anthropomorphic depictions of the oricha, although will often include objects associated with them; a wooden axe for Changó or a fan for Ochún, for instance  Creating these altars is deemed expensive and time-consuming  Material may be selected based on the tastes of the adherent; anthropologists have observed practitioners who have included Taoist figurines or statues of wizards, on their altars  Food and flowers are often placed on the altar as offerings  Although rarely included on their altars, practitioners will often have statues of Roman Catholic saints elsewhere in their homes In addition to their altar to the oricha, many practitioners have altars set aside for the spirits of the dead  These typically consist of a white-covered table known as a bóveda, something derived from the White Table of Spiritism  Bóveda often feature photographs of deceased relatives, to whom offerings are given; popular offerings for the spirits of the dead include seven glasses of water, a cafecito coffee, and the aguardiente liquor  Alternatively, many practitioners of Santería—like those who follow Palo—will have a rinconcito ("little corner"), a small area in which they collect together assorted objects, often those typically found in a household, as a material manifestation of the dead  Offerings to the dead may be placed here  Many practitioners will also enshrine their family ancestors under the bathroom sink  This location is chosen so that the ancestors can travel between the realms of the living and the dead via the water in the pipes 

Offerings and animal sacrifice
Offerings are called ebbó (or ebó), and are given to the oricha, ancestral spirits, to a person's own ori, and sometimes to the earth  These offerings can consist of fruit and other foodstuffs, liquor, flowers, candles, money, or slaughtered animals  Divination is often used to determine the exact nature of the offering; initiates are supposed to provide offerings on a regular basis, and at least once a year  Given to strengthen the supernatural forces, to thank them, or as a supplication, they help form a reciprocal relationship with these entities in the hope of receiving something in return  If this fails to materialise, practitioners may resort to several explanations: that the details of the ritual were incorrect, that the priest or priestess carrying out the rite lacked sufficient aché, or that the wrong ebbó was provided for the situation Conducted by a matador, animal sacrifice is called matanza  It is usually carried out by a man, with menstruating women prohibited from involvement   Birds—including guinea fowl, chickens, and doves—are commonly sacrificed, usually by having their throats slit or their heads twisted and ripped off  For rituals of greater importance, sacrifices are often of four-legged animals  Some practitioners describe the killing of animals as an acceptable substitute to human sacrifice, and in Cuba there have been persistent rumours of children being sacrificed in Santería rites  The oricha and egun are believed to "eat" the blood of the victim; the latter's lifeforce is deemed to transfer to the oricha, thus strengthening its aché  An animal that struggles to avoid being killed is sometimes understood as having particular strength which will then pass to the oricha Once killed, the animals' severed heads may be placed on top of the sopera belonging to the oricha to which the sacrifice has been directed  After the carcass has been butchered, some of the organs—known as acheses—may be cooked and offered to the oricha; other parts will be eaten by practitioners  Some of the blood may be collected and added to omiero, an infusion of herbs and water  Believed to contain much aché, this liquid is used for removing malevolent influences and in ceremonies for baptising ritual tools  Santería's animal sacrifice has been a cause of concern for many non-practitioners  It has sometimes brought adherents into confrontation with the law, as with the 1993 case of Church of the Lukumi Babalu Aye v  City of Hialeah, in which the U S  Supreme Court ruled that animal cruelty laws targeted specifically at Santería were unconstitutional 

Initiation
Initiation is known as kariocha, "making ocha", or "making santo"  A charge is levied for initiation; this varies depending on the client, but is often equivalent to a year's wage  Each initiation varies in its details, which are often concealed from non-initiates  The initiate is known as an iyabó or iyawó, a term meaning both "slave of the oricha" and "bride of the oricha"  As well as the santero or santera overseeing the initiation ceremony, the event may be attended by an oyubona or oyugbona ("one who witnesses"), who acts as a secondary godparent to the new initiate The initiation process takes seven days, plus two days of preparatory rituals  During this preparation, a misa espiritual ("spiritual mass") will typically take place to gain the blessings of the ancestral egun, and an ebó de entrada ("opening sacrifice") will be made to the oricha or the egun  Next comes the ceremonia del río ("ceremony of the initiate"), in which offerings are given to Ochún, and the rompimiento ("breaking"), in which the oyubona takes the initiate to purify themselves in a river  The rest of the initiation takes place in the igbodu, where the initiate sleeps upon a mat on the floor for the seven days  No one uninvolved in the initiation is permitted entry  The initiate is given their own otanes, as well as objects representing the warrior oricha  They are also given beaded necklaces, known as elekes, ilekes, or collares  Each necklace is a different color associated with a specific deity  During the prendición ("pinning") ritual, a heavy necklace known as the collar de mazo is placed on the initiate  During the lavatorio ("washing"), the initiate's head is bathed in omiero, designed to rid them of any malevolent spirits attached to them  Often, their hair will be shaved off 

On the día del itá ("day of history"), usually the third day, the initiate will undergo the itá, a session with a diviner  The diviner will reveal the initiate's Lucumí ritual name, a praise name of the oricha that rules their head  This name often incorporates elements indicating the initiate's tutelary oricha; devotees of Yemajá for instance usually include omí ("water"), while those of Changó often have obá ("king")  Next comes the asiento ("seating"), or coronación ("coronation"), which marks the point when the aché of the tutelary oricha is believed to literally enter the initiate's cranium  The otanes of several oricha are placed to the initiate's head, culminating in those of their tutelary oricha  An animal sacrifice usually follows, involving at least five four-legged animals and 25 birds  The following day is el Día del Medio ("the middle day"), when guests—including the initiate's family and friends—pay homage to them  It includes drumming and a feast  On the seventh day of the initiation, the new initiate leaves the casa and visits the marketplace, where they make offerings to Eleguá and steal something small, also as an offering to Eleguá The initiate can finally take their otanes home  They may then undergo a year-long period, the iyaworaje ("journey of the iyawo"), during which they must observe certain restrictions, the nature of which depends on their tutelary oricha  This may for instance include abstaining from sexual intercourse, wearing only white, or not cutting their hair  The iyaworaje ends with the ebó del año ceremony  Once this is done, they may lead rituals and help initiate others  Thenceforth, they will celebrate the annual anniversary of their initiation, their cumpleaños de santo ("birthday in the saint")  Although a largely orally-transmitted tradition, santeros and santeras often emphasise teaching in a non-verbal manner, encouraging their initiates to learn through taking part in the ritual activities  Since at least the 20th century, some initiates have kept libretas, notebooks in which they have written down material relevant to the practice of Santería  These may be shared with their own initiates or kept private 

Toque de santo
Santería's main public ritual is a drumming ceremony called the toque de santo, or tambor  Lasting for up to several hours, this is usually seen as an offering to the oricha, performed to gain their favor  The goal of the rhythms and songs is to summon the oricha to earth, at which point they can possess one of the participants  It is believed that the collective energy built up by the group is necessary in achieving this  In turn, the oricha are believed capable of soothing the grieving, healing the sick, blessing the deserving, and rebuking those who have behaved badly The toque de santo uses double-headed drums called batá, which are sometimes regarded as the central symbol of Santería  There are multiple types of batá: the iyá is the largest, the itótele is smaller, and the okónkolo is the smallest  For ceremonial purposes, these drums must be wooden; adding metal elements could offend Changó, who is associated with wooden artefacts, because of their links with his enemy, Ogun  They may however have brass bells associated with Ochún, known as chaworo, affixed to their rim  Before being used in ceremonies, these drums are baptized, after which they are referred to as a tambor de fundamento  This baptism entails washing the drums in omiero, making sacrifices to Osain, and affixing an afoubo, a small leather bag containing items including a parrot feather and glass beads, to the interior of the drum 

Practitioners believe that the consecrated batá contain a substance called añá, itself an avatar of Ochún  Many drummers avoid mentioning the añá in public and may not refer to it by name  Drums which have not been baptised are not viewed as containing añá, and are called tambores judìos ("Jewish drums")  Particular rhythms played on the drums may be associated with a specific oricha, a group of oricha, or all of the oricha  Those playing the batá are called batáleros  Santería drumming is male dominated; women are discouraged from playing the batá during ceremonies, although by the 1990s some women practitioners in the U S  had taken on the role  Practitioners explain the taboo with the view that menstrual blood can weaken the drum's añá, and that women playing these drums during ceremonies become infertile Praise songs are sung for the oricha, with specific songs associated with particular deities  The lead singer at such ceremonies is known as an akpwón  During the opening verse of the song, the akpwón may break into a personal prayer  The akpwón can switch from song to song quickly, with the drummers having to adapt their rhythm accordingly  A chorus of singers will respond to the akpwón, often while swaying back and forth  These choral responses may split into a two or three-part harmony  Dancing also takes place, with each oricha associated with a particular dance style  The dances at the toque de santo are believed to generate aché, strengthening the link between the realms of the oricha and humanity  Dancing either alone or first in front of the drums at the toque de santo is considered a privilege and is usually reserved for the most experienced initiate present  There are specific rules of engagement that are laid out for taking part in the toque de santo; dancing poorly at the ritual is considered an insult to the oricha 

Possession
Possession is important in Santería, and the purpose of the toque de santo is to call down an oricha to possess one of the participants  The possessed individual is referred to as the "horse", with the oricha having "mounted" them  According to practitioners, becoming possessed by an oricha requires an individual giving up their consciousness to the deity, and accordingly they often claim no memory of the events that occurred during the possession  Some have stated that reaching the mental state whereby an individual can become possessed takes much practice  The onset of the trance is marked by body spasms, termed arullarse Once an individual is possessed, they may be taken into an adjacent room where they are dressed in the ritual clothing pertaining to the possessing oricha, after which they are returned to the main room  As well as speaking in the Lucumí language, those possessed may then display gestures associated with a particular oricha; for instance, those believing themselves possessed by Ochún may wipe their skirt over other people, representing the waves of the ocean, while those regarding themselves as being possessed by Eleguá may steal from assembled participants  The possessed individual will then provide healing or dispense advice; sometimes a possessed person will reprimand others present, for instance for failing to carry out their ritual obligations, or issue them a warning  Some practitioners have also reported becoming possessed by an oricha in non-ritual contexts, such as while sleeping or walking through the streets, or during drumming performances carried out for non-religious purposes 

Healing and amuletic practices
Healing is important in Santería, and health problems are the most common reason why people approach a santero or santera for help  When operating as healers, practitioners are sometimes termed curanderos, or osainistas  Particular focuses of Santería healing include skin complaints, gastrointestinal and respiratory problems, sexually transmitted infections, and issues of female reproduction; some practitioners provide concoctions to induce abortion  Santería healers will typically use divination to determine the cause of an ailment before prescribing treatment Santería teaches that supernatural factors cause or exacerbate ailments  It claims that oricha may make someone sick, either as punishment or to encourage them to make a change in their life, often to become an initiate  The oricha must then be propitiated to stop, sometimes with the sick individual receiving initiation  Santería also holds that a spirit of the dead may attach itself to an individual and thus harm them  Adherents also often believe that humans can harm one another through supernatural means, either involuntarily, by giving them the mal de ojo (evil eye), or deliberately, through brujería (witchcraft)  The latter are often perceived as acting out of envy, utilising cursing techniques from Palo, for which they have employed material, such as hair or nail clippings, taken from their victim Herbalism is a major component of Santería healing practices, with healing plants, termed egwe, having an important role in the religion  Practitioners believe that each species of plant has its own aché which holds healing power; medicinal plants are deemed more powerful if harvested from the wild rather than being cultivated, for the latter can lack aché  Adherents often believe that different types of plant have different temperaments and personalities; some are shy or easily frightened and thus need to be approached with the appropriate etiquette 

To heal a patient, the santero/santera may also prescribe omiero, give them a cleansing bath, or provide them with a collares necklace  They may perform a ritual to transfer the sickness to an animal, sacrifice an animal to a specific oricha to request healing, or encourage an oricha to possess the sick individual and thus heal them  Different oricha are linked to the healing of specific ailments; Ochún is for instance usually requested when dealing with genital problems  People who are sick may undergo the rogación de la cabeza ("blessing of the head"), in which coconut water and cotton are applied to the head to feed the orí  Many practitioners will also encourage their clients to seek mainstream medical assistance, either from doctors or psychotherapists, with Santería healing seen as complementary to medical science Santería features protective talismans known as resguardos  These are created using herbs and blood and produced while in contact with the otanes  Resguardos are often given to small children, who are deemed particularly vulnerable to sorcery  Charms and amulets are also used as a general prophylaxis against illness; one example are ears of corn that are wrapped in purple ribbon and placed behind a doorway  Other rituals are designed to protect against sorcery, as for instance with the scattering of petals of the gálan de día in the house or the placement of okra by the door  In Cuba, protective rituals from Santería have often been invoked in hospitals to prevent the cambio de vida ("life switch"), a practice by which the ailments of a sick person are believed to be transferred to another individual, often without the latter's knowledge 

Divination
Divination is a central aspect of Santería, taking place before all major rites and being utilized by adherents at critical moments of their life  Three main divinatory techniques are employed: obi, dilogún, and Ifá  Highly skilled diviners are known as an oríate or italero/italera (male and female), and sometimes work in this role fulltime 

Clients approach these diviners for a divinatory consulta (consultation), usually to ask for advice about their health, family problems, or legal issues, and in doing so will pay the diviner a fee, the derecho  Attending a divination ritual in this way is commonly the first time that an individual encounters Santería so directly  During the session, offerings will be given to an overseeing oricha; the diviner will then cast small objects onto a board or table and interpret the way in which they fall  The diviner asks the client questions and seeks to answer them by making multiple throws  The diviner will ultimately determine which oricha will assist the client in dealing with their problems and outline what sacrifices will be appropriate to secure the aid of said oricha Obi, also known as biagué, involves the casting of four pieces of a dried coconut shell, with the manner in which they fall being used to answer a question  Any practitioner can utilise this technique, which is also used in Palo  Dilogún entails the casting of cowrie shells, and is considered more complex in that it requires a knowledge of the patakie stories  Dilogún typically involves a set of 21 cowrie shells, filed flat on their round side; these are fed with both omiero and blood  Like obi, dilogún is generally seen as being open to all practitioners of Santería, although some groups reserve it for postmenopausal women Ifá is the most complex and prestigious divinatory system used in the religion  It typically involves the casting of consecrated palm nuts to answer a question, with the nuts offering 256 possible configurations  Although Ifá also has a separate existence from Santería, the two are closely linked, sharing the same mythology and conception of the universe; the oricha of Ifá, Orula or Ọ̀rúnmila, has a prominent place within Santería  High priests of Ifá are known as babalawos and although their presence is not essential to Santería ceremonies, they often attend in their capacity as diviners  Many santeros are also babalawos, although it is not uncommon for babalawos to perceive themselves as being superior to most santeros  Unlike the more open policy for Santería initiates, only heterosexual men are traditionally allowed to become babalawos, although some babalawos are gay men, and since the 21st century a small number of women have also been initiated 

Funerals and mediumship
Funeral rites, called itulu, are designed to appease the soul of the deceased  As part of this, a funeral mass is held in a Roman Catholic church nine days after the individual has died to ensure that their soul successfully travels to the realm of the spirits  A year of additional rites for the dead individual follow, a period ended with the levantamiento de platos, the breaking of a dish, to symbolise the deceased's final departure from the realm of the living As well as having been influenced by Spiritism, Santería is often intertwined with Espiritismo, a Puerto Rican tradition focused on contacting the dead; this is particularly the case in areas such as New York and New Jersey  Sometimes the word "Santerismo" is used to refer to a blend between the two traditions  Various santeros or santeras are believed capable of communicating with spirits; seances conducted for this purpose are called misas espirituales ("spiritual masses") and are led by mortevas ("deaders") who are usually women  During these rituals, the medium may be possessed by a spirit of the dead, who then engages in healing practices or offers advice and warnings to those assembled  Adopted from Espiritismo, they are often included in initiation and funerary rites  An additional ritual found in Santería is the tambor para egún, a drum ceremony for the spirits of the dead Some practitioners whose approach to Santería is influenced by Espiritismo also create cloth dolls for deceased family members and spirit guides  The spirit is believed to enter and inhabit the doll, with some practitioners stating that they can see the inhabiting spirit  Sometimes the doll's clothing is changed to please the spirit, while offerings, such as glasses of water or fruit, are placed before them  These spirit dolls may also be passed down through the generations within a family 

History
Background
After the Spanish Empire conquered Cuba, the island's Arawak and Ciboney populations dramatically declined  To provide a new labor source for the sugar, tobacco, and coffee plantations they had established on Cuba, the Spanish then turned to buying slaves sold at West African ports  Slavery was widespread in West Africa; most slaves were prisoners of war captured in conflicts with neighbouring groups, although some were convicted criminals  The first enslaved Africans arrived in Cuba in 1511, although the largest numbers came in the 19th century  Cuba continued to receive new slaves until at least 1860, with full emancipation occurring in 1886  In total, between 702,000 and 1 million enslaved Africans were brought to Cuba  Most came from a stretch of Western Africa between the modern nation-states of Guinea and Angola  The great plurality were Yoruba, from the area encompassed by modern Nigeria and Benin; the Yoruba had a shared language and culture but were divided among different states  They largely adhered to Yoruba traditional religion, which incorporated many local orisha cults although with certain orisha worshipped widely due to the extent of the Yoruba-led Oyo Empire In Cuba, slaves were divided into groups termed naciones (nations), often based on their port of embarkation rather than their own ethno-cultural background; those who were Yoruba speakers, as well as Arara and Ibo people, were identified as the "Lucumí nation"  Enslaved West Africans brought their traditional religions with them to Cuba; some were from the priestly class and possessed knowledge of traditions such as Ifá  While hundreds of orisha were worshipped across West Africa, fewer than twenty became prominent in Santería, perhaps because many kin-based orisha cults were lost when traditional kinship networks were destroyed through enslavement  Orisha associated with agriculture were abandoned, probably because slaves had little reason to protect the harvests of slave-owners  Many myths associated with the oricha were transformed, creating kinship relationships between different oricha which were not present in West African mythologies  As Santería formed, separate West African orisha cults were reconstituted into a single religious system, one which had a newly standardized pantheon of oricha In Spanish Cuba, Roman Catholicism was the only religion that could be practiced legally  Cuba's Roman Catholic Church made efforts to convert the enslaved Africans, but the instruction in Roman Catholicism provided to the latter was typically perfunctory and sporadic  In Cuba, traditional African deities perhaps continued to be venerated within clubs and fraternal organizations made up of African migrants and their descendants  The most important of these were the cabildos de nación, associations that the establishment regarded as a means of controlling the Afro-Cuban population  These operated as mutual aid societies and organized communal feasts, dances, and carnivals  The Catholic Church saw these groups as a method for gradual evangelisation, through which they tolerated the practice of some African customs while stamping out those they most fiercely objected to  It is probable that in these groups, priests of different West African orisha interacted and began to develop a new system  In the late 18th and early 19th century new laws restricted the cabildos' activities, although their membership expanded in the 19th century 
The final decades of the 19th century also saw a growing interest in Spiritism, a religion based on the ideas of the French writer Allan Kardec, which in Cuba proved particularly popular among the white peasantry, the Creole class, and the small urban middle class  Ideas from Spiritism increasingly filtered into and influenced Santería 

Formation and early history
The earliest casas teaching Santería emerged in urban parts of western Cuba during the late 19th century  As a trained priesthood emerged, they ensured a level of standardisation among new initiates  Although it drew on older West African cults, Santeria was, as described by Clark, "a new religious system"  Urban-to-rural migration then spread Santería elsewhere in Cuba, and in the 1930s it probably arrived in Cuba's second largest city, Santiago de Cuba, which lies at the eastern end of the island Following the Cuban War of Independence, the island became an independent republic in 1898  In the republic, Afro-Cubans remained largely excluded from economic and political power, and negative stereotypes about them remained pervasive throughout the Euro-Cuban population  Afro-Cuban religious practices were often referred to as brujería (witchcraft) and thought to be connected to criminality  Although the republic's new constitution enshrined freedom of religion and Santería was never legislated against, throughout the first half of the 20th century various campaigns were launched against it  These were often encouraged by the press, who promoted allegations that white children were being abducted and murdered in Santería rituals; this reached a fever pitch in 1904 after two white children were murdered in Havana in cases that investigators speculated were linked to brujería One of the first intellectuals to examine Santería was the lawyer and ethnographer Fernando Ortiz, who discussed it in his 1906 book Los negros brujos (The Black Witchdoctors)  He saw it as a barrier to the social integration of Afro-Cubans into broader Cuban society and recommended its suppression  In the 1920s, there were efforts to incorporate elements of Afro-Cuban culture into a wider understanding of Cuban culture, such as through the Afrocubanismo literary and artistic movement  These often drew upon Afro-Cuban music, dance, and mythology, but typically rejected Santería rituals themselves  In 1942, Rómula Lachatañeré's Manuel de santería was published, representing the first scholarly attempt to understand Santería as a religion; in contrast to Ortiz, he maintained that the tradition should be seen as a religious system as opposed to a form of witchcraft  Lachatañeré was instrumental in promoting the term Santería in reference to the phenomenon, deeming it a more neutral description than the pejorative-laden terms such as brujería then in common use 

After the Cuban Revolution
The Cuban Revolution of 1959 resulted in the island becoming a Marxist–Leninist state governed by Fidel Castro's Communist Party of Cuba  Committed to state atheism, Castro's government took a negative view of Santería  Practitioners experienced police harassment, were denied membership of the Communist Party, and faced limited employment opportunities  They required police permission to perform rituals, which was sometimes denied  The state nevertheless promoted art forms associated with Santería in the hope of using them to promote a unified Cuban identity  While espousing anti-racism, Castro's government viewed the promotion of a separate Afro-Cuban identity as counter-revolutionary Following the Soviet Union's collapse in the 1990s, Castro's government declared that Cuba was entering a "Special Period" in which new economic measures would be necessary  As part of this, it selectively supported Afro-Cuban and Santería traditions, partly out of a desire to boost tourism; this Santería-focused tourism was called santurismo  Priests of Santería, Palo, and Ifá all took part in government-sponsored tours for foreigners desiring initiation into such traditions, while Afro-Cuban floor shows became common in Cuban hotels  In 1991, the Communist Party approved the admission of religious members, and in 1992 the constitution was amended to declare Cuba a secular rather than an atheist state  This liberalisation allowed Santería to leave behind its marginalisation, and during the 1990s it began to be practiced more openly 

The second half of the 20th century saw a growing awareness of Santería's links with other orisha-worshipping religions in West Africa and the Americas  These transnational links were reinforced when the Ooni of Ife Olubuse II, a prominent Yoruba political and religious leader, visited Cuba in 1987  Cuba's government permitted the formation of the Yoruba Cultural Association, a non-governmental organization, in the early 1990s, while various practitioners of Santería visited Nigeria to study traditional Yoruba religion  A yorubización (Yorubization) process emerged, with attempts made to remove Roman Catholic elements from Santería; this process was criticised by those who saw Santería's syncretism as a positive trait The Cuban Revolution fuelled Cuban emigration, especially to the United States, Puerto Rico, Mexico, Colombia, and Venezuela  With an increased Cuban presence in the U S , Santería grew in many U S  cities, being embraced by Latino Americans as well as European Americans and African Americans  Some African Americans regarded it as an authentically African religion, especially when purged of Roman Catholic elements, sometimes perceiving it as a religious wing of the Black Power movement  A prominent exponent of this approach was the black nationalist activist Walter King  After being initiated in Cuba, he established a temple in Harlem before relocating with his followers in 1970 to a community in Sheldon, South Carolina, that they called the Yoruba Village of Oyotunji  Having a strained relationship with many other santeros and santeras, who accused him of racism, King gradually came to call his tradition "Orisha-Voodoo" rather than Santería  In the U S , Santería, along with Haitian Vodou, also proved an influence on the revival of Louisiana Voodoo in the late 20th century  One of the most prominent figures in this revival, Ava Kay Jones, had previously been involved in King's Orisha-Voodoo 

Demographics
The scholars of religion Anibal Argüelles Mederos and Ileana Hodge Limonta estimated that in the early 21st century around 8% of Cubans were initiates of Santería, which would amount to between 800,000 and 900,000 people  There are a greater number of people who are not initiates but turn to santeros and santeras for assistance on practical matters  In 1991, the Cuban anthropologist López Valdés suggested that about 90 percent of Cuba's population practiced some form of religion and that of that 90 percent, a greater number practiced one of the Afro-Cuban religions than "pure Catholicism"  In 2004, Wedel suggested that practitioners of Santería "greatly outnumber" those who practiced Roman Catholicism, Protestantism, or Judaism in Cuba Although also found in rural areas, in Cuba Santería has always been a primarily urban phenomenon, predominating in the north-west provinces of La Habana and Matanzas  While it has both Afro-Cuban and Euro-Cuban followers, Wedel noted that in the 1990s Santería was "more common in working-class, low-income neighborhoods dominated by Afro-Cubans " Wedel believed that men and women practice in roughly equal numbers  Some practitioners grow up in Santería as the children of initiates, although others only approach the religion as adults  While it accepts new followers, Santería is a non-proselytizing religion Emigration has spread Santería across most of Latin America and also to the United States and Europe  In Mexico, it established a particular presence in Veracruz and Mexico City, in Canada it centred in Toronto, while in Europe casas have been formed in Spain and Germany  Santería was present in the U S  by the 1940s, increasing its presence following the Cuban Revolution  Clustering in Florida, California, New Jersey, and New York, it attracted converts from varied ethnic backgrounds  U S  casas vary in their ethnic makeup, often reflecting broader racial divisions in U S  society  Based on his ethnographic work in New York City during the 1980s, Samuel Gregory noted that there Santería was not a "religion of the poor", but contained a disproportionately high percentage of middle-class people such as teachers, social workers, and artists  The American Religious Identification Survey of 2001 estimated that there were then approximately 22,000 practitioners in the U S , although in the mid-1990s the scholar Joseph Murphy suggested that hundreds of thousands of people in the country had engaged with Santería in some form, often as clients 

Reception
By the late 1980s, Santería had received considerable interest from established Christian churches, health professionals, and social scientists  Some initiates mistrusted academics and were thus either vague or deliberately misleading in their answers to the latter's questions, although the 1990s saw non-Cuban ethnographers seeking initiation into the religion, thus blurring the distinction between practitioner and anthropological observer  The religion was also explored in other media; the Cuban filmmaker Gloria Rolando released the film Oggún in 1992  Various songs have referenced Santería and its oricha; the Cuban American singer Celia Cruz for example recorded a version of "Que viva Chango" ("Long Live Chango"), while a Cuban band called themselves Los Orichas  Santería's influence can also be seen in the names of the Cuban liquor Santero and the state-owned machete factory Ogún Christian views of Santería have been largely negative, and in Cuba, it has faced much opposition from the Roman Catholic clerical establishment over the centuries  Many Cuban intellectuals and academics also take a dim view of Santería  Opposition to the religion is also evident outside Cuba  When the International Afro-Caribbean Festival in Veracruz was launched in 1994, it showcased art and ritual by Mexican santeros/santeras, although this brought public protests from Roman Catholic organizations, who regarded such rites as Satanic, and animal welfare groups, who deemed the sacrifices to be inhumane  The festival's organizers yielded to the pressure, cutting the Santería elements of the festival by 1998  Pervasive stereotypes link Santería to criminal activity, and its rituals for self-protection have been adopted by various groups involved in narcotics trafficking within the U S  Santeros and santeras are often accused of financially exploiting their initiates and clients—an accusation sometimes made by other practitioners of Santería itself  Various practitioners have also found that their involvement in Santería has strained their relationship with spouses or other family members who are not involved, and in some cases adherents have abandoned Santería to join other religious movements such as Pentecostalism 
Passage 3:
Fezara people
Fezara is an ethnic group of Sudan, who emigrated from Arabia to Egypt, and then to Sudan  The number of persons in this ethnic group is about 200,000  Most members of this ethnic group are Muslims  This ethnic group speaks Sudanese Arabic 
Passage 4:
Migene González-Wippler
Migene González-Wippler is a Puerto Rican new-age author and a leading expert on the Afro-Caribbean religion of Santería 

Education
González-Wippler was born in Puerto Rico and has degrees in psychology and anthropology from the University of Puerto Rico, and from Columbia University, from where she earned a Ph D  in cultural anthropology 

Career
In addition to her solid background in social sciences she has also worked as a science editor for the Interscience Division of John Wiley, the American Institute of Physics, and the American Museum of Natural History, and as an English editor for the United Nations in Vienna, where she resided for many years    She is a cultural anthropologist and lectures frequently at universities and other educational institutions    She writes about Santeria-its practices, beliefs and organization 

Bibliography
El libro completo de magia, hechizos, y ceremonias
El libro de las sombras
Keys to the Kingdom: Jesus & the Mystic Kabbalah
Book of Shadows
The Complete Book of Amulets & Talismans
Luna, Luna: Magia, poder y seducción
La Magia de las piedras y los cristales
Sueños: Lo que significan para usted
Amuletos y Talismanes
La magia y tú
What Happens After Death: Scientific & Personal Evidence for Survival
Santería: La Religión
Dreams and What They Mean to You
The Complete Book of Spells, Ceremonies & Magic
Las llaves del reino: Jesús y la cábala cristiana
Kabbalah For The Modern World
Angelorum: El libro de los ángeles
Santería: mis experiencias en la Religión
Peregrinaje: la vida después de la muerte
 Santería: the Religion: Faith, Rites, Magic, Llewellyn Publications: 2002 ISBN 9781567183290
Cabala para el mundo moderno
 Powers of the Orishas: Santeria and The Worship of Saints
Context 2: Passage 1:
Cropper, Kentucky
Cropper is an unincorporated community within Shelby County, Kentucky, United States  It was also known as Croppers Depot  Their post office  is closed  The town of Cropper (Population Cal  at 205 in 2010) is located in northeast Shelby County, Kentucky  The origin of its name comes from the town's founder James Cropper, a blacksmith and store keeper who was the first person to build a house there sometime in the 1790s  He also was the town's first postmaster  The majority of Cropper's original citizens were members of the Low Dutch colony who were in the area as early as 1786  In 1807, a new group of settlers from Virginia increased the town's population  In 1855, the Louisville and Nashville Railroad (L and N) along with a depot opened on the east end of town  A hotel soon opened afterwards  This railroad line was closed in the early 1970s  Another occurrence, in 1855, was the founding of Union Grove Church  This church had three different denominations that included Christian, Methodist and Baptist  The only cemetery in Cropper is on the church grounds  In June 1900, the Baptist separated from the Union Church, and by 1903 it had its own building  In 1967, the Union Grove Church was renamed Cropper Christian Church  In 1905, a bank was opened by Ben Allen Thomas, but it was closed in 1921  An 1882 map shows the first school in Cropper which was a large two-story building with grades one through twelve  It burned in 1951 and was replaced with a one-story elementary school  The team mascot was the Yellow Jackets 
Passage 2:
Stelljes House
The Stelljes House is a historic house on New Hampshire Route 31 in Goshen, New Hampshire  Built about 1800, it is one of the oldest of a cluster of plank-frame houses in Goshen  The house was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1985  It has possibly been demolished 

Description and history
The Stelljes House stands in a rural area of southern Goshen, on the east side of NH 31  It is a 1+1⁄2-story wooden structure, with a gabled roof and clapboarded exterior  A brick chimney rises slightly off-center from the roof ridge  The main facade is asymmetrical, with a slightly off-center entrance, two sash windows to its left, and a three-section modern picture window to the right  A gable dormer projects from the rear roof face  An ell extends from the southern portion of the rear of the main block, with a porch in the corner joining the two blocks The house was built about 1800, and is one of the oldest of Goshen's cluster of plank-frame houses  The framing is three-inch planking attached vertically to sills, which rests on a rubble and granite stone foundation  Dowels are attached horizontally to give this framing lateral stability  The front facade was probably originally five bays across 

See also
National Register of Historic Places listings in Sullivan County, New Hampshire
Passage 3:
Haverstraw, New York
Haverstraw  is a town in Rockland County, New York, United States, located north of the Town of Clarkstown and the Town of Ramapo; east of Orange County; south of the Town of Stony Point; and west of the Hudson River  The town runs from the west to the east border of the county in its northern section  The population was 39,087 at the 2020 census The name comes from the Dutch word Haverstroo meaning "oats straw", referring to the grasslands along the river  The town contains three villages, one of which is also known as Haverstraw  Haverstraw village is the original seat of government for the town, hosting the area's historic central downtown business district and the densest population in northern Rockland County 

History
In 1609, the region was explored by Henry Hudson  A land purchase was made in this town in 1666 from local natives and confirmed as a patent in 1671   The region was known as Haverstroo, meaning "oat straw" in Dutch 
During the American Revolution, it served as an important lookout for British activities on the Hudson  A blue-marked trail, the Long Path, may be taken 2 miles (3 km) eastward from Central Highway along the crest of South Mountain to High Tor  Halfway is Little Tor, the second highest peak on South Mountain 
The town of Haverstraw was formed in 1788 while still part of Orange County, New York   Haverstraw was partitioned in 1791 to form the town of Clarkstown and the town of Ramapo and again in 1865 to form the town of Stony Point 
In 1826 the town was the site of a short-lived effort to establish an Owenite colony called the Franklin Community  Underfinanced and wracked by internal dissent, the model Owenite community folded after a mere five months of operation 

Geography
According to the United States Census Bureau, the town has a total area of 27 4 square miles (71 0 km2), of which 22 2 square miles (57 4 km2) is land and 5 3 square miles (13 6 km2), or 19 19%, is water 

Demographics
As of the census of 2000, there were 33,811 people, 11,255 households, and 8,328 families residing in the town   The population density was 1,508 3 inhabitants per square mile (582 4/km2)   There were 11,553 housing units at an average density of 515 4 per square mile (199 0/km2)   The racial makeup of the town was 66 24% white, 10 27% black or African American,  41% Native American, 3 21% Asian,  10% Pacific Islander, 15 65% from other races, and 4 12% from two or more races  Hispanic or Latino of any race were 31 73% of the population 
Haverstraw has one of largest Dominican communities in the United States with Dominicans making up 32 4% of the populationThere were 11,255 households, out of which 37 3% had children under the age of 18 living with them, 54 4% were married couples living together, 15 0% had a female householder with no husband present, and 26 0% were non-families  21 3% of all households were made up of individuals, and 7 8% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older   The average household size was 2 94 and the average family size was 3 43 
In the town, the population was spread out, with 26 3% under the age of 18, 8 6% from 18 to 24, 31 2% from 25 to 44, 23 6% from 45 to 64, and 10 3% who were 65 years of age or older   The median age was 35 years  For every 100 females, there were 93 7 males   For every 100 females age 18 and over, there were 89 4 males 
The median income for a household in the town was $53,850, and the median income for a family was $61,119  Males had a median income of $40,109 versus $31,979 for females  The per capita income for the town was $22,188   About 8 1% of families and 10 6% of the population were below the poverty line, including 12 8% of those under age 18 and 13 8% of those age 65 or over 
As of the 2020 census, there were 39,087 people residing in the town 

Government
Haverstraw has a council form of government   The town supervisor is Howard T  Phillips Jr , and council members are Vincent Gamboli, John J  Gould, Hector L  Soto and Isidro "Papo" Cancel   The town's services include a police department 

Transportation
Major highways include the Palisades Interstate Parkway, U S  Route 9W, U S  Route 202, and NY Route 45  Haverstraw is also a terminus of the NY Waterway/Metro-North Railroad Haverstraw–Ossining Ferry 
Short Line, part of Coach USA, provides daily service along U S  Route 9W heading to and from the Port Authority Bus Terminal in Midtown Manhattan and West Point Military Academy or Newburgh 

New York Central's West Shore Railroad began operations along the banks of the Hudson in 1883 and until 1958 operated passenger service between Albany and Weehawken Terminal in Weehawken, New Jersey, where passengers could transfer to ferries to Manhattan  Service between West Haverstraw and Weehawken was discontinued in 1959  The right of way is still used for freight and is known as the River Line  Conrail operated the system until its dissolution  It is now part of the CSX River Subdivision which runs between North Bergen Yard in New Jersey and Selkirk, New York 

Communities and locations in the town
Bowline Point Town Park – A park east of Haverstraw on a peninsula, called Bowline Point, in the Hudson River 
Garnerville – A hamlet southwest of West Haverstraw 
Harriman State Park – Part of the park is in the western part of the town 
Village of Haverstraw – The historic downtown business district  The original seat of government in Haverstraw Town 
Johnsontown – A hamlet west of West Haverstraw named after the Johnson brothers 
Ladentown – A hamlet 
Lake Kanawauke – A lake in Harriman State Park in the southwestern corner of the town 
Lake Sebago – A lake in Harriman State Park in the southwestern corner of the town 
Lake Welch – A lake in Harriman State Park near the western town line 
Mount Ivy – A hamlet by the southern town line 
Pomona – A village partly in the town and partly in the town of Ramapo 
Samsondale – A hamlet east of West Haverstraw 
St  John's in the Wilderness – A hamlet 
Thiells – A hamlet west of West Haverstraw 
West Haverstraw – A village 
Willow Grove – A hamlet on the northern town line 

Education
The Roman Catholic Archdiocese of New York operates Catholic schools in Rockland County  St  Peter Parish School was in Haverstraw  In 2012, after the archdiocese announced that it could potentially be closed, the school community did a fundraising drive as the school was told it could remain open if a plan to raise $500,000 annually was produced  That year the school's per-student cost was $5,500 but it relied on archdiocese funds as it deliberately had tuition below cost, at $3,600, so children of working class backgrounds could attend  It had an increasing enrollment at the time of closure, with 328 students in its final year 

Notable people
Wilson P  Foss Jr , art collector and businessman
Walter S  Gurnee, Fourteenth Mayor of Chicago
Abram Stevens Hewitt (1822–1903) was a teacher, lawyer, iron manufacturer, U S  Congressman, and a mayor of New York 
Molly McGee (1952–1994), gridiron football player
Marty Springstead, American League Umpire
Scott Stanford (1977) – WWE Superstars play-by-play announcer working for the Raw brand
Both the composer Kurt Weill and his wife, the actress and singer Lotte Lenya, are buried in Haverstraw
Robert Sterling Yard, journalist, environmentalistHaverstraw was home to three Medal of Honor recipients:

Nick Erickson, Navy, Spanish–American War
Michael A  Donaldson, 69th New York, World War I

Footnotes
Further reading
George H  Budke, Rockland County during the American Revolution, 1776–1781  New York: Rockland County Public Librarians Association, 1976 

External links

Town of Haverstraw official website
Greater Haverstraw Chamber of Commerce
Passage 4:
Kadıköy, Yalova
Kadıköy is a town (belde) in the Yalova District, Yalova Province, Turkey  Its population is 9,543 (2022)  It is 7 kilometres (4 3 mi) south west of Yalova and at the midpoint of Armutlu Peninsula  The settlement was founded  by an Ottoman kadı ("judge")   Hence it was named as Kadıköy ("Judge's village")  During Ottoman Empire most of the population was composed of Greeks  But according to Population exchange between Greece and Turkey agreement the Greek population was replaced by Turkish population from Greece  Refugees from Caucasus after the Russo-Turkish War (1877-1878) were also settled in the village  The village was declared a seat of township in 1991  Intensive farming such as green house farming and floriculture is the main economic activity of the town 
Passage 5:
Timnath, Colorado
The Town of Timnath is a Statutory Town located in Larimer County, Colorado, United States  Founded in 1882, Timnath is a small agricultural/farming community located southeast of Fort Collins, Colorado, approximately one-half mile east of the Harmony Road/Interstate 25 interchange, on a small bluff east of the Cache la Poudre River  The surrounding farmlands have been used primarily for potatoes, alfalfa, sugar beets, and cattle  Although the town has remained virtually unchanged in recent decades, the encroaching growth of both Fort Collins to the west and Windsor to the south have placed the town in an area considered favorable to development  The population was 6,487 at the 2020 census   Timnath has been one of the fastest-growing communities in Colorado since 2020, and in 2021 had an estimated population of 7,839 

Description
Other structures lining Main Street (a section of County Road 5) include elementary school (in the Poudre School District), a one-story modern post-office, and several other historic buildings  Most residences are single-family homes  There is another elementary school (Bethke Elementary) 2 8 miles away from the one lining Main Street 

History
The area was first homesteaded by settlers in 1869  The first schoolhouse was constructed that year, approximately one-half mile west of the current town, and was named "Fairview"  By 1880, the community had outgrown the schoolhouse, and new "Fairview" school was built just north of the current town  The school also served as an early meeting place for the Presbyterian Church  The turning point in the early history of the community was in 1882, with the arrival of the Greeley, Salt Lake and Pacific Railroad (controlled by the Union Pacific) linking Greeley and Fort Collins  The following year, the Presbyterian Church, petitioned by local residents, sent a missionary to found a congregation  The current structure along Main Street dates from that year 
A post office was established in 1884, headed by Reverend Charles A  Taylor, the local Presbyterian minister  When the post office was formed, Taylor bestowed the current name of the town from the 14th chapter of the Book of Judges, as the place where Samson went to obtain a Philistine wife  In 1900 the second school became outdated and a new one was built, dropping the name "Fairview" permanently  This structure currently stands as an out-building to the current elementary school  A larger school was built in 1918 (which burned in 1935 and was rebuilt the following year)  The school district was consolidated with that of Fort Collins in 1960 
During World War II, the Empire of Japan launched Fu-Go balloon bombs that floated across the Pacific to the U S  One of these bombs dropped and exploded in a field in Timnath 

Geography
Timnath is located at 40°31'47" North, 104°58'54" West (40 529718, -104 981654) As of 2013, the incorporated area of Timnath comprises 5 05 square miles of land The historical downtown lies along County Road Five, which runs north–south parallel to Interstate 25 half a mile to the east  Since the 2000 census, the town of Timnath has annexed several square miles of land to the east and southeast; the town has experienced significant commercial development along the east–west corridor of County Road 38 (Harmony Road), including Wal-Mart and Costco  The majority of the six mile (north-south) by three mile (east-west) block of land that lies within Timnath's growth management area is low-density residential or agricultural, and is designated to remain so, with open space and parkland filling the remainder of the area, particularly near the Poudre River and Timnath Reservoir 

Government
Timnath is a Home Rule Town, governed by a Town Council, which consists of five elected officials - one Mayor and four Council Members, all positions are elected "at large," meaning that candidates come from all areas of the town  Elected officials serve 4 year terms 
Council meetings are open, public meetings where the Council makes town decisions and creates local laws and policies  The Council holds regular meetings on the second and fourth Tuesday of each month at 6 p m  Unless otherwise noted, all meetings are held at the Town Administration Building at 4800 Goodman Street 
The Town Council appoints the Town Manager who is responsible for the administration and daily operations of the Town 
Police services are provided by the Timnath Police Department and the Larimer County Sheriff's Department  Fire protection is provided by Poudre Fire Authority 

Demographics
As of the census of 2010, there were 625 people, 214 households, and 179 families residing in the town  There were 243 housing units  The racial makeup of the town was 94 4% White, 0 6% African American, 0 0% Native American, 1 1% Asian, 0 3% Pacific Islander, 1 4% from other races, and 2 1% from two or more races  6 1% of the population were Hispanic or Latino of any race 
There were 214 households, out of which 46 7% had children under the age of 18 living with them, 72 0% were married couples living together, 7 9% had a female householder with no husband present, 3 7% had a male householder with no wife present, and 16 4% were non-families  14 0% of all households were made up of individuals, and 1 4% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older  The average household size was 2 92 and the average family size was 3 23 
In the town, the population was spread out, with 32 3% under the age of 18, 5 5% from 18 to 24, 27 7% from 25 to 44, 27 1% from 45 to 64, and 7 4% who were 65 years of age or older  The median age was 35 4 years  For every 100 females, there were 98 4 males 
In the 2009-2013 American Community Survey, the median income for a household in the town was $113,144, and the median income for a family was $114,318  The per capita income for the town was $40,889  1 5% of the population and 1 1% of families were below the poverty line  1 0% of those under the age of 18 and 0 0% of those 65 and older were living below the poverty line 
Timnath has experienced significant population growth in recent years, and was the fastest growing town in Colorado in 2013 (32%) and the fastest growing town in Colorado since the start of the decade (142%) 

Notable people
Jean Bethke Elshtain, political philosopher
Passage 6:
Clarkstown, New York
Clarkstown is a town in Rockland County, New York, United States  The town is on the eastern border of the county, located north of the town of Orangetown, east of the town of Ramapo, south of the town of Haverstraw, and west of the Hudson River  As of the 2020 census, the town had a total population of 86,855  The hamlet of New City, the county seat of Rockland County, is also the seat of town government and of the Clarkstown Police Department, the county sheriff's office, and the county correctional facility  New City makes up about 41 47% of the town's population 
In 2008, Clarkstown became one of 600 municipalities nationwide to sign the United States Mayor's Climate Protection Agreement to reduce carbon dioxide emissions to 7 percent below the 1990 levels by 2012 

History
The town of Clarkstown was created in 1791 from the town of Haverstraw in Orange County, before Rockland County was formed 

Geography
The Hudson River defines the eastern border of the town, which is opposite the town of Mount Pleasant in Westchester County 
According to the United States Census Bureau, the town has a total area of 46 9 square miles (121 km2), of which 38 5 square miles (100 km2) is land and 8 4 square miles (22 km2) (17 87%) is water 
The New York State Thruway (Interstate 87/Interstate 287) intersects the Palisades Interstate Parkway in the town 

Demographics
As of the 2010 Census, there were 84,187 people, 29,234 households, and 22,186 families residing in the Town of Clarkstown  The population density was 1,800 per square mile  There were 30,314 housing units at an average density of 646 35 per square mile  There were 29,234 households, out of which 27 9% had children under the age of 18 living with them, 62 1% were married couples living together, 10 4% had a female householder with no husband present, and 24 1% were non-families  36 2% of all households were made up of individuals, and 31 8% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age of older  The average household size was 2 84 and the average family size was 3 28  The median age was 42 8 years  
As of the census of 2000, there were 82,082 people, 27,697 households, and 21,991 families residing in the town   The population density was 2,129 7 inhabitants per square mile (822 3/km2)   There were 28,220 housing units at an average density of 732 2 per square mile (282 7/km2)   The racial makeup of the town was 79 97% White, 7 87% African American, 0 13% Native American, 7 90% Asian, 0 10% Pacific Islander, 1 99% from other races, and 2 03% from two or more races  Hispanic or Latino of any race were 6 92% of the population 
There were 27,697 households, out of which 36 9% had children under the age of 18 living with them, 67 4% were married couples living together, 9 1% had a female householder with no husband present, and 20 6% were non-families  16 9% of all households were made up of individuals, and 6 5% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older   The average household size was 2 90 and the average family size was 3 27 
In the town, the population was spread out, with 24 7% under the age of 18, 6 6% from 18 to 24, 28 3% from 25 to 44, 28 1% from 45 to 64, and 12 3% who were 65 years of age or older   The median age was 39 years  For every 100 females, there were 94 3 males   For every 100 females age 18 and over, there were 90 3 males 
According to a 2007 estimate, the median income for a household in the town was $92,121, and the median income for a family was $104,909  Males had a median income of $57,773 versus $40,805 for females  The per capita income for the town was $34,430   About 2 5% of families and 3 8% of the population were below the poverty line, including 4 5% of those under age 18 and 3 4% of those age 65 or over 
As of the 2020 Census, there were 86,855 people residing in the Town of Clarkstown Clarkstown is the most densely populated town in Rockland County and is home to New City, which is the county seat  Clarkstown has more business districts in it than any other town in Rockland County, including the Palisades Center, which is among the largest malls in the world 

Elected representation
The Town of Clarkstown has as its chief executive a Town Supervisor   The current Town Supervisor is George Hoehmann   Clarkstown is represented in the United States House of Representatives by Congressman Michael Lawler   It is represented in New York State government by Senator Bill Weber and Assemblyman Kenneth Zebrowski Jr  Clarkstown is divided into four wards as follows:

Ward 1 Councilman Frank Borelli (R)
encompasses the northern portion of New City 
Ward 2 Councilman Michael Graziano (R)
encompasses the northeast portion of Clarkstown 
Ward 3 Councilman Donald Franchino (R)
encompasses Central Nyack, West Nyack, Nanuet, and Bardonia 
Ward 4 Councilman Patrick Carroll (D)
encompasses Bardonia, New City, Nanuet, Spring Valley and West Nyack 

Public transportation
Clarkstown Mini-Trans is the provider of local mass transportation in Clarkstown  It has five bus routes:

Route A- Nanuet Mall to Lakewood Drive
Route B- Nanuet Mall to Zukor Park
Route C- Nanuet Mall to South Mountain Road
Route D- Nanuet Mall to Palisades Center Mall
Route E- Nanuet Mall to Ridge RoadAdditionally, Transport of Rockland provides local mass transportation  Routes 59, 91, 92, 93, and 97 serve the town Commuter transportation is provided by New Jersey Transit's Pascack Valley Line at Nanuet, with service to Hoboken and connecting service to New York Penn Station  Tappan ZEExpress, operated by Transport of Rockland provides bus service from the Palisades Center in West Nyack and the Hudson Link bus in Central Nyack to the Tarrytown train station and the White Plains TransCenter  In addition, Rockland Coaches provides express service to the Port Authority Bus Terminal in New York City from Park-and-Ride and other pickup locations in New City, Bardonia, West Nyack, and Nanuet via Route 49 and 49J, and local service to New York from New City, Valley Cottage, and Upper Nyack on Routes 9A, 9T, and 20 

Education
The town of Clarkstown is served by several school districts  The majority of the town is served by the Clarkstown Central School District, which educates students in New City, Bardonia, Congers, and West Nyack  The village of Upper Nyack as well as the hamlets of Valley Cottage and Central Nyack are served by the Nyack Public Schools, while the Hamlet of Nanuet is served by the Nanuet Union Free School District  A small portion on the western town border is served by the East Ramapo Central School District High schools located in the town include Clarkstown South High School in West Nyack, Clarkstown North High School in New City, Nyack Senior High School in Upper Nyack, and Nanuet Senior High School in Nanuet 

Clarkstown Central School District
In 2015 U S  News & World Report ranked Clarkstown North Senior High School with a Silver award as the 135 Best High School in New York State and 1,329 nationally
In 2017 U S  News & World Report ranked Clarkstown South Senior High School with a Silver award as the 116 Best High School in New York State and 1,219 nationally 
In 2017 U S  News & World Report ranked Clarkstown North Senior High School with a Silver award as the 117 Best High School in New York State and 1,224 nationally 
In 2018, ranked 78 Best School Districts in Clarkstown by Niche's 

Communities and locations in the Town of Clarkstown
Rankings
CNN Money
In 2008, CNNMoney com named Clarkstown the 71st best small "city" to live in America 
In 2010, CNNMoney com named Clarkstown the 41st best small "city" to live in America, which was the highest such ranking in New York 
In 2012, CNNMoney com named Clarkstown the 35th best small "city" to live in America 
In 2014, CNNMoney com named Clarkstown the 7th best small "city" to live in America 
In 2016, CNNMoney com named Clarkstown the 7th best small "city" to live in America 
In 2019, CNNMoney com named Clarkstown the 91st best small "city" to live in America 
In 2021, CNNMoney com named Clarkstown the 49th best small "city" to live in America 

CQ Press Crime ranking
In 2005, it was named by Morgan Quitno the second safest city in the United States whose population is greater than 75,000 as well as the second safest overall from over 369 cities  This was the fifth year in a row in which Clarkstown made it within the top five and top ten respectively in these categories 
In 2007, Clarkstown was once again named the second safest city in the United States, in the 14th annual "2007 – 2008 City Crime Rankings" published by CQ Press – formally known as Morgan Quitno, a unit of Congressional Quarterly Inc  It was based on the FBI's September 24, 2007, crime statistics report which looked at 378 municipal areas with at least 75,000 people based on per-capita rates for homicide, rape, robbery, aggravated assault, burglary and auto theft 
In 2008, Clarkstown was named the 6th safest city in the United States in the 15th annual "2008 – 2009 City Crime Rankings" published by CQ Press 
In 2009, Clarkstown was named the 7th safest city in the United States in the 16th annual "2009 – 2010 City Crime Rankings" published by CQ Press 
In 2010, Clarkstown was named the 5th safest city in the United States in the 17th annual "2010 – 2011 City Crime Rankings" published by CQ Press In 2011, Clarkstown was named the 7th safest city in the United States in the 18th annual "2011 – 2012 City Crime Rankings" published by CQ Press 
In 2012, Clarkstown was named the 8th safest city in the United States in the 19th annual "2012 – 2013 City Crime Rankings" published by CQ Press 
In 2013, Clarkstown was named the 8th safest city in the United States in the 20th annual "2013 – 2014 City Crime Rankings" published by CQ Press 
However, these rankings are highly controversial, because of their source  In October 2007 the American Society of Criminology, the United States Conference of Mayors, and the Federal Bureau of Investigation requested that the publisher reconsider the promotion of the book – specifically, "their inaccurate and inflammatory press release labeling cities as 'safest' and 'most dangerous'" – because the rankings are "baseless and damaging "

Educational ranking
In 2015 U S  News & World Report ranked Clarkstown South Senior High School with a silver award as the 128 Best High School in New York State and 1,233 nationally In 2015 U S  News & World Report ranked Clarkstown North Senior High School with a silver award as the 135 Best High School in New York State and 1,329 nationally 

Clarkstown Going Green
Clarkstown has taken steps towards "going green" by conducting energy audits, purchasing Energy Star office equipment and using green cleaning products in town facilities  Other steps included:

2005 – Purchasing 10% of the energy used by town government from wind and solar sources 
2006 – Passing a tree preservation law 
2007 – Purchasing hybrid vehicles and smaller cars 
2008 – Installing energy-efficient lighting (LED) at its parks and recreation building with sensors that automatically turn off lights when no motion is detected 
2012- Solar Field installed on capped Town Landfill (Dedicated in 2014)  It is the first Solar Field on a capped landfill in New York State  Proposed by then Councilman, George Hoehmann 
2013- Town participated in the NYSDEC Climate Smart Communities program in developing resiliency and climate action plans 
2016- Town purchases street lights from Orange and Rockland Utilities and begins converting to LED (Conversion completed in 2018) Climate Action and Sustainability Planning - Training and Outreach

Beginning in 2014, Town Planners, along with representatives from other Town Departments, attended an initial training workshop held by the consulting firm of Vanasse Hangen Brustlin, Inc  (VHB), who is being funded by the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation specifically to help communities attain their goals as Climate Smart Communities   Town Planners participated in a series of workshops with VHB through February 2015 to begin the process of identifying ways to reduce the Town's greenhouse gas emissions 
In addition, the Clarkstown Planning Department, along with other Town Departments, participated in the New York Rising Community Reconstruction Program   This is a separate initiative funded by the New York State Department of State to aid in the development of resilient and sustainable communities  As part of this New York Rising Program the consulting firm AKRF, Inc  worked with the Town to identify areas of the Town which are vulnerable to storm damage and to formulate a plan and provide funding to address these issues 
Participation in these initiatives and the products generated will serve as the foundations of the Climate Action and Sustainability Plan, which will be incorporated into the first update of the Town's Comprehensive Plan, Clarkstown 2020   Additionally, workshops were held throughout the Town's hamlets to begin gathering input and formulate direction for the Clarkstown 2020 update 

US Supreme Court case
In 1994, Clarkstown was involved in litigation that challenged a town ordinance, that required all waste picked up in the town to be sorted for recyclables at a specific privately operated facility   The case made it to the United States Supreme Court in C&A Carbone, Inc  v  Town of Clarkstown, in which the ordinance was held unconstitutional 
Passage 7:
Carrizozo, New Mexico
Carrizozo is a town in Lincoln County, New Mexico, United States  It is the county seat, with a population of 996 at the 2010 census  Founded in 1899, the town provided the main railroad access for Lincoln County, and the town experienced significant population growth in the early decades of the 1900s  However, with declining relevance of the railroad, the population of the town has gradually declined  The town is located at the intersection of U S  Routes 54 and 380 

Name
The name of the town is derived from the Spanish vernacular for reed grass (Carrizo), which grew significantly in the area and provided excellent feed for ranch cattle  The additional "zo" at the end of the town name was added to indicate abundance of Carrizo grass  The town is now often referred to colloquially as "Zozo" 

History
Prior to 1899, the area was primarily a few ranches and a stagecoach crossing with limited permanent settlement  Lawrence Murphy, a merchant active in the Lincoln County War (1878), owned a major ranch in the area  The location of Carrizozo was selected as the site for a station on the El Paso and Northeastern Railway (EP&NE) main line in 1899  Carrizozo was chosen over the nearby booming mine town of White Oaks, resulting in large-scale migration from White Oaks to Carrizozo The railroad brought businesses, growing population, and increased importance to the town of Carrizozo  As a result, a county referendum in 1909 moved the seat of Lincoln County from the town of Lincoln to Carrizozo  This decision resulted in a four-year legal battle that was eventually resolved in favor of Carrizozo by the Supreme Court of the United States in the case of Gray v  Taylor  The result was a boom in which railroad access and political importance combined to lead to significant population growth in Carrizozo  The population reached around 2,000 by 1920 During this time, Albert B  Fall, a U S  Senator from New Mexico and later Secretary of the Interior, owned the Three Rivers Ranch just south of Carrizozo, but had to sell it to settle legal debts as a result of his involvement in the Teapot Dome scandal (1922–1923)  During the same time, journalist Quentin Reynolds visited the town and wrote a piece on it for Collier's  Later, he wrote in The Wounded Don't Cry that "I used to agree with Bugs that once you left New York, you were strictly on the horse and buggy circuit  But of late years I've had to modify that  Since then I've discovered New Orleans, San Francisco and a little place called Carrizozo, New Mexico, where I want to go when I die  I want to go there and gang around the drug store and sneak behind the prescription counter with Art Rolland and have a nip of what he calls Old Granddaddy then type out his prescriptions for him "Carrizozo is about 35 miles (56 km) east of the Trinity Site, where the first nuclear bomb was detonated on July 16, 1945  Residents reported tremors like an earthquake and, as the first major downwind settlement, the town received a significant part of the remnants of the mushroom cloud (resulting in some radioactive contamination of the area, which faded quickly and does not persist today) With the rise of the automobile, Carrizozo's proximity to the railroad became less important starting in the 1950s, and the last passenger train passed through in 1968  The result was a decrease in economic opportunity in Carrizozo, and the population fell back to about 1,200 people for much of the end of the 20th century  Recently, the town has seen increasing focus on tourism, and cherry cider produced in the town is known nationally 

Geography
Carrizozo is located at the northern end of the Tularosa Basin, which extends southward to the New Mexico–Texas border  The town itself is located in a flat area known prior to the founding of the town as the Corrizo flats, with typical Chihuahuan desert scrub and desert grasslands To the west of the town is the Carrizozo Malpais, a 40-mile-long (64 km) lava flow that is about 1,500 years old and accessible through the Valley of Fires Recreation Area  To the northeast is Carrizo Mountain, a 9,600-foot (2,900 m) peak within the Sacramento Mountains, and to the southeast are the Sierra Blanca mountain range 

Climate
Demographics
As of the 2010 census, there were 996 people living in the town  The racial makeup of the town was 78 71% White, 0 70% African American, 2 61% American Indian, 14 16% Other, and 3 82% identified as two or more  Hispanics of any race were 43 57% of the population  Of the population, 54 72% were men and 45 28% were women  Of these, 15 96% were under the age of 18, 24 50% were over 65, and 59 54% were between 18 and 65 

Transportation
Carrizozo is located at the intersection of U S  Routes 54 and 380  For general aviation, the town is served by Carrizozo Municipal Airport 

Education
Carrizozo Municipal Schools is the local school district 

Points of interest
Carrizozo Women's Club (1920 Pueblo Revival style building listed in the National Register of Historic Places)
Carrizozo Heritage Museum (1940s built as a frozen food locker—converted into local history museum in 2003)
Lincoln National Forest (southeast of the city via U S  Route 380 and NM 37)
Valley of Fires Recreation Area (west-northwest of the city via U S  Route 380)

Film and television
A number of movies have been filmed in Carrizozo  Movies which have been filmed at least partially in Carrizozo include:
Wander (2020)
Gambit (2012)
This Must be the Place (2011)
The Book of Eli (2010)
Deja Vu, Hera's Odyssey (2004)
The Outfitters (1999)
Mad Love (1995)

Notable people
Albert B  Fall, first senator from the state of New Mexico (1912–1921) and later U S  Secretary of the Interior (1921–1923); owned the Three Rivers Ranch on the outskirts of Carrizozo
William C  McDonald, first governor of the state of New Mexico (1912–1917); owned a ranch on the outskirts of Carrizozo
Charlie Siringo, famous Pinkerton detective assigned to Carrizozo to catch cattle thieves (1916–1917)
Earl Reece Stadtman, biochemist born in Carrizozo in 1919
José Maria de Vega, born in Michoacán, Entrepreneur carpenter, assisted McDonald, 1st board of trustees in Carrizozo 
Rick Geary, American cartoonist and illustrator, has lived in Carrizozo since 2007 
Passage 8:
Ancón, Panama
Ancón is a corregimiento in Panamá District, Panamá Province, Panama with a population of 29,761 as of 2010  Its population as of 1990 was 11,518; its population as of 2000 was 11,169  It is sometimes considered a suburb or small town within Panama City, northeast of the limits of the town of Balboa  Ancon Hill is also the name of a large hill that overlooks Panama City and once served as a form of protection from pirates and sea invasion  The township was originally located around this hill, and was created to house employees of the Panama Canal during its construction  As part of the construction effort, the historic Gorgas Army Hospital was founded and built on the hillside  The first ship to officially transit the canal, SS Ancon, was named after the district  The community continued to serve as housing for employees of the Panama Canal Company until 1980, when parts of it began to be turned over to the Panamanian government under the 1977 Torrijos-Carter Treaties  Modern-day Ancón is a corregimiento (the Panamanian equivalent of a suburb in the United States) of Panama City, serving mainly as a residential area  The Gorgas Army Hospital building is now the Panamanian Oncology Hospital, primarily used for cancer research  The area also houses Panama's Supreme Court, just a few feet away from the Gorgas Army Hospital building, and several Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute buildings for research into tropical biology  Ancón is also a parish (parroquia) of the District of Panama, located in the Panama Canal adjacent area 

History
The area where the district of Ancón is located was always conceived as a place of transit  From the Spanish arrival on the Isthmus of Panama in 1501, it was thought to build there a road between the Atlantic and Pacific oceans, an idea that was materialized with the construction of the Panama Canal During the years when the Panama Canal was under the control of the United States, many administrative facilities, military bases, and communities were built in the adjacent areas, forming part of the former Panama Canal Zone  When these areas were reverted to Panama under the Torrijos-Carter Treaties, several alternatives were proposed to integrate the district to the city of Panama  The current district of Ancón was created when a new political-administrative division for the reverted areas was adopted, by Act No  18 of August 29, 1979, and later amended by Law No  1 of October 27, 1982  The areas located in the Pacific sector became part of this district, while those located on the Atlantic side were incorporated into the district of Cristobal, in the province of Colon  They remain characterized by a strong US urban architectural style 

Economy
Due to its geographical location, the district of Ancón is of great importance for the economy of Panama  In it are located most of the administrative facilities and services related to the Panama Canal  Balboa is home to the port of Panama City  The district also home to the Administrative Unit of Reverted properties of the Ministry of Economy and Finance, established in 2007 as a replacement for the former Inter-Oceanic Region Authority  Many of the buildings belonging to former US military bases are today sites of Panamanian governmental and nongovernmental institutions, such as the City of Knowledge, the main science and technology park in the country, in the area of the former Fort Clayton 
Besides its importance in the fields of trade and intermodal transportation, the district is becoming increasingly relevant in terms of services and tourism  Ancón is home to the Marcos A  Gelabert International Airport, the Grand National Transportation Terminal, and Albrook Mall, the largest mall in the country 

Sites of interest
The district of Ancón includes the Parque Natural Metropolitano, a vast jungle located a few minutes from the city, and its highest elevation, Ancon Hill  In its urban areas, you can visit several historical sites of the Panamanian capital, the building that houses the headquarters of the  Panama Canal Authority, popularly known as the Administration Building  The Amador Causeway, a section of which runs over the sea, joining three small Pacific islands, is one of the city's most popular tourist attractions, with marinas, restaurants, bars, and discothèques  There is also the Figali Convention Center, while the Museum of Biodiversity, designed by renowned architect Frank Gehry, is currently in construction 

See also
Postage stamps and postal history of the Canal Zone
Passage 9:
Carpenter, Colorado
Carpenter is a ghost town in Mesa County, Colorado, United States, twelve miles northeast of Grand Junction at the end of an extension to 27¼ Road  The settlement was established by William Thomas Carpenter early in 1890 to provide the miners who worked in his two Book Cliff mines with a place to live  He began building shacks to house his single miners and later erected small houses for the employees with families 
As a result of the town's rapid growth, a request to the U S  post office to establish a branch there in June 1890 was quickly obliged and the community was officially dubbed Carpenter  However, the town never attained a population of over 50, and the post office closed after one year  After the closure of its post office, Carpenter built a company store and a combination boarding house/restaurant  Book Cliff company stone cutters and masons constructed several buildings and many foundations at Carpenter, using stone from the company quarry near the cliffs  One of the finest examples of a building made of Book Cliff sandstone is the Fruita, Colorado Catholic church 
Several years of prosperity followed the arrival of the Little Book Cliff Railway at the townsite in 1892  Carpenter began to formulate big plans for his village  He envisioned it as a tourist resort complete with hotel, dance pavilion, picnic areas, and even a lake that was to be fed by a spring located near his Book Cliff mines  Carpenter renamed the camp Poland Spring after a noted resort of that name in Maine  It was variously referred to as Polen, Pollen, and Polan Springs, although Carpenter's intended name was evidenced by his having it emblazoned on the side of one of his railroad excursion cars  The resort plans were never completed because Carpenter went broke shortly after the Panic of 1893 
Isaac Chauncey Wyman, a wealthy Massachusetts investor, became the next owner of the Book Cliff company  The town continued to enjoy an active existence because he did much to improve the mines and thus created a need for additional employees  The old eating house, referred to as the Hotel de Carpenter on occasion, was converted into a school and church for the camp's inhabitants, and many company structures were rebuilt and improved during Wyman's tenure as owner  The new name Book Cliff was applied to the town but did not adhere any better than did Poland Springs  Usually, people referred to the place as the “Book Cliff Mines ”
The town reached its zenith and then began a gradual decline following Wyman's death in 1910  In his will, Wyman left the town, railroad, and mines to Princeton University  Princeton managed everything for 15 years then decided to abandon it all in 1925  By the end of that summer nearly everything had been sold, dismantled, and hauled away 
Passage 10:
Goshen, New Hampshire
Goshen is a town in Sullivan County, New Hampshire, United States  The population was 796 at the 2020 census 

History
Incorporated in 1791, Goshen was first settled in 1768 as a part of Saville (now Sunapee)  The name "Goshen" may have been taken from Goshen, Connecticut, where many residents had relatives 

Geography
According to the United States Census Bureau, the town has a total area of 22 5 square miles (58 4 km2), of which 22 4 square miles (58 1 km2) are land and 0 1 square miles (0 2 km2) are water, comprising 0 41% of the town  Goshen is drained by the South Branch Sugar River and its tributaries Blood Brook and Gunnison Brook, and hence lies almost fully within the Connecticut River watershed  Most of the southeast part of town is drained by Cherry Brook, one of the headwaters of the Ashuelot River, a southwest-flowing tributary of the Connecticut, but a small area at the southeast corner of town has the headwaters of the east-flowing West Branch Warner River, part of the Merrimack River watershed The long ridge of Mount Sunapee occupies the eastern edge of town  The highest point in Goshen is an unnamed knob on the ridge (near Goves Mountain) where the elevation reaches 2,529 feet (771 m) above sea level 
New Hampshire Route 10 passes through the western part of the town, including Goshen village, and leads north to Newport and south to Keene  New Hampshire Route 31 has its northern terminus at Route 10 and leads southeast to Hillsborough 

Adjacent municipalities
Sunapee, New Hampshire (north)
Newbury, New Hampshire (east)
Bradford, New Hampshire (southeast at one point)
Washington, New Hampshire (south)
Lempster, New Hampshire (southwest)
Unity, New Hampshire (west)
Newport, New Hampshire (northwest)

Demographics
As of the census of 2000, there were 741 people, 279 households, and 219 families residing in the town   The population density was 32 9 inhabitants per square mile (12 7/km2)   There were 389 housing units at an average density of 17 3 per square mile (6 7/km2)   The racial makeup of the town was 97 03% White, 1 62% Native American, 0 13% Asian, 0 13% from other races, and 1 08% from two or more races  Hispanic or Latino of any race were 0 40% of the population 
There were 279 households, out of which 33 3% had children under the age of 18 living with them, 64 5% were married couples living together, 9 7% had a female householder with no husband present, and 21 5% were non-families  17 2% of all households were made up of individuals, and 7 2% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older   The average household size was 2 63 and the average family size was 2 96 
In the town, the population was spread out, with 24 2% under the age of 18, 8 0% from 18 to 24, 27 5% from 25 to 44, 26 7% from 45 to 64, and 13 6% who were 65 years of age or older   The median age was 40 years  For every 100 females, there were 97 6 males   For every 100 females age 18 and over, there were 96 5 males 
The median income for a household in the town was $42,625, and the median income for a family was $45,208  Males had a median income of $33,333 versus $22,727 for females  The per capita income for the town was $20,561   About 6 9% of families and 8 8% of the population were below the poverty line, including 10 8% of those under age 18 and 21 5% of those age 65 or over 

Education
Goshen and the neighboring town of Lempster maintained a combined elementary and middle school, called Goshen-Lempster Cooperative School, located in Lempster  The school served kindergarten through 8th grade  The cooperative was dissolved in June 2016   The majority of Goshen elementary and middle-school aged children now attend Newport, NH schools; the Newport school system now acts as the anchor system for Goshen students 
After 8th grade, students are given the choice to attend several neighboring high schools, including Newport High School, Sunapee Middle-High School, and Kearsarge Regional High School 

Notable people
John Williams Gunnison (1812–1853), US Army officer, explorer of the American West
Context 3: Passage 1:
Juliet Aubrey
Juliet Emma Aubrey (born 17 December 1966) is a British actress of theatre, film, and television  She won the 1995 BAFTA TV Award for Best Actress for playing Dorothea in the BBC serial Middlemarch (1994)  She is also known for her role as Helen Cutter in the ITV series Primeval (2007–2011)  Her film appearances include Still Crazy (1998), The Constant Gardener (2005) and The Infiltrator (2016) 

Career
The youngest of three siblings, Aubrey was born and brought up in Fleet, Hampshire  Aubrey attended King's College London from 1984, where she studied Classics and Archaeology  While there, however, her love of acting grew, and during a year studying in Italy where she joined a travelling theatre company, Aubrey decided to apply for drama school on her return  She went on to train for three years at the Central School of Speech and Drama 
Her first job was with the Oxford Stage Company playing Miranda in The Tempest  Italian director Roberto Faenza gave Aubrey her first film role playing opposite Jean-Hugues Anglade in Look to the Sky, a film produced by Elda Ferri, and set during the Nazi Holocaust   Antony Page and Louis Marks then cast Aubrey as Dorothea in the BBC adaptation of Middlemarch opposite Rufus Sewell, for which she won a BAFTA award for Best Actress, and the Broadcasting Press Guild for Best Actress  She then joined Haris Pasovic's Sarajevo Theatre Company  She appeared in several plays with the company, all created through the actors' improvisation  She continued to build her career as a theatre actress, appearing next in Trevor Nunn's Summerfolk and Katie Mitchell's Ivanov at the National Theatre, Tim Crouch's An Oak Tree for Karl James at the Soho Theatre, and Three Sisters, Twelfth Night and The Collection, all for Chris White  Michael Winterbottom then cast her opposite Robert Carlyle and James Nesbitt in the television film Go Now 
Aubrey's subsequent films include Winterbottom's Welcome to Sarajevo, Stephen Poliakoff's Food of Love — for which she won Best Actress at La Baule European Film Festival — Faenza's Lost Lover, Giacomo Campiotti's Time to Love, Richard Eyre's Iris, Fernando Meirelles's Constant Gardener and Brian Gibson's Still Crazy, nominated for two Golden Globes  Other features include Matt Lipsey's Caught in the Act, and Mat Cod's Super Eruption  Television work includes The Village; The White Queen, Criminal Justice, Vera, Hunted, and Five Daughters   Her recent feature films are Scott Hicks's Fallen; Mitch Davis's Stuck; Fabio Guaglione's Mine; and Brad Furman's Infiltrator  Aubrey played Lily Hill in the 2017 web television series Snatch 

Personal life
In 2001, Aubrey married production designer Steve Ritchie, whom she had met several years earlier while filming in Newcastle upon Tyne  They have two daughters She is a cousin of David Howell Evans (a k a  "The Edge"), guitarist of the Irish band U2 

Filmography
Passage 2:
Paul Baker (actor)
Paul Baker (born April 26, 1966?) is an Olivier Award winning British musical theatre actor  He is noted for his roles in Taboo, for which he won his Olivier Award, and the 2000 West End Mega-flop Napoleon in the title role   He is featured on the cast recordings of these two musicals 
He won Best Supporting Actor in a Musical in the 2003 Olivier Awards for playing the character Philip Salon in the musical Taboo Baker last appeared in the concert version of A Tale of Two Cities as the evil Marquis St  Evermonde in Brighton, England  He can be seen in the DVD release of the concert 
Passage 3:
Michelle Terry
Michelle Terry is an Olivier Award–winning English actress and writer, known for her extensive work for Shakespeare's Globe, the Royal Shakespeare Company and the Royal National Theatre, as well as her television work, notably writing and starring in the Sky One television series The Café  Terry took up the role of artistic director at Shakespeare's Globe in April 2018 

Early life
Terry was born in Nuneaton, moving whilst still a child to grow up in Weston-super-Mare  She was raised in Kewstoke, and attended Priory Community School and Broadoak Sixth Form Centre Terry aspired to be an actress from an early age  She attended an amateur dramatic society and took LAMDA exams at school in poetry, prose and spoken verse  At the age of fourteen she joined the National Youth Theatre  She read English literature at Cardiff University before training at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, graduating in 2004 

Career
Theatre
Terry made her professional debut in the touring and subsequent West End production of Blithe Spirit, playing the Maid and understudying Elvira  Her other theatre credits include The War on Terror, 50 Ways to Leave Your Lover, The Man Who Had All the Luck, Tribes and As You Like It  Her work at the National Theatre includes London Assurance, All's Well That Ends Well and England People Very Nice  She also appeared in broadcast versions of London Assurance and All's Well That Ends Well as part of National Theatre Live  For the Royal Shakespeare Company, Terry has appeared in productions of Days of Significance, Pericles, The Winter's Tale, The Crucible and Love's Labour's Lost, playing Rosaline  She was among the writers of Sudden Loss of Dignity, staged at the Bush Theatre in 2009 Terry won critical acclaim for her work at Shakespeare's Globe Theatre, for her performance of Rosalind in As You Like It   London's Financial Times wrote "I'm not sure it's possible to see Michelle Terry on a stage without falling a little in love with her  She has the intelligence, inventiveness and vivacity to play the character and the show simultaneously, not setting herself above the material but relishing her immersion in the role and inviting us to share it with her " She also appeared in productions of Love's Labour's Lost and A Midsummer Night's Dream at that venue, both of which were released on DVD  On 24 July 2017 she was announced as its fourth Artistic Director, to succeed Emma Rice in April 2018 

Hamlet 2018
Terry starred in the lead role in a 2018 gender fluid version of Hamlet   The Spectator said in their review "No one but Ms Terry would have hired Ms Terry for this role  She’s a decent second-tier actress without any special vocal or physical endowments "The Guardian called the play "A perfectly decent production and a welcome relief from the work of the previous Globe regime, which seemed to assume that the plays were a bit boring unless jazzed up "The Stage said "It's a production that places clarity of verse and emotion over directorial fireworks  One of the most striking elements is Terry's costume  When she assumes her antic disposition, she also dons a white clown suit with a jagged lipstick grin  By making Hamlet a jester, it licenses her to behave in different ways  It shifts her status in the family  It grants her power and marks her apart  Laughter can be a weapon after all  It's an interesting idea that is under-explored "

Macbeth 2018
Terry starred in the lead role of Lady Macbeth opposite her husband Paul Ready in Macbeth at the Globe's candlelit Sam Wanamaker Playhouse 

Television
Her television credits include episodes of Extras, Law & Order: UK and the Mike Bullen pilot Reunited, playing "Sara"  She was co-writer, with Ralf Little, of the comedy drama TV series, The Café, which aired on Sky1 from 2011–13, in which she played "Sarah Porter"  The series was set and filmed in her own hometown, Weston-super-Mare 

Personal life
Terry is married to the actor Paul Ready  They have one daughter 

Theatre credits
Blithe Spirit Savoy Theatre: London (2005)
As You Like It New Vic Theatre: Newcastle-under-Lyme (2005)
The Crucible Royal Shakespeare Theatre: Stratford Upon Avon (2006)
Pericles Swan Theatre: Stratford Upon Avon (2006/7)
The Winter's Tale Swan Theatre: Stratford Upon Avon (2006/07)
Love's Labour's Lost Shakespeare's Globe Theatre: London (2007)
The War on Terror Bush Theatre: London (2008)
50 Ways to Leave Your Lover Bush Theatre: London (2008)
The Man Who Had All the Luck Donmar Warehouse: London (2008)
Tribes Royal Court Theatre London (2010)
England People Very Nice National Theatre: London (2009)
All's Well That Ends Well National Theatre: London (2009)
London Assurance National Theatre: London (2010)
Light Shining in Buckinghamshire Arcola Theatre: London (2010)
The Comedy of Errors National Theatre: London (2011/12)
In The Republic of Happiness Royal Court Theatre: London (2012/13)
Before the Party Almeida Theatre: London (2013)
A Midsummer Night's Dream Shakespeare's Globe Theatre: London (2013)
Love's Labour's Lost and Much Ado About Nothing (Love's Labour's Won) Royal Shakespeare Theatre: Stratford Upon Avon (2014)
Privacy Donmar Warehouse (2014)
As You Like It Shakespeare's Globe: London (2015)
Cleansed National Theatre: London (2016)
Henry V Regents Park Theatre: London (2016)
Hamlet Shakespeare's Globe: London (2018)
Macbeth Shakespeare's Globe: London (2019)
Henry IV, Part 1 Shakespeare's Globe: London (2019)

Filmography
Television
Awards
Terry won Best Actress in a Visiting Production at the 2008 Manchester Evening News Theatre Awards, for the Donmar Warehouse production of The Man Who Had All the Luck She won Best Actress in a Supporting Role at the 2011 Olivier Awards, for her portrayal of Sylvia in the Royal Court Theatre production of Tribes 
Passage 4:
Eileen Atkins
Dame Eileen June Atkins,  (born 15 June 1934) is an English actress and occasional screenwriter  She has worked in the theatre, film, and television consistently since 1953  In 2008, she won the BAFTA TV Award for Best Actress and the Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Miniseries or Movie for Cranford  She is also a three-time Olivier Award winner, winning Best Supporting Performance in 1988 (for Multiple roles) and Best Actress for The Unexpected Man (1999) and Honour (2004)  She was appointed Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in 1990 and Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire (DBE) in 2001 
Atkins joined the Royal Shakespeare Company in 1957 and made her Broadway debut in the 1966 production of The Killing of Sister George, for which she received the first of four Tony Award nominations for Best Actress in a Play in 1967  She received subsequent nominations for, Vivat! Vivat Regina! (1972), Indiscretions (1995) and The Retreat from Moscow (2004)  Other stage credits include The Tempest (Old Vic 1962), Exit the King (Edinburgh Festival and Royal Court 1963), The Promise (New York 1967), The Night of the Tribades (New York 1977), Medea (Young Vic 1985), A Delicate Balance (Haymarket, West End 1997) and Doubt (New York 2006) 
Atkins co-created the television dramas Upstairs, Downstairs (1971–1975) and The House of Elliot (1991–1994) with Jean Marsh  She also wrote the screenplay for the 1997 film Mrs Dalloway  Her film appearances include I Don't Want to Be Born (1975), Equus (1977), The Dresser (1983), Let Him Have It (1991), Wolf (1994), Jack and Sarah (1995), Gosford Park (2001), Cold Mountain (2003), Vanity Fair (2004), Scenes of a Sexual Nature (2006), Evening (2007), Last Chance Harvey (2008), Robin Hood (2010) and Magic in the Moonlight (2014) 

Early life
Atkins was born in the Mothers' Hospital in Lower Clapton, a Salvation Army maternity hospital in East London  Her mother, Annie Ellen (née Elkins), was a barmaid who was 46 when Eileen was born, and her father, Arthur Thomas Atkins, was a gas meter reader who was previously under-chauffeur to the Portuguese Ambassador  She was the third child in the family and when she was born the family moved to a council home in Tottenham  Her father did not, in fact, know how to drive and was responsible, as under-chauffeur, mainly for cleaning the car  At the time Eileen was born, her mother worked in a factory the whole day and then as a barmaid in the Elephant & Castle at night  When Eileen was three, a Gypsy woman came to their door selling lucky heather and clothes pegs  She saw little Eileen and told her mother that her daughter would be a famous dancer  Her mother promptly enrolled her in a dance class  Although she hated it, she studied dancing from age 3 to 15 or 16  From age 7 to 15, which covered the last four years of the Second World War (1941–45), she danced in working men's club circuits for 15 shillings a time as "Baby Eileen"  During the war, she performed as well at London's Stage Door canteen for American troops and sang songs like "Yankee Doodle " At one time she was attending dance class three or four times a week Once, when she was given a line to recite, someone told her mother that she had a Cockney accent  Her mother was appalled but speech lessons were too expensive for the family  Fortunately, a woman took interest in her and paid for her to be educated at Parkside Preparatory School in Tottenham  Eileen Atkins has since publicly credited the Principal, Miss Dorothy Margaret Hall, for the wise and firm guidance under which her character developed  From Parkside she went on to The Latymer School, a grammar school in Edmonton, London  By 12, she was a professional in panto in Clapham and Kilburn  One of her grammar school teachers who used to give them religious instruction, an Ernest J  Burton, spotted her potential and, without charge, rigorously drilled away her Cockney accent  He also introduced her to the works of William Shakespeare  She studied under him for two years  When she was 14 or 15 and still at Latymer's, she also attended "drama demonstration" sessions twice a year with this same teacher  At around this time (though some sources say she was 12), her first encounter with Robert Atkins took place  She was taken to see Atkins' production of King John at the Regent's Park Open Air Theatre  She wrote to him saying that the boy who played Prince Arthur was not good enough and that she could do better  Atkins wrote back and asked that she come to see him  On the day they met, Atkins thought she was a shop girl and not a school girl  She gave a little prince speech and he told her to go to drama school and come back when she was older  Burton came to an agreement with Eileen's parents that he would try to get her a scholarship for one drama school and that if she did not get the scholarship he would arrange for her to do a teaching course in some other drama school  Her parents were not at all keen on the fact that she would stay in school until 16 as her sister had left at 14 and her brother at 15 but somehow they were persuaded  Eileen was in Latymer's until 16  Out of 300 applicants for a RADA scholarship, she got down to the last three but was not selected, so she did a three-year course on teaching at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama  But, although she was taking the teaching course, she also attended drama classes and in fact performed in three plays in her last year  This was in the early 1950s  In her third and last year she had to teach once a week, an experience she later said she hated  She graduated from Guildhall in 1953 As soon as she left Guildhall she got her first job with Robert Atkins in 1953: as Jaquenetta in Love's Labour's Lost at the same Regent's Park Open Air Theatre where she was brought to see Atkins' King John production years before  She was also, very briefly, an assistant stage manager at the Oxford Playhouse until Peter Hall fired her for impudence  She was also part of repertory companies performing in Billy Butlin's holiday camp in Skegness, Lincolnshire  It was there when she met Julian Glover 
It took nine years (1953–62) before she was working steadily 

Stage
Atkins joined the Guild Players Repertory Company in Bangor, County Down, Northern Ireland, as a professional actress in 1952  She appeared as the nurse in Harvey at the Repertory Theatre, Bangor, in 1952  In 1953 she appeared as an attendant in Love's Labours Lost at the Regent's Park Open Air Theatre  Her London stage debut was in 1953 as Jaquenetta in Robert Atkins's staging of Love's Labour's Lost at the Open Air Theatre in Regent's Park Atkins has regularly returned to the life and work of Virginia Woolf for professional inspiration  She has played the writer on stage in Patrick Garland's adaptation of A Room of One's Own and also in Vita and Virginia, winning the Drama Desk Award for Outstanding One-Person Show and an Obie Award for A Room of One's Own in which she also played in the 1990 television version; she also provided the screenplay for the 1997 film adaptation of Woolf's novel Mrs  Dalloway, and made a cameo appearance in the 2002 film version of Michael Cunningham's Woolf-themed novel, The Hours 
Atkins joined the Stratford Memorial Theatre Company in 1957 and stayed for two seasons  She was with the Old Vic in its 1961–62 season (she appeared in the Old Vic's Repertoire Leaflets of February–April 1962 and April–May 1962) 

Film and television
She appeared as Maggie Clayhanger in all six episodes of Arnold Bennett's Hilda Lessways from 15 May to 19 June 1959, produced by BBC Midlands with Judi Dench and Brian Smith  In the 1960 Shakespeare production An Age of Kings she played Joan of Arc 
She helped create two television series  Along with fellow actress, Jean Marsh, she created the concept for an original television series, Behind the Green Baize Door, which became the award-winning ITV series Upstairs, Downstairs (1971–75)  Marsh played maid Rose for the duration of the series but Atkins was unable to accept a part because of stage commitments  The same team was also responsible for the BBC series The House of Eliott (1991–93) 
Her film and television work includes Sons and Lovers (1981), Smiley's People (1982), Oliver Twist (1982), Titus Andronicus (1985), A Better Class of Person (1985), Roman Holiday (1987), The Lost Language of Cranes (1991), Cold Comfort Farm (1995), Talking Heads (1998), Madame Bovary (2000), David Copperfield (2000), Wit (2001) and Bertie and Elizabeth (2002), Cold Mountain (2003), What a Girl Wants (2003), Vanity Fair (2004), Ballet Shoes (2005) and Ask the Dust (2006) 
In the autumn of 2007, she co-starred with Dame Judi Dench and Sir Michael Gambon in the BBC One drama Cranford playing the central role of Miss Deborah Jenkyns  This performance earned her the 2008 BAFTA Award for best actress, as well as the Emmy Award  In September 2007 she played Abigail Dusniak in Waking the Dead Yahrzeit (S6:E11-12) 
In 2009 Atkins played the evil Nurse Edwina Kenchington in the BBC Two black comedy Psychoville  Atkins replaced Vanessa Redgrave as Eleanor of Aquitaine in the blockbuster movie Robin Hood, starring Russell Crowe, which was released in the UK in May 2010  The same year, she played Louisa in the dark comedy film Wild Target 
Atkins and Jean Marsh, creators of the original 1970s series of Upstairs, Downstairs, were among the cast of a new BBC adaptation, shown over the winter of 2010–11  The new series is set in 1936  Marsh again played Rose while Atkins was cast as the redoubtable Maud, Lady Holland  In August 2011, it was revealed that Atkins had decided not to continue to take part as she was unhappy with the scripts  In September 2011, Atkins joined the cast of ITV comedy-drama series Doc Martin playing the title character's aunt, Ruth Ellingham  She returned as Aunt Ruth for the show's sixth series in September 2013, the seventh in September 2015 and eighth in September 2017 
Atkins starred as Lady Spence with Matthew Rhys in an adaptation of Daphne du Maurier's The Scapegoat, shown in September 2012 She has portrayed Queen Mary on two occasions, in the 2002 television film Bertie and Elizabeth and in the 2016 Netflix-produced television series The Crown 
Atkins portrayed graduate school professor Evelyn Ashford to Vivian Bearing (Emma Thompson) in Wit, a 2001 American television movie directed by Mike Nichols  The teleplay by Nichols and Emma Thompson is based on the 1999 Pulitzer Prize winning play of the same title by Margaret Edson  The film was shown at the Berlin International Film Festival on 9 February 2001 before being broadcast by HBO on 24 March  It was shown at the Edinburgh Film Festival and the Warsaw Film Festival later in the year 

Radio
Atkins had a guest role in BBC Radio 4's long-running rural soap The Archers in September 2016, playing Jacqui, the juror who persuades her fellow jurors to acquit Helen Titchener (née Archer) of the charge of attempted murder and wounding with intent of her abusive husband, Rob 

Personal life
Atkins was married to actor Julian Glover in 1957; they divorced in 1966  (A day after his divorce, Glover married actress Isla Blair ) She married her second husband, Bill Shepherd, on 2 February 1978  Shepherd died on 24 June 2016 In 1997, she wrote the screenplay for Mrs Dalloway, starring Vanessa Redgrave  The film received positive reviews but was a box-office failure  It was a financial disaster for Atkins and her husband, who had invested in it  She said of this incident: "I have to work  I was nearly bankrupted over Mrs Dalloway, and if you are nearly bankrupted, you are in trouble for the rest of your life  I don't have a pension  In any case, it doesn't hurt me to work  I think it's quite good, actually ""All through my career, I have tried to do new work, but there is a problem in the West End as far as new work is concerned  As a theatregoer, I get bored with seeing the same old plays again and again  I felt terrible the other night because I bumped into Greta Scacchi and she asked me if I was coming to see her in The Deep Blue Sea  I said, 'Greta, I'm so old, I've seen it so many times  I've seen it with Peggy Ashcroft, with Vivien Leigh, with Googie Withers, with Penelope Wilton and I played it myself when I was 19  I can't bring myself to see it again ' She was very sweet about it "In 1995, Atkins was diagnosed with breast cancer and treated for the condition  She has recovered  Living alone in widowhood during the COVID lockdown, Atkins (at age 87) completed her autobiography Will She Do?  She read an abridged version on BBC Radio 4 

Filmography
Film
Television
Theatre
Honours
Atkins was appointed a Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in the 1990 Birthday Honours  She was promoted to Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire (DBE) on her 67th birthday in the 2001 Queen's Birthday Honours "for services to Drama " On 23 June 2010, she was awarded the degree of Doctor of Letters, honoris causa, by Oxford University  On 5 December 2005 she received the degree of Doctor of Arts, honoris causa, from City University London  She is a member of the American Theater Hall of Fame; she was inducted in 1998 

Awards and nominations
Theatre Awards
Tony Awards

Drama Desk Awards

Olivier Awards

Film and Television Awards
Notes
Passage 5:
Sons and Lovers (1981 TV serial)
Sons and Lovers is a 1981 BBC television serial based on D  H  Lawrence's 1913 book Sons and Lovers   It starred Eileen Atkins, Tom Bell, Karl Johnson, Lynn Dearth and Leonie Mellinger   It was adapted by Trevor Griffiths and directed by Stuart Burge, and originally shown as seven episodes



ground_truth: West African descendants

prompt_front: Answer the question based on the given passages. Only give me the answer and do not output any other words.

Question: What was the population in 2010 of the town where The Stelljes House is located ?

The following are given passages.
Context 4: Passage 1:
Canton Road
Canton Road is a major road in Hong Kong, linking the former west reclamation shore in Tsim Sha Tsui, Jordan, Yau Ma Tei, Mong Kok and Prince Edward on the Kowloon Peninsula  The road runs mostly parallel and west to Nathan Road  It starts from the junction with Salisbury Road in the south and ends in the north at the junction with Lai Chi Kok Road in the Prince Edward area  The southern section of Canton Road is home to many upscale retail shops, shopping centres and others business establishments, with busy traffic from both vehicles and pedestrians from morning till late at night 

Name
The road was originally named MacDonnell Road  It was renamed to Canton Road in 1909 to avoid confusion with MacDonnell Road on Hong Kong Island 
The road is named after the City of Canton (now Guangzhou, 廣州), following a pattern where roads in the area were named after cities in China and Vietnam  However, an error resulted in Canton being interpreted as referring to the Province of Canton (Now Guangdong, 廣東), resulting in the Chinese name of the road becoming 廣東道 instead of the intended 廣州道 

Sections and features
Canton Road is not one continuous road, instead, it is divided into four sections, interrupted by a major housing estate (Prosperous Garden) and disjointed by a traffic intersection (Jordan Road) as the result of urban development in the past hundred years 
The following list follows a south-north order  (W) indicates the western side of the road, while (E) indicates the eastern side 

Tsim Sha Tsui section
The section starts at Salisbury Road and ends at Jordan Road  Features include:

(W) Star House, at the intersection with Salisbury Road and facing the Tsim Sha Tsui Ferry Pier Bus Terminus
(E) Former Marine Police Headquarters Compound, at the intersection with Salisbury Road  A declared monument, it has been renamed "1881 Heritage" and re-developed into a shopping mall and hotel 
(W) Harbour City, which contains the Marco Polo Hong Kong Hotel, the Ocean Terminal, the Ocean Centre and The Gateway
(E) One Peking office and shopping mall tower, at the junction with Peking Road
(E) > junction with Peking Road
(E) Silvercord (新港中心) and the Silvercord Arcade (No  30), at the junction with Haiphong Road
(E) > junction with Haiphong Road
(E) > junction with Kowloon Park Drive
(W) China Hong Kong City, which contains the Hong Kong China Ferry Terminal
(E) A small portion of Kowloon Park
(E) Lai Chack Middle School (No  180)
(W) Tsim Sha Tsui Fire Station (No  333)
(E) Victoria Towers (No  188), at the junction with Austin Road
(E) > junction with Austin Road
(W) Exit F of Austin MTR station
(W) [Demolished] Canton Road Government Offices (廣東道政府合署) (No  393)  It was one of the oldest remaining government office buildings at the time of its demolition in 2011 
(E) > junction with Bowring Street
(W) > junction with Wui Cheung Road
(E) King George V Memorial Park, Kowloon at the intersection with Jordan Road

Jordan to Yau Ma Tei section
The section starts at Jordan Road and ends at Public Square Street  The part of this section between Jordan Road and Kansu Street is sometimes called "Jade Street" because of the number of jewellery shops selling jade 
(W) Giant jade stone near the intersection with Jordan Road (north side)
(E) > junction with Nanking Street
(E) > junction with Ning Po Street
> intersection with Saigon Street
(E) No  578 Canton Road, a building proposed for conservation, at the intersection with Saigon Street
(E) > junction with Pak Hoi Street
> intersection with Kansu Street
(W) Yau Ma Tei Police Station, a Grade III historic building, at the intersection with Public Square StreetThe road is interrupted north of Public Square Street, and Prosperous Garden, a housing estate, is located in its place  The Broadway Cinematheque is located within Prosperous Garden 

Yau Ma Tei section
This very short section (about 30m long) starts at Tung Kun Street, north of Prosperous Garden and ends at the Yau Ma Tei Fruit Market, a Grade III historic building  This section is bordered by two schools:

(W) Tung Koon District Society Fong Shu Chuen School
(E) Wanchai Church Kei To School

Yau Ma Tei to Prince Edward section
The section starts at Waterloo Road, north of the Yau Ma Tei Fruit Market and ends at Lai Chi Kok Road  This section features a street market in the Mong Kok area 
> intersection with Pitt Street
(E) > junction with Hamilton Street
> intersection with Dundas Street
> intersection with Soy Street
> intersection with Shantung Street
> intersection with Nelson Street
(W) > junction with Nam Tau Street
(W) Mongkok Market Complex between the junctions with Nam Tau Street and Argyle Street
> intersection with Argyle Street
(W) China Cafe (No  1077A), a cha chaan teng featured in several Hong Kong films, including the 2001 Fulltime Killer, the 2003 PTU, the 2005 Election and the 2007 Whispers and Moans 
(E) > junction with Fife Street
> intersection with Mong Kok Road
> intersection with Bute Street
> intersection with Arran Street
> intersection with Prince Edward Road West
(W) No  1235 Canton Road, tong-lau proposed for conservation

West Rail line (Tuen Ma Line)
It was proposed that a station, Canton Road on the Kowloon Southern Link of the West Rail line, could be built beneath the Tsim Sha Tsui section of the road, outside Harbour City  The plan was put off after unsuccessful negotiation between KCRC and The Wharf on financial arrangement  Another station, Austin, near the junction of Canton Road and Wui Cheung Road in Kwun Chung opened on 16 August 2009 

In popular culture
The final shootout sequence of the 2003 film PTU, directed by Johnnie To, takes place in Canton Road  The sequence was actually shot in Ap Lei Chau 

Gallery
Tsim Sha Tsui section
See also
Shanghai Street, a 2 3 km long street, generally parallel to Canton Road and Nathan Road
List of streets and roads in Hong Kong
Passage 2:
Jimaní
Jimaní is the capital and the second largest city of the Independencia Province of the Dominican Republic  It serves as one of the two main border crossings to Haiti (with Dajabón), with a duty-free open-air marketplace operating on the border with Haiti  The town suffered damages in the flash flood of May 25, 2004, which killed many citizens during the night and washed away hundreds of homes 

History
The name "Ximani" is of native Taíno origin  Historian Rafael Leonidas Pérez y Pérez in his book "Annotations on the history of Jimaní", says that Ximani was a Cacique of the chieftainship of Xaragua who had control of the town that lied in the middle of the two lakes, Lake Enriquillo and Lake Azuei, as well as the pass that leads to Pic la Selle making it a strategical and important part of the island  The name "Ximaní" is recognized when the Spaniards signed a peace agreement with the natives through Enriquillo at "the Lagoon of Ximaní" in 1536 
Another version claims the name belongs to a French Count (Count of Jimaní)  General Paul Decayette, the Conde de Jimani and member of the Court of Faustin Soulouque, invades through the north  He is confronted and beaten by the Dominican army in Sabana Larga near the town of Dajabón  The exact date was January 24, 1856  With this victory the Dominicans put an end to the 12 years Dominican-Haitian War, one of the longest wars of independence in the Western Hemisphere (though with intermissions)  Pérez y Pérez clarifies however that this official, was called "of Jimani" because of him having owned that land, which was awarded to him during the expansion of the French occupation  The historian argues that the French did not occupy the west side of the island, particularly that territory, until the mid 18th century 
By the time of the Dominican War of Independence, Jimani was practically deserted with most of the fighting taking place in Neiba  After the independence of 1844 the earliest inhabitants of Jimaní came from various communities of the southwest, such as Neiba, Duvergé, El Estero, Las Salinas, Azua de Compostela, Santa Cruz de Barahona, and Haitian immigrants from the mountains that married or had common-law marriages with Dominicans, forming families in the most populous neighborhood of the community, known as Jimaní Viejo  By the 1930s Jimaní belonged to Neiba and in 1938 it became part of the commune of La Descubierta, forming a part of the Province of Baoruco 
On the 18 of March 1943, by means of the law number 229, Jimani was elevated to municipal district  On December 29, 1948, the province of Baoruco was split into two provinces, the west side receiving the name of Independence Province  On January 1, 1950, Jimani officially became the Capital of the new province Independencia 

Climate
Lying in a valley in the rain shadow of the northeast trade winds, Jimaní has a hot semi-arid climate with relatively constant temperatures throughout the course of the year  Annual rainfall is bimodal, peaking in May and October; the dry season occurs from December through February 

Economy
Agriculture and commerce with Haiti represent the main economic activities of this municipality  In agriculture the main products are cassava, batata, melon, peppers, cilantro and tomatoes Jimaní has a popular duty-free open-air marketplace with Haiti that is also visited by people from adjoining towns and even from distant regions of the country  In this market, basic food products are sold, as well as foreign beverages, clothes, shoes, and new and used electrical appliances 
The customs zone of the border is called "The Door" and it is visited by foreign tourists that come to observe the dynamics of the business and intercultural and interracial relation between Dominicans and Haitians 
The municipal City Hall receives monthly RD$1,000,000 as mandated by the General Law of Budget, through the Dominican Municipal League  The authorities of the City Hall estimate the internal tax collection to be about $15,000 monthly The municipal districts El Limón and Boca de Cachón receive monthly $500,000 each one, from the transfer ordered by the law through the Dominican Municipal League 
There are two financial institutions in Jimaní  A branch office of the Reserve Bank and a branch office of the Cooperative of Savings and Credit of Neiba (Coopacrene) 

Education
There are six basic schools with two daily schedules and four public high schools, three of them for adults 

Health
The municipality has a municipal hospital and four rural clinics or hospitals  The majority of the Jimanisenses prefer to seek medical attention in the Regional University Hospital Jaime Mota of Barahona 

Culture and religion
Jimaní is mostly Catholic  Local holidays are celebrated March 19, in honor of their Saint San José  A carnival is being added to the Patronal Feast, to expand the celebration  Also being instituted is the celebration of a Cultural Week each year, in memory of the flood that destroyed a big part of the population in May 2004 
As a historic-cultural monument, Jimaní conserves intact and conditioned the "Mansion of Trujillo", one of many the dictator built in the border region, although he never spent the night in this particular one 

Public works
Local governments have carried out different works for the community, such as the reconstruction and restructuring of the municipal cemetery, the reconstruction of street gutters, rehabilitation of electric lighting in the urban area and in the sector of Tierra Nueva  There are also ongoing projects to enlarge the aqueduct network for the neighborhoods of La Cu and El Cerro 

Organizations
In Jimaní there are several community associations  For example, in each of the towns that conform the municipality there is an Association of Farmers as well as an Association of Mothers 
There is also a Lions Club, the Association of Minibuses Jimaní-Barahona, a committee that represents the Association of "Jimanisenses" in Massachusetts, US, a technical team of World Vision, Fundasur (Foundation of the South) and Conani (the National Council for Childhood and Adolescence) 
Passage 3:
Ahiara
Ahiara is a city in Mbaise, Imo State, Nigeria  The city stands about 16 miles between Owere and Umuahia  It was the location of Chukwuemeka Odumegwu Ojukwu's Ahiara Declaration during the Nigerian Civil War  It is the location of the Catholic diocese in Mbaise  The first recorded Ahiara contact with the Europeans was around 1905 when the British Aro expedition got mixed up in inter-village war which eventually had Dr  Steward a victim, as a consequence the Ahiara people were severely punished by the British forces with an invasion which forced many citizens to flee and never return 
The Ahiara Slogan is Decent Dexterity 

Origin
Ahiara was founded by a man of that name  He was the son of Anunu, popularly called Odo ji Anunu  His sibling Avuvu became a part of Ikeduru  Etymologically, the name Ahiara is a type of plant among the Igbo people  The leaves of this plant signify peace  The great Ezes of Igbo used to travel with Ahiara leaves to guarantee peaceful journeys across several territories  Before Christianity, which 89 percent of the people practice, traditional religion held sway  Ahiara does not practise a centralized system of government  The ten chief priests and chief priestess were the symbol of authority and they occasionally met to deliberate and pass motions which eventually became tradition and laws  They also conferred titles to deserving citizens  Among those was Hon Nze H C  O Uhegbu who was conferred with the title of Nze Onugotu of Ahiara as at the time he was the first man in Ahiara to represent the clan in the state legislature 

Ahiara Ofo Iri
Ahiara city is historically called Ahiara Ofo Iri, which means Ahiara of the Ten Scepters  Each scepter represents each of the ten villages that make up the city  The ten villages of Ahiara are:

Ahiara is divided into two sections: Ihite and Ikenga 

Ihite consists of these five villages: Obodo, Nnarambia, Oru na Nneude, Otulu, and Ogbe 
Ikenga consists of these five villages: Akabo, Amuzi, Agu na Eze, Ogwuama, and Ujichi These ten villages are symbolically explained as the ten fingers of the human hands  This signifies an evolved dexterity and is why the Ahiara Slogan is Decent Dexterity 
The Mater Ecclesiae Cathedral in Ahiara is the seat of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Ahiara 
Passage 4:
Yau Ma Tei North (constituency)
Yau Ma Tei North (Chinese: 油麻地北) is one of the 19 constituencies in the Yau Tsim Mong District of Hong Kong which was first created in 1982 and recreated in 2015 
The constituency loosely covers Yau Ma Tei with the estimated population of 12,817 

Councillors represented
1982–85
1985–94
2015 to present
Election results
2010s
1990s
1980s
Passage 5:
Zacharovce
Zacharovce (Hungarian: Zeherje) is a village and municipality in the Rimavská Sobota District of the Banská Bystrica Region of southern Slovakia  Located in the near of the main road I/50, connecting Zvolen and Košice the village is now more a living neighbourhood of Rimavská Sobota, where many citizens go for a work  The most important sightseeing is a gothic church from 15th century, later rebuilt 
Passage 6:
Hong Kong
Hong Kong (US:  or UK: ; Chinese: 香港, Cantonese: [hœ́ːŋ kɔ̌ːŋ] (listen)), officially the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China (abbr  Hong Kong SAR or HKSAR), is a city and a special administrative region in China  With 7 4 million residents of various nationalities in a 1,104-square-kilometre (426 sq mi) territory, Hong Kong is one of the most densely populated territories in the world 
Hong Kong was established as a colony of the British Empire after the Qing Empire ceded Hong Kong Island in 1841-1842  The colony expanded to the Kowloon Peninsula in 1860 and was further extended when Britain obtained a 99-year lease of the New Territories in 1898  Hong Kong was shortly occupied by Japan from 1941 to 1945 during World War II  The whole territory was transferred from Britain to China in 1997  Hong Kong maintains separate governing and economic systems from that of mainland China under the principle of "one country, two systems" Originally a sparsely populated area of farming and fishing villages, the territory is now one of the world's most significant financial centres and commercial ports  Hong Kong is the world's fourth-ranked global financial centre, ninth-largest exporter, and eighth-largest importer  Its currency, the Hong Kong dollar, is the eighth most traded currency in the world  Home to the second-highest number of billionaires of any city in the world, Hong Kong has the largest concentration of ultra high-net-worth individuals  Although the city has one of the highest per capita incomes in the world, severe income inequality exists among the population  Despite having the largest number of skyscrapers of any city in the world, housing in Hong Kong has been well-documented to experience a chronic persistent shortage 
Hong Kong is a highly developed territory and has a Human Development Index (HDI) of 0 952, ranking fourth in the world  The city has a very low homicide rate, the second highest life expectancy, and a public transport rate exceeding 90% 

Etymology
The name of the territory, first romanised as "He-Ong-Kong" in 1780, originally referred to a small inlet located between Aberdeen Island and the southern coast of Hong Kong Island  Aberdeen was an initial point of contact between British sailors and local fishermen  Although the source of the romanised name is unknown, it is generally believed to be an early phonetic rendering of the Cantonese (or Tanka Cantonese) phrase hēung góng  The name translates as "fragrant harbour" or "incense harbour"  "Fragrant" may refer to the sweet taste of the harbour's freshwater influx from the Pearl River or to the odour from incense factories lining the coast of northern Kowloon  The incense was stored near Aberdeen Harbour for export before Victoria Harbour was developed  Sir John Davis (the second colonial governor) offered an alternative origin; Davis said that the name derived from "Hoong-keang" ("red torrent"), reflecting the colour of soil over which a waterfall on the island flowed The simplified name Hong Kong was frequently used by 1810  The name was also commonly written as the single word Hongkong until 1926, when the government officially adopted the two-word name  Some corporations founded during the early colonial era still keep this name, including Hongkong Land, Hongkong Electric Company, Hongkong and Shanghai Hotels and the Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation (HSBC) 

History
Prehistory and Imperial China
Earliest known human traces in what is now Hong Kong are dated by some to 35,000 and 39,000 years ago during the Paleolithic period  The claim is based on an archaeological investigation in Wong Tei Tung, Sai Kung in 2003  The archaeological works revealed knapped stone tools from deposits that were dated using optical luminescence dating During the Middle Neolithic period, about 6,000 years ago, the region had been widely occupied by humans  Neolithic to Bronze Age Hong Kong settlers were semi-coastal people  Early inhabitants are believed to be Austronesians in the Middle Neolithic period and later the Yueh people  As hinted by the archaeological works in Sha Ha, Sai Kung, rice cultivation had been introduced since Late Neolithic period  Bronze Age Hong Kong featured coarse pottery, hard pottery, quartz and stone jewelry, as well as small bronze implements The Qin dynasty incorporated the Hong Kong area into China for the first time in 214 BCE, after conquering the indigenous Baiyue  The region was consolidated under the Nanyue kingdom (a predecessor state of Vietnam) after the Qin collapse and recaptured by China after the Han conquest  During the Mongol conquest of China in the 13th century, the Southern Song court was briefly located in modern-day Kowloon City (the Sung Wong Toi site) before its final defeat in the 1279 Battle of Yamen by the Yuan Dynasty  By the end of the Yuan dynasty, seven large families had settled in the region and owned most of the land  Settlers from nearby provinces migrated to Kowloon throughout the Ming dynasty The earliest European visitor was Portuguese explorer Jorge Álvares, who arrived in 1513  Portuguese merchants established a trading post called Tamão in Hong Kong waters and began regular trade with southern China  Although the traders were expelled after military clashes in the 1520s, Portuguese-Chinese trade relations were re-established by 1549  Portugal acquired a permanent lease for Macau in 1557 After the Qing conquest, maritime trade was banned under the Haijin policies  From 1661 to 1683, the population of most of the area forming present day Hong Kong was cleared under the Great Clearance, turning the region into a wasteland  The Kangxi Emperor lifted the maritime trade prohibition, allowing foreigners to enter Chinese ports in 1684  Qing authorities established the Canton System in 1757 to regulate trade more strictly, restricting non-Russian ships to the port of Canton  Although European demand for Chinese commodities like tea, silk, and porcelain was high, Chinese interest in European manufactured goods was insignificant, so that Chinese goods could only be bought with precious metals  To reduce the trade imbalance, the British sold large amounts of Indian opium to China  Faced with a drug crisis, Qing officials pursued ever more aggressive actions to halt the opium trade 

British colony
In 1839, the Daoguang Emperor rejected proposals to legalise and tax opium and ordered imperial commissioner Lin Zexu to eradicate the opium trade  The commissioner destroyed opium stockpiles and halted all foreign trade, triggering a British military response and the First Opium War  The Qing surrendered early in the war and ceded Hong Kong Island in the Convention of Chuenpi  British forces began controlling Hong Kong shortly after the signing of the convention, from 26 January 1841  However, both countries were dissatisfied and did not ratify the agreement  After more than a year of further hostilities, Hong Kong Island was formally ceded to the United Kingdom in the 1842 Treaty of Nanking Administrative infrastructure was quickly built by early 1842, but piracy, disease, and hostile Qing policies initially prevented the government from attracting commerce  Conditions on the island improved during the Taiping Rebellion in the 1850s, when many Chinese refugees, including wealthy merchants, fled mainland turbulence and settled in the colony  Further tensions between the British and Qing over the opium trade escalated into the Second Opium War  The Qing were again defeated and forced to give up Kowloon Peninsula and Stonecutters Island in the Convention of Peking  By the end of this war, Hong Kong had evolved from a transient colonial outpost into a major entrepôt  Rapid economic improvement during the 1850s attracted foreign investment, as potential stakeholders became more confident in Hong Kong's future The colony was further expanded in 1898 when Britain obtained a 99-year lease of the New Territories  The University of Hong Kong was established in 1911 as the territory's first institution of higher education  Kai Tak Airport began operation in 1924, and the colony avoided a prolonged economic downturn after the 1925–26 Canton–Hong Kong strike  At the start of the Second Sino-Japanese War in 1937, Governor Geoffry Northcote declared Hong Kong a neutral zone to safeguard its status as a free port  The colonial government prepared for a possible attack, evacuating all British women and children in 1940  The Imperial Japanese Army attacked Hong Kong on 8 December 1941, the same morning as its attack on Pearl Harbor  Hong Kong was occupied by Japan for almost four years before Britain resumed control on 30 August 1945 

Its population rebounded quickly after the war, as skilled Chinese migrants fled from the Chinese Civil War and more refugees crossed the border when the Chinese Communist Party took control of mainland China in 1949  Hong Kong became the first of the Four Asian Tiger economies to industrialise during the 1950s  With a rapidly increasing population, the colonial government attempted reforms to improve infrastructure and public services  The public-housing estate programme, Independent Commission Against Corruption, and Mass Transit Railway were all established during the post-war decades to provide safer housing, integrity in the civil service, and more reliable transportation Nevertheless, widespread public discontent resulted in multiple protests from the 1950s to 1980s, including pro-Republic of China and pro-Chinese Communist Party protests  In the 1967 Hong Kong riots, pro-PRC protestors clashed with the British colonial government  As many as 51 were killed and 802 were injured in the violence, including dozens killed by the Royal Hong Kong Police via beatings and shootings Although the territory's competitiveness in manufacturing gradually declined because of rising labour and property costs, it transitioned to a service-based economy  By the early 1990s, Hong Kong had established itself as a global financial centre and shipping hub 

Chinese special administrative region
The colony faced an uncertain future as the end of the New Territories lease approached, and Governor Murray MacLehose raised the question of Hong Kong's status with Deng Xiaoping in 1979  Diplomatic negotiations with China resulted in the 1984 Sino-British Joint Declaration, in which the United Kingdom agreed to transfer the colony in 1997 and China would guarantee Hong Kong's economic and political systems for 50 years after the transfer  The impending transfer triggered a wave of mass emigration as residents feared an erosion of civil rights, the rule of law, and quality of life  Over half a million people left the territory during the peak migration period, from 1987 to 1996  The Legislative Council became a fully elected legislature for the first time in 1995 and extensively expanded its functions and organisations throughout the last years of the colonial rule  Hong Kong was transferred to China on 1 July 1997, after 156 years of British rule Immediately after the transfer, Hong Kong was severely affected by several crises  The Hong Kong government was forced to use substantial foreign exchange reserves to maintain the Hong Kong dollar's currency peg during the 1997 Asian financial crisis, and the recovery from this was muted by an H5N1 avian-flu outbreak and a housing surplus  This was followed by the 2003 SARS epidemic, during which the territory experienced its most serious economic downturn Political debates after the transfer of sovereignty have centred around the region's democratic development and the Chinese central government's adherence to the "one country, two systems" principle  After reversal of the last colonial era Legislative Council democratic reforms following the handover, the regional government unsuccessfully attempted to enact national security legislation pursuant to Article 23 of the Basic Law  The central government decision to implement nominee pre-screening before allowing chief executive elections triggered a series of protests in 2014 which became known as the Umbrella Revolution  Discrepancies in the electoral registry and disqualification of elected legislators after the 2016 Legislative Council elections and enforcement of national law in the West Kowloon high-speed railway station raised further concerns about the region's autonomy  In June 2019, mass protests erupted in response to a proposed extradition amendment bill permitting the extradition of fugitives to mainland China  The protests are the largest in Hong Kong's history, with organisers claiming to have attracted more than three million Hong Kong residents 
The Hong Kong regional government and Chinese central government responded to the protests with a number of administrative measures to quell dissent  In June 2020, the Legislative Council passed the National Anthem Ordinance, which criminalised "insults to the national anthem of China"  The Chinese central government meanwhile enacted the Hong Kong national security law to help quell protests in the region  Nine months later, in March 2021, the Chinese central government introduced amendments to Hong Kong's electoral system, which included the reduction of directly elected seats in the Legislative Council and the requirement that all candidates be vetted and approved by a Beijing-appointed Candidate Eligibility Review Committee 

Government and politics
Hong Kong is a special administrative region of China, with executive, legislative, and judicial powers devolved from the national government  The Sino-British Joint Declaration provided for economic and administrative continuity through the transfer of sovereignty, resulting in an executive-led governing system largely inherited from the territory's history as a British colony  Under these terms and the "one country, two systems" principle, the Basic Law of Hong Kong is the regional constitution  The regional government is composed of three branches:

Executive: The Chief Executive is responsible for enforcing regional law, can force reconsideration of legislation, and appoints Executive Council members and principal officials  Acting with the Executive Council, the Chief Executive-in-Council can propose new bills, issue subordinate legislation, and has authority to dissolve the legislature  In states of emergency or public danger, the Chief Executive-in-Council is further empowered to enact any regulation necessary to restore public order 
Legislature: The unicameral Legislative Council enacts regional law, approves budgets, and has the power to impeach a sitting chief executive 
Judiciary: The Court of Final Appeal and lower courts interpret laws and overturn those inconsistent with the Basic Law  Judges are appointed by the chief executive on the advice of a recommendation commission The chief executive is the head of government and serves for a maximum of two five-year terms  The State Council (led by the Premier of China) appoints the chief executive after nomination by the Election Committee, which is composed of 1500 business, community, and government leaders The Legislative Council has 90 members, each serving a four-year term  Twenty are directly elected from geographical constituencies, thirty-five represent functional constituencies (FC), and forty are chosen by an election committee consisting of representatives appointed by the Chinese central government  Thirty FC councillors are selected from limited electorates representing sectors of the economy or special interest groups, and the remaining five members are nominated from sitting district council members and selected in region-wide double direct elections  All popularly elected members are chosen by proportional representation  The 30 limited electorate functional constituencies fill their seats using first-past-the-post or instant-runoff voting Twenty-two political parties had representatives elected to the Legislative Council in the 2016 election  These parties have aligned themselves into three ideological groups: the pro-Beijing camp (the current government), the pro-democracy camp, and localist groups  The Chinese Communist Party does not have an official political presence in Hong Kong, and its members do not run in local elections  Hong Kong is represented in the National People's Congress by 36 deputies chosen through an electoral college and 203 delegates in the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference appointed by the central government 

Chinese national law does not generally apply in the region, and Hong Kong is treated as a separate jurisdiction  Its judicial system is based on common law, continuing the legal tradition established during British rule  Local courts may refer to precedents set in English law and overseas jurisprudence  However, mainland criminal procedure law applies to cases investigated by the Office for Safeguarding National Security of the CPG in the HKSAR  Interpretative and amending power over the Basic Law and jurisdiction over acts of state lie with the central authority, making regional courts ultimately subordinate to the mainland's socialist civil law system  Decisions made by the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress override any territorial judicial process  Furthermore, in circumstances where the Standing Committee declares a state of emergency in Hong Kong, the State Council may enforce national law in the region The territory's jurisdictional independence is most apparent in its immigration and taxation policies  The Immigration Department issues passports for permanent residents which differ from those of the mainland or Macau, and the region maintains a regulated border with the rest of the country  All travellers between Hong Kong and China and Macau must pass through border controls, regardless of nationality  Mainland Chinese citizens do not have right of abode in Hong Kong and are subject to immigration controls  Public finances are handled separately from the national government; taxes levied in Hong Kong do not fund the central authority The Hong Kong Garrison of the People's Liberation Army is responsible for the region's defence  Although the Chairman of the Central Military Commission is supreme commander of the armed forces, the regional government may request assistance from the garrison  Hong Kong residents are not required to perform military service, and current law has no provision for local enlistment, so its defence is composed entirely of non-Hongkongers The central government and Ministry of Foreign Affairs handle diplomatic matters, but Hong Kong retains the ability to maintain separate economic and cultural relations with foreign nations  The territory actively participates in the World Trade Organization, the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum, the International Olympic Committee, and many United Nations agencies  The regional government maintains trade offices in Greater China and other nations The imposition of the Hong Kong national security law by the central government in Beijing in June 2020 resulted in the suspension of bilateral extradition treaties by the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Finland, and Ireland  The United States ended its preferential economic and trade treatment of Hong Kong in July 2020 because it was no longer able to distinguish Hong Kong as a separate entity from the People's Republic of China 

Administrative divisions
The territory is divided into 18 districts, each represented by a district council  These advise the government on local issues such as public facility provisioning, community programme maintenance, cultural promotion, and environmental policy  There are a total of 479 district council seats, 452 of which are directly elected  Rural committee chairmen, representing outlying villages and towns, fill the 27 non-elected seats 

Political reforms and sociopolitical issues
Hong Kong is governed by a hybrid regime that is not fully representative of the population  Legislative Council members elected by functional constituencies composed of professional and special interest groups are accountable to these narrow corporate electorates and not the general public  This electoral arrangement has guaranteed a pro-establishment majority in the legislature since the transfer of sovereignty  Similarly, the chief executive is selected by establishment politicians and corporate members of the Election Committee rather than directly elected  Although universal suffrage for the chief executive and all Legislative Council elections are defined goals of Basic Law Articles 45 and 68, the legislature is only partially directly elected, and the executive continues to be nominated by an unrepresentative body  The government has been repeatedly petitioned to introduce direct elections for these positions Ethnic minorities (except those of European ancestry) have marginal representation in government and often experience discrimination in housing, education, and employment  Employment vacancies and public service appointments frequently have language requirements which minority job seekers do not meet, and language education resources remain inadequate for Chinese learners  Foreign domestic helpers, predominantly women from the Philippines and Indonesia, have little protection under regional law  Although they live and work in Hong Kong, these workers are not treated as ordinary residents and do not have the right of abode in the territory  Sex trafficking in Hong Kong is an issue  Local and foreign women and girls are often forced into prostitution in brothels, homes, and businesses in the city The Joint Declaration guarantees the Basic Law of Hong Kong for 50 years after the transfer of sovereignty  It does not specify how Hong Kong will be governed after 2047, and the central government's role in determining the territory's future system of government is the subject of political debate and speculation  Hong Kong's political and judicial systems may be integrated with China's at that time, or the territory may continue to be administered separately  However, in response to large-scale protests in 2019 and 2020, the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress passed the controversial Hong Kong national security law  The law criminalises secession, subversion, terrorism and collusion with foreign elements and establishes the Office for Safeguarding National Security of the CPG in the HKSAR, an investigative office under Central People's Government authority immune from HKSAR jurisdiction  Some of the aforementioned acts were previously considered protected speech under Hong Kong law  The United Kingdom considers the law to be a serious violation of the Joint Declaration  In October 2020, Hong Kong police arrested seven pro-democracy politicians over tussles with pro-Beijing politicians in the Legislative Council in May  They were charged with contempt and interfering with members of the council, while none of the pro-Beijing lawmakers were detained  Annual commemorations of the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests and massacre were also cancelled amidst fears of violating the national security law  In March 2021, the Chinese central government unilaterally changed Hong Kong's electoral system and established the Candidate Eligibility Review Committee, which would be tasked with screening and evaluating political candidates for their "patriotism" 

Geography
Hong Kong is on China's southern coast, 60 km (37 mi) east of Macau, on the east side of the mouth of the Pearl River estuary  It is surrounded by the South China Sea on all sides except the north, which neighbours the Guangdong city of Shenzhen along the Sham Chun River  The territory's 1,110 18 km2 (428 64 sq mi) area (2754 97 km2 if the maritime area is included) consists of Hong Kong Island, the Kowloon Peninsula, the New Territories, Lantau Island, and over 200 other islands  Of the total area, 1,073 km2 (414 sq mi) is land and 35 km2 (14 sq mi) is water  The territory's highest point is Tai Mo Shan, 957 metres (3,140 ft) above sea level  Urban development is concentrated on the Kowloon Peninsula, Hong Kong Island, and in new towns throughout the New Territories  Much of this is built on reclaimed land; 70 km2 (27 sq mi) (6% of the total land or about 25% of developed space in the territory) is reclaimed from the sea Undeveloped terrain is hilly to mountainous, with very little flat land, and consists mostly of grassland, woodland, shrubland, or farmland  About 40% of the remaining land area is country parks and nature reserves  The territory has a diverse ecosystem; over 3,000 species of vascular plants occur in the region (300 of which are native to Hong Kong), and thousands of insect, avian, and marine species 

Climate
Hong Kong has a humid subtropical climate (Köppen Cwa), characteristic of southern China, despite being located south of the Tropic of Cancer  Summers are long, hot and humid, with occasional showers and thunderstorms and warm air from the southwest  The humid nature of Hong Kong exacerbates the warmth of summer  Typhoons occur most often then, sometimes resulting in floods or landslides  Winters are short, mild and usually sunny at the beginning, becoming cloudy towards February  Frequent cold fronts bring strong, cooling winds from the north and occasionally result in chilly weather  Autumn is the sunniest season, whilst spring is generally cloudy  When there is snowfall, which is extremely rare, it is usually at high elevations  Hong Kong averages 1,709 hours of sunshine per year  Historic temperature extremes at the Hong Kong Observatory are 36 6 °C (97 9 °F) on 22 August 2017 and 0 0 °C (32 0 °F) on 18 January 1893  The highest and lowest recorded temperatures in all of Hong Kong are 39 0 °C (102 °F) at Wetland Park on 22 August 2017, and −6 0 °C (21 2 °F) at Tai Mo Shan on 24 January 2016 

Architecture
Hong Kong has the world's largest number of skyscrapers, with 482 towers taller than 150 metres (490 ft), and the third-largest number of high-rise buildings in the world  The lack of available space restricted development to high-density residential tenements and commercial complexes packed closely together on buildable land  Single-family detached homes are uncommon and generally only found in outlying areas  The International Commerce Centre and Two International Finance Centre are the tallest buildings in Hong Kong and are among the tallest in the Asia-Pacific region  Other distinctive buildings lining the Hong Kong Island skyline include the HSBC Main Building, the anemometer-topped triangular Central Plaza, the circular Hopewell Centre, and the sharp-edged Bank of China Tower



ground_truth: 810

prompt_front: Answer the question based on the given passages. Only give me the answer and do not output any other words.

Question: Which three-time Olivier Award winning English actress starred in the 1981 BBC television serial, Sons and Lovers?

The following are given passages.
Context 3:   It aired in the US as part of the PBS's Masterpiece Theatre program in 1982 Writer Trevor Griffiths said in 1981, "I chose to do this work because, under all the incipient mysticism of the perception, under the incipient derogation of women, under the increasingly ugly politics, there is, in this Lawrence, and vibrantly so, a powerful and radical celebration of dignity in resistance within working-class culture in industrial class-societies; as well as a dark, tortured cry against the waste of human resources such societies require as part of their logic   It is no bad thing to be saying when unemployment has reached over three million ”
Passage 6:
Jessica Swale
Jessica Swale (born 27 February 1982) is a British playwright, theatre director and screenwriter  Her first play, Blue Stockings, premiered at Shakespeare's Globe in 2013  It is widely performed by UK amateur companies and is also studied on the Drama GCSE syllabus  In 2016, her play Nell Gwynn won the Olivier Award for Best New Comedy, after it transferred from the Globe to the West End, starring Gemma Arterton as the eponymous heroine  She also wrote and directed the feature film Summerland (2020) 

Early life and education
Born in Reading, Berkshire, Swale completed her secondary education at Kendrick School, Reading, before studying drama at the University of Exeter  She completed her training at the Royal Central School of Speech and Drama (MA Advanced Theatre Practice), where she trained as a director 

Career
After drama school, she worked as Max Stafford-Clark's associate director at Out of Joint Theatre Company, on productions including The Overwhelming (2006) at the National Theatre and Andersen's English (2010) at Hampstead  In 2006, she set up Red Handed Theatre Company with Katie Bonna, to perform new works and revive lost classics  She was nominated for an Evening Standard Award for Best Director for her production of The Belle's Stratagem and received the Peter Brook Empty Space Award for Best Ensemble for Red Handed in 2012 Swale is also an associate artist with NGO Youth Bridge Global, using theatre as a development tool in war-torn countries, and the author of a series of drama games books, published by Nick Hern 

Stage directing
In 2010, Swale directed the first play by a woman ever to be staged at Shakespeare's Globe, Nell Leyshon's Bedlam  For Red Handed Theatre Company, she directed The Busy Body (2012), The Rivals (2010), Someone Who'll Watch Over Me (2012) at Southwark Playhouse, The School for Scandal (2013) at the Park Theatre and Palace of the End (2010) at Arcola Theatre  Other credits include Fallen Angels (Salisbury Playhouse), Winter (Theatre Newfoundland, Canada), Sleuth, Sense and Sensibility and Far from the Madding Crowd (Watermill Theatre) 

Playwriting
As a playwright, Swale's first play Blue Stockings premiered at Shakespeare's Globe in 2013 and won her an Evening Standard Most Promising Playwright nomination  Nell Gwynn premiered at Shakespeare's Globe in 2015, starring Gugu Mbatha-Raw, and transferred to the West End with Gemma Arterton in the title role  The production received four Olivier nominations, winning Best New Comedy, and is currently being developed as a feature film with Working Title Other plays includes All's Will that Ends Will (Bremen Shakespeare Company), Thomas Tallis (Sam Wanamaker Playhouse), The Playhouse Apprentice (Sam Wanamaker Playhouse) and The Mission about illegal adoptions in the 1920s  Her adaptations include Sense and Sensibility, Far from the Madding Crowd (Watermill), The Secret Garden and Stig of the Dump (Grosvenor Park, Chester) 

Film and television
Her first short film, the Time's Up movement-inspired comedy Leading Lady Parts, starring Catherine Tate, Gemma Arterton, Felicity Jones, Florence Pugh, Lena Headey, Emilia Clarke, Tom Hiddleston and Gemma Chan, premiered on BBC Four in 2018 and is available for free on YouTube  She then co-wrote the screenplay for Horrible Histories: The Movie – Rotten Romans (2019) In 2012, she won the BAFTA JJ Screenwriting Bursary for which she developed an original screenplay, Summerland  She also directed the film herself, and in 2020 it was released by IFC Films and Lionsgate  In 2022, she shot two episodes of Ten Percent for Amazon Prime Video, featuring guest stars Dominic West, Emma Corin, and Himesh Patel She is currently writing an original feature with Blueprint and StudioCanal and other projects for Fox Searchlight and Monumental Pictures 

Personal life
Swale lives in South London with a photographer, Michael Wharley 

Writing credits
Plays
The Playhouse Apprentice (2016)
Nell Gwynn (2015) premiered at Shakespeare's Globe and transferred to the Apollo Theatre, West End, in 2016
Thomas Tallis (2014): premiered at The Sam Wanamaker Playhouse
All's Will that ends Will (2014): premiered at Bremer Shakespeare Company
Blue Stockings (2013): premiered at Shakespeare's Globe

Adaptations
Stig of the Dump (2016): adapted from the novel by Clive King and premiered at Grosvenor Park Open Air Theatre
Far from the Madding Crowd (2015): adapted from the novel by Thomas Hardy and premiered at the Watermill Theatre
The Secret Garden (2014): adapted from the novel by Frances Eliza Hodgson Burnett, premiered at Grosvenor Park Open Air Theatre
Sense and Sensibility (2014): adapted from the novel by Jane Austen and premiered at the Watermill Theatre

Books
Drama Games: For Rehearsals (2016)
Drama Games: For Devising (2012)
Drama Games: For Classrooms and Workshops (2009)

Directing credits
Film and television
Plays
Fallen Angels (2015) at Salisbury Playhouse
Far from the Madding Crowd (2015): adapted from the novel by Thomas Hardy, premiered at The Watermill Theatre
Sense and Sensibility (2014): adapted from the novel by Jane Austen, premiered at The Watermill Theatre
Winter (2011) at Newfoundland Theatre, Canada
Bedlam (2010) at Shakespeare's Globe
For Red Handed Theatre Company: The Busy Body (2012), The Rivals (2010), Someone Who'll Watch Over Me (2012) at Southwark Playhouse, The School for Scandal (2013) at the Park Theatre and Palace of the End (2010) at Arcola Theatre
Passage 7:
Alex Jennings
Alex Michael Jennings (born 10 May 1957) is an English actor of the stage and screen, who worked extensively with the Royal Shakespeare Company and National Theatre  For his work on the London stage, Jennings received three Olivier Awards, winning for Too Clever by Half (1988), Peer Gynt (1996), and My Fair Lady (2003)  He is the only performer to have won Olivier awards in the drama, musical, and comedy categories He is known for his film work, in particular for his performance as Prince Charles in Stephen Frears' film The Queen (2006) opposite Helen Mirren  His other film appearances include The Wings of the Dove (1997), Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason (2004), Babel (2006), Belle (2013), and The Lady in the Van (2015) starring Maggie Smith 
Jennings won acclaim for his performances in television including for his portrayal of Edward VIII, the Duke of Windsor, in the Netflix series The Crown acting opposite Claire Foy  He also starred in the ITV series Victoria (2016–2019) opposite Jenna Coleman, as well as Stephen Frears' A Very English Scandal (2018) alongside Hugh Grant and Ben Whishaw, and most recently Steve McQueen's Small Axe: Mangrove (2020) starring Letitia Wright 

Early life
Jennings was born in Romford, Essex, the son of Peggy Patricia (née Mahoney) and Michael Thomas Jennings  He attended Abbs Cross Technical High School in Hornchurch and studied English and Theatre studies at the University of Warwick, graduating in 1978  He said he saw his first theatre while in high school and went to the Old Vic Theatre, which inspired him to be an actor He trained as an actor for two years at the Bristol Old Vic Theatre School 

Career
1980s
In the early 1980s, Jennings began his career in regional repertory theatre  In 1985, playing a range of roles including Maximilien Robespierre in The Scarlet Pimpernel  Jennings met director Nicholas Hytner during this production and has worked with him many times since  For his performance as Gloumov in Too Clever by Half at the Old Vic, he won the Olivier Award for Best Comedy Performance in 1988  He was nominated in the same category the following year for portraying Dorante in The Liar  He has performed for the Royal National Theatre in a number of plays, including Leontes in The Winter's Tale and the title role in Albert Speer 
Jennings' work in television includes appearances in The State Within, Smiley's People, The Franchise Affair, Inspector Morse, Lewis, Alfonso Bonzo, the title role in Ashenden, Dead Poets Society, Inspector Alleyn, Hard Times, Bad Blood, and Peter Ackroyd's London  His many radio credits include Casino Royale, The Way of the World, Strange Meeting, Vorbis in Small Gods, and The Old Curiosity Shop 

1990s
His Royal Shakespeare Company roles include the title role in Peer Gynt (for which he won an Olivier Award 1995-06 for Best Actor), the title role in Richard II (opposite Anton Lesser as Henry Bolingbroke), Theseus/Oberon in A Midsummer Night's Dream (UK, American tour and Broadway), Angelo in Measure for Measure, and the title role in Hamlet He also appeared in War Requiem, the RSC's film version of A Midsummer Night's Dream, and Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat (1999)  Jennings also appeared as Lord Mark in the romantic drama film The Wings of the Dove starring Helena Bonham Carter, Elizabeth McGovern, Charlotte Rampling, and Sir Michael Gambon  The film received great acclaim and many awards nominations including four Academy Award nominations and five British Academy Film Award nominations 

2000s
In 2002, he appeared in the Cameron Mackintosh/Trevor Nunn revival of My Fair Lady at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane and won an Olivier Award as Best Actor in a Musical  He was an Associate Artist at the Royal Shakespeare Company  That year he also appeared in The Four Feathers (2002) as Colonel Hamilton alongside Heath Ledger, Kate Hudson, and Michael Sheen 
In 2006, Jennings' made his breakthrough film role as Charles, Prince of Wales opposite Helen Mirren as Queen Elizabeth II in The Queen  The film was directed by Stephen Frears, and written by Peter Morgan  The film depicts the death of Diana, Princess of Wales on 31 August 1997 and the reaction from the British public and the British royal family  The film was an immense critical and box office success after it premiered at the Venice Film Festival  The film received six Academy Award nominations including a win for Mirren's performance 
In 2007, he played the role of Garry Essendine in Noël Coward's Present Laughter at the NT  Also in 2007, he portrayed the Rev  Hutton in the BBC miniseries Cranford starring Judi Dench  He also played John Le Mesurier in the one-off BBC drama Hancock and Joan  In 2009, he appeared in The Habit of Art as Benjamin Britten 
In June 2008, he made his debut in the Operetta at the ENO in Robert Carsen's production of Bernstein's Candide, in which he played Voltaire and Doctor Pangloss 
He has recorded the audio versions of the books: Sins of the Father by Jeffrey Archer, The Kraken Wakes by John Wyndham, The Horse and His Boy, Out of the Silent Planet, and Perelandra by C S  Lewis, 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea by Jules Verne, and Attention All Shipping by Charlie Connelly, which was selected in June 2008 as one of the top 40 audiobooks of all time  In 2006, he recorded an abridgement of A Spot of Bother by Mark Haddon  He is also a regular narrator on BBC Radio 4's Book at Bedtime  He was also a member of the BBC's Radio Drama Company 

2010s
In 2010, he played Captain Shipshape in the CBeebies second series of Grandpa in my Pocket and starred in the film Belle  After that, he played Henry Tizard in Castles in the Sky 
In 2011, he played Mikhail Bulgakov in the National Theatre's production of Collaborators  In 2014, he played the role of Willy Wonka in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory the Musical, which was directed by Sam Mendes and was performed on London's West End theatre district  He took over the role from Douglas Hodge in 2014 From 2011 to 2014, Jennings played Alan Cowdrey QC in the BBC One legal drama Silk  He has also appeared in the PBS/Masterpiece Theatre television series Inspector Lewis (2012), and Foyle's War (2015) 
Jennings portrayed playwright Alan Bennett in the 2015 film The Lady in the Van opposite Academy Award winner Dame Maggie Smith in the title role  The film is directed by Nicolas Hytner, who is a long-time collaborator from the theatre  The film also featured performances from Jim Broadbent, Claire Foy, Frances de la Tour, and James Corden  The film premiered at the 2015 Toronto International Film Festival to great acclaim, specifically for Smith's performance  To promote the film Maggie Smith, and Jennings, appeared on The Graham Norton Show, this is Smith's first chat show appearance in over 40 years 
In 2016, he reprised his role as Professor Henry Higgins in the Australian 60th anniversary production of My Fair Lady, directed by Julie Andrews On television, from 2016 to 2017, he appeared in the Netflix series The Crown alongside Claire Foy and Jared Harris, as Prince Edward, Duke of Windsor, uncle to Queen Elizabeth and great-uncle to Prince Charles (whom Jennings played in The Queen)  The series has received widespread acclaim from audiences and critics alike  Jennings also portrayed King Leopold I of Belgium in the ITV/PBS series Victoria (2016–2019) alongside Jenna Coleman 
In 2018 he played Liberal MP Peter Bessell in the BBC One series, A Very English Scandal alongside Hugh Grant, and Ben Whishaw, a miniseries about the Jeremy Thorpe affair directed by Stephen Frears  The film received widespread critical acclaim with a 97% on Rotten Tomatoes with the critics consensus reading, "Hugh Grant and Ben Whishaw impress in A Very English Scandal, an equally absorbing and appalling look at British politics and society"  The series also received four Primetime Emmy Award nominations including a win for Whishaw for his performance 
In 2019, he played Andrew Aldridge, a Conservative MP, in the TV miniseries Four Weddings and a Funeral

2020s
In 2020, Jennings appeared in the Small Axe miniseries directed by Steve McQueen, specifically the television movie, Mangrove as Judge Edward Clarke alongside Letitia Wright as physician and British Black Panther Altheia Jones-LeCointe  In Mangrove, the story revolves around the true story based on the Mangrove Nine who were British black activists tried for inciting a riot at a protest, in 1970, against the police targeting of the Mangrove restaurant, Notting Hill, in West London  The film received widespread critical acclaim, with the critics consensus on Rotten Tomatoes reading, "Anchored by strong performances and an even stronger sense of conviction, Mangrove is a powerful indictment of institutional racism "

Work
Film
Television
Theatre
Filmed Theatrical Events

1999: Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat as Butler
2010: National Theatre Live: The Habit of Art as Henry / Benjamin Britten
2011: National Theatre Live: Collaborators as Mikhail Bulgakov
2013: National Theatre Live: 50 Years on Stage as Henry Higgins
2019: National Theatre Live: Hansard as Robin Hesketh

Awards and nominations
Passage 8:
Sarah Solemani
Sarah Solemani (born 4 September 1982) is an English actress, writer and activist  She is best known for starring in the BAFTA winning sitcom Him & Her and playing Renee Zellweger's best friend Miranda in Bridget Jones's Baby, for which she was nominated for an Evening Standard Best Actress Award  She also had roles in the British comedy TV series Bad Education and The Wrong Mans 

Early life
Solemani was born in the London Borough of Camden and grew up in Crouch End  Her father is a Persian Jewish mathematics lecturer (now retired)  After passing her A levels at the Henrietta Barnett School, she took a gap year before reading Social and Political Sciences (now the Human, Social and Political Sciences Tripos) at New Hall, Cambridge and graduating with an MA (Hons)  At Cambridge, she joined the Footlights performance troupe, becoming social secretary during her first year and later vice president 

Career
Theatre
Solemani was a member of the National Youth Theatre during her gap year, during which time she appeared as Elaine in the West End theatre production of The Graduate and as Ayesha in the critically acclaimed National Theatre production of Sanctuary  
She was a member of the Young Writer's Group attached to the Royal Court Theatre, and a writer at the Young Vic Theatre  Two plays she wrote were produced at Soho Theatre  Another of her works, The Cost of Things (2010), was presented at the Public Theater New York under the aegis of the Old Vic Theatre as part of the TS Eliot Project  In 2011, she wrote The Baron which received the Old Vic New Voices 'Ignite' award In 2009, Solemani appeared in Simon Stephens' play Pornography at the Tricycle Theatre in London and, in 2012, as Maryam in The House of Bernarda Alba at the Almeida Theatre  She wrote Up the Royal Borough, part of an evening of plays in response to Owen Jones' Chavs at the Lyric Hammersmith  It gained good reviews 

Television and film
Solemani's first film role was as a tableaux girl in Mrs Henderson Presents, which she performed during her third year of college  Her first major TV role was as Becky in BBC Three sitcom Him & Her, which was first broadcast in September 2010, and ran for four series, before ending in 2013 From 2012 until 2014, Solemani starred in the BBC Three comedy, Bad Education, including its spin off movie The Bad Education Movie and a one-off special in 2022  In 2013, she featured in the BBC and Hulu's The Wrong Mans alongside James Corden  She reprised the role for the show's second series  She wrote and starred in an episode of the Sky TV series Love Matters, titled "Aphrodite Fry", that aired in 2013  In 2014, she wrote the television film The Secrets  It aired on BBC One to critical acclaim 
In Hollywood, Solemani was chosen by Bill Hader and Alec Berg to be part of their writing team on Hader's new HBO show Barry  While working in the United States, she has found the American television industry has a more positive attitude towards commissioning work by women and featuring female characters in their series In 2019 it was announced she would adapt Jo Bloom's novel Ridley Road into a television drama  Published in 2014, Bloom's book was the result of research into the anti-Nazi London 62 Group and events involving it in the summer of 1962, with the group's activities serving as a backdrop, the title coming from the street in the East End where fascists held meetings and around which battles took place  It was broadcast by BBC One in October 2021  In 2022 she co-wrote and co-starred with Steve Coogan in Chivalry, a six episode comedy-drama  about "sexual politics in the wake of the #MeToo movement" for Channel 4 

Print
Solemani has contributed to the New Statesman, The Guardian, The Independent and Harper's Bazaar  She writes regularly for the publications Red and Glamour 

Awards and acclaim
Solemani was awarded third place in the Barry Amiel and Norman Melburn Trust/New Statesman Prize for New Political Writing on the subject: "Do women's rights remain the privilege of the developed world?" in 2005 In 2011, Solemani won the Royal Television Society award for best Comedy Performance for her role in Him & Her along with her co-star Russell Tovey  In 2012, Solemani was named one of the year's Broadcast Hot Shots 

Activism
Solemani is against the criminalisation of sex work, and has been a champion for sex worker rights since 2002  She was nominated by the English Collective of Prostitutes (ECP) to represent them in Parliament in order to halt further efforts to criminalise clients  She was an active supporter of former shadow Home Secretary Yvette Cooper in the 2015 Labour leadership contest  She has introduced Cooper at various Labour Party events and has contributed to her speeches 

Personal life
Solemani married Daniel E  Ingram, a sustainable investment expert specialising in climate change, in Petah Tikva, Israel, on 3 June 2012  Their daughter was born in December 2013 and their son was born in May 2018  Raised by an Orthodox Jewish father and a Plymouth Brethren evangelical mother, Solemani has formally converted to Judaism along with her husband 

Filmography
Film and television
Stage
Passage 9:
Frances de la Tour
Frances J  de Lautour (born 30 July 1944), better known as Frances de la Tour, is an English actress  She is known for her role as Miss Ruth Jones in the television sitcom Rising Damp from 1974 until 1978  She is a Tony Award winner and three-time Olivier Award winner 
She performed as Mrs  Lintott in the play The History Boys in London and on Broadway, winning the 2006 Tony Award for Best Featured Actress in a Play  She reprised the role in the 2006 film  Her other film roles include Madame Olympe Maxime in Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (2005)  Television roles include Emma Porlock in the Dennis Potter serial Cold Lazarus (1996), headmistress Margaret Baron in BBC sitcom Big School and Violet Crosby in the sitcom Vicious 

Early life and family
De la Tour was born on 30 July 1944 in Bovingdon, Hertfordshire, to Moyra (née Fessas) and Charles de la Tour (1909–1982)  The name was also spelled De Lautour, and it was in this form that her birth was registered in Hemel Hempstead, Hertfordshire, in the third quarter of 1944  She has French, Greek, and Irish ancestry  She was educated at London's Lycée Français and the Drama Centre London She is the sister of actor and screenwriter Andy de la Tour, and was briefly married to playwright Tom Kempinski  She has a son and a daughter An episode of the BBC series Who Do You Think You Are?, first broadcast on 22 October 2015, revealed de la Tour to be a descendant of the aristocratic Delaval family 

Career
Theatre
After leaving drama school, she joined the Royal Shakespeare Company (RSC) in 1965  Over the next six years, she played many small roles with the RSC in a variety of plays, gradually building up to larger parts such as Hoyden in The Relapse and culminating in Peter Brook's acclaimed production of A Midsummer Night's Dream, in which she played Helena as a comic "tour de force" In the 1970s, she worked steadily both on the stage and on television  Some of her notable appearances were Rosalind in As You Like It at the Playhouse, Oxford in 1975 and Isabella in The White Devil at the Old Vic in 1976  She enjoyed a collaboration with Stepney's Half Moon Theatre, appearing in the London première of Dario Fo's We Can't Pay? We Won't Pay (1978), Eleanor Marx's Landscape of Exile (1979), and in the title role of Hamlet (1980) In 1980, she played Stephanie, the violinist with MS in Duet for One, a play written for her by Kempinski, for which she won the Olivier for Best Actress  She played Sonya in Uncle Vanya opposite Donald Sinden at the Theatre Royal, Haymarket in 1982  Her performance as Josie in Eugene O'Neill's A Moon for the Misbegotten won her another Olivier for Best Actress in 1983  She joined the Royal National Theatre for the title role in Saint Joan in 1984 and appeared there in Brighton Beach Memoirs in 1986  She again won the Olivier, this time for Best Supporting Actress for Martin Sherman's play about Isadora Duncan, When She Danced, with Vanessa Redgrave at the Globe Theatre in 1991 and played Leo in Les Parents terribles at the Royal National Theatre in 1994, earning another Olivier nomination 
In 1994, de la Tour co-starred with Maggie Smith in Edward Albee's Three Tall Women at the Wyndham's and with Alan Howard in Albee's The Play About the Baby at the Almeida in 1998  In 1999, she returned to the RSC to play Cleopatra opposite Alan Bates in Antony and Cleopatra, in which she did a nude walk across the stage  In 2004, she played Mrs  Lintott in Alan Bennett's The History Boys at the National and later on Broadway, winning both a Drama Desk Award and a Tony Award for Best Featured Actress in a Play  She would also later appear in the film version  In December 2005, she appeared in the London production of the highly acclaimed anti-Iraq War one-woman play Peace Mom by Dario Fo, based on the writings of Cindy Sheehan  In 2007, she appeared in a West End revival of the farce Boeing-Boeing  In 2009, she appeared in Alan Bennett's new play The Habit of Art at the National  In 2012, she returned to the National in her third Bennett premiere, People 

Film and television
Her many television appearances during the 1980s and 1990s include the 1980 miniseries Flickers opposite Bob Hoskins, the TV version of Duet for One, for which she received a BAFTA nomination, the series A Kind of Living (1988–89), Dennis Potter's Cold Lazarus (1996), and Tom Jones (1997)  Of all her TV roles, however, she is best known for playing spinster Ruth Jones in the successful Yorkshire Television comedy Rising Damp, from 1974 to 1978  De la Tour told Richard Webber, who wrote a 2001 book about the series, that Ruth Jones "was an interesting character to play  We laughed a lot on set, but comedy is a serious business, and Leonard took it particularly seriously, and rightly so  Comedy, which is so much down to timing, is exhausting work  But it was a happy time " Upon reprising her Rising Damp role in the 1980 film version, she won Best Actress at the Evening Standard British Film Awards 
In the mid-1980s, de la Tour was considered, along with Joanna Lumley and Dawn French, as a replacement for Colin Baker on Doctor Who  The idea was scrapped and the job was given to Sylvester McCoy 
In 2003, de la Tour played a terminally ill gay woman in the film Love Actually with the actress Anne Reid, although her scenes were cut from the film's theatrical release and appear only on the DVD In 2005, she portrayed Olympe Maxime, headmistress of Beauxbatons Academy, in Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire  In 2010, she reprised Maxime as a cameo in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 1  Notable television roles during this time include Agatha Christie's Poirot: Death on the Nile (2004), Waking the Dead (2004), the black comedy Sensitive Skin (2005), with Joanna Lumley and Denis Lawson, Agatha Christie's Marple: The Moving Finger (2006) and New Tricks as a rather morbid Egyptologist, also in 2006 
She was nominated for the 2006 BAFTA Award for Actress in a Supporting Role for her work on the film version of The History Boys 
She later appeared in several well-received films, including Tim Burton's 2010 Alice in Wonderland as Aunt Imogene, a delusional aunt of Alice's, opposite Johnny Depp, Anne Hathaway, Helena Bonham Carter, and Mia Wasikowska and a supporting role in the film The Book of Eli, directed by the Hughes brothers  In 2012, she appeared in the film Hugo 
Until 2012, she was also a patron for the performing arts group Theatretrain 
From 2013 to 2016, de la Tour played the role of Violet Crosby in ITV sitcom Vicious with Ian McKellen and Derek Jacobi 
From 2013 to 2014, she portrayed headmistress Ms Baron in the BBC One sitcom Big School 
In April 2016, she joined the second series of Outlander as Mother Hildegarde 
In 2021, de la Tour appeared in an ITV production, initially released on BritBox - Professor T  - in which she played the mother of the titular character 

Personal life
Politically, de la Tour is a socialist and was a member of the Workers' Revolutionary Party in the 1970s 

Filmography
Awards and nominations
Stage



ground_truth: Dame Eileen June Atkins