The First Groundhog Days of Punxsutawney: A Memorino of a Cataclysmic Day in 1886
Tradition says that North America will get six more weeks of winter if Phil sees his shadow and an early spring if he does not. Statistics say not so much: Phil’s accuracy rate is about 40% over the last decade.
Daniel Blumstein is a professor of ecology and evolutionary biology at UCLA who studies marmots, the group of 15 species of large ground squirrels that includes groundhogs. He says you don’t have to be a mascot enthusiast to enjoy the party in his department.
The Punxsutawney Groundhog Club says that there has only been one Phil since 1886. The club said that he was given an elixir of life every year at the picnic and would get seven more years of life. Ground hogs can live up to 6 years in the wild and up to 14 years in captivity, but you should keep that in mind.
Candles were brought to church to be blessed first on the February holiday known as Candlemas, which was a sign of light and warmth for winter. But like the other three “turning points,” it was still a “weather-important” date that signified a change in the seasons, Yoder wrote.
And when agriculture was the biggest, if not only, industry of the region, predicting the weather became something of a ritual viewed as essential to the health of crops and townsfolk. There was some mysticism attached to the holiday, too, as seen in a poem from 1678 penned by the naturalist John Ray:
Germany made the animals part of the proceedings. German folklore says that there would be a “second winter” or six more weeks of bad weather if a hedgehog saw its shadow.
Before he was a celebrity, though, he was lunch. In a terrible twist, the earliest Groundhog Days of the 19th century involved devouring poor Phil after he made his prediction. The year 1887 was the year of the “Groundhog Picnic,” Yoder said. The local people of Punxsutawney used to serve up a special local dish called Groundhog at the Punxsutawney Elk Lodge, which later became the town’s Groundhog Club. Diners were “pleased at how tender” the poor groundhog’s meat was, Davis said.
Groundhog meat eventually left the menu of Punxsutawney establishments as the townsfolk realized his worth. In the 1960s, Phil got his name, a nod to “King Phillip,” per the Groundhog Club. Mental Floss pointed out that there has not been a King Phillip of Germany in the 1400s, where many Pennsylvania settlers came from. Before that, he was simply “Br’er Groundhog.”
Phil also doesn’t have to spend the offseason alone. He’s married to Phyliss, per the Groundhog Club, who does not receive the same elixir of life and so will not live forever like her groundhog husband. There is no official word on how many wives Phil has had.
The groundhog — arguably the most famous member of his species and the most recognizable of all the country’s animal prognosticators — did what he has done for the last 137 years: search for a sign of spring in front of a group of top hat-wearing handlers and adoring fans at Gobbler’s Knob in Pennsylvania.
“I see a shadow on my stage, and so no matter how you measure, it’s six more weeks of winter weather,” a handler read off the scroll he said Phil had chosen.
Groundhog Day 2023: History Science Explains the Origins of Christmas and Easter Bunny Events on Feb. 2, 2005 at Penn State University
Are we always looking at creatures for answers on Feb. 2? It’s almost like the 1993 comedy “Groundhog Day”, which is what one could say.
“I hope that people have some greater appreciation of marmots and nature, and I hope that people have a chuckle over the idea that it’s the middle of the winter and we’re hoping that a rodent will tell us what the future is,” says Blumstein.
It dates back to ancient traditions — first pagan, then Christian — marking the halfway point between the winter solstice and spring equinox, says Troy Harman, a history professor at Penn State University who also works as a ranger at Gettysburg National Military Park.
Candlemas commemorates the 40 day period when the Virgin Mary went to the Temple in Jerusalem to give birth to Jesus as her firstborn.
On that feast day, clergy would bless and distribute all the candles needed for winter — and over time the focus of the day became increasingly about predicting how long winter would last. The English folk song says “If Candlemas be fair and bright, come, Winter, have another flight; if Candlemas brings clouds and rain, go Winter, and come not again.”
Christmas trees and the Easter bunny were brought to the U.S. by German settlers in Pennsylvania. hedgehogs aren’t native to the U.S., so they turned to Punxsutawney Rabbits instead.
“And the first celebration that we know of was in the 1880s,” Harman says. “But the idea of watching animals and whether they see their shadow out of hibernation had been going on before that, it just hadn’t turned into a public festival until later in the 19th century.”
Source: https://www.npr.org/2023/02/02/1153728064/groundhog-day-2023-history-science-explained
What do mammals have to learn from their surroundings, and where they can learn from it? Phil Blumstein’s theory of yellow-bellied marmots
The club claims that today’s game is the same one as when it began, because there’s far more participants. The ability to live-stream the festivities is a big part of the success of the movie.
There are more forecasts out there. Many parts of the U.S. and Canada now have their own beloved animal prognosticators, with some of Phil’s better-known contemporaries including New York’s “Staten Island Chuck” (aka Charles G. Hogg) and Ontario’s “Wiarton Willie.”
He says the thinking was that if there was a high-pressure system in early February, things likely weren’t changing and it would probably continue to be cold, while a low-pressure system suggests the potential for better weather ahead. marmots are theoretically big enough to cast a shadow by standing up if it is sunny.
It’s not clear if Phil’s predictions involve whispering into people wearing stovepipe hats and in front of a drunk, or if there isn’t a predictability to them.
He believes that there’s a lot that humans can learn from the behavior of animals. He runs a long-term project that will begin its 62nd year studying yellow-bellied marmots in Colorado as a chance to look into longevity and how they respond to a warming climate.
It’s possible that it’s a good thing that you have a longer growing season, but you also face some risk of being preyed on since you’re always active. “And what we’re finding is there’s sort of an optimal period that you should be active. So there also could be evolutionary responses to this, and what we’re really looking at is the evolutionary response to changes over time and the sort of within-generational plasticity, flexibility, if you will.”
The prognosticators don’t deserve to be respected, according to Blumstein. He thinks living in an urban and suburban environment is a good thing, as it brings people closer to nature and it is a nuisance if people eat garden produce.
“So I sort of see the ability to, if you’re fortunate enough to have a groundhog living in your backyard, to sort of pay attention to it and enjoy it and learn from it and maybe give up some of your tomatoes or apples.”
Source: https://www.npr.org/2023/02/02/1153728064/groundhog-day-2023-history-science-explained
Groundhog Day 2023 – History of Science Explained in Punxsutawney ”Likely Things”
The state says that the Punxsutawney area will see a significant tourism boost for the town of fewer than 6,000 people because of Crowds as large as 30,000 turning out for the four-day celebration.
The ceremony itself — which returned to the stage last year after a COVID-19 hiatus — features dancers, music, speeches and visitors from around the world.
The event is uplifting due to the fact that there are many nationalities gathered in one location and they are able to remember something from the medieval past and from a premodern period.
“When there is a strong emphasis on science, its counterpart of intuition, instinct, emotion, imagination – the right side of our brain – puts back a little bit,” says Harman, explaining that the term “Groundlings Day” came about in the midst of the industrial revolution.
He says those massive societal and technological changes spurred a desire to return to what people imagined were simpler times, in the form of things like literary romanticism and gothic revival architecture.
Punxsutawney Phil’s handlers, known as the “Inner Circle,” continue to wear dark tuxedos, long tails and top hats even today, he points out. The evolution of technology has made us less able to see the stars and sun, as we are no longer able to see the time of day or year.
Holding onto culture is important, as is embracing new culture. He thinks over time there will be “some happy ground” — and that may already be the case in Punxsutawney.
Source: https://www.npr.org/2023/02/02/1153728064/groundhog-day-2023-history-science-explained
Gobbler’s Knob: Bringing Science to the Interstellar World and Building a Realistic Interpreter’s Creativity
“I strongly suspect that the people that go to Gobbler’s Knob are fully aware of the power of science, but at the same time want to hold on to traditions and a deeper vibe,” he says. “There’s the instincts and the intuition and the imagination that every human being has that has to come into balance with logic and reason.”