West Kingdom

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Arms of the West Kingdom The West.svg
Arms of the West Kingdom

The West Kingdom (also known as The Kingdom of the West) is the oldest Kingdom (or branch) of the historical re-enactment Society, Society for Creative Anachronism. It comprises Northern California (including the San Francisco area), Nevada, Alaska, Japan, Korea and the Pacific Rim. [1] [2]

Society for Creative Anachronism nonprofit organization

The Society for Creative Anachronism (SCA) is an international living history group with the aim of studying and recreating mainly Medieval European cultures and their histories before the 17th century. A quip often used within the SCA describes it as a group devoted to the Middle Ages "as they ought to have been", choosing to "selectively recreate the culture, choosing elements of the culture that interest and attract us". Founded in 1966, the non-profit educational corporation has over 30,000 paid members as of 2017 with about 60,000 total participants in the society.

Northern California Place in California, United States

Northern California is the northern portion of the U.S. state of California. Spanning the state's northernmost 48 counties, its main population centers include the San Francisco Bay Area, the Greater Sacramento area, and the Metropolitan Fresno area. Northern California also contains redwood forests, along with the Sierra Nevada, including Yosemite Valley and part of Lake Tahoe, Mount Shasta, and most of the Central Valley, one of the world's most productive agricultural regions.

San Francisco Consolidated city-county in California, US

San Francisco, officially the City and County of San Francisco, is a city in, and the cultural, commercial, and financial center of, Northern California. San Francisco is the 13th-most populous city in the United States, and the fourth-most populous in California, with 883,305 residents as of 2018. It covers an area of about 46.89 square miles (121.4 km2), mostly at the north end of the San Francisco Peninsula in the San Francisco Bay Area, making it the second-most densely populated large US city, and the fifth-most densely populated U.S. county, behind only four of the five New York City boroughs. San Francisco is also part of the fifth-most populous primary statistical area in the United States, the San Jose–San Francisco–Oakland, CA Combined Statistical Area.

Contents

History

The Kingdom of the West was the first SCA group, founded in 1966. An initial party with David Thewlis, Steve Henderson, Ken de Maiffe, and author Diana Paxson (at the time a medieval history major at the University of California, Berkeley) and others was held in Paxson's backyard. Many of the attendees were at Berkeley, and were history buffs and science fiction fantasy fans. They held the first party as an outdoor sword fighting tournament using leather armour with some steel. [3] Everyone enjoyed the event, and another was planned. From this first event, the group began to expand. After three years, part of this new group on the east coast split off and the East Kingdom was founded, distinguishing it from the West Kingdom. [4] [5] In subsequent years other regions previously operating under the auspices of the West Kingdom have also split off to form their own Kingdoms, generally when the population is deemed large enough and the local culture distinct enough to warrant the split.

Steve Henderson was the co-designer of several role playing game titles and supplements.

University of California, Berkeley Public university in California, USA

The University of California, Berkeley is a public research university in Berkeley, California. It was founded in 1868 and serves as the flagship institution of the ten research universities affiliated with the University of California system. Berkeley has since grown to instruct over 40,000 students in approximately 350 undergraduate and graduate degree programs covering numerous disciplines.

History The study of the past as it is described in written documents.

History is the past as it is described in written documents, and the study thereof. Events occurring before written records are considered prehistory. "History" is an umbrella term that relates to past events as well as the memory, discovery, collection, organization, presentation, and interpretation of information about these events. Scholars who write about history are called historians.

Activities

The main activities within the West Kingdom include Tournaments, Feasts & Revels, Universities and Collegiums (classes on subjects dealing with modern living history issues, or straight history is taught). The group is also active with the "Arts and Sciences." These events emphasize the exhibition and /or competition of various artistic skills and research of SCA members. The kingdom has guilds and other groups, which regularly hold meetings to teach such subjects as dance, cooking, armourmaking, needlework, music and other interests. [6]

Armour or armor is a protective covering that is used to prevent damage from being inflicted to an object, individual or vehicle by direct contact weapons or projectiles, usually during combat, or from damage caused by a potentially dangerous environment or activity. Personal armour is used to protect soldiers and war animals. Vehicle armour is used on warships and armoured fighting vehicles.

Like other parts of the SCA, the Kingdom of the West uses rattan weapons, generally of a standard authentic weight. The combat blows deal a heavy, though not an edged, attack. Members also make armour. [7]

Rattan material (vegetable source)

Rattan is the name for roughly 600 species of old world climbing palms belonging to subfamily Calamoideae. Rattan is also known as manila, or malacca, named after the ports of shipment Manila and Malacca City, and as manau. The climbing habit is associated with the characteristics of its flexible woody stem, derived typically from a secondary growth, makes rattan a liana rather than a true wood.

The kingdom has a wide range of Heraldic devices, and has even had a book published dedicated to them. [8]

Book medium for a collection of words and/or pictures to represent knowledge or a fictional story, often manifested in bound paper and ink, or in e-books

As a physical object, a book is a stack of usually rectangular pages oriented with one edge tied, sewn, or otherwise fixed together and then bound to the flexible spine of a protective cover of heavier, relatively inflexible material. The technical term for this physical arrangement is codex. In the history of hand-held physical supports for extended written compositions or records, the codex replaces its immediate predecessor, the scroll. A single sheet in a codex is a leaf, and each side of a leaf is a page.

In Japan (in the SCA known as the "Palatine Barony of the Far West"), its members combine to create larger scale combat with another group, the realm of Avalon, an independent Tokyo-based group of re-creationists and fighters and with a number of Japanese among its members. In Japan, the SCA, having largely been imported from the US, has long tended to revolve around U.S. military bases. [9]

Japan Country in East Asia

Japan is an island country in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies off the eastern coast of the Asian continent and stretches from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and the Philippine Sea in the south.

Tokyo Capital of Japan

Tokyo, officially Tokyo Metropolis, one of the 47 prefectures of Japan, has served as the Japanese capital since 1869. As of 2018, the Greater Tokyo Area ranked as the most populous metropolitan area in the world. The urban area houses the seat of the Emperor of Japan, of the Japanese government and of the National Diet. Tokyo forms part of the Kantō region on the southeastern side of Japan's main island, Honshu, and includes the Izu Islands and Ogasawara Islands. Tokyo was formerly named Edo when Shōgun Tokugawa Ieyasu made the city his headquarters in 1603. It became the capital after Emperor Meiji moved his seat to the city from Kyoto in 1868; at that time Edo was renamed Tokyo. Tokyo Metropolis formed in 1943 from the merger of the former Tokyo Prefecture and the city of Tokyo. Tokyo is often referred to as a city but is officially known and governed as a "metropolitan prefecture", which differs from and combines elements of a city and a prefecture, a characteristic unique to Tokyo.

Japanese people ethnic group native to Japan

Japanese people are a nation and an ethnic group that is native to Japan and makes up 98.5% of the total population of the country. Worldwide, approximately 129 million people are of Japanese descent; of these, approximately 125 million are residents of Japan. People of Japanese ancestry who live outside Japan are referred to as nikkeijin(日系人), the Japanese diaspora. The term ethnic Japanese is often used to refer to Japanese people, specifically Yamato people. Japanese are one of the largest ethnic groups in the world.

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References

  1. ↑ Dubin, Murray "Local Lancelots Medieval battles and culture are kept alive by the Society for Creative Anachronism." The Philadelphia Inquirer 1 August 2001
  2. ↑ James, Victoria "Let's fight!" The Japan Times 4 May 2003
  3. ↑ The history of the kingdom of the West - Pre History" http://history.westkingdom.org/Year0/index.htm
  4. ↑ Cramer, Michael A. " Medieval fantasy as performance: the Society for Creative Anachronism and the current Middle Ages" G - Reference, Information and Interdisciplinary Subjects Series Scarecrow Press, 2010 p 176
  5. ↑ http://www.westkingdom.org/ West Kingdom Website
  6. ↑ http://www.westkingdom.org/
  7. ↑ James, Victoria "Let's fight!" The Japan Times 4 May 2003
  8. ↑ Greyhand, Sarre "The Kingdom of the West: A Territorial Heraldry Coloring Book of the First Kingdom, Circa AS XLVI" CreateSpace 2011 146634119X, 9781466341197
  9. ↑ James, Victoria "Let's fight!" The Japan Times 4 May 2003
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