August, 2002. In the remotest Amazon jungle of Brazil, along a tributary of the Upper Xingu River, live the Xicrin-Kayapo people. They live traditionally as they have for centuries, isolated in their forests from the world. Here the young boys, painted and adorned, apprehensively await their initiation ceremonies into becoming young men. They are to be tested to show they have what it takes for the village to be proud of them.

In some of their eyes, there is confidence. In others less so. This is an ancient Rite of Passage, an enthralling experience to witness. (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #229 photo ©Jack Wheeler)

Once a year in the capital of the Tibetan Kingdom of Lo, the medieval walled city of Lo Manthang, the Lo-pa Tibetans hold a ceremony called Tiji (tee-gee), meaning casting out of demons.  It’s meant to prevent any demons or malicious spirits from destroying their barley and buckwheat harvests.

Tiji is colorfully spectacular and dramatic, but this is no tourist show – Tiji is a deeply serious religious ritual.  The Kingdom of Lo is in a very remote and roadless region of the Himalayas known as Mustang, lying north of the Himalayan giants of Annapurna and Dhaulagiri in Nepal on the border with Chinese-occupied Tibet.

We were privileged to witness it on a Himalaya Helicopter Expedition.  We hope to be so privileged again next year. (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #238 photo ©Jack Wheeler)

They call themselves Amazigh – meaning “the unconquered” – who are the original people of Morocco having lived there for over 12,000 years. You’ve heard of them as Berbers, a name they find offensive. Another people you’ve heard of are the Lapps, the reindeer-herders of far northern Scandinavia, who call themselves Saami.

Astoundingly, they are directly related, for both are descended from the same stock of Cro-Magnon Ice Age hunters in Western Europe that split in two 15,000 years ago – one moving thousands of miles far north, the other thousands of mile south crossing the Gibraltar Strait to North Africa. Geneticists know this because the Amazigh and Saami share the same mitochondrial DNA haplogroup U5b1b. (See Saami and Berbers – An Unexpected Mitochondrial DNA Link, American Journal of Human Genetics, March 2005.)

So when you visit Morocco and meet a gentleman like that pictured above amidst a display of spectacular Amazigh artwork, you’ll know what incredible history resides within him. (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #242 photo ©Jack Wheeler)

On September 12, 1683, Ottoman Sultan Mehmet IV as the Caliph of all Islam was on the verge of realizing the great Moslem dream of conquering all of Christian Europe for the glory of Allah. The great obstacle in his way – the city of Vienna – was about to be overwhelmed by the Sultan’s gigantic army of 140,000 Islamic Taliban of their day.

On the Kahlenberg hilltop above Vienna, the commander of the Christian forces, King Jan III Sobieski of Poland, gave the order to attack. Twenty thousand armed horsemen galloped down the slopes of Kahlenberg, the largest cavalry charge in history, with the Polish King and his Winged Hussars in the lead. The cavalry trampled the Ottomans and made straight for their camps.

Ottoman commander Kara Mustafa fled out of his tent and barely escaped with his life (it didn’t last long – the Sultan ordered him strangled). With the Christian victory at The Battle of Vienna, the Moslem threat to Europe was over. Sobieski wrote a letter to Pope Innocent XI, paraphrasing Julius Caesar:

“Venimus, Vidimus, Deus vincit” – “We came, We saw, God conquered.”

In turn, the Pope hailed Sobieski as “The Savior of Western Christendom.” Indeed he was, and still is so revered by the Polish people to this day – with no apology.

For the people of Poland stand out among those of all Europe for their pride in being part of Western Civilization – symbolized for them by this statue of their Hero King trampling the Ottomans in the beautiful Royal Baths Park in Warsaw. They will make sure visitors to the statue note that underneath the right forearm of the fallen Turkish soldier is a book – the Koran.

You owe it to yourself to visit Poland and meet the Polish champions of Christian liberty, having freed themselves from the Ottomans, the Russians, and the Soviets. We need more like them today. (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #159 Photo ©Jack Wheeler)

Princess Iparhan, granddaughter of the ruler of the Silk Road oasis of Kashgar, was so famous for her beauty and the intoxicating natural aroma of her body that the Manchu Emperor far to the east called for her. She was 22, the year was 1756. The Emperor became completely infatuated with her, making Iparhan his Imperial Noble Consort, loving her deeply until her death 33 years later in 1789.

In mourning, the Emperor kept his promise to her that her body would be returned to Kashgar and buried in the mausoleum of Apak Hoja, built in 1640 by her Apaki family. And there she rests today. Everyone in Kashgar and beyond, however, knows the mausoleum as The Tomb of the Fragrant Concubine.

It’s a wonderfully romantic legend, and even though there are several conflicting versions, let’s hope this one is true. Regardless, a visit to this peaceful shrine is certainly memorable. (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #54 Photo ©Jack Wheeler)