The Pontic region to which Darius was leading his army is inhabited by the most ignorant peoples of all. For we cannot cite the wisdom of any nation there…nor do we know of any man noted for wisdom in the Pontic region other than Anacharsis.
Anacharsis went abroad and saw a great deal of the world, demonstrating great wisdom along the way, and on his return home to Scythia…he retreated to a place called Hylaia and here he celebrated…with a drum…But one of the Scythians saw him doing this and told the king…and when he saw Anacharsis performing these rites, he shot him with an arrow and killed him. And because Anacharsis had gone abroad and practiced foreign customs, if anyone even now asks the Scythians about him, they deny knowing about him at all.
-Herodotus, The Histories
When you go abroad and see a great deal of the world and return home and practice foreign customs there, beware if returning to a backward, ignorant, know-nothing place. Speaking a language spoken elsewhere, or seasoning your food with za’atar or pico de gallo or duck sauce, or climbing minarets and burning copal and ringing temple bells and flying prayer flags used to get you into a heap of trouble back home. Not anymore. In any small town America even more than in any big city USA you might hear Q’eqchi’ or Hmong or Somali spoken, buy goat necks or chicken feet or smoked eels at the butcher, or worship Krishna in a converted church or Allah in a basement room. If you are from Panajachel or the Plain of Jars or Puntland, that’s okay. If you are Norwegian-American from Duluth or Russian-Jewish from Teaneck or native Angelino from Long Beach, that’s okay too. And if you are Hmong-Norwegian-American or Somali-Russian-Jewish or Guatemalan-Maya-Californian, that’s even better. Yes, be a prophet in your own country. Any country. And don’t forget the hyphenated Gold’s, even its Rib Sauce certified Kosher for Passover.
