Hermits around the web – Hermitary

The New York Times profiles 66-year old Shigeru Nakayama of Airao Velho, Brazil, descendent of Japanese settlers who migrated to Brazil after World War II to build a new future. The original settlers lived in larger cities, but Nakayama preferred the isolation of deeper jungle, and is now the only survivor of not only the Japanese in the town of Airao Velho but also of any survivors there. He tries to maintain the remnants of what the article calls a “ghost town” against the jungle’s encroachment, but is alone in his effort. Nakayama is called locally the “hermit of the jungle.”

URL: http://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/09/world/americas/airao-velho-brazil-shigeru-nakayama.html

The research of Jeanette F. Peterson and others highlights the 16th-century Augustinian monastery at Actopan, Mexico, where a wall mural depicts the spiritual inspiration of the Augustinian friars to be the desert fathers and hermits. The mural inscription in Latin is “Hermits, Cenobites, Anchorites — St. Augustine radiates glory on St. Antony.” The image above, depicting desert hermits (upper left), is not from the Peterson article.

The Peterson article and others are especially interested in the depiction of the devil in these idealized paintings, but while a perennial concern to the friars and hermits themselves, the article demonstrates the didactic function of the devil in preaching to the indigenous population.

URL: http://whp.uoregon.edu/Lockhart/Peterson.pdf