| Summary: | / • pagp 10 Golling reclaims family's German heritage BY KRISTEN SVOBODNY It seems that even the Concordia staff can now keep up with the celeb-rity name changing trend. Madonna, Hulk Hogan, and Tom Cruise have all played the name game, and now Werner M. Golling, treasurer and vice president of business affairs, has joined the club. Formally known as Werner M. Fairies, Golling says that he has "experienced what many women go through when married." He has legally changed his name. This unique story traces back to Germany, where Werner was born, and given his mother's maiden name, Golling. At age five, a move to America and a new marriage for his mother also brought a new last name for Werner, when he was adopted by his stepfather renaming him Werner M. Faries. Since his boyhood, Golling and his family of five have made multiple con-nections with their German heritage. Through these connections and sev-eral trips to Germany, Golling's family has become very close to his mother's relatives. While Golling had always thought about someday changing his last name back to Golling, his family's recent relationships with his Golling relatives prompted him to take action. His name change, unlike that of the celebrities', is due to something far CECILY HEWES Golling changed his name from Faries after establishing connections to his relatives. more significant than vanity, some-thing that resembles heritage and pride. In addition to these motives, Golling's family was also extremely supportive, especially his 13-year-old twin boys, who said "they wanted to do it." Deciding to take action was the easy part; actually doing it was the chore. In order to legally change a name, the applicant must qualify in a num-ber of areas. Applicants must have lived in the same state for five years, file the Application for Name Change in the county where they live, be at least 18 years of age, and pay a filing fee. For Werner, this process was mul-tiplied by five. In order to change the name of a minor, a different applica-tion is required. The application fee is $250, with an additional $10 per per-son. One thing that was never asked through the application process, says Werner, is why he was changing his name. Instead of questioning motives, a background check must be performed and a court date must be arranged, re-quiring the presence of two witnesses. During court the judge verifies, under oath, the information on the applica-tions, a process lasting around 20 minutes. After the legal matters take place, social security cards, drivers licenses, credits cards, mailing addresses, and passports — to name a few ~ all must be edited to accommodate the new identity. Werner successfully completed all of these tasks and as of Aug. 25 he has been proudly known as Werner M. Golling. Since then, Golling said he has only incorrectly introduced himself once. Postema: age-old texts Christianized BY JESSICA MEGORDEN In the year's first lecture of the Faculty Colloquium series, Dr. James Postema, professor of Eng-lish, spoke on how the authors of the Greenlanders' Saga developed the story, through a Christian lens, of the Vikings' exploration of modern day Newfoundland and Labrador. This idea of telling stories using Biblical refer-ences is far from new when it comes to literature dating hundreds of years back. "Through oral tradition people add in their variations thereof and beliefs," said Dr. Maureen Kelly Jonason. "They Christianize the old texts." This practice is one of the reasons the Saga proves unfit to serve as a master text, Postema said. The authors provide the story of Eirik the Red through a Christian scope giving him patriarch status in the Viking society. "It wants to claim that Eirik actually prefers Christianity," Postema said. "The Saga wishes to claim some Christian hold on Eirik." A contradiction is seen when Eirik is mentioned as being converted by baptism to the Christian faith when later it is said that he died before Chris-tianity spread. The Saga also portrays women characters paral-lel to the characters of Eve and the Virgin Mary, Postema said. Freydis Eiriksdottir, the Eve character, causes turmoil after sailing to Vinland by subjecting her travel companions to her wrath and eventually kill-ing them. In contrast, Gurdrid, Eirik's daughter-in-law, despite her affair with Thorstein the Black, is up-held as a Mary figure, Postema said. Her immoral actions are rehabilitated by the au-thors as they gloss over the details of the affair and focus on her importance to the Church, redeeming her "holy and pure in heart" reputation, Postema said. With the Vikings portrayed in the Saga as the Israelites coming to the Promised Land, it is the in-digenous people, referred to as the Skraelings, who are seen as the savage Canaanites. Persecuted and ridiculed, the native people, as seen in the Saga, were isolated and ignored when it came to documenting the history and exploration of the new land. It is the layering of Christian imagery that makes the Greenlanders' Saga an unreliable source for understanding the discovery of this new world. While it does provide viewpoints that have allowed for further study and understand-ing, the true events of those days will never fully be uncovered.
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