October 25, 1996: Volume 38, Number 4

The Idol: Five Tons Of Fun And Paint

It was like a cross between a pep rally and Animal House, the assembly of more than 100 students who gathered around the newly-transplanted Idol at Achilles Rink last Thursday night.

Union's most boisterous welcomed the reborn deity -- now something of a sports guardian -- by singing, chanting, carrying torches, and wearing togas.

Featured performers included freshman bagpiper Alex Bartholomew (in full regalia), the Dutch Pipers and Garnet Minstrelles, Student Forum President Manny Cunanan (dressed in field hockey uniform, with skirt), Prof. Scott Scullion (in academic regalia, reciting an original work -- in Latin -- "Prayer to the Transferred Idol" ) and senior Jesse Shafer (in toga, translating Scullion's words "for the benefit of our neighbors to the east who do not enjoy the benefits of a liberal education").

To end the ceremony, team captains doused the statue in paint and per tradition spread the paint around the Idol (and each other) with their hands. The event was captured by no fewer than three local television news stations, which featured it on their 11 p.m. broadcasts.

The 8-foot tall Idol is an ancient Chinese statue of a lion and cub. It was donated to the College by an alumnus, the Rev. Jacob Farnham, in 1870. Almost from the moment it arrived, painting the Idol has been a ritual for students. Moved several times during its stay at Union, the Idol most recently had been in the courtyard where the new F.W. Olin Center will be built.

Getting the Idol to its new home was no easy matter. After an eight-ton crane failed to lift the statue, an 80-ton version was called in for the job. Crane operator Lew Sanders estimated the weight of the object at 10,361 pounds, about 7,000 of which is the buried base. After a ride on a flatbed truck, the Idol was lowered to its current resting place just south of the rink.

Prayer to the Transferred Idol (Precatio Idoli Translati): "Oh sacred Idol, whatever form of beast you may be, rest here as our defense and gracious glory. With your hideous face and the ever changing radiant glow of a painted trollop, see to it that no person in the world may know hunger and that college men and women may not know thirst. Protect our warriors on the fields of battle and malevolently curse the denizens of RPI." Audience response: Hoc precamur! (This we pray!)

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