>Why Do They Burn a Man?
Well back in the mid-1970's, over a period of a few years they ended up completing a fairly good human likeness built from slabs of scrap logs having different diameters & shapes, almost like it was 3D printed.
This would have been considered a small hippie community in the mountains with a handful of permanent residents and often another half dozen to dozen guests, visitors, and temporary residents from time to time.
Lots more of these loosely connected groups were found in California (crowded "progressive" place). Compared to the Southeast (rural "not-so-progressive" place) where their multi-state "network" ended up with the moniker Rainbow family.
Without Facebook, cellphone, or even landline a traveler could have a thousand real friends & acquaintances and without Airbnb enjoy overnight or limited-stay accomodation, as some artists, musicians & craftspeople acted to contribute whatever they could that was appreciated by hippies when they were there.
But these were less and less often the actual hippies of the 1960's since it was already the 1970's. LSD had been illegal for a number of years by then. Less than 10 years after Woodstock the Greatful Dead was drawing bigger crowds than ever even though they never got significant mainstream airplay on the radio. They had toured Europe in 1973, and US tours had by then built up more tonnage and number of 18-wheelers than any other road show.
Hendrix, Santana and The Who were also Woodstock headliners and they were on the radio more than ever even though Hendrix didn't make it into the '70's alive. Who & Santana were selling out stadiums everywhere too no different than Zeppelin & the Stones, Pink Floyd was now well recognized and these are all some of the most legendary concerts too. Zappa was way out of the mainstream. But only the Dead was like Woodstock came to town when they got there. It could be almost like a temporary community joining forces with the local enthusiasts to gather on the night of the concert.
Anyway, out in Cali my buddy had helped cut some of the wood for the artists and it turned out over 10 feet tall. Such painstaking work after such a long time by so many contributors and it had arose right there at the front of the property, symbolic of the community.
Interestingly it greatly resembled the headless man still there as surplus art at Walnut & Sterrett in Houston, where the historical warehouse district was formerly inhabited by lots more artists seeking low rents decades ago.
Only not headless, and when they decided to burn it there was quite a bit of consternation because so many hours had been spent building it by so many different people. It had been an icon for quite some time, some returnng to add touches year after year.
There was discussion about art being temporary, man being temporary, community being temporary, things like that. A contributor or two might have even been on mushrooms.
I may still have a photo he gave me, it was an impressive statue.
But it was all dried out by then and they took it down to a beach where a small group of their like-minded friends could gather safely and up in flames it went. Once again mushrooms might have been involved, perhaps by more than just one or two participants. Who knows, maybe a renewal of some kind.
In the spring there again appeared ambition to build a replacement man in the front of the residence, which had been planned by some even before the first one was burnt.
It was going to be a different kind of man this time, intended to be burnt itself before the year was out, so it was built with more dried out wood to begin with.
It was such a hoot the first time, it got more popular every year and they got kicked off the beach.