NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC HISTORY 1FROM THE EDITORAmy Briggs, Executive EditorPilgrimage, taking a journey to be
close to the sacred, is a very old tradition that
still thrives today in many of the world’s faiths.
Buddhists visit Lumbini in Nepal to pay homage
at the birthplace of Buddha. The holiest city of
Islam—Mecca, Saudi Arabia—is the goal for
Muslim pilgrims embarking on the annual hajj.
Millions of devout Hindus bathe in river waters
considered holy during the Kumbh Mela, a
festival often held on the banks of the Ganges.
In the Middle Ages Christian pilgrims in Europe
crisscrossed the continent to visit holy sites.
Chief among them was Santiago de Compostela,
the Romanesque cathedral where the bones of
St. James were kept, according to tradition.
Several different routes, all dubbed the “Way
of St. James,” led pilgrims to northwest Spain,
where the cathedral welcomed them with
massive arches, statues of saints, and detailed
stone reliefs of biblical scenes.
These sacred journeys all have strong ties
to faith, but they also have important links
to history. Traveling these pilgrimage paths
connects the present day with the people of
the past, letting us see the things they saw and
touch what they touched. Journeys like these
can stir the imagination and open the mind to
what life was like along these roads so many
centuries ago.