A Lost Chapter from Herodotus Concerning the Super Bowl

And in the distant empire of Usa there is a strange custom that takes place once per year among the barbarians of that land, which occurs in the following manner. It is a winter festival to the god of Foo Tball, as the inhabitants of that land call him. Throughout the year, the strongest and most savage warriors in each region of that empire assemble in small armies, don padded armor, and fight each other in vast temples which are larger than temples erected to any other god in that nation, and the greatest warriors in the land become the honored attendants to the Foo Tball idol for one year.

These warriors possess great strength, which is due to the patronage of the powerful goddess Anabolic Roid, and under her influence they enter into frenzies of madness, abusing and even sometimes murdering their wives and their friends, yet this is permitted in order for the army to prevail as the Foo Tball attendants. This comes, I think, from the provincial belief in that region that these warriors are themselves gods.

Entrance to the temples in which these warriors fight is not granted to all but only to those plebeians who are willing to demonstrate proper fealty to the god of Foo Tball. And the way in which the plebeians must gain entrance to the temple to observe the battles fought within is as follows. First, they must make sacrificial offerings to priests of Foo Tball, which is done in the following way. Each temple to the god of Foo Tball is protected by a powerful and mysterious priesthood, known as Corporate Conglomerate, and this priesthood builds and protects the temple in which each army trains and fights in honor of the god of Foo Tball. A plebeian wishing to enter the temple must first pay homage to the Conglomerate priesthood, which has many names, in some regions being called Levis, and in others Gillette, and in others Metlife.

But as for the god of Foo Tball himself, he is a vengeful and bloodthirsty god. If a plebeian has not made his offering to the Conglomerate priesthood yet wishes still to gain entrance to the holy temple of Foo Tball, he must demonstrate great fealty to the god of Foo Tball and make a sacrificial offering to enter the temple, which gift is known as being scalped. Outside each temple, attendants stand offering this barbaric and painful rite, this being necessary for the worshippers to undergo in order to demonstrate their intense and undiluted desire to worship within the temple.

That day on which the Great Winter Festival is held is known as Superbowl Sunday, a day among the holiest and most important feast days in the empire of Usa, when there is no travel nor activity nor worship of lesser gods whatsoever, but each citizen stands and writhes and screams wearing the tunic of his favorite warrior before his household idol which they call teevee, and who on that day summons the spirit of the Great Winter Festival to the inhabitants of that house. To commemorate the day, the citizens of the empire gorge themselves on a dish called in that region nachodip and inebriate themselves with a mead made by King Bud the Wiser, who is the king of all meads in that region.

And on that day every citizen in the land of Usa devotes himself utterly to the great battle between the two greatest armies in the festival known as the Championship. If the Oracles of the Foo Tball, which in that region they call Reffs, interpret the signs of the Foo Tball in a manner which bodes well for one of the warring armies, there is much screaming and celebration. And if the Reffs interpret the signs of the Foo Tball in a manner which bodes ill for one of the warring armies, there is much wailing and rending of tunics throughout the land of Usa.

At the end of the great battle, the victors kiss the great silver Foo Tball idol which they have named Lombardi and make speeches to the plebeians, who scream and lose consciousness either out of love for the great silver idol or out of intoxication.

Now since the Superbowl Sunday is the most important day in all of the land in that empire and the god of Foo Tball is so revered, one day of each week throughout the year is set aside and dedicated to the worship of the god of Foo Tball, a day called Sunday in honor of the Great Superbowl Sunday. All Sundays in Usa are thus set aside as sacred for the veneration of the god of Foo Tball.

But what Hecataeus of Miletus says of the Sunday is not credible, believing incorrectly that in ages past it was set aside as a day of veneration to a now-forgotten god, and that the citizens of Usa once worshipped in much smaller temples on Sunday and partook of a different feast than the nachodip and the mead. But this is unlikely, as the citizens of Usa cannot remember a time when that god was worshiped on Sunday (although a very small number of them retain this ancient and mysterious practice). But the day on which the Winter Festival takes place is the most holy and sacred in all of that land, and the god of the Foo Tball is unsurpassed in the glory and honor and riches devoted to his name. So let this suffice regarding the god of Foo Tball and the citizens of Usa.

Kaitlyn Landgraf a graduate student at Stanford in journalism.