24 March 2023
MOQUIS RAIN DANCE Walbi, Arizona, 1891 TCHNA-TEE-PE-BE
The Moquis are amongst those most interesting and at the same time least known of the Indian tribes. They are an agricultural people, cultivating corn fields and peach orchards in the valleys at the foot of their mesas. Amongst the most singular of the customs and ceremonies of this people is the snake dance or Tchna tee-pe-be, a biennial rain dance held in Walbi, one of the principal villages.
This festival has been witnessed by but few white people, and owing to the time of day at which it is held—about sundown--no satisfactory photograph has ever been obtained of it. The dance took place this year on August 21st, and although the distance from this point, Flagstaff to Walbi is over 120 miles, over an almost waterless and barren country, the EXAMINER correspondent was present taking notes and sketches. The dance was at first reported for August 17th, but as the date is fixed by the medicine men of the tribe by noting the day upon which the setting sun shines through a notch in an adjoining mesa and than adding on a certain number of days, the date is a trifle uncertain.
The San Francisco Examiner (San Francisco, California) 28 Aug 1891, FriPage 4
24 March 2023
Rain Dance: Onondaga Indians
Onondaga Indians--BUFFALO MORNING EXPRESS 1879
The Rochester Union says; The Onondaga Indians are beginning to fear a failure of their corn crop, and a few days ago propitiated the Great Father by a 'rain dance,' which is described as follows: Six Indians seated themselves in a circle with rattles and drums and commenced to beat a slow, monotonous measure, gradually shortening the time, singing at the highest note possible. The spectators form a ring, moving slowly around the musicians--the leader suddenly break into a shuffling dance, followed by the entire ring. The musicians beat faster and faster, sing louder and shriller, fast and furious dance the devotees, till, with a shout, the musicians stop and again commence the slow measure. They keep this up from early in the morning till far into the night. making a weird sight to be witnessed in the centre of civilization."
Buffalo Morning Express and Illustrated Buffalo Express (Buffalo, New York) 28 May 1879, Wed Page 4
20 January 2022
THE PYRAMIDS OF TONGA
McKern
#34 - Archaeology of Tonga, no.60 1929. - Full View | HathiTrust Digital Library
Thomson, Basil. “Notes Upon the Antiquities of Tonga.” The Journal of the Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland, vol. 32, [Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland, Wiley], 1902, pp. 81–88, https://doi.org/10.2307/2842904.
Papers Past | Newspapers Home (natlib.govt.nz)
South Pacific Ocean, Tonga (Friendly Islands): Tongatapu (Tongatabu): Namuka Group,... | The National Archives
A Visit to the Newly Emerged Falcon Island, Tonga Group, South Pacific on JSTOR
Papers Past | Newspapers | New Zealand Herald | 12 July 1871 | TONGA, OR FRIENDLY ISLAND. (natlib.govt.nz)
Papers Past | Newspapers | New Zealand Herald | 6 April 1878 | THE EARLY MAORI VOCABULARIES AND GRAMMARS, AMD MR.... (natlib.govt.nz)
Historical Researches Into the Politics, Intercourse, and Trade of the ... - Arnold Hermann Ludwig Heeren - Google Books
Full text of "Miscellaneous and posthumous works" (archive.org)
Introduction à "l'atlas ethnographique du globe" - Adriano Balbi - Google Books
Tahitala's Revenge: Monumental Architecture and the Great Canoe, Lomipeau (tandfonline.com)
An Account of the Natives of the Tonga Islands in the South Pacific Ocean, With an Original Grammar and Vocabulary of Their Language. Compiled and Arranged from the Extensive Communications of Mr. William Mariner, Several Years Resident in Those Islands - Google Play Books
Moooi -- Page 120 "When an earthquake happens , it is supposed that this god , feeling himself in an uneasy posture , is endeavoring to turn himself about ;"
cocoho volcano eruption page 420
flat earth page 134
language page 353
19 January 2022
Tonga: The Trilithon & Langi
Relegated by modern archaeology to usual ethnocentric deductions of kings and high priests, the Tonga langi & trilithon may well have been tsunami pragmatic high-ground safe havens in aftermath of catastrophic volcano eruptions--
Thomson, Basil. “Notes Upon the Antiquities of Tonga.” The Journal of the Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland, vol. 32, [Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland, Wiley], 1902, pp. 81–88, https://doi.org/10.2307/2842904.
Burley, David V. “Tongan Archaeology and the Tongan Past, 2850–150 B.P.” Journal of World Prehistory, vol. 12, no. 3, Springer, 1998, pp. 337–92, http://www.jstor.org/stable/25801130.
22 December 2021
The Triads & Others
"That some of the Triads are of great antiquity may however safely be inferred from some terms, whose original and true meaning it is now extremely difficult to explain, and others, which are absolutely inexplicable: and also from doctrines not countenanced by Christianity. A collection of great antiquity is mentioned by Lhuyd in his Archæologia , as being then at Hengwrt." (1, Page xiv.)
"Comparative etymology or remarks on the alteration of languages: I am very sensible that Etymological Observations, have been look'd upon but as a Trifling and Groundless Disquisition; and the Preservation of Antiquated Languages, thought a Service of no use to Letters." (2, Page 1)
"The Design then, of this Comparative Etymology being to shew that Languages receive their Origin from an Accidental Difference either in the Acceptation and Use, or else in the Orthography or Pronunciation of Words, and an Addition or omission of Syllables;" (2, Page 2)
" 'A Vindication of the Celts from ancient Authorities; with Observations on Mr. Pinkerton's Hypothesis concerning the Origin of European Nations in his Modern Geography and Dissertation on the Scythians or Goths,' " (3, Page 288)
"It has been asserted by Mr. Davies, long since this publication, (possibly Roberts) that the Druids were in possession of an alphabet, and were in the habit of recording the transactions of their country in regular writing," (3, Page 288)
"There can be no doubt but that Asia is meant by the words Summer Country, and that Deffrobani was added to mark the particular District." (1, Page 23)
"Taliesin moreover states, that they were natives of Gafis, a country in Asia, and the triads, that they came across the blue haze from Deffrobani. Yet what is Deffrobani. It is generally interpreted, and in this very triad, Constantinople; but this is not corresponding with the account of Taliesin, and the Asiatic origin of the Welsh antiquaries, it is affirmed by others to mean the island of Ceylon." (3, Page 289)
"Hence then we are enabled to trace that progress regularly from the original emigration from Asia , where in common with so many other nations , the Cimmerians , or Cymry , were dispersed from Babel." (1, Page 26)
"The word Briton is of a different origin; this is derived from the Welsh appellative Brython , which truly signifies Warriors; and thus also, Brythwch, a battle." (1, Page 61)
"Pictish was a Celtic language related to Gaulish and Brittonic (i.e. 'P-Celtic'; or that it was a pre-Celtic, non-Indo-European tongue, the descendant of the language of the Bronze Age population." (4, Page 7)
1.) Roberts, Peter, Rev. Sketch of the Early History of the Cymry, Or, Ancient Britons, from the Year 700, Before Christ, to A. D. 500 - Google Play Books
2.) Lhuyd, Edward, Archaeologia Britannica: Giving Some Account Additional to what Has Been Hitherto Publish'd, of the Languages, Histories and Customs of the Original Inhabitants of Great Britain, Volume 1 by Edward Lhuyd - Books on Google Play
3.) The New Annual Register, The New Annual Register, Or General Repository of History, Politics, Arts, Sciences, and Literature - Google Play Books
4.) Forsyth, Kathryn, Language in Pictland, de Keltische Draak, Utrecht, 1997, pictland assembly.pdf (gla.ac.uk)
.) Lewis, John, Tables of comparative etymology and analogous formations in the Greek, Latin, Spanish, Italian, French, English and German languages, or, The student's manual of languages Designed to facilitate the study of them by a connected view of their declensions, methods of comparison, conjugations, interchangeable letters, and similar terminations - Google Play Books, 1804
.) Gyllius, Petrus, The Antiquities of Constantinople - Google Books
.) Millar, John, An Historical View of the English Government, From the Settlement of the Saxons in Britain to the Revolution in L688 - Google Play Books 1803
.) Turner, Sharon, History of the Anglo-Saxons by Sharon Turner - Books on Google Play 1840
.) "C," Essay on Lost Languages, 23 Feb 1831, 1 - National Banner and Nashville Whig at Newspapers.com
.) Latham, Robert, Lectures on Ethnology, 28 Apr 1849, 9 - The Guardian at Newspapers.com
Notes:
Nominative -- subject of a verb
Genitive --noun-main-noun
Dative -- indirect object, object of prepositions
Accusative -- direct object
Vocative -- party being addressed
Ablative -- motion away from
22 December 2021
Lost Language
ESSAYS ON LANGUAGE. From a Lecture delivered before the Nashtille Lyceum. No 11 In the last Essay, I noticed the Hebrew and Chaldee lan-guages. As they are exhibited in the Bible, says Parkhurst, they do not differ (in exteinal form,) more than the Spanish does from the Latin, or even than the Doric from the Attic or Ionic dialect in Greek. Many words in the two tong-nes are preci,tely the same ; many differ only in adding or drop-ping a letter at the beginning. middle or end of a word.
The language I shall yputi,k of next, is the Swum itan.— Joseptius, in the ninth book of 1114 antiquities, informs io that Shalimmeser, alter a 'wage of three years, took Samaria end removed the ten tribes ;Whim) into Media and Persia. This being the last intelligence we have of these ten tribeso hey are commonly called the "lost tribes," and to them, i•onie have supposed, may he traced the origin ()lour aboriginal Indians. At the same time, this At•yrinit king transplanted a colony &Tensions, called Cutheans, lions the river Cutha, in Sama-ria. Samaritan then is the language of this colony, corrupt. ed 410libilimi by intercourse with the neighboring tuitions. In the beginning of the seventeenth century, Imo copy ill the Samaritan Pentateuch was obtained from Aleppo, differing from the Hebrew only in the character in whell it im yvritten —and another copy written in the vulgar tongue. Both are published in the Paris Polyglot.
.) "C," Essay on Lost Languages, 23 Feb 1831, 1 - National Banner and Nashville Whig at Newspapers.co
.) Druids, 21 Nov 1835, 4 - Sheffield and Rotherham Independent at Newspapers.com
.) Cormac’s Glossary - Google Play Books
22 December 2021
Pictet, Evans, Thurston & Sewell
"...anthropology (general study), ethnography (particular aggregations) and ethnology (all aggregations)...":
(The Lab) -- Pioneer in the field of historical linguistics, Adolphe Pictet, opened his volumnious work on the origin of European language with the following;
"...mais rien n'indique qu'ils aient débuté par être exclusivement chasseurs , à l'exemple de certaines tribus sauvages . Lors même qu'il en aurait été ainsi , il serait im possible de le prouver , puisque la vie pastorale d'abord , et ensuite l'agriculture."
"But nothing indicates that they started to be exclusively hunters, like some wild tribes. Even thus would have been so, it would be possible to prove it, since pastoral life first, and then agriculture." (1)
Of course, the rather far-reaching introduction was overshadowed by his methodology of creating word similarities where there may not have been any, as criticized by E.P. Evans in an 1884 issue of Atlantic Monthly;
"The comparatively high culture which the linguistic palaeontologist claims for primitive Aryan society is wholly inconsistent with the state of barbarism in which the descendants of the original stock are known to have lived at a period long after their supposed dispersion." (2)
Evans challenged the assumption that the emigrants from across the Caucasus had somehow lost their ability to fashion tools from metal, regressing to "a condition of life scarcely superior to that of a cave-dweller and contemporary of the mammoth." (Page 617) The field of linguistic paleontology, or paleolinguistics, has come a long way since the theory, and its antithesis, was presented. Genetics and calculus are employed to a limited degree to better explain the course of evolution of European language. But it doesn't account for the inconsistency in the regression to Neanderthal for Pictet's advanced pastoral emigrant culture, if it existed at all. Evans obviously didn't believe it for a minute. Evans argues strongly against the method used by Pictet to generate similarity in words, comparing it to a French chef, or to an impressionist painting where detail is lost the closer one gets to the artwork. In fact, some of Evans' very doubts are beginning to surface the more the actual paleontological record is uncovered in Europe. Even more important, those doubts are beginning to address a core theory in anthropology in the pattern of emergence of civilization; from the so-called "hunter-gatherer," to the "pastoral," or agricultural, to the gradual introduction of civilized culture.
By today's standards, with the rise of the internet, comes the proliferation of "stages of civilization;" a web search will return a million articles with any number of "stages.". This doesn't contribute one bit to the above debate as to whether Pictet foresaw in its kernel stages of evolution, civilization out of order with the Evans paradigm.
In 1909, Edgar Thurston published Castes and Tribes of Southern India. (3) Reviewed by "R. Sewell" in 1910 in The Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland, the clash between the hunter-gatherer vs. pastoral theory surfaced, in two different ways. Sewell first noted the difference between anthropology (general study), ethnography (particular aggregations) and ethnology (all aggregations). The distinction was specifically noted in "the notice of the Karumba and Karuba tribes," in which "the two are sharply differentiated from one another." The first were hunter-gatherers, the second part of the "ordinary agricultural population." (4, Page 915) Two theories rose as to whether the tribes were part of the same ethnologic group or were ethnographically distinct. One theory held that it was all in the name, while the other was based on "stature and nasal index." The latter relates to skull physiology but that would also affect how words are pronounced. Although the tribal comparison of the two is relatively recent, Sewell elaborated on the rewriting of words by the government, such as the changing of the River Khrisna to the River Kistna, dropping diacritical marks in the process. In this brief review of Thurston, all of the characteristics of the problem are almost accidentally addressed. Two tribes, physically different, but not necessarily genetically; one remained a hunter-gatherer, the other pastoral, without any strong evidence that one preceded the other. The Pictet impressionist image from afar became blurred when examined up close, as paleolinguistics played a part in something as basic as spelling.
1.) Pictet, A., LES ORIGINES INDO - EUROPÉENNES OU LES ARYAS PRIMITIFS, MÊME MAISON, Paris, 1863, Page 4; Les origines indo-européennes, ou, Les Aryas primitifs: essai de ... - Adolphe Pictet - Google Books
2.) Evans, E.P., "Linguistic Paleontology," Atlantic Monthly, Vol. LIII, Houghton, Mifflin & Co., Boston, 1884, Page 616; The Atlantic : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive
3.) Thurston, E., Castes and Tribes of Southern India, Government Press, Madras, 1909, Castes and Tribes of Southern India: Volume I—A and B (gutenberg.org)
4.) Sewell, R. Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland, Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland, 1910, pp. 914–17, http://www.jstor.org/stable/25189758.
Burgess, James. “Notes on Hindu Astronomy and the History of Our Knowledge of It.” Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland, Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland, 1893, pp. 717–61, http://www.jstor.org/stable/25197168.
IMMEDREL//ATTN:CD@TCNT//VIA/JC/CMD-CTRL/UNSPCF
December 2021
ESCAPE FROM TAHOE-- Glacier in the Sky--
(Zinc)-- Plans had already been made to get out while the getting out was good. That happened on the day before Christmas Eve when the first signs of the severity of the record-breaking atmospheric glacier appeared on the horizon to the west. Having survived the bomb cyclone in October, there was no hesitation this time. What had begun just after Pearl Harbor Day and just before Christmas didn't fall into the usual pattern of December storms and that was the first indication of things to come. That early storm dropped enough snow to make work just short of unbearable; the only advantage was that the sun did come out after a few days and just about the same time a request for a week at the San Clemente resort came through. It was booked immediately.
That post Pearl Harbor Day storm was gnarly enough as the drains on the office building froze immediately requiring a full day of moving a tall ladder after using the snow blower to clear a path below the upper deck to stage it. Icicles were already forming and ice in the drains had to be chopped loose and dropped to the ground before the coils installed on the roof were of any use. Even then, the entire system looks good in ads but is useless otherwise. All of the snow around the firepit and hot tub needed to be removed, amounting to yet another full day on the snow blower. The one thing about snow is that it is never "removed," just put into another place until it melts, hopefully by May. This wasn't the case as it didn't have time. The back decks on the upper two studios on the third floor had about four feet on them and that had to go. By the time all of this was done, starting with using the snowblowers to clear parking, as the plow was a no show at the beginning, the new glacier in the sky was headed for Tahoe. The rain began and lasted for two days even before the glacier began to descend in an unrelenting barrage that included whiteout conditions. That rain offered an opportunity on Wednesday, Christmas Eve Minus Two, to cut into the berm along the boulevard and get it out of the way, not that it would make much of a difference.
On Thursday, the warnings were clear and not just from the agencies tasked with keeping travelers off the highway. If getting out was going to happen, it would happen on Christmas Eve Minus One. A text message from the office inquired as to, "helping out with snow," (removal). Not a chance, the reply: "Did not want to risk injury before the drive." Packing was already done, and chains had been installed a few days before and left on the Toyota Yaris; a very dependable compact hatchback that ran like a snowmobile in heavy snow. Departure was about 14:30 PST on 23 December.
State Route 267 out of Kings Beach required chains and the old set installed on the front tires lasted until pulling up on Interstate-80 west when the driver's side chain blew a link. That was replaced with another one of the old chains and back on the road and cleared by CalTrans at the checkpoint, that same chain blew out going up Donner Pass, and pulling off at the Donner Lake off ramp to replace it. Using a chain from the new set, that held along with the one on the passenger front tire all the way to where chain controls expired somewhere near Kingvale in the whiteout. That was just the beginning of the drive and it had already taken about two hours. All the way into and past Colfax to Forest Hill for gas and a stop at McDonalds, the road was hammered with rain squalls that reduced visibility to near zero. Those would last all the way through Sacramento and most of the way down Interstate-5 to the Tracy cutoff and rest stop. Nobody was at the rest stop, it was clean. Somewhere south of Santa Nella, the clouds opened up and Orion, the Hunter, the constellation appeared high in the sky to the east. Then the half-moon rose over the Sierra Nevada range to the east, a stunning arrival to the landscape, and it would remain until more squalls settled in somewhere around the Fresno cutoff. The canopy closed once again, and squalls came and went for a hundred miles before a dense fog moved in and hung low on the freeway. There were few trucks and driving was not that difficult. A two-hour break at the next rest stop then back on the road to yet another rest stop before morning and just 100 miles from Grapevine Pass.
The fog broke up and the sun came out at the Lebec rest stop.
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