Monthly Archives: April 2009
Great paper at the Society for American Archaeology Meeting
- Saturday, 25 April 2009 07:49
I’ve been seeing some good stuff here in Atlanta. Very interesting. Today I listened to a really wonderful paper on Southeastern pack dogs. They found sixteen of them buried in a North Carolina Late Woodland site. The older dogs all had significant back problems, including osteophytosis (arthritis), and deformed spinous processes (deformed spines). Obviously, they spent much of their lives carrying heavy packs. But the animals were clearly beloved, and two were even buried in the same pit several months apart. They animals may have been best friends, and their human owners wanted them to be together. Archaeology is such fun… Michael
Snow in northern Wyoming
- Saturday, 25 April 2009 05:58
It’s beautiful here today in northern Wyoming. It’s been raining or snowing for two days straight. The first buffalo calf, Little Evening Star, has been tiring herself out racing around dancing in the falling flakes. Kathleen
Runaway Author
- Saturday, 18 April 2009 14:54
Greetings, and best wishes in the name of Breath Giver, the Creator of all things.
I am Black Shell, of the Chief Clan, of the Chicaza nation… although it’s been years since they threw me out. To my family and clan I am an outcast, effectively dead. For a while it bothered me. But who wants to be a high chief and spend all their life atop a mound dealing with pettry tribal politics?
Instead, I’m a Trader, traveling with my dog pack from nation to nation. At least, I was until I headed south in search of the strange invaders from the sea. There I met my wife, Pearl Hand, and got captured by the Adelantado, Hernando de Soto. That’s a long story. You can read about it when CONTACT: THE COMING STORM is published in February 2010 by these new guys at Pocket Books. They remind me of the kind of people traders value: the ones who are pleasant to sit around and visit with, and don’t try and foist some cheap shell off as being as valuable as something like copper. Traders wouldn’t be traders if they weren’t smart. But I’m digressing, which happens with any good storyteller.
I’m writing because I read the entry by my not-so-humble ancestor, Green Snake. The one you know as Trader from PEOPLE OF THE WEEPING EYE and PEOPLE OF THE THUNDER. Granted, he lived almost two hundred years before I did–and the stories told about him would make you think he was more ancestral spirit than mortal man. But reading his entry was a revelation. Maybe not so much a revelation as traveling to the Underworld, or being eaten by Horned Serpent, but that’s all in THE COMING STORM. No, what I mean is that if characters are stuck with down time, why can’t they write a blog entry?
See, that’s my point. I’m supposed to be smack in the middle of my fight with de Soto and his Kristiano invaders, the very future of my world hanging by a thread, and what happens? Mike and Kathy drop everything, leave me, Pearl Hand, Blood Thorn, and all the dogs, and ride off on their motorcycle for Atlanta!
And for what reason? Just to give a presentation to a bunch of archaeologists at the Society for American Archaeology. What do characters with need archaeology? We’ve lived it. Oh, sure, Mike and Kathy will tell you that they’re researching, riding along the same route de Soto took north to Chiquitacofi, and back toward Mabila. They’ll tell you that they want to see the ancestral Coosa lands on the upper Tennessee. Pearl Hand and I know it’s just an excuse to go ride that trail they call Deal’s Gap, or the Dragon’s Tail.
Maybe next time they go off to drink beer, hobnob, and socialize with a bunch of archy’s they’ll be sure to unplug the computer first. After all, you never know what a crafty character, especially a trader with my reputation can accomplish. Oh, I know, as you’ll find out in THE COMING STORM, first book in the CONTACT:THE BATTLE FOR AMERICA series, our fight with de Soto didn’t start out so well. And in the second book, we’ve got to follow de Soto to Mabila, and what happens there… Huh, let’s put it like this: It ain’t gonna be pretty. I know what’s going to happen, so I can’t spill the corn cakes yet.
Meanwhile, we’ll just have to wait for them to ride that big BMW motorcycle down to Atlanta and back. That’s tough for me. I’m still trying to get my head around things like thunder sticks, iron armor, and cabayos. How do you fathom something like a motorcycle? It will never beat a good pack of dogs for tansporting goods.
That will be enough for now. I’m going back to my own computer and working hard to figure out just how I can send some more of de Soto’s soldados to their just desserts in Paraiso.
May Water Panther never bargain for your souls.
Black Shell, of the Chicaza.
Time to Plant
- Saturday, 04 April 2009 11:47
Hi Everybody,
Well, today we planted the garden–even though it’s snowing lightly. Planting this early in northern Wyoming is either very brave or not very bright, but we’re starting with seeds rather than plants, so we’re hoping they won’t dare to sprout until the middle or end of April. We’re planting jalapeno and serrano peppers, tomatillos, grape tomatoes, corn, snow peas, and taking a chance on some Mandan beans recovered from an archaeological site in North Dakota. We’ve tried Anasazi beans, but they scream and perish come the first snow in September. We obviously don’t have a long enough growing season for them. We have the same problem with squash. We get to eat lots of blossoms in September, but never a single squash. We’ll also be planting a border of Datura around the garden. Datura, which is toxic, has large white trumpet flowers, and seems to discourage the chipmunks, cottontails, deer, and packrats from entering the garden. Those of you who’ve read our books also know that Datura was used for supernatural purposes by the native peoples–particularly vision quests. The problem with Sister Datura is that if you don’t know what you’re doing, she can kill you. Keep that in mind. She’s a Power plant. If you decide to plant Datura, don’t touch the seeds with your bare hands, and if you do, wash them thoroughly and immediately afterward. But she has a spectacular garden presence.
Cheers,
Mike and Kathy
Is it all right for different cultures to have different definitions of “rape?”
- Thursday, 02 April 2009 13:21
Dear Readers,
As many of you are aware, President Hamid Karzai just signed a new Afghan law that appears to legalize the rape of a wife by her husband. This is an interesting law because it does not apply to Sunnis, only to Shiites. The Shiite lawmaker who drafted the law, Sayed Hossain Alemi Balkhi, defended the legislation by saying that the law his been misunderstood, that it actually gives “more rights to women than even Britain or the United States does. ” In a nutshell, the law says that a “woman is bound to preen for her husband as and when he desires…and bound to give a positive response to the sexual desires of her husband,” unless she is ill.
What do you think about this? Every culture around the world has a different definition of what constitutes “rape.” Is it all right for one culture to define it differently than another? Where’s the line when it comes to civil rights? Is it related to harm? Should we as Americans, or anyone for that matter, have the right to tell other cultures how they should or should not define culturally sensitive terms like “rape?” Why? What does or does not give us the right?
Thanks for thinking about this.
Mike and Kathy