{
  "export": {
    "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/urth/1480",
    "note": "Exported from an unofficial mirror of a public mailing list. Copyright in each message remains with the person who wrote it.  Email addresses are obscured as `user at host`, the form the original archive published. This file was rebuilt from parsed fields rather than retained headers, so it is faithful in content but not byte-exact.",
    "addresses": "obscured as 'user at host'"
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  "archive": "urth",
  "thread": {
    "id": 1480,
    "subject": "Of the Nature of the Aborigines of St. Anne, and the Problem of Their Poor Manual Dexterity",
    "messages": 1,
    "voices": 1,
    "first": "1999-04-04T22:18:12+00:00",
    "last": "1999-04-04T22:18:12+00:00"
  },
  "messages": [
    {
      "message_id": "<urth-v0024-0144@digest.urth.net>",
      "from": {
        "name": "Mitchell A. Bailey",
        "address": "mab at lindau.net"
      },
      "date": "1999-04-04T22:18:12+00:00",
      "subject": "(urth) Of the Nature of the Aborigines of St. Anne, and the Problem of Their Poor Manual Dexterity",
      "in_reply_to": null,
      "reply_link": null,
      "blocks": [
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          "text": "\"If it's possible for someone to lose his humanity, surely it must be\npossible for something that once had none to find it. What one loses,\nanother finds, everywhere.\" - Severian, telling the Pelerine acolyte in\nthe lazarette about Jonas; BNS, _Citadel_, ch. 10.\n\nOne of us Urthlings remarked not long ago that a reader would be\njustified in deciding Dorcas was unrelated to Severian. The same\nprinciple applies with more force to _The Fifth Head of Cerberus_. The\nfirst thing I caught on to in reading the three stories was that Wolfe\nintends for the reader to make up his/her own mind regarding such basic\nquestions as whether the abos ever existed at all, are Roy and Victor\nTrenchard abo or crossbreeds of abos, is Veil's hypothesis in any sense\ncorrect, and so forth. \n\nLike a pupil of Mr. Million's enduring his old-fashioned debating-team\npedagogy, we can research the text and make valid arguements in support\nof either case. In fact I think that could be what Wolfe is telling us\nvia\nthe portrayal of Mr. Million's approach to teaching.\n\nTherefore, I would have to start by assuming the abos did exist, and\nthat\nthe Trenchards were at minimum in very close contact with real abos, if\nnot themselves the genuine article. This is important to understand if\nwe are to draw evidence from \"A Story\", probably written by Victor\nTrenchard while impersonating the deceased John Marsch, PhD. Victor\ncould draw on not only whatever anthropology and other scientific\nknowlege he gleaned from Dr. Marsch and his books while researching for\nhis imposture, but also his own lifelong exposure to Annese culture and\nlegend. \n\nWe also have to credit that the idea that a visit occured by\nexplorers from offplanet, possibly Sol in the Fighting Lizard, is\nauthentic abo folklore, and not an invention of Victor's. Much depends\non the extent to which \"A Story\" can be presumed to represent 'genuine'\nabo culture and folklore. \n\nWith the foregoing in mind, I offer my interpretation of the nature of\nthe Annese and why they lack manual dexterity.\n\nThe strangest inhabitant of a certain green world was one which I,\ntaking a cue from Mr. Borski, will call the pleiomorph. It probably\n(like the alzabo) has per se about the intelligence of a dog. It\nprobably was an omnivore. Its essential characteristic was the ability\nto convincingly mimic practically anything living or inanimate found in\nits habitat. This ability to totally camouflage itself certainly\nprotected it from tire-tigers, ghoul-bears, neagles, and other dangerous\npredators, and doubtless assisted it in capturing fish, rodents, birds,\nand the like. It is hard to say what its native shape may have been.\nIt may well have come not to possess what we would call a natural form\nof its own, so completely did it live in disguise. The Shadow\nChildren remember them as wormlike creatures which lived in holes\nbeneath the roots of trees.\n\nQuite possibly the pleiomorph gained the ability to mimic, not merely\nwood or stone or mud, but a complex animal such as a ghoul-bear or\ntire-tiger, to discourage attack or to scare lesser predators from their\nkills. Presumably, a pleiomorph ghoul-bear might look sound, and even\n(eccch!) smell like the real thing, such being the quality of its\nmimicry as was necessary to convince real predators, but it would not\nitself\nmake use of the claws and teeth it generates and start hunting critters\nand carrion in like fashion to a real ghoul-bear. That kind of\ntransformation is probably unnecessary for the pleiomorph's purposes,\nand \nobviously far harder to achieve, so presumably it didn't happen.\n\nThe pleiomorphs had the potential to become almost anything, given an\nextraordinary stimulus.\n\nIn a time long before the history we know, twenty light years from the\ngreen planet, on Earth, Homo Sapiens appeared. Eventually a civilization\nnow vanished into vague legend, which I will refer to as \"Atlantis\",\narose. The \"Atlanteans\" eventually developed interstellar travel or\nbefriended Extrasolarians who had it. In the fullness of time,\n\"Atlanteans\" discovered and colonized the green\nplanet.\n\nThe \"Atlantean\" colony on the green planet no doubt impressed some of\nthe pleiomorphs, perhaps initially as a source of easy food. Very\nsoon, the newcomers from Earth discovered they shared the planet with\nhumanoid creatures. Probably they eventually befriended and taught them.\nThe pleiomorphs observed things totally outside their previous animal\nframe of reference. No doubt the colonists introduced them to such\nconcepts as stories, songs, ritual, philosophy, and religion. \n\nAn evolution took place here which was very Lamarckian, since in this\ninstance the evolving creature had the ability to consciously reshape\nitself. The pleiomorphs apparently saw in the Atlanteans something which\naroused aspiration. They did not have any ambition to become ghoul-bears\n(understandably), but, having encountered humans, they must have longed\nto become human.\n\nIf a creature having relatively little intelligence but near-total\npleiomorphism essays to mimic an intelligent being, does it of necessity\n\"mimic\" intelligence, and in so doing acquire the genuine article? The\nhuman child imitates, and thereby learns.\n\nIf a creature which is not human mimics humans, lifelong, could it in so\ndoing acquire humanity? Could its species do so by repeating the process\nover countless generations?\n\nThe prehistoric human colonists offered the pleiomorphs the fruit of the\ntree of knowlege; the fall must inevitably follow.\n\nEven as some of the pleiomorphs evolved and became more or less\npermanently humanoid by preference, the human \"Atlantean\" colonists\neventually degenerated and dwindled. This process was augmented by the\nfall of \"Atlantis\" and by a lowly psychoactive herb of the green planet.\n\nAt some point possibly even before the interstellar civilization of\n\"Atlantis\" fell and vanished, the descendants of \"Atlantean\" colonists\non the green planet took to chewing the coca-like leaves of the\nalkaloid-bearing herb, permitting them to \"find their songs\" and,\naccording to folklore, gain paranormal abilities.  The Old Wise One who\nspoke to Sandwalker implied that this caused the \"Atlantean\" colonists\nto lose interest in intercourse with their fellows elsewhere in the\ngalaxy. The \"Atlantean\" colony on the green world eventually cut itself\noff from communication. All the implements of technology the colonists \npossessed, in which they likewise lost interest, slowly wore out, broke \ndown, and corroded away little by little as descendants of colonists \nlearned to live as autochthons from the land.\n\nOver dreamy millenia, the descendants of those colonists became stunted,\ndark, nocturnal, and secretive, revelling languidly in memories of their\npast greatness in a continuous alkaloid-induced rush. They became the\nShadow Children, elusive elfin neighbors to the aborigines. \n\nThe aborigines for their part imitated the \"Atlantean\" humans they\nremembered in precise detail continuously for so long they now believed\nthemselves to be human. This may have advanced to the point that they\nforgot they had the ability to drastically shape-change, and kept\nthemselves in a more-or less human configuration, albeit camouflaged.\n\nMeantime,\"Atlantis\" of the homeworld and her interstellar network\ncollapsed and vanished.\n\nDid the Shadow Children surrender much, if not all, of their humanity to\ntelepathic mindsong and drugged dream, while the pleiomorphs found\ntheirs?\n\nThen the \"long dreaming days\" ended with the landing by the first French\nexplorers.\n\nQuite probably no Terran of the latter wave of colonization, French or\nEnglish-speaking, ever encountered or spoke to a Shadow Child personally\nafter that first landing (did Wolf, accompanying Sandwalker, go forth\nwith him and greet the newcomers on the beach, or hide in the fashion of\nShadow Children?) , but knew them only from the tales of the abos of\nmountain and marsh. \n\nWithin two more centuries, the abos themselves had likewise faded, in\nwhatever manner,  to \"something less than legend\".\n\nIt is accepted theory that the ancestors of human beings developed\nintelligence in tandem with dextrous hands and stereoscopic color\nvision. Hands, in a sense, were crucial in making us as a species what\nwe are. I would not of course question the humanity of an individual who\nlost the use of hands, but hands were a crucial element in the making of\nMankind into that which we think of as human. \n\nThe pleiomorph-aborigine of the green planet *_bypassed_* this process\nby acquiring intelligence through imitation of those who possessed it\nalready. Pleiomorphs acquired the look, intelligence,  and culture of\nhuman primitives, but were they fully functional humans? Well,\napparently those hands were largely, as we would say, \"for show\". The\nmarshmen were said to make and use nets, but no one could produce an\nexample of such a net. The boy Victor boasted of his ability to catch\nunwary waterfowl and fish without such implements. Could they not have\nsimply\nformed their own limbs into configurations more suited to catching fish,\ninstead?\n\nThe insect which looks like a leaf does not acquire the leaf's ability\nof photosynthesis. The pleiomorph which mimicked a ghoul-bear looked,\nsounded, and behaved as a real ghoul-bear, but presumably did not\nacquire the use of the stinking teeth and claws it copied. The\npleiomorph who mimicked a human being of Earth looked and behaved the\npart, but did not necessarily have the full use of those hands it\nformed. \n\nHence, a possible explaination for the fabled characteristic poor manual\ndexterity of the abos of St. Anne."
        }
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}