{
  "export": {
    "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/urth/199",
    "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'"
  },
  "archive": "urth",
  "thread": {
    "id": 199,
    "subject": "BackTrack",
    "messages": 1,
    "voices": 1,
    "first": "1997-09-08T14:17:26+00:00",
    "last": "1997-09-08T14:17:26+00:00"
  },
  "messages": [
    {
      "message_id": "<urth-v0004-0293@digest.urth.net>",
      "from": {
        "name": "Alice Turner",
        "address": "al at ny.playboy.com"
      },
      "date": "1997-09-08T14:17:26+00:00",
      "subject": "(urth) BackTrack",
      "in_reply_to": null,
      "reply_link": null,
      "blocks": [
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "mantis----you're back! I missed you.\n\nRe your thoughts about Cutthroat's not being from the Great Sleigh: My\nkneejerk reaction is that this is wrong. My second reaction is that Wolfe\nwants us to have a kneejerk reaction and then second thoughts. I've been\ndoing so much reading about Native Americans in my (so far vain) effort to\nfind the language cognate (I still think Athabascan, of which I have not\nbeen able to find one word, is the key), that I am more inclined to be\nopen-minded. \n\nFor example, there's the issue of cannibalism. If you take these tribes as\nsimply animals, well, there's no question that in hard times a vulnerable\nanimal will have to be sacrificed to the needs of the (meat-eating) tribe.\nBut there's a vigorous debate among anthropologists about NA cannibalism\ntoo, focussing on the Anazazi tribes of the Southwest.\n\nAnd in the Northwest, where I'm sort of focussed, there are three distinct\nracial groups--the Indians (this is where the Athabascans are; that's the\nlanguage name--there are several tribes), the Eskimos or Inuits, and the\nAleuts (not many of the last left when the Russians got through with them).\nNeedless to say, they all despise each other and were actively at war with\none another when circumstances permitted (not as often as in more moderate\nclimes). The Eskimos and Aleuts are much more recent than the Indians, and\nare thought to have arrived from the Old World (Mongolia, Siberia) after the\nlandbridge was already submerged (we're talking about 4000 years ago, not\ntoo recently) in their skin boats and kayaks. \n\nI realize this is sort of beside the point, and probably pretty boring to\nmost of the group (I never worry about boring you, mantis--you're interested\nin everything!). But for someone who knew as little about NA culture as I,\nit opens up all sorts of possibilities. I don't for a minute think that Wolfe\nliterally followed any kind of \"real\" Indian setup for this story, but he\nhappens to live quite near one of the most important anthropological digs in\nthe country of the Mississippi mound culture of about 3000 years ago (far\nmore sophisticated than any of the North American tribal cultures in the\n16th century), and it very probably caught his imagination, at least at the\ntime he was planning this story.\n\nI am completely perplexed by the wand, to get back to the subject. It reads\nto me like a super-cattleprod, and what a mink would be doing with it is\nbeyond me. It's the reason I thought Cim was a dog at first, to have a\nman-made object that she uses so carelessly (kills her mate).\n\nAnd the winged figure. Well, Great Raven is important to the Eskimos as well\nas the NW Indians, a little cross-fertilization there. And, get this, from a\ndescription of frequent enigmatic figures on Mississippi Mound art--\"Thus we\nhave not a man disguised as a bird, but another case of a shaman having\n*become* a supernatural being...we see portrayed the god himself.\" I wish I\ncould send a picture. \n\n-alga-"
        }
      ]
    }
  ]
}