# Woodhenge without abos *The Urth list — 4 messages, 4 voices, 20 May 2002* > 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. --- ### David Duffy *20 May 2002, 05:44* There is little doubt that there were abos. It is more the melancholy fact, that just as on our world, all evidence of their occupation is intentionally (and/or incidentally) destroyed by colonists, so that even the museums are filled with lies. One thing about Short Sun is that there is an honourable handover of sorts (speaking of which, if the inhumi are an echo or mirror of human nature now, what were they like when they mirrored the Neighbours?). I agree that there is no evidence that Casilla has nonhuman abilities -- the remarks re appearance are those of a slave-holding MCP. David Duffy. --- ### Jerry Friedman *20 May 2002, 22:20 · follows David Duffy* > --- David Duffy wrote: > There is little doubt that there were abos. It is more the melancholy > fact, that just as on our world, all evidence of their occupation is > intentionally (and/or incidentally) destroyed by colonists, so that even > the museums are filled with lies. I'm not sure what you mean by that. On our world, many languages and cultures and some ethnic groups have been wiped out, but I don't think all the evidence has disappeared. Or were you thinking of the fairies that Marsch mentions? > One thing about Short Sun is that there > is an honourable handover of sorts (speaking of which, if the inhumi are > an echo or mirror of human nature now, what were they like when they > mirrored the Neighbours?). I saw this as real escapism. Wouldn't it be great to live on land that hadn't been stolen? ... Jerry Friedman --- ### Adam Stephanides *22 May 2002, 15:04 · follows Jerry Friedman* > on 5/20/02 12:44 AM, David Duffy at davidD at qimr.edu.au wrote: > There is little doubt that there were abos. Well, the books themselves contain doubts. And I still haven't seen a convincing explanation of why, if we are to take the Annese's existence for granted, there is not one single piece of solid evidence for it: why every piece of evidence proves doubtful upon close examination. > It is more the melancholy > fact, that just as on our world, As Jerry Friedman said, there are certainly many cases on our world of indigenous groups having been wiped out, but I don't recall any case in which the invaders/colonists sought to wipe out all evidence of such groups having existed. > all evidence of their occupation is > intentionally (and/or incidentally) destroyed by colonists, so that even > the museums are filled with lies. But the colonists' present-day descendants don't seem to be making any attempt to cover up the Annese's existence; they will freely talk, not only about the Annese themselves, but about the humans exterminating the Annese. Mrs. Blount saw nothing wrong in her father killing abos; presumably, neither did her parents. And there's no indication the Annese government would have intervened. So why cover it up? The more I think about it, the more suspicious the absence of any physical traces is. The war merely caused "the destruction of the records of the first French landing parties" (157, Ace pb), not the destruction of all skeletons or artifacts that might have been collected by the French. Marsch himself, who interprets all evidence as favorably as possible, doesn't regard the war as explaining the absence of physical traces. I'm not saying this proves that the Annese never existed, just that the absence of physical evidence is indeed not easy to explain away. --Adam --- ### Josh Geller *22 May 2002, 18:50 · follows Adam Stephanides* > On Wed, 22 May 2002, Adam Stephanides wrote: > As Jerry Friedman said, there are certainly many cases on our world of > indigenous groups having been wiped out, but I don't recall any case in > which the invaders/colonists sought to wipe out all evidence of such groups > having existed. In Costa Rica and in Argentina, if you ask the current locals what happened to the Indians, they will say "There were never too many Indians here". . ---