History?

History

It can be said that almost all communication consists of history. Be it ancient history, or current events, it is still history.
When that first primitive man first awoke and told his cave mates that it was time to get up, that was a news communication about current events. Later when he told a younger member of the troop where he had found food last week that was a history lesson.
As man learned to communicate better he began to pass on more and more of this older information. To better remember the story it was woven into songs and poems to make it easier to remember. And many of the more important lessons evolved into folk sayings, and the Old Wives Tails.
These Tails weren’t so named so much because they were old, though they clearly were, but rather because they were passed on by the oldest members of the group. Passed on by those who remembered them from days long past. Often told and retold more in a setting of entertainment than as real stories they were, and are, often discarded as fiction.
But are they completely so?
As I pointed out before there is an argument to be made that the old stories of Trolls and Goblins were based on the raids by an older more primitive race upon the more recent arrivals. While he have seen the skeletons of these people we don’t actually know how they looked. Science assumes that because they lived in the north they had pale skins, but did they? Science assumes they had light thin body hair like we do, but did they?
What if they were more ape like.
If these older people had a dark ape like skin, and more ape like body hair they would have been fierce looking creatures indeed. Hair and beards with a dark skin would, with a little dirt and soot, look black and menacing. Longer thicker body hair would give the person a clearly animal like look. They could be easily taken for a monster.
OR, they may have been recognized as a different people by the newer race and given a more descriptive name.
IF, this happened and the older race was clearly outnumbered and driven deep into the woods and forests, they could become rare and unusual sightings. Add in the human tendency to kill anything that scares us and they may avoid the newer peoples like the plague.
Just what might the new people call this race? Forest People? Hairy Wild Men? Woodland Giants? Or maybe Sasquatch, Almasti, or even Yeti.
There is a clear case that the first arrivals in North America arrived before the last Ice Age and that the Clovis People may well have come from Europe rather than Asia. Their artifacts are more common in the east than in the west where they were first discovered and named for example.
Could the Clovis have been the older hairier race that fled west ahead of the newer people across the edge of the ice and the islands of the then shallower North Atlantic? It is possible. And if it happened they would have arrived about 15 to 20,000 years ago well ahead of the Asian migration. They spread west across North America in a warmer period after the last Great Ice Advance. They lived in a world of Mammoths and Hairy Rhinos where the land was thick with large game. A world that a hairy body and dark sun absorbing skin would have been helpful in.
Then something happened. As the huge miles thick ice withdrew and melted there was a huge amount of melt water forming. A small ocean formed around and north of the great lakes. For centuries the melt had run south, but now something blocked the flow. Several theories have been tossed around as to what happened and why. Ranging from tall moraines, to stubborn ice walls, to meteor impacts they all agree on one point. The melt water did not go south. Instead the small ocean of cold fresh water went east along the St. Lawrence river. Right into the path of the North Atlantic current that was causing the warming cycle that caused the melting.
And the current changed.
About 10,000 years ago the Younger-Dryus cooling happened. The North Atlantic current was disrupted, the weather cooled, and within a year the ice began to return. That first winter would have been catastrophic. Blizzards and extreme cold well beyond anything the natives or animals had experienced or were prepared for.
There are no Clovis settlements or relics newer than 10,000 years ago. Clovis settlements have deep layers of overlay between them and any other signs of human habitation.
During this period the Asian migration moved east over the Aleutian Island route and down into North America. In the many centuries of slow spreading and growth the Asians moving south met the remains of the Clovis. By now the Clovis had been decimated. Only small isolated family groups remained, and these had been close to the sea or in the warmer south west during the cooling. Their hairy make up, evolved for a cooler climate, now drove them north and into higher elevations.
Could the oral history of these early meeting be the bases for the Indian stories of the Sasquatch or Almasti?
Just how long does oral history last? How many centuries will a story be told and re-told before it’s forgotten?
And as we all know stories will be changed to meet the audience so how far have they wandered from the originals?

" What was once history became legend, and then legend became myth. And things that should have been remembered were forgotten." The Lord of the Rings.

Gallant men

The Medal of Honor

Since it was created there have been 3,464 awarded.
119 of these in WW1
8 Marines received the award in that war.
These 8 men received 13 of the medals all together.
Two men got the award in the same action.
And one man was awarded the medal by 2 different services under 2 different names for the same action.


http://www.homeofheroes.com/moh/war/12_wwi.html

Halloween Story

Halloween Story

Trolls, goblins, the Bogeyman, and things that go bump in the night.
Would it surprise you that they were real once?
Long ago, there was more than one breed of men in the world. In what would become
Great Britain there were farmers raising their crops and livestock. Simple folks just past
the early stages of villages and trading. They lived in thatched huts and wore homespun
fabrics while they raised simple crops and cattle.
But there was an earlier breed of men still living there as well.
More primitive, these were hunter and gatherers that lived in caves and other natural
shelters such as rock outcropping and dense thickets. These primitives dressed in skins
and furs. They lived on a diet heavy in meat and ate only the fruits and vegetables they
found in the wild.
Like most real primitives they saw those outside their family groups as a threat and
even as prey. As the farmers moved into the primitive’s areas the primitives stole from
them and when possible killed and ate them just as they had any other creature. The early
farmers soon learn that to travel alone is dangerous. People are killed by bears, lions,
wolves, and thieves. But the bodies, or at least parts of them, are found sooner or later.
BUT, in some areas they are gone without a trace, or worse gone with strange footprints
left behind.
Picture this scene. In the dark something moves outside an isolated farm house just
outside a small group of huts. The farmer and his wife lay in the dark and listen to
footsteps outside. The farmer rises and looks out through a crack in the barred door and
sees a shape in the moonlight.
It’s a creature about his own height. Long hair hangs down from its head, its body seems
covered in hair, it wears a skin around its body, and acts more like an animal than the
men the farmer knows. It carries a weapon of a primitive club or spear.
Across the way a child whimpers in the night. The creature stops and looks in that
direction. Then it moves away. A few minutes later screams shatter the night and a baby
cries out in fear and pain, cries that are cut short. As pandemonium breaks out the farmer
sees the creature return and run past his hut toward the forest. In its hand it carries a limp baby
by the leg.
Torches appear and the villagers come out to see what happened. The child had cried.
Its mother had roused from her sleep and started toward the child a few feet away in a
basket. Suddenly a shadow filled the small window and an arm reached inside. To her
horror it grabbed the child and in a second had dragged it out the window.
The villagers were afraid to chase the creature into the dark night. The child was never
seen again. From that night on children were warned to go to sleep and be quiet, the
bogeyman was around at night.
In time a group of shepherds looking for lost sheep come across a dark narrow cleft in a
rocky wall of a deep ravine. Inside is a fire pit, trash, and bones. The cave smells terrible
from the rotting trash and excrement. And to their horror they see things they recognize
like a bracelet worn by a missing woman and the shepherd hook carried by a missing
shepherd. Then one sees a human skull among the trash and they realize they are in a
Troll’s cave and flee for their lives.
Think about it, what lives in caves, deep woods, and hollows like those under bridges?
What’s hairy, wears skins, and eats children and travelers? Trolls? Goblins maybe?
Sound far fetched? Check with the British. Archeological work in the north of Britain
tells the tale. They have been excavating the primitive’s caves. They have found, mixed
among the bones of animals, the bones of adults and children. Mostly they are small
children and infants, easy prey. And they have all the signs of having been butchered and
cooked.
At one time sleeping quietly was good advice. The Bogeyman was looking for you.