4AM SLEEPWALKER

Obama: US Reverse Course With Indians

2009-11-05T20:39:00.001-08:00

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20091105/ap_on_go_pr_wh/us_obama_american_indians

Obama: US must reverse course with Indians

By BEN FELLER, Associated Press Writer Ben Feller, Associated Press Writer – Thu Nov 5, 5:32 pm ET

WASHINGTON – President Barack Obama assured American Indians on Thursday that they have a place in his White House and on his agenda, telling tribal leaders their marginalized community deserves more from its government.

"I get it. I'm on your side," Obama told the largest gathering of tribal leaders in U.S. history.

Obama devoted part of his own time Thursday and even more of his administration's attention toward renewing relations with American Indians. He opened a conference that drew leaders from 386 tribal nations — the first meeting of its kind in 15 years — and he ordered every Cabinet agency to take more steps toward more cooperation.

The president returned to the event at the Interior Department late in the day for closing remarks, as scheduled, but he altered his message to address a deadly shooting rampage at the Fort Hood Army base in Texas. He said his administration would get answers to every question about the incident.

Obama's outreach to tribal leaders amounted to a campaign promise kept from a president who got significant support from Native Americans on his way to the White House.

It comes as American Indians remain entrenched in a class-action lawsuit against the federal government, claiming the government has long swindled them out of land royalties.

Obama said he didn't blame tribal leaders for skepticism about another politician offering hopeful words. But he said he has no interest in going through the motions of just holding a summit with them.

The president seemed to connect best when he told his audience that he was like them: an "outsider" who grew up without a father, moved around a lot, and understood what it was like to struggle and be ignored.

"You will not be forgotten as long as I'm in this White House," Obama said to a sustained ovation.

Whether that promise results in action over the next few years will be the test. In a question-and-answer session, audience members pressed Obama for government help on a litany of matters, from more respect for sovereignty rights to environmental cleanup to concerns about offshore drilling.

One leader pleaded with Obama to find a way to make the federal commitment lasting, so that it would not be at the whim of White House elections. In the process, the speaker predicted Obama would win re-election, which apparently stuck with the president as he pledged to enforce the laws of the land.

"For the next eight years — the next four years at least, let me not jump the gun," Obama said, catching himself. He finished the thought more narrowly by saying that for "the next three years and one month" of his term that he would ensure a new relationship is in place.

During the conference, agency officials and tribal leaders discussed problems facing American Indians, including economic development, education, health care, public safety and housing.

The president signed a memo calling on every cabinet agency to give him a detailed plan to improve the relationship between the government and tribal communities.

He has made good on pledges to hold the summit and to give American Indians a prominent voice on his senior staff — and he reminded the audience of that.

"We respect you as a man of your word," responded Jefferson Keel, president of the National Congress of American Indians.

Blacones Fault and Escarpment

2008-11-02T04:35:00.000-08:00

Information relating to Texas quakes in post below:

Faults and Caves
... of the normal faults of the Balcones Fault Zone are surrounded by zones of ... The Balcones Fault Zone contains a complicated series of such faults and fracture. ...
www.edwardsaquifer.net/faults.html - Cached
Central Texas - What is it?
The Balcones Escarpment and the west Austin Hill Country are the result of this fault episode. ... fractures in the Balcones Fault Zone, Austin Region, Central ...
www.beg.utexas.edu/UTopia/centtex/centtex_what.html - Cached
Chapter 3
The Walter Geology Library of the University of Texas at Austin ... The Balcones faulting resulted in upward movement of the rocks on the west side of the fault zone. ...
www.lib.utexas.edu/geo/ggtc/ch3.html?p=print - Cached
"STRUCTURAL STYLE IN AN EN ECHELON FAULT SYSTEM, BALCONES FAULT ZONE ...
Structural Style in an En Echelon Fault System, Balcones Fault Zone, Central Texas: Geomorphologic and Hydrologic Implications
www.lib.utexas.edu/geo/balcones_escarpment/pages71-76.html - Cached
Balcones Fault: Information from Answers.com
Balcones Fault Genre: Rock Active: '70s Representative Album: 'It's All Balcones Fault' Biography A comic Dixieland band from Austin, TX
www.answers.com/topic/balcones-fault - Cached
Texas Monthly: Read Me. Texas
It is the Balcones that creates the Hill Country, that sets the stage for the ... ago, that the fault zone in the buried Ouachitas created the Balcones Escarpment. ...
www.texasmonthly.com/ranch/readme/balcones.php - Cached

Texas Quakes Again! What's Going On?

2008-10-31T19:24:00.000-07:00

Other posts on Texas Quakes:
http://sleepwalkingmuses.blogspot.com/2005/10/how-did-i-get-here-from-there-started.html
http://sleepwalkingmuses.blogspot.com/2005/10/still-aggrieved-im-still-aggrieved.html
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http://www.themonitor.com/articles/texas-10719-city-miles.html

An earthquake in Texas?

Comments 0 | Recommend 2

Small quakes are only considered 'readjustments' by seismic experts

April 08, 2008 1:30 AM

Sara Perkins

Karen Lyssy thought her furniture had been possessed.For just a fraction of a second, she said, "I just felt the couch kind of like, shake."

It was 4:51 a.m. Monday in Karnes City, Texas - a rural town southeast of San Antonio - and Lyssy was up early getting her son ready for a golf tournament."I didn't know what it was. I didn't say anything - I thought I was crazy," she laughed.

The Falls City High School secretary was actually one of many who experienced a South Texas rarity Monday morning: An earthquake.

Seismic activity is extremely rare in south and central Texas. There are no fault lines or tectonic plate boundaries for hundreds of miles.But every once in a while - especially around Karnes County - the Earth rearranges itself a tiny bit, just enough to rattle perfume bottles and make tired moms wonder if they're insane."It's just a little readjustment, just the Earth cracking its back," said Wallis Hutton, a geology lecturer at the University of Texas Pan-American.

Earthquakes are more common in the Panhandle, along the north Gulf Coast or in west Texas, where faults have been observed or where the Earth's shifting surface plates have pushed up mountain ranges.On seismic hazard maps, most of Texas is a blank space - except for a fried egg-shaped area of slightly elevated risk around Falls City.

Monday's earthquake was 10 miles from the epicenter of a similar tremor in April 1993. A total of eight tiny earthquakes have been recorded within 40 miles of Falls City since 1980.

"It's a novelty," said Russ Wheeler, a research geologist for the National Earthquake Information Center in Colorado.The history of tiny quakes in this one area is an unexplored mystery, he said - likely the fault of minute slippage along a fault several miles below ground.

"There's no cause for worry," he said. "I'd worry more about hurricanes. Do you have tornadoes?"

Two hundred miles south of Falls City, Hidalgo County lies far outside the range of the anomalous earthquakes.The strongest quake recorded in Texas since 1975 was a 5.7 magnitude tremor 60 miles from Marfa, north of Big Bend National Park, in 1995.In contrast, the catastrophic 1985 Mexico City earthquake was an 8.1 on the Richter scale. The effects of that quake could be felt in the Rio Grande Valley, as little white-capped waves formed in swimming pools around the area because of the radiating tremors.

Monday, however, Texas' quake couldn't be felt beyond Three Rivers.Having worked in areas where stronger shakes are commonplace, Hutton could have turned up her nose at the whole event."I spent a lot of time in Seattle and Mexico City," she said. "An earthquake of that scale, you usually sleep through it."

Instead, her students' enthusiasm for the small event swept her up - once she'd confirmed that she wasn't being pranked."In my first class, my students said, ‘There's an earthquake in Texas!' and I said, ‘Yeah, right.' "

Sara Perkins covers Mission, western Hidalgo County, Starr County and general assignments for The Monitor. You can reach her at (956) 683-4472.

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Rare aftershocks persist in North Texas - Yahoo! News

http://www.kfdm.com/news/earthquake-31775-moore-texas.html

Minor earthquake reported in North Texas

Comments 1 | Recommend 0

May 16, 2009 3:19 PM

Posted by: Nicole Murray

EULESS, Texas (AP) - A minor earthquake shook parts of North Texas but no damage nor injuries had been reported.

Jesse Moore with the National Weather Service in Fort Worth said Saturday's earthquake at 11:24 a.m. came in at 3.3, according to the National Earthquake Information Center.

Moore said he had not heard of any reports of damage nor injuries. Moore said the earthquake was centered about four miles south of Euless and 18 miles west of Dallas.

Robert Budack, who lives in Irving, told The Associated Press he was on his bed and got bounced to the wall, but was not hurt.

Budack said he felt an aftershock that "was enough to make the couch and chairs shake."

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http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20081031/ap_on_re_us/texas_earthquakes

Minor quakes hit Dallas area; no damage, injuries

By ANGELA K. BROWN, Associated Press Writer Angela K. Brown, Associated Press Writer – Fri Oct 31, 6:20 pm ET

IRVING, Texas – Several minor earthquakes gave some Texas residents an early Halloween scare, shaking their beds and knocking pictures off walls but causing no damage or injuries, authorities said.

A 2.5-magnitude quake at 11:25 p.m. Thursday near Grand Prairie was followed by a series of other small earthquakes in the Dallas suburb, then a 3.0-magnitude quake at 12:01 a.m. Friday in nearby Irving, according to the U.S. Geological Survey.

Most people in the Dallas area had no idea because the tremors were minor and centered in southwestern Irving. But those who did seemed unnerved by the rare Texas quakes that shook apartment buildings and set off car alarms.

"It's pretty scary. ... The whole bed shakes," one woman told an Irving 911 operator early Friday morning, according to one of several audiotapes released by the Irving Police Department.

Another caller said he felt jolts about every 10 to 15 minutes and had seen "pictures falling off the wall and all that."

Irving police received about 25 calls but no reports of injuries or damage, Officer David Tull said.

A 3.1-magnitude earthquake occurred Thursday about 11:30 a.m. near McLoud, Okla., a 5,000-resident town some 180 miles north of Dallas, with no reports of injuries or damage, according to the USGS.

"I didn't even feel it," said McLoud Police Chief Gary Roe.

But the quakes in the two states are considered separate events because they occurred so far apart in distance and time, although researchers are not sure if a fault line runs between both cities, said USGS geophysicist Jessica Sigala.

The USGS said a 2.9-magnitude earthquake occurred shortly after noon Friday near Maryville, Tenn., but emergency officials said no damage had been reported.

Maryville is 160 miles east of Nashville.

___

Update:

Rare aftershocks persist in North Texas - Yahoo! News

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20081101/ap_on_re_us/texas_earthquakes

Rare aftershocks persist in North Texas

Sat Nov 1, 10:54 am ET

DALLAS – Northern Texas has been getting more rare earth tremors, one day after several minor earthquakes made Halloween memorable for some people in the area.

Two almost simultaneous aftershocks were centered beneath Grand Prairie and Irving just before 7 a.m. Saturday. The U.S. Geological Survey says the Grand Prairie quake measured 2.5 magnitude and the Irving quake came in at 2.7.

Saturday's tremors between Dallas and Fort Worth were in the same general areas as on Friday, when tremors of magnitude 2.5 set off car alarms. Switchboards for 911 systems lit up with calls from people near the quakes' epicenters but no damage was reported.

Oldest Tree; Oldest Man

2008-07-10T20:05:00.000-07:00

http://www.environmentalgraffiti.com/offbeat-news/the-oldest-tree-in-the-world-put-in-perspective/1069

The Oldest Tree In The World: 9,950 Years Put In Perspective

Thu, Apr 17, 2008

The trunk of the above tree is less than 600 years old—but its roots date back to 9,550 years ago, making it the world's oldest known living tree, scientists say.

This tree is apparently 9,550 years old; well, more appropriately, not the tree itself, but the root system, which has obviously supported several different incarnations of this tree.

However, since our average lifespan is far south of 100 years, we can’t really gain an appropriate perspective on how old this rather well-worn Norway Spruce actually is. The following statistics may help. At 9,950 years old, this tree was:

“Born” at the end of the last ice age.
4,450 years old when the Bristlecone Pines in California had that new-car smell. The Bristlecones were previously accepted to be the oldest living things.
4,972 years old when the Great Pyramid at Giza was completed, 2500 B.C./B.C.E.
6,585 years old when the first temple (Solomon’s) of Israel was completed in 957 B.C.E.
6,789 years old when the Roman Empire was founded in 753 B.C./B.C.E.
8,018 years old when Rome was sacked in 476 A.D./C.E.
9,035 years old when Columbus set out on his (everybody thought) doomed voyage of 1492
9,347 years old when Nelson was making a name for himself at Trafalgar in 1805, and
9,487 years old when the first atomic bombs were detonated in 1945

To be perfectly clear, this tree is older than recorded human history, which only reaches as far back as 2800 B.C.E. The oldest person on the planet–124-year old Zabani Khakimova of Chechnya– has been in existence for 1.29 percent of this tree’s lifespan. Yikes.

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http://www.environmentalgraffiti.com/offbeat-news/bodyshock-the-amazing-story-behind-the-256-year-old-man/1130

Bodyshock: The Amazing Story behind the 256 Year-Old Man

Sat, May 3, 2008

Offbeat News

By Chris Ingham Brooke - Chief Graffiti Artist

Li Ching-Yun. Image from The People’s Republic of China

According to the 1933 obituaries in both Time Magazine and the New York Times, Li Ching-Yun was reported to have buried 23 wives and fostered 180 descendants by the time he died at the age of 256.

Was he really that old? Could he have forgotten his own birthday or exaggerated his claim? Environmental Graffiti investigates.

The Secrets to an Interminable Life

“Keep a quiet heart, sit like a tortoise, walk sprightly like a pigeon and sleep like a dog.” These were the words of advice Li gave to Wu Pei-fu, the warlord, who took Li into his house to learn the secret of extremely long life.

Li maintained that inward calm and peace of mind were the secrets to incredible longevity. His diet after all, was mainly based on rice and wine.

From 0 to 256

Unsurprisingly, not much is known about Li Ching-Yun’s early life. We know he was born in the province of Szechwan in China, where he also died. We also know that by his tenth birthday, Ching-Yun was literate and had travelled to Kansu, Shansi, Tibet, Annam, Siam and Manchuria gathering herbs. After that, it gets a bit fuzzy…

Apparently, for over one hundred years, Li continued selling his own herbs and then subsequently sold herbs collected by others. He also (according to Time) had six-inch long fingernails on his right hand.

You might be thinking that he looked decrepit, shrivelled, leather-like and creepy, however sources at the time were astonished at his youthfulness. Was this suspect? Was Li Ching-Yun as old as he claimed he was, or was his birthday a clerical error or exaggeration?

Let’s take a brief look at both sides…

The Nine Lives of Li Ching-Yun

By his own admission he was born in 1736 and had lived 197 years. However, in 1930 a professor and dean at Minkuo University by the name of Wu Chung-chien, found records “proving” that Li was born in 1677. Records allegedly showed that the Imperial Chinese Government congratulated him on his 150th and 200th Birthdays.

So the question is, had he forgotten his own birthday? Was this even the same Li Ching-Yun?

Looking at all of this from a medical and documented perspective: Jeanne Louise Calment, a French woman who died in 1997 so far holds the title for the person who has roamed the earth the longest: 122 years, which is a phenomenal length of time.

That means, that if the records discovered by Wu Chung-chien were accurate, Li Ching-Yun’s age would surpass the official record by more than 130 years. Is this even medically possible?

The detail, which seems to prove both arguments and debunk them at the same time, is Li’s youthful appearance, noted in a 1928 article from the New York Times. Visually and physically, he appeared to look like a typical 60 year-old. Does this therefore signify a superhuman body capable of lasting one quarter of a millennium, or is the story of Li Ching-Yun based on a series of half-truths, lies or exaggerations?

Unfortunately, we may never know. You may draw your own logical conclusions.

Sources: 1, 2, 3,

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http://pursiful.com/?p=313

Patriarchal Chronology, Longevity, and Numeracy

Mar 21st, 2007

Old Testament

2 comments

Here is the kind of thing you ponder when you’re a biblical chronology geek:

Esau married his Hittite wives when he was 40 years old (Gen 26:34). Since he and Jacob were twins, Jacob would have been 40 years old as well.

It didn’t sit well with Rebekah that Esau had married outside the clan. You get the impression she was dead-set against it from the start. So, apparently shortly thereafter, she sent Jacob off to Mesopotamia to find a wife from among his extended family there (Gen 27:46; 28:2). How long was this after Esau’s marriages? The Bible doesn’t say, but what impression do you get from reading the text? For the sake of argument, let’s say three years passed in which this big, unhappy, dysfunctional family stayed together. Jacob is now 43.

In Mesopotamia, Jacob worked a sum total of twenty years for his uncle, Laban (Gen 31:38). He married Leah and Rachel after seven years (Gen 29:20), when he was 50. He, his wives and concubines, and his many children went back to Canaan shortly after the birth of Joseph (Gen 30:25). So Joseph was born when Jacob was 63 years old.

When Joseph was 17, his brothers sold him into slavery in Egypt (Gen 37:2). Jacob was 80.

When Joseph was 30 years old, he he entered Pharaoh’s service (Gen 41:46). Jacob was 93.

There were seven years of bountiful harvest in Egypt (Gen 41:53), then the years of famine began. When the famine had been in the land for two years (Gen 45:6), Joseph sent for his family to immigrate to Egypt. This would have been in the ninth year of Joseph’s tenure. Jacob would have been 101.

Finally, Jacob appears before Pharaoh (Gen 47:7). Pharaoh asks Jacob how old he is, and Jacob replies:

“The years of my earthly sojourn are one hundred thirty; few and hard have been the days of my life. (Gen 47:9)

How are we to account for the 29-year discrepancy? The easiest way may be to revisit the duration of the interval between Esau getting married and Jacob leaving for Mesopotamia. If my guesstimate of three years is off—by a factor of 11 or 12!—the chronology once again slips into place. But is this realistic? Would Jacob really have procrastinated another 35 years before trying to find a wife? Would he be living at home at age 75 with his supercentenarian parents? Would Isaac have sent his 75-year old son Esau out hunting for game rather than one of the great-grandkids? Of course, if Jacob were really 82 years old on his wedding night, that may well explain why he didn’t realize that it was Leah, not Rachel, in his bed (Gen 29:24-25)!

Another option is that Jacob’s age is being intentionally exaggerated, either by the narrator or by Jacob himself. There are, in fact, certain regions of the world that boast of amazing longevity, especially the Caucasus (see also here), Okinawa, the Xinjiang region of China, the Vilcabamba region of Ecuador (see also here), and the Hunza region of Pakistan. By far, the most astounding claim of the twentieth century involved China’s Li Chung-yun, born—it is claimed—in 1677 and dying May 5, 1933 at the ripe old age of 256! In comparison, Shirali Muslimov of Azerbaijan was practically a child when he died September 4, 1973, purportedly at 168 years of age.

In the twenty-first century, Zabani Khakimova of Chechnya died in 2003, purportedly at the age of 124. If confirmed, Mrs. Khakimova would beat the oldest documented supercentenarian, Jeanne Calment of France (d. 4 Aug 1997), by two years.

Most of these claims have been contested, however, by further research (see also here and here). Further, more rigorous investigation has generally found widespread age exaggeration, although some regions do credibly report a higher than expected number of people living past 100.

A number of factors contribute to the modern phenomenon of age exaggeration, including:

The profound respect for the elderly exhibited among the cultures where all of these reports originate, including the prestige that comes with being the oldest person in a village or tribe.
The general tendency noted among many elderly to inflate their ages.
The desire to avoid military service while young by assuming the identity of a deceased elder. Similarly, some of the originally reported Vilcabamban centenarians were found to have adopted the baptismal records and other documentation of older siblings or parents. The practice of “recycling” the names of deceased older relatives, called “necronomy,” is known to many cultures.
In the former USSR, amazing longevity was sometimes touted as proof of the superiority of the communist system. Furthermore, Josef Stalin (an ethnic Georgian) manipulated claims for long-lived inhabitants of the Caucasus in the service of his own ambitions.
Finally, Wang et al. have observed that in China, ethnic minorities such as the Uygurs of Xinjiang were more likely to exaggerate their ages than the predominant Han population.

Some of these reasons find parallels with the patriarchal narratives of Genesis. The ancient Israelites, like all the cultures of the Ancient Near East, considered a long life to be humankind’s greatest blessing and demonstrated great reverence toward the elderly. As perennial outsiders, the sociological factors that lead to age inflation among the Uygurs and others may also have figured into the reporting of the ages of the patriarchs. Perhaps Jacob wished to command greater respect from Pharaoh by exaggerating his age. It would not have been the first time Jacob bent the truth for his own advantage!

Even so, the reporting of these year-counts may be entirely the product of oral storytelling. It is important to realize that ancient peoples, especially those outside the major urban centers, did not handle numbers like moderns do.

Numeracy developed in the world at about the same time (and in the same place: ancient Sumer) as literacy. For many centuries, numbers belonged strictly to the realm of business transactions. Outside that sphere, they functioned more like adjectives than precise enumerations. Thus, the number 7 came to signify totality or completeness. (You can count to five on the fingers of one hand, then push it an extra two by using your memory.) Anthropologists have noted even in recent times that most preliterate peoples simply have no use for numbers and counting, even when they are exposed to the concepts. Numbers may be suggestive of certain qualities, but for the most part are not used to indicate precise figures.

In this context, it is not surprising that round numbers, particularly where 10’s and 7’s figure prominently, are abundant in the Genesis narratives. Both Jacob and Esau, for example, married at age 40. Is this meant to be a literal number or does it simply mean something like “suitable maturity”? Likewise, Jacob worked 20 years for Laban and Sarai waited 10 years before offering Hagar to Abram. All of these could be round figures rather than strict chronological data.

Let me quickly point out that none of this is meant to cast doubt on the basic historicity of the patriarchs! I’m simply trying to understand the stories told about them in the appropriate cultural and sociological terms. For the book of Genesis, those terms involve a way of using numbers that is quite different from what we would expect in our scientific age.

The first character to appear in the Bible who could actually read was probably Nimrod, if he is to be equated with the eerily similar Sumerian king Enmerkar, whom legend had it was the first king to write a message on clay. This was about the beginning of the Uruk IV period, when writing was just being invented.

The first Bible character who used numbers as something other than adjectives describing qualities rather than quantities may well have been Eliezer, Abraham’s steward (Gen 15:2). Leaders in pre-numerate societies would have had such an “expert” in their employ to handle the accounting. Perhaps it was Eliezer who kept track of the 318 fighting men at Abram’s command (Gen 14:14). I doubt that Abraham or Isaac could either read or handle numbers, although perhaps Jacob could do both at a rudimentary level. Only with Moses, with his first-rate Egyptian education, do literate and numerate characters take center stage in the Bible. Even after that, however, it is likely that most ancient Israelites used numbers more for their symbolism than for anything else.

technorati tags: chronology, genesis, longevity, numeracy, patriarchs

Darrell Pursiful posted this entry on Wednesday, March 21st, 2007 at 4:52 pm. Posted in the category Old Testament

This is very interesting. Genesis is my favourite part of the Bible, and the characters’ lifespans have aroused my curiosity, too, as their given ages obviously can’t always be taken literally. I didn’t know that numbers were used as adjectives; I still can’t quite grasp that concept! I guessed that the characters must age incredibly slowly; perhaps in the time of Methuselah, 900 was the equivalent of 90 nowadays.

By Abraham’s time, I reckoned the characters aged approx. twice as slowly as we do now. Thus, when Sarah gave birth to Isaac at 90, she was actually like a 45-year-old, which would make sense: old enough to raise eyebrows, especially as she had always previously been barren, but still feasible. When Isaac himself died at 180 (a great age), that would be the equivalent of 90. And Esau marrying at 40, would have physically been like a 20-year-old. That may be wishful thinking on my part, because Jacob is one of my literary crushes, and I desperately want him to have been a gorgeous youth when he married my namesake! Well, as he managed to move the well’s stone single-handed, he must have been quite young and fit at that time, anyway.

Whatever, this has been a good insight into ancient mathematics.

D. P. Says:

April 18th, 2007 at 1:13 pm

Welcome, Rachel. As for numbers being used as adjectives, this might not be too surprising if you’re familiar with languages other than English. In ancient Greek, for example, the numbers one, two, and three are declined like any other adjectives to denote the gender, number, and case of the nouns they modify. Higher numbers (implying a greater sense of numeracy) are not. Importance tended to get attached to numbers that were just beyond ancient peoples’ ability to handle easily. Thus, seven (two more than the five fingers of one hand) and twelve (two more than the ten fingers of both hands) early on became significant in many cultures as ways of describing completeness or perfection. (The “seven Spirits of God” in Revelation is probably an example of this as well.)

There may also be some scribal corruptions involved in the transmission of some of these numbers, but that is a subject for another post…

Parashat Noah - The Noahic Flood

2008-04-17T17:27:00.001-07:00

http://www.biu.ac.il/JH/parasha/eng/noah/kav.html

(Related article, see post: Noah's Flood, mutations limiting human life span; Tree Longevity - 10/20/05)

Bar-Ilan University's Parashat Hashavua Study Center

Parashat Noah 5763/ October 12, 2002

Lectures on the weekly Torah reading by the faculty of Bar-Ilan University in Ramat Gan, Israel. A project of the Faculty of Jewish Studies, Paul and Helene Shulman Basic Jewish Studies Center, and the Office of the Campus Rabbi. Published on the Internet under the sponsorship of Bar-Ilan University's International Center for Jewish Identity.
Prepared for Internet Publication by the Center for IT & IS Staff at Bar-Ilan University.
Inquiries and comments to: Dr. Isaac Gottlieb, Department of Bible,

gottlii@mail.biu.ac.il

Parashat Noah 5763/ October 12, 2002

Science and the Flood

Prof. Moshe Kaveh

President, Bar Ilan University

Director, Resnick Institute for Advanced Technology in Physics

The story of the Flood in Parashat Noah is one of the most dramatic in the annals of man. The massive destruction and calculated deliverance in this narrative have sparked the imagination of novelists, poets and humanists, making the story of the flood and its hero, Noah, the most recounted myth in all human society throughout the ages.

Two hundred and seventeen cultures around the world have a flood story (see the book by C. Sellien and D. Balsiger). Many studies document stories of the flood in the region of Mesopotamia, including stories written on stone or papyrus (cf., for example, the documentation in Lambert and Miller, The Babylonian Story of the Flood).

From the documents that have been recorded and come down to us, we see that in most of the stories the dove heralds the end of the flood, appearing with an olive branch in her mouth, which in the fullness of time was adopted universally as the symbol of peace.

For over a century the flood has also been the object of scientific research, including recent studies by scientists at the world's leading universities. These studies examine the flood from the point of view of chronology, geology and oceanography, biology and zoology, archaeology, as well as philosophy and theology. Thus we see that interest in the flood is not confined to esoteric fields, rather it encompasses a broad spectrum of disciplines.

Everything, it turns out, can be a topic for research, even whether the zebra was on the second level of Noah's ark, next to the lions, or on the third level, next to the bears.

The Vast Amount of Water

Generations of scientists have sought an explanation of the source of the vast quantity of water in the flood. Some have argued that the water resulted from subterranean volcanic shifting, and others believe that gasses covered the earth's surface and turned into droplets of water. According to the latter theory, which today is considered more piquant than scientific, the gasses blocked the ultra-violet radiation, causing Noah to live nine hundred years. Scholars today generally accept the hypothesis that most of the water came from glaciers melting. Both cite the Bible in support of water flowing from above and from below: "all the fountains of the great deep burst apart, and the floodgates of the sky broke open" (Gen. 7:11).

As for dating the flood, early studies set it around 5,600 B.C.E. A British archaeologist by the name of Leonard Wooley dated the flood to 2,800 B.C.E. Recently Gene Faulstich, from the Iowa Research Institute, proved the exact date of the flood to have been 2,345 B.C.E. Using methods from astronomy, he dated the onset of the flood precisely to the 14^th of May in that year. The Sages also related to the timing of the flood. Rabbi Joshua said that it took place in the month of Iyyar (approx. May; see Sanhedrin 108a); thus Faulstich's findings match the Sages' remark.

Noah's Ark

Attempts at finding Noah's ark have virtually become an obsession for more than a century. In 1887 two Persian princes reported that they had seen Noah's ark on one of the mountains of Ararat, and in 1916 two Russian pilots claimed to have seen it from the air. Since then dozens of similar reports have been published (see Bruce Feiler, Walking the Bible, HarperCollins 2001). Since 2000, in the wake of the findings mentioned above, the flood has become accepted as definite scientific fact.

It should be noted that none of the expeditions in search of the ark on the mountains of Ararat have come up with anything. Recently the idea came up of using satellite imaging from outer space. There is currently a plan to send up a photo satellite, Okono 2, capable of photographing objects as small as one meter, with which researchers hope to discover the remains of Noah's ark.

Life in Noah's Ark

Finding Noah's ark is a fascinating archaeological challenge. But short of actually discovering the ark itself, the idea of the ark has aroused the curiosity of zoologists and biologists. They relate to the ark as the largest biological laboratory in the history of the universe. According to the Torah, Noah's ark was 300 cubits long, 50 cubits wide, and 30 cubits high. That makes it a vessel about half as large as the Titanic. One of the most widely researched questions is how the ark could have contained some two million kinds of animals. John Whitcomb surmises that Noah's ark hosted 3,700 mammals, 8,600 birds, and 6,300 reptiles, and in view of the size of the ark there was room for all.

Another related question is how these animals were fed. How much food did Noah have to load on board his ark in order to support the living things in it? The question of garbage disposal has also been researched. According to zoologists from San Diego University, the animals in the ark must have produced about 800 tons of refuse. The stimulation for all this research is provided by the biblical narrative itself, this week's Torah reading.

The Scope of the Flood

Now we get to the motivation for writing this article, namely the amazing story that broke about a year or two ago, in which the world press announced that "decisive proof of the flood" had been discovered. The plain text of the biblical narrative gives the clear impression that the flood encompassed the entire world: "All existence on earth was blotted out - man, cattle, creeping things, and birds of the sky; they were blotted out from the earth. Only Noah was left, and those with him in the ark" (Gen. 7:23). However, scientific computations show that there is not enough water to cover the entire earth to the height of Mount Ararat. Moreover, there is no tradition of a flood story in the ancient civilizations of the Far East. Chinese civilization, which is well documented as far as 7,000 years back, makes no mention of any event resembling a flood. Particularly in the ancient Near East, however, there are flood stories, such as the Gilgamesh Epic from Mesopotamia.

Views of the flood as local in scope go back to the time of the Sages. According to R. Yohanan (Zevahim 113b), the torrential rains did not fall on the Land of Israel. Likewise, the Torah Temimah commentary of Rabbi Epstein writes: "Regarding Babylonia receiving more rain than any other land in the world and being drowned by the flood, it should be noted that according to Tractate Zevahim, loc. sit., Babylon was therefore called Shinar, because all the creatures that perished in the flood were tossed (Heb. ninaru) there. It is a deep valley, and therefore is also called metzulah ('the deep')." In the mind of the Sages, Babylonia constituted the 'entire world'. This is evident in Pirkei de-Rabbi Eliezer (Horev ed., ch. 10, s.v. "be-shishi"): "... since all the creatures lived in one place, and seeing the waters of the flood, Nimrod became king over them, as it is said: 'the mainstays of his kingdom were Babylon, ...' (Gen. 10:10)."

Noah's Flood: The New Scientific Discoveries About the Event that Changed History, 1999, a book by Geologists Dr. Willian Ryan and Dr. Walter Peterman from Columbia University, suggests a fascinating theory based on research indicating that Noah's flood was a local event that came about as follows: at the end of the ice age European icebergs began to melt. The floods that resulted from this melting turned a fresh-water lake into a sea - the Black Sea. A study published in 1993 presented findings that a local body of fresh water was flooded by salt water. The Bosphorus blocked the water from flowing out; but gradually a channel was formed, and about ninety days later the water broke through with great force. Analysis of various shells from the area indicate the existence a subterranean division line that was formed thousands of years ago. Ryan and Peterman's study also showed that melting of icebergs caused the level of the Mediterranean Sea to rise and water to flow through the straits of the Bosphorus. Scientists calculated that water flowed through the Bosphorus so fast that the size of the lake increased at the rate of one and a half square kilometers a day.

Amazing Recent Discoveries by Ballard

An expedition called Black Horizon set out in the year 2000 under the leadership of the well-known oceanographer Ballard (famed for his discovery of the Titanic) to substantiate the above flood theory with remains of findings from the bottom of the Black Sea. About 20 kilometers offshore from Turkey, near the city of Sinop, the expedition discovered a well-preserved structure that was thousands of years old. This finding adds greatly to our knowledge about life in the ancient civilizations of this part of the world. It appears that from time to time the ancient dwellers of this area had to relocate due to floods.

An article in National Geographic describes the operations of a submarine robot that was lowered into the sea to photograph the area. The photos reveal a rectangular area approximately 15 meters long and 4 meters wide into which a structure of wood and mortar had apparently collapsed. The findings from this site - carved wooden pillars, tree branches and stone vessels - are well-preserved. There is broad consensus among scientists that this study, publicized in the press the world wide, is conclusive proof of the historicity of the flood.

The flood in the literature of the Sages

The Midrashic comments of the Sages were concerned not with the physical reality of the Deluge but with its moral and religious repercussions. They did not treat the deliverance from the flood as an event with religious meaning for later generations, due to the way the Sages thought one should react to "G-d's creatures drowning in the sea," namely, that one should not sing or declare a day of rejoicing in honor of Noah having been saved when so many other lives were lost. But the covenant made between G-d and Noah at the cessation of the Flood was preserved for all time by the Sages in the benediction they formulated, "Blessed art thou ... who remembers the covenant," recited whenever one sees a rainbow after a storm.

Instead, the Sages thought we could learn from the causes of the Flood; in Parashat Noah (Gen. 6:11) we read: "The earth became corrupt before G-d; the earth was filled with lawlessness." The human virtues necessary to maintain a proper society had been destroyed, and corruption and lawlessness reigned. Such a society was not worthy in G-d's eyes: "And the Lord regretted that He had made man on earth, and His heart was saddened" (Gen. 6:6). The sadness felt by G-d at having to drown the work of His hands did not give rise to a day of rejoicing, rather to an everlasting covenant between Him and man. Even though "the devisings of man's mind are evil from his youth," nevertheless the Lord promised never again to destroy all His creatures.

The very rainbow that forms in the sunlight after a rainstorm reminds human beings that the Lord remembers - as we say in the formulation of the benediction, "who remembers the covenant" - and symbolizes both refraction into the colors of the spectrum and the unity of the great light. Human beings, as diverse as they are, must lead their lives as creatures made "in the image of G-d" (Gen. 9:6).

Last Update:July 03, 2004

COMMENTS:

The Future Was Yesterday said...

""All existence on earth was blotted out - man, cattle, creeping things, and birds of the sky; they were blotted out from the earth. Only Noah was left, and those with him in the ark" (Gen. 7:23)."

One more time.....
""All existence on earth was blotted out......."
Does this include Oxygen? Light? Gravity? "All existence" has to include water and ice, too. And where do the life givers of this delightfully ridiculous myth say the dove got the olive branch? A lot of money depends on this myth being kept alive, because a lot of money is made from it periodically "hailing new scientific discoveries." Think o f it as lifelong steady employment at your expense.

Tuesday, August 05, 2008 1:58:00 AM

Parashat Noah - Extreme Longevity of Early Generations in Genesis

2008-04-17T17:16:00.000-07:00

http://www.biu.ac.il/JH/parasha/eng/noah/avi.html

(for related article, see post:Noah's Flood, mutations limiting human life span; Tree Longevity - 10/20/05)

Lectures on the Torah Reading

by the faculty of Bar-Ilan University

Ramat Gan, Israel

Parashat Noah

A project of Bar-Ilan University's Faculty of Jewish Studies, Paul and Helene Shulman Basic Jewish Studies Center, and the Office of the Campus Rabbi. Sponsored by Dr. Ruth Borchard of the Shoresh Charitable Fund (SCF). Published with assistance of the President's Fund for Torah and Science. Permission granted to reprint with appropriate credit.
Inquiries and comments to: Dr. Isaac Gottlieb, Department of Bible, gottlii@mail.biu.ac.il

Parashat Noah 5759/1998

THE EXTREME LONGEVITY OF THE EARLY GENERATIONS IN GENESIS

Prof. Natan Aviezer

Dept. of Physics

QUESTIONS

One of the most difficult questions in the Book of Genesis relates to the extreme ages ascribed to the first 20 generations - from Adam to Abraham. Genesis speaks of people in this period who lived for more than 900 years, culminating in the record holder - Methuselah - who reached the unbelievable age of 969. How are we to understand such longevity? Anyone who has had close contact with the very elderly has observed that the human body literally deteriorates as one approaches the age of 100. Thus, the Biblical accounts of people who lived for many hundreds of years seem completely impossible.

There is yet another difficulty. After the time of the Exodus from Egypt, extreme longevity disappears and the life span of subsequent generations becomes normal by present-day standards - completely consistent with the traditional 120-year maximum life span. What happened to cause this dramatic decrease in longevity?

These are the questions to be addressed here. It will be shown that important recent scientific advances regarding the process of aging pave the way for understanding the nearly thousand-year life span of the early generations in Genesis, as well as the contemporary life span of those who lived after the time of the Exodus.

LIVING LONGER

Until quite recently, no one really knew why human beings age. But within the last two decades, there have been enormous advances in our understanding. In fact, the study of aging has become the focus of such intense scientific effort that one of the leading authorities speaks of "a revolution in aging research."[1] The findings of this recent research have taken us by surprise, with the result that scientific journals aimed at the educated layman now abound with articles that describe these exciting discoveries. A few examples will illustrate the point.

In 1996, the cover of New Scientist declared: "Life at 200: Will We Always Grow Old?" and its article, dramatically entitled "Death of Old Age," began as follows:

We can live healthy lives well into our hundreds, researchers claim.[2]

In 1997, a news item in Scientific American was entitled "Immortality Gene Revealed," and it reported:

Two teams of scientists have cloned the gene for telomerase, known as the "holy grail" of aging research....Cells that produce telomerase are immortal.[3]

In 1992, Professor Michal Jazwinski, Director of the Center on Aging at Louisiana State University, a major figure in aging research, asserted that:

The maximum human life span might go as high as 400 years.[4]

WHY DO WE AGE?

Aging is one of the universal human experiences. Aging and death seem as natural as breathing, and just as inevitable. Long regarded as a mysterious aspect of life, recent scientific research has revolutionized our knowledge about the causes of aging.[5] As scientists continue to make breathtaking progress and gain new insights about the basic mechanisms responsible for aging, they develop the ability to intervene in the aging process and thereby to extend the human life span. This new-found knowledge strongly suggests that biomedical advances will eventually permit us to delay and even to eliminate many of the causes of aging and death.

The characteristics of aging are many: The body produces chemicals (free radicals) that destroy tissues by a process called oxidation; The immune system weakens and is no longer able to defend the body against disease; Structural proteins become altered, leading to rigidity of the heart muscle, lungs, ligaments and tendons; Cataracts form in the eyes; Certain cells (fibroblasts) lose their ability to divide (Hayflick limit). DNA molecules, which are vital for cellular replication, become damaged by mutations; Cancers develop as cells suddenly proliferate out of control. Hormonal changes occur that cause the gradual destruction of the bones (osteoporosis). Critical enzymes cease functioning, strokes attack the brain, Arthritis appears in the joints. Nerve cells in the brain degenerate (Alzheimer's disease), blood vessels lose their elasticity (arteriosclerosis) and cease to function properly, Parkinson's disease and diabetes develop; Memory declines.

It now appears that there is a common cause for this seemingly endless list of afflictions of age. Although still subject to some controversy, a scientific concensus is emerging that the root cause of all aging processes is genetic. According to Professor Caleb Finch of the Department of Neurobiology of Aging at the University of Southern California, "we are convinced that the rate of aging is under genetic control."[6] That is, the body does not wear itself out, as a car or washing machine finally wears out after years of faithful service. Rather, the human body contains certain genes (or lacks certain genes) that cause all the havoc listed above. In other words, we all suffer from "genetic defects." Therefore, if one could identify these defective genes and neutralize their effects (or introduce the "missing" genes) through genetic engineering, then the human life span could be extended, perhaps very considerably. This exciting possibility, discovered by scientists who study aging, is responsible for the recent dramatic pronouncements quoted above.

The idea that genes cause aging has recently received important support from the research work of Professor Mark Azbel, formerly at Moscow State University and now at Tel Aviv University. In a series of pioneering papers,[7] Professor Azbel has shown that the extensive mortality data for human beings can all be explained by assuming a genetic basis for aging and death.

this proves that there exists a genetically programmed probability to die at a given age.... that age may be genetically manipulated.[8]

Experiments that alter the genetic structure of laboratory specimens have already produced striking results. A small nematode worm (Caenorhabditis elegans) has about 13,000 genes. Professor Tom Johnson of the University of Colorado discovered that changing a single gene, aptly named age-1, doubles the maximum life span of this nematode.[9] Professor Michael Rose of the University of California has produced a new genetic strain of fruit flies (Drosophila melanogaster) that live almost twice as long as their standard laboratory-reared counterparts. Moreover, these "superior" flies are "more robust at every age....Even when they are old, many are stronger than ordinary young specimens."[10] Similarly, Professor Michal Jazwinski has identified several genes that prolong the life of brewer's yeast (Saccharomyces cerevisiae). Introducing the gene LAG-1 not only significantly extends the life span, but also "yeast cells that bear this gene maintain their youth longer."[11]

For those readers who find incredible the suggestion that genetically engineered living creatures could possess enormous life spans, we point out that there exist at present many animals that never appear to grow old. That is, their low mortality rate of youth persists without increasing throughout their life, their bodies do not exhibit any signs of aging, and they continue to bear offspring all their life. In other words, these animals remain biologically young for as long as they live. As Professor Leonard Hayflick of the University of California explains:

Some animals do not seem to age at all. If they do age, it occurs at such a slow rate that their aging has not been demonstrated. Non-aging animals experience a peak in their physiological functions at some point, but these functions do not seem to decline.... non-aging animals do not live forever because of accidents, disease and predation.[12]

Perhaps the most astounding data come from the field studies of the Scottish ornithologist George Dunnet who has spent a lifetime observing a colony of marine birds called fulmars (Fulmarus glacialis) on the Orkney Islands. He reports that:

Fulmars show no increase in mortality rate and no decline in female reproduction up to at least the age of 40 years. Certainly, no species of a similarly-sized mammal is known to maintain her fertility at a comparable age. Do these birds avoid aging altogether? We do not know.[13]

As of 1990, the Milwaukee zoo and the Moscow zoo each possessed an Andean condor (Vultur gryphus) this is nearly 80 years old, continues to lay eggs, and shows no signs at all of aging.[14] Studies of turtles and certain fish yield similar results:

One specimen of Marion's tortoise (Geochelone gigantea) died accidentally at 150 years of age in a British fort on Mauritius. Studies in progress on other turtle species suggest that they remain fertile throughout their life and that their mortality rate remains low.... The longevity records for fish are held by rock fish and sturgeon (Acipenser fulvescens), which reach 150 years of age, as confirmed by the number of rings on their scales. The very old individuals of rock fish (Sebates aleutianus) studied by Bruce Leaman of the Pacific Biological Station of Fisheries, produced normal egg masses and showed no sign of the usual tumors and other pathological lesions found in mammals at advanced ages.[15]

The data for plants (primarily trees) are no less astonishing.

Many species of hardwoods and conifers live for 1000 years or more, producing seed year after year. The greatest individual life spans are found in the bristlecone pine (Pinus aristata). The ages of some of these trees, determined from annual growth rings, exceeds 4500 years. There is no hint of senescence [aging] in these long-lived trees... Certain plants propagate by runners that are part of the same individual plant. Propagating in this manner, these plants seem to be potentially immortal... Wine lovers will be interested to read that some Cabernet Sauvignon grape vines have produced grapes for at least 800 years.[16]

A WORLD WITHOUT AGING

In the light of the above discussion, it should not be too difficult to imagine a world in which human beings do not age. This does not mean that no one will ever die. Our lives would still be cut short by usual hazards of traffic accidents, virulent diseases and violent crime. But the rate at which we die -the mortality rate - would not increase with age. For example, the chances of dying in a car accident are about the same at age 60 as they are at age 20. The safest age for human beings is 10-15 years. The period of dangerous childhood diseases is past and the infirmities of old age have not yet begun. In the United States and Western Europe, the mortality rate - defined as the chances of dying within one year - of a 10-year-old boy is about 0.05%; that is, only 1 in 2000 male youngsters will die within a year. (Young girls do somewhat better.) This is the minimum mortality rate observed for male human beings. By contrast, the mortality rate for 100-year-olds is 50%; half the centenarians will not survive the year.

What can one say about the human life span in a world without aging? If human beings did not age, then everyone would remain forever young, and the minimum mortality rate - that of a 10-year-old child - would persist for one's entire life. Professor Caleb Finch has shown[17] that under these circumstances, 95% of the population would reach the age of 100 and the average life span would be about 1300 years. Moreover, chronologically extremely old - but biologically still young - men and women would be able to sire children and give birth throughout their thousand-year lives. This is how human society would appear if one could eliminate all the genetic defects that cause aging.

THE BIBLICAL TEXT

Having examined the recent scientific advances regarding aging, we return to the account in Genesis of the extreme longevity of the early generations. It is very useful to display the life spans for the first 27 generations in a figure, which is presented on the following page. From this figure, it is clear that there is a marked difference between the life spans before Noah and those after Noah. Up to and including Noah, the life spans are nearly all the same (about 900-950 years), except for Enoch, who is explicitly described in Genesis as having died young and may therefore be removed from consideration. After Noah, however, the life span decreases rapidly, falling steadily from 959 years for Noah (10th generation) to reach the "traditional" value of 120 years by the time of Moses (26th generation).

1. The 900-year life spans up to the time of Noah

Consider the following scenario. When Adam and Eve were in the Garden of Eden, they were destined to live forever. We propose that this immortality was the result of Adam and Eve not possessing any of the "genetic defects" that nowadays cause aging (as discussed previously). Moreover, Adam and Eve were not subject to the non-genetic causes of mortality, which are unrelated to aging. In the Garden of Eden, there presumably were no traffic accidents, no virulent diseases, and no violent crime. Therefore, it follows that Adam and Eve would live forever.

When Adam and Eve ate the "forbidden fruit," they were forced to leave the Garden of Eden and enter the outside world. Of course, once they were outside the Garden of Eden, they became subject to the usual non-genetic causes of death that afflict us all (accidents, diseases, etc.), and hence they became mortal. Indeed, this is precisely what G-d meant when He told Adam and Eve that "on the day that you eat of the tree of knowledge, you will die" (Genesis 2:17). Not that Adam and Eve would die on that day, but rather, they would become mortal - subject to dying - on that day.

The key point of our proposal is that even after leaving the Garden of Eden, Adam and Eve still did not have any genetic defects of aging, and therefore, they did not age. This explains both their extreme longevity (930 years for Adam), as well as their ability to bear children at such an advanced age.

We have already seen that in the absence of aging, the average human life span would be about 1300 years. Thus, we really have to explain why the early Biblical life spans were so short! In this regard, we note that there is no reason why the present-day non-aging life span should be exactly the same as it was in early Biblical times. Presumably, back then they had fewer traffic accidents, but they also did not have the antibiotics we possess today to cure deadly diseases. Indeed, the difference of only 40% between the contemporary non-aging life span (about 1300 years) and the early Biblical life span (about 900-950 years) should be viewed as remarkably good agreement.

This approach also explains the advanced ages of childbearing of the early generations in Genesis. Methuselah and Lamech were nearly 200 years old when they sired children, and it is explicitly mentioned that they had additional children even later in life. Similarly, Noah was 500 years old when his sons were born. Moreover, at the age of 600 years (Genesis 7:6), Noah was placed in complete charge of the complicated enterprise of building and outfitting the Ark, hardly a task that could be assigned to a doddering old man. Thus, it is clear that Noah not only lived extremely long, but he also remained biologically young throughout his long life.

We have already seen that the ability to bear offspring until the end of life is characteristic of those animals and plants that have unusually long life spans. Recall the 80-year-old Andean condors, the 150-year-old rock fish, and the 1000-year-old conifers, that we had discussed previously. Moreover, it is observed that long life spans are also associated with the lack of any of the other usual signs of aging. Thus, a consistent picture emerges between the unusually long life spans of the early generations in Genesis, their ability to sire children at an advanced age, and their lack of any signs of aging throughout their long life.

There is another point to be made. Recent discoveries have shown that it is probably not possible for a human being to be completely free of "genetic defects," for the following reason. Sometimes, the same gene that is necessary for one important bodily function early in life, may be harmful to the body later in life. This is called antagonistic pleiotropy,[18] an important concept introduced into the study of aging by Professor George Williams of the State University of New York at Stony Brook. Thus, it is reasonable to assume that the early generations in Genesis did have a very small number of genes that produced some signs of aging. These few genes would eventually lead to death at some advanced age (say, 900 years), far beyond the contemporary life span (about 80 years) but still considerably shorter than the enormous life span (about 1300 years) predicted in the absence of any aging genes at all. Moreover, this approach also explains why the life spans of almost all the early generations were so similar. (Of the nine persons mentioned[19] in Genesis who lived before the time of Noah, all but one had a life span in the restricted range of 895-969 years.) Genes for aging can be shown to produce such an effect.

2. The rapid decrease in life span after the time of Noah

Genesis records three important differences between the generations that lived immediately after the time of Noah (10th generation) and those that lived earlier. These include the following:

(i) As the figure shows, the life span decreased rapidly after Noah (959 years), with no one living for more than 240 years after Eber (14th generation). After the time of Moses (26th generation), there is no instance recorded in the Bible of anyone living significantly longer than 120 years, which remains to this day the maximum human life span.

(ii) People no longer sired children at an advanced age. After Shem (11th generation), the age of having children dropped to the 30s, just like today. Indeed, when Abraham and Sarah (20th generation) become the parents of Isaac at ages 100 and 90 years, respectively, Genesis describes the event as miraculous.

(iii) For the first time, people are described in Genesis as becoming old and infirm. Aging in later life is a characteristic feature of the Patriarchs and Matriarchs (20th to 22nd generations).

This applies to Abraham and Sarah (Genesis 18:11-13), to Isaac (27:1-2), and to Jacob (48:10).

It is clear that something happened at the time of Noah to cause these three important changes in the later generations, all of which are associated with aging. An examination of the Biblical text reveals that this event is stated explicitly. In Genesis 6:3, we are told that G-d was extremely dissatisfied with the corrupt behavior of people at the time of Noah, and therefore, He decreed that the maximum human life span will be reduced to 120 years ("therefore man's days shall be one hundred and twenty years").[20] However, we note that the maximum human life span did not, in fact, immediately decrease to 120 years. A full ten generations after this divine pronouncement, Abraham still lived to the age of 175, with similar life spans for the other Patriarchs.

In the light of our earlier scientific discussion of aging, we propose that the divine pronouncement of Genesis 6:3 can be understood as meaning that at the time of Noah, the genes for aging were introduced into the human gene pool. It would, of course, take a number of generations for these "aging genes" to propagate throughout the entire human population. This would explain why another 16 generations were to pass (from the time of Noah until the time of Moses) until the maximum life span finally became reduced to the divinely-decreed value of 120 years, with the human life span decreasing steadily during this transition period (from 959 years for Noah to 120 years for Moses). This proposal also accounts for the fact that after the time of Shem (Noah's son), there are no more (non-miraculous) instances in Genesis of people having children at an advanced age. Finally, this also explains why the usual infirmities of old age were exhibited by the Patriarchs, whereas they were absent in the earlier generations.

In conclusion, the recent dramatic scientific discoveries regarding aging provide the basis for a comprehensive explanation of all aspects of the extreme longevity of the early generations described in Genesis.

NOTES

1. S. M. Jazwinski, Science, 5 July 1996, vol. 273, p. 54.

2. D. Concar, New Scientist, 22 June 1996, p. 24.

3. "News In Brief", Scientific American, October 1997, p. 14.

4. R. L. Rusting, Scientific American, December 1992, p. 95.

5. For excellent and authoritative popular accounts of the many recent advances in aging, see R. E. Ricklefs and C. E. Finch, Aging (New York: Scientific American Library, 1995) and L. Hayflick, How and Why We Age (New York: Ballantine Books, 1994). For an encyclopedic treatment, see C. E. Finch, Longevity, Senescence, and the Genome (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1990).

6. R. E. Ricklefs and C. E. Finch, Aging (New York: Scientific American Library, 1995), p. 176.

7. M. Ya. Azbel, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (USA), 1994, vol. 91, pp. 12453-12457; Proceedings of the Royal Society of London, 1996, vol 263B, pp. 1449-1454; Physics Reports, 1997, vol. 288, pp. 545-574; Physica A, 1998, vol. 249, pp. 472-481.

8. M. Ya. Azbel, Physics Reports, 1997, vol. 288, p. 545.

9. T. E. Johnson, Genetics, 1988, vol. 118. pp. 75-86.

10. R. L. Rusting, Scientific American, December 1992, p. 87.

11. Rusting, p. 91.

12. L. Hayflick, How and Why We Age (New York: Ballantine Books, 1994), pp. 21-22.

13. G. M. Dunnet, in Reproductive Success: Studies of Individual Variation in Contrasting Breeding Systems, ed. T. H. Clutton-Brock (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1988), p. 268.

14. C. E. Finch, Longevity, Senescence, and the Genome (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1990), p. 148.

15. R. E. Ricklefs and C. E. Finch, Aging (New York: Scientific American Library, 1995), pp. 8, 10.

16. Ricklefs and Finch, p. 13.

17. Ricklefs and Finch, p. 2.

18. G. C. Williams, Evolution, 1957, vol. 11, pp. 398-411.

19. Recall that we have eliminated Enoch from consideration because it is explicitly stated in Genesis that he died young.

20. This verse is often interpreted in a non-literal midrashic sense (see, for example, Rashi). However, in the present analysis, we concentrate on the literal meaning of the Genesis text.
Last Update:July 03, 2004

Post from Daniel: at Seeking Utopia= Slow Bull Praying

2007-03-21T03:51:00.000-07:00

Post from Daniel at: http://seeking-utopia.blogspot.com/

Wednesday, March 21, 2007

SLOW BULL PRAYING TO GREAT SPIRIT.
I found this rather sad picture on Coffee's great blog. Case you missed it I thought I'd share it with you. It was taken in 1917 and shows an Indian Chief praying to his God accompanied only by the horned skull of an animal. Can you imagine the pain in his heart?The Great Spirit it seems was of little help to His people once the avaricious white man came with his guns.

Those few American indians who were left from the many once great Indian tribes (like the Sioux, the Cheyenne, the Blackfeet and the Apaches, etc), lived with poverty and disease on miserable reservations. Their happy hunting grounds were long gone along with most of the buffalo. A whole, proud people were largely eradicated (genocide).

Ironically, hapless slaves were brought from Africa to provide cheap labour for the plantations. Perhaps the Indians were lucky!America, like Australia, has a history that, in some areas, is nothing to be proud of. But the desire, using force, to take from other people their land and resources (imperialism) is still a potent force in the world.Imperialism now hides under the guise of 'fighting terror' and 'spreading democracy'! The more things change, the more...
Posted by Daniel at 4:00 PM 0 comments

Hualapai Open Grand Canyon Glass Skywalk

2007-03-20T22:06:00.001-07:00

Tribe opens Grand Canyon Skywalk

Former astronauts, Hualapai leaders take ‘magnificent first walk’

David Mcnew / Getty Images

Members of the media and the Hualapai tribe take a preview walk on the Skywalk, billed as the first-ever cantilever-shaped glass walkway. It extends 70 feet from the western Grand Canyon's rim more than 4,000 feet above the Colorado River on the Hualapai Reservation at Grand Canyon, Arizona.

Story continues below.

Just One Way Our White Government Robbed The Native Americans

2007-03-15T04:56:00.002-07:00

http://www.tompaine.com/articles/2007/03/13/steal_their_land
_steal_their_money.php (blogger would not wrap this url and published it extending into sidebar. To access, type entire url in search, or click on link below.

Steal Their Land, Steal Their Money
Robert J. Miller
March 13, 2007

Robert J. Miller is a law professor at Lewis & Clark College and the chief justice of the Grand Ronde Tribe. He is the author of Native America: Discovered and Conquered.

The United States owes a lot to the Indian Nations. American Indians helped early European settlers survive and succeed on this continent and American Indian governments contributed extensively to the political thinking that led to the creation of the federal government by our Founders. [Search Iroquois; Benjamin Franklin.]

The United States, however, also owes over 300,000 American Indians something else: up to $200 billion for the mismanagement of their property over the past one hundred years.

In 1996, the Native American Rights Fund filed a class-action law suit against the United States for the mismanagement of tribal and individual Indian assets—Cobell v. Kempthorne. The case has already resulted in more than 12 federal court opinions but has not even progressed beyond the discovery phase. The federal government and its attorneys have actively resisted this case every step of the way. In fact, two Cabinet secretaries and the Assistant Secretary for Indian Affairs were held in contempt of court in 1999 and fined more than $625,000 for discovery violations. Recently, the government went so far as to remove federal district court judge Royce Lamberth from the case for his alleged growing bias in favor of the Indian plaintiffs.

Originally, this case was discussed as being worth between $2-10 billion in damages that the U.S. either embezzled from Indians or had just “lost” through its incompetence. Today, even Attorney General Gonzalez believes that the case may be worth up to $200 billion for the over 300,000 plaintiffs.

The case arose from the complicated history of federal Indian policies and because the United States became the trustee for the Indian Nations and individual Indian people. Starting with the passage of the General Allotment Act in 1887, the United States has been responsible for the oversight and management of most of the tribal and Indian land and assets in Indian country. Under trust law, the U.S. was responsible for reasonably leasing and developing the land, then collecting the rents and profits and paying them to the Indian owners. The allegation of the Cobell plaintiffs—and the widely accepted truth of the matter—is that the U.S. has failed miserably in exercising its fiduciary and trust responsibilities to carefully protect these assets, collect the monies due and pay them to the Indian owners.

Under the law, the U.S. owes an accounting to the Cobell plaintiffs, identifying all these funds and then personally paying for any lost or uncollected funds. The U.S. has actively resisted performing an accounting and seems reticent to find out what it owes these Indian people—people who are among the poorest of the poorest U.S. citizens. Instead, the United States has claimed that it would cost more than $500 million to perform an accounting for the past 120 years of its trusteeship over Indian assets. The U.S. appears to be fighting a rearguard action in court while hoping for some kind of legislative fix.

Many people would like to see the Cobell case disappear: Congress has twice already considered “midnight” riders to kill the case. Senator John McCain and the Senate Committee on Indian Affairs have talked about proposing settlement amounts between $7-8 billion and recent Senate and House bills have proposed such amounts.

On March 1, 2007, the Bush administration responded to questions from the Senate Committee on Indian Affairs. The administration now proposes to settle all the trust mismanagement claims and to pay for all the needed Indian trust reform efforts with $7 billion. This, in spite of the acknowledgement that the true price tag of the lost and mismanaged funds could run into the hundreds of billions of dollars.

In their letter, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales and Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne told the Senate Committee that the administration was prepared to “invest” $7 billion to settle all trust mismanagement claims. But they also appear to demand that the Congress extinguish the government’s liability for all future trust claims. This last statement is the most egregious aspect of this sordid history. The United States government apparently wants to continue managing Indian assets but, at the same time, wants to prevent any future possible liability, no matter how woefully it might manage and fail to protect these assets.

The proposal was immediately called a “bad-faith offer” by the Cobell attorney. You might also call it a bad-faith settlement if it were your assets that the U.S. controlled but wanted to avoid any responsibility for. Senator Byron Dorgan, D-N.D., the chairman of the Senate Indian Affairs Committee, said:
This is the first time that the federal government has acknowledged a multi-billion dollar liability for the mismanagement of the Indian trust funds over the past century and more. That is a significant admission.

A more significant admission would be for the United States to live up to the debt it owes these Indian people and to account for and pay them the money that is legally theirs but that has been mismanaged and withheld from them for the past hundred years.

Steal Their Land, Steal Their Money March 13, 2007 (url for article at this link)

There's Always Money For War March 12, 2007

© 2007 TomPaine.com ( A Project of The Institute for America's Future )

The Trail of Tears - Cherokee Ancestors

2007-03-15T04:56:00.001-07:00

Cherokee Betrayal and Trail of Tears

The road:

17,000 Cherokee Indians plodded into exile more than 160 years ago winds 1,200 miles through the heartland of America from North Carolina to Oklahoma. Today it is a road of hope and promise, but in 1838 it was a road of misery and heartache, sickness, and death known today as “The Trail of Tears.”

A proud nation, uprooted and dispossessed, traveled it for six long, bitter months in the winter of 1838-39. Sickness broke out at every mile. One person out of every four died on the forced march. The humiliation and suffering that the Cherokee experienced on this sorrowful march have no parallel in American history. To preserve the story of that experience, the Cherokee Historical Association in 1951 sent an expedition out over the old trail. Four Cherokee tribal leaders headed the group that made the trip through North Carolina, Tennessee, Kentucky, Illinois, Missouri, and Arkansas to Oklahoma.The story of that march into exile and its cause forms one of the darkest chapters in the history of American empire building.

Betrayed By Gold:

The Cherokee were forced onto that tragic trail after years of trying to hold out against the white encroachment upon their lands, years that were filled with deceit and greed and strewn with broken treaties. Their downfall was probably made inevitable by the coming of the first white man, Hernando DeSoto, in 1540, but it was not until 1815, with the discovery of gold on their land, that their doom was sealed. With that discovery their enemies moved quickly to rout them from the coveted land. The Indian Removal Act of 1830, approved by President Andrew Jackson, provided for the removal of all Indians to the West. Rage swept the majority of Cherokee chieftains when they learned of the New Echota Removal Treaty of 1835, signed by a minority group, which would have paid each man the handsome sum of $42. They declared that the majority of the Cherokee desired to remain in the land of their birth. But their fate had been determined and was not to be changed.

Herded Into Stockades:

Finally, after years of bickering and fighting, it was agreed the Cherokee should be paid $5 million for their lands. General Winfield Scott was named to force the removal. Scott’s 7,000 troops moved into Cherokee country in May 1838, and began disarming the Cherokee. Stockades were built at strategic points in North Carolina, Georgia, Tennessee, and Alabama. Into them troops herded the Cherokee. From the stockade garrisons, squads of troops were sent to search out with rifle and bayonet every small cabin hidden away in the coves or by the sides of mountain streams. They had orders to seize and bring in all occupants as prisoners, however or wherever they might be found. A lawless rabble followed quick upon the heels of the soldiers. In many cases the captives were barely on the march before their homes were blazing under the torch. Cattle were driven off, homes ransacked. By the end of May, 17,000 Cherokee had been herded into stockades across the Cherokee Nation.

The Tragic March Begins:

Meanwhile, some 4,000 of the prisoners began the long westward trek by boat and raft from Chattanooga down the Tennessee to the Ohio and then to the Mississippi. Many died, and the Cherokee leaders pleaded for permission to lead the remainder overland to the new home. And so the great migration began, the tragic exodus of a once proud nation. The route they took was north and west, running through a region where game still abounded, game they would need as food. There were men and women, old and gnarled. There were newborn babies and unborn babies who chose just this moment to come into the world. There were the blind and the dying consumptives who had to be carried on litters. As they picked up their few belongings they looked about, gazed toward the high peaks of the Great Smokies, toward the mountains that had shelteredthem. Then they moved on, heads down. They were organized into detachments of 1,000 each. There were more than 600 wagons, 5,000 horses, and 100 or so oxen.

Across The Cumberlands:

The procession crossed to the north side of the Hiawassee at a ferry above Gunstocker Creek, then moved down along the river and northwest across Tennessee through Athens, Pikesville, McMinnville, and Murfreesboro. The sick, the old, and the smaller children, with blankets, cooking pots, and other belongings rode the wagons and carts. The others trailed along on foot or on horseback. All the groups were routed through Nashville where contractors furnished them with supplies. They passed by the home of Andrew Jackson, the man who had betrayed them, but some of the Cherokee who had helped win the Battle of Horseshoe Bend for him stopped by to pay their respects to an old soldier. They were so beaten and sick at heart they did not even think of killing the man who had given the order for their removal. As the Cherokee plodded west the rains came, and with them came cold weather. The roads, cut up by thousands of horses, cattle, and people, hundreds of wagons and carts, became an appalling morass, making travel even more difficult and dangerous.

A Gruesome Toll:

There was death every day, and new sickness almost every mile. One observer reported that the Cherokee buried 14 or 15 of their people at every stopping place. The venerable Chief White Path, who had been a great warrior, succumbed to sickness, infirmity, and hardships of the forced journey near Hopkinsville, Kentucky. He was buried near the Nashville road, and a monument of wood painted to resemble marble was erected in his memory. A tall pole with a flag of white linen flew at his grave to mark the spot for his countrymen who were following. The procession crossed the Ohio at a ferry near the mouth of the Cumberland. The folks of Tennessee and Kentucky and Illinois saw them plodding along, heads down, sickness in their hearts and souls.

In December, a traveler from Maine encountered a party led by the Rev. Jesse Bushyhead about halfway along the route to Oklahoma. What he saw was reproduced several weeks later in the New York Observer. “We found them [about 1,100 in all] in the forest camped for the night by the side of the road...under a severe fall of rain, accompanied by heavy wind. With their canvas for a shield from the inclemency of the weather, and the cold wet ground for a resting place, where after the fatigue of the day, they spent the night.” “When I read in the President’s Message that he was happy to inform the Senate that the Cherokee were peaceable and without reluctance removed…, I thought I wished the President could have been there that very day in Kentucky with myself, and have seen the comfort and willingness with which the Cherokee were making their journey.”

Onward To Indian Territory:

The Cherokee moved through Southern Illinois, past Golconda, Vienna, Anna, and Ware, until they reached the Mississippi River opposite Cape Girardeau, Missouri. Their crossing was delayed by the passing ice which endangered the boats that were to ferry them. For days they were compelled to remain beside the frozen river. Hundreds were sick or dying, penned up in the wagons or stretched out upon the ground. They had only a blanket overhead to keep out the January blast. The crossing was made at last in two divisions. One was effected at Cape Girardeau. The other was made at Green’s Ferry, a short distance below. Safely on the other side, the miserable homeless trudged on. They crossed Missouri, past Framington, Rolla, Lebanon, Springfield, Monett, through a corner of Arkansas, and entered Indian Territory, a confused, disillusioned people who only had a great expanse of country upon which to lay their tired and weary bodies over a thousand miles from their home.

The Cherokee had come to the end of their trail into exile in March 1839. The journey had taken six months, in the hardest part of the year. More than 4,000 had died along the trail, to be buried in unmarked graves in strange and alien soil. “Cherokee Heritage Trails Guidebook” marking the North Carolina, Georgia and Tennessee portions of the trail is available at the Museum of the Cherokee Indian Gift Shop, Cherokee, N.C.

Legend of the Cherokee Rose
The Cherokee rose represents the suffering of the women who walked on the "Trail of Tears" when it was forced upon them in 1838. Being unable to care for their children, the mothers hearts were broken. Their grieving was so deep that the Elders prayed to the Creator for a sign to give the mothers strength and faith. The next day, as they walked along the trail, a beautiful, white flower grew wherever a mother's tear fell and touched Mother Earth. The white flower is a white rose, called the "Cherokee Rose", which still grows along the route of the "Trail of Tears".

http://wwwndnnews.com/Cherokee%20Trail%20of%20Tears.htm

The Cherokee History; Cherokee in Texas

2007-03-10T18:38:00.001-08:00

http://www.tsha.utexas.edu/handbook/online/articles/CC/bmc51.html

CHEROKEE INDIANS. The Cherokees call themselves Ani-Yunwiya, the "Principal People." They were indeed one of the principal Indian nations of the southeastern United States until pressure from advancing Europeans forced their westward migration. They were a settled agricultural people whose ancestral lands covered much of the southern Appalachian highlands, an area that included parts of Virginia, Tennessee, North and South Carolina, Georgia, and Alabama.

The Cherokees' Iroquoian language and migration legends suggest that the tribe originated to the north of their traditional homeland. Cherokee society reflected an elaborate social, political, and ceremonial structure. Their basic political unit was the town, which consisted of all the people who used a single ceremonial center. Within each town, a council, dominated by older men, handled political affairs. Individual towns sent representatives to regional councils to discuss policy for the corporate group, especially issues of diplomacy or warfare. Towns typically included thirty to forty households clustered around a central townhouse that was used as a meeting place. Houses were square or rectangular huts constructed of locked poles, weatherproofed with wattle and daub plaster, and roofed with bark. Cherokee society was organized into clans, or kin groups. The clans were matrilineal, and marriage within the clan was prohibited. There were seven major Cherokee clans, each identified by a particular animal totem. A variety of clans was represented in each community and performed significant social, legal, and political functions.

The Cherokees' first contact with Europeans came in 1540, when members of a Spanish expedition led by Hernando De Soto (see MOSCOSO EXPEDITION) passed through Cherokee territory. After that brief encounter, more than a hundred years passed before the Cherokees had significant association with Europeans. The 1670s marked the beginning of sustained contact between the two cultures, and that contact influenced Cherokee lives in many ways. The Cherokees were quick to adapt many material elements of European culture to their own society, a characteristic that led to their designation as one of the "Five Civilized Tribes."

They established a constitutional government with a senate, a house of representatives, and an elected chief. The Cherokees had a written language devised by the tribe's syllabary genius, Sequoyah. They valued education and often maintained schools for their children. The dress of the Cherokees also reflected their acculturative tendencies. Women wove cotton cloth and adopted a European style of dress. Men traditionally wore a turban, cloth tunic, or coat bound at the waist by a sash, skin leggings with garters below the knees, and moccasins. Although the Cherokees derived some advantages from interaction with European cultures, those were far outweighed by the negative effects of that contact.

Throughout the eighteenth century the process of European empire building subjected the Cherokees to calamitous wars, epidemics, and food shortages, all of which resulted in declining population, shrinking territory, and weakening group identity. Between 1790 and 1820, many Cherokees, hoping to preserve what remained of their traditional culture, voluntarily migrated west of the Mississippi River and settled in the future Missouri, Arkansas, and **Texas. Those who chose to remain on their ancestral land in the Southeast were ultimately forced to move west by the United States Indian removal policy, which was initiated in 1830. Between 1838 and 1839, 16,000 to 18,000 Cherokees were forcibly marched to their new home in northeastern Indian Territory. An estimated 4,000 died on the march, which has come to be known as the Trail of Tears.

Cherokees were first reported in Texas in 1807, when a small band, probably an offshoot of the Arkansas settlements, established a village on the Red River. In the summer of that year, a delegation of Cherokees, Pascagoulas, Chickasaws, and Shawnees sought permission from Spanish officials in Nacogdoches, the easternmost town in Texas, to settle members of their tribes in that province. The request was approved by Spanish authorities, who intended to use the immigrant Indians as a buffer against American expansion. For several years a small number of Cherokees drifted in and out of Texas.

Subsequently, between 1812 and 1819, increasing population pressure in Arkansas compelled more Cherokees to migrate south. In the spring of 1819, Cherokees began settling in Lost Prairie, an area between the Sulphur Fork and the Red River in what is now Miller County, Arkansas,qv and within a year some 200 Cherokees had settled there. But they could not escape American competition for the land. By 1820 Anglo-Americans had established seven settlements in the valley of the Red River, and the Cherokees began to consider moving further south.

In early 1820, Chief Bowl,qv also known as Duwali, led some sixty Cherokee families into Texas. They settled first on the Three Forks of the Trinity River (at the site of present Dallas), but pressure from prairie tribes forced them to move eastward into a virtually uninhabited region north of Nacogdoches now in Rusk County. They carved out farms on land that belonged to their friends, the Caddoes, a once powerful Indian confederacy that had been greatly reduced by warfare and epidemic diseases. By 1822 the Texas Cherokee population had grown to nearly three hundred.

While the Cherokees were establishing their homes in East Texas, the government of Texas passed from Spain to Mexico. Mexican officials, like their Spanish predecessors, welcomed the presence of Cherokees in Texas. Cherokee headmen, having learned the importance of holding legal title to real property, repeatedly petitioned Mexican authorities for a permanent land grant. Richard Fields,qv a Cherokee diplomat, conducted negotiations with the Mexican government in the early 1820s, and although Fields claimed that his tribe had been granted land north of the Old San Antonio Roadqv between the Trinity and Sabine rivers, the Mexican government denied the claim.

While the government delayed granting the Cherokees clear title to the land, the population of East Texas swelled. By the mid-1820s, Americans were drifting into the region south and east of the Cherokee settlement. Distrust developed between the two peoples as each felt its security threatened by the other. By the late 1820s the rapid influx of American settlers to Texas alarmed Mexican officials, who feared losing the province to the growing United States. The Law of April 6, 1830,qv prohibited further American immigration to Texas. At the same time, Mexican authorities resurrected their policy of using the Cherokees as a buffer against immigrant Americans.

By 1830 the Cherokee population of Texas was approaching 400. The tribe was congregated in at least three but possibly as many as seven towns north of Nacogdoches along the Sabine River and its tributaries, including a stream now known as Cherokee Creek. In order to secure Cherokee aid, Mexican officials proposed giving the Cherokees the long-sought title to their land, but the Indians lacked the money and legal expertise to complete the complicated procedure. However, lingering hopes of securing legal rights to their land kept the Cherokees loyal to the Mexican government when Anglo-Texans began to protest Mexican rule in 1832.

When the Texas Revolutionqv erupted in 1835, the Cherokees still had not obtained title to their land, and their loyalty to Mexico placed them in a doubtful position with the revolutionary government in Texas. The Cherokees addressed the problem by declaring themselves neutral in the conflict between Texas and Mexico.
The Texas revolutionary government, anxious to ensure Cherokee neutrality, sent Sam Houstonqv to counsel with the tribe in the fall of 1835. *Houston, the newly elected commander of the Texan forces, was an *adopted member of the Cherokee tribe and became an influential advocate of the Cherokee people.

In November 1835 the Consultation,qv acting on Houston's recommendation, pledged to recognize Cherokee claims to the land north of the Old San Antonio Road and the Neches River and west of the Angelina and Sabine Rivers. The government also appointed John Forbes, John Cameron,qqv and General Houston as commissioners and empowered them to negotiate a treaty with the tribe. The resulting agreement established a reservation for the Cherokees in East Texas, and although it considerably reduced their landholdings, the Cherokees agreed to the accord because they believed it finally gave them a permanent home. The reservation included the future Smith and Cherokee counties as well as parts of *Van Zandt, Rusk, and Gregg counties. Eight Cherokee leaders, including Duwali and Big Mush,qv signed the agreement in 1836. But the treaty was never ratified by the Texas government. Although a majority of the Cherokees had agreed to peace with the Texans, a militant faction of the tribe remained pro-Mexican, a fact that greatly complicated Texan-Cherokee relations.

After the battle of San Jacintoqv in 1836, Sam Houston was elected president of the new Republic of Texas.qv He advocated peace with all Texas Indians and worked diligently to enlist the Cherokees as allies in his attempts to negotiate with the warring western tribes. In the fall of 1836 the Cherokees agreed to provide a company of twenty-five rangers to patrol the frontier that lay west of their settlements. The following year the aging Cherokee leader Duwali consented to serve as the republic's emissary to the Comanches. Texas-Cherokee relations deteriorated again in 1838, however, when attacks on settlers in East Texas were blamed on a combined Cherokee-Mexican force.

Before leaving office, Houston attempted to preserve peace between Texans and Cherokees by establishing a boundary line separating their territory, but the line only angered Anglo-Texans who were clamoring for land and saw the Cherokees as allies of their enemies, the Mexicans. Houston's successor as president, Mirabeau B. Lamar,qv wanted the Cherokees removed from Texas. He sent troops to occupy the Neches Saline (see NECHES SALINE, TEXAS) in Cherokee country, and when Duwali blocked the advance of the Texans, Lamar notified the old chief that his people would be moved beyond the Red River, "peaceably if they would; forcibly if they must."

The president then appointed commissioners who were authorized to compensate the Cherokees for land and property they would leave behind. The Cherokees decided to fight for their land, and the resulting conflict came to be known as the Cherokee War.qv In the summer of 1839, a force of several hundred warriors led by Duwali met Texas forces in the battle of the Nechesqv near the site of present Tyler. More than 100 Indians, including Duwali, were killed, and the remaining Cherokees were driven across the Red River into Indian Territory. Some Cherokees continued to live a fugitive existence in Texas, while others took up residence in Mexico. A few even continued the fight against the Texans but with little success. When Houston was elected to a second presidential term in 1841, he inaugurated an Indian policy calculated to forestall future hostilities with immigrant tribes. As a result of his peace policy, treaties were concluded with the remaining Texas Cherokees in 1843 and 1844.

The Cherokees forced north of the Red River were reunited with some 6,000 Cherokees already settled in the northeastern corner of Indian Territory. The arrival of the destitute newcomers naturally caused problems for longtime residents, but in 1846, the same year that Texas formally joined the Union, representatives of all the Cherokee factions met in Washington, D.C., and signed an agreement specifying that the lands belonging to the Cherokee nation were for common use.

The Civil War, however, divided the Cherokee Nation once again. John Ross, chief officer of the tribe, favored neutrality, but the Southern Rights party, led by Stand Watie, was determined to fight for the South. In late 1861, Ross, fearing Confederate invasion, allied the nation with the South. When Union troops took control of Cherokee territory in 1863, many "Southern" Cherokees fled to Texas, but after the war, most of them returned to their homes in Indian Territory.

In the decades after the war, the Cherokees endured a succession of federal efforts to reduce their landholdings. According to terms of an 1866 treaty with the federal government, the tribe agreed to cede the Cherokee Outlet, an eight-million-acre tract extending westward from the edge of the Cherokee Nation into the Plains. The land had been set aside to guarantee that the Cherokees would have unobstructed access to buffalo.qv The terms of the cession were not concluded until 1893, when the land was purchased by the federal government for roughly $1.40 an acre and opened to white homesteaders, who became known as "Sooners."

The Cherokees were exempted from the provisions of the Dawes Severalty Act of 1887, which required tribal land to be broken up into individual allotments, but the exemption was short-lived. The Curtis Act, passed in 1898, required the Cherokees to establish tribal rolls and allot land to individual members on the basis of those rolls. By 1907, when Oklahoma became a state, the Cherokee lands had been severely reduced.

From the 1840s until the 1960s, Cherokees sought compensation from Texas for lands lost in 1839. In the mid-1850s the tribe had sent William P. Adair to Washington, D.C., to petition Congress for permission to sue the state of Texas for the return of 1.5 million acres in East Texas. The state offered the Cherokees fourteen million acres in the Panhandleqv as compensation, but the tribe declined the offer. For the next hundred years, the Cherokees periodically renewed their claims against the state of Texas, but without success. The most recent case, filed in 1963 by Earl Boyd Pearce, chief counsel for the Cherokees, petitioned the state of Texas for redress of the 1839 grievances. In an ingenious plan, Pearce asked for compensation in the form of free education for a thousand Cherokees in state-supported Texas universities. In an opinion handed down in March 1964, Texas attorney general Waggoner Carr denied the validity of the Cherokee claim on the grounds that the state of Texas is not liable for claims against the Republic of Texas.

In the 1970s the Cherokee Nation once again became a federally recognized "sovereign" nation, just as it had been for much of the nineteenth century. The nation, with its capital at Tahlequah, Oklahoma, has a population of 165,000 spread over fourteen counties in the northeastern corner of the state. Another 10,500 Cherokees, known as the Eastern Band, occupy the 56,000-acre Qualla Boundary Reservation in North Carolina. The town of Cherokee, located fifty miles west of Asheville, is the hub of that reservation. In the 1980 federal census, a total of 1,366,676 people across the United States identified themselves as Cherokees. The Cherokee Nation preserves tribal culture and seeks economic opportunities to provide a better future for its members.

BIBLIOGRAPHY: Mary Whatley Clarke, Chief Bowles and the Texas Cherokees (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1971). Dianna Everett, The Texas Cherokees: A People between Two Fires, 1819-1840 (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1990). Grant Foreman, Sequoyah (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1938). Duane M. King, The Cherokee Indian Nation: A Troubled History (Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1979). James G. Mooney, Myths of the Cherokee (Washington: Smithsonian Institution, Bureau of American Ethnology, 1900). Geoffrey Norman, "The Cherokee: Two Nations, One People," National Geographic, May 1995. E. W. Winkler, "The Cherokee Indians in Texas," Quarterly of the Texas State Historical Association 7 (October 1903). Dorman H. Winfrey and James M. Day, eds., Texas Indian Papers (4 vols., Austin: Texas State Library, 1959-61; rpt., 5 vols., Austin: Pemberton Press, 1966). Grace Steele Woodward, The Cherokees (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1963).
Carol A. Lipscomb

Our Cherokee Ancestor of the Mittie Rodgers Estes line

2007-03-04T22:23:00.000-08:00

It is difficult to trace the genealogy of Native American ancestors. Records on Native Americans were poorly kept. We know nothing of our Cherokee grandmothers nor other Cherokee ancestors other than our grandfather Jesse Darden Rascoe. Although the family genealogists have garnered much legal information on our ancestor, the majority of the information we have concerning him is oral family history passed down through the generations. Family history is very important to our clan and our mothers and grandmothers spent a great deal of time regaling the youngers with the tales of our ancestors.

Today, tribal histories are usually dismissed as myths and family oral histories are largely discounted as erroneous. For thousands of years a people's histories were recounted orally through the generations. Many tribes had individuals named "the rememberers", who were specially trained in the art of remembering the old stories, mnenomic specialists. Some used knotted ropes, notched sticks and other forms of records to aid the memory process, each knot or notch representing a specific story.To those who snort in derision, I point out that in these modern times many religions use prayer beads, each bead representing a specific prayer, and by "counting or 'reading' the beads", they are able to recite the desired prayer. Beads serve the same purpose as knots in a rope or notches on a stick. The ancient ancestors did not have the technology of today but they had exactly the same brains as we do and the same mental abilities.

It is true that some tribal histories appear fanciful so are easily ignored as myths. However, although the details may have been garbled, or mythical figure inserted to represent phenomena they did not understand or to help remember the event, I contend that there is a kernel of truth, of fact, in the basics of the tales. People suffering a catastrophic flood may not have been saved by climbing on the back of a giant turtle ( or housed in a giant ark), but the fact of the story is that in their past history a terrible flood innundated the land and most people and animals died.

I would also like to point out that in earlier times, there were no TVs, video games, books, comics, movies and other forms of entertainment to distract younger generations and interfere with accurate memory. Tales told by the elders around campfires were the entertainment and children recalled them as readily as our pre-schoolers can recite verbatum songs and even dialogue from their favorite TV shows or videos. Another memory aid to tribal or family histories were to set the stories in rhyme or in songs. Songs are more easily remembered than narratives. South Sea Islanders sailing the Pacific by the stars set very accurate navigation instructions to rhyme or song. They set out in canoes across thousands of miles of featureless open ocean and arrived safely at their destinations, navigating solely by the directions embedded in songs by their predecessors.

Jessie Darden Rascoe's history came down to us through his daughter, "Granny" Sarah Caroline, his grand daughter, Mittie (my maternal grand mother), his great grand daughter, Ethel Caroline (my mother), to my generation ( his great-great grand children) and I now pass it on to you, his great-great-great grandchildren.
I have told you the stories verbally but it is well I write it down for posterity for you and your children, his great-great-great-great grandchildren. It is a story well to be remembered, especially the lessons against the evils of racism, of white superiority and white "manifest destiny". Skin color or race does not denote superiority or special dispensations from the universe.

Most of the information I have on Grandfather Rascoe was told to me by Grandmother Mittie Estes. Some came from Mother and her siblings, especially Uncle Oscar and Aunt Novelle. Oscar and Novelle were the "keepers of the flame", family historians and genealogists.

Legal material such as births, deaths, census records, land titles, etc. are maintained in the family genealogy files. Here I will deal with the oral history, such as was the traditions of our Native American ancestors.

Jesse Darden Rascoe was born in 1814 in South Carolina. His father was William M. Rascoe and his mother was Rachel Harrell. He was of mixed ancestry, part white and part Cherokee Indian. There is some dispute between two branches of his descendents whether he was one-half Cherokee or three quarters Cherokee. Both branches do agree that he was a "breed", as mixed ancestry Indians were called, and that he was part white.

The dispute arises regarding whether his father was white and his mother Cherokee, which would have made him one half of each race, or whether his grandfather was white, his grandmother Cherokee, his half breed father then married a Cherokee which would have made him three quarters Cherokee. It is possible that the mixing may have been more complex. Since we know nothing of the Cherokee grandmothers, we do not know if they may have been of mixed ancestry also, which would have made Jesse more white. Europeans began to enter the Carolinas as early as the late 1600s and early 1700s. Mixing of the races could have began long before Jesse's time. All other stories about him are agreed upon by the branches of his descendents. My grandmother, Mittie Rodgers Estes, said he was a half breed, which would have made his father be the white ancestor so we will accept that version for the sake of this narrative. The important fact is that Jesse was of Cherokee ancestry.

His white paternal ancestor, William Rascoe, was a man of good standing in the community and exercised considerable influence among his peers. However, as was usual in such mixed marriages, Jesse was reared in close relationship with his Cherokee relatives as well as his white relatives and as a consequence gained the best of both worlds. Knowing the history of the social climate of the era, there is little doubt that there was a certain degree of discrimination against him for his "breed" status but he was somewhat protected by his father's position.

It was not only common in that era to call Indians of mixed ancestry "breeds", but Indians were referred to as "red niggers" and were viewed by many as being scarcely a cut above the "black nigger" slaves. Racial prejudice was rampant and there was considerable hostility towards the Cherokee by whites who coveted their lands and properties. The Indians had been settled in their territories for many, many generations. They were not stupid by any means and usually chose choice lands and locations. Naturally, when the white Europeans invaded, they coveted those choice areas for themselves and believed by virtue of their whiteness that they deserved it more than a bunch of "dirty savages". Their howls increased when gold was discovered on Cherokee lands.

Cherokee traditional buckskin clothing, worn prior to adopting white people's clothing styles.

Cherokee Tear Dress

Briefly, In response to white constituents and other political factors, President Andrew Jackson ordered the Indian Removal Act in 1830. Many Native Americans then voluntarially removed them selves to reservations in the Oklahoma Territories. Many others elected to stay and maintain claim to their homeland. The Treaty of Echota in 1835 was broken and in 1838 it was ordered that they be removed by force, which resulted in the tragic and infamous Trail of Tears. (See Cherokee history for details.) Jesse was 24 years old at that time and undoubtedly escaped the removal because of his white father. We do not know if his Cherokee family were among the victims of the Trail of Tears or not. Because we do not know their family names, our genealogists cannot trace them in the Oklahoma and other reservation records.They are lost to us, even though they are as much a part of our ancestry as our Italian ancestors (traced back, by provenance, to the 1300s.)

When whites had not the means nor opportunity to attend law college or medical schools, there was a practise wherein an aspiring lawyer or doctor could apprentice himself to a practising professional, study the appropriate books and learn the profession by working with the lawyer or doctor. Blackstone's was the bible of a would-be lawyer; I suppose there were similar definitive works on medicine for would-be doctors to study. This practise was called "sitting" with a lawyer or doctor. If one was said to be sitting with a professional man, it was understood that the person was in training or apprenticeship.

Negro slaves and Indians were not allowed in colleges nor medical schools. Segregation was very strict in that respect. By law, blacks were not even allowed to be taught to read or write, although some were taught secretly. Indian children were able to attend schools for Indians but not to attend white schools. Jesse was educated.

Jesse was interested in medicine. He learned the Cherokee medicinal ways, knew the herbs and other natural products that could be made into medicine and knew how to treat ills and ailments. It is said that he was a medicine man in the tribe, but a "Medicine Man" is quite different from a person who treats ailments and injuries. In Indian parlance, a tribal Medicine Man has great spiritual and other powers and duties, so I think the terms became confused over time, through ignorance. I believe that Jesse was skilled in Indian doctoring methods and that is the way Grandmother Estes spoke of him.

Through his white father's influence a local physician accepted Jesse as an apprentice and he studied and learned white man's medical skills. Combined with his knowledge of Indian medical lore, this made him very skilled indeed. In spite of his father's position and influence, Jesse was still a breed, a red nigger, and it is likely that his patients were primarily the poor whites who could not afford a white physician, the Cherokee people, and slaves. White doctors would not treat black slaves and slave owners called out veterinarians to treat ill or injured slaves. Slaves were valuable property and were given medical attention if their condition threatened the owner's investment. Jesse would have been a desirable alternative to a veterinarian. He was an able doctor, yet because he was a "red nigger", would have no objection to treating "black niggers".

We can only surmise Jesse's social status in his community or town. His first wife was white and the union would have been severely frowned upon. His degree of Indian sanguinity would have been immaterial. Whites during slave days regarded even "one drop" of black blood made a person a "nigger", and a similar attitude prevailed regarding an Indian, and thus a disgrace for a white woman to marry one.
Our genealogists have her name and vital statistics, her parents names, and the names and birth dates of her and Jesse's children. When she died, her parents took the children and we have found no further trace of them. (See the Family genealogy records for Rascoe branch)

Jesse's second wife was Amanda Catherine Harris, our ancestral grandmother, born in Alabama in 1830. Her father was Osborne Harris, a wealthy plantation owner. His plantation(s) were in the Carolinas or Alabama. Amanda had slaves to wait on and serve her and it is said that when she married Jesse in 1852 she "didn't even know how to boil water". Amanda was 22 and Jesse was 38 years old when they married. Jesse was 16 years her senior, a member of an "inferior race", occupied a lower class standing, and unless he had funds from his white father, was a poor man. A mixed breed Indian doctor would have had a low income. We have no photos of him (although we do of Amanda) but he must have been an attractive man with desirable qualities for Amanda to risk her future by allying herself to him.

Jesse, a red nigger even if he was a doctor, and Amanda, a pampered wealthy socialite, would have traveled in vastly different social circles and had great differences in community standing. It is odd that they met, became well enough acquainted to fall in love and eventually marry. One family story is that Jesse came to the plantation to treat ill and injured slaves and they met during his presence there.

Their marriage ignited a firestorm of scandal. Not only was it a shocking disgrace to her family and the socially elite, but even poor whites were outraged. It was an outrage for any white woman to marry a red nigger but especially so for a member of the wealthy and socially elite. Her family cast her out, but did not legally disown her as later events proved. However, she was an outcast from her family and peers, and despised among the lower class community. She and Jesse suffered tremendous prejudice from all quarters and were shown terrible disrespect. Jesse had been tolerated as a breed and doctor, but daring to marry a white woman of good family put him beyond the pale. Amanda was treated as a slut, a woman of low morals and standards, for only such a woman would allow a nigger , red or black, to touch her! She was classed as lower than poor white trash or a prostitute, quite a come down from her previous status as a lady, an upper class , respected and admired wealthy white woman.

Their flight from hate and prejudice is marked by the locations of the birth of their children. The birth records of their children reveal their travels as they fled further and further south/southwest. Their suffering was told by Grandmother Amanda to their daughter Sarah Caroline, and the stories came down to us by Grandmother Mittie Rodgers Estes, Sarah's daughter. The history of their treatment is a vivid lesson about the true evil of people being judged by color or race, instead of their character and personal standards or abilities. Their history is our history and one that must be remembered.

Finally they arrived in Texas and settled near Grand Saline, Texas. They had found a home where they were accepted, grew to be admired and respected. Physicians were few and far between in that sparsely settled land and Jesse was a valuable addition to the territory. He was a doctor with medical skills and the people didn't care what color or race he was. His family prospered and his children married well.
[Census records for Van Zandt county in 1850 reveal only 1,348 residents, sparsely settled, indeed. Even in the census of 2000, there were only 48,140 resident for the entire county, less population than in many towns.]

Grand Saline is a town in Van Zandt County in Texas under which lies an enormous salt deposit. Salt mines extend over 700 feet deep. It is estimated that the salt deposit there will last another 20,000 years. The ancient Caddo Indians took salt from there and their descendents still resided there when the white man came. As happened to many Native Americans, much of their tribe was wiped out by white man diseases, like small pox. A few remnants survived. As white women were in short supply on the frontier, there were numerous marriages with the Caddo by the white settlers. A mixed race society ensued.
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Brief excerpt on the area history, from: http://www.tsha.utexas.edu/handbook/online/articles/vv/hcy2.html
The area has long been the site of human habitation. Artifacts from the Paleo-Indian and Archaic cultures have been found in the region, suggesting that it has been continuously occupied for more than 10,000 years. When the first Europeans arrived, the region was dominated by various Caddoan Indian tribes, but diseases, especially smallpox, ravaged these agrarian peoples by the time the Anglo-American settlers arrived.

During the 1820s and 1830s the eastern portion of the future county was occupied by *refugee Cherokee Indians led by Chief Bowl.qv The Cherokees had a brief but colorful history in their new home. Chief Bowl was instrumental in preventing them from joining the Fredonian Rebellion.qv As a result the Republic of Mexico granted them title to lands in the area in 1827. In 1836 the government of Texas, then in revolt against Mexico, validated the claim. A treaty was signed but soon broken. [ A treaty with the Indian was broken? Are you surprised? Insomniac]

President Mirabeau B. Lamar,qv known for his aggressive Indian policy, pressed the issue in 1839. In the battle of the Neches,qv fought over two days in the area that is now Henderson and southeastern Van Zandt counties, the Cherokees were decisively beaten and dispersed. The defeat of the Cherokees opened the area for Anglo-American colonization.qv Some settlement occurred prior to 1840. [ A familiar story -Indians were robbed of their lands to accomodate whites. Insomniac]
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In addition to the Caddos in Texas, Cherokee refugees fleeing from the pressure of encroachment of whites had moved to Texas. Several waves of Cherokees came at various times.( See "Cherokees in Texas" in above post) It is possible that some of these intermarried with whites. It is a fact that the population of settlers and residents inluded mixed marriages.

This may have been a factor influencing Jesse to settle there, where his mixed marriage would have been accepted. He and Amanda and their children would not have been ostracized. Also, Native Americans were well aware of their ancestral kinship to their clans. It is possible that some of the Cherokee refugees appearing in Texas may have been from Jesse's clan. Since the Cherokee counted descent through the female line, the matrilineal, Jesse would have been a clan member by virtue of his Cherokee female ancestors, mother and grandmothers, even though his paternal line was white. There is no provenance of any relationship, however.
These are merely speculations.

Jesse and family prospered in Grand Saline and his medical skills were in demand. His daughter, Sarah Caroline, our ancestress, told of accompanying her father to the wilds, learning to identify and gather herbs and plants, learning their properties and how to make medicine from them. She learned many healing methods and medical procedures, which she taught in turn to her daughter, Mittie Rodgers Estes, my maternal grandmother.

It was not illegal in those days to grow opium poppies, which Jesse did. Sarah Caroline told how they would break or cut the pods and return later to harvest the blob of sap that oozed up from the break. The sap would be worked or kneaded with a spatula upon a marble slab until it was thick and able to be handled. It would then be rolled out flat, like rolling out pie dough, and cut into a cross hatch of little squares. Each little square would then be rolled into a ball or pill, which Jesse would administer to patients with intractible pain. ( Remember, there were no handy shots of Demerol or Morphine in those days. The best many patients could hope for was a shot of whiskey to alleviate pain.) In addition, some pills would be dissolved in alcohol to create Tincture of Opium (rather like Tincture of Paragoric of my generation) to administer in dosages for certain ailments and pains. A weaker solution made laudanum which was good for ladies with the vapours or nervous hissy fits.

Opium Poppy - several different kinds and colors.
The Opium poppy (Papaver somniferum) can be found in a variety of forms, spread from the Equator to Southern Sweden. The concentration of alkaloids in them depends very much on the climate, the soil and the way of growing. Opium is made from the fruit capsules of the poppy. Right after the leaves fall, the capitulum is cut vertically or horizontally. A thick juice flows out of them, which turns in 24 hours into a dark resin - opium; it is scraped and gathered. Opium can be kept for years without losing its properties

Site for Opium Poppies and Usage: http://www.hypatia-lovers.com/footnotes/Section03.pdf

The medical knowledge Granny Sarah learned from Jesse was passed on to Grandmother Mittie Estes. Grandma learned midwifery and delivered many babies, including the black babies of the hired help. When I precipitated with my second child, Dorothy, my husband Wally raced to get Grandma Estes but Dorothy had made her arrival by the time Grandma got there. She took care of everything until Dr. Martin came. (Doctors actually made house calls in those days, even way out in the country.)

Grandma Estes' medical knowledge saved the life of her great grandson Robbie, my sister's baby. Grandma Estes always had to go see each new arrival when they were born, so Mother drove her to Florida to see Ruth when Robbie came. Robbie arrested while Ruth was changing his diaper (Sudden Infant Death Syndrome) and Ruth began hysterically shrieking. Grandma took charge, began artificial respiration and Robbie was restored before they arrived at the Emergency Room. The method she used was what Granny Sarah had taught her, which she learned from Grandfather Jesse.

The same method of infant resuscitation was still taught in nursing school when I attended, long before present techniques of CPR were instigated. But the old way worked. I have often wondered what Grandfather Jesse would have thought if he knew his great-great-great grandson had been saved because of his knowledge he had passed down.

When I was a child there was a measles epidemic throughout the country. It was during the Depression and the old farmhouse was full of relatives who had come home to survive the hard times. ( I learned that the land will feed you, barring drought.) Ofcourse everyone caught the measles and were sick-abed. Grandma went out in the pastures, gathered broomweed and other herbs and made broomweed tea and other medicines to treat the sick. Even in my adulthood when I would accompany Grandma into the fields and pastures, she would show me various plants, identify their medicinal properties and tell me how to prepare the medicine. Now I curse my youthful stupidity by failing to learn properly from her. So much knowledge lost. My father cultivated some medicinal plants for her, comfey and horehound and others but I did not learn how to use them. Once I found some Sweet Broomweed plants in a local nursery and bought some to plant in my flower bed by the entrance fountain. They reminded me of Grandma. However, the plants failed to survive.

Twice when I was severely burned as a child, Grandma made some sort of evil smelling salve to treat the burns and I have only the faintest of smooth, scarcely discernible scars to show. Some of the ancient remedies worked, although today they sound like "witch doctor" nonsense and an invitation to a massive infection. Oddly enough, infections were rare. Many of those were old Indian remedies and I can attest that they worked!

Remember, many of our modern miracle drugs were developed from Indian remedies. White pharmacologists determined the chemical properties of the medicinal plants, synthesized them and developed the drugs we use today. Digitalis, from the foxglove plant to treat heart trouble; reserpine from the inner bark of a south american tree to treat hypertension; salcylicate acid from the inner bark of the cottonwood. So many native medicines extracted from plants worked and we can thank those "primitives" for many of our medicines.

Grandmother raised Angora goats, from whom we get mohair to make our fine Angora sweaters. One of the uncles had studied agriculture and animal husbandry at Texas A&M college. He was quite full of his modern knowledge and tended to dismiss the old knowledge of the elders as superstition or ignorance. One time he was cutting mistletoe from the tree branches and some fell where the goats could eat it. Grandma warned him not to let the goats eat it as it would make the nannies abort and perhaps not kid the next year. Uncle ignored her. Sure enough the nannies aborted and a year's increase in the herd was lost.

( A reader identified this lovely Angora goat as one of hers. See comments for this post. This is Angelface. June 4,1993~Oct 17,2007~, a beloved pet.From Goat Lady; Goat-Link.com
GetYerGoat.com)
Angora goat, of which Grandma Estes kept a herd. Angora hair is Mohair. The luxury fiber is used to make some of the softest men's and women's clothing. Designers like mohair because it is water and wrinkle resistant, flame retardant and it absorbs vibrant dyes. Texas leads the nation in Mohair production and is second in the world behind South Africa. More on Angora goats and business at: http://www.goatweb.com/discover/fiber/angora.shtm

Mistletoe is poisonous, especially the berries. But Indian women made some sort of medicine from them to induce abortion when times were hard and it was a bad time to bear children, as they were apt to starve. They also used it as a means of birth control. Proper knowledge of exactly how to prepare the poisonous berries to act as a abortifacient was essential to avoid killing oneself, but the Indians knew how. Grandma had the knowledge but never used it, because she considered abortion a sin. She was correct when telling uncle that the goats would abort. The Indians used mistletoe for other remedies, as did the ancient Druids.

Identifying leaves and berries of mistletoe.

How the parasitic mistletoe grows on trees.

The leaves and young twigs are the parts used by herbalists, and it is popular in Europe, especially in Germany, for treating circulatory and respiratory system problems, and cancer.[1] [2]. Mistletoe is being studied as a potential treatment for tumors. Although such use is not yet permitted in the U.S., mistletoe is prescribed in Europe [3] [4]. [See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mistletoe ref. #4 under paragraph "Uses and Mythology" for uses as anti-cancer and other remedies. Remember! Mistletoe taken orally is highly toxic to humans and will kill you!]

The Cherokee were an agrarian people and knew how to cultivate crops. Grandpa Estes was of Italian lineage but he was an old time farmer. I don't know if he already knew about avoiding spreading Johnson grass into the fields or if Grandma Estes had taught him. Johnson grass is a very vigorous, invasive weed that multiplies from seed as well as from underground roots. One joint of an underground runner will grow a new plant. It is extremly undersirable to get Johnson grass spread into the fields. I have seen fields of crops completely hidden under acres of Johnson grass. Johnson grass takes nutrients from the soil and starves crops.

A stand of Johnson grass can grow up to 8' tall and completely take over acres of land.

Grandpa Estes farmed the acreage for many years and although there might be a few stands of Johnson grass at field corners or perimeters, he rarely had any grow in the fields themselves. When ill health prevented him from working the fields anymore, uncle took over. Grandpa warned him about the Johnson grass and instructed him how to prevent spreading it. Uncle ignored him and soon the fields were infested with the noxious weed, reducing crop yields. I do not know Grandpa's secret, however. So much knowledge of the elders is lost.

Granny Sarah married a man named Rodgers and bore two daughters, Mittie and Margaret. After Sarah was widowed, she married a man named Arnold and bore him a number of childrem, Grandma's half-siblings. (Information on both husbands and offspring can be found in the Family Genealogical Records). Both men were well-to-do and Grandma was reared a lady. She had fine clothes and delicate hand made leather slippers to wear. Grandpa Estes was descended from a noble Italian family but there were no riches in his generation.
He was a farmer and Grandma's life as his wife was quite different from the life she had growing up. When her slippers wore out and she needed new shoes, Grandpa bought her ready-mades in town. Grandma said the stiff leather made blisters on her feet and the shoes hurt her badly, but she never told Grandpa.

After Granny Sarah was widowed again, she came to live with Grandma and Grandpa Estes. When she was quite elderly, some attorneys tracked her down and offered her money if she would sign a quit-claim to the properties of her grandfather, Osborne Harris, Amanda's father and owner of the plantations. A city had grown up around the old plantation property, it had become valuable and the heirs were desirous of selling it.
To assure clear title to the land, the attorneys wanted legal papers from all heirs. Since Amanda was dead, Sarah was in line to inherit Amanda's share. Sarah signed the quit-claim but refused any money. She said that after the way her mother's family and the town had treated her parents, she wanted none of their filthy money. There was not enough money in the world to compensate for the ill treatment her parents had suffered. That is how the family found out that Osborne Harris had not legally disowned Amanda.

Amanda and Jesse had a number of children besides Granny Sarah. Many of the descendents of her siblings still reside in the Grand Saline area. I do not know any of these branches of the Rascoe line but Mother did. She corresponded with some of them and has a photo of one of the cousins. Some of those branches must have intermarried with people that also bore Indian blood because that cousin in the photo is quite dark skinned. (If I can get a copy of her downloaded to my computer, I will publish it here. Also a photo of Granny Sarah.)
Granny Sarah and her descendents married whites, so the Indian genes are not as pronounced.

However, the Cherokee genes still crop up. In my youth when I spent a lot of time in the sun, I tanned as darkly as any Indian or Mexican. Grandma Estes shows her Indian blood strongly, with her high cheekbones and mane of thick long black hair. Mother inherited the long hair but hers was wavy and brown. Their hair reached to their buttocks and both wore it in braided coronets around their heads. Even in her 80s, Grandma Estes had very little grey in her hair. Some members of my generation and also some of their children display the high cheekbones and almond shaped, almost oriental eyes, giving them an exotic look.

I am proud of my Cherokee heritage but I am also proud of my great great Grandmother Amanda Harris Rascoe. She must have been an extremely strong willed, independent minded young woman to defy her family, convention and society to choose and marry Jesse, knowing full well the price she would have to pay. I do not know her male descendents nor any of the other branches of the family she established, but I do know that her daughter, grand daughter, great grand daughter and great great grand daughters all exhibit similar strong wills and independence ( except my elder sister, who is timid and submissive). I don't know if there are genes for personal characteristics or if it is familial or cultural influences. I have read where there are genetics involved in female agressiveness, so perhaps there are genes dictating other characteristics also.

I would very much liked to have known Grandmother Amanda. She was a remarkable woman.

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Last year one of my cousins was hospitalized and his father, my Uncle Oscar (mother's brother) went to visit him. Another cousin, Arlie from Uncle Devillar's branch, was also there to visit. Arlie and Uncle Oscar were chatting about the family genealogy and Uncle Oscar mentioned that we also had an Apache ancestor. Arlie was instantly fascinated and wanted to know more, as he is now one of the family genealogists, but the time and situation was not right for intensive information sharing. However, before they could get together to share genealogy information, Uncle Oscar died. He lived to be 93 years old; why he couldn't have held on a little longer! His widow's daughter packed her mother off to Oklahoma and we cannot determine what the woman did with Uncle Oscar's records on which he was working. (This was his third wife and her family has no kinship to us. )

As each person married into the family line and produced offspring, another ancestral branch to the family tree was presented. One of the inumerable grandparents could have been the one bearing the Apache line. We are fast running out of elders who may have knowledge or clues to back track on. Mother will be 98 in July but her mind is very cloudy and she has little memory. Uncle Cleo is near 90 and Aunt Pearl is in her mid 80s, but they are the younger of the line of elders, and the last. I vaguely remember someone mentioning an Apache ancestor years ago but cannot recall anything about what was said nor who said it. Drat it, why are young people so foolish and pay so little attention!

Index of posts below

2007-03-03T21:39:00.000-08:00

1. Cherokee Pow-Wows ; these events are open to all Native Americans

2. Native American religious beliefs

3. Native American Woman

4. Cherokee Native Americans; brief history of the Cherokee. Racial discrimination and injustices perpetrated on native americans.

These posts are a beginning for the edification of our family young - descendents of Jesse Darden Rascoe, our Cherokee ancestor.

Cherokee Pow-Wows and List of Tribes

2007-03-03T19:51:00.001-08:00

Cherokee Trail of Tears Commemorative Park; Hopkinsville, Ky.
http://www.trailoftears.org/
http://www.thebearbyte.com/
annual pow-wow first full weekend in September

The Cherokee Trail of Tears Pow-wow
http://www.rosecity.net/tears/trail/protocol.htm

Echota Pow-Wow
http://www.ob1.com/iae/Re_Lessons/native/Echota/Echota.htm

Inside Cherokee Trail of Tears Museum

Cherokee Lady Head Dancer

Cherokee Fancy Dancer

Cherokee Fancy Shawl Dancer

Cherokee Jingle Dress Dancer

Cherokee buckskin female regalia

Typical pow-wow male regalia

Powwow - Women's Cloth Dancers

http://www.mtsu.edu/~powwow/05gallery_html/womcloth.htm

has Ellen Rasco as performer - -center 4th row, 1st 19th row

Site for Tribes:
http://www.aaanativearts.com/cherokee_tribes.htm
1072 page views

2005 Women's Cloth Dancers

Above l to r: TBA, Lula Ledford (Cherokee) and Virginia Barnett-Crawford

Above left and center: Vicki Collins and Wanda Sue Lewis
Above right: Helen Martin Brings Plenty (Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians)

Above left: Kelly Mayes

Above l to r: Tracey Francine Mason, Ellen Rasco and Tracey Francine Mason

Above l to r: Minnie Ledford (Cherokee), TBA and Christy Lynn Collins

Above center: Virginia Barnett-Crawford

Above: Rose Behan and Kelly Mayes

Above right: Lula Ledford (Cherokee)

Above center: Kimberly Martin Right: Charlotte Lawrence

Above left: Marta Vickers and Paula Hicks Wood

Above right: Sheila Jones

Above l to r: Vicki Collins, Stephanie Danielle Lewis and Wanda Sue Lewis

Above center and right: Audrey Katherine Lemley and Bernice Carter

Above cener and right: Becky Briggs and Christy Lynn Collins

Above right: Cheryl Ann Hopkins

Above center and left: Ellen Gowen and Rita England

Ellen Rasco and Charlotte Lawrence

Back to 2005 Photo Gallery Index

Native American Religion

2007-03-03T19:48:00.000-08:00

Most of us are familiar with the meso-american peoples' legends (oral histories?) of a white skinned, bearded man (diety) who came to them, taught peace, mathematics, astronomy, and other sciences , instructed them in civilized ways, then departed to the east with a promise someday to return. This belief helped the rapacious Spaniards to conquer and then destroy meso-american culture and ignorant priests to destroy invaluable knowledge.
http://www.bibliotecapleyades.net/egipto/fingerprintgods/
fingerprintgods03.htm (Blogger would not wrap url, causing it to extend into sidebar space. Type entire url in address bar in order to access site. )
Excerpt:
All the legends stated unambiguously that Quetzalcoatl/Kukulkan/Gucumatz/Votan/Itzamana had arrived in Central America from somewhere very far away (across the ‘Eastern Sea’) and that amid great sadness he had eventually sailed off again in the direction whence he had come.8 The legends added that he had promised solemnly that he would return one day9—a clear echo of Viracocha it would be almost perverse to ascribe to coincidence.
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Most of us are NOT familiar with similar stories of the north- american native Americans. Soaring Hawk enlightens us.

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http://members.tripod.com/soaring_hawk/regalia.html
Native American Costume? THROUGH THE EYES OF HAWK. . .

I saw an advertisement in a local grocery indicating that an American Indian family was scheduled to minister at a local church and it stated that they would be in costume. The photograph looked like a Caucasian male with short hair wearing a Sioux type war bonnet standing beside a woman with blonde hair. The ad represented that the man had accepted the white man's religion. I was offended. If he were a true member of the first nations, he would not show disrespect toward the memory of his ancestors by wearing native dress (which we call regalia, not costume) as entertainment in a religious situation.

The public, in general, has come to believe that people of indigenous heritage are not true natives if they do not dress in the high ceremonial regalia of the Great Plains tribes. For a people to succumb to this stereotype and dress as other than their true heritage is cultural prostitution and makes them liars, if not actors strutting a stage. Again, for anyone to wear the ceremonial regalia of a Native people when he has no connection to them or when he wears it as an entertainment costume is disrespectful to the memory of the ancestors and is a form of cultural prostitution.

He is denigrating the significance of the regalia with respect to its original ceremonial use and makes it nothing more than the costume of a circus clown. No one has the right to wear a war bonnet (the big feather headdress of the war leader) unless his people have elected him to that position. Even then, he may wear it only for ceremonial occasions and only during his term in office. It is not necessary to put Christian ministers in Native regalia to obtain proof that indigenous people are not godless heathens.

If that minister had practiced the faith of his ancestors, he would not need the white man's religion because the indigenous people of this continent believed that the creator of the world was a spirit being without any equals. They believed in an afterlife where there would be no pain, suffering or death. Most of them taught that a man sent from the creator walked among them teaching the right way to worship the spirit creator three to four centuries before the arrival of the first European missionaries. Some say that this man was born of a virgin, that attempts were made to kill him at birth and that he brought an end to their constant intertribal warfare and abolished such practices as cannibalism and slavery.

Among the people of the eastern woodlands it is taught that he gave them what historians now call the world's first federal constitutional government at a time when Europe was still a collection of feudal states ruled absolutely by men. They taught that he gave women full equality, not only in civil, but also in political life at a time when European women were still the property of their husbands or fathers to be bought and sold. (Under English common law, a man could beat his wife; the law only specified the size of the club with which he could beat her. If she died, it was not considered murder because he was only "disciplining" his property.) In the Cherokee language there are no gender specific pronouns (he, him, his, she, her, hers) making them politically correct before it was popular.

The first nations taught that the man sent from the creator made chiefs to be servants of the people rather than their rulers and that he gave women the power to impeach a chief who was not serving faithfully or effectively. Among the Haudenosaunee (their name is pronounced Ho-deh-no-shaw-nee, now called Iroquois) his name is Deganawida (pronounced Deh-gah-nah-wee-dah). They said that he went away to the east and promised to return.

The Aniyvwiya (pronounced Ah2nee2yunh2wee4yah1, written who are now called Cherokee taught that such a man existed and that his name was Etowah (eh-daw-wah, written )

The Hopi teach that in the beginning, the Creator wrote the law of life on a stone tablet, broke it in half, gave half to them and half to the elder white brother who went away to the east. They believe that he will return from the east bringing his half of the stone tablet and a stack of books with the book of truth at the bottom of the stack and that he will teach them his language out of the book of truth.

In the Christian Bible, Jesus said, "I have sheep that are not of this fold . . . them will I bring." In Spanish his name is pronounced Hay-soos. The French pronounce it Jeh-soo. The Cherokee call him Tsi-sa (Jee-saw, written ). They also believed in a trinity in heaven, which they called the Elder Fires Above. There is only one true faith and it is not restricted to a particular church, denomination or religious organization. Neither is it the exclusive domain of any particular race or nationality.

It is past time for the world to learn the truth about our native ancestors and the truth about their culture and if it is to be, it is up to me.
I am (Taa2waw23dee1 Gaa2naw2hee23lee1) Soaring Hawk

The Native American Woman

2007-03-03T19:38:00.000-08:00

The Native American Woman-
Myths Vs Reality-
By Anita Atsila Galisgisgia (atsila@aol.com),
Bird Clan Mother,
Southern Cherokee Tribe & Associated Bands in Texas

As I have walked this path over the years, I have had the privilege of listening to and learning from Native American women from many Nations and backgrounds. Although I grew up in a "Christian" family, my mother - in thought, heart and deed was a traditional Cherokee woman - having learned from her mother, Lilly Bell, who taught us both what is means to be a Cherokee Woman. They walk with me still.

As a Cherokee woman and to honor all those who came before me and all those Native American women from who I have learned so much, I have put to paper what I believe to be true about the traditional Native American woman of the past (and hopefully, to some degree, of the present). These are my thoughts, my beliefs and my understanding of what I have been taught.

Women's Rights among Native Americans have long been misunderstood. Native American women in all the tribes that hold to the ways of tradition and that I am familiar with, are among the most respected and cherished women I know. They are the mothers, grandmothers, sisters and aunts of the people. Their wisdom and authority on family (and in some cases as among the Eastern Woodlands and most Southeastern Peoples - tribal government) matters is acknowledged and respected. They are the bringers of life. They bear within them the future generations.

"..Men may slay one another but cannot ever overcome the woman. For in the quietude of her lap lies the child. You can slay him once and again, but he issues as often from that same gentle lap, a gift to the Great Good in which man is only an accomplice…The woman needs us only for one night. Here we stand in eagle feathers and war bonnets…And our women, so gentle, so sweet, so kind. Yet the race of man goes on because of our women."
Phil Lane Jr. / Yankton Sioux

Moon Time - the Mystery and Power of Creation
This ability to bring new life into the world is seen as a thing of great power. Science now knows that many biological changes happen in a woman's life to enable her to do this. Native Americans have known this for a very long time. Yet we also believe that there are unique energies within the woman, which are also a necessary component of this ability. These biological and spiritual/emotional energies are powerful - they have to be to produce life. It is out of respect for these things that women do not do certain things. It is not because women are viewed as inferior or weaker or that certain times of her cycle are considered "bad". That interpretation is based on the Europeans concept of womanhood - not ours.

For instance in a Powwow, women (usually) do not sit at the drum. They may sit behind the singers to lend their support and their voices. When men sit at the Drum, it is an opportunity for them to make a closer connection to Mother Earth - the Drum being her heartbeat. Women, in bearing children are already closely connected to her.

Last year, I was in an international gathering of traditional Elders. I have been in menopause for over 6 years, so the rules of a woman's Moon Time is not something I have had to apply to myself for quite some time. The last day of the gathering, I began to feel 'out of sorts' and mildly uncomfortable. I took the opportunity during the lunch break to go back to our room and lie down. When I got up I realized that I was indeed having a Moon Time. Now, this required some changes in what I had been doing. As a 'helper' for one of my Grandfather teachers, I now felt that I should not handle his staff and some other ceremonial objects.

NOT because I was now 'unlcean', but rather because the energy/power I was now generating, mixed with the power of those objects would be like grabbing a lightening rod in the middle of a storm. I did not see this turn of events - although puzzling as to why it was happening after all this time - as a negative thing. Rather it was giving me free time - time to explore my feelings, this experience and to discover what it was I was to learn from this. I left the group surrounding Grandfather and began walking around the other groups scattered around the grounds. There were various Elders/Teachers surrounded by people who wanted to listen and learn from them.

My attention was drawn to a Grandmother with long white hair who was comfortably perched on a lawn chair talking to a group of young European women. They were discussing Moon Time (the menstrual cycle) and what they perceived as 'restrictions' of women during this time. What they were taught in Grandmother's unique and open way, was that what they perceived as restrictions were in fact, freedoms and signs of respect and acknowledgement for the mystery and power of creation.

Most tribes had a Moon Lodge where the women could retire during these times. They were encouraged to dream, to contemplate and to pray. In some tribes, the dreams and visions of the women during this time (the Cherokee, for instance) was instrumental in guiding the decisions of the community at large. The dominant society perceives emotional instability during these times, the Native American woman learned from an early age, that it was a time when her spiritual/emotional abilities were at their most powerful and she was taught how to use these powers for the benefit of the community. She was provided a time and a place to go and just 'be'. It also provided her a time to discuss with other women her thoughts and concerns and to sort out her feelings. Others saw to the feeding and care of her family. In a sense - in modern terminology - she was given a vacation once a month.

"It is well to be good to women in the strength of our manhood because we must sit under their hands at both ends of our lives."
He Dog /Oglala Sioux

Respect the Sacredness
It was at another gathering of Elders early this past year that the subject of respecting the women especially during the Moon Time came up. The wife of a Spiritual Leader of the Taino People (and yes, contrary to modern history. they were NOT all wiped out!) a woman who was a leader among her people, got up and asked the men how they behave during times of ceremony and how they treat things that are sacred. Of course the answer came back…"with due respect". "Then why," asked this Taino woman, "would you not treat your women with equal respect, especially during this sacred time?"

For me, something that brings into startling clarity the differences between the dominant societies perception of the menstrual cycle and our understanding of the sacredness of Moon Time, was a talk by an elderly Huichol Grandmother. She addressed the women, but made it clear that even as she did so, she also addressed the men - for we all have male and female aspects and even as we cannot be in balance if we neglect one for the other, neither can we be in balance if we fail to acknowledge and respect our counterparts. Just as it takes Father Sky and Mother Earth for us to live - so we need each other. Although I cannot recall her exact words (it was spoken in Spanish through an interpreter), nor can I recreate her marvelous sense of humor, I will try to give you a sense of what she said.

"We women….we must learn the sacredness of who we are. What do we do with the "Sangre de Madre" (menstrual blood)? We throw it away in a garbage can. I am not garbage! This sacred gift and responsibility I have been given, I do not disrespect it so that I would treat it as trash; a thing to be discarded with little thought. How can this be bad or dirty? Is this not the Creator's way? Is this not a part of the miracle of creation? Think of it! It is the Creation of LIFE. It is Sacred! Among my people, when a young woman comes to her first Moon Time she is given a pad, which catches the flow. When she changes this pad, she puts it into a container of water - the blood of Mother Earth - blood to blood - from which we all come. At the end of her time she takes that water and plants a tree, using that water to feed the tree. As she does this she prays for her family, and she prays for a mate that is whatever she desires (and she gets very specific..'I want him to be 6' tall and handsome and a good provider and not to be thus and so').

When she is married she again uses this Moon Time water to give the tree praying for children or for the children that she has been given, her husband and any others she chooses. In this way she nourishes not only the tree, but also her family and her community. Yet she also nourishes herself in acknowledging the sacredness of who she is and the gift and responsibility she has been given.You women. Why do we wear skirts and dresses? Watch me as I walk (she says as she moves around in her white native dress). You see the shadow surrounding me? It is always a circle and it always surrounds me. Therefore I am always within a sacred circle. I am always protected. These things are our women taught.

As women, we have two mouths. Yes, two. In the mouth with which we eat, we take in nourishment, we take in life. Yet in the mouth below we not only take in life…we also give forth life. We teach our young women that just as we must be careful what foods we eat so that we may be healthy and strong, so must we be careful what we put into our mouths below, so that our people may become strong and healthy. These things we teach."

"The honor of the people lies in the moccasin tracks of the women."
Village wise man / Sioux 1961

PMS = Power Made Sacred
At this same gathering, which was at the Cherokee Peace Village in Vermont, I noticed that there was another smaller arbor set aside from, but within view of the main arbor. This was called the Moon Arbor and all the women on their Moon Time who wished to, observed the ceremonies from there. Someone noticing this asked about it. We were told that because of the special connection of women to Spirit during this time, they were relied upon to observe the ceremonies to ensure that things were being done in a good way and that in the old days when our (Cherokee) women were taught how to do this, they could even change negative elements or energies (which they could perceive due to their heightened sense of spirituality during this time) into positive energies - thus protecting not only the ceremonies, but also the people.

Although in many tribes, there were women who were warriors, healers, seers, chieftainesses and accomplished crafts persons, they never forgot the importance of their roles as the bringers of life; the teachers of the children and, the keepers of the home. They never forgot that the welfare of the people began in the harmony, the safety and the comfort of the home. For the most part there was no conflict between the importance of one sex over the other. Both were needed. Both were important. Both were necessary for the survival and happiness of the people. The differences between the sexes were acknowledged, valued, supported and accepted as the natural and necessary flow of life. Each had a different kind of 'Power', and each was sacred.

It is my hope and prayer that we as a people will teach these things to our children so that they will value who and what they are. It is my prayer that they (and we ourselves) will come to know the complimentary nature of male and female and find the beauty and harmony that it can bring.Osda! It is good.

Copyright Jim Ewing, 2005.All rights reserved
Home
Email Jim Ewing atblueskywaters@worldnet.att.net

The Cherokee Native Americans; culture, language, religion, myths

2007-03-03T18:37:00.000-08:00

Cherokee territory prior to European invasion

http://encarta.msn.com/encyclopedia_761577754/cherokee.html

Cherokee
Encyclopedia Article

4 items
Article Outline
Introduction; History; Culture; Contemporary Life

I
Introduction
Cherokee, Native Americans of the Iroquoian language family and of the Southeast culture area. Before Europeans arrived in North America the Cherokee controlled a large region of the Southeast. Their territory eventually came to extend through eight present-day Southern states. Various Cherokee bands played an important role in colonial America and in United States history. They remain one of the largest tribes in the United States, and many Americans of all backgrounds claim Cherokee ancestry.

The origin of the name Cherokee is uncertain. It may come from the Choctaw name for them, Tsalagi, meaning “people of the land of caves,” or the Creek name for them, Tisolki, meaning “people of a different speech.” The Cherokee call themselves Ani-Yun'wiya, meaning “principal people.”

II
History

Archaeological and linguistic evidence indicates that the Cherokee migrated in prehistoric times from present-day Texas or northern Mexico to the Great Lakes area. Wars with the Iroquois (Haudenosaunee) tribes and with the Delaware (Lenni Lenape), both of whom controlled extensive lands in the region, pushed the Cherokee southeast to the mountains and valleys of the southern part of the Appalachian chain. They settled in modern western Virginia, western West Virginia, western North Carolina, eastern Tennessee, southeastern Kentucky, northwestern South Carolina, northern Georgia, and northern Alabama. The Spanish explorer Hernando de Soto encountered them in the Appalachians in 1540. By 1715 smallpox had reduced the Cherokee population to about 11,000.

During the British and French struggle for control of colonial North America, the Cherokee provided warriors in support of the British, but revolted against them in 1760 in the Cherokee War under Cherokee war chief Oconostota. During the American Revolution (1775-1783) tribal members aided Great Britain with sporadic attacks on outlying settlements. In 1785 a number of bands negotiated a peace treaty with the United States, but Cherokee resistance continued for a decade thereafter. In 1791 a new treaty reconfirmed the earlier one; part of Cherokee territory was ceded to the United States, and the permanent rights of the tribe to the remaining territory were established. Between 1790 and 1819, several thousand of the tribe migrated west of the Mississipp.

In 1820 the Cherokee established a republican governmental system modeled on that of the United States, with an elected principal chief, a senate, and a house of representatives. In 1827 they drafted a constitution and incorporated as the Cherokee Nation.

Meanwhile, valuable gold deposits were discovered in tribal lands, which by previous cessions had been reduced to about 2,830,000 hectares (about 7 million acres) in northwestern Georgia, eastern Tennessee, and southwestern North Carolina. In 1819 Georgia appealed to the U.S. government to remove the Cherokee from Georgia lands. When the appeal failed, attempts were made to purchase the territory. In retaliation the Cherokee Nation enacted a law forbidding any such sale on punishment of death. In 1828 the Georgia legislature outlawed the Cherokee government and confiscated tribal lands. Cherokee appeals for federal protection were rejected by President Andrew Jackson. In 1832 the Supreme Court of the United States ruled that the Georgia legislation was unconstitutional; federal authorities, following Jackson’s policy of Native American removal, ignored the decision. [ White man wasn't about to let a bunch of "dirty savages" hold onto gold bearing lands! The land HAD to be stolen from them! Insomniac]

About 500 leading Cherokee agreed in 1835 to cede the tribal territory in exchange for $5,700,000 and land in the Indian Territory (now Oklahoma). Their action was repudiated by more than nine-tenths of the tribe, and several members of the group were later assassinated. In 1838 federal troops began forcibly evicting the Cherokee. Approximately 1,000 Cherokee escaped to the North Carolina mountains, purchased land, and incorporated in that state; they were the ancestors of the present-day Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians of North Carolina.

Meanwhile, most of the tribe were driven west about 1,285 km (about 800 mi) in a forced march, known as the Trail of Tears. About 4,000 perished through hunger, disease, exposure, and attacks by bandits during the journey or in stockades awaiting removal. Others died after their arrival in the Indian Territory from disease or food shortages. In the Indian Territory the Cherokee reorganized their government under their chief, John Ross, and became known as the Western Band, or the Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma. The Cherokee, along with other Southeast tribes relocated to the Indian Territory—the Chickasaw, Choctaw, Creek, and Seminole—became known to non-Indians as one of the Five Civilized Tribes because of their having adopted many Euro-American customs.

During the American Civil War (1861-1865), after great internal conflict, the tribe sided with the Confederacy; a postwar treaty with the United States freed the black slaves belonging to tribal members. Under the General Allotment Act of 1887—uncompromisingly resisted by the Cherokee—plots of tribal land were forcibly allotted to individual members. Surplus lands not assigned to Cherokee individuals were parceled out by the federal government, and in 1891 the tribe’s western land extension, the Cherokee Strip or Cherokee Outlet, was sold to the United States; in 1893 it was opened, mostly to non-Indian settlers, in a famous land run. The Cherokee government was dissolved, and its people became U.S. citizens when Oklahoma achieved statehood in 1907.

III
Cultu

The Cherokee economy, like that of other Southeast tribes, was based on intensive agriculture, mainly of corn, beans, squash, and sunflowers. They also grew tobacco. Deer, bears, and elk were hunted with bows and arrows. Smaller game, such as raccoons, rabbits, squirrels, and turkeys, were hunted with long cane-stem blowguns that propelled wood-and-feather darts. For fishing, hooks and lines, spears, and traps were used. Wild plant foods gathered by hand provided another source of nutrition. These foods included roots, greens, berries, and nuts.

The Cherokee were divided into seven matrilineal clans that were dispersed in war and peace moieties (half-tribes). The people lived in numerous permanent villages, typically placed along rivers and streams. Some villages belonged to the war moiety, the rest to the peace moiety. Cherokee families typically had two dwellings: rectangular summer houses with cane and clay walls and bark or thatch roofs, and cone-shaped winter houses with pole frames and brushwork covered by mud or clay. The Cherokee crafted pottery as well as baskets. The Busk, or Green Corn Ceremony, was a time of thanksgiving, forgiveness, rekindling of sacred fires, and spiritual renewal. It was held in mid- to late summer, when the corn was ready for roasting.

In the early 19th century, the Cherokee demonstrated unusual adaptability to Western institutions, both in their establishment of a republican government and their adoption of Western methods of animal husbandry and farming, including the plantation system. Public schools were established and in the 1820s, Sequoyah, a tribal member, invented an 85-character syllabary script for the Cherokee language. Widespread literacy followed almost immediately. In 1827 the Cherokee wrote down their constitution in their native language. In 1828 they published the first Native American newspaper, the Cherokee Phoenix, which also used the syllabary.

IV
Contemporary Life

In Oklahoma, among the Western Band (Cherokee Nation), traditional Cherokee culture was severely weakened. Today, the Cherokee live both on and off their federal trust lands, as protected native lands in Oklahoma are now known, scattered in urban centers and in isolated rural regions. Their occupations range from fishing to industrial labor to business management.

The old ways, including traditional crafts, are most strongly preserved by the Eastern Band, some of whom continue to live on the Qualla Reservation in North Carolina. The quality of North Carolina Cherokee basketry is considered to be equal to or better than that of earlier times. Farming, forestry, factory work, and tourism (about 5 million tourists annually) are sources of income for eastern Cherokee.

In 1984 the Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma and the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians met in a joint council for the first time in a century and a half. Since then these two groups have held a joint council every two years. Smaller Cherokee groups without federal recognition live in a number of Southern states.

In the 2000 U.S. census about 281,000 people identified themselves as Cherokee only; an additional 448,000 people reported being part Cherokee. The Cherokee language is spoken by an estimated 12,000 to 22,000 people.

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Subject: Historical Discrimination Against Indians Category: Reference, Education and News Asked by: thegr8k8-ga List Price: $20.00
Posted: 12 Dec 2005 13:24 PST Expires: 11 Jan 2006 13:24 PST Question ID: 604934

How were the Indians discriminated against? What were some
difficulties that they faced? What did they do to overcome
discrimination? What did the government do to help the Cherokee
Indians? (I am Cherokee Indian myself my grandmother was pure Cherokee
Indian.) I’ll tip the answerer $10.

Answer

Subject: Re: Historical Discrimination Against Indians Answered By: crabcakes-ga on 13 Dec 2005 21:37 PST Rated:

Hello Thegr8k8-,
Your question is very broad in scope, but I have attempted to post a
few points on each part of your question. Injustices to Native
Americans were committed in large numbers by ignorant people, and the
topic has filled a plethora of books. Some people would even argue
whether the government has really helped tribal peoples at all. (My
husband’s grandmother was also a full Cherokee and knew Geronimo!)
Discrimination and Mistreatment
===============================
“The U.S. falls into this latter category. Indigenous people are
referred to as "Fourth World" as opposed to being Third World, which
contains some outsider-built nations. About 50 nationalities belong to
a group called the Unrepresented Nations and Peoples Organization
(UNPO) which includes occupied nations, indigenous peoples, and
oppressed minorities. Some indigenous peoples, like Native American
Indians, also refer to themselves as "First World/First Peoples".
“The main problem with not having nation-state status is that no other
country in the world will do business with you. Indigenous peoples are
not allowed to have embassies, diplomats, or business representatives.
They have no power to make trade agreements, collect tax revenue,
enter into political alliances, or be involved in immigration.”
http://faculty.ncwc.edu/toconnor/soc/355lect12.htm
“The plight of American Indians throughout the history of America was
determined by many factors. Forcing Indians to live on reservations by
the federal government was not enough.
State and city governments set up laws ordering Indians to stay out or
get permission before they crossed a state line or entered a city.
Indians were not allowed inside a city after dark. Some of these laws
are still on the books today around our country.
It's true American history, with all this being forced on them,
American Indians are a very proud people. The dark cloud is fading
over the Indian community, the dark past of how America truly came
about is now being told.”
“"I'm making a living out of my heritage that I'm so proud of and
educating the uninformed public."Wildcat jokes about how rich Indians
were before whites drove them off their land. "We had all the wealth
in the world," he said, citing minerals, fishing and hunting. "Whites
brought taxes," he said before adding with a broad smile, that "we've
never wanted. You just came in and invited yourselves. It's a dark
shadow, but we make the best.”
http://www.unitednativeamerica.com/bureau/bwa_6.html
“Bear River Massacre
By the early 1860s, many felt a need to punish the tribes along the
Trail. Col. Patrick Conner, stationed in Salt Lake City, was among
those who wanted to teach the Native Americans a lesson. In January of
1863 Conner and his California Volunteers marched north to the Bear
River. There, Conner's men brutally killed 400 Shoshoni men, women and
children. More Native Americans died at Bear River than any other
battle in western history.
This grotesque attempt at genocide did have its intended effect. The
Trail was safe for the emigrants--for a while. But word of the Bear
Rive Massacre, and a similar event in Sand Creek Colorado, soon spread
to tribes across the west. Natve Americans had had enough--and they
were about to begin fighting back.”
http://www.isu.edu/~trinmich/Native.html
“The framers of the U.S. Constitution, albeit eloquent in their
defense of freedom and equality, sanctioned the separate and unequal
treatment of blacks and Indians (Hirschhorn, 1976; Lynd, 1968). In the
early 20th century, passionate speeches against educational equity
were well-received on the floors of Congress, rationales for separate
and unequal were expounded by scholars at prestigious universities,
and pseudo-scientific articles about the ineducability of certain
races appeared in leading research journals (Newby, 1968). Ellwood P.
Cubberly, an influential force behind the Pedagogy and School
Administration Program at Stanford University, proposed a model of
education that envisioned separate schools for the "overage,
defective, delinquent, or the Negro Race" (as quoted in Mohraz, 1979,
p. 49). Institutionalized racism elevated bigotry to respectability,
fostering racial misconceptions and inequities that linger, in subtle
and not so subtle ways, to this day.
As a result, the school experiences of African-Americans, American
Indians, Mexican-Americans, and other ethnic minorities have often
been harsh and alienating. During the early part of this century, it
was widely argued that highly educated blacks were "not a force for
good" -- to prepare blacks for their station in life, schools were
directed to teach black children simple skills and values that
prevented them from aspiring to "the white man's condition" (Odum,
1910/1968, pp. 65, 69). Teachers' salaries, school facilities, and
classroom supplies given to black schools were generally inferior to
those provided for white schools (Anderson, 1988; U.S. Commission on
Civil Rights, 1976, p. 2). Southern educators, black or white, who
challenged this status quo sometimes risked their lives.”
http://www.ed.gov/pubs/EdReformStudies/EdReforms/chap1b.html
Many accounts of present day discrimination on this site:
“ENN News: "A court-appointed investigator has resigned from the
multibillion-dollar lawsuit by American Indians against the Interior
Department, contending the government wanted him off the case after he
found evidence that energy companies got special treatment at the
expense of impoverished Indians. Alan Balaran, the special master in
the case, contends his findings could have cost the companies millions
of dollars and that department officials with ties to the industry
'could not let this happen.' Justice has been much too long in coming
for the hundreds of thousands of Native Americans... Billions of
dollars are at stake,' according to the resignation letter made public
Tuesday by U.S. District Judge Royce Lamberth. The Interior Department
[of course!] accused Balaran of 'concocting preposterous charges.' "”
http://archive.democrats.com/preview.cfm?term=native%20americans
“Although one of the last major military actions against Native
Americans occured in the 1800s, a new study published in the American
Sociological Review shows that Native Americans are exposed to toxic
chemicals, since many Native American reservations are located near
military installations where toxic and unexploded munitions are
stored.”
http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2004/12/10/114911/62
“In 1830, Congress chose to disregard Indian treaty guarantees when it
passed the Indian Removal Act, a bill engineered by President Andrew
Jackson. Despite its language suggesting a voluntary and fair
"exchange" of lands, the act opened the door for the militias of
trans-Appalachian and southern states to simply drive the Indians
across the Mississippi by force. The Indians destination was to be an
"Indian Territory" set aside west of Iowa, Missouri, and Arkansas.”
“The Cherokee nation resisted, however, challenging in court the
Georgia laws that restricted their freedoms on tribal lands. In its
1831 ruling on Cherokee Nation v. the State of Georgia, the Supreme
Court addressed the question of whether native tribes could be treated
as "foreign nations." It decided that they should be counted rather as
wards of the federal government, but the following year ruled that
they were indeed sovereign and immune from Georgia laws. President
Jackson, famous from his "Seminole Wars" against the Indians in
Georgia and Florida and an ardent defender of states' rights,
nonetheless refused to heed the court's decision. He obtained the
signature of a Cherokee chief agreeing to relocation in the Treaty of
New Enchola, which Congress ratified against the protests of Daniel
Webster and Henry Clay in 1835. The Cherokee signing party did not
represent the vast majority of Cherokees. When the followers of
Principal Chief John Ross tried desperately to hold onto their land,
Jackson ordered military action in 1838. Under the guns of federal
troops and Georgia state militia, the Cherokee tribe made their trek
to the dry plains across the Mississippi. Thousands died en route from
the brutal conditions of the "Trail of Tears."”
http://www.classbrain.com/artteenst/publish/article_52.shtml
“With the coming of the white man to the New World, there was a
systematic attempt to annihilate the Native American way of life. The
Tsa-La-Gi, the proud and powerful Cherokee Nation, once spread through
eight states. In 1838, the very foundations of Cherokee society were
swept away. Most of the Cherokee were uprooted from their homes and
forced to take the long, bitter “Trail of Tears” to Oklahoma.
Thousands died. The remnant left behind in the North Carolina
mountains later formed the Eastern Band of the Cherokee Indians.
In the late 1800’s, the U.S. government established mandatory boarding
schools for Native Americans. Children were forcefully taken from
their homes and sent to these schools where they lived regimented
lives, stripped of all that hinted of their culture. They were not
allowed to speak their language nor practice traditional ways. They
often went years without seeing their families. For at least three
generations there was no opportunity to learn or to teach parenting
skills.
Sadly, many of these injustices, and the deliberate destruction of
Native American culture, were carried out in the name of Christianity.
The effects of this cultural genocide are all too evident today.
Depression, hopelessness, drug use, health problems, broken homes,
violence, alcoholism and abuse abound. Caught in this cycle, young men
like Cooter lose hope and give into the drugs and alcohol that waste
their lives.”
http://www.byfaithonline.com/partner/Article_Display_Page/

0,,PTID323422CHID664020CIID1796034,00.html (Blogger would not

wrap url, causing it to extend into sidebar space. To access site, type entire

url into address bar)
“In the Indian Wars, the Cheyenne were the victims of the Sand Creek
Massacre in which the Colorado Militia killed 600 Cheyenne. In the
early morning on November 27, 1868 the Battle of Washita River started
when United States Army Lieutenant Colonel George Armstrong Custer led
the 7th U.S. Cavalry in an attack on a band of peaceful Cheyenne
legally living on reservation land with Chief Black Kettle. 103
Cheyenne were killed, mostly women and children.”
http://www.crystalinks.com/cheyenne.html
“Reluctantly, on October 7, 1861, Ross signed a treaty transferring
all obligations due to the Cherokee from the U.S. Government to the
Confederate States. In the treaty, the Cherokee were guaranteed
protection, rations of food, livestock, tools and other goods, as well
as a delegate to the Confederate Congress at Richmond. In exchange,
the Cherokee would furnish ten companies of mounted men, and allow the
construction of military posts and roads within the Cherokee Nation.
However, no Indian regiment was to be called on to fight outside
Indian Territory.”
“The Cherokee Nation was the most negatively affected of all Native
American tribes during the Civil War, its population declining from
21,000 to 15,00 by 1865. Despite the Federal government's promise to
pardon all Cherokee involved with the Confederacy, the entire Nation
was considered disloyal, and those rights were revoked.”
http://oha.ci.alexandria.va.us/fortward/special-sections/americans/#civil_war
“American Indians often avoided a paper trail because they believed it
would lead to discrimination, Rosier said. Many lived on the margins
between white and American Indian worlds, adopting the dress and
religion of the larger white culture in order to fit in, he added.
Stigma also drove many American Indians to simply abandon their tribes
altogether, changing their names to blend into white society, said
Johni Cerny, owner of the Salt Lake City-based Lineages Inc., an
online company that does genealogical searches.”
http://www.phillyburbs.com/pb-dyn/news/113-11272004-407345.html
“The United States Government has been trying unsuccessfully to
register Native American Indians for over a hundred years. The
infamous Dawes Act of 1887 was the first such effort on a large-scale.
The purported aim of the Act was to protect Indian property rights
during the Oklahoma Land Rush. By registering, Indians were told, they
would be allotted 160 acres of land per family in advance of the Land
Rush and thus be restituted for 100 years of genocide against them.
The purpose of the Dawes Act, ostensibly to protect Indian welfare,
was viewed with suspicion by many Indians hurt by government's clumsy
relocation efforts of the past. Indians who had refused to submit to
previous relocations refused to register on the Dawes Rolls for fear
that they would be caught and punished.
To get on the Dawes Rolls, Native Americans had to "anglicize" their
names. Rolling Thunder thus became Ron Thomas and so forth. This bit
of "melting pot" chicanery allowed agents of the government, sent to
the frontier to administer the Act, to slip the names of their
relatives and friends onto the Dawes Rolls and thus reap millions of
acres of land for their friends and cronys.”
http://www.dickshovel.com/cleansing.html
“Haskell was one of a handful of "boarding schools" for American
Indians founded in the late 1800s by the U.S. government. Dubbed the
United States Indian Industrial Training School, Haskell opened in
1884 with 22students.
School leaders cut off the children's hair, discarded their Indian
clothing and refused to let them speak in native languages or practice
their religions. The students were not allowed to leave the school for
family visits for at least four years and were drilled daily in "white
man" ways.
The assimilation effort came after the U.S. government seized Indian
lands amid westward white migration across the United States. School
historians say some Indian families sent their children willingly to
the school, believing it would help them, while others lost their
children to government round-ups.
Of those original schools, Haskell is the only one operating today.
Its transformation took place slowly, gaining steam in the 1960s and
'70s along with Indian activism."The idea was to take the Indian out
of the soul without killing the man," said Dr George Godfrey, national
programme leader for multi-cultural alliances at the U.S. Department
of Agriculture.”
http://www.racismagainstindians.org/Education/BoardingSchool.htm
A very interesting look into racism and education:
“Iris All Runner in Wolf Point, Montana was the first person to enter
into my life at this particular fork in the road. Iris faced a racist
school that had refused to budge in their tactics, some so archaic it
is hard to imagine they had not been banished decades, even centuries
ago. It was a school with an 80% Native student population and a
completely white administration. The school board was white but for
one Native man who had a very hard time making his voice heard. There
was absolutely no cultural understanding between staff and students
and the results were disastrous.”
http://www.racismagainstindians.org/Education/SubliminalRacism1.htm
“One of the saddest chapters in Native American history has to be
these children who were forcibly removed from their homes and families
to attend boarding schools. Many times, Indian children died at these
schools - from diseases they had no natural immunity to, from
homesickness and other factors. There are hundreds of graves, over 250
at Carlisle alone, of these children who suffered and died alone and
lonely, far from all that was familiar to them, remembered only by
those friends and family who mourned their loss. The children who
survived the training were no better off - and in some cases worse off
- than those who escaped the forced schooling. They often found
themselves unwelcome in white society in spite of their painful
acculterization process, and sometimes returned to their tribes to
find they were no longer accepted there either.
It should be pointed out, however, that not all Indian schools
were the scene of such terror and heartbreak. Some schools were
created at the request of the tribes and were monitored by the tribal
leaders. One such school is the Red Cloud Indian School, founded as
the Holy Rosary Mission in 1888 at the request of Chief Red Cloud, of
the Oglala Sioux at the Pine Ridge Reservation. The school was founded
by the Jesuits, who served as teachers and missionaries to the
Indians.”
http://members.aol.com/tawodi/carlisle/intro.html
“The Native Americans could never adequately respond to the Colonial
agenda and eventually succumbed to the onslaught against them. They
survive only in sparse numbers with withered cultural ties. Those who
are invisible in the White American culture can mold into that
culture.
Many Native American tribes have been granted privileges allowing
establishment of gambling casinos that relieve their poverty and their
economic burden on the American government. A minority of Native
Americans have become supported by ownership of the gambling casinos,
giving these groups an estimated per capita income of $25,000. The
great majority of the Native Americans remain as wards of the American
government and live from welfare.”
http://www.alternativeinsight.com/Agenda_of_Hate.html
“Eventually about eight million Native Americans would die as a result
of white domination; when genocidal mortality rates among native
people led early American farmers to seek African slaves, about 50
million died in the process.”
http://www.hsph.harvard.edu/review/review_winter_02/featurerace.html
“Don’t use Native Americas for team logos and mascots.
“We believe respect for self and others is foremost,” is a part of
Vallejo High School’s vision statement. Beside that statement is a
picture of an Apache Indian. They named the Apache for the school’s
team name, logo and mascot. Does anyone see a contradiction there?”
http://www.ethicalego.com/native_american_as_mascots.htm
“While remarkably free of disease, Indian people did have ailments
which made it necessary for them to seek curative herbs. The
predominant disorders besides besides external injuries, seem to have
been arthritis digestive disorders and respiratory infections.
Apparently the Native American's generally harmonius quiet way of
life, apart from warfare, protected them from a whole category of the
white man's ills. It seems that heart disease, arteriosclerosis, and
cancer were rare indeed. Neurological and psychiatric disturbances
were also uncommon.”
“Almost all the Indian's diseases came about by the weather, and
hardships such as famine and injuries. It was only with the arrival of
the white man that the North American Indian's system of medicine
broke down. New, and to the Native 'doctors' and 'nurses' unknown
diseases such as scarlet fever, tuberculosis, smallpos, and other
frightful diseases spread through the tribes like a devastating flame.
It is noted that the entire western plains region of Canada was
ravages by smallpox in the fall and winter of the 1870's. An estimated
five thousand Cree and Blackfeet (sometimes referred to as Blackfoot)
died. The fatal blossoms of smallpox almost decimated the Indian
population. In the providence of God, only the discovery of a
vaccination by an English physician, Edward Jenner, saved the North
American inhabitants. In a sense, western medical science gave back to
Native Americans a little of what it owed.”
http://www.yvwiiusdinvnohii.net/articles/medroots.html
“The result of the colonization of the America by white people was a
huge devastation of native cultures. Native Americans were robbed of
their land and hunting grounds. This meant that their lifestyle was
not possible. Government of the US often broke treaties in order to
take away more land. Usually this was the best land, very fertile or
with lots of resources. Tribes were moved around and placed on
reservation. These reservations often lacked jobs and opportunities.
The Termination policy of 1950's contributed to misery even more,
since the Government took basically all the help they used to give.
Many tribal members were forced to go to cities to find work. The
result was poverty and huge alcoholism rate. After the end of the
Termination policy, government provided more help to tribes especially
with education and health care. But, that isn't enough. Today many
tribes realize that they need to find their own way to earn money and
help people.”
http://library.thinkquest.org/04oct/00019/id137.htm
What did the government do to help the Cherokee Indians?
=================================================

“Since its inception on March 11, 1824, the Bureau of Indian
Affairs has been a witness to and the principle player in the history
of federal-tribal relations. Once an instrument of federal policies
to subjugate and assimilate American Indian tribes and their peoples,
the BIA has changed dramatically as have those policies over the past
177 years.
In the early years of the United States, Indian affairs were governed
by the Continental Congress, which in 1775 created a Committee on
Indian Affairs headed by Benjamin Franklin. Fifty years later, the
BIA was established under the War Department, and eventually moved to
the Interior Department in 1949.”
“The Bureau of Indian Affairs is a rarity among federal agencies.
With roots reaching back to the Continental Congress, the BIA is
almost as old as the United States itself. For most of its existence,
the BIA has mirrored the American public's ambivalence towards the
Nation's indigenous peoples by carrying out federal policies that had
helped or hurt them. But, as federal policy has evolved away from the
subjugation and assimilation of American Indian and Alaska Native
people and into one of partnership and service to them, so has the
BIA's mission.”
http://www.doiu.nbc.gov/orientation/bia2.cfm
http://www.doi.gov/bureau-indian-affairs.html
“These types of activities occurred until 1866, when, to comply with
the 14th Amendment of the United States Constitution, the State
Legislature repealed the law. The 14th Amendment provides that no
state should infringe on any citizen's "privileges or immunities" nor
"deprive any person of life, liberty, or property without due process
of law," nor deny to any person "the equal protection of the law."
While the state was enslaving and eliminating California natives, the
federal government, in 1851, appointed three commissioners to
negotiate treaties with California Indians. By 1852, 18 treaties had
been negotiated with 139 tribes. The treaties were negotiated because
the federal government perceived Indian tribes as foreign nations, and
treaties were the legal means for developing an agreement and ensuring
peace with them. The 18 treaties set aside 7,488,000 acres of land, or
approximately one-third of California, for Indian use. This land
settlement was similar to that negotiated with other tribes in other
states. The treaties also provided funds for materials and food to
allow the Indians to become self-sufficient. The treaties met with
hostility in California. On January 16 and February 11, 1852, the
State Senate concluded that the treaties "committed an error in
assigning large portions of the richest mineral and agricultural lands
to the Indians, who did not appreciate the land's value." (Ellison,
1925:4-5) The legislature instructed the United States senators from
California to oppose ratification of the treaties, and called for the
government to remove the Indians from the state as they had done in
other states.”
“In 1870, in an attempt to get away from corrupt superintendents and
to convert the Indians to Christianity, the federal government turned
over operation of the reservations to the Quaker Church. In
California, the Methodists, Baptists, and other churches eventually
took on management of the reservations. While the new management was
not corrupt and was far better for the general welfare of the Indians,
the church was less tolerant of Indians continuing their traditional
beliefs. Thus, the reservations became missions and the first tools
under American control to be used in assimilating Indians into the
general population. Once again, California Indians were confronted
with change and forced to adapt from being prisoners-of-war to being
wards of the church.”
http://www.cr.nps.gov/history/online_books/5views/5views1c.htm
“In the 1880s, there was increased public awareness of the problems
California Indians were confronting. While the problems were rarely
analyzed, many people helped to improve the quality of life for
Indians. There was an effort to improve the education of Indians
through schools, and to provide them with land to better their
economic conditions so that Indians could become full citizens of the
United States of America.
In the early 1880s, Helen Hunt Jackson wrote A Century of Dishonor and
sent a copy of her book to each United States congressman. She was
then appointed to a commission to examine the condition of Indians in
Southern California. Her visits resulted in The Report on the
Condition and Needs of the Mission Indians of California, by special
agents Helen Jackson and Abbot Kinney.”
http://www.cr.nps.gov/history/online_books/5views/5views1d.htm
Some current resources:
-----------------------
Native American Resources
http://www.hanksville.org/NAresources/
Legal Resources
http://www.nailsinc.org/
Native American Women's Health Education Resource Center
http://www.nativeshop.org/
National Museum of the Native American
http://www.nmai.si.edu/
Native American Journalists
http://www.naja.com/
Historical Society
http://www.powersource.com/heritage/
SWIRC
Not the government, but people and corporations.
“Helping people help themselves.
Our approach is to help Native Americans improve the quality of their
own lives by providing opportunities for them to bring about positive
changes in their own communities. Through the Southwest Indian Relief
Council, we offer a helping hand, not a handout.”
http://www.swirc.org/
These corporations give to SWIRC and other agencies:
· 3Com Corporation
· Aetna Foundation
· Allegro MicroSystems, Inc.
· American Express
· American International Group, Inc.
· Amgen Foundation
· AXA Foundation
· Bank of America
· Bestfoods Foundation
· BP Amoco Foundation, Inc.
· C N A Foundation
· Certain Teed Corporation Foundation
· Cilco Energy
· Cintas
· Colgate-Palmolive Co.
· Compaq
· Computer Associates
· Energen Corporation
· Fleet Boston Financial Foundation
· Gartner
· General Mills Foundation
· Household International
· Hub Distributing, Inc.
· ING Foundation
· John Hancock Financial Services, Inc.
· Kemper Insurance Company
· Longaberger
· Master Card International
· Microsoft
· Mobil Foundation, Inc.
· National Grid USA Service Company, Inc.
· Pepsico Foundation
· Pfizer Foundation
· Philip Morris Companies, Inc.
· Pitney Bowes
· Prudential Foundation
· SBC
· Six Continents Hotels
· State Street Research & Management Co.
· Sun Microsystems Foundation
· The Ace USA Foundation
· The Chase Manhattan Foundation
· The Chubb Corporation
· The J.P. Morgan Chase Foundation
· The Prudential Foundation
· The St. Paul Companies, Inc. Foundation
· The Times Mirror Foundation
· The Washington Post
· The Zurich U.S. Foundation
· TW Foundation
· Tommy Hilfiger
· Unilever U.S. Foundation, Inc.
· Universal Music Group
· Verizon
· W.W. Granger, Inc.
http://www.nrcprograms.org/corporatedonors.htm
Missionaries
http://www.nps.gov/whmi/history/time3.htm
“They also learned that before anyone else was in this area, Native
Americans roamed these lands. The culture and lives of American
Indians became more endangered as settlers came from the east, the
south, the north.
The buffalo on which so many western tribes depended were slaughtered
to make way for the railroad. Their people were placed on
reservations, sent to strange lands, imprisoned, and many tribes
totally disappeared. A few, such as the Apaches, struggled to survive
and even thrive.”
http://www.epcc.edu/ftp/Homes/monicaw/borderlands/18_ed

_column.htm (Blogger would not wrap url. To access site, type entire url into address bar)
“But the same meeting of cultures that helped make the Plains Indians
rich and powerful turned disastrous. Europeans shot buffalo for hides,
and also just for the fun of it. After the railroad reached the Great
Plains in the late 1800s, "sportsmen" shot huge numbers of buffalo
from the trains, leaving piles of rotting carcasses on the prairies.
By 1880, the great herds of buffalo were almost completely destroyed.
And, as they did all over the Americas, Europeans brought diseases to
the Plains Indians. Because the Native Americans had never before had
illnesses like smallpox and measles, their bodies had few defenses,
and they died in huge numbers.”
http://www.ustrek.org/odyssey/semester1/092300/092300teamplains.html
Business help:
http://www.talewins.com/OK/nativebus.htm
This is an interesting site, The Cherokee Nation of Mexico
http://www.cherokeenationmexico.com/
Interesting History
http://victorian.fortunecity.com/rothko/420/aniyuntikwalaski/yahoo.html
Interesting Collection of Native American Photos
http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/ndlpcoop/ichihtml/cdnsp5.html
An apology
http://www.wfn.org/1997/11/msg00092.html
Myths of Native American Casinos
http://www.santaynezchumash.org/links/myths.pdf
Native American Policy and the US Fish and Wildlife Service
http://library.fws.gov/Pubs/native_american_policy.pdf
There you go! If any part of my answer is unclear, please request an
Answer Clarification. I will be happy to assist you further, before
you rate.
Sincerely, Crabcakes
Search Terms
============
Cherokees + discrimination
racism + Native Americans
Cherokee Indians overcome
Discrimination + Native Americans
Government relief + Native Americans
mistreatment + native Americans + 1800s
hardships + Native Americans + white man
thegr8k8-ga rated this answer: and gave an additional tip of: $10.00 This answer is outstanding! It's incredibly clear and there are so
many sources! Thank you so much!
Comments

Subject: Re: Historical Discrimination Against Indians From: pinkfreud-ga on 12 Dec 2005 14:50 PST

You'll find quite a bit of information on the official website of the
Cherokee Nation:
http://www.cherokee.org/Culture/History.asp
Subject: Re: Historical Discrimination Against Indians From: tlspiegel-ga on 12 Dec 2005 14:55 PST

Indeed pinkfreud is correct.
You'll also find information at this site:
http://pblmm.k12.ca.us/projects/discrimination/NativeAmerican/

Cherokee/prejudic.html (Blogger would not wrap url. To access site, type entgire url into address bar)
Subject: Re: Historical Discrimination Against Indians From: crabcakes-ga on 15 Dec 2005 09:11 PST

Thank you for the 5 stars and the generous tip! Both are appreciated.
I'm so glad you are researching you heritage!
Sincerely, Crabcakes

http://www.aaanativearts.com/cherokee_tribes page 2

Kangaroos in the Mangroves

2007-02-19T17:40:00.000-08:00

While in Australia I often saw Wallabies (pictured above) on roadsides at night, pinned in the brilliant headlights and frozen in terror as the glaring eyed behemoth roared towards them. They are marsupials
like kangaroos but smaller.

All autos in the area had " 'roo" bars welded to the front as protection if one struck a kangaroo. Kangaroos are large animals and it does considerable damage to the auto and injury or death to the occupants if a kangaroo leaps in front of the auto at night. In Western Australia the Western Gray Kangaroos are the native species; adult males standing upright are from 5' to 7' tall and weigh from 150 to 200 pounds.

Similar scene at mangrove thicket as kangaroos fled from man's intrusion. My photos did not come out well so this one I downloaded from the internet

I had not yet seen a kangaroo so I went with Roy to a mangrove thicket at the Aborigine Protected area to see them. The kangaroos lie up in the thickets during the day and come out in the evening to feed, like our deer do. Roy was going to go in the thicket and scare some out so I could see them; I stayed out in the open. It was 110 degrees and I almost had a sun stroke. I had suffered from heat exhaustion once before so was more susceptible. Roy had a hard time getting me back to the car, as I was weak, fainty and vomiting. That was just for a brief time at 110 degrees.

As he created a racket in the mangroves to scare the kangaroos out, first the females and joeys appeared at the edge of the thicket. I remained still to avoid spooking them, and after a short wait, they erupted into the open at a full lope, or leap.

The male kangaroos had a habit similar to our Texas buck deer; they allowed the females and young emerge first. More wary, the males held back for a few minutes longer at the edge of the foliage. Then they, too, burst forth at full speed. It was exhilarating to see these magnificient animals leap so gracefully and at such speeds.

While at the Aborigine Site we looked at ancient aborigine pictographs on rocks and I found a large sea shell that the natives once had used as a vessel. It was a monopod shell with several hollow, pointed projections on the front through which they could stab prey or predators with poison spines. Roy found a small one while fishing and I have it among my souvenirs.

MSNBC.com Article: Genealogists discover royal roots for all

2006-09-10T01:56:00.000-07:00

THIS for those naysayers who say the Este geneaological records are erroneous and our claims of descent from nobles and relationship to royals are inflated boastings. :

Genealogists discover royal roots for all Even without a documented connection to a notable forebear, experts say the odds are virtually 100 percent that every person on Earth is descended from one royal personage or another. http://msnbc.msn.com/id/13662242/from/ET

Text of above URL:

Actress Brooke Shields has a pretty impressive pedigree — hanging from her family tree are Catherine de Medici and Lucrezia Borgia, Charlemagne and El Cid, William the Conquerer and King Harold, vanquished by William at the Battle of Hastings.
Shields also descends from five popes, a whole mess of early New England settlers, and the royal houses of virtually every European country. She counts renaissance pundit Niccolo Machiavelli and conquistador Hernando Cortes as ancestors.
What is it about Brooke? Well, nothing — at least genealogically.

Even without a documented connection to a notable forebear, experts say the odds are virtually 100 percent that every person on Earth is descended from one royal personage or another.
"Millions of people have provable descents from medieval monarchs," said Mark Humphrys, a genealogy enthusiast and professor of computer science at Dublin City University in Ireland. "The number of people with unprovable descents must be massive."
By the same token, for every king in a person's family tree there are thousands and thousands of nobodies whose births, deaths and lives went completely unrecorded by history. We'll never know about them, because until recently vital records were a rarity for all but the noble classes.
It works the other way, too. Anybody who had children more than a few hundred years ago is likely to have millions of descendants today, and quite a few famous ones.
Take King Edward III, who ruled England during the 14th century and had nine children who survived to adulthood. Among his documented descendants are presidents (George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, John Quincy Adams, Zachary Taylor, both Roosevelts), authors (Jane Austen, Lord Byron, Alfred Lord Tennyson, Elizabeth Barrett Browning), generals (Robert E. Lee), scientists (Charles Darwin) and actors (Humphrey Bogart, Audrey Hepburn, Brooke Shields). Some experts estimate that 80 percent of England's present population descends from Edward III.
A slight twist of fate could have prevented the existence of all of them. In 1312 the close adviser and probable lover of Edward II, Piers Gaveston, was murdered by a group of barons frustrated with their king's ineffectual rule. The next year the beleaguered king produced the son who became Edward III.

Had Edward II been killed along with Gaveston in 1312 — a definite possibility at the time — Edward III would never have been born. He wouldn't have produced the lines of descent that ultimately branched out to include all those presidents, writers and Hollywood stars _ not to mention everybody else.
Of course, the only reason we're talking about Edward III is that history remembers him. For every medieval monarch there are countless long-dead nobodies whose intrigues, peccadilloes and luck have steered the course of history simply by determining where, when and with whom they reproduced.
The longer ago somebody lived, the more descendants a person is likely to have today. Humphrys estimates that Muhammad, the founder of Islam, appears on the family tree of every person in the Western world.

Some people have actually tried to establish a documented line between Muhammad, who was born in the 6th century, and the medieval English monarchs, and thus to most if not all people of European descent. Nobody has succeeded yet, but one proposed lineage comes close. Though it runs through several strongly suspicious individuals, the line illustrates how lines of descent can wander down through the centuries, connecting famous figures of the past to most of the people living today.
The proposed genealogy runs through Muhammad's daughter Fatima. Her husband Ali, also a cousin of Muhammad, is considered by Shiite Muslims the legitimate heir to leadership of Islam.
Ali and Fatima had a son, al-Hasan, who died in 670. About three centuries later, his ninth great-grandson, Ismail, carried the line to Europe when he became Imam of Seville.
Many genealogists dispute the connection between al-Hasan and Ismail, claiming that it includes fictional characters specifically invented by medieval genealogists trying to link the Abbadid dynasty, founded by Ismail's son, to Muhammad.
The Abbadid dynasty was celebrated for making Seville a great cultural center at a time when most of Europe was mired in the Dark Ages. The last emir in that dynasty was supposed to have had a daughter named Zaida, who is said to have changed her name to Isabel upon converting to Christianity and marrying Alfonso VI, king of Castile and Leon.
Yet there is no good evidence demonstrating that Isabel, who bore one son by Alfonso VI, is the same person as Zaida. So the line between Muhammad and the English monarchs probably breaks again at this point.
But if you give the Zaida/Isabel story the benefit of the doubt too, the line eventually leads to Isabel's fifth great-granddaughter Maria de Padilla (though it does encounter yet another potentially fictional character in the process).
Maria married another king of Castile and Leon, Peter the Cruel. Their great-great-granddaughter was Queen Isabel, who funded the voyages of Christopher Columbus. Her daughter Juana married a Hapsburg, and eventually gave rise to a Medici, a Bourbon and long line of Italian princes and dukes, spreading the Mohammedan line of descent all over Europe.
Finally, 43 generations from Mohammed, you reach an Italian princess named Marina Torlonia.

Her granddaughter is Brooke Shields.
.....................

NAVAL AIR STATION CORPUS CHRISTI, TEXAS AND AUX. FIELDS

2006-08-23T07:33:00.000-07:00

NAVAL AIR STATION, CORPUS CHRISTI. The Naval Air Station at Corpus Christi, also known as the University of the Air, began on June 13, 1940, when President Franklin Delano Roosevelt signed a $25,000,000 appropriations proposal. Construction began on June 30 of that year, and the base was dedicated by the secretary of the navy on March 12, 1941.

It had the main station at Flour Bluff and six auxiliary stations: Rodd, Cabaniss, Cuddihy, and Waldron at Corpus Christi, Kingsville Naval Auxiliary Field at Kingsville (see NAVAL AIR STATION, KINGSVILLE), and Chase Field at Beeville (see NAVAL AIR STATION, BEEVILLE). The total station covered some 20,000 acres in three counties.

The originally contracted construction was virtually complete by June 30, 1941. By 1945, 997 hangers and other buildings had been constructed, and the cost had run to more than $100 million. A 980-foot rail-highway bridge and a 400-foot trestle bridge across Oso Bay had been built; a twenty-mile-long railroad was built in thirty-five days. A sixteen-inch cast iron water pipe was laid from Corpus Christi to Flour Bluff. Eight miles of 100 pair telephone cables for a permanent telephone system were laid in ten days. Also constructed was a permanent military highway consisting of eleven miles of twenty-two-foot concrete pavement with a 1,200-foot concrete bridge across Oso Bay, as well as a 4½-mile-long concrete access road to Cabaniss Field. On January 14, 1941, the project reached a peak employment of 9,348 employees and had a weekly payroll of $305,125.

The station was initially used to train aviation cadets as pilots, navigators, aerologists, gunners, and radio operators. By 1950 the Naval Air Station was training naval aviators in the advanced stages of flying multiengine land and sea planes. In addition, the United States Naval Hospital, the United States Naval School of All-Weather Flight, the Fleet Logistic Air Wing, Acceptance, Test, and Transfer Unit, and the headquarters for the Corpus Christi Naval Reserve Training Center were operating at the Naval Air Station.

The end of World War IIqv greatly curtailed the activities at the Naval Air Station. The naval air stations at both Kingsville and Beeville were deactivated for several years. By late 1948 the Naval Air Advanced Training Command had transferred to Corpus Christi from Jacksonville, Florida, and the Naval Air Station, Corpus Christi became a permanent installation. The Navy's precision flight team, the Blue Angels, made their headquarters at Corpus Christi in 1949 and remained there until 1955, when they moved to Pensacola, Florida.

In 1959 the Navy shut down a major repair and assembly facility, which had employed the majority of the 4,000 civilians at the base. In 1961 the facility was converted into the Army Aeronautical Depot Maintenance Center. From the 1960s into the 1990s the Naval Air Station continued to provide fully trained naval aviators of multiengine land and sea planes; its students included many from foreign countries.

On August 6, 1986, the station's airfield was named Truax Field in honor of Lt. Myron Milton Truax, United States Navy. In the 1990s the station continued to maintain and operate facilities to support operations designated by the chief of naval operations. In 1990 there were three training squadrons operating aircraft from the station.

BIBLIOGRAPHY: Vertical Files, Barker Texas History Center, University of Texas at Austin. Yearbook, U.S. Naval Air Station, Corpus Christi (Corpus Christi: Texas Auxiliary of the Navy Relief Society, ca. 1941).
Art Leatherwood
The following, adapted from the Chicago Manual of Style, 15th edition, is the preferred citation for this article.
Handbook of Texas Online, s.v. "," http://www.tsha.utexas.edu/handbook/online/articles/NN/qbn1.html (accessed August 23, 2006). (NOTE: "s.v." stands for sub verbo, "under the word.")

The Handbook of Texas Online is a joint project of The General Libraries at the University of Texas at Austin (http://www.lib.utexas.edu) and the Texas State Historical Association (http://www.tsha.utexas.edu).
Copyright ©, The Texas State Historical Association, 1997-2002
****************************************************************************

LITTLE KNOWN AND ABANDONED AIRFIELDS - CORPUS CHRISTI AND ENVIRONS
Click on names of fields for comprehensive details.

http://members.tripod.com/airfields_freeman/Tx/Airfields_Tx__
CorpusS.htm?ref=www.texasmilitarymuseums.org (type complete url to access)

Personal note; In 1950 I met and married Walter Harry Warner from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, who was a sailor at NAS Main Side. Our first child, Ethel Marie, was born at the Naval Air Station Hospital at Main Side (Flour Bluff) May 11, 1951.

1940s Era Steam Locomotives

2006-08-12T00:54:00.000-07:00

1940s era steam locomotive, like ones mentioned in post below "Hear That Lonesome Whistle". My cousins, friends and other neighborhood children would walk the rails and cross ties of the tracks running through Gardendale in Corpus Christi, Texas. Often we would place pennies and other coins on the tracks when we heard a train approaching and retrieve the flattened coins after the train passed.

If we put our ear to the rails, we could hear the sound of an approaching train long before we could see it in the distance. The train sounded it's mournful whistle at each intersection, and the sound carried far in the quiet country nights. I loved to hear the sound as I lay abed at night. When diesel replaced steam locomotives, their whistles lacked the haunting, poignant quality of the old steam engines.

HEAR THAT LONESOME WHISTLE

2006-04-29T23:03:00.000-07:00

Image of a 10/17/06 train derailment at San Antonio, Texas. The train cars spilled from the railway, jack knifed and overturned , are much like the derailed cars told of in the story below. These cars are stationary, but in the event I experienced they were being pulled along the road in these positions. There were no homes nor buildings of any kind near the railway at that time.

If there was a dirt country road running
alongside the tracks, this could have been
taken in Gardendale where I grew up after
my second year of school.

I walked those tracks many times. I lay in
bed at night and listened to the mournful
wail of the steam locomotive as it sounded
its whistle at the South Staples crossing.

With the advent of the diesel engines and
their different whistles, the sound of the old
steam locomotives and their whistles is
gone forever. I wish I had a recording of
one. (Update: I have found videos of the old steam engines and their whistles and have downloaded some to my blog. I LOVE to watch the videos and remember my childhood).

Before we moved to Gardendale, we lived at the Yellow House in the Sunshine community. The Sunshine Baptist Church was at the corner of South Staples and the tracks on Holly Road, and that is where we attended church. I was about 5 or 6 years of age when an event occurred that terrified me so badly that to this day I am uneasy at an intersection, stopped for a passing train. I get really antsy if I am the first car in line and the monster train is thundering past right in front of my hood.

After a heavy rain we were going to church, driving down the dirt road that was a slippery semi-quagmire of mud. One of my young uncles was driving. Mother and Grandma, Joyce and I were passengers. I don't recall if anyone else was in the car.

We met a train engine, as usual pulling a long chain of freight cars, bound for the Rodd Field Navy Station, or perhaps Main Side. Supplying the navy stations before and during WWII was the reason for the construction of the track and the engines always pulled numerous cars. History of NAS is in above article.

The engine chuffed on past us and suddenly, to our horrified eyes, ahead of us the track bed gave way and the huge box cars left the tracks and spilled out onto the roadway. Some turned over on their sides, some remained upright, but as they were pulled along to the damaged roadbed, one after another on the remaining track overturned also. Yet the engine kept on going, dragging them along, coming straight for us. On that narrow country road there was nowhere to escape.

My uncle slammed on the brakes and reversed the car, slipping and sliding in the mud, leaving deep S shaped ruts in front of us. One of the women, either Mother or Grandma, began screaming at him to stop the car, for us to get out and run. All the while the boxcars spilled across the road were steadily being pulled closer and closer to us, plowing up the dirt road and rail bed. At that time I had no idea how long it took a train to stop, so thought the engineer was unaware that part of his cars had left the track.

Fortunately for us, the engine did stop before the boxcars hit us. It was a terrifying experience and impressed me deeply with the awesome power of a locomotive. I still do not like to be near a moving train, although I admire them greatly from a distance and love to see antique trains.

..........................
gorgeous old steam engine! Great whistles!

................................
double header - two locomotives wailing their whistles. In this one the chuff chuff chuff of the engines are clearly heard as they begin to build up momentum. Listen carefully to hear the bells. These are pulling passenger cars.

...................................
.......................................

Slate Article: Why Is Mars Red?

2006-03-18T10:57:00.000-08:00

explainer
Why Is Mars Red?
Basically, the whole planet is rusty.
By Brendan I. Koerner
Posted Monday, Jan. 12, 2004, at 3:56 PM ET

Spirit, NASA's scrappy exploration robot, has been snapping some breathtaking photos of Mars. More portraits of red-tinged landscapes should emerge shortly, as Spirit ventures forth from its lander. But why does every nook and cranny on Mars invariably look red?

The simple explanation is that the planet's soil is rich in iron oxide, but there's much debate as to why the mineral is so ubiquitous in the Martian environment. The old theory is that the oxidization process began early in Mars' life cycle, when warm water flowed on the planet—water that may have carved out the long, now-barren channels that snake through portions of the planet. Rocks containing iron would have slowly been worn away by rivers and seas, and the oxygen in the water would have combined with the iron to create iron oxide—or, in lay terms, the iron would have rusted into red dust. Flecks of the reddish mineral would then have been dispersed all over the planet via raindrops. Scientists who believe that Mars was once flooded with water have pointed to the abundance of iron oxide as proof of their claims. And where there's water, of course, there may also be life.

But data culled from Pathfinder's visit to Mars in 1997 hints at an alternative explanation, championed by Albert Yen of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory. Pathfinder found that Mars' soil contained far more iron than its rocks, which suggests that at least some of the planet's iron came from meteorites—a pretty easy contention to support since Mars' surface is pockmarked with impact craters. Yen has gone a step further, however, in arguing that water needn't have been present for the meteorite-borne iron to be converted into iron oxide.

In 2000, he conducted an experiment with a 100-milligram chunk of labradorite, a mineral commonly found in Martian soil. The sample was placed in a test tube filled with gases common to the Martian atmosphere and chilled to a Mars-like minus 76 degrees Fahrenheit. Finally, Yen and his cohorts pelted the tube with ultraviolet light, to mimic the effects of sunlight. (UV light on Mars is particularly harsh since the planet's ozone layer is so thin.) After a week, they analyzed the sample for evidence of superoxide ions, negatively charged oxygen molecules that are capable of causing iron oxidization even when there's no water present. Sure enough, Yen found the superoxides as he'd predicted—a blow to the astrobiologists who'd long believed that Mars' red hue indicated that water, and perhaps life, must have once been abundant on the planet.

The presence of superoxides in the Martian soil would also explain why the Viking landers of 1976 found no evidence of organic material on the planet—superoxides break down all organic compounds, including those carried on meteorites. But they also work extremely slowly, perhaps too slowly to fully explain the prevalence of reddish hues on the Red Planet. It's possible that Mars' coloration, then, is due to the combined effects of ancient water and superoxides.

Next question?

Brendan I. Koerner is a contributing editor at Wired and a fellow at the New America Foundation.

Article URL: http://www.slate.com/id/2093779/

Oxidization from all the iron ore in Western Australia around Karratha and the Pilbara stains everything red, from a light orangey-red to a deep, dried blood red.

Ancestral History - african americans - search

2005-10-22T02:35:00.000-07:00

Ancestral History of African Americans

Every year we have a meeting honoring our Veterans of the US military.The majority of our residents here are African American. One year our Veterans' Day co-incided with our Black History celebration, so on the last meeting of the month I gave a speech to honor our black veterans. The speech was about the history of Africans as warriors in pre-Colombian times up to the present.

The majority of the guests became restless at the length of the speech and a number of the Hispanics began carrying on personal conversations in Spanish. It was clear that many wanted the speech to be over so they could get to the refreshments. I was forced to cut it short, and I was very discouraged and humiliated. I had thought that our African Americans would be proud of their heritage, their history of brave and strategy-wise wars, and the role they had played in the American military.They were more than "fuzzy headed spear chunkers".

To my great pleasure one [count him...one] resident came to me afterward, praised the speech and said I knew far more about his people than he did, even though I was white. He asked me if I would print up my material so he could learn for himself. I agreed but was appalled. He had no idea of how much research material I had, from internet, movies and documentaries, old encylopedias, old books, etc..

At that time I didn't have a computer and had to use my daughter's who lived in another town. I had little time to research my sources again from which I had taken my notes, and felt it unfair to use so much of my daughter's printers ink to print out such a vast amount of material. I was loath to lend out my video tapes of documentaries or my out-of-print encyclopedias. [space prevents modern encyclopedias from including everything that has ever been published, so much historical material can be found in old ones that is omitted or abbreviated in new ones].

I was in a quandry. Several times over the past year the man has reminded me of his interest and finally offered to pay me for the material. I don't want any money. I now have a computer but don't have a printer. I'm waiting for my daughter to bring and install a printer/scanner I bought for her computer to print our reunion notices. She now has a more modern printer with all the bells and whistles and doo-dads anyone could want, and no longer uses my old printer.

Meanwhile I have been researching again all the sites I could find and scribbling down subjects, web addresses, links, etc.. that I could recall or think of. Now I find I have a hodge podge of piles of papers covered with all sorts of information including unrelated subjects I have researched. It is a mess. I must go through all the papers and cull out the necessary information and sources and organize it. Then revisit all the sites and pick out what parts are relevant to be printed. It is a daunting task, much more complex than doing the college papers for various relatives.

The task is compounded by the fact that most African Americans have no knowledge of their roots, from which tribal area their ancestors originated. To be fair I need to include the history of at least the major tribes in historical Africa. It will be a very large amount of printed material. I can scan and print the appropriate articles from my books and encyclopedias and make copies of my video documentaries. It will be a heckuva job. But I promised. AAAAGHHH!!!

Noah's Flood, mutations limiting human life span; Tree Longevity

2005-10-20T03:40:00.000-07:00

Human longevity may have been shortened by mutations, but some types of plant life, notably trees, continue to have exceptionally long life spans. Their life spans pre-Noahic era is unknown.

Alerce Trees in Chili reputed to live to 4,000 years old.

The alerce tree, the southern hemisphere's
equivalent of the ancient redwood of the Pacific
Northwest, can reach diameters of
13 feet and heights of 130 feet.
© WWF/David Tecklin

......................................................................................................................

Flowering Figs live to 2,293 years.

Bristlecone Pines - at least 5,000 years old. Tree named Promethus dated at 4,844 years old when murdered by cutting down for "research purposes". http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_long_living_organisms
Grove of Bristlecone Pines
Ginko Tree - possibly live to 3,000 years old - http://www.treesforyou.org/Selections/articles/ginko_trees.htm ; http://www.stevenfoster.com/education/monograph/ginko.html
Sequoia - 3,ooo years old - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giant_sequoia

1,000 year old Olive Tree. They provide fruit and oil for many generations of people and are highly valued by the owners. ...............................................................................................

http://www.reuters.com/article/newsOne/idUSL1190625120080411

Swedish spruce may be world's oldest living tree

Fri Apr 11, 2008 9:01am EDT

(UPDATE: Post below)
By Niklas Pollard

STOCKHOLM (Reuters) - Scientists have found a cluster of spruces in the mountains in western Sweden which, at an age of 8,000 years, may be the world's oldest living trees.

The hardy Norway spruces were found perched high on a mountain side where they have remained safe from recent dangers such as logging, but exposed to the harsh weather conditions of the mountain range that separates Norway and Sweden.

Carbon dating of the trees carried out at a laboratory in Miami, Florida, showed the oldest of them first set root about 8,000 years ago, making it the world's oldest known living tree, Umea University Professor Leif Kullman said.

California's "Methuselah" tree, a Great Basin bristlecone pine, is often cited as the world's oldest living tree with a recorded age of between 4,500 and 5,000 years.

Two other spruces, also found in the course of climate change studies in the Swedish county of Dalarna, were shown to be 4,800 and 5,500 years old.

"These were the first woods that grew after the Ice Age," said Lars Hedlund, responsible for environmental surveys in the county of Dalarna and collaborator in climate studies there.

"That means that when you speak of climate change today, you can in these (trees) see pretty much every single climate change that has occurred."

Although a single tree trunk can become at most about 600 years old, the spruces had survived by pushing out another trunk as soon as the old one died, Professor Kullman said.

Rising temperatures in the area in recent years had allowed the spruces to grow rapidly, making them easier to find in the rugged terrain, he added.

"For quite some time they have endured as bushes maybe 1/2 meter tall," he said.

"But over the past few decades we have seen a much warmer climate, which has meant that they have popped up like mushrooms in the soil."

(Reporting by Niklas Pollard; Editing by Jon Boyle)

Oldest Living Tree Found in Sweden
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20080417/od_afp/swedennatureoffbeat;_ylt=Avw5D34zHeYK75Sx3GAKUbAuQE4F

Swedish researchers find world's oldest living tree

Thu Apr 17, 9:18 AM ET

STOCKHOLM (AFP) - The world's oldest living tree on record is a nearly 10,000 year-old spruce that has been discovered in central Sweden, Umeaa University said on Thursday.

Thu Apr 17, 9:18 AM ET

Spruce trees. The world's oldest living tree on record is a nearly 10,000 year-old spruce that has been discovered in central Sweden, Umeaa University has said.

(AFP/File/Fred Dufour)

Researchers had discovered a spruce with genetic material dating back 9,550 years in the Fulu mountain in Dalarna, according to Leif Kullmann, a professor of Physical Geography at the university in northwestern Sweden.

That would mean it had taken root in roughly the year 7,542 BC.

"It was a big surprise because we thought until (now) that this kind of spruce grew much later in those regions," he said.

Scientists had previously believed the world's oldest trees were 4,000 to 5,000 year-old pine trees found in North America.

The new record-breaking tree was discovered in Dalarna in 2004 when Swedish researchers were carrying out a census of tree species in the region, Kullman said.

The tree's genetic material age had been calculated using carbon dating at a laboratory in Miami, Florida.

Spruces, which according to Kullmann offer rich insight into climate change, had long been regarded as relatively newcomers in the Swedish mountain region.

The discovery of the ancient tree had therefore led to "a big change in our way of thinking," he said.

Also see:

Spruce - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia -

Spruce refers to trees of the genus Picea, a genus of about 35 species of coniferous ... The needles, or leaves, of spruce trees are attached singly to the ...
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spruce - 40k -

***********************************************************************
EUREKA!! I FOUND IT!!

I found the sites for Noah's Flood and the decrease in human kind's longevity after Noah's era. It took a LOT of searching Bar-Ilan University various sites but after blurred eyes and paralyzed legs [from sitting so long] I was successful. Some sites I accessed were in Hebrew, written in that squiggly script...Whoa! right church but the wrong pew!

When in North Africa I learned to read a little Arabic , or at least to recognize a few words in Arabic script. But Hebrew, no way.

The hypothetical theory that human life span decreased markedly over many generations post Noah-era was due to genetic mutations appears scientifically sound. The lecture gives sources of
scientific studies and discovery of an aging gene. Very interesting. Site for this lecture is:

http://www.biu.ac.il/JH/parasha/eng/noah/avi.html

(for complete print of lecture, see Parashat Noah...post of April 17, 2008 - above)

if anyone else is interested. Few people read this blog, but I can have the address in print for myself in case I misplace my records of addresses. This time printed on my record page.

Another interesting lecture was one about the Flood itself, citing the same facts as aired on a TV documentary about the Flood.

http://www.biu.ac.il/JH/parasha/eng/noah/kav.html

(For complete lecture, see post: Parashat Noah - Noahic Flood - 4/17/08)

I am feeling quite smug and self satisfied that I tracked this down. From now on, PRINT ADDRESSES I want to keep. Don't henscratch it.

2005-10-19T05:55:00.000-07:00

DRAT! DRAT! DRAT!

And drat again. When I was surfing a few nights ago I ran across a fascinating Lectures of the Torah Reading from the Physics Dept. of Bar-Ilan University in Israel. I scribbled down the address in pencil and it's SO scribbled I can't read it. I was so sleepy, tired and bleary eyed and I used a pencil and now in the cold light of another night I cannot decipher my own henscratch. I MUST start printing those addresses. My eyesight is getting so bad and my writing so scratchy I often have trouble later figuring out what the heck is that??!!

I wanted to re-read the lecture and also to pass the address on to a friend who would be interested in it. I had been surfing so many hours my eyes were playing out on me, and my brain was turning to mush, so I wanted to read it later when I was fresh. Now I can't find it.

I THINK I was searching for sites re: the longevity of olive trees and among all the sites listed was that one about human longevity from Noah's era to the present [decreasing longevity according to Biblical records about life spans pre- and post -Noahic times]. I recall thinking "what's that doing in sites about olive trees?". I wrote down the address listed under the site so I could go straight to it when I wanted it again. Keep getting notices "site not found". Rechecked the search for olive trees and it isn't listed again. Drat!

I've searched everything I can think of, including the site for Bar-Ilan U. , etc.. Drat it. And fie upon it all.

2005-10-15T02:25:00.000-07:00

MUSIC HATH CHARMS....

Read articles tonight regarding the effect of music on people.

One tidbit of information stated that music of any genre elevated the moods of the audience. Did they need a scientific experiment to determine that ? A long time ago someone coined the phrase "...music hath charms to soothe the savage breast..".

Another article revealed how a few bars of music, even just reading the title of a song or seeing the cover of a record or cd, would trigger memories associated with the song or musical selection.

Music does indeed seem to be a powerful memory trigger. There are a number of songs that instantly bring back memories of the time of my life when those songs were popular or had special meaning for me.

"Green Door" with its lyrics "one more night without sleeeping, watching till the morning comes creeping..." became my insomniac theme song and a reminder of countless sleepless nights.

"...this lonliness is driving me mad..." became representative of the extreme aloneness I began to feel after I lost my independence in my home and especially later when I moved into this apartment building for the elderly. I never suffered from empty nest syndrome when the kids were all gone but I was greatly affected when I could no longer have the interaction with the extended family and the big family get togethers, and I had to spend so much alone time. Sometimes when I'm doing the things I do in this silent little apartment, I will suddenly become aware of some of those lyrics running through my mind.

"Going To Kansas City" always reminds me of Husband #2, even though the lyrics involve little application to him other than the fact that he was from Kansas, near Kansas City. I do not like reminders of him nor memories of him. Usually I pretend he never happened to my life. When events in your life are so emotionally and psychologically traumatic that you were literally driven mentally unstable for awhile, it is better not to dwell on those matters. Once you escape from such an environment, recover from the ill effects and come to terms with the events, it's healthier to just move on and not look back.

Some [ancient] country songs bring back memories of my youth when I bought my first radio and a record player [played 78s] with babysitting money. I had to wait until Mother was gone to play either machine because she disapproved of that sort of music. If Daddy was at home I could play them but very quietly in my room and never disturb him with "that noise". I came to know and like many of the old WWII songs too. Daddy ignored the rambunctious noise of children playing but he didn't like "that noise".

I have forgotten many songs from my youth but occasionally someone will play a goldie-REALLY-oldie and memories will come flooding back of my teen years and events associated with those times.

I learned to dance to "Stardust", in a forbidden visit to a ballroom where the woman worked for whom I babysitted. Mother would have exploded! Not only did they dance at that establishment, but they sold ALCOHOL, too!! Den of iniquity!! And sailors from the NAS military base frequented it. A surefire recipe for a swift, greased, downhill slide straight to the fires of Hell. When I hear Stardust I can still see that cavernous place with the polished floors, the mirrored balls casting silvery lights all around, and hear how the music seemed to echo through the virtually empty afternoon space. Mother would never have believed how strict my "boss" was and how carefully she chaperoned me. I was as safe as in church.

Hah! Safer!! The first time I was molested by a stranger was in church. Mother had hauled me off to a revival meeting at a huge, downtown church. After services concluded all the women stood around in groups talking so the children scattered out exploring the rear sections of the building. I was with a group of 6 to 10 other pre- and pubescent children, and a man, nicely dressed in a suit, appeared in our midst and offered to show us about. We preferred to explore on our own but didn't know how to refuse an adult's offer, especially one who looked important and authoritative. Ofcourse his presence put a damper on our enthusiasm and we walked quietly and sedately as he shepherded us about. He singled me out and kept touching my hair, my arm or shoulder which made me uneasy. Eventually we came to a split level section, with a step down to the lower area. He exclaimed to me, "Oh, be careful, don't fall. Here, let me help you" and reached under my arms to lift me down. Except he reached far enough around that his hands cupped my budding breasts, and he clung to them even after he set me down. I twisted around to look at him and the expression on his face distressed and frightened me even more than his obviously wrong touching. I told the other children, "I gotta go find my Mama" and they scampered after me, unsettled by the man also. I hung at Mother's elbow until she finally left.
I don't know why I never told her about the man, but then most children don't tell.

Early Elvis songs and "Mr. Earl" open the doors to late night drives to the hospital where I worked 11 P.M. to 7 A.M., tooling along with radio blasting. Certain other C & W songs by Johnny Cash and others popular singers of his early era brings back the "honkytonk" post- divorce days when I ran around with my best friend I met in nursing school. She always had to attend functions at the country club with her husband but when she had free time she loved the music and ambiance of the old fashioned honkytonks and introduced me to that segment of society. It was a whole new world to me. I loved music of all kinds but I really liked the country music and dancing to it. I never did drink much but I surely loved to dance.

When I hear "Crazy Arms" I recall a romance with a cute little Louisiana Frenchman from the piney woods. I had a terrific crush on him but knew a committed relationship was not advisable.
I had 4 little children from my first marriage to think of and he was not stable enough to offer a future for them. If I had not had children I may have taken a gamble on him as a husband, but not when I had children to consider. But dang! he was a cutie pie and it tore me up to end the relationship. Especially later when I'd see him with another woman. Such is the contrariness of women.

I love Cajun music. I learned to waltz at a night club across the Texas border in Louisiana where another nurse friend and I would go to dance. Her father was very strict so we had to get home before he awakened in the mornings. Many times I danced the bottoms out of my stockings, and my feet would be so swollen I couldn't get my shoes on. People thought we went down there hunting for dates but all we wanted to do was dance. We never dated anyone from there. Now I hear some of those old Cajun tunes and I am transported in memory to the Moulin Rouge club. Great times. Eating Cajun food and drinking chicory coffee at 4 A.M. on our way back to Texas.
Feeling foolish in our evening finery when other people were coming in dressed for their day's work, grinning sheepishly at their good natured raillery.

Gilbert and Sullivan's "The Mikado", and how my eldest daughter loved it. None of the children ever came to like Grand Opera but she liked the light operettas and all my goldie oldies. In fact, she can recall more of the oldies and lyrics than I can.

So much music, so many songs, and how very many bring back memories of people long gone, places, times and events. Memories. I love that song from "Cats". So meaningful to me. I was beautiful then....

2005-10-12T23:45:00.000-07:00

STILL AGGRIEVED>

I'm still aggrieved about earthquakes in Texas and the attendent feelings of betrayal. I was ok with her ancient past of having volcanoes. Gave us some nice little mountains in the west to go along with the sea- mount rolling hills in central Texas, both of which broke the monotony of the flat coastal plains. I was also ok with having to go far inland to gather rocks, as all rocks here on the coast are buried 20,000 to 50,000 feet deep under sediment washed downhill from higher planes over the millenia into the Gulf depression.

That's ok, Texas. The latter geological occurrence gave me a marvelous dream a number of years ago after I had been studying Texas geology. But now we have a problem about the possibility of quakes along our Gulf coast, and an even greater one about the possibility of rift connections in the Gulf to those that caused the terrible quakes along the Mississippi and Carolinas. Even though those were a long time ago by our standards, you know it was just a blink of an eye by geological standards. And what happened once can happen again, probably will happen again. And rift zones have a nasty habit of kicking up disturbances along any area they cover.

Sometime in the 60s when I was writing prolifically, I penned a novel [as yet unfinished.] that involved a massive quake along the Gulf Coast and the travails of the local populace. Cousin Rebs, reading my partial manuscript and critiquing it, reminded me that the Gulf didn't have quakes. That's the point! How people reacted to and coped with a terrible, unexpected and improbable catastrophe. Hurricanes of varying catastrophic results are commonplace and ones from which we can flee or make preparations, but what if a completely "impossible" event occurred?

Now it appears that my grand creative idea for The Great American Novel may not have been so far fetched after all. I don't like the idea of some fiction becoming reality. This ain't fair, Texas.

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
http://tsha.utexas.edu/handbook/online/articles/EE/yde1.html

EARTHQUAKES. Between 1847 and 1994 there were more than 110 recorded earthquakes of magnitude three or greater in Texas. No Texas earthquake has exceeded a magnitude of 6.0, and most have been fairly small and caused little or no damage. Damage has occurred in at least twenty-five of the recorded earthquakes, however, and one death has been attributed to a Texas quake.

Almost all of the earthquakes in Texas have been caused by one of two sources. The major source is relief of tectonic stress along fault lines. These are most common in the Rio Grande rift belt, the Panhandle,qv the Ouachita Belt, and the Coastal Plain.qv Small earthquakes have also been attributed to well injections associated with oil and gas field operations and occur in areas near large oil and gas fields.

The first known earthquake in Texas occurred in Seguin and New Braunfels on February 13, 1847. The largest earthquake in Texas occurred on August 16, 1931, near Valentine in Jeff Davis County; it measured about 6.0 on the Richter Scale. Many of the other West Texas earthquakes have occurred in El Paso, including the only Texas quake associated with a death; on March 7, 1923, in Ciudad Juárez, Chihuahua, a few kilometers from the quake's epicenter, an adobe house collapsed and suffocated the man inside.

Some of the larger earthquakes in the Panhandle include the 1917, 1925, and 1936 Panhandle and Borger quakes and the 1948 Dalhart quake. No earthquake in the Panhandle has exceeded a magnitude of 5.0.

Earthquakes in East and Central Texas have been fairly small. Some notable ones have occurred at Manor (1873), Paige (1887), Creedmore (1902), Mexia-Wortham (1932), and Trout Switch (1934).

Other significant earthquakes have occurred in Wellborn (1857), Hempstead (1910), and Anderson (1914) in the Southeast and in Rusk (1891), Center (1981), and Jacksonville (1981) in the Northeast. In April 1993 an earthquake of magnitude 4.2 that took place in Atascosa County damaged homes and a gas pipeline.

On April 14, 1995, the second largest earthquake in Texas struck West Texas near Alpine. The quake measured 5.7 and caused alarm and minor damage in Alpine, Pecos, Fort Davis, and Marathon. The event generated widespread reports in the national media. Three years later, another tremor of magnitude 3.6 shook Alpine.

The South Texas town of Alice reported a small earthquake of magnitude 3.8 on March 24, 1997, and in August 2000 Amarillo experienced a series of six earthquakes of magnitudes ranging from 2.7 to 3.3. The tremors caused hairline cracks in underground pipes and gas lines and in the walls of some buildings.

BIBLIOGRAPHY: Scott Davis, Wayne D. Pennington, and Steven M. Carlson, A Compendium of Earthquake Activity in Texas (Bureau of Economic Geology, University of Texas at Austin, 1989). Cliff Frohlich and Scott D. Davis, Texas Earthquakes (Austin: University of Texas Press, 2002). Wayne D. Pennington and Scott D. Davis, "Numerous Quakes Shake Texas," Texas Almanac, 1986-87. Vertical Files, Barker Texas History Center, University of Texas at Austin.

How Did I Get There From Here? Quakes and Disasters

2005-10-12T03:00:00.000-07:00

HOW DID I GET HERE FROM THERE ??

Started out reading CNN news on the 'net about the Pakistan/India earthquake. Became curious about the tectonics , geodesy and history of quakes in that area. A search pulled up a lot of sites; some were interesting but some were far too technical for a layman.

The horrors of the recent and historical quakes in the Indian continent and the Himalayas led to memories of other tragic quakes, and a profound gratitude that we didn't have quakes in Texas. Oh yes, a few little dish rattlers out in West Texas ocasionally but nothing of any great import. From idle curiosity I searched Texas quakes and to my amazement they had not all been in west Texas. A map featuring the locale of quakes here showed areas near Corpus Christi, San Antonio, Austin, Dallas as well as El Paso and Amarillo. From 1847 to 1994 there were 110 quakes ranging from magnitude 3 to magnitude 6.

I felt betrayed. The U.S. has had quakes in various parts but in my lifetime it appeared that California and Alaska had fairly well cornered the market. But Texas? And all the way down to the Gulf Coast? I was born and reared in Corpus Christi and never heard any oldtimers speak of quakes around there. The Gulf Coast was supposed to be geologically stable. I thought.

Oh, we have our little slip zones here. Houston is crisscrossed with them, faults where one side slips down or another pushes up, annoying homeowners and the city over the gradual buckling and cracking of foundations, sidewalks and streets. But there is not the type of slippage that causes quakes. I thought the Gulf Coast was immune to that sort of thing.

Further reading of sites brought me to a controversial theory of a geologist Jack M. Reed, who asserted that our own little Gulf of Mexico harbored a sneaky, dark secret of possible three way ties to the rifts that caused the New Madrid and the Carolinas massive quakes !! The New Madrid quake was a very powerful one that really kicked butt up the Mississippi and surrounding areas.

I felt an even greater sense of betrayal. Our placid Gulf that never offered anything more than some hurricanes now and then having the potential for quakes and tsunamis right at our front door!! I had to sulk about that for awhile. I was much aggrieved. Texas wasn't supposed to have quakes near the coast, and our Gulf area certainly was supposed to lack seismicity.

Pondering these matters brought to mind that Texas once had volcanoes, so I searched that topic and turned up some interesting material about her ancient volcanic past. I knew Texas had had volcanoes and have picked up scraps of lava and tuff from those long ago eruptions but didn't know that some were as large as they were. Geologically, Texas has had some ups and downs, being innundated by the seas several times, creating all those beds of limestones and the sea fossils we used to collect at the farm. The geological forces that created the Llano uplift were tremendous. But the volcanoes weren't any little fire crackers, either.

The geologists think the small quakes in west Texas may be residual tremors from those millions of years ago volcanoes [she's still nervous after this long?] but some may be from all the pumping of oil from the rocks below. Perhaps somewhat like our local subsidence from pumping out so much of the groundwater. Could the CC quake have been from the removal of so much oil from the subterranean rocks, and not from a rift in our Gulf?

Perusing the sites on volcanoes brought up one about the Deccan Traps , a subject that has long interested me. Any volcano that can vomit up enough lava to cover over 1,000,000 square miles and 1 1/2 miles deep was one busy spewer. That led to the controversy of the causative factor of the mass extinction of the dinosaurs and so much of the life on earth. One school of thought attributes it to a comet or asteroid striking the earth near Mexico; another theory was the world wide ecological damage and weather changes from the Deccan Traps vulcanism.

That piqued my interest in the cause of the Permian- Triassic extinction and the Pleistocene-Holocene extinction, other world wide catastrophes that nearly exterminated life on earth.From there, ofcourse, I went on to search the causes of near human extinctions, each one reducing our gene pool to a tiny remnant, the bottle neck factor.

Somewhere along that line I encountered the extreme ecological disasters that mankind is perpetuating upon the earth, decimating wild life and plant life and seemingly creating conditions for greenhouse warming, etc.. , activities that offer the possibility of another mass extinction. A man made one. The others were caused by natural forces and were not preventable. The presnt catastrophe looming over us is of our own doing and is preventable.

Retracing my steps of thought processes I see how I came from quake news reports to modern destruction of our earth.

So That's how I got here from there. It was an interesting journey, begun distressed about all the death and destruction and suffering in Pakistan and India, and ended up distressed about the future of our world.

What sort of legacy are we leaving for the future generations of life on this planet??

Siren Call of the Computer

2005-10-12T02:37:00.000-07:00

HOW DID I GET HERE???

The computer exerted its siren call and I'm back again after a short break for coffee and some leg stretching. I was amazed to see the time and realize how long I'd been on the computer. Off and on between 7:30 P.M. and 9:00 P.M. , then non-stop for 4 1/2 hours since then. Finally the poor old worn out lumbar spine and all the various arthritic joints escalated their complaints to howls of great pain, driving me away from the computer. So, a break and now I'm back again. Wondering HOW I got from THERE to HERE on my travels through cyberspace

Utterly absorbed, rapt attention on the info trail, I ignored the warnings from the body, until the warnings became a siren alarm, "Hey, Dummy!, I'm in agony here!" so I was forced to take a break. Sitting so long is a killer diller for the bod. [As well as standing or walking too long. Have to change positions often].

While I walked around stretching my legs, restoring circulation, and easing my aching joints and back, I began wondering just how I got from the news to human extinction. Back tracing the thought processes, this is how I got from there to here.

A common occurence when I surf the net. There is so MUCH information available at the click of a mouse, my thoughts run wild, and I end up spending hours [too many] glued to the computer. It is fascinating, fun, occupies my time, and keeps me out of the doldrums. I bless cousin Arlie for giving it to me.

Patsy - Jo and Lloyd to rescue

2005-10-10T04:30:00.000-07:00

KIDS STUFF

Jo and Lloyd are off AGAIN to Dallas to help Patsy. They keep I-45 smoking, they drive back and forth so much. Patsy and John broke up and Patsy found out that John was conspiring with Pat to help him steal her kids. Pat lives in another state, he and Patsy aren't divorced, so if he got away with the children Patsy would have to go to another state to fight him for them...IF she could find him.

After he spent some jail time in a southern state for illegal possession of drugs he was fired from the Florida trucking firm. We heard he hired on to a trucking firm in another state and relocated. He's always gone on his long distance runs, so if he got the kids they'd have to stay with his girlfriend who dresses gothic, practises witchcraft and is also a drug user. When I say she practises witchcraft, I don't mean Wicca...I mean bad spells stuff. He doesn't want the responsibility of rearing those kids and neither does his girlfriend.In fact, she usually travels with him. Pat just wants to get them to spite Patsy. Now John conspires with Pat also to spite Patsy. And they say women are bitches after a breakup!!!

To thwart the plotters, Patsy moved to another address in hopes they couldn't find her. Jo and Lloyd went up there to help her move. Then Patsy suffered carbon monoxide poisoning from a defective heater in the new apartment. Had to go stay with a co-worker until the landlord repaired it.

Now Joshua, age 7, has been expelled from school for 3 days because he sassed the principal. Patsy's day care won't keep the kids if they are expelled, just after school. Patsy asked one of her church ladies if she would baby sit Josh for the three days. The lady prayed about it but refused. Patsy called her mother, bawling and squalling, she cannot afford to take off work.

As a single mother she needs every dime she earns, and ofcourse Pat doesn't pay a penny in child support. In the separation hearing he was ordered to pay around $500 a month for Joshua and Summer, but he doesn't. He owes Patsy thousands of dollars in back support. He owes his ex-wife MANY thousands in back support for Christopher and his other son.

So now Jo and Lloyd are running to Patsy's rescue once again. They are going to bring Josh back with them for the three days and Terry will baby sit him while Jo and Lloyd are at work. Then, ofcourse, they'll have to make the drive again to take him home.

Kids won't ever listen to their parents. Patsy had the money to divorce Pat but meanwhile back at the ranch, she and John, her 1st husband, had renewed auld lang syne and decided they'd try again.Ooey, gooey, roses and moonlight and love was in the air. So Patsy took her divorce money to relocate to Dallas where John lived. Soon she discovered he was still the jerk he was when she divorced him and the bloom was off the rose, big time.

All the elders in the family urged Patsy to get the divorce from Pat first, that she needed the legal protection of court orders regarding custody of the children, etc.. , then she could follow John. But no, full of heart throbs she dashed off immediately to join her first love...and now is in a pickle. She has a better job in Dallas, making more money than she did in Houston, so is reluctant to pull up stakes and return here. But she needs to be close to Family.

She did the same thing with Pat a couple of years ago. They had been separated for a long time, for excellent reasons, but he came mooing and gooing around, swearing he had rehabilitated from drug usage, started going to Church, promised never to abuse her and the children again, and blah, blah, blah. The Family urged her NOT to move to Florida until she had proof that Pat had grown a halo. Some drug users do quit, but abusers rarely stop. She wouldn't listen, took the little ones and moved to Florida, where Pat effectively had her isolated from family and support groups. And sure enough, he was still a drug user and abuser, worse than before since he thought he was safe from her family. She had to abandon everything she could not pack in her little car and flee back to Texas. Then ex-hubby John entered the picture. Same song, second verse.

I get so annoyed at these girls. But then, I remember when I was young I wouldn't listen to my mother either. We do indeed get too soon old and too late smart.

Cat and Me

2005-10-04T01:01:00.000-07:00

CAT AND ME

Haven't posted in a while. Been busy with other blogs and surfing the blogsphere. Commenting on some that piqued my interest. Lots of blogs out there!! Some are crapola, some quite interesting. I especially like rocrebelgranny and speermint. I check them very night.

Haven't had any thoughts worth preserving for posterity. Well, I think a lot, but no inspiration to put anything into words. Just vegging out with blogs, TV and nothings. The brief hospital stay and then Preparing for hurricane Rita, keeping up with the Family by cell phone, etc. occupied my time for awhile. Now it's a hassle of putting up with home health care nurse, physical therapist, and occupational therapist [who does PT, not OT so I get a double whammy on exercise..no doubt good for me] coming in three days a week. Plus doctor appointments, running errands, and shopping.

I have a cat, a Manx mixed breed. All her litter mates have truncated tails and are calico. My cat is solid black and has only a small, deformed tail about an inch or so long, curled up in a C. Her thick black fur grows around it in such a way that it makes a round, furry pom-pom. She is from a litter Patsy's cat had and when I visited I called her Pom Pom. Jo and Lloyd named her Little Bear so they and Terry call her that. Jeannie declared she was the Queen of Sheba and addresses the cat as Sheba. I now just call her Cat.

Since I was fond of the cat when she was a kitten, Jo decided I needed a pet. She had Cat spayed and wormed, given shots, etc.., everything but declawing, and gave her to me for Mother's Day. Now Cat and I co-exist fairly harmoniously, although I think she misses the freedom of her previous life [ she was an outdoor farm cat] and her companions. Surely being cooped up in this tiny apartment with a quiet old lady is boring and lonely for her.

She rarely plays with her toys any more, and spends a lot of time just staring out the window. She comes to sit by my side or at my feet a great deal, also. She is almost voiceless but does have a light, barely audible, somewhat hoarse meow, which she rarely uses.

She is inquisitive and runs to look at anything I am doing but for the most part is content to ignore me. Until I get on the computer. Then she bugs the heck out of me, twining about my ankles, climbing on my feet, nosing my legs, and sometimes meowing at me. I don't know why she doesn't like for me to be on the computer. If I go sit in my rocking chair to watch TV, she is fine and goes about her business. Until I return to the computer, then she harrases me again.

Sometimes she is a nuisance and aggravation to me and I HATE cleaning her litter box, but she is company of a sort for me. Little animals are a trip.

...One More Night Without Sleeping...

2005-09-19T23:23:00.000-07:00

There's an old song entitled "Green Door" [I think] whose lyrics go"Midnight, one more night without sleeping, watching till the morning comes creeping...". Over the years that opening phrase has become my late night theme song.

I don't watch a green door wondering what's going on in there. Bored and restless, tired of all the time-fillers I create, I turn to the green door of my mind exploring memories, ideas, hashing over the pros and cons of beliefs, puzzling over the inexplicable facets of life as we know it, and even indulging in some pity pot oh-poor-me whinings.

Oh yes, we are allowed some pity pot time occasionally. In one of his poems Rod McKuen said that he cried sometimes for himself. And why not? We cry, or at least sympathize and empathize, for others for their misfortunes , tragedies, troubles and grief, so why aren't we allowed the same response to our own? The only wrong doing in self pity is if we become so mired in it that we wallow in it, obsess with it, and make of our life one long whine fest.

Pity pot whines will primarily be addressed in another Blog, but sometimes may appear here.

Exploring or revisiting bad memories are a waste of time unless we profit from the mistakes we made, learn from our shame and regret so that we don't commit those errors again. Bad memories of tragedies and loss can be learning experiences too, if we can come to terms with the event, cope and adjust, move on. Horrible emotional wounds will scar over and we can deal with them. That is not to say they don't still hurt with a bone deep ache but pain can be endured and we can live with that.

Good memories are pleasant to remember, calling up again those great times, that special person or event. I keep large volumes of photo albums that I call my Memories on Paper. It is a most enjoyable pasttime to pore over those volumes, remembering. Sometimes I can see the people and events in my mind's eye as clearly as if they were physically present . Occasionally I fancy I can smell the scents associated with the persons and events, hear the music or the timbre of someone's voice, feel once again the touch or feel of cloth or flower petals or even a soft breeze. And sometimes, oh sometimes, I can experience once again for a fleeting moment the emotions and sensations I felt at that time.

At times I consider various subjects or issues and hash them out in my mind. I take the pro position and argue those points, or become the devil's advocate and argue the cons. I don't consider that is being inconsistent or ambivalent. To me, it is smart to explore both viewpoints. Once I commit to a particular point of view I will defend it unless I am shown new or fresh facts that I will then consider. And mayhap change my mind. We should not be wishy-washy, changing according to which way the wind blows nor to be dictated to by popular opinion, but neither should we be close minded and hide bound in our thinking.

4 A.M. Sleepwalker