A few days ago, Doug and I were listening to somebody on the radio talking about ashfall from Redoubt. The topic was how long an ash cloud of a given height took to fall to earth. The higher the initial eruption rises, the farther it will travel before reaching the ground, and above a certain height, the speaker said, “It doesn’t come down.”
We exclaimed in unison, “Then where does it go?!?” Today, I found out.
Five day animated tracking of ash clouds across Canada, U.S., and Atlantic Ocean.
For me, this search started with Teotihuacán and Chaco Canyon. Interested in archaeology from childhood, I was familiar with both archaeological sites through a lot of reading. My interest in the archaeology of the Prehistoric Pueblo cultures preceded my conscious recall of the past lives in which I lived in those cultures. Learning that I had once lived there only intensified my interest. I went on studying the archaeology of the area to satisfy my curiosity, and in response to my mentor’s injunction to verify past life recollections. Then, in the 1990s, I spent two winters in the 4-Corners area, visiting many ruins including Chaco Canyon.
One notable feature of the archaeological record in Chaco Canyon is the scarcity of human remains. The pueblos would have housed thousands of people, but very few burials have been found. Some notable exceptions are a few skeletons that appear to have been carelessly dumped into an interior room of one pueblo along with a lot of garbage, and three respectful burials of apparently high status individuals.
The elite three, two men and a woman, had all been mature adults at death, and all three had their teeth filed into a catlike appearance. Remains found at Teotihuacán and at Paquimé in Northwestern Mexico, had similarly filed teeth, but the practice has not been seen in other Prehistoric Pueblo sites of the 4-Corners. I intuited that filed teeth marked these high status people as followers of the Jaguar Cult.
Archaeologists have traced Teotihuacán’s past to origins in several small villages that existed on the site centuries before it became a major regional cultural and trading center. When we lived there, we called the city, “Xocoma.” In its late phases, separate carvings and murals depict eagles and jaguars that some archaeologists believe, and some friends of mine and I remember, were cult figures. We recall conflict between Eagle People and Jaguar People.
The Eagle People came to what is now North Central Mexico from the east coast of Mesoamerica, the land of the Maya. Some say that originally their ancestors had come to the Americas as refugees from Atlantis. Archaeological evidence suggests that the Jaguar people were later arrivals. None of the archaeological books or articles I read, nor any of the esoteric sources I consulted, explained where the Jaguar Cult came from. The city had been in ruins when the Aztec entered the area. They named it Teotihuacán: the place where men became gods.
Then, a decade or more ago, I started reading about digs at Chavín de Huántar, a pre-Inca site in Peru. They had found jaguar iconography similar to that at Teotihuacán. Carvings also appeared to depict shamanic use of hallucinogenic snuff, similar to depictions in sites of the late Teotihuacán culture. In Chavín de Huántar are depictions of Trichocereus pachanoi, the San Pedro cactus. At Teotihuacán, the hallucinogen of choice appears to have been morning glory, Ipomoea. If my intuition is correct, the Jaguars of Xocoma, if they did not originate at Chavín de Huántar, probably at least shared a common origin somewhere else.
Some of the human remains at Chavín de Huántar show evidence of ritual cannibalism. No such evidence has been found for the early or Classical periods of Teotihuacán, but it has been found in the terminal phase there. I see in this another hint that it could have come with the Jaguar Cult. Although indigenous descendants of these people often want to deny that their ancestors were cannibals, and many mainstream archaeologists prefer to think of prehistoric Americans as noble savages, there is abundant evidence for both cannibalism and human sacrifice.
There is extensive evidence that prehistoric Pueblo people butchered and cooked human bodies. This includes slice and scrape marks on bones where flesh was stripped from them, and “pot polishing” on the ends of bones that were stirred as they boiled. These signs occur at outlying Chacoan sites, and at Paquimé, the latest of all Anasazi sites, in contexts that suggest it was domestic use rather than ritual mortuary defleshing. From butchering and cooking to eating is a logical jump.
It is of course possible that at least some of the meat was being prepared for consumption by domestic animals. It is also possible that those cultures did not have the taboos on cannibalism that exist in most modern cultures. “Although some anthropologists believe that the argument for human cannibalism is not yet proven, evidence that it did happen includes human bones with human teeth marks on them, and fossilised human faeces which include human proteins.” (BBC) Additionally, there is linguistic evidence in the form of words, in several Native American languages, that translate as “man corn”: food derived from human meat.
Cultural remnants of the hallucinogenic snuff depicted at Teotihuacán and Chavín de Huántar live on today in shamanic divination rituals of tribes in South and Central America. Animal sacrifice is still practiced in various parts of the Americas, and occasional reports of human sacrifice surface. That human sacrifice was practiced by ancient Mayans, Olmecs, and the people of Chavín de Huántar, is widely accepted among anthropologists and archaeologists.
Despite copious physical evidence and the strong opinions of several prominent archaeologists, in the face of their own taboos and those of present-day Native tribes, the profession as a whole hesitates to be so politically incorrect as to accuse the ancestors of living Native Americans of cannibalism. I contend that words like “accuse” are inappropriate in this context. Who are we to try and retroactively impose our taboos on the ancestors? Judging such things as “wrong” and, because of that judgment, suppressing the evidence that they occurred, does a disservice to the past, the present, and the future.
The race is long over, but one poignant story, of two mushers giving up their Iditarod dreams to save the life of a dog, has just come out.
Kim Darst had been working and saving for years to become the first person from New Jersey to compete in the Iditarod. Blake Matray had promised his wife that his first Iditarod would also be his last.
Out on the trail, the two rookies found themselves running from checkpoint to checkpoint together at the back of the pack. They made it to the halfway point, the old ghost town of Iditarod.
Most of the time, the dogs wallowed belly deep. When the teams got lucky, Matray said, they might find a stretch, maybe a quarter mile, of good trail where the route went through a patch of trees.
Mainly, though, they broke trail hour after hour. Darst’s team was in front. She’d wanted that position when they left Iditarod so Matray’s faster team wouldn’t pull away. They talked about trying to swap off the trail-breaking duty, but passing was difficult.
As it was, any time either musher’s lead dogs wandered off the narrow trail they’d get stuck in almost bottomless snow. When the mushers went to guide them back onto the firm surface hidden beneath the drifts, Matray said, “you’d sink up to your waist. It was a 10-to-15 minute ordeal to get them back on the trail.” It was sometimes better to get on his belly and swim out to them to avoid sinking so deep.
The weather just kept getting worse, the temperature plummeting and the wind building, swirling snow everywhere.
They stopped, fed the dogs and bedded them down in straw, napped a few hours, then got up and started preparing to get back on the trail.
“She was in rough shape,” Matray said. “Her eyes were starting to roll back a bit, and she was starting to convulse.”
Matray told Darst the only hope Cotton had was to be warmed by her in a sleeping bag in the tent. He fired up the butane camping stove. It only burned for about an hour, but it helped pump some heat into the tent.
“Cotton stopped convulsing,” Matray said. “Her eyes came back a little bit toward normal.”
Matray and Darst estimated they were halfway down the 65-mile stretch of trail between Iditarod and Shageluk. They discussed trying to move on, but decided Cotton wasn’t up to it.
“We stayed put because of that dog,” Matray said.
Darst was carrying a SPOT satellite signaling device. It has two buttons for calling for help. One sends a signal to friends asking for assistance; the other notifies search-and-rescue personnel. Darst and Matray knew that if either button was pushed, their Iditarods were over.
Still, Matray said, it didn’t take the mushers long to realize that didn’t matter. Cotton needed help.
Still researching on cannibalism, human sacrifice and hallucinogenic snuff, as yesterday, I’m finding much that interests me to read, but not the specific image(s) I have been looking for to illustrate my post. It mildly annoys me that I have books here with the images I need, and my scanner won’t work.
The printer/scanner has been down since last summer. Replacing it has been delayed and continues to be complicated by the fact that the money man shops for price and the user shops for features and doesn’t want to waste a small amount of money on a peripheral that does only half the job, when for a few dollars more she can have what she needs. Or, maybe she doesn’t need it at all, since she has gotten along without it for so long… naaah. Oh, well….
On the up-side of the search for that just-right image, some of the pages that haven’t had the pictures I wanted did have useful info, although not all of it is relevant to the current project. Ah, the joys of ADD.
Onward and awkward — back to the quest!
Almost two years ago, I was researching and preparing an essay on hallucinogenic snuff, cannibalism and human sacrifice. My mind wandered, and I never finished it. My hard drive crashed, and the bulk of my research was lost. Today, Google led yet another curious searcher to that long-ago post, and Xanga Footprints reminded me of that previous intention of mine. I have spent most of my day today on research and writing. It will be posted one day soon.
Here are the questions for the latest Kween_of_the_Queens challenge:
How do the mild days and freshness of spring affect your mood and outlook on life?
Does Spring make you hopeful of good things to come?
When winter ends and spring begins, do you really notice the transformation of life happening all around you?
What do you notice the most?
I’ll start with the last one first: I notice the longer days and shorter nights. Every year around this time, I notice that it’s no longer dark at 9 PM. That might give a false impression of our day length, if you don’t know about the peculiar time zone situation in Alaska. For political and commercial purposes, all 3 of our natural time zones were squeezed into one, and are offset only 1 hour from Pacific Time. Here, the sun is highest in the sky (true noon) about 2 PM.
As of last week, we are getting more daylight than everyone south of us, and at 62° North latitude, practically the whole civilized world is south of us. Our days are growing longer, but only by a few minutes each day. In the dark months we feel deprived, starved for light. In the six months after the Vernal Equinox, we have the smug satisfaction of knowing that we are, compared to the rest of the planet, rich in light. This is, after all, the Land of the Midnight Sun.
“When winter ends and spring begins, do you really notice the transformation of life happening all around you?”
Oh, no, certainly not. When winter officially ends and spring begins, in March, winter isn’t over for us. The brief and ugly season that passes for spring here, the one we call “breakup” because it’s when the ice breaks up on the lakes and rivers, is not really beginning here yet, but there are a few signs that it is not far away.
The woodpile is much diminished, close to all mined out. This has been a cold winter and we went through a lot of firewood.
In the daytime, the crust on the snowpack softens and my feet sink in. It’s not quite slush yet, because the nights are still freezing, down near zero Fahrenheit most nights. It will be slush, sooner or later, before it becomes mud.
There are also some signs that we’ve still got a ways to go:
How do the mild days and freshness of spring affect your mood and outlook on life?
Does Spring make you hopeful of good things to come?
Maybe I have already conveyed the idea that “mild” and “fresh” are not exactly happening right here and now. So… are my moods subject to the weather? No, and isn’t that fortunate for me under the circumstances? I know that Earth resting under the snow is just as “good” as it will be in June when it starts growing and greening up obscenely fast to make up for lost time. I’m as happy on a brilliant blue and white winter day as I am on those days when the forest looks like green walls all around me.
What I wasn’t asked, but am going to tell you anyway, is that I’m a lot more physically comfortable when it is 50°F outside than when it is 50°F inside. However, before we get there, we have to slog through the mud and slush of breakup, and endure the pollen assault when the trees all bloom at once. We will have a few glorious weeks in June when it doesn’t get dark, but being inclined to remembering when I might be better off forgetting, the midnight sun always reminds me that when the days are their longest they’re about to start getting shorter again.
Yeshiva students at Purim celebration in Jerusalem, from the Associated Press
via spiegelonline.com
I heard Redoubt mentioned on NPR’s Morning Edition today. They said Anchorage might receive light ashfall from the latest two eruptions this morning — the eleventh and twelfth explosions in the current eruption cycle. It’s true. Anchorage (Alaska’s largest city, and the only part of the state that appears to be real in the minds of many people Outside) is expected to have insignificant trace amounts of ash today.
Photo from KTUU viewer:
Dixie and Dexter on the
Kenai Peninsula yesterday.
What they left out was that the Kenai Peninsula and Susitna Valley are both under ashfall advisories — avoid travel, stay indoors, seal windows and doors, people with respiratory problems bend over and kiss your ass goodbye. Oh well, I do exaggerate with that final bit… we’re just supposed to avoid sticking our noses outdoors, and refrain from physical activity.
A few days ago, I mentioned that nobody is officially divulging how much oil is stored at the Drift River tank farm. This morning’s Coast Guard News (“not endorsed by, affiliated with, or in any way associated with the U.S. Coast Guard or the Department of Homeland Security”) gave a number for this “classified” information that is close to the 5 or 6 million gallon estimate from Cook Inlet Keeper: 6.2 million gallons. They also said:
The previous lahar generated Monday deposited mud around the terminal hangar and the landing strip. Some sediment laden water lapped over the tertiary tank containment dike in isolated spots but did not intrude on the secondary containment.
Some water appears to have made it into some of the industrial buildings that house offices, equipment and pumps. The deposits served to direct the latest lahar away from the facility.
KTUU viewer-supplied
image of ash falling
in Ninilchik yesterday
I tried to call Greyfox and let him know about the ashfall advisories, so he won’t drive and risk damaging his car’s engine, not to mention his own eyes and lungs, but his phone is turned off. What do you want to bet I’ll hear from him in a couple of hours, from the free phone at the library in Big Lake? Let’s hope that the ash misses him. He’s got a show this weekend, and is not likely to let ash keep him from that.
He dropped a little message on CallWave for me, before turning his phone off. He was excited because Palin has appointed somebody he knows, to be Alaska’s new Attorney General: Wayne Anthony Ross.
“Theodore Roosevelt once said ‘Aggressive fighting for the right is the noblest sport the world affords’ – I subscribe to that philosophy,” Ross said. “I sincerely appreciate the confidence placed in me by Governor Sarah Palin in choosing me to be our new Attorney General. I welcome the chance to now represent the best interests of our beloved state and its citizens. I look forward to working with Governor Palin and the Legislature in the good fight to help our state achieve its full potential.”
As Attorney General, Ross will work with the governor on issues surrounding development of Alaska’s rich natural resources as the state continues its efforts to provide energy security for America and lower energy costs for Alaskans. As Attorney General, Ross also will help the governor protect Alaskans’ right to bear arms, and he will work tirelessly to manage Alaska’s fish and game resources for abundance through science and not politics.
Greyfox and Ross are colleagues of a sort. Wayne is a lawyer by profession, and his avocation is guns. Greyfox has bought guns from him, and has sold knives to him. He’s all a-twitter (and he’ll probably be miffed at me for saying so) that somebody he actually knows is in the government and the news, but he did express some ambivalence about the news. *tehee*
He was a scholar and historian. He was the historian of African-Americans’ journey on this continent. His grandfather had been a slave. He told a story of when he was six years old, and was forced off a train by a conductor, with his mother and sister. “And I was crying, and my mother said, `What are you crying about? … He put you off the train because we were sitting where white people were supposed to … And if you do that, you won’t be crying. You’ll be defying.’”
His mother used to assure him that he was “good enough” to become President of the U.S.A., but they knew it was such a ludicrous idea that whenever it came up they would get a good laugh out of it. He lived to see Barack Obama inaugurated to that office, and was thrilled. “President Barack Obama says Americans have a richer understanding of their identity and journey because of the contributions of historian John Hope Franklin.” (WKBT.com)
President Bill Clinton awarded him the Presidential Medal of Freedom. Franklin told Gwen Ifill of PBS:
And then I realized that it was getting a little late, and I thought maybe my guests who had not arrived might be downstairs wondering where I was, and so I decided to excuse myself and go downstairs to see where they were or if they had arrived.
And I came down the winding staircase at the Cosmos Club. And at the bottom of the staircase, there was a white woman with a coat check in her hand. And she saw me, and she said, “Here, you go and get my coat. It’s checked.”
And I was sort of shocked that she would pick me out to go and get her coat. And I said — and I realized then that she probably thought that I was there to serve. Why should I be in the Cosmos Club if I wasn’t there to serve her?
And I pulled her over. I said, “Lady, now,” as patient as I could, I said, “Lady, if you would take this check and give it to one of the attendants here, one of the uniformed attendants, and all of the attendants here are in uniform, just give it to one of them and perhaps will you get your coat.” And I walked away from her.
Such a classy man! He died Wednesday, at age 94, of congestive heart failure.
UPDATE (10:44 AM) National Weather Service says this ash cloud will fall between noon and 2 PM, on the Western Kenai Peninsula, from Ninilchik southward to the southern tip of the peninsula, including Kenai, Soldotna, Homer and Cooper Landing.
Images below are all from AVO/USGS, dated 3/23/09:
A muddy waterfall at the toe of Drift Glacier, captured by Cyrus Read of AVO.
Ashfall sampling at Healy, captured by Pavel Izbekov.
Tordrillo Mountain Lodge under snow and ash. Photo by Lel Tone.
Ashfall closeup at Tordrillo Mtn. Lodge, by Lel Tone.
In my neighborhood, there has not been any significant ashfall from this month’s eruptions, but it has come down at locations all around us. The cloud from today’s big eruption would take at least an hour or two to get here, if it is headed this way. I have not yet found any projections of its course online, and the radio just says they will get back to us with details when they become available.
What it says about you: You are a spirited person of high self-esteem. You appreciate the wisdom that comes with age. Friends count on you for being honest and insightful. You value modern technology but can live without it.
Recent Comments