buried things

The name, Manitoulin, signifies the residence of manitoes, or spirits. … These impressions were made originally, and maintained to this day, by the mirage, or looming which gives to these islands the most fantastic and ever varying shapes, and which are often strikingly beautiful, or terrific. These changes, which the children of nature could not comprehend, were attributed to genii, or spirits… We saw all this variety of form given, by this looming, to those islands. — At one time they would be invisible — then an arm, like a promontory stretched out for miles, and apparently above the surface of the lake, would show itself. At another, a castle would appear, with its walls and towers — and huge piles of ruins; when suddenly all these would vanish, and new forms appear. It is to these islands, made thus strangely various by the mists and vapours, and the light, that the Indians go, to perform their mysterious rites, or to pacify the spirits that preside there.

-Thomas McKenney, Sketches of a Tour to the Lakes, 1827

Manitoulin Island, long known to the Anishinaabeg as a place of powerful spirits, had a romantic reputation in early 19th century settler lit as a cloister for the superstitions (and vapours?) of a bygone era… and also a convenient place to put all the Indians they didn’t want cluttering up the arable land.

Bitches don’t know bout my mystic cloud castles.

1 week ago

Tumblr Post of Desperate Procrastination As I Complete My M.A. Paper:

I am starting to think that some part of Britain’s 19th century colonial urge was due to a deep, pathological fear of TREES. They obviously hated forests (and anything else with hidey-places, like ladies) with a Lovecraftian aversion born of some primal objection to untidiness. So they had to come over here, like the world’s worst neighbor, and trim our hedges for us. And when we didn’t trim hedges the right way, we got tidied onto reserves so they could do it for us. This is, in fact, my entire MA thesis boiled down.

I would like to propose that we call colonization BEING TIDIED AWAY.

2 weeks ago -

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(Source: astrodidact, via cauda-pavonis)

2 weeks ago -

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To follow up on my last:

A Theodore de Bry engraving of a Chief from Virginia, after a John White watercolor, as published in Thomas Hariot’s 1588 book A Briefe and True Report of the New Found Land of Virginia. John White was governor of the Roanoke colony, the first English settlement in the ‘New World’, and made some of the first images of the Aboriginal inhabitants from life. Note the formula for documentation: Classical body form, “scenes from life” in the background, and nakedness combined with tattoos and exotic accoutrements. Part of an imperial cataloguing of cultures.

The Pictish woman depicted (heh) below is another de Bry engraving from the same book (because Indians and Picts, why the hell not), and may be based on a work by le Moyne, or on a watercolour by White himself. Check out the publication at: http://docsouth.unc.edu/nc/hariot/

1 month ago -

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hauntedranch:

A Young Daughter of the Picts, c. 1585. Attributed to Jacques Le Moyne de Morgues. Watercolour and gouache touched with gold.

Style of 16th century proto-ethnographic drawing, similar to how you’d see Native Americans depicted at the time: Classical in form and stature, with exotic (often ‘barbaric’) details.
Also GORGEOUS GORGEOUS tattoos.

(Source: hauntedcola, via gaazhag)

1 month ago -

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Left: Indian Loafer (/Dusky Lounger). Right: French Loafer (/Flâneur).

2 months ago

We are authorised to state that there is not the least foundation for a report which has been published by some of our contemporaries that Lords Cavendish and Grosvenor, and the Hon. Mr. Ashley, had been murdered by the Indians while travelling in Canada.

— Illustrated London News (London, England), December 11, 1858

This helps me understand British media a little.

(I am reviving this thing to share my misadventures sifting through the Illustrated London News in search of Injuns … driven there because the Canadian Illustrated News was mostly yielding up illustrations of “Indian Loafers” and “Dusky Loungers.” The British version has way sexier Indians.)

2 months ago -

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Les blanches exotiques: I just returned from my service trip to North America. Having also...

hangzhouchill:

exoticwhitegirls:

I just returned from my service trip to North America. Having also visited Europe for 2 weeks (I stayed in a place called France), I have to say if you want to travel somewhere with authentic white culture, Europe is the better bet. Of course, even in “the Old Country,” there were tons of normal…

This blog is amazing. Special mention here for everyone who told me to go out to the countryside to experience “the real Thailand/China/ etc.”

8 months ago -

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Further to my last post: google-research into “converting a Gestetner machine into a bong” has thus far proved fruitless.

9 months ago

Mystery objects they gave us to practice-research at RASI, most of which turned out to be made for shooting you in the face. Other themes included “things that will kill you” and “things that are definitely a bong.”

9 months ago